Nov. 11, 2025

Novela 11: In The Matrix-The Death of Erin Valenti w/ The Final Trace

Novela 11: In The Matrix-The Death of Erin Valenti w/ The Final Trace
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In 2019, 33-year-old tech startup founder Erin Valenti, was on a work trip in Silicon Valley. At the end of her trip, she called her parents, telling them she couldn't find her rental car, but they were concerned by the strange statements she was making.

"It's all a game, it's a thought experiment, we're in the Matrix."

A week later, her body was found in her rented car on the side of the road in San Jose, but there were no clear signs of physical harm, and her family was adamant she didn't struggle with any mental health problems or substance use disorders. The circumstances of her death have remained a mystery ever since.

Thank you to The Final Trace for taking over after a death in my family.

Check out the podcast here!
The Final Trace is a true crime podcast unraveling the most chilling disappearances, cold cases, and solved mysteries that still leave us asking questions. Hosted by two friends with a passion for true crime, each episode explores the final known moments, forgotten clues, and the theories that keep us up at night.
From strange sightings to shocking conclusions, we follow the clues wherever they lead—because sometimes the scariest part isn’t the mystery… it’s the truth.



If you enjoyed the episode, consider leaving a review or rating! It helps more than you know!
If you have a case suggestion, or want attention brought to a loved one's case, email me at bookofthedeadpod@gmail.com with Case Suggestion in the subject line.

Stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant.

WEBVTT

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Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the dark Side of podcasting.

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Now to the latest in the death investigation of Utah

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CEO Aaron Valenti. Now Valenti disappearing in California, and yesterday

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reports are that her body was found inside a park card.

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Her voice was calm but distant. She spoke in fragments

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as if she was somewhere else entirely, and then her

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final words, it's all a game. It's a thought experiment.

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We're in the matrix. I'm your host Hopper.

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Daily, and I'm Mackenzie, and this is.

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The final trace of Aaron Valenti. Today, we have a

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story that's gonna make you question everything you thought you

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knew about reality. So, Mackenzie, quick question for you. How

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would you feel if I called you out of the

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blue and just told you, Hey, we're living in the matrix.

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I probably asked you what you've been watching on Netflix?

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Fair?

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But what if I sounded dead serious, no sarcasm, no joking,

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just calm and certain.

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Then I'm probably really concerned.

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Maybe start googling like how to do an exorcism on

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a podcast host?

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Mm hmm.

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See that's what makes this case sol unraveling. Aaron Valenti

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actually made that phone call to her family and days

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later she was gone.

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Oh thanks, Okay, welly, I'm not laughing anymore.

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Yeah. This one's one of those stories where you can't

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tell if the scariest part is what happened to her

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or what she might have known before any of this.

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Aaron Valenti wasn't someone who seemed destined to be a

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tragic headline. She wasn't some conspiracy theorist or someone with

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the history of mental illness. She was a successful businesswoman,

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CEO of a company called Tinker Ventures, married to her

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college sweetheart, a psychologist, a Georgetown graduate, and by all accounts,

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she was just a rock star. She was thirty three

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years old, based in Utah, and she had what a

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lot of people would call the dream life. She was

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running a company she'd built from the ground up. She

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was sharp, ambitious, the kind of person who saw opportunity everywhere.

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Her company, Tinker Ventures, specialized in iOS, android and web applications.

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But here's what's interesting. She was also really into something

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called brain machine interface technology.

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Okay, and what the heck is that?

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Well, basically technology that connects your brain directly to computers.

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So think of it, like being able to control your

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phone just by thinking about it.

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That's site some science fiction stuff.

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Mm hmm, that's what I thought too, But apparently it's

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very real. And Aaron was working with some cutting edge

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companies in this field, and she wasn't just business minded.

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Friends described her as funny, magnetic, and always up for

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an adventure. She traveled, she pushed herself, and she had

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this energy that made people want to be around her.

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So basically the opposite of someone you'd expect to vanish

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and end up on a true crime podcast episode exactly.

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No criminal past, no mental health struggles that anyone knew about,

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just a young entrepreneur who seemed to be right in

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the middle of her prime, which is why what happened

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next just makes zero sense. In late September twenty nineteen,

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Aaron made a Facebook post saying, quote headed to San

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Francisco in LA soon. Who's around dm me? End quote.

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Then on October first, Aaron flew from Utah to California

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for a business trip. Nothing unusual, She'd done this plenty

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of times before. The plan was to meet with contacts

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in the Bay Area, attend a couple of tech related events,

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and then fly back home. Everything seemed totally normal. She

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spent a few days bouncing around between meetings, networking, just

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normal business trip stuff, and by all accounts, she seemed fine.

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Friends she saw that week didn't notice anything strange. So

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no signs that she was stressed out, upset, or you know,

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about to spiral into something no one could explain.

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Okay, So how do we get from the cool, calm,

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quickted woman to a frankly call about the matrix.

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That's the mystery, because on October seventh, everything just shifted.

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On the afternoon of October seventh, Aaron was supposed to

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fly back to Utah. Around three thirty pm, she called

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her parents from California. She sounded distressed. She told them

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she couldn't find her rental car. It was a gray

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Nissan Morano. Her dad, Joseph later said that she was

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talking a mile a minute, jumping from thought to thought

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and not really making sense. It was the first clear

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sign that something was seriously off.

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What do you mean she couldn't find a real car

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like she'd lost in a parking lot.

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I mean, I've done that before. Is that what we're

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talking about here?

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Exactly same, I've done it before. Too, but she was frantic.

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She'd just come from a meeting on sand Hill Road,

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nothing unusual about the day until that moment. But now

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she's wandering around, couldn't find the car, and her words

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just started to feel scattered. She did eventually find it,

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so crisis avoided, but instead of calming down, things just

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got stranger. She stayed on the phone with her parents

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as she drove, and the conversation started veering from confused

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to almost surreal. Her mom, Agnes, later remembered, Aaron sounded

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completely disconnected, and then Aaron said the words her family

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will never forget. It's all a game, it's a thought experiment.

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We're in the matrix. This was the moment her family

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knew they were dealing with something that they couldn't explain.

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Ah, so this is the moment where their rabbit hole opened.

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Yep. And once she said that, it was like Aaron

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started unraveling in real time.

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Okay, but wait, didn't you say her husband was a psychologist.

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Wouldn't he recognize signs of mental health crisis?

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Did he not see anything?

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That's exactly what makes this so strange. Her husband, Harrison

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said this behavior was completely out of character for Aaron.

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She had no history of mental illness, no hospitalizations, no

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substance of use, just nothing.

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If like her mind just flipped a switch from normal

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everyday Aaron to someone sounding like she'd seen behind the

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curtain exactly.

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Imagine being on the phone knowing something's wrong, but you

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can't get to them. You can't even see them, You're

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just listening to their voice drift further and further away.

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The calls stretched for hours, and every so often Aaron

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would circle back to that same thought. It's all a game,

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it's a thought experiment. We're in the matrix. Her parents

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knew she needed help, but Aaron was behind the wheel

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driving through the Bay Area and they had no way

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to pin down exactly where she was.

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That's terrifying.

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So she's just out there in a confused state, driving

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sepwhere around California.

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As a family or luck one, I'd be so upset,

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spitting at home, not being able to get to her

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and help her get her the help that she needs.

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The same I can't even imagine what they felt. She

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was out there just moving between San Jose and pala Otto,

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and there was nothing that they could do. Sometimes she'd

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say she was driving home. Sometimes she'd say she was lost,

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but none of it really lined up. By the time

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the sun went down, Her family was frantic. As the

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night wore on and Aaron didn't show up at the airport,

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she missed her flight. Her family knew this was big

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and something was really wrong. So the family, desperate to

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know that she's say if they call the police in

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California and beg for help, They asked them to do

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a welfare check. A San Jose officer actually called Aaron

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that night. She answered the phone, but when he asked

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if she was okay, her reply was just unsettling. She said,

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I'm just joking around, and then the line went silent.

