Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: 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. All over the world there are places rife
Speaker 1: with unexplained phenomena. Countless ships and aircraft have been lost
Speaker 1: in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle, and something crashed
Speaker 1: in Roswell, New Mexico. Whether that was a weather balloon
Speaker 1: like the Army said, or evidence of alien life, we
Speaker 1: may never know the truth. But there is another location
Speaker 1: that defies explanation. It's eight hundred miles south of Roswell,
Speaker 1: in a quiet patch of the Chihuahua Desert in Durango, Mexico.
Speaker 1: Very quiet in fact, hence its nickname the Zone of Silence.
Speaker 1: There isn't much to speak of in the Zone of Silence,
Speaker 1: mostly dirt and sand, shrubs and desert wildlife. The closest
Speaker 1: town is twenty five miles southwest, and if you ask
Speaker 1: anyone there about the strange location, they're sure to have
Speaker 1: some stories to tell. Many of the tales date back
Speaker 1: to the nineteen thirties, when a pilot by the name
Speaker 1: of Francisco Cerebia was forced into an emergency landing. He'd
Speaker 1: been flying over the desert when he noticed his gauges
Speaker 1: and instruments went on the fritz and his radio couldn't
Speaker 1: get a signal. He didn't know it at the time,
Speaker 1: but the zone of silence practically blocked all radio transmissions,
Speaker 1: both on the ground and in the air thanks to
Speaker 1: magnetic fields. But it wasn't until nineteen sixty four when
Speaker 1: a pem X engineer named Harry de la Pena visited
Speaker 1: the area. He had been hired to survey the land
Speaker 1: for a planned oil pipeline that would run all the
Speaker 1: way to Jamenez, and Harry noticed two things. First, just
Speaker 1: like the pilot before him, his radio seemed to cut
Speaker 1: in and out. In fact, it was Delepena who coined
Speaker 1: the term zone of silence to describe this particular part
Speaker 1: of the desert. Secondly, he couldn't figure out where the
Speaker 1: zone of silence started and stopped. They never stayed in
Speaker 1: one place and always seemed to be moving. However, it
Speaker 1: was what happened several years later that really made people
Speaker 1: wonder what was going on down in Mexico. You see,
Speaker 1: an Athena RTV test rocket had been launched out of
Speaker 1: Utah in June of nineteen seventy. The missile was headed
Speaker 1: toward White Sands, New Mexico, but went way off course,
Speaker 1: landing in the Zone of Silence instead and missing its
Speaker 1: target by five dred miles. It could have been a malfunction, or,
Speaker 1: as many have pointed out, it might have been something
Speaker 1: more serious. Just as they had done in Roswell, the
Speaker 1: US government turned to evasion to hide what had really happened.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just a rocket they had lost, You see,
Speaker 1: there had been a payload on board, consisting of cobalt
Speaker 1: the seven A radioactive element. Officials asked Mexican authorities for
Speaker 1: permission to enter the desert and search for the missing rockets.
Speaker 1: The Americans then hired locals to watch over the site
Speaker 1: as they worked to remove the missile. During the process,
Speaker 1: they realized their radios weren't the only malfunctioning technology in
Speaker 1: the zone. Televisions and satellites also lost their signal. It
Speaker 1: was a dead zone for almost anything technological In the end,
Speaker 1: the Athena rocket, along with two hundred tons of radioactive soil,
Speaker 1: was carded off to New Mexico, the missile's original destination.
Speaker 1: Although magnetic fields weren't the only unusual phenomena in the zone,
Speaker 1: those who live relatively close by have talked about an
Speaker 1: eerie trio of individuals who have popped up from time
Speaker 1: to time. They're described as highly attractive people wearing clothing
Speaker 1: not meant for the desert climate. Each has blonde hair,
Speaker 1: speaks Spanish and behaves politely. An employee of a local
Speaker 1: ranch once asked where they had come from, and the
Speaker 1: group merely replied from above. And in ninety six the
Speaker 1: residents of nearby Sebaios claimed to have seen a UFO.
Speaker 1: Their witnesses reported a thousand foot long rectangle flying over
Speaker 1: their heads. It emanated a low hum, and it had
Speaker 1: lights flashing all around it. Dogs barked and howled until
Speaker 1: it left, which it did after only a few seconds.
Speaker 1: Those who witnessed it said it disappeared going south towards
Speaker 1: the Zone of silence. Suffice it to say, the Mapeemi
Speaker 1: Zone of Silence has been a hotbed of unusual activity
Speaker 1: over the years. Skeptics claim that the only unusual thing
Speaker 1: is how many people believe the stories. But for those
Speaker 1: who have actually been there, some things just don't add up. Ironic,
Speaker 1: I think that people cannot stop talking about a place
Speaker 1: called the Zone of Silence. M It was Forrest Gump
Speaker 1: who famously said, I just started running. But Forest wasn't
Speaker 1: alone in his impulse to just get a move on.
Speaker 1: Allow me to introduce you to Huberta. One day in
Speaker 1: November of nine, hubert To just started walking south. No
Speaker 1: one is sure why. Some say she was in search
Speaker 1: of love. Some say she had witnessed her mother's murder
Speaker 1: and fled out of fear. Still others say she was
Speaker 1: on a quest to find the land of her ancestors.
Speaker 1: But whatever the case, she walked south. It began at
Speaker 1: the St. Lucia Estuary in Zululand, South Africa. Huberta showed
Speaker 1: up in Natