The Acali Experiment: Science, Sex, and Santiago Genovés’s Bizarre Human Behaviour Study

The Acali Experiment: Science, Sex, and Santiago Genovés’s Bizarre Human Behaviour Study

Kyle Risi: [00:00:00] For the documentary, they build a wooden replica of the original craft. And so all the survivors can come along and they can walk around and they reminisce about kind of their experience.

They're pointing out where their sleeping bags were ~~kind of ~~positioned, and of course how they would poop over the edge of the raft.

Adam Cox: And the fact that they did it there and there and there, and there and there.

Kyle Risi: This is where Dr. Edna goes, how many people did you sleep with? And she's like, many, many, many, many. Everybody. Everyone including the fish.

Welcome to the Compendium and Assembly of Fascinating Things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just [00:01:00] enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

Adam Cox: We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, and the jaw dropping deeds of extraordinary people.

Kyle Risi: I am Kyle Reese, your Ring master for this week's episode.

Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the in-house coroner for this week's episode.

Kyle Risi: My God, we need an in-house coroner. That doesn't look good for our Glassdoor of use. People keep dying.

Adam Cox: Well, yeah, that and the animals, it's, it's a lot, a lot of death in the circus.

Kyle Risi: The busiest person is the coroner. Before we dive in, a quick heads up to all of our lovely freaks out there. Remember that signing up to our Patreon as a free member will get you early access to next week's episode an entire seven days before anyone else.

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These are the episodes from back in the day when we were first getting started, so now they're exclusively available to all of our Patreon members.

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Love a good tale of the unexpected.

Kyle Risi: Alright, freaks Enough of the housekeeping let's buckle up and get today's show started. 'cause Adam, today on the compendium, we are diving into an assembly of ocean bound strangers, sexual tension, and a scientific meltdown.

Adam Cox: Hmm. Yeah, I've got nothing. What was this about?

Kyle Risi: Today's episode has actually been one of the most requested episodes by our listeners, to the point that I just couldn't ignore it anymore. And honestly, it has made me question whether or not our certified freaks are in fact.

Adam Cox: I'm sure a few of them are,

Kyle Risi: But the thing is, I have to admit this realization, I didn't quite grasp it until I actually sat down and finished the research for this episode.

So I've caved, I have delivered. And so today I am serving you the wild story of the 1973 Ali experiment.

Adam Cox: Ah, yes. I have seen this requested a few times, although I, to be [00:04:00] honest, I don't really know too much about this.

Kyle Risi: Did you know there was a sexual element to this?

Adam Cox: No. So we need to tell our parents to stop listening. Yeah. If you have any kids, then you can stop listening.

Kyle Risi: No, I'm joking. We're not gonna get into anything graphic.

Adam Cox: Okay. Because it's not as people think that's the key about this story.

But anyway.

Kyle Risi: Basically the Ali was a social study led by Mexican anthropologist, Santiago Genove. We is gonna be calling him Santiago. You know how terrible I am with names.

Santiago's initial hypothesis was that human violence was an inherent trait, influenced by sexual competition, which he drew from kind of observations of primates where he basically noticed that their conflicts often arose around access to ovulating females.

Adam Cox: Uh, So what you're saying is men will often fight in order to woo a woman .

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So it's a very primal hypothesis. We are animals after all, right? Mm-hmm. Santiago's thinking was that since human beings are primates too, a similar dynamic might exist in humans.

And so he wanted to see if he could [00:05:00] observe this.

But to do that, he needed to confine a group of very attractive and diverse people together in an isolated environment with no distractions. Thereby providing an insight into the roots of human conflict.

Adam Cox: Okay. So it's a bit like a social experiment that he's doing. Exactly.

Kyle Risi: And the best way that he thought that he could isolate and confine these very. Very attractive people for a long enough period of time to strip everything back to their raw psychology was to set them off on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a 101 day voyage.

And the raft was called the Ali.

Adam Cox: And what kind of a raft is this? Is this like a nice enough boat? ' ' cause this feels just a little bit dangerous.

Kyle Risi: that was the point of the experiment, by adding this elements of danger that would help strip back to their kind of, their primal psychology uhhuh,

But here's what's really interesting as it starts to become apparent that humans, when given the choice will actually just cooperate with one another. With very little fuss, [00:06:00] Santiago starts to get desperate. He wants to really prove, he hypothesis so badly that it begins to provoke conflict And basically he manipulates situations amongst a crew. And spoiler alert, this does not work out very well for him. And so he ends up crumbling.

This sounds like Big Brother at Sea.

It is unbelievable that they haven't actually made this even worse. So Santiago becomes so completely fixated on the sexual aspects of his theory that when the news of this bizarre voyage starts making headlines while the crew are still out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, unbeknownst to them, the economy experiment becomes branded by the media as sex raft.

Adam Cox: Oh, that sounds, delightful.

Kyle Risi: It, it sounds actually really hot.

Adam Cox: But on a dinghy though.

Kyle Risi: It's not a dinghy, it's a raft.

Adam Cox: I feel like I need to see it. Is there any pictures?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, sure.

Adam Cox: Oh, okay. Yeah. It looks sturdy enough. Um, it kind of reminds me, you know, when you go on, um, like a holiday around the islands, it's the

Kyle Risi: boo screws. Yes.

Adam Cox: Like some [00:07:00] of those catamarans, which are just filled with people. Yeah. And you're like, that looks awful.

Kyle Risi: And so the press were reporting on us as this kind of orgy fueled voyage where they just apparently just believed that the only signs that was taking place on board was love.

Adam Cox: I feel like a doctor on board. I just wondered if people needed I don't know, contraception, the morning after pill or anything like this.

Kyle Risi: I tell you what they did need what? A lot of constipation, medicine. Oh God. It sounds horrendous.

the thing is though, it's not too far from the truth. They did have a lot of sex. Mm-hmm. But the story's a lot more interesting than just that.

Adam Cox: Yeah, there's poo involved.

Kyle Risi: There is poo involved.

So Adam, today on the coed, I'm gonna be telling you about the 1973 ALI experiment. A story that wasn't just a floating free for all of sex orgies, but also a daring social study of violence, isolation, and human cooperation.

An aspect that in itself is genuinely fascinating, but sadly, one that the world quickly forgot because they just became transfixed on this idea that they were just having sex all the time.

This is a story [00:08:00] about how when given the choice, human beings would rather choose cooperation and peace over violence and war. But there are some other fascinating twists in a story.

There's loads of irony. There's a savage shark butchery event, there's a mutiny plot. Even a close shave with death. And at the heart of it, it's a story of how our assumptions about inherent human behavior can really surprise us. So there's so many layers to today's story. I'm really sorry for all of our pervert certified freaks out there who believe that this is just gonna be a sex story.

Adam Cox: So how did this all start then? Why did this guy wanna put together this experiment? How did he even recruit these people? Yeah. How did it happen?

Kyle Risi: So actually it's a, it's a great starting point because the scientist behind the Akani experiment was a guy called Santiago Geneve. He was born in Spain in 1923, but grew up mostly in Mexico, where he eventually worked as an anthropologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Here's a little bit of a backstory on Santiago and how he [00:09:00] became the puppet master of the Ali.

So In the 1970s, Santiago actually teamed up with a very well-known Norwegian adventurer named Thor Haal.

Adam Cox: What a great name,

Kyle Risi: an amazing name, by the way. So Thor was already famous for his tiki experiment back in 1947, where he and his team set off from Peru crossing the Pacific Ocean to the Polynesian Islands with nothing but a wooden raft.

Basically, he wanted to prove that an ancient group of sun worshiping blonde and redheaded Caucasians, known as the tiki people, could have reached and colonize the Polynesian Islands in pre-Colombian times.

His full hypothesis was that the white race had reached Polynesia. Before the Polynesian people did. Which is an interesting kind of hypothesis in itself.

And did he prove this fact then?

Not, I mean he did. he proved that as possible, but not that that was the case. That they'd colonized Polynesia. Right, right. With you.

Because overwhelmingly, this is completely rejected by researchers long before the expedition even began. And yet in spite of that, he still [00:10:00] decided to go and try and prove it anyway.

And the reason it was rejected is pretty simple. If it was true, there'd be ancestral DNA evidence to back all this up. But the reality is there's no genetic link between the so-called tiki people and the Polynesian Islanders.

Adam Cox: Was he just like, wanted a jolly and therefore was like, do you know what? Why don't we build this raft, we'll go sailing and We'll, it's all in the name of science.

Kyle Risi: I wouldn't call that a jolly. On a raft crossing the Pacific Ocean, one of the biggest oceans on the planet. I'd be terrified.

Adam Cox: Yeah. But this was like the forties just after the war.

Kyle Risi: True.

Adam Cox: Maybe this was a jolly,

Kyle Risi: maybe In the end they end up drifting for 101 days they do actually eventually make it to the islands. After the expedition, Thor goes on to write a bestselling book, which later leads to an academy award-winning documentary about the entire adventure. So he's a pretty big deal.

But then in 1969, Thor, along with Santiago, decides that this time they wanted to prove that ancient Egyptians could have traveled across the Atlantic to the Caribbean islands, thousands of miles away on nothing but a [00:11:00] boat made a papyrus.