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After that, officers treated Aaron as a voluntary missing adult,

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someone who had simply chosen to disappear, and that decision

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would shape everything that followed.

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So she told the cops she was joking. That makes

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my stomach drop. It makes me.

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Wonder what was really going on, because at that moment

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she wasn't manning. She was lucid, I mean lucid enough

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to answer to cover herself, almost like she'd realized she

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said too much to her family, So when the police

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stepped in, she had to play it off, to cover

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her tracks.

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Mm hmm, exactly. And here's the part that makes it

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even heavier. The police were actually the last people to

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ever hear from Aaron after that call, when she told

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them she was just joking. Every attempt to reach her

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went straight to voicemail. Her parents couldn't get through, her

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husband couldn't get through. The only line of communication just

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went dead. So if she was lucid in that moment,

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if she really was covering her tracks, then the last

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thing she ever did was shut the door on her family,

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leaving them with nothing but questions.

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That's just so terrifying for them.

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I'm sure it was. And yet, even as her family

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begged from action, police still didn't treat Aaron's case as urgent.

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To them, she was an adult who had chosen to

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go off the grid, But to her family, every hour

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felt critical. Days slipped by with no words. Her husband, Harrison,

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even flew out from Utah to search for her himself,

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but still no erin no car. Just the silence remained.

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So at what point did this Ashley become a missing

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person case? When did the police finally stop treating it

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by she'd just gone off the grid.

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Well, that's where things get really frustrating. Aaron's family did

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exactly what you'd hope they had, immediately contacted the police

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when they couldn't reach her. They gave them everything, her description,

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the fact that she was alone, even the details of

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the rental car, a gray twenty twenty Nissan Morano license

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plate a dash lud Dash six four to one.

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Good, so they had something concrete to.

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Look for, you would think. But here's the part that

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still stings. The official missing person report wasn't filed until

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October tenth, three full days after Aaron disappeared.

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Three days Why the delay? That's an attorney when someone's

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out there in trouble.

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The police ended up classifying her as a voluntary missing person.

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Their reasoning Aaron was an adult over eighteen, with the

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legal right to disappear if she wanted to.

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But her family knew this wasn't normal for her.

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Right they did, and they pushed back hard, telling officers

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that Aaron's behavior was completely out of character. But here's

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what's really frustrating. Police just brushed it off. They said,

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stress related spontaneous trips are common, So instead of treating

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Aaron's case like an emergency, it was just pushed aside,

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not top priority, just another missing adult.

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Ah, that's so bizarre, it is.

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And while the police are dragging their feet, Aaron's parents

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are growing desperate. They're all the way in New York

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and Erner's is somewhere out there in California. It's not

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like they can just hop in the car and go

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search for her. They're relying on phone calls an officer

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they don't trust to take it seriously. And every hour

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that passes by feels like Aaron is slipping further and

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further out of reach.

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So what else can they do? Like, what did they

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do next?

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Well, they started a Facebook group called help Find Aaron

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Valenti and launch their own social media campaign trying to

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get the word out in San Jose and pala Alta,

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anywhere that Aaron might have been seen. They shared her photos,

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they shared the car details, anything that might catch someone's attention.

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Mark, Okay, that's a good move.

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Now she was calling them on our phone though, like

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they at one time had contact on her cell phone,

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So at any point did they try tracking that phone?

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They tried, but the problem was her phone kept bouncing

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off of different towers in the Bay area. At times

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it looked like she was in pala Alto other times

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San Jose. It gave them movements, but not an exact pin.

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Harrison contacted Verizon and confirmed her last pings came from

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Menlo Drive, just north of the Albadden Expressway in San Jose.

