Killdozer
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Due to the nature of this case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on mental health and suicide, visit spotify.com/resources. On Conspiracy Theories, we often examine the limits of political power. What secrets can the government hide? What operations can fly under the radar?

Who's pulling the strings? But some people don't stop at questions. Like Marv Heemeyer. In 2004, he drove a slow-speed super bulldozer into his small town bent on total destruction. In his mind, the local government needed to be stopped. So who was Marv Heemeyer and what drove him to plot revenge against an entire town?

Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. You can find us here every Wednesday. And be sure to check us out on Instagram at TheConspiracyPod. And we would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts.

This week, we're talking about what happens when a man takes justice into his own hands. That man is Marv Hemeyer. Once a successful businessman, Marv slowly descended into darkness over a petty feud with his neighbors. In time, his revenge came to drag the sleepy town of Granby, Colorado down with him.

Before we get into the story, among the many sources we used for this episode, we found the documentary Tread, directed by Paul Solet, extremely helpful to our research. Stay with us.

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- Hello there, I'm Mike Flanagan, and welcome to Spectre Vision Radio's production of "Director's Commentary." "Director's Commentary" is a deep dive into a film through the eyes of the filmmaker or filmmakers who made it. It combines an in-depth interview format with a classic "Director's Commentary" track, the likes of which used to be common on physical media releases, but sadly are becoming more and more rare these days. Filmmakers talking about film with filmmakers for people who love film.

and filmmakers. Born in 1951, Marvin Hemeier was raised in the tiny farming town of Clear Lake, South Dakota. The community believed in one thing above all else, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Watching his dad on the family farm, Marv saw that hard work led to lasting rewards. Still, young Marv never saw himself as a farmer,

Rather than follow in his father's footsteps, he joined the Air Force in 1971 at 19 years old. Though the Vietnam War was raging, Marv spent the majority of his service stationed in Colorado. He may have been attending the Air Force Academy there, though we don't know for sure. But the time he spent in the military was his first time away from home. It was eye-opening.

During this time, Marv discovered his talent for welding. He had a mind for machinery and his skill with a torch bordered on artistry. So when the 22-year-old was discharged from the Air Force in 1974, he started work at a muffler shop in Boulder. Because of his skill, it didn't take long for him to rise through the ranks. But with each new promotion, something nagged at him in the back of his mind.

He was making a lot of money, but it was mostly going to his boss, who had full control over how and when he worked. Something about the arrangement didn't sit right with him. Marv's father spent years running the farm for no one but his family. Marv was confident he'd be able to make it on his own too. By the early 1990s, Marv had his own muffler shop in Boulder.

He was a shrewd businessman who took pride in his work. Not only was he good at what he did, he was great with customers. Marv was as personable as he was knowledgeable. Soon, he had employees of his own. He found he much preferred being the boss over having one. Despite his quick success, Marv remained a simple guy. He believed in a beer keg lifestyle, even on a champagne income.

He wasn't concerned with having fancy houses or cars. He preferred to spend his money doing the things he loved. In his off time, he had plenty of interests, but his number one hobby was snowmobiling. Nothing beat the feeling of battling the elements atop a powerful machine.

He spent most of his winters up in the mountains, powering through drifts. He couldn't get enough. And in the fall of 1991, business was going so well, Marv decided he could afford an extended vacation. He leased his shop in Boulder and planned to spend six months about 100 miles west, in the Granby area. The tiny mountain town was the perfect place for people like Marv and Heemeyer

Founded by frontiersmen, Granby wasn't too far removed from its Wild West roots. To live there, you had to be rough, tough, and independent. Marv spent the winter of 91 on the many snowmobiling trails. By spring, he could no longer think of a reason to leave.

Now in his 40s, Marv was single and had no children. His shop was doing just fine without him. He was free to live however he pleased. So he did a little house hunting and ended up with three lots near Grand Lake, about 10 minutes north of town. His two new cabins needed a little fixing up, but the price for the land was good. He could make the place home in no time.

Like most small towns, everyone knew each other in Granby. One's day-to-day business quickly turned into gossip, so it was best to maintain a good reputation. Marv was from a small town himself, so he was used to that kind of atmosphere. Being used to something and liking it are two different things, but Marv was able to find a group of like-minded people to meet up with regularly.

Pretty soon, he was joining a group of snowmobilers every Thursday in the winter months to blow off some steam. The Thursday crew became his closest friends. And because he knew so much about the sport and the machines, the others looked to him as a leader. Marv was always happy to help fix the crew's snowmobiles. You knew you'd been accepted the day Marv gave you a custom welded bumper. Marv was king of the mountain.

But he still didn't have a queen. One night, he was having a drink at the Lariat Saloon when he spotted a beautiful woman across the bar. Marv was captivated. With his usual confidence, he walked over and introduced himself. The woman's name was Trisha McDonald. The recent divorcee, she was only just coming around to the idea of putting herself back on the dating market. But Marv was a total gentleman. A bit old school.

The more they talked, the more relaxed she became. It helped they had so much in common. Marv and Tricia shared an adventurous spirit. They started going on road trips together, including back to Marv's home state of South Dakota. He also introduced her to his first love, snowmobiling. He bought Tricia her own vehicle and showed her the ins and outs. Before long, they were roaring up and down the mountain as a couple.

Marv was living the dream. He'd worked his way up from humble beginnings to become a successful businessman, a caring friend, and a loving partner. But his ambition hadn't run dry. He needed something to do when it wasn't snowmobiling season and was thinking about opening another muffler shop. Real estate was always a good investment.

So when Marv heard about an upcoming FDIC auction for properties that had recently been foreclosed on by banks, he checked it out. There was a lot in Western Granby that grabbed his attention. What Marv didn't know was that property had recently belonged to Cody Doshchev, the owner of a local concrete company. He'd purchased the land for a new plant, but the bank foreclosed on it before he could start building. Now it was up for auction.

But Cody wasn't ready to give it up. He went to the FDIC event with a friend who agreed to bid on his behalf. The plan was to win back the partial for Cody so he could get back on his feet. Cody felt a prickle of anticipation as the auction got started. But when his lot came up, someone else put in the first offer. Cody didn't expect to get into a bidding war. Cody's shoulders got a little tighter.

He had no idea who Marv Heemeyer was, but clearly he'd come to buy. At $42,000, Cody and his buddy gave up. He might have been disappointed, but there were other properties to look at. Cody seemed to shrug the whole thing off, but Marv was excited. He'd gotten a great deal.

The parcel was two acres with a sizable building already in place. It didn't take much to get a shop up and running. Word of Marv's welding skills got around quickly, but unlike his other stores, this place came with baggage. Marv got his first taste of Granby Town politics that summer, just months after he bought the place. The city notified him that his property was going to be annexed into the Water and Sanitation District.

That meant digging a trench to lay a service line so Marv's shop could plug into the city's water and sewer. Marv figured since the city wanted him to do it, they'd make it all happen on their own. He was wrong. The town board called a meeting to discuss the issue. There, the vice president, Ron Thompson, explained that the hookup would cost between $60,000 and $80,000. The city...

expected Marv to foot the bill. He was left completely blindsided. He'd gone to the meeting thinking it was just a formality. He refused to pay a single cent and stormed out of the room. The whole thing felt like a setup spearheaded by Ron Thompson. Now, the Thompsons were basically the first family of Granby. Through inheritance, they owned a lot of property around town.

That wealth all went into a family-run excavation business headed by Ron's father and Granby's mayor, Dick Thompson. Marv attempted to move on from the meeting. He had a business to run and didn't want to risk his reputation. For the time being, it seemed the city let it go too. An uneasy truce formed like a scab over Marv's wounded pride.

Meanwhile, Cody Doshchef was brainstorming. Being outbid by Marr for his own land wasn't ideal, but it wasn't going to stop him. Like a lot of people in Granby, he was renting land from the Thompsons. He was tired of lining their pockets instead of his own. Eventually, Cody and his family purchased a two-acre lot from his buddy at a friends and family discount.

It happened to be just south of the property Marv had just bought. Two acres weren't quite enough for what they were planning though. So, in 1997, Cody's son Joe approached Marv about buying back his lot. Marv was open to the idea. He and Joe settled on $250,000 and sealed the deal with a handshake. But when the city gave Cody's new plans preliminary approval,

Marv drove up his asking price to $375,000. Now, he claimed it was worth more with the town on board. Well, that was way more than the Doshchefs were willing to pay. So instead, they turned to another friend with a parcel of land west of Marv's. At 22 acres, it was a lot more space than they'd originally set out to purchase, but the current owner was willing to cut Cody a deal.

Cody figured they could rent out the extra acreage to other businesses. All the while, Marv sat by and silently judged Cody. He had never been one to use personal connections to get ahead in business or in life.