Adam Cox: Isn't papyrus like reads or paper or something like that?

Kyle Risi: When I hear papyrus, I think paper.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Papyrus paper was made out of reads.

Kyle Risi: I did not know that. So it wasn't just a case of folding up some newspaper and putting it into the ocean.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I don't think that would ever work.

Kyle Risi: No. But in my mind, when you hear the virus, you think paper.

Adam Cox: So was there any DNA , results or anything like that, studies that made them think that that's what had happened?

Kyle Risi: No, not necessarily. Do you remember you watched that documentary that these ancient mariners from like Atlantis or something, it drifted off into different corners of the world. and colonized these different areas. Hence why there's pyramids on pretty much every single sequence.

Ah, yeah.

Adam Cox: The ancient apocalypse. Yeah. And they would build these structures that would look at the stars like the North Pole or whatever.

And didn't they have like the same stories that they, these people from all over the world, which would pass down about these great floods and stuff like that?

Kyle Risi: Correct. Yes. Now, I'm not saying that this is anything connected, but it sounds very much like that 'cause it's like this idea that ancient Egyptians or these Mariners from the west had managed [00:12:00] to get through to kind of South America. Mm-hmm. Whatever.

this boat essentially that they made out of kind of papyrus reeds is 40 feet long with a single V-shaped mast and a square sail. So it could steer us since it obviously had like an awe on the port side as well.

So they build this boat, they call it the rah after the Egyptian sun, God. And when they finish, they set off from Morocco across the Atlantic with a small crew of seven.

Only two of them have any sailing experience at all. Which makes me question like, why bring the other five. I don't get it. Are they just there for the jolly entertainment? Maybe. You're right. Entertainment. They've got a juer on board.

So after several weeks, they're almost at the end of their journey when the RA starts taking on water and the crew quickly discover that they had actually forgotten to install a tensioner, which is a very crucial element in these types of kind of straw boats, which prevents the hole from sagging and then eventually flooding.

Adam Cox: Rookie mistake, always pack the tensioner.

Kyle Risi: you need at least three of 'em on board.

So yeah, it's not great, especially when you're like hundreds of miles from land in the middle of the [00:13:00] Atlantic. Luckily they managed to radio through to Barbados. They get rescued by a passing yacht and then the mission is sort of kind of successful. They make it like 98% of the way there.

Adam Cox: Yeah, but 98% is not completing the mission.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So it wasn't a slam dunk.

So that's why the next year Thor goes and tries again this time with a RAH two, and this time he remembers to include the tensioner.

They set off sale again from Morocco heading west across the Atlantic, and apart from a small minor mishap where they get lost triggering a massive United Nations search operation, they do actually make it all the way to Barbados.

In the end for proves that ancient Egyptian Mariners could have crossed the Atlantic sailing along the canary current in a pap parish rebo, essentially.

That's not to say that they did, but that they could have

Adam Cox: So I'm guessing he made this papyrus boat,~~ uh,~~ based on what they thought was possible for the Egyptians to have made at the time.

Kyle Risi: It was based on actual historic ancient drawings of these types of boats that the Egyptians would've used. So following all of this, in [00:14:00] 1972, Santiago is actually returning from a conference on violence in humans, which of course, as we know is his main area of study.

On his way back to Mexico. He's plane is hijacked by a gang of terrorists. And while the other passengers are all freaking out, Santiago himself is loving this.

Adam Cox: What person loves being hijacked?

Kyle Risi: This is what he studies for a living, right?

Adam Cox: Oh, so he just gets out his no paper and pen and goes like, this is great. This is great research. Pretty much

Kyle Risi: checking down loads of notes later, he says This was too good to be true, he's getting hijacked and literally has a front row seat observing all this violence in real time.

Eventually though, the plane is saying to Cuba, I'm not sure whether or not there were any casualties, but Santiago himself, he's completely fine.

And this is where he decides that he actually wants to recreate similar conditions in a controlled scientific environment where he could safely observe without the fear of being killed. wants to understand what causes human violence and how do these behaviors manifest themselves.

Adam Cox: So this was his inspiration

Wow. This guy, I, I dunno if I trust him. I

Kyle Risi: think that's a running theme [00:15:00] throughout this. He does become a bit of a dirt bag, but it's only through desperation, and we're gonna see why in a minute.

Okay.

You've gotta remember this was all happening at the time of the Vietnam War, when that was in full swing. So you can sort of understand the backdrop in which this interest, probably materialized within.

So the plan was that he was gonna build a small boat, fill it with people from all around the world . He figures a boat, would give the isolation and the stressful conditions that he needs, but most importantly, an environment that was completely inescapable, with the potential of danger always being a factor.

Adam Cox: Yeah, that's a bit twisted. He's gonna be putting people's lives at risk.

Kyle Risi: He is. But he needs to create a very specific set of circumstances or a situation. He believes that this kind of setting will strip people back to their raw, authentic behaviors beyond the social roles and masks that we wear in everyday life, essentially.

Adam Cox: Couldn't have just like, dropped them in a jungle or something he could have done

Kyle Risi: but he himself says that even in a remote desert, you can easily escape each other because you can just walk away. But on the Ali [00:16:00] drifting in the middle of the Atlantic test subjects will just not be able to escape each other.

basically if he could pull this off, he believed he could finally answer the question, is violence something built into our genes or is this something that we learn from the societies and cultures that we live in?

So he starts to build this boat. It is basically a big steel raft, and he names it the Ali, which comes from the indigenous language of the Aztecs and other small groups of people living in southern Mexico and Central America at the time.

Basically the word means house on the water.

Adam Cox: Okay?

Kyle Risi: And by design, the raft is not big at all. It's about 40 feet long and about 12 feet wide. It's got a single tiny cabin about the size one small bedroom, and so there is just no privacy on board.

There is no motor on board, which means maneuvering in choppy conditions is almost impossible. The only propulsion that they have will be a single sail, making them completely reliant on the wind and the currents.

The plan was to set off from the Canary Islands off the coast of northwest Africa and sail all the way to Mexico, which is about [00:17:00] 4,000 miles in total, which is estimated to take them around three months.

Adam Cox: And so they have no beds. Am I right in saying that? Or they, do they have like mattress on the floor or something? Sleeping bags. Sleeping bags. Okay. and they don't have running water, I'm guessing, or like a shower. So they're gonna stink. I don't care if they start out hot.

Mm-hmm. Two months in, then they're not gonna be hot.

Kyle Risi: If anything it makes it even more attractive. Gross.

And the thing is that while three months doesn't sound like a long time, sociologists say they're given the confined space and the lack of privacy along with a lack of control and not being able to maneuver the boats at will, those three months would feel like the emotional equivalent of 15 years on land.

Adam Cox: That sounds horrendous.

Kyle Risi: It sounds awful.

So the experiment was designed to condense what should feel like a lifetime of human interaction into a very short kind of window of time.

I don't know about you, but that is not something that I am willing to sign up for, especially knowing that there's just no way off their boat.

Adam Cox: Are they getting paid for this as well? Mm-hmm. No, no, no, no. So they are just doing it for the experience.

Kyle Risi: [00:18:00] That's right.

So basically he really wants shit to kick off on this raft. He's literally designing the experiment so that conflicts feels inevitable.

Adam Cox: Interesting.

This is like Big Brother. Although that's a bit different, isn't it? Because they'd be like, oh, you know, there's 12 housemates. Mm-hmm. They would put 11 chairs out and then let them argue over it.

Kyle Risi: I mean, he will do stuff like that,

Adam Cox: Uhhuh.

Kyle Risi: But it's exactly like Big Brother. If he was a producer for Big Brother, he would easily get the job

interesting.

But also, the thing is though, he's also supposed to be a real serious scientist, right? So this doesn't really sound like how scientists are supposed to do science does it?

Everything feels very much orchestrated in that he's setting to deliver a very specific outcome. He's looking to spark violence in people. When the experiment is like, well, what causes violence to erupt? He's making it erupt.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Because you said something a little while ago about, that he was trying to work out if violence is something we learn or we're born with it. But for me there's an instant flaw with that.

'cause one, these are adults mm-hmm. That would probably have been [00:19:00] exposed to violence already. So they would've already learned about violence. And two, he's putting them in a condition which is gonna cause anger and tension. Yeah. And everything like that.

So therefore, I don't know, if you put them on like a floating five star resort that was going out to sea, maybe it'd be a bit different.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. It doesn't really reflect the real world situation that we typically live in. It's very much manufactured. And I don't know if that's how they normally do science. I just, I don't know. But it just feels off to me.

Adam Cox: But I'm still excited for this to kick off.

Kyle Risi: I know,

right. so he needs a crew or test subjects, he launches a worldwide search to find 10 participants of all varying ethnic backgrounds, different religions, and different social classes.

The aim was to create a floating microcosm of people that he believed represented the entire world. Again, it's not really realistic and while he doesn't overtly say this to potential applicants, one of the most important things that he's looking for is that they're all smoking heart.

He figures that if he packs Araf full of attractive people from all over the world, you're going to ramp up the sexual tension amongst them. So he's [00:20:00] literally thinking like a reality TV producer.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Is he, so he's trying to create these relationships to happen basically these sparks.

