July 20, 2023 • 49 mins
In part two of this special two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max dive further into the (objectively disturbing) truth about just how many nuclear weapons are currently MIA. The gang speculates on the implications of these missteps -- and, as they wonder about the consequences of their actions,
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Shout out to super producer Max Kiloton Williams.
This is part two of a continuing series I'm been
your milk.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
How is he gonna like mc kiloton or like DJ
kill It.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Surely, surely there's an the nineties or early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, probably not from the eighties, because you know, they
were genuinely living a feared of nuclear war.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Duck and cover and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But do you remember me? Isn't that interesting? Occurred to
me recently? I think I was listening to an interview
with a writer I believe it was on a podcast
I like, and he was talking about how, you know,
distinctly he remembered the Cold War as a kid and
like going through drills like where you'd hide under your
desk as if that was going to protect you from
a nuclear blast.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I had been, Yeah, I'd been in some of those drills.
There were still around, you know, because you had the
tornado drill where you had to go in the hallway
and get like face down into the base boards. But
the nuclear drills felt almost more like propaganda, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
What, like this one, if I'm not mistaken, Okay, this
is from the.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Fifties, to be fair, yeah, Cover, Yeah, but there were
more modern versions of this type of it was it
was more mental than it was actually going to help
you physically.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
I remember in my APUs class back in high school,
we did all like a whole thing about Cold war propaganda,
and Duck and Cover was one that we watched varying detail.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
I love these things, and dun Cover.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Is the one's infamous because it has like there a
family out on a picnic and the dad put the
newspaper on his head. It's like even something as thin
as a newspaper canna help protect you.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
It's like, no, it won't.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
It will kill you, will die, prevent you from seeing
the arrival of your death. Correct. But something that burns
so hot and so bright that it can make shadows
on a wall permanent is not going to be not
gonna be stopped by a desk or newspaper. But it's
weird too, nol Because in an effort to make those
things more approachable for children, they made the messages one
(02:47):
hundred times more creepy, you know what I mean. Now
it's this anthropomorphic cartoon turtle who's telling you, you know,
hide from the nuclear weapons. Anyway people knew they were
a threat. This this is part two. Listen to Part
one of Broken Arrows. In today's episode, we're diving into
some more specific cases of lost nukes. The first one
(03:11):
that we're going to talk about is the only one
that is not lost in some kind of body of water.
This one is in the ground, which you would think
would make it way easier to find, right, Like, you
don't need a submarine.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, you would think that. I guess you could just
use like, you know, one of those things that beachcombers use,
you know, like a metal detector, you know, for like
a a hobbyist treasure hunter. Surely there's like a large
scale version of that, right yeah, right, Or at the
very least, couldn't you do some kind of radar situation
where maybe light ar where you could like, you know,
(03:49):
sort of like those things they have on fishing boats
where you can kind of see the shape of a
thing like there has to be that's also part of
the way they find dinosaur fossils. I believe these things
so what's the deal, Ben, Why was it that the case?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Well, let's go to Heather Lea for WRAL dot com,
who points out is not one but two nuclear bombs
lost in North Carolina because of a crashing military airplane
and they're in a field somewhere near Goldsboro. Let's get
some Wayne's World flashback.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
There is there.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Thank you. Yeah, Okay, So now we're back. It's nineteen
sixty one. The bomber carrying these nukes has a fuel leak,
and before it manages to land at Seymour Johnson Air
Force Base in Goldsborough, the pilot says, all right, we're
gonna keep flying. We want to try to burn off
some gas. Hopefully this will prevent the plane from exploding
(04:40):
if I try this risky land in.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
The event that it doesn't go as expected. Anytime you're
gliding into a landing link that any number of things
could go wrong. So that is a standard operating procedure
to do that.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So he's burning off the gas.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Unfortunately, though, the leak gets a lot worse, and so
the crew turns around and start to approach Seymour Johnson.
Five of these crewmen ejected out of a hatch you know,
one by one, and the B fifty two could be
seen by each of them from their parachutes, and it
(05:16):
could be seen blowing up, breaking apart in mid air,
and the two hydrogen bombs along with it, separated from
the plane falling, falling, falling into the North Carolina fields.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And this is swampy land too. It's really important for
the story. So one of the bombs has a parachute
guiding its fall and it lands intact. The other one
slams into the mud, like I said, going hundreds of
miles an hour. It is wormed deep into the swamp
and officials aren't able to get all of the pieces
(05:52):
of this bomb. Some pieces are still there, according to
the story, nearly two hundred feet beneath the grid, and
only a single switch prevented this bomb from detonating. In
our last episode we talked about mega tons. That's a
million ton metric tons of TNT. This bomb was a
(06:13):
two point four megaton bomb, and of course they tried
to keep it secret, but it got declassified and if
you look at the photos of the scene, it is terrifying.
We got to introduce a hero to the story, Noel,
Lieutenant Jack revel who was the bomb disposal expert who
(06:33):
got the call to try to stop and disarm a nuclear.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Weapon, right, which I believe involves removing either the detonator
or the explosive.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
You have to have someone yelling at you about colors
of wires, Okay, got it.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, or if you're in a leading tune, start tain
just hitting it with a hammer right.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
On the Yeah, and obviously the tenant jack is done.
All of these. But yeah, you're you're right. The serious
answer you gave is is correct. He would later say,
I'll never forget hearing my sergeants say, Lieutenant, we found
the arm safe switch. That's the switch that you know
(07:16):
decides whether or not the bomb can detonate. And he thought,
oh great, okay, something good happened. And then.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
I was trying to mime out what it is. One
way arm blows up, other way it doesn't blow up. Yeah,
gave me the stranger just looking at it.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Well, it was a strange thing to be doing, Max,
So luckily, luckily for everybody.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Luckily, it's weird between us, and I'm in a weird place,
so I have to turn to see between you guys.
But it's immensely fortunate that they were able to find
this switch. The lieutenant is thinking, great, finally something's going right.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But the switch was armed, so it could have blown ups.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
That's a big yikes. Max, I'm gonna need you to.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Keep your hands to yourself, buddy yourself. Yeah, that's a
mega yikes. Another potential whoopsie resulting from an original whoopsie
that was already a massive whipsie. Which these are official
military terms, by the.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Way, Yes, these are official terms of nuclear nomenclature, engineering jargon. Whoopsies.
So this could have easily killed tons and tons of people,
and we're talking like thousands of folks could have died
in the blasts. There would have been a radioactive cloud.
(08:41):
Without knowing which direction the wind blew, we can still
say that long term cancer rates would have skyrocketed in
the area over time. If it hit in Raleigh, it
would have taken out Raleigh, Chapel Hill, all the surrounding cities.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, because Indie Rock would have been decimated.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
These bombs are more powerful than the ones that were
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Unbelievable. I mean, I'm I'm joking, but it's true. Raleigh
Chapel Hill, the Research Triangle. It's the seat of Merge Records.
And also I believe, well maybe now the mog Factory
is in Ashville, but there used to have a presence
there as well, or at least mog Fest that I
went to once, but also incredible seats of academia, which
(09:29):
I believe our buddies Will and Mangesh went to Duke University,
which is in that general neck of.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The whip time at Duke as well, is pretty pretty
cool place, and I'm glad it's still around.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Glad it didn't get decimated by an accidental atomic whoopsie,
which I know is redundant to say an accidental whopsie.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
But now you can go see evidence of this. There
is a sign marker in Eureka and North Carolina, three
miles away from the site of the nuclear mishap. The
only evidence of this brush with disaster is a small
patch of trees, some weird colored dirt in a field.
(10:10):
Those are the only reminders of that fate full night.
And this, of course is just one example. We have
another example of a nuclear weapon falling off an aircraft
carrier and politicizer, so totally disappeared. It might be out
(10:33):
there right now. It might be.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Now.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I pictured it like living a weird secret life.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Until this went in Hanniballectre. You find out that your
best friend is a nuclear bomb disguised as a person.
How do you proceed? You were at my daughter's wedding.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I'll tell you how you proceed with caution? Yes, yeah,
so oopsie off the back of him. Sorry, I'm not
gonna stop saying that and make no apologies for it.
Off the back of an aircraft carrier. How does that
even happen?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
You know, you get in situations.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Somebody had a little slipperoo and their hand graized the
deploy nuke.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Which let's go to Mario Alvaro Limos for Esquire magazine.
He says, no one knows where this bomb is. It's
somewhere at the bottom of the Philippine Sea. In December
nineteen sixty five, that aircraft carrier mentioned the USS Taekwonderoga,
left the Subic Naval Base. This was at the time
(11:34):
the largest overseas military base in the world for the US,
and the Taekwonderoga sailed to the Philippine Sea. It participated
in a naval exercise, so wargame basically, and during the exercise,
the Navy aboard the Taekwonder Roga tried to move one
of their fighter aircraft. And these carriers, the fact that
(11:57):
they can launch planes is amazing, but also the space
is like crazy tight. It's always interesting.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And you know in a movie if someone like a
scientist or whatever gets picked up by an aircraft carrier
and they're like the only one in there, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Is serious, right exactly? Yeah, And the aircraft they're trying
to move is what's called a Douglas A four E Skyhawk.
It's being piloted by a guy named Lieutenant Douglas M. Webster.
