November 12, 2019 • 11 mins
Some stories are too crazy to believe because we can't see the proof, while others are unbelievalbe despite the physical evidence. Both of those stories will be great additions to today's tour through the Cabinet.
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Episode Transcript
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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. The human spirit is
(00:28):
rarely satisfied. There's always another goal, another milestone to reach.
Scientists with their eyes to the sky don't see a
final victory. They see an endless horizon of possibilities. In
the nineteen seventies and eighties, the United States and the
Soviet Union were in competition, sending small craft and rovers
towards Mars to learn everything they could about a potentially
(00:51):
brand new world. But our fascination with the right planet
didn't start there. Since the late nineteenth century, when it
was discovered that there were trenches on Mars, possibly man made,
we've wondered whether we're truly alone in the universe. Perhaps not. H. G.
Wells famously wrote about a Martian invasion in his eight
(01:13):
nine classic War of the Worlds, and our obsession with
what could be up there hasn't debated. Nikola Tesla once
claimed that Martians were even communicating with him via signals
they sent to Earth. Dr Hugh Mansfield. Robinson also thought
Martians were communicating with him. In the nineteen twenties, Robinson
had surrounded himself with as much literature as he could
(01:34):
find about mars Wells story was his favorite, but science
fiction soon turned to science fact when Robinson began receiving transmissions,
though unlike Tesla, he wasn't getting them over the air
to some kind of receiver. Robinson was the receiver. He
had claimed to have made telepathic contact with the Martian race,
(01:56):
specifically their princess Umaruru. She him all about her people,
how their lives were not unlike those of humans on Earth.
They drove cars and lived in houses. They weren't planning
on a takeover of our planets either, They simply wished
to exist peacefully on their own. Martian males were said
to be eight feet tall, while the women came in
(02:17):
at about a foot or two shorter. They had big
ears and a lot of hair on their heads. Physical
attributes vary depending on the class of Martian, the wealthier
ones being much better looking than those in the lower casts.
But Robinson's mental conversations could only go one way. Umaru
U could beam her words at him, but not hear
his in return. That's when Robinson came up with a
(02:40):
way for him to talk to her. He called it
a psycho motor meter, a device of his own making
that facilitated two way communication between Earth and Mars. Robinson
allegedly even traveled to Mars using astral projection, helped along
on his journey by the Martian Princess. His stories about
his communication with Mars did not go unnoticed, nor were
(03:02):
they widely accepted. A scientist studying psychic phenomena and paranormal
medium both met with Robinson and asked him to walk
them through what he'd learned from Mars. He showed the
men the Martian alphabet that he had transcribed, which looked
something like a child might draw. He also sang a
song that umaru U had taught him. It was comprised
(03:23):
of bizarre shrieks and klucks, but it was only a
small taste of a culture he desperately wanted to learn
more about. Robinson's ultimate goal was to get a message
to all of Mars, not just to the princess. Using
modern technology of the time, he planned on beaming a
message over radio waves to the whole Martian population. In
(03:44):
ninety six, Mars's orbit had placed it relatively close to Earth,
the perfect time for Robinson to put his plan in motion.
With the help of a telegraph operator, he transmitted the
message love to Mars from Earth O pesti nipitiya secomba.
Those last three words didn't make any sense to anyone
(04:05):
else in the room other than Robinson. Presumably they were
part of the Martian language he had picked up in
his talks with the princess. For two years, nothing happened.
The Martians sent back no response, but Robinson continued to
beam telegraphs towards the stars. His next message read comga
mar or God is love in Martian. When he failed
(04:28):
to get a reply the second time, he blamed Earth's
primitive technology. So he returned to communicating via telepathy, which
inspired him to start his own school, devoted to teaching
students how to converse using the power of the mind.
The College of Telepathy opened to no fanfare. His reputation
in the community had plummeted, which resulted in only two
(04:49):
students registering to attend his new school, one of which
was a dog named Nell. Robinson grew more reclusive as
the years went on, especially after aiming to have spoken
to the spirit of Cleopatra, who is now also living
on Mars. His legacy has been mostly forgotten today, but
it's worth remembering the man who believed when no one
(05:10):
else would, that there might be life on another planet.
One we're only now just getting to know, and now
that technology has advanced, we might not need to beam
a message to whatever might be living on Mars. We
could just send it along with the next rover, or
eventually even take it there ourselves. Some people just seem
(05:42):
to have a cloud that follows them wherever they go.