Mm-hmm. And then is he also trying to get people to perhaps get jealous of each other? Mm-hmm. By doing this as well?

Kyle Risi: 100%. Yeah. So he places several newspaper ads around the world, which read exhibition Leader looking for volunteers to sail on a raft across the Atlantic.

Duration, three months, males and females, preferably married, but participants without a spouse will be allowed ages 25 to 40, write a letter along with your cv, Applications will be kept confidential.

Adam Cox: So he wants them to be married, but not travel with their partner. Mm-hmm. He wants them to be tempted in order to have an affair, right?

Kyle Risi: No. Basically, he believes that it'll make it more difficult for them to be away from home, therefore, fueling emotions and frustrations within those people.

He thinks that if you miss your kids, you're more likely to rip off another boy's face.

Okay. But this is hilarious to me because he's floating the [00:21:00] idea that unmarried people couldn't possibly have anyone that they might miss.

Adam Cox: No, no. They,

Kyle Risi: so he's clearly never met Keith.

Adam Cox: They are just not important.

Kyle Risi: They're not important.

And also, this does not have all the hallmarks of a good experiment. Isn't it better for the test subjects to be completely random? He's the only one making the selection based on what he thinks is a representation of normal society, which I think is very flawed. Because it's completely subjective to what he thinks rather than an actual representation.

Adam Cox: Yeah. He's going off. What I'm guessing is what these people look typically or stereotypically attractive. Mm-hmm. Or who he finds attractive. Exactly. I mean, this whole experiment is flawed, but it's, it's kind of wild.

Kyle Risi: It is what it is.

So in spite of the Verly Fade kind of ad, he gets hundreds of applications from all over the world, which he personally then goes off and hand selects 10 crew members.

And honestly, because this screams reality tv like Big Brother Vibes or Even Love Island Open Water Edition, I'm actually going to introduce his test subjects like Reality TV contestants.

Adam Cox: Great,

Kyle Risi: because why not?

Adam Cox: Let's do it. [00:22:00]

Kyle Risi: So onboard, we've got Santiago himself, the Mastermind. So imagine like a big screen appearing and it just says the Mastermind and Santiago's face instantly appears and it's got all these lights around it. And his bio then appears and he goes,

I'm Santiago 49 Mexican anthropologist.

I've studied human behavior across continents, and now I'm putting my theories to the ultimate test on this raft. I'm not just observing, I'm orchestrating. Let's see what happens when the world is confined to 12 by seven meters of steel.

Adam Cox: Did he actually say that or you?

No. Okay, fine. Oh, I made all that up. Just double checking. It could be plausible. It could. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So obviously he is the main scientist on board. He is the oldest on board, obviously making sure to surround himself by a bunch of very hot attracts of young love islanders, pulling all the strings and manipulating situations for his own game.

He is big brother, essentially. Mm-hmm.

Next up we have, Maria Bourdam, the captain.

Her bio [00:23:00] reads, I'm Maria 30 from Sweden, proud to be the first woman to earn a Marine time command certificate leading this diverse crew across the Atlantic Challenge accepted. Let's navigate these uncharted waters together.

God.

So yeah, Maria's gonna be the captain on board. And again, this is deliberate in that Santiago wanted to challenge the traditional patriarchal roles and to potentially provoke conflict and frustration amongst the men to see if having a woman in authority would increase or decrease violent tensions within the group.

Okay. So Maria is a big deal onboard, but she's also already a big deal outside of the experiments as well because she is the first woman in the world. With a professional C captain's degree.

Adam Cox: And how dare a woman command this ship?

Kyle Risi: Exactly.

Next we have Jose Maria Ro Perez. he's the scholar and his bio goes, Hola. I'm Jose Maria, 34 Uruguayan anthropologist and former student of Santiago with my flowing [00:24:00] hair and my gorgeous beard. I bring both brains and charm to the raft. Let's see how intellect and allure mixes on the high seas.

Jose is basically the raft stud with his hair and his beard in the questionnaires that Santiago has in fill out on board. Jose is routinely voted the hottest guy on the raft. Everyone wants to suck and fuck him.

Oh God.

Adam Cox: Let's see. Come on. Show me a picture.

Kyle Risi: Eh, I mean, he's all right. If you are on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic,

Adam Cox: can't be too picky.

Kyle Risi: You can't be too picky.

And again, this was important because that sexual tension, unchecked Santiago is hoping will cause things to escalate. All of these people are professionals in their regular life to some degree, right?

Mm-hmm. So it must have been a blow for some of them to learn that, aside from their skills in whatever. It turns out that the real reason they're there is 'cause of like their rock hard abs and they're flowing hair like, oh, okay, but what about my skills?

Adam Cox: I'd be fine with it.

Kyle Risi: I think men would be, I think women would have more of a problem with that.

Adam Cox: Your hair [00:25:00] just to look pretty. Okay,

Kyle Risi: The next crew mate is Savannah Zanotti, the diver.

She goes, Bonjour, I'm Savannah, 32 from France as a scuba diver and pollution researcher. The ocean is my office. This journey is a deep dive into human nature.

Adam Cox: So I feel like she wants to be there, out of all the people so far, and actually perhaps the captain, it kinda makes sense that they're on this. Yeah, no, it's good to have these people there.

Kyle Risi: Do actually need actual professionals on here. But the thing is though, aside from her breasts, the reason why she's brought in is because of course she is an experienced diver and will be responsible for conducting a study on pollution on board.

like other than just being test subjects in this experiment, they will actually be doing sciencey stuff.

Adam Cox: So they've got jobs to do.

Kyle Risi: They have jobs to do. Okay.

Next we have Charles and Tony, the voice. He goes, Hey there, I'm Charles 37, a Greek cypriot radio operator. day I run a Greek restaurant in Cambridge. Now I'm turning into the frequencies of human interaction on the raft.

Adam Cox: So he's just [00:26:00] gonna what? Provide radio?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, he's a radio operator. There's two of them.

Adam Cox: And so does he just, what entertain people?

Kyle Risi: No radio operator. Get the weather, get the coordinates.

Adam Cox: Oh, I thought, 'cause you said he had a good voice. I thought he is there to like, I dunno, wake them up in the morning.

Kyle Risi: Voice is also needed if you're the radio operator on a very serious science experiment in the middle of the ocean. Right,

Adam Cox: sure. He could also do maybe late night, love to send them to sleep at night.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. And I didn't really quite crack the Greek accent there. No, but he is from the uk so I thought I could get away with that.

Adam Cox: And you cracked, the French ladies accent? Yeah. Okay, cool.

Kyle Risi: 100%. I did. That was my best work.

So yeah, he's a Greek ria living in the UK where he runs a restaurant and he's leaving behind a fiance back at home. It's not clear if he knows that he's been Sid based on his attractiveness. If he does and he knows that the others will be smoking hot too, then it makes you question whether or not he's excited to be leaving his fiance.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Probably some of them are thinking this is gonna be great. Yeah. Three months at sea

Kyle Risi: sucking a fucking

Adam Cox: ew.

Kyle Risi: Next up is Rashida Mazany, earth advocate. [00:27:00] She goes,

Salam, I'm Rashida 23 from Algeria. As an environmental researcher, I study the planet's health on the raft. I'm observing the ecosystem of human interaction.

Okay. So basically Rashida is Nigerian living in Paris. She's going to be responsible for the pollution study on board. She's also the youngest at just 23. And in the questionnaire, Rashida is voted the most popular amongst all of the men.

Adam Cox: I bet. Mm-hmm. Um, so why is, what pollution is she gonna be studying?

Kyle Risi: I guess they're gonna be taking samples and checking if there's any plastic in there. Oh, in the water?

Yes. Oh, okay. Gotcha. That's right.

So next up we have Mary Gidley, the navigator. She goes, hi there, I'm Mary 36 from Alaska, leaving behind a trouble past. I'm steering towards a new horizon on this raft. I'm charting a course, not just across the ocean, but towards healing.

Adam Cox: Oh God.

She sounds like she's gonna be unbearable.

Kyle Risi: So they did have someone more experience, but. Because they were no Mary Gidley in the [00:28:00] breast department. She was, disqualified. And before boarding, Mary was working as a waitress, but felt like she wasn't really going anywhere in life. And so she saw this experiment as an opportunity to reset and figure out what she wanted to do next.

But also she saw this as a perfect escape from her abusive husband. So she was ~~really, ~~really glad to get away.

Adam Cox: So just to clarify. She wasn't the best skilled for the job, but because she was ample bosom, she got the role.

Kyle Risi: Okay. So some of that might have been fabricated from my opinions. Oh God. I imagine there is always going to be someone more qualified, but there's always gonna be someone more attractive and you have to make the decision on what you do. Right. And because a really important aspects of the test subjects was attractiveness.

I'm assuming he probably went with the most attractive one.

Adam Cox: I see. Okay. So that's an assumption. It's not verified.

Kyle Risi: Hey, it's safe to make that assumption. I'm just going based on what I would do.

Then we have another American. She's a Faye Evangelina Seymour the communicator.

She goes, hi, I'm Faye. [00:29:00] 23 an American radio operator. Communication is key, especially when you're isolated at sea. I'm here to keep the signals and spirits strong.