Not to mention, he had no interest in being neighbors with a noisy, dirty concrete plant. On top of that, the land Cody was trying to buy wasn't even zoned for industrial use. Before construction could start, the city would need to rezone the entire project. Marv hoped that would be too much of a headache for the city to consider, but the town board seemed receptive to Cody's plans.

Marv thought, of course they were willing to work with Cody. He was one of their own. Remembering how unreasonable they'd acted with him, Marv got angry all over again. He believed the city, aka the Thompsons, were in cahoots with Cody to spite him, and there was no way he would let them get away with it.

In the summer of 1999, Granby's town council held public hearings to rezone 24 acres in the western part of the city. Cody Docheff, owner of Mountain Park Concrete, wanted to use the land for a new batch plant. It just so happened that the acreage was next door to a plot owned by 48-year-old Marvin Heemeyer, and he wasn't happy about it. Luckily for Marv, he wasn't the only one who was upset.

As the hearings approached, Marv stirred up opposition to the Doshchev's plans, even going door-to-door with a petition to stop the project. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that many of his neighbors shared his concerns. One after another, Granby's citizens took to the mic to say they didn't want their neighborhood ruined with noise and dust.

There were questions about how the plant would affect their property values, not to mention the potential environmental impact. Those concerns were precisely what the meetings were held for in the first place. In time, the council set conditions and made amendments to Cody's proposal until everyone felt heard. Slowly, Marv hemorrhaged supporters. As more and more townspeople abandoned his cause, he dug in his heels.

Despite Marv's efforts, the hearings fell in Cody's favor. That was until months into the construction process when the city attorney realized the board made a mistake in some documentation. The entire project was put on pause while they decided how to fix the issue. Marv leapt at the opportunity to kick them while they were down. He hired an attorney and filed a lawsuit in district court against Granby and the Dough Chefs.

While that was going on, the council started new public hearings to fix the mistake, delaying Cody's approval for another six months. And in the middle of all this, the town council decided to revisit the issue of the water and sewer connection for Marv's property. The Granby Municipal Court found Marv in violation of the town code, so they issued a restrictive covenant.

the muffler shop was closed for business until he hooked up to the city's water and sewer the issue had been left unresolved for nearly eight years by this point from marv's point of view the move was a clear act of retaliation for his lawsuit making matters worse unlike eight years ago the sewer main was now on the other side of private property marv would have to get an easement from the owner to construct the hookup the owner

happened to be none other than Cody Doshchev. Somehow, everything wrong with Marv's life seemed to lead back to Cody and his plant. Once again, the two men were locked in a battle of wills. Or that's how Marv saw it, anyway. Cody told Marv he was happy to grant the easement as long as Marv dropped the lawsuit. But Marv's case was the last obstacle to constructing the batch plant.

He wasn't going to let the suit go for anything. In the end, Marv's stubbornness amounted to nothing. The district court decided in favor of the city and the approval process concluded in 2002. After two grueling years, Cody finally had permission to go ahead with construction. With Cody's battle seemingly over, Marv's situation looked worse than ever.

He was still at odds with the city over the utilities, continuing to operate his business in spite of the restrictive covenant. The town council started fining him $100 a day as a penalty. On the memo line of the check, Marv wrote, quote, "To the Cowards and Liars Department."

It was clear that Marv was fed up with the entire city of Granby. In addition to the fines, the fight against the batch plant had cost him at least $150,000 in legal fees. His friends reportedly couldn't believe he'd put that much into a losing battle. Through the entire ordeal, Marv vented to the Thursday crew and his longtime girlfriend, Tricia McDonald. They had all heard him rant about it plenty.

But even Trisha had no idea how twisted Marv's thinking had become. The last two years had left him feeling humiliated. He was sure Cody and everyone on the town council was laughing at him behind his back. When he was home alone, Marv would sometimes sit in his hot tub and stew. Memories played in his mind like a movie on loop. He eventually decided the problem had started long before the city hearings.

If he'd never bought that property back in '92, he could have avoided all this heartache. The thing is, memory is tricky. It's less a record and more a loose collection of stories people tell themselves about the things that have happened to them, along with some things that didn't. Based on later accounts, the story Marv was telling himself slowly became more detached from reality.

