November 14, 2019 • 11 mins
Today we'll take a tour through a pair of stories that feature unbelievable objects. Just don't rock the boat.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
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 right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Dinosaurs lived over two fifty
(00:29):
million years ago in what's known as the Mesozoic Era.
The first human beings, or as close as we know
as human beings, first appeared between five and seven million
years ago. History has taught us that dinosaurs and humans
did not coexist. It was a chronological impossibility. And yet
there's a belief that species from both sides may have
(00:50):
crossed paths at some point in history. Valdemar juls Rud
certainly believed that. He was a hardware store owner from Germany.
In the sum of nineteen forty four, while on horseback
near the Mexican city of Akambaro, he noticed something sticking
out of the ground in a dried up river bed. Actually,
he noticed many things, small figurines made of clay that
(01:12):
looked like animals of some kind. Several of them had
rows of sharp teeth, and some were depicted in battle
with humanoid figures, while others had the human figures. Writing
atop their backs. He hired a local farmer to help
him dig around the area. Maybe there were more of
these clay creations to be found. Soon it was clear
that the two men had gotten much more than they
(01:33):
had bargained for. They pulled over thirty thousand clay figurines
out of the dirt. The human shaped ones were of
particular interest because they seemed to represent cultures from all
over the world, including ancient Egyptians and Sumerians, people not
known to have ever set foot in Mexico. Thinking that
he had stumbled upon an archaeological gold mine, Joel's Rudd
(01:55):
collected all of the figurines he had found and stored
them in his home. Were Words spread of the strange pieces,
and eventually people came to find out for themselves whether
they were truly an ancient plaything or just discarded modern
art projects. Charles de Pesso, an archaeologist working for a
cultural preservation organization in Arizona, immediately dismissed the Akambaro figurines
(02:18):
as fake. They showed nowhere no dirt in their crevices.
They couldn't have been more than a few years old,
he said. Most likely they were made by the local
farmers as part of an elaborate hoax. Others weren't so skeptical, though.
In ninety one, Los Angeles Times reporter Lowell Harmer traveled
to Joels Rad's home in Mexico to see them for himself,
(02:39):
and he was convinced of their authenticity. His article about
the figurines led to more stories from other papers, all
of which fueled further exploration of the area. Mexico sent
for archaeologists to the site to see if there were
other figurines that hadn't yet been found. There definitely were,
but there was more as well. The bones of two
(02:59):
dinosaurs were also discovered a little deeper underground. After the
government shut down the site from further digging, rumors about
what had been found there only grew larger. Another archaeologist,
Charles Hapgood, wasn't convinced with Dipesso's claim that farmers had
made the roughly thirty two thousand figurines on their own.
For one, they had no reference for what a dinosaur
(03:21):
was supposed to look like. The farmers were poor and
uneducated to think that they'd sit around sculpting lizards out
of clay, rather than tending to their farms didn't make
any sense. Hapgood's colleague, Earl Gardner, apparently agreed. He sent
a few of the figurines to a lab for radio
carbon dating, which placed their age at roughly thirty five
(03:42):
hundred to sixty years old. Further tests would yield a
more accurate time period of around BC. Other tests have
been conducted over the years to Scientists attempted to run
thermo luminescent dating on a few dozen figurines, but the
results were in conclusive. Of and the fact that no
one has been able to accurately chart their origins hasn't
(04:04):
helped skeptics or believers prove the validity of the figurines.
Over the years, debate has raged as to whether the
Acambaro figurines or remnants of a time when man and
dinosaur or something like them coexisted, or perhaps they were
someone's idea of a historical prank. We may never know
the truth about where the figurines came from, but it
(04:25):
sure is a curious vision of the past, isn't it.
