November 20, 2018 • 9 mins
It's absolutely amazing what someone is capable when they put their mind to it. Today's tour provides us with examples of just how good—and bad—that can be.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
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. As a child, Larry
(00:29):
had dreams of soaring high above the clouds. After all,
he was from Los Angeles, a place where people from
all over the world came to follow their great, big
dreams and find great big success. Larry applied for the
United States Air Force after high school in the hopes
of becoming a fighter pilot. Gliding through the sky and
zooming past the clouds were all he wanted to do.
(00:51):
The Air Force couldn't help him, though, not with this
terrible eyesight. He was rejected and eventually found work as
a trucker as well as a part time gig at
a television studio, two jobs about as far from the
sky as you can get without working on a submarine.
But his boyhood dreams never really went away. He remembered
a trip to a military surplus store in his teens
(01:14):
where he saw weather balloons hanging from the ceiling, the
kind meteorologists send into the atmosphere to take readings of
air pressure, temperature, and humidity. They were strong, made of rubber,
and meant to carry heavy loads. They would have to do.
Larry and his girlfriend forged a requisition from the TV
studio for forty five weather balloons and several tanks of helium,
(01:37):
telling the vendor they were for a local commercial shoot,
and well, Larry wasn't entirely lying. He would definitely be
on TV by the end of all of this. It
was long before the phrase going viral was attached to
anything but deadly pandemics. Still, what he was about to
attempt would definitely get him a slot on the six
(01:57):
o'clock news. Call it a midlife crisis, Call it inspiration.
That's what Larry did when he filled all forty five
of his weather balloons and tied them to a metal launchair.
He dubbed the vessel the Inspiration One. Had launched it
from his home in San Pedro, California, with himself as
its sole passenger, along with the BB gun, a CB radio,
(02:21):
and a camera by his side. Each balloon measured four
feet across when fully inflated, and together all forty five
of them carried him to an altitude of sixteen thousand
feet in no time. Two commercial airliners noticed the makeshift
craft and notify the f A A of the not
so unidentified flying object. Only a few minutes into his
(02:43):
trip and he was already famous. But Larry was in
a bind. The chair had risen so quickly and to
such a height he worried shooting the balloons might cause
the chair to become unbalanced and spit him out. He
lifted the BB gun to his shoulder and one by
one popped a few balloons. The chair slowly descended, with
(03:04):
Larry holding on for dear life. Forty five minutes had
passed since the launch, and he was coasting his way
to an easy landing when the worst thing happened. Larry
lost his grip, not on the chair, but on the
BB gun. His landing gear, for lack of a better phrase,
had fallen off, and now it was up to gravity
(03:25):
and the California winds to carry him to safety. Well,
safety was the first choice, the winds had another idea.
As the chair floated down, the cables from the popped
balloons dangled below and got caught on power lines in
Long Beach. They caused a blackout across the entire town,
but Larry survived and managed to climb down from his
(03:46):
first predicament and into a brand new one. The Long
Beach Police Department knew all about his little excursion, and
they'd been waiting. They took him into custody for violating
the Federal Aviation Act. He'd paid a fine, but since
no one got hurt, he didn't face any jail time.
He did, however, enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame, appearing
(04:06):
in a TIMEX ad and doing some motivational speaking across
the country. Eventually, Larry's wild idea led others to follow
in his airsteps. No fewer than five people have attempted
similar trips using balloons and deck chairs, and while Larry
might not have fulfilled his dream of flying a fighter
plane for the Air Force, his story did become the
(04:29):
basis for several episodes of hit TV shows, including The
A Team and Hill Street Blues, oh and a major
film from Disney and Pixar Up And Let's face it,
if you're looking for fame, you can't get much higher
than that. There's a sequence in the film The Shawshank
(05:05):
Redemption where the main character Andy Dufrayne scatters pebbles and
rocks from his cell wall all over the prison yard.
No one else knows what he's up to, but he's
got a plan. An escape is in the works, and
it's coming together, piece by piece, stone by stone over
the course of two decades. Andy's Rocky scheme was pure fiction.
(05:26):
But in France in the late eighteen hundreds, a man
named Ferdinand Cheval was executing his own plan of escape,
and he left no stone unturned. Ferdinand wasn't looking to
escape prison, or war or anything like that. He fell, well,
more like stumbled into an escape from his daily life.
You see, Ferdinand was a postman delivering letters and packages
(05:50):
in the southeast of France. One particular hectic day, he
was practically running along his daily route when he tripped
over something in his path, a rock. In loosening it
from the earth, Ferdinand had loosened an old dream of his.
