September 12, 2023 • 10 mins
Mysteries and conundrums abound on this tour through the Cabinet!
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm 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 of Curiosities.
(00:36):
As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a
thousand words. Gallons of ink have been spilled over the
shaky film footage of a supposed bigfoot tramping through the woods,
and one shadowy photograph of the Lochness Monster has led
to the creation of an entire mythology surrounding the creature.
But in the absence of photographic evidence, what do we have, Well,
(00:58):
we have stories, and left on checked those stories can
take on lives of their own. In nineteen thirteen, German
captain Ludwig von Stein Zulautsnitz had been sent to a
part of Africa that at the time had been under
German control. Today we know the area as the country
of Cameroon, along the continent's western coast. Von Stein had
been tasked with the job of surveying the German colonies
(01:20):
there but started hearing strange tales of a giant reptile
known to prowl the territory. The locals called it mockla membe,
which means one who stops the flow of rivers. As
von Stein put it in his report, the animal is
said to be of a brownish gray color, he wrote,
with a smooth skin. Its size is approximately that of
(01:41):
an elephant, at least that of a hippopotamus. It is
said to have a long and very flexible neck and
only one tooth. The reports went on to describe the
fates of those who had pursued the creature. Canoes were
capsized and entire crews killed, but not eaten. In Instead,
the animal was categorized as a plant eater, known to
(02:03):
leave behind massive footprints on its journey to devour its
next fruit tree. But von Stein was not the first
to allege that such beasts may be roaming the jungles
of Africa. Four years earlier, a man named Carl Hagenbeck
wrote a book called Beasts and Men. Hagenbeck was a
dealer of both wild animals and even people, creating zoos
in which he displayed actual human beings from places like
(02:25):
the Samoan Islands. In Beasts and Men, Hagenbeck described the
folk tales of the native populations that had been told
to him and other white travelers about a creature roaming
the interior of Rhodesia in southern Africa. He also likened
its size to that of an elephant, but expanded on
that description by referring to it as half dragon and
(02:46):
some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the Brontosaurus. Now,
other witnesses had sighted the animal's length that somewhere between
fifteen to thirty feet, with a serpentine head and a
long tail, not unlike a please or the Lucknus monster.
But what was it? Really? Could there still be a
dinosaur wandering Africa millions of years after their supposed extinction?
(03:10):
The truth is doubtful. In eighteen forty two, palaeontologists Sir
Richard Owen coined the term dinosaur while studying some fossils
that had been discovered in southern England. From that point on,
the world had come down with the case of dinosaur fever,
and many paleontologists began looking for fossils everywhere. The period
from about eighteen seventy two until eighteen ninety two was
(03:34):
known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, or my personal favorite,
the Bone Wars. The goal wasn't necessarily to further the
study of the extinct creatures. It was to become rich
and famous for finding the biggest and most impressive specimens.
Dinosaurs were simply on the brain for many people during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It's no wonder
(03:55):
that a massive creature only seen by indigenous locals might
be viewed by visitors as as the living embodiment of
the bones that had been unearthed many in fact in Africa. Unfortunately,
most historians and experts have a number of other explanations
for the Mokeli Membay's existence. Some say it could have
been a rare black rhinoceros, while others claim it was
(04:16):
simply an elephant. Even with perfect twenty twenty vision, our
eyes may deceive us from time to time. Those blurry
shots of an aquatic seabeast in lochness nothing more than
a child's toy photographed in black and white. Sometimes we
see what we want to see. It appears the dinosaurs
of the Congo may have been hopeful fantasies from explorers
(04:38):
seeking the next big scientific breakthrough, but that hasn't stopped
modern scientists from looking themselves, because the stories still persist,
and sometimes the lore is too great to ignore, especially
when that lore is as big as a Brontosaurus. There
(05:09):
are few historical mysteries that captivate people like the Dyatlav
Pass incident. In January of nineteen fifty nine, nine hikers
journeyed hundreds of miles into Russia's ural mountains, where they
died under circumstances so strange nobody knew what happened for
over sixty years, But recently, in twenty twenty one, scientists
found the answer in a very curious place. Before we
(05:32):
go there, though, let's go back to nineteen fifty nine.