However improbable it might be, it's fun to imagine a
time when humans might have done something typically only seen
in Hollywood blockbusters. Riding a top ferocious dinosaurs like a
common horse, and if they did, it would be easy
to see the Akambaro figurines as something very familiar to
(04:48):
our modern minds action figures. World War Two ripped Europe apart,
but out of it came countless innovations we still used today. Penicillan,
(05:10):
although discovered years earlier, was first put to use on
the battlefield to stave off infection in wounded soldiers. British
radio experts Robert rats and Watts and Arnold Wilkins helped
introduce the world to radar by reflecting radio waves off
a bomber as a way of detecting enemy aircraft. In fact,
the British were behind quite a few wartime technologies, all
(05:32):
developed to give the Allies and edge in the field. However,
as one side was evolving, so was the other. German
U boats had come into their own during World War One,
but the Treaty of Versailles, signed in nineteen nineteen forbade
Germany from building new subs again. Of course, the Germans
weren't going to let something as small as a global
(05:52):
declaration of peace stopped them. Under the guise of research,
they continued developing U boats until their undersea fleet was
the large just in the Second World War. The subs
could travel long distances in frigid temperatures, far from shore
and beyond the reach of most land based planes. That
made finding and stopping them almost impossible until an English
(06:14):
inventor came up with an idea for a new kind
of vessel. He sent his proposal for a modified aircraft
carrier to Lewis Mountbatton, a British Royal Naval officer. It
would be a stealth craft designed to withstand the freezing
temperatures of the mid Atlantic, able to transport fighter planes
to areas where U boats were known to occupy. They
(06:34):
called it Project Tobacic, and the first step was to
construct a scale model of this carrier at Canada's Jasper
National Park. The inventor, Jeffrey Pike, wanted to make sure
it would be able to withstand artillery fire from the Germans,
so he got to work on a sixty ft long
prototype fitted with a one horsepower engine. He hired a
team of people to constructed at Patricia Lake in Alberta,
(06:58):
not telling them exactly what it was they were building. Unfortunately,
they had gotten a late start. It was already April
and the weather was heating up. Soon there would be
no way to verify the ship's resilience against the harshness
of the icy mid Atlantic, But rather than give up
and wait until the next year, the British look to
the Americans to assist in their efforts. Due to a
(07:18):
previous issue while working with the United States on a
separate initiative, Jeffrey Pike was cut out of Project Tobaccic,
absent their fearless leader. Engineers from both countries worked around
the clock for months as ambitions around the aircraft carrier grew.
It had to be bigger, they said. It had to
travel for longer distances too. Its hull had to be
(07:40):
over forty thick to withstand towering ocean waves and enemy torpedoes,
and it would carry more than fighter planes. Bombers were
added to the list, which meant its runway needed to
be over two thousand feet long, and it also had
to turn on a dime, so a one foot high
rudder needed to be included. Unfortunately, no one had ever
(08:00):
installed or controlled one that large before. They built three
different models based on Pike's original design, but none of
them managed to incorporate every requirement into a single one.
Initial tests were successful, though the vessel moved much slower
than the British had hoped. When it was all said
and done, Winston Churchill and mount Batton gave the engineers
(08:22):
the green light to build and launch a full size
version as soon as possible, and they would have if
they had had enough time. The researchers had been so
scared of Churchill that they didn't have the heart to
tell him that one ship would cost over seventy million
dollars and take almost a year to build. Oh and
it probably would have melted in the end. You see.
Given the steel shortages due to the war effort, Pike
(08:45):
and his scientists had to come up with another method
for building an aircraft carrier capable of floating undetected into
the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean. The clear choice,
quite literally was ice. Had Project Tobacic been complete did
it would have been a six hundred foot long ship
weighing two million tons and made entirely of ice, two
(09:06):
hundred eighty thousand blocks of it to be exact well
in ice based compound. At least. The first prototype built
was originally made a solid ice, but it was too
weak to withstand rough weather or gunfire. That's when Pike
came up with a new kind of material he called
Pike Creet. It was a mixture of ice and wood
pulp that was stronger, more buoyant, and took longer to
(09:28):
melt than regular ice. During one demonstration at a top
secret conference in nineteen forty three, Lord Mount Benton set
up a block of Pike Creek beside a block of ice.
His audience Winston Churchill, Franklin, Delano Roosevelt, and several other
high ranking military officials. He then unholstered his service pistol
and fired a shot at the pure ice block, breaking
(09:50):
it into a million small pieces. Then he fired a
shot at the Pike Creet, which deflected the bullet, sending
it whizzing past US Admiral Ernest King's leg. He wasn't hurt,
but his pants got a quick lesson in the strength
of Pike's new building material Sadly, Project Tobacco never made
it past the prototype phase. Aside from the massive construction costs,
(10:12):
newer technologies had arrived, which allowed British planes to fly
farther distances for longer, canceling the need for a frozen
floating runway. Baton eventually exited the project, leaving it um
dead in the water. And there you go, A cool
idea to help win the war that never really took
(10:33):
off in the end. Curious, isn't 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. The show was
created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
(10:55):
I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
a podcast, book series, eas 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
h
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Dinosaurs lived over two fifty
(00:29):
million years ago in what's known as the Mesozoic Era.