He'd imagined building a palace of his own, one where
he could rest after a hard day's work delivering other
people's mail. The stone's serendipitous appearance and its bizarre shape
(06:14):
had inspired him to finally put his dream into motion.
That became the first of many pebbles Ferdinand collected over
the next three decades. He'd walk his eighteen mile route
across the south of France, collecting stones and rocks as
he went, and thought about the work that he would
do on his palace. By the time he got home,
the sun had disappeared, so Ferdinand set to work by
(06:36):
the light of an oil lamp. He toiled for hours
assembling the stones into archways and walls and roofs. He
poured everything into what he called l'a palais y d'Al
or the ideal palace, and I mean everything. Hundreds of
gallons of lime, mortar, and cement, as well as thousands
(06:56):
of stones were all combined to create the palace. Ferdinand
also paid homage to Christianity and Hinduism as well, which
can clearly be seen in the finer details all around
the structure. When Ferdinand finally completed the structure in nineteen
o seven, at the age of seventy eight, it measured
twenty six meters long and twelve meters high. Its construction
(07:20):
was unlike anything anyone had ever seen, seemingly carved from
a large mountain or having grown out of the ground
like an enormous stalagmite. Ferdinand's pet project had also garnered
him praise from some of the most acclaimed creators of
all time, including writer Andre Breton and artist Pablo Picasso,
who credited the d I Y carpenter with founding surrealistic architecture.
(07:44):
Naturally at his age, Ferdinand had some ideas about how
he wanted to spend his final days on earth, whenever
they might be. He was seventy eight, after all, and
what better place to be buried than within the home
he built with his own two hands. But the town
didn't see it that way, and they prevented him from
planning his own burial within the palace. And that was
(08:06):
all right. Ferdinand had a different idea, one that would
take him much less time to complete. He got back
to work with his stones and cement and lime, beginning
a completely new structure set off from the house. It
took him another eight years to finish it, but he
finally did and his plan had paid off. Just a
year and a half after putting the last stone into place,
(08:28):
Ferdinand Cheval passed away. His spirit lives on in his
ideal palace, which greets over one thousand visitors each year.
They can tour the structure and walk its various hallways
and corridors. Their mouths agape at the level of detail
Ferdinand put into every corner. His body also never left.
(08:49):
While it doesn't reside inside the house, it's not too
far away. Ferdinand Cheval's remains were allowed to stay within
the second structure he built, the one that took him
eight years to finish, a mausoleum half a mile away.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
(09:10):
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 Manky 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
(09:32):
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
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. As a child, Larry
(00:29):
had dreams of soaring high above the clouds. After all,
he was from Los Angeles, a place where people from
all over the world came to follow their great, big
dreams and find great big success. Larry applied for the
United States Air Force after high school in the hopes
of becoming a fighter pilot. Gliding through the sky and
zooming past the clouds were all he wanted to do.
(00:51):
The Air Force couldn't help him, though, not with this
terrible eyesight. He was rejected and eventually found work as
a trucker as well as a part time gig at
a television studio, two jobs about as far from the
sky as you can get without working on a submarine.
But his boyhood dreams never really went away. He remembered
a trip to a military surplus store in his teens
(01:14):
where he saw weather balloons hanging from the ceiling, the
kind meteorologists send into the atmosphere to take readings of
air pressure, temperature, and humidity. They were strong, made of rubber,
and meant to carry heavy loads. They would have to do.
Larry and his girlfriend forged a requisition from the TV
studio for forty five weather balloons and several tanks of helium,
(01:37):
telling the vendor they were for a local commercial shoot,
and well, Larry wasn't entirely lying. He would definitely be
on TV by the end of all of this. It
was long before the phrase going viral was attached to
anything but deadly pandemics. Still, what he was about to
attempt would definitely get him a slot on the six
(01:57):
o'clock news. Call it a midlife crisis, Call it inspiration.
That's what Larry did when he filled all forty five
of his weather balloons and tied them to a metal launchair.
He dubbed the vessel the Inspiration One. Had launched it
from his home in San Pedro, California, with himself as
its sole passenger, along with the BB gun, a CB radio,
(02:21):
and a camera by his side. Each balloon measured four
feet across when fully inflated, and together all forty five
of them carried him to an altitude of sixteen thousand
feet in no time. Two commercial airliners noticed the makeshift
craft and notify the f A A of the not
so unidentified flying object. Only a few minutes into his
(02:43):
trip and he was already famous. But Larry was in
a bind. The chair had risen so quickly and to
such a height he worried shooting the balloons might cause
the chair to become unbalanced and spit him out. He
lifted the BB gun to his shoulder and one by
one popped a few balloons. The chair slowly descended, with
(03:04):
Larry holding on for dear life. Forty five minutes had
passed since the launch, and he was coasting his way
to an easy landing when the worst thing happened. Larry
lost his grip, not on the chair, but on the
BB gun. His landing gear, for lack of a better phrase,
had fallen off, and now it was up to gravity
(03:25):
and the California winds to carry him to safety. Well,
safety was the first choice, the winds had another idea.
