Zachary Treitz and Christian Hansen, creators of the Netflix series The Octopus Murders, join me to discuss their multi-year investigation into this vast conspiracy and the mysterious deaths surrounding it, including the journalist who was originally uncovering it, Danny Casolaro. I wanted to ask them what it was like to immerse themselves in such a complex mystery and how they managed to stay sane and grounded throughout the process. I also speak with Christian about his own personal paranormal experiences. To hear the full episode, sign up for the Otherworld Patreon To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome to Otherworld Patreon. I'm your host, Jack Wagner, as usual. This episode you're about to hear is an interview I did quite a few months ago with Zach Treitz and Christian Hansen, the creators of American Conspiracy, The Octopus Murders. The Octopus Murders is a four-part docuseries on Netflix that delves into the mysterious death of investigative writer Danny Casolaro in 1991.
I'm going to do my very best to explain the general premise of the octopus murders and what Danny was researching, but it's extremely complicated, and I suggest you watch the series if you haven't before, although I think this interview will be interesting on its own if you haven't.
Danny Casolaro was a journalist investigating what he believed was a vast conspiracy he called the octopus, linking government corruption, corporate greed, and covert operations to Central to his theory was the alleged theft of something called Promise software. It was a powerful tracking program, and he believed the US government stole that essentially from its creators.
He believed it was modified for espionage and sold to foreign governments. Casolaro also connected this to other scandals like the Iran-Contra affair and the October surprise theory, uncovering essentially a web of illicit activities spanning the globe that involved U.S. intelligence and many other characters. In 1991, while pursuing these leads, Casolaro was found dead in
in a hotel bathtub under very suspicious circumstances. This was ruled a suicide, although there were missing documents. He also warned people about threats on his life. His family was also very suspicious that this was a suicide. It came to a very, very abrupt and suspicious end.
In this series, Christian and Zach tell Danny's story and retrace his steps while continuing the research and uncovering even more information about the octopus.
What I think is particularly interesting about this series and why I wanted to have them on the show is that while making it over the course of many years, Christian begins to realize that he actually looks quite a lot like Danny Castellaro to the point where while they're out interviewing some of the people involved in this, people that Danny interviewed years ago, they are kind of creeped out by how similar they look.
And he actually looks so much like Danny that he ends up playing Danny in the reenactments that they shot for this series. I thought that was really, really interesting and eerie. Part of the series is about the toll it can take on a person when they're diving very deep into a vast conspiracy, researching something like this, and how you could basically get lost in a maze of sorts very easily.
I really loved how these themes were integrated into the series, and I think there are a lot of direct connections between that and the paranormal. Plus, a mutual friend told me that Christian himself has had some paranormal encounters. So, for many reasons, I wanted to speak to these guys and get them on the show.
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