October 8, 2019 • 10 mins
Some mysteries might never be solved, but others already have. Thankfully, the journey in both of today's tales is entertaining enough to make anyone curious.
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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. When we create something,
(00:29):
we're also creating a legacy. We're leaving behind something for
future generations to find, and if there's any justice in
the world, our name will still be attached to it
when they do. No one remembers Hans Lippershe. Hans was
a Dutchman who built the first telescope in sight. He
even tried to patent it, but his application was denied.
(00:50):
Decades later, Galileo, with his eyes turned towards the stars,
would use lipper Chase designed to build his own and
his name would become synonymous with the invention. And what
about Antonio Miyucci. In eighteen sixty Antonio built the first
working telephone, and just like Liperche, he tried to secure
a patent for his invention. He succeeded, but when it
(01:13):
came time to renew it, he couldn't afford the ten
dollar renewal fee and lost his patent Two years later
in eighteen seventy six, and up and comer named Alexander
Graham Bell filed a patent for his own telephone. As
you might imagine, Miucci was livid. He contacted a lab
at Western Union where he'd sent the original plans for
his telephone, which would serve as the proof he'd used
(01:35):
to sue Bell for appropriating his work. But there was
just one problem. The plans were gone. No one knows
for sure what happened to them, but Bell might have
had a part to play in that, after all, he
worked in the very same lab at the time. And
then there's Gottlieb. Richard Troub, the German American was a
tinkerer from Chicago, and in nineteen oh seventy penda letter
(01:58):
to Motorcycle Illustrate did magazine. In it, he mentioned a
four horsepower motorcycle that he built from scratch and even
included a photo of himself beside it. It's spent a
year working on it between seven pm and eleven pm,
six nights a week. It boasted a three and a
half gallon gas tank, fifty five inch wheelbase, and in
(02:19):
his words, perfect grip control. It was also way ahead
of its time compared to similar bikes coming from the
larger manufacturers. No bicycle had yet adopted the twin break
single cam system that Troub used, and at the time
nothing else on the market could keep up with its
top speed of eighty five, and it was road tested too.
(02:40):
By the time he'd written that letter to the magazine,
Trout had already ridden his bike for over fifteen hundred
miles without a single bit of trouble. He owned a
small bicycle shop attached to his property, where he presumably
built that bike, as well as at least one other
just like it, although that one has been lost to time.
But what happened to the first Troub motorcycle? The one
(03:01):
that he wrote about in the letter? While in nineteen sixteen,
the son of one of Troub's neighbors decided that he
just had to have it, so he stole it from Troub.
The boy's father couldn't believe his son would do something
like that, so as a punishment, he made him sign
up to join the army. The young man was shipped
overseas and sadly didn't come home. The motorcycle, though, was
(03:24):
never returned. The prevailing theory is that just before he
was deployed the Sun hid the bike so that he
could come back to it when he returned from the war,
but his parents had no idea what happened to it.
Little did they know it was right under their noses.
The family eventually sold their apartment building and moved away. Then,
(03:44):
in nineteen sixty seven, the new owners decided to spruce
things up with some renovations. They hired a contractor who
was tearing down a brick wall when he noticed something
behind it, a two wheeled contraption that looked about fifty
years old. The long lost Troub had been found. Not
knowing what they had, the building's owners traded the bike
(04:05):
to a Chicago motorcycle dealer for a seven hundred dollar Suzuki.
The dealer restored the Trial back to its original glory,
and then ten years later he sold it to Hollywood
stuntman Bud Ekins. Bud had worked as Steve McQueen's stunt
double and was in Chicago working on a small budget
film called The Blues Brothers the day. The Trial lives
(04:25):
at the Wheels through Time Museum in North Carolina, where
Gottlieb Troub's legacy has been allowed to live on. Surprisingly,
it still runs just as well as it did back
in nineteen sixteen. The museum's owner, Dale Waksler, can sometimes
even be seen riding around town on it, proving that
the old saying is true. They just don't make them
(04:46):
like they used to. All it takes is an idea,
a phrase, or a philosophy to send people into a panic.