No matter how hard they try, bad news isn't far behind.
Roy Sullivan knew all about trying to get out from
under a cloud. Born in Virginia in nineteen twelve, Roy had,
depending on how you look at it, either an extremely
lucky life or maybe the luckiest of all. He was
(06:04):
one of eleven children, fourth in line, and didn't care
much for school, but he loved the outdoors. When he
was twenty four, he got a job as a ranger
and Shannandoah National Park, which had only been established one
year prior. His job of monitoring activity in the park
was uneventful for the first several years until he had
(06:25):
been stationed in a fire tower looking out over an
area of the park known as Miller's Head when he
found himself in the middle of a thunderstorm. As the
rain pounded against the tower and the thunder rattled its frame,
lightning struck. There was no lightning rod attached to the tower,
but that didn't stop the bolts from hitting it over
six times, causing a fire to spread. Roy ran and
(06:49):
as he retreated from the flames, another bolt struck, this
time in his leg. A strip of flesh roughly half
an inch wide, ran the length of his leg all
the way down to his big toe, which lost its
nail in the blast. As it has often been said,
lightning never strikes in the same place twice. That's not
entirely true, though, While rare, lightning has definitely been known
(07:12):
to hit an area more than once, and nobody knew
more about that than Roy Sullivan. He'd serve as a
park ranger for another twenty seven years before his luck
would be tested again, this time in July of nineteen
sixty nine. However, he wasn't high up in a fire
tower like he'd been back in nineteen forty two. He
was much lower to the ground driving in his truck. Normally,
(07:35):
a vehicle absorbs the blast from a lightning strike and
protects the driver from being zapped, but Roy had been
driving with his window down when the lightning hit a
tree before bouncing into his truck through the open window.
Roy was knocked out and his hair was set on
fire while the car rolled to the edge of a
cliff and then stopped a close call in more ways
(07:56):
than one. A year later, Roy wasn't even in the
park when he was struck by lightning for a third time.
He was in his front yard. A blast arct off
a nearby transformer and burned his shoulder. In nineteen seventy two,
he was in a ranger station when another storm resulted
in a lightning strike that set his hair on fire
once again. He tried putting it out in the bathroom sink,
(08:19):
but couldn't fit his head under the tap. Instead, he
wrapped his sine scalp in a wet towel and waited
for the storm to pass before getting help. Roy started
to think that something was after him, that he was
being targeted by some unknown entity that was out to
get him. From that point forward, he never drove during
a storm, especially with the window open. He'd pulled off
(08:42):
to the side and wait for it to finish before
continuing on. He avoided crowds, worried he might attract a
bolt of lightning no matter where he went, and he
never left home without a full container of water to
put out hair fires. But for all his precautions, he
couldn't escape fate. In August of nineteen seventy three, he
noticed a storm moving in over the park. He got
(09:04):
into his truck to drive away, terrified of the dark
cloud he swore was following him. He waited. After several minutes,
it's seen the cloud had passed. When he got out
to check, though, it was like someone was playing a
lifelong practical joke on him. Lightning hit his left side
and blew his shoe right off before jumping to his
right leg. He managed to make it to his truck
(09:25):
for his emergency water, which he used to put out
the fire atop his head. Again, things were quiet again
for a few years until nineteen seventy six when Roy
hurt his ankle, but that didn't keep him out of
the park. During a routine patrol, Roy watched the cloud
follow him as he retreated for safety. He didn't make
(09:46):
it in time, though, lightning struck him and set what
was left of his hair on fire. Then, in nineteen
seventy seven, Roy broke the Guinness World Record. He was
fishing in the middle of a pond when a final
strike hit him on top of his head and burn
him all the way down to his chest and stomach.
But it wasn't the only thing threatening his life that day.
(10:07):
A bear had wandered over to take fish that Roy
had caught. Still conscious, after the strike, Roy grabbed a
large tree branch off the ground and smacked the bear
with it, sending it back into the woods without its meal.
Roy Sullivan sounds like some kind of superhero, a man
capable of surviving seven lightning strikes and stopping a bear attack.
(10:28):
But like many heroes, roy superpower came at a high cost.
Those who knew him eventually stopped spending time with him,
afraid that they too might be caught by a stray
bolt from above. The rest of his life was pretty lonely,
and he passed away. And while death and lightning share
some common traits, both usually come out of nowhere and
(10:50):
happened when we least expect it. There is one major
difference that Roy must have been thankful for. Death at
least is the sort of lightning that only strikes once.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
(11:12):
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
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious,
(11:36):
Ye
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. The human spirit is
(00:28):
rarely satisfied. There's always another goal, another milestone to reach.
