Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard McClain smith here. Season seven of Unexplained
Speaker 1: will begin on Friday, July twenty eighth. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: we are revisiting some of our favorite episodes. This week
Speaker 1: is one of my personal favorites. Back in nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: Friedrich Jergenson was recording bird song in his garden when
Speaker 1: he captured something else entirely. The experience would change his
Speaker 1: life forever. With a title taken from a song by
Speaker 1: Peter Gabriel, this week's rerun is Unexplained, Season three, episode nine,
Speaker 1: Come talk to me, won't you please? Sun me? If
Speaker 1: you sure? Sus Friedrich Jergensen did not believe in ghosts,
Speaker 1: at least not in the traditional sense of something that
Speaker 1: had once lived, somehow remaining after death, much less that
Speaker 1: the dead could talk. He did not follow any religion
Speaker 1: or pin his master to any one political party, and
Speaker 1: neither did he believe in an interventionist god. He had
Speaker 1: seen too much for that. Jurgensen was born in Odessa
Speaker 1: in February nineteen o three, then a major city of
Speaker 1: the Russian Empire and soon to be cradle of revolution.
Speaker 1: Though his family lived a relatively charmed life by comparison
Speaker 1: to many of its citizens. His formative years were nonetheless
Speaker 1: surrounded by misery, as he once put it, and it
Speaker 1: certainly wasn't lacking in drama. By the time he was
Speaker 1: forty years old, Jurgensen will have fled from Bolshevik revolutionaries
Speaker 1: to Estonia, before later moving to Berlin to train as
Speaker 1: an opera singer under the great Italian tenor Tito's Skeeper.
Speaker 1: After a period of almost unrivaled sexual and creative freedom
Speaker 1: in the city, he will later watch in horror as
Speaker 1: a new Puritanism takes hold, while those not blessed with
Speaker 1: the privilege of being able to work in the arts,
Speaker 1: struggling under crippling poverty and unemployment, are drawn ever closer
Speaker 1: to the rising tide of fascism. Its subsequent fanning of
Speaker 1: a growing antisemitism leaves the Jewish skeeper no option but
Speaker 1: to escape to Palestine, where Friedrich will join him for
Speaker 1: eight years, swapping one war zone for another. Returning to
Speaker 1: Europe in nineteen thirty eight, Friedrich, now a successful opera
Speaker 1: singer in his own right, makes plans to continue his
Speaker 1: career in Italy. However, after visiting his parents in Estonia,
Speaker 1: the cold climate plays havoc with his health and his voice,
Speaker 1: eventually forcing him to give up his singing dream. He
Speaker 1: returns to Italy soon after with the intention of becoming
Speaker 1: a professional painter, only to find war waiting for him
Speaker 1: once again. Unwilling to fight for a fascist cause and
Speaker 1: having no distinct nationality of his own to defend, Friedrich,
Speaker 1: whose mother was Swedish, flees to her home country. By
Speaker 1: the end of the Second World War in nineteen forty five, Jergensen,
Speaker 1: who by now speaks ten different languages, is forty two
Speaker 1: years old, married, and finally ready to settle down. Incredibly,
Speaker 1: despite all that he has seen and experienced, the most
Speaker 1: extraordinary moment of his life still awaits. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Unexplained and I'm Richard MacLean Smith. It is thirteen years later,
Speaker 1: and a now fifty five year old Friedrich has established
Speaker 1: himself as a talented portraitist and archaeological painter, admired even
Speaker 1: by the Pope. At some point in nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: having spent many years working at the ruined Roman city
Speaker 1: of Pompeii, he accepts an invitation to hold an exhibition
Speaker 1: in its grounds. The magic of the place had infatuated
Speaker 1: him since he was a child, how it had once
Speaker 1: been forgotten, buried under fire and ash, only to be
Speaker 1: unearthed by chance and rescued from its violent end to
Speaker 1: stand once more as a testament to civilization. The offer
Speaker 1: was made even more appealing when he was given the
Speaker 1: opportunity to work on site, establishing a studio in the
Speaker 1: House of the Tragic Poet, one of the more well
Speaker 1: preserved buildings, elaborately decorated throughout with exquisite mosaics depicting scenes
Speaker 1: from Greek mythology. But best of all was being granted
Speaker 1: a key to the city. As dusk settled over the ruins,
Speaker 1: long after everyone else had left, Friedrich would be free
Speaker 1: to wander the deserted homes and streets alone in the
Speaker 1: eerie silence. The quieter it was, the more fiercely he
Speaker 1: felt the ghosts fighting to emerge from the shadows. As
Speaker 1: he walked, he let his imagination drift. From a street corner,
Speaker 1: an exuberant shopkeeper emerges measuring grain for his customers. Over there,
Speaker 1: a horse and cart trundles by, as robed dignitaries saunter behind,
Speaker 1: while the sound of children playing echoes through the streets,
Speaker 1: and if he listens carefully enough from a distance, the
Speaker 1: fleeting roar of a crowd packed into the city's amphitheater
Speaker 1: is carried on the wind, and sometimes the imagining of
Speaker 1: the sudden explosion, followed by a growing plume of ash,
Speaker 1: the darkening of the sky, and the billowing cloud of
Speaker 1: boiling heat speeding down the mountainside as the screams grow
Speaker 1: louder and louder. Soon summer is approaching and Friederich's exhibition
Speaker 1: is coming to its end. As a final thank you
Speaker 1: for his work, he has offered the chance to fulfill
Speaker 1: a lifetime's ambition when the Pompeii Archaeological Commission invites him
Speaker 1: to take part in an excavation of a newly discovered
Speaker 1: property the following year. He gladly accepts the offer and
Speaker 1: returns to Stockholm soon after to begin putting together his
Speaker 1: plans for his next visit. Little did he know, then, however,
Speaker 1: that he would not be returning to Pompeii any time soon,
Speaker 1: for something was about to occur that would change his
Speaker 1: life and understanding of it forever. In June nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: Friedrich and his wife Monica traveled to their country house
Speaker 1: just south of Merlinboe, a small village located sixty kilometers
Speaker 1: southwest of the capital Stockholm. The property, which backed on
Speaker 1: to a placid and tranquil lake, was as idyllic a
Speaker 1: country retreat as one could imagine. Aside from the main house,
Speaker 1: the property consisted of an old, dilapidated hut by the
Speaker 1: water's edge, as well as a guest house on the
Speaker 1: fringes of a nearby forest bordering the garden, itself an
Speaker 1: enchanting mess of wild flowers and apple blossom, it was
Speaker 1: the perfect place to capture the sound of singing birds,
Speaker 1: as Friedrich had long planned to do, but never quite
Speaker 1: had the time. This year, he determined to do it
Speaker 1: once and for all, making sure to bring his tape
Speaker 1: recorder down from Stockholm. After spending the day by the lake,
Speaker 1: it was some time in the afternoon, with the local
Speaker 1: birds in full voice, that Friedrich retired to the house
Speaker 1: to collect the tape recorder, before making his way out
Speaker 1: to the forest cabin and up into its attic. Moments later,
Speaker 1: having rigged up a microphone, he slid open the window
Speaker 1: and pointed the microphone out of it, just as a
Speaker 1: gentle finch came to rest on the roof, flicking the
Speaker 1: switch to record. Friederic sat back in his chair and
Speaker 1: listened to the bird sing as the tape slowly unspooled
Speaker 1: from one reel to the other. After a few minutes,
Speaker 1: with the bird having taken off, Friedrich stopped the recording
Speaker 1: and rewound the tape. He pressed play and waited eagerly
Speaker 1: to hear what he had captured, but something was wrong.
Speaker 1: Though he could just about make out the merry chirping
Speaker 1: of the finch, it was completely drowned out by a
Speaker 1: blaring burst of static, as if someone had been taking
Speaker 1: a shower right next to the microphone. Friedrich made a
Speaker 1: quick check of all the connections and spun the tape
Speaker 1: forward to see if something was wrong with the tape itself,
Speaker 1: but all seemed fine. Repositioning the mic he tried again.
Speaker 1: After another few minutes, he rewound the tape, pressed play,
Speaker 1: and waited, but yet again, much to his annoyance, after
Speaker 1: a short period of quiet, the speakers blared out the
Speaker 1: same static hiss of interference. Since he could still just
Speaker 1: about hear the sound of birds singing in the distance,
Speaker 1: clearly the record function was working, but as he was
Speaker 1: about to switch off the tape, something else burst through
Speaker 1: the noise. It sounded like a voice. As he moved
Speaker 1: closer and listened more carefully, he could hear it clearly now.
Speaker 1: It was a male voice speaking in Norwegian about the
Speaker 1: sound of bird song at night. Though it was a
Speaker 1: bizarre occurrence, the tape player must merely have somehow picked
Speaker 1: up a Norwegian radio transmission, he reasoned, though it was
Speaker 1: certainly an extraordinary coincidence that it would be all about
Speaker 1: bird song, he thought, as he made his way back
Speaker 1: to the house that evening. For the next month, unable
Speaker 1: to make clean recordings, Friedrich turned his attention to another
Speaker 1: pet project he had been working on, researching the fate
Speaker 1: of Russian Princess Anastasia. Though today it is widely accepted
Speaker 1: that the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas the Second and Tzarina,
Speaker 1: Alexandra Fyodorovna, was murdered along with the rest of her
Speaker 1: immediate family in July nineteen eighteen, in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: her whereabouts remained very much a mystery, But as Friedrich
Speaker 1: tried to concentrate on the task, he found his mind
Speaker 1: continually wandering back to the strange recordings he had made
Speaker 1: weeks before. Though he tried a few times to recapture
Speaker 1: the peculiar broadcast, it appeared to have since come to
Speaker 1: an end. That was until one evening in mid July,
Speaker 1: with Monica having now returned to Stockholm. That night, Friedrich
Speaker 1: was once again sat alone in the outhouse attic, trying
Speaker 1: in vain to capture another radio transmission. Since he didn't
Speaker 1: have headphones, he kept his eyes glued to the recording
Speaker 1: light for any sign that something was being received. But
Speaker 1: as the moon outside the window rose higher into the sky,
Speaker 1: with nothing to show for his efforts, Friedrich was beginning
Speaker 1: to get tired. Just as his eyelids were starting to close,
Speaker 1: the control light flashed red. That's strange, he thought, since
Speaker 1: all about him was completely still. After waiting for a
Speaker 1: few minutes, as the recording light continued to flash, Friedrich
Speaker 1: stopped the recording before rewinding the tape and pressing play.
Speaker 1: After a brief moment of light atmospheric sound, Friedrich was
Speaker 1: overjoyed to hear that familiar hissing raw once again, and
Speaker 1: as he strained to listen through the interference, once again
Speaker 1: came the familiar Norwegian voice tired but pleased with the
Speaker 1: knight's results, Friedrich went to bed, returning to listen to
Speaker 1: the tape the following morning, just as he thought, he
Speaker 1: had indeed captured the same voice as before, only this
Speaker 1: time something was different. It wasn't just the one voice.
Speaker 1: It was multiple, speaking in a range of languages, including English, German, Swedish, Italian,
Speaker 1: and Polish, all crossing over each other, reciting strange and
Speaker 1: incomprehensible sentences. And then one other voice, a little clearer
Speaker 1: than the rest, burst through the static. Friedrich sat back
Speaker 1: in astonish. It couldn't be, he thought. He stopped the
Speaker 1: tape and looked around the empty room. Satisfied he was alone,
Speaker 1: he spun back the tape and played it again. Friedrich said,
Speaker 1: the voice your being observed. Friedrich played the tape back
Speaker 1: again and again. It was clear somebody was trying to
Speaker 1: communicate with him. Later, after hearing a second mention of
Speaker 1: his name, came a bizarre, cryptic request, Friedrich, when you
Speaker 1: translate and interpret into German during the day, try to
Speaker 1: solve the truth every evening with the ship in the dark.