It was the middle of the Russian winter and a
college student named Igor Dyatlov was planning a hiking trip. Now,
I know what you're thinking, that is the worst possible
time to go hiking, and yeah, you're right, But Igor
was trying to get a high level hiking certification and
to do that he had to complete a really difficult journey. Plus,
(05:55):
Igor wasn't going alone. He invited eight other hikers, mostly
friends from college, to accompany him. They set off in
late January headed into the Urals. Now the euro Mountains
run between Europe and Asia. They're sixteen hundred miles across
and reach over six thousand feet in elevation. During the winter,
the area is blanketed in several feet of snow and ice,
(06:17):
and temperatures average around negative six degrees fahrenheit. The conditions
are extreme, to say the least, but the hikers were
ready for it. They spent the next several days trekking
through snow, snacking on pork fat, and sleeping in a tent.
A few weeks later, though, the hikers were supposed to
return home, but they didn't show up. On February twentieth,
(06:38):
a search party went to find them and soon discovered
a strange and heartbreaking scene. The hiker's tent was found
on the side of a peak called colat Siacle. The
fabric of the tent had been partially buried in the snow,
but the poles were still upright. Searchers looked inside and
found the hikers backpacks, food, and even their shoes, but
no sign of the hikers themselves. And then they noticed
(07:01):
a slash mark on the side of the tent where
it had been cut open from the inside. From this opening,
footprints in the snow led down the mountain and straight
to a gruesome scene frozen bodies of two hikers. Two
more were found further up the slope. All of the
hikers were barefoot, and some were only wearing their underwear.
A few months later, when the snow started to melt,
(07:23):
the bodies of the last five hikers were found. They
were also half dressed, and some had inexplicable injuries. One
man had a fractured skull and one woman was missing
her tongue and eyes. It looked like something had scared
the hikers so badly that they tore their way out
of their tent and then ran barefoot into sub zero temperatures,
trying and failing to get away. As for what that
(07:47):
something was, well, the Russian government opened an investigation to
find out, but all they could say was that the
hikers were killed by and I quote, an unknown compelling force.
With no concrete answers, Conspiracy theories ran rampant. The hikers'
deaths were blamed on everything from aliens to Getty's to
secret military weapons tests. Then, in twenty twenty one, two
(08:11):
Swiss scientists decided to get to the bottom of the mystery.
They had a hunch that the datlav Pass incident had
a much simpler explanation. You see, throughout the years, many
people suggested the hikers die during an avalanche, but a
few details made that seem impossible. The tent poles were
still upright, which you wouldn't expect in a major avalanche. Plus,
the hikers had been camping on a relatively flat slope
(08:33):
in an area where avalanches have never been recorded. Regardless,
these scientists wanted to test their theory. They needed to
simulate the exact shape of the mountain and the weather
conditions on the night the hikers died. The technology to
create such a simulation existed, but it came from an
unlikely place. The scientists made a few calls, and before
long they were in a meeting room in Hollywood, sitting
(08:55):
across from the animator who created the snow effects for
Disney's hit Frozen. Using animation code from the movie, they
created the most advanced avalanche simulation yet, and it revealed
that an avalanche wasn't just possible, it was probable. You see,
there's a type of avalanche called a snow slab that
happens when a block of compressed snow and ice slides
(09:18):
down a mountain. Slabs can be relatively small, just a
few yards across, and still do serious damage. Based on
the scientists calculations, this is what happened to the hikers.
A slab avalanche fell on their tent. A few of
the hikers were injured, one had a fractured skull. Afraid
that more snow would fall on them, they cut their
way out of the tent and fled without even putting
(09:40):
on their shoes. Sadly, they froze to death before they
can make it back to safety. It's a pretty simple
explanation for a sixty two year old mystery, and it
all happened thanks to a Disney animated film, which to
me is an incredible example of how art and science
can come together to help us make sense of our world.
(10:05):
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.
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television
(10:27):
show and you can learn all about it over at
the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm 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 of Curiosities.
(00:36):
As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a
thousand words. Gallons of ink have been spilled over the
shaky film footage of a supposed bigfoot tramping through the woods,
and one shadowy photograph of the Lochness Monster has led
to the creation of an entire mythology surrounding the creature.
But in the absence of photographic evidence, what do we have, Well,
(00:58):
we have stories, and left on checked those stories can
take on lives of their own. In nineteen thirteen, German
captain Ludwig von Stein Zulautsnitz had been sent to a
part of Africa that at the time had been under
German control. Today we know the area as the country
of Cameroon, along the continent's western coast. Von Stein had
been tasked with the job of surveying the German colonies
(01:20):
there but started hearing strange tales of a giant reptile
known to prowl the territory. The locals called it mockla membe,
which means one who stops the flow of rivers. As
von Stein put it in his report, the animal is
said to be of a brownish gray color, he wrote,
with a smooth skin. Its size is approximately that of
(01:41):
an elephant, at least that of a hippopotamus. It is
said to have a long and very flexible neck and
only one tooth. The reports went on to describe the
fates of those who had pursued the creature. Canoes were
capsized and entire crews killed, but not eaten. In Instead,
the animal was categorized as a plant eater, known to
(02:03):
leave behind massive footprints on its journey to devour its
next fruit tree. But von Stein was not the first
to allege that such beasts may be roaming the jungles
of Africa. Four years earlier, a man named Carl Hagenbeck
wrote a book called Beasts and Men. Hagenbeck was a
dealer of both wild animals and even people, creating zoos
in which he displayed actual human beings from places like
(02:25):
the Samoan Islands. In Beasts and Men, Hagenbeck described the
folk tales of the native populations that had been told
to him and other white travelers about a creature roaming
the interior of Rhodesia in southern Africa. He also likened
its size to that of an elephant, but expanded on
that description by referring to it as half dragon and
(02:46):
some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the Brontosaurus. Now,
other witnesses had sighted the animal's length that somewhere between
fifteen to thirty feet, with a serpentine head and a
long tail, not unlike a please or the Lucknus monster.
But what was it? Really? Could there still be a
dinosaur wandering Africa millions of years after their supposed extinction?
(03:10):
The truth is doubtful. In eighteen forty two, palaeontologists Sir
Richard Owen coined the term dinosaur while studying some fossils
that had been discovered in southern England. From that point on,
the world had come down with the case of dinosaur fever,
and many paleontologists began looking for fossils everywhere. The period
from about eighteen seventy two until eighteen ninety two was
(03:34):
known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, or my personal favorite,
the Bone Wars. The goal wasn't necessarily to further the
study of the extinct creatures. It was to become rich
and famous for finding the biggest and most impressive specimens.
Dinosaurs were simply on the brain for many people during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It's no wonder
(03:55):
that a massive creature only seen by indigenous locals might
be viewed by visitors as as the living embodiment of
the bones that had been unearthed many in fact in Africa. Unfortunately,
most historians and experts have a number of other explanations
for the Mokeli Membay's existence. Some say it could have
been a rare black rhinoceros, while others claim it was
(04:16):
simply an elephant. Even with perfect twenty twenty vision, our
eyes may deceive us from time to time. Those blurry
shots of an aquatic seabeast in lochness nothing more than
a child's toy photographed in black and white. Sometimes we
see what we want to see. It appears the dinosaurs
of the Congo may have been hopeful fantasies from explorers
(04:38):
seeking the next big scientific breakthrough, but that hasn't stopped
modern scientists from looking themselves, because the stories still persist,
and sometimes the lore is too great to ignore, especially
when that lore is as big as a Brontosaurus. There
(05:09):
are few historical mysteries that captivate people like the Dyatlav
Pass incident. In January of nineteen fifty nine, nine hikers
journeyed hundreds of miles into Russia's ural mountains, where they
died under circumstances so strange nobody knew what happened for
over sixty years, But recently, in twenty twenty one, scientists
found the answer in a very curious place. Before we
(05:32):
go there, though, let's go back to nineteen fifty nine.
