Passenger List · Passenger List and Radiotopia

2.3 The Black Pill

May 17, 2021·30 min·2 clips

Caitlin leaves DC shaken after realizing she nearly got pulled into a white nationalist conspiracy movement while chasing the 702 story.

The episode opens with two intersecting threads: Caitlin leaving a desperate voicemail for someone named Connor about something urgent, while simultaneously being surveilled by what appears to be a law enforcement or intelligence agent. Caitlin spots the tail in her cab, exits early, and the driver is immediately questioned about her whereabouts. A montage of news coverage and online conspiracy content follows, with commentators speculating about Flight 702, a Muslim co-pilot, and shadowy forces. A podcast ad for a Radiotopia show called Suburban Paradise interrupts the episode briefly. Caitlin leaves another voicemail on a number that appears to be defunct, expressing isolation and loneliness from going underground. A true crime or conspiracy podcast segment then discusses the White Rabbit group — early Reddit hackers who have resurfaced claiming to have proof the plane was hacked via its entertainment system. Caitlin contacts a source and shares what she knows about White Rabbit while riding a bus, saying she needs to lay low but feels close to breaking the story open. In a coffee shop meeting, Caitlin meets Scotty, who introduces conspiracy podcaster Mike Miner as a person with direct access to White Rabbit's true identity. Miner reveals that White Rabbit evolved from a group into a single powerful insider figure. Miner then lays out the passenger swap theory: the hack was not about crashing the plane but about accessing airport systems to swap departure gates and manifests. The real 702 passengers, including a senator and a journalist and an immunologist, survived by boarding a different plane. A group of missionaries — described as teenagers and young people doing gap year volunteer work — unknowingly took their place and were killed. Miner attributes the act to a group called the Elysians, whom he characterizes as left-wing hacktivists working with the government. The meeting deteriorates as Miner reveals increasingly racist ideology, invoking white genocide, chemtrails, and the Elysians as an anti-white conspiracy. Caitlin is visibly uncomfortable but continues pressing for access to the crash report and an introduction to Info Expose's source, Dean DeSilva. Miner offers access to DeSilva in exchange for information about a federal agent Caitlin appears to know personally. Caitlin refuses to give up the agent's name. The episode cuts to Caitlin's subsequent voicemail, where she reflects on the encounter with revulsion, admitting she nearly fell for the conspiracies before catching herself. She introduces the concept of the black pill — a state beyond the red pill, where one stops believing in anything. She pleads with Connor to be real. The episode ends with a teaser: a woman named Rory Murray, a lawyer, has left multiple messages with information she claims Caitlin needs to hear.

As heard by us

A tight conspiracy chapter where a missed call, an airport handoff, and Flight 702 keep the pressure rising.

Passenger List keeps turning panic into procedure, then procedure back into panic. A missed call becomes a car tailing another car, a handoff sends the story to the airport, and the mystery around Flight 702 keeps widening as the crash report, an inside source, and the White…

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a missing-Flight 702 mystery that keeps adding new names, clues, and pressure.

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