March 5, 2025 • 46 mins
True story: throughout China's Sichuan province right along the border with Tibet, the land is riddled with ancient towers of unknown origin. No one knows who built them, nor why. In tonight's episode, Ben and Noel explore the fascinating hidden history of architecture that withstood millennia of chaos -- and how an ancient series of towers survived the rise and fall of empires into the modern day.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Our colleague Matt is on Adventures. They called me Ben.
We are joined with our guest producer, Matt the Madman. Still,
most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Uh No.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Should we give a.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Little bit of context before we get into today's story.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I guess so to why we might sound a little punchy,
a little bit different, Yeah, a little different. We are
coming to you, not live live for us. I guess
from the web summit in Qatar? What do you say Ben?
Is it cut her or kutar?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
It?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Usually when you pronounce it in the Western world, it's
okay to say Qatar. People know what you're talking about.
The correct pronunciation, from what I understand, is something more
like cultter cutter.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
And we are in the wonderful, beautiful, very futuristic city
of Doha.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
That is correct. We will be rejoining Matt now. People
know that we've been on the road quite a bit,
quite a bit looking forward to being homeward bound. As
Paul Simon and Three Dogs once said.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The three dog the Night of the three Dogs.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Do you know why it's called three dog night.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I've never really looked at so that bank just used
my imagination and had probably my own narrative or with
the three dogs and that night question.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Apparently because apparently three dog night is inspired by this
idiom or this saying in Australia that when things get
really cold you would sleep with three of your dogs
instead of one.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Why not make it an even four.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I don't know what a four dog night looks like.
We are very much punching kids. Yeah, it's funny for us,
as we wanted to. You know, there are so many
parts of the world that remain unexplored. Here in this
part of the world, there's so much hidden history. Getting
in we saw, you know, ancient cities out and forts
(02:28):
out in the desert. Maybe we'll be able to visit them.
But tonight today we have something more on our minds.
We have a true story of hidden history. Over in
China's Sichuan province, right on the edge of Tibet, there's
this massive collection of mysterious stone towers, and to this
day people still argue about what they are, who built them,
(02:53):
or why. This is kind of a Tibet episode as well.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah it is, and it is a hidden history episode.
We are here Ben and I for some ridiculous history activities.
So this is almost like a crossover in a way,
right it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Very much is? It very much is. And we can't
shout out our guest super producer, Matt well enough, who's
gonna be so so freaking tired of us?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
No? No, no, we're great, We're nice.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah you say that now Matt's doing just that.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Out.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, all right, that's our We're gonna pause for a
word from our sponsors and then we'll dive in.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Here are the facts. No, let's travel to switch one China.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Let's why not. We're already on the road. What's another
ten hour flight between friends?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That was the thing. I remember. It was obnoxious because
I realized it the moment when we hadn't slept and
I thought, dang, Remember I was telling you, like, if
I know where you're going with yeah, if I just
kept going Japan, yeah that I will have circumnavigated the globe.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Oh, man, I think you should do it. Ben, I
fully support you, and I think iHeart Financing will also
support this endeavor.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Do you want to go?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Do you want to go? Matt? What are you doing later?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
And Matt says okay, yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
So if we do that, then on the way we
will fly over Sichuan, we'll fly over part of Tibet.
What's your do you remember? Do you remember back in
the nineteen I want to say the nineteen nineties when
a lot of Western musicians rallied for a Tibetan concert.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The Tibetan Freedom Concert, I believe founded by the Beastie Boys.
The Beastie Boys, they were really a big part of that.
Adam Yauch I believe was his name, was a big
booster for the Tibetan freedom movement and that was a massive,
very nineties series of concerts. Bands like the Smashing Pumpkins performed,
(04:48):
and it was all what was the deal that what
was Tibet was under the yoke of an impressive government. Essentially,
critics will say, so, yeah, Tibet is technically it's an
autonomous zone. This means that the larger government of China
still ultimately controls the area, and for critics this is
(05:10):
quite controversial, right, but they do have a spiritual leader
in the Dali Lamak, right.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yes, yeah, and we're giving you this to kind of
situate these sitution. Yes, though a high five. You earned it,
so we high fived on that one. So this is
to sichuanuate amazing the province of Sichuan, which is sort
(05:36):
of to the if you look into map, it's kind
of to the right, or it's adjacent to Tibet.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
It's a basin if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah, could you tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Bordered on all sides by mountains and highlands. To the north,
the kin Or Shin Mountains, I believe it's a q
i n situation. Stretching from the east to the west.
To the northeast, we have the Daba Mountains and then
the Dahalu Mountains form much of the southern border. To
the east, it's dominated by the Wu Mountains, home to
(06:08):
the legendary yang Tsi Gorges, some gorgeous gorges if you
ask me. Then to the west we have the Daksu
Mountains of the Tibetan borderlands.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, and this is we're describing things that are absolutely
stunning views. So when you think about this, think of,
you know, so many adventure films you've seen in the West,
so many Chinese produced epic action adventures. There. We're also
talking about in real life some of the most diverse
(06:39):
collections of ethnic groups in all of the nation of China,
because on the eastern side, that's where most of the
people live, and it's pretty densely populated, and you go
to the west, it's definitely still a rarian there's more
agriculture based industries. Even though it has modernized very quickly,
there's still a lot of people who retain their own
(07:03):
somewhat separate.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Beliefs community cultural identity. Perfect.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, there's the Han, which is, you know, the dominance
kind of ethnicity of China, the Ye, the Mong, the Tujia,
the Hue. And of course they're there are oh and
the way are practitioners.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Of Islam, and they're also way cool.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
They're also cool. Sorry, So we said a little bit
about this, like they they want to maintain their autonomy, right,
and uh, they have this kind of paradigmatic maybe not
a word pushe there. It is just say with confidence.
They make it a they're at longerheads sometimes with this
(07:48):
push for modernity versus this powerful need, this compulsion to
retain one's cultural identity.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
History is very important to them.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, it's nuts. You can even see it in the language,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
For example, the Han speak a southern dialect of Mandarin,
which I know that you've been studying for quite some time.
They're just Mandarin in general, and I know there are
many many flavors of Mandarin, to the point where it
can be absolutely overwhelming to even settle.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
On one right dialects. Yeah, A way to compare it
would be not even counting Cantonese.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
A way to compare it I was thinking about this
would be to talk about different dialects of English that
we have, because you know, I don't I don't know
if there's a hot take, and all with great affection
to our friends up in the Scottish Highlands. Sometimes you
know it's tough. Oh yeah, it's tough for me to tell.
(08:46):
Can't watch train Spotting without the subtitles on.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Let's put it that way.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, is that too far?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
No? Is that too far? That's the truth. And I mean,
if you experience it and you live with it, and
you're surrounded by a lot you can definitely take it in,
but it is something that you have to train your
ears to recognize the difference. Even though we know English
and they are speaking English, are there slang? There are
various prounciations. There is a rhythm and a cadence to
(09:13):
the language that is just different from what we would
know as modern standard English, right.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, yeah, So this gives us a way to compare
the experience with this mix of people in this very
diverse area. Because everybody will speak the lingua franca, the
idea of you know, the Southern Mandarin dialect, but different
communities will use Turkish and Arabic in their religious really
yeah yeah, I didn't realize that. So what we're saying
(09:40):
is for a long time, this has been a really
fascinating land. It's witnessed empires rise and full and.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
We are back to the Han as well. By the way,
just I know, we kind of took a little detour
just talking about language, but we started off with the
Han and the way they speak this southern dialect of Mandarin,
which also can consist of some of this Turkish and
Arabic kind of flavor.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Depending on the communities. Yeah, so for centuries traveling into
or out of Sichuan because of those mountains you described,
it was very difficult. It was treacherous. It was difficult
just to get there, much much more difficult, or to
say nothing of actually holding the land. And it's also
this was something. This was one of the side notes
(10:25):
that I think delighted the two of us and Matt.