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For a short while, the phone even showed up pinging

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further north, but then it just went dark. Her family

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clung to that last location, praying that it would lead

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to her. Police allegedly searched that area, even checked local hospitals,

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but they found nothing. That was the last digital trace

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of Aaron Valente.

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That's terrifying to have a location and to know she

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was right there somewhere and still come up empty. So

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what about the rental car? So she was in a

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rental don't vehicles like that usually have GPS tracking?

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Could that have located her?

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Well, that's what you would think, right. Most major rental

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companies equipped some of their vehicles with GPS trackers for

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fleet management, theft prevention, or just monitoring the mileage. But

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in Aaron's case, her husband posted on social media after

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it happened, saying the car surprisingly didn't have any tracking

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devices installed, so no phone tracking and no GPS from

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the rental company either were left with the same problem.

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There just wasn't a live digital trail to follow.

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Yeah, that seems like a really unfortunate coincident.

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It does. So now we have Aaron missing for several days,

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her phone is now off, the rental car can't be tracked,

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and police aren't actively searching because they think she just

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left voluntarily.

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This is so frustrating. So did they finally find her?

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They did, five days after she was last heard from.

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00:14:42.200 --> 00:14:46.360
But Mackenzie, it wasn't the police who located erin. It

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was a close family friend who found the rental car.

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Are you serious?

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00:14:51.320 --> 00:14:55.120
Mm hmm. Aaron's gray Nissan Morano parked on a quiet

253
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street in a suburban neighborhood. Nothing unusual at first glance,

254
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just another car in the curb, but it had been

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sitting there for days. The friend walked closer, looked through

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the window, and that's when they saw her. Aaron was

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00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:12.879
in the back seat, no broken glass, no signs of

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a struggle, no obvious cause of death, just still. The

259
00:15:17.120 --> 00:15:19.159
car had been hiding in plain sight, less than a

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mile from the police station. While officers treated her as

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someone who had simply chosen to disappear. Aaron was already there, parked,

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waiting to be found.

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Wait in the back seat, not the driver's seat.

264
00:15:34.120 --> 00:15:38.240
Yeah, the backseat, which only raises more questions. If she

265
00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:41.120
had pulled over while driving, you'd expect her to be

266
00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:43.879
in the driver's seat. But Aaron was in the back

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like she'd either crawled there herself or something else happened.

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00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:51.080
But we don't know. No sign of a struggle, no

269
00:15:51.159 --> 00:15:54.679
clear signs of trauma, nothing that suggests foul play, just

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00:15:55.200 --> 00:15:58.440
Aaron in the back of the car. As her story

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ended without explanation.

272
00:16:01.679 --> 00:16:06.159
So I'm assuming there's an investigation. What did the investigation uncover?

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How did she die?

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Well, there were no signs of physical assault, no blood

275
00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:15.440
in the car, and toxicology reports came back clean, no

276
00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:18.399
illegal substances, nothing that would explain her death.

277
00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:22.399
But suspense is killing me? So what killer?

278
00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:27.000
Well, that's where this case gets more mysterious. The coroner

279
00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:30.080
couldn't find a clear cause of death. Officially, it was

280
00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:35.519
listed as undetermined no foul play, but also no clear

281
00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:38.200
natural cause. Not a heart attack, not a stroke, nothing

282
00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:40.600
you can point to. Her car had been parked on

283
00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:44.120
the street for five days, and when investigators canvassed the neighborhood,

284
00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:49.519
residents gave conflicting accounts. It says if Aaron's life just stopped,

285
00:16:50.200 --> 00:16:53.000
without warning and without explanation.

286
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Conflicting accounts, what does that mean.

287
00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:00.480
Some neighbors remembered seeing the car and thought it was

288
00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:04.119
strange it stood out in their tight knit community. Others

289
00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:06.599
swore they drove by that spot every day and never

290
00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:11.119
noticed it. Same car, same street, but completely different memories.

291
00:17:11.759 --> 00:17:15.359
That is weird. The investigation seems really.

