Speaker 1: There's nothing better than feeling comfortable in your own shoes,
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Speaker 1: dot com. In the early hours of one autumnal morning
Speaker 1: of sixteen eighty eight in the quaint market town of Cambridge, England.
Speaker 1: All about is quiet save for a small corner tucked
Speaker 1: away beside the east gate of Trinity College, a grand
Speaker 1: sprawl of towers and cloisters home to some of the
Speaker 1: finest academic mines of the age. In the dark of
Speaker 1: a walled garden, a gentle orange light emanates from a
Speaker 1: small private laboratory. Inside, a man with long silver hair
Speaker 1: and patrician face sits deep in concentration, illuminated by the
Speaker 1: flickering light of candles and the roaring flames of a
Speaker 1: large brick furnace. Around him, glass vessels, distillers, and crucibles
Speaker 1: are perched precariously, and all about the sound of things
Speaker 1: bubbling and boiling, while the air thickens with strange scented fumes.
Speaker 1: The man, skittish and sleep deprived, having barely left the
Speaker 1: room in weeks, reaches for a large leather bound manuscript.
Speaker 1: Its cover bears the title in troitus apertus ad occlusum
Speaker 1: regis pallatium, or an open entrance to the shut palace
Speaker 1: of the King. The man turns a page and begins
Speaker 1: to read. This chaos is called arsenic, our air, our luna,
Speaker 1: but in diverse respect, because our matter undergoes various states
Speaker 1: before our regal diadem is extracted. So learn who the
Speaker 1: comrades of Cadamus are and who the serpent who ate them.
Speaker 1: Learn what the doves of Diana are, which conquer the
Speaker 1: green lion, the Babylonian dragon, killing all by his means.
Speaker 1: The word are a code, a spell of sorts, or
Speaker 1: to the initiated, a recipe for the hallowed philosophic mercury,
Speaker 1: the fundamental constituent of the mythical philosopher's stone that is
Speaker 1: said to turn base metals into gold and grant immortality.
Speaker 1: Our alchemist, no mere tourist on these shores, is all
Speaker 1: too aware that this chaos is but another term for
Speaker 1: the chemical element antimony. That Cadmus's comrades refers not only
Speaker 1: to the soldiers of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, who
Speaker 1: were eaten by a serpent, but also to the metallic
Speaker 1: element iron, And that serpent who ate them is the
Speaker 1: sulfide ore stibnite. The alchemist, this natural philosopher, adds the
Speaker 1: resulting antimony to a flask of mercury and watches as
Speaker 1: the liquid metals fuse while cinders crackle in spit from
Speaker 1: the fire, adding finally the last ingredient, two doves of Diana,
Speaker 1: the goddess of the Moon, also known as silver. Next
Speaker 1: will come distillation, after which he will attempt to extract
Speaker 1: the purest of philosophical mercury. It is said that by
Speaker 1: combining this most refined of elements with gold will reduce
Speaker 1: the precious metal to its constituent parts, thereby revealing the
Speaker 1: base from which all metals are made, and with it
Speaker 1: the key to turning any metal into gold. Such a
Speaker 1: rare act of change would have been fitting for the age.
Speaker 1: The past forty years in England had seen revolution take
Speaker 1: the head of the monarchy, King Charles First, and with
Speaker 1: it the insidious fallacy of the divine right of kings,
Speaker 1: only for it to be restored a decade later upon
Speaker 1: the shoulders of his son, Charles the Second. By the
Speaker 1: time of Charles's death in sixteen eighty five and the
Speaker 1: transference of the crown into the hands of James the Second,
Speaker 1: it seemed that the spirit of the revolution had all
Speaker 1: but been dissolved. But such rebellious seeds seldom wither so easily.
Speaker 1: Three years later, James's wife, Mary gives birth to a son,
Speaker 1: and with him the promise of a new Catholic dynasty.
Speaker 1: But elsewhere, men of Orange are conspiring. In November, led
Speaker 1: by their leader William, they will cross the vicious chill
Speaker 1: of the North Sea waves, landing at the port of Brixham.
