Operation Ghost Stories
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 10.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2025
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if you had the perfect spy? Not some glitzy James Bond-type, but instead a person -- or an entire family -- spending decades in a hostile country, slowly acquiring information and status, while waiting for the right signal from command. It's one of the most fascinating stories in all of tradecraft: the "sleeper spy," a concept made famous in works of fiction like The Americans. As Ben and Noel discover in tonight's episode, it turns out the conspiracy is real - welcome to Operation Ghost Stories.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. |
| 0:06.9 | You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. |
| 0:12.1 | A production of IHeart Radio. Hello and welcome back to the show. |
| 0:27.2 | My name is Noel. |
| 0:28.9 | Our colleague Matt is on adventures and will be returning soon. |
| 0:33.7 | They call me Ben. |
| 0:35.3 | We're joined as always with our super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you, you are here. That makes this, the stuff they don't want you to know. Noel, you and Dylan and I were talking a little bit off air before we started rolling about a seminal spy show called The Americans. |
| 0:57.0 | And I think you said you've been meaning to watch it. |
| 0:59.3 | It's on my list. |
| 0:59.9 | There's been such a glut of really great spy shows and movies as of late. |
| 1:04.7 | And it brought that one back up for me. |
| 1:06.8 | But like, you know, I just saw a black bag in the theater, which is very Tinker-Taylor-Solder spy kind of vibe. |
| 1:13.1 | And the Americans, I believe it's an FX series from, gosh, it's been probably 10 years. |
| 1:18.7 | It always has spoken on very, very highly. |
| 1:21.9 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 1:22.8 | I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Americans. |
| 1:26.8 | And I've got to check out BlackBag. |
| 1:28.9 | That's on my list as well. |
| 1:30.3 | But you're absolutely correct. |
| 1:31.8 | There has been this uptick in espionage stories, spy thrillers, because they're great. |
| 1:39.1 | You know, they're candy for the mind. |
| 1:41.4 | Even now, as we realize, a lot of spy stuff that you read in fiction or you see |
... |
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