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Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full

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Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. All over the world there are places rife

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Speaker 1: with unexplained phenomena. Countless ships and aircraft have been lost

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Speaker 1: in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle, and something crashed

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Speaker 1: in Roswell, New Mexico. Whether that was a weather balloon

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Speaker 1: like the Army said, or evidence of alien life, we

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Speaker 1: may never know the truth. But there is another location

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Speaker 1: that defies explanation. It's eight hundred miles south of Roswell,

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Speaker 1: in a quiet patch of the Chihuahua Desert in Durango, Mexico.

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Speaker 1: Very quiet in fact, hence its nickname the Zone of Silence.

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Speaker 1: There isn't much to speak of in the Zone of Silence,

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Speaker 1: mostly dirt and sand, shrubs and desert wildlife. The closest

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Speaker 1: town is twenty five miles southwest, and if you ask

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Speaker 1: anyone there about the strange location, they're sure to have

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Speaker 1: some stories to tell. Many of the tales date back

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Speaker 1: to the nineteen thirties, when a pilot by the name

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Speaker 1: of Francisco Cerebia was forced into an emergency landing. He'd

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Speaker 1: been flying over the desert when he noticed his gauges

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Speaker 1: and instruments went on the fritz and his radio couldn't

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Speaker 1: get a signal. He didn't know it at the time,

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Speaker 1: but the zone of silence practically blocked all radio transmissions,

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Speaker 1: both on the ground and in the air thanks to

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Speaker 1: magnetic fields. But it wasn't until nineteen sixty four when

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Speaker 1: a pem X engineer named Harry de la Pena visited

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Speaker 1: the area. He had been hired to survey the land

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Speaker 1: for a planned oil pipeline that would run all the

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Speaker 1: way to Jamenez, and Harry noticed two things. First, just

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Speaker 1: like the pilot before him, his radio seemed to cut

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Speaker 1: in and out. In fact, it was Delepena who coined

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Speaker 1: the term zone of silence to describe this particular part

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Speaker 1: of the desert. Secondly, he couldn't figure out where the

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Speaker 1: zone of silence started and stopped. They never stayed in

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Speaker 1: one place and always seemed to be moving. However, it

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Speaker 1: was what happened several years later that really made people

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Speaker 1: wonder what was going on down in Mexico. You see,

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Speaker 1: an Athena RTV test rocket had been launched out of

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Speaker 1: Utah in June of nineteen seventy. The missile was headed

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Speaker 1: toward White Sands, New Mexico, but went way off course,

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Speaker 1: landing in the Zone of Silence instead and missing its

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Speaker 1: target by five dred miles. It could have been a malfunction, or,

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Speaker 1: as many have pointed out, it might have been something

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Speaker 1: more serious. Just as they had done in Roswell, the

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Speaker 1: US government turned to evasion to hide what had really happened.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just a rocket they had lost, You see,

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Speaker 1: there had been a payload on board, consisting of cobalt

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Speaker 1: the seven A radioactive element. Officials asked Mexican authorities for

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Speaker 1: permission to enter the desert and search for the missing rockets.

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Speaker 1: The Americans then hired locals to watch over the site

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Speaker 1: as they worked to remove the missile. During the process,

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Speaker 1: they realized their radios weren't the only malfunctioning technology in

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Speaker 1: the zone. Televisions and satellites also lost their signal. It

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Speaker 1: was a dead zone for almost anything technological In the end,

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Speaker 1: the Athena rocket, along with two hundred tons of radioactive soil,

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Speaker 1: was carded off to New Mexico, the missile's original destination.

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Speaker 1: Although magnetic fields weren't the only unusual phenomena in the zone,

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Speaker 1: those who live relatively close by have talked about an

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Speaker 1: eerie trio of individuals who have popped up from time

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Speaker 1: to time. They're described as highly attractive people wearing clothing

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Speaker 1: not meant for the desert climate. Each has blonde hair,

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Speaker 1: speaks Spanish and behaves politely. An employee of a local

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Speaker 1: ranch once asked where they had come from, and the

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Speaker 1: group merely replied from above. And in ninety six the

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Speaker 1: residents of nearby Sebaios claimed to have seen a UFO.

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Speaker 1: Their witnesses reported a thousand foot long rectangle flying over

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Speaker 1: their heads. It emanated a low hum, and it had

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Speaker 1: lights flashing all around it. Dogs barked and howled until

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Speaker 1: it left, which it did after only a few seconds.

