Bird of Passage

Humans have done some unbelievable things. Whether those deeds were brave or foolish, though, is something we'll leave up to you.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

(00:27):
of Curiosities. Aviation history is populated with tales of success.
There was the Right Brothers fabled first flight, to Charles
Lindbergh's solo trip across the Atlantic. Every triumph pushed the

(00:47):
limits of what we thought was possible. Limburgh may have
been the first to complete a transatlantic flight on his own,
but there were others who had attempted it before him.
Two pilots, John Alcock of England and Arthur Brown of
Scotland managed to fly their Vickers Vimmy bomber from Canada
to Ireland in nineteen For some though, that distance wasn't

(01:07):
far enough. That same year, a New York hotel owner
named Raymond Orte came up with a contest. He offered
twenty five thousand dollars to anyone who could fly NonStop
from New York City to Paris within the next five
years well, five years came and went without a winner,
although many did try. Prescoire Coli from France certainly did,

(01:28):
though it hadn't gone as planned. Colli had been a
pilot during World War One, and with his buddy Paul Tarrascan,
the two set out to win the Orte Prize. The
only difference was that they were going to fly from
Paris to New York instead. Unfortunately, they hit some serious
turbulence along the way. Coolie's plane went up in flames,
burning Tarrascan and putting him on the sidelines. So Coolly

(01:50):
gave his pilot role to a young ace named Charles Nagaire.
Nota was going to make the trip by himself, but
decided to use Coolly as his navigator. At the request
of playing designer Pierre Louvasser, Coolie and Naja Sair collaborated
with Louivisier's team on a new aircraft, the Louivisier b
L eight biplane. It featured a wooden fuselage to allow

(02:11):
it to land and floats on water. Its unique cockpit
was open on top and wide enough for both men
to sit next to each other. The plans three fuel
tanks were large enough to carry just over a thousand
gallons of gasoline in total, plenty for the trip they
had planned. By April of ninety seven, the p L
eight was ready for testing. Naja Sare performed several short

(02:32):
flights around France, reaching altitudes as high as sixteen thousand feet.
Everything seemed in fine order, and after several weeks it
was time for the two men to set their world record.
The morning of May eighth of ninety seven, Coolie and
Naja Sare strapped into their bright white b L eight
biplane nicknamed Louis ou Blanc or the White Bird, all

(02:54):
gassed up and ready to go, and as it turned out,
that amount of fuel combined with their body weight made
for one pretty heavy aircraft, so they ditched the undercarriage
and after a few bumps, took off for the US.
They're planned route had the pilots flying over England and Ireland,
then arching down through New England until finally touching down
in New York right in front of the Statue of Liberty.

(03:17):
All in all, it should have taken about forty hours
from start to finish. The White Bird was spotted by
many across Europe, including a British submarine commander who caught
side of it just twenty nautical miles south of the
Isle of Wight. As the hours passed, spectators started gathering
in Battery Park, Manhattan to watch the white bird make
its water landing near the Statue of Liberty. Some even

(03:39):
claim to have seen it flying over nearby Long Island.
Papers in France jumped on the news, publishing stories about
Cooley and nase Sare's successful voyage. They made history as
the first people to complete a NonStop transatlantic flight. There
was just one problem. The plane hadn't actually landed. Despite
being seen along the East and cboard, the White Bird

(04:01):
never made it to New York. A man named Anson Barry,
who had been living in Maine at the time, told
a reporter that he'd heard a struggling aircraft overhead on
May nine, but he never actually saw it. The clouds
and fog overhead had instructed his view. One theory was
that a passing squall had taken down the plane, while
others thought Najas and Cooley had landed in Canada and

(04:24):
were now living amongst the native population. Over the years,
investigators and enthusiasts tried locating the crash site. Some even
found plane wreckage, though none of it was explicitly tied
to the White Bird. Had the two men succeeded, they
would have completed the first true transatlantic flight from Paris
to New York, and their victory would have discouraged another

(04:46):
aviator from trying the same thing. U S Mail pilot
Charles Lindbergh was going to abandon his shot at the
Orte Prize after hearing about COOLi and Najare. But twelve
days after they took off from France, Lindburgh departed from
New York in the spirit of St. Louis. It landed
in Paris after a thirty three and a half hour flight.