Adam Cox: Okay, so she's gonna be radioing back to land to say, yep. Still let's sea.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So she is the other radio operator. Mm-hmm. Along with the Greek slippery. ~~Right. ~~And they can do it like a, the breakfast show together. Yes.

Adam Cox: Great.

Kyle Risi: She's basically on a par with Rashida in terms of obviously being the youngest. She's married, she's got two kids at this point, and she describes herself as intellectually hungry and really into science. Shit.

Adam Cox: Cool. She sounds like she'll fit right in.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. Then we have Edna Jones, the healer.

She goes, hi, i'm Edna 32, originally from the Czech Republic. Now living in Israel as an anesthetist and the rafts doctor. I'm here to ensure we all stay afloat inside and out.

Adam Cox: So there's a lot of women I've noticed. Uh, I think there's kind of an equal mix. Okay. I think they might just be slightly skewed for more women rather than the men.

Is that because of Jose?

Kyle Risi: Possibly. [00:30:00] Right,

So Edna was previously working as an anesthetist in the Israeli army. She is of course the RAF doctor, and will be in charge of all the medical supplies on board. But she's also there because she's looking forward to testing her own boundaries.

Adam Cox: She has none,

Kyle Risi: God. And he holds a goal.

So then we have,

Yuki Yaki. He's the observer and he goes,

Kua. I am Ezekiel 29 from Japan as the onboard photographer. I'm here to capture every moment of this unique journey, but perhaps I'm also part of the story.

Adam Cox: Oh, so he's gonna be filming them, do it, having sex.

Kyle Risi: Yep. So basically he's recruited to document the entire experiments, which is where a lot of the actual documentary footage comes from.

What's really funny is that he honestly didn't think that he was part of the experiments. He just thought that he was there to capture the footage. But he's got rock hard. Abs pecs are really bumpy as hell. So it's not long before he realizes that he is actually been [00:31:00] observed too.

Adam Cox: did he think he was gonna have like separate like living quarters and be like, well, you see you guys later, I'm just gonna go rest. And he is like, oh, I've got a sleeping bag. Oh

Kyle Risi: yeah, I'm, I'm the onboard photographer.

Finally, we have Bernardo Bongo the Soul Peace be with you. I am Bernardo 29 Angolan Catholic priest. Faith guides me and on this journey I seek to understand the divine in human connection.

Adam Cox: Okay, so what's he here to do?

Kyle Risi: So, just when you think this couldn't get any more like an episode of Big Brother Bernardo Bongo is brought in and yes, he is a priest and the reason why he's being picked is to amplify tensions between the other hot crew mates.

The intention is for them to all like, kind of have sex or while feeling very judged by Bernardo bongo, but. What he doesn't know is that Bernardo is probably gonna be doing most of the fucking, oh my

Adam Cox: God. He's like, well, not in church now. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: I can't verify that. And we don't know too much about his [00:32:00] participation in kind of the experiments. I think he's now like dead now anyway, so there's not really much to go on there. But they've got a priest on board.

Adam Cox: Did they have to say Bernard, could you just face the wall for the next hour and put these, I dunno, this piece of sponge in your ears,

Kyle Risi: because he is Jesus' eyes, right?

Mm-hmm. So whatever he sees Jesus sees. So if you get him to shut his eyes and look away, Jesus doesn't know that you're, uh, doing it in the pooper.

The study isn't just about sex, Adam. Okay? I mean, but we're going with that angle, right? Because sex sells.

So that's all of our crew mates.

Adam Cox: Okay. So they're all signed up based on this advertisement. Mm-hmm. It didn't really advertise that it as all about like violence in humans though, do they know what they're being studied for at this point?

Kyle Risi: I think at this point that they do once they're being selected.

But honestly, I'd be freaking out because each one of them is probably thinking, hang on, I've been picked. I'm not a violent person, right? Am I the one that all the violence is going to be towards? Do you know what I mean? Am I stuck in a boat with smoking hot, violent criminals?

Adam Cox: Yeah. And if you're looking around, you go, everyone seems really nice. And if you can't spot the [00:33:00] violent one there, it's, it's probably you. Probably you. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Sure. So there's no way I'd ever agree to this in a million years. This sounds completely insane. Completely, utterly insane. In Santiago's Journal, he writes scientific Studies of monkeys show that there is a link between violence and sexuality, where most conflicts among male monkeys are often over access to ov relating females. I want to verify if this is the same in humans.

I have selected participants based on their sexual attractiveness. And because sexuality is linked to guilt and shame, I have placed among them, Bernardo Bongo, a Catholic priest from Angola. Just to see what happens.

He is insane.

Adam Cox: I wanna know what Bernardo's report was at the end of this.

Kyle Risi: Oh we dunno. He's dead. Yeah, he didn't come back to the reunion, unfortunately. Oh. It's really sad thing about this because when Santiago goes off and he writes his book and he memoirs about this, he changes everyone's names.

So it's not until a film producer comes together with a bunch of people to kinda really research who [00:34:00] these people were, So most of them were lost to history and they've since died. But Bernardo story would've been the one that I would want to know about.

Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause I feel like he wouldn't have held back, or perhaps, he's repenting for his sins. Mm-hmm. And actually didn't want to be found.

Kyle Risi: God. Yeah. The things I've seen, he's probably gout out his eyes.

So this really is like a selection process for Big Brother, but on a whole other level. It's a dangerous game that Santiago is playing. 'cause at least in Big Brother, there's security on hand, right? Mm-hmm.

These people are about to sail into the Atlantic Ocean, where the main purpose of the study is to observe violence in humans.

Like it's the main aim of this experiment. But because there's also like this very apparent elements of sexual behavior, of course the press they pick up on this bit very, very quickly and becomes their main focus So straight away they start dubbing the ani as the sex raft. The Raft of love and also the raft of passion.

And some of the actual headlines read love, laugh, and orgies.

Adam Cox: That's a good one to put on the back of the bow, I think.

Kyle Risi: In the bathroom on like a wooden plaque. Yeah. [00:35:00] Another one was the Secret of the Love raft, and it's this sex angle and this idea of like nonstop romance and orgies amongst a crew that completely overshadows, the actual intended study entirely in the media.

About 80% of the media coverage is just focused on this kind of sex and agy kind of like aspects of it.

And don't get me wrong, like humans and violence is a really interesting subject in itself, but as we know, sex just sells better in the media, right? Yeah.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So the media have an absolute field day with this. They even nicknamed Santiago, the sex professor. Also, all of this reporting is completely unbeknownst to the actual crew members themselves. 'cause most of the reporting doesn't actually kickstart until after they've actually left.

So imagine some of their family members missing their wives and the husbands at home. Then all of a sudden all these stories start emerging that they're actually on a sex binge raft.

Adam Cox: I imagine they'd be like, hang on, they told me it was a science experiment. Yeah. And now they're just going on a jolly with all these other men and women.

Kyle Risi: I feel so bad for these people's families.

So the crew are all left genuinely [00:36:00] believing that they're going off onto this noble scientific voyage across the Atlantic. Whereas in the media, they're all going, they're off to go have orgies.

Adam Cox: So Santiago didn't reveal all the details, obviously, about what this was intending.

Kyle Risi: He, to a degree. I mean, he just told them what they needed to know. Mm-hmm. Right. They probably don't need to know the ins and outs of why selected some of them. But when the media reads some of, kind of the notes that he's got and the studies that he's putting out in his hypothesis, they start going, oh, this is a bit of an interesting aspect of this.

And he selected just hot people. I wonder why. And then they put two and two together and then they come up with a good story.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I guess when you see, all of them on the boat as they're about to ship off sort of thing, which I think this photo I'm looking at is,~~ um,~~ yeah, they all look like young and attractive.

And I guess like the reporters there are probably thinking, this is a bit wild.

Kyle Risi: So Adam, let's take a quick break and when we get back, the ALI experiments is going to set sail across the Atlantic where Santiago is about to get very, very stressed and realize that maybe he's out of his depth.

Adam Cox: Can't wait.

Kyle Risi: Adam, we're back.

Are you ready to [00:37:00] hear about how the adventures onboard the Ali or as a media are dubbing it? Sex raft

Adam Cox: Yeah. I'm just wondering how fun it starts off. 'cause imagine athletic's new, it's exciting, you're getting to know each other. Maybe the first couple of days, are quite fun, but I imagine it gets boring pretty quick.

Kyle Risi: Not just boring, but also like he is deliberately designing this for tensions to flare. That's his purpose. Yeah. Let's see how the crew actually respond to that

Adam Cox: Does he start it off with like fun and everyone get to know each other and then slowly starts like, I don't know, saying things behind people's back, manipulating the situation, not sharing food.

Kyle Risi: There's a little bit of all of that.

Adam Cox: Interesting.

Kyle Risi: So the Akani Set Sale on May the 11th, 1973, the crew and Santiago, they all meet in the Canary Islands all for the first time. And they're like, oh, everyone's smoking hot.

Once they're all briefed and they've loaded the wrath with all the essentials, they essentially set off the very next day.