292
00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:18.839
Off, and that's exactly how Aaron's family felt like that

293
00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:22.599
urgency just wasn't there. The mystery of her death was

294
00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:25.799
slipping through the cracks, and no one seemed interested in

295
00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:31.720
feeling it. Her father, Joseph Valenti, didn't mince words. He

296
00:17:31.839 --> 00:17:35.960
publicly said police had botched the investigation, failing to search

297
00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:39.480
the immediate area where she disappeared and only taking the

298
00:17:39.480 --> 00:17:43.680
case seriously after Aaron's body was found. For her family,

299
00:17:44.480 --> 00:17:50.200
that wasn't just incompetence, it was unforgivable. Aaron Valenti's body

300
00:17:50.279 --> 00:17:52.599
was discovered just days before what would have been her

301
00:17:52.599 --> 00:17:56.640
thirty fourth birthday. But Mackenzie, we haven't even touched on

302
00:17:56.680 --> 00:17:57.519
the most haunting part.

303
00:17:57.599 --> 00:18:01.039
Yet Oh wow, there's more. Mmm.

304
00:18:01.880 --> 00:18:04.200
Remember those phone calls that Aaron made to her family,

305
00:18:04.400 --> 00:18:06.400
the ones she kept talking about the matrix?

306
00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:08.480
Of course? Very strange.

307
00:18:09.319 --> 00:18:12.160
Well, it turns out that Aaron wasn't just rambling about

308
00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:17.160
the movie. What she was describing is something called simulation theory.

309
00:18:17.799 --> 00:18:20.079
Okay, and you're going to explain that to us. What

310
00:18:20.279 --> 00:18:21.359
simulation theory?

311
00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:24.359
It's the idea that our reality isn't real at all,

312
00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:28.119
that everything we see, touch and feel is part of

313
00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:33.400
an artificial simulation, like a computer program imagine the matrix,

314
00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:36.759
but not as science fiction as the actual world that

315
00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:41.039
we live in. So simulation theory suggests that what we

316
00:18:41.160 --> 00:18:44.880
think is reality might actually be like an advanced version

317
00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:48.759
of the sims but we're the characters and we just

318
00:18:48.799 --> 00:18:49.359
don't know it.

319
00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:53.599
Okay, Hey, so I definitely have heard of those theory before,

320
00:18:54.039 --> 00:18:57.440
like in the movie Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds terrifying.

321
00:18:58.279 --> 00:19:01.640
Yes, Free Guy. It was actually a great movie and

322
00:19:01.720 --> 00:19:05.680
a great example. But Aarin wasn't just tossing out pop

323
00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:10.440
culture references. For Aaron, those last words weren't just random ramblings.

324
00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:14.880
They sounded like a warning. What do you mean, remember

325
00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:19.039
how I mentioned she was working with brain machine interface technology. Yeah,

326
00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:21.640
well it turns out that she was working with a

327
00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:26.920
company called Control Labs, founded by Thomas Reardon, co creator

328
00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:28.119
of Internet Explorer.

329
00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:30.839
Okay, so what does control Labs do.

330
00:19:31.599 --> 00:19:35.160
They developed technology that reads intentions directly from your brain

331
00:19:35.839 --> 00:19:39.599
and connects your nervous system to everyday technology. You could

332
00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:43.799
control devices just by thinking about it without any physical movement.

333
00:19:44.559 --> 00:19:45.079
Oh wow.

334
00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:49.880
Okay, so Aaron's literally working on technology that could connect

335
00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:52.880
brain to computers exactly.

336
00:19:53.559 --> 00:19:56.240
And here's where it gets more unsettling. Some of the

337
00:19:56.279 --> 00:19:59.839
biggest names in tech, the people building our future, have

338
00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:02.559
gone on record saying the odds that we're living in

339
00:20:02.599 --> 00:20:06.240
a base reality, meaning actual reality and not a simulation,

340
00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:09.200
are basically one billions.

341
00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:10.920
Suck our powerball ticket.

342
00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:16.039
So successful tech people actually believe we minoray be living

343
00:20:16.039 --> 00:20:16.759
in a simulation.

344
00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:17.839
They do.

345
00:20:18.680 --> 00:20:21.359
Elon Musk has said it, Neil de Grassi Tyson has

346
00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:25.599
said it. The theory isn't just Internet conspiracy. It's something

347
00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:29.640
that some of the biggest minds seriously entertain. The argument

348
00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:33.599
is that technology advances so fast. Think about how we

349
00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:36.680
went from basic video games to virtual reality in just

350
00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:41.039
a few decades, and it's possible an advanced civilization could

351
00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:45.960
create simulations and distinguishable from reality. And when you put

352
00:20:45.960 --> 00:20:48.920
that next to Aaron's last words, it doesn't feel like

353
00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:53.880
random nonsense. It feels like part of a bigger, darker conversation.

354
00:20:54.599 --> 00:20:58.599
And Aaron was working on the DAC technology that can

355
00:20:58.680 --> 00:20:59.920
make all of this possible.

356
00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:04.440
She was working on brain computer interfaces. Yes, But here's

357
00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:07.400
what makes the case even more bizarre. The final determination

358
00:21:07.559 --> 00:21:08.319
of how she died.

359
00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:10.519
Oh good, what was it?

360
00:21:11.079 --> 00:21:11.160
So?

361
00:21:12.200 --> 00:21:16.240
After all the confusion, the searches, the unanswered questions, the

362
00:21:16.319 --> 00:21:20.960
official cause of death came back as natural causes, not

363
00:21:21.039 --> 00:21:23.880
a heart attack, not a brain bleed, not even an overdose.

364
00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:28.599
The exact phrasing was sudden death in the setting of

365
00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:34.240
an acute manic episode. In other words, Aaron's mind unraveled

366
00:21:34.960 --> 00:21:40.079
and her body just stopped. No clear medical explanation beyond that,

367
00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:42.440
know why and know how.

368
00:21:44.119 --> 00:21:46.640
But do you say that she had no history of

369
00:21:46.680 --> 00:21:47.480
mental illness.

370
00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:52.119
She didn't. According to her husband, who's a psychologist, Aaron

371
00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:56.000
had never been diagnosed with any mental health conditions, no therapies,

372
00:21:56.039 --> 00:22:02.240
no medication, no hospitalizations. But sometimes disorders like bipolar can

373
00:22:02.680 --> 00:22:06.640
go undiagnosed for years, especially in a high functioning people,

374
00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:09.960
and when it hits, it can hit really hard.

375
00:22:10.680 --> 00:22:14.039
So the strange phone calls the rambling to talk about

376
00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:14.720
the matrix.

377
00:22:16.039 --> 00:22:19.880
Officially, those were seen as symptoms of a manic episode.

378
00:22:20.559 --> 00:22:23.039
That's what the medical examiner determined.

379
00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:27.880
So officially, but unofficially, what are we saying? Well?

380
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:31.599
Officially, the medical examiner pointed out a thyroid condition that

381
00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:36.519
could have contributed, combined with the possibility of undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

382
00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:40.720
They called it a perfect storm, mental health and physical

383
00:22:40.720 --> 00:22:45.880
health colliding all at once. But unofficially people still wonder.

384
00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:50.279
On forums like Reddit, some argue that Aaron was onto something,

385
00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:55.079
maybe connected to the emerging brain computer interface work happening

386
00:22:55.119 --> 00:22:59.240
at Control Labs. One comment, or even put it bluntly,

387
00:23:00.359 --> 00:23:04.039
quote I one hundred percent believe she found something she

388
00:23:04.039 --> 00:23:08.200
shouldn't have, straight out of a movie end quote. Others

389
00:23:08.200 --> 00:23:11.440
have tied her words directly to simulation theory. Was she

390
00:23:11.480 --> 00:23:14.160
truly in the grip of a manic episode? Or did

391
00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:17.759
Aaron glimpse the seams of reality unraveling.

