September 25, 2024 • 58 mins
Out in Micronesia, an ancient civilization rose and fell, leaving nothing but oral history, folklore, and a stunning, ruined, megalithic city. So what exactly is Nan Madol? How did it come to be? What led to its downfall? In tonight's episode, Ben and Matt explore the enduring mystery of Nan Madol.
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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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is on an adventure.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
They called me Ben. We're joined with our super producer,
Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know, and we're coming to you amid
some incredibly fast moving, fast paced, chaotic times. And one
(00:52):
thing that we talk about a lot offline is that
it can be easy to forget amid all this pandemonium
that the world of the past is still chock full
of strange, inexplicable things. Like I think we all, Matt,
have had this assumption on some base level that because
(01:14):
something happened long ago, we somehow figured out the answers
to what happened and why is a civilization. But that's
not entirely the case.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh no especially, I think, in my opinion, at least
as satellite technology has increased exponentially, as the ability to
image things from super far away, to see through water
right to like the depths of the ocean. All of
these things. You feel like, oh, we've discovered pretty much
everything now, and we understand because there are enough humans
(01:47):
who've been around working long enough, looking at history and
archaeology and things like that, we know things. We know
it all.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah. Yeah, And it's a dangerous assumption to make because
it could not be further from the truth. Human civilization
does not know most things. If you were just thinking
about all of the things, human civilization does not know
most of them. And that's not a ding. Everybody's been
working hard.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It feels like a ding. Man. Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Thousands of years, you know, people know more than they
did earlier. I guess you could say that we've lost
technology in cities along the way. And if you travel
all the way out to Micronesia, a place that we
have not visited, you will find a ruined city that
looks straight out of an HP Lovecraft story and indeed
(02:37):
probably inspired a lot of conspiratorial writing and a lot
of fiction. It's a place called nan Madul, And tonight
we're gonna ask what happened to this place? What is it?
To begin with? Why is it abandoned today? And we
were also speaking briefly off air here one of the
(02:58):
most important things we have to give at the top
is a pronunciation disclaimer.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Look, we're trying our hardest. We're looking at websites that,
you know, give you the pronunciation, and then we're trying
to get those. Some of them we just can't find that,
so we're going to do our best.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I watched some in depth depictions of the oral history
of this area Micronesia, with people speaking in native languages,
and along the way I learned that several of the
things we're going to talk about have multiple names, and
each of those multiple names may have multiple pronunciations. So,
(03:37):
like Matt said, we're doing our best. Bear with us.
We are going to spell out things, yes, because that'll
probably be easier for you to search than hearing us,
you know, do linguistic Parker.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, ok, yeah, Well, we'll be right back and we'll
get to them pronunciations.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Here are the facts Micronesia stunning place or I guess
we should say a stunning series of places.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Right, Yes, A whole bunch of places that exist on
vast ocean expanses, very small islands, some a lot larger
than the others, at least by comparison. Some islets, a
lot of atolls, and it's amazing stuff. It's mostly volcanic
activity that formed these places over a long period of time.
(04:37):
But the coolest thing about this area is that there
are a lot of humans that live on these again
fairly small places at least when you look at the
continents that they're not that terribly far from Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, And I think just the scale of this can
be difficult for a lot of us to imagine if
you haven't been in that part of the world. World.
You know, a lot of these islands also are uninhabited,
or they're only seasonally inhabited. There's a lot out there,
a lot of remote stuff, and it's a place that
(05:14):
this part of the world here kind of north and
northeast of Australia, is a place that a lot of
us have wanted to visit. It's just incredibly difficult to
get there from the United States.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, we're talking hopping on planes. You were just describing
Ben our old buddy Scott from car stuff, and can
you just explain a little bit of that, like the
number of things you have to do.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, yeah, so our pal, our comrade Scott Benjamin, very interesting,
brilliant guy, worked with us on many shows, including car stuff,
and he and his wife would fly out to Bora Bora,
to an island somewhere in that area. So they would
have to take a flight from the US. They would
(06:02):
land one place. I think they had to fly to
another place after that, and then the planes that they
were on just kept getting smaller and smaller until you're
on a puddle jumper and then you have to get
on the boat and the boat takes you to the
actual island. He says he has a great time where
he goes, but I don't know if that's like two
days to get there or what his deal is. But
(06:25):
we're saying that to show you the sense of scale.
And like you said, it's a stunningly diverse region. People
have been living in this area for more than four
thousand years, and we still as a civilization have a
lot to learn about these earlier cultures because not all
(06:47):
you see this everywhere, not all had written records. You know,
a lot of the way of preserving history, the methods
were often oral history, folklore, storytelling, and we do know
that not too too long ago, there was a mighty
kingdom governing this area. And this is something that you
(07:08):
and I had talked about briefly when we're snooping around
for cool episodes. And I don't think correct me if
I'm wrong here. I don't think either of us had
actually heard of this place. I had not.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I never heard of modell Modal. Nan Modole is how
you'd say it. Maybe how did you find it?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
This is where we have to spell it NA in
space M A D O L. I can't remember, Man,
I just read too many weird things. I wish that
I had learned about it because somebody visited nan Modal
And maybe if you like, if you have and you're
with us listening along tonight, please please contact us right
(07:52):
to us immediately, give us any pictures, any links. We
would love to learn more because nan Modll has this
hidden history about it. Oh my gosh, I'm doing that
eight ancient alien's hands. That's not what we're talking about.
But one other thing that was of interest to me, Matt,
and I think to both of us is Nan Madal
(08:13):
is adjacent to the eastern side of an island called
Pong Bay, not Pompei, not the Mediterranean disaster site of
a volcanic explosion. But I just kept thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Oh yeah. Well, so if you're looking at it from
a map, Pombay which is spelled p o hn Pei
if you want to look it up. If you look
at it from above, it appears to be in a
tall so you've got that kind of ring around it,
and then an island that has a big old volcano
or you know what was once a volcano at the
(08:52):
center of it. And then if you go down it's
not to the south, it is to the eastern side,
but southeast you will find a whole other separate island
that has this place that we are going to. I
didn't know it was a separate island. It does not
look like it at all. It's called Timwin Island. It's
super tiny, and nem Doll is on the eastern side
(09:16):
of it. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And the and the crazy thing about this site it
is a city, or it was at one point, and
it's built in this lagoon, and it's it's based upon
small man made islands, artificial islands, which sounds like some
pretty high science, you know, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
For sure. And Ben, let's talk about what this thing
is because it's not an island in itself. It is
a structure series of structures that were built quite a
while ago, and they if you look at pictures of
them online, maybe we could just describe what it is.
It looks like huge flat stone slabs that are then
(10:00):
sandwiched like one on top of the other, and then
in between they're much smaller stones that kind of I
would say, like even out or provide support for the
shape of the stone that either is below it or
above it.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, they're crisscrossing and a lot of these stones are
columns essentially that have been laid out, you know, vertically
and horizontally to build these slabs. And again, the thing
I keep being amazed by is the idea of man
made islands, of just making an island. For me, that
(10:38):
always seems and I know people have done it in
the Middle East as well, quite recently, but it always
seems like a herculean feet a godlike effort, because.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Especially when you consider when it was done.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Right. Yeah, we know that for thousands of years people
had been living in the area, but they had also
been building in the area, which we'll we'll get to.
There was a mighty kingdom based in nan Medal for
at least a thousand years more most likely, and they
(11:14):
were called the Sauduleure dynasty sau d e l e
u R. And when Europeans got to this part of
the world, they were stunned by this place too. The
original name for it was sound non Leng, which roughly
translates to reef of heaven. And because it's you know,
(11:35):
build on lagoon, they use a lot of coral material,
like you were saying, to fill in between the stones.
And sometimes people will call it the venice of the Pacific,
which makes a lot of sense when you see all
the canals that crisscross the area. But I've got a
question for you, man, how often do places call themselves
the eighth Wonder of the world, Like.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Just boast about it and just give them that Moniker.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
The Yeah, I feel like so many things are described
as the eighth Wonder of the world.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, my nerd basement. I was gonna like call it that,
but decided not to. Sorry, No, but it is true
because you got those seven Wonders that were so popular
at least at the time when we were growing up.
And you look at Encyclopedia or you know, one of
these books. There were the Seven Ancient Wonders of the
World then and then the Seven Modern Wonders of the World. Yeah,
(12:28):
and if you if you're gonna get on that list,
you're gonna have to be number eight.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Yeah. Yeah, there's a waiting there's a wait list, and
I'm just looking through different things just on the fly.
There are It turns out a ton of candidates were
the eighth Wonder of the World. Quite a lot. Actually,
so does nad Madal deserve that Moniker in particular? I
(12:55):
don't know. But we can see the venue thing because
it has you know, it's a city somehow built upon
a canal. It's also a megalithic structure. And it's the
stones that you're talking about there, Matt. They are so heavy,
they are so stupidly heavy that, knowing what we know
(13:19):
about technology during the time of its construction, which was
very long construction period, we know it had to be
a pain in the keeyaster to get this stuff in
the first place. And we're still not sure exactly how
it was built. We have theories, but we're not one
hundred percent sure.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Oh yes, this is a massive set of structures, a complex.
Let's say that was at one time like the central
place of power for this Sandular dynasty, and it was
where basically the religious folks hung out, and there's some
incredible design in there. It is now now, I mean,
(14:00):
we have to be clear, it's ruins now, it's just
kind of what's left of mostly the stone work that
existed at the time. But man, it is huge and
these stones are massive. You think about the only thing
I've ever think about is if you go in your
backyard or you go out to a park or just
somewhere that is in nature, even in a forest, and
(14:23):
you see a stone, my mind always miscalculates how heavy
that stone's gonna be, Like if it's something the size
of both your hands that you would bend over and
pick up. I always miscalculate and I think, oh, I
could easily pick that up, and then you go, oh,
that is significantly heavier than I imagined. And now imagine
(14:43):
stones that are, you know, six feet across or larger
in some cases.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
And we don't have unlike some similar sites like Anger Watt,
for instance, we don't have the benefit of a lot
of carving or art wrought into these things. They are beautiful,
but they are ruins. The primary sources are actually legends,
especially when you talk about sort of the bad guys
in our story this evening, the saud Laire dynasty, and
(15:13):
it reminds us of how, as common in history, when
an ancient city gets to a certain threshold of prominence
or renown, it becomes legendary in a given culture. In
the West, maybe one of the most famous examples of
this is the story about the founding of Rome. Right,
Romulus and remis Yeah, boys.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, because in this story it is two brothers that
show up on the island right, and one of them
gets married into the tribe that's already there, and the
when that brother dies, the other brother says, I'm God.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Now yeah pretty Muchndohl is like, I agree with that,
because Nemondohl does have this legendary origin story. According to
the story, way back when two twin brothers who are
also sorcerers, Olisipa and Ola Sopa, they came to this
(16:10):
site from a fictional island that exists in other legends,
so they were foreigners and they arrived at this place
wanting to build an altar to the god of agriculture.
