The Netflix docuseries “American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders” is a true crime television documentary series that follows the death of American journalist Danny Casolaro, who was investigating a tangled web of government conspiracies he called “the Octopus”. Casolaro was found dead in his hotel room in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1991, with his wrists tied. The show, directed by Zachary Treitz, attempts to unravel a government conspiracy and the journalist who was investigating before his death under curious circumstances.
The Octopus Conspiracy refers to a complex and controversial theory that Casolaro was investigating before his untimely death in 1991. He suggested that a vast and interconnected network, including the John Kennedy assassination, was involved in the conspiracy. The show sometimes feels like spinning its own wheels, but it becomes an effective way to replicate what undeniably happened to Casolaro.
The show also explores the story of Rachel Begley’s search for her father’s killer, Rachel Begley, who began her father’s killer search with a simple Google search and blossomed into a complex web of conspiracy theories. The show also explores the John Kennedy assassination and its connection to the Octopus conspiracy.
In summary, “American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders” is a true crime television documentary series that follows the death of journalist Danny Casolaro amid his conspiracy theories. The show offers a unique perspective on the complex and controversial conspiracy theories surrounding the murder of journalist Danny Casolaro.
📹 The OCTOPUS CONSPIRACY & The Mysterious Death of Danny Casolaro
In 1991, journalist Danny Casolaro was sure that his investigation into the huge “Octopus conspiracy” would uncover disturbing …
📹 Investigating the Octopus Murders | An American Conspiracy | The Last Days of Danny Casolaro
From the 1980 October Surprise, 1985-87 Iran-Contra Affair, and 1986-91 BCCI scandal, the decade seemed only to be going …
I love that you go back and cover old cases from Unsolved Mysteries, and that you covered Danny Casolaro, adding new details, along with the Chuck Morgan case. I subscribe to the theory that Danny was murdered. I base this on the testimony from Danny’s brother, Tony who is a doctor, and when interviewed, stated that Danny was incredibly squeamish at the sight of his blood being drawn, let alone slashing his own wrists. It is also rather convenient that Danny’s research papers were missing and have never been found.
In 2010, I examined, researched and looked into Danny Casolaro and his demise, Promis, Inslaw and The Octopus. I had seen the Unsolved Mysteries segment in the 1990s when I was in college. It got me curious. By 2010, I had been a freelance journalist for over a decade and remembering this case, I chose to start looking into this in my free time as a research project. Among other things I read the US House subcommittee report on Inslaw and found out about Federal Bankruptcy Court and the Judges ruling in the Inslaw suit against the Department of Justice. Frankly, I opted to move on after doing a degree of research . It was obvious this was explosive and dangerous and I had to work to make a living as a writer so – other than giving an interview to a podcast about this subject- I pushed onward with other things. The whole Octopus saga is basically a window into the intersections and connections between politicians, intelligence operatives. Organized criminal activity and those perpetuating that as other details. Fundamentally it’s what I call the Penumbra, the shadow space. It’s essentially a part of the real.world and US society where things get done- off the books stealthily and covertly by professionals who are supposed to remain hidden- out of Sight and out of mind. The article is not bad: nice selection of clips, decent summation of basic information even mentioned the deaths of Alan Standorf and Jonathan Moyle which many articles on these subjects don’t do.
I’ve read two good books on Casolaro and The Octopus investigation and both are still in print. The better book (in my opinion) is “The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro” by Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith. The other is “The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal” by Cheri Seymour. While checking Amazon listings on these books I found an ebook called “The Inslaw Affair” that is the congressional report on the Inslaw investigation for 99¢! This is an incredible case, I’ve followed it for decades and don’t have much hope for a resolution. This is a good article on Casolaro, better researched and more level headed than a lot of others I’ve seen on the case. Good job!
Firstly, how come “shady” people all actually LOOK shady? And then…I will never understand why people who have vital information don’t tell absolutely every family and friend, but most importantly the entire press and media. Maybe they would stop being found s*icided via 2 bullets in the back of their head. This was on unsolved mysteries and yet they STILL referred to it as a conspiracy. Now that i think about it…exactly *which “conspiracies” DON’t actually come out to be true?! 🤔
Kenn Thomas wrote the first book on Danny Casolaro and Kenn Thomas worked at University of Missouri-St. Louis Archives. That’s why the Netflix doc GOES to the Missouri archives to get the Danny Casolaro research papers. Too bad Kenn Thomas didn’t get thanked at the end of the Netflix doc. Kenn Thomas passed on last year! I corresponded with him via email off and on over 20 years.
The police officer who found the reporter said the tendons in both arms had been cut about eight times, so deep that the hands could barely hold on. The reporter could cut all the tendons on one hand, but he would not be able to cut the second hand, because it is impossible to hold anything in the hand with the tendons cut. It couldn’t be suicide.
The documentary was fantastic. True mastery of an infinitely complex conspiracy. These guys are next level. Had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I love the ending how he realizes everyone is essentially pretty mentally ill. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Truly brilliant filmmakers. Zack and Christian should be very proud of this release.
My only question with all of this is why didn’t they just kill off the Hamiltons from the beginning and take the software that way? Danny would’ve never got involved had William not sued the DOJ in the first place and even after they sued, why didn’t they just pay the 6.8 million to make it go away? What if and just hear me out. What if the Hamiltons created the trap door from the beginning and found out that the DOJ was making way more money off of it than them and they sued? At that point the DOJ can’t kill them because they’re the only ones who can create the trap doors and they can’t settle in court because then they’d be admitting they did what William said they were doing. So instead they recruit Michael to make his own trap doors and just wait out the Hamiltons in court, which obviously worked. Idk man none of it makes sense. Like why is Micheal still alive?!! They can easily get to him in prison to kill him especially 30 years ago. Why keep a guy that knows that much alive? Idk….I’m taking my tin foil hat off now 😂😂
I just finished perusal The Netflix doc great work i must say. However i feel like Danny will never get justice due to the complexity in nature of this case. Unless someone a whistle blower from the government within expose something related to this scandal any trial in judiciary will only result in more deaths of lead investigators. RIP Danny we appreciate your bravery.
In the USA, there are 4 ‘official’ independent branches of government. Over time, the National Security State has not been held in ‘check’ by the other three branches of government. In 1889, the US Congress – by one vote – formed a second collateral government: the National Security State: A fourth Branch of Government! The primary objective of the unelected National Security State is to influence – both overtly and covertly – world nations, (some might refer to this as world hegemony). Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court affirmed or ratified its formation (vote 5-4). Ironically, the Chief Justice on that case forged the PLESSY. v. FERGUSON case – a case that essentially said some people are more valuable, more protected, and have more rights than others. Therefore, it was not a large stretch for this Chief Justice in this case to concede that some countries were worth more than others. Over the years, the democratically elected government has always deferred to the National Security State. So, when investigating the Contra Cocaine Train, the National Security State overruled prosecution. Same for the matters of Epstein/Maxwell (making available the many black books hard drives and government run pedophile train); etc. When pertinent questions are asked in a Senate hearing the National Security State shuts down the query by invoking COG (Continuity of Government). You can see this time and time again beginning during the Contra Cocaine Train inquires by the Senate. The founding fathers were earnest in saying that the USA should trade with all, but never to entangle itself in the political or military business of other nations.
This is a well-made documentary on an objectively interesting topic. As several reviewers have already alluded to, there are a suspicious amount of extremely low scores on IMDB here that tell their own story. The core accusation is that the American government seized on an opportunity to gain an advantage over their rivals via an emergent technology. To me, this is a perfectly plausible scenario. And I’m not here to cast judgement on the legality or morality of subsequent events. Purely looking at it from a self-preservation perspective, what’s most likely to have occurred here is quite a smart move from the American government. And this kind of manoeuvre is something that many governments around the world would be happy to try their hand at if given the opportunity. All governments would be prepared to bend the rules a bit if they think they can improve the prospects of their own citizens. That’s just a fact of life. But for me, the clear elephant in the room is the circumstance of Danny Casolaro’s death. Anyone with more than half a brain cell can see that Casolaro did not commit suicide of his own volition. The shortcomings in the investigation into his death are simply laughable. The witness statements of a separate individual with brown hair entering his room on the night of his death. The fact that one of the chief suspects provided two significantly different alibis that was then never questioned. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to work out what’s gone on here. Over time it seems that many of the individuals involved in this debacle have slowly passed away.
Nust watched the last episode. My copy of the book is still sealed/unread (ran off the whole thing at the library). Getting the book way back when was a mini conspiracy in itself. Somebody didn’t want the book being read. The documentary added info from the book and at least keeps the story alive. I’m sure “they” hate that.
The fact that BOTH these guys are still alive kinda ruins the whole doc. Also Christian said they never even got threatened. It seems to me like if there is a secret evil organization that they would do something when a Netflix documentary is filming. They allegedly took out a guy who couldn’t even get published but they’ll let these guys air this all on Netflix?
Makes me wonder how much software we were creating in highschool in the 80’s. We worked in DOS creating code and a ton of data processing. Out of nowhere a computer lab showed up with 15 to 20 computers. It was life changing when HTML came out. Especially for trap doors. Why we were coding trap doors in highschool computer labs, I don’t know.
Does anyone know what Robert Booth Nichols showed Michael Riconosciuto in Alice Springs, Australia that disgusted him so much that he wanted nothing to do with Nichols? I am guessing it was the Pine Hills installation – but I am curious as to what disgusted Michael so much (capabilities, experiments, etc)?
Kind of amazing to see what passes for awesome work. I enjoyed the series, it was entertaining. That’s where it ends. Awesome story, great entertainment, doesn’t prove anything, doesn’t solve anything, doesn’t separate fact from disimformation. You can’t tell me what PROMIS actually did, and while arpanet had some international connections from 1969, none of that detasil is explained. It is a wide spreading conspiracy from the murder of JFK to Chemical Weapons, to the drug trade? Connecting some disparate dots while never explaining what PROMIS actually did. Answer this, what connections did PROMIS actually make in a time of an extremely limited digital archive? It would be entirely more believeable if you answered the original question the series actually asked. The records referenced in the entire series are paper files, how exactly did early 1980’s pre-internet connect those things together? Again I enjoyed the story, but that is what it is, a story.
You know…this host just seems to be laughing and mocking these guys with his skeptic perspective! I hate people who right from the beginning don’t take anything being presented seriously or at least try and see and determine the overall info being presented. Right away they like he…are so quick to put in their judgement even when its not them who have done no research to prove his own judgements! This is typical for the masses though considering a lifetime of programming and being raised by Americas so called education system. Luckily there are those that are able to see past the BS they have been taught to believe! These two fellows are very smart individuals and I think they are worth listening too not laugh at them like this guy is doing and making all these snooty comments about how they started their research and laughing as they give their answers. His facial expressions to what these two are explaining is as though no matter what these two say, he automatically rejects it as like to say “they can’t convince me with this theory” and by all means…we all know…he can’t be convinced for how could he? I mean America is walking around with evidence hidden in plain sight and yet there is more and more people like this guy…COMPLETELY CLULESS yet so quick to judge those who seem to have a way clearer understanding about our super sketchy and dishonest system! If you don’t believe in people’s “so called theories” then don’t invite them to just so you can secretly ridicule them!
This was a nothing burger of a documentary. More about this guys wasted life being toyed with, not Danny but Christian. Poor wokester got played. I wasted 4 hrs perusal, there is NO surprise! I repeat this is a film of mental illness on all levels, including the filmmaker and the execs at Netflix, who signed this mockumentary.