[CUE, CRICKET RECORDING, quiet, subtle, underneath but rising]
Cue, newsreader: …We’re now getting our first listen what’s believed to be a sonic attack against US diplomats working in Cuba.
Cue, newsreader: The Associated press obtaining an audio recording describing it as – quote – shrieking crickets with an electronic twang – end quote.
Cue, newsreader: State department not confirming the authenticity of that tape but they’re saying they’re still trying to get to the bottom of what happened in Havana…
Remember Doug Ferguson? The Embassy staffer from the last episode? In March 2017, when he and Kate heard the sound in his backyard…
Cue, Doug: I thought, oh, I better get a recording too so they can analyze it
Well, this is where it becomes important.
Cue, Doug: So we went out on the back porch while this was going on and we made a recording, which was probably a really, yeah, just my phone.
He took it to embassy security.
Cue, Doug: It was probably a really bad idea cause we were exposing ourselves to it, uh, even more
Cut to August 2017. Several major investigations are now underway. But the story has exploded in the public imagination. People are hungry for details… and aren’t getting many answers.
There are lots of theories being batted around – but the main idea is still that some kind of sonic weapon was involved. That’s what the government said so far.
First, the Associated Press releases the recording of the sound. And later Doug goes on NBC News. And he has the file on his phone.
Cue, Doug: I’ll just play it for you so you can hear…
+
[CUE, CRICKET RECORDING, up to loud]
This goes out to a huge TV audience. This is a big moment – people are finally hearing these sounds. The core of this whole story.
This is the moment when things really get… well… messy.
These recordings give the public something tangible for the first time. A clue. Something they can get their teeth into.
And that quickly leads to a discovery.
Cue, newsreader: …crickets? Scientists at university of california studied recordings of a so called mysterious noise that’s causing those concussion-like symptoms in the staffers that were based in Havana, Cuba…
Cue, newsreader: …a team of scientists has a new theory about the source of a sound recording related to mysterious health attacks in US embassy workers in Cuba and it involves crickets…
These scientists were entemologists – insect specialists.
Cue, Bartholomew: they concluded that what they had recorded was the mating call of the Indies short tailed cricket, one of the loudest crickets in the world
HUGE plot-twist.
Cue, Newsreader: …shrieking crickets
Cue, newsreader: …caribbean crickets…
Cue, Patrick: And I have to say, there are crickets on this island that make a, a real racket.
Cue, Newsreader: …a cricket native to Cuba.
Cue, Bartholomew: it’s embarrassing … to think that the United States government has spent the better part of the last six years getting people needlessly upset …
This is Robert Bartholomew, who we’ll meet properly in a moment.
Cue, Bartholomew: … wasting tens of millions of dollars, making false accusations to foreign governments in costing the Cuban government, potentially tens of millions of dollars in tourist revenue, all because of the mating call of the Indies short tailed cricket
This idea, like the sonic weapon theory, caught fire – and massively added to the general confusion.
Cue, Newsreader: …researchers add it still doesn’t rule out a sonic attack, so we still don’t know…interesting…
On top of all this… there’s yet another investigation going on – this one is top secret. It’s being done by a group of scientists formed during the Cold War. They’re called the JASON group.
Their report is classified, but a redacted copy was obtained by Buzzfeed News.
It’s pretty comprehensive. They have access to more recordings than just Doug’s. And, after detailed close pattern analysis, they come to the same conclusion. The sound captured on these tapes… is most likely a cricket.
But as the report says: there is a serious problem with this scenario. A cricket mating-call is just… not capable of causing these symptoms.
The JASON group are struggling with this as much as I am.
“No plausible single source,” the report concludes, “can produce both the recorded audio and the reported medical effects.”
That line is in bold and italic. You can almost hear the author pinching the bridge of their nose in exasperation, like: oh god.
This is… I mean, this is a shitshow, right? If the sound isn’t the cause… if it’s just crickets… then what does that leave us with? That’s the train of thought that brings the JASON group to… this theory.
It’s a big one, actually. It has a lot of historical precedent.
It is also the most controversial theory. Way more than the others, this one makes people angry.
That’s because this theory says: it’s all in your head.
[CUE, THEME]
From Project Brazen and PRX, this is THE SOUND.
I’m Nicky Woolf.
[BEAT]
Chapter 3.
Speak of the Devil.
