Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Obsession is one of the most powerful forces
Speaker 1: on the planet. Like a drug, it affects the mind
Speaker 1: and body, providing singular focus and determination, but removing objectivity.
Speaker 1: Obsession is an endless, all consuming hunger that is never satisfied.
Speaker 1: English explorer Percy Fawcett had that hunger and it led
Speaker 1: him to the ends of the Earth. Born in Devon,
Speaker 1: England in eighteen sixty seven, Fawcett grew up surrounded by
Speaker 1: outdoorsmen and adventurers. His father was a fellow of the
Speaker 1: Royal Geographical Society, while his brother used his experiences as
Speaker 1: a mountain climber to influence the many adventure novels he wrote.
Speaker 1: He joined the British Army, then eventually got married and
Speaker 1: started a family. He and his wife, Nina, had two
Speaker 1: sons and a daughter. Around the turn of the century,
Speaker 1: Fawcett followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a member of
Speaker 1: the Royal Geographical Society himself. He hoped his time in
Speaker 1: the RGS would help him hone his skills in cartography
Speaker 1: by surveying land in such regions as North Africa and
Speaker 1: eventually South America. South America was entirely new to the
Speaker 1: young Fawcett, who made his first trip there in nineteen
Speaker 1: o six when he was thirty nine years old. He
Speaker 1: had been tasked by the r GS with exploring an
Speaker 1: unknown patch of jungle along the border between Bolivia and Brazil,
Speaker 1: and from the get go, it seems Fawcett's travels would
Speaker 1: be nothing short of extraordinary. Several months after he first
Speaker 1: arrived in Bolivia, he encountered wildlife unlike anything he'd ever
Speaker 1: seen back in England, including an anaconda that was over
Speaker 1: sixty feet long, which, of course Fawcett shots and killed.
Speaker 1: The explorers stories of enormous and dangerous animals were certainly entertaining,
Speaker 1: but rarely believed by his more scholarly colleagues. Still, something
Speaker 1: about the area captivated him that he didn't let professional
Speaker 1: ridicule stop him from finding out more Fossett made several
Speaker 1: return trips to South America over the years. At first
Speaker 1: his visits were met with hostility by the local tribes,
Speaker 1: but through generous offerings and friendly behavior, he was welcomed
Speaker 1: into their villages as a guest. There was something Faucett
Speaker 1: noticed about the native people he met. They had thrived
Speaker 1: for generations in one of the harshest environments on the planet,
Speaker 1: without the conveniences of the modern world. Fossett interpreted their
Speaker 1: survival as evidence of something more than he had seen.
Speaker 1: He believed that somewhere deep within South America there was
Speaker 1: a place, not just a place, a city, one that
Speaker 1: had been lost for thousands of years, all but consumed
Speaker 1: by the jungle. His theory were confirmed by the discovery
Speaker 1: of a journal that had been written by an early
Speaker 1: Portuguese explorer over a hundred and fifty years earlier. Within
Speaker 1: its pages, the explorer had described the abandoned ruins of
Speaker 1: an ancient advanced civilization. It was massive in size, with
Speaker 1: great big arches and a temple, the walls of which
Speaker 1: had been overrun with drawings and hieroglyphs. The documents had
Speaker 1: been cataloged in the National Library of Brazil simply as
Speaker 1: Manuscript five twelve, and the mystery of its origins were
Speaker 1: surpassed only by the mysteries within its ten pages, mysteries
Speaker 1: which had taken over Fawcett's imagination and fueled his new obsession.
Speaker 1: He called it the Lost City of Z, but the
Speaker 1: adventurer did an attempt to find Z until after he'd
Speaker 1: done a tour of duty in the First World War,
Speaker 1: after which he came back to Brazil with the sole
Speaker 1: purpose of locating his lost city. He didn't get far,
Speaker 1: though the weather it took a turn for the worse,
Speaker 1: and Fawcett was struck with a bad fever, forcing him
Speaker 1: to turn back. But he wasn't done. He knew the
Speaker 1: Lost City of Z was still out there, waiting to
Speaker 1: be rediscovered. His contemporaries called him crazy for wanting to try.
Speaker 1: They hadn't believed his wild stories before, and they certainly
Speaker 1: didn't believe him as he fought to fund a second
Speaker 1: mission five years later, though Fawcett returned. The fifty seven
Speaker 1: year old was joined by his son Jack and Jack's
Speaker 1: friend Raley Rimmel. They focused their efforts on the deep,
Speaker 1: lush jungles of the Matto Grosso region where Fawcett believes
Speaker 1: Z to exist, and sadly, that's where their story ended. Fawcett,
Speaker 1: his son, and their companion all disappeared on their expedition.