No relation to Douglas the Skyhawk or the firm, the
tree or the firm, Yes, and no relation in Douglas Firm. Now,
(12:33):
while they're moving this aircraft out of the hangar bay,
it rolls over the side of the carrier, and it
rolls over with the pilot still in it. The plane
falls into the sea along with its payload, a B
forty three nuclear bomb. It's tragic to report that the pilot,
(12:55):
the plane, and the bomb, all three were lost and
never recovered. To this day, there's somewhere four thy nine
hundred meters at the bottom of the ocean.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Pretty wild. So that's that is Titanic level depths.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Correct, It's yeah, it's way deeper than the other stuff
we're talking about. And this is something a point you
brought up in episode one. Man, this is not a big,
big story the US, like a carrier, is a small city,
but it's a small city where every resident is directly
controlled by the US got totally.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So they happened in isolation, or at least far enough
out in the middle of nowhere that it wasn't like
there were any Look you.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Lose right, right, and so Uncle Sam was able to
keep this a secret from the rest of the world
until nineteen eighty nine, and the accident was nicknamed Broken
Arrow Incident of nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It's really creative.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It's super creative. For decades.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
They were obviously working on that name totally. We're work
shopping at you know, work. I gotta say that I
do whatever, Yeah, one hundred percent. Filling out comment cards.
I do love the the name.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Taekwonda Roga. There's a really good you're going to say.
I was thinking about dread.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Drinks kind of club and they call it. I haven't been,
but I've heard it's really good. It's great, and I
love the name. It's very Western sounding, isn't it old Taekonderoga.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Just to bring back fall Out again, that is one
of the main railroad hideouts and Fallout four or you
meet high Rise and unfortunately does not end well for
all of them there. But you know, I want to
force in as many Fallout four references as I can.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
There's a force I believe, the first defensive victory for
American forces in the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Right, So there you go.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And the and the Fallout thing and the restaurant and
the aircraft carrier of notes in this particular tail.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Guys, I can't hear you over my excitement of looking
looking back at the Taekwonda Roga menu. Yeah, I gotta go.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
They're good.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Speaking of which, did you hear that we're getting a
Michelin guide here in Atlanta?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah? I know, Michael Michael Jordan, the guy one of
the food writers.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Oh okay, yeah, I just saw it. It came out and
eat or whatever, but went to.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Uh, I think he went to our live panel with
the lava for good guys, Oh, very cool.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, I didn't think I met him, but I did
not realize Ben, that the Michelin system is city by city.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I've always wondered how come we don't have any Michelin
Star restaurants in Atlanta? Who because we were not part
of the system. And now Atlanta has been deemed by
the weird staypuffed marshmallow man guy to be worthy of
Michelin Stars, Great food City Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Which if you want to learn more about that, check
out our episode on the Michelin.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Man Yes, which also goes into why the hell is
this weird cartoon tire guy responsible for bestowing the crown
jewels of restaurant accolades?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Why is this tire mascot an unhinged alcoholic clearly drives drunk.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, like that's weird fingers and cigars at one.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
POINTZ Anyway, so the taikonderrok awesome name. They really should
try the restaurant. It's great man. When you guys get
a chance.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
The secret does eventually come out and Japan, remember they
were participating in this training exercise. They launch a diplomatic
inquiry into the incident and they're saying, hey, we should
know if there's a nuclear weapon in the ocean near US.
The carrier have been present in Japanese waters when this
(16:30):
mishap occurred, and Japan does not allow nuclear weapons in
its territory at all, full stop. And this is very sensitive.
Remember it's nineteen sixty five. It's just a couple decades
after America dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. So they're
feeling like the US misled them, which is totally true
(16:54):
and valid, and they're feeling like they can't trust these
people who are supposed to be there allies now. So
this had huge geopolitical implications. Uh, the nuclear bomb, the
B forty three that fell into the sea, was forty
three times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima,
and the military denied that there would be any lasting
(17:18):
environmental impact due to this. You could just put it
there and they're like, hey, don't worry, it's a lot
of water.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Okay, Now we're going to take this nuke party?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Is that a thing?
Speaker 5 (17:31):
It is?
Speaker 6 (17:31):
Now?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Can you have an would be got to be kind
of fun, Yeah, like.
Speaker 6 (17:35):
A party thing.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, Yeah, you've got biohazard suits, maybe got the little
nuclear symbols.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Perhaps a centerpiece in the shape of a warhead.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And the snacks alone are
all pun based. Yeah, like uh uh oh, let me
let me like plutonium popcorn. You know what, what's a
good play on crew today? Even though I really don't
like there has to be one chromium rude to boom.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
No, that's not good, Max. I will workshop this for
a while, but this could be a fun theme party.
But yeah, we're gonna take this, this nuclear themed cocktail
party to as promised in episode one.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I believe Savannah Jojo.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Savannah Jojo, which is right in our neck of the woods,
beautiful coastal spot here in our mainly landlocked state, really
really really lovely place to visit, great food city as well,
and the site of a broken arrow incident on the
lovely Tybee Island. Literally refers to here as the Tybee
(18:44):
Island broken arrow site.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
That is amazingly creative, it really is. You know, I
wonder how long they spent on that one, you know, so, okay,
twelve foot long thermonuclear bomb. This is a true story,
and we all if you live in this area, you
hear some version of this inevitably. Growing up, there was
an accident in nineteen fifty eight that resulted in the
(19:08):
bomb being not accidentally but intentionally jettisoned from a B
forty seven bomber in the wee hours sometime after midnight,
right after they had crashed in mid air against an
F eighty six fighter jet. A lot of you know,
a disturbing amount of planes running into each other. Yeah,
(19:30):
I feel like, no, we're not pilots, and of.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Course yes not air traffic controllers.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
We're not ATC. So I think, like a lot of
land lubbers, we make the assumption that there's so much
sky out there and planes are so small in comparison
that they could just sort of whiz by each other.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah, but I mean the visibility is an issue obviously.
And anyway, again, I don't know enough information about this world.
Even conjecture, but turns out more common than you'd think.
Be Have you happened to catch the recent or so
ongoing Apple TV show Hijack.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I haven't watched it. It's very good.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It reminds me of those like two thousand's kind of
ABC NBC the Ticking Clock kind of action shows like
twenty four and things like that. But it's indris Elba
and it's a commercial flight from Dubai to I believe
London is hijacked and it's it's a scenario you've seen
a million times, but they do it really, really cleverly,
(20:26):
and at one point, which I believe is practice procedure
for this, if there is an unresponsive plane, you get
some attention from fighter jets.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I see. Yeah, that is.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Given the potential for that plane to be in the
commission of a terrorist act. So that that's a very
and not not spoiler. I won't go into what happens
at all, but it's a I didn't really think about that,
and it does make sense.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You got to have the comms and also unrelated to anything,
I just want to point this out. This is credit
where it's do. These new studios are great. There's a
guy right outside. He's operating a leaf blower Max a
leaf blower, Holy cow, And yeah, yeah you can see him.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Hey, I wouldn't you know what I wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
There is there is so and then we all know
how much you love leaf blowers.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Thank you. I love how much of your life you've.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Spent, yeah, trying to record a podcast showing blowing leaves outside.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Your window to the point where he wrote a hit
piece on leaf flowers. Yeah, but check that episode out. Yeah,
you can check that out. You can also check out
what Noel, what you're talking about with these the importance
of communication amid aircraft, civilian, commercial, and of course military.
(21:47):
The B forty seven again it feels like tale as
old as time in this series. It's on a simulated
combat mission flying out a Homestead Air Force Base in Florida,
and when it gets to Savannah, it's like three point
thirty am. They hit an F eighty six and three times.
The B forty seven tries to land at Hunter Air
(22:09):
Force Base in Georgia with that nuclear weapon on board,
but the aircraft has just been walloped and this is weird.
They couldn't slow down enough to land safely.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
So game time decision, you know, do we get rid
of this weapon, you know, rather than potentially exposing Hunter
Air Force Base to this high explosive detonation, right mm hmm.
So it's like, you know, it's it's a it's a
very tense and last minute call.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Oh for sure. Yeah, And it's it's a call you
have to make because you don't want to risk innocant
lives there, and so the weapon gets jettisoned a few
miles from the mouth of the Savannah River in Wassau
Sound on Tybee Beach. Nobody knows exactly where it hit
the water. We know it has dropped from a pretty
(23:07):
high altitude seventy two hundred feet. No detonation occurred. The
B forty seven did land safely, and the search for
the thing began, a search that remains unsuccessful even now.
In twenty twenty three, they searched three square miles. I
can only imagine they used Bayesian inference. One would hope
(23:28):
we're gonna name drop that constantly. I'm gonna do that
all the time.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
It definitely makes us sound like smarty pants is or
frauds either way.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
Yeah, it just.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
It's gonna be hilarious when we run into someone who
has studied it or understands it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I mean even the description that I read off of
wiki whatever, I completely can't wrap my head around.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So they search for this, and regardless of what methods
they use, they come up with bup gus and by
April sixteenth, nineteen fifty eight, get this. They give up.
They say, They just say, well, you know, Savannah is fine.
(24:15):
It seems that way.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Let's just leave well enough alone what he said. Let's
go chrit semescargo at the pirates house.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Let's get smescargo. Let's go dance in the Weeping Willows
with the Spanish most.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, let's go watch Midnight in the Garden of Good
and Evil and other Savannah reference.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Let's see.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, let's go to the weird Let's go to some
of the weird history museums. There's a few there are.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
It's a very historic, beautiful street brun great real brunch city,
oh my god, and thankfully one that has not yet
been wiped off the map by this buried nuke.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, so go get those eggs, Benedict. Gather ye eggs, Benedict,
while you may so, Okay, people have been searching for
this for a while. It's nineteen ninety eight. There's a
retired military officer and his partner who decide they are
going to discover this bomb. They're gonna find it for
the guts, for the glory, right, And they interview the
(25:12):
pilot who originally jettisoned it. They interviewed all the people
they could find who searched for the bomb. Decades ago,
and they said, all right, it's got to be somewhere
with saw sound. And for years they just went back
and forth by via boat. They had a Geiger counter
behind them, hoping they could find.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
There.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
It is, Oh no, just a little bit max to say,
just a little bit, just a little bit. But anyways,
so they their thought is pretty solid. They say, okay,
if we detect us spike and radiation from the Geiger
counter on the boat, that will help us find what
(25:57):
we're looking for. And one day they find it in
the spot the pilot had described. There's a patch with
radiation ten times the level of anywhere else. Makes that
clickie clickie sound. Right, the clickety clackety right of the witch.
(26:17):
I just rewatched the Witch.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Excellent picture.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Do you think those twins were witches?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Well, they were at very least under the sway of
the witch.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And the degree. Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So at this point the government intervenes and sends out
a cracked team of investigators to check out the scene,
but unfortunately they didn't find the nuclear weapon. It turns
out that this was as there was this clickety clackety
they were talking about, was as a result of naturally
occurring radiation from seabed minerals.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
That's weird. Yeah, I didn't see that coming, No, I didn't.
That's a world twist. Makes you reconsider swimming, but it
sure does.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Like what if you just end up over a pocket
of radioactive seabed minerals.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Random, Yeah, radiation emitting minerals. So that's a heck of
a red herring. And that's that's a real uh, that's
a real bummer. There have been more and more official
attempts to locate this, most recently in two thousand and four. Again,
as we said at the top, none have succeeded. The
Air Force believes that thankfully, the nuclear capsule, the part
(27:30):
of that makes it a nuclear bomb, was not in
this device when it was lost, but no one's really sure.
So right now, when you go get brunch in Savannah,
look out across the water and think about the seventy
six hundred pounds Mark fifteen bomb just waiting there Kuthulu
(27:50):
like in the deep.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Indeed, it slumbers slumbers, yes, and with strange eons, and
death may die.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
And so before we end today's episode, we want to
note again the broken arrowcases we know about are probably
there's probably way fraction. Yeah, fraction.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I mean seriously again, because we know how close the
government likes to play their whoopsies to the vest, and
it is only when their hand is forced because of
deepclassification that they release any information.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Even then it's.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Usually highly redacted. So surprising that we know what we know.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, that's a good way to look at Also, we
don't know for sure about even US allies, like other
countries also play this close to the chest. What about France?
What about the United Kingdom? Not to mention things that
are not part of five eyes, like what about the
Soviet Union? How many do they lose? What about the
(28:56):
PRC of China? We don't know much which about them,
We don't have a full accounting. We know that the
biggest mystery there is going to be the Soviet Union's
nuclear past. They had a stockpile of forty five thousand
nuclear weapons as of nineteen eighty six, and we know
(29:17):
that there are cases where the Soviet Union lost nukes
that has yet to retrieve. But unlike with the US incidents,
the ones we know about occurred in submarines, which makes
it way trickier to figure out what happened. To them.
And then also because the ocean's a dynamic environment, these
subs can drift after they disappear. In nineteen sixty eight,
(29:41):
a Soviet K one nine sank in the Pacific Ocean
just northwest of Hawaii with three nuclear missiles, and they
there's a whole other story here. I think it's its
own episode, absolutely, yeah, because this they said, we're going
to try to retrieve this and see and they contact
(30:03):
Howard Hughes, like billionaire Tony starkish Howard Hughes before he
goes full crazy, and they say, you need to pretend
to be interested in deep sea mining. And it's also
I think we talked about this on stuff they want.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I think that's right. Yeah, gosh, the old brain cloud
is starting to set in at the end of the
day here, but it does ring a bell.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And I think we should, you know what, This is
such a strange story. I think we're gonna save this
one and maybe explore it in the future. And let's
ring the bell on the episode. What do you say?
Speaker 7 (30:37):
Yeah, remain in DAWs.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
Remain in DAWs.
Speaker 5 (30:43):
Grab your newspaper and cover your head.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Welcome to the Queen's Broadcast. You know, it's funny, just
just one last little thing.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I wasn't looking up duck and Cover because I sort
of misspoke, I think conflating.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I mean the eighties.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You know, obviously there was a period during the Cold
War where nuclear attack was definitely still top of mind
for a lot of For sure, duck and cover the
original propaganda video we're talking about with YOURDLD, the turtle
or whatever it was.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
From the fifties.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
But I found an article saying how the intent and
the actual result of a lot of those videos was
just to have people remain indoors, to shelter in place,
you know, and that you could actually just by not
going outside ultimately save a lot of lives.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
You could.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, And also, did you clock what I was referring to?
I said, welcome to the quiz broadcast made indoors.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Well, remain indoors is just from Michelin wellt Yes, yeah,
the quiz broadcast is.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So it's really really great.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
They're always referring to the event.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yes, yeah, don't think about the event exactly, and they're
always trying to guess at remnants of human civilism. I
want to rewatch that, but for now I think We're
going to roll out some thank yous, a cavalcade of
thank yous to super producer Max kill Aton Williams, also
our research associate for this series. Who else stole? Who else?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
The j man old chromedome himself? Are our broken Arrow?
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Oh he had longer hair? Yeah, our broken era Yeah?
Oh gosh yeah. Jonathan Strickland, the aka the Quist. Wait
did we say his name?
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Freak?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You said the whole thing while looking into a mirror,
because technically this glass here is a mirror, and I
believe you just spun around in your seat in reverse
a few times. So what does it mean, Ben? What
does it mean?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well, it means when need to wrap up this outro
quick fast and in a hurry or else. Oh it's
Jonathan strickly Ak, the Wuister. How could this happen? How
(32:50):
could this happen?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It's like it's like that you ever read The Mangler
by Stephen k You know how that the the laundry
machine becomes possessed because somebody accident spills their jello into hemlock.
And it's just this exact perfect storm of Oopsie's sorry
that we've been talking about today.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I'm not going to stop using that term.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
This is what happened with you. We looked into the mirror,
we said your name three times or something, and then
Ben spun around his chair backwards and here you are.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
Look me and uh, bloody Mary and Candy Man been waiting,
We've been snacking waiting and uh it's been been a
real good time. How are they they could we're all
we've all been at Pont City Market. No one told
us that you moved, and uh that's floor is really
there's a different group there. They are not as much fun.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah that was by design man. Yeah, but you've outwitted
us and found our new office clearly with no help
from many one.
Speaker 6 (33:45):
Know it's it took me a long time to walk here.
It is not convenient.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
And I mean those healings really helped you.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
To see you see him scoot I see.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
Yeah, I'll say this that ever since the cab avenue,
they've repaved it and they got rid of that that
suicide lane. Yeah, that's really helped out quite a bit.
Like it really a smooth out. But I can just
take that all the way up to Marrietta Street.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
You've gotta you've got to tell us, Jonathan, Sure, long time,
listeners will know that this is what you've described as
the most cringe worthy segment in podcasting.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
That's your description, it is, in fact my description.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
What is the quister? What is what is this thing
that's happened? It's been like, how long has it been? No?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I mean possibly a year, possibly more than.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
Me a year?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Is I think so? And that's again yeah, I mean
he just nowhere to find it. I thought we mentioned
you every episode though, which is part of me. I
think part of both of us.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Missed you a little bit.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
Yeah, yeah, I missed you, guys.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
So much like the way you miss a tumor is
sort of.
Speaker 6 (34:46):
Yeah, or you know, you miss it when you when
you have a tooth knocked out and you can't help
but put your tongue in the root and just root around,
even though it kind of hurts too, you sort of
still have to do it, Or.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Like when you're trying to shoot someone and you miss
I have missed you several times.
Speaker 6 (35:06):
Or like when you talk to a reporter and you
explain that your whole tactic is to hold out until
October and all the riders are no longer able to
pay mortgages and rent and then you can force them
to come back to your own terms like that, kind
of like.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
That swinging a miss, swinging a miss, because there are
some levels of villainy that even you, the quizt would
not see.
Speaker 6 (35:26):
Yeah that's low, man, that's pretty low. Yeah. So this segment,
I guess to finally get around to answering your question.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, is when I the quizz stir
Jonathan Stricklett appear and quiz the two of you upon
something possibly tangentially related to the episode topic at hand,
No promise, And I give you three scenarios oh boy,
(35:50):
two mean goose pot, two of which i'll reeal in
one which I made up. Season it is your duty
to find the one I made up. And and I decided,
since you were talking about arrows what had been broken
and nuclear packages what had been misplaced, that I would
go with sort of a precursor what used to be
(36:14):
considered one of the big weapons of the military age,
far before nuclear age, and that would be ships.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Ships.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
So the three scenarios which you'll be presented are all
about ships what sunk. So I will read out the
scenarios and then at the end I will give you
the arbitrary rule I use where you can ask me
a question, but you have to follow the arbitrary rule
before before I'll accept it. All right, So here we go.
(36:44):
Here are the scenarios. Come here the sad tale of
the Jumpin' Java, an ill fated ship originally belonging to
the Cunard Line. The jumpin Java reportedly got its name
for the way the ship responded to particular choppy seas,
and it did not enjoy a positive reputation. But that
(37:05):
reputation absolutely sunk when the Java did as well in
eighteen ninety five while on a voyage from San Francisco
to New York. Of course, by then it was called
the Lord Spencer of Jay Heron and Company, having undergone
multiple name changes over the years. Scenario two listen unto me.
(37:26):
The Morning Star was a ship originally launched by the
British at Calcutta in eighteen thirteen, but her tenure was
not long. She sadly met her and in eighteen fourteen,
wrecking off the coast of Queensland. Later, another ship called
the Eliza found five survivors marooned on wait for it,
Booby Island.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
And get this, but the Booby's like it's a bird, right, Yes, yes,
they ruined something.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
They explained that their captain, whose name I am not
kidding was Robert Smart, had left earlier in a longboat
with some men to row to time more. Only they
never made it. So out of the crew of more
than thirty, only five are known to have survived. The
Morning Stars eighteen fourteen voyage scenario three. Hawk and hear
(38:18):
the Sad Tale of the Campania.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
No hark, not hocket.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
Hawk and here the Sad Tale of the Campania. A
ship that took inspiration from luxury liners such as the Titanic,
but before she was to be fitted for luxury she
had a more morbid purpose. The ship's maiden voyage was
to transport soldiers remains post World War One from Turkey
after the Brits had failed to invade Gallipoli. She would
(38:48):
never get the chance to serve as a true luxury liner,
as the ship hit wreckage off the coast of Southampton
and sunk. All hands aboard were accounted for as survivors,
and yet the dead numbered the living. Of course, that
had been true since they had left Port.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Oh come, oh Come, And now that seems like a
real potential for a ghost ship pretty good.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
So the.