[BEAT to silence]
It’s a Wednesday morning in March 1972 in a small midwestern college town. A young woman – we’ll call her Mary – arrives at work.
It’s a boring job. Data entry, mostly, for the university. By the time she sits down at her desk, she’s in a bad mood.
Mary doesn’t like this job. They are watched all the time by a supervisor in a glass room overlooking the office. Word has it, he counts how often they go to the bathroom. Conversation is discouraged.
As if that’s not enough, the building-site next door has been constantly noisy for two weeks – and now, they’ve installed a huge diesel engine just outside the office window.
Mary is popular. She has lots of friends in the office. One of them, we’ll call her Catherine, sits nearby.
At some point that Wednesday morning, Mary sees Catherine go pale. Then, she vomits into the wastepaper basket. Suddenly, Mary isn’t feeling good herself. She feels hot, and dizzy. The air doesn’t smell right.
Another friend of hers, who works across the office, faints. Several others start being sick too.
Mary and nine coworkers are taken to the hospital. The office is evacuated, and authorities are called to investigate.
The patients were saying they’d smelled something, so the immediate conclusion is that they’ve been exposed to a toxic gas of some kind – though only a quarter of the office is affected. The story makes the papers, making the “mystery gas” victims locally famous.
But… there was never any gas.
[BEAT]
Bartholomew: Sure… 3, 2, 1. I’m Robert Bartholomew. I’m an honorary senior lecturer in the department of psychological medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
Nicky: And, um, not to prompt too much, but you, you wrote, um, literally wrote the book on this, right?
Bartholomew: I’ve written 17 books. My specialty area is mass psychogenic illness and social panics.
Robert Bartholomew’s book, “Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria,” was published in 2020. It was co-written by another guy, who we’ll meet in a bit.
When you talk to Dr. Bartholomew, you can tell how fired up he is about the whole story. You can hear the frustration in his voice bursting out.
Look at it from his perspective. Everyone’s talking about this mystery sickness. Maybe a poisoning. Or energy weapon. The world is going crazy. Falling over itself to figure out how some kind of attack might have been orchestrated, and who’s behind it.
And everyone is completely failing to see the real answer… which, to Robert, is clearly there – right in front of us.
Bartholomew: I have arguably written more articles and peer reviewed medical journals on mass psychogenic illness than anyone else alive. I know this subject inside and out. And when you look at it, it is a classic outbreak of mass psychogenic illness, standard textbook.
It’s what used to be called “mass hysteria” – that’s not really the accepted term now, because, ya know. It’s a bit sexist.
Nicky: Let’s, let’s define our terms here for, for a second for listeners who, you know, obviously aren’t as, as kind of up on the field, like, what is a psychogenic illness? what do these terms mean?
…
Bartholomew: Think of mass psychogenic illness as the placebo effect in reverse.
It’s the power of the mind, the power of belief, the power of expectation, the power of framing.
This isn’t new, Robert says. It’s something that’s happened again and again throughout history. And mass psychogenic illness has the potential to produce powerful physical results.
Cue, Bartholomew: If I give you a sugar pill, tell you you’re going to feel better often, you will. But if I give you a sugar pill, tell you you’re gonna feel better than someone rushes in and says, oh my God, that sugar pill I just gave you, it’s been contaminated with rat poison. There’s a good chance that within a few minutes you might get headache, nausea, stomach pain. You might even vomit, but there’s nothing physically wrong with you.
This same phenomenon explains what happened to Mary and her coworkers, back on that Wednesday in 1972.
After the news buzz around the gas incident died down, researchers interviewed the workers. And a pattern emerged.
Being stressed correlated strongly with being affected by the… “gas.” Even more tellingly, those in the same friend group – sociable people like Mary – were the ones who’d been affected. The more isolated workers were fine.
Interviewed later, the “victims” maintained they had smelled a gas – even though there was no evidence whatsoever. Nothing in their blood or urine, and no trace at the office.
Mary and her friends believed they were being poisoned. It was a delusion – but one that made them, literally, sick.
Bartholomew: And look, there’s an old saying.
speak of the devil and he is bound to appear. And I think that’s what happened in this case.
We all instinctively reject this idea. It’s uncomfortable to think your brain isn’t being entirely on the level. That your perception might be flawed. How can your mind fabricate an illness out of nothing?
But the brain regularly does this kind of thing.
