Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. John was a young
Speaker 1: minister at his local church. He believed in miracles, that
Speaker 1: much was certain, even so having one appear inside his
Speaker 1: bathroom was a bit too much. John lenn was the
Speaker 1: leader of the folk over at St. Mark's Church in
Speaker 1: jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, a little town in the mountains south
Speaker 1: of Scranton. Life was simple and maybe even idyllic, so
Speaker 1: it was hard for him to expect anything other than
Speaker 1: the ordinary. But that's the trouble with assuming, isn't it.
Speaker 1: One summer day ninety eight, a storm blew into the area.
Speaker 1: Not one of those gray clouds and rain sort of storms,
Speaker 1: but the kind that drift in low and black with
Speaker 1: a rumble that seems to shake the very earth you're
Speaker 1: standing on. You'll know one when you see it, because
Speaker 1: the clouds will resemble a cauldron of black, magic and chaos.
Speaker 1: From the windows of his home there in town, John
Speaker 1: could see darkness descend in the middle of the day,
Speaker 1: punctuated every few moments by great flashes of lightning. To
Speaker 1: a god fearing man, it was a powerful display of
Speaker 1: God's majesty. To the people rushing to bring their kids
Speaker 1: inside and close their windows, it was just annoying. At
Speaker 1: some point during the storm, John stepped into the bathroom.
Speaker 1: He was standing in front of the sink when something
Speaker 1: caught his attention. Just outside the window was a ball
Speaker 1: of light, roughly the size of a grapefruit. He later
Speaker 1: described the color as something like old sodium arc lights
Speaker 1: that lined so many streets in America, yellow, weak and flickering.
Speaker 1: A bit even before the sight of it fully registered
Speaker 1: with him, the ball of light was already moving. It
Speaker 1: slipped through the screen of his window and floated softly
Speaker 1: to his bathroom floor. After a brief pause, the ball
Speaker 1: began to roll around his feet in a circle and
Speaker 1: spiraled up as it went. John panicked and stepped backwards,
Speaker 1: getting out of the light's way, and then watched as
Speaker 1: it reached the lip of the porcelain sink and fell inside.
Speaker 1: When he stepped closer to inspect it, the ball of
Speaker 1: light was gone, but it had left evidence of its passing.
Speaker 1: The metal chain that connected the rubber stopper to the
Speaker 1: sink had been melted clean through nothing else had been damaged,
Speaker 1: though I realized this is a difficult story to believe.
Speaker 1: Most of the accounts I've read referred to the thing
Speaker 1: that floated into John's window as ball lightning, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't make it any easier to swallow. It just gives
Speaker 1: the bizarre event a name. But it gets weirder than that,
Speaker 1: it turns out. A few weeks after his unusual bathroom experience,
Speaker 1: the Good Reverend was visited by another black summer storm.
Speaker 1: Perhaps out of curiosity and maybe just because he needed
Speaker 1: to pee, John paid the bathroom yet another visit, and
Speaker 1: while he was in there, a ball lightning made its
Speaker 1: repeat visit. This one, he later claimed, circled his feet
Speaker 1: before bouncing to the edge of the bathtub, and then
Speaker 1: toppled in. When he glanced inside, he saw exactly what
Speaker 1: he'd been expecting. The rubber stopper had been severed from
Speaker 1: the tub, just as it had inside the sinc weeks before,
Speaker 1: the metal chain laying in pieces around the drain. The
Speaker 1: ball of light, though it was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1: I wish this was one of those objects we could
Speaker 1: capture and store in a glass jar, just like a
Speaker 1: collector might display a fine mineral specimen or a butterfly.
Speaker 1: But there's nothing left for us to hold onto. No
Speaker 1: flickering yell glow, no bouncing ball of light, nothing but
Speaker 1: a bizarre, unexplainable memory. The proof, according to John, went
Speaker 1: down the drain. On June, Joseph left his home in
Speaker 1: Cambridge to take a walk through the local market. He
Speaker 1: was a theologian and scholar who taught at christ College
Speaker 1: right there in the city, and what better way to
Speaker 1: wrap up a long Tuesday spent inside than by going
Speaker 1: out for an early evening stroll. The market was full
Speaker 1: of vendors selling all sorts of necessities, meats and cheeses,
Speaker 1: bread and vegetables. All of it was fresh, and most
Speaker 1: of it smelled wonderful. All of it except the fish,
Speaker 1: of course, That wasn't surprising though. What was surprising, however,
Speaker 1: was the crowd gathered around one of the fishmonger stalls.
Speaker 1: Much like you and I, Joseph was a curious person,
Speaker 1: so he veered off his intended path to go and
Speaker 1: see what had captured the attention of so many people.
Speaker 1: When he arrived and pushed his way to the front
Speaker 1: of the crowd. He found a woman holding a fish
Speaker 1: knife and standing in front of a recently decapitated fish.
Speaker 1: It was a cod, which is a good sized fish
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen one, they're typically around forty inches
Speaker 1: long and way upwards of two hundred pounds. But the
Speaker 1: only thing fascinating about this dead fish was the bundle
Speaker 1: of cloth sitting beside it on the stall work table.
Speaker 1: The crowd was muttering excitedly, and from all the whispers,
Speaker 1: Joseph was able to piece together the story. This bundle,
Speaker 1: it seems, had been found inside the fish. It was small,
Speaker 1: maybe four by six inches, and it was wrapped in
Speaker 1: slimy sailcloth, but it was a familiar shape to a
Speaker 1: scholar like Joe of Mead. He reached into his pocket
Speaker 1: and pulled out a coin and then offered it to
Speaker 1: the woman. She hesitated a moment and then completed the transaction.
Speaker 1: Back in his study, Joseph unwrapped the bundle and then
Speaker 1: caught his breath. Inside was a small book, handwritten and
Speaker 1: signed by a man named John Frith. Joseph recognized the
Speaker 1: man's name. He had been a Protestant minister roughly a
Speaker 1: century earlier, but had been thrown in prison by the
Speaker 1: Inquisition for taking a stand against various Roman Catholic teachings.
Speaker 1: Frith spent eight months locked up in a group prison
Speaker 1: cell inside the Tower of London before being dragged out
Speaker 1: and burned at the stake as a heretic of the church.
Speaker 1: But he didn't waste that time. Instead, he managed to
Speaker 1: obtain paper and ink so he could write about his
Speaker 1: views on various topics. Most of those made it out
Speaker 1: before his death. This book, though, seemed new. I don't
Speaker 1: have answers for you about how it ends it up
Speaker 1: wrapped in sailcloth, let alone, inside the belly of a
Speaker 1: large fish. Some sources claim that Frith was held for
Speaker 1: a short while in a fish seller in Oxford, but
Speaker 1: I can't find proof of that. He was arrested in London,
Speaker 1: jailed there, and executed there. How the book ended up
Speaker 1: someplace else is unknown. How it ended up inside a
Speaker 1: dead cod a century later, well, that one's a mystery.
Speaker 1: We do know how it all ended, though. A year
Speaker 1: after Joseph unwrapped that slimy little package in his study
Speaker 1: in Cambridge, the book was finally published. The original cover
Speaker 1: featured an engraving of a fish, a knife, and a
Speaker 1: little book, and they gave it the most obvious title
Speaker 1: they could think of vox pieces, The Voice of the Fish.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.