1383 IS EVERYTHING A PSYOP? Michael Hoffman Doesn't Hold Back

**Michael A. Hoffman II** (0:01)
Evening, buyer's remorse.

**Richard Syrett** (0:03)
Buy a new car? I'll be moving in.
Let's get started. Uh, sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

**Michael A. Hoffman II** (0:10)
You what?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:11)
Yeah, great price.

**Michael A. Hoffman II** (0:12)
I even have seven days to love it or return it.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:14)
So there's no...

**Michael A. Hoffman II** (0:15)
No, no buyer's remorse.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:17)
More like buyer's rejoice?
I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it.

**Michael A. Hoffman II** (0:24)
Buyer's rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:27)
Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at carvana.com. If you like your true crime like you like your coffee, Red Handed is the podcast for you. It's dark, intense and might just keep you up all night. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And every week on Red Handed, we break down a different fascinating case. From the most recent US trials everyone is obsessing over, like Brendan Banfield, Karen Reed and Ellen Greenberg, to the most unbelievable stories from around the world, like Erin Paterson, the Australian woman who poisoned her in-laws with mushrooms, or the controversial case of Lucy Letbe, the UK's now most prolific child killer.
Or is she? We have our doubts. There's nothing we love more than digging into every detail of the cases we cover, getting beyond a basic analysis and cutting to the heart of the story. Red Handed has over 400 episodes ready to binge right now. Plus, be sure to check out our weekly sister show, Short Hand, where we unpack everything from the Black Death to Area 51
If you're looking for smart, detailed true crime with personality, check out Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts.

**Michael A. Hoffman II** (1:28)
I think Ted Kaczynski, who was the accused Unabomber, he was a naive young mathematician and that certainly harmed him. But I investigated Unabomber almost as soon as Kaczynski was picked up. I went right to Lincoln, Montana, which was his home base there, and then on to Helena where he was in jail. Unfortunately, he wanted me to come up and see him in jail, but his federally appointed attorney would not allow it. But anyway, he was highly esteemed by the local people of Lincoln, Montana, who did not believe that he was capable of the Unabomber atrocities. I think that he did one or two of them. It seems obvious to me that he did. But on the other hand, I believe that a couple of the other ones were done by the US intelligence itself, agents of US intelligence itself. That's in my book Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:23)
Richard Syrett's Strange Planet, following the truth wherever it leads, exposing evil and corruption and the secret machinations of powerful elites, revealing the high strangeness beneath the surface of our supposed reality, coming to you from the great white north and his studio beneath the stairs. Here's Richard.

**Richard Syrett** (2:49)
Welcome to Strange Planet. I don't need to tell you, something has changed. Not long ago, if you questioned the official narrative, you risked being dismissed as paranoid. Secret government programs, psychological operations, intelligence agencies manipulating public opinion, hidden networks protecting the powerful, media shaping reality instead of reporting it.
Those were the subjects of late night radio and dog-eared paperbacks passed discreetly between friends. Today, they are the subjects of congressional hearings. The government now openly acknowledges cognitive warfare. Lawmakers are demanding answers about MKUltra and decades of intelligence abuses. UFOs have become UAPs and are discussed in the halls of Congress. The Epstein scandal refuses to die because too many questions refuse to stay buried.
Artificial intelligence can fabricate reality in seconds. Wars are fought not only with missiles and drones, but with hashtags, algorithms, influencers, and carefully curated images designed to shape public opinion before the smoke is even cleared. We're living in an age where information has never been more abundant, yet certainly has never been more elusive. More than three decades ago, Michael A. Hoffman II saw this coming. His landmark book, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare, wasn't really just about Secret Societies. It was about something far more unsettling. The possibility that modern civilization itself has become a battlefield for the human mind. That power is exercised not simply through politics or money, but through symbols, ritual, media spectacle, manufactured narratives and psychological conditioning so pervasive that most people never even recognize it while it's happening. Now, whether you agree with Hoffman or fiercely disagree, one thing is impossible to ignore. The world he described in the early 1990s spares an uncanny resemblance to the one we're living in today.