We hope it delights you too, So at least, you know,
just back us up, man, just yes and yeah, all right, Okay,
what are two dumb facts we learned about Sichuan.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Well, it is the home of kung paw chicken, which
I'm a fan of, claimed claimed home and speaking of cuisine,
I mean, I think I asked you this off, Mike,
But Sichuan the name of the region, it is spelled
differently than Seschuan, the seasoning or the genre of flavor
profile absolution cuisine. Right, Yeah, you nailed it, important distinction. So, yes,
(11:01):
home of kung pou chicken, which is a spicy, you know,
kind of brown sauce peanut based dish.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Peanuts are big there and even now, isolation often reigns
in the area. Despite you know, the massive successful push
for modernization, the dialect thing is still an issue. People
one valley over may speak an entirely different dialect. So
imagine just walking literally walking the space of a few
(11:30):
football fields. Sure, and then the people at the other end,
at that other valley, they speak something where you could
you could communicate with each other in writing, but if
you just tried to just have a chat like we're
having now, you wouldn't understand.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Each other a little bit of a maybe you know,
false equivalency. But think about neighborhoods in someplace like New
York City, where between various neighborhoods you're going to have
like a difference in culture, you know, almost immediately as
you you know, cross a certain boundary.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Or I'll say it.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
You said it, and I'm gonna back you up. Another
weird fact that's not that weird, but it's very interesting,
is that this region is also a natural environment for
giant pandas.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yes, that is true, fellas, I love it, and and
that the initiative to save the giant pandas pretty amazing.
It might be something we do on ridiculous history, yeah,
which will also be recording.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
That's true. And in our home place of Atlanta, Georgia,
the Atlanta Zoo has for a long time been home
to some giant pandas from this region that were very
very popular attractions, and also our zoo. You know, I
think what you will about zoos in general is very
conservation focused.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yes, yeah, And just to keep it a little bit conspiratorial.
You know, one fact, not everybody learns about the giant
pandas they are all owned by China.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
That's right, they were like leased out the essentially to
the Atlanta Zoo. It was. It's a cultural exchange in
many ways that is very important.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
And so what we're saying here about this place in particular,
this isolated place with so much history, so many different cultures.
We're telling you all of this, fellow conspiracy realists, to
give ourselves and to give you a sense of place
and to set up the second act of this episode.
Because it's isolated, yes, it accessible, it's a huge area,
(13:27):
it's historically self sufficient. It's got a big population, similar
to Tibet. Especially the further west you go, this becomes
a place all its.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Own very much so. Even now in twenty twenty five,
as we record this episode, experts wonder about. They continue
to wonder and speculate about the hidden history of these
lands of this region. So perhaps the most mysterious feature,
which is the topic of part two of this episode,
Scattered throughout the area, an enigmatic collection of star shaped
(13:59):
towers have been erected at some point in time, ancient
stone and wood structures reaching toward the heavens like some
sort of ben You described it beautifully here in the
outline Eldritch version of one hundred foot plus skyscraper straight
out of some sort of Lovecraftian nightmare escape.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, they're also beautiful.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
They're also beautiful, and they're older than dynasties, they're older
than empires. They've survived earthquakes, they could have obliterated more
modern constructions. And this is what's fascinating about this aspect
of it is it reminds me a bit of you know,
we mentioned Lovecraft, HP Lovecraft stories. He has things like
(14:42):
the Plateau of Lang or so on. This feels like
a mystery that needs to be solved. And surprisingly enough,
it took more than one thousand years for someone a
traveling Westerner who are about to meet to ask hey,
What the heck are the these things? What on earth
is going on here?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
And we're going to meet our star player after a
quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Here's where it gets crazy. All right, let's get this
out of the way first. Sure, Thank goodness, no one
claims to have as you would say, Noel discovered these towers.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
That's right. All the locals knew about them. I mean
they were a pron prominent feature of the landscape for
you know, thousands of years. No One, however, in living memory,
had used these things, you know, for any sort of
functional purpose.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Right, You're absolutely right, nobody in living memory. Is important
to note people are not using these right. You go
to some maybe ancient towns in Turkey or in Europe
or other parts of the world, and you'll see people
still living in very old strip absolutely but not here,
(15:59):
and no one is much research on them. At this point.
This all changed when we meet our hero of the story. Yes,
let's give.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Our veritable Indiana Jones esque figure here.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yes, yes, that is Martine Frederic Derragon, who traveled originally
born in France, traveled to New York City, New York City,
New York City, and then as the Salsey commercials say
New York City.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Also true, I was doing more of a Matt Berry thing.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
And then from there, Deragon has long held and she
lives a very fascinating life. She's long held an interest
in sustainability and animal rights. So she travels to western
China to this rural area. It's nineteen ninety eighteen ninety eight,
ninety seven, ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, and in the height of the Free Tibetan movement.
By the way, this is nineteen ninety eight, was peak
Tibetan freedom concert area just to bring it back.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, that's right. And here's the thing. She doesn't know
about the towers. Most Westerners don't. And her entire thing
is that she wants to learn more about the endangered
snow leopard.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, okay, beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Snow leopards look like they're out of an anime.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I just saw a thing on the internet that was
a rocky outcrop and the idea was, or where's waldoe situation?
Find the snow leopard. And the first thing you need
to know, there's also some snow. They're not pure white, no,
they it blended in more with the beige, non snow
covered parts of the of the cliffs than the white
(17:30):
but your mind immediately tries to look forward in the snow,
but not accurate. Right, let's bust a little mythy.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
There we go. Well done, and this also speaks to
the unique biodiversity of the region. Now, obviously her mission
changes when she sees the towers. She's walking around and
you know, she's in areas where there's not at this
point a lot of infrastructure built up the wilderness, like
(17:56):
you're in the places where you could find a snow leopard.
And then she says, wait, that's not a natural rock formation.
Somebody built a tower. She's a curious investigator. She starts
by asking the locals for more information. And get this,
no one has a clue. Everybody is literally saying, you know,
in Southern Mandarin. They're saying, oh, yes, yeah, it's this
(18:18):
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
That's the thing. Can we set the stage a little
bit more here and kind of describe what these look like?
In my mind, I'm picturing a like two towers Lord
of the Rings esque situation I have saw on Yes,
I don't know, maybe it was your your Lovecraftian analogy,
but help us out then, not.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Too far off, nol, because what you'll see is a
lot of the towers are in their heyday.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
These are stone structures that vary in height, vary in age.
But we're not we're not blowing smoke when they when
we say skyscraper esque, some could go from one hundred
to two hundred feet. There would be an entry way
at the bottom, and then they would have different features,
so like a defensive tower would have slits where someone
(19:03):
could shoot an arrow.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Oh what do you call those? There's a name for
those little little holes in fortified towers arrow arrow holes,
row slots, slots. Yeah, I like exactly what you're talking about.
But these are also not particularly adorned, right. These are
very straightforward kind of designs.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
That's the tricky part because it seems this is a
great question. There are clues afoot because they don't all
have the same design. You see some of these towers
almost stood up here. But some of these towers are
in a star shape. Like if if you if you
had a a cookie cutter, okay, that was a star
shaped cookie cutter, then it looks like this tower was
(19:44):
built in that shape, not none.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
And we're not talking about a star shaped array of
multiple structures. This is a single tower that, when looked
at from an aerial view, is itself in a star
shaped pattern.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yes, God, just so great description, especially because we're an
audio podcast. Exactly siate that. So it's like a so
imagine if someone took a shape of an eight point
star and just pulled it longways.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Like Plato kind of situations pasta like Apasta is good
like it, it's I'm thinking about Plato though. From my
youth they had those little extreuting kind of things that
you could push a plunger thing, and then the Plato
would get pushed through.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yes, yeah, so just so, and then sometimes they would
have twelve points m. Questions, Yeah, questions begin to occur
to Derek on One of the first wins, of course,
is what what what on earth is going on here?
The second is how do these things? How did any
(20:44):
of this survive? First off, why are there so many?
How did so many survive through antiquity in an area
that is very prone to earthquakes?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Craftsmanship, my friend, how do you even get a contiguous
struck sure like that in this shape?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I think about this all the I think about this
all the time. To be honest with you, reading the
the amazing works of the great thinkers and architects of old,
and realizing that more than once I have fallen asleep
trying to put on a pair of pants.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Of course, it really makes one one.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And then that's just look upon my works.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
You might.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
So this is weird because Deregon not weird. But Deregon
is obviously not the type of person to leave a
stone unturned.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Okay, I'll allow it. Yeah, I can allow it.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Okay, I'm staring about it like he like, it's his
job to have you allow it, he says.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
So she has a great series of conversations with a
journalist named Richard Stone writing for the Smithsonian, And this
is where we get a look at.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Just Richard Stone. This is kind of his whole wheelhouse, right,
no Stone on there.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
We we have, we already paid for the drum riff
sound cue. Yeah, we got to use to get your
county to get us. So okay, can Noel, can we
share a quote from Stone which describes Derrogut. She like,
the world's most interesting.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Person, absolutely like the what's that? The do sekis guy?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The world?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Anyway, yeah, yeah. The Aragon is a self described free spirit.
