February 25, 2016 • 53 mins
Sometimes things - like dentures, airplanes or even people - go missing. And when they never turn up again they become enduring, and engrossing, mysteries.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
So this is stuff you should know the podcast. Wait,
him and a Jerry's not there all of a sudden,
(00:23):
it says she's vanished without a trace. No, she's right there.
There's just a miso dust lingering in her where she
once sat. Jerry, do you either want a So it
seems like she's eating me so soup a lot, but
she probably just did that once and I extrapolated that
over years. She's eating Indian food right now. I know,
(00:43):
our tiny little studio smells like we need a spice kitchen.
You know what that is. It's a kitchen full of spice.
Now it's a second kitchen for cooking really stinky food.
I didn't know that. Yeah, huh, I need it. I
want a spice kitchen so I can cook my rich
game meets that Emily can't stand the smell. What's your
(01:03):
favorite game meat? I'm just getting on like game meats.
What do you like the stinky? Oh? I mean, dude,
if I cook bacon or country ham or steak in
the Josh Clark cast iron fan steak. It stinks at
the house for two days. You know, She's just like,
oh my god, like that animal in here. You need
to get like good air purifier, air filter works works. Wonders. Well,
(01:27):
we don't have a stove hood yet, you know. Yeah,
which is that's probably the biggest rub. Yeah, And I
think like, depending on the stove hood, I think someone
are just kind of like, but there's ones out there
that are really good. Yeah. I bet those are the
expensive ones. Yeah, but I'll bet you can find a
good one that's at a lower price point. Maybe, or
(01:48):
maybe I could just hire a guy they got a
window right behind the stove to just sit, a little
short guy to sit in the window with some fireplace bellows.
They'd be good. Or one of those people who like
fan things with palm franz. Yeah, maybe that's cheaper. I
don't know. But for the life of your stove, probably
not weirdest start ever. So, Chuck, you remember when David
(02:13):
Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. I remember it happening.
I didn't watch it. You didn't watch it. No, I've
never been a big fan of his his magic work.
Even as a kid. Nah, not into it. Well, I
guess you would have been about fifteen at the time.
I could see you like being like, this is dumb. Yeah,
so you were eleven. It was the coolest thing ever. Yeah.
(02:34):
I was like, there's no way he's going to be
able to do this. Oh my gosh, he did it?
What I like? What is that? Even? I feel like,
if I remember correctly, he put up basically a curtain
around the Statue of Liberty and painted and the Statue
of Liberty wasn't there. I'm sure it's all smoking mirrors. Well,
(02:54):
of course it's you mean it wasn't real magic, but
I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it wasn't dark arts,
don't think so. I don't think Satan was involved. It
was too patriotic for that, you know what I mean. Um,
But anyway, my point is to this super lay intro
is that David Copperfield brought the Statue of Liberty back.
It didn't disappear forever. It just disappeared temporarily. It's amazing,
(03:17):
But there are some things, mostly people and some socks
that do just disappear forever that have disappeared forever, and
who's like mystery mysterious disappearances are still unsolved to this day.
It's pretty good. Do you lose a lot of socks? Uh? No, No,
Umi does our laundry. She keeps tabs on the socks. Well,
(03:39):
they make little tabs that you clip on keep your
socks together when And I've also seen there's this one
company that tried to sell socks and as three socks,
so you always had a backup superfluous sock. But it didn't.
I don't know if that took off like it should have.
Coulda who knows the person who invented it. They know,
(04:02):
believe me, they wake up every day and they're like,
three sacks was a great idea. So let's talk about
some of these things that have disappeared without a trace. Yeah,
this is one of our famous top tens. It'll be
what six eight, something like that, Solomon Northrop number one.
Have you seen twelve years of late yet? Man? Still No.
(04:24):
It's sitting on my DVR staring me in the face
and watch daring me to be sad and watch it.
You just gotta get it over with it. There's a
certain amount of Catharsis to it. It's not just gonna
bring you down to the depths of depression and leave
you there necessarily. Yeah, I've been ticking off the really
sad ones at a rate of about two per year.
(04:47):
Like I just watched Beast of the Southern Wild like
a few months ago. I haven't seen that one. That's
a good one. Is it good? Yes? Very tough movie,
is it? But yeah, long story short, I need to
watch Twelve Years of Slave. Okay, I'm shamed. I didn't
mean the same. I'm just saying it's like the third
(05:08):
time I've been shamed. It's a kid. It's a good movie.
So Solomon Northrop was the uh. He was the man
who wrote the memoir on which the movie was based,
because it's a true story about his life and he
was born free uh an African American in eighteen forty one.
Went well, it says here was lured from his home
(05:28):
in New York to Washington, d C. And then kidnapped
forced into slavery in Louisiana. Yeah, he was lured by
being basically hired as a musician, and while when he
went to d C, he was kidnapped and solding the slavery,
and man, it just gets worse from there. Whe they're like,
you should come down and play the nine thirty Club.
Basically yeah, He's like, great, let's see it. And they're like, oh,
(05:52):
there is no nine club. There's just horrific slavery on
a plantation in Louisiana. Um. So he actually, uh spoiler
alert for those of you, like Chuck who haven't haven't
seen the movie, he um is basically rescued from slavery.
He figures out a way to basically pass a message
along in the people who know and can confirm that
(06:14):
he was a born of Freeman, Um come and get him,
which is pretty great. Uh. The and at the very
end of the movie in it it says basically like
the circumstances and date and whereabouts of Solomon Northrop's death
are unknown. Okay, so they just finish it with a
They do graphic, yes, but basically it's almost like an
(06:36):
off handed thing. You don't think anything about it. But
it turns out he he disappeared. It was mysterious. Yeah,
he like people don't know where he went. He went
back to the North and ended up working in the
underground railroad. There's some um rumors that he became a
spy for the Union during the Civil War. And it's
(06:58):
so at some point he went you know, he wrote
Twelve Years of Slave, Yeah, and he went on a
book tour, um and abolitionist book tour, and he never
came home from it. Yeah. In eighteen sixty three was
about the last time that there were any records of
his existence. And there are a bunch of different theories
out there of what might have happened to him. Uh.
(07:19):
One that while he was a spy he was captured
and killed. One is that he was kidnapped again and
sold into slavery. But um, I think I read that
a lot of people just count out because he was
kind of too old to be valuable at that point
as a worker, yea. And or maybe he encount well,
(07:41):
we know he encountered some financial difficulties, so maybe he
just assumed a new identity and kind of skipped down.
There's also one that's like the saddest but also probably
the most realistic, that he died in a place where
they didn't know who he was and they weren't inclined
to to properly bury him, so he just led a
regular life and died unknown, Yeah, or like he got
(08:04):
run over by a horse or something on the book
tour and no one knew who he was. He just
thought he was like some African American, you know, or
maybe even a slave and they just buried him in
on mark Grave, Pauper's grave. Yeah, very sad. All right,
Well that is uh, that's the first one. Um. I
think Jimmy Hoffa is a great way to follow that up.
(08:27):
Who Jimmy Hoffa? M hmm, famous teamster uh, teamster boss.
I was reading a little bit about his huge beef
with Bobby Kennedy. They hated each other. They didn't like
each other, I mean hated each other. Like apparently Jimmy
Hoffa shoved Bobby Kennedy at a restaurant once because he
(08:48):
felt yeah, because he felt like he had snubbed him. Wow. Yeah,
Jimmy Hoffa didn't like that kind of thing. Bobby Kennedy
sent he wrote a book called The Enemy Within and
it was about like the Mob and um, I'm not
sure if Halfa was named in it or not, but
it was basically like all of his friends. Bobby Kennedy
wrote a book about it, and he sent a book
(09:11):
a copy of it to Jimmy Hoffa, and he wrote
a little inscription that said, to Jimmy, I wanted to
make sure you've got a copy of this from me
so you wouldn't have to use pension funds to buy
one zing zing indeed, and he said have him killed.
And he finally Bobby Kennedy finally got his mitts on
(09:31):
Jimmy Hoffa and sent him to prison for a little while.
But Halfa was a huge contributor to Nixon's campaigns against
the Kennedy and so when Nixon became president, he'd pardoned Halfa.
That's right, in nineteen seventy one, he was pardoned. And
then on July thirtieth, n sventy five, just four years later,
he went for a meeting at the uh macas Red
(09:52):
Fox restaurant. It's a great name in Bloomfield, Michigan's great
outside of Detroit, suburban Detroit. And he was never seen again,
never seen again, disappeared, no bones, nobody, no nothing. And
there's been tons of theories and suppositions and rumors about
(10:12):
what became of him. Right, yeah, Supposedly he was there
to meet um a couple of mafia bosses Anthony uh
Gia Cologne and Anthony pro Bazan though which was no
Tony Jack and Tony pro most were their nicknames. And um,
they denied later that they had a meeting scheduled and
(10:34):
they were they ended up actually having an alb because
I read that and I was like, well, duh, he
goes to meet with two mafia guys and disappears. But
supposedly they had an alibi and they yeah, exactly, and
they were not there. Um, so they were at church, yeah,
with their mothers. There was a truck, like a you know,
(10:56):
a semi truck pulling into the parking lot and almost
hit got hit by this car pulling out of Mercury
and he said he looked in and he saw Haffa
in the back seat with another guy with what looked
like a rifle like under uh, like a blanket in
between them. Oh yeah, I mean the mafia killed Jimmy Hoffa. Yeah,
(11:16):
there's virtually no dispute over that. It's just what happened
to his body exactly. So some people said that he
was buried under the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey,
that the meadow Lands or is the new one at
the meadow lands. The old well, the new one may
be there too, but the old one was definitely there.
Didn't happen? Did they ever dig it? Dig out the field?
(11:38):
And look? No, I think the MythBusters actually went there
with some equipment that could detect whether or not. Is
there anything those guys couldn't do? I don't know, get
along off the air. Yeah. Uh, we can also verify
that um, a couple of weeks before he disappeared, hundreds
of millions of dollars we're missing from the pension. And
(12:00):
um again, you know no secret that the mafia probably
had him done in right, So where's the body? Right? So? Um?
And I think two thousand and fourteen, a guy named
Tony Zarelli, another Tony, he wrote a book. Is that
what his? I'm just kidding his his His book was
(12:21):
called Half a Found and in it he detailed how
half of his body was buried under some concrete slabs
in a barn in upstate Michigan. I thought you gonna
say it was a pop up book, and at the
end he just pops up in right, here's half of um.
You got me with that one. And apparently the FBI
read this book and they went and dug up the
(12:43):
field and didn't find anything. Yeah, they've looked. Um, they're
quite a few locations in suburban Detroit that they've done
some digging over the years, all yielding nothing. And there
are other rumors he was fed to alligators in Florida.
Quite possible. It would be a good way to get
rid of a body and run through a wood chipper
was another one. Yeah, I'll fargo. Yeah, I think they
(13:05):
will never find him. I think. I also read that
one um, supposedly reputable mafia source said, yeah, we killed
him and we buried him in a shallow grave nearby,
and we were supposed to move it, but we never did.
So he's just, you know, not too far from the restaurant. Um.
(13:25):
They're like, we never thought about that place. But I
don't you know, I don't think they'll ever get anything.
To be one of those enduring mysteries that is lazy
who are too lazy to move a body to a
better right, just leave him in the shallow grave? All right?
Should we take a break, Yeah, why not? All right,
we'll come back and talk about more disappearing X. I
(13:48):
love this, Uh, one of these chuck, we should at
least give a shout out to is the three guys
who escaped Alcatraz. Oh yeah, and if you guys are
(14:10):
interested in that, go listen to our entire episode on Alcatraz,
where I believe we talked about this in depth. I hope.
So I'm pretty sure we did, because if not, people
are gonna be like, or just go watch the great
Clint Eastwood movie Escape from Alcatraz. Yeah, because it's pretty
darn accurate to the real story. Um, so we're gonna
breeze by that one. I mean, we can talk about
(14:31):
it if you want them, endlessly fascinated by. When we
were in San Francisco for our most recent tour for
Sketch Fest, Actually, did you go? No? I was. I
ran down to the bay and looked out across it.
I was like, I couldn't swim that, no problem. I
wanted to go, but you gotta get reservations far in advantage. Sure,
(14:51):
I've never been to Alcatraz. I want to go. Yeah.
I was like, let me call and get tickets and
they were like, we've been sold out for weeks. I'd
also like to go take a tour of Eastern State
pen the Tentry one of those old like crazy asylums. Yeah,
I would love to do that. It'd be pretty cool,
all right, Well, yeah, let's talk about it, why not. Yeah.
Nineteen sixty two, Frank Morris and the Anglan brothers, Johnny
(15:14):
and Clarence. They were bank robbers. Frank Morris is sort
of a lifelong crook. Yeah, very very super intelligent guy
who had escaped from several prisons. Uh. And finally they said,
you know what, We're gonna put you in Alcatraz because
it's inescapable. It's like the Titanic of prisons. You saw
what happen with that. So they devised a brilliant plan
(15:37):
over the course of several months, along with a guy
named Alan west Um who sadly was left behind um
to Uh, he wouldn't wake up. No, he couldn't fit through,
he couldn't get his little vent open. They what they
did was they carved out in vent over the course
of months with like these little homemade chisels. He ain't
too much bread pudding in the meantime, maybe, I mean
(15:58):
the guys tried. They were trying to kick out from
the other side, and eventually like we gotta go do
so Um. The plan was over the course of months
to carve out this space to get out, work their
way through the guts of the prison to the roof,
slide down some drain pipes, and then swim away with
homemade life vests made out of raincoats that they had
(16:19):
collected and glued together. But didn't they run into like
some construction or something like that that just totally through
their their plan off, improvise and go around, and it
just was exponentially harder than they thought it was going
to be getting out, I believe it. But they made
life rafts out of raincoats that they sewed together to inflate, well,
glued them together. Yeah, that's awesome. It is awesome. And
(16:40):
they also made um bodies, well heads at least, right, Yeah,
paper mache heads to lay in their bunks that um,
you know, they look like paper mache heads in the light,
but when you're walking the rounds at night and it's
just sort of tucked into a pillow under some blank
ets with real human hair from the barbershop, it fulled
(17:01):
the guards. Yeah. Really, don't they have those on display
in Alcatraz still? Oh, I'm sure they do. And here's
a neat little fact that I didn't know until my
friend Stacy told me. The they didn't have cold water
in Alcatraz because they didn't want you to be able
to acclimate yourself to the frigid baywaters over time. So
(17:23):
all the water was warm, luxurious, the bay waters about
fifty degrees. It's like an omni it is And uh,
they don't know, I mean the FBI, and everyone says
now they died for sure. That says that about everybody.
They can't catch you now they're dead. There's no way.
Just don't bring it up again, right, just shut up. Uh,
(17:46):
they don't think they could have survived the swim. Um.
The original plan was to go to Angel Island, go
to the opposite side of the island, and then swim
to Marin. I guess open a coffee shop. I guess
me dely right. When they crossed the county, they were
imbued with wealth. I don't know if they made it
(18:06):
or not. Apparently a couple of weeks later there was
a freighter ship that saw a body floating. Uh, they
didn't report it until October though. They went from July
to October and then said, oh, by the way, we
saw body floating. That looked like he was wearing prison denims.
They finally got to that on their to do list.
They're like, oh, yeah, report dead body. Well it's a
(18:27):
fraighter ship. They didn't care, you know, their laws, their
allegiances to the sea, not a man on land. And
they also found a few pieces of other evidence. Um,
they found a life vest with teeth marks near the
valve and um, human teeth marks. Yeah, human teeth marks. Yeah,
not Barracuda teeth marks. Isn't someone who was probably holding
(18:48):
it in their teeth trying to blow it up while
they were swimming. Where would they have gotten a life vest? Oh,
I don't know. I think it was one of the
homemade ones. Oh well, so, I mean that doesn't mean anything.
They could have ditched. Well that's what I said. And
the fact that the body was unidentifiable. Yeah, and they
never uh, they never you know, resurfaced. The plan was
(19:10):
to rob a store on Angel Island and get clothing,
and there were never any robberies planting. You know. That's
kind of about That's a little telling, although they could
have been like, I'm too cold to rob anything, let's
just go to Muran and hug Yeah. Uh so who knows.
Pretty neat, pretty neat? Indeed, when was that cool? I
(19:30):
think we'll never know, just like the rest of these
unexplained mysterious disappearances. Should we move on to the candy heiress. Yeah,
Helen Brock. Um, I can't remember where I saw something.
I saw it. I guess the documentary on this case.
It's amazing. It's an amazing true crime cold case. Helen
Brock's mysterious disappearance. And this our own article gets a
(19:52):
little bit wrong. Um, but let's talk about it, okay.
So Helen Brock was the heiress to the Brock Candy
fortune because her husband and Frank Brock um it, was
a co founder of the company and when he died,
he left his wife Helen. Um, I think, basically everything.
And she was a very very wealthy woman, and she
(20:13):
liked to do things like go to the Mayo Clinic
to get her annual physical like Mr Burns, although she
was nothing like Mr Burns from what I understand. She
was a very um, lovable, conscience is cool person. Um.
But she was very very wealthy, so why not go
to the Mayo Clinic? Back in she went to the
Mayo Clinic and got to work out, and the last
(20:36):
reliable person to see her alive was a woman who
was working at the Mayo Clinic gift shop where Mrs
Brock stopped to get a gift for her niece. A
Mayo Clinic snow globe exactly right, right, yeah, what else?
Anything else? Spooned spoon to Mayo Clinic spoon. People click those,
(21:00):
uh Mayo Clinic sock puppet. Big seller. So she said
to the lady, I'm in a hurry. My house man
is waiting. House man was one Jack Matlick, and she
was never seen again. Um, Mattlick had dropped her off.
Obviously it's for the outbound flight to Minneapolis. And then
(21:22):
he said, no, man, she came back. I picked her up.
And then she spent four days. I didn't call anyone,
but she was here home at home, even though there's
no evidence to corroborate this, right, And then he said
he dropped her off again at the airport, had to
go to Florida, right where she had a condo. Correct.
And it was when she didn't show up in Florida
(21:43):
as planned that people started noticing she was missing, and
they called her house and Matlick answered and two different
people gave varying stories about where she was. Did he
say Matlock residents? Right? I mean I mean resident. So
here's a couple of pinky details. Matt Matt like I
think was the guy, although he disagreed. Uh he um. Well,
(22:08):
the people on the original flight, like the flight crew said, Now,
she was never on this plane to begin with. Oh,
from the Mayo Clinic back to Chicago. Yeah, okay, so
that stands out as super hinky. Well he wasn't there,
then he was going to pick her up in Chicago.
He wouldn't have been in Minneapolis. So if she wasn't
on the flight from Minneapolis to Chicago, he wouldn't have
had anything to do with that, seemingly, but he Why
(22:31):
would he say that he picked her up if she
didn't arrive. I'm not saying he didn't know what happened,
but I don't think he was the one that killed her. Sorry,
just go well, he he cashed. He was found out
later to have cashed thirteen grand and checks with the
Fords signature from It wasn't his handwriting and it wasn't hers,
(22:52):
that's right, but he's clearly working with someone. Sure, that's
where I'm going here. Uh. And her brother Charles Voor
he's that and Matt like actually burned her diaries after
she died, and there's super weird. Well, her brother's explanation
was that she was into automatic writing, which is basically
where you get a piece of paper and a pen.
(23:12):
Super Victorian, right, and um, you say, oh, spirits speak
through me. Oh excellent airbag. Let's see what you got, right,
and you just start the spirits move your hand. And
her brother said, uh, she would not have wanted people
to see this stuff, so we just burned it. It's
like the weg Wegia writing. Right, It's exactly like that,
(23:34):
except with a pen. Interesting. So they were just embarrassed
and didn't want that to get out, that's what he said. Well,
I mean, it's not a crime to destroy your papers.
A lot of people made the case that um uh,
Mark Twain should have destroyed his papers rather than allowing
them to be published posthumously. I thought you were gonna
say Mark Twain got rid of got rid of her,
But that's impossible. It is in nineteen seventy seven. It
(23:57):
is impossible. You imagine Twain in the seventies. I think
it would have been much the same. Yeah, yeah, whimsical musings,
yea with a searsucker suit, sharp, sharp wit, you know, yeah,
with the series, Yeah, he would have been Tom Wolfe.
So there's another guy named Richard Bailey who was a
vacuum salesman. Apparently he was sort of like dirty rotten scoundrels.
(24:20):
He would swindle old ladies out of their dough. I
think it's more like American gigolo. Uh. Well, no, I
don't think he was jigglowing. I think he was. Oh
he was. Oh, I thought it just had to do
with horses. That was his. Like, invest in this thoroughbread,
give me your dough, but also come and lie down
with me this in the sock, in my jeans. You
(24:43):
know that's a gigolo thing to say. Uh. So he
was eventually pinched for fraud and racketeering, sentenced to prison.
Um and people thought that he had a role in
her disappearance. He said, no, I didn't. And a judge said,
do you know what I think you did? And he said,
(25:04):
who cares what you think? Judge? Well, the judge said, well,
I'll tell you why you should care, because I'm giving
you a thirty years sentence because I suspect that you
had something to do with Mrs Brock's disappearance and likely death.
So who do you think it was him? I do
Although he wrote a book, um, that said he loved her,
that he yes, he was a jigglo, just a jigglo,
(25:27):
but he fell in love with her and his love
was sincere and real. Um. And he said that he
was going to give the proceeds from his book to
her favorite charity, which is an animal welfare charity. And
she had her own foundation that she endowed upon her death,
and she was declared dead seven years later in nineteen
eighty four, just because that's what they do when you
(25:48):
don't turn up for seven years and people think you're dead, um.
And her her endowment basically went toward almost exclusively animal welfare. Well,
he had already stolen all of her money when he
killed her, right, Well, that was the thing. So we
sold her some bumb racehorses for three grand and they
later sold for one dollar. That's how bad off these
(26:10):
race horses were. He said, by Limp Joe, he's a
great investment. And the one eyed Pete and they they
think that he had her whacked because um, she was
going to blow the whistle on him. Interesting, Yeah, that's
the theory, right, and I mean he's in prison for
it right now. He's not in prison for her murder,
(26:31):
although the judge just said, like, yeah, I gave you
a stiff sentence because I think you killed her, kind
of like when O. J. Was sent in to prison
for armed robbery, yeah, and kidnapping and yeah, all these
other things. I think it's the exact same thing watching
that show right now. Now, I'm waiting until it's done
and then I'll start it. Terrible, well, terribly awesome. Oh okay, cool, Yeah,
(26:55):
I like that. However, I think I'm bailing on it
because after a few episodes that was the novelty of
it being terribly awesome kind of war off and I'm like,
I just don't know if I have time to watch
something that's good, bad or bad. I think you don't
like it's too short, you know, I like it, though,
you never know. I'll try it for sure. It's bad casting.
