Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. Last week's episode, Wilderness Be
Speaker 1: Still told the tragic story of the Jamison family, whose
Speaker 1: mysterious deaths in two thousand and nine remain unsolved. Despite
Speaker 1: all sorts of salacious rumormongering about the family and what
Speaker 1: they may or may not have been involved in. No
Speaker 1: official explanation has been given to explain the incident, and
Speaker 1: no arrests have been made in connection with it. Ordinarily,
Speaker 1: with these extra episodes we explore something relevant to the
Speaker 1: previous week's story. However, this week's is a little different.
Speaker 1: The following story was something I came across while conducting
Speaker 1: research for the episode, as it took place in a
Speaker 1: region close to where the Jamison family went missing, So
Speaker 1: apologies for the rather tenuous link. The place in question
Speaker 1: is Robber's Cave State Park, a large wooded area of
Speaker 1: Oklahoma's Sands Boys Mountains five miles north of the town
Speaker 1: of Wilburton. The area became infamous during the American Civil
Speaker 1: War as a place of refuge for fugitives such as
Speaker 1: Jesse James, who used its dense forest and treacherous terrain
Speaker 1: to evade capture by the law. However, more recently, its
Speaker 1: name became synonymous with one of the most audacious and
Speaker 1: controversial social psychology experiments ever carried out in the name
Speaker 1: of science, known as the nineteen fifty four Robbers Cave Experiment.
Speaker 1: It remains a highly valued textbook example of realistic conflict theory,
Speaker 1: and one that it's fair to say would never be
Speaker 1: allowed to happen today. It was a bright summer morning
Speaker 1: in June nineteen fifty four when the bus arrived in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City to pick up the first group of boys.
Speaker 1: Once on board and heading toward their destination, friendships were
Speaker 1: soon being formed as the boys wasted little time in
Speaker 1: getting to know each other, discussing hobbies into what schools
Speaker 1: they went to. Before long, the boys had arrived at
Speaker 1: the Tom Hale Scout Camp in Robber's Cave Park, a
Speaker 1: two hundred acre site in which they would be spending
Speaker 1: the next month together at summer camp. That the boys,
Speaker 1: all eleven years old and from similar socio economic backgrounds,
Speaker 1: might get on so well was not unexpected, since, unbeknownst
Speaker 1: to them and their parents, they had all been specifically
Speaker 1: chosen to do so, because this was no ordinary summer camp,
Speaker 1: but a radical clandestinis berriment devised by soon to be
Speaker 1: famed psychologist Muscifer Sherrif. Cherif, who was born in Turkey
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh five, had grown up right in the
Speaker 1: thick of perhaps the most turbulent thirty year period in
Speaker 1: modern European history, beginning first with the collapse of the
Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire, followed by World War and the resulting fight
Speaker 1: for the Turkish independence, all of which pitied individuals against
Speaker 1: each other along strict nationalistic and societal lines. After moving
Speaker 1: to the US in the late nineteen twenties to study psychology, Chief,
Speaker 1: who had been profoundly scarred by the events of his
Speaker 1: formative years, became interested in theories of conflict. More specifically,
Speaker 1: who wanted to understand if systems of society that encouraged
Speaker 1: conflict truly reflected human nature, an idea often touted by
Speaker 1: supporters of those societies that are based on visualistic tendencies
Speaker 1: and the protection of private property, or if it was
Speaker 1: in fact the system that influenced behavior by extension. If
Speaker 1: the reason why different groups form in competition with each
Speaker 1: other could be shown to be merely arbitrary and not
Speaker 1: based on any inherent reason, could there be a way
Speaker 1: to eradicate the desire for conflict. The robbers Cave experiment
Speaker 1: was an attempt to find out. On arrival at the camp,
Speaker 1: the boys were greeted by the camp counselors and invited
Speaker 1: to choose their bunks For the rest of the day,
Speaker 1: The boys were left to their own devices to get
Speaker 1: to know each other as the staff, who were in
Speaker 1: fact Sherrif's research team masquerading as counselors, carefully observed their behavior.
Speaker 1: Over the next few days, the boys participated in a
Speaker 1: number of act ativities together, from swimming to dam building
Speaker 1: and playing baseball, most of which had been carefully orchestrated
Speaker 1: to forge a sense of unity and team spirit amongst them.
Speaker 1: By the end of the week, although a natural hierarchy
Speaker 1: had been established, the boys were clearly identifying as a
Speaker 1: single group, coalescing around their shared experience of camp. One morning,
Speaker 1: having been told that camp t shirts were available to purchase,
Speaker 1: one of the boys suggested that they each emblazoned them
Speaker 1: with the name Tom Hale Rattlers, with all agreeing to
Speaker 1: do so. From that point on they became known as
Speaker 1: the Rattlers. It was one evening after dinner that the
Speaker 1: boys became aware of unfamiliar voices coming from the direction
Speaker 1: of the baseball diamond. Moving in to take a closer look,
Speaker 1: the Rattlers discovered, to their horror that another group of
Speaker 1: boys were playing on it. Incensed by this or dayous
Speaker 1: intrusion on their territory, the Rattlers started to wonder if
Speaker 1: they had also been swimming in their lake, with one
Speaker 1: boy even driven to tears at the thought of it.
Speaker 1: The next day, the boys were informed by staff that
Speaker 1: there was indeed another group of campers staying at the
Speaker 1: exact same camp as them, and that they had asked
Speaker 1: if they could take the Rattlers on in a game
Speaker 1: of baseball. As it happened, this other group of eleven
Speaker 1: year old boys from the exact same socioeconomic background as
Speaker 1: the Rattlers had also been carefully managed over the last
Speaker 1: week by another of Sherrif's research teams. Due to strategic planning,
Speaker 1: the two groups had been carefully kept unaware of each
Speaker 1: other the whole time. Interestingly, the revelation of each other's
Speaker 1: existence resulted in an increased show of unity amongst the
Speaker 1: respective groups and had urged to improve together. One of
Speaker 1: the rattlers, who was yet to swim, was praised when
Speaker 1: he swam for the first time, and other less able
Speaker 1: swimmers were roundly encouraged by the rest of the group. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: in the other camp, though two of the boys had
Speaker 1: gone home due to homesickness, the remaining nine had steadily
Speaker 1: forged a strong unit in their own right. Having heard
Speaker 1: that the other boys had given themselves a name, this
Speaker 1: second group decided to call themselves the Eagles. A few
Speaker 1: days later, a tournament was announced. There were to be
Speaker 1: a series of games played out over the next few days,
Speaker 1: after which one team would be crowned to the winners
Speaker 1: and receive a set of medals and pen knives as
Speaker 1: a reward. Stage one of Sheriff's experiment was complete. Are
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Speaker 1: l a d oc dot com slash Unexplained podcast. The
Speaker 1: first game of the tournament was to be a baseball match.
Speaker 1: The Rattlers, who considered the baseball diamond exclusively theirs, were
Speaker 1: the first to arrive, stringing up a large rattle of
Speaker 1: flag behind the backstop to mark their territory. Moments later,
Speaker 1: the ominous notes of the Dragnet theme tune sung by
Speaker 1: nine eleven year old boys could be heard from a distance,
Speaker 1: getting nearer, until finally the Eagles appeared, marching purposely toward
Speaker 1: the pitch and waving a large Eagles flag above their heads.
Speaker 1: Even before the first ball had been pitched, insults were
Speaker 1: hurled between the two groups as they attempted to outcuss
Speaker 1: and intimidate each other. This aggressive name calling set the
Speaker 1: scene for the tournament and only became more intense as
Speaker 1: things progressed. Having lost one particularly heated game of tug
Speaker 1: of war, some of the Eagles tore down the Rattlers
Speaker 1: flag on the baseball pitch and set it on fire.
Speaker 1: The following morning, the staff made sure that the Rattlers
Speaker 1: would be the first to arrive at the diamond to
Speaker 1: take stock of the damage that had been done. When
Speaker 1: the Eagles arrived soon after to face the wrath of
Speaker 1: the Rattlers, it wasn't long before physical fights broke out
Speaker 1: between the boys, only being stopped once staff members stepped
Speaker 1: in to break it up. Later that night, with the
Speaker 1: Eagles all asleep in their cabin, eleven boys, with their
Speaker 1: arms and faces painted black, moved silently from out at
Speaker 1: the forest as their leader yelled to charge. The boys
Speaker 1: tore into the Eagles cabin and ran a muck overturning
Speaker 1: beds and stealing whatever they could get their hands on
Speaker 1: before being eventually chased out. The Eagles repaid the compliment
Speaker 1: the next day while the Rattlers were out eating breakfast.
Speaker 1: By the final day of the tournament, the Rattlers had
Speaker 1: taken to singing the enemies coming as soon as they
Speaker 1: saw the eagles, and had covered every inch of the
Speaker 1: camp with their flags. When the Eagles were eventually crowned
Speaker 1: winners of the tournament, the Rattlers left it less than
Speaker 1: twelve hours before mounting a raid on their winners medals.
Speaker 1: With the two groups now in what Sharif described as
Speaker 1: an unmistakable state of friction with one another, it was
Speaker 1: time to move on to Stage three. The changes were
Speaker 1: subtle at first. Both the layout of the bunks and
Speaker 1: the benches in the eating areas had been altered to
Speaker 1: try and disrupt the boy's normal friendship groups. Soon, the
Speaker 1: Rattlers and the Eagles found themselves taking part in exercises together. However,
Speaker 1: despite being forced to share space and time together, each
Speaker 1: tribe member stuck resolutely to their own and refused to mingle. Then,
Speaker 1: one afternoon, the Eagles and the rattlers were given the
Speaker 1: alarming news that the camp's water supply had been cut off.
Speaker 1: Told that it may well be vandals, the boys were
Speaker 1: encouraged to fill up their canteens with whatever was left
Speaker 1: in the taps, and asked if they wanted to help
Speaker 1: with fixing the problem. Boys from each group immediately agreed
Speaker 1: to do so and duly set off to find out
Speaker 1: what had gone wrong. Though at first the boys remained
Speaker 1: in their teams as they tried to figure out the problem,
Speaker 1: by early evening there was only one possibility left, and
Speaker 1: before long they found themselves congregated around the main water tank,
Speaker 1: with dehydrations setting in and their canteens running low on water.
Speaker 1: One of the rattlers spotted a ladder by the side
Speaker 1: of the tank, and, with the help of some other boys,
Speaker 1: used it to take a look inside. Relieved to find
Speaker 1: that it was three quarters full, he invited the rest
Speaker 1: of them, regardless of their group, to come and fill
Speaker 1: up their water bottles. When someone else spotted that a
Speaker 1: sack had been placed inside to block the main outlet,
Speaker 1: the boys worked together to free it. When the water
Speaker 1: was finally flowing again, the boys rejoiced and congratulated one
Speaker 1: another on a successful job, having been faced by this
Speaker 1: global issue that rendered their petty differences irrelevant. The friction
Speaker 1: between the eagles and the rattlers started slowly to disappear
Speaker 1: as a number of other shared activities were laid on.
Speaker 1: Almost all antagonism and sense of tribal superiority had vanished completely.
Speaker 1: On the eve of the final day together, some of
Speaker 1: the boys asked if it might be possible for all
Speaker 1: of them to travel home on the same bus. When
Speaker 1: the staff agreed to it, the rattlers and eagles cheered
Speaker 1: in unison. When the bus finally pulled away the following morning,
Speaker 1: with rattlers and eagles all sitting next to each other
Speaker 1: in harmony, many looked back and cried sad that their
Speaker 1: time at summer camp had finally come to an end.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to
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Speaker 1: are produced by me, Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and
Speaker 1: rate the show on iTunes and feel free to get
Speaker 1: in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories
Speaker 1: you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share. You can reach
Speaker 1: us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at
Speaker 1: Unexplained odd and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained Now. It's time to take care of yourself. To
Speaker 1: make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to a
Speaker 1: licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best.
Speaker 1: Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime
Speaker 1: between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days
Speaker 1: a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers.
Speaker 1: Download the app or visit telldoc dot com, Forward slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained Podcast Today to get started, That's t e l
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