He says with an eclectic resume, an undergraduate degree and
economics founder of an organization that supports education in world China,
star polo player in Argentina, sailboat racer and artists. Artist,
ye see, filmmaker, Uh, incredible, uh, designer, several things, a
(22:46):
person for all seasons.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And we'll we'll get to some more stuff about her
personal life later. I think we're excited to explore that photographer. Yes, yeah,
very much so, right, which makes.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Sense with the way she was traveling and wanting to
documents all of these rural areas and just an absolute
archivist in and of herself.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, and they were gone again. It's nineteen ninety eight.
She's going to places that many people, especially Westerners, and
they have on travel.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
No, it's just important work.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
It's difficult to get that far to the west of China,
and she travels to the area no less than nine
times from nineteen ninety eight to the early two thousands.
She documents almost two hundred separate towers between Sichuan and
to that.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
That many that I had no idea. This is incredible.
She took measurements again, she took photographs. When possible, she
would climb within the structures. These were again ben these
were fortified kind of towers, so there would be some
sort of spiral staircase situation in them, different obviously case
by case basis.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah, some way to access the elevation, assuming that they
were still structurally sound, so many of them were, and
many of them were possible.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
She would she would climb within them, which is.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Quite courageous when you think about it. And she also
did the thing you should do anytime you're investigating a
local mystery, whether it be some of the stuff we've
seen in Guatemala, whether it be the stone jars of
Laos which we talked about earlier.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Consult the work of others who came before you.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Right, yes, and then talk to the locals.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Don't be those nerds who thought they rediscovered the celicaf
no no.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So, to be fair, Dregan did discover some references to
these towers in some relatively unrelated Chinese and European travel logs.
She also consulted monasteries. She poured over centuries of other
internal documents that were collected by the monks themselves, who
actually could find no particular references to the origins of
(24:49):
the towers in terms of who right.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, Yeah, when she's looking, she realizes that, as you said,
she has to dig through all possible sources and get this.
She she does find mentions.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yes, and in some diaries if I'm not mistaken from
some of those predecessors in terms of European explorers.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, So the monasteries don't appear like the locals appear
not to be too perplexed about this.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
They're not worried about it. To them, it's just a
thing that's around that has always been there.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
They are not really asking the how, the where the moon? Yeah,
and so the where they already know where they are,
why why, It's just a feature of their everyday lives.
They've just always accepted as fact.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
And so they so deregn fies is so nuts. She
goes to the diaries like you were, mentioning of eighteen
eighteen hundreds esque explorers from the West. And these guys
are kind of like the locals because they they don't
they mention it as a like a tangent in another
(25:57):
story about something they're more interested about, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Which is unusual.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I was walking through and you know, there were like towers,
but my main thing was insert here.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
That's right. I guess maybe it's just because of what
we do. We ask why about everything, that's sort of
our thing. It's just interesting to me that some of
these thinkers and these explorers would just accept these and
not be curious about where they came from. They are
unusual features, and they're clearly not natural.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, I think part of it comes from the A
big part of it comes from the fact that, in
the context of their day, these Chinese scholars and these
Western explorers had seen a bunch of towers, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
It wasn't a new structure. They were on the way
to something else. It took time for people to appreciate
the extraordinary nature of these of these structures. And Deregon
had advantages that didn't exist in the sixteen hundred and
seventeen hundreds, eighteen hundreds, sure.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Stuff like radiocarbon dating, for example.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, and she talks about it in her documentary, which
has been sometimes called The Secret Towers of the Himalayas
and then sometimes The Mystery of the Towers of Eastern Tibets.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Which was also adapted into print form in two thousand
and five, she started excavating pieces of some of these towers,
which which were in part made.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Of wood, right, yes, yeah, And she salvage more than
thirty pieces of wood from different towers, thirty two different towers.
And one of the things that she was immediately already
clocking was that this is not a UNESCO World Heritage
(27:46):
Site yet, not yet, and it should be right that's
her aim, and so she says, Okay, to do this,
we have to step back in time. If we can
prove the age or determine the age of the towers,
then that sets us up for this World Heritage pursuit.
And she sends the wood to a lab in Miami,
(28:08):
of all places. I don't know why in my head,
like I'm thinking Miami.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, I mean sure that Miami contains multitudes, but there
are some forensic research labs there that she employs. If
she could arrive at an approximate date for some of
these wooden salvage pieces, she figured she could then determine
the approximate age of a tower. And yet this research
or this forensic data only yielded further.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Mysteries, absolutely one hundred percent, because it turned out that
not all of these towers were in the same in
the same age range. Interesting, So some were built just
a few centuries ago, which I know sounds maybe a
little big glib a little bit, but it's a big
deal still. But in the grand scheme of things, that's
(28:56):
relatively young. In contrast, some towers were built between one
thousand to one thousand and two hundred years ago. That
makes them more than a millennium old.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Incredible. This means that at least a few of these
towers were built by someone before the Mongolian forces invaded
that region of Tibet back in twelve forty.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
And this is the beginning of a incredibly curious mystery,
curious and curiouser or, as as they say in Lord
of the Rings Way or the Hobbit Way, leads on
the way. Second breakfast, second breakfast, potato, eleven zies and
ad breaks.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
We've returned. So if you look at some of again,
Derragan has never described herself as a PhD ar archaeologist.
She's self professed just an enthusiast. She's interested in this.
She wants to save history. She wants to say just
the way she wants to to save you know, the
(30:01):
snow leopard which led her to this way, leads onto way.
But she does write, she does get published. Her research
is found in places like the Journal of Cambridge Studies,
and she says, look these towers, overall, the ones that
are still standing, I can prove they were built from
two hundred CE to sixteen hundred CE, and I think
(30:23):
they were built for different reasons. Going to your earlier question,
she says, there are four categories. First, towers situated in
fortified villages. These are defensive structures. They've got the slots
or the slits for archers other fortifications. Maybe this is
why it didn't stick out that much to those earlier
(30:43):
European explorers, because they recognized it and they said, oh,
this is like a this is it like a castle tower?
Speaker 2 (30:51):
By the way, I was just I had to find out.
I had to look aeroslits absolutely correct. Oh really another
term put log holes that for me utlog also known
as embrasiers. I like embraziers because it sounds more specific.
Also known as arrow loops, arrow.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Loops or loopholes. A little amalogy there. Indeed, So of
course the Europeans then they're not going to be impressed
because they recognize this as a tower from a castle.
And then there's a second kind of thing, and this one,
this one's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
To be I agree, towers disseminated over mountain slopes that
are not along main historic trade routes. Is this from
our buddy stone, This is from Derregan herself, deregun herself
and often hidden from view. So you stumble upon these
things not because you're on the main stretch of you know,
(31:50):
the Silk Road or something, sure, but because you are,
you are in the know, and when you see it,
these are the really impressive ones. These are the status
of These may have spiritual significance that we'll talk about
uh later. And the it's funny because uh, Derregan cracked
me up when I was when I was reading some
(32:11):
of her research about this, where she said, these might
be kind of like a flex They might be the
Cadillacs of their time right, because these were not all
created equals. Some of them were definitely fancier than others.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
And then third, we've got towers that were in wealthy
agricultural valleys where the ground was quite fertile, and there
were a bunch of trading routes, and they had two purposes.
The secondary purpose was that if you rolled into town
and you're a merchant, you know, you gotta sell your
what are people selling pelts? You gotta sell your pelts?
(32:44):
And you roll in you're you're a humble Peltzman and
then you are you are Peltsmouth. Yes, you are confronted
with this obnoxiously impressive tower, this ornate tower.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
We say ostentation.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah, and then someone's scare stands maybe a top it,
with their fingers steepled, and they say, beltsmen, welcome.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yes, look upon my works mighty. And what's the does
that one go despair there? Yeah? Maybe don't despair. It's okay.
Let's let's be a little more cheerful than that welcome.
There was an implication, there was a bit of a flex.
It was a bit of a show of force as well.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Right, yeah, and uh, I love that we're referencing, uh
one of my favorite poems that are osumandias m. Do
reread it. It won't take a second and it'll stay with you. However,
the primary purpose of these, uh this third type of
tower was really to facilitate trade. So there was a
lot of capacity to store goods. Be that a silo
(33:42):
kind of issue, yeah, should be the agricultural products or pelts.
And perhaps more importantly, this is where you would trade
out your pack animals. There's like an ancient version of
a gas station, a trading post. Yeah yeah. So now
we have to continue our journey western east, so let's
get maybe some different horses.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Absolutely, you know what I mean. Fourth, and again this
is from Dereghn herself. Tower situated on mountaintops, entrances to
valleys or other strategic positions for Gondo. Indeed, I was
very much on the Lord of the rings tip this.
These were the type of places where smoke signals could
be sent up ways of communicating across long distances before
(34:22):
like you know the Internet.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah yeah, and they had they had their own code
and language and everybody understood it kind of like a
smoke based semaphore. And we definitely just.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Is a semaphore like a pettifour.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
And that they rhyme and that they rhyme.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I don't know what a semaphore is. Where you have
you know, flag code, oh, the flags like traffic controllers.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Sure yeah great, so uh it's weird that I know semaphores.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
And just so you know, folks, as being an audio podcast,
Ben was flopping his arms around in flagsmen uh.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Fashion, and it's specifically I'm talking about flag semaphore. Of course,
semaphore can mean other things. And apologies to some folks
who drop by the studio and got our slightly neurodivergent
info dump on that. Yeah, because we were surprised.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
That's how we roll. Yeah, we were definitely taken by surprise.
But it was a lovely visit.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
It was a lovely visit. And so this is a
really effective way to not just communicate, but also to
sort of lay out your order space. Yeah, yeah, and
there were likely Derregune finds thousands of these towers, and
she as she's looking at the footprint of where these
(35:42):
are built, she finds that some are much further away
than you would originally assume. It forms all, all in all,
from what we know, a territory that's as large as
a third of modern day France.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
So someone was building a lot of towers.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
And some were more typical free standing towers, others that
had that iconic star shape eight points for some towers,
twelve points for others. That's the part where we're not
quite sure. Was it an aesthetic thing? Was there some
estrological purpose? Maybe it reminds me of the Georgia guidestones
and something, you know, the idea of using it to
(36:19):
mark time, to measure the changing of the seasons and
the changing of the day. We don't know this. I'm
just speculating here. I do wonder that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, and that also makes us wonder is there a
possibility that some of these were purely religious constructions. We
know that according to Tibetan legend, the mood cord Dmu
is said to connect heaven and earth. So you'll find
people arguing that this is almost like the Pyramids.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Extension, you know, from our mortal coil into the great
beyond right.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Right, And this leads us to more questions. All right,
if there are thousands of these that were built over
some period of time, what happened to the rest?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
It's a good question. What about the two similar structures
further west in modern day Afghanistan, which is pretty far away,
pretty far away ben the Gosny minarets have a very
similar appearance to these Tibetan towers, And the most important
question is why were they abandoned? May know the most
important and an additional important question.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, right, what happened? Because we know that there are
other again, there are other structures that are roughly around
the same time as some of these towers, and people
still live in those, you know, and they still kick it.
You can get an air B and B from like
the fourteen hundreds, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Is that true?
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yeah, that's kind of true. How it's like it's like
podcast true.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Okay, you point that the other day we did a
lovely live event as part of on Air Fest in
Brooklyn with our pal Matt Frederick, and I believe that
Ben is either in conversation or maybe even during the
event itself where you coined podcast accurate.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
For us, that means a proximately indeed true. Okay, I'm
looking through this. We're going to go back to this
in a later episode, and it's not gonna make any
sense to Matt Frederick.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
That's okay, keep him on his toes.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
So yeah, so you're in on that conspiracy, folks. But
there are these great questions, you know, why are they abandoned?
What happened to all the other thousands of towers, Like
we were saying, the most likely answer is simply the
ravages of time. Right, we're in a very earthquake prone area.
Clearly there were attacks by rival or invading communities, because
(38:38):
a lot of these towers were defensive fortications with arrow
loops or loopholes, and sometimes the thing about defenses is
they fall.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
They do. But many of these obviously remain, and we're
built to last, and we're looking at we also have
to remember we are looking at the flotsam and jetsam
of history.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
The range of these towers, however many there were one
point or another.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
There were way more.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
There were way more. We're seeing the remnants of something
like the stories about how Grecian architecture was actually quite colorful, right, right,
you remember hearing about.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
That, well, the frescoes and things like that. Yeah, but
like the colors faded over time, of course. Yeah, And
they're pigments that would not have necessarily lasted as long
as the stone medium that they were put.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Upon, right, or statues painted in bright colors and sold, yes,
plaster one hundred percent. So now we only see the
ruins of structures that once upon a time were doubtlessly
h just a feast for the eyes, you know what
I mean. And the towers may have been like that,
or perhaps technology involved. Perhaps it became less useful, maybe
(39:47):
the populations just shifted, maybe everybody just moved out of town.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, and thankfully, however, we can explain for the most
part the construction. They were a mix of stone and wood,
which is the part that was a to be passed
along for radiocarbon dating. Along with these star shapes of
some of the towers. Turns out to be a very
fantastic protection that array against earthquakes.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yeah, it gives you a kind of stability in a
fascinating construction technique. A descendant of it is used today
in other parts of China and other parts of the
East Asian theater.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Overall, it reminds me of some designs of modern skyscrapers
that are designed to shift with a little bits. Yeah,
with one hundred percent they are able to sway along
with the shifting earth.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Yeah, it's like, look at that skyscraper. It's kind of
a slinky.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
It feels weird when you feel it, though, and you're
up really high in one of those.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I have to say, the higher you get, the more apparent.
The effect is kind of like sitting on the back
of a plane.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Even in the amazing venue that we just performed at
National Sawdust, when we went down into the guts of
the building, there were springs inside of the structure. Very
similar concepts.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yes, very much so, because again, people in the ancient
empires were just as intelligent as people in the modern day. Now,
we also have a little bit of fun stuff. We
wanted to end on here before our super producer, Matt's
still gets tired of us.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
I didn't know that was Yeah, I'm sorry. There's the toilers.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
There's a Ted Turner connection to this. It's another plot
twist to our story, our own Georgia boy. The also
a sailor, also a sailor. That's how they met? Is
it really that's how they met?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
That makes sense? Remember this, I don't remember what I
saw this and it was a documentary. I think about Ted.
His name is Ted Turner, Ted Turner. He was almost
lost at sea during this crazy sailboat race. Yeah, real
adventure himself makes perfect sense. They would have crossed paths.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
In nineteen sixty nine, Deregon meets Ted Turner and they
become friends. She cruise on one of his vessels for
a while, and they you know, this is before he
gets into bfalow. Yeah, and this is before you know,
a lot of for Jane Fonda. He I believe he
was with Fonda at the time. Wait a minute, No, No,
(42:10):
they were just friends at that point. Oh but didn't
it didn't it? Bossom didn't romance. I think several years
after Fonda and Turner split, Okay, okay, and then they
came back together.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Don't you dare Jane that way?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Ted? Uh?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
And when they came together, Turner also through You can
read about the story in the Chicago Tribune, a couple
of New York Times like posh upper class explorations of culture.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Anyway, he helped fund some of this recently, helped fund
a lot. He was a big you know, he was
a bit of an Indiana Jones figure himself.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Yes, very much so. And he wanted to, like like Derek,
and he wanted to explore research, understand the mystery of
the towers. And this is something that I find wholesome.
I think we should make clear here. No, Matt derek
On is not trying to make money off of this
at all. All the proceeds from her documentary, from her speeches,
(43:06):
her from her printed work. It all goes directly to
something called the Unicorn Foundation, which she created with Ted
specifically to research and protect these towers. So maybe one
day we'll know the answers behind their providence, But right now,
none of this answers the immediate question like who built these?
(43:27):
For real?
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Though, Yeah, it's okay, I mean, I think we have
enough of an understanding. I mean, I'm sure would like
to know more. We do have a decent grasp of
the why, a pretty solid understanding of the how, but
the who remains anyone's guess, and I you know, we've
talked about this. Sometimes a little bit of mystery remaining
is cool.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Yeah, Also a plausible guess would be it's most likely
these were techniques that were shared across and transmitted across
multiple civilizations cultures.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
As indicated by the presence of very similar structures in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
You mention, you find something that works, So maybe what
we're seeing now were the most effective tower designs and
people just made their own improvements along the way, or
just maybe it's the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
It's true, So hey, why don't you let us know
conspiracy realists out there? What do you think these things were? Well,
it kind of know what they're for, but who do
you think built them? Do you have any additional theories
as to this, this idea of the religious aspects behind
them or the astrology? I like it too. Let us know.
You can find us all over the internet where Conspiracy
(44:38):
Stuff Show on Facebook where we have our Facebook group,
Here's where It's Crazy, on x FKA, Twitter, and on
YouTube where we have video content glor for your perusing enjoyment,
on Instagram and TikTok. However, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show,
and if you.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Are not a sipper of the social needs, never ye
fear the rumors are true. You can call us directly
on a tele phonic device. The number is let's sing
along because we're live.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
It's one eight.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Three three STDWYTK. When you dial that number, you will
hear a hopefully familiar voice along with a beep. That
beep is your off to the races signifier that means
you have three minutes. They're yours. Give us your name,
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Second most important thing let us know if we can
(45:27):
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our good old fashioned email address where.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't
(46:06):
want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Our colleague Matt is on Adventures. They called me Ben.
We are joined with our guest producer, Matt the Madman. Still,
most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Uh No.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Should we give a.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Little bit of context before we get into today's story.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I guess so to why we might sound a little punchy,
a little bit different, Yeah, a little different. We are
coming to you, not live live for us. I guess
from the web summit in Qatar? What do you say Ben?
Is it cut her or kutar?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
It?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Usually when you pronounce it in the Western world, it's
okay to say Qatar. People know what you're talking about.
The correct pronunciation, from what I understand, is something more
like cultter cutter.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
And we are in the wonderful, beautiful, very futuristic city
of Doha.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
That is correct. We will be rejoining Matt now. People
know that we've been on the road quite a bit,
quite a bit looking forward to being homeward bound. As
Paul Simon and Three Dogs once said.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The three dog the Night of the three Dogs.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Do you know why it's called three dog night.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I've never really looked at so that bank just used
my imagination and had probably my own narrative or with
the three dogs and that night question.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Apparently because apparently three dog night is inspired by this
idiom or this saying in Australia that when things get
really cold you would sleep with three of your dogs
instead of one.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Why not make it an even four.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I don't know what a four dog night looks like.
We are very much punching kids. Yeah, it's funny for us,
as we wanted to. You know, there are so many
parts of the world that remain unexplored. Here in this
part of the world, there's so much hidden history. Getting
in we saw, you know, ancient cities out and forts
(02:28):
out in the desert. Maybe we'll be able to visit them.
But tonight today we have something more on our minds.
We have a true story of hidden history. Over in
China's Sichuan province, right on the edge of Tibet, there's
this massive collection of mysterious stone towers, and to this
day people still argue about what they are, who built them,
(02:53):
or why. This is kind of a Tibet episode as well.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah it is, and it is a hidden history episode.
We are here Ben and I for some ridiculous history activities.
So this is almost like a crossover in a way,
right it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Very much is? It very much is. And we can't
shout out our guest super producer, Matt well enough, who's
gonna be so so freaking tired of us?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
No? No, no, we're great, We're nice.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah you say that now Matt's doing just that.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Out.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, all right, that's our We're gonna pause for a
word from our sponsors and then we'll dive in.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Here are the facts. No, let's travel to switch one China.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Let's why not. We're already on the road. What's another
ten hour flight between friends?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That was the thing. I remember. It was obnoxious because
I realized it the moment when we hadn't slept and
I thought, dang, Remember I was telling you, like, if
I know where you're going with yeah, if I just
kept going Japan, yeah that I will have circumnavigated the globe.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Oh, man, I think you should do it. Ben, I
fully support you, and I think iHeart Financing will also
support this endeavor.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Do you want to go?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Do you want to go? Matt? What are you doing later?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
And Matt says okay, yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
So if we do that, then on the way we
will fly over Sichuan, we'll fly over part of Tibet.
What's your do you remember? Do you remember back in
the nineteen I want to say the nineteen nineties when
a lot of Western musicians rallied for a Tibetan concert.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
The Tibetan Freedom Concert, I believe founded by the Beastie Boys.
The Beastie Boys, they were really a big part of that.
Adam Yauch I believe was his name, was a big
booster for the Tibetan freedom movement and that was a massive,
very nineties series of concerts. Bands like the Smashing Pumpkins performed,
(04:48):
and it was all what was the deal that what
was Tibet was under the yoke of an impressive government. Essentially,
critics will say, so, yeah, Tibet is technically it's an
autonomous zone. This means that the larger government of China
still ultimately controls the area, and for critics this is
(05:10):
quite controversial, right, but they do have a spiritual leader
in the Dali Lamak, right.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yes, yeah, and we're giving you this to kind of
situate these sitution. Yes, though a high five. You earned it,
so we high fived on that one. So this is
to sichuanuate amazing the province of Sichuan, which is sort
(05:36):
of to the if you look into map, it's kind
of to the right, or it's adjacent to Tibet.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
It's a basin if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah, could you tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Bordered on all sides by mountains and highlands. To the north,
the kin Or Shin Mountains, I believe it's a q
i n situation. Stretching from the east to the west.
To the northeast, we have the Daba Mountains and then
the Dahalu Mountains form much of the southern border. To
the east, it's dominated by the Wu Mountains, home to
(06:08):
the legendary yang Tsi Gorges, some gorgeous gorges if you
ask me. Then to the west we have the Daksu
Mountains of the Tibetan borderlands.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, and this is we're describing things that are absolutely
stunning views. So when you think about this, think of,
you know, so many adventure films you've seen in the West,
so many Chinese produced epic action adventures. There. We're also
talking about in real life some of the most diverse
(06:39):
collections of ethnic groups in all of the nation of China,
because on the eastern side, that's where most of the
people live, and it's pretty densely populated, and you go
to the west, it's definitely still a rarian there's more
agriculture based industries. Even though it has modernized very quickly,
there's still a lot of people who retain their own
(07:03):
somewhat separate.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Beliefs community cultural identity. Perfect.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, there's the Han, which is, you know, the dominance
kind of ethnicity of China, the Ye, the Mong, the Tujia,
the Hue. And of course they're there are oh and
the way are practitioners.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Of Islam, and they're also way cool.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
They're also cool. Sorry, So we said a little bit
about this, like they they want to maintain their autonomy, right,
and uh, they have this kind of paradigmatic maybe not
a word pushe there. It is just say with confidence.
They make it a they're at longerheads sometimes with this
(07:48):
push for modernity versus this powerful need, this compulsion to
retain one's cultural identity.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
History is very important to them.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, it's nuts. You can even see it in the language,
that's right.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
For example, the Han speak a southern dialect of Mandarin,
which I know that you've been studying for quite some time.
They're just Mandarin in general, and I know there are
many many flavors of Mandarin, to the point where it
can be absolutely overwhelming to even settle.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
On one right dialects. Yeah, A way to compare it
would be not even counting Cantonese.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
A way to compare it I was thinking about this
would be to talk about different dialects of English that
we have, because you know, I don't I don't know
if there's a hot take, and all with great affection
to our friends up in the Scottish Highlands. Sometimes you
know it's tough. Oh yeah, it's tough for me to tell.
(08:46):
Can't watch train Spotting without the subtitles on.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Let's put it that way.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, is that too far?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
No? Is that too far? That's the truth. And I mean,
if you experience it and you live with it, and
you're surrounded by a lot you can definitely take it in,
but it is something that you have to train your
ears to recognize the difference. Even though we know English
and they are speaking English, are there slang? There are
various prounciations. There is a rhythm and a cadence to
(09:13):
the language that is just different from what we would
know as modern standard English, right.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, yeah, So this gives us a way to compare
the experience with this mix of people in this very
diverse area. Because everybody will speak the lingua franca, the
idea of you know, the Southern Mandarin dialect, but different
communities will use Turkish and Arabic in their religious really
yeah yeah, I didn't realize that. So what we're saying
(09:40):
is for a long time, this has been a really
fascinating land. It's witnessed empires rise and full and.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
We are back to the Han as well. By the way,
just I know, we kind of took a little detour
just talking about language, but we started off with the
Han and the way they speak this southern dialect of Mandarin,
which also can consist of some of this Turkish and
Arabic kind of flavor.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Depending on the communities. Yeah, so for centuries traveling into
or out of Sichuan because of those mountains you described,
it was very difficult. It was treacherous. It was difficult
just to get there, much much more difficult, or to
say nothing of actually holding the land. And it's also
this was something. This was one of the side notes
(10:25):
that I think delighted the two of us and Matt.
We hope it delights you too, So at least, you know,
just back us up, man, just yes and yeah, all right, Okay,
what are two dumb facts we learned about Sichuan.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Well, it is the home of kung paw chicken, which
I'm a fan of, claimed claimed home and speaking of cuisine,
I mean, I think I asked you this off, Mike,
But Sichuan the name of the region, it is spelled
differently than Seschuan, the seasoning or the genre of flavor
profile absolution cuisine. Right, Yeah, you nailed it, important distinction. So, yes,
(11:01):
home of kung pou chicken, which is a spicy, you know,
kind of brown sauce peanut based dish.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Peanuts are big there and even now, isolation often reigns
in the area. Despite you know, the massive successful push
for modernization, the dialect thing is still an issue. People
one valley over may speak an entirely different dialect. So
imagine just walking literally walking the space of a few
(11:30):
football fields. Sure, and then the people at the other end,
at that other valley, they speak something where you could
you could communicate with each other in writing, but if
you just tried to just have a chat like we're
having now, you wouldn't understand.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Each other a little bit of a maybe you know,
false equivalency. But think about neighborhoods in someplace like New
York City, where between various neighborhoods you're going to have
like a difference in culture, you know, almost immediately as
you you know, cross a certain boundary.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Or I'll say it.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
You said it, and I'm gonna back you up. Another
weird fact that's not that weird, but it's very interesting,
is that this region is also a natural environment for
giant pandas.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yes, that is true, fellas, I love it, and and
that the initiative to save the giant pandas pretty amazing.
It might be something we do on ridiculous history, yeah,
which will also be recording.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
That's true. And in our home place of Atlanta, Georgia,
the Atlanta Zoo has for a long time been home
to some giant pandas from this region that were very
very popular attractions, and also our zoo. You know, I
think what you will about zoos in general is very
conservation focused.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yes, yeah, And just to keep it a little bit conspiratorial.
You know, one fact, not everybody learns about the giant
pandas they are all owned by China.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
That's right, they were like leased out the essentially to
the Atlanta Zoo. It was. It's a cultural exchange in
many ways that is very important.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
And so what we're saying here about this place in particular,
this isolated place with so much history, so many different cultures.
We're telling you all of this, fellow conspiracy realists, to
give ourselves and to give you a sense of place
and to set up the second act of this episode.
Because it's isolated, yes, it accessible, it's a huge area,
(13:27):
it's historically self sufficient. It's got a big population, similar
to Tibet. Especially the further west you go, this becomes
a place all its.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Own very much so. Even now in twenty twenty five,
as we record this episode, experts wonder about. They continue
to wonder and speculate about the hidden history of these
lands of this region. So perhaps the most mysterious feature,
which is the topic of part two of this episode,
Scattered throughout the area, an enigmatic collection of star shaped
(13:59):
towers have been erected at some point in time, ancient
stone and wood structures reaching toward the heavens like some
sort of ben You described it beautifully here in the
outline Eldritch version of one hundred foot plus skyscraper straight
out of some sort of Lovecraftian nightmare escape.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, they're also beautiful.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
They're also beautiful, and they're older than dynasties, they're older
than empires. They've survived earthquakes, they could have obliterated more
modern constructions. And this is what's fascinating about this aspect
of it is it reminds me a bit of you know,
we mentioned Lovecraft, HP Lovecraft stories. He has things like
(14:42):
the Plateau of Lang or so on. This feels like
a mystery that needs to be solved. And surprisingly enough,
it took more than one thousand years for someone a
traveling Westerner who are about to meet to ask hey,
What the heck are the these things? What on earth
is going on here?
Speaker 2 (15:03):
And we're going to meet our star player after a
quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Here's where it gets crazy. All right, let's get this
out of the way first. Sure, Thank goodness, no one
claims to have as you would say, Noel discovered these towers.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
That's right. All the locals knew about them. I mean
they were a pron prominent feature of the landscape for
you know, thousands of years. No One, however, in living memory,
had used these things, you know, for any sort of
functional purpose.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Right, You're absolutely right, nobody in living memory. Is important
to note people are not using these right. You go
to some maybe ancient towns in Turkey or in Europe
or other parts of the world, and you'll see people
still living in very old strip absolutely but not here,
(15:59):
and no one is much research on them. At this point.
This all changed when we meet our hero of the story. Yes,
let's give.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Our veritable Indiana Jones esque figure here.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yes, yes, that is Martine Frederic Derragon, who traveled originally
born in France, traveled to New York City, New York City,
New York City, and then as the Salsey commercials say
New York City.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Also true, I was doing more of a Matt Berry thing.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
And then from there, Deragon has long held and she
lives a very fascinating life. She's long held an interest
in sustainability and animal rights. So she travels to western
China to this rural area. It's nineteen ninety eighteen ninety eight,
ninety seven, ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, and in the height of the Free Tibetan movement.
By the way, this is nineteen ninety eight, was peak
Tibetan freedom concert area just to bring it back.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, that's right. And here's the thing. She doesn't know
about the towers. Most Westerners don't. And her entire thing
is that she wants to learn more about the endangered
snow leopard.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, okay, beautiful, beautiful.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Snow leopards look like they're out of an anime.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I just saw a thing on the internet that was
a rocky outcrop and the idea was, or where's waldoe situation?
Find the snow leopard. And the first thing you need
to know, there's also some snow. They're not pure white, no,
they it blended in more with the beige, non snow
covered parts of the of the cliffs than the white
(17:30):
but your mind immediately tries to look forward in the snow,
but not accurate. Right, let's bust a little mythy.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
There we go. Well done, and this also speaks to
the unique biodiversity of the region. Now, obviously her mission
changes when she sees the towers. She's walking around and
you know, she's in areas where there's not at this
point a lot of infrastructure built up the wilderness, like
(17:56):
you're in the places where you could find a snow leopard.
And then she says, wait, that's not a natural rock formation.
Somebody built a tower. She's a curious investigator. She starts
by asking the locals for more information. And get this,
no one has a clue. Everybody is literally saying, you know,
in Southern Mandarin. They're saying, oh, yes, yeah, it's this
(18:18):
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
That's the thing. Can we set the stage a little
bit more here and kind of describe what these look like?
In my mind, I'm picturing a like two towers Lord
of the Rings esque situation I have saw on Yes,
I don't know, maybe it was your your Lovecraftian analogy,
but help us out then, not.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Too far off, nol, because what you'll see is a
lot of the towers are in their heyday.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
These are stone structures that vary in height, vary in age.
But we're not we're not blowing smoke when they when
we say skyscraper esque, some could go from one hundred
to two hundred feet. There would be an entry way
at the bottom, and then they would have different features,
so like a defensive tower would have slits where someone
(19:03):
could shoot an arrow.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Oh what do you call those? There's a name for
those little little holes in fortified towers arrow arrow holes,
row slots, slots. Yeah, I like exactly what you're talking about.
But these are also not particularly adorned, right. These are
very straightforward kind of designs.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
That's the tricky part because it seems this is a
great question. There are clues afoot because they don't all
have the same design. You see some of these towers
almost stood up here. But some of these towers are
in a star shape. Like if if you if you
had a a cookie cutter, okay, that was a star
shaped cookie cutter, then it looks like this tower was
(19:44):
built in that shape, not none.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
And we're not talking about a star shaped array of
multiple structures. This is a single tower that, when looked
at from an aerial view, is itself in a star
shaped pattern.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yes, God, just so great description, especially because we're an
audio podcast. Exactly siate that. So it's like a so
imagine if someone took a shape of an eight point
star and just pulled it longways.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Like Plato kind of situations pasta like Apasta is good
like it, it's I'm thinking about Plato though. From my
youth they had those little extreuting kind of things that
you could push a plunger thing, and then the Plato
would get pushed through.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yes, yeah, so just so, and then sometimes they would
have twelve points m. Questions, Yeah, questions begin to occur
to Derek on One of the first wins, of course,
is what what what on earth is going on here?
The second is how do these things? How did any
(20:44):
of this survive? First off, why are there so many?
How did so many survive through antiquity in an area
that is very prone to earthquakes?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Craftsmanship, my friend, how do you even get a contiguous
struck sure like that in this shape?
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I think about this all the I think about this
all the time. To be honest with you, reading the
the amazing works of the great thinkers and architects of old,
and realizing that more than once I have fallen asleep
trying to put on a pair of pants.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Of course, it really makes one one.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And then that's just look upon my works.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
You might.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
So this is weird because Deregon not weird. But Deregon
is obviously not the type of person to leave a
stone unturned.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Okay, I'll allow it. Yeah, I can allow it.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Okay, I'm staring about it like he like, it's his
job to have you allow it, he says.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
So.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
So she has a great series of conversations with a
journalist named Richard Stone writing for the Smithsonian, And this
is where we get a look at.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Just Richard Stone. This is kind of his whole wheelhouse, right,
no Stone on there.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
We we have, we already paid for the drum riff
sound cue. Yeah, we got to use to get your
county to get us. So okay, can Noel, can we
share a quote from Stone which describes Derrogut. She like,
the world's most interesting.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Person, absolutely like the what's that? The do sekis guy?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The world?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Anyway, yeah, yeah. The Aragon is a self described free spirit.
He says with an eclectic resume, an undergraduate degree and
economics founder of an organization that supports education in world China,
star polo player in Argentina, sailboat racer and artists. Artist,
ye see, filmmaker, Uh, incredible, uh, designer, several things, a
(22:46):
person for all seasons.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
And we'll we'll get to some more stuff about her
personal life later. I think we're excited to explore that photographer. Yes, yeah,
very much so, right, which makes.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Sense with the way she was traveling and wanting to
documents all of these rural areas and just an absolute
archivist in and of herself.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, and they were gone again. It's nineteen ninety eight.
She's going to places that many people, especially Westerners, and
they have on travel.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
No, it's just important work.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
It's difficult to get that far to the west of China,
and she travels to the area no less than nine
times from nineteen ninety eight to the early two thousands.
She documents almost two hundred separate towers between Sichuan and
to that.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
That many that I had no idea. This is incredible.
She took measurements again, she took photographs. When possible, she
would climb within the structures. These were again ben these
were fortified kind of towers, so there would be some
sort of spiral staircase situation in them, different obviously case
by case basis.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah, some way to access the elevation, assuming that they
were still structurally sound, so many of them were, and
many of them were possible.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
She would she would climb within them, which is.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Quite courageous when you think about it. And she also
did the thing you should do anytime you're investigating a
local mystery, whether it be some of the stuff we've
seen in Guatemala, whether it be the stone jars of
Laos which we talked about earlier.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Consult the work of others who came before you.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Right, yes, and then talk to the locals.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Don't be those nerds who thought they rediscovered the celicaf
no no.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So, to be fair, Dregan did discover some references to
these towers in some relatively unrelated Chinese and European travel logs.
She also consulted monasteries. She poured over centuries of other
internal documents that were collected by the monks themselves, who
actually could find no particular references to the origins of
(24:49):
the towers in terms of who right.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, Yeah, when she's looking, she realizes that, as you said,
she has to dig through all possible sources and get this.
She she does find mentions.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yes, and in some diaries if I'm not mistaken from
some of those predecessors in terms of European explorers.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, So the monasteries don't appear like the locals appear
not to be too perplexed about this.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
They're not worried about it. To them, it's just a
thing that's around that has always been there.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
They are not really asking the how, the where the moon? Yeah,
and so the where they already know where they are,
why why, It's just a feature of their everyday lives.
They've just always accepted as fact.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
And so they so deregn fies is so nuts. She
goes to the diaries like you were, mentioning of eighteen
eighteen hundreds esque explorers from the West. And these guys
are kind of like the locals because they they don't
they mention it as a like a tangent in another
(25:57):
story about something they're more interested about, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Which is unusual.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I was walking through and you know, there were like towers,
but my main thing was insert here.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
That's right. I guess maybe it's just because of what
we do. We ask why about everything, that's sort of
our thing. It's just interesting to me that some of
these thinkers and these explorers would just accept these and
not be curious about where they came from. They are
unusual features, and they're clearly not natural.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, I think part of it comes from the A
big part of it comes from the fact that, in
the context of their day, these Chinese scholars and these
Western explorers had seen a bunch of towers, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
It wasn't a new structure. They were on the way
to something else. It took time for people to appreciate
the extraordinary nature of these of these structures. And Deregon
had advantages that didn't exist in the sixteen hundred and
seventeen hundreds, eighteen hundreds, sure.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Stuff like radiocarbon dating, for example.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, and she talks about it in her documentary, which
has been sometimes called The Secret Towers of the Himalayas
and then sometimes The Mystery of the Towers of Eastern Tibets.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Which was also adapted into print form in two thousand
and five, she started excavating pieces of some of these towers,
which which were in part made.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Of wood, right, yes, yeah, And she salvage more than
thirty pieces of wood from different towers, thirty two different towers.
And one of the things that she was immediately already
clocking was that this is not a UNESCO World Heritage
(27:46):
Site yet, not yet, and it should be right that's
her aim, and so she says, Okay, to do this,
we have to step back in time. If we can
prove the age or determine the age of the towers,
then that sets us up for this World Heritage pursuit.
And she sends the wood to a lab in Miami,
(28:08):
of all places. I don't know why in my head,
like I'm thinking Miami.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, I mean sure that Miami contains multitudes, but there
are some forensic research labs there that she employs. If
she could arrive at an approximate date for some of
these wooden salvage pieces, she figured she could then determine
the approximate age of a tower. And yet this research
or this forensic data only yielded further.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Mysteries, absolutely one hundred percent, because it turned out that
not all of these towers were in the same in
the same age range. Interesting, So some were built just
a few centuries ago, which I know sounds maybe a
little big glib a little bit, but it's a big
deal still. But in the grand scheme of things, that's
(28:56):
relatively young. In contrast, some towers were built between one
thousand to one thousand and two hundred years ago. That
makes them more than a millennium old.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Incredible. This means that at least a few of these
towers were built by someone before the Mongolian forces invaded
that region of Tibet back in twelve forty.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
And this is the beginning of a incredibly curious mystery,
curious and curiouser or, as as they say in Lord
of the Rings Way or the Hobbit Way, leads on
the way. Second breakfast, second breakfast, potato, eleven zies and
ad breaks.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
We've returned. So if you look at some of again,
Derragan has never described herself as a PhD ar archaeologist.
She's self professed just an enthusiast. She's interested in this.
She wants to save history. She wants to say just
the way she wants to to save you know, the
(30:01):
snow leopard which led her to this way, leads onto way.
But she does write, she does get published. Her research
is found in places like the Journal of Cambridge Studies,
and she says, look these towers, overall, the ones that
are still standing, I can prove they were built from
two hundred CE to sixteen hundred CE, and I think
(30:23):
they were built for different reasons. Going to your earlier question,
she says, there are four categories. First, towers situated in
fortified villages. These are defensive structures. They've got the slots
or the slits for archers other fortifications. Maybe this is
why it didn't stick out that much to those earlier
(30:43):
European explorers, because they recognized it and they said, oh,
this is like a this is it like a castle tower?
Speaker 2 (30:51):
By the way, I was just I had to find out.
I had to look aeroslits absolutely correct. Oh really another
term put log holes that for me utlog also known
as embrasiers. I like embraziers because it sounds more specific.
Also known as arrow loops, arrow.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Loops or loopholes. A little amalogy there. Indeed, So of
course the Europeans then they're not going to be impressed
because they recognize this as a tower from a castle.
And then there's a second kind of thing, and this one,
this one's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
To be I agree, towers disseminated over mountain slopes that
are not along main historic trade routes. Is this from
our buddy stone, This is from Derregan herself, deregun herself
and often hidden from view. So you stumble upon these
things not because you're on the main stretch of you know,
(31:50):
the Silk Road or something, sure, but because you are,
you are in the know, and when you see it,
these are the really impressive ones. These are the status
of These may have spiritual significance that we'll talk about
uh later. And the it's funny because uh, Derregan cracked
me up when I was when I was reading some
(32:11):
of her research about this, where she said, these might
be kind of like a flex They might be the
Cadillacs of their time right, because these were not all
created equals. Some of them were definitely fancier than others.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
And then third, we've got towers that were in wealthy
agricultural valleys where the ground was quite fertile, and there
were a bunch of trading routes, and they had two purposes.
The secondary purpose was that if you rolled into town
and you're a merchant, you know, you gotta sell your
what are people selling pelts? You gotta sell your pelts?
(32:44):
And you roll in you're you're a humble Peltzman and
then you are you are Peltsmouth. Yes, you are confronted
with this obnoxiously impressive tower, this ornate tower.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
We say ostentation.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah, and then someone's scare stands maybe a top it,
with their fingers steepled, and they say, beltsmen, welcome.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yes, look upon my works mighty. And what's the does
that one go despair there? Yeah? Maybe don't despair. It's okay.
Let's let's be a little more cheerful than that welcome.
There was an implication, there was a bit of a flex.
It was a bit of a show of force as well.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Right, yeah, and uh, I love that we're referencing, uh
one of my favorite poems that are osumandias m. Do
reread it. It won't take a second and it'll stay with you. However,
the primary purpose of these, uh this third type of
tower was really to facilitate trade. So there was a
lot of capacity to store goods. Be that a silo
(33:42):
kind of issue, yeah, should be the agricultural products or pelts.
And perhaps more importantly, this is where you would trade
out your pack animals. There's like an ancient version of
a gas station, a trading post. Yeah yeah. So now
we have to continue our journey western east, so let's
get maybe some different horses.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Absolutely, you know what I mean. Fourth, and again this
is from Dereghn herself. Tower situated on mountaintops, entrances to
valleys or other strategic positions for Gondo. Indeed, I was
very much on the Lord of the rings tip this.
These were the type of places where smoke signals could
be sent up ways of communicating across long distances before
(34:22):
like you know the Internet.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah yeah, and they had they had their own code
and language and everybody understood it kind of like a
smoke based semaphore. And we definitely just.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Is a semaphore like a pettifour.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
And that they rhyme and that they rhyme.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I don't know what a semaphore is. Where you have
you know, flag code, oh, the flags like traffic controllers.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Sure yeah great, so uh it's weird that I know semaphores.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
And just so you know, folks, as being an audio podcast,
Ben was flopping his arms around in flagsmen uh.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Fashion, and it's specifically I'm talking about flag semaphore. Of course,
semaphore can mean other things. And apologies to some folks
who drop by the studio and got our slightly neurodivergent
info dump on that. Yeah, because we were surprised.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
That's how we roll. Yeah, we were definitely taken by surprise.