For example, Marv would never forget how Cody came up to him after the first auction, screaming and yelling about how the two-acre lot was meant to be his property. Marv couldn't believe a fully grown man was acting like such a child. Not only that, but no one came to Marv's defenses that day. They just stood by and watched him get dressed down by the likes of Cody Dochef. But during later interviews by press and police,

None of the other auction attendees had any memory of such confrontation. Neither Cody nor his friend remembered even talking to Marv that day, let alone arguing with him. By this point, however, the actual truth was less important than Marv's truth. He was caught in a vicious downward spiral. And more than anything, he wanted to do something about it. Marv felt lost.

If there was some lesson all the suffering was supposed to be teaching him, he'd missed it. But then, all of a sudden, he was struck with a moment of clarity. As we get into this next part of the story, it's important to frame Marv's actions because they become significantly more extreme. Any one of us could probably imagine being mad with a problem neighbor, maybe even bringing legal action, or against a seemingly corrupt town council.

But that is a far cry from building a machine to destroy a town. Escalation of this nature could come from a man pushed to his limits with nothing to lose or someone experiencing delusional thinking. According to psychological research we've done for this show, delusional thinking can happen when a person is desperate to make sense of intense emotional distress

In such cases, they might construct an entire belief system to justify whatever action they think will bring them relief. Those systems often look like, and in some cases might even become, a full-blown delusion. In this case, it's possible that the years of stress and conflict could have manifested in delusions that touched on Marv's staunch religious upbringing.

Of course, they could have latched onto any strong belief system lodged in his mind. Marv had always felt God's protection at his back. But this was something completely different. This was a voice, clear and distinct, telling him that he had been sent to Granby on a righteous mission. Marv wasn't the student of these events. He was here to teach the townspeople a lesson about justice.

In the summer of 2002, Marv purchased a Komatsu D355 bulldozer at an auction. It was a massive piece of machinery and one he wouldn't have much use for at his muffler shop. Nevertheless, he had it driven back to Granby on a flatbed truck. He parked the behemoth on an access road between his property and Cody's. It sat there like a silent omen, only

No one but Marv could have possibly known what it meant. With the beginnings of a grand plan in mind, Marv decided it was time to cut his ties. He closed his muffler shop and put everything to do with it up for auction. But with what he planned to do, Marv shut down more than just his business. He and Trisha started fighting more and more.

Though she had supposedly quit smoking, Marv caught her sneaking a cigarette one night and lost his temper. Maybe he was looking for any reason to call off the nearly 10-year relationship, but it would have been hard to find a worse excuse. Tricia couldn't understand it. The fight seemed so trivial. Marv, however, told her he was done. Their relationship was over. He wasn't running his shop anymore, but he still had the land.

Like him, it sat vacant for a long while, with nothing there but empty buildings and that big yellow dozer. Then, in the fall of 2003, the owner of the local trash company contacted Marv. He needed a new staging area for his trucks, and the lot was perfect for the job. The two men worked out a rental agreement. All Marv wanted was access to a shed near the back of the property, so he'd have somewhere to store his bulldozer.

It turned out that the Komatsu fit through the bay door just barely. It was like a sign from the heavens. God had guided him to the exact dozer Marv needed and even provided him with the perfect shelter for it. But after taking another look at the hulking machine, Marv decided he'd need to modify it. As it was, the cab was completely exposed. To wreak the kind of havoc he had in mind,

Marv would need to be better protected. He drew up plans to sheath the entire thing in metal, effectively turning the dozer into a tank. Anyone else wouldn't have had the first clue about how to accomplish the task, but Marv's welding experience told him exactly what to do. He gathered the necessary materials: huge sheets of half-inch thick steel along with tons of bags of concrete,

The plan was to create impenetrable plates of cement sandwiched between the metal. Construction was going to make a lot of noise. To keep the project a secret, Marv worked almost exclusively at night. He spent every second he could on his plan, so much so that he was practically living in the shed.

He built himself a small living area in a corner of the building. He had a cot to sleep on during the day and a hot plate to make himself food. He even got a small TV and VCR so he could watch movies. By that point, Marv was sure Cody and the town council had turned all of Granby against him. Everywhere he went, he heard snickers and whispers.

The only way to avoid it all was to hunker down and never go outside. The only thing he had on his mind was revenge. After a few months of renting, the trash company put in an offer to buy the entire lot for $400,000. Marv didn't care. He took the deal, just as long as he could continue to rent the shed. But once again, the city stuck their noses into Marv's business.

