Hey, this is Scott and you’re listening to What Was That Like.
And the name of the podcast, What Was That Like, was chosen very specifically – because that’s what I ask people who are guests on the show. They’ve just been through something really unusual, like being attacked by a monkey, or saving the life of a stranger, or some other crazy situation. And I ask them to tell all of us – what was that like. All the details. So that’s what we do here, every other Friday.
But sometimes I like to find someone who has a really unusual job, and ask them the same question.
Today I’m talking to Scott Payne. For many years, he worked for the FBI as an undercover agent. He would pretend to be a criminal, in order to join white supremacist groups or biker gangs – including the notorious Outlaws group. As you can imagine, this guy has some stories.
I asked him lots of questions about this job, and then he answered a few questions from What Was That Like listeners. He’s an open book, and I learned some things, and I hope you do too. Please enjoy this conversation with undercover FBI agent, Scott Payne.
Scott socials:
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/scottpaynebigcountry/
X – https://x.com/Scott_D_Payne
Scott’s book – Code Name: Pale Horse: How I Went Undercover to Expose America’s Nazis
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1668032902
Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/214
Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.
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Episode transcript (download transcript PDF):
Hey, this is Scott and you’re listening to What Was That Like.
And the name of the podcast, What Was That Like, was chosen very specifically – because that’s what I ask people who are guests on the show. They’ve just been through something really unusual, like being attacked by a monkey, or saving the life of a stranger, or some other crazy situation. And I ask them to tell all of us – what was that like. All the details. So that’s what we do here, every other Friday.
But sometimes I like to find someone who has a really unusual job, and ask them the same question.
Today I’m talking to Scott Payne. For many years, he worked for the FBI as an undercover agent. He would pretend to be a criminal, in order to join white supremacist groups or biker gangs – including the notorious Outlaws group. As you can imagine, this guy has some stories.
I asked him lots of questions about this job, and then he answered a few questions from What Was That Like listeners. He’s an open book, and I learned some things, and I hope you do too. Please enjoy this conversation with undercover FBI agent, Scott Payne.
Scott Johnson
Did you know from your childhood that you wanted to be in law enforcement?
Scott Payne
No. I did always like being the good guy, but I also liked being a member of the KISS band for four or five Halloweens in a row. So, I’m not sure where the cop thing fell in there.
Scott Johnson
The KISS band?
Scott Payne
Yeah
Scott Johnson
Are you talking about Knights in Satan’s Service?
Scott Payne
Something like that, yes. I have had the guy on the bullhorn outside in Greenville, South Carolina, saying, “If you go through those front doors, you’re going to hell.” And I’m like, I’ll see you when I come out because I’m going in.
Scott Johnson
When I was a teenager, KISS was– they were the devil.
Scott Payne
Yeah.
Scott Johnson
Alright, I know you first realized that you had a kind of a knack for undercover work when you were in high school. How did that happen?
Scott Payne
Looking back, it’s really like doing this book process. Looking back, somebody’s like, “When do you remember really doing undercover?” And I’m like, “Well, technically, it wasn’t undercover because I was still Scott Payne.” But the story I tell in the book is just my first two years of high school. There was a vice principal at my high school, Lloyd Walker. I felt like he didn’t like me at all but, after a few incidents towards my last two years, we ended up laughing and joking all the time. I guess he saw something in me – that I had the ability to connect with all kinds of people, not pretending to be them. I just had the ability to connect with people because, in the 80s, I mean, we had a smoking area, so I could go hang out with smokers. We had potheads. I could hang out with them. Jocks– I was a jock. Musician– I was a musician.
He saw that, and it turns out that his house got– he got a lot of malicious damage done to his vehicle and his house – not just toilet paper stuff. It was, like, spray paint, key in the car, scratching–
Scott Johnson
Actual crimes.
Scott Payne
Yeah. It’s going to cost money. You’ve actually damaged somebody’s property. He called me into his office and was like– the long and short of it is he’s like, “Hey, did you hear about what happened?” I was like, “Yeah, well, I drove past the house, I saw it.” And he’s like, “You think you could help me try to figure out who did it?” I didn’t like what they did to him, and I’m like, “Yeah, that’s wrong.” So that’s why that story’s in the book. I started looking back, and I was already working the circles going in and trying to figure out, “Hey man, did you hear about what happened to Mr. Walker?” “Oh yeah, man.” You just kind of fill in the crowd. There was one guy that I settled down on. Every time I’d bring it up, man, his whole body composition would change – his face. He would kind of duck down, look away. He was just totally not his baseline, and he would just kind of back away and disappear, and I’m like, “He knows something.”
Scott Johnson
He didn’t have a good poker face.
Scott Payne
No, terrible. He was clearly uncomfortable and wanted to leave the conversation. I don’t know if they ever charged him or not, but that was kind of it. A lot of people say gift of gab. Yeah, I’m a talker, but do you have to be a talker and have a gift of gab to be an undercover? No, you have to have that to be a law enforcement officer. First responder, no. For me, I felt like it helped me a lot because, at the end of the day, even as a first responder, you’re trying to go talk to people you’ve probably never met. You’re trying to have a conversation and gather information.
Scott Johnson
Yeah. And you’re obviously good at that.
Scott Payne
Connect– you’re trying to connect to people.
Scott Johnson
Your book– it’s called Pale Horse and we’re going to talk about that in a minute. Actually, how did you come up with that name?
Scott Payne
It’s not as glamorous as you would think. Every title we tried to come up with was already taken. “The infiltrator”, “The pretender”, “Deep cover into the abyss”, whatever you can think of, all of them are– yeah. And they’re not used on good books or stories either. Some of them are just bad, and I’m like, “Oh, come on.” But somewhere in the process, my code name, my moniker, a lot of the groups I infiltrated, they’re pretty big on operational security and anonymity. So, even a gang, I was Tex, or I might be Big Country, or I might be whatever. In that group, when I infiltrated that white supremacy group, I went in as White Warrior. But quickly, somewhere in there, I changed my moniker with their permission to Pale Horse, and that was who I was for that accelerations group called The Base, and we chose that for the title.
Scott Johnson
And using the color or the name part of it – pale, is that related to white and because it was a white supremacy group?
Scott Payne
No, it’s actually the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Scott Johnson
Oh, it’s one of those, okay. Right. Okay.
Scott Payne
It’s a revelation, end-of-time Four Horsemen, and on the Pale Horse is death. It’s the grim reaper.
Scott Johnson
The opening scene in your book is about when you were trying to join this organization called The Base. This is a white supremacist group, but it’s different from The Clan. Two questions. How are they different and what happened on that day in that opening scene?
Scott Payne
Well, let’s talk about their ideologies. A lot of times, in any extremist movement, whether it’s far right extremism, far left extremism, radical jihadist extremism, a lot of times, you’ll find that they’ll take some form of faith and they’ll twist it to meet their ideology. So, for many years, a lot of your white supremacy groups followed this thing called Christian Identity, not to be confused with Christianity at all. They take the story of the Garden of Eden in the Bible and they just twist it through their ideology. In other words, for them, the fruit of the forbidden tree is now a sexual act with the serpent who is Satan and a man of color, and the offspring between that sexual intercourse is Cain, who is not the pure white race, and it’s just all twisted. So that was around for a long time.
Then, you have your neo-Nazis. KKK is not neo-Nazi necessarily. Neo-Nazi is what it means. You’ve had the Christian Identity neo-Nazis with the Aryan Nations. That was Reverend Butler, Red Ray Fair, and all those– I hate to say historical, but not like they need a monument or anything in the white supremacy movement. Then you get things like what we found with The Base is accelerationism. It was relatively new as far as being called accelerationism, although the ideology was around in the 80s – they just didn’t really call it that. So accelerationism goes like this. They don’t believe that there’s a political solution to save the white race, which means they don’t like any government. So no political solution to save the white race. And they believe that society is either going to collapse on its own or from manmade events, and they want to speed that up. They want society to collapse so they can have Hitler’s Germany. And much like any extremist belief, it usually ends with some type of ethnostate for white supremacy. It’s going to be all whites, and that’s what that is. They want to speed up the collapse of society through more, like, guerrilla warfare tactics, which would just be small hits everywhere. In other words, you’re not going to see an accelerationist standing on the corner, waving flags, marching up and down the street screaming racial slurs. Number one, they don’t think that does anything good. It’s a waste of time. Number two, it makes them a target to be doxed and outed. They want to do things like poison a water system, take down a power grid, derail a train, murder people…
Scott Johnson
Terrorism.
Scott Payne
Yes. And if you want to go darker, out of accelerationism, you have groups like the Order of Nine Angles and other groups like that are going even deeper. That’s the Satanic white supremacy that is big on sexual abuse, rape, and pedophilia. It’s not that good.
Scott Johnson
Not very nice people.
Scott Payne
No, not at all.
Scott Johnson
That opening scene in the book, can you just take us through what happened there?
Scott Payne
Sure. By this time, I’m long in the tooth, as they say – senior investigator, senior undercover. The Base had come on our radar, I think, initially from our world working partners – the UK, Australia, places like that – because they’re seeing it there too, because the internet and the dark web allow you to be across the planet. So they came on our radar, and I know that some case teams were working it, and I just happened to be there on the ground level for domestic terrorism kind of undercovers and cases. I got the option to do it and I said yes. So, in order to get into their group– they were actively recruiting. So first, I started answering emails, and then I’m told to download the Wire app, and I do an hour and 15 minute panel interview on a phone call on an encrypted app with members of The Base.
24 hours later, I find out that they want me in the group. Of course, I tell them that I want in the group. So what happens at the opening of the book is we’re talking about– I’ve gone through all those weeks of emails, the interview, I said I was based out of Tennessee, and they said the closest cell– I got a country accent, so C-E-L-L. I’ve got to always spell it out because who knows? Was it like a going-out-of-business sale? No, it’s a C-E-L-L cell.
Scott Johnson
Like in a spreadsheet?
Scott Payne
Yeah, like a spreadsheet. So they said the closest cell to me was in North Georgia, and I would be contacted by the leader of that cell. So I get contacted, and they’re like, “Hey, when can we do a meet face to face?” So we set it up – I think it was in August 2019. I drove down. They tell me where they want me to park. They tell me to take a picture of the statue in the downtown area and send it to them, and say all these things.
Scott Johnson
Why take a picture? Just to prove that you were actually there?
Scott Payne
I guess, but clearly they’re watching me. That’s why they tell me where to park and I tell them what I’m driving.
Scott Johnson
Okay. Right.
Scott Payne
As the FBI and the task forces, we don’t know how many people they’ve got. We don’t know really who we’re meeting. We know that I’m meeting a guy who uses the moniker, The Militant Buddhist (TMB), but I didn’t know if he was coming along or not. So I met the case team. Just for the listeners that don’t understand, I’m based out of a field office division, but I’m now going to the Atlanta Division’s territory, and one of their satellite offices in Rome, Georgia meets me. That’s the first time I met them face to face. We talked on the phone, but I pulled into a cemetery where they said to meet him, which I thought was pretty ominous. I’m like, “Why are you trying to send me a message? Why are we meeting at a cemetery to start this thing? I don’t know if that’s a good omen or not.” But, of course, they say, “Hey man, do you mind if we put a tractor on your vehicle?” I said, “No, not at all.” Because again, we don’t know where we’re going. They don’t want to lose me because they’re my cover team. I don’t want them to lose me, and they slap a tracker on.
So I go and, now, I’m at the point where I’ve found a parking spot. I texted TMB and said, “Hey, I’m here. I’m in this vehicle.” Sent him a picture of the statue from downtown Rome, Georgia. He said something like, “Hey, okay, I see you coming up.” So I see TMB walk up with another guy who ends up being Pestilence – also a Four Horseman, which kind of gave me my inspiration for Pale Horse.
Scott Johnson
Okay. Were you Pale Horse at that time?
Scott Payne
No. I came in as White Warrior, an old white guy. I was neo-Nazi 1.0 because I was all tattooed up and I looked more like the original neo-Nazis, not like them today. So they come walking up. Of course, in my mind, doing what I’ve done, I know I’m going to get checked. I mean, if they’re good, they’re going to check me. So he comes up and says, “Hey man, put your cell on airplane mode” and I put it in airplane mode. No big deal. He pulls out this wand that I’ve never seen. I wasn’t rusty. I mean, it’s just something I’d never seen. It had a triangle card in it. It had all these lights. And I’m like, “What is that thing?” I ended up finding out that the piece of equipment at that point in time costs $500 and it picks up all kinds of signals and breaks them down by sound and color and everything. He wands me. No big deal. I’m cool.
Now, he starts doing the truck. He does the inside of the truck and he starts walking towards the back driver’s side which, somewhere up in there, is where they place the tracker. This thing starts making all kinds of rackets and I’m watching it happen in real time, and I’m going, “Oh, this thing picks up the tracker. Whatever signal that tracker’s putting off, whether it’s a cell phone, wifi, whatever, it’s picking it up.”
Scott Johnson
And you weren’t expecting for them to have that technology.
Scott Payne
No. And shame on me. I mean, maybe I should’ve known, but again, at the moment you’re like, “Well, this is okay. I wasn’t expecting that. What am I going to do now?” And as he’s walking towards the back of that truck, it starts getting louder and the lights start going off. And I’m like, “Oh man, I even dropped my right leg back nonchalantly, hopefully, but I’m getting in a stance because I’m probably getting ready to fight. I don’t know what’s getting ready to happen, but I don’t see great things. I’m preparing for the worst. Right about the time he’s getting to it, Scott, Pestilence said, “Hey, you think it could be the power lines? Because we were on a hill and the power lines were pretty low. The way they’re angled at that part of the telephone pole, they were kind of low. So he stops at my truck, walks over, and it goes nuts. And he’s like, “Damn it. Yeah, man. It is the power lines. Hey, follow us to another location.”
So now, I can bring my heart rate down. I’m like, “All right.” And now, going to this other undisclosed location, I’m now calling the cover team whom I just met, and I’m like, “Hey, you need to shut this thing off.” They’re concerned because they’re like, “Well, we’re not sure if we shut it off remotely, can we get it back on?” And they don’t want to lose me.
Scott Johnson
Right. Because you’re going to be on your own if that happens.
Scott Payne
Yeah. And I’m like, “I hear you, but I’m telling you, if you don’t shut it off, this is going to be a very fast undercover because whatever he has in his hand, it is reading it, and they almost found it.” They were able to shut it off, and I lived to fight another day, so they say.
Scott Johnson
Obviously, you were really good at controlling your expressions, even though your heart– I mean, I’m sure you had some adrenaline going right then.
Scott Payne
Yes. Yeah, because it is – the whole adrenaline dump – like fight or flight, maybe not as bad as I’ve had in other situations, but still your mind is racing because you’re trying to stay 4 or 5 steps ahead of them, be prepared for whatever they’re sending to me, and I don’t know what they’re going to throw at me. I just need to be prepared to catch it.
Scott Johnson
Is the Clan still powerful or influential?
Scott Payne
Powerful and influential? I don’t know. Are they around? Yes. What I’ve seen personally working that type of stuff is just all kinds of infighting. They’ll have a group and then, somewhere, the powers start struggling, and there’s infighting and then they divide this. So let’s just say we’re Nashville or we’re the clan of Tennessee. Then we get in a fight and now, okay, now we’re the Nashville clan. Then, they get in a fight and they’re like, “Okay, well now I’m Mount Juliet and you’re Lebanon.” And it just gets busted up, from my experience.
Scott Johnson
When you’re doing this, what really is dangerous work? You are married and you have young children. I’m wondering – you were working for the FBI – did the bureau give you any training on how to balance work and personal? How did you navigate that?
Scott Payne
I will say no for the most part. When you get certified as an undercover, there are people in there teaching. I spoke and taught at the undercover school. I started role-playing at the undercover school in 2003 up until the time I retired. During that entire 23 years, I’ve probably missed a handful of schools. So if you have somebody teaching something that they’ve learned from those mistakes, then you could get that training. I don’t necessarily remember it. I’m sure somebody said something, but it’s not policy. That’s what I should say – it’s not policy, it’s not in the manual, but we do have–
Part of the undercover platform, the National Covert Operations section, is the Undercover Safeguard Unit. Safeguard is set up for the psychological assessments of active undercovers and a slew of other things because, once they start and then it’s like, “Hey, we’ve got agents that are looking at crimes against children, looking at innocent images. They should be assessed. Safeguard, you do it.” So they’re inundated. They’re completely swamped with doing assessments. But through that assessment process, if you’re having issues with the family and stuff and you’re honest, they’re supposed to be there to see that, help you or tell you need to take a break and pull you from undercover work, but it’s all for your mental wellbeing and huge on family. Huge on your family.
Scott Johnson
Somebody in your position, I would imagine you don’t want to take a break from your work because you’re investing your time and you enjoy it really. I mean, most people, I don’t think would want to admit, “Yeah, I guess I need to take a break.” I would think the attitude would be, “I feel fine. I can keep going.” So, they probably have to try to kind of see through that – to what’s really going on.
Scott Payne
Yes. And you are 100% correct. Type A personalities, which is a lot of your first responders, if not all. Yeah, we have a hard time, and it still happens today. I mean, first responders – and I’m including military in this – we’re number one for suicide, we’re number one for divorce, we’re number one for alcoholism and throw pills or whatever you want in there now. I don’t know if we’re still number one, but we were always very high for dying within five years after we retired. So who signs up for that? That’s not the number one you want to be.
But if you’re going into Safeguard and you’re not being honest and you’re gaming the system because you know what answers as far– let me explain how the process goes. You go in and you take a bunch of psychological tests, a multitude of them that put numbers into a graph kind of thing. Then, you sit down with a clinical psychologist. They may be an actual FBI agent or they just may be contracted to work there. Then after that, you’re going to sit down with somebody who’s a seasoned undercover, which would be a counselor. But you go in and you try to BS Joe Pistone who helped create that unit. It was him and another agent who created the Safeguard process after everything he went through. It’s that old saying, “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.” It’s kind of hard to UC a UC. We use UC as a verb in our world. So it’s hard to UC a UC, and that’s what it’s set up for. But yes, you’re correct. It’s hard for us to say no. At least, it was for me. I could speak for myself. It’s hard to say no, and it led to my demise at one point in my career and I had to learn from it.
Scott Johnson
I’m always curious about this. The finances of being like a biker gang member – the questions that come to my mind is do they ever have an actual job? What’s their primary way of making money? Is it – I’m thinking about the Sopranos – like a mafia arrangement where individuals make money and then they kick it up to the higher-ups? Or do they have actual legitimate businesses that they launder the money through?
Scott Payne
I would say, I’m not even going to say D) all of the above. It’s a case-by-case basis. Some of them have legit jobs. They work 9 to 5. They may have done time, they may have not done time. But let me give you an example – the Outlaws case that we worked in Massachusetts. So the two towns that are really close to each other are Brockton and Taunton. So, Brockton, both of those towns had a chapter. They had an Outlaws chapter. So the Brockton chapter was made up of some older guys, and most of them had full-time jobs. As I was saying, they might have done time, they might not have, and they might be going, “Hey, quit bringing this heat to us.” I mean, other than some street-level stuff, maybe they do a little cocaine themselves or something, or smoke a little weed back when it was a big deal, stuff like that. But you go over to Taunton, the next town over, and out of 13 or so Outlaws, only one and a half really had a job. One had a towing company and the other one was a tattoo artist and piercer. I say half because I didn’t think he worked full-time. Everybody else in that chapter, straight thug. It was robberies, home invasions, extortions, carjackings, dealing dope, things like that.
So if you’re an investigator and you’re getting these crimes, our arrow is going to start pointing towards that chapter. So I would say it’s a case-by-case basis. But in the one percenter biker club world, yeah, you have to pay your dues. I don’t think it’s as much as paying your dues for mafia stuff but similar. There’s a hierarchy for sure.
Scott Johnson
It just seems like it would be kind of out of place if a group of them said, “Okay, we’re going to do this job tonight. It’s 2:00 AM and we’re going to do whatever.” And one of them says, “I got to get to work in the morning. I can’t be out all night.” But that’s the restriction though.
Scott Payne
Yeah, that’s good. That’s a good way to look at it. But if you are already a past member, and it’s tough to– because there are so many avenues we could go down, but as long as you’re paying your dues and– again, they like to say anonymity. “Oh, we don’t discuss business. We don’t know.” And what that’s really for is to thwart law enforcement and to stop you from being caught up in a conspiracy because you’re like, “Oh man, I didn’t know. That’s just those two dudes.” Well, if that’s the case, then how did the head of the Outlaws motorcycle association, the national president, find out that working on a Taunton in Brockton were going to be working this drug deal? And that’s where the order came to pull me into the basement and strip me, which kind of goes against the argument of the organization. I mean, it kind of goes against the argument of being a one percenter. I mean, the whole thing where one percenter started was, I think it was 47 – somewhere around there. But a lot of your military guys were coming back from war, and they didn’t have anything to do. So they were creating these biker clubs, and they were doing some raucous and nefarious things. The president of the American Motorcycle Association came out and said, “Listen, 99% of all motorcycle riders are good law-abiding citizens. It’s only the 1% that’s bad.” And they took that as a badge of honor. So if you’re a one percenter, it kind of goes, I’m not saying you’re all breaking the law, but it kind of goes with the territory. Right? I’m an Outlaw.
Scott Johnson
There was one person that you talked about in the book nicknamed Clothesline, and you became good friends with him. How much does it bother you that, eventually, you’re going to betray that friendship?
Scott Payne
Again, case-by-case basis, as I said before, but that’s the big thing with undercover. Well, there are a lot of things I undercover, but this is a huge deal. Essentially, the definition of being an undercover is that you’re going to be creating and building relationships that you’re most likely going to betray. I’ve been undercover many times. I’ve been a part of or seen other cases that start as undercovers. You’re undercover for five months with a group. You’ve infiltrated it, you’re in there, and at the end of five months, I go to the team and go, “They’re not doing anything illegal. I mean, they’re pro-gun, they’re pro-God.”
Scott Johnson
Well, that was boring.
Scott Payne
Well, I mean, we did what we had to do. We did our job. You had the right reasons to open the investigation. You had the predication. You had people reporting stuff. We got in there and they’re not doing anything illegal, so I’m out. That’s fine. But there have been cases for me, and even though it’s in our training, “Look, that’s not your friend. They don’t really like Scott Calloway. I mean, I’m sorry, they like Scott Calloway. They don’t know Scott Payne. They like this guy. They don’t like the FBI undercover guy.” But again, with me, there are people I put in jail. We’re still friends. I’m not dehumanizing them. I committed all kinds of crimes. I just didn’t get arrested and convicted. Had I been, I would’ve never been a cop. So there’s not a lot of hate from me on that.
So the thing with the undercover stuff, back to your question, is you need to figure out how you’re going to rationalize it in your mind to be able to do that and then not have an adverse impact on your psyche. But at the end of the day, I am human. As I say in the book, there was a scene in there, a scene like a movie – it plays like a movie in my head, there was a time where he was one of the ones that took me down in the basement and stripped me at gunpoint when I was wired and they almost found it. At a year and a half in, he doesn’t show up to do the deal, so Clothesline and I have a beef because he didn’t show up. I’m not saying that’s right, that I took it personally, but it played into the story of real-life events and when I finally did meet him face to face after that. It’s hard to say betrayal cause I betrayed him too.
We had a conversation and I thought we might be getting ready to go to blows or whatever. I’m like, “All right, here I am. I’m upset. Hey, you didn’t show up. You had enough cajones to bring me into a basement, strip me at gunpoint and you’re not even going to show up?” And what he told me is that the order came from the top for him to do it. He was the enforcer. He didn’t want to do it. He told him that he had already done multiple criminal things with me and wasn’t in jail, but he had to do it anyway. The story he told me was that he felt so bad for doing that to me that night. He just got depressed and hammered, trashed drunk drugs, whatever, all the above. But he was so trashed, he never woke up and slept through the whole thing. He told me that he considered me a really good friend, and he knew that I’d take a bullet for him. In my mind, I’m thinking, “Man, I’m a dick. because he trusted me.” But I’m also in work mode.” He was doing illegal things. Had he not been doing anything illegal, it would’ve been no big deal other than I’d told him I was a site survey specialist and a criminal when I really wasn’t. But yeah, it’s tough. It’s not all cakes and pies, that’s for sure.
Scott Johnson
One thing you mentioned in the book is that, sometimes, after an arrest, you might often hear the person say, “I knew you were a cop the whole time!” What’s the psychology behind that?
Scott Payne
Denial? I don’t know. Was it the first step in but the 12-step program – denial? But yeah, you hear it all the time. “Oh, I knew you were undercover.”
“You did?”
“Yeah!”
“And you sold me cocaine for a year and a half?”
“Hell, I liked you, Scott.” I’m not sure I’m buying that. I don’t know if they just don’t want to admit that they got caught or whatever. Some of those same people will call me after they’ve been arrested. They will call the number they have for me – which was my undercover phone, which I never shut off. Right at the end of the case, I left it on for what if I’m getting threatened or whatever, and I get a drunk dial, “Hey, it’s ya boy. I just want you to know, man. I know you are just doing your job, brother. I love you.” And I’d be like, “I love you too, man.”
Scott Johnson
That says a lot about how you connect with people.
Scott Payne
I think so. I’m seeing it more now. I was just being me and working. I mean, I’m telling my age by this, but it reminds me of the Bugs Bunny cartoon. It’s like the coyote and the sheepdog show up in the morning. They clock in. The coyote tries to get the sheep all day long. The sheepdog defends the sheep. At the end of the day, they clock out. Morning Sam. Morning Ralph. It’s just like, “Hey, it’s just part of business.”
Scott Johnson
Just doing a job.
Scott Payne
Yeah.
Scott Johnson
I want to ask you about the case of Travis Dale Brady. He got fired from his job. He wanted to murder two people in retaliation, and you were hired as the “hit man”. How did that go down?
Scott Payne
I had already done work for the Columbia Field office, FBI division. I’d done some work for them on some other domestic terrorism type cases, so I had a working relationship with the supervisor and a lot of the agents that were working that. They called me up because, originally, in the Travis Brady case, they had another undercover that approached him without me – I wasn’t even around – and they are great. They are great undercovers. It’s just, for whatever reason, it didn’t work. I can’t remember why but that case team had another opportunity through somebody else, and my job was to just text. I said, “You want me to just text him?” And they’re like, “Yeah, he’s expecting you to text. He’s very suspicious. He doesn’t like to talk on the phone.”
So I’m thinking, okay, I’m going to text this guy and I’m going to be, like, super secretive. I’m going to come in, like, really tough. “Hey buddy, you know what I’m here for?” Blah, blah. Things like that. Almost immediately, Scott, he texted me back in emoji of an explosion, “Yes, yeah, I want to kill these people.” I guess we can start, like, talking now. I don’t know why you think texting is not as protected as talking on the phone. Originally, he wanted to blow up the Michelin plant in, I think it’s Simpsonville, but it’s around Greenville County, South Carolina. He wanted to blow up the plant. Then, he narrowed it down to just a black couple, husband and wife. He was kind of blaming them for him losing his job.
We got down in the weeds. I was going to provide him with a bomb because that’s what he wanted. We got into the weeds of how big the explosion would be. Didn’t want to hurt the other houses. He would like it to explode when they opened it to make sure they carried it inside the house kind of thing. I was dealing with bomb technicians saying, “Hey, can we do this?” when I say I want it to be believable kind of thing. It was a package that was going to explode when light hit it. So the bomb would explode when light hit it. That was the kind of thing. It came down to us meeting to hand off the bomb. Then, for one reason or another, whether he got cold feet or not that day, it was a lot of him having and running around with me driving around with a fictitious– it’s an inert bomb in my truck, but it did have traces of C4 on it. Only thing I’m thinking is knowing my luck. I’m going to get lost by the cover team. I’m going to get pulled over by somebody with a bomb sniffing dog. I’m going to go to jail telling them I’m an actual FBI, but I don’t have anything on me that says FBI. Could you call the Columbia division?
But yeah, he was delivered the bomb the next day. He picked it up the next day and was going to mail it. And then they took him down.
Scott Johnson
You hear so many times people want to have their spouse murdered or something like that, and they meet somebody who they think is a hit man. It’s always a cop. Are there any successful assassinations?
Scott Payne
Yes, there are. And that’s the thing. I know a lot of people say the same thing. I’ve had people in my own office laughing when they– we did one, it’s in the book. There was a couple in East Tennessee – I say a couple. It was a wife who was cheating on her husband with her lover. I met the lover because the wife and the lover wanted the husband killed because he had a $92,000 insurance policy which, again, tells you your afterthought right there. That’s not a lot. You may think $92,000 is a lot of money until you get it and you try to spend it these days, and it’s like, “Well, that went fast.”
Scott Johnson
Yeah. There it goes.
Scott Payne
I got a car. I got one car. Now, what are we going to do for money? I can’t even afford the gas. Let’s kill somebody else. But yeah, it does happen. And there’s dark web stuff. I was actually on a show called The Kill List, and what they do is they track these online murder plots. But yeah, it happens for sure.
Scott Johnson
I ask some of my listeners to come up with some questions for you.
Scott Payne
Awesome.
Scott Johnson
All right. This is from Lexi. Was there ever a time in your career when you considered leaving because of concerns for your safety or the safety of your family?
Scott Payne
Not leaving the job, but leaving where I lived in that division I was working in, yes. In the FBI, you do have, I won’t say it’s a privilege, but you do have that protection. So in other words, if I came forward and I said, “Man, I’ve been threatened. I feel like I’m threatened. This case is ending”, there is a threat assessment unit and they will come down and they will do an investigation. But I can tell you this from my experience, once you hit that button, you can’t stop it. Once that ball starts rolling, you can’t come back and go, “You know what? I actually feel safe here.” It’s too late. You’re going to be getting transferred. You might get to go where you want to go, but it’s probably not happening. You’re probably going to go somewhere you don’t want to go.
But I will say that, yes, there were times in my career when I thought, “I’m too close to this. I’m too close to where I’m undercover.” But then I go back to hang out with one of my best friends in South Carolina who’s still a sheriff’s deputy, which is what I used to be, and we’re riding in the car, and he is, “Man, yeah, I got a threat the other week.” And I’m like, “Really? What’d you do?” And then he reminded me when I was at the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, I was threatened, legit threat, I mean, the person knew my house, knew what my girlfriend looked like, knew what her kid looked like, the cars knew that the property behind me had chickens and whatever else, and I go in to tell my management, “Hey, we got information of a threat. What are we going to do?” Well, number one, Greenville County doesn’t have it in their budget. Number two, they’re not going to pay for you to leave the county. We just get some uniforms and we go knock on the door and we have a conversation. That’s where, in my opinion, the best defense is a good offense. Let’s just go knock on the door, and that’s how I learned.
Once I started looking at it like that, then I started thinking of the game itself. I say game, it’s not a game, but the process itself in the criminal world, working criminal cases. When we arrest you, I may or may not be arrested with you. You may or may not know I’m the undercover yet, but at some point, you’re going to be sitting down with your defense attorney, and you’re going to get what we call discovery, which is everything from the case. Even my notes are going to be in that discovery – emails, text messages, all that stuff – and they’re going to look at, and they’re going to hear that recording, and they’re going to hear me on the preamble going, “Hey, this is UCE1234. It’s April 17th, 2025. It’s approximately 3:59 PM Eastern time. I’m now going to meet Scott Johnson. And then they’re going to do that. I’m the undercover.” So they may not know my last name is Payne but, in law enforcement, generally, how many times does a uniform officer arrest somebody, put them in jail, and then they run into them in a couple of months because they’re still living there? So, yeah, that’s a great question.
I thought about moving before and then I dived deep into that and I went, “You know what? No, this is my town.” And let’s be clear, if you’re doing the job, it’s just part of it. You’re going to arrest people and, hopefully, you weren’t too much of a butthead.” Or maybe they realized it and– so I didn’t buy into it after that.
Scott Johnson
From Keely Mae. Do you have a routine, kind of like meditation or something similar that you go through to sort of get into the mindset of these criminals – like an actor getting into character before a performance?
Scott Payne
Sometimes. But as I’ve said about a lot of things, I stay close to who I am. I’m still Scott. Now, the murder for hire stuff and the closer providing a bomb or a gun, maybe I’m not so much Scott as jovial in connecting because I’m a stone-cold killer. I don’t need to know you. But other than that, if I’m deep undercover, the jokes are kind of the same. I won’t say they’re rituals, but I would definitely rehearse whether I’m flying into that town or driving in before. Even if I’ve been doing that and I’ve been that person for five years, I stop and, in my head, I just recite, “Hey, this is my name. This is where I grew up. This is where I went to school. Here’s my date of birth. Here’s my Social Security number.” Think of it this way. If we’re having a normal conversation like we are right now, and Scott, you say, “What’s your social security number?” And I don’t know it?
Scott Johnson
Right. That’s a red flag right there.
Scott Payne
Yeah. Where did you go to high school? Boo. You have to look real, so you have to know it. But for me, it’s not character acting. I used my own personal experiences and my skillset for those cases I was successful at. There’ve been several cases I’ve gone on where I wasn’t a guy and it didn’t work. I went in and I met the target and I met him again, and I came out and I’m honest with the case agent. I’m like, “I’m not your guy. This person does not like me.” kind of thing. And I put this in the book. I have a cross on my necklace. In most cases I work, the cross does not play well into what I was doing. So I took the cross off, and I had a skull. I take the cross off, I put the skull on, and then I’m Scott Whoever. Maybe that’s my Clark Kent jumping into a phone booth kind of thing.
Scott Johnson
Change that and you’re immediately disguised. They don’t know who you are, right?
Scott Payne
Yeah. But that’s kind of, in my head, what I would do. When I come home, I take the skull off, put the cross back on.
Scott Johnson
From Meredith, did you ever take medication to reduce the stress so you’d be calmer and blend in more easily?
Scott Payne
I’m retired now. Yeah, I was drugged up. No, I’m just kidding. Well, I’m going to say no because – just think of it this way – I was undercover for two years with the Outlaws. This is a sophisticated investigative technique. We don’t just go do undercovers willy-nilly. In the FBI, when you build these cases, the evidence is usually so overwhelming. The only thing a defense can do is argue entrapment, which should be easy to argue away because I never did anything. This was all them. You can hear me on record going, “Ain’t nobody got to do nothing if you don’t want. Nobody’s making you do this.”
Scott Johnson
That was deliberate to avoid the entrapment thing, right?
Scott Payne
Yeah. I mean, I’m just making sure– let’s make sure you’re clear. Hey man, this is very risky. Yes. It’s risky because it’s illegal. The only thing they could argue is entrapment or try to make you look like a bad person on the stand. So imagine if it came out, even if it was something alike, maybe it was something prescribed by my doctor and it’s legit but, if that came out, that’s something the defense could argue and say, “Well, you weren’t in your right mind. You’re going to look at me for two years on those videos with the Outlaws, and you’re going to see a Jack and Coke coming up a lot of times, but are you going to hear me slur? Are you going to see me pour that out when they make them too strong? I know we’re going to seven in the morning and I got to know where I’m at. I’m an undercover FBI agent and I’m a law enforcement officer. I took an oath. I can’t go do a line of coke and sober up. I can’t hit a bump of meth and sober up. You can’t do that. So, no, not really.
Now meditation and stuff– I mean, I got into it later after I was– I had to learn how to relax again. So sometimes, maybe, I’m not namaste sitting in the lotus position, but I might just be laying by my pool listening to the birds chirp.
Scott Johnson
Sean asks, “What’s the closest you came to being discovered?” That was probably in the basement, right?
Scott Payne
That was the basement, yeah. I mean that little scene on the base was pretty– I mean, you’re going to maybe not discover me, but discover that tracker. Yeah. It’d been in the basement. It would’ve been a year and a half undercover. Done all kinds of “criminal activity” and I got pulled into the basement and they had me at gunpoint, made me take all my clothes off, write everything down. They searched me. They searched my clothing. The problem was I was wired to the heel and they almost found it. That was a sobering experience.
Scott Johnson
As I read that in the book, I was thinking, okay, they’ve got you all stripped down, and they haven’t found anything. Do they go now to a cavity search?
Scott Payne
I might have called quits on that. I’m not going to fight, but I’m going to be like, “Eh, no!”
Scott Johnson
Right. But I mean, that seems like it would be effective.
Scott Payne
Now we’re getting ready to go into jail. You squat, spread your cheeks, all that stuff. Oh man. I guess I’d have had to, Scott. I mean, hell, they had me at gunpoint.
Scott Johnson
But it was in your clothing though, right?
Scott Payne
Yeah, I had a couple of devices on me– without giving away trade, right?
Scott Johnson
Yeah. We don’t want to give up that.
Scott Payne
Yeah. But there were some recording devices. And again, technology is better now. That was almost 20 years ago now. That would’ve been the closest and probably the scariest. There have been others though. I mean, even when I was a bio narcotics officer and you’re coming around the corner and I’m just a passenger with a source because I’m helping back this source up, my other buddy’s running the bio, but he is like, “Hey, you might hop in the car with him.” No, I hop in the car, we could pull around the corner and I see the main guy running the drug corner, and I’m like, “Oh, crap.” I don’t forget faces. I’m the guy, two weeks earlier, on a search warrant with another narcotics unit. I’m the one who jerked that dude out of a bed, put him in cuffs, and talked to him at the law enforcement center. He’s looking at me because he knows. He walks all the way around the front of the car real slow, and he is looking and he’s looking, and he gets right to my window. Now, on the inside, yes, I’m crapping gold bricks, I’m sweating. I’m like, oh boy.
But when he gets to the window, I’m holding the money in my hand and I’m like, “What’s up?” I mean, I think that’s how it sounded. I didn’t have a recording that day. It probably didn’t sound like that because if you hear the recording of the basement, I do not sound like this. My voice is higher. You can tell my throat’s tightened up. You can tell I’m freaking out. If you know me and you know my baseline, you can tell that I’m in an unhappy place,
Scott Johnson
But that guy that day didn’t trust his memory that you looked familiar.
Scott Payne
Greed won, and it usually does in the criminal world. He looked at me, and I was like, “What’s up?” He looked over at the guys working under him and said, “Go ahead. And we did the deal.” So when we do the jump out or whatever, arrest him later, he’s like, “Man, I knew you were a cop.” I said, “You thought I was a cop. You were about 75% sure, but that 25% of doubt and you wanting this money– clearly, the law enforcement action we did two weeks ago didn’t slow you down.
Scott Johnson
Yeah. Greed overcomes a lot, right?
Scott Payne
Favorite color is green.
Scott Johnson
Okay. From Pam. What if they offer you drugs to try? And I read that in the book. You mentioned this at least once and that you used a bit of, like, sleight of hand. What was that like? You dip one finger and take the other one in your mouth or something?
Scott Payne
Something like that – real fast and that was on the fly. You can always argue about trade craft. Some people are going to be mad and some people aren’t. I’m like, nobody taught me how to do that at the undercover school. I had to figure that out on my own with a redbone hound in my crotch, growling with a double-barrel shotgun pointed at me, an open bag of cocaine, about two inches away from my nose. I’m leaning as far back as I can and the guy’s telling me, “If you ain’t a cop, do it. If you ain’t a cop, do it.” And then it became, “Just taste it.” And that one I did a sleight of hand. It’s pretty well known out there.
You shouldn’t be doing dope. Can you do dope? What is that going to do to your case? Going back to what I explained earlier, what is that going to do to your case now if you’re in fear for your safety and your life’s in danger? You get what you’ve got to do. I mean, like I’ve said before, I’ll snort and finish off this table if you’re like, “Hey, I’m going to kill you if you don’t.” Well, what are my options? As I get wiser and older in my career, I’m not doing that. I’ll just turn around and walk off. There’s no case worth it. The headache is just not worth it. I mean, I could go into the minutia of what I had to go through because of that thing in the FBI, and some of it I agree with and some of it I don’t. But, later in my career, if somebody’s, “Eh, if you’re not a cop, do it.” I’m like, “Well, I’m not a cop, but I’m out.”
Scott Johnson
Are the gangs these days hard to infiltrate or harder than they are? Are they more aware of how to spot a cop like you?
Scott Payne
Yes and no. I mean, it is– well, again, politician answer. I’m like, yes, it depends.
Scott Johnson
Right. Okay. It depends.
Scott Payne
Yeah. Maybe
Scott Johnson
It seems like they would get better
Scott Payne
Well, you think, but it’s always that cat and mouse game in my mind. I mean, biker gangs have been around for what, 40 years now. They go to trial, they have big case trials. They learn about RICO and what the charges are. They learn about hidden devices and they check, but do you like me and do you trust me? What’s my story? Am I making you money? It depends on the criminal. Most of the criminals I dealt with, as long as they’re making money, they didn’t care. But yeah, I would say, especially today with where everything’s going with AI, with facial recognition stuff, I mean, I don’t think it’s going to make it easier, especially if you do deep cover. I mean, picture your foreign counterintelligence stuff where you’re going against intelligence officers of other countries, you don’t think they got their stuff together? You got to have your stuff together too. It’s a chess game, right? You’re going in there.
I’ve been around some mentors, friends, people I’ve been blessed to mentor, and they’ll start freaking like– I’m just giving you a scenario. What if everybody in that bar is an intelligence officer and they’re trying to get information on me? I said, so what if we’re trying to get something off of them? I’m still going to go in there and be me just like I always am. Maybe I’ll get a free drink out of it.
Scott Johnson
It’s a bonus, yeah.
Scott Payne
I know.
Scott Johnson
Alright. You’re retired now, but you are very public with these stories and the names of the people involved. Are you concerned at all about retaliation?
Scott Payne
There’s always that chance and a propensity for violence, but if we put their name in there, it’s because it’s already out there. It’s in the court records, and all the cases that are in my book are all adjudicated. Nothing’s active. Everybody pled guilty, and yeah. I mean, it’s a chance you take. I don’t walk around in fear. I don’t walk around on eggshells, but I don’t walk around blind either. I’m covered. In my belief system, I’m covered. That doesn’t mean I’m an idiot and I’m going to go out here and be lax and stuff.
Scott Johnson
But, are any of the people you arrested out of prison now, and do you keep track of their whereabouts or anything?
Scott Payne
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Usually, especially if you were a witness in a case, I don’t think the FBI is going to call me and tell me. Maybe a friend who knows the case and be like, “Hey, so-and-so just got out.” I would like it if they did that, but I don’t think it’s their duty or they have to, but it would be nice to know. I’ll talk to you. I don’t care. They’ll call me up, like, “Hey, I got a 50-50 shot.” You might come up and punch me and then say, “We’re good.” Or you can hate me.
Scott Johnson
Is there anything about your work that you like to talk about that no one ever asks you?
Scott Payne
Wow, that’s a hard one, Scott, because I’m so transparent. I mean, literally, now my life is an open book. I used to always say my life’s an open book.
Scott Johnson
Now, you got the book to prove it.
Scott Payne
Yeah. Nothing’s jumping out to me because I’m so transparent. And as a lot of people are saying, my vulnerability shows in the way we wrote the book and how I am, but that’s just how I am. I could sit here and give some time to the haters, but I don’t want to. Trying to do the right thing because I’m trying to pay it forward, spread knowledge, and I’m still trying to continue to learn. I don’t necessarily have my thumb on the pulse. I’m not a bonded law enforcement officer now, but I’m still an active shooter trainer and all kinds of other training things I do. I still go and teach to law enforcement and whatnot, and who knows? If a buddy of mine gets sheriff, I may bond back in for a year or two. Who knows?
Scott Johnson
That kind of leads me to my next question – one of the last questions here. I know you retired now from undercover, but you don’t seem like the type of person who would spend retirement just not doing anything. What’s next for you or what are you doing now overall?
Scott Payne
Well, if we’re blessed enough for the book and my rights to get optioned, then there’s the whole Hollywood thing. But people who don’t understand, you’ll have people that go, “Man, you know how many people have called me to want to do a book?” And I’m like, yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to land. They don’t know the business. I’m not saying I’ve been blessed. That’s what I’m trying to say. I got Simon and Schuster, I got Atria Books, I’ve got great agents and a great team. I was on Joe Rogan and things like that. So if that happens, that’d be awesome. It’s not necessarily the goal, but I just want to work and I’d like to succeed. If the book stuff doesn’t take off, I’ll keep teaching. And like I said, I may bond back in, maybe we’ll go full circle. I’ve said this before, but I was a bouncer, then I was a cop, then I was a fed. So if I become a cop again, maybe at least for 30 minutes, I need to be a bouncer somewhere, and then it’ll be a full circle moment. Just be like, “That’d be $5.” They walk in and I go, “Alright, I’m done. I was a bouncer for five minutes.”
Scott Johnson
So your book, it’s called Pale Horse. Is that the whole title or is there a subtitle also?
Scott Payne
No, it’s, Code Name: Pale Horse—How I Went Undercover to Expose America’s Nazis. The subtitle I argued a lot because to me it doesn’t let you know that, in that book, there are biker cases, public corruption cases, murder for hire cases. I mean, a pedophile hired me to murder the kid he molested. There’s all kinds of stuff like that in there. Then, there’s a lot of vulnerability and I’m honest about when things weren’t good with my family and stuff. But yes, Code Name: Pale Horse.
Scott Johnson
Yeah, one thing I enjoyed about reading the book is you’re not portraying yourself as the hero. It’s some self-deprecating humor and I’m big on that. You’re a real person, really, and I think that’s a big selling point. It’s not just a book, it’s an audiobook, and you read it.
Scott Payne
Yes. It’s the first one. I’m a musician and a singer, so I’m pretty used to being in a studio and I’m pretty consistent in the studio, but reading a book, wow. I wanted it to come across like this, like when I’m teaching or taking questions or I’m speaking at, like, a conversation. I had to do it verbatim because that is what made it through Simon and Schuster’s legal team. It also made it through the FBI process. You have to realize that, because, in my book, there are public corruption, all those things. I said gangs, domestic terrorism. It has to go through the FBI pre-publication unit and it has to go through the entire undercover unit to include Safeguard, Backstop, and every field office I worked in – the public corruption unit, the gang unit, and the actual squads. They go back and if the agents are still there, they go, “Hey, here’s the excerpts, Boston. Here are the four chapters on the Outlaws. We need your legal people to look at this.” So you’ve gone through all that stuff. But the audiobook– to read at one speed and speak behind it wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve done.
Scott Johnson
You learned a new skill, huh?
Scott Payne
Yeah. Plus, everything’s quiet. So you’re in there in the booth and you can hear any snort and any breath. At one point, I guess my teeth on the bottom are getting crooked or something. I started whistling when I talk. I’m like, “What was that?” And then the Simon Schuster guy sitting in New York City listening is laughing. I go, “When did I start whistling? Am I a groundhog? Am I turning into a groundhog? What the heck?”
Scott Johnson
Wow. So did you have to redo that or do they edit that out?
Scott Payne
Yeah, I redid that.
Scott Johnson
Okay.
Scott Payne
I don’t want to whistle.
Scott Johnson
I know just from doing a podcast – I edit all of my own shows – you must have had to reread certain paragraphs and chapters over and over.
Scott Payne
Certainly. Or to get that flow. Like you start and it’s an eight-hour day, and then by the end of the day, we’re like, “Okay, we’re flowing. Good. Let’s go back and read that prologue again. Let’s go. Because that was choppy.” And now you’re like, “Okay, now I’ve got to flow.” And I’m kind of going, especially when I get into my stories. I mean, I’ve told them so much I lived them and it’s easier to talk about, but still I had to read verbatim.
Scott Johnson
You still got to read it.
Scott Payne
But I still think that’s better than some of the ones I’ve heard where you go on and I’m like, “It’s not even their voice, or it’s some kind of robotic thing and it’s like monotone.” You want to hear me saying what I felt like in the basement is what I felt like.
Scott Johnson
You’ve got a good voice anyway.
Scott Payne
Thank you.
Scott Johnson
Have you thought about doing a podcast at all?
Scott Payne
Man, it’s such a saturated industry. I’m learning more and more. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you, I did do a show the other night as live radio Coast to Coast. In the first hour, they interviewed me, the second hour, we took live call-ins – I could do that every day because I’m just fielding the call. I’m glad you brought in questions from your listeners, but just fielding calls, I’m like, “Dude, I could do this–” because that fills a void that I have after retirement. I don’t care if they’re crazy, they’re smart, they’re dumb, ask whatever.
Scott Johnson
It’s unpredictable, right?
Scott Payne
Yeah. I’ll just answer the best I can and maybe I’ll learn something too.
Scott Johnson
You can have fun with it.
Scott Payne
Yeah. I had a blast.
Scott Johnson
It’s funny that you say podcasts are saturated, but you wrote a book. You know how many new books there are every year?
Scott Payne
Well, that’s a good point. See, I tried to tell you I’m not smart.
Scott Johnson
No, I think you’re smart. People who read your book, they’ll realize, “Okay, you’re right. This is a smart guy.”
Scott Payne
Maybe a podcast. We’ll see.
Scott Johnson
Yeah. Someday. I appreciate you coming on. You got some great stories. And again, the book is available. We’ll have a link in the show notes as well as we have some pictures of you. They can get the book anywhere, and it was a great book. I highly recommend it. Thanks for coming on.
Scott Payne
Thank you, buddy.
Scott Johnson
As you can tell, Scott is one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve met. And he has a lot more amazing stories than what we talked about today. In the episode notes, you can see pictures of him and there’s also a link to his book. That’s at WhatWasThatLike.com/214.