Cubic Gooding Jr. Is he not a good O J. Well,
(27:16):
he's just he's too nice. He's just small, like he
doesn't look like a football player. Even though he played
one Jerry McGuire, Yeah, he did. He played a wide
receiver though, what was he He's a running back, was he? Yeah?
You gotta be a little stock here and that bigger
and boy Malcolm Jamal Warner is a c and he's
way over the top. Yeah, but it's worth it for
(27:39):
just to watch Travolta. It's that's something else he plays.
Robert Shapiro, right, Oh does he? I can't wait to
see this now, man. Yeah, it's you should definitely check
out of psych the first one at least. Well, since
we're so psyched, we should take another break. What do
you think let's do it? Okay, how about a quick one.
(28:08):
George Washington's teeth Yeah, here today, gone tomorrow. Yeah. So
they were in a storage room at the Smithsonian. They
were on loan in uh from since nine from the
University of Maryland dental school. Right. Yeah. Washington had terrible teeth,
like me. That's his like that was his cross to
bear in his life. By the time he was inaugurated,
he only had one tooth remaining, so he very famously
(28:32):
had full dentures in his mouth. Uh. And the providence
of those dentures is up for debate. They're clearly not
they're not wood or wooden teeth. That's an old wives sale.
But there's things like ivory um gold, real human, real
human teeth. And that's where like the debate comes up
because some people are like, he these were forcibly taken
(28:53):
from his slaves, and other people are like, they might
be slave teeth, but he probably bought them. If you
really look at his character over the course of his lifetime,
he most likely wouldn't have had his teeth his slaves
teeth forcibly extracted. He probably would have compensated for and
if you look at contemporary ads at the time, that
was a common practice to buy teeth from people who
(29:15):
are willing to give him up. Although I'm quite sure
that somewhere in the US dentures were made out of
forcibly extracted slaves, which is like one of the most
horrific things I've ever heard of. So in the end,
Washington ended up having four. They're well, probably more than four,
but there are four existing sets left on display, and
(29:37):
one of which was at the Smithsonian until they disappeared
um from storage room where only employees had access, so
it double locked stories. Yeah, it very much. Is seems
like an inside job almost invariably. But it gets a
little more interesting because half of them showed back up. Yeah,
the lower the lower half, I think, leave those the
(30:00):
lower half. Yeah, like a year later, they just suddenly
reappeared out of nowhere, and they think that, Um, rather
than sell these on the market to somebody like Steven
Spielberg or something, they they they melted them down for
their gold, which is terrible. You know, that's I'd rather
have some rich jerk have the full set and just
(30:22):
know that they're out there still, then have them melted
down for gold. Right. They're like, you can get that anywhere? Um,
that would be very sad. Indeed. Uh. And to this day,
they still don't know where those the top set. I'm
sorry the Yeah, the top set remains missing. Yeah, it
might be someone's wedding ring right now. Wouldn't that be weird?
(30:43):
That would be really weird, you know. Yeah, Flight nineteen.
Are we moving on? Yeah? I love this one. We
covered this one a little bit in their Bermuda Triangle episode. Yeah,
I remember not liking that episode for some reason. I
don't know, I don't know. It was basically like, look
at all this hokum. Yeah. Yeah, we spent the whole
time explaining why that it's not a real thing. Okay,
(31:06):
well maybe I did like it then, Oh yeah, yeah,
because it's not a real thing. No, it's not. There's
not some mistake. There has been a lot of weird
disappearances in that area. That's indisputed, indisputable. Don't even try
Flight nineteen in December nineteen forty five, there were five
planes TBM Avengers, which are torpedo bombers. They took off
(31:29):
from Fort Lauderdale on a training mission. Uh supposed to
be a couple of hours. Don't go more than a
hundred and fifty miles, guys, and uh, just come on
back and we'll have some hot soup waiting on you, right,
or maybe it's Fort Lauderdale, some good spato, yeah, or
Cuban black bean suit maybe oh yeah. Yeah. But they
never came back, No, they didn't. Um and back back
(31:52):
in Fort Lauderdale. I think at the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood Airport,
which is what it is now. Back then it was
like Fort Lauderdale, right, Um, the they were waiting anxiously
for him, and and they never came back, although they
did get a radio transmission from the guy who was
the trainer, Yeah, the flight leader. He said, both my
(32:13):
compasses are out for some reason, and we are in
big trouble. We have no idea where we are. And
they went back and forth with the tower for a
while trying to figure out where they were. Uh, and
they changed courses a few times. Then that was the
last anybody heard of him. Yeah. So they sent a
plane after them, a Mariner aircraft with thirteen men aboard.
(32:33):
So they already lost fourteen, I believe, from these other flights,
five planes, and then they sent another plane, right, said,
another plane. That one didn't come back. People need a triangle. Well,
that one's no big mystery. They attributed that to an explosion,
so they think it actually exploded, and well what man,
it explode aliens, But it didn't seriously disappear, Okay. The
(32:54):
other ones definitely did mysteriously disappear, and um they most
people thought that they just went um further and further
out into the Atlantic. That at one point they were
over the Bahamas or Bermuda, which they mistook for the
Florida Keys, which is not the same thing. And if
you use that mistakenly, as your bearings, you're going to
(33:15):
be in big trouble, and that they ended up just
running out of feeling crashed in the Atlantic. But uh,
in the last year or two, a couple of independent
searchers who had this same theory independently came together and said,
you know what, there was in nine a Broward County
Sheriff's Department helicopter spotted the wreckage of one of these planes,
(33:37):
the TBM Avenger, in the Everglades, next to Jimmy Hoffa's body,
and um, they said, it was so far off from
where they thought flight nineteen had been that it couldn't
have been one of them. And then they went back
and looked at the records and they were like, well,
the only missing Avenger planes are from flight nineteen, so
(33:57):
it has to be one of them, basically, And they
found an aircraft carrier off of Daytona had tracked six
unidentified planes that night turning into the Florida mainland, so
they think rather than going out to see they turned
inland and didn't realize they were inland because the weather
was so bad. They were way off course right, and
they at least one of them crashed in the Everglades. Yeah. Um.
(34:19):
The only thing I knew about this previous to this
research was the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Oh really they showed up in that, Yeah, I remember
that was Um. I never saw the whole thing. Oh man,
it still holds up. Yeah, like Spielberg knows what he's doing. Yeah.
And the special effects even still look pretty decent considering
you know what what we're how long ago it was, Um,
(34:43):
they found the planes and the desert. Uh. And the
idea was that the aliens had had gotten ahold of
the guys because at the end of the movie, the
big mothership lands and they lowered the thing and George
Clinton comes out, not George Clinton, but all these people
come out, and um, people again abducted over the years,
and the cruise of the Flight nineteen came out still
(35:05):
the same age as when they disappeared in their flight uniforms.
And they were like, wow, that was weird. They're like,
what a night And then they went, oh my god,
it's Richard Dreyfus. I love Jaws. Yeah, I didn't say that.
I watched a little bit of it. Was that any good?
Did you watch it? And I didn't catch my attention. Yeah,
(35:26):
I did watch Jaws again the other night for like
the eightieth time. That's an all time. That'll be great
a hundred years from now, and I can watch it
every single time. I get right back into it. Amazing. Uh,
Mary Celeste, I thought we had covered this, but we haven't. No,
this doesn't isn't super mysterious to me. What do you
(35:46):
think happened? Well, here's the backstory in case there's anyone
on earth that doesn't know about the ghost ship. Uh.
It was UM in eighteen seventy two, in December UM
there was a British vessel about four hundred miles east
of the Azores Islands, thousand miles west of Portugal, and
they saw this ship, the Mary Celeste, and they went, oh,
(36:09):
my god, look at that ship. We know that ship.
Let's go over to it and say hello. But there
was nobody on board, and they knew that it shouldn't
be where it was and that there's something up because
the crew that spotted it the um what is it
the day? Would you pronounce the E and the I? Uh,
(36:29):
I'd pronounced that the de Garrazia. Oh nice, okay, but
it's a British vessel so that's probably wrong, so okay,
but still they could have it named like that, you know.
So the de Garrazia UM said, well, this Mary Celeste
left eight days ahead of us, it should be like
all the way to Jenoa basically by now, and it
shouldn't be there. And when they looked, there was no
one on board. But there wasn't any obvious reason for
(36:52):
there to be no one on board. There was a
ghost ship, which is awesome in and of itself. I mean,
it is fairly mysterious UM because is well here here's
some of the facts. There were seventeen hundred and one
barrels of industrial alcohol on board UM. Only nine were
empty because there was one theory that the crew got
(37:12):
drunk and they an industrial alcohol industrial alcohol, and UM
had a mutiny, right, But that doesn't hold up. It's
not a likely story. Now they think the nine barrels
UM they were made of a different kind of oak
than all the others, and it was a leaky oak,
so they say it probably just leaked out what else,
food and water? They had plenty of it still on board,
(37:33):
six months worth left on board UM. And I think
a woman named Mary Thorogood created a documentary about this
and really like investigated it, and um, these are mostly
her findings and they're pretty recent. But um, one of
the one of the big weird mysteries that the lifeboat
was gone right, kind of weird. I think that's because
they got on it and left. There was a pump
(37:54):
disassembled and there's a little bit of water. But upon inspection,
the Dea Gratia found like, no, those things totally seaworthy.
She can make it all the way to Genoa and
we'll even tow her. And they towed her to Portugal,
I believe, right. Yeah, But here's the thing. Apparently the
whole where the flooding was was so crowded that the captain,
Benjamin Spooner Briggs, couldn't get down there. He said he
(38:17):
didn't know how much water. So one of the theories
is that he thought they had taken on way more
water than they had and his family was on board,
including a little two year old daughter, and he said,
uh no, let's just get the heck out of here.
I'm not taking any chances, which was a big chance
that didn't pay off in and of itself. Yeah, but
the abandoned ship is a lass resort like, you don't
(38:39):
just say, oh, I think we might be in trouble,
let's get on out of here on the one lifeboat
for all of us, and yeah, in the middle of
the Atlantic. That's not yeah, no, you're not going to
do that. What do you think happened. I think that
that's what happened. I think that he thought they had
taken on way more water, he had his family aboard,
I saw they had just been through a bad store
(39:00):
arm and he saw the mainland with his own eyeballs
and said, this is our chance. Let's not screw around here.
I don't want to sink with mainland and insight. But
the thing is that the mainland wasn't insight. The Azores
are like in the middle of nowhere. They're like halfway
between the Atlanta between Europe and um North America. Well
(39:21):
that's where they found it eventually. But supposedly he saw
the mainland oh yeah, And I think so. And that's
why I think that he just said, all right, it's
time to go. So there's long been a suspicion that
the crew of the day Grazia were the ones who
did away with the crew of the mart The last
wouldn't it go ship when we found it. Right. So
the reason they would have done this is because under
(39:43):
maritime law, if you find a ship that's insured, the
insurer has to pay you a salvage feeds insured amount,
which they did. They did, but they only got one
sixth of the insured amount, which suggests that the British
Maritime Admiralty Court believed that they were crooked, that they'd
done something to the Mary Celeste. We shall never know,
(40:05):
no unsolved mystery. Yeah. In fact, I was gonna say
we should do an episode on that and full but um,
I think maybe we should just refer people this stuff
he missed in history class, because they did a great
episode on that. Yes, Mary Celeste. So we got one
more chuck. Alrighty, this might be my favorite one of all.