Though the board seemed to have stopped fining Marv once he closed his business, the property was still under the terms of the restrictive covenant. That meant he was legally required to get the water and sewer hooked up before using or selling his lot. Marv ignored them. He knew he wouldn't have to deal with those people much longer anyway. Once the sale was complete, he paid a fine for being found in contempt.

Again, he made the check out to the cowards at the city of Granby. At long last, the deal was finished. The city had wrung him completely dry and now they had to leave him alone. Finally, Marv could turn his focus back to his divine mission. They'd all pay soon enough. In the fall of 2003, Marvin Heemeyer was making slow progress on a weapon.

the likes of which no one had ever seen. When he was about halfway done with his homemade tank, he ran into a new problem. The trash company that bought Marv's lot needed to inspect all the buildings on the property for insurance purposes. That included the shed where Marv was birthing his monster. He couldn't exactly move it, and hiding it would be tough.

The best he could do was cover his handiwork with the largest blue tarps he could find. When the inspectors entered the shed, they were greeted by a towering heap of blue plastic. Naturally, they asked Marv what it was. So he came up with a cover story on the fly. Marv claimed he was working with a professor on a cooling system to improve the bulldozer's engine.

His heart pounded in his ears as he waited to be called out on his wild lie. He just knew he was busted. It was all over. He'd failed. But nothing happened. The inspectors bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. Marv couldn't believe it. God was truly protecting this project. But the preparations were far from complete.

He was coming to terms with the idea that he probably wouldn't be around for the aftermath. That meant he had to get his ducks in a row as soon as possible. Marvin tended to cause as much property damage as possible, but he didn't want the city to use his money to rebuild, so he sent every penny he had to his father, who was dying of cancer at the time.

He figured that when his father passed, everything would be willed to his siblings, making it harder for Granby to get their hands on it. And once he started giving things away, it seemed he couldn't stop. Marv allowed himself one more glorious winter of snowmobiling, but when it was over, he gave away his vehicles. And with no intention of ever returning to Grand Lake, Marv also gave away his home.

He was reportedly already in a very dark place when his father passed away in March of 2004, less than a month after his father's funeral. Marv was back in his shed in Granby. The dozer was nearly ready. But he knew, when all was said and done, that people wouldn't understand his actions. To make sure that his side of the story would be heard, he got out an old tape recorder.

It took nearly three hours and four tape cassettes to recount the entire saga. He wanted folks to know that he'd been backed into a corner, that Cody Doshchev, the Thompsons, and the town council had given him no choice. He explained all the signs and instructions he'd received from God, almost sounding sorry that he'd been chosen to deliver divine justice. After that,

All that was left was to put the finishing touches on the dozer. The machine was almost entirely unrecognizable. The cab and engine block were fully armored in gray steel. So that he'd be able to steer, Marv mounted cameras around the outside, protected by bulletproof plastic. For good measure, he created a mount for his .50 caliber rifle too.

The time was finally drawing near. Sometime in early May, Marv made an appointment at the dentist office where Tricia worked. As he was leaving, Tricia stopped him. They hadn't seen each other in a while, and despite the breakup, she still cared for him. After a bit of catching up, Marv leaned in and gave Tricia a big hug.

He told her that she was the best thing that happened to him in the ten years he'd spent in Grand County. The hug ended and Tricia searched Marv's face. She could have sworn he was saying goodbye. But he also made a follow-up appointment that was just three weeks away. She shook off the feeling, telling herself she'd see him again on June 4th. Marv had no intention of keeping the appointment, however. He already had plans.

On the afternoon of June 4th, 2004, Marv climbed inside his monstrous creation. Lowering the reinforced steel door was like closing the lid on his own coffin. There was no turning back. Marv turned the key in the ignition and the massive engine roared to life. Driving slowly forward, the hulking metal mass came crashing out of the shed like an angry dragon.

Inside his beast, Marv was ready to wreak vengeance. His first target, Cody's brand new batch plant. Cody and his men were stunned as they watched the dozer approach. No one knew what they were seeing. But when Cody finally understood where it was headed, he sprang into action. Taking a handgun from one of his workers, he fired at the sides.

The bullets might as well have been rubber the way they bounced off the steel. The scene was utter chaos. Most watched helplessly as Marv started deconstructing the plant walls. A chorus of falling bricks joined the crunching and groaning of the dozer's treads. That gave Cody an idea. He and his men needed to jam the machine up.