But it was a lovely visit.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
It was a lovely visit. And so this is a
really effective way to not just communicate, but also to
sort of lay out your order space. Yeah, yeah, and
there were likely Derregune finds thousands of these towers, and
she as she's looking at the footprint of where these
(35:42):
are built, she finds that some are much further away
than you would originally assume. It forms all, all in all,
from what we know, a territory that's as large as
a third of modern day France.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
So someone was building a lot of towers.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
And some were more typical free standing towers, others that
had that iconic star shape eight points for some towers,
twelve points for others. That's the part where we're not
quite sure. Was it an aesthetic thing? Was there some
estrological purpose? Maybe it reminds me of the Georgia guidestones
and something, you know, the idea of using it to
(36:19):
mark time, to measure the changing of the seasons and
the changing of the day. We don't know this. I'm
just speculating here. I do wonder that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, and that also makes us wonder is there a
possibility that some of these were purely religious constructions. We
know that according to Tibetan legend, the mood cord Dmu
is said to connect heaven and earth. So you'll find
people arguing that this is almost like the Pyramids.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Extension, you know, from our mortal coil into the great
beyond right.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Right, And this leads us to more questions. All right,
if there are thousands of these that were built over
some period of time, what happened to the rest?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
It's a good question. What about the two similar structures
further west in modern day Afghanistan, which is pretty far away,
pretty far away ben the Gosny minarets have a very
similar appearance to these Tibetan towers, And the most important
question is why were they abandoned? May know the most
important and an additional important question.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, right, what happened? Because we know that there are
other again, there are other structures that are roughly around
the same time as some of these towers, and people
still live in those, you know, and they still kick it.
You can get an air B and B from like
the fourteen hundreds, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Is that true?
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Yeah, that's kind of true. How it's like it's like
podcast true.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Okay, you point that the other day we did a
lovely live event as part of on Air Fest in
Brooklyn with our pal Matt Frederick, and I believe that
Ben is either in conversation or maybe even during the
event itself where you coined podcast accurate.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
For us, that means a proximately indeed true. Okay, I'm
looking through this. We're going to go back to this
in a later episode, and it's not gonna make any
sense to Matt Frederick.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
That's okay, keep him on his toes.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
So yeah, so you're in on that conspiracy, folks. But
there are these great questions, you know, why are they abandoned?
What happened to all the other thousands of towers, Like
we were saying, the most likely answer is simply the
ravages of time. Right, we're in a very earthquake prone area.
Clearly there were attacks by rival or invading communities, because
(38:38):
a lot of these towers were defensive fortications with arrow
loops or loopholes, and sometimes the thing about defenses is
they fall.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
They do. But many of these obviously remain, and we're
built to last, and we're looking at we also have
to remember we are looking at the flotsam and jetsam
of history.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
The range of these towers, however many there were one
point or another.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
There were way more.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
There were way more. We're seeing the remnants of something
like the stories about how Grecian architecture was actually quite colorful, right, right,
you remember hearing about.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
That, well, the frescoes and things like that. Yeah, but
like the colors faded over time, of course. Yeah, And
they're pigments that would not have necessarily lasted as long
as the stone medium that they were put.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Upon, right, or statues painted in bright colors and sold, yes,
plaster one hundred percent. So now we only see the
ruins of structures that once upon a time were doubtlessly
h just a feast for the eyes, you know what
I mean. And the towers may have been like that,
or perhaps technology involved. Perhaps it became less useful, maybe
(39:47):
the populations just shifted, maybe everybody just moved out of town.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, and thankfully, however, we can explain for the most
part the construction. They were a mix of stone and wood,
which is the part that was a to be passed
along for radiocarbon dating. Along with these star shapes of
some of the towers. Turns out to be a very
fantastic protection that array against earthquakes.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yeah, it gives you a kind of stability in a
fascinating construction technique. A descendant of it is used today
in other parts of China and other parts of the
East Asian theater.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Overall, it reminds me of some designs of modern skyscrapers
that are designed to shift with a little bits. Yeah,
with one hundred percent they are able to sway along
with the shifting earth.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Yeah, it's like, look at that skyscraper. It's kind of
a slinky.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
It feels weird when you feel it, though, and you're
up really high in one of those.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I have to say, the higher you get, the more apparent.
The effect is kind of like sitting on the back
of a plane.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Even in the amazing venue that we just performed at
National Sawdust, when we went down into the guts of
the building, there were springs inside of the structure. Very
similar concepts.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yes, very much so, because again, people in the ancient
empires were just as intelligent as people in the modern day. Now,
we also have a little bit of fun stuff. We
wanted to end on here before our super producer, Matt's
still gets tired of us.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
I didn't know that was Yeah, I'm sorry. There's the toilers.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
There's a Ted Turner connection to this. It's another plot
twist to our story, our own Georgia boy. The also
a sailor, also a sailor. That's how they met? Is
it really that's how they met?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
That makes sense? Remember this, I don't remember what I
saw this and it was a documentary. I think about Ted.
His name is Ted Turner, Ted Turner. He was almost
lost at sea during this crazy sailboat race. Yeah, real
adventure himself makes perfect sense. They would have crossed paths.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
In nineteen sixty nine, Deregon meets Ted Turner and they
become friends. She cruise on one of his vessels for
a while, and they you know, this is before he
gets into bfalow. Yeah, and this is before you know,
a lot of for Jane Fonda. He I believe he
was with Fonda at the time. Wait a minute, No, No,
(42:10):
they were just friends at that point. Oh but didn't
it didn't it? Bossom didn't romance. I think several years
after Fonda and Turner split, Okay, okay, and then they
came back together.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Don't you dare Jane that way?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Ted? Uh?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
And when they came together, Turner also through You can
read about the story in the Chicago Tribune, a couple
of New York Times like posh upper class explorations of culture.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Anyway, he helped fund some of this recently, helped fund
a lot. He was a big you know, he was
a bit of an Indiana Jones figure himself.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
Yes, very much so. And he wanted to, like like Derek,
and he wanted to explore research, understand the mystery of
the towers. And this is something that I find wholesome.
I think we should make clear here. No, Matt derek
On is not trying to make money off of this
at all. All the proceeds from her documentary, from her speeches,
(43:06):
her from her printed work. It all goes directly to
something called the Unicorn Foundation, which she created with Ted
specifically to research and protect these towers. So maybe one
day we'll know the answers behind their providence, But right now,
none of this answers the immediate question like who built these?
(43:27):
For real?
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Though, Yeah, it's okay, I mean, I think we have
enough of an understanding. I mean, I'm sure would like
to know more. We do have a decent grasp of
the why, a pretty solid understanding of the how, but
the who remains anyone's guess, and I you know, we've
talked about this. Sometimes a little bit of mystery remaining
is cool.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
Yeah, Also a plausible guess would be it's most likely
these were techniques that were shared across and transmitted across
multiple civilizations cultures.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
As indicated by the presence of very similar structures in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
You mention, you find something that works, So maybe what
we're seeing now were the most effective tower designs and
people just made their own improvements along the way, or
just maybe it's the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
It's true, So hey, why don't you let us know
conspiracy realists out there? What do you think these things were? Well,
it kind of know what they're for, but who do
you think built them? Do you have any additional theories
as to this, this idea of the religious aspects behind
them or the astrology? I like it too. Let us know.
You can find us all over the internet where Conspiracy
(44:38):
Stuff Show on Facebook where we have our Facebook group,
Here's where It's Crazy, on x FKA, Twitter, and on
YouTube where we have video content glor for your perusing enjoyment,
on Instagram and TikTok. However, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show,
and if you.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Are not a sipper of the social needs, never ye
fear the rumors are true. You can call us directly
on a tele phonic device. The number is let's sing
along because we're live.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
It's one eight.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Three three STDWYTK. When you dial that number, you will
hear a hopefully familiar voice along with a beep. That
beep is your off to the races signifier that means
you have three minutes. They're yours. Give us your name,
your favorite nickname you'd prefer. Tell us what's on your mind.
Second most important thing let us know if we can
(45:27):
use your your voice or your message on air. The
most important thing is if you don't want to use
the telephone, there's always a way to contact us twenty
four hours an evening, seven evenings a week. That is
our good old fashioned email address where.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't
(46:06):
want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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