That's when the misrepresentation really kicks off almost immediately as they're heading out. Maria, her boyfriend, he starts desperately trying to tail the raft, [00:38:00] and when he gets close, he's demanding to talk to Maria.

He's basically heard all the media reports that are coming out about the story of their, oh no.

And he's fucking furious. He's saying like, none of you have actually read your fucking contracts. And he is like, you've all essentially given up your bodies and your minds to Santiago and Maria's. Like, I read the contract, But I didn't sign it for that very reason. And so Santiago actually failed to check whether or not she signed it. He just assumed that she did. So now she's on board, so she's smart.

They have this massive back and forth over the radio. He's demanding that she quit and she's like, no. I can't leave my crew high and dry. We are literally heading out into the Atlantic Ocean. So he ends up giving her this ultimatum, like it's either me or the raft, and she chooses the raft.

Adam Cox: So interesting. So she could have been that happy with him in the first place to, to kind of like go put her relationship at risk.

Kyle Risi: But she's also a captain and this is a big experiment, right? She probably would like this on her cv, essentially. It's a big opportunity, right? If you're the first woman in the world to [00:39:00] have a captain's kind of license, you probably are under a lot more scrutiny than anyone else

Adam Cox: as well. That's true. Because if she did quit, it'd be like, oh, first woman captain quits.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. The media would just spin that into something kinda ridiculous.

Adam Cox: True. Okay,

Kyle Risi: So that's some last minute drama Eventually the tugboat, they dispatch them into kind of the open Atlantic, and now essentially they are on their own.

Almost immediately. The ocean is way choppier than they expected. So within five minutes, they're all totally seasick.

Let me just tell you what it was like on board, because every single living condition was meticulously planned in order to create tension.

So first off, they are not allowed any distractions. Obviously this is the 1970s, so there's no phones, but they also were not allowed any books, no games, no puzzles.

The only entertainment that they had was a fucking guitar, which if you're looking to evoke a violent rage, then a surefire away is to have someone play that very badly for nine hours a day.

Adam Cox: Yeah, that, I mean, I would've bash that over someone's head .

Kyle Risi: So it's pass the time. All they do is they just sing songs and they tell stories. [00:40:00] And because Santiago wanted to ~~kind of ~~break down every single inhibition that they had, everything is done in the open, including going to the toilet What? Mm-hmm.

Basically they fashioned a seat that just hung over the edge of the wrath. So you'd have to do your business straight into the sea. So the photographer, he said that ~~be ~~because the waves are so big, the water would often lick your bottom.

Adam Cox: Oh, like a Japanese lu?

Kyle Risi: Yes. And he says it was glorious during the day, but at night, the anticipation of the ice, cold water touching your Rafe was just pure torture.

Oh my God.

Adam Cox: And so there's like no screen, nothing. You're sitting there, staring in someone's eyes? Exactly.

Kyle Risi: every minute of the day there's always someone there. So you are chatting and meanwhile, Bernardo bongo the priest couple feet away.

He's just going the

Adam Cox: grace of

Kyle Risi: God and the love of Jesus Christ. And he is just like shitting into the sea.

Adam Cox: I can't imagine he's constipated. I reckon it's the opposite When you're on that boat,

Kyle Risi: No, Adam, they are so constipated. Oh really? Yeah.

Dr. Edna has to use up all of their constipation medicine [00:41:00] in the first few weeks because nobody wants to poop in front of each other.

Adam Cox: well, yeah, I can imagine that. I guess once you've got on over that hurdle, it's okay, but that's gonna take a while.

Kyle Risi: That's it. You have to get over the hurdle. Right? I would've died. I would've died. If I'm somewhere new, I won't poo. I know. I just won't do it. And remember, do you remember when we were in Australia and I hadn't gone for 11 fucking days? Oh yeah, I do. Yeah. I thought I was gonna die.

Adam Cox: Yeah, you're like, is this normal? Am I gonna just explode or implode?

Kyle Risi: and someone suggested that you do the mo tooo technique.

Adam Cox: Oh God.

Kyle Risi: And it's exactly as it sounds.

Basically you sit on the loo, you lean forward slightly, you rest your hands on your thighs. Your spine straight. You lift your chest up, you take a few deep breaths into your belly to relax your abdominal muscles.

And then when you're ready, basically you exhale and then you say, mm, Basically this widens your waist muscles and then you build up abdominal pressure.

And then as you draw out the mm, you transition into an ooh like ooh, which makes kind [00:42:00] of your lower belly kind of bulge forward. And that just kind of relaxes your pelvic floor muscles. If you just do that a bunch of times, I'm telling you it'll work. I felt like a brand new man. I was just so relieved when I finally.

Had aoo and it was all because of Motoo.

Adam Cox: That is, I, I think I blocked that out to be honest, until you just brought that back up.

Kyle Risi: Sarah came down that same morning? She was like, who was mooing?

Adam Cox: So that was, that was Kyle. um,

So listeners, if you are constipated, try it and, and let us know how it works. It works.

Kyle Risi: So when it came to bathing, there's of course no shower on board. They set up a shark proof netted enclosure kind of floating behind the actual raft itself. Uhhuh. where they would then get into and then wash.

That way they wouldn't have to worry about the raft drifting away from them or the fear of being eaten by a shark or anything like that.

Adam Cox: Sure. Okay. So that's the only way that they could shower is going into or bathe is going into the sea. Yeah. That feels like a lot of effort, but it makes sense.

Kyle Risi: 24 hours a day, they all took turns having to kind of steer the ship and keep a watch out for any ships that are approaching 'em. 'cause remember they haven't got no propulsion system [00:43:00] whatsoever. Mm-hmm. So if a ship was heading straight for them, then they couldn't just get out of its way.

Adam Cox: And so Maria, I'm guessing she's experienced at sailing a sailboat essentially, not just like a regular ship because it feels like that's quite a different, it's kettle of fish.

Kyle Risi: I think there's more to captaincy than just that . It's like knowing how to navigate and understanding when there's swells and Yeah, of course. Understand the weather reports and stuff.

Adam Cox: Yeah. It's just the thought of ~~like, ~~that's so unpredictable just to rely on the wind and the current, but yeah,

Kyle Risi: it's purely so they can't escape essentially.

And I already mentioned this earlier on, but the roles on board were very intentional. The females held all the key roles , while the men were given the more menial tasks.

Santiago said that this was kind of reflect society's progression towards kind of gender equality. But in reality, the angle he was taking was the fact that this was still a highly resisted ideology at the time, especially amongst groups of men. So it might seem like he was trying to do something noble. The reality was, is that he was trying to create tension, [00:44:00] basically.

And that's the thing though, whenever people try to enforce equality rather than achieving actual equality, they always just end up just flipping it the other way where the kind of the, the opposing side just gets nothing.

Mm-hmm. So that's not equality to me.

In his diary, Santiago writes that this dynamic would lead to one of two outcomes. Either the women in power would lead to less violence, or the men would become so frustrated and try and seize authority.

But even in that, there's a bit of sexism there, isn't there? Because women are capable of violence.

Adam Cox: Yeah. You take their handbag, they'll hit you back. Yeah, you will. They will. So did Santiago ~~kind of ~~write down all these hypothesis before he went and then were like, these are the things I'm gonna be testing for, and then ~~kind of ~~measuring off the back of that?

Kyle Risi: I imagine there's probably some degree of that. A lot of this commentary comes from his journals that he kept maintained on the actual ship. So these are musings and observations on board.

Sure.

And so throughout the voyage, the only outside content that they get were weather reports every couple days.

Apart from that, they get very little information about what's going on in the outside world. Santiago routinely [00:45:00] have the crew fill out questionnaires as part of his study so every week he'd ask things like, who annoys you most on the raft?

Adam Cox: This is like the diary room. Element of Big Brother. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: Very much feels like that. He'd also ask them, who do you feel closest to and why?

Or he'd ask, if you could get rid of one person, who would it be?

Adam Cox: Who are you voting off this week? Who's gonna walk the plank?

Kyle Risi: But as the weeks go on, those questions start becoming way more sexual in nature with questions like, who have you had sexual contact with on board? Or how many times do you masturbate per week?

Adam Cox: Wow. That is personal.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: And these people, I guess, they've agreed to openly and honestly answer these questions.

Kyle Risi: By this point, Maria. the captain, Mm-hmm. She's flat out refusing to fill in any of the questionnaires. Of course, Santiago obviously doesn't like this. Remember, she's not signing that contract, so what? What can you do? Right. She doesn't

Adam Cox: have to do it, but she might have been doing some dirty business

Kyle Risi: probably.

Each week, you'd also have them draw a tree as well. And according to Santiago, This was kind of like a test that revealed the inner changes happening within you.

If one week you drew bigger roots and then the next week you drew [00:46:00] bigger branches or whatever, this could potentially indicate your emotional state shifting over time.

Mm-hmm. Also the amount of detail you employed and even the strength of the lines apparently reflected your mood by harsher lines meant anger or tension building up. Whereas softer lines meant that you are calm and relaxed kind of thing.

Adam Cox: Okay. Yeah. I can see that

Kyle Risi: It takes a few weeks, but by week four, all the trees are being drawn with really harsh lines.

Adam Cox: Everyone is pissed

Kyle Risi: No They're super horny . oh, nobody's hooked up at this point. And remember, they have no idea that the press has already dubbed them as a sex R.

They are completely oblivious of this, but eventually their inhibition starts to wane and eventually they start doing it literally in view of everyone else. It gets to the point where you just have to accept that and that's how you do it.

Or you just waited till everyone was asleep and then just went at it. Prime time for doing sexy time was during kind of the watch shifts at night because there was always two people on shift, right? One to do the looking out, one to kind of steer the actual shift. So if you were quick, you could squeeze in [00:47:00] the quick quickie.

But they say that the coordination and dexterity in doing so was key because you always need to have one hand steering the boat. But honestly, if you need two hands, you're clearly doing it wrong.

Adam Cox: I reckon it probably didn't take a lot the first couple of times.

Kyle Risi: No, you're probably so horny. You just exploded. Can we say that?

Adam Cox: I don't know. I feel dirty.

Later in the reunion documentary, they asked how many people they had slept with. And Dr. Edna just laughed and she goes,

Kyle Risi: many, many. Everybody.

that is exactly what you said.

Adam Cox: Everyone, including the dolphin that came on board. Maybe she was conducting a science experiment

Kyle Risi: probably, but they all insisted. It wasn't this kind of nonstop orgy that the press were imagining. There was a lot of sexo, but it just wasn't like 24 hours a day at night.

They all slept kind of side by side on the cabin floor. There's just no personal space. So you were always 100% of the time sandwiched between someone else on board,

I would've just gone mad. Mm-hmm. There's no privacy. It's not until day 84 when the crew [00:48:00] finally hear of the radio that the newspapers were calling them the sex raft. And they are devastated.

Adam Cox: I wonder in what way? 'cause they're like, well we, you know, we have had a lot of sex, but it's not just about sex.

Kyle Risi: But at the same time, a lot of these people have families waiting for them. Right?

Adam Cox: Oh yeah. So people found out. Yeah. But then at this point, they don't know that. The people back home have just dubbed it. They dunno what they've been up to.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. And because Santiago is very affiliated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico where he'd worked for the last 20 years, the fallout of this is really damaging to the university's reputation. It was being reported that the university had essentially funded a sex cruise.

Adam Cox: Yeah. But then that's kind of what he was looking for. A little bit.

Kyle Risi: A little bit. But the main purpose of it was violence in humans.

Adam Cox: Right? Oh yeah. The violence. I keep feeling about that.

Kyle Risi: See, that's my point.

People kept forgetting that was the main aim of the study. So they start to actively distance themselves from the experiment, they draft an official statement to

the press disavow in Santiago completely. And they get a bunch of his colleagues to sign this as well. When he finds out it's on the [00:49:00] raft, and he's devastated.

Right. He's in the middle of the Atlantic. There's no way for him to respond. And now all of his work is being discredited.

Adam Cox: And this is day 84. So this must be coming towards the end,

Kyle Risi: but honestly, I feel really sorry for him because while the press was obsessed with the sexual element, the study was technically supposed to be about the aggression and violence in humans. The media just lose the sight of that. But on top of this, the experiment just wasn't really going well at all.

Things start to really crumble when one day the crew catches a live shark, some of the people on board wanted them to throw it back. But Jose, the raft stud, he grabs an ax and he starts hacking at it. Santiago writes that this is a primitive instinct that is starting to bubble to the surface.

So yeah, it sounds very dramatic, but the reality is when you actually watch the footage of this, when he hits it with he acts, it just bounces off. It's like hitting a beach ball So it wasn't the primal kind of vision that Santiago was actually trying to depict in his journal.

Right. Okay. It's kind of more pathetic, they do eventually butcher the shark and then Jose rips out the shark's heart while it's still beating and he holds it up for everyone to see.

Ew. And that bit was intense, [00:50:00] but it was more out of fascination than anything else. ~~Right. ~~It's not a sadistic, primal example of violence, but Santiago describes this as the moment that that switch kind of just flipped. Mm-hmm. Because he's desperate now, right?

Adam Cox: He needs, yeah. I guess he's trying to prove a point with this study.

Kyle Risi: In his mind, violence had finally arrived. But here's my issue. Santiago had spent all their effort engineering this entire thing, to prime the crew for violence. And until that moment, there had been literally none.

It wasn't until the moment that they caught their shark. Then he finally goes, okay, finally the violence is right because he was getting really agitated.

Adam Cox: So they've gone almost two months and getting along. maybe some minor quarrels, but generally actually. Okay.

Exactly. Interesting. I dunno if I would survive that long , without starting a fight. But then, this doesn't sound like a really, a violent event by the sounds of things. No. It just sounds like they were trying to make sushi. So what have they been eating up until this point?

Kyle Risi: Just regular fish. They just so happened to have caught a shark.

Adam Cox: So then actually this doesn't sound like a big deal at all. No, big in terms of they got a shark and, but apart from that. Unless they like got the blood and start putting on their [00:51:00] faces and then going, I don't know, jumping around and dancing.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. 100%. None of that is happening.

But remember, he's waiting to see whether or not violence in humans is something that's inherit. He hasn't seen any violence. To me, that's in itself a really interesting result, right? Mm-hmm. But he's just not satisfied with that. Either way, he believes that, like I said, the shark incident proves his hypothesis,

but he does say that he is surprised that the violence didn't spur from some sort of sexual jealousy or conflicts over a female 'cause that's also what he was waiting for as well. Ah.

So now he's salivating at the mouth, he's anticipating even more violence to kick off, but it just doesn't, they just all keep getting along, they're just singing kumbaya with their guitar. No violence.

Adam Cox: They should have just supplied a load of booze that would've kicked off the violence probably in week one.

Kyle Risi: Oh my God. Do you remember, like in Big Brother at one point, they got rid of the booze because it was so

Adam Cox: fight night.

Kyle Risi: It was fight night.

Adam Cox: Yeah. See, all you need to do is go down to weather spoons on a Friday and you would've done this, experiment way quicker.

Kyle Risi: There was some friction though, but it wasn't [00:52:00] between the other members of the crew. It was mostly between Santiago One day the rudder breaks Naturally they figure that Savannah, the French scuba diver, she would just jump in to fix it. But Santiago insists that he is going to do it despite having zero diving experience whatsoever.

She's like, I can just do this myself. You know, it'll take me two minutes. I promise you I'll just put on my kind of gear. I'll jump in, I'll get it, fix, we'll be done.

And he's like, no, no. He puts on all his gear, he jumps in immediately, his kind of mask starts to leak because of course he's got this massive beard, he's completely overwhelmed with water. He's totally embarrassed. And then he says, I'll just try again tomorrow morning.

Adam Cox: Or just let Savanna do it.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. He just will not let her do it. So after he goes to bed, Savanna just jumps in. She fix it within five minutes, it's done.

No drama when Santiago wakes up the next morning, he's absolutely furious. And it is just so ironic that he seems to be the only one who seems to be bothered by women holding key roles on the boat. No one else cares, just him.

Adam Cox: So he felt probably undermined when it's like, it's my ship. Yeah. That's interesting. Does this happen [00:53:00] more and more often?

Kyle Risi: Oh yes, for sure. And this actually becomes a real big part of the criticism towards him. People just say that he has just been projecting his own insecurities, his own triggers for conflict into this experiment.

Interesting. Because he's the one who doesn't like females in these big horror roles.

And of course he documents everything in his journals. And this is how we know so much about what his thought process was. Throughout this. He makes tons of notes. He plots graphs and he plots the cruise, mood and feelings. even notes when the women are on their period, which he'll cross reference all of this with daily temperature changes. Mm-hmm. With the wave heights and the lunar cycle. At this point, he's basically doing astrology. Okay.

Because of course no violence has erupted, he is starting to get a little bit agitated. He writes in his journal, what if this doesn't lead to anything? Have I risked all of our lives for nothing? Is this going to be worth it? Now that I've obviously been disavowed by kind of the university.

Adam Cox: Yeah. But then in some ways would this still prove his study in terms of actually violence isn't inherent? Or actually people can get along with each other in [00:54:00] these extreme situations, but maybe that doesn't make for good reading

Kyle Risi: he just cannot see this as a result, he is so hell bent on proving that it is inherent that he won't accept any other result that isn't that.

Adam Cox: And then I guess because he has orchestrated this to a point to create tension in terms of the people he , has hired and also put into certain roles. He is expecting a hell of a lot more.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. He's clearly thought so much about those mechanisms that will trigger this violence So he must be thinking, well, how have I got us so wrong? So there's kind of like a pride element there,

Adam Cox: but has he actually discovered world peace? We just put all women into power and just make sure there's hot people everywhere and we'll be fine. Maybe.

Kyle Risi: Maybe that is the key. he gets to the point where Santiago decides that he needs to start nudging things along a bit. he sat the entire crew down and he told them that they were all becoming far too comfortable with each other.

He announces that they were gonna play a game of truth and he starts reading aloud everyone's sexual preferences from the notes and the questionnaires that he had them fill out on a weekly basis.

Adam Cox: I feel like that was [00:55:00] confidential.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. I feel like that was confidential. Remember, he asked questions like, who would you most wanna have sex with on the ship and who would you most wanna kick off the raft, right? Mm-hmm.

He reveals to everyone that Dr. Edna had said that she would most likely sleep with Jose Maria the stud on the ship. But then he reveals that Jose Maria said that he would like to kick Dr. Edna off the ship because she talked too much.

Adam Cox: Oh, scandal. Scandalous.

Kyle Risi: What a scumbag. Poor Edna.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Now do you wanna sleep with him? Hey, Edna. No. No, you don't.

Kyle Risi: The thing is though, he was expecting this to evoke some sort of reaction, § the crew, are just really sad about it. Actually, if anything

Adam Cox: was, she like, you're right, I do talk too much.

Kyle Risi: They were all really mature about it and they were like, let's talk this through.

Adam Cox: I will learn to do better.

Kyle Risi: Santiago's like, fuck.

Santiago Then starts pulling people aside and starts telling them what other people have been saying about them behind their backs, and then trying to encourage them to ~~kind of ~~go and confront them.

Mm-hmm. And say something about it. And to be fair, that's not really science.

Adam Cox: That shit stirring.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Because if violence does erupt, all [00:56:00] this proves is that he can manipulate a fight. That's all that proves.

Adam Cox: Yeah. It's like playground tactics

Kyle Risi: The crew start to see exactly what he's doing and they just flat out refuse to play along with his games.

So this time he just completely unprovoked. He throws a bucket of water in Mary Goodley's face just to get a reaction.

Adam Cox: And she just like, oh, thanks. I needed to like cool down.

Kyle Risi: I think she was probably, yeah, I think she's probably quite angry, but she just didn't rise up to it.

Adam Cox: Just buying her lip as if to go, Nope, not gonna quite cause a scene.

Kyle Risi: He also then starts racially insulting Faye saying that African American women are primitive thieves and lazy.

Adam Cox: Oh my God. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: The final straw comes when he anounces that they were all going to spend the entire day naked together. The thing is though, they hate him at this point, so being told that you are gonna be naked together is the creepiest thing anyone can tell you especially if it's from someone that you hate.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And well, do they do it because they signed the contract or do they ~~kind of like ~~go, no, we're not doing that?

Kyle Risi: I think they do because I've seen pictures of them spending the day [00:57:00] naked.

Adam Cox: I just would've thought, yeah, they would've done it anyway sort of thing. Mm-hmm. Although they probably didn't have like SPF back then.

Kyle Risi: No, I guess not.

Adam Cox: Burn buttocks. Yeah. That's not good. But, um, so they, they did it anyway.

Wow. It's kind of satisfying, I guess, for them. Were like, every time that they try and get provoked they're just like, Nope. Not rising to this.

Kyle Risi: And that is so ironic. Because with all the attempts to evoke anger amongst them all he manages to do is stir up anger towards himself.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And I guess maybe that is something he's discovered is people will like knit together and form that bond. Mm-hmm. When they know that there was just a troublemaker or a dick. Yep. In the group.

Kyle Risi: That's it. So the crews start holding these little gatherings on the roof of the raft while Santiago is just sulking alone with his journals.

This is where they conspire to kill him.

Adam Cox: What.

Oh,

okay. This has got dark pretty quickly .

Kyle Risi: so they brainstorm a bunch of ideas. One of them is that the Japanese cameraman will confront him during rough weather and make it look like he's fallen overboard.

But then he's like, why do [00:58:00] I need to be the one committing the murder? But they also realize that actually if they push him overboard, ' cause the raft doesn't move very fast, he can probably catch that, probably just kind of get back on board.

So next phase suggests that they steal some drugs from Dr. Edna and then together they'd all inject Santiago with something to stop his heart. That way they could all hold the syringe together and then plunge it into him as a group. That way, not a single person will be then culpable of his murder.

Adam Cox: Um, I thought these were quite a nice bunch of people, Uhhuh. Um, so maybe this trip has actually turned them a little bit crazy.

Kyle Risi: Listen, they are still a nice bunch of people because in the end they decide not to actually do it, but they do literally talk very openly about it.

This is in his journals.

Adam Cox: Oh. So they, they're like, oh, they're gonna kill me. It just turns out they spaten my food

Kyle Risi: and it's just hilarious because no matter what he does, he just cannot get them to show real violence. It's got to the point where they want to kill him and they still are refusing to show violence.

Adam Cox: I mean, they've had violent thoughts.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's different to actually showing violence, they [00:59:00] know how to restrain themselves. If anything, it just shows that they know how to unite, incorporate against him

Adam Cox: basically. Is it because he chose a bunch of hippies in the seventies where everyone was way more laid back, whereas if he did it now, people would be a lot, more agitated. Do you think so? Yeah, probably. I feel like

Kyle Risi: just put a couple Republicans and a couple Democrats on the ship together and that will be the end

Adam Cox: of it.

Just anyone? Yeah. Next door neighbor, you'd probably like kick off at them.

Kyle Risi: So at this point they've now been at Sea for three months. It's now taken way longer than expected. Which is a problem because every day that they are delayed, they are drawing closer to hurricane season. So Maria points us out and says that maybe they should consider ending the experiment and divert into one of the neighboring islands.

But Santiago insists that there is nothing to worry about, even though that she, she's the captain of the ship, Adam, so he's completely ignoring what she's saying.

That obviously doesn't go down well with her at all.

Tensions finally explode between them two. When one night during dinner, Maria has just had enough of his bullshit.

She stands up and in front of everyone, [01:00:00] demands to know what he wanted to gain from this experiment. In that instance, everyone just falls silent, looks to Santiago, because they all wanna know the answer to this question.

And Santiago just says, Maria, I wanna find a way to create peace on earth.

Cue the biggest eye roll in the world. Like everyone is laughing. He then retreats back to his bunk. He's completely humiliated.

And as they start approaching the Caribbean, they start heading into the direct path of an approaching hurricane.

And they are all petrified.

Santiago will not let Maria divert to a new nearby island saying that contacting civilization will contaminate the experiment. But he writes in his journal that the truth was that a dangerous hurricane might be exactly what they needed. Oh my God. To let the experiments evolve for the sake of science they had to continue.

Adam Cox: Could they not just done it anyway or tied them up or anything like that? Where , no, we're gonna go to this island.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I guess so. . Why couldn't they have just tied 'em up? There's 10 of them. Maria decides that she's actually gonna step down as [01:01:00] captain because she refuses to steer them into kinda the path of danger.

So Santiago takes the role of captain himself. It's a literal mutiny, basically. Yeah.

And sure enough, the storm hits, they lock down all the essentials. Santiago orders everyone to wrap up all his notebooks and his camera footage The crew have to take it upon themselves to wrap up all their food supplies and all the things that they need. 'Cause he just doesn't care about any of that. What a knob. The crew then huddled together in the tiny cabin that they've got. They're terrified that they're gonna capsize by some miracle. They make it through the night.

Meanwhile, Maria is seething that Santiago has UTI need against her, but he's gleeful because he is hoping that this is gonna evoke some kind of reaction that he's been waiting for. Again, it doesn't,

Adam Cox: yeah. It's just towards him like, yeah, the rest of the crew are fine.

Kyle Risi: Then one morning the crew members on lookout burst into the cabin. They're screaming because. A container ship is heading straight for them.

They frantically starts radioing them, begging them to change course because of course, remember They've got no motors.

They can't get out the [01:02:00] way, and Santiago, who's always claimed how dangerous situations are able to kinda reveal your true instincts. He's just running around in a full blown panic. He has no idea what to do. In the end, Maria has to leap into action. She organizes the whole crew. She tells someone to blast the RAF's horn.

She gets another person to fire off all their flares. She orders everyone else to just scream, frantically waving at them. And at the last second the container, ship sees them and narrowly veers away avoiding a collision altogether.

Adam Cox: That is so lucky. Jeez, so lucky.

Kyle Risi: they saved themselves thanks to Maria and so completely humiliated. Santiago reinstates her as captain and then he retreats to his bunk and sulks until they reach land.

And so it's really interesting that he wanted to know what people would do in dangerous situations. And the truth is that actually with the right leader, they actually work together and amazingly managed to all stay calm. That in itself is a really interesting result.

Adam Cox: Yeah. It feels like everything he's trying to prove, he's proving the opposite. So this is still quite a good study, I guess. it's just [01:03:00] not, Well, yeah. What he's trying to engineer. They've caught onto that and know that they can rise above it.

Kyle Risi: If he wanted people to panic, all he needed to do was recruit people who were unskilled like he was when he was trying to fix the rudder on the boat. Or trying to counter a captain the ship, because when he was in charge of those things everything just devolved into chaos.

Adam Cox: Yeah. That's interesting. So if he hadn't have appointed the right people in these roles, then it could have been another story. Yeah. And maybe it would've turned chaos. Maybe there would've been violence.

Kyle Risi: Sure. And I think that's a lot of the time violence erupts from, a lack of cooperation, right?

Mm-hmm. A good leader can help keep the peace and keep people cooperating. I think as human beings, that's what we are hardwired to do. And want to do.

Adam Cox: And it's easier to cooperate than it is to go against and get the rest of the team.