[BEAT]
I wanna get a real-life demonstration of this.
So I call Matt. Well, actually, my producer calls Matt… he made sure I didn’t know what was about to happen.
Cue, Matt: Okay, so my name is Matt Cooper. I am a mentalist.
Cue, Nicky: And what is a mentalist ? What’s, what is that,
Matt: Can I ask you what you think it is first?
Nicky: Um, I, I guess in my head, sort of somewhere between, like magician, hypnotist, sort of behavioral psychology. Like somewhere in that kind of triangle is what I’ve always assumed.
Matt: Yeah, that’s pretty, I would say that’s a pretty good, a pretty good definition in some sense…
Matt Cooper grew up in Las Vegas in a family of performers.
Cue, Matt: I can’t sing, act, or dance. I found this weird thing called mentalism that I’ve just, you know, adopted as my talent, if you want to call it that, and, uh, have just run with it.
We’re sitting at a table in my apartment, and I’m holding a key dangling on a string like a pendulum.
Cue, Matt: Okay. So what I want you to do is focus all of your mental energy on that key. And in a moment, that key will start to spin in a circle if you want it to.
Do not move your hand. But if you use your imagination to imagine that key spinning in a circle, you’ll see that it will start to do that.
The key… starts to move in a circle. Spinning… round and round…
Cue, Matt: Here we go. It’s picking up speed. Let that keep going. Just let it keep moving around and around. The more you see it happening, the more it will go. There it goes. Picking up speed now. You can see that that is actually starting to spin in a circle. Keep that going, keep that moving like a carousel round and around and around we go. This is great. And if you want it to stop, just think stop and it will stop. But that’s really going, isn’t it?
Nicky: Yeah… it’s slightly so I’m, I’m not moving my hand.
Matt: You’re not moving your hand, but it is moving … Okay so you can set the key down. Let me explain a little bit about what’s happening here.
It feels like magic. But it’s psychological.
Cue, Matt: What’s happening is you have what’s called an ideomotor response system inside of you, which is: a thought will have tiny micro, call them vibrations if you want, that are being sent from your mind down your spinal column into your arm all the way down into your fingertips, and that is magnified by the weight of the key at the bottom of that string.
Cue, Nicky: And it sort of means, I’m thinking about the movement and it’s creating a kind of micro movement.
Matt: Yes. Yes. And it’s magnified by the weight of the key at the bottom.
Right? That’s how we can see this manifest, which is to me a beautiful idea that you actually, you know, there are limits to this of course, but thoughts do have real physical manifestations. It’s the same is true of the placebo effect, or as we said, the, the belief effect that yes, you can create, um, you know, changes in, uh, body temperature and whatnot.
Gotta say, I started out instinctively skeptical. Even a bit worried this whole demonstration just wouldn’t work. That it would be awkward.
But, I’m impressed.
Cue, Matt: Let me try a quick test with you and we’ll see how far we can take this. I planned something, um, something a bit strange…
For the second demonstration, Matt puts five cards on the table, each with one of the letters of my name written on it. N, I, C, K, and Y.
He mixes them up, then spreads them out in front of me.
Matt: Okay, yeah, so I have your name on these cards. Now, take the key on the string and hold it off the table just beyond the letters over here. And what I want you to do is imagine that you are that key. Put all of your mental energy inside of that key. And in a moment you’re gonna move the key across the letters and at some point you’ll feel compelled to stop.
I start to wave the key over the index cards, feeling a bit foolish, if I’m honest.
Nicky: … I’m sort of not knowing exactly what feeling I’m looking for.
Matt: You’re not looking for any particular kind of feeling. Go back to the beginning, move across and just stop whenever you want.
I pick one of the cards.
Matt: Okay. Any particular reason why you would do that?
Nicky: It’s sort of wobbles and I guess I’m sort of projecting, looking for a physical motion onto it. If that makes sense.
Matt: Yeah, that makes sense. Uh, what letter are you, would you say you’re stopped over?
Nicky: So I’m stopped over the letter C.
Matt: Okay. What I want you to do is turn over all the other ones, but the letter C. There’s nothing on the back of that.
Nicky: Nothing on the back of “N”, nothing on the back of “Y”? Nothing on the back of, I think, and nothing on the back of “K”.
Matt: But you stopped on C
Nicky: I stopped on C.
Matt: Turn that over.
Nicky: It’s got an X on the back. Okay … that’s, that’s, that’s eerie, okay.
Now I’m a little unnerved. But, there’s an explanation for this one too.
Matt: Would you like to know why you chose “C”?
Nicky: Yeah.
Matt: If you listen back to this recording, you’ll hear me say a couple of things that will clue you in as to why your unconscious picked up on this.
Cue, Matt: …quick test with you and we’ll see how far we can take this…
Cue, Matt: …okay, so I suppose it’s okay if your audience can’t see this…
Cue, Matt: …but you can see it which is great…
Cue, Matt: … it’s okay if I see
Cue, Matt: …I keep saying the word “see”, S-E-E, over and over and over again,
Cue, Matt: …planting the seed that would ultimately grow into a nice tree and would have you stop on that letter. You weren’t aware of any of this, of course, because it was flying under the radar, but it was going into your unconscious mind and making you pick inevitably the only one that you could pick in this case, which is the letter “C”.
The “power of suggestibility” on the human brain really is that potent.
Cue, Matt: …as far as I’m concerned, in my experience, you can elicit pain and remove pain from someone purely based off of suggestion.
And it is, potentially, capable of causing physical symptoms.
Cue, Matt: I can also induce pain in people or even itchiness or whatever that might be, some kind of physical feeling.
It’s one thing to hear the theory. It’s a different thing entirely…when it’s you.
Finding out your brain does things that are unconscious – but predictable enough that someone can take advantage of them…is scary.
*One more thing: When you just heard Matt mention causing itchiness – did you find yourself feeling… maybe a little itch?
I did. And I bet more than a few of you did too.
[SONIC WIPE]
This is all fun stuff – but what about all the evidence of the so-called Havana Syndrome?
The patients had scans – and the doctors said they saw signs of brain damage. Suggestion is powerful… but it can’t do that, right?
We’ll look into that after the break.
[BEAT]
[AD BREAK]
[BEAT]
We’re back.
[BEAT]
Alright then – let’s take a deeper dive into this brain damage question. How could Havana Syndrome be psychogenic… if there’s evidence of trauma in the victim’s brains?
Cue, Newsreader: Researchers have released a new study today published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on brain studies done on US diplomats and their families
…
Cue, Reporter: what the medical results show is substantial change in the brains of these Americans
So we need to take a look at one particular, extremely influential, study.
The paper at the heart of this was published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association – or JAMA – in March 2018.
I think it’s fair to say it is… controversial. Its authors looked at MRI scans of 21 of the first cohort of Havana cases. In the paper, they describe what they saw as: “injury” to “widespread brain networks.”
Now, taken at face value, that’s huge. Again: “injury.” That’s not vague. How can you argue with that?
Well, there’s one guy who tried.
[BEAT]
Cue, Baloh: … just around the beginning of the year I received. a request, uh, if I would be willing to review a paper that was submitted to JAMA)
that was describing patients who had symptoms
Bob Baloh is emeritus professor of neurology at UCLA. He’s Robert Bartholomew’s co-author on the Havana Syndrome book. He gets asked to review this JAMA study – the brain “injury” paper – before publication.
Cue, Baloh: And so I thought, well, yes, this will be interesting. I’ll
finally find out what was going on. …but after reviewing and reading the paper, I was, uh, disappointed.
The authors are making this huge claim. Confirming brain damage. Essentially, confirming an attack.
But to Baloh, they’re writing cheques that their data… can’t really cash.
Cue, Baloh: because it was essentially just some case reports, very little data in terms of what was happening … In fact, they even suggested that there was some material that was classified that they couldn’t present.
Before it gets published – before Baloh has even had a chance to review it – it gets leaked to the press.
The claims it makes could not be more dramatic.
Cue, Baloh: it was reported that there were changes on MRI scans of the brain…. and that was definite evidence that they had brain damage.
The paper led to headlines like “Brain abnormalities found in victims of US embassy attack”
Cue, Baloh: But when I saw the actual paper. The final conclusion was there really was no abnormalities on the MRI studies. They were essentially within normal limits.
They didn’t have MRI scans of any of the patients from before they went to Havana. This paper was just… a set of brain scans.
The human brain has a huge amount of variation between people. These scans looked, to Bob, well within the normal range of variance.
Cue, Bartholomew: Then Bob contacted me…
Back to our other Bob – Robert Bartholomew again.