Non the song spole. I'm murdering those pronunciations. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Let's do the spelling. Nah n I s o h
n space sahp w.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah. Yeah, again, we're doing our best, folks.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And yeah, well, and we're talking about the size of
these stones, right, And it is a legend, this is
oral histories, right of people who've lived there for Again,
as we've said, thousands of years humans have inhabited this
area way before even this legend is supposed to have occurred.
And the story goes that these massive stones were moved
(17:00):
with the help of sorcery, a little bit of sorcery,
a little bit. But also what's that thing a dragon?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Right? Yeah, because you know people had dragons, but that
would be so cool. It reminds me of Coral City
in a way. The story is about what was Edward
Lee Scaldan.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Using vibrations basically to levitate huge pieces of coral and
move them around.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah, exactly. That was one of our early explirations together
and Coral City if you if you haven't, check out
our video or episodes on it, but also get out
there if you can, because it's it's a similar thing
on a much smaller scale, but it's also way easier
to get to. Uh huh, you can. You know, if
(17:45):
you live in the US, you can drive to Coral City.
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I still haven't been.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
It's worth it, Yeah, yeah, it's it's worth like a
nice little weekend trip for you. You know, I don't
know much about the area. I didn't spend much time
there outside of going to that thing.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Is it Coral Castle?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
You're right, you're right, it is Coral Castle. I keep
calling it Coral City because I've got these cities on
my mind. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Well, is it's like a little city. It is. It's
super complex and it's fascinating. Check it out. But in
this case, these guys use their sorcery and dragon to
move some stuff around. And there's even there even stories
in there about dragons not being the only awesome, maybe
mythical creature that you'd find in the area.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah. Yeah, because it's so it's oral, you know, it's
oral folklore. So sometimes the story will change. You might
see like a giant that they have summoned being described
as their prime mover. But we know, regardless of what happened,
we know, like you were saying that a complex story
(18:53):
of intermarriage and becoming locals, So Olisipah does does intermarry
with locals and dies of old age, because even if
you're a sorcerer, some things are inescapable. And when he died,
like you were saying the other the twin brother Olo
Sopa becomes the first of the Sodelier dynasty, Soatur dynasty.
(19:18):
So already the existence of this ruling class is shrouded
in its own somewhat self aggrandizing legend.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And according to the legends, as
as this area grew and as the dynasty grew in power,
they separated themselves off from everybody else. Basically in this
area is known as nan Madal. And then they like
they had a bunch. I was like, I think what
I read was it was around a thousand human beings
(19:47):
that lived in that immediate area, but almost all of
them were servants.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yes, yeah, and this is whoa. We'll get to some
sticky stuff here. Yeah, you're you're right all in all,
if we were thinking of like the Nanmdual metropolitan area,
I guess then we're looking we're looking at about a
little south of seven square miles. So it's big, it's big,
(20:12):
and that includes the architecture that we were describing on
this coral reef along the shore of Temwyn Island, and
then some of those other man made islands, and then
that well part of the main island coastline. But the
inside of it, you know, where the fancy folks lived,
that was a little less there was like a mile
(20:34):
by less than half a mile, but they had a
lot of tiny islands in there. And it's no longer inhabited.
I can't wait for us to explore the stone and
the structures and the mysteries, but we know it's nobody
lives there. Now. We'll see why the canals and structures
(20:54):
that once teemed with life are abandoned. And if you
ask a lot of the locals, they'll tell you the
city belongs to its ghost.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Oh. And you can imagine it too, especially when you
see the like the jungle over growth, or like the
huge amount of vegetation that is growing within these structures.
Around these structures, they're almost hidden from from view, A
lot of them are, and then some of them are
a little more visible, and you can imagine exploring it,
(21:24):
and especially at night. Oh my gosh, can you imagine.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Oh I love it.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
I want to do that.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
That would be so cool. Hey, folks, if you happen
to be a patron of weird adventures, have we got
a pitch for you? Get to us after this ad break.
Here's where it gets crazy. Yeah, And I think I
(21:52):
think exactly in the same manner as you are right here.
How odd to be there at night just to hear
the sound of the water and the jungle, you know,
and the canals. A lot of modern people in the
area view the ruins with awe and seriously a small
amount of fear, because even if you consider yourself a
(22:15):
died in the wool skeptic, you know what I mean,
there is a There is very much a vibe to
ancient places. And you know, just because you don't believe
in ghosts doesn't mean you're going to be comfortable in
the graveyard at night, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Oh for sure? Oh for sure. Well, and I don't
mean to bring this up out of nowhere. I think
it's connected to what we're talking about, but I'm not sure.
The concept that these sorcerers showed up on the island
and had a dragon built this thing, and the purpose
was to worship the god of agriculture interesting, right, because
and what I'm assuming is that the god of agriculture
(22:53):
and I haven't been able to find this fully in
the research, but the god of agriculture is also the
god of a lot of other things, the way many
gods are, you know, attached to other things. Because you
imagine agriculture is probably related to fertility in some way
or another, having to do with the growing of crops
and new life and that kind of thing. So I
do I wonder about all that stuff. Then I wonder
(23:16):
about what went down in these areas when there was
royalty living there, no matter how magical they were or not, right,
and they were I don't want to say power hungry,
but they were living that isolated life, right, And you
(23:37):
just imagine the things that people get up to. And
I don't mean to do this, but I'm thinking about
Shawn Comb's right now and the thousand bottles and just what.
But I'm thinking about the things that if you are
ultra powerful and wealthy you could get up to that
are kind of creepy. And you imagine them happening in
this space right where you're now exploring, and it's just.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Ruins, right, Yeah, the time that has passed. It's true
history is much closer than it looks in the rear
view mirror. And the when we answer the question of
what happened, we'll do it in reverse order. First let's
talk about what happened, and then we'll talk about how
(24:19):
they built it because I got the notes wrong. But
in the in the world of oral storytelling, in this
typical historical preservation method, what we find is a lot
of stories come to us as legend. So there is
(24:39):
a legend just like the construction of them, Adol. There
is a legend also about the downfall, and it's exactly
what you said, too much power. The Saudo Leer dynasty
apparently started off pretty cool, like the first like the
sorcerer guy was kind of you know, he had a
dragon and stuff like that. He was kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
But he's building all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
That builds a bunch of stuff, you know. But as
as the generations wound on, each new saud of Lier
or each successive saud of Lier ruler became increasingly oppressive
and tyrannical, and they demanded more and more from the
common folk under a tribute system, and they ignored the
(25:20):
people's please for mercy or assistance, you know, like, hey,
the weather was bad, I don't have any I have
just enough fish to feed my family and said, nope,
you know, just enough fish to feed us. Good luck
out there, buddy. It's and I love that we're drawing
parallels because you can see these kind of parallels and
(25:40):
a lot of other unequal societies. But Matt, because this
is a legend. The real downfall, even though there's already
bad vibe throughout the land, the real downfall for the
soud of Ears begins when they piss off the god
of thunder. Oh oh, very much in play at the time.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, is it the same one we're thinking about? Is
a different god of thunder? It?
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Oh, he pissed off Chris Himsworth.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, oh no, don't do that. That guy seems really nice.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
He actually does seem like a very genuine, a happy
and warm dude.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah yeah, oh no. But this god, this under god
is we're gonna try and pronounce it non supway nah
n sap w e. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah. Not the most well behaved of deities. Like a
lot of other gods and pantheons, he wasn't always known
for obeying human concepts. Of morals. Right, So he found
the wife of the Saus de Laire ruler at the
time and committed adultery with her. And the ruler was
(26:53):
super mad, and so he did a couple of things
that might sound strange with our modern understanding of gods.
First he did character assassination. Nobody worshiped the thunder God
non subway. Then he set out, and I still understand this,
to physically capture and punish the god WHOA. Now, I
(27:14):
get an angry husband wronged, but the idea that you
could go and physically capture god is pretty fascinating.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Well, he's got that sorcerer or blood probably, so you
got he's got that dog in him, all right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
I got. You're right. And the other parts of the
legend without getting two new weeds, they diverge an explanation.
They will say, well, no, what really happened is the
saudil or ruler angered a bunch of other gods. And
then he also fired a high priest. And when he
fired the high priest, who was super pro thunder God,
(27:52):
by the way, then the priests either prophecied the downfall
of that madal or laid a curse to me make
it so, uh, you know what I think is happening,
And this is entirely an armchair guests. I think often
we see in history that the deeds of a single
(28:13):
notable person, or a lot of notable deeds by multiple
people in oral traditions, they get combined into a character
and that creates the god. So it's quite possible that
there was just a dude or a regular human being
who committed these, you know, acts of infidelity and then fled,
(28:36):
and then as the story goes on, they put a
different name to it and associated it with pre existing beliefs.