As the chair floated down, the cables from the popped
balloons dangled below and got caught on power lines in
Long Beach. They caused a blackout across the entire town,
but Larry survived and managed to climb down from his
(03:46):
first predicament and into a brand new one. The Long
Beach Police Department knew all about his little excursion, and
they'd been waiting. They took him into custody for violating
the Federal Aviation Act. He'd paid a fine, but since
no one got hurt, he didn't face any jail time.
He did, however, enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame, appearing
(04:06):
in a TIMEX ad and doing some motivational speaking across
the country. Eventually, Larry's wild idea led others to follow
in his airsteps. No fewer than five people have attempted
similar trips using balloons and deck chairs, and while Larry
might not have fulfilled his dream of flying a fighter
plane for the Air Force, his story did become the
(04:29):
basis for several episodes of hit TV shows, including The
A Team and Hill Street Blues, oh and a major
film from Disney and Pixar Up And Let's face it,
if you're looking for fame, you can't get much higher
than that. There's a sequence in the film The Shawshank
(05:05):
Redemption where the main character Andy Dufrayne scatters pebbles and
rocks from his cell wall all over the prison yard.
No one else knows what he's up to, but he's
got a plan. An escape is in the works, and
it's coming together, piece by piece, stone by stone over
the course of two decades. Andy's Rocky scheme was pure fiction.
(05:26):
But in France in the late eighteen hundreds, a man
named Ferdinand Cheval was executing his own plan of escape,
and he left no stone unturned. Ferdinand wasn't looking to
escape prison, or war or anything like that. He fell, well,
more like stumbled into an escape from his daily life.
You see, Ferdinand was a postman delivering letters and packages
(05:50):
in the southeast of France. One particular hectic day, he
was practically running along his daily route when he tripped
over something in his path, a rock. In loosening it
from the earth, Ferdinand had loosened an old dream of his.
He'd imagined building a palace of his own, one where
he could rest after a hard day's work delivering other
people's mail. The stone's serendipitous appearance and its bizarre shape
(06:14):
had inspired him to finally put his dream into motion.
That became the first of many pebbles Ferdinand collected over
the next three decades. He'd walk his eighteen mile route
across the south of France, collecting stones and rocks as
he went, and thought about the work that he would
do on his palace. By the time he got home,
the sun had disappeared, so Ferdinand set to work by
(06:36):
the light of an oil lamp. He toiled for hours
assembling the stones into archways and walls and roofs. He
poured everything into what he called l'a palais y d'Al
or the ideal palace, and I mean everything. Hundreds of
gallons of lime, mortar, and cement, as well as thousands
(06:56):
of stones were all combined to create the palace. Ferdinand
also paid homage to Christianity and Hinduism as well, which
can clearly be seen in the finer details all around
the structure. When Ferdinand finally completed the structure in nineteen
o seven, at the age of seventy eight, it measured
twenty six meters long and twelve meters high. Its construction
(07:20):
was unlike anything anyone had ever seen, seemingly carved from
a large mountain or having grown out of the ground
like an enormous stalagmite. Ferdinand's pet project had also garnered
him praise from some of the most acclaimed creators of
all time, including writer Andre Breton and artist Pablo Picasso,
who credited the d I Y carpenter with founding surrealistic architecture.
(07:44):
Naturally at his age, Ferdinand had some ideas about how
he wanted to spend his final days on earth, whenever
they might be. He was seventy eight, after all, and
what better place to be buried than within the home
he built with his own two hands. But the town
didn't see it that way, and they prevented him from
planning his own burial within the palace. And that was
(08:06):
all right. Ferdinand had a different idea, one that would
take him much less time to complete. He got back
to work with his stones and cement and lime, beginning
a completely new structure set off from the house. It
took him another eight years to finish it, but he
finally did and his plan had paid off. Just a
year and a half after putting the last stone into place,
(08:28):
Ferdinand Cheval passed away. His spirit lives on in his
ideal palace, which greets over one thousand visitors each year.
They can tour the structure and walk its various hallways
and corridors. Their mouths agape at the level of detail
Ferdinand put into every corner. His body also never left.
(08:49):
While it doesn't reside inside the house, it's not too
far away. Ferdinand Cheval's remains were allowed to stay within
the second structure he built, the one that took him
eight years to finish, a mausoleum half a mile away.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
(09:10):
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 Manky 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
(09:32):
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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