Podcast / Chilluminati

Hello my little Chilluminauts...

Chilluminati is a supernatural and conspiracy podcast hosted by Mike "Mathas" Martin, Alex Faciane of Super Beard Bros, and Jesse Cox. It covers a variety of topics, ranging from the typical alien encounters, hauntings, unsolved mysteries, and famous conspiracies, but also covering folklore and mythology, internet mysteries from the new millennium, and the occasional dip into True Crime.

Each topic is chosen by one of the three hosts (typically rotating between Mathas and Alex) and independently researched by them. The other two go into the topic blind. Mathas covers a large variety, generally focusing on famous supernatural stories but also in-depth discussions on the mythology of UFO research, folklore creatures from around the world, and extensive dives into the lives of serial killers. Alex tends to focus on smaller, obscure topics, particularly recent mysteries from Reddit and other websites. On the rare occasion Jesse hosts, he brings unsolved historical mysteries he doesn't have an explanation for.

The three hosts offer wildly different perspectives on each topic. Mathas is a self-admitted alien enthusiast and generally believes in the supernatural (or as he clarifies, really really really wants to believe). Jesse is the skeptic of the group, and tries to find reasonable explanations and point out logical fallacies and holes in the evidence. Alex is somewhere between them, generally siding with Mathas but still questioning the stories. All three hosts are also perfectly willing to call out obvious scams and fake stories when they see them.

The show is hosted on Mathas' YouTube channel, as well as most podcast platforms. In addition to the regular episodes, they release an after-show discussing recent supernatural news, or in lieu of that, stories far too short to cover in the main episode. These are initially Patreon exclusives, but are compiled and released as full episodes every few weeks.

Not to be confused with Yogscast's show of the same name.

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This podcast provides examples of:

• Accidental Misnaming: Alex referred to Bohemian Grove as "Coconut Grove" multiple times during that episode (it's apparently the name of a theatre near him). That became a Running Gag anytime Bohemian Grove is mentioned.
• Agent Mulder: Mathas, and to some degree Alex. That said, Mathas is perfectly willing to poke fun at some really stupid conspiracy theories. The entire "Hollow X" series and Mars Coverup episode (as well as large parts of most alien episodes) exist entirely to laugh at how utterly bizarre some conspiracies are.
• Agent Scully: Jesse is this for the show. He does not believe in the supernatural, and while he does think aliens exist somewhere, they've never been to Earth.
• Black Site: The gang discusses the Cold War use of infamous CIA black sites as part of the MKULTRA series.
• The Bermuda Triangle: Episode 148 focused on some of the most famous Bermuda Triangle stories... before spending the second half debunking anything supernatural about it. The Bermuda Triangle has no larger amount of disappearing ships and planes than any stormy ocean area of that size and traffic would be expected to. To give an idea of how sensationalized it is, Guest Host Sinvicta — who's from Bermuda — had never even heard of the Bermuda Triangle before moving to the States.
• Berserk Button: Mathas hates phony researchers and scam artists trying to make a buck off supernatural events. He really loses his temper talking about the Neo-Nazis and white supremacists piggy-backing off this stuff to promote their garbage beliefs.
• Breather Episode: Between particularly dark or intensive topics, they'll generally cover a shorter story or do a Listener Stories episode.
• Brick Joke: In the 68th episode, Alex made a joke that he was going to have to host a 'Top Sex Mysteries' episode next week. Turns out, he actually did it.
• Cartoonish Supervillainy: This was their interpretation of some of the CIA's more ridiculous actions during MK-ULTRA. Some of it was being conducted by literal Nazis in secret lairs with James Bond-esque death chambers. They came up with the supervillain "Herr Hypnosis" that personified it.
• Creepy Doll: Jesse and Alex convinced Mathas to buy a haunted doll off Ebay after their episode covering Annabel and Robert the Doll, and he still hasn't removed the tape from its mouth.
• Deal with the Devil: According to a side tangent, Mathas tried to sell his soul to get superpowers at some point as a kid. Jesse and Alex were incredibly amused.
• Defiant to the End: Invoked by Jesse during the Roanoke episode for Sir Walter Raleigh's execution.
  Jesse: (pretending to be Walter) Get this shit over with!
• Extra-Long Episode:
  • Minisode Compilation 16 is the longest episode so far, at an hour and a half. It's largely due to Alex reading out two long Reddit posts concerning a supposed alien abductee in their entirety. Lampshaded by the episode title, which has "This is a big boi" in brackets.
  • This record was since beaten by The Majestic 12, which spends around two hours covering the long history of this conspiracy theory.
• Failed a Spot Check: In a mad dash to find sources for the Spectrophilia episode, Mathas picked up a book with twenty-five supernatural sexual encounters from Amazon... without realising it was erotica. Jesse and Alex spent twenty minutes hounding for not noticing what the book was, despite it clearly being labelled as fictional in the description. In Mathas' defense, it took him all of two paragraphs to realise what he was reading.
• Filler: The Minisode Compilations are by admittance filler episodes for when an episode can't be recorded for whatever reason. Not that that's a bad thing, since the alternative would be no episode coming out at all.
• Freudian Trio: Mathas as the Id, Jesse as the Superego, and Alex as the Ego.
  Alex: (pretending to be a viewer) I signed up for Chilluminati! I want Alex to kind of agree, I want Mathas to agree with me sight unseen, I want Jesse to tell me it's never gonna happen!
• Government Conspiracy: A fairly frequent topic of discussion, but definitely a huge focus of the Roswell and MKULTRA episodes.
• Guest Host:
  • Episode 66 was hosted by Dodger of Press Heart To Continue, with her presenting the topic and doing the research for the episode.
  • Episode 89 was recorded while Mathas was busy with a cross-country move, so Alex took over presenting duties while Michael Davis (of The Warp Zone, also Jesse and Alex's Scary Game Squad collaborator) stepped in as the third host for the episode.
  • Episode 99 had Jesse's long time co-host of Cox n' Crendor join in for a properly goofy episode on a very stupid conspiracy theory.
  • Mikel Reparaz of Vidya Game Apocalypse joined in for the first ever guest host two-parter for 107 and 108, after Alex had appeared on the aforementioned show.
  • Episode 148 featured native Bermudan and fellow Isaac content-creator Sinvicta on to discuss (and debunk) the Bermuda Triangle.
• Herr Doktor: The trio frequently breaks into mock-German accents as a running gag throughout the MKULTRA series, considering the program made liberal use of ex-Nazi researchers and Japanese research data from the infamous Unit 731.
• I Believe That You Believe It: Generally Jesse's takeaway from most testimonials and listener stories.
• Insistent Terminology: Throughout Alex's (20)22 Mysteries, he kept referring to it as "Episode 2022 part 1 and 2", regardless of the fact that it was five parts long by the end. This whole thing, with all the specific phrases being repeated, was actually done as an ARG for the community, since it was really a backdoor pilot for his long-awaited JFK conspiracy series.
• LOL, 69: The entire reason for the topic of 'Top Sex Mysteries'. They repeated it for Minisode 69 and episode 169 as well.
• Moon-Landing Hoax: Discussed and extensively debunked in "The Stanley Kubrick Moon Landing Conspiracy". The main purpose of the episode was to talk about why the theory became so wide-spread.
• Non-Indicative Name: The Kentucky Cannibal was born in Kentucky, but moved away when he was young and never returned. As the story unfolded, Jesse and Alex kept coming up with more outrageous theories for why he had that nickname, such as that he ate a man named Ken Tucky or he became the franchise owner of several fried chicken restaurants.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Any time a supernatural encounter gets wrapped in a nice neat bow or if the story goes into way too many details, the hosts instantly stop believing it. Of particular note is any time the Warrens get involved.
• Off the Rails: Whenever Alex takes the reigns, they constantly joke how the show is spiraling out of Mathas' hands. Alex has a penchant for surprise multi-part episodes covering obscure topics. Taken to its logical conclusion with (20)22 Alex Mysteries, which went on for five parts and ended with the reveal that the whole thing was building up to a series on JFK that he's planning to cover throughout 2022.
• Our Gnomes Are Weirder: Discussed in their episode covering Tomte. Garden gnomes are based on old Scandinavian folklore, which is itself based on a Roman god.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Jesse presents probably the most famous sentence ever (allegedly) said by Butler during the Business Plot/Smedley Butler episode:
  Smedley: If you get these 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home.
• Poe's Law: The 'Krampus is an Alien' episode, which dealt with Krampus as The Greys and Santa as a Nordic alien, was conceived entirely by Mathas and their researcher, as revealed at the end of the episode. It's basically imperceptible from actual alien conspiracies.
• Police Are Useless: A running theme in their Ted Bundy episodes. By the finale, Mathas is completely fed up with how incompetent the police were and how many people died because of it.
• Pyramid Power: Their logo is a stylized symbol of The Illuminati, naturally.
• Reptilian Conspiracy: They've discussed the conspiracy where they're either either aliens or an ancient species living beneath the Earth.
• The Stoner: The Boston Baked Bean Boy. He's a sentient baked bean that's always high. Honestly, It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.
• The Teaser: Alex usually starts his episodes with one, usually a short discussion about whatever incidental thing sent him down this week's rabbit hole.