Someone came running with a half-inch iron bar, shoving it into the tracks. The dozer just ate it up and kept going. Amidst the slow-motion disaster, the receptionist at the trash company called 911. Deputies were on the scene in minutes, but there wasn't much they could do. That's when something else came rumbling up to the battleground.

Cody Dozier fetched a front-end loader to defend his property. Unfortunately, Marv's Dozer outclassed Cody's machine by several tons. With each hit, Cody's wheels lifted three or four feet off the ground while Marv's metal mammoth barely wobbled. The only thing Cody succeeded in doing was getting Marv's attention. And that was when the guns came out.

Marv started firing his .50 caliber rifle. Cody quickly backed off. By this point, several state troopers had joined local law enforcement at the scene. They continued firing at the giant beast, but nothing was even making a dent. Because it was entirely impenetrable, there was no way of knowing for sure who was controlling it.

But based on where the thing had come from and what it was doing, they figured it had to be Marv. And they knew he wouldn't stop with a plant. Almost on cue, Marv prepared to move on to his next target. Heading east toward the highway, he took out an unmarked police car for good measure. But the armor had added so much weight to his dozer that it moved painfully slow.

That was the only thing the authorities had going for them. It gave them time to start evacuations. When officials realized the direction the tank was heading, they remembered Marv's beef with city officials. Evacuating the town hall became their top priority. The lower level of the building also served as the public library, which would be full of kids on a Friday afternoon.

Thankfully, by the time Marv got there, everyone had escaped safely. Once again, it seemed that all anyone could do was stand by and watch as the dozer tore massive holes in the building. Next on Marv's list was the office of the local paper, Sky High News, for the way they'd written about him during the zoning hearings.

Reporter Patrick Brower barely made it out the back door before the entire building collapsed in on itself. By this time, most of Granby had heard about the roving terror. Not knowing what else to do, they fled to higher ground away from the tank. Small groups gathered in the hills overlooking their beloved town. That left Granby flooded with law enforcement and news crews.

Statewide media broadcast live coverage that would later be picked up by national and even international outlets. No one could do anything as Marv led the caravan of police and reporters to a home belonging to the Thompsons. They were obviously going to be on his list and had already been evacuated, but without knowing that, Marv plowed through the home.

Then he moved on to the family's other properties nearby, including a rental building and a construction yard. Two hours into his rampage, Marv reached Gamble's appliances, which belonged to a member of the town planning committee. As the dozer crashed into the building, its engine started to overheat. White smoke billowed out as Marv ripped through the side of the building, tearing it open like a can of tuna.

But with that, the hulking machine stopped. It was caught on the basement entrance and stuck fast. But Marv didn't realize that. He worked the controls, trying to break free of whatever was impeding his progress. It was no use. His rampage was over. For the first time since the attack began, the engine shut off. An eerie silence spread over the city as officers waited to see what would happen next.

Considering the caliber of weapons Marv had with him, they expected a gunfight to break out any minute. Instead, all they heard was a single muffled shot from inside the metal cage. In the aftermath, the once peaceful town of Granby looked like a war zone. Marv and Heemeyer's actions did several million dollars in damage. The citizens' sense of safety was completely shaken.

The town authorities had the dozer torn apart and scrapped. Some fringe groups online lionize Marv as an anti-government vigilante. Others see Marv Heemeyer as a sad and lonely man whose fear of a perceived conspiracy against him led him to use his own pain as an excuse to hurt many others.

Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday.

Be sure to check us out on Instagram at The Conspiracy Pod. If you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Or email us at conspiracystories at spotify.com. Amongst the many sources we used, we found the documentary Tread directed by Paul Solette extremely helpful to our research. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story.

Isn't always the truth. Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written by Megan Hannum with writing assistance by Natalie Pertsofsky and Terrell Wells. Researched by Mickey Taylor and Chelsea Wood. Fact-checked by Haley Milliken and sound designed by Alex Button. Our head of programming is Julian Boisreau. Our head of production is Nick Johnson and Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor.

I'm your host, Carter Roy. This episode is brought to you by Hills Pet Nutrition. When you feed your pet Hills, you help feed a shelter pet, providing dogs and cats in need with science-led nutrition that helps make them happy, healthy, and ready to be adopted. It's an initiative that Hills has supported since 2002. And since then, the Food, Shelter, and Love program has helped more than 14 million pets find new homes,

changing their life forever so they can change yours. Science did that. Learn more at hillspet.com slash podcast.