Cocktails and Conspiracies

Cameras down, drinks poured, no guest between them tonight — Shane Skwarek and Tim Philipps go off script to grade the conspiracies they've spent 200+ episodes building a case for. They open on 9/11: the still-redacted files, the collapse of Building 7, and whether an absence of paperwork is proof of anything at all. From there it drifts into Epstein, JFK, and the pattern of missing records th...

There's a fact sitting in a government database right now. Documented. Peer-reviewed. Completely accessible to anyone willing to look. Say it out loud, though, and the conversation changes — you're not debating the fact anymore, you're defending why you said it. This week, Shane and Tim sit down with political science professor and author Wilfred Reilly to dig into the architecture of modern censo...

A rabbi, a nurse, an attorney, and a judge walk into a hypnotherapy session. That's not the setup to a joke. That's Rabbi Beth Beyer's CV.In this episode, Beth joins Shane and Tim to break down what really happens when someone goes under -- not the stage-show version, not the swinging-watch Hollywood version, but the clinical, peer-reviewed, 1,800-study version. And then she tells us w...

Was Jonestown a CIA mind control experiment? That's the question we couldn't shake after revisiting MK Ultra — and when we started pulling the thread, the evidence got hard to dismiss. A single footlocker at the Jonestown compound contained 11,000 doses of Thorazine. The complete drug inventory — sodium pentothal, chloral hydrate, Demerol, Valium, Thallium — overlaps almost exactly with th...

The CIA's MK Ultra program is not a theory. It's a congressional record. Over 150 documented research projects. Hundreds of thousands of destroyed files. And survivors who remember everything. Tonight on Cocktails & Conspiracies, we sit down with Cathy O'Brien — author, activist, and one of the most prominent MK Ultra survivors speaking publicly today. For over 35 years, Cathy has...

The universe contains an estimated two trillion galaxies. Hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone — most with planets. The math says we shouldn't be alone. And yet, after 65 years of listening, searching, and scanning the cosmos, SETI has found nothing. Silence. Complete and total silence. The universe is 13.8 billion years old. Our galaxy alone has hundreds of billions of stars. The...

The White House dropped the UFO files. So… why isn't anyone talking about it? Shane and Tim go off the cuff this week — no guests, no scripts, no filter — and end up in one of the deepest rabbit holes they've ever dug. What starts as a breakdown of the newly released government UFO files (spoiler: mostly underwhelming, but the moon photos? Those are worth a look) quickly spirals into somet...

What if every wish you've ever made was actually doing something real — firing neurons, shifting your perception, and maybe even reaching further than you think? TEDx speaker, author, and storyteller Brownell Landrum joined Shane and Tim tonight for one of the most surprising conversations in Cocktails & Conspiracies history. What started as a deep dive into the neuroscience and psychology...

For decades, the most promising mental health breakthroughs weren't suppressed by accident — they were buried by design. Tonight, Shane sits down with Zappy Zapolin, former Wall Street VP turned psychedelic advocate, to walk through the clinical research, the personal stories, and the cultural shift that's finally bringing these treatments into the mainstream. Zappy has spent 20 years in t...

Since 2022, at least 11 American scientists — nuclear physicists, astrophysicists, aerospace engineers, plasma researchers — have died or gone missing under circumstances that have now drawn the attention of the FBI and the House Oversight Committee. Same institutions. Same research corridors. NASA JPL. Los Alamos. MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center. The Air Force Research Laboratory. The...

What if the blueprint of a killer was written at the moment of their birth? In Episode 199, we sit down with Christian Kenny — independent occult researcher, creator of the Killer Kards Tarot, and the mind behind AURORA, a behavioral risk-mapping software tested with New York City detectives that reportedly achieved an 89% predictive alignment rate in suspect profiling. Christian mapped over 300 s...

There's a version of madness that isn't madness at all. It's a mind misfiled — handed the wrong label, the wrong treatment, and left to spiral deeper into a condition that was never properly named. For years, that was Benton Savage's reality. In tonight's episode, Benton sits down with Shane and Tim to walk through the raw, unfiltered account behind his memoir Wrong Side Out: M...