Speaker 1: Worried he might be losing his mind, Friedrich promptly played
Speaker 1: the tapes to Monica, as it was for anyon one
Speaker 1: who would later hear them. It was hard to discern
Speaker 1: much of anything through the violent roar of the static,
Speaker 1: but slowly, as her ears began to adjust to the
Speaker 1: different frequencies buried within it, Monika too heard the voices.
Speaker 1: It was a strange predicament coming across this apparent phenomena
Speaker 1: so unexpectedly. Friedrich had not been looking for this, nor
Speaker 1: even spent any time considering it. He also had much
Speaker 1: work to do, not only preparing for the excavation in
Speaker 1: Pompeii the following spring, but keeping up with his commissions
Speaker 1: in Sweden too, But everything seemed suddenly to pale into
Speaker 1: comparison with what was occurring in that attic room on
Speaker 1: his tape recorder. Another set of recordings made soon after
Speaker 1: revealed yet more voices, but distinguishing between them all was
Speaker 1: near impossible listening to them being played back on the machine. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Friedrich bought a pair of headphones to better interpret just
Speaker 1: what exactly was going on. Now he was able to
Speaker 1: hear the sounds being captured as they were being recorded.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long after that he realized slowing the recordings
Speaker 1: down made it much easier to pick out the voices,
Speaker 1: but despite having accrued a number of similar recordings, he
Speaker 1: was no closer to figuring out exactly what they were. Naturally,
Speaker 1: his first assumption, and surely the only reasonable one, was
Speaker 1: that he was continuing to pick up a number of
Speaker 1: converging radio signals, signals that are constantly traveling through the
Speaker 1: air around us. Those mentions of his name just coincidence
Speaker 1: and a form of confirmation by us, he thought. Either way,
Speaker 1: Ascertaining their provenance became his top priority. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: having returned to Merlinbau, this time with his poodle Corino
Speaker 1: for company, Friedrich returned again to his attic room, plugged
Speaker 1: in the headphones, and switched the tape player to record.
Speaker 1: No sooner had he put the headphones on, the peaceful
Speaker 1: atmosphere of the Merlin Beau country air was suddenly obliterated
Speaker 1: in a blare of static, and before long he could
Speaker 1: hear the voices coming through again, mixed also this time
Speaker 1: with a variety of other strange sounds and music too.
Speaker 1: After listening for a few minutes, Friedrich heard the phone
Speaker 1: ringing downstairs. Leaving the tape to record, he headed down
Speaker 1: to answer it, escorted by his ever faithful Carino, who
Speaker 1: followed him closely behind It was Monica on the line,
Speaker 1: just wanting to know how the day's recordings were going.
Speaker 1: With Carino sitting patiently next to him. Friedrich was just
Speaker 1: telling Monica about what he had heard so far when
Speaker 1: his dog abruptly rose to his feet and scampered out
Speaker 1: of the room. As he continued talking on the phone,
Speaker 1: Friedrich heard what he took to be the dog in
Speaker 1: the attic, jumping up around his chair before finally settling
Speaker 1: down in it. Returning to the top floor a few
Speaker 1: minutes later, sure enough, Friedrich found Carino sitting on the chair,
Speaker 1: wagging his tail in excitement. Friedrich picked him up and
Speaker 1: placed him on the spare bed before returning again to
Speaker 1: the tape player. After a few more minutes recording, he
Speaker 1: decided to stop and listen back to what he had captured.
Speaker 1: Having rewound the tape to just before the phone call,
Speaker 1: he hit play, sat back and listened once again. Came
Speaker 1: the heavy burst of static, and just audible, deep in
Speaker 1: the cacophony, he can just make out the sound of
Speaker 1: a telephone ringing. Next he hears himself removing the headphones
Speaker 1: and pacing out of the room, with Carino's poor steps
Speaker 1: following close behind. Strangely, as soon as he has left
Speaker 1: the room, the hissing stops. In the ensuing silence, Friedrich
Speaker 1: strains to hear the phone conversation with Monica, but it
Speaker 1: is inaudible, so with nothing else occurring, he skips the
Speaker 1: tape forward a few minutes. Soon the sound of his
Speaker 1: approaching steps can be heard as he returns to the
Speaker 1: room before opening the door and picking Carino up from
Speaker 1: the chair. At the sound of him putting his headphones
Speaker 1: back on, curiously, the loud static bursts immediately come back in.
Speaker 1: Unable to decipher the subsequent set of noise exploding within
Speaker 1: the interference, Friedrich decides to play the tape back again
Speaker 1: to confirm with the static had indeed only occurred when
Speaker 1: he was sat at the tape player. He returns the
Speaker 1: tape back to the moment he left the room and
Speaker 1: lets it play out. What he hears next changes everything.
Speaker 1: At first, he hears only the faint sound of his
Speaker 1: voice on the phone downstairs, when suddenly a peculiar, high
Speaker 1: pitched noise cuts in, followed by a male voice quietly
Speaker 1: humming the opening refrain of the song VLAA, and then
Speaker 1: a different sound, Corno's approaching poor steps as he makes
Speaker 1: his way up the stairs, and then the sound at
Speaker 1: the door as he nudges it open. Just as the
Speaker 1: dog enters the room. Friedrich is stunned when he hears
Speaker 1: a clear Italian accented voice. Ah, Carino, do you hear me?
Speaker 1: It asks, Carino, do you know me? And in the
Speaker 1: background he hears Corino joyously spinning about on the chair,
Speaker 1: wagging his tail. Later in the autumn, Monica's mother comes
Speaker 1: to stay at the house in Merlinbau, having left a
Speaker 1: tape recording during the afternoon. When Friedrich listens to it
Speaker 1: later that evening, he makes yet another astonishing discovery. At
Speaker 1: one point he is able to hear Monica talking to
Speaker 1: her mother downstairs, when suddenly the volume of the tape
Speaker 1: inexplicably drops drastically. Friedrich turns the volume up as loud
Speaker 1: as it will go, and with Monica's voice just audible
Speaker 1: in the background, another voice suddenly breaks in, a male
Speaker 1: speaking in German. At Monica's It's cozy, it says, and
Speaker 1: then another voice chimes in again in German. I can
Speaker 1: see her, I hear her directly, it says. A moment
Speaker 1: later the recording ends. Friedrich leans back in his chair
Speaker 1: in a state of utter disbelief. As the weeks pass,
Speaker 1: Friedrich continues to record and pick up the numerous disembodied voices,
Speaker 1: but grows frustrated by the lack of coherence and begins
Speaker 1: to wonder what is the point of it all. Worried
Speaker 1: also that he might somehow be the butt of an
Speaker 1: elaborate joke, he decides to bring an end to the experiments,
Speaker 1: But soon something else begins to occur that terrifies him.
Speaker 1: Although he is no longer listened to the tapes, he
Speaker 1: is still hearing the voices. One afternoon, while resting in
Speaker 1: his study, as rain pours down outside, he is certain
Speaker 1: he can hear a voice in the patter of the raindrops.
Speaker 1: Then later he hears it again in the rustle of
Speaker 1: the burning fire. The voices seem to be following him everywhere.
Speaker 1: Concerned he is showing early signs of some form of schizophrenia,
Speaker 1: he reassures himself that he is otherwise healthy, not suffering
Speaker 1: any anxiety, and sleeping perfectly well. One afternoon, he is
Speaker 1: certain he hears a voice calling out to him. Listen
Speaker 1: to me, it says, take part in the work. Having
Speaker 1: been convinced to return to his sonic research, Friedrich invites
Speaker 1: a number of friends and scientists to join him in
Speaker 1: his listening sessions. Though they are skeptical at first, they
Speaker 1: too start to notice the peculiar messages buried in the recordings,
Speaker 1: and though they are reluctant to speculate on what they are,
Speaker 1: all agree that they are highly unusual. Frequently, most of
Speaker 1: the voices are preceded by a female voice who seems
Speaker 1: to be instructing Friedrich on how best to hear the
Speaker 1: assumed communications. Eventually, he discovers that using a radio in
Speaker 1: close proximity to the recorder intensifies the messages, and that
Speaker 1: tuning to certain frequencies at specific times will work best.
Speaker 1: In January nineteen sixty, Friedrich receives the upsetting news that
Speaker 1: Boris Sakarov, an old friend from his childhood days in Odessa,
Speaker 1: had been killed in a car crash back in October
Speaker 1: of the previous year. Shortly after, Friedrich learn that Sakarov
Speaker 1: had recently become a renowned yoga teacher who also specialized
Speaker 1: in the instruction of breathing exercises. Moments later, Friedrich raised
Speaker 1: up to his study and pulled a tape from the shelf. Hurriedly,
Speaker 1: he fixed it into place and pressed play. The recording
Speaker 1: was one of a number he had made over the
Speaker 1: Christmas period and had been confusing him ever since. He
Speaker 1: understood it now that sound he had heard when sitting
Speaker 1: alone in his room a few weeks ago had been
Speaker 1: a deep exhalation of breath. Hearing it again on the
Speaker 1: tape confirms his suspicions at the time. He had heard
Speaker 1: the sound both in the room and through the headphones.
Speaker 1: He spins the tape back a little further and lets
Speaker 1: it play out. First, the violent cacophony of static blares
Speaker 1: out into the room, and then from out of the
Speaker 1: chaos come the words, as clear as day, your boris
Speaker 1: is at the equipment. Over eight years in total, Friedrich
Speaker 1: Jergensen will record one hundred and forty tapes containing between
Speaker 1: five to six thousand different recordings of what will later
Speaker 1: become known as electronic voice phenomena, being left in no
Speaker 1: doubt that what he had captured were the voices of
Speaker 1: the dead. Further reported voices included those of his own mother,
Speaker 1: as well as a number of recently deceased figures of
Speaker 1: historical note, including in an odd twist, that of Adolf
Speaker 1: Hitler and Winston Churchill. As a man of no little
Speaker 1: intellectgans was more than aware of the many rational explanations
Speaker 1: that might account for what he had heard, with early
Speaker 1: satellite communications and radio transmission being the most obvious. However,
Speaker 1: not only did many of his friends and a number
Speaker 1: of scientists keen to find an answer for the communications
Speaker 1: hear them too, but often he would capture voices speaking
Speaker 1: single sentences in multiple languages, which would seem to negate
Speaker 1: the radio broadcast theory. Some have also suggested that the
Speaker 1: multi lingual Jurgensen had somehow projected the voices onto the
Speaker 1: tape himself. What seems never to have been in doubt
Speaker 1: was Friedrich's integrity or the authenticity of the raw recordings.
Speaker 1: He died at the age of eighty four in late
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven. Whatever we believe about Jergenson's peculiar findings,
Speaker 1: perhaps we can take at least one thing from his experiences.
Speaker 1: When all you can hear is the cacophony of chaos,
Speaker 1: it pays not to turn away from the noise, but
Speaker 1: to take the time to listen to what might be
Speaker 1: buried underneath. Perhaps you too will hear the sound of
Speaker 1: voices just wanting to be heard. This episode was written
Speaker 1: by Richard mclin smith Unexplained as an AV Club Productions
Speaker 1: podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of
Speaker 1: the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard McClain smith Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories
Speaker 1: never before featured on the show, is now available to
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