Recently had a couple of voice mails. The first one is from a listener who just heard the episode about limerence, which is the concept of being addicted to a person. This is episode 199, titled “Fenna had a bizarre addiction” –
Voicemail 1
Hi Scott. I enjoy your podcast. I was listening ironically today to the one about Limerence and I resonate with that. I think that is what I’m going through, and then a relationship marriage for two and a half years, and it’s been rough. We are getting a divorce, but I keep going back to him over and over and the abuse continues and I am just majorly struggling. I hope that I can educate myself, pull myself out of this horrible, terrible thing. I don’t know if you’ll read this. If there’s anything else that you can put on about abuse, childhood trauma, that would be helpful as well to hear it. Thank you.
Scott Johnson
And this other voice mail is in connection with episode 211, called “Leilani fell off an elephant”. This listener called in the podcast voice mail line but then her dog started barking –
Voicemail 2
Hi Scott. This message is in response to the– (Dog barking)
Scott Johnson
But then she called back –
Voicemail 2
Oh my gosh. I just tried leaving a voicemail and my dog went nuts and was barking and ran across the cord that was slugged into the wall and my phone got ripped out of my hands. So let me start over. Hi Scott. I am responding to the most recent episode that I heard about Leilani falling off an elephant. I just want to say that, anytime, in any country where you have an opportunity to ride on an elephant, it’s usually not ethical. It’s not good. It’s not a good situation. I’m in no way judging her because I have done it myself in Thailand – not only because I’ve done it myself, that’s not why I’m not judging. I’m not judging because I think most people don’t realize that it’s unethical, but I did do that myself.
Fortunately, I did not fall off. I am glad she is okay now. I’m glad that she seems like a very strong person. But for anyone else out there, if you have an opportunity to ride on an elephant, it’s not a good situation for the elephant, regardless of how they tell you. That’s all I had to say, unless you want to talk about other animals. But I had to say it was a really great episode and how brave, Leilani, for you to come out and speak about it. Okay. Love the pod. Bye.
Scott Johnson
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Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.
And now, this week’s Listener Story. Do you have a story? Of course you do, everyone does. What’s something interesting that happened to you, that you can tell in about 5-10 minutes? Just find a quiet place and record it on your phone, then email it to me at Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com.
This listener had a crazy experience from her childhood. And I love her accent.
Stay safe, and we’ll see you next time.
(Listener story)
I live in the UK and I live in a place called the Forest of Dean, which is just basically in the middle of the woods. Beautiful rural area and not much to do really, apart from just exploring the woods’ mess boat. You’re just a dream when you are a little kid. Absolutely amazing just being out in nature.
So back in the 1970s, I was maybe 5 or 6, and my big sister was a couple of years older than me. We scraped for an adventure, just muck about, play in the ferns, make a camp. So we just called the neighbors, got our friends – three of our friends from the neighbor’s house around the same age, maybe a little bit older. I said, “What should we do today? I know! Let’s go and play on the dump!” The dump is just a place where all the locals used to go and just basically dump all their garden rubbish, shower of bottles just because, back in those days, there were no sort of laws against it. So yeah, great. Let’s have a nice day mucking about on the dump.
So I was there picking up a few bottles, making a few little sort of camps and whatever, looked over and my big sister was with the neighbor’s kids and all crowded around what we thought were some plants or some trees, or wasn’t sure. So I just went over and my big sister goes, “Oh look, we’ve just found all these peas and these pea pods. They taste delicious. Why don’t you try some?” I wasn’t sure. I got one in this tiny little pod and ate a little bit and thought, “Oh, that’s really tasty, really sweet.” So I had a few more, and my sister and her friends, they were all digging into these little peas. Really sweet, really delicious. Anyway, that was that. Then we just started to think, well, we better get home now because it was a Sunday and school in the morning.
So we went back home, getting ready for bed, and our dad said to us, “What have you been up to today, dump girls?” I said, “Oh, just playing on the dump. Made a few camps in the ferns, whatever. And we found these delicious peas in little pea pods on the dump.” My dad thought, well that’s a bit strange because it’s not really the time of year when we’ve got peas growing. It’s a bit strange. So he said, “Can you show me where these peas were? Let’s just go and check what you were eating. You shouldn’t really be eating things that are on the dump.” So, pajamas. Dad took us out on the dump. “There you go, dad. That’s what we’ve been eating. Look really delicious peas. My dad’s face dropped like a stone and then he realized what it was. The neighbors earlier on that week had cut down a laburnum tree and Laburnum trees have got extremely poisonous little pods, very attractive to little kids. We thought they were peas and we’d been eating them, very poisonous.
Back in those days, there were no mobile phones, nothing like that. So, mum and dad just had to basically bundle us in the car, and then we thought, “Mom, Dad, our neighbor’s kids, we were all eating them.” So they had to go knock on the neighbor’s door, get the three kids from the neighbors, and then we had about a 15-mile drive to get into the hospital. I mean, mum and dad must have been absolutely terrified. We didn’t really know what was going on. We thought it was a bit funny. We just basically got halfway to the hospital, and then dad realized that he was nearly out of petrol, so we had to stop at the garage, fill it with petrol. Dad and Mom at the time were probably thinking, Oh my God, our two children are about to die of poisoning, and also the neighbor’s kids are going to all die of poisoning from these really bad laburnum seeds.
Anyway, he made it to the hospital. I remember waiting in the casualty and one by one the nurses came in to get us. So it was me, my sister, two girls, and one boy – the neighbors. So my sister went in first. I remember seeing the nurse. She had little white ankle wellies on and took her in. She was gone for about five minutes. She came back out, they called m,e and I went. I noticed a nurse with her little white wellies on, and asked me to get up on the table, lie on my side. I was thinking, oh yeah, this isn’t so bad. I’m not sure what they did to my sister, but she looked okay when she came out. Lay on the side. Then, all of a sudden, the nurse was there with a big funnel like my dad used to put petrol in the car with. I was thinking, “Oh my God, what are they going to do? They’re not going to put petrol in me to get rid of these poisonous seeds, are they? So they got this funnel, a big tube.
I was lying on my side on this bed, and they just ran this big 1.5 centimeter or 2 centimeter wide pipe down my throat into my stomach, scraping all the way down, put the funnel in the end, got a bucket or a jug, poured all this salty water down the funnel, straight into my stomach, and I obviously then threw up everywhere, lying down on my side with my long hair in my face. So my long hair was all covered in laburnum seeds. Anyway, that was that. Went back.
Then, the other girls, they had their turn, and then the last one to go in was the boy from our neighbors. We all were in the waiting room waiting for him, and all we could hear was him screaming at the top of his lungs, screaming his little heart out. He was the oldest boy, and he didn’t take it as well as the girls. So that was that. That was the end of that adventure. My dad sadly passed away, but when I talk about it to my mum and say, oh, that was a funny story, she said, “That was not a funny story. Don’t ever do anything like that again.”
Every time I see a laburnum tree – now they’re beautiful trees – I just always think of that story on the day that me and my sister and all of my neighbor’s children nearly died because, apparently, you only need to eat about 10 of those seeds to be fatal. Anyway, thank you, Scott, for your podcast. Absolutely love it. It keeps me company on my walks and can’t wait till the next episode. Bye.