(05:06):
The white Bird nor its pilots were never found. It's
been called the everest of aviation mysteries, one that no
one has been able to summit in the ninety four
years since it happened. Somewhere out there are the remnants
of a white wooden bird, one that flew too close
to the sun and paid the ultimate price. The Chinese

(05:40):
philosopher Laotsu once said nothing is softer or more flexible
than water, yet nothing can resist it, and he wasn't
wrong when a hurricane strikes, it's not the wind we
have to worry about so much as the storm surge.
Rising water levels can result in massive flooding and devastation.
In two thousand five, Hurricane Katrina caused a storm surge

(06:01):
so large the ensuing floods turned much of New Orleans
into a river, damaged the city's main roads, and killed
over eight hundred people. One years earlier, a tropical cyclone
in Australia caused a storm surge measuring forty two feet.
Hundreds died, thousands of fish, sharks, and dolphins were discovered
miles inland far from shore. The wind was so strong

(06:24):
it drove rocks into tree trunks, and countless shipwrecks have
shown us that when the ocean's churn, all it takes
is one rogue wave to bring down a ship and
its crew. Forever. Water nurtures, it gives life, it quenches
our thirst, and yet it also has the power to destroy,
much like it did in Bopaul, India in two thousand nineteen.

(06:47):
Bopaul is a city located in the state of Mada, Pradesh,
about fourteen hour drive north of Mumbai. It's been the
birthplace of politicians, authors, athletes, and movie stars. It was
also the site of a may your industrial disaster in
nineteen eighty four, when a gas leak at a pesticide
plant killed thousands of people, but bou Paul has turned

(07:08):
itself around since then. The city, which boast a population
of almost two million, is home to numerous educational and
research facilities. It was also named India's cleanest state capital
city for three consecutive years. And just like much of India,
both Paul is prone to a phenomenon that occurs during
the months of June through September called monsoon season. During

(07:28):
monsoon season, a region can receive as much as ninety
percent of its annual rainfall amounts in only a short
few months. The monsoons also triggered dangerous floods capable of
wiping out buildings, streets, and even killing people. In two
thousand nineteen, however, the rains were nowhere to be found.
A drought had struck Boau Paul and locals were desperate.

(07:48):
Without rain, crops would not grow and famine was set
to plague the region. But rather than wait for Mother
Nature's help, Bopaul residents saw a different solution to jump
start their rainy season. They conducted a ritual known by
different names in the Hindu culture, but in beau Paul
it was called the Manduca Paranaia. Manduca translates to frog,

(08:08):
and paranaia means wedding, literally a frog wedding. During the ritual,
a male frog and a female frog are selected by
the people in town. The male is named Varuna, after
the god of water, while the female is dubbed Barsha,
meaning rain. The frogs are then dressed in ceremonial attire
before they are married by a priest. Prayers are sung

(08:30):
and the event is treated much like human wedding, after
which a large feast is held and the frogs are
placed in water for their honeymoon escape. The hope is
that the union of the two amphibians will please Indra,
the Hindu god of rain, and will end the draft.
So on July nineteenth, two frogs from beau Paul entered
into holy matrimony as a way to stave off an

(08:52):
impending famine, and it worked almost immediately. Bopaul accumulated nearly
sixty seven inches of rain in September alone right after
the wedding. Their previous record had been said in two
thousand and six, when rainfall amounted to a total of
sixty six inches. Unfortunately, the frog wedding worked a little
too well. Waters filled the streets, cars were brought to

(09:14):
a standstill, Homes and businesses were flooded. It seemed as
though there was no end in sight to the damage,
and more rain was coming. A group of volunteers decided
to do something to stop it. Using to clay frogs
as proxies for the original couple, the volunteers held a
ceremonial divorce. They chanted mantras and physically separated the frogs

(09:36):
to symbolize the end of their brief marriage. The rains
ended just a few weeks later. Curious you better believe it.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.

(10:00):
The show was created by me Aaron Mankie in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com and until next time, stay curious,
ye