What if the real conspiracy isn't hidden in smoke-filled rooms—but hiding in plain sight within our election laws? Tonight, we sit down with Tom Joseph, founder of America's Main Street Party, who's discovered a perfectly legal way to remove money from politics without passing a single new law. Tom's spent decades as a tech entrepreneur—building Bookminders, a pioneering remote-wor...

For over two decades, Matt Campbell has been fighting a war most of us didn't know was happening — a legal battle inside the British court system to force a proper investigation into how his brother Geoff was murdered on September 11th, 2001.Tonight, Matt joins Shane and Tim to walk us through the extraordinary journey: a 2013 inquest that never examined the actual cause of the building's...

What if the weapons of the next great war were buried thousands of years ago — and the U.S. Army already dug right over them? In Episode 195, Shane and Tim sit down with journalist and biblical researcher Karin Patricia Anderson — a woman who was on the ground during Vendyl Jones's legendary 1992 excavation — to unpack one of the most compelling and layered theories we've ever covered on t...

What if the strangest conspiracies weren't theories at all — but actual history that someone just... forgot to tell you? This week, Shane & Tim sit down with historical fiction author Stuart Jaffe to pull back the curtain on some of America's most bizarre, buried, and baffling true stories. German POWs secretly working tobacco factories overnight. A dead man displayed in a mortician&#3...

This episode ventures beyond the stars and into the soul, as Shane and Tim sit down with metaphysician and author Wajid Hassan to explore the link between UFO phenomena, human consciousness, and spiritual evolution. Wajid shares his deep insights on extraterrestrial intelligence and the universal laws that govern both the physical and spiritual realms. Together, they discuss how contact experience...

What if some cases of mental illness aren’t purely psychological… but paranormal? In this episode of Cocktails & Conspiracies , Shane Skwarek and Tim Philipps sit down with parapsychologist and medium Jock Brocas to explore the unsettling intersection between mental health and the supernatural.  Throughout history, experiences like hearing voices, seeing visions, sensing presences, or feeling...

What if schools aren’t incentivized to educate kids… but to enroll them? Baltimore City Public Schools went from a $1.3 billion budget to $1.8 billion in just eight years. Graduation rates barely moved. Math proficiency? Around 12%.In this episode, National Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter Chris Papst (Project Baltimore, FOX45) joins us to expose what he uncovered after nearly a decade in...

In this episode, Shane Skwarek and Tim Philipps delve into the intriguing relationship between President Richard Nixon and comedian Jackie Gleason, exploring the conspiracy theories surrounding the Watergate scandal and the alleged revelation of alien bodies. They discuss Nixon's paranoia, the implications of secrecy in politics, and the potential motivations behind Nixon's actions. The co...

In this episode of Cocktails & Conspiracies, we sit down with Tommy D, a New Jersey nightlife promoter and EDM pioneer who rose from throwing underground house parties as a teenager to running some of the most influential clubs and events on the East Coast. Tommy walks us through his journey from grassroots promotion to building Juice Entertainment, packing out major venues, winning the number...

A decade of elite training, cutting-edge recovery, and unlimited resources — yet the most injured team in the NFL keeps breaking in the same way. In this episode of Cocktails & Conspiracies, we sit down with Peter Cowan to explore a theory most people never think to ask: what if chronic exposure to electromagnetic fields — not turf, training, or bad luck — is quietly weakening NFL players at t...

Shane Skwarek and Tim Philipps explore the intersection of music, culture, and government influence, particularly focusing on the role of the CIA and programs like MKUltra in shaping the music of the 1960s and beyond. They discuss the emergence of artists from Laurel Canyon, the shifting messages in music from protest to personal liberation, and the impact of major labels and social media on the m...

In this episode, Shane Skwarek and Tim Philipps delve into the flaws of the American education system, tracing its roots back to the Prussian model designed for compliance rather than curiosity. They discuss the implications of standardization, the impact of student debt on independence, and the importance of practical life skills in education. The conversation highlights the need for educational...

This conversation reflects on the life and legacy of Eric Von Daniken, a pivotal figure in the exploration of ancient astronaut theories. Shane and Tim discuss his impact on ufology, the significance of his book 'Chariots of the Gods', and the importance of questioning established narratives in history. They emphasize the value of curiosity and the need to keep asking questions about our p...