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. It happened with a bang.
Speaker 1: A zoologist named Harold Strumkey had made a groundbreaking discovery
Speaker 1: of a new species of shrew and was excited to
Speaker 1: exhibit it to his peers. Strumkey, born in Strasburg, Germany,
Speaker 1: was the curator of the Museum of the Darwin Institute.
Speaker 1: He had come across a rare kind of animal known
Speaker 1: as a rhino grade. Rhino grades had evolved over millions
Speaker 1: of years into one nine species of shrew like mammals
Speaker 1: that ran the gamut of biological function and form. For example,
Speaker 1: there were some were shaped like worms, as well as
Speaker 1: enormous carnivores that hunted for their prey like lions. But
Speaker 1: despite their variety, many of the rhino grades had one
Speaker 1: thing in common their noses. They used their noses to
Speaker 1: move around and travel long distances. One species could even
Speaker 1: launch itself into the air using its nose. The autopterics
Speaker 1: or ear wing would flap its ears to fly backwards
Speaker 1: controlling direction with its nose like a built in rudder.
Speaker 1: The island where these animals lived had been discovered by
Speaker 1: a Swedish soldier who had been held captive in a
Speaker 1: Japanese pow camp. The vessel head escaped in had crashed
Speaker 1: on Haiayi, a small Pacific archipelago, and he quickly noticed
Speaker 1: the odd mammals roaming the landscape using only their noses.
Speaker 1: There had been a civilization of people living there too,
Speaker 1: but they've been unprepared for the soldiers unwanted companion the
Speaker 1: common cold. The germs ravaged the local population, killing all
Speaker 1: seven hundred of them in a short time, But the
Speaker 1: soldiers discovery had found its way to Stumpy, who worked
Speaker 1: tirelessly categorizing and sorting the rhinal grades into two groups,
Speaker 1: single and multi noosed mammals. It was at this same
Speaker 1: time when Stunkey began to work on a book of
Speaker 1: his new research. Not only did some of these animals
Speaker 1: flap their ears or bounce on their noses, some walked
Speaker 1: upside down on four noses while their hands and feet
Speaker 1: stuck straight up in the air. He compiled all the
Speaker 1: information he had gathered into his nineteen fifty seven book
Speaker 1: The Snouters, Form and Life of the Rhinal Grades. Stunkeys
Speaker 1: discovery was the breakthrough of a lifetime, and it was
Speaker 1: imperative that it be shared with the world. So he
Speaker 1: invited zoologists and road and experts from all over the
Speaker 1: world to join him on HAIII for a conference to
Speaker 1: discuss his findings. And as I said at the beginning,
Speaker 1: it happened with the bang. During the nineteen fifties. You see,
Speaker 1: the United States had decided to carry out tests of
Speaker 1: its nuclear arsenal in what it thought was a remote location.
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst military officials at the time, the island chain they'd
Speaker 1: selected for their tests was not, in fact uninhabited. While
Speaker 1: they were there, a test bomb went off and in
Speaker 1: an instant wiped out everything in its path. The islands
Speaker 1: all sunk into the sea, the researchers were obliterated, and
Speaker 1: the rhino grade entia were gone forever. All that remained
Speaker 1: of the different species was Stunkey's book, which was translated
Speaker 1: into English in nineteen sixty seven. But don't feel too
Speaker 1: bad for the people and animals that were lost in
Speaker 1: the blast. They didn't feel a thing when it happened,
Speaker 1: because it never did those shrews that had bounced on
Speaker 1: their noses or glided using their ears. They never existed,
Speaker 1: neither did any of the researchers, or even the island
Speaker 1: for that matter. The whole ordeal had started as a
Speaker 1: scientific joke taken to the extreme. Harold strum Key had
Speaker 1: been the pen name of German zoologist Geolf Steiner. Steiner
Speaker 1: really was born in Strasbourg in nineteen oh ay, but
Speaker 1: he never traveled to a remote archipelago. Steiner had been
Speaker 1: an illustrator during World War Two and had drawn a
Speaker 1: tiny mammal that walked on its nose based on descriptions
Speaker 1: by poet Christian Morgenstern. Soon the snouters, as he called them,
Speaker 1: started walking their way into his lectures and professional work.
Speaker 1: He kept adding to their story, too, fleshing out their
Speaker 1: biology and behaviors, until his fun little hobby had taken
Speaker 1: on a life of its own. He included anatomical sketches,
Speaker 1: wrote fake journal articles, and constructed a world for his
Speaker 1: creatures that was so scientifically accurate that his colleagues had
Speaker 1: become captivated by it as well. In fact, the first
Speaker 1: chapter of his book was published in the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven issue of the American Museum of Natural History's official magazine,
Speaker 1: without comment or critique. Two readers the snouters were living
Speaker 1: breathing rodents, just like rats or mice. Steiner's hoax lives
Speaker 1: on today. Academic papers continued to be published about his work,
Speaker 1: as though it's still being researched. There are even real
Speaker 1: animals bearing Strumkey's name, including a shrewd rat that lives
Speaker 1: in Indonesia. It has a short snout like a pig's
Speaker 1: and a set of long teeth. Although this roadent walks
Speaker 1: on four legs, not its nose, But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: there couldn't be a creature out there like the one
Speaker 1: Steiner described, just waiting to be discovered. To find it,
Speaker 1: I suppose that will just have to follow our nose.
Speaker 1: It doesn't take much for a fire to spread. It
Speaker 1: starts with a spark, then a small flame, give it
Speaker 1: some air and a little kindling, and it isn't long
Speaker 1: before that flame has grown into an uncontrollable blaze. Sometimes
Speaker 1: fires are necessary, they're deliberately set to clear old brush
Speaker 1: to make way for new growth, and sometimes nature steps
Speaker 1: in and starts the fire itself. In the everglades. For example,
Speaker 1: fires triggered by lightning strikes engulfed the grass along the
Speaker 1: river basin, improving water flow and habitats for local wildlife.
Speaker 1: But not all fires healthy environment. During the mid eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: fires were set to clear land for farms and railroad tracks.
Speaker 1: Such a fire had been set in the Wisconsin town
Speaker 1: of Peshtigo in October of eighteen seventy one. It had
Speaker 1: been one of many controlled blazes started in order to
Speaker 1: pave the way for new development. However, in unexpected weather
Speaker 1: pattern brought in a cold front that day, and with
Speaker 1: it came high winds. These winds spread the fire out,
Speaker 1: causing it to grow into what experts called a firestorm.
Speaker 1: Firestorms possessed specific traits that set them apart from other
Speaker 1: kinds of fires. Flames and firestorms burn at two thousand
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit or higher, with winds that blow it over
Speaker 1: one hundred miles per hour. So as the fire spread,
Speaker 1: it grew so large and powerful that it actually made
Speaker 1: its way across the Peshtigo River, burning the town on
Speaker 1: both sides. A flaming tornado, also called a fire whirl,
Speaker 1: incinerated homes and train cars as it picked up and
Speaker 1: tossed their smoldering holes into the air. Townsfolk fled as
Speaker 1: quickly as they could, their first thought being to jump
Speaker 1: into the river. Its waters were ice cold, despite the
Speaker 1: flames burning on both sides. Many drowned, while others fell
Speaker 1: victim to hypothermia, and those who couldn't make it out
Speaker 1: of town in time will they succumbed to the fire
Speaker 1: itself as it blazed across one point to million acres
Speaker 1: of land. Before the fire started, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, had a
Speaker 1: population of roughly seventeen hundred residents. A report filed two
Speaker 1: years later listed the number of deceased as high as
Speaker 1: twelve hundred, although the final number is thought to be
Speaker 1: much higher. We may never know just how bad it was, though,
Speaker 1: because town records were destroyed in the blaze. Coincidentally, at
Speaker 1: the same time as the Peshtigo fire, another fire had
Speaker 1: begun on the Door Peninsula in northeastern Wisconsin. It had
Speaker 1: originally been thought that the fire in Peshtigo had gotten
Speaker 1: so big and powerful that it had migrated across the
Speaker 1: Green Bay and onto the peninsula. When that fire had
Speaker 1: reached the small town of Robinsonville, a group of nuns
Speaker 1: and families from the town hid inside the local church
Speaker 1: and prayed for protection, but the fire quickly consumed the
Speaker 1: town and lingered outside the chapel, surrounding it on all sides.
Speaker 1: Everyone inside stood helpless. Ultimately, though their prayers seemed to
Speaker 1: have worked, the church and those inside it somehow survived
Speaker 1: the fire. About ten years after the Peshtigo and Door
Speaker 1: Peninsula fires had been extinguished, theories surrounding their origins began
Speaker 1: coming out of the woodwork. Perhaps they hadn't been started
Speaker 1: by reckless railroad hands or over zealous farmers after all.
Speaker 1: In fact, some people believe that fragments of a media
Speaker 1: righte had landed in Westconson and ignited the areas where
Speaker 1: they made impact. Scientists dispute this idea, though, as meteorites
Speaker 1: are cold when they hit earth surface. But there is
Speaker 1: something odd about two such large fires burning at the
Speaker 1: same time in roughly the same area of Wisconsin. Both
Speaker 1: events are relatively unheard of, and you might think two
Speaker 1: thousand people dying over a million acres would be more
Speaker 1: well known. But it's not surprising that nobody covered what
Speaker 1: happened that day in Peshtigo. They probably had their hands
Speaker 1: full with another blaze burning at the exact same time,
Speaker 1: one that killed only three people but destroyed over seventeen
Speaker 1: thousand buildings in the process. And everyone has heard of
Speaker 1: this one, the Great Chicago Fire. 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. Yeah,