392
00:23:17.960 --> 00:23:22.640
That line were in the matrix. It's so cinematic, it's

393
00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:24.799
hard not to wonder what she meant.

394
00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:28.119
It is, And that's where the story sits now, teetering

395
00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:32.279
between a tragic medical event and the spine tingling idea

396
00:23:32.599 --> 00:23:34.240
that something bigger was at play.

397
00:23:35.400 --> 00:23:39.519
So you had mentioned her company earlier. What's happened to

398
00:23:39.559 --> 00:23:40.559
her company since then?

399
00:23:41.839 --> 00:23:45.920
So after her death, Aaron was actually honored by the

400
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:51.079
Utah Women Tech Council for her entrepreneurship in excellence. Under

401
00:23:51.119 --> 00:23:55.079
her leadership, her company's work represented more than five hundred

402
00:23:55.079 --> 00:23:58.880
million dollars in revenue. That recognition showed just how much

403
00:23:58.880 --> 00:24:01.240
of an impact that Aaron made to the tech world.

404
00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:04.319
So shoot successful right up to the end, she.

405
00:24:04.519 --> 00:24:08.799
Was, and that's what makes this so heartbreaking. Aaron was brilliant,

406
00:24:08.920 --> 00:24:12.519
building cutting edge technology, running a thriving business, and shaping

407
00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:16.200
the future. But at the same time, was she quietly

408
00:24:16.279 --> 00:24:21.839
struggling with something undiagnosed, something no one saw coming. Now

409
00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:25.119
that's the question that lingers because none of it adds

410
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:28.519
up neatly, not her final words and not the way

411
00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:29.440
her story ended.

412
00:24:29.960 --> 00:24:32.720
This story is so chilling, and the fact that this

413
00:24:32.799 --> 00:24:35.039
behavior came on so quickly, there were no.

414
00:24:35.079 --> 00:24:36.519
Signs, no warnings.

415
00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:41.000
It's just almost unimaginable. I could think it about the police.

416
00:24:41.519 --> 00:24:46.000
If they had taken her family seriously right away, could

417
00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:49.200
things have been different. Could someone have maybe stepped in

418
00:24:49.400 --> 00:24:51.960
gotten her help before she ended up dead in the

419
00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:52.920
backseat of her car.

420
00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:57.559
Yeah, that delayed response definitely didn't help. Her family was

421
00:24:57.599 --> 00:25:01.200
waving every red flag that they could. Police just treated

422
00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:05.000
her like she was another adult who wanted to vanish.

423
00:25:05.160 --> 00:25:08.119
If those warning signs had been acted on, if someone

424
00:25:08.119 --> 00:25:11.400
would have reached out sooner, taken her words as urgent

425
00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:15.319
instead of dismissing them, then maybe Aaron could have been

426
00:25:15.319 --> 00:25:19.039
found alive. Maybe she could have been pulled back before

427
00:25:19.039 --> 00:25:19.680
it was too late.

428
00:25:20.039 --> 00:25:22.440
Okay, Hopper, you know I got to ask. Do you

429
00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:25.279
think the whole matrix thing was just part of her

430
00:25:25.319 --> 00:25:26.319
manic episode?

431
00:25:26.880 --> 00:25:32.000
Most likely? Yeah, acute mania can cause racing thoughts, delusions,

432
00:25:32.440 --> 00:25:37.519
even those kinds of grand reality bending ideas, but it's

433
00:25:37.519 --> 00:25:39.759
hard to ignore how strange it feels. In her case,

434
00:25:40.559 --> 00:25:43.200
Aaron ran a tech company. She was surrounded by people

435
00:25:43.240 --> 00:25:48.079
working on brain computer interface projects. So for her delusions

436
00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:50.680
to center on the idea of living inside a simulation

437
00:25:51.839 --> 00:25:55.480
that's eerie. And then there's her cause of death, not

438
00:25:55.519 --> 00:25:58.079
a heart attack, not a brain bleed, no trauma, just

439
00:25:58.720 --> 00:26:01.960
natural causes in the middle of a manic episode. I

440
00:26:02.039 --> 00:26:03.799
just can't get past it. It doesn't sit right.

441
00:26:05.319 --> 00:26:07.599
It is really disturbing to think about.

442
00:26:07.839 --> 00:26:10.880
It kind of makes me wonder if they were doing

443
00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:14.240
testing on her, Like, did something the company was working

444
00:26:14.279 --> 00:26:15.680
on contribute to all of this?

445
00:26:16.759 --> 00:26:19.279
I wondered about that too. Aarin wasn't working in a

446
00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:23.279
lab herself, but she was connected to Silicon Valley through

447
00:26:23.359 --> 00:26:27.319
her businesses and through her colleagues. Around that time, there

448
00:26:27.359 --> 00:26:30.640
were companies pushing the limits of brain computer interface tech,

449
00:26:31.599 --> 00:26:35.480
literally trying to connect the human mind to machines. There's

450
00:26:35.480 --> 00:26:38.599
no evidence anyone was testing on her or that her

451
00:26:38.599 --> 00:26:42.160
company had anything to do with it directly, but the overlap.

452
00:26:42.799 --> 00:26:46.079
It's kind of unnerving a tech ceo with ties to

453
00:26:46.119 --> 00:26:51.000
that world suddenly spiraling into delusions about simulations and the

454
00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:56.640
matrix and then being found dead with no clear cause. Officially, no,

455
00:26:57.240 --> 00:27:02.440
there's nothing to suggest testing, but unofficially, the timing, the

456
00:27:02.480 --> 00:27:06.200
words she chose, the industry she was immersed in, it

457
00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:07.640
leaves a lot of people unsettled.

458
00:27:08.400 --> 00:27:09.799
It really is unsettling.

459
00:27:10.240 --> 00:27:13.200
It also makes you think about how isolated people can become,

460
00:27:13.400 --> 00:27:17.400
especially when they're traveling like she was for work. She

461
00:27:17.559 --> 00:27:21.119
was alone in California while her entire support system was

462
00:27:21.160 --> 00:27:23.359
back in Utah, Yeah, and.

463
00:27:23.400 --> 00:27:27.920
New York, where her parents were. But officially, Aaron Valenti's

464
00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:31.200
death was ruled natural, a sudden manic episode with no

465
00:27:31.279 --> 00:27:37.400
clear trigger, But unofficially her story refuses to fade. A

466
00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:40.359
brilliant young CEO immersed in the world where the line

467
00:27:40.359 --> 00:27:44.440
between human thoughts and technology grows thinner by the day,

468
00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:49.039
suddenly just declaring we're trapped in a simulation. Maybe it

469
00:27:49.079 --> 00:27:53.880
was the mania, maybe it was chance, or maybe Aaron

470
00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:58.200
glimpsed something we weren't meant to see. And if she did.

471
00:27:59.400 --> 00:28:03.240
Her warnings to Lingers, it's all a game, it's a

472
00:28:03.240 --> 00:28:09.119
thought experiment. We're in the matrix. Her last words question reality.

473
00:28:09.920 --> 00:28:38.039
Her death left us questioning everything. That's it. For this

474
00:28:38.079 --> 00:28:41.359
week's episode of The Final Trace, follow us on Instagram

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and TikTok at the Final Trace podcast for bonus content

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and the occasional creepy surprise. Love this episode, leave us

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a quick review on Spotify or Apple podcast. It's free,

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it helps a ton, and yes, we read every single

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one want to support the show, buy us a coffee

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at buy Me a Coffee dot com The Final Trace Podcast.

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We'll be back next week with another mystery that still

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lingers in the shadows. Until then, stay curious, stay safe,

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and remember not all secrets stay married. The Final Trace

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is an Odie stew production.