Cue, Bartholomew: He was really flabbergasted by what happened.
I mean, he was the expert in the field and they basically ignored his assessment, which is really surprising and unusual for a peer reviewed journal.
Bob Baloh wasn’t the only one. The JAMA study kicked off an almighty academic slapfight.
You had researchers writing articles all over the place, calling out each others conclusions in public – and not being subtle about it.
An editorial in the journal Cortex slammed the study as “lacking in scientific rigour” and “unsound.” For scientists, them’s fightin’ words.
And it does seem like there are some flaws in the way the research was done, and released – flaws even I can see, once they’re pointed out.
Bartholomew: The study found that there were brain anomalies When that got reported in the media, it got reported as brain damage. That’s not the case. There’s a big difference between brain damage and brain anomalies. It’s not unusual in small cohorts to have anomalies.
Nicky: They didn’t have a before and after?
Bartholomew: That’s right.
The problem is, saying something is damaged when you only have the “after” picture doesn’t seem right… right?
I make a quick call to a friend of mine for a gut-check.
Cue, Nicky: Hey man, how’s it going?
Cue, Jochen: Pretty good so far for today.
His name is Jochen Weber – he’s a senior data analyst at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York.
Cue, Jochen: I’ve worked in, in the field of supporting neuro imaging, let’s say neuro imaging studies for about 15 years.
He doesn’t think the authors of the JAMA study are being dishonest. But he doesn’t think Bob’s critique is off-base, either.
Cue, Jochen: yeah, I guess research results sell better if you phrase them as like, here’s something that we found and not like, here’s something that we think.
Cue, Jochen: but in my experience, uh, it is fairly easy to convince yourself if you look at the differences of brain maps, especially across groups, that there is some difference when the difference is based on chance variability.
The fact that differences between brain scans gave back statistically significant results… doesn’t mean, necessarily, that those brains are damaged. Human brains are all different.
And 20 or so patients is a small sample size.
Cue, Jochen: I would so far consider the evidence to be intriguing and suggestive, but in no way conclusive…
[mini-BEAT]
But that kind of caution often gets pushed out of the way. “Inconclusive: more data needed”… doesn’t make for a great headline.
Robert Bartholomew again.
Bartholomew: … this conflation of brain anomalies with brain damage. Yes, you had anomalies, but it’s not the same. And unfortunately, the media has gotten that wrong.
Before any news narrative gets to the public, it’s put through a filter – the media. And they – we – aren’t always prepared.
I mean, I’m finding this story tough to get to grips with – and I have months. Newspaper reporters have to try and make sense of it in hours.
Bartholomew: As a journalist, you have to be an expert on acoustical or sonic weapons, microwave weapons, insect mating calls, Cuban-American relations. There’s so many aspects to this case.
And so as a journalist, what do you do? You go and you interview experts in the area and you look at studies … but in this case, the experts have let us down.
[mini-BEAT]
OK. So the JAMA study has … some issues. For the sake of argument, let’s say for a minute that Bob and Robert – we’ll call them “the Bobs,” – it’s easier – are right. The claim – evidence of brain damage – let’s take it off the board. The sound recordings are of crickets.
How do things line up then?
Well Remember the Canadian from last episode? Diplomat Alan. Let’s go through the timeline for him again.
May 2017: diplomat Alan has that clandestine chat with his American neighbor, who gives him a heads up that something weird is going on.
After that, Alan goes to his ambassador, and is told to keep quiet. Then, a week or two later, June 1st, is when he gets hit by the sound.
Now, remember Kate and Doug Ferguson? The American diplomats. They hear the sound in their backyard, the sound which will be later identified as a cricket noise, but they think nothing of it.
Then, remember, another staffer comes to them.
Cue, Doug: … he had suffered some pretty serious problems and he told me that it was related to a sound and that he heard his house…
Then, Doug makes his recording, and it’s only after that… that the Fergusons report it, get medevaced out, and get diagnosed.
Here’s Robert Bartholomew again.
Cue, Bartholomew: If I’ve been told I’m going to be a potential victim of Havana Syndrome, in that it’s associated with a sound, I’m on the alert for any unusual sound.
And over the next hour, I guarantee I’ll hear some unusual sound. Or you hear the sound and then you’re monitoring your body for symptoms.
Now Remember Karen Coats from our first episode? She had her first event after the embassy held that all-hands meeting where they told everyone that something was going on.
Cases seem to have spread in concentric circles of communities, in the order they heard about it. First, a closed group of CIA officers. Then, the wider US embassy community, as word gets around. Then the Canadians.
Then, as it breaks in the news, suddenly it’s in other countries too.
When you look at it this way, it seems like it’s the idea of Havana Syndrome that’s spreading across the world. The idea… followed by the symptoms. Right?
Cue, Bartholomew: People started to scrutinize their environment and scrutinize their body for symptoms of a Sonic attack after that they were being told there were the likely victims of a Sonic attack. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
It’s not an unreasonable hypothesis. And there’s a certain pleasing meta-symmetry to it. The idea that the story of Havana Syndrome is itself causing Havana Syndrome. Like a perpetual motion machine.
But with stakes and emotions this high, the idea that this is a mass delusion gets a lot of pushback. The Bobs are loud champions of the psychogenic theory. And they are… not well-liked for it among the Havana Syndrome sufferers.
Bartholomew: People were saying things like, we’re not crazy. We’re not hysterical., I don’t have a mental illness.
But he says, they’re missing the point.
Bartholomew: What Havana syndrome has shown to me is that there’s a lot of people in the medical community who do not understand mass psychogenic illness 1 0 1, and they really need better training in this area.
Bartholomew: Mass psychogenic illness is not a mental disorder. It is a collective stress response based on a belief. Everyone has beliefs. Everyone is a potential victim.
[BEAT]
The psychogenic theory has the advantage of being the simplest explanation.
Bartholomew: I mean, this case can be summarized in one sentence.
There’s an old medical adage. When you hear the sound of hoofbeats in the night, first think horses, not zebras.
The doctors at the American state department went for the most exotic hypothesis early on.
They were searching for unicorns, when they should’ve stuck to mundane explanations.
[BEAT]
I’m going to level with you. When I started researching this show I was more than inclined towards this explanation. I expected this episode to come at the end. I wrote in the series treatment that this would likely be the big reveal.
Now? The Bob’s make a compelling case. But I’ve been buried in this story for months and I’m… not sure any more.
It is possible that a lot of the thousand-some claimed cases of Havana Syndrome worldwide, especially those that appear later on, can be explained as psychogenic.
After all – it’s been splashed all over the news for six years. It’s just like Matt implanting the idea subconsciously of the letter “C” in my mind, but on a much grander scale.
But.
There are some problems… with the psychogenic explanation.
Once you take a closer look.
[BEAT]
Next time on THE SOUND.
Cue, Relman: …These early cases defied the definition of mass psychogenic illness
Cue, Beatrice: …the Psychogenic Illness Hypothesis essentially blames the victim and implies that it’s their fault…
Cue, Linda: …I think we felt that it was likely that it was some kind of. Um, microwave type radiation event…
Cue, Frank: …State, department’s not talking to CIA, CIA’s not talking to FBI. FBI’s not talking to others. And if you’re operating with blinders on, and you only see a quarter or a half or three quarters of the story, you’ll perhaps never get to the end of the story.
The Sound is a production of Project Brazen in partnership w/ PRX. You can follow the show on Apple, Spotify wherever you get your podcasts to stay up to date on new episodes.
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The SOUND was produced by Goat Rodeo.
The lead producer is Max Johnston.
The show was reported and written by me – Nicky Woolf – and Max Johnston.
Executive producers for Project Brazen are Bradley Hope, Tom Wright and Nicholas Brennan.
Senior Producers for Goat Rodeo are Ian Enright and Megan Nadolski.
Mixing and engineering by Rebecca Seidel.
Original score by the fabulous Attacca Quartet.
Additional music from Max Johnston, Ian Enright, Rebecca Seidel and Blue Dot Sessions.
Editorial and Production assistance at Goat Rodeo from Isabelle Kerby-McGowan, Cara Shillenn, Jay Venables and Megan Nadolski.
At Project Brazen, Mariangel Gonzales, Megan Dean, Susie Armitage , Francesca Gilardi Quadrio Curzio, Salber Lee, Lucy Woods, Siddhartha Mahanta, and Neha Wadekar.
Ryan Ho is series creative director. Cover art designed by Julien Pradier .
Series video production by Javier Labrador, Andrija Klaric, Giulia Franchi , Emily Chao, and Nicholas Brennan.