Scientists with their eyes to the sky don't see a
final victory. They see an endless horizon of possibilities. In
the nineteen seventies and eighties, the United States and the
Soviet Union were in competition, sending small craft and rovers
towards Mars to learn everything they could about a potentially
(00:51):
brand new world. But our fascination with the right planet
didn't start there. Since the late nineteenth century, when it
was discovered that there were trenches on Mars, possibly man made,
we've wondered whether we're truly alone in the universe. Perhaps not. H. G.
Wells famously wrote about a Martian invasion in his eight
(01:13):
nine classic War of the Worlds, and our obsession with
what could be up there hasn't debated. Nikola Tesla once
claimed that Martians were even communicating with him via signals
they sent to Earth. Dr Hugh Mansfield. Robinson also thought
Martians were communicating with him. In the nineteen twenties, Robinson
had surrounded himself with as much literature as he could
(01:34):
find about mars Wells story was his favorite, but science
fiction soon turned to science fact when Robinson began receiving transmissions,
though unlike Tesla, he wasn't getting them over the air
to some kind of receiver. Robinson was the receiver. He
had claimed to have made telepathic contact with the Martian race,
(01:56):
specifically their princess Umaruru. She him all about her people,
how their lives were not unlike those of humans on Earth.
They drove cars and lived in houses. They weren't planning
on a takeover of our planets either, They simply wished
to exist peacefully on their own. Martian males were said
to be eight feet tall, while the women came in
(02:17):
at about a foot or two shorter. They had big
ears and a lot of hair on their heads. Physical
attributes vary depending on the class of Martian, the wealthier
ones being much better looking than those in the lower casts.
But Robinson's mental conversations could only go one way. Umaru
U could beam her words at him, but not hear
his in return. That's when Robinson came up with a
(02:40):
way for him to talk to her. He called it
a psycho motor meter, a device of his own making
that facilitated two way communication between Earth and Mars. Robinson
allegedly even traveled to Mars using astral projection, helped along
on his journey by the Martian Princess. His stories about
his communication with Mars did not go unnoticed, nor were
(03:02):
they widely accepted. A scientist studying psychic phenomena and paranormal
medium both met with Robinson and asked him to walk
them through what he'd learned from Mars. He showed the
men the Martian alphabet that he had transcribed, which looked
something like a child might draw. He also sang a
song that umaru U had taught him. It was comprised
(03:23):
of bizarre shrieks and klucks, but it was only a
small taste of a culture he desperately wanted to learn
more about. Robinson's ultimate goal was to get a message
to all of Mars, not just to the princess. Using
modern technology of the time, he planned on beaming a
message over radio waves to the whole Martian population. In
(03:44):
ninety six, Mars's orbit had placed it relatively close to Earth,
the perfect time for Robinson to put his plan in motion.
With the help of a telegraph operator, he transmitted the
message love to Mars from Earth O pesti nipitiya secomba.
Those last three words didn't make any sense to anyone
(04:05):
else in the room other than Robinson. Presumably they were
part of the Martian language he had picked up in
his talks with the princess. For two years, nothing happened.
The Martians sent back no response, but Robinson continued to
beam telegraphs towards the stars. His next message read comga
mar or God is love in Martian. When he failed
(04:28):
to get a reply the second time, he blamed Earth's
primitive technology. So he returned to communicating via telepathy, which
inspired him to start his own school, devoted to teaching
students how to converse using the power of the mind.
The College of Telepathy opened to no fanfare. His reputation
in the community had plummeted, which resulted in only two
(04:49):
students registering to attend his new school, one of which
was a dog named Nell. Robinson grew more reclusive as
the years went on, especially after aiming to have spoken
to the spirit of Cleopatra, who is now also living
on Mars. His legacy has been mostly forgotten today, but
it's worth remembering the man who believed when no one
(05:10):
else would, that there might be life on another planet.
One we're only now just getting to know, and now
that technology has advanced, we might not need to beam
a message to whatever might be living on Mars. We
could just send it along with the next rover, or
eventually even take it there ourselves. Some people just seem
(05:42):
to have a cloud that follows them wherever they go.
No matter how hard they try, bad news isn't far behind.
Roy Sullivan knew all about trying to get out from
under a cloud. Born in Virginia in nineteen twelve, Roy had,
depending on how you look at it, either an extremely
lucky life or maybe the luckiest of all. He was
(06:04):
one of eleven children, fourth in line, and didn't care
much for school, but he loved the outdoors. When he
was twenty four, he got a job as a ranger
and Shannandoah National Park, which had only been established one
year prior. His job of monitoring activity in the park
was uneventful for the first several years until he had
(06:25):
been stationed in a fire tower looking out over an
area of the park known as Miller's Head when he
found himself in the middle of a thunderstorm. As the
rain pounded against the tower and the thunder rattled its frame,
lightning struck. There was no lightning rod attached to the tower,
but that didn't stop the bolts from hitting it over
six times, causing a fire to spread. Roy ran and
(06:49):
as he retreated from the flames, another bolt struck, this
time in his leg. A strip of flesh roughly half
an inch wide, ran the length of his leg all
the way down to his big toe, which lost its
nail in the blast. As it has often been said,
lightning never strikes in the same place twice. That's not
entirely true, though, While rare, lightning has definitely been known
(07:12):
to hit an area more than once, and nobody knew
more about that than Roy Sullivan. He'd serve as a
park ranger for another twenty seven years before his luck
would be tested again, this time in July of nineteen
sixty nine. However, he wasn't high up in a fire
tower like he'd been back in nineteen forty two. He
was much lower to the ground driving in his truck. Normally,
(07:35):
a vehicle absorbs the blast from a lightning strike and
protects the driver from being zapped, but Roy had been
driving with his window down when the lightning hit a
tree before bouncing into his truck through the open window.
Roy was knocked out and his hair was set on
fire while the car rolled to the edge of a
cliff and then stopped a close call in more ways
(07:56):
than one. A year later, Roy wasn't even in the
park when he was struck by lightning for a third time.
He was in his front yard. A blast arct off
a nearby transformer and burned his shoulder. In nineteen seventy two,
he was in a ranger station when another storm resulted
in a lightning strike that set his hair on fire
once again. He tried putting it out in the bathroom sink,
(08:19):
but couldn't fit his head under the tap. Instead, he
wrapped his sine scalp in a wet towel and waited
for the storm to pass before getting help. Roy started
to think that something was after him, that he was
being targeted by some unknown entity that was out to
get him. From that point forward, he never drove during
a storm, especially with the window open. He'd pulled off
(08:42):
to the side and wait for it to finish before
continuing on. He avoided crowds, worried he might attract a
bolt of lightning no matter where he went, and he
never left home without a full container of water to
put out hair fires. But for all his precautions, he
couldn't escape fate. In August of nineteen seventy three, he
noticed a storm moving in over the park. He got
(09:04):
into his truck to drive away, terrified of the dark
cloud he swore was following him. He waited. After several minutes,
it's seen the cloud had passed. When he got out
to check, though, it was like someone was playing a
lifelong practical joke on him. Lightning hit his left side
and blew his shoe right off before jumping to his
right leg. He managed to make it to his truck
(09:25):
for his emergency water, which he used to put out
the fire atop his head. Again, things were quiet again
for a few years until nineteen seventy six when Roy
hurt his ankle, but that didn't keep him out of
the park. During a routine patrol, Roy watched the cloud
follow him as he retreated for safety. He didn't make
(09:46):
it in time, though, lightning struck him and set what
was left of his hair on fire. Then, in nineteen
seventy seven, Roy broke the Guinness World Record. He was
fishing in the middle of a pond when a final
strike hit him on top of his head and burn
him all the way down to his chest and stomach.
But it wasn't the only thing threatening his life that day.
(10:07):
A bear had wandered over to take fish that Roy
had caught. Still conscious, after the strike, Roy grabbed a
large tree branch off the ground and smacked the bear
with it, sending it back into the woods without its meal.
Roy Sullivan sounds like some kind of superhero, a man
capable of surviving seven lightning strikes and stopping a bear attack.
(10:28):
But like many heroes, roy superpower came at a high cost.
Those who knew him eventually stopped spending time with him,
afraid that they too might be caught by a stray
bolt from above. The rest of his life was pretty lonely,
and he passed away. And while death and lightning share
some common traits, both usually come out of nowhere and
(10:50):
happened when we least expect it. There is one major
difference that Roy must have been thankful for. Death at
least is the sort of lightning that only strikes once.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
(11:12):
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
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious,
(11:36):
Ye
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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