Speaker 6 (39:14):
Arbitrary rule this time, if you do wish to ask
me a question while you're deliberating, is that you must
quote some sea shanty beforehand. You don't have to sing it,
but you do.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
Have to quote it.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
We got what was the one? We got this? Well?
Speaker 6 (39:27):
We got weller soon made the welleman come to bring
us sugar into.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
So Okay, so we have three minutes is how that's.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
Usually how it goes. I don't remember. It's been a
long time.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
So we're gonna we thankfully got the grandfather he brought
it over. Yeah, great expense, which is true because it's
like ninety percent of our budget every year just to
mate it. So we're gonna run over here and start
this and go okay, okay, I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I'm gonna be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I think I know which one I thinks. I think
it's two. Oh you think too is not true? I
think two is. Oh wait, I think two is true.
Speaker 6 (40:08):
Just completely zoning out. When I was spinning elbow.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
I was listening, I was soaking it in. What can
you do the singing thing for me?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I don't remember how.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
It goes.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Soon me the wellaman, come, uh, do you realize how
badly you don't played yourself?
Speaker 6 (40:28):
How's that?
Speaker 5 (40:29):
The quizter? The jump in Java?
Speaker 6 (40:32):
Are you kidding? That's a coffee house? It is, in
fact a coffee house.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
You know.
Speaker 6 (40:36):
Sometimes names come from other things. Sometimes someone takes a
name and then they'll reuse that name names from Allow
me to introduce you to the concept of the British monarchy.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Your game mark is making me question my question.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
I mean, maybe you're right, maybe that is the wrong one.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
Is that the one you walked through?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
It was way easier to miss you when you were gone?
Speaker 6 (41:01):
How can I miss you if you never leave?
Speaker 1 (41:03):
So?
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Okay, you can do we know? All right?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (41:13):
So uh mister Bowlin.
Speaker 5 (41:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
So in scenario three.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
Yes, scenario three the Campania.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
The US fails to conquer, like the fails in the
conflict with Turkey.
Speaker 6 (41:31):
Well, it was really the UK.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
It was the UK.
Speaker 6 (41:33):
The Brits attempted to invade the the Gallipoli the peninsula
of Gliboli in Turkey to get an area of operations,
but the Turks were able to repel them at great cost.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Because they were beefed with the Ottomans.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
Well, it was more that it was just trying to
find another way to perhaps lessen the incredible pressure of
the Western Front where things were not going well. I
don't know if you know about World War One, but
Western Front was pretty rough.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Hey man, I don't like your attitude. You can't talk
to Ben like that.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
There are numbers to world wars.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Well not at the time. They called it the Great War.
They want so pessimistic as to call it World War
One while it was happening.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
They're learning so much.
Speaker 6 (42:14):
What is a war? Really? You don't know what a
war is.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
I have no clue. I don't even speaking child.
Speaker 5 (42:20):
What are you?
Speaker 6 (42:21):
Why are you doing that? You're just wasting time? Now,
that's true.
Speaker 5 (42:25):
Happy to do it? The war?
Speaker 6 (42:27):
When when a when a mommy nation and the daddy
nation really hate each other?
Speaker 2 (42:32):
And I mean, yeah, put it out there.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I feel pretty confident. Yeah, jumping job, I give me.
You think it's one? Yeah, all right, I got your back.
Let's look.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
The idea of a jumping coffee bean is so corny
and hokey. I do not believe that it is a
construction of the past that was then repurposed by coffee shop.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
All right, well we are at.
Speaker 6 (42:51):
Time, so, uh there's the weirdest grandfather ever.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Again, it's very expensive.
Speaker 6 (42:59):
It's a custom job to grandfather's clock, for sure.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
So uh well, we'll maybe have Max put in a
more prestigious so my grandfather clock. Uh no, I've got
your back. Let's lock it in. Three. Two what scenario one?
We'll go it with.
Speaker 6 (43:16):
It feels so good to be back on.
Speaker 5 (43:20):
So what.
Speaker 6 (43:22):
One is true? It was a jumping Java. It was
officially named the Java, but passengers referred to it as
the Jumping Java. There was also there was sized jumping Java.
In fact, yes, it's what it was called. And then
it was for a while the SS Zealand it moved
to the Red Star Line, not the White Star, the
Red Star Line, and then it was known as the
(43:43):
Electric before finally becoming Lord Spencer.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Was this scenario three?
Speaker 6 (43:49):
That was three is taken from a Japanese anime, And
it absolutely is not true.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I knew it.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I am so sorry. I feel like you absolutely fool.
I was so confident about it. I'm not gonna lie
to you, guys. I'm gonna go ahead and cop to something.
I googled jump in Java and all I.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Got was coffee shop.
Speaker 6 (44:07):
I mean, this is why this is what if you
typed in Java eighteen sixty five you would find the
ship referra.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I wouldn't have done that. That would have been a
bridge too far.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I think it's worth it, though, because we got that
awesome line from the quizz which is sometimes names come
from other things, which was just peak snart.
Speaker 6 (44:27):
I mean it really is if every name out there
has only been used to one and one time.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Only, So you know what this means.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
You see where I'm coming from, though, guys, I mean this,
these these goofy coffee shop names like just sentience Bean,
you know what I mean, or like the I literally
saw one that was called Cafe Campusino a million percent,
I mean that jittery Joe's frankly quister. It was a
stroke of brilliance because you really that was a very
good red herring.
Speaker 5 (44:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Mugshot is a great name for a coffee place.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
That's a fantastic you can get in a mug or
as a shot, right right.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Uh So with that, gentleman, Max, you're part of this
decision as well. I proposed to you, guys that we
start a new chapter in the quistor beef, and we start.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
We read, and so you're ahead one one not I think.
Speaker 6 (45:23):
I think without that I would have been maybe two
or perhaps even three behind.
Speaker 5 (45:27):
You think I thought we were going to propose.
Speaker 4 (45:30):
Since we're talking about lost nukes, like losing Jonathan in
the bottom of a Mediterranean sea or something, I.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Feel like legally that counts as either hate speech or
a threat.
Speaker 5 (45:39):
Yeah. Also, what do you think of the name Chrome Doom.
Speaker 6 (45:43):
I'm not a big fan of it. I mean, it's
I'll respond to it, because honestly.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
People.
Speaker 6 (45:50):
Offensive as long as I get attention, really.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Whatever it takes.
Speaker 6 (45:55):
A true story. Once I was at a grocery store
and a little boy turned to his mother and said
that man has no hair and pointed at me, and
she was mortified, and I said, trust me, this is
not how I learned.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
That's fair.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
That's fair. Well. Plus, we live in Atlanta, where I
always try to explain this to people who are not
from this country or this this part of this country,
especially if you're from a place like Scandinavia or small
talk's not really a thing, you know. I always have
to make it clear to my friends, like, hey, when
you come to this city. Strangers are going to talk
(46:27):
to you as though they're vaguely related to you. Everybody
kind of is going to treat you like a first
or second cousin.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
We take that for granted. I think living here and also,
but you know, I think you and I are the
three of us. The four of us are in other
cities and other parts of the universe enough to see
places where that is just not the case that all
people make contact.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
But here you'll have you'll you'll be walking down like
our old alma matter of post lea or something, and
someone might be This happened to me. This is the
true story. I was walking home from work in our
old office one day and a person I've never seen
before since it was like.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Kubrick, Kubrick, like Stanley Kubrick.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
And so finally I turned and he was like, yeah,
that's a nice fit man, you look like a director
full metal jacket.
Speaker 5 (47:14):
Was good.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Like, I think it's just because I had a cardigan. Okay,
it's really for his cardigan. No, it doesn't make any sense,
And that's just the kind of city we live in.
So hopefully I say all that to say, hopefully, Jonathan
think it was not trying to.
Speaker 6 (47:29):
Be a not at all. He was just surprised. And
again it didn't didn't bother me at all. It was
an observation that happens to be true. I don't base
my identity off my folicular deficiencies.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
There we go, Well, we do.
Speaker 6 (47:44):
Well, that's fair considering how I just trounced you.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
All right, that's the spirit. So now that now we
are officially uh what we've we've turned the tables. No,
we're gonna have to summon the quiztor again. So we
because you know what, bro this injustice will not.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Stand, no question about it. I'm ready to bring our
a game. And it does seem like now since the
questor knows where our physical location is, that this might
be happening a little more frequently.
Speaker 5 (48:13):
Yeah, I mean, I embrace yourselves.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
I'm gonna be realistic and say, like, let's aim for
a B plus game and maybe we'll impress ourselves.
Speaker 6 (48:21):
That's fine. Listen, there's like a Fox Brothers right next door,
So I am cool coming in as often as I
need to. They got great smoked chicken wings. I don't
know if you know, but man, Fox Withers is great.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Yeah, we've been talking a lot about restaurants this week.
Speaker 6 (48:37):
Well, I am trying to narrow cast the show. Did
you not know that I am narrow casting as hard
as I can so that only people not just in Atlanta,
but a very specific wedge of Atlanta will get the references.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Well, I'm actually gonna have a little date night with
my lady tonight, so I'm gonna maybe try something new.
Speaker 7 (48:55):
But thank you, yeahs, Ben, thank you, thank you NOL
for this nuclear fantastic voyage that we've taken together.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
And also with you Max Williams. Thanks, of course, I
think we said it earlier to Alex Williams. Thanks to
everybody for tuning in. That's the week for us. We
hope you have a great weekend and we can't wait
for you to join us next week when we put
some animals on trial.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Shout out to super producer Max Kiloton Williams.