But I don't know. Yeah, I like to add, but
I don't know. At the end of any statement like that.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Just you should but that is the right and good
thing to do. Uh, okay, because we don't know, but
there's a man it can it continues going. So depending
on what you leave, something occurred. And this thunder God
was upset at the rulers right of non Madal at
the time, so he takes off, goes to this whole
(29:12):
other place called Cosre KOs Rae. There's a whole other
group of islands, and according to the story, he feeds
someone who is described here as of his own clan,
so maybe even his offspring of some sort or at
least familial relation. He feeds a lime to someone within
(29:33):
that group and gets that person pregnant. And you know,
this is an incestuous act of some sort, and this
act creates a whole other god, but in this case
a demi god. Ooh gosh, the Rock just started singing
in my head.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I don't know if you've I freaking love Maana and
I just whenever I read demigod, it's in his voice now.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Oh yeah, yeah yeah, And uh mana's good. It's a
good film. I don't know, Man, it was in that
age where those sorts of animations were just absolutely knocking
it out, you know what I mean. Yeah, maybe it's
nostalgia for us. Now I think it's good. I think
it's actually good.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Either way, it's okay. You're welcome.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
And as you have the Rock's earworm in your head,
we want to introduce you to the man, the myth,
the legend, the demi god produced by this strange lime
PREGNANCYL is O K E L E K E L.
And this guy is, you know, half human, half god.
(30:43):
And according to the story. As soon as he is born,
even in the womb, he knows that he has one
purpose to be an instrument of vengeance against the sawdle
Air and to be a hero for the people who
are suffering. And so it comes to pass and reaches adulthood.
He sails to Pompeii with three hundred and thirty three men,
(31:06):
women and children, and their goal is to supplant these jerks,
the Saudelaires, who are just brutal dictators and chieftains. And
he also is an ethically gray character at points, because
you'll hear that to consecrate this voyage and this invasion,
(31:28):
they conducted human sacrifice for the favor of the gods.
So it's just just saying he's not He himself is
not like a ten to ten dude.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
No, I mean he is vengeance incarnate, which you know
probably means he's not the nicest guy.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Yeah, it makes you think that is the punisher a hero.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Ooh, you know, in some senses definitely, and others heck, no,
never made it.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
You know. It's amazing how he fits into the world
of Marvel Comics with all the the demi gods and
the superpowered people and He's just a guy who doesn't
give it f Yeah, that's his deal.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Stn't mess with his family? Whoops? You did? Uh?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Oh man, don't. I also wonder what the line is
for the punisher, if you are going to be executed
for committing crimes, is there a threshold on the crimes? Like?
Can I get away with a little bit of stamp fraud?
You know?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
He would be amazing as a state trooper, Oh god,
catching speeders.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Just with the doing bust the traffic light. So yeah,
So maybe a good comparison is is his Herculean is
the demi god and does have this punish or aura
about him. But the legends get fuzzy themsel at this point,
(33:01):
there are all these different versions about how the actual
war broke out. One version says there were these local
kids playing around the canoes and it escalated. They ticked
off Iso kelly Kel's people, and then those guys started
attacking the kids, and then it became a whole fracas.
Or maybe Iso kelly Kel conspired, Maybe he sent one
(33:25):
of his lieutenants over somewhere at a specific time to
start a fight, and then he could say that he
was reacting in defense of his people, which is, you know,
a wartime strategy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Well, you know, there's also the concept that potentially all
of those servants and people that were basically being forced
to labor for these rulers kind of were down with
Isao Kella Kell coment over and going, hey, maybe we
can actually be liberated from all this tyranny.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, a full hero, you know, a hero, warrior of
the people. That's the story that I don't know about you,
but I like that one because it makes it sound
like we're fighting for justice.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And all he had to do was sacrifice some people
for the blood feud, you know, right.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
He just had to pay the blood price, and they did.
They did. Yeah, he was there, but he didn't pay
that price. And so there's the other The other conspiratorial
angle would be that he had help from the inside
because the Saudilier civilization is already it's very serious fracture points.
(34:37):
So there's one version of the story where a lady
from the ruling class has been humiliated and cast out
and so she wants regime change. But in her head, yeah,
she'll help Easil Kelly Kell get rid of her enemies.
But the game is still very much sought a layer
to her, she just wants to be the next ruler
(34:58):
kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Oh, this is Game of Thrones. There's dragons, guys.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Yeah, everybody's speaking like this.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Oh yes, one more connection here, guys. The translation of
Pong bay p o h n p e I is
upon a stone altar, which makes me think about a
stone chair.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Oh yeah, oh wow. Oh, we're going to reread it
Black Monday murders folks who talked about it a lot.
But it's it's great. We actually we were in talks
with the amazing artist on that project, Tom Coker. God,
what a great one. Yes, I know, I get it.
(35:43):
I think that's a great connection. We also, while we're
talking about what things mean, Iso kelly Kel translates to
shiny noble or wonderful king. So that gives us a
degree of spoilers about how this story works out. Leg
it goes, you know, eventually kinetic war occurs and the
fight is very close at first. It goes back and
(36:06):
forth between the Salta Laire forces and EO kell Kel's forces,
but with each shift of the battle, the saud A
layers have to retreat further and further inland to Pombay
and eventually the Saudoler lord at the time, ends up
in a stream. He transforms into a fish, and the
(36:27):
story says you can still find him today if you
know where to look. So when you and I go
to Nanmandal, we're going fishing too, if you're cool with it. Okay, great,
and I don't know, man, that's I know. We both
enjoy this story, but it kind of it leads us
to that larger question. If we know that folklore and
(36:48):
oral history are living records of the past, dragons aside
or not, can we clean any truth from this cinematic legend,
Like how much of any of this could we say
is informed by actual historical events.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
That's a great question. I do know that MAUI could
change into other animals, like a fish.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Sorry, that's perfect, yes, and don't look askance at folks.
I don't know about you guys, but Matt and I
can't change into fish.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Oh god, if only we could.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Yeah, what kind of fish would you change it to?
Probably sea creature? Sea creature?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Oh well, okay, well any sea creature. Definitely going with
giant crab first, and then maybe a carp.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
These are very wow. Okay, I love the specificity. Yeah,
I'm gonna have to think on my answers. Do you
want to take an abrek?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, we will. If I was a giant crab, I
would be so shiny.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Just oh god, and we are back. I am still
quarreling with what kind of maritime creature I would want
to be, because it kind of depends on what you
want to get out of the experience. Hmm, Like an
(38:12):
octopus would be cool, but there are a lot of drawbacks.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Hmm. What about like a I was gonna say, a cuttlefish,
but it's kind of we're in the same realm there. Yeah,
could be just a big old whale and just see
what that's like.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, yeah, maybe try it out for an afternoon.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, and then finally you could find out what all
those sounds mean, because obviously, if you transform into a
giant whale, you like the sounds are translated for you.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Right, Yeah, yeah, clearly that's baked in. Okay, Right. Also,
this has nothing to do with anything, but did you
read the news. Recently, I've been seeing more and more
examples of this of dolphin interaction with whales like they
I saw one where a pod of dolphins came out
of the blue, apparently to protect a whale that was
(39:03):
giving birth from a bunch of sharks.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
So they rode in. They did that, and then they
rode off.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Well, it's because the aliens are traveling deep underneath the ocean.
They're communicating with the cetaceans, not us. The citations are cool.
They don't have tactical nukes down there yet, and hopefully
they won't, but they're teaching them. Hey, you got to
look after one another. That's the whole point of this planet.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
That happens sometimes here in the southern part of the
United States. I've seen it. You see it in small towns.
The closest thing I have to something like that is
I had a tire that busted in the middle of nowhere,
in a very small town in the back roads, and
then a truck came up and like four guys hopped out,
(39:57):
and I was fine changing the tire on my own.
I had all the stuff I need, but they hopped
out and then they just hung out with me. And
then another truck stopped and at this point it's like
six people and me, and I don't know any of them.
From a can of paint, and they were just delightful. Really, yeah,
they were just super cool. They were they weren't you know,
(40:18):
there wasn't any anything sinister or whatever. They were just
concerned that someone might need help changing a tire, and
since I can change a tire and do basic car maintenance,
they ended up just hanging out and watching me and
like change smoking.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
I really thought you were gonna say. The leader walked
up and looked down at you and looked down at
the jack and just went, you're not gonna need this
and kicked it and while like while the jack moved
out from under your vehicle, the other five guys and
he grabbed onto it and just lifted it for you.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Huh yeah, go for it man, Yeah, because they're the
uh because well it was a random act of kindness
from a NASCAR pit team. Yes, yes, they just came
in and they said, all right, let's start the timer.
There is a lot of truth in the myth or
the legend that we see about Nan Maddal. We do
(41:12):
know that experts believe the ruling class, as you said,
Matt became increasingly ornery and here's something they didn't think about.
So they build this huge kick ass amazing place, this
paradise on the coast, but they didn't have a supply
of fresh water and they weren't able to grow food there,
(41:33):
so they depended on their tribute system to have the
locals bring them water, to bring them breadfruit, to bring
them fish. And as things are getting worse for the
local people, the demands of the elite are also increasing.
Which not to walk too far down the street for this.
But it doesn't sound too unfamiliar.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Oh no, not at all. It sounds very familiar. Just
this concept that if you mistreat the people who are
bringing you your food and water, eventually, after the whole
control by fear thing starts to erode, you're in big trouble.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Yeah, appreciate everybody you work with. That's the reason we
always shout out our producers. Thank you, Dylan, Thanks Dylan,
Thanks Dylan.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
You Tennessee pale.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Pals is great. So this we also see another thing here, Matt,
that unfortunately is not unfamiliar to a lot of us
in the audience tonight. Social conditions are changing as a
result of environmental conditions changing, and so these vital supply
lines start to peter out. The tribute system becomes less consistent,
(42:48):
and eventually it ceases entirely. We know that to be true.
And when they didn't have the supply of fresh water
and fresh food brought to them by people that they
treated slaves, then it became impossible to live in Nammdal
long term. Every time you want a glass of water,
what you got to walk seven miles?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
It doesn't sound ideal, No.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
I mean, I guess it's important to get your steps in,
but it's like anng or why you know. Again, the
changing conditions rendered this top notch piece of real estate unviable.
So that's probably what happened with the downfall. But I
think one thing that fascinates us both just as much
is how do they build it? Yeah, Like, I'm not
(43:37):
trying to sound like a jerk, I'm very impressed, but how.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Well, it's a great question and it does make me wonder,
and I don't have any research on this, but it
does make me wonder if the smaller rocks that are
beneath each of these huge stone slabs, the way they're shaped,
they look like maybe you could have rolled those slabs
along those smaller stones, so if you could get at
least the thing started The question then is how do
(44:05):
you get those other large stone slabs up to the
height that you want to get them to and then
roll them into place. But you know, police systems and
all that other stuff, they're in a jungle. There was
probably materials that could have easily been used to like
secure stuff like that. Sure, I just don't know. I
don't have that research.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
In front of me. Sorry, Oh no, no, it makes sense.
And even the experts, the people who spend their lives
studying nan Madul, are able to make very educated guesses.
But well, let's just kick some statistics. If you weighed
all of the basalt and coral rock structures together, you
(44:45):
would be looking at something that weighs seven hundred and
fifty thousand metric tons. And this was built from the
thirteenth to the thirteenth century to the seventeenth century by
a population that was never more than thirty thousand people.
So that would mean and I want to shout out
namidal specialist Mark McCoy for this, that would mean that
(45:08):
the population of Pombay moved an average of one and
fifty tons of basalt per year over four hundred years.
This was the biggest public works project I think that
in that area outside of China for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Yeah, definitely, and that is a you can only imagine
the number of people that died, if only from the exhaustion, right,
and not to mention giant stones.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
And dragons there you go, someone's got to feed the dragon.
So a lot of blood price jokes. So because of
our our specialists we mentioned earlier, Mark McCoy, we know
a little bit more about how this stuff happened. There
is I guess we should say this now. There's a
huge deal often made in you know, ancient alien shows
(46:04):
or time life mysteries of the unknown. I'm just looking
around at the different books have that say stuff like this.
There's always this big deal of oh, these mysterious people,
how did they do this? They must have had help
from somewhere. But McCoy's research, to be clear, is not
like that. He is not setting out to you know,
prove preconceived conclusion. Instead, he did chemical analysis and he said,
(46:31):
he said, holy smokes, a lot of these stones, you know,
they clearly didn't come from too close to the site.
There wasn't a quarry. A lot of them came from
the opposite side of the island. The big island, and
they were somehow, like you said, maybe rolled twenty five
miles to the construction site.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Wow, which is often the case in these megalithic structures.
The stone work, especially in the base stones, came from
pretty far away from wherever the religious significant site was
that was being built. And that is that is in
itself a feat twenty five miles my goodness. But the
(47:11):
question is how the heck do you do that? Is
it by boat? Is it by dragging? How do you
do it?
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yeah? Yeah, And then I think you're right with complex
series of ropes and ladders. You know, once you get there,
if you look at pictures of the ruins and you
can find these pretty easily, it looks so similar to
like a big stone Jenga tower, just like a series
(47:39):
of Jenga blocks criss crossing. And they didn't have mortar
or concrete, or if they did, they didn't use it.
They they did something that already might give a few
of us a little bit of anxiety. Have you ever
have you ever tried to balance tricky things like you
put a you put a phone or a plate or
you know, the pencil things that they make you do
(48:01):
an engineering class.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah, I find it to be a wonderfully little meditative
thing to do.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
You like it. I don't know why it gets to me,
but it always feels like I'm trying to dismantle a
bomb or something. Oh yeah, and like the world will
end if the pencil drops. So maybe that's why we
get along.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
It's not about the consequence or the end, man, It's
about just focus in on something, you know, and something
that's not easy.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
I see what you're saying, and I respect it. And
that's why I have so much respect for the architects
of Nan Madul, because they were doing the same thing,
but instead of with you know, a number two pencil
or a pen or something, they were lifting these massive
stone blocks and then saying, well, we don't have mortar
or concrete, so I guess we'll just try to balance
(48:52):
these very carefully.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Yeah, which is what you would do. And again, what
is a mark? McCoy say, it's coral material in between
the larger stones.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Yeah, coral fill, he calls it.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Uh okay, oh yes, So that's different from the smaller
stones we're talking about that are also like kind of
as long if you imagine them perpendicularly to the large
stone slabs. They're like the almost the same length as
those other stones, they're just perpendicular smaller, and they're not round,
so it's not like an easily rolled thing. Yet they
(49:27):
have shaped sides that are not let's say square right
or rectangular. They are cut in enough I imagine like
a D twenty or something. Well, they're not quite that beveled,
but you imagine that it could be rolled if you
put significant force on the large slab going across.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's I think that's the right way
to put it. Also, do you ever think about what
the rationale for these structures is? You know it's often religious,
but I'm wondering, because you know clearly it's not the
work of any one person. How do you convince a
society to do this?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Will kill you if you don't do it?
Speaker 3 (50:13):
All right, Well, yeah, that's very direct.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
We have a dragon, make us a temple. Go. Yeah,
you get in situations, right, I mean really, yeah, I
don't understand it. How else you would do it unless
you could control by convincing people that you had let's say,
supernatural powers of some sort, or there was a dragon
somewhere that you had, and nobody's ever seen it before,
but everybody's pretty convinced. You you got a.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
Dragon mutually, is your dragon destruction? Mm hmm, right, Okay, yeah,
it's the threat of the dragon. It's more dangerous than
the dragon. So yeah, maybe it with some a little
more peaceful and inspiring. Yeah, with religious motivation, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Maybe the land needed that god of agriculture really really badly, right,
and so the people said, Okay, maybe this is something
we have to do in order to survive.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, and again, people are people wherever you go. These
folks had jobs, they had other stuff they needed to do.
It just seems like it would take a significant amount
of threat or persuasiveness or finesse to also convince them
to do this on top of everything else. So we
(51:25):
don't know. Maybe it's as simple as people wanting to
be part of something larger than themselves. That's a motivation.
But I suspect you might be right with threat of
death and injury. Unfortunately, the precedent is there. But we
know this is a result of genius. The builders were geniuses.
(51:45):
This is the only city of its kind on a
coral reef. It's a shame the society that built it
was not as durable as the buildings they created. But
I feel like there's so much more to talk about this,
but I gotta say it just once. Man, the HP
Lovecraft aspect of this. There are so many folks who
(52:07):
identified nan Medal, usually Western guys, identified Na Mendal as
the remnants of Lemuria or you know, Moo or oh,
of course Atlantis. And there's still there's still largely unresearched
other ruins near nan Medal, and they're under the waves.
(52:30):
They might be the source of other lost city legends.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I could totally see that. Yeah, there's where did you
find this image? The site layout image? So we can
send people that way so they can find it.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
Yeah, it's simple as just go to your browser of
choice type in nan Medal layout. You'll see a You'll
see a ton of images. Probably the most common is
the one from wiki Commons. You know, we're we're always
hesitant to talk about stuff, but this layout is pretty
(53:04):
fascinating because it's it's a rendering of the location of
the big walls and where the canals go in and
little structures all like you said, Matt off the coast
of Temwin.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yep, it really is a great layout and it is
kind of a rough outline of the structures of where
they lay in that area, but it is I don't know,
it helped me visualize it a lot when I've been
looking mostly at you know, those satellite images that are
what it looks like right now, and most of this
stuff you cannot see from that vantage point.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
Yeah. Yeah, And if they had fresh water, it would
be so cool to live there. If they have fresh water,
and if it wasn't haunted.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
I don't know, those are those are pretty major issues.
I would have to say.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
There's something about places like this though, that it is
difficult to articulate, and like who've encountered, you know, an
ancient site or sacred site. Even again, even as skeptical people,
there's a vibe to it. There's an energy that emanates,
you know what I mean. I don't know what you
would call it, but I do think it's palpable and
(54:19):
maybe that's what draws people to Nemodol. Still we're here
in twenty twenty four's we record. There's a mix of scholarship, legend,
oral history, and guesswork, all trying to answer these key questions,
how did the city come to be What truths can
we find in the legends of its rise and fall?
Why does so many people work on things like this
(54:40):
only to abandon them later. We should also mention, of course,
that Iso Kelly Kel, the hero of our story, is
considered to be the founder of POMPEII, So this is like,
this is similar to a George.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Washington Iso Kelly Kel the vengeance guy.
Speaker 3 (54:59):
Yeah, oh yeah, because he became ruler after he got
rid of the saut of Airs. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
But like, but his dad or father or whatever god
guy that created him started the whole beef by by
impregnating somebody who wasn't who he shouldn't have been impregnating. Yeah,
what's going on here? Guys?
Speaker 3 (55:26):
The you know, the highs and lows. That's what every
good story needs, That's what this has. I would I
would love to watch, you know, like you said, a
Game of Thrones esque take on this. You know they
got the drag game, We've got some magic.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
Oh I can visualize it too, especially I'm sorry thinking
about the like the production on the shoots. It would
be so beautiful to film, like if you could actually
go somewhere similar, maybe out there in Micronesia, and create
non modal but as.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
A film said, yeah, maybe that'll be our pitch when
we need an entire population to do a public works
project for us.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
This is part of the film. They'll be teamsters. All
respect to our teamster brothers. Yeah, don't get us if
you are. If you are lucky, we're gonna roll the
dice on this one. As we end. If you are
lucky enough to have visited this mysterious place in person,
we would love to hear from you. Now. We know
(56:31):
the odds are low of actually reaching somebody who has
been there, but it would absolutely make our evening because
we are convinced there's still may be some stuff they
don't want you to know about nan Madal, So let
us know your thoughts. Can we hear from you? We
try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Yes, you can find us all over the social medias.
In most places we are conspiracy stuff, such as on
YouTube one of the most important ones definitely, I don't know, subscribe,
turn on the bell, dude.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
Tell your friends were cool, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah, nothing thirsty about that, nope.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
And then also most importantly our Instagram page, which is
conspiracy stuff. Show there. You can also find us on xin,
on Facebook, and in a couple other places I think TikTok,
but focus on those two. You can also give us
a call.
Speaker 3 (57:24):
Yes, the rumors are true. We have a telephone number
just for you, specifically you play along at home. Say
it with us one eight three three std WYTK Matt.
What happens when someone crosses that telephonic rubicon?
Speaker 2 (57:40):
Oh, well, they find themselves in a voicemail system, and
once they're there, they've got three minutes to leave a
cool voicemail. Give yourself a cool nickname when you do.
Call in and let us know if we can use
your name and message on the air. If you got
more to say then can fit in that three minute voicemail.
Why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back, So join us out here in the dark
conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (58:32):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is on an adventure.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
They called me Ben. We're joined with our super producer,
Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know, and we're coming to you amid
some incredibly fast moving, fast paced, chaotic times. And one
(00:52):
thing that we talk about a lot offline is that
it can be easy to forget amid all this pandemonium
that the world of the past is still chock full
of strange, inexplicable things. Like I think we all, Matt,
have had this assumption on some base level that because
(01:14):
something happened long ago, we somehow figured out the answers
to what happened and why is a civilization. But that's
not entirely the case.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh no especially, I think, in my opinion, at least
as satellite technology has increased exponentially, as the ability to
image things from super far away, to see through water
right to like the depths of the ocean. All of
these things. You feel like, oh, we've discovered pretty much
everything now, and we understand because there are enough humans
(01:47):
who've been around working long enough, looking at history and
archaeology and things like that, we know things. We know
it all.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah. Yeah, And it's a dangerous assumption to make because
it could not be further from the truth. Human civilization
does not know most things. If you were just thinking
about all of the things, human civilization does not know
most of them. And that's not a ding. Everybody's been
working hard.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It feels like a ding. Man. Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Thousands of years, you know, people know more than they
did earlier. I guess you could say that we've lost
technology in cities along the way. And if you travel
all the way out to Micronesia, a place that we
have not visited, you will find a ruined city that
looks straight out of an HP Lovecraft story and indeed
(02:37):
probably inspired a lot of conspiratorial writing and a lot
of fiction. It's a place called nan Madul, And tonight
we're gonna ask what happened to this place? What is it?
To begin with? Why is it abandoned today? And we
were also speaking briefly off air here one of the
(02:58):
most important things we have to give at the top
is a pronunciation disclaimer.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Look, we're trying our hardest. We're looking at websites that,
you know, give you the pronunciation, and then we're trying
to get those. Some of them we just can't find that,
so we're going to do our best.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I watched some in depth depictions of the oral history
of this area Micronesia, with people speaking in native languages,
and along the way I learned that several of the
things we're going to talk about have multiple names, and
each of those multiple names may have multiple pronunciations. So,
(03:37):
like Matt said, we're doing our best. Bear with us.
We are going to spell out things, yes, because that'll
probably be easier for you to search than hearing us,
you know, do linguistic Parker.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, ok, yeah, Well, we'll be right back and we'll
get to them pronunciations.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Here are the facts Micronesia stunning place or I guess
we should say a stunning series of places.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Right, Yes, A whole bunch of places that exist on
vast ocean expanses, very small islands, some a lot larger
than the others, at least by comparison. Some islets, a
lot of atolls, and it's amazing stuff. It's mostly volcanic
activity that formed these places over a long period of time.
(04:37):
But the coolest thing about this area is that there
are a lot of humans that live on these again
fairly small places at least when you look at the
continents that they're not that terribly far from Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, And I think just the scale of this can
be difficult for a lot of us to imagine if
you haven't been in that part of the world. World.
You know, a lot of these islands also are uninhabited,
or they're only seasonally inhabited. There's a lot out there,
a lot of remote stuff, and it's a place that
(05:14):
this part of the world here kind of north and
northeast of Australia, is a place that a lot of
us have wanted to visit. It's just incredibly difficult to
get there from the United States.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, we're talking hopping on planes. You were just describing
Ben our old buddy Scott from car stuff, and can
you just explain a little bit of that, like the
number of things you have to do.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, yeah, so our pal, our comrade Scott Benjamin, very interesting,
brilliant guy, worked with us on many shows, including car stuff,
and he and his wife would fly out to Bora Bora,
to an island somewhere in that area. So they would
have to take a flight from the US. They would
(06:02):
land one place. I think they had to fly to
another place after that, and then the planes that they
were on just kept getting smaller and smaller until you're
on a puddle jumper and then you have to get
on the boat and the boat takes you to the
actual island. He says he has a great time where
he goes, but I don't know if that's like two
days to get there or what his deal is. But
(06:25):
we're saying that to show you the sense of scale.
And like you said, it's a stunningly diverse region. People
have been living in this area for more than four
thousand years, and we still as a civilization have a
lot to learn about these earlier cultures because not all
(06:47):
you see this everywhere, not all had written records. You know,
a lot of the way of preserving history, the methods
were often oral history, folklore, storytelling, and we do know
that not too too long ago, there was a mighty
kingdom governing this area. And this is something that you
(07:08):
and I had talked about briefly when we're snooping around
for cool episodes. And I don't think correct me if
I'm wrong here. I don't think either of us had
actually heard of this place. I had not.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I never heard of modell Modal. Nan Modole is how
you'd say it. Maybe how did you find it?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
This is where we have to spell it NA in
space M A D O L. I can't remember, Man,
I just read too many weird things. I wish that
I had learned about it because somebody visited nan Modal
And maybe if you like, if you have and you're
with us listening along tonight, please please contact us right
(07:52):
to us immediately, give us any pictures, any links. We
would love to learn more because nan Modll has this
hidden history about it. Oh my gosh, I'm doing that
eight ancient alien's hands. That's not what we're talking about.
But one other thing that was of interest to me, Matt,
and I think to both of us is Nan Madal
(08:13):
is adjacent to the eastern side of an island called
Pong Bay, not Pompei, not the Mediterranean disaster site of
a volcanic explosion. But I just kept thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Oh yeah. Well, so if you're looking at it from
a map, Pombay which is spelled p o hn Pei
if you want to look it up. If you look
at it from above, it appears to be in a
tall so you've got that kind of ring around it,
and then an island that has a big old volcano
or you know what was once a volcano at the
(08:52):
center of it. And then if you go down it's
not to the south, it is to the eastern side,
but southeast you will find a whole other separate island
that has this place that we are going to. I
didn't know it was a separate island. It does not
look like it at all. It's called Timwin Island. It's
super tiny, and nem Doll is on the eastern side
(09:16):
of it. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
And the and the crazy thing about this site it
is a city, or it was at one point, and
it's built in this lagoon, and it's it's based upon
small man made islands, artificial islands, which sounds like some
pretty high science, you know, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
For sure. And Ben, let's talk about what this thing
is because it's not an island in itself. It is
a structure series of structures that were built quite a
while ago, and they if you look at pictures of
them online, maybe we could just describe what it is.
It looks like huge flat stone slabs that are then
(10:00):
sandwiched like one on top of the other, and then
in between they're much smaller stones that kind of I
would say, like even out or provide support for the
shape of the stone that either is below it or
above it.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, they're crisscrossing and a lot of these stones are
columns essentially that have been laid out, you know, vertically
and horizontally to build these slabs. And again, the thing
I keep being amazed by is the idea of man
made islands, of just making an island. For me, that
(10:38):
always seems and I know people have done it in
the Middle East as well, quite recently, but it always
seems like a herculean feet a godlike effort, because.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Especially when you consider when it was done.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Right. Yeah, we know that for thousands of years people
had been living in the area, but they had also
been building in the area, which we'll we'll get to.
There was a mighty kingdom based in nan Medal for
at least a thousand years more most likely, and they
(11:14):
were called the Sauduleure dynasty sau d e l e
u R. And when Europeans got to this part of
the world, they were stunned by this place too. The
original name for it was sound non Leng, which roughly
translates to reef of heaven. And because it's you know,
(11:35):
build on lagoon, they use a lot of coral material,
like you were saying, to fill in between the stones.
And sometimes people will call it the venice of the Pacific,
which makes a lot of sense when you see all
the canals that crisscross the area. But I've got a
question for you, man, how often do places call themselves
the eighth Wonder of the world, Like.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Just boast about it and just give them that Moniker.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
The Yeah, I feel like so many things are described
as the eighth Wonder of the world.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, my nerd basement. I was gonna like call it that,
but decided not to. Sorry, No, but it is true
because you got those seven Wonders that were so popular
at least at the time when we were growing up.
And you look at Encyclopedia or you know, one of
these books. There were the Seven Ancient Wonders of the
World then and then the Seven Modern Wonders of the World. Yeah,
(12:28):
and if you if you're gonna get on that list,
you're gonna have to be number eight.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Yeah. Yeah, there's a waiting there's a wait list, and
I'm just looking through different things just on the fly.
There are It turns out a ton of candidates were
the eighth Wonder of the World. Quite a lot. Actually,
so does nad Madal deserve that Moniker in particular? I
(12:55):
don't know. But we can see the venue thing because
it has you know, it's a city somehow built upon
a canal. It's also a megalithic structure. And it's the
stones that you're talking about there, Matt. They are so heavy,
they are so stupidly heavy that, knowing what we know
(13:19):
about technology during the time of its construction, which was
very long construction period, we know it had to be
a pain in the keeyaster to get this stuff in
the first place. And we're still not sure exactly how
it was built. We have theories, but we're not one
hundred percent sure.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Oh yes, this is a massive set of structures, a complex.
Let's say that was at one time like the central
place of power for this Sandular dynasty, and it was
where basically the religious folks hung out, and there's some
incredible design in there. It is now now, I mean,
(14:00):
we have to be clear, it's ruins now, it's just
kind of what's left of mostly the stone work that
existed at the time. But man, it is huge and
these stones are massive. You think about the only thing
I've ever think about is if you go in your
backyard or you go out to a park or just
somewhere that is in nature, even in a forest, and
(14:23):
you see a stone, my mind always miscalculates how heavy
that stone's gonna be, Like if it's something the size
of both your hands that you would bend over and
pick up. I always miscalculate and I think, oh, I
could easily pick that up, and then you go, oh,
that is significantly heavier than I imagined. And now imagine
(14:43):
stones that are, you know, six feet across or larger
in some cases.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
And we don't have unlike some similar sites like Anger Watt,
for instance, we don't have the benefit of a lot
of carving or art wrought into these things. They are beautiful,
but they are ruins. The primary sources are actually legends,
especially when you talk about sort of the bad guys
in our story this evening, the saud Laire dynasty, and
(15:13):
it reminds us of how, as common in history, when
an ancient city gets to a certain threshold of prominence
or renown, it becomes legendary in a given culture. In
the West, maybe one of the most famous examples of
this is the story about the founding of Rome. Right,
Romulus and remis Yeah, boys.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, because in this story it is two brothers that
show up on the island right, and one of them
gets married into the tribe that's already there, and the
when that brother dies, the other brother says, I'm God.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Now yeah pretty Muchndohl is like, I agree with that,
because Nemondohl does have this legendary origin story. According to
the story, way back when two twin brothers who are
also sorcerers, Olisipa and Ola Sopa, they came to this
(16:10):
site from a fictional island that exists in other legends,
so they were foreigners and they arrived at this place
wanting to build an altar to the god of agriculture.