Speaker 1: Subsequent efforts to recover their bodies turned up nothing, and
Speaker 1: as for Z, well, it's still lost. To Somewhere out
Speaker 1: there might be a city waiting to be found, a
Speaker 1: city that has claimed the hearts and minds of explorers
Speaker 1: across generations. A city was legend and lore have been
Speaker 1: built on one thing, obsession. Certain things can evoke conflicting
Speaker 1: emotions inside us. The sound of a crying baby can
Speaker 1: either stir up empathy or frustration. A clown can be
Speaker 1: funny or terrifying, And in most cases, the site of
Speaker 1: a balloon is something to inspire joy and happiness. Like
Speaker 1: I said, in most cases. As America and Germany were
Speaker 1: looking for their next big weapon to end World War Two,
Speaker 1: Japan was studying the weather. A cold jet stream of
Speaker 1: air had been detected about thirty thousand feet above the
Speaker 1: country and was found to be so strong it could
Speaker 1: carry a weather balloon five thousand miles across the Pacific
Speaker 1: Ocean in only three days. Using this knowledge, scientists went
Speaker 1: to work. They constructed thirty foot long spheres out of
Speaker 1: rubberized silk filled with hydrogen, which were then tethered to
Speaker 1: mechanical instruments and dozens of sandbags. Temperature fluctuations had to
Speaker 1: be taken into account. Sunlight during the day caused the
Speaker 1: silk to expand at nights when the temperatures dropped, so
Speaker 1: with the balloons to prolong their journeys, a system was
Speaker 1: engineered using an altometer. If the balloons dropped below thirty
Speaker 1: thousand feet, two sandbags at a time would be cut
Speaker 1: loose automatically, allowing the balloons to maintain their altitude. If
Speaker 1: they flew too high or the pressure inside them became
Speaker 1: too dangerous, hydrogen was vented out to keep them balanced.
Speaker 1: For three days, the balloons were carried along the jet
Speaker 1: stream over the ocean to the west, at which point
Speaker 1: they discarded their ballast and dropped to Earth. The balloons
Speaker 1: weren't devised to study weather patterns, though they were bombs.
Speaker 1: Between nineteen forty four and nineteen forty five, Japanese forces
Speaker 1: launched more than nine thousand balloons toward the United States,
Speaker 1: each one carrying a combination of TNT, thermite, gunpowder, and
Speaker 1: other explosive chemicals. Out of those nine thousand, only about
Speaker 1: three hundred actually made it to their intended destinations. They
Speaker 1: landed all over North America, in places like Alaska, Oregon, Nevada,
Speaker 1: and even parts of Canada. The Japanese had been mulling
Speaker 1: over a plan for retaliation after American forces bomb Tokyo
Speaker 1: in the Doolittle Rate of nineteen forty two. They couldn't
Speaker 1: fly man aircraft to the United States as their planes
Speaker 1: were incapable of traveling those long distances, so the balloons
Speaker 1: provided an easier way of inflicting mass casualties from overseas.
Speaker 1: The plan was not without its flaws, though, most balloons
Speaker 1: fell into the Pacific without harming anyone, and the death
Speaker 1: toll was far lower than expected. Unfortunately, several of the
Speaker 1: incendiary devices that did cross into America wound up causing
Speaker 1: quite a bit of destruction. Reverend Archie Mitchell had recently
Speaker 1: become the pastor of a church in Bli, Oregon. He'd
Speaker 1: wanted to get to know the youth of his congregation
Speaker 1: a little better, so on May fifth of ninety five,
Speaker 1: he and his wife, who was pregnant with their first child,
Speaker 1: invited five students from their Sunday school class out on
Speaker 1: a picnic. A couple drove the children forty five minutes
Speaker 1: outside of Bligh to the Bucala Gerhardt Mountain. Once Mitchell
Speaker 1: had parked his car, everyone disembarked to explore the surrounding area.
Speaker 1: There was a creek at the bottom of a small hill,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't the rushing water that had caught the
Speaker 1: children's attention. A young girl named Joan Patsky noticed a
Speaker 1: large white object on the ground. The children and Elsie
Speaker 1: gathered around it. Mrs Mitchell beckoned her husband to join
Speaker 1: her and come see what they'd found, noting it looked
Speaker 1: like some kind of big balloon. He tried to warn
Speaker 1: them from the car, screaming at them to back away
Speaker 1: from the object blanketing the grass, but he couldn't get
Speaker 1: the words out in time. One of the other children
Speaker 1: touched it, his curiosity getting the better of him. Elsie,
Speaker 1: her unborn child, and the students were all killed. In
Speaker 1: a less tragic incident, one Japanese balloon fell on a
Speaker 1: power line in Hanford, Washington. The resulting blackout put nearby
Speaker 1: Hanford engineer works out of Commission. It wasn't down for long, though,
Speaker 1: and resumed operations once the debris had been cleared and
Speaker 1: the power had been restored. What did Hanford Engineer Works
Speaker 1: make plutonium? The same plutonium used to fuel a bomb
Speaker 1: the Allies would drop five months later on Nagasaki, Japan.
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 Manky 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.
Speaker 1: Ye