This is part two of a continuing series I'm been
your milk.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
How is he gonna like mc kiloton or like DJ
kill It.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Surely, surely there's an the nineties or early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, probably not from the eighties, because you know, they
were genuinely living a feared of nuclear war.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Duck and cover and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But do you remember me? Isn't that interesting? Occurred to
me recently? I think I was listening to an interview
with a writer I believe it was on a podcast
I like, and he was talking about how, you know,
distinctly he remembered the Cold War as a kid and
like going through drills like where you'd hide under your
desk as if that was going to protect you from
a nuclear blast.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I had been, Yeah, I'd been in some of those drills.
There were still around, you know, because you had the
tornado drill where you had to go in the hallway
and get like face down into the base boards. But
the nuclear drills felt almost more like propaganda, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
What, like this one, if I'm not mistaken, Okay, this
is from the.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Fifties, to be fair, yeah, Cover, Yeah, but there were
more modern versions of this type of it was it
was more mental than it was actually going to help
you physically.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
I remember in my APUs class back in high school,
we did all like a whole thing about Cold war propaganda,
and Duck and Cover was one that we watched varying detail.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
I love these things, and dun Cover.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Is the one's infamous because it has like there a
family out on a picnic and the dad put the
newspaper on his head. It's like even something as thin
as a newspaper canna help protect you.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
It's like, no, it won't.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
It will kill you, will die, prevent you from seeing
the arrival of your death. Correct. But something that burns
so hot and so bright that it can make shadows
on a wall permanent is not going to be not
gonna be stopped by a desk or newspaper. But it's
weird too, nol Because in an effort to make those
things more approachable for children, they made the messages one
(02:47):
hundred times more creepy, you know what I mean. Now
it's this anthropomorphic cartoon turtle who's telling you, you know,
hide from the nuclear weapons. Anyway people knew they were
a threat. This this is part two. Listen to Part
one of Broken Arrows. In today's episode, we're diving into
some more specific cases of lost nukes. The first one
(03:11):
that we're going to talk about is the only one
that is not lost in some kind of body of water.
This one is in the ground, which you would think
would make it way easier to find, right, Like, you
don't need a submarine.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, you would think that. I guess you could just
use like, you know, one of those things that beachcombers use,
you know, like a metal detector, you know, for like
a a hobbyist treasure hunter. Surely there's like a large
scale version of that, right yeah, right, Or at the
very least, couldn't you do some kind of radar situation
where maybe light ar where you could like, you know,
(03:49):
sort of like those things they have on fishing boats
where you can kind of see the shape of a
thing like there has to be that's also part of
the way they find dinosaur fossils. I believe these things
so what's the deal, Ben, Why was it that the case?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Well, let's go to Heather Lea for WRAL dot com,
who points out is not one but two nuclear bombs
lost in North Carolina because of a crashing military airplane
and they're in a field somewhere near Goldsboro. Let's get
some Wayne's World flashback.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
There is there.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Thank you. Yeah, Okay, So now we're back. It's nineteen
sixty one. The bomber carrying these nukes has a fuel leak,
and before it manages to land at Seymour Johnson Air
Force Base in Goldsborough, the pilot says, all right, we're
gonna keep flying. We want to try to burn off
some gas. Hopefully this will prevent the plane from exploding
(04:40):
if I try this risky land in.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
The event that it doesn't go as expected. Anytime you're
gliding into a landing link that any number of things
could go wrong. So that is a standard operating procedure
to do that.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So he's burning off the gas.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Unfortunately, though, the leak gets a lot worse, and so
the crew turns around and start to approach Seymour Johnson.
Five of these crewmen ejected out of a hatch you know,
one by one, and the B fifty two could be
seen by each of them from their parachutes, and it
(05:16):
could be seen blowing up, breaking apart in mid air,
and the two hydrogen bombs along with it, separated from
the plane falling, falling, falling into the North Carolina fields.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And this is swampy land too. It's really important for
the story. So one of the bombs has a parachute
guiding its fall and it lands intact. The other one
slams into the mud, like I said, going hundreds of
miles an hour. It is wormed deep into the swamp
and officials aren't able to get all of the pieces
(05:52):
of this bomb. Some pieces are still there, according to
the story, nearly two hundred feet beneath the grid, and
only a single switch prevented this bomb from detonating. In
our last episode we talked about mega tons. That's a
million ton metric tons of TNT. This bomb was a
(06:13):
two point four megaton bomb, and of course they tried
to keep it secret, but it got declassified and if
you look at the photos of the scene, it is terrifying.
We got to introduce a hero to the story, Noel,
Lieutenant Jack revel who was the bomb disposal expert who
(06:33):
got the call to try to stop and disarm a nuclear.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Weapon, right, which I believe involves removing either the detonator
or the explosive.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
You have to have someone yelling at you about colors
of wires, Okay, got it.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, or if you're in a leading tune, start tain
just hitting it with a hammer right.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
On the Yeah, and obviously the tenant jack is done.
All of these. But yeah, you're you're right. The serious
answer you gave is is correct. He would later say,
I'll never forget hearing my sergeants say, Lieutenant, we found
the arm safe switch. That's the switch that you know
(07:16):
decides whether or not the bomb can detonate. And he thought,
oh great, okay, something good happened. And then.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
I was trying to mime out what it is. One
way arm blows up, other way it doesn't blow up. Yeah,
gave me the stranger just looking at it.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Well, it was a strange thing to be doing, Max,
So luckily, luckily for everybody.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Luckily, it's weird between us, and I'm in a weird place,
so I have to turn to see between you guys.
But it's immensely fortunate that they were able to find
this switch. The lieutenant is thinking, great, finally something's going right.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But the switch was armed, so it could have blown ups.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
That's a big yikes. Max, I'm gonna need you to.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Keep your hands to yourself, buddy yourself. Yeah, that's a
mega yikes. Another potential whoopsie resulting from an original whoopsie
that was already a massive whipsie. Which these are official
military terms, by the.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Way, Yes, these are official terms of nuclear nomenclature, engineering jargon. Whoopsies.
So this could have easily killed tons and tons of people,
and we're talking like thousands of folks could have died
in the blasts. There would have been a radioactive cloud.
(08:41):
Without knowing which direction the wind blew, we can still
say that long term cancer rates would have skyrocketed in
the area over time. If it hit in Raleigh, it
would have taken out Raleigh, Chapel Hill, all the surrounding cities.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, because Indie Rock would have been decimated.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
These bombs are more powerful than the ones that were
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Unbelievable. I mean, I'm I'm joking, but it's true. Raleigh
Chapel Hill, the Research Triangle. It's the seat of Merge Records.
And also I believe, well maybe now the mog Factory
is in Ashville, but there used to have a presence
there as well, or at least mog Fest that I
went to once, but also incredible seats of academia, which
(09:29):
I believe our buddies Will and Mangesh went to Duke University,
which is in that general neck of.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The whip time at Duke as well, is pretty pretty
cool place, and I'm glad it's still around.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Glad it didn't get decimated by an accidental atomic whoopsie,
which I know is redundant to say an accidental whopsie.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
But now you can go see evidence of this. There
is a sign marker in Eureka and North Carolina, three
miles away from the site of the nuclear mishap. The
only evidence of this brush with disaster is a small
patch of trees, some weird colored dirt in a field.
(10:10):
Those are the only reminders of that fate full night.
And this, of course is just one example. We have
another example of a nuclear weapon falling off an aircraft
carrier and politicizer, so totally disappeared. It might be out
(10:33):
there right now. It might be.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Now.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I pictured it like living a weird secret life.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Until this went in Hanniballectre. You find out that your
best friend is a nuclear bomb disguised as a person.
How do you proceed? You were at my daughter's wedding.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I'll tell you how you proceed with caution? Yes, yeah,
so oopsie off the back of him. Sorry, I'm not
gonna stop saying that and make no apologies for it.
Off the back of an aircraft carrier. How does that
even happen?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
You know, you get in situations.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Somebody had a little slipperoo and their hand graized the
deploy nuke.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Which let's go to Mario Alvaro Limos for Esquire magazine.
He says, no one knows where this bomb is. It's
somewhere at the bottom of the Philippine Sea. In December
nineteen sixty five, that aircraft carrier mentioned the USS Taekwonderoga,
left the Subic Naval Base. This was at the time
(11:34):
the largest overseas military base in the world for the US,
and the Taekwonderoga sailed to the Philippine Sea. It participated
in a naval exercise, so wargame basically, and during the exercise,
the Navy aboard the Taekwonder Roga tried to move one
of their fighter aircraft. And these carriers, the fact that
(11:57):
they can launch planes is amazing, but also the space
is like crazy tight. It's always interesting.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And you know in a movie if someone like a
scientist or whatever gets picked up by an aircraft carrier
and they're like the only one in there, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Is serious, right exactly? Yeah, And the aircraft they're trying
to move is what's called a Douglas A four E Skyhawk.
It's being piloted by a guy named Lieutenant Douglas M. Webster.
No relation to Douglas the Skyhawk or the firm, the
tree or the firm, Yes, and no relation in Douglas Firm. Now,
(12:33):
while they're moving this aircraft out of the hangar bay,
it rolls over the side of the carrier, and it
rolls over with the pilot still in it. The plane
falls into the sea along with its payload, a B
forty three nuclear bomb. It's tragic to report that the pilot,
(12:55):
the plane, and the bomb, all three were lost and
never recovered. To this day, there's somewhere four thy nine
hundred meters at the bottom of the ocean.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Pretty wild. So that's that is Titanic level depths.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Correct, It's yeah, it's way deeper than the other stuff
we're talking about. And this is something a point you
brought up in episode one. Man, this is not a big,
big story the US, like a carrier, is a small city,
but it's a small city where every resident is directly
controlled by the US got totally.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So they happened in isolation, or at least far enough
out in the middle of nowhere that it wasn't like
there were any Look you.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Lose right, right, and so Uncle Sam was able to
keep this a secret from the rest of the world
until nineteen eighty nine, and the accident was nicknamed Broken
Arrow Incident of nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It's really creative.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It's super creative. For decades.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
They were obviously working on that name totally. We're work
shopping at you know, work. I gotta say that I
do whatever, Yeah, one hundred percent. Filling out comment cards.