It was the middle of the Russian winter and a
college student named Igor Dyatlov was planning a hiking trip. Now,
I know what you're thinking, that is the worst possible
time to go hiking, and yeah, you're right, But Igor
was trying to get a high level hiking certification and
to do that he had to complete a really difficult journey. Plus,
(05:55):
Igor wasn't going alone. He invited eight other hikers, mostly
friends from college, to accompany him. They set off in
late January headed into the Urals. Now the euro Mountains
run between Europe and Asia. They're sixteen hundred miles across
and reach over six thousand feet in elevation. During the winter,
the area is blanketed in several feet of snow and ice,
(06:17):
and temperatures average around negative six degrees fahrenheit. The conditions
are extreme, to say the least, but the hikers were
ready for it. They spent the next several days trekking
through snow, snacking on pork fat, and sleeping in a tent.
A few weeks later, though, the hikers were supposed to
return home, but they didn't show up. On February twentieth,
(06:38):
a search party went to find them and soon discovered
a strange and heartbreaking scene. The hiker's tent was found
on the side of a peak called colat Siacle. The
fabric of the tent had been partially buried in the snow,
but the poles were still upright. Searchers looked inside and
found the hikers backpacks, food, and even their shoes, but
no sign of the hikers themselves. And then they noticed
(07:01):
a slash mark on the side of the tent where
it had been cut open from the inside. From this opening,
footprints in the snow led down the mountain and straight
to a gruesome scene frozen bodies of two hikers. Two
more were found further up the slope. All of the
hikers were barefoot, and some were only wearing their underwear.
A few months later, when the snow started to melt,
(07:23):
the bodies of the last five hikers were found. They
were also half dressed, and some had inexplicable injuries. One
man had a fractured skull and one woman was missing
her tongue and eyes. It looked like something had scared
the hikers so badly that they tore their way out
of their tent and then ran barefoot into sub zero temperatures,
trying and failing to get away. As for what that
(07:47):
something was, well, the Russian government opened an investigation to
find out, but all they could say was that the
hikers were killed by and I quote, an unknown compelling force.
With no concrete answers, Conspiracy theories ran rampant. The hikers'
deaths were blamed on everything from aliens to Getty's to
secret military weapons tests. Then, in twenty twenty one, two
(08:11):
Swiss scientists decided to get to the bottom of the mystery.
They had a hunch that the datlav Pass incident had
a much simpler explanation. You see, throughout the years, many
people suggested the hikers die during an avalanche, but a
few details made that seem impossible. The tent poles were
still upright, which you wouldn't expect in a major avalanche. Plus,
the hikers had been camping on a relatively flat slope
(08:33):
in an area where avalanches have never been recorded. Regardless,
these scientists wanted to test their theory. They needed to
simulate the exact shape of the mountain and the weather
conditions on the night the hikers died. The technology to
create such a simulation existed, but it came from an
unlikely place. The scientists made a few calls, and before
long they were in a meeting room in Hollywood, sitting
(08:55):
across from the animator who created the snow effects for
Disney's hit Frozen. Using animation code from the movie, they
created the most advanced avalanche simulation yet, and it revealed
that an avalanche wasn't just possible, it was probable. You see,
there's a type of avalanche called a snow slab that
happens when a block of compressed snow and ice slides
(09:18):
down a mountain. Slabs can be relatively small, just a
few yards across, and still do serious damage. Based on
the scientists calculations, this is what happened to the hikers.
A slab avalanche fell on their tent. A few of
the hikers were injured, one had a fractured skull. Afraid
that more snow would fall on them, they cut their
way out of the tent and fled without even putting
(09:40):
on their shoes. Sadly, they froze to death before they
can make it back to safety. It's a pretty simple
explanation for a sixty two year old mystery, and it
all happened thanks to a Disney animated film, which to
me is an incredible example of how art and science
can come together to help us make sense of our world.
(10:05):
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.
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television
(10:27):
show and you can learn all about it over at
the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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