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Speaker 1: Those who witnessed it said it disappeared going south towards

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Speaker 1: the Zone of silence. Suffice it to say, the Mapeemi

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Speaker 1: Zone of Silence has been a hotbed of unusual activity

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Speaker 1: over the years. Skeptics claim that the only unusual thing

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Speaker 1: is how many people believe the stories. But for those

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Speaker 1: who have actually been there, some things just don't add up. Ironic,

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Speaker 1: I think that people cannot stop talking about a place

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Speaker 1: called the Zone of Silence. M It was Forrest Gump

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Speaker 1: who famously said, I just started running. But Forest wasn't

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Speaker 1: alone in his impulse to just get a move on.

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Speaker 1: Allow me to introduce you to Huberta. One day in

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Speaker 1: November of nine, hubert To just started walking south. No

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Speaker 1: one is sure why. Some say she was in search

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Speaker 1: of love. Some say she had witnessed her mother's murder

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Speaker 1: and fled out of fear. Still others say she was

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Speaker 1: on a quest to find the land of her ancestors.

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Speaker 1: But whatever the case, she walked south. It began at

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Speaker 1: the St. Lucia Estuary in Zululand, South Africa. Huberta showed

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Speaker 1: up in Natal, and the local paper, the Natal Mercury,

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Speaker 1: reported her arrival in the area. You might say they

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Speaker 1: weren't exactly expecting her. About one miles along the road,

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Speaker 1: hubert To set up camp briefly in the lagoons at

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Speaker 1: the mouth of the Milonga River. By this point she

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Speaker 1: had already become something of a celebrity, and crowds showed

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Speaker 1: up to give her food and gifts for her pilgrimage.

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Speaker 1: It was here that she faced the first obstacles of

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Speaker 1: her seemingly spontaneous journey. There was an attempted kidnapping the

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Speaker 1: price of fame, I suppose, but Huberta escaped, crossing into Durban,

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Speaker 1: and there she lived a luxurious life. By day, she

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Speaker 1: walked the city streets and swam the beautiful beaches spanning

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Speaker 1: the Golden Mile from the Bay of Plenty to Dairy Beach.

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Speaker 1: And by night she hit the links at the famed

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Speaker 1: Beechwood golf course that even bathed in a pond of

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Speaker 1: a moonlit monastery garden. She even crashed lavish country club parties.

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Speaker 1: By now everyone was tuned into Huberta's journey. News stands

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Speaker 1: around the world reported her travels. More kidnapping and assassination

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Speaker 1: attempts were made, but through it all she proved elusive.

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Speaker 1: Things did get a bit dicey when she stalled out

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Speaker 1: on the train tracks. Literally thoroughly exhausted, she fell asleep

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Speaker 1: and required a gentle awakening from the locomotive workers to

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Speaker 1: help her off the tracks and move forward in request,

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Speaker 1: and so hubert To continued to walk for three whole years.

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Speaker 1: She covered a thousand miles on her mission to find well,

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Speaker 1: whatever it was she was looking for. No one ever asked,

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Speaker 1: but she probably wouldn't have answered the question anyway. That's

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Speaker 1: how mysterious she was. Unfortunately, with celebrity comes risk. While

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Speaker 1: taking a swim in a river, Huberts's assassins finally caught

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Speaker 1: up with her. Three separate men shot her, ending her

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Speaker 1: tireless journey for good. When her body was found, it

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Speaker 1: had washed up on the shore downriver. The following day,

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Speaker 1: the Natal Mercury told the world of the grizzly news.

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Speaker 1: The public was furious. Numerous international publications, including the Chicago

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Speaker 1: Tribune and Nigeria's The Punch, published tributes to the life

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Speaker 1: of this mysterious wanderer. Even South Africa's Parliament discussed her

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Speaker 1: life as well as what was to be done about

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Speaker 1: the end of it, and well wishers sent sympathy, wreaths,

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Speaker 1: cards and donations in her honor. Just an independent gal

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Speaker 1: determined to find her place in the world, out for

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Speaker 1: an innocent walk. Even more tragic, the three men who

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Speaker 1: assassinated her, pleaded ignorance and were slapped with a measly

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Speaker 1: twenty pound fine, further stoking the fire of public outrage

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Speaker 1: around the death of an international celebrity, Hubert to the Hippo. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: her body was shipped all the way to England where

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Speaker 1: she was stuffed and sent back to South Africa. When

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Speaker 1: she was finally put on display at the Durban Museum,

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Speaker 1: twenty thou people came to see her and to this

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Speaker 1: day she's still there, standing proudly at the museum in

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Speaker 1: King Williamstown. End of the Road or a Curious Journey.

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

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn

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

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Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make an other award winning

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

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Speaker 1: television show and you can learn all about it over

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Speaker 1: at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,

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Speaker 1: stay curious. Yeah,