I do love the the name.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Taekwonda Roga. There's a really good you're going to say.
I was thinking about dread.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Drinks kind of club and they call it. I haven't been,
but I've heard it's really good. It's great, and I
love the name. It's very Western sounding, isn't it old Taekonderoga.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Just to bring back fall Out again, that is one
of the main railroad hideouts and Fallout four or you
meet high Rise and unfortunately does not end well for
all of them there. But you know, I want to
force in as many Fallout four references as I can.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
There's a force I believe, the first defensive victory for
American forces in the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Right, So there you go.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And the and the Fallout thing and the restaurant and
the aircraft carrier of notes in this particular tail.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Guys, I can't hear you over my excitement of looking
looking back at the Taekwonda Roga menu. Yeah, I gotta go.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
They're good.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Speaking of which, did you hear that we're getting a
Michelin guide here in Atlanta?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah? I know, Michael Michael Jordan, the guy one of
the food writers.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Oh okay, yeah, I just saw it. It came out and
eat or whatever, but went to.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Uh, I think he went to our live panel with
the lava for good guys, Oh, very cool.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, I didn't think I met him, but I did
not realize Ben, that the Michelin system is city by city.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
It's not.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I've always wondered how come we don't have any Michelin
Star restaurants in Atlanta? Who because we were not part
of the system. And now Atlanta has been deemed by
the weird staypuffed marshmallow man guy to be worthy of
Michelin Stars, Great food City Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Which if you want to learn more about that, check
out our episode on the Michelin.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Man Yes, which also goes into why the hell is
this weird cartoon tire guy responsible for bestowing the crown
jewels of restaurant accolades?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Why is this tire mascot an unhinged alcoholic clearly drives drunk.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, like that's weird fingers and cigars at one.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
POINTZ Anyway, so the taikonderrok awesome name. They really should
try the restaurant. It's great man. When you guys get
a chance.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
The secret does eventually come out and Japan, remember they
were participating in this training exercise. They launch a diplomatic
inquiry into the incident and they're saying, hey, we should
know if there's a nuclear weapon in the ocean near US.
The carrier have been present in Japanese waters when this
(16:30):
mishap occurred, and Japan does not allow nuclear weapons in
its territory at all, full stop. And this is very sensitive.
Remember it's nineteen sixty five. It's just a couple decades
after America dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. So they're
feeling like the US misled them, which is totally true
(16:54):
and valid, and they're feeling like they can't trust these
people who are supposed to be there allies now. So
this had huge geopolitical implications. Uh, the nuclear bomb, the
B forty three that fell into the sea, was forty
three times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima,
and the military denied that there would be any lasting
(17:18):
environmental impact due to this. You could just put it
there and they're like, hey, don't worry, it's a lot
of water.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Okay, Now we're going to take this nuke party?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Is that a thing?
Speaker 5 (17:31):
It is?
Speaker 6 (17:31):
Now?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Can you have an would be got to be kind
of fun, Yeah, like.
Speaker 6 (17:35):
A party thing.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, Yeah, you've got biohazard suits, maybe got the little
nuclear symbols.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Perhaps a centerpiece in the shape of a warhead.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And the snacks alone are
all pun based. Yeah, like uh uh oh, let me
let me like plutonium popcorn. You know what, what's a
good play on crew today? Even though I really don't
like there has to be one chromium rude to boom.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
No, that's not good, Max. I will workshop this for
a while, but this could be a fun theme party.
But yeah, we're gonna take this, this nuclear themed cocktail
party to as promised in episode one.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I believe Savannah Jojo.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Savannah Jojo, which is right in our neck of the woods,
beautiful coastal spot here in our mainly landlocked state, really
really really lovely place to visit, great food city as well,
and the site of a broken arrow incident on the
lovely Tybee Island. Literally refers to here as the Tybee
(18:44):
Island broken arrow site.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
That is amazingly creative, it really is. You know, I
wonder how long they spent on that one, you know, so, okay,
twelve foot long thermonuclear bomb. This is a true story,
and we all if you live in this area, you
hear some version of this inevitably. Growing up, there was
an accident in nineteen fifty eight that resulted in the
(19:08):
bomb being not accidentally but intentionally jettisoned from a B
forty seven bomber in the wee hours sometime after midnight,
right after they had crashed in mid air against an
F eighty six fighter jet. A lot of you know,
a disturbing amount of planes running into each other. Yeah,
(19:30):
I feel like, no, we're not pilots, and of.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Course yes not air traffic controllers.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
We're not ATC. So I think, like a lot of
land lubbers, we make the assumption that there's so much
sky out there and planes are so small in comparison
that they could just sort of whiz by each other.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah, but I mean the visibility is an issue obviously.
And anyway, again, I don't know enough information about this world.
Even conjecture, but turns out more common than you'd think.
Be Have you happened to catch the recent or so
ongoing Apple TV show Hijack.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I haven't watched it. It's very good.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It reminds me of those like two thousand's kind of
ABC NBC the Ticking Clock kind of action shows like
twenty four and things like that. But it's indris Elba
and it's a commercial flight from Dubai to I believe
London is hijacked and it's it's a scenario you've seen
a million times, but they do it really, really cleverly,
(20:26):
and at one point, which I believe is practice procedure
for this, if there is an unresponsive plane, you get
some attention from fighter jets.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I see. Yeah, that is.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Given the potential for that plane to be in the
commission of a terrorist act. So that that's a very
and not not spoiler. I won't go into what happens
at all, but it's a I didn't really think about that,
and it does make sense.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You got to have the comms and also unrelated to anything,
I just want to point this out. This is credit
where it's do. These new studios are great. There's a
guy right outside. He's operating a leaf blower Max a
leaf blower, Holy cow, And yeah, yeah you can see him.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Hey, I wouldn't you know what I wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
There is there is so and then we all know
how much you love leaf blowers.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Thank you. I love how much of your life you've.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Spent, yeah, trying to record a podcast showing blowing leaves outside.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Your window to the point where he wrote a hit
piece on leaf flowers. Yeah, but check that episode out. Yeah,
you can check that out. You can also check out
what Noel, what you're talking about with these the importance
of communication amid aircraft, civilian, commercial, and of course military.
(21:47):
The B forty seven again it feels like tale as
old as time in this series. It's on a simulated
combat mission flying out a Homestead Air Force Base in Florida,
and when it gets to Savannah, it's like three point
thirty am. They hit an F eighty six and three times.
The B forty seven tries to land at Hunter Air
(22:09):
Force Base in Georgia with that nuclear weapon on board,
but the aircraft has just been walloped and this is weird.
They couldn't slow down enough to land safely.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
So game time decision, you know, do we get rid
of this weapon, you know, rather than potentially exposing Hunter
Air Force Base to this high explosive detonation, right mm hmm.
So it's like, you know, it's it's a it's a
very tense and last minute call.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Oh for sure. Yeah, And it's it's a call you
have to make because you don't want to risk innocant
lives there, and so the weapon gets jettisoned a few
miles from the mouth of the Savannah River in Wassau
Sound on Tybee Beach. Nobody knows exactly where it hit
the water. We know it has dropped from a pretty
(23:07):
high altitude seventy two hundred feet. No detonation occurred. The
B forty seven did land safely, and the search for
the thing began, a search that remains unsuccessful even now.
In twenty twenty three, they searched three square miles. I
can only imagine they used Bayesian inference. One would hope
(23:28):
we're gonna name drop that constantly. I'm gonna do that
all the time.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
It definitely makes us sound like smarty pants is or
frauds either way.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
Yeah, it just.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
It's gonna be hilarious when we run into someone who
has studied it or understands it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I mean even the description that I read off of
wiki whatever, I completely can't wrap my head around.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So they search for this, and regardless of what methods
they use, they come up with bup gus and by
April sixteenth, nineteen fifty eight, get this. They give up.
They say, They just say, well, you know, Savannah is fine.
(24:15):
It seems that way.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Let's just leave well enough alone what he said. Let's
go chrit semescargo at the pirates house.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Let's get smescargo. Let's go dance in the Weeping Willows
with the Spanish most.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, let's go watch Midnight in the Garden of Good
and Evil and other Savannah reference.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Let's see.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, let's go to the weird Let's go to some
of the weird history museums. There's a few there are.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
It's a very historic, beautiful street brun great real brunch city,
oh my god, and thankfully one that has not yet
been wiped off the map by this buried nuke.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, so go get those eggs, Benedict. Gather ye eggs, Benedict,
while you may so, Okay, people have been searching for
this for a while. It's nineteen ninety eight. There's a
retired military officer and his partner who decide they are
going to discover this bomb. They're gonna find it for
the guts, for the glory, right, And they interview the
(25:12):
pilot who originally jettisoned it. They interviewed all the people
they could find who searched for the bomb. Decades ago,
and they said, all right, it's got to be somewhere
with saw sound. And for years they just went back
and forth by via boat. They had a Geiger counter
behind them, hoping they could find.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
There.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
It is, Oh no, just a little bit max to say,
just a little bit, just a little bit. But anyways,
so they their thought is pretty solid. They say, okay,
if we detect us spike and radiation from the Geiger
counter on the boat, that will help us find what
(25:57):
we're looking for. And one day they find it in
the spot the pilot had described. There's a patch with
radiation ten times the level of anywhere else. Makes that
clickie clickie sound. Right, the clickety clackety right of the witch.
(26:17):
I just rewatched the Witch.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Excellent picture.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Do you think those twins were witches?
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Well, they were at very least under the sway of
the witch.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And the degree. Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
So at this point the government intervenes and sends out
a cracked team of investigators to check out the scene,
but unfortunately they didn't find the nuclear weapon. It turns
out that this was as there was this clickety clackety
they were talking about, was as a result of naturally
occurring radiation from seabed minerals.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
That's weird. Yeah, I didn't see that coming, No, I didn't.
That's a world twist. Makes you reconsider swimming, but it
sure does.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Like what if you just end up over a pocket
of radioactive seabed minerals.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Random, Yeah, radiation emitting minerals. So that's a heck of
a red herring. And that's that's a real uh, that's
a real bummer. There have been more and more official
attempts to locate this, most recently in two thousand and four. Again,
as we said at the top, none have succeeded. The
Air Force believes that thankfully, the nuclear capsule, the part
(27:30):
of that makes it a nuclear bomb, was not in
this device when it was lost, but no one's really sure.
So right now, when you go get brunch in Savannah,
look out across the water and think about the seventy
six hundred pounds Mark fifteen bomb just waiting there Kuthulu
(27:50):
like in the deep.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Indeed, it slumbers slumbers, yes, and with strange eons, and
death may die.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
And so before we end today's episode, we want to
note again the broken arrowcases we know about are probably
there's probably way fraction. Yeah, fraction.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I mean seriously again, because we know how close the
government likes to play their whoopsies to the vest, and
it is only when their hand is forced because of
deepclassification that they release any information.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Even then it's.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Usually highly redacted. So surprising that we know what we know.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, that's a good way to look at Also, we
don't know for sure about even US allies, like other
countries also play this close to the chest. What about France?
What about the United Kingdom? Not to mention things that
are not part of five eyes, like what about the
Soviet Union? How many do they lose? What about the
(28:56):
PRC of China? We don't know much which about them,
We don't have a full accounting. We know that the
biggest mystery there is going to be the Soviet Union's
nuclear past. They had a stockpile of forty five thousand
nuclear weapons as of nineteen eighty six, and we know
(29:17):
that there are cases where the Soviet Union lost nukes
that has yet to retrieve. But unlike with the US incidents,
the ones we know about occurred in submarines, which makes
it way trickier to figure out what happened. To them.
And then also because the ocean's a dynamic environment, these
subs can drift after they disappear. In nineteen sixty eight,
(29:41):
a Soviet K one nine sank in the Pacific Ocean
just northwest of Hawaii with three nuclear missiles, and they
there's a whole other story here. I think it's its
own episode, absolutely, yeah, because this they said, we're going
to try to retrieve this and see and they contact
(30:03):
Howard Hughes, like billionaire Tony starkish Howard Hughes before he
goes full crazy, and they say, you need to pretend
to be interested in deep sea mining. And it's also
I think we talked about this on stuff they want.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I think that's right. Yeah, gosh, the old brain cloud
is starting to set in at the end of the
day here, but it does ring a bell.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And I think we should, you know what, This is
such a strange story. I think we're gonna save this
one and maybe explore it in the future. And let's
ring the bell on the episode. What do you say?
Speaker 7 (30:37):
Yeah, remain in DAWs.
Speaker 6 (30:41):
Remain in DAWs.
Speaker 5 (30:43):
Grab your newspaper and cover your head.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Welcome to the Queen's Broadcast. You know, it's funny, just
just one last little thing.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I wasn't looking up duck and Cover because I sort
of misspoke, I think conflating.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I mean the eighties.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You know, obviously there was a period during the Cold
War where nuclear attack was definitely still top of mind
for a lot of For sure, duck and cover the
original propaganda video we're talking about with YOURDLD, the turtle
or whatever it was.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
From the fifties.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
But I found an article saying how the intent and
the actual result of a lot of those videos was
just to have people remain indoors, to shelter in place,
you know, and that you could actually just by not
going outside ultimately save a lot of lives.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
You could.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, And also, did you clock what I was referring to?
I said, welcome to the quiz broadcast made indoors.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Well, remain indoors is just from Michelin wellt Yes, yeah,
the quiz broadcast is.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So it's really really great.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
They're always referring to the event.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yes, yeah, don't think about the event exactly, and they're
always trying to guess at remnants of human civilism. I
want to rewatch that, but for now I think We're
going to roll out some thank yous, a cavalcade of
thank yous to super producer Max kill Aton Williams, also
our research associate for this series. Who else stole? Who else?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
The j man old chromedome himself? Are our broken Arrow?
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Oh he had longer hair? Yeah, our broken era Yeah?
Oh gosh yeah. Jonathan Strickland, the aka the Quist. Wait
did we say his name?
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Freak?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You said the whole thing while looking into a mirror,
because technically this glass here is a mirror, and I
believe you just spun around in your seat in reverse
a few times. So what does it mean, Ben? What
does it mean?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well, it means when need to wrap up this outro
quick fast and in a hurry or else. Oh it's
Jonathan strickly Ak, the Wuister. How could this happen? How
(32:50):
could this happen?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It's like it's like that you ever read The Mangler
by Stephen k You know how that the the laundry
machine becomes possessed because somebody accident spills their jello into hemlock.
And it's just this exact perfect storm of Oopsie's sorry
that we've been talking about today.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I'm not going to stop using that term.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
This is what happened with you. We looked into the mirror,
we said your name three times or something, and then
Ben spun around his chair backwards and here you are.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
Look me and uh, bloody Mary and Candy Man been waiting,
We've been snacking waiting and uh it's been been a
real good time. How are they they could we're all
we've all been at Pont City Market. No one told
us that you moved, and uh that's floor is really
there's a different group there. They are not as much fun.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Yeah that was by design man. Yeah, but you've outwitted
us and found our new office clearly with no help
from many one.
Speaker 6 (33:45):
Know it's it took me a long time to walk here.
It is not convenient.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
And I mean those healings really helped you.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
To see you see him scoot I see.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
Yeah, I'll say this that ever since the cab avenue,
they've repaved it and they got rid of that that
suicide lane. Yeah, that's really helped out quite a bit.
Like it really a smooth out. But I can just
take that all the way up to Marrietta Street.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
You've gotta you've got to tell us, Jonathan, Sure, long time,
listeners will know that this is what you've described as
the most cringe worthy segment in podcasting.
Speaker 6 (34:18):
That's your description, it is, in fact my description.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
What is the quister? What is what is this thing
that's happened? It's been like, how long has it been? No?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
I mean possibly a year, possibly more than.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
Me a year?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Is I think so? And that's again yeah, I mean
he just nowhere to find it. I thought we mentioned
you every episode though, which is part of me. I
think part of both of us.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Missed you a little bit.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
Yeah, yeah, I missed you, guys.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
So much like the way you miss a tumor is
sort of.
Speaker 6 (34:46):
Yeah, or you know, you miss it when you when
you have a tooth knocked out and you can't help
but put your tongue in the root and just root around,
even though it kind of hurts too, you sort of
still have to do it, Or.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Like when you're trying to shoot someone and you miss
I have missed you several times.
Speaker 6 (35:06):
Or like when you talk to a reporter and you
explain that your whole tactic is to hold out until
October and all the riders are no longer able to
pay mortgages and rent and then you can force them
to come back to your own terms like that, kind
of like.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
That swinging a miss, swinging a miss, because there are
some levels of villainy that even you, the quizt would
not see.
Speaker 6 (35:26):
Yeah that's low, man, that's pretty low. Yeah. So this segment,
I guess to finally get around to answering your question.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, is when I the quizz stir
Jonathan Stricklett appear and quiz the two of you upon
something possibly tangentially related to the episode topic at hand,
No promise, And I give you three scenarios oh boy,
(35:50):
two mean goose pot, two of which i'll reeal in
one which I made up. Season it is your duty
to find the one I made up. And and I decided,
since you were talking about arrows what had been broken
and nuclear packages what had been misplaced, that I would
go with sort of a precursor what used to be
(36:14):
considered one of the big weapons of the military age,
far before nuclear age, and that would be ships.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Ships.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
So the three scenarios which you'll be presented are all
about ships what sunk. So I will read out the
scenarios and then at the end I will give you
the arbitrary rule I use where you can ask me
a question, but you have to follow the arbitrary rule
before before I'll accept it. All right, So here we go.
(36:44):
Here are the scenarios. Come here the sad tale of
the Jumpin' Java, an ill fated ship originally belonging to
the Cunard Line. The jumpin Java reportedly got its name
for the way the ship responded to particular choppy seas,
and it did not enjoy a positive reputation. But that
(37:05):
reputation absolutely sunk when the Java did as well in
eighteen ninety five while on a voyage from San Francisco
to New York. Of course, by then it was called
the Lord Spencer of Jay Heron and Company, having undergone
multiple name changes over the years. Scenario two listen unto me.
(37:26):
The Morning Star was a ship originally launched by the
British at Calcutta in eighteen thirteen, but her tenure was
not long. She sadly met her and in eighteen fourteen,
wrecking off the coast of Queensland. Later, another ship called
the Eliza found five survivors marooned on wait for it,
Booby Island.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
And get this, but the Booby's like it's a bird, right, Yes, yes,
they ruined something.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
They explained that their captain, whose name I am not
kidding was Robert Smart, had left earlier in a longboat
with some men to row to time more. Only they
never made it. So out of the crew of more
than thirty, only five are known to have survived. The
Morning Stars eighteen fourteen voyage scenario three. Hawk and hear
(38:18):
the Sad Tale of the Campania.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
No hark, not hocket.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
Hawk and here the Sad Tale of the Campania. A
ship that took inspiration from luxury liners such as the Titanic,
but before she was to be fitted for luxury she
had a more morbid purpose. The ship's maiden voyage was
to transport soldiers remains post World War One from Turkey
after the Brits had failed to invade Gallipoli. She would
(38:48):
never get the chance to serve as a true luxury liner,
as the ship hit wreckage off the coast of Southampton
and sunk. All hands aboard were accounted for as survivors,
and yet the dead numbered the living. Of course, that
had been true since they had left Port.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Oh come, oh Come, And now that seems like a
real potential for a ghost ship pretty good.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
So the.