Speaker 1: Within a year, King James the Second's reign will be
Speaker 1: at an end, replaced by the Protestant King William and Mary,
Speaker 1: James's Protestant daughter, their union, marking the final end for
Speaker 1: Catholicism as a substantial influence in English society. More than that, however,
Speaker 1: it marked the beginning of the end for the Church
Speaker 1: and the monarchy as significant political powers. To secure his
Speaker 1: assent to the throne, William was given support in return
Speaker 1: for his agreeing to the Bill of Rights, signed in
Speaker 1: sixteen eighty nine. The Bill declares an end to royal
Speaker 1: prerogative powers. No longer could an English monarch suspend laws,
Speaker 1: levy taxes, or raise an army without consent of Parliament.
Speaker 1: It was a turning from the light of the Lord
Speaker 1: to the light of the people. The age of reason
Speaker 1: had begun. Over the next three hundred years, the revolutionary
Speaker 1: spirit of enlightenment will come to dominate the world of ideas,
Speaker 1: an unparalleled time of extraordinary discovery, invention, and social upheaval,
Speaker 1: with one man's ideas, perhaps more than any other, providing
Speaker 1: the touch paper for this explosion of knowledge. Although he
Speaker 1: himself would say that if he had seen further than most,
Speaker 1: it was only because he had stood on the shoulders
Speaker 1: of giants. And so we returned to that man, our
Speaker 1: alchemical magus, toiling away in his candlelit laboratory, practicing magic.
Speaker 1: His name, of course, is Isaac Newton. Just a year previously,
Speaker 1: Newton's mathematical principles of natural philosophy had completely revolutionized science,
Speaker 1: gifting to the world his three laws of motion, to
Speaker 1: which he would later add modern calculus and the color
Speaker 1: spectrum of light, amongst many other discoveries. He was quite
Speaker 1: simply a genius, a shining beacon of rationality, and yet
Speaker 1: so too did he give genuine consideration to the impossible
Speaker 1: dream of the philosopher's stone. But what drove Newton in
Speaker 1: those magical endeavors was not so much a blind folly,
Speaker 1: but rather his belief in an omnipresent God, a hidden
Speaker 1: truth behind all things. He wasn't looking for gold, so
Speaker 1: to speak, but rather for the hidden world that he
Speaker 1: believed was located in the spaces between its constituent parts.
Speaker 1: Newton kept his occult studies secret during his lifetime for
Speaker 1: fear of being accused of heresy. After his death, his heir,
Speaker 1: John Conduit, was so horrified to find amongst his manuscripts,
Speaker 1: notes and letters over one million words pertaining to his
Speaker 1: studies of alchemy and biblical prophecy, he made it his
Speaker 1: legacy to suppress them. It wouldn't be until the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: after economist John Maynard Keynes bought a set of Newton's
Speaker 1: previously unpublished notes, that the true extent of his fascination
Speaker 1: with alchemy became public knowledge. Keynes as extraordinary fine prompted
Speaker 1: him to remark that perhaps Newton wasn't, in fact the
Speaker 1: first of the Age of Reason, but rather the last
Speaker 1: of the magicians, the Babylonians and the Summarians, the last
Speaker 1: great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual
Speaker 1: world with the same eyes as those who began to
Speaker 1: build intellectual inheritance. Rather less than ten thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: had Newton lived in more recent times. We can only
Speaker 1: wonder what evidence of the divine he might have discerned
Speaker 1: deep within the realm of quantum mechanics or woven into
Speaker 1: the fabric of space time. Either way, it is highly
Speaker 1: likely he would have been at the forefront of such
Speaker 1: groundbreaking investigations. As for whether he would have retained an
Speaker 1: interest in the occult sciences is anyone's guess. One thing's
Speaker 1: for sure, though, he wouldn't have been alone if he did.
Speaker 1: For it turns out that Isaac Newton was not the
Speaker 1: last of the magicians at all, not by a long shot.
Speaker 1: This is unexplained, and I'm Richard McClean smith. Though many
Speaker 1: heads turned that summer morning in nineteen twenty six when
Speaker 1: the limousine pulled up to the front lawn of Pasadena's
Speaker 1: George Washington Junior High While some kids ignored the peculiar sight,
Speaker 1: others huddled together, growing even more intrigued when a twelve
Speaker 1: year old child stepped out of the vehicle with dark,
Speaker 1: slicked back hair. The baby faced boy seemed strangely grown
Speaker 1: up in his gray blazer and sparkling brown leather shoes.
Speaker 1: A single stars and stripes flag placed at the back
Speaker 1: of the wide lawn flapped high above as the boy
Speaker 1: watched his grandfather's car drive away. Turning back to the school,
Speaker 1: which loomed up a good three flights of steps in
Speaker 1: the distance, Jack sensed it would be a long walk
Speaker 1: to the front entrance as more children stopped to gorp.
Speaker 1: Taking a deep breath, he hoisted his satchel onto his back,
Speaker 1: and with his three copies of Amazing Stories magazine sticking
Speaker 1: prominent at the top, he made his way up to
Speaker 1: the school. Hugo Gernsback's recently launched magazine featuring tales from
Speaker 1: Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, was a favorite of Jack's,
Speaker 1: a place to get lost and stir his dreams, but
Speaker 1: as he made his way to class that morning, they
Speaker 1: seemed just another reason for the other kids to make
Speaker 1: fun of him and his bazaar affected English accent. Months later,
Speaker 1: fourteen year old Ed Foreman, newly appointed recess monitor, was
Speaker 1: about getting ready to summon the kids back in for
Speaker 1: class when a scuffle broke out at the back of
Speaker 1: the playground. Amidst the chaos and cries of sissy, Ed
Speaker 1: could just about make out someone being kicked on the
Speaker 1: floor by another much bigger pupil. Ever, the egalitarian Ed
Speaker 1: rushed into the malay, punching the assailant away. Jack looked
Speaker 1: up from the ground to find a hand being thrust
Speaker 1: out towards him, picking him up from the dirt. From
Speaker 1: then on, the pair were inseparable, almost preternaturally drawn together.
Speaker 1: Evenings and weekends would be spent at each other's homes, or,
Speaker 1: more precisely, at Jack's grandparents' vast mansion on Orange Grove Avenue.
Speaker 1: Though both boys lived in Pasadena, they occupied very different worlds,
Speaker 1: as Ed would soon come to realize. Jack was born
Speaker 1: Marveled Parsons in October nineteen fourteen, named after his father,
Speaker 1: who had met Jack's mother, Ruth, in Chicago a few
Speaker 1: years previously. The couple had decided to move to Pasadena, California,
Speaker 1: located just ten miles northeast of Los Angeles, after the
Speaker 1: devastation of losing their first child, who had been still born.
Speaker 1: The city had become somewhat of a retreat for East
Speaker 1: Coast bospice liberals and industrialists seeking a haven in the
Speaker 1: sun away from the complications of the big cities. For Ruth, however,
Speaker 1: it was not quite the tree lined Paradise. It had
Speaker 1: first appeared. Within weeks of Jack's birth, she made the
Speaker 1: crushing discovery that her husband had been paying other women
Speaker 1: for sex. Ruth wasted little time throwing him out, and
Speaker 1: by the following year they were divorced. If Jack could
Speaker 1: remember seeing his father the day he left, it would
Speaker 1: be the last time he would do so for over
Speaker 1: twenty years. In a final effort to expunge all memory
Speaker 1: of her ex husband, Ruth removed all mention of the
Speaker 1: name Marvel on her son's official records. He would henceforth
Speaker 1: be known as Jack. The vast Italian style villa that
Speaker 1: Jack and Ed were sitting in now as they flicked
Speaker 1: through Jack's extensive magazine collection had been bought by Ruth's father, Walter, who,
Speaker 1: along with her mother Carrie, had traveled out to California
Speaker 1: to support their daughter. The boys had been quick to
Speaker 1: bond after that first meeting, with Ed drawn to Jack's
Speaker 1: encyclopedic knowledge and worldly air listening wrapped as he recited
Speaker 1: poetry from heart. Jack was in turn enamored of the
Speaker 1: streetwise and confident Ed, and loved nothing more than to
Speaker 1: share his favorite stories with him. But what they loved
Speaker 1: more than anything was rockets. It was Jack's dream to
Speaker 1: fly a rocket to the moon, but for now, at least,
Speaker 1: they would have to settle for letting off explosives in
Speaker 1: the villa's gardens. Being the adventurous inquisitive minds that they were, however,
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before they were adapting the standard firecrackers
Speaker 1: into something with a bit more bang. With the help
Speaker 1: of Jack's family's money and Ed's father's electrical engineering tools,
Speaker 1: the pair soon started constructing rockets from balsawood, taking the
Speaker 1: explosives from multiple fireworks and packing it into their own
Speaker 1: novel creations. As the rockets increased in size, the pair
Speaker 1: were forced to relocate the testing site to the arid
Speaker 1: slopes of the nearby of Royo Seco, a seasonal river
Speaker 1: canyon and thicketed wilderness of dust and sagebrush that ran
Speaker 1: alongside Pasadena's western edge. Walking to find a good launching spot,
Speaker 1: one morning, Ed tells Jack about the time he had
Speaker 1: first moved to Pasadena with his family. Too poor to
Speaker 1: rent a hotel while they searched for a house, they
Speaker 1: had been forced to camp in the canyon until his
Speaker 1: father had found a job. As the friends picked their
Speaker 1: way through the scrub, they catch sight at the Devil's
Speaker 1: Gate Dam in the distance. As they draw closer, a
Speaker 1: peculiar formation in the cliffside becomes visible. It looked like
Speaker 1: a horned face. It's the devil, says Ed. That's where
Speaker 1: the dam gets its name. That's not the devil, replies Jack.
Speaker 1: Ed looks to his friend, confused. How do you know,
Speaker 1: he asks, because I've seen him one evening alone in
Speaker 1: his bedroom a few months ago. As Jack went on
Speaker 1: to explain, he was trying out a magic ritual that
Speaker 1: he'd found in the back of one of his books.
Speaker 1: When something unspeakable had materialized. The instant had sent him
Speaker 1: sprawling to the back of the room, shivering with terror,
Speaker 1: until the monstrous figure had departed. Ed can only look
Speaker 1: on speechless as his friend walks on ahead. Are you
Speaker 1: always taking care of your family? Do you often take
Speaker 1: care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to
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Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com
Speaker 1: slash Unexplained podcast. As Jack and Ed's rockets grew larger,
Speaker 1: so did the explosive force require to propel them ever
Speaker 1: higher into the sky. But Jack's obsession was beginning to
Speaker 1: concern his mother, Worried that her estrangement from his father
Speaker 1: had left him lacking discipline, and eager that he should
Speaker 1: become more sociable like other teenagers his age, she enrolled
Speaker 1: him in a military school a hundred and thirty miles away. Jack,
Speaker 1: who was becoming an increasingly adept chemist by the day,
Speaker 1: reacted by blowing up the toilets and getting himself expelled.
Speaker 1: He was promptly returned to Pasadena and reunited with Ed.
Speaker 1: At some point, flicking through one de Story's magazine, the
Speaker 1: pair discover an advert for the American Interplanetary Society, a
Speaker 1: small collection of rocket enthusiasts who in nineteen thirty represented
Speaker 1: the vanguard of U S rocket science. Both joined immediately
Speaker 1: and was soon receiving regular bulletins from the organization about
Speaker 1: all the latest tests and progress being made around the world.
Speaker 1: The pair were also introduced to the Verine fur Raumschiffart,
Speaker 1: the German equivalent of the A I s now insatiable
Speaker 1: for all and any knowledge to better improve their devices.
Speaker 1: Jack found the contact details for a member of the
Speaker 1: v f R, his name Verne of von Braun. Over
Speaker 1: the next year, a fifteen year old Parsons and the
Speaker 1: seventeen year olds Ed Foreman and Verne of von Braun
Speaker 1: frequently spoke on the phone, trading what they knew, until
Speaker 1: it became apparent to Jack and Ed that von Braun
Speaker 1: was merely pumping them for information. In early nineteen twenty nine,
Speaker 1: Jack's grandfather, Walter, decided to move the family to an
Speaker 1: even more grand mansion on the western side of the
Speaker 1: Arroyo Secco, not far from the majestic Colorado Bridge that
Speaker 1: spanned the canyon and divided those on the hill from
Speaker 1: those down in the city. But everything was about to change.
Speaker 1: In October, a financial crash the likes of which the
Speaker 1: world had never seen, wiped forty billion dollars of the
Speaker 1: value of shares in five days. Like many of his ilk,
Speaker 1: much of Walter's wealth, largely inherited from a manufacturing dynasty
Speaker 1: stretching back centuries, was eviscerated for those that held a
Speaker 1: person's bank balance as the true sigil of their being.
Speaker 1: The psychical fallout was catastrophic. If Jack had been innocent
Speaker 1: at all about the cosseted paradise he had grown up
Speaker 1: in a different world had revealed itself for the first
Speaker 1: time as one after another men marched themselves to the
Speaker 1: grand Colorado Bridge and leaped into oblivion, often leaving their
Speaker 1: wives behind to pick up the pieces. Though Walter did
Speaker 1: nothing quite so drastic, his health, along with his family's fortunes,
Speaker 1: never recovered, and in nineteen thirty one they took him
Speaker 1: with them. The loss for Jack, who had treated Walter
Speaker 1: like a father was devastating, but a valuable lesson in
Speaker 1: those things and the cosmos over which you have no
Speaker 1: control had been learnt. Unnerved by the sudden change in
Speaker 1: the family's finances, Jack sought out employment, landing a job
Speaker 1: at Hercules Powder, a chemical and munitions company based out
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. It was here that Parsons learnt about
Speaker 1: the history of explosives, how to mix for both high
Speaker 1: and low end, and which chemical combinations produced which kind
Speaker 1: of burn. Jack worked all the hours he could find
Speaker 1: in between college, and each week end he and Ed
Speaker 1: would put his newfound knowledge to the test. Out was
Speaker 1: balsewood and in was tough and metal casings fashioned by Ed.
Speaker 1: But something was lacking. Though their rockets were improving, their
Speaker 1: progress was slowing down. When Jack graduates from college in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three, he emerges significantly changed from that intense,
Speaker 1: lonely child that Ed had picked up from the dirt
Speaker 1: all those years ago. When he sees his friend, now
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, standing over six feet tall, the magnetic
Speaker 1: intensity is still there, but no longer as it turned
Speaker 1: inward but radiating out. Perhaps Jack was starting to notice
Speaker 1: it too, the way others seemed no longer to be
Speaker 1: inching away from him as he walked past, but drawing
Speaker 1: a step closer. That winter, Jack and Ed attend a
Speaker 1: Christmas dance together held at the Pasadena First Baptist Church.
Speaker 1: Ed can see the way the young women are looking
Speaker 1: at his friend, but Jack only has eyes for one
Speaker 1: of them. She is tall, with brown hair, and, unlike
Speaker 1: the others, appears to want nothing to do with him.
Speaker 1: At twenty two, Helen Northrup was four years older than
Speaker 1: Jack when they began dating tentatively at first. Like Jack,
Speaker 1: she too had lost her father at an early age,
Speaker 1: but unlike him, her mother, Olga wasn't quite so free
Speaker 1: to bring up her children alone. Not long after her
Speaker 1: father had died, Helen's mother, Olga had met and married
Speaker 1: Burton Northrop, a traveling salesman. It isn't known when he
Speaker 1: started turning his attentions to the nine year old Helen,
Speaker 1: but she suffered his abuse throughout her childhood and teenage years.
Speaker 1: Olga and Burton would later have two daughters of their own,
Speaker 1: and he abused them too. Burton had forbidden Helen from
Speaker 1: meeting with boys, but was oddly enthusiastic about Jack and
Speaker 1: perhaps hoping to take advantage of his no longer existent wealth,
Speaker 1: encouraged her to stick with him. Helen was only too
Speaker 1: pleased to escape the monster once. Helen told Jack a
Speaker 1: peculiar story. One night when she was twelve, back when
Speaker 1: her family were living in Chicago, she had been unable
Speaker 1: to sleep. Hearing voices coming from the kitchen, she crept
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the stairs and peered into the
Speaker 1: room to find her mother and some friends sat at
Speaker 1: the table table in front of a strange board and
Speaker 1: in the middle of it an upturned glass. Her mother
Speaker 1: and friends placed their fingers on the glass and asked
Speaker 1: where Olgush had moved the family. Helen watched and wrapped
Speaker 1: as the glass had moved around the board, spelling out
Speaker 1: the word Pasadena. To Parsons, it was a clear sign
Speaker 1: something was guiding them to each other for a purpose.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty four, Jack, his grandmother Carry and his
Speaker 1: mother Ruth were forced to finally sell up the old
Speaker 1: mansion in return for more modest dwellings closer toward the
Speaker 1: center of Pasadena. Although Jack had always struggled with the
Speaker 1: discipline of academic rigor, suffering from what we would now
Speaker 1: call dyslexia. He knew any chance he had of realizing
Speaker 1: his dream to build a rocket to the moon would
Speaker 1: require formal qualification. He duly enrolled in Pasadena at Junior
Speaker 1: College to study chemistry, and would later be accepted into Stamford,
Speaker 1: but was forced ultimately to turn them down, unable to
Speaker 1: afford the fees. Shortly after meeting Helen, Jack takes a
Speaker 1: promotion at Hercules Powder and has moved to their main plant,
Speaker 1: eight hours north of Pasadena. By day, Jack toils sixteen
Speaker 1: hours at a time, immersed in the dangerous alchemy of
Speaker 1: explosives manufacture, surrounded by billowing acrid clouds of fuming nitric
Speaker 1: acid and furnace flames that reddened the sky. It seems
Speaker 1: to Parsons as if he had descended into a strangely
Speaker 1: alluring rendition of Hell. By night, he attempts to communicate
Speaker 1: telepathecally with Helen, reaching out to touch her hand from
Speaker 1: a seemingly impossible distance. One time, he believes he managed it.
Speaker 1: Helen had felt it too. Back in the desert, Jack
Speaker 1: and Ed were coming to the realization that if they
Speaker 1: were to take their inventions to the next level, they
Speaker 1: would need a more formal structure and maybe some help.
Speaker 1: In March nineteen thirty five, a twenty year old Parsons
Speaker 1: and twenty two year old ed came across an article
Speaker 1: in the La Times regarding a presentation given by grad
Speaker 1: student William Boley on the future of rocket science that
Speaker 1: had taken place at cal Tech a few days previously.
Speaker 1: It was the first time they had ever read mention
Speaker 1: of rocketry outside their science fiction magazines, and it had
Speaker 1: occurred only a few miles from their homes. Within an hour,
Speaker 1: the pair was striding through the entrance hall of cal Tech,
Speaker 1: startling William Boley in his study, confused not only who
Speaker 1: the overexcited pair were, but how on earth they had
Speaker 1: made it as far as his study, Boley was just
Speaker 1: about to dismiss them when they began to speak. Taken
Speaker 1: aback by their beguilingly extensive knowledge and enthusiasm, he pointed
Speaker 1: them towards fellow student Frank Malina further down the hall. Malina,
Speaker 1: who had also attended Bolet's talk and come away deeply inspired,
Speaker 1: recognized his passion in Parsons and Foremen. That afternoon, as
Speaker 1: the men exchanged their ideas and theories, Something was beginning
Speaker 1: to dawn on Jack, something that had occurred to him
Speaker 1: during those early conversations with the young scientist von Braun.
Speaker 1: In the early twentieth century, a number of mind bending ideas,
Speaker 1: from Einstein's theories of relativity to the revelations of hidden
Speaker 1: quantum worlds, had completely upended all previous understandings of outer
Speaker 1: and inner space. Concepts of reality were shifting. Rumors had
Speaker 1: begun circulating too, that space was expanding. Such discoveries had
Speaker 1: filled the pages of Jack and Ed's magazines and with
Speaker 1: it their imaginations. But in the real world, rocketry and
Speaker 1: space exploration was a joke, the concept of space travel
Speaker 1: treated as an impossible dream for naive school children. That afternoon,
Speaker 1: talking to Frank Malina, perhaps the brightest student the Caltech
Speaker 1: had to offer, Jack realized why he and Ed had
Speaker 1: kept coming up against dead ends in their efforts to
Speaker 1: improve their technology. They were the vanguard. Those weren't dead ends.
Speaker 1: They were the hard cliff face at the edge of
Speaker 1: human knowledge, and Melina knew it too. Melina's tutor was
Speaker 1: the famed mathematician Theodore von Carmen. After being introduced to
Speaker 1: his student's two compatriots, Recognizing their brilliance and somewhat enamored
Speaker 1: of their independent, rebellious spirit, he immediately granted his permission
Speaker 1: to use the institute's state of the art facilities. The
Speaker 1: young team named themselves the GALCIT Rocket researched the acronym
Speaker 1: standing for the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute
Speaker 1: of Technology. The following month, Jack and Helen were married
Speaker 1: and moved into a modest home together in Terrace Drive.
Speaker 1: Around that time, Jack struck up a friendship with the
Speaker 1: used car dealer called Robert Rapinsky whilst looking for a
Speaker 1: car one afternoon. Having grown up suspicious of other people, Parsons,
Speaker 1: the adult, emboldened by his recent acceptance into the academic
Speaker 1: fold of Caltech, was finding himself to be far more
Speaker 1: open and receptive to others, who, in turn, he noticed,
Speaker 1: appeared to greatly enjoy his company back at Caltech. In
Speaker 1: order to sell their venture to his supervisors, Molina had
Speaker 1: to frame their experiments within the context of a workable goal.
Speaker 1: Parsons's initial suggestion to literally shoot for the moon was
Speaker 1: dropped for the more sober endeavor of constructing a rocket
Speaker 1: capable of delivering meteorological equipment twenty five miles high into
Speaker 1: the ionosphere, though Parsons would have to learn to adopt
Speaker 1: a more measured and studious approach to his work, the
Speaker 1: team was soon back out on the Arroyo Seco, just
Speaker 1: as Ed and Jack had been as young boys, doing
Speaker 1: what they loved best, playing with fire. With Melina's mathematical skills,
Speaker 1: Foreman's growing ability as an engineer, and Jack's mastery of chemistry,
Speaker 1: the team's knowledge was increasing at an exponential rate, and
Speaker 1: by October nineteen thirty six, they were ready to test
Speaker 1: their first engine. They had also caught the attention of
Speaker 1: two other Caltech students, Apollo Smith and Rudolph Scott, who
Speaker 1: would assist them with their first test run. Early in
Speaker 1: the morning of Halloween nineteen thirty six, the three students
Speaker 1: of the two amateur enthusiasts made their way to was
Speaker 1: a large patch of dry river bed at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the Arroyo Seco. The team pieced together their apparatus
Speaker 1: in preparation and took a moment to pose for a
Speaker 1: photo marking the occasion before turning their attention back to
Speaker 1: the engine. After Jack lit the fuse, the young men
Speaker 1: dived behind sandbags and waited nervously for full ignition, but
Speaker 1: as gas and liquid rushed into the supply tubes, the
Speaker 1: pressure blew out the engine's fuse. After resetting the equipment,
Speaker 1: they tried again, only for the engine to get completely
Speaker 1: flooded when the fuse blew out again. When they tried
Speaker 1: a third time, the fuse was blasted into the sky,
Speaker 1: igniting the equipment. On its way back down, one of
Speaker 1: the tubes carrying oxygen broke free and spewed flames into
Speaker 1: the air. The men made a haste to retreat, returning
Speaker 1: minutes later once the fire had died down. The team
Speaker 1: made three more tests over the next three months, perfecting
Speaker 1: their motor at each step, until in January nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: the engine roars into life, alive with a blast that
Speaker 1: burns for forty five seconds. As their technology improved, the team,
Speaker 1: having cemented their position at the forefront of US rocket development,
Speaker 1: soon began attracting the national press. In early nineteen thirty eight,
Speaker 1: a twenty three year old Jack is called by the
Speaker 1: county prosecutor to act as an expert witness on a
Speaker 1: criminal case involving a car bombing an attempted murder of
Speaker 1: a private detective who had been investigating corruption in the LAPD.
Speaker 1: The culprit turned out to be head of Police Intelligence LAPD,
Speaker 1: Captain Earl Kinnet. It was thanks to Parson's expert knowledge
Speaker 1: regarding the manufacture of the bomb that Kinnet and two
Speaker 1: accomplices were found guilty of their crimes. But back at Galcit,
Speaker 1: things of not been progressing so well. Despite formal recognition
Speaker 1: from Caltech and increasing interest from the national press, the
Speaker 1: rocket team, who had so far survived largely on a
Speaker 1: surprise one thousand dollar donation, were running out of money.
Speaker 1: Despite efforts from Von Carmen to raise the interest of
Speaker 1: the American military, the establishment remained skeptical of the nascent
Speaker 1: technology's military applications. Jack watches with dismay as one by
Speaker 1: one the team are forced to abandon the project for
Speaker 1: full time employment Elsewhere. At home, Jack and Helen's relationship,
Speaker 1: which had become increasingly strained as Jack poured every last
Speaker 1: penny of their finances into his obsession, was now struggling
Speaker 1: under Jack's increasing despondency over his future. Eventually, he too
Speaker 1: was forced to go back to working long and crippling
Speaker 1: hours amidst the fire and fumes of the Hercules powder factory.
Speaker 1: But something else was changing too. Throughout the thirties, Jack
Speaker 1: and ed had kept tabs on the development of the
Speaker 1: VPF group in Germany, but around nineteen thirty six they vanished.
Speaker 1: The Gaust Team were well aware of events in Germany
Speaker 1: and had watched with alarm as Adolf Hitler's fascist National
Speaker 1: Socialist German Workers Party had seized power. It was common
Speaker 1: knowledge that the government there were arming heavily. Von Braun
Speaker 1: and his compatriots had been drafted in to help all
Speaker 1: across the globe. With tectonic changes in science seeming to
Speaker 1: occur on a daily basis, new ideas were spreading into
Speaker 1: the social sphere too. The Wall Street Crash, which had
Speaker 1: ushered in a period of unparalleled poverty and depression in America,
Speaker 1: prompted many to question its economic system. Talk of communism
Speaker 1: was a regular topic at one of the many evening
Speaker 1: gatherings the Rocket Team would share. So too, did they
Speaker 1: watch with increasing concern as the leading govern of the
Speaker 1: apparent free world grew increasingly paranoid of its own subjects freedoms,
Speaker 1: clamping down on radical ideas and social transgressions with a
Speaker 1: religious seal for the anti authoritarian Parsons, after the initial
Speaker 1: burst of excitement at establishing the Galcit team and the
Speaker 1: hyper sugar rush of cutting edge innovation by the summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty eight, he looked up to find himself
Speaker 1: in a world on the brink of war and a
Speaker 1: nation dominated by paranoia and an increasingly reactionary social conscience.
Speaker 1: It felt to him as if the world was caught
Speaker 1: in a battle of cosmic proportions. Sometime later, Parsons calls
Speaker 1: in on his friend Robert Rapinsky. While browsing through his bookshelf,
Speaker 1: he by one book in particular that seems not to
Speaker 1: have a name on the spine. Feeling compelled to pull
Speaker 1: it from the shelf, he turns it over to reveal
Speaker 1: a strange and beguiling front cover, a hypnotic monochrome pattern
Speaker 1: printed in gold, which, after studying it for a moment,
Speaker 1: Parsons realizes is the title of the book. The font
Speaker 1: elaborately stretched out to resemble a maze, it spells conks
Speaker 1: En packs Greek for Essays in Light. Rapinsky had all
Speaker 1: but forgotten he had bought it, and is only too
Speaker 1: happy to let his friend take it home. Inside, the
Speaker 1: author promises an introduction to a litany of sacred texts
Speaker 1: and magical practices. Jack had never heard of the author before.
Speaker 1: His name was Alister Crowley. When Jack leaves his friend's
Speaker 1: home that afternoon, carrying those magical words under his arm,
Speaker 1: his life and the world will never be the same again.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to
Speaker 1: show your appreciation, you can now help support us by
Speaker 1: going to Unexplained podcast dot com forward slash support. All donations,
Speaker 1: no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All
Speaker 1: elements of Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, But feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
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