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CYBER

Operation Underground Railroad, Psychic Intelligence, and ‘The Sound of Freedom’

CYBER

VICE

Tech News, News & Politics, Technology, News

4645 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2023

⏱️ 70 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This summer, a movie called The Sound of Freedom took America by storm. The hero was Tim Ballard, the founder of an organization called Operation Underground Railroad. The movie depicted Ballard as an avenging hero who rescued trafficked children from a life of slavery. The truth, we’re all finding out, is something more complicated and a lot less heroic.


Ballard left the organization around the time Sound of Freedom premiered, following an investigation into his sexual misconduct. It’s a wild story involving the The Church of Latter Day Saints, a psychic channeling the Prophet Nephi, and serious criminal investigations.


Here to tell us about it are Vice’s own Anna Merlan and Tim Marchman.


Stories discussed in this episode:


Mormon Church Denounces Tim Ballard’s “Morally Unacceptable” Activities


Tim Ballard’s Departure From Operation Underground Railroad Followed Sexual Misconduct Investigation


‘Sound of Freedom’ Producer Felt the Naked Breasts of Apparently Underage Trafficking Victim


Operation Underground Railroad Child-Rescue Missions Were Based on Psychic Intelligence


We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 


Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Tannan, it's got the code it's going to launch.

0:10.7

It's a unit system.

0:13.1

I know this.

0:15.1

It's how all the files of the whole park.

0:17.3

It tells her everything.

0:19.1

Sir, he's uploading the virus.

0:21.8

Eagle one.

0:22.6

The package is being delivered.

0:26.8

Hello out there on the internet.

0:28.6

Welcome to cyber.

0:30.1

This summer, a movie called Sound of Freedom took America by storm.

0:33.9

The hero was Tim Ballard, the founder of an organization called Operation Underground Railroad.

0:38.8

The movie depicted Ballard as an avenging hero who rescued traffic children from a life of

0:43.2

slavery. But the truth we're all finding out is something a lot more complicated and a lot

0:48.4

less heroic. Ballard left the organization around the time that Sound of Freedom premiered

0:53.6

following an investigation into his sexual misconduct.

0:56.7

It's a wild story involving the LDS Church, a psychic channeling the prophet Nephi, and some serious criminal investigations.

1:04.0

With us here to tell it, are Vice's own Anna Merlin and Tim Marchman.

1:08.0

This has been a pretty big week for Anna and Tim, you're reporting on Operation

1:16.9

Underground Railroad, the LDS Church. So let's talk about some of these scoops. I think the best way to start out here is really just going back to the beginning and just getting some basic clarifications.

1:34.8

So who is Tim Ballard and what is Operation Underground Railroad for those who aren't familiar?

1:43.7

Do you want to take that, Anna, or should I?

...

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