WEBVTT - Season 6 Episode 19 Extra: After the Fire 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.240 Before we start this episode, I'd just like to clarify that, 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:06.560 contrary to what I said a few episodes back, season 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:09.039 six will not be finishing this week, but we'll be 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:12.399 continuing for a few more weeks yet, So apologies to 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.520 everyone for any confusion. Now, with that out the way, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.880 welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.320 for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.000 and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:42.040 it into the previous show. In last week's episode, Fire 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.239 in the Belly, we ventured into the murky realm of 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:50.560 alleged spontaneous human combustion, or SHC as it is often 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.840 referred to. I was inspired to make the episode in 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.160 part due to a recent tweet I saw remarking on 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.640 how prevalent these stories used to be and how rarely 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:05.000 we hear about them today. Certainly compared to tales of 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:09.640 apparent hauntings or UFO sightings, for example, that continue to 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:15.040 crop up, modern cases of apparent SHC do seem increasingly 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.240 rare that we might notice. This is perhaps due to 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.560 just how memorable these types of stories are when you 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.319 first come across them. Perhaps flicking through an old copy 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:31.360 of The Unexplained Magazine or the Fourteen Times. For me, 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.479 it was always the strange and shocking images that came 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.360 with the stories that really made them stick out in 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:42.440 the mind. All those disembodied limbs poking incongruously out of 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.880 large piles of ash, rendered all the more strange by 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:50.880 their often banal and domestic settings. That being said, a 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:55.080 proposed case of spontaneous human combustion was put forward as 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.680 recently as two thousand and ten, when the partially cremated 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.960 remains of seventy six year old Michael Fahatty were found 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.800 in his home in Gorway, Ireland in December of that year. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.679 Although Fahatty's body was found close to an open fireplace, 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.200 local fire officer Jerry O'Malley concluded that this had not 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.720 been the cause of Fahaty's death, with no traces of 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:23.720 any fire accelerant found on or close to the body either. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.799 Coroner doctor Kieran McLaughlin even went as far as to 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:33.240 declare that this fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.480 with the conclusion that it fits into the category of 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:41.160 spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation. 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:47.080 Our extra episode this week also involves a fire revealing 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.400 something peculiar in its wake. Its tenuous connection to last 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.400 week's episode is that, like the story of Mary Reesa, 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.480 it also took place in Florida, albeit at the remove 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.320 of two hundred and thirty miles and twenty three years 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:16.120 up in the northeastern corner of Fort George, Ireland in Jacksonville, Florida, 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:21.280 surrounded by sprawling woodlands of Spanish moss draped trees, sits 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.799 the steadily crumbling ruin of a strange property known variously 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:31.760 as Neff House and Betts Castle. The eccentric Tudor Star mansion, 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.760 complete with its own turret, was commissioned in nineteen twenty 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:40.120 six by Nettleton Neff, a wealthy estate agent from Chicago 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:42.680 who wanted it built as a place for him and 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:47.360 his family to escape the harsh winters. Six months into 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:51.680 its development, however, Nettleton's wife, Catherine, was killed in a 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.720 fire while staying at another of the family's properties in Michigan. 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.960 The house was eventually finished in nineteen twenty seven, but 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.119 perhaps owing to the fallout from his wife's death, by 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.960 June twenty eight had remained completely empty when tragedy once 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:15.440 again struck the family. Catherine and Nettleton's son Wayne, was 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:19.159 studying at Harvard University when he went missing from his 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:23.560 halls of residence. Two weeks later, he was found hanging 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:28.040 from a tree on the outskirts of Stonington, Connecticut, having 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:32.920 seemingly committed suicide. And it was only three years after 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:37.160 that that Nettleton neff locked himself in his office at 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:41.600 the Railway Exchange Building in Chicago and shot himself through 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:46.400 the head. Despite not one member of the neph family 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.839 having so much as visited the New Florida property in 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.880 all that time, it inevitably retained something of the macabre 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:59.120 aura associated with the unfortunate family. All that would soon 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.680 be expunged, however, when the house passed first to the 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.680 Merrill family and then in nineteen sixty seven to Jerry 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:11.360 and Anton Betts. Though some might have been put off 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.799 by the house's tangential history, Jerry had a good feeling 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:20.039 about it. Ever since she was a child, Jerry had 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:24.560 considered herself blessed with an innate, perhaps even God given 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.440 sense of intuition. Back in nineteen sixty at the age 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.880 of twenty seven and raising six children at the time. 