Non the song spole. I'm murdering those pronunciations. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Let's do the spelling. Nah n I s o h
n space sahp w.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah. Yeah, again, we're doing our best, folks.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And yeah, well, and we're talking about the size of
these stones, right, And it is a legend, this is
oral histories, right of people who've lived there for Again,
as we've said, thousands of years humans have inhabited this
area way before even this legend is supposed to have occurred.
And the story goes that these massive stones were moved
(17:00):
with the help of sorcery, a little bit of sorcery,
a little bit. But also what's that thing a dragon?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Right? Yeah, because you know people had dragons, but that
would be so cool. It reminds me of Coral City
in a way. The story is about what was Edward
Lee Scaldan.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Using vibrations basically to levitate huge pieces of coral and
move them around.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah, exactly. That was one of our early explirations together
and Coral City if you if you haven't, check out
our video or episodes on it, but also get out
there if you can, because it's it's a similar thing
on a much smaller scale, but it's also way easier
to get to. Uh huh, you can. You know, if
(17:45):
you live in the US, you can drive to Coral City.
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I still haven't been.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
It's worth it, Yeah, yeah, it's it's worth like a
nice little weekend trip for you. You know, I don't
know much about the area. I didn't spend much time
there outside of going to that thing.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Is it Coral Castle?
Speaker 3 (18:04):
You're right, you're right, it is Coral Castle. I keep
calling it Coral City because I've got these cities on
my mind. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Well, is it's like a little city. It is. It's
super complex and it's fascinating. Check it out. But in
this case, these guys use their sorcery and dragon to
move some stuff around. And there's even there even stories
in there about dragons not being the only awesome, maybe
mythical creature that you'd find in the area.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah. Yeah, because it's so it's oral, you know, it's
oral folklore. So sometimes the story will change. You might
see like a giant that they have summoned being described
as their prime mover. But we know, regardless of what happened,
we know, like you were saying that a complex story
(18:53):
of intermarriage and becoming locals, So Olisipah does does intermarry
with locals and dies of old age, because even if
you're a sorcerer, some things are inescapable. And when he died,
like you were saying the other the twin brother Olo
Sopa becomes the first of the Sodelier dynasty, Soatur dynasty.
(19:18):
So already the existence of this ruling class is shrouded
in its own somewhat self aggrandizing legend.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And according to the legends, as
as this area grew and as the dynasty grew in power,
they separated themselves off from everybody else. Basically in this
area is known as nan Madal. And then they like
they had a bunch. I was like, I think what
I read was it was around a thousand human beings
(19:47):
that lived in that immediate area, but almost all of
them were servants.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yes, yeah, and this is whoa. We'll get to some
sticky stuff here. Yeah, you're you're right all in all,
if we were thinking of like the Nanmdual metropolitan area,
I guess then we're looking we're looking at about a
little south of seven square miles. So it's big, it's big,
(20:12):
and that includes the architecture that we were describing on
this coral reef along the shore of Temwyn Island, and
then some of those other man made islands, and then
that well part of the main island coastline. But the
inside of it, you know, where the fancy folks lived,
that was a little less there was like a mile
(20:34):
by less than half a mile, but they had a
lot of tiny islands in there. And it's no longer inhabited.
I can't wait for us to explore the stone and
the structures and the mysteries, but we know it's nobody
lives there. Now. We'll see why the canals and structures
(20:54):
that once teemed with life are abandoned. And if you
ask a lot of the locals, they'll tell you the
city belongs to its ghost.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Oh. And you can imagine it too, especially when you
see the like the jungle over growth, or like the
huge amount of vegetation that is growing within these structures.
Around these structures, they're almost hidden from from view, A
lot of them are, and then some of them are
a little more visible, and you can imagine exploring it,
(21:24):
and especially at night. Oh my gosh, can you imagine.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Oh I love it.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
I want to do that.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
That would be so cool. Hey, folks, if you happen
to be a patron of weird adventures, have we got
a pitch for you? Get to us after this ad break.
Here's where it gets crazy. Yeah, And I think I
(21:52):
think exactly in the same manner as you are right here.
How odd to be there at night just to hear
the sound of the water and the jungle, you know,
and the canals. A lot of modern people in the
area view the ruins with awe and seriously a small
amount of fear, because even if you consider yourself a
(22:15):
died in the wool skeptic, you know what I mean,
there is a There is very much a vibe to
ancient places. And you know, just because you don't believe
in ghosts doesn't mean you're going to be comfortable in
the graveyard at night, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Oh for sure? Oh for sure. Well, and I don't
mean to bring this up out of nowhere. I think
it's connected to what we're talking about, but I'm not sure.
The concept that these sorcerers showed up on the island
and had a dragon built this thing, and the purpose
was to worship the god of agriculture interesting, right, because
and what I'm assuming is that the god of agriculture
(22:53):
and I haven't been able to find this fully in
the research, but the god of agriculture is also the
god of a lot of other things, the way many
gods are, you know, attached to other things. Because you
imagine agriculture is probably related to fertility in some way
or another, having to do with the growing of crops
and new life and that kind of thing. So I
do I wonder about all that stuff. Then I wonder
(23:16):
about what went down in these areas when there was
royalty living there, no matter how magical they were or not, right,
and they were I don't want to say power hungry,
but they were living that isolated life, right, And you
(23:37):
just imagine the things that people get up to. And
I don't mean to do this, but I'm thinking about
Shawn Comb's right now and the thousand bottles and just what.
But I'm thinking about the things that if you are
ultra powerful and wealthy you could get up to that
are kind of creepy. And you imagine them happening in
this space right where you're now exploring, and it's just.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Ruins, right, Yeah, the time that has passed. It's true
history is much closer than it looks in the rear
view mirror. And the when we answer the question of
what happened, we'll do it in reverse order. First let's
talk about what happened, and then we'll talk about how
(24:19):
they built it because I got the notes wrong. But
in the in the world of oral storytelling, in this
typical historical preservation method, what we find is a lot
of stories come to us as legend. So there is
(24:39):
a legend just like the construction of them, Adol. There
is a legend also about the downfall, and it's exactly
what you said, too much power. The Saudo Leer dynasty
apparently started off pretty cool, like the first like the
sorcerer guy was kind of you know, he had a
dragon and stuff like that. He was kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
But he's building all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
That builds a bunch of stuff, you know. But as
as the generations wound on, each new saud of Lier
or each successive saud of Lier ruler became increasingly oppressive
and tyrannical, and they demanded more and more from the
common folk under a tribute system, and they ignored the
(25:20):
people's please for mercy or assistance, you know, like, hey,
the weather was bad, I don't have any I have
just enough fish to feed my family and said, nope,
you know, just enough fish to feed us. Good luck
out there, buddy. It's and I love that we're drawing
parallels because you can see these kind of parallels and
(25:40):
a lot of other unequal societies. But Matt, because this
is a legend. The real downfall, even though there's already
bad vibe throughout the land, the real downfall for the
soud of Ears begins when they piss off the god
of thunder. Oh oh, very much in play at the time.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, is it the same one we're thinking about? Is
a different god of thunder? It?
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Oh, he pissed off Chris Himsworth.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, oh no, don't do that. That guy seems really nice.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
He actually does seem like a very genuine, a happy
and warm dude.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah yeah, oh no. But this god, this under god
is we're gonna try and pronounce it non supway nah
n sap w e. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah. Not the most well behaved of deities. Like a
lot of other gods and pantheons, he wasn't always known
for obeying human concepts. Of morals. Right, So he found
the wife of the Saus de Laire ruler at the
time and committed adultery with her. And the ruler was
(26:53):
super mad, and so he did a couple of things
that might sound strange with our modern understanding of gods.
First he did character assassination. Nobody worshiped the thunder God
non subway. Then he set out, and I still understand this,
to physically capture and punish the god WHOA. Now, I
(27:14):
get an angry husband wronged, but the idea that you
could go and physically capture god is pretty fascinating.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Well, he's got that sorcerer or blood probably, so you
got he's got that dog in him, all right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
I got. You're right. And the other parts of the
legend without getting two new weeds, they diverge an explanation.
They will say, well, no, what really happened is the
saudil or ruler angered a bunch of other gods. And
then he also fired a high priest. And when he
fired the high priest, who was super pro thunder God,
(27:52):
by the way, then the priests either prophecied the downfall
of that madal or laid a curse to me make
it so, uh, you know what I think is happening,
And this is entirely an armchair guests. I think often
we see in history that the deeds of a single
(28:13):
notable person, or a lot of notable deeds by multiple
people in oral traditions, they get combined into a character
and that creates the god. So it's quite possible that
there was just a dude or a regular human being
who committed these, you know, acts of infidelity and then fled,
(28:36):
and then as the story goes on, they put a
different name to it and associated it with pre existing beliefs.
But I don't know. Yeah, I like to add, but
I don't know. At the end of any statement like that.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Just you should but that is the right and good
thing to do. Uh, okay, because we don't know, but
there's a man it can it continues going. So depending
on what you leave, something occurred. And this thunder God
was upset at the rulers right of non Madal at
the time, so he takes off, goes to this whole
(29:12):
other place called Cosre KOs Rae. There's a whole other
group of islands, and according to the story, he feeds
someone who is described here as of his own clan,
so maybe even his offspring of some sort or at
least familial relation. He feeds a lime to someone within
(29:33):
that group and gets that person pregnant. And you know,
this is an incestuous act of some sort, and this
act creates a whole other god, but in this case
a demi god. Ooh gosh, the Rock just started singing
in my head.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I don't know if you've I freaking love Maana and
I just whenever I read demigod, it's in his voice now.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Oh yeah, yeah yeah, And uh mana's good. It's a
good film. I don't know, Man, it was in that
age where those sorts of animations were just absolutely knocking
it out, you know what I mean. Yeah, maybe it's
nostalgia for us. Now I think it's good. I think
it's actually good.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Either way, it's okay. You're welcome.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
And as you have the Rock's earworm in your head,
we want to introduce you to the man, the myth,
the legend, the demi god produced by this strange lime
PREGNANCYL is O K E L E K E L.
And this guy is, you know, half human, half god.
(30:43):
And according to the story. As soon as he is born,
even in the womb, he knows that he has one
purpose to be an instrument of vengeance against the sawdle
Air and to be a hero for the people who
are suffering. And so it comes to pass and reaches adulthood.
He sails to Pompeii with three hundred and thirty three men,
(31:06):
women and children, and their goal is to supplant these jerks,
the Saudelaires, who are just brutal dictators and chieftains. And
he also is an ethically gray character at points, because
you'll hear that to consecrate this voyage and this invasion,
(31:28):
they conducted human sacrifice for the favor of the gods.
So it's just just saying he's not He himself is
not like a ten to ten dude.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
No, I mean he is vengeance incarnate, which you know
probably means he's not the nicest guy.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Yeah, it makes you think that is the punisher a hero.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Ooh, you know, in some senses definitely, and others heck, no,
never made it.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
You know. It's amazing how he fits into the world
of Marvel Comics with all the the demi gods and
the superpowered people and He's just a guy who doesn't
give it f Yeah, that's his deal.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Stn't mess with his family? Whoops? You did? Uh?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Oh man, don't. I also wonder what the line is
for the punisher, if you are going to be executed
for committing crimes, is there a threshold on the crimes? Like?
Can I get away with a little bit of stamp fraud?
You know?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
He would be amazing as a state trooper, Oh god,
catching speeders.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Just with the doing bust the traffic light. So yeah,
So maybe a good comparison is is his Herculean is
the demi god and does have this punish or aura
about him. But the legends get fuzzy themsel at this point,
(33:01):
there are all these different versions about how the actual
war broke out. One version says there were these local
kids playing around the canoes and it escalated. They ticked
off Iso kelly Kel's people, and then those guys started
attacking the kids, and then it became a whole fracas.
Or maybe Iso kelly Kel conspired, Maybe he sent one
(33:25):
of his lieutenants over somewhere at a specific time to
start a fight, and then he could say that he
was reacting in defense of his people, which is, you know,
a wartime strategy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Well, you know, there's also the concept that potentially all
of those servants and people that were basically being forced
to labor for these rulers kind of were down with
Isao Kella Kell coment over and going, hey, maybe we
can actually be liberated from all this tyranny.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, a full hero, you know, a hero, warrior of
the people. That's the story that I don't know about you,
but I like that one because it makes it sound
like we're fighting for justice.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And all he had to do was sacrifice some people
for the blood feud, you know, right.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
He just had to pay the blood price, and they did.
They did. Yeah, he was there, but he didn't pay
that price. And so there's the other The other conspiratorial
angle would be that he had help from the inside
because the Saudilier civilization is already it's very serious fracture points.
(34:37):
So there's one version of the story where a lady
from the ruling class has been humiliated and cast out
and so she wants regime change. But in her head, yeah,
she'll help Easil Kelly Kell get rid of her enemies.
But the game is still very much sought a layer
to her, she just wants to be the next ruler
(34:58):
kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Oh, this is Game of Thrones. There's dragons, guys.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Yeah, everybody's speaking like this.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Oh yes, one more connection here, guys. The translation of
Pong bay p o h n p e I is
upon a stone altar, which makes me think about a
stone chair.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Oh yeah, oh wow. Oh, we're going to reread it
Black Monday murders folks who talked about it a lot.
But it's it's great. We actually we were in talks
with the amazing artist on that project, Tom Coker. God,
what a great one. Yes, I know, I get it.
(35:43):
I think that's a great connection. We also, while we're
talking about what things mean, Iso kelly Kel translates to
shiny noble or wonderful king. So that gives us a
degree of spoilers about how this story works out. Leg
it goes, you know, eventually kinetic war occurs and the
fight is very close at first. It goes back and
(36:06):
forth between the Salta Laire forces and EO kell Kel's forces,
but with each shift of the battle, the saud A
layers have to retreat further and further inland to Pombay
and eventually the Saudoler lord at the time, ends up
in a stream. He transforms into a fish, and the
(36:27):
story says you can still find him today if you
know where to look. So when you and I go
to Nanmandal, we're going fishing too, if you're cool with it. Okay, great,
and I don't know, man, that's I know. We both
enjoy this story, but it kind of it leads us
to that larger question. If we know that folklore and
(36:48):
oral history are living records of the past, dragons aside
or not, can we clean any truth from this cinematic legend,
Like how much of any of this could we say
is informed by actual historical events.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
That's a great question. I do know that MAUI could
change into other animals, like a fish.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Sorry, that's perfect, yes, and don't look askance at folks.
I don't know about you guys, but Matt and I
can't change into fish.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Oh god, if only we could.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
Yeah, what kind of fish would you change it to?
Probably sea creature? Sea creature?
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Oh well, okay, well any sea creature. Definitely going with
giant crab first, and then maybe a carp.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
These are very wow. Okay, I love the specificity. Yeah,
I'm gonna have to think on my answers. Do you
want to take an abrek?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yeah, we will. If I was a giant crab, I
would be so shiny.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Just oh god, and we are back. I am still
quarreling with what kind of maritime creature I would want
to be, because it kind of depends on what you
want to get out of the experience. Hmm, Like an
(38:12):
octopus would be cool, but there are a lot of drawbacks.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Hmm. What about like a I was gonna say, a cuttlefish,
but it's kind of we're in the same realm there. Yeah,
could be just a big old whale and just see
what that's like.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, yeah, maybe try it out for an afternoon.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, and then finally you could find out what all
those sounds mean, because obviously, if you transform into a
giant whale, you like the sounds are translated for you.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Right, Yeah, yeah, clearly that's baked in. Okay, Right. Also,
this has nothing to do with anything, but did you
read the news. Recently, I've been seeing more and more
examples of this of dolphin interaction with whales like they
I saw one where a pod of dolphins came out
of the blue, apparently to protect a whale that was
(39:03):
giving birth from a bunch of sharks.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
So they rode in. They did that, and then they
rode off.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Well, it's because the aliens are traveling deep underneath the ocean.
They're communicating with the cetaceans, not us. The citations are cool.
They don't have tactical nukes down there yet, and hopefully
they won't, but they're teaching them. Hey, you got to
look after one another. That's the whole point of this planet.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
That happens sometimes here in the southern part of the
United States. I've seen it. You see it in small towns.
The closest thing I have to something like that is
I had a tire that busted in the middle of nowhere,
in a very small town in the back roads, and
then a truck came up and like four guys hopped out,
(39:57):
and I was fine changing the tire on my own.
I had all the stuff I need, but they hopped
out and then they just hung out with me. And
then another truck stopped and at this point it's like
six people and me, and I don't know any of them.
From a can of paint, and they were just delightful. Really, yeah,
they were just super cool. They were they weren't you know,
(40:18):
there wasn't any anything sinister or whatever. They were just
concerned that someone might need help changing a tire, and
since I can change a tire and do basic car maintenance,
they ended up just hanging out and watching me and
like change smoking.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
I really thought you were gonna say. The leader walked
up and looked down at you and looked down at
the jack and just went, you're not gonna need this
and kicked it and while like while the jack moved
out from under your vehicle, the other five guys and
he grabbed onto it and just lifted it for you.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Huh yeah, go for it man, Yeah, because they're the
uh because well it was a random act of kindness
from a NASCAR pit team. Yes, yes, they just came
in and they said, all right, let's start the timer.
There is a lot of truth in the myth or
the legend that we see about Nan Maddal. We do
(41:12):
know that experts believe the ruling class, as you said,
Matt became increasingly ornery and here's something they didn't think about.
So they build this huge kick ass amazing place, this
paradise on the coast, but they didn't have a supply
of fresh water and they weren't able to grow food there,
(41:33):
so they depended on their tribute system to have the
locals bring them water, to bring them breadfruit, to bring
them fish. And as things are getting worse for the
local people, the demands of the elite are also increasing.
Which not to walk too far down the street for this.
But it doesn't sound too unfamiliar.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Oh no, not at all. It sounds very familiar. Just
this concept that if you mistreat the people who are
bringing you your food and water, eventually, after the whole
control by fear thing starts to erode, you're in big trouble.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Yeah, appreciate everybody you work with. That's the reason we
always shout out our producers. Thank you, Dylan, Thanks Dylan,
Thanks Dylan.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
You Tennessee pale.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Pals is great. So this we also see another thing here, Matt,
that unfortunately is not unfamiliar to a lot of us
in the audience tonight. Social conditions are changing as a
result of environmental conditions changing, and so these vital supply
lines start to peter out. The tribute system becomes less consistent,
(42:48):
and eventually it ceases entirely. We know that to be true.
And when they didn't have the supply of fresh water
and fresh food brought to them by people that they
treated slaves, then it became impossible to live in Nammdal
long term. Every time you want a glass of water,
what you got to walk seven miles?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
It doesn't sound ideal, No.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
I mean, I guess it's important to get your steps in,
but it's like anng or why you know. Again, the
changing conditions rendered this top notch piece of real estate unviable.
So that's probably what happened with the downfall. But I
think one thing that fascinates us both just as much
is how do they build it? Yeah, Like, I'm not
(43:37):
trying to sound like a jerk, I'm very impressed, but how.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Well, it's a great question and it does make me wonder,
and I don't have any research on this, but it
does make me wonder if the smaller rocks that are
beneath each of these huge stone slabs, the way they're shaped,
they look like maybe you could have rolled those slabs
along those smaller stones, so if you could get at
least the thing started The question then is how do
(44:05):
you get those other large stone slabs up to the
height that you want to get them to and then
roll them into place. But you know, police systems and
all that other stuff, they're in a jungle. There was
probably materials that could have easily been used to like
secure stuff like that. Sure, I just don't know. I
don't have that research.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
In front of me. Sorry, Oh no, no, it makes sense.
And even the experts, the people who spend their lives
studying nan Madul, are able to make very educated guesses.
But well, let's just kick some statistics. If you weighed
all of the basalt and coral rock structures together, you
(44:45):
would be looking at something that weighs seven hundred and
fifty thousand metric tons. And this was built from the
thirteenth to the thirteenth century to the seventeenth century by
a population that was never more than thirty thousand people.
So that would mean and I want to shout out
namidal specialist Mark McCoy for this, that would mean that
(45:08):
the population of Pombay moved an average of one and
fifty tons of basalt per year over four hundred years.
This was the biggest public works project I think that
in that area outside of China for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Yeah, definitely, and that is a you can only imagine
the number of people that died, if only from the exhaustion, right,
and not to mention giant stones.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
And dragons there you go, someone's got to feed the dragon.
So a lot of blood price jokes. So because of
our our specialists we mentioned earlier, Mark McCoy, we know
a little bit more about how this stuff happened. There
is I guess we should say this now. There's a
huge deal often made in you know, ancient alien shows
(46:04):
or time life mysteries of the unknown. I'm just looking
around at the different books have that say stuff like this.
There's always this big deal of oh, these mysterious people,
how did they do this? They must have had help
from somewhere. But McCoy's research, to be clear, is not
like that. He is not setting out to you know,
prove preconceived conclusion. Instead, he did chemical analysis and he said,
(46:31):
he said, holy smokes, a lot of these stones, you know,
they clearly didn't come from too close to the site.
There wasn't a quarry. A lot of them came from
the opposite side of the island. The big island, and
they were somehow, like you said, maybe rolled twenty five
miles to the construction site.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Wow, which is often the case in these megalithic structures.
The stone work, especially in the base stones, came from
pretty far away from wherever the religious significant site was
that was being built. And that is that is in
itself a feat twenty five miles my goodness. But the
(47:11):
question is how the heck do you do that? Is
it by boat? Is it by dragging? How do you
do it?
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Yeah? Yeah, And then I think you're right with complex
series of ropes and ladders. You know, once you get there,
if you look at pictures of the ruins and you
can find these pretty easily, it looks so similar to
like a big stone Jenga tower, just like a series
(47:39):
of Jenga blocks criss crossing. And they didn't have mortar
or concrete, or if they did, they didn't use it.
They they did something that already might give a few
of us a little bit of anxiety. Have you ever
have you ever tried to balance tricky things like you
put a you put a phone or a plate or
you know, the pencil things that they make you do
(48:01):
an engineering class.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah, I find it to be a wonderfully little meditative
thing to do.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
You like it. I don't know why it gets to me,
but it always feels like I'm trying to dismantle a
bomb or something. Oh yeah, and like the world will
end if the pencil drops. So maybe that's why we
get along.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
It's not about the consequence or the end, man, It's
about just focus in on something, you know, and something
that's not easy.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
I see what you're saying, and I respect it. And
that's why I have so much respect for the architects
of Nan Madul, because they were doing the same thing,
but instead of with you know, a number two pencil
or a pen or something, they were lifting these massive
stone blocks and then saying, well, we don't have mortar
or concrete, so I guess we'll just try to balance
(48:52):
these very carefully.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Yeah, which is what you would do. And again, what
is a mark? McCoy say, it's coral material in between
the larger stones.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Yeah, coral fill, he calls it.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Uh okay, oh yes, So that's different from the smaller
stones we're talking about that are also like kind of
as long if you imagine them perpendicularly to the large
stone slabs. They're like the almost the same length as
those other stones, they're just perpendicular smaller, and they're not round,
so it's not like an easily rolled thing. Yet they
(49:27):
have shaped sides that are not let's say square right
or rectangular. They are cut in enough I imagine like
a D twenty or something. Well, they're not quite that beveled,
but you imagine that it could be rolled if you
put significant force on the large slab going across.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's I think that's the right way
to put it. Also, do you ever think about what
the rationale for these structures is? You know it's often religious,
but I'm wondering, because you know clearly it's not the
work of any one person. How do you convince a
society to do this?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Will kill you if you don't do it?
Speaker 3 (50:13):
All right, Well, yeah, that's very direct.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
We have a dragon, make us a temple. Go. Yeah,
you get in situations, right, I mean really, yeah, I
don't understand it. How else you would do it unless
you could control by convincing people that you had let's say,
supernatural powers of some sort, or there was a dragon
somewhere that you had, and nobody's ever seen it before,
but everybody's pretty convinced. You you got a.
Speaker 3 (50:37):
Dragon mutually, is your dragon destruction? Mm hmm, right, Okay, yeah,
it's the threat of the dragon. It's more dangerous than
the dragon. So yeah, maybe it with some a little
more peaceful and inspiring. Yeah, with religious motivation, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Maybe the land needed that god of agriculture really really badly, right,
and so the people said, Okay, maybe this is something
we have to do in order to survive.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, and again, people are people wherever you go. These
folks had jobs, they had other stuff they needed to do.
It just seems like it would take a significant amount
of threat or persuasiveness or finesse to also convince them
to do this on top of everything else. So we
(51:25):
don't know. Maybe it's as simple as people wanting to
be part of something larger than themselves. That's a motivation.
But I suspect you might be right with threat of
death and injury. Unfortunately, the precedent is there. But we
know this is a result of genius. The builders were geniuses.
(51:45):
This is the only city of its kind on a
coral reef. It's a shame the society that built it
was not as durable as the buildings they created. But
I feel like there's so much more to talk about this,
but I gotta say it just once. Man, the HP
Lovecraft aspect of this. There are so many folks who
(52:07):
identified nan Medal, usually Western guys, identified Na Mendal as
the remnants of Lemuria or you know, Moo or oh,
of course Atlantis. And there's still there's still largely unresearched
other ruins near nan Medal, and they're under the waves.
(52:30):
They might be the source of other lost city legends.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
I could totally see that. Yeah, there's where did you
find this image? The site layout image? So we can
send people that way so they can find it.
Speaker 3 (52:43):
Yeah, it's simple as just go to your browser of
choice type in nan Medal layout. You'll see a You'll
see a ton of images. Probably the most common is
the one from wiki Commons. You know, we're we're always
hesitant to talk about stuff, but this layout is pretty
(53:04):
fascinating because it's it's a rendering of the location of
the big walls and where the canals go in and
little structures all like you said, Matt off the coast
of Temwin.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yep, it really is a great layout and it is
kind of a rough outline of the structures of where
they lay in that area, but it is I don't know,
it helped me visualize it a lot when I've been
looking mostly at you know, those satellite images that are
what it looks like right now, and most of this
stuff you cannot see from that vantage point.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
Yeah. Yeah, And if they had fresh water, it would
be so cool to live there. If they have fresh water,
and if it wasn't haunted.
Speaker 2 (53:50):
I don't know, those are those are pretty major issues.
I would have to say.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
There's something about places like this though, that it is
difficult to articulate, and like who've encountered, you know, an
ancient site or sacred site. Even again, even as skeptical people,
there's a vibe to it. There's an energy that emanates,
you know what I mean. I don't know what you
would call it, but I do think it's palpable and
(54:19):
maybe that's what draws people to Nemodol. Still we're here
in twenty twenty four's we record. There's a mix of scholarship, legend,
oral history, and guesswork, all trying to answer these key questions,
how did the city come to be What truths can
we find in the legends of its rise and fall?
Why does so many people work on things like this
(54:40):
only to abandon them later. We should also mention, of course,
that Iso Kelly Kel, the hero of our story, is
considered to be the founder of POMPEII, So this is like,
this is similar to a George.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Washington Iso Kelly Kel the vengeance guy.
Speaker 3 (54:59):
Yeah, oh yeah, because he became ruler after he got
rid of the saut of Airs. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
But like, but his dad or father or whatever god
guy that created him started the whole beef by by
impregnating somebody who wasn't who he shouldn't have been impregnating. Yeah,
what's going on here? Guys?
Speaker 3 (55:26):
The you know, the highs and lows. That's what every
good story needs, That's what this has. I would I
would love to watch, you know, like you said, a
Game of Thrones esque take on this. You know they
got the drag game, We've got some magic.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
Oh I can visualize it too, especially I'm sorry thinking
about the like the production on the shoots. It would
be so beautiful to film, like if you could actually
go somewhere similar, maybe out there in Micronesia, and create
non modal but as.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
A film said, yeah, maybe that'll be our pitch when
we need an entire population to do a public works
project for us.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
This is part of the film. They'll be teamsters. All
respect to our teamster brothers. Yeah, don't get us if
you are. If you are lucky, we're gonna roll the
dice on this one. As we end. If you are
lucky enough to have visited this mysterious place in person,
we would love to hear from you. Now. We know
(56:31):
the odds are low of actually reaching somebody who has
been there, but it would absolutely make our evening because
we are convinced there's still may be some stuff they
don't want you to know about nan Madal, So let
us know your thoughts. Can we hear from you? We
try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
Yes, you can find us all over the social medias.
In most places we are conspiracy stuff, such as on
YouTube one of the most important ones definitely, I don't know, subscribe,
turn on the bell, dude.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
Tell your friends were cool, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah, nothing thirsty about that, nope.
Speaker 2 (57:09):
And then also most importantly our Instagram page, which is
conspiracy stuff. Show there. You can also find us on xin,
on Facebook, and in a couple other places I think TikTok,
but focus on those two. You can also give us
a call.
Speaker 3 (57:24):
Yes, the rumors are true. We have a telephone number
just for you, specifically you play along at home. Say
it with us one eight three three std WYTK Matt.
What happens when someone crosses that telephonic rubicon?
Speaker 2 (57:40):
Oh, well, they find themselves in a voicemail system, and
once they're there, they've got three minutes to leave a
cool voicemail. Give yourself a cool nickname when you do.
Call in and let us know if we can use
your name and message on the air. If you got
more to say then can fit in that three minute voicemail.
Why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back, So join us out here in the dark
conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (58:32):
Stuff they don't 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,
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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