If Area fifty one, a government site is off limits
(05:09):
to the public, that must mean that aliens are being
kept there. Did we really go to the moon or
was the whole thing done on a sound stage? A
spoiler alert. We definitely went to the moon, But there
are still people out there to this day who refuse
to believe the truth, opting for their own version where
only they really know what's going on. Conspiracy theorists ignore
(05:31):
what's on the surface and instead lift up the curtain
to see what's underneath, even if there's nothing there. Take
Pink Floyd, for example, The Dark Side of the Moon
Wizard of Oz mash Up was already well known by
the mid nineteen nineties, and even if the two works
didn't line up exactly, there was enough there to propel
the novelty from quiet rumor to cultural touch point. Pink
(05:55):
Floyd released their album The Division Bell right around the
same time as the inner net was starting to come
into its own use. Net groups were one of the
main ways people communicated back then, similar to today's Reddit
forums used. Net groups were big storehouses of information where
people could post anonymously and have discussions on any number
of topics. As the band kicked off its Division Bell
(06:18):
World tour, an anonymous user posted a message to the
Pink Floyd group where they believed they discovered a secret
message the band had delivered. The person offered to guide
listeners to a deeper meaning Listen, read, think, communicate. These
were the words they wrote before signing off under the
name Publius. Additional messages from Publicius followed, including one that
(06:43):
claimed the Division Bell album contained one central meaning, unlike
the band's previous albums, which had been open to a
variety of interpretations. Even back then, Internet audiences were skeptical,
and many believe this person to be part of the
band or even the record company, just trying to drum
up interest in the album. But it was the last
(07:04):
message that people took farther down the rabbit hole than
they'd ever been before. It spoke of a planned communication.
On Monday July in East Rutherford, New Jersey, at ten
thirty pm, white lights would flash. There is an enigma,
Publius promised. Trust Those who had believed in Publius's messages
(07:26):
had their faith confirmed. As the band performed this song
keep Talking during their July eight concert, the like display
at the front of the stage started flashing and the
words Enigma Publius appeared. In fact, the phrase showed up
at several performances thereafter, yet the band claimed not to
know about any of them. Pink Floyd's lighting director was
(07:47):
also thought to have been a co conspirator, but according
to him, he was just doing what he was told
by the band. The phrase popped up again when the
band's album A Momentary Lapse of Reason was re released
the same year. Sadly, two years later, the service hosting
the usenet where Publicist was posting was shut down, although
similar posts appeared on other message boards and websites thereafter,
(08:09):
making people wonder if either the account had returned or
that the enigma had been solved. In two thousand two,
it seemed as though the puzzle really had been solved
by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmore. In an interview, he
claimed the whole publicist enigma had been employed by the
record company to get people talking about the album, and
(08:30):
the band's lighting designer, Mark Brickman confirmed Gilmore's statement, adding
even further intrigue to the legend. Apparently, the publicist enigma
was the creation of a Washington d C. Insider, a
former member of the intelligence community who had worked in encryption.
Brickman later recanted his statement, though claiming he regretted saying
anything at all, and before he died. The author Douglas
(08:53):
Adams weighed in on the whole thing. During a public
online chat. Someone asked him if the publicist enigma was real.
Adams was reported to have said, it had nothing to
do with me. I can't say anything about it. He
might have been telling the truth, or perhaps he had
been sworn to secrecy by a clandestine government agency. Of course,
you might be wondering what Douglas Adams, the author of
(09:15):
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, had to do with
Pink Floyd at all. Well. Adams had given the division
bell it's title after David Gilmore donated a large sum
of money to one of Adam's charities, the Environmental Investigation Agency,
which might explain a comment made by Pink Floyd biographer
Nick Mason at a book signing. When asked about the
(09:36):
publicist enigma, Mason claimed that a solution would have led
to a crop of trees planted in the middle of
a clearing. If the publicist enigma really was a record
company invention, Pink Floyd might have created one of the
first truly viral Internet hoaxes. After all, they were the
ones who said you have to be trusted by the
(09:57):
people that lie to you. 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 Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
(10:19):
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. Yeah
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. When we create something,
(00:29):
we're also creating a legacy. We're leaving behind something for
future generations to find, and if there's any justice in
the world, our name will still be attached to it
when they do. No one remembers Hans Lippershe. Hans was
a Dutchman who built the first telescope in sight. He
even tried to patent it, but his application was denied.