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.880 Jerry had used that same intuition when she decided to 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.400 take on the finance payments of her soon to be 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:44.400 ex husband's truck and trailer. Within a few years, she 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.440 turned that single truck into a fleet of transport vehicles 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:52.120 and launched her own trucking service, making her a millionaire 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:57.880 in the process. However, not even Jerry could have foreseen 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:08.640 the events that were soon to her family. In spring 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.880 nineteen seventy four, a wildfire ripped through a large section 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.680 of bush and woodland close to the beds it's home. 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:20.520 The next morning, Jerry and her twenty one year old son, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:25.320 Terry Matthews went out to inspect the damage when in 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:30.480 a large patch of smoldering bush, Terry noticed something peculiar, 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.640 a perfectly round metallic orb that appeared to have been 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:40.880 left exposed by the fire. Moving closer to inspect it, 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:43.920 Terry could see it was roughly the size of a 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.599 bowling ball, but when he picked it up it seemed 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:52.560 significantly heavier. Terry called his mother over to take a 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.960 look at it, but with the temperature quickly dropping and 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.680 a light rain beginning to fall, she suggested they'd take 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.640 it act to the house. Over the next few days, 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.800 the family speculated about what it might be, believing that 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.800 it was most likely an old cannonball, perhaps left over 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.560 from one of the many skirmishes that occurred in the 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:20.640 region in the sixteenth century. But the something strange happened 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.840 a few days after finding the object. Terry was tuning 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.360 his guitar near it when it began to resonate with 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.000 a peculiar hum, as if it were reflecting the notes 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:40.000 right back at him. Then things got even weirder. One day, 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.080 the sound of an organ was heard drifting through the 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:47.200 extensive property, but the family had no such instrument in 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.960 the house. Doors also began to slam off their own 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:55.200 accord while on more than one occasion, a glass fell 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.040 from a cupboard and smashed on the floor and the 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.920 ball started to move. It isn't clear how it began, 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.560 but at some point the family noticed that when the 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.640 ball was rolled into motion, it would suddenly stop, then 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.480 move back or off to the side, before returning to 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:25.360 the original spot. Best Fiends is a new, fun packed, 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:29.120 free to download mobile game with thousands of exciting levels 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.319 for new adventures every time you play. 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Best Fiends is great to play 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.200 in your downtime or on a commute while listening to 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.400 your favorite podcast, and with offline play, you'll never be 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.720 stranded without fun even if you lose your Internet connection. 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.160 Look out for brand new events and challenges all year round, 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.960 so you've always got a chance to earn exclusive in 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:13.320 game items, characters, and rewards. Download your new favorite getaway 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.560 Best Fiends for free today on the App Store or 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.200 Google Play. You'll even get five dollars worth of in 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:23.080 game rewards when you reach level five. That's friends without 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:31.640 the our Best Fiends. Lou Egner was working as a 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:35.880 photojournalist for the Florida Times Union paper when they were 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:40.040 contacted by Jerry Betts requesting that a reporter be sent 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.320 out to her home to take a look at the 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:47.040 mysterious sphere that her son had found. When Lou arrived 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.040 at the property, he was immediately shown into the living 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:54.160 room and introduced to the ball. Jerry handed it to 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.960 Lou and then stepped back, instructing him to roll it 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:02.800 toward her on the ground. Lou Julie obliged, only for 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:06.840 the ball to run out of steam half way between them. 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:12.840 O K said Lou, So what Jerry held up her hand? 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:18.720 Just wait, she said. A moment later, Lou watched with 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:23.199 stunned amazement as the ball, seemingly of its own accord, 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:29.000 began to move again, first rolling four feet to the right, Then, 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.760 after stopping dead again, it began to roll back the 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:37.040 other way, about eight feet before completing a wide arc 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:42.080 of the ground and arriving back at Lou's feet. The 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.960 bets of Matthew's family story first appeared in the Florida 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:50.800 Times Union on April eleventh, under the headline bizarre sphere 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:56.839 is Castle's latest mystery happening. Lou Egna described it as 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:01.679 the darndest thing he'd ever seen. After the article broke, 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.000 the family were besieged by other people who were also 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.720 desperate to see it. For themselves. Ron Kivet, host of 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.760 local radio show Tales of Strange Things, who was one 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:15.880 of the fortunate ones to get a look at it, 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:20.280 described seeing the ball move of its own accord across 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.840 a glass topped coffee table, with the ball rolling right 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.960 up to the table's edge, but inexplicably not rolling off it. 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.679 When a TV crew arrived to film it, Jerry suggested 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.800 they put the family's poodle next to it to provide 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.640 a sense of scale, but as soon as the dog 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:42.560 got near it, it immediately started to whimper and tried 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:48.079 desperately to cover its ears with its paws. Carl Wilson, 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:53.760 a self styled independent researcher from an organization called Omega 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.880 minus one based out of bat and Rouge, declared the 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.920 ball to have its own magnetic field and that, incredibly, 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:13.760 it was even transmitting its own radio signal. Jerry Bets 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.320 convinced the US Navy, who operated a base not far 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.800 from the bets Is home, to conduct a formal analysis 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:25.000 of the object without wanting to break it. However, they 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.000 found only that it was hollow, with a half inch 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:32.439 thick shell made from a high grade stainless steel. It 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:37.360 was eight inches in diameter and weighed approximately twenty two pounds. 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.840 A curious three millimeter wide triangular mark was also found 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.960 amongst the scuffs and scratches on its outer shell, but 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.839 since the object was not US naval property, they made 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.600 no further effort to identify it and simply returned it 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:59.240 to the family. As the mystery deepened, some began to 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:03.840 speculate if the object was in fact not from this world. 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:10.520 In March nineteen seventy two, the National Inquirer agreed to 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:14.160 put up fifty thousand dollars to the first person who 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:18.800 submitted proof that an unidentified flying object came from outer 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:23.800 space and was not a natural phenomenon. The pledge had 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:30.240 been announced in collaboration with famed UFO investigator j Allen Heineck, who, 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.800 after spending twenty years helping the US Air Force to 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:38.240 debunk UFO sightings, had by then become much more sympathetic 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:42.320 to the potential truth of the UFO phenomenon. Hei Neeck 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:46.040 expressed interest in the sphere, and, having told Jerry that 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.960 he was due to attend a National Inquirer event in 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:53.400 New Orleans, Jerry saw an opportunity to submit the sphere 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.360 as a possible contender for the fifty thousand dollar prize. 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.959 With Terry driving this beer up to New Orleans, the 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.960 Inquirer convened a five person panel led by high Neck 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:11.680 to inspect it. Sadly, however, high Neck and his colleagues 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.560 failed to find anything unusual about it at all, and 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:27.040 so the Sphere and Terry returned home empty handed. Not 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:30.400 long after, news of the mysterious bet Sphere, as it 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.880 would come to be known, came to light, another Jacksonville resident, 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:39.560 Lottie Robinson, came across the story in the Palm Beach Post. 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.360 Robinson just so happened to have her own steel ball, 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.440 which had been given to her son by a family 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:52.320 friend fifteen years before, but was by then collecting dust 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:57.240 in her garage. Robinson contacted the Palm Beach Post to 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.160 let them know that her ball had previous being identified 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:06.240 as a decidedly earthly piece of industrial equipment, being part 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:10.120 of a large valve and pipe system used for distributing 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:17.040 corrosive liquids. Robinson's mundane suggestion was then backed up by 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:21.800 Robert Edwards, the president of a Jacksonville equipment supply company 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:27.240 who'd purchased many similar items. It was a short time 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:32.200 after this that artist James Darling Jones was alerted to 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:37.600 the steadily growing mystery. Darling Jones perhaps allowed himself a 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:41.360 wry smile when, on hearing the story, he remembered a 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:46.760 trip he'd taken through Jacksonville a few years previously. Back 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.640 in the spring of nineteen seventy one, Darling Jones was 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.560 driving through Fort George Island, not far from the Betts 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:58.120 family's home, with a van load of scrap materials he'd 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.240 acquired for a series of sculptures he'd planned to make. 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.360 It was only when he got home that he realized 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.280 some of the material had fallen off the roof rack 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:14.680 of his vw. The pieces in question several hollow steel balls, 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:21.440 measuring eight inches in diameter and weighing approximately twenty two pounds. 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.800 If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.120 you can now do so via Patreon. To receive access 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.400 to add three episodes, just go to patron dot com 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:42.800 forward slash Unexplained pod to sign up Unexplained. The book 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.360 and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before been 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.840 covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.520 You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:58.280 among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.840 are produced by me Richard M. Plain Smith. Please subscribe 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.479 and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:06.720 feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.240 ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.399 you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:16.400 You can reach us online but Unexplained podcast dot com 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:21.600 or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com, 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.119 Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast