Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you've heard this message before on a speaker above
Speaker 1: your heads. Please maintain control of your personal belongings at
Speaker 1: all times. Unattended baggage is subject to search, inspection, damage,
Speaker 1: and removal. That's the standard tsa security message in an
Speaker 1: American airport. Its message is simple and clear too. If
Speaker 1: you have a bag, keep it with you at all times,
Speaker 1: and if you leave the bag alon, you're essentially giving
Speaker 1: up responsibility for what happens to it. But what does
Speaker 1: happen to a suitcase that gets left behind? Where does
Speaker 1: it go? We know that every airport has a lost
Speaker 1: and found, But do items remain there forever? If they
Speaker 1: are never claimed? Does security eventually throw them out like
Speaker 1: they do with suspicious water bottles and knives on carry
Speaker 1: on luggage? If you've ever wondered this, then you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be the first person. For decades, people would forget about
Speaker 1: their bags in airports and it would go straight to
Speaker 1: whatever storage they could find for it. It was a
Speaker 1: problem not just for airlines but for all sorts of
Speaker 1: mass transit companies. If there's one thing more universal than
Speaker 1: the human desire for travel, it's our ability to leave
Speaker 1: our important belongings behind at the first opportunity. It's estimated
Speaker 1: that half a percent of baggage goes permanently unclaimed at airports,
Speaker 1: but with hundreds of millions of people traveling the country
Speaker 1: in a year, that still means millions of bags that
Speaker 1: need somewhere to go. Well, one curious tale might just
Speaker 1: add answer the question. In nineteen seventy, Doyle Owens of Scottsboro, Alabama,
Speaker 1: was talking to a bus driver friend on Ham radio.
Speaker 1: The bus driver mentioned offhand that the buses always deal
Speaker 1: with loads of excess baggage that gets left behind, far
Speaker 1: more than they could ever deal with. Owens was just
Speaker 1: an insurance salesman, but he knew a market opportunity when
Speaker 1: he saw one. Shortly after, he borrowed a pickup truck,
Speaker 1: took out a loan, and drove to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: To pick up a load of unclaned baggage from the
Speaker 1: bus company's headquarters. Along with his wife, Sue, and his
Speaker 1: two sons, he went to work selling the baggage and
Speaker 1: its contents thrift store style, first from a rented house,
Speaker 1: then from a warehouse. It was enough of a success
Speaker 1: that eight years later he partnered with his first airline
Speaker 1: in order to handle their leftover baggage for them. Eventually,
Speaker 1: all domestic airlines had deals with this little company in Alabama.
Speaker 1: Even as it kept expanding, the unique appeal of the
Speaker 1: Unclaimed Baggage Center remained intact. It's like a miniature city
Speaker 1: of lost and forgotten objects, from the mundane to the
Speaker 1: truly strange, and it should come as no surprise that
Speaker 1: when news outlets found out about the company, they were
Speaker 1: eager to feature them. A nineteen ninety five piece on
Speaker 1: the Oprah Show catapulted them into a greater stratosphere of awareness,
Speaker 1: and soon the Unclaimed Baggage Center was not just a
Speaker 1: small business anymore. It was a tourist attraction. In the
Speaker 1: late nineteen nineties, they founded the Museum of Lost Treasures,
Speaker 1: a companion building that would feature the strangest and most
Speaker 1: interesting items that the Owens family had found over the
Speaker 1: years at various times throughout history. They found such items
Speaker 1: as a Renaissance loot, a live rattlesnake, an Egyptian burial mask,
Speaker 1: and in the late nineteen nineties they found a bag
Speaker 1: full of props and puppets from the Jim Henson Company,
Speaker 1: and among those Henson objects was the full puppet for
Speaker 1: the character Hoggle from the film Labyrinth. Naturally, the Unclaimed
Speaker 1: Baggage Center reached out to the Henson Company to see
Speaker 1: if they wanted the back back. In a spirit of
Speaker 1: good humor, the Henson family allowed them to keep the
Speaker 1: puppet of Hoggle, which now lives in the Museum of
Speaker 1: Lost Treasures. And it's easy enough to see why, after all,
Speaker 1: the Unclaim Baggage Center is it away a special sort
Speaker 1: of labyrinth. Marylyn and Maurice watched the sunrise over sixty
Speaker 1: four million square miles of endless, deep blue water. They
Speaker 1: had sailed over six thousand miles from England across the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: through the Panama Canal and past the Galopagus Islands. It
Speaker 1: was an absolute triumph. Maurice rested a hand on his
Speaker 1: wife's back, taking in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean
Speaker 1: from the sun bleached deck of their small ship. They
Speaker 1: had named it the Orlon, from a combination of Maurice
Speaker 1: and Maryland's first names and a symbol of the adventure
Speaker 1: that they were embarking on together. The Baileys were surprised
Speaker 1: to find that a life at sea suited them. Setting
Speaker 1: sail in June of nineteen seventy two, they'd become closer
Speaker 1: than ever before, and nine months later, in March of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, the prospect of another few months spent
Speaker 1: in tight quarters felt comforting, not daunting. New Zealand Their
Speaker 1: final destination lay another five thousand miles away, across the
Speaker 1: largest ocean in the world. Marilyn looked up at her husband,
Speaker 1: beaming at his tanned brow and newfound freckles. What a
Speaker 1: perfect day spent with her perfect husband on this perfect boat.
Speaker 1: And then came the whale, an injured, confused sperm whale,
Speaker 1: rising to the surface for a breath of air and
Speaker 1: destroying the Orelan in one fell swoop. Maurice and Maryland
Speaker 1: couldn't believe their bad luck. Here they'd been floating through
Speaker 1: the middle of the Pacific Ocean, literally millions of square
Speaker 1: miles of water, and they were rear ended by a whale.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, this was not what they were expecting.
Speaker 1: Maurice and Maryland Bailey were not particularly adventurous people. The
Speaker 1: whole point of the sailing trip had been to break
Speaker 1: up the monotony of their quiet, middle aged lives back
Speaker 1: in England, and they weren't professional sailors either. In fact,
Speaker 1: Maryland couldn't even swim. They sold all their possessions to
Speaker 1: buy the Orland and pay for Maurice's sailing lessons. Down
Speaker 1: at a nearby harbor. Now thousands of miles away from home,
Speaker 1: they were literally on a sinking ship, in close proximity
Speaker 1: to at least one massive whale, and no idea how
Speaker 1: to call for rescue. The Orland sank within minutes. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: Maryland and Maurice were calm in the crisis. Maurice retrieved
Speaker 1: the circular rubber life raft, about the size of a
Speaker 1: kiddie pool, while Maryland raced to find medical supplies, a compass,
Speaker 1: and enough provisions in case rescue took a few days.
Speaker 1: Minutes earlier, they'd been enjoying a beautiful sunrise aboard the ship.
Speaker 1: They called home a ship that was currently sinking to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the Pacific, taking all their worldly possessions
Speaker 1: with it. The first week passed easily. Yes, the small
Speaker 1: raft was uncomfortable, Yes, alone, time became a forgotten luxury.
Speaker 1: But each day the Baileys were sure they'd be rescued.
Speaker 1: They rationed their canned food, calculated their approximate location, and
Speaker 1: took turns watching for passing ships. By the end of
Speaker 1: the first month, things started to look dire. Several ships
Speaker 1: had passed without seeing the Bailey's raft or their signal flares.
Speaker 1: They were out of food and out of water. They
Speaker 1: were sunburnt, exhausted, and significantly less hopeful than before. Sharks
Speaker 1: bumped against the bottom of the rubber raft and to survive,
Speaker 1: the Baileys ate raw fish and turtles caught with their
Speaker 1: bare hands, and drank rain water collected in their empty cans.
Speaker 1: But surprisingly, this turn of events also pushed Maurice and
Speaker 1: Maryland closer than ever before. They played games together. Imaginary
Speaker 1: dinner party was their favorite. What a delicious roast beef,
Speaker 1: Maurice would comment when Marylyn handed him a strip of
Speaker 1: turtle meat, and those buttered rolls smell incredible lovely Marilyn
Speaker 1: would agree. She would jab her finger at Maurice's ribs,
Speaker 1: poking through his skin, but save room for dessert. I
Speaker 1: think it's a lemon tart. On June thirtieth, over a
Speaker 1: year since the Baileys had set sail, and nearly four
Speaker 1: months after the Orland sank, a South Korean fishing boat
Speaker 1: spotted a piece of debris floating on the surface. The
Speaker 1: Baileys had done everything they could to flag down the ship,
Speaker 1: but they were weak with malnutrition and they were out
Speaker 1: of flares. Since becoming stranded on the open sea, seven
Speaker 1: ships had passed Maurice and Maryland by, and as this
Speaker 1: fishing boat, the eighth ship passed through the Bailey's lost hope,
Speaker 1: But then the fishing boat turned around and it headed
Speaker 1: straight for them. When the Baileys were finally pulled aboard,
Speaker 1: they were skeletal. Each of them had lost approximately forty
Speaker 1: pounds and were covered in sores from the disintegrating rubber
Speaker 1: raft and more than that. After months trapped in four
Speaker 1: square feet of space, they were unable to stand, but
Speaker 1: what they could do was eat and finally enjoyed the
Speaker 1: real food they've been dreaming of while scarfing down raw
Speaker 1: turtle meat for the past few months. Their first proper
Speaker 1: meal was a bowl of warm noodles and a mug
Speaker 1: of sweet hot coffee. It was the best thing either
Speaker 1: of them had ever eaten. No one would blame the
Speaker 1: Baileys if they returned home to England and vowed never
Speaker 1: to lay eyes on the sea again. But within two
Speaker 1: years of being rescued, they built a new boat, and
Speaker 1: they named it, of course, the orel In two. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and
Speaker 1: Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about
Speaker 1: the show and the people who make it over at
Speaker 1: Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link
Speaker 1: to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in
Speaker 1: bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And
Speaker 1: if you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining
Speaker 1: our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the
Speaker 1: interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign
Speaker 1: up over at patreon dot com slash Grimandmild, and until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious,