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Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history

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Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right

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Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Scene is believing. It's a

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Speaker 1: well known phrase that has come to me in the

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Speaker 1: opposite of its original intent. Writer and physician Thomas Fuller

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Speaker 1: originated the quote in seventeen thirty two when he said

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Speaker 1: scenes believing, but feelings the truth, meaning your eyes may

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Speaker 1: deceive you, but what you can touch and feel will

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Speaker 1: be the true test of what's real. Students and faculty

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Speaker 1: at Cornell University got a test in truth in the

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Speaker 1: early nineteen twenties. After a major storm coated the campus

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Speaker 1: in snow. Someone noticed to set a footprints, large footprints

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Speaker 1: bigger than any human could make. The Prince started on

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Speaker 1: campus and traveled until they reached nearby bb Lake, where

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Speaker 1: they stopped. The lake had frozen over, but something had

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Speaker 1: opened up a wide hole in the ice, presumably whatever

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Speaker 1: creature had made the footprints. A zoologist at the university

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Speaker 1: rushed to the scene and identified the kind of animal

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Speaker 1: that could have made such imprints and such a large

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Speaker 1: hole in the ice it was, he said a rhinoceros.

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Speaker 1: Authorities were called in to drag the water for a body.

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Speaker 1: The local paper announced that a rhinoceros had drowned in

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Speaker 1: bb Lake, and nobody on campus, students or staff would

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Speaker 1: drink water from the tap, as the university's water supply

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Speaker 1: came directly from that lake. A few people who did

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Speaker 1: drink it claim that they could taste the rhinoceros. One

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Speaker 1: thing is true about the story. A rhinoceros did make

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Speaker 1: those tracks, well part of one. Professor Louis Agassi was

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Speaker 1: an ornithologist at Cornell. He had traveled all over the

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Speaker 1: world and brought back many souvenirs from his jarnie. One

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Speaker 1: such item was a waste basket made from a hollowed

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Speaker 1: out leg from a rhinoceros. But I guess he didn't

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Speaker 1: make the tracks. That was all the work of a

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Speaker 1: prankster and Cornell student, Hugh Troy. Troy had snuck into

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Speaker 1: the professor's office to borrow the leg for his stunt.

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Speaker 1: He and a friend filled it with scrap metal to

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Speaker 1: weigh it down, then tied a thirty foot clothesline to it,

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Speaker 1: which they held at each end. Together, the friends walked

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Speaker 1: to the lake, pressing the basket into the snow to

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Speaker 1: give the illusion of rhino tracks. Then Troy cut away

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Speaker 1: a part of the ice over the lake to make

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Speaker 1: it look like the rhino had simply walked in and drowned.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't until much later when an anonymous letter penned

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Speaker 1: by Troy explained the hoax to everyone on campus. Troy

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Speaker 1: was a mastermind of pranks, and fooling an entire university

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Speaker 1: was only the beginning. He once painted bare feet on

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Speaker 1: a lecturer's galoshes, then covered them in soot. After the

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Speaker 1: lecture was over, the owner of the shoes put them

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Speaker 1: back on and stepped outside into the rain, which washed

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Speaker 1: away the soot, making it look like the speaker was

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Speaker 1: walking around campus without his shoes on. He also once

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Speaker 1: cut a piece of corned beef to look like a

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Speaker 1: human ear, then hung it at a Van Go exhibit

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Speaker 1: in New York's Museum of Modern Art. The plaque that

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Speaker 1: he had made to go with it claimed that the

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Speaker 1: ear had been the one van Go himself had cut

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Speaker 1: off before he died. Museum goers swarmed the display until

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Speaker 1: employees realized what had been done. But perhaps the greatest

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Speaker 1: trick this devil ever pulled happened in New York City's

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Speaker 1: Central Park. Troy had purchased a park bench for himself

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Speaker 1: and decided to walk through the park carrying it. The police,

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Speaker 1: upon seeing a man hauling a park bench by himself,

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Speaker 1: thought he was stealing it. However, every time they tried

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Speaker 1: to arrest him, Troy pulled out the receipt to show

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Speaker 1: them that he had in fact legally purchased the item.

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Speaker 1: He did it so often the authorities eventually stopped arresting him.

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Speaker 1: That's when Troy put the real prank at emotion. He

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Speaker 1: organized a group of friends to go through the park

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Speaker 1: and take the real city benches. The various cops on

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Speaker 1: the beat thought that it was Troy up to his

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Speaker 1: old tricks again, so they let them go, and all

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Speaker 1: the benches were carried off from Central Park. From rhinoceros

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Speaker 1: prints in the snow and a severed ear hanging in

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Speaker 1: a museum, to coordinating a mass theft of park benches,

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Speaker 1: Hugh Troy pulled off so many practical jokes he could

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Speaker 1: talk about them for hours to impact auditorium. That is,

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Speaker 1: of course, if the audience could find a seat first.

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Speaker 1: It lies just three d miles off the coast of

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Speaker 1: Costa Rica, a lush green paradise. Crystal blue waters lap

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Speaker 1: at golden shores, while hundreds of species of insect and

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Speaker 1: nineties species of birds coexist in a tropical wonder in.

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Speaker 1: Step foot on Cocos Island and you'll think you're standing

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Speaker 1: in the middle of a mirage. An island so beautiful

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Speaker 1: it might be too good to be true. Well, depending

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Speaker 1: on who you ask, it is. English pirate Edward Davis

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Speaker 1: first landed on Cocos Island in seventeen o nine, albeit

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Speaker 1: by accident. He and his crew were sailing their ship,

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Speaker 1: The Bachelor's Delight, to the Galapagos Islands, hauling ten years

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Speaker 1: worth of gold and jewels, in search of a hiding spot.

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Speaker 1: They stumbled upon the deserted Cocos Island and decided to

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Speaker 1: stash their booty there where nobody would find it. Over

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Speaker 1: one years later, Captain Bloody Sword Bonito and his men

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Speaker 1: stormed the shores of Cocos Island with one hundred fifty

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Speaker 1: tons of gold. They'd intercepted a Spanish galleon on its

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Speaker 1: way to Acacoco, Mexico, capturing its guard and donning their

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Speaker 1: uniforms as a disguise without killing anyone, They simply unloaded

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Speaker 1: all of the gold from that ship and loaded it

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Speaker 1: onto their own before heading west. The pirate captains spread

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Speaker 1: the gold around Cocos, bearing in some beneath the white sand,

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Speaker 1: while stashing the rest in a cave. Bonito, not want

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Speaker 1: to leave any loose ends, blew up the cave's entrance

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Speaker 1: by igniting some powder kegs from his ship, closing it

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Speaker 1: for good. And the crewmen who had helped him. He

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Speaker 1: killed most of them so nobody else would know the

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Speaker 1: location of the treasure, while the men he had spared

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Speaker 1: died at sea not long after, Bonito had been the

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Speaker 1: sole survivor. Then, in eighteen twenty, Cocos lured another captain

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Speaker 1: to its shores. William Thompson, reputable British sea trader, had

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Speaker 1: been hired by the Spanish viceroy in Peru to hide

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Speaker 1: valuable artifacts belonging to over fifty Spanish churches. General Jose

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Speaker 1: de San Martin had been leading a revolution for South

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Speaker 1: America's independence from Spain. As his forces marched towards Lima,

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Speaker 1: the viceroy new San Martin would take everything they had,

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Speaker 1: so they loaded all their gold and silver onto Thompson's boat.

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Speaker 1: Also included among the riches was a life size statue

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Speaker 1: of the Virgin Mary, cast entirely in gold and covered

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Speaker 1: in jewels. Thompson's instructions had been to eild the ocean

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Speaker 1: with the viceroys treasure safely hidden aboard his ship, the

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Speaker 1: Married Deer, until San Martin was out of the picture.

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Speaker 1: Spanish guards were even brought on board to protect the

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Speaker 1: bounty in case Thompson got any ideas. But Thompson did

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Speaker 1: get an idea or two. Carting a load of gold, silver,

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Speaker 1: and gems worth millions of dollars proved almost impossible to resist.

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Speaker 1: After they left Lima and the shoreline had disappeared into

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Speaker 1: the horizon, Thompson and his men killed the guards and

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Speaker 1: dumped them overboard. Then they sailed to Cocos to hide

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Speaker 1: what had become known as the Treasure of Lima. The

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Speaker 1: plan afterward had been for Thompson and his crew to

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Speaker 1: part ways until things died down, then returned to the

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Speaker 1: island together and split the treasure among them. However, as

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Speaker 1: soon as they departed Cocos, the Married Deer was stopped

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Speaker 1: by Spanish forces who arrested everyone on board. Thompson and

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Speaker 1: his first mate made a deal to show the Spanish

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Speaker 1: guard where they buried everything in exchange for their lives,

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Speaker 1: while the rest of the crew was hanged for piracy.

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Speaker 1: The two remaining members of the Married Deer escorted the

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Speaker 1: armed soldiers to the island as promised, and then made

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Speaker 1: a run for it. They escaped into the dense jungle,

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Speaker 1: hiding among the trees. The guards searched for hours but

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Speaker 1: came up empty, eventually sailing away exhausted and embarrassed, Thompson

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Speaker 1: and his first mate remained behind. As of today, the

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Speaker 1: treasure of Lima has never been recovered. Cocos Island and

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Speaker 1: the legends surrounding it have captivated the imaginations of people everywhere,

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Speaker 1: from treasure hunters to writers. Over three hundred attempts have

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Speaker 1: been made to find the various caches of gold and

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Speaker 1: jewels that have been hidden there over the last several

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Speaker 1: hundred years. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt took a shot

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Speaker 1: at it in the nineteen thirties. Since then, Cocos Island's

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Speaker 1: reputation has only grown, influencing numerous fictional islands in literature

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Speaker 1: and film. Daniel Dafoe based the Island of Despair in

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Speaker 1: his novel Robinson Crusoe on Cocos. Treasure Island, as described

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Speaker 1: by Robert Louis. Stevenson's book of the same name, was

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Speaker 1: also based in part on Cocos and the story surrounding it,

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Speaker 1: and author Michael Crichton used Cocos Island as a model

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Speaker 1: for island knew Are, the location of the ill fated

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Speaker 1: dinosaur themed resort Jurassic Park. The buried gold hidden around

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Speaker 1: the island may never be found, especially since the Costa

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Speaker 1: Rican government has refused to issue any more permits for

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Speaker 1: treasure hunting. But the island isn't going anywhere, and neither

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Speaker 1: is the treasure. And if we've learned anything from films

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Speaker 1: like Jurassic Park, it's that life uh finds away. I

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Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.

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Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about

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Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show

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Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,

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Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series and television show, and

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Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World

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Speaker 1: of lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.

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Speaker 1: Ye