Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Communication is key. It's the
Speaker 1: cornerstone of all successful relationships. Effective communication can bring people
Speaker 1: closer together, help them understand each other better, and even
Speaker 1: stop certain problems before they start. In a case of
Speaker 1: hiro Da, communication could have saved him and the Japanese
Speaker 1: military a whole lot of headaches. Onoda had been stationed
Speaker 1: in the Philippines during World War Two. An intelligence officer
Speaker 1: by trade, he had been given strict orders to do
Speaker 1: everything within his power to hinder all enemy attacks on
Speaker 1: the island. The airstrip and the peers at the harbor
Speaker 1: became his primary targets, and should he be caught, he
Speaker 1: was to fight until death. Capture and suicide were not allowed.
Speaker 1: Once Onoda arrived on the island, he fell in with
Speaker 1: a group of Japanese soldiers who had already been stationed there.
Speaker 1: He was of a lower rank than them and so
Speaker 1: had to follow their orders instead. His mission had stopped
Speaker 1: before it had even started, and it wasn't long before
Speaker 1: the United States took over the island with the Philippine
Speaker 1: Commonwealth in February of ninety seven, months before the official
Speaker 1: end of the war. The other soldiers had been given
Speaker 1: orders to fights, which they did, but they were no
Speaker 1: match for the Allied forces. It would have been much
Speaker 1: easier had they allowed Onoda to carry out his original mission,
Speaker 1: but it was too late for that. All but a
Speaker 1: handful fell, leaving Onoda the acting commander. He ordered the
Speaker 1: remaining men to retreat into the nearby hills where they
Speaker 1: would be safe. He and three other Japanese soldiers lived
Speaker 1: in the Philippine wilderness for months, building huts out of
Speaker 1: bamboo and stealing food from local villages. When they got desperate,
Speaker 1: they slaughtered cows and ate their meat. Time in the mountains, though,
Speaker 1: changed them, and the men eventually grew paranoid of anyone
Speaker 1: who dared venture near their camp. Stray islanders were often
Speaker 1: mistaken for enemy guerillas and killed without question. The soldiers
Speaker 1: managed to avoid all American and Filipino search parties for
Speaker 1: a time until their position was compromised and a shootout
Speaker 1: killed two of them. A third surrendered to the authorities,
Speaker 1: while Onoda ventured deeper into the mountains, and no one
Speaker 1: heard from him after that. Lieutenant Onoda was declared dead
Speaker 1: by the Japanese governments in nineteen fifty nine. All search
Speaker 1: party efforts had failed to locate him. Then, after the
Speaker 1: killing stunted, they stopped looking, and then in nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: a Japanese student named Norio Suzuki set out to find
Speaker 1: the missing soldier. Well, he set out to find three
Speaker 1: things really, in his words, lieutenant a noa, a panda,
Speaker 1: and the abominable snowman, And four days after his journey began,
Speaker 1: he found him alive. Suzuki tried to coax the soldier
Speaker 1: off the island to return to the modern world back home,
Speaker 1: but a Nooda wouldn't listen. He was still awaiting orders
Speaker 1: from his commanding officer. Unable to convince the soldier to
Speaker 1: leave with him, Suzuki took some pictures as proof and
Speaker 1: let the Japanese government handle the recovery of their missing assets.
Speaker 1: Those government officials asked a notice superior officer Major Yoshimi
Speaker 1: Tanaguchi to fly out to the Philippines to deliver the
Speaker 1: orders as he had promised years earlier, and once those
Speaker 1: orders had been given a Noda surrendered and handed over
Speaker 1: all the weapons he had a mass during his time
Speaker 1: on the island. For over thirty years, Hirou Onoda believed
Speaker 1: World War two was still being fought all over the world.
Speaker 1: He had no idea that Adam bombs had been dropped
Speaker 1: on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or that the Allies had won.
Speaker 1: The Japan he came home to was like an alien planet,
Speaker 1: with tall glass buildings all around him and cars clogging
Speaker 1: all the streets. He became a celebrity of sorts back
Speaker 1: home and eventually released a book about his experiences on
Speaker 1: the island, how he had fought his own war on
Speaker 1: behalf of a country that had left him behind. But
Speaker 1: he found fitting into the new world difficult so much
Speaker 1: had changed while he was away. Unable to handle living
Speaker 1: in a modern Japan, he traveled to Brazil, got married,
Speaker 1: and established schools to help troubled kids both at home
Speaker 1: and abroad. Hiro Ona had been lost in time for
Speaker 1: most of his life. He'd missed so much and had
Speaker 1: come back to a world he did not recognize. Yet,
Speaker 1: despite his hesitation and wariness, he never forgot his primary
Speaker 1: mission survive at all costs, and thankfully he succeeded. Its
Speaker 1: name instills mystery and wonder in those who hear it,
Speaker 1: it strikes fear in others. Its influence around the world
Speaker 1: is unmatched, as evidenced by the symbols and signs on
Speaker 1: our own currency. It has influenced political elections and, according
Speaker 1: to some, replaced popular celebrities with brainwashed clones. It's also
Speaker 1: been linked to the Freemasons and a clandestine organization known
Speaker 1: as the New World Order, which seeks to take over
Speaker 1: the world by way of a global authoritarian government. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm referring to the Illuminati. It's reputation has solidified it
Speaker 1: as one of the most influential and sinister organizations and history. However, well,
Speaker 1: it might seem like the Illuminati is a far reaching,
Speaker 1: underground society with a deeply historical foundation, The truth is
Speaker 1: a lot more ordinary. It all started when an eighteenth
Speaker 1: century German scholar named Adam weiss Hopped had an idea.
Speaker 1: Growing up, vice hop found a passion for reading and philosophy,
Speaker 1: but philosophers he enjoyed studying went against the Catholic conservatism
Speaker 1: permeating Bavaria at the time. He started looking for others
Speaker 1: like him, folks who also believed that religion and the
Speaker 1: monarchy were stifling the growth of modern society. He thought
Speaker 1: about joining the Freemasons for a while, whose group was
Speaker 1: flourishing throughout Europe at the time, but Vice Hoped couldn't
Speaker 1: get beyond some of their beliefs. Instead, he decided to
Speaker 1: create his own secret society, one that didn't renounce religion,
Speaker 1: but gave its members freedom from the prejudices and limitations
Speaker 1: religion seemed to impose. The goal was not to establish
Speaker 1: another theocracy. Vice Hopped wanted members of this new organization
Speaker 1: to find happiness and liberty without all the political trickery
Speaker 1: that he linked to the church. The Illuminatis first meeting
Speaker 1: was conduct it one evening in a nearby forest on
Speaker 1: May one, seventeen seventies. Six five men gathered together and
Speaker 1: set the foundation for what would eventually become an association
Speaker 1: of three thousand members. Soon enough, big names started joining
Speaker 1: their ranks, including Baron Adolph von Koniga, a former Freemason
Speaker 1: whose efforts within the Illuminati not only brought it publicity
Speaker 1: but also heightened tensions inside the group. He fought often
Speaker 1: with Vice hopt about the direction of the organization, encouraging
Speaker 1: him to behave more like the Freemasons by giving everyone
Speaker 1: secret names and organizing the members based on a hierarchy
Speaker 1: of thirteen complicated degrees. He eventually left the group, but
Speaker 1: his work added to the mystery that would eventually elevate
Speaker 1: it to the public consciousness and inspire numerous books, television shows,
Speaker 1: and movies about its undercover operations. Except the Illuminati, as
Speaker 1: it was known during the seventeen hundreds never made it
Speaker 1: to the levels described by authors like Dan Brown or
Speaker 1: Burnto Echo. An edict issued by the Duke of Bavaria
Speaker 1: in sevent four put an end to all secret societies
Speaker 1: not previously sanctioned by a law. Anyone caught practicing as
Speaker 1: a member of an outlawed order was to be sentenced
Speaker 1: to death. VISs Hopt lost his job as a professor
Speaker 1: at the local university, and so he fled to Saxony,
Speaker 1: where he ended up teaching philosophy. And that was the end.
Speaker 1: But if the Illuminati was forcibly disbanded over two thirty
Speaker 1: years ago, why does its name still crop up whenever
Speaker 1: someone mentions the Kennedy assassination or the Moon Landing. Well.
Speaker 1: For that we can thank one book series, No, not
Speaker 1: the one about secret messages in famous Italian paintings. We
Speaker 1: have to go back even further to the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: when popular culture was defined by counterculture like Robert Crumb
Speaker 1: and the National Lampoon and Robert Anton Wilson. You might
Speaker 1: not have heard of him, but the work he did
Speaker 1: with his friend and partner Robert Shay could evaded much
Speaker 1: of the Illuminati lore that we're all familiar with today.
Speaker 1: It started while the pair were working at Playboy magazine
Speaker 1: as associate editors. They and some of the other writers
Speaker 1: started mailing in fake letters to the magazine about a
Speaker 1: secret society called the Illuminati. Then they'd write more letters
Speaker 1: to contradict the first batch, adding an air of mystique
Speaker 1: and intrigue around the organization. Wilson and Shay turned their
Speaker 1: hijinks into a popular series of satirical books called the
Speaker 1: Illuminatus Trilogy, which flushed out the conspiracies behind the assassination
Speaker 1: of JFK and the meaning of the Eye of Providence
Speaker 1: on the back of the one dollar bill. The books
Speaker 1: eventually influenced numerous films and stage adaptations. Only further spreading
Speaker 1: their misinformation to the masses. These stories took on a
Speaker 1: life of their own, and the fiction soon mutated into
Speaker 1: rumors and eventually full blown conspiracy theories. Thanks to the Internet,
Speaker 1: those theories have now grown more elaborate over time, and
Speaker 1: thanks to a pray inc from two magazine editors, a
Speaker 1: failed German secret society was reborn as one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful and far reaching organizations in the world, well
Speaker 1: at least by reputation, that is. I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.