Speaker 6 (39:14):
Arbitrary rule this time, if you do wish to ask
me a question while you're deliberating, is that you must
quote some sea shanty beforehand. You don't have to sing it,
but you do.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
Have to quote it.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
We got what was the one? We got this? Well?
Speaker 6 (39:27):
We got weller soon made the welleman come to bring
us sugar into.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
So Okay, so we have three minutes is how that's.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
Usually how it goes. I don't remember. It's been a
long time.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
So we're gonna we thankfully got the grandfather he brought
it over. Yeah, great expense, which is true because it's
like ninety percent of our budget every year just to
mate it. So we're gonna run over here and start
this and go okay, okay, I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I'm gonna be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I think I know which one I thinks. I think
it's two. Oh you think too is not true? I
think two is. Oh wait, I think two is true.
Speaker 6 (40:08):
Just completely zoning out. When I was spinning elbow.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
I was listening, I was soaking it in. What can
you do the singing thing for me?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I don't remember how.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
It goes.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Soon me the wellaman, come, uh, do you realize how
badly you don't played yourself?
Speaker 6 (40:28):
How's that?
Speaker 5 (40:29):
The quizter? The jump in Java?
Speaker 6 (40:32):
Are you kidding? That's a coffee house? It is, in
fact a coffee house.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
You know.
Speaker 6 (40:36):
Sometimes names come from other things. Sometimes someone takes a
name and then they'll reuse that name names from Allow
me to introduce you to the concept of the British monarchy.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Your game mark is making me question my question.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
I mean, maybe you're right, maybe that is the wrong one.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
Is that the one you walked through?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
It was way easier to miss you when you were gone?
Speaker 6 (41:01):
How can I miss you if you never leave?
Speaker 1 (41:03):
So?
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Okay, you can do we know? All right?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Okay?
Speaker 6 (41:13):
So uh mister Bowlin.
Speaker 5 (41:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
So in scenario three.
Speaker 6 (41:22):
Yes, scenario three the Campania.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
The US fails to conquer, like the fails in the
conflict with Turkey.
Speaker 6 (41:31):
Well, it was really the UK.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
It was the UK.
Speaker 6 (41:33):
The Brits attempted to invade the the Gallipoli the peninsula
of Gliboli in Turkey to get an area of operations,
but the Turks were able to repel them at great cost.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Because they were beefed with the Ottomans.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
Well, it was more that it was just trying to
find another way to perhaps lessen the incredible pressure of
the Western Front where things were not going well. I
don't know if you know about World War One, but
Western Front was pretty rough.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Hey man, I don't like your attitude. You can't talk
to Ben like that.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
There are numbers to world wars.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Well not at the time. They called it the Great War.
They want so pessimistic as to call it World War
One while it was happening.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
They're learning so much.
Speaker 6 (42:14):
What is a war? Really? You don't know what a
war is.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
I have no clue. I don't even speaking child.
Speaker 5 (42:20):
What are you?
Speaker 6 (42:21):
Why are you doing that? You're just wasting time? Now,
that's true.
Speaker 5 (42:25):
Happy to do it? The war?
Speaker 6 (42:27):
When when a when a mommy nation and the daddy
nation really hate each other?
Speaker 2 (42:32):
And I mean, yeah, put it out there.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I feel pretty confident. Yeah, jumping job, I give me.
You think it's one? Yeah, all right, I got your back.
Let's look.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
The idea of a jumping coffee bean is so corny
and hokey. I do not believe that it is a
construction of the past that was then repurposed by coffee shop.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
All right, well we are at.
Speaker 6 (42:51):
Time, so, uh there's the weirdest grandfather ever.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Again, it's very expensive.
Speaker 6 (42:59):
It's a custom job to grandfather's clock, for sure.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
So uh well, we'll maybe have Max put in a
more prestigious so my grandfather clock. Uh no, I've got
your back. Let's lock it in. Three. Two what scenario one?
We'll go it with.
Speaker 6 (43:16):
It feels so good to be back on.
Speaker 5 (43:20):
So what.
Speaker 6 (43:22):
One is true? It was a jumping Java. It was
officially named the Java, but passengers referred to it as
the Jumping Java. There was also there was sized jumping Java.
In fact, yes, it's what it was called. And then
it was for a while the SS Zealand it moved
to the Red Star Line, not the White Star, the
Red Star Line, and then it was known as the
(43:43):
Electric before finally becoming Lord Spencer.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Was this scenario three?
Speaker 6 (43:49):
That was three is taken from a Japanese anime, And
it absolutely is not true.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
I knew it.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I am so sorry. I feel like you absolutely fool.
I was so confident about it. I'm not gonna lie
to you, guys. I'm gonna go ahead and cop to something.
I googled jump in Java and all I.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Got was coffee shop.
Speaker 6 (44:07):
I mean, this is why this is what if you
typed in Java eighteen sixty five you would find the
ship referra.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I wouldn't have done that. That would have been a
bridge too far.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
I think it's worth it, though, because we got that
awesome line from the quizz which is sometimes names come
from other things, which was just peak snart.
Speaker 6 (44:27):
I mean it really is if every name out there
has only been used to one and one time.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Only, So you know what this means.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
You see where I'm coming from, though, guys, I mean this,
these these goofy coffee shop names like just sentience Bean,
you know what I mean, or like the I literally
saw one that was called Cafe Campusino a million percent,
I mean that jittery Joe's frankly quister. It was a
stroke of brilliance because you really that was a very
good red herring.
Speaker 5 (44:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Mugshot is a great name for a coffee place.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
That's a fantastic you can get in a mug or
as a shot, right right.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Uh So with that, gentleman, Max, you're part of this
decision as well. I proposed to you, guys that we
start a new chapter in the quistor beef, and we start.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
We read, and so you're ahead one one not I think.
Speaker 6 (45:23):
I think without that I would have been maybe two
or perhaps even three behind.
Speaker 5 (45:27):
You think I thought we were going to propose.
Speaker 4 (45:30):
Since we're talking about lost nukes, like losing Jonathan in
the bottom of a Mediterranean sea or something, I.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Feel like legally that counts as either hate speech or
a threat.
Speaker 5 (45:39):
Yeah. Also, what do you think of the name Chrome Doom.
Speaker 6 (45:43):
I'm not a big fan of it. I mean, it's
I'll respond to it, because honestly.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
People.
Speaker 6 (45:50):
Offensive as long as I get attention, really.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Whatever it takes.
Speaker 6 (45:55):
A true story. Once I was at a grocery store
and a little boy turned to his mother and said
that man has no hair and pointed at me, and
she was mortified, and I said, trust me, this is
not how I learned.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
That's fair.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
That's fair. Well. Plus, we live in Atlanta, where I
always try to explain this to people who are not
from this country or this this part of this country,
especially if you're from a place like Scandinavia or small
talk's not really a thing, you know. I always have
to make it clear to my friends, like, hey, when
you come to this city. Strangers are going to talk
(46:27):
to you as though they're vaguely related to you. Everybody
kind of is going to treat you like a first
or second cousin.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
We take that for granted. I think living here and also,
but you know, I think you and I are the
three of us. The four of us are in other
cities and other parts of the universe enough to see
places where that is just not the case that all
people make contact.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
But here you'll have you'll you'll be walking down like
our old alma matter of post lea or something, and
someone might be This happened to me. This is the
true story. I was walking home from work in our
old office one day and a person I've never seen
before since it was like.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Kubrick, Kubrick, like Stanley Kubrick.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
And so finally I turned and he was like, yeah,
that's a nice fit man, you look like a director
full metal jacket.
Speaker 5 (47:14):
Was good.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Like, I think it's just because I had a cardigan. Okay,
it's really for his cardigan. No, it doesn't make any sense,
And that's just the kind of city we live in.
So hopefully I say all that to say, hopefully, Jonathan
think it was not trying to.
Speaker 6 (47:29):
Be a not at all. He was just surprised. And
again it didn't didn't bother me at all. It was
an observation that happens to be true. I don't base
my identity off my folicular deficiencies.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
There we go, Well, we do.
Speaker 6 (47:44):
Well, that's fair considering how I just trounced you.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
All right, that's the spirit. So now that now we
are officially uh what we've we've turned the tables. No,
we're gonna have to summon the quiztor again. So we
because you know what, bro this injustice will not.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Stand, no question about it. I'm ready to bring our
a game. And it does seem like now since the
questor knows where our physical location is, that this might
be happening a little more frequently.
Speaker 5 (48:13):
Yeah, I mean, I embrace yourselves.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
I'm gonna be realistic and say, like, let's aim for
a B plus game and maybe we'll impress ourselves.
Speaker 6 (48:21):
That's fine. Listen, there's like a Fox Brothers right next door,
So I am cool coming in as often as I
need to. They got great smoked chicken wings. I don't
know if you know, but man, Fox Withers is great.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Yeah, we've been talking a lot about restaurants this week.
Speaker 6 (48:37):
Well, I am trying to narrow cast the show. Did
you not know that I am narrow casting as hard
as I can so that only people not just in Atlanta,
but a very specific wedge of Atlanta will get the references.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Well, I'm actually gonna have a little date night with
my lady tonight, so I'm gonna maybe try something new.
Speaker 7 (48:55):
But thank you, yeahs, Ben, thank you, thank you NOL
for this nuclear fantastic voyage that we've taken together.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
And also with you Max Williams. Thanks, of course, I
think we said it earlier to Alex Williams. Thanks to
everybody for tuning in. That's the week for us. We
hope you have a great weekend and we can't wait
for you to join us next week when we put
some animals on trial.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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