The first human beings, or as close as we know
as human beings, first appeared between five and seven million
years ago. History has taught us that dinosaurs and humans
did not coexist. It was a chronological impossibility. And yet
there's a belief that species from both sides may have
(00:50):
crossed paths at some point in history. Valdemar juls Rud
certainly believed that. He was a hardware store owner from Germany.
In the sum of nineteen forty four, while on horseback
near the Mexican city of Akambaro, he noticed something sticking
out of the ground in a dried up river bed. Actually,
he noticed many things, small figurines made of clay that
(01:12):
looked like animals of some kind. Several of them had
rows of sharp teeth, and some were depicted in battle
with humanoid figures, while others had the human figures. Writing
atop their backs. He hired a local farmer to help
him dig around the area. Maybe there were more of
these clay creations to be found. Soon it was clear
that the two men had gotten much more than they
(01:33):
had bargained for. They pulled over thirty thousand clay figurines
out of the dirt. The human shaped ones were of
particular interest because they seemed to represent cultures from all
over the world, including ancient Egyptians and Sumerians, people not
known to have ever set foot in Mexico. Thinking that
he had stumbled upon an archaeological gold mine, Joel's Rudd
(01:55):
collected all of the figurines he had found and stored
them in his home. Were Words spread of the strange pieces,
and eventually people came to find out for themselves whether
they were truly an ancient plaything or just discarded modern
art projects. Charles de Pesso, an archaeologist working for a
cultural preservation organization in Arizona, immediately dismissed the Akambaro figurines
(02:18):
as fake. They showed nowhere no dirt in their crevices.
They couldn't have been more than a few years old,
he said. Most likely they were made by the local
farmers as part of an elaborate hoax. Others weren't so skeptical, though.
In ninety one, Los Angeles Times reporter Lowell Harmer traveled
to Joels Rad's home in Mexico to see them for himself,
(02:39):
and he was convinced of their authenticity. His article about
the figurines led to more stories from other papers, all
of which fueled further exploration of the area. Mexico sent
for archaeologists to the site to see if there were
other figurines that hadn't yet been found. There definitely were,
but there was more as well. The bones of two
(02:59):
dinosaurs were also discovered a little deeper underground. After the
government shut down the site from further digging, rumors about
what had been found there only grew larger. Another archaeologist,
Charles Hapgood, wasn't convinced with Dipesso's claim that farmers had
made the roughly thirty two thousand figurines on their own.
For one, they had no reference for what a dinosaur
(03:21):
was supposed to look like. The farmers were poor and
uneducated to think that they'd sit around sculpting lizards out
of clay, rather than tending to their farms didn't make
any sense. Hapgood's colleague, Earl Gardner, apparently agreed. He sent
a few of the figurines to a lab for radio
carbon dating, which placed their age at roughly thirty five
(03:42):
hundred to sixty years old. Further tests would yield a
more accurate time period of around BC. Other tests have
been conducted over the years to Scientists attempted to run
thermo luminescent dating on a few dozen figurines, but the
results were in conclusive. Of and the fact that no
one has been able to accurately chart their origins hasn't
(04:04):
helped skeptics or believers prove the validity of the figurines.
Over the years, debate has raged as to whether the
Acambaro figurines or remnants of a time when man and
dinosaur or something like them coexisted, or perhaps they were
someone's idea of a historical prank. We may never know
the truth about where the figurines came from, but it
(04:25):
sure is a curious vision of the past, isn't it.
However improbable it might be, it's fun to imagine a
time when humans might have done something typically only seen
in Hollywood blockbusters. Riding a top ferocious dinosaurs like a
common horse, and if they did, it would be easy
to see the Akambaro figurines as something very familiar to
(04:48):
our modern minds action figures. World War Two ripped Europe apart,
but out of it came countless innovations we still used today. Penicillan,
(05:10):
although discovered years earlier, was first put to use on
the battlefield to stave off infection in wounded soldiers. British
radio experts Robert rats and Watts and Arnold Wilkins helped
introduce the world to radar by reflecting radio waves off
a bomber as a way of detecting enemy aircraft. In fact,
the British were behind quite a few wartime technologies, all
(05:32):
developed to give the Allies and edge in the field. However,
as one side was evolving, so was the other. German
U boats had come into their own during World War One,
but the Treaty of Versailles, signed in nineteen nineteen forbade
Germany from building new subs again. Of course, the Germans
weren't going to let something as small as a global
(05:52):
declaration of peace stopped them. Under the guise of research,
they continued developing U boats until their undersea fleet was
the large just in the Second World War. The subs
could travel long distances in frigid temperatures, far from shore
and beyond the reach of most land based planes. That
made finding and stopping them almost impossible until an English
(06:14):
inventor came up with an idea for a new kind
of vessel. He sent his proposal for a modified aircraft
carrier to Lewis Mountbatton, a British Royal Naval officer. It
would be a stealth craft designed to withstand the freezing
temperatures of the mid Atlantic, able to transport fighter planes
to areas where U boats were known to occupy. They
(06:34):
called it Project Tobacic, and the first step was to
construct a scale model of this carrier at Canada's Jasper
National Park. The inventor, Jeffrey Pike, wanted to make sure
it would be able to withstand artillery fire from the Germans,
so he got to work on a sixty ft long
prototype fitted with a one horsepower engine. He hired a
team of people to constructed at Patricia Lake in Alberta,
(06:58):
not telling them exactly what it was they were building. Unfortunately,
they had gotten a late start. It was already April
and the weather was heating up. Soon there would be
no way to verify the ship's resilience against the harshness
of the icy mid Atlantic, But rather than give up
and wait until the next year, the British look to
the Americans to assist in their efforts. Due to a
(07:18):
previous issue while working with the United States on a
separate initiative, Jeffrey Pike was cut out of Project Tobaccic,
absent their fearless leader. Engineers from both countries worked around
the clock for months as ambitions around the aircraft carrier grew.
It had to be bigger, they said. It had to
travel for longer distances too. Its hull had to be
(07:40):
over forty thick to withstand towering ocean waves and enemy torpedoes,
and it would carry more than fighter planes. Bombers were
added to the list, which meant its runway needed to
be over two thousand feet long, and it also had
to turn on a dime, so a one foot high
rudder needed to be included. Unfortunately, no one had ever
(08:00):
installed or controlled one that large before. They built three
different models based on Pike's original design, but none of
them managed to incorporate every requirement into a single one.
Initial tests were successful, though the vessel moved much slower
than the British had hoped. When it was all said
and done, Winston Churchill and mount Batton gave the engineers
(08:22):
the green light to build and launch a full size
version as soon as possible, and they would have if
they had had enough time. The researchers had been so
scared of Churchill that they didn't have the heart to
tell him that one ship would cost over seventy million
dollars and take almost a year to build. Oh and
it probably would have melted in the end. You see.
Given the steel shortages due to the war effort, Pike
(08:45):
and his scientists had to come up with another method
for building an aircraft carrier capable of floating undetected into
the far reaches of the Atlantic Ocean. The clear choice,
quite literally was ice. Had Project Tobacic been complete did
it would have been a six hundred foot long ship
weighing two million tons and made entirely of ice, two
(09:06):
hundred eighty thousand blocks of it to be exact well
in ice based compound. At least. The first prototype built
was originally made a solid ice, but it was too
weak to withstand rough weather or gunfire. That's when Pike
came up with a new kind of material he called
Pike Creet. It was a mixture of ice and wood
pulp that was stronger, more buoyant, and took longer to
(09:28):
melt than regular ice. During one demonstration at a top
secret conference in nineteen forty three, Lord Mount Benton set
up a block of Pike Creek beside a block of ice.
His audience Winston Churchill, Franklin, Delano Roosevelt, and several other
high ranking military officials. He then unholstered his service pistol
and fired a shot at the pure ice block, breaking
(09:50):
it into a million small pieces. Then he fired a
shot at the Pike Creet, which deflected the bullet, sending
it whizzing past US Admiral Ernest King's leg. He wasn't hurt,
but his pants got a quick lesson in the strength
of Pike's new building material Sadly, Project Tobacco never made
it past the prototype phase. Aside from the massive construction costs,
(10:12):
newer technologies had arrived, which allowed British planes to fly
farther distances for longer, canceling the need for a frozen
floating runway. Baton eventually exited the project, leaving it um
dead in the water. And there you go, A cool
idea to help win the war that never really took
(10:33):
off in the end. Curious, isn't 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. The show was
created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
(10:55):
I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
a podcast, book series, eas 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
h
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.