(00:50):
Decades later, Galileo, with his eyes turned towards the stars,
would use lipper Chase designed to build his own and
his name would become synonymous with the invention. And what
about Antonio Miyucci. In eighteen sixty Antonio built the first
working telephone, and just like Liperche, he tried to secure
a patent for his invention. He succeeded, but when it
(01:13):
came time to renew it, he couldn't afford the ten
dollar renewal fee and lost his patent Two years later
in eighteen seventy six, and up and comer named Alexander
Graham Bell filed a patent for his own telephone. As
you might imagine, Miucci was livid. He contacted a lab
at Western Union where he'd sent the original plans for
his telephone, which would serve as the proof he'd used
(01:35):
to sue Bell for appropriating his work. But there was
just one problem. The plans were gone. No one knows
for sure what happened to them, but Bell might have
had a part to play in that, after all, he
worked in the very same lab at the time. And
then there's Gottlieb. Richard Troub, the German American was a
tinkerer from Chicago, and in nineteen oh seventy penda letter
(01:58):
to Motorcycle Illustrate did magazine. In it, he mentioned a
four horsepower motorcycle that he built from scratch and even
included a photo of himself beside it. It's spent a
year working on it between seven pm and eleven pm,
six nights a week. It boasted a three and a
half gallon gas tank, fifty five inch wheelbase, and in
(02:19):
his words, perfect grip control. It was also way ahead
of its time compared to similar bikes coming from the
larger manufacturers. No bicycle had yet adopted the twin break
single cam system that Troub used, and at the time
nothing else on the market could keep up with its
top speed of eighty five, and it was road tested too.
(02:40):
By the time he'd written that letter to the magazine,
Trout had already ridden his bike for over fifteen hundred
miles without a single bit of trouble. He owned a
small bicycle shop attached to his property, where he presumably
built that bike, as well as at least one other
just like it, although that one has been lost to time.
But what happened to the first Troub motorcycle? The one
(03:01):
that he wrote about in the letter? While in nineteen sixteen,
the son of one of Troub's neighbors decided that he
just had to have it, so he stole it from Troub.
The boy's father couldn't believe his son would do something
like that, so as a punishment, he made him sign
up to join the army. The young man was shipped
overseas and sadly didn't come home. The motorcycle, though, was
(03:24):
never returned. The prevailing theory is that just before he
was deployed the Sun hid the bike so that he
could come back to it when he returned from the war,
but his parents had no idea what happened to it.
Little did they know it was right under their noses.
The family eventually sold their apartment building and moved away. Then,
(03:44):
in nineteen sixty seven, the new owners decided to spruce
things up with some renovations. They hired a contractor who
was tearing down a brick wall when he noticed something
behind it, a two wheeled contraption that looked about fifty
years old. The long lost Troub had been found. Not
knowing what they had, the building's owners traded the bike
(04:05):
to a Chicago motorcycle dealer for a seven hundred dollar Suzuki.
The dealer restored the Trial back to its original glory,
and then ten years later he sold it to Hollywood
stuntman Bud Ekins. Bud had worked as Steve McQueen's stunt
double and was in Chicago working on a small budget
film called The Blues Brothers the day. The Trial lives
(04:25):
at the Wheels through Time Museum in North Carolina, where
Gottlieb Troub's legacy has been allowed to live on. Surprisingly,
it still runs just as well as it did back
in nineteen sixteen. The museum's owner, Dale Waksler, can sometimes
even be seen riding around town on it, proving that
the old saying is true. They just don't make them
(04:46):
like they used to. All it takes is an idea,
a phrase, or a philosophy to send people into a panic.
If Area fifty one, a government site is off limits
(05:09):
to the public, that must mean that aliens are being
kept there. Did we really go to the moon or
was the whole thing done on a sound stage? A
spoiler alert. We definitely went to the moon, But there
are still people out there to this day who refuse
to believe the truth, opting for their own version where
only they really know what's going on. Conspiracy theorists ignore
(05:31):
what's on the surface and instead lift up the curtain
to see what's underneath, even if there's nothing there. Take
Pink Floyd, for example, The Dark Side of the Moon
Wizard of Oz mash Up was already well known by
the mid nineteen nineties, and even if the two works
didn't line up exactly, there was enough there to propel
the novelty from quiet rumor to cultural touch point. Pink
(05:55):
Floyd released their album The Division Bell right around the
same time as the inner net was starting to come
into its own use. Net groups were one of the
main ways people communicated back then, similar to today's Reddit
forums used. Net groups were big storehouses of information where
people could post anonymously and have discussions on any number
of topics. As the band kicked off its Division Bell
(06:18):
World tour, an anonymous user posted a message to the
Pink Floyd group where they believed they discovered a secret
message the band had delivered. The person offered to guide
listeners to a deeper meaning Listen, read, think, communicate. These
were the words they wrote before signing off under the
name Publius. Additional messages from Publicius followed, including one that
(06:43):
claimed the Division Bell album contained one central meaning, unlike
the band's previous albums, which had been open to a
variety of interpretations. Even back then, Internet audiences were skeptical,
and many believe this person to be part of the
band or even the record company, just trying to drum
up interest in the album. But it was the last
(07:04):
message that people took farther down the rabbit hole than
they'd ever been before. It spoke of a planned communication.
On Monday July in East Rutherford, New Jersey, at ten
thirty pm, white lights would flash. There is an enigma,
Publius promised. Trust Those who had believed in Publius's messages
(07:26):
had their faith confirmed. As the band performed this song
keep Talking during their July eight concert, the like display
at the front of the stage started flashing and the
words Enigma Publius appeared. In fact, the phrase showed up
at several performances thereafter, yet the band claimed not to
know about any of them. Pink Floyd's lighting director was
(07:47):
also thought to have been a co conspirator, but according
to him, he was just doing what he was told
by the band. The phrase popped up again when the
band's album A Momentary Lapse of Reason was re released
the same year. Sadly, two years later, the service hosting
the usenet where Publicist was posting was shut down, although
similar posts appeared on other message boards and websites thereafter,
(08:09):
making people wonder if either the account had returned or
that the enigma had been solved. In two thousand two,
it seemed as though the puzzle really had been solved
by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmore. In an interview, he
claimed the whole publicist enigma had been employed by the
record company to get people talking about the album, and
(08:30):
the band's lighting designer, Mark Brickman confirmed Gilmore's statement, adding
even further intrigue to the legend. Apparently, the publicist enigma
was the creation of a Washington d C. Insider, a
former member of the intelligence community who had worked in encryption.
Brickman later recanted his statement, though claiming he regretted saying
anything at all, and before he died. The author Douglas
(08:53):
Adams weighed in on the whole thing. During a public
online chat. Someone asked him if the publicist enigma was real.
Adams was reported to have said, it had nothing to
do with me. I can't say anything about it. He
might have been telling the truth, or perhaps he had
been sworn to secrecy by a clandestine government agency. Of course,
you might be wondering what Douglas Adams, the author of
(09:15):
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, had to do with
Pink Floyd at all. Well. Adams had given the division
bell it's title after David Gilmore donated a large sum
of money to one of Adam's charities, the Environmental Investigation Agency,
which might explain a comment made by Pink Floyd biographer
Nick Mason at a book signing. When asked about the
(09:36):
publicist enigma, Mason claimed that a solution would have led
to a crop of trees planted in the middle of
a clearing. If the publicist enigma really was a record
company invention, Pink Floyd might have created one of the
first truly viral Internet hoaxes. After all, they were the
ones who said you have to be trusted by the
(09:57):
people that lie to you. 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 Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
(10:19):
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. Yeah
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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