Kyle Risi: So while he's salkin in his bed, he does actually have a glimmer of realization of. his diary he writes, the only one has shown any kind of aggression is me the man trying to control everyone else, including himself. He says that this was the first time that he actually cried since he was a child.

But the thing is [01:04:00] though, given the stress, his reputation is now on the line. He's been disavowed by his university. He's been ridiculed in the media, it's not surprising that he crumbled.

He ended up losing a ton of weight. He grew increasingly more and more unkempt.

Honestly, to him, this experiment was now over all in all in acts of solidarity against a common enemy, the rest of the crew, they just completely shun him. And in the final weeks without his meddling, they actually work better than ever together.

Adam Cox: That's interesting. I guess you see that in society today when there, maybe not, but I feel like people do rally up when there is a common enemy or a common theme, whether it was covid, whether it was whatever it might be a person. But it does take that kind of extreme situation or issue to get people together, I think.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, for sure. And I think people do need, this idea of versus them kind of mentality. Because I think it's not that we need to have a common enemy, it's more like we need to feel like we belong to something and we are a unit. Yeah. And that just naturally creates the sense of like them versus us

Adam Cox: and doing something for the [01:05:00] greater good. I feel like people will, stick together.

Kyle Risi: So after 101 days at sea, they finally hit landfall in Mexico. Predictably, the media sensationalizes their arrival with headlines like bare chested men and Bikini Cloud women on a craft captain by a bucks and blonde

Adam Cox: filled with chlamydia.

Kyle Risi: Gross. Yes. Of course, as we know, the crew suspected that the media coverage of them was overly sexualized, but it's not until they actually arrive unsure that they actually grasp just how bad it was, which is really disappointing to them.

Because remember, they believe that they were doing something really meaningful. Santiago. He ends up complaining that in all the interviews that he does, 80% of the press questions were all sexually orientated. Which again is just ironic because 80% of the questions that he asked crew members were,

Adam Cox: here

Kyle Risi: you go, overly sexualized.

So you can't have it both ways.

Adam Cox: And he wanted them

Kyle Risi: all to spend the day naked. Exactly. Pervert.

So he set out to ask, can we live without war? Can people just get along? And it turns [01:06:00] out that the answer is yes. Even in spite of his manipulation, the crew all cooperated and found solidarity despite him setting them all up to do the complete opposite. Ironically, to me, this is the most interesting outcome of all of this.

Adam Cox: Yeah, but on the flip side of that, if Santiago didn't piss off the rest of the crew would something have would the cracks have shown in other ways? Oh,

Kyle Risi: Interesting. Possibly he should have just let it run its course.

He should have just let human behavior just do what it does rather than manufacturing the scenario. And also it ends up getting him really frustrated, which ends up fueling his meddling even more. Just causes the shit show.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Because his meddling actually reinforced people's behavior and how they wanted to behave.

Mm-hmm. So if he had let it just run its course, maybe it, it would happen differently. But even still, he still a dick.

Kyle Risi: Tragically though he doesn't see this as any kind of result at all. For him, this entire experiment was a complete failure.

In 1975 though, he [01:07:00] publishes a book titled The Ali Experiment. Five Men and six Women on a Raft Across The Atlantic for 101 days. It's a terrible title. it's Just too long. It reminds me of the compendium and Assembly of fascinating and intriguing things.

Adam Cox: He should have just called it Sex Raf.

Kyle Risi: Yes.

And Sex Cells. The Sunday Telegraph though they said that this book was a repositioning of his vague experiments as a historically significant discovery of a new man.

Ouch.

Adam Cox: Okay. So they're basically saying like he tried to do this really groundbreaking experiment, but actually it's not, people probably could have learn this other way.

Exactly.

Kyle Risi: Thanks to obviously the Japanese, cameraman. The experiment yielded eight hours of 16 millimeter footage, which he then ends up selling to a Mexican TV station who end up doing nothing with it and

Adam Cox: eight hours.

That doesn't feel like a lot in the grand scheme of things. I know it was the seventies. but eight hours, they were away for a hundred days. That's true. I'm like, what was he doing most of the time?

'cause he wasn't [01:08:00] filming Fucking in sucking. That's

no,

Kyle Risi: But the footage is finally resurrected in a 2019 documentary called The Raft, directed by Swedish filmmaker Marcus Lind. And the film actually reunited seven of the surviving crew members.

43 years later. Sadly Santiago, he doesn't appear. He's still alive at this point though. But the fact that they managed to gather them all for this documentary is just an absolute miracle because Santiago changed all of their names in his writings and his books and things like that.

So identifying who most of them were was just completely impossible. They almost all got lost to history.

For the documentary, they build a wooden replica of the original craft. And so all the survivors can come along and they can walk around and they reminisce about kind of their experience.

They're pointing out where their sleeping bags were ~~kind of ~~positioned, and of course how they would poop over the edge of the raft.

Adam Cox: And the fact that they did it there and there and there, and there and there.

Kyle Risi: This is where Dr. Edna goes, how many people did you sleep with? And she's like, many, many, many, many. Everybody. Everyone including the fish.

And it is [01:09:00] really beautifully shot and it's also really moving. And interestingly though, Santiago, he went on to co-author the 1986 surreal statement on violence. It was signed by 19 other scientists and declared that violence and war are actual social constructs, not biologically determined.

So this is a complete U-turn from what he originally set out to prove. Mm-hmm. Like he finally accepted, he finally looks at this study and went, actually, there's a really good result here.

The key takeaways in that statement were that humans do not have an inherent tendency for war from animal ancestors. While animals might fight. Organized warfare seems to be unique to human beings.

They also agree that while our brains have the capacity for different ranges of behaviors, context plays a significant role in how we act they agree that war isn't caused by an instinct or a single motivation. It's more of a complex social phenomena influenced by various factors.

Adam Cox: Territory, typically,

Kyle Risi: and [01:10:00] ovulating women.

Adam Cox: Fair enough. Do you know what I think we should do? I think there's a few people we could put on a raft in the world right now.

Kyle Risi: Donald Trump for one. I dunno if he's, he's not. Do you think he's turning a corner?

Adam Cox: Dunno if he's turning a Do you think he's redeeming himself? I mean, there's a few other people that are probably in the middle of a war that we could put on their first

Kyle Risi: that's true. But I think Donald Trump has probably got the potential to cause a massive civil war in America. So definitely put him on the raft.

Adam Cox: Yeah. He actually, I think he probably would start a fight on a, on a raft

Kyle Risi: like he would start a fight. But like I, I reckon he would just crumble. He'd be like, no, someone hit me in the face. Yeah. There's no WATS back then.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So the point is that Santiago does sort of redeem himself. he ends up winning the Pope John the 23rd Memorial International Peace Prize in the 1980s and is also even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

So he completely redeems himself. He does, however, die in 2013 at the age of 89, which to me is a pretty good innings for a guy whose crew at one point literally conspired to murder him.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Thankfully they didn't. I don't know if they would've got away with that.

Kyle Risi: I dunno if they would've.

[01:11:00] No. Unless they got rid of his body. Who knows? And Adam, that is the story of the Ali Experiment . for this episode title, I'm definitely gonna be jamming in the word sex in there somewhere, because, you know, sex else

Adam Cox: just dunno where yet, dunno where you're jamming it in

Kyle Risi: that this will be the reason why our listeners listen to this episode is because there's the word sex in there.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Not because of like this, survival story on the seas. A hundred days. Uh, no thanks.

Kyle Risi: Oh, well this, this one on a sec.

Adam Cox: That was, uh, interesting. A bit surreal. Can't really believe it happened.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. One of the earliest Big Brother episodes.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Ever. ~~Um, I mean, ~~maybe they should do a spinoff of Love Island.

But yeah, that feels like a TV show now. And the fact that it was real life back in the seventies. Mm-hmm. That is, yeah. Surreal.

Kyle Risi: Would you go on the voyage?

Adam Cox: No, no. I'm not pooping off the side of a

Kyle Risi: Oh yeah. Shit. Yeah.

Yeah. I would die 101 days and no pooping. I would've exploded.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: I don't think any mooing to Poo would've helped because you're still in front of other people. I [01:12:00] can do the MO to Poo and I know that will help, but doing the mo to poo in front of other people,

Adam Cox: I reckon if you'd have to say to everyone, can everyone moo with me just so I don't feel like the odd one out?

Kyle Risi: When I was doing the oo in Australia, there was a mirror in there and I could see what I was doing and I was ashamed.

Adam Cox: Did you not shut your eyes?

Kyle Risi: I,

Adam Cox: No, I did. No, I looked straight into my, I made eye contact with myself.

Kyle Risi: Look at me, look at me. So should we run the outro for this week?

Let's do it. And so that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and Assembly are fascinating things. We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.

Adam Cox: And if today's episode sparks your curiosity, then please do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcast app. It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people discover the show.

Kyle Risi: And for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget, the next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon. And as always, it is completely free to access.

Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then join our certified freak steer to unlock the entire [01:13:00] archive and delve into exclusive content and get a sneak peek at what's coming next. We'd love for you to join our growing community.

Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember, sometimes the most chaotic thing in an experiment isn't the subjects. It's the scientists running it.

See you next time.

Adam Cox: See ya.