I had never heard of this, uh pro basketball player
(40:26):
who disappeared without a trace. I had neither. His name
is John Brisker, right, that's right. He's from Detroit, and
he went to your University of Toledo. Actually go uh rockets, Rockets.
And the thing is while he was at YOUTU, apparently
he had had a racially harmonious upbringing in Detroit and
got to Toledo and experienced racism firsthand and grew up
(40:47):
fairly bitter from it. He was um uh he He
had a reputation of having a short fuse after that point,
which he didn't have before growing up. Yeah. He went
on to play pro ball with the A B A
the Pittsburgh Condors, and then eventually Um made his way
to Seattle with the SuperSonics, and he was good too.
With the Condors. Over three years, he averaged twenty six
(41:09):
points a game the first year. It was the second
and third years it was about thirty points a game
for the year. That's a that's amazing even for the
A B A. Um, I'm not knocking to A B A.
They were great. Actually, was there an Atlanta team in
the A B A. No, it was always NBA. Where
(41:29):
did Atlanta get its team from from? Why do I
want to say Milwaukee? That was the Braves, jeesu, I
can't remember. And the Thrashers were the Flames right. Well,
now we had the Flames and they just went away,
and then we created the Thrashers and Flames went out.
They went out. Now the tough The Thrashers went to
Canada or something. Yeah, they went to a different city. Uh,
(41:52):
don't have hockey in Atlanta. I think we've learned our
lesson not There's a lot of transplants, but apparently not enough.
So back to Brisker, he Um eventually played for the Sonics.
After that he said, I'm gonna open a restaurant that failed,
and then in night he said, you know what, I'm
going to Africa and I'm gonna open an import export business. Yeah,
(42:14):
but he he wasn't just going to Africa. He went
to Africa under the invitation of the Ugandan dictator Idi
A mean who loved basketball. Loved basketball, and I guess
I'd heard of John Brisker, and John Brisker said, sure, man,
let's uh, let's hang out kind of like Rodman with
Um Kim Jong Un. Yeah, and uh he went and
(42:35):
hung out with the d I mean definitely Um. And
I guess about six weeks after he made it to Uganda,
he placed a call to his girlfriend and the mother
of one of his children, Um Melvis Diane Williamson, right,
and he said, hey, baby, we are going to get
back together. I'm gonna have you guys come over here soon.
I'm just laying the foundation. It's all good. I'll see
(42:57):
you guys, I'll call you in a little bit. And
now is the last anybody ever heard from him? Yeah,
and there, Um, there are many theories on this one.
One is uh well, I mean figures in a couple
of ways. One is that maybe he ran a foul
of I mean and was killed by uh, he and
his soldiers. The other is that he was killed by
anti I mean revolutionaries because he was pals with I
(43:19):
mean and he was there when the Immane regime was
top old, like that's when he was there. Uh. And
another one that I don't think it's true at all
is that he eventually made his way to uh to
Jonestown and was part of the Jonestown Jim Jones suicide people.
(43:41):
That one actually has more legs than it appears at first.
He had a great aunt who was there who tried
to get him and other family members to come join
her in Jonestown. All right, So we'll give that up.
So it's like not just totally random. Yeah, you know, um,
but that's probably probably didn't happen. I think they can't
find any real evidence that happened. His brother Ralph said
(44:02):
up until he was declared dead, and um, I think
nine five, His brother Ralph held the idea that his
brother had just assumed another identity to get away from
debt because he had like twenty grand and taxes just
from that restaurant alone. Um, that used to be a
viable option in life. You could just like you, did
(44:25):
we ever do a show on that? Yeah? Okay, that
was a long time ago. That one might need a
dusting off, But it's I think the answer now is no,
you can't. Yeah, exactly is that it? Sir? I think
that's it. Man, unsolved mysteries that may stay unsolved forever.
We're Roberts Stack, thank you for joining us. Or wait,
(44:48):
I'll be Dennis Freena, You be Robert Stack, got breast
his soul, both their souls. Freena is dead now it stinks.
He's one of my faves. Yeah, he was good. Remember
Crime Story eighties to Vegas show? Yeah, I don't think
I ever saw that good one, but he's uh. Midnight
(45:09):
Run one of my all time favorite comedies. He figures
heavily into that and um, Out of Sight, the great
movie from Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney and Jennifer Local Philipez.
Fantastic movie. He's in that too. I like him as
a long order man myself. Right, he's a former like
real copynic. I could totally see that. Uh well, if
(45:32):
you want to know more about Dennis Varina, type that
name into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
And since I said search bar, it's time for the
listener mail. Oh no, my friend, it is time for administrating.
I can hear the drumming bass kicking in right about now.
(45:54):
That's right. So this is when we thank people for
their lovely gestures of kindness by sending us uh neat things,
oftentimes handmade. Yeah for sure, man, so ready to get started? Yeah,
I'll go ahead and start with our pals Liz and
Gin a Little Bit Sweets. They consistently send us candy
every year from their homemade they're shop in Brooklyn, New York. Yeah. Um,
(46:20):
it's all delicious. We talked about them for years and
they are genuine pals now and uh just great ladies
and support Little Bit Sweets is all I gotta say. Yep,
L I D D A B I T Sweets. Correct,
you will love it. Um. Let's see. I want to
thank Eddie Pray Livingston who gave me went and at
(46:42):
our Atlanta show. As we were leaving the stage, she
handed me a book and the book was a copy
of Paper Moon. Actually Eddie Pray, the movie that Paper
Moon is based on. If you'll know that she has
the same name as the as the title character. That's
because her grandfather, Joe David Brown wrote the book. Pretty amazing. Yeah,
so thank you very much for that. I'm that's I
(47:03):
can't wait to read it because that is famously one of,
if not your favorite movies. Right, it is tied with
The Shining Oh wow, yeah, I talk about two different movies.
That movie. Uh, Burning Hand Leather Goods sent us these
awesome leather notebookcases. Very cool. Yeah, they have all kinds
(47:25):
of cool products. Yeah, I would highly advise you check
that out. Douglas Gibson sent us a copy of Tales
of the Fifth Grade Night, the kid's book that he wrote,
which is awesome. Thank you, Um, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
As always, they have sent us stuff over the years. Um.
When they found out that Josh was a big fan,
they were delighted. And now we have a ship, yeah,
(47:49):
kinship with one another. Yes, we do. Here and remember Gordon,
one of the founders of Uncle John's The Bathroom Reader's Institute.
That's right, Um, was on our barb episode. That's right.
Well we got into a shouting match at somebody. Uh,
let's see. Kurt Schroeder from the Origami Brain Injury Rehab
(48:10):
Center and Mason Michigan send us some cool puzzles and
books that are awesome and um mind bending. Thank you
for those. Jeff, thank you for the um tick Coombs. Yeah,
the patent pending tick Coombs. Well, by now this is
so long ago, the patent has probably been granted. So
if you have a dog, you can go to tick
Comb dot com and they are pretty awesome and they
(48:33):
are three D printed. Even Alex Blangya sent us the
Joy of Christmas CDs, his CD of him singing Christmas standards.
Thank you very much for that, Alex, I love Christmas music.
Sarah at the Beijing Normal University, not the abnormal University
in Beijing, the much more highly reputable normal one. She
(48:54):
sent us the beautiful stuff you should know paper cuts,
uh and the charms right, yes, very nice. Um. Tyler
Murphy for not just the North Dakota wine, but tons
of other things. Great gifts over the years. And also
steady unflagging support for us through emails and thoughts and
(49:16):
tweets all that stuff. Thanks a lot. Taller was a
great guy doing fighting the good fight by being a
public school teacher. Yeah that's right. Daniel from checkniflo for
the sound Still series necklaces because they're awesome. Yeah, they're
really cool. You can find those at uh check niflow
that is t e c h n I flow design
(49:38):
dot com, or just go to Etsy where you could
find all this stuff usually. Uh Talia send us a
postcard from Canada. Lisa Harrish sent us some banana candies.
Thanks guys. We got another postcard and invitation actually from
Emily Crawford to stand Hewitt Hall and Akron, Ohio and
stand Hewitt is a very famous place and Acron it's
(50:00):
sort of like they're built more House and it's gorgeous
and um. Sadly Emily's parents moved down here, so I'm
not going to Acron much anymore. Well, we could still
go for stan Hewitt Hall, all right. Uh Read Wilson
of Read Wilson Design, which you can find it read
Wilson Design dot com. Send us some really awesome doormats
(50:21):
and coasters. Yea, the good stuff, man, go check it out.
Read Wilson Design dot com. He's got a lot of
really cool ideas. Abby sent us a letter and a drawing,
and she wrote in to let us know how to
pronounce bus salts correctly? Am I saying it right? I
don't remember we said basalt basil and I think it's
a basalt. Yeah uh? And happy birthday Abby? Uh? Good
(50:45):
looking high school yes for both of us. U. Alan
Barrington Hughes sent us a Reaper sauce from pucker Butt
based on our Chili Pepper episode. I have not gone
anywhere near it. I tasted it and burned a hole
clean through my tongue. So if you're into the really
hot stuff and you think you have what it takes,
I dare you to give it a show. Yeah yeah,
(51:05):
Um Whitley, thank you for the pencil colored art. It's
really cool. And we're guessing that it's Darwin and McCarthy.
That's our best guest, okay, and I think we're right. Um.
Dawson's Hot Sauce from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada sent us some
really great hot sauces. Um. My favorite was the garlican
hall OPENO. That was good stuff. Carol Chan, thank you
(51:28):
for the rat race Millionaire I guess written by your
husband Michael Hunk, and also the three knitted rats. Who
doesn't love a knitted rat? Know what? That's why she
included them? Agreed um? And then Robin and Aaron sent
us to St. Louis Arch postcard. Thanks for that, guy.
Alison McDougall, thank you for the c d s of
(51:49):
your husband's one man band, who also doesn't love a
one man band? And you can listen to that at
mcdoug McDougall music dot com with two l's and just
mc not m macy. Yeah, of course it's the traditional spelling.
I think that's it man. I think we're essentially caught
up on administrative details, so guys were now we need
more stuff. Thanks as always everyone who's kind enough to
(52:13):
take the time. It's oh hey, thanks to Nate today
at H and F Burger downstairs for compying my lunch. Nice.
I went down there to eat a meal and he
comes by and goes Charles W. Chuck Bryant and I went,
I know what that means, but he's the GM at
home and Finch their restaurant group and I went to
(52:35):
leave and they were like, no, it's on a nice
Did he send you a burger for me? No, but
I would advise you going down there and just like
kind of just kind of staying around the counter, training
your neck around, stand under the TV with me on it. Right. Yeah,
So thanks Nate. Uh, he didn't even know we were
in this building. Oh yeah, you listen more closely, Nate. Yeah,
that's what I said. We talked about it basically all
(52:56):
the time. He won't even hear this. Uh. If you
want to get in touches us, you can just send
us high You don't have to send us anything. UM.
You can say hi, um, but not have to say
hi because it's been done. You can tweet to us
at s y SK podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
send us an email to Stuff Podcast at house Stuff
works dot com, and in the meantime, you can hang
(53:18):
out with us at our home on the web, Stuff
you Should Know dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
So this is stuff you should know the podcast. Wait,
him and a Jerry's not there all of a sudden,
(00:23):
it says she's vanished without a trace. No, she's right there.
There's just a miso dust lingering in her where she
once sat. Jerry, do you either want a So it
seems like she's eating me so soup a lot, but
she probably just did that once and I extrapolated that
over years. She's eating Indian food right now. I know,
(00:43):
our tiny little studio smells like we need a spice kitchen.
You know what that is. It's a kitchen full of spice.
Now it's a second kitchen for cooking really stinky food.
I didn't know that. Yeah, huh, I need it. I
want a spice kitchen so I can cook my rich
game meets that Emily can't stand the smell. What's your
(01:03):
favorite game meat? I'm just getting on like game meats.
What do you like the stinky? Oh? I mean, dude,
if I cook bacon or country ham or steak in
the Josh Clark cast iron fan steak. It stinks at
the house for two days. You know, She's just like,
oh my god, like that animal in here. You need
to get like good air purifier, air filter works works. Wonders. Well,
(01:27):
we don't have a stove hood yet, you know. Yeah,
which is that's probably the biggest rub. Yeah, And I
think like, depending on the stove hood, I think someone
are just kind of like, but there's ones out there
that are really good. Yeah. I bet those are the
expensive ones. Yeah, but I'll bet you can find a
good one that's at a lower price point. Maybe, or
(01:48):
maybe I could just hire a guy they got a
window right behind the stove to just sit, a little
short guy to sit in the window with some fireplace bellows.
They'd be good. Or one of those people who like
fan things with palm franz. Yeah, maybe that's cheaper. I
don't know. But for the life of your stove, probably
not weirdest start ever. So, Chuck, you remember when David
(02:13):
Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. I remember it happening.
I didn't watch it. You didn't watch it. No, I've
never been a big fan of his his magic work.
Even as a kid. Nah, not into it. Well, I
guess you would have been about fifteen at the time.
I could see you like being like, this is dumb. Yeah,
so you were eleven. It was the coolest thing ever. Yeah.
(02:34):
I was like, there's no way he's going to be
able to do this. Oh my gosh, he did it?
What I like? What is that? Even? I feel like,
if I remember correctly, he put up basically a curtain
around the Statue of Liberty and painted and the Statue
of Liberty wasn't there. I'm sure it's all smoking mirrors. Well,
(02:54):
of course it's you mean it wasn't real magic, but
I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it wasn't dark arts,
don't think so. I don't think Satan was involved. It
was too patriotic for that, you know what I mean. Um,
But anyway, my point is to this super lay intro
is that David Copperfield brought the Statue of Liberty back.
It didn't disappear forever. It just disappeared temporarily. It's amazing,
(03:17):
But there are some things, mostly people and some socks
that do just disappear forever that have disappeared forever, and
who's like mystery mysterious disappearances are still unsolved to this day.
It's pretty good. Do you lose a lot of socks? Uh? No, No,
Umi does our laundry. She keeps tabs on the socks. Well,
(03:39):
they make little tabs that you clip on keep your
socks together when And I've also seen there's this one
company that tried to sell socks and as three socks,
so you always had a backup superfluous sock. But it didn't.
I don't know if that took off like it should have.
Coulda who knows the person who invented it. They know,
(04:02):
believe me, they wake up every day and they're like,
three sacks was a great idea. So let's talk about
some of these things that have disappeared without a trace. Yeah,
this is one of our famous top tens. It'll be
what six eight, something like that, Solomon Northrop number one.
Have you seen twelve years of late yet? Man? Still No.
(04:24):
It's sitting on my DVR staring me in the face
and watch daring me to be sad and watch it.
You just gotta get it over with it. There's a
certain amount of Catharsis to it. It's not just gonna
bring you down to the depths of depression and leave
you there necessarily. Yeah, I've been ticking off the really
sad ones at a rate of about two per year.
(04:47):
Like I just watched Beast of the Southern Wild like
a few months ago. I haven't seen that one. That's
a good one. Is it good? Yes? Very tough movie,
is it? But yeah, long story short, I need to
watch Twelve Years of Slave. Okay, I'm shamed. I didn't
mean the same. I'm just saying it's like the third
(05:08):
time I've been shamed. It's a kid. It's a good movie.
So Solomon Northrop was the uh. He was the man
who wrote the memoir on which the movie was based,
because it's a true story about his life and he
was born free uh an African American in eighteen forty one.
Went well, it says here was lured from his home
(05:28):
in New York to Washington, d C. And then kidnapped
forced into slavery in Louisiana. Yeah, he was lured by
being basically hired as a musician, and while when he
went to d C, he was kidnapped and solding the slavery,
and man, it just gets worse from there. Whe they're like,
you should come down and play the nine thirty Club.
Basically yeah, He's like, great, let's see it. And they're like, oh,
(05:52):
there is no nine club. There's just horrific slavery on
a plantation in Louisiana. Um. So he actually, uh spoiler
alert for those of you, like Chuck who haven't haven't
seen the movie, he um is basically rescued from slavery.
He figures out a way to basically pass a message
along in the people who know and can confirm that
(06:14):
he was a born of Freeman, Um come and get him,
which is pretty great. Uh. The and at the very
end of the movie in it it says basically like
the circumstances and date and whereabouts of Solomon Northrop's death
are unknown. Okay, so they just finish it with a
They do graphic, yes, but basically it's almost like an
(06:36):
off handed thing. You don't think anything about it. But
it turns out he he disappeared. It was mysterious. Yeah,
he like people don't know where he went. He went
back to the North and ended up working in the
underground railroad. There's some um rumors that he became a
spy for the Union during the Civil War. And it's
(06:58):
so at some point he went you know, he wrote
Twelve Years of Slave, Yeah, and he went on a
book tour, um and abolitionist book tour, and he never
came home from it. Yeah. In eighteen sixty three was
about the last time that there were any records of
his existence. And there are a bunch of different theories
out there of what might have happened to him. Uh.
(07:19):
One that while he was a spy he was captured
and killed. One is that he was kidnapped again and
sold into slavery. But um, I think I read that
a lot of people just count out because he was
kind of too old to be valuable at that point
as a worker, yea. And or maybe he encount well,
(07:41):
we know he encountered some financial difficulties, so maybe he
just assumed a new identity and kind of skipped down.
There's also one that's like the saddest but also probably
the most realistic, that he died in a place where
they didn't know who he was and they weren't inclined
to to properly bury him, so he just led a
regular life and died unknown, Yeah, or like he got
(08:04):
run over by a horse or something on the book
tour and no one knew who he was. He just
thought he was like some African American, you know, or
maybe even a slave and they just buried him in
on mark Grave, Pauper's grave. Yeah, very sad. All right,
Well that is uh, that's the first one. Um. I
think Jimmy Hoffa is a great way to follow that up.
(08:27):
Who Jimmy Hoffa? M hmm, famous teamster uh, teamster boss.
I was reading a little bit about his huge beef
with Bobby Kennedy. They hated each other. They didn't like
each other, I mean hated each other. Like apparently Jimmy
Hoffa shoved Bobby Kennedy at a restaurant once because he
(08:48):
felt yeah, because he felt like he had snubbed him. Wow. Yeah,
Jimmy Hoffa didn't like that kind of thing. Bobby Kennedy
sent he wrote a book called The Enemy Within and
it was about like the Mob and um, I'm not
sure if Halfa was named in it or not, but
it was basically like all of his friends. Bobby Kennedy
wrote a book about it, and he sent a book
(09:11):
a copy of it to Jimmy Hoffa, and he wrote
a little inscription that said, to Jimmy, I wanted to
make sure you've got a copy of this from me
so you wouldn't have to use pension funds to buy
one zing zing indeed, and he said have him killed.
And he finally Bobby Kennedy finally got his mitts on
(09:31):
Jimmy Hoffa and sent him to prison for a little while.
But Halfa was a huge contributor to Nixon's campaigns against
the Kennedy and so when Nixon became president, he'd pardoned Halfa.
That's right, in nineteen seventy one, he was pardoned. And
then on July thirtieth, n sventy five, just four years later,
he went for a meeting at the uh macas Red
(09:52):
Fox restaurant. It's a great name in Bloomfield, Michigan's great
outside of Detroit, suburban Detroit. And he was never seen again,
never seen again, disappeared, no bones, nobody, no nothing. And
there's been tons of theories and suppositions and rumors about
(10:12):
what became of him. Right, yeah, Supposedly he was there
to meet um a couple of mafia bosses Anthony uh
Gia Cologne and Anthony pro Bazan though which was no
Tony Jack and Tony pro most were their nicknames. And um,
they denied later that they had a meeting scheduled and
(10:34):
they were they ended up actually having an alb because
I read that and I was like, well, duh, he
goes to meet with two mafia guys and disappears. But
supposedly they had an alibi and they yeah, exactly, and
they were not there. Um, so they were at church, yeah,
with their mothers. There was a truck, like a you know,
(10:56):
a semi truck pulling into the parking lot and almost
hit got hit by this car pulling out of Mercury
and he said he looked in and he saw Haffa
in the back seat with another guy with what looked
like a rifle like under uh, like a blanket in
between them. Oh yeah, I mean the mafia killed Jimmy Hoffa. Yeah,
(11:16):
there's virtually no dispute over that. It's just what happened
to his body exactly. So some people said that he
was buried under the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey,
that the meadow Lands or is the new one at
the meadow lands. The old well, the new one may
be there too, but the old one was definitely there.
Didn't happen? Did they ever dig it? Dig out the field?
(11:38):
And look? No, I think the MythBusters actually went there
with some equipment that could detect whether or not. Is
there anything those guys couldn't do? I don't know, get
along off the air. Yeah. Uh, we can also verify
that um, a couple of weeks before he disappeared, hundreds
of millions of dollars we're missing from the pension. And
(12:00):
um again, you know no secret that the mafia probably
had him done in right, So where's the body? Right? So? Um?
And I think two thousand and fourteen, a guy named
Tony Zarelli, another Tony, he wrote a book. Is that
what his? I'm just kidding his his His book was
(12:21):
called Half a Found and in it he detailed how
half of his body was buried under some concrete slabs
in a barn in upstate Michigan. I thought you gonna
say it was a pop up book, and at the
end he just pops up in right, here's half of um.
You got me with that one. And apparently the FBI
read this book and they went and dug up the
(12:43):
field and didn't find anything. Yeah, they've looked. Um, they're
quite a few locations in suburban Detroit that they've done
some digging over the years, all yielding nothing. And there
are other rumors he was fed to alligators in Florida.
Quite possible. It would be a good way to get
rid of a body and run through a wood chipper
was another one. Yeah, I'll fargo. Yeah, I think they
(13:05):
will never find him. I think. I also read that
one um, supposedly reputable mafia source said, yeah, we killed
him and we buried him in a shallow grave nearby,
and we were supposed to move it, but we never did.
So he's just, you know, not too far from the restaurant. Um.
(13:25):
They're like, we never thought about that place. But I
don't you know, I don't think they'll ever get anything.
To be one of those enduring mysteries that is lazy
who are too lazy to move a body to a
better right, just leave him in the shallow grave? All right?
Should we take a break, Yeah, why not? All right,
we'll come back and talk about more disappearing X. I
(13:48):
love this, Uh, one of these chuck, we should at
least give a shout out to is the three guys
who escaped Alcatraz. Oh yeah, and if you guys are
(14:10):
interested in that, go listen to our entire episode on Alcatraz,
where I believe we talked about this in depth. I hope.
So I'm pretty sure we did, because if not, people
are gonna be like, or just go watch the great
Clint Eastwood movie Escape from Alcatraz. Yeah, because it's pretty
darn accurate to the real story. Um, so we're gonna
breeze by that one. I mean, we can talk about
(14:31):
it if you want them, endlessly fascinated by. When we
were in San Francisco for our most recent tour for
Sketch Fest, Actually, did you go? No? I was. I
ran down to the bay and looked out across it.
I was like, I couldn't swim that, no problem. I
wanted to go, but you gotta get reservations far in advantage. Sure,
(14:51):
I've never been to Alcatraz. I want to go. Yeah.
I was like, let me call and get tickets and
they were like, we've been sold out for weeks. I'd
also like to go take a tour of Eastern State
pen the Tentry one of those old like crazy asylums. Yeah,
I would love to do that. It'd be pretty cool,
all right, Well, yeah, let's talk about it, why not. Yeah.
Nineteen sixty two, Frank Morris and the Anglan brothers, Johnny
(15:14):
and Clarence. They were bank robbers. Frank Morris is sort
of a lifelong crook. Yeah, very very super intelligent guy
who had escaped from several prisons. Uh. And finally they said,
you know what, We're gonna put you in Alcatraz because
it's inescapable. It's like the Titanic of prisons. You saw
what happen with that. So they devised a brilliant plan
(15:37):
over the course of several months, along with a guy
named Alan west Um who sadly was left behind um
to Uh, he wouldn't wake up. No, he couldn't fit through,
he couldn't get his little vent open. They what they
did was they carved out in vent over the course
of months with like these little homemade chisels. He ain't
too much bread pudding in the meantime, maybe, I mean
(15:58):
the guys tried. They were trying to kick out from
the other side, and eventually like we gotta go do
so Um. The plan was over the course of months
to carve out this space to get out, work their
way through the guts of the prison to the roof,
slide down some drain pipes, and then swim away with
homemade life vests made out of raincoats that they had
(16:19):
collected and glued together. But didn't they run into like
some construction or something like that that just totally through
their their plan off, improvise and go around, and it
just was exponentially harder than they thought it was going
to be getting out, I believe it. But they made
life rafts out of raincoats that they sewed together to inflate, well,
glued them together. Yeah, that's awesome. It is awesome. And
(16:40):
they also made um bodies, well heads at least, right, Yeah,
paper mache heads to lay in their bunks that um,
you know, they look like paper mache heads in the light,
but when you're walking the rounds at night and it's
just sort of tucked into a pillow under some blank
ets with real human hair from the barbershop, it fulled
(17:01):
the guards. Yeah. Really, don't they have those on display
in Alcatraz still? Oh, I'm sure they do. And here's
a neat little fact that I didn't know until my
friend Stacy told me. The they didn't have cold water
in Alcatraz because they didn't want you to be able
to acclimate yourself to the frigid baywaters over time. So
(17:23):
all the water was warm, luxurious, the bay waters about
fifty degrees. It's like an omni it is And uh,
they don't know, I mean the FBI, and everyone says
now they died for sure. That says that about everybody.
They can't catch you now they're dead. There's no way.
Just don't bring it up again, right, just shut up. Uh,
(17:46):
they don't think they could have survived the swim. Um.
The original plan was to go to Angel Island, go
to the opposite side of the island, and then swim
to Marin. I guess open a coffee shop. I guess
me dely right. When they crossed the county, they were
imbued with wealth. I don't know if they made it
(18:06):
or not. Apparently a couple of weeks later there was
a freighter ship that saw a body floating. Uh, they
didn't report it until October though. They went from July
to October and then said, oh, by the way, we
saw body floating. That looked like he was wearing prison denims.
They finally got to that on their to do list.
They're like, oh, yeah, report dead body. Well it's a
(18:27):
fraighter ship. They didn't care, you know, their laws, their
allegiances to the sea, not a man on land. And
they also found a few pieces of other evidence. Um,
they found a life vest with teeth marks near the
valve and um, human teeth marks. Yeah, human teeth marks. Yeah,
not Barracuda teeth marks. Isn't someone who was probably holding
(18:48):
it in their teeth trying to blow it up while
they were swimming. Where would they have gotten a life vest? Oh,
I don't know. I think it was one of the
homemade ones. Oh well, so, I mean that doesn't mean anything.
They could have ditched. Well that's what I said. And
the fact that the body was unidentifiable. Yeah, and they
never uh, they never you know, resurfaced. The plan was
(19:10):
to rob a store on Angel Island and get clothing,
and there were never any robberies planting. You know. That's
kind of about That's a little telling, although they could
have been like, I'm too cold to rob anything, let's
just go to Muran and hug Yeah. Uh so who knows.
Pretty neat, pretty neat? Indeed, when was that cool? I
(19:30):
think we'll never know, just like the rest of these
unexplained mysterious disappearances. Should we move on to the candy heiress. Yeah,
Helen Brock. Um, I can't remember where I saw something.
I saw it. I guess the documentary on this case.
It's amazing. It's an amazing true crime cold case. Helen
Brock's mysterious disappearance. And this our own article gets a
(19:52):
little bit wrong. Um, but let's talk about it, okay.
So Helen Brock was the heiress to the Brock Candy
fortune because her husband and Frank Brock um it, was
a co founder of the company and when he died,
he left his wife Helen. Um, I think, basically everything.
And she was a very very wealthy woman, and she
(20:13):
liked to do things like go to the Mayo Clinic
to get her annual physical like Mr Burns, although she
was nothing like Mr Burns from what I understand. She
was a very um, lovable, conscience is cool person. Um.
But she was very very wealthy, so why not go
to the Mayo Clinic? Back in she went to the
Mayo Clinic and got to work out, and the last
(20:36):
reliable person to see her alive was a woman who
was working at the Mayo Clinic gift shop where Mrs
Brock stopped to get a gift for her niece. A
Mayo Clinic snow globe exactly right, right, yeah, what else?
Anything else? Spooned spoon to Mayo Clinic spoon. People click those,
(21:00):
uh Mayo Clinic sock puppet. Big seller. So she said
to the lady, I'm in a hurry. My house man
is waiting. House man was one Jack Matlick, and she
was never seen again. Um, Mattlick had dropped her off.
Obviously it's for the outbound flight to Minneapolis. And then
(21:22):
he said, no, man, she came back. I picked her up.
And then she spent four days. I didn't call anyone,
but she was here home at home, even though there's
no evidence to corroborate this, right, And then he said
he dropped her off again at the airport, had to
go to Florida, right where she had a condo. Correct.
And it was when she didn't show up in Florida
(21:43):
as planned that people started noticing she was missing, and
they called her house and Matlick answered and two different
people gave varying stories about where she was. Did he
say Matlock residents? Right? I mean I mean resident. So
here's a couple of pinky details. Matt Matt like I
think was the guy, although he disagreed. Uh he um. Well,
(22:08):
the people on the original flight, like the flight crew said, Now,
she was never on this plane to begin with. Oh,
from the Mayo Clinic back to Chicago. Yeah, okay, so
that stands out as super hinky. Well he wasn't there,
then he was going to pick her up in Chicago.
He wouldn't have been in Minneapolis. So if she wasn't
on the flight from Minneapolis to Chicago, he wouldn't have
had anything to do with that, seemingly, but he Why
(22:31):
would he say that he picked her up if she
didn't arrive. I'm not saying he didn't know what happened,
but I don't think he was the one that killed her. Sorry,
just go well, he he cashed. He was found out
later to have cashed thirteen grand and checks with the
Fords signature from It wasn't his handwriting and it wasn't hers,
(22:52):
that's right, but he's clearly working with someone. Sure, that's
where I'm going here. Uh. And her brother Charles Voor
he's that and Matt like actually burned her diaries after
she died, and there's super weird. Well, her brother's explanation
was that she was into automatic writing, which is basically
where you get a piece of paper and a pen.
(23:12):
Super Victorian, right, and um, you say, oh, spirits speak
through me. Oh excellent airbag. Let's see what you got, right,
and you just start the spirits move your hand. And
her brother said, uh, she would not have wanted people
to see this stuff, so we just burned it. It's
like the weg Wegia writing. Right, It's exactly like that,
(23:34):
except with a pen. Interesting. So they were just embarrassed
and didn't want that to get out, that's what he said. Well,
I mean, it's not a crime to destroy your papers.
A lot of people made the case that um uh,
Mark Twain should have destroyed his papers rather than allowing
them to be published posthumously. I thought you were gonna
say Mark Twain got rid of got rid of her,
But that's impossible. It is in nineteen seventy seven. It
(23:57):
is impossible. You imagine Twain in the seventies. I think
it would have been much the same. Yeah, yeah, whimsical musings,
yea with a searsucker suit, sharp, sharp wit, you know, yeah,
with the series, Yeah, he would have been Tom Wolfe.
So there's another guy named Richard Bailey who was a
vacuum salesman. Apparently he was sort of like dirty rotten scoundrels.
(24:20):
He would swindle old ladies out of their dough. I
think it's more like American gigolo. Uh. Well, no, I
don't think he was jigglowing. I think he was. Oh
he was. Oh, I thought it just had to do
with horses. That was his. Like, invest in this thoroughbread,
give me your dough, but also come and lie down
with me this in the sock, in my jeans. You
(24:43):
know that's a gigolo thing to say. Uh. So he
was eventually pinched for fraud and racketeering, sentenced to prison.
Um and people thought that he had a role in
her disappearance. He said, no, I didn't. And a judge said,
do you know what I think you did? And he said,
(25:04):
who cares what you think? Judge? Well, the judge said, well,
I'll tell you why you should care, because I'm giving
you a thirty years sentence because I suspect that you
had something to do with Mrs Brock's disappearance and likely death.
So who do you think it was him? I do
Although he wrote a book, um, that said he loved her,
that he yes, he was a jigglo, just a jigglo,
(25:27):
but he fell in love with her and his love
was sincere and real. Um. And he said that he
was going to give the proceeds from his book to
her favorite charity, which is an animal welfare charity. And
she had her own foundation that she endowed upon her death,
and she was declared dead seven years later in nineteen
eighty four, just because that's what they do when you
(25:48):
don't turn up for seven years and people think you're dead, um.
And her her endowment basically went toward almost exclusively animal welfare. Well,
he had already stolen all of her money when he
killed her, right, Well, that was the thing. So we
sold her some bumb racehorses for three grand and they
later sold for one dollar. That's how bad off these
(26:10):
race horses were. He said, by Limp Joe, he's a
great investment. And the one eyed Pete and they they
think that he had her whacked because um, she was
going to blow the whistle on him. Interesting, Yeah, that's
the theory, right, and I mean he's in prison for
it right now. He's not in prison for her murder,
(26:31):
although the judge just said, like, yeah, I gave you
a stiff sentence because I think you killed her, kind
of like when O. J. Was sent in to prison
for armed robbery, yeah, and kidnapping and yeah, all these
other things. I think it's the exact same thing watching
that show right now. Now, I'm waiting until it's done
and then I'll start it. Terrible, well, terribly awesome. Oh okay, cool, Yeah,
(26:55):
I like that. However, I think I'm bailing on it
because after a few episodes that was the novelty of
it being terribly awesome kind of war off and I'm like,
I just don't know if I have time to watch
something that's good, bad or bad. I think you don't
like it's too short, you know, I like it, though,
you never know. I'll try it for sure. It's bad casting.
Cubic Gooding Jr. Is he not a good O J. Well,
(27:16):
he's just he's too nice. He's just small, like he
doesn't look like a football player. Even though he played
one Jerry McGuire, Yeah, he did. He played a wide
receiver though, what was he He's a running back, was he? Yeah?
You gotta be a little stock here and that bigger
and boy Malcolm Jamal Warner is a c and he's
way over the top. Yeah, but it's worth it for
(27:39):
just to watch Travolta. It's that's something else he plays.
Robert Shapiro, right, Oh does he? I can't wait to
see this now, man. Yeah, it's you should definitely check
out of psych the first one at least. Well, since
we're so psyched, we should take another break. What do
you think let's do it? Okay, how about a quick one.
(28:08):
George Washington's teeth Yeah, here today, gone tomorrow. Yeah. So
they were in a storage room at the Smithsonian. They
were on loan in uh from since nine from the
University of Maryland dental school. Right. Yeah. Washington had terrible teeth,
like me. That's his like that was his cross to
bear in his life. By the time he was inaugurated,
he only had one tooth remaining, so he very famously
(28:32):
had full dentures in his mouth. Uh. And the providence
of those dentures is up for debate. They're clearly not
they're not wood or wooden teeth. That's an old wives sale.
But there's things like ivory um gold, real human, real
human teeth. And that's where like the debate comes up
because some people are like, he these were forcibly taken
(28:53):
from his slaves, and other people are like, they might
be slave teeth, but he probably bought them. If you
really look at his character over the course of his lifetime,
he most likely wouldn't have had his teeth his slaves
teeth forcibly extracted. He probably would have compensated for and
if you look at contemporary ads at the time, that
was a common practice to buy teeth from people who
(29:15):
are willing to give him up. Although I'm quite sure
that somewhere in the US dentures were made out of
forcibly extracted slaves, which is like one of the most
horrific things I've ever heard of. So in the end,
Washington ended up having four. They're well, probably more than four,
but there are four existing sets left on display, and
(29:37):
one of which was at the Smithsonian until they disappeared
um from storage room where only employees had access, so
it double locked stories. Yeah, it very much. Is seems
like an inside job almost invariably. But it gets a
little more interesting because half of them showed back up. Yeah,
the lower the lower half, I think, leave those the
(30:00):
lower half. Yeah, like a year later, they just suddenly
reappeared out of nowhere, and they think that, Um, rather
than sell these on the market to somebody like Steven
Spielberg or something, they they they melted them down for
their gold, which is terrible. You know, that's I'd rather
have some rich jerk have the full set and just
(30:22):
know that they're out there still, then have them melted
down for gold. Right. They're like, you can get that anywhere? Um,
that would be very sad. Indeed. Uh. And to this day,
they still don't know where those the top set. I'm
sorry the Yeah, the top set remains missing. Yeah, it
might be someone's wedding ring right now. Wouldn't that be weird?
(30:43):
That would be really weird, you know. Yeah, Flight nineteen.
Are we moving on? Yeah? I love this one. We
covered this one a little bit in their Bermuda Triangle episode. Yeah,
I remember not liking that episode for some reason. I
don't know, I don't know. It was basically like, look
at all this hokum. Yeah. Yeah, we spent the whole
time explaining why that it's not a real thing. Okay,
(31:06):
well maybe I did like it then, Oh yeah, yeah,
because it's not a real thing. No, it's not. There's
not some mistake. There has been a lot of weird
disappearances in that area. That's indisputed, indisputable. Don't even try
Flight nineteen in December nineteen forty five, there were five
planes TBM Avengers, which are torpedo bombers. They took off
(31:29):
from Fort Lauderdale on a training mission. Uh supposed to
be a couple of hours. Don't go more than a
hundred and fifty miles, guys, and uh, just come on
back and we'll have some hot soup waiting on you, right,
or maybe it's Fort Lauderdale, some good spato, yeah, or
Cuban black bean suit maybe oh yeah. Yeah. But they
never came back, No, they didn't. Um and back back
(31:52):
in Fort Lauderdale. I think at the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood Airport,
which is what it is now. Back then it was
like Fort Lauderdale, right, Um, the they were waiting anxiously
for him, and and they never came back, although they
did get a radio transmission from the guy who was
the trainer, Yeah, the flight leader. He said, both my
(32:13):
compasses are out for some reason, and we are in
big trouble. We have no idea where we are. And
they went back and forth with the tower for a
while trying to figure out where they were. Uh, and
they changed courses a few times. Then that was the
last anybody heard of him. Yeah. So they sent a
plane after them, a Mariner aircraft with thirteen men aboard.
(32:33):
So they already lost fourteen, I believe, from these other flights,
five planes, and then they sent another plane, right, said,
another plane. That one didn't come back. People need a triangle. Well,
that one's no big mystery. They attributed that to an explosion,
so they think it actually exploded, and well what man,
it explode aliens, But it didn't seriously disappear, Okay. The
(32:54):
other ones definitely did mysteriously disappear, and um they most
people thought that they just went um further and further
out into the Atlantic. That at one point they were
over the Bahamas or Bermuda, which they mistook for the
Florida Keys, which is not the same thing. And if
you use that mistakenly, as your bearings, you're going to
(33:15):
be in big trouble, and that they ended up just
running out of feeling crashed in the Atlantic. But uh,
in the last year or two, a couple of independent
searchers who had this same theory independently came together and said,
you know what, there was in nine a Broward County
Sheriff's Department helicopter spotted the wreckage of one of these planes,
(33:37):
the TBM Avenger, in the Everglades, next to Jimmy Hoffa's body,
and um, they said, it was so far off from
where they thought flight nineteen had been that it couldn't
have been one of them. And then they went back
and looked at the records and they were like, well,
the only missing Avenger planes are from flight nineteen, so
(33:57):
it has to be one of them, basically, And they
found an aircraft carrier off of Daytona had tracked six
unidentified planes that night turning into the Florida mainland, so
they think rather than going out to see they turned
inland and didn't realize they were inland because the weather
was so bad. They were way off course right, and
they at least one of them crashed in the Everglades. Yeah. Um.
(34:19):
The only thing I knew about this previous to this
research was the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Oh really they showed up in that, Yeah, I remember
that was Um. I never saw the whole thing. Oh man,
it still holds up. Yeah, like Spielberg knows what he's doing. Yeah.
And the special effects even still look pretty decent considering
you know what what we're how long ago it was, Um,
(34:43):
they found the planes and the desert. Uh. And the
idea was that the aliens had had gotten ahold of
the guys because at the end of the movie, the
big mothership lands and they lowered the thing and George
Clinton comes out, not George Clinton, but all these people
come out, and um, people again abducted over the years,
and the cruise of the Flight nineteen came out still
(35:05):
the same age as when they disappeared in their flight uniforms.
And they were like, wow, that was weird. They're like,
what a night And then they went, oh my god,
it's Richard Dreyfus. I love Jaws. Yeah, I didn't say that.
I watched a little bit of it. Was that any good?
Did you watch it? And I didn't catch my attention. Yeah,
(35:26):
I did watch Jaws again the other night for like
the eightieth time. That's an all time. That'll be great
a hundred years from now, and I can watch it
every single time. I get right back into it. Amazing. Uh,
Mary Celeste, I thought we had covered this, but we haven't. No,
this doesn't isn't super mysterious to me. What do you
(35:46):
think happened? Well, here's the backstory in case there's anyone
on earth that doesn't know about the ghost ship. Uh.
It was UM in eighteen seventy two, in December UM
there was a British vessel about four hundred miles east
of the Azores Islands, thousand miles west of Portugal, and
they saw this ship, the Mary Celeste, and they went, oh,
(36:09):
my god, look at that ship. We know that ship.
Let's go over to it and say hello. But there
was nobody on board, and they knew that it shouldn't
be where it was and that there's something up because
the crew that spotted it the um what is it
the day? Would you pronounce the E and the I? Uh,
(36:29):
I'd pronounced that the de Garrazia. Oh nice, okay, but
it's a British vessel so that's probably wrong, so okay,
but still they could have it named like that, you know.
So the de Garrazia UM said, well, this Mary Celeste
left eight days ahead of us, it should be like
all the way to Jenoa basically by now, and it
shouldn't be there. And when they looked, there was no
one on board. But there wasn't any obvious reason for
(36:52):
there to be no one on board. There was a
ghost ship, which is awesome in and of itself. I mean,
it is fairly mysterious UM because is well here here's
some of the facts. There were seventeen hundred and one
barrels of industrial alcohol on board UM. Only nine were
empty because there was one theory that the crew got
(37:12):
drunk and they an industrial alcohol industrial alcohol, and UM
had a mutiny, right, But that doesn't hold up. It's
not a likely story. Now they think the nine barrels
UM they were made of a different kind of oak
than all the others, and it was a leaky oak,
so they say it probably just leaked out what else,
food and water? They had plenty of it still on board,
(37:33):
six months worth left on board UM. And I think
a woman named Mary Thorogood created a documentary about this
and really like investigated it, and um, these are mostly
her findings and they're pretty recent. But um, one of
the one of the big weird mysteries that the lifeboat
was gone right, kind of weird. I think that's because
they got on it and left. There was a pump
(37:54):
disassembled and there's a little bit of water. But upon inspection,
the Dea Gratia found like, no, those things totally seaworthy.
She can make it all the way to Genoa and
we'll even tow her. And they towed her to Portugal,
I believe, right. Yeah, But here's the thing. Apparently the
whole where the flooding was was so crowded that the captain,
Benjamin Spooner Briggs, couldn't get down there. He said he
(38:17):
didn't know how much water. So one of the theories
is that he thought they had taken on way more
water than they had and his family was on board,
including a little two year old daughter, and he said,
uh no, let's just get the heck out of here.
I'm not taking any chances, which was a big chance
that didn't pay off in and of itself. Yeah, but
the abandoned ship is a lass resort like, you don't
(38:39):
just say, oh, I think we might be in trouble,
let's get on out of here on the one lifeboat
for all of us, and yeah, in the middle of
the Atlantic. That's not yeah, no, you're not going to
do that. What do you think happened. I think that
that's what happened. I think that he thought they had
taken on way more water, he had his family aboard,
I saw they had just been through a bad store
(39:00):
arm and he saw the mainland with his own eyeballs
and said, this is our chance. Let's not screw around here.
I don't want to sink with mainland and insight. But
the thing is that the mainland wasn't insight. The Azores
are like in the middle of nowhere. They're like halfway
between the Atlanta between Europe and um North America. Well
(39:21):
that's where they found it eventually. But supposedly he saw
the mainland oh yeah, And I think so. And that's
why I think that he just said, all right, it's
time to go. So there's long been a suspicion that
the crew of the day Grazia were the ones who
did away with the crew of the mart The last
wouldn't it go ship when we found it. Right. So
the reason they would have done this is because under
(39:43):
maritime law, if you find a ship that's insured, the
insurer has to pay you a salvage feeds insured amount,
which they did. They did, but they only got one
sixth of the insured amount, which suggests that the British
Maritime Admiralty Court believed that they were crooked, that they'd
done something to the Mary Celeste. We shall never know,
(40:05):
no unsolved mystery. Yeah. In fact, I was gonna say
we should do an episode on that and full but um,
I think maybe we should just refer people this stuff
he missed in history class, because they did a great
episode on that. Yes, Mary Celeste. So we got one
more chuck. Alrighty, this might be my favorite one of all.
I had never heard of this, uh pro basketball player
(40:26):
who disappeared without a trace. I had neither. His name
is John Brisker, right, that's right. He's from Detroit, and
he went to your University of Toledo. Actually go uh rockets, Rockets.
And the thing is while he was at YOUTU, apparently
he had had a racially harmonious upbringing in Detroit and
got to Toledo and experienced racism firsthand and grew up
(40:47):
fairly bitter from it. He was um uh he He
had a reputation of having a short fuse after that point,
which he didn't have before growing up. Yeah. He went
on to play pro ball with the A B A
the Pittsburgh Condors, and then eventually Um made his way
to Seattle with the SuperSonics, and he was good too.
With the Condors. Over three years, he averaged twenty six
(41:09):
points a game the first year. It was the second
and third years it was about thirty points a game
for the year. That's a that's amazing even for the
A B A. Um, I'm not knocking to A B A.
They were great. Actually, was there an Atlanta team in
the A B A. No, it was always NBA. Where
(41:29):
did Atlanta get its team from from? Why do I
want to say Milwaukee? That was the Braves, jeesu, I
can't remember. And the Thrashers were the Flames right. Well,
now we had the Flames and they just went away,
and then we created the Thrashers and Flames went out.
They went out. Now the tough The Thrashers went to
Canada or something. Yeah, they went to a different city. Uh,
(41:52):
don't have hockey in Atlanta. I think we've learned our
lesson not There's a lot of transplants, but apparently not enough.
So back to Brisker, he Um eventually played for the Sonics.
After that he said, I'm gonna open a restaurant that failed,
and then in night he said, you know what, I'm
going to Africa and I'm gonna open an import export business. Yeah,
(42:14):
but he he wasn't just going to Africa. He went
to Africa under the invitation of the Ugandan dictator Idi
A mean who loved basketball. Loved basketball, and I guess
I'd heard of John Brisker, and John Brisker said, sure, man,
let's uh, let's hang out kind of like Rodman with
Um Kim Jong Un. Yeah, and uh he went and
(42:35):
hung out with the d I mean definitely Um. And
I guess about six weeks after he made it to Uganda,
he placed a call to his girlfriend and the mother
of one of his children, Um Melvis Diane Williamson, right,
and he said, hey, baby, we are going to get
back together. I'm gonna have you guys come over here soon.
I'm just laying the foundation. It's all good. I'll see
(42:57):
you guys, I'll call you in a little bit. And
now is the last anybody ever heard from him? Yeah,
and there, Um, there are many theories on this one.
One is uh well, I mean figures in a couple
of ways. One is that maybe he ran a foul
of I mean and was killed by uh, he and
his soldiers. The other is that he was killed by
anti I mean revolutionaries because he was pals with I
(43:19):
mean and he was there when the Immane regime was
top old, like that's when he was there. Uh. And
another one that I don't think it's true at all
is that he eventually made his way to uh to
Jonestown and was part of the Jonestown Jim Jones suicide people.
(43:41):
That one actually has more legs than it appears at first.
He had a great aunt who was there who tried
to get him and other family members to come join
her in Jonestown. All right, So we'll give that up.
So it's like not just totally random. Yeah, you know, um,
but that's probably probably didn't happen. I think they can't
find any real evidence that happened. His brother Ralph said
(44:02):
up until he was declared dead, and um, I think
nine five, His brother Ralph held the idea that his
brother had just assumed another identity to get away from
debt because he had like twenty grand and taxes just
from that restaurant alone. Um, that used to be a
viable option in life. You could just like you, did
(44:25):
we ever do a show on that? Yeah? Okay, that
was a long time ago. That one might need a
dusting off, But it's I think the answer now is no,
you can't. Yeah, exactly is that it? Sir? I think
that's it. Man, unsolved mysteries that may stay unsolved forever.
We're Roberts Stack, thank you for joining us. Or wait,
(44:48):
I'll be Dennis Freena, You be Robert Stack, got breast
his soul, both their souls. Freena is dead now it stinks.
He's one of my faves. Yeah, he was good. Remember
Crime Story eighties to Vegas show? Yeah, I don't think
I ever saw that good one, but he's uh. Midnight
(45:09):
Run one of my all time favorite comedies. He figures
heavily into that and um, Out of Sight, the great
movie from Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney and Jennifer Local Philipez.
Fantastic movie. He's in that too. I like him as
a long order man myself. Right, he's a former like
real copynic. I could totally see that. Uh well, if
(45:32):
you want to know more about Dennis Varina, type that
name into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
And since I said search bar, it's time for the
listener mail. Oh no, my friend, it is time for administrating.
I can hear the drumming bass kicking in right about now.
(45:54):
That's right. So this is when we thank people for
their lovely gestures of kindness by sending us uh neat things,
oftentimes handmade. Yeah for sure, man, so ready to get started? Yeah,
I'll go ahead and start with our pals Liz and
Gin a Little Bit Sweets. They consistently send us candy
every year from their homemade they're shop in Brooklyn, New York. Yeah. Um,
(46:20):
it's all delicious. We talked about them for years and
they are genuine pals now and uh just great ladies
and support Little Bit Sweets is all I gotta say. Yep,
L I D D A B I T Sweets. Correct,
you will love it. Um. Let's see. I want to
thank Eddie Pray Livingston who gave me went and at
(46:42):
our Atlanta show. As we were leaving the stage, she
handed me a book and the book was a copy
of Paper Moon. Actually Eddie Pray, the movie that Paper
Moon is based on. If you'll know that she has
the same name as the as the title character. That's
because her grandfather, Joe David Brown wrote the book. Pretty amazing. Yeah,
so thank you very much for that. I'm that's I
(47:03):
can't wait to read it because that is famously one of,
if not your favorite movies. Right, it is tied with
The Shining Oh wow, yeah, I talk about two different movies.
That movie. Uh, Burning Hand Leather Goods sent us these
awesome leather notebookcases. Very cool. Yeah, they have all kinds
(47:25):
of cool products. Yeah, I would highly advise you check
that out. Douglas Gibson sent us a copy of Tales
of the Fifth Grade Night, the kid's book that he wrote,
which is awesome. Thank you, Um, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
As always, they have sent us stuff over the years. Um.
When they found out that Josh was a big fan,
they were delighted. And now we have a ship, yeah,
(47:49):
kinship with one another. Yes, we do. Here and remember Gordon,
one of the founders of Uncle John's The Bathroom Reader's Institute.
That's right, Um, was on our barb episode. That's right.
Well we got into a shouting match at somebody. Uh,
let's see. Kurt Schroeder from the Origami Brain Injury Rehab
(48:10):
Center and Mason Michigan send us some cool puzzles and
books that are awesome and um mind bending. Thank you
for those. Jeff, thank you for the um tick Coombs. Yeah,
the patent pending tick Coombs. Well, by now this is
so long ago, the patent has probably been granted. So
if you have a dog, you can go to tick
Comb dot com and they are pretty awesome and they
(48:33):
are three D printed. Even Alex Blangya sent us the
Joy of Christmas CDs, his CD of him singing Christmas standards.
Thank you very much for that, Alex, I love Christmas music.
Sarah at the Beijing Normal University, not the abnormal University
in Beijing, the much more highly reputable normal one. She
(48:54):
sent us the beautiful stuff you should know paper cuts,
uh and the charms right, yes, very nice. Um. Tyler
Murphy for not just the North Dakota wine, but tons
of other things. Great gifts over the years. And also
steady unflagging support for us through emails and thoughts and
(49:16):
tweets all that stuff. Thanks a lot. Taller was a
great guy doing fighting the good fight by being a
public school teacher. Yeah that's right. Daniel from checkniflo for
the sound Still series necklaces because they're awesome. Yeah, they're
really cool. You can find those at uh check niflow
that is t e c h n I flow design
(49:38):
dot com, or just go to Etsy where you could
find all this stuff usually. Uh Talia send us a
postcard from Canada. Lisa Harrish sent us some banana candies.
Thanks guys. We got another postcard and invitation actually from
Emily Crawford to stand Hewitt Hall and Akron, Ohio and
stand Hewitt is a very famous place and Acron it's
(50:00):
sort of like they're built more House and it's gorgeous
and um. Sadly Emily's parents moved down here, so I'm
not going to Acron much anymore. Well, we could still
go for stan Hewitt Hall, all right. Uh Read Wilson
of Read Wilson Design, which you can find it read
Wilson Design dot com. Send us some really awesome doormats
(50:21):
and coasters. Yea, the good stuff, man, go check it out.
Read Wilson Design dot com. He's got a lot of
really cool ideas. Abby sent us a letter and a drawing,
and she wrote in to let us know how to
pronounce bus salts correctly? Am I saying it right? I
don't remember we said basalt basil and I think it's
a basalt. Yeah uh? And happy birthday Abby? Uh? Good
(50:45):
looking high school yes for both of us. U. Alan
Barrington Hughes sent us a Reaper sauce from pucker Butt
based on our Chili Pepper episode. I have not gone
anywhere near it. I tasted it and burned a hole
clean through my tongue. So if you're into the really
hot stuff and you think you have what it takes,
I dare you to give it a show. Yeah yeah,
(51:05):
Um Whitley, thank you for the pencil colored art. It's
really cool. And we're guessing that it's Darwin and McCarthy.
That's our best guest, okay, and I think we're right. Um.
Dawson's Hot Sauce from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada sent us some
really great hot sauces. Um. My favorite was the garlican
hall OPENO. That was good stuff. Carol Chan, thank you
(51:28):
for the rat race Millionaire I guess written by your
husband Michael Hunk, and also the three knitted rats. Who
doesn't love a knitted rat? Know what? That's why she
included them? Agreed um? And then Robin and Aaron sent
us to St. Louis Arch postcard. Thanks for that, guy.
Alison McDougall, thank you for the c d s of
(51:49):
your husband's one man band, who also doesn't love a
one man band? And you can listen to that at
mcdoug McDougall music dot com with two l's and just
mc not m macy. Yeah, of course it's the traditional spelling.
I think that's it man. I think we're essentially caught
up on administrative details, so guys were now we need
more stuff. Thanks as always everyone who's kind enough to
(52:13):
take the time. It's oh hey, thanks to Nate today
at H and F Burger downstairs for compying my lunch. Nice.
I went down there to eat a meal and he
comes by and goes Charles W. Chuck Bryant and I went,
I know what that means, but he's the GM at
home and Finch their restaurant group and I went to
(52:35):
leave and they were like, no, it's on a nice
Did he send you a burger for me? No, but
I would advise you going down there and just like
kind of just kind of staying around the counter, training
your neck around, stand under the TV with me on it. Right. Yeah,
So thanks Nate. Uh, he didn't even know we were
in this building. Oh yeah, you listen more closely, Nate. Yeah,
that's what I said. We talked about it basically all
(52:56):
the time. He won't even hear this. Uh. If you
want to get in touches us, you can just send
us high You don't have to send us anything. UM.
You can say hi, um, but not have to say
hi because it's been done. You can tweet to us
at s y SK podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
send us an email to Stuff Podcast at house Stuff
works dot com, and in the meantime, you can hang
(53:18):
out with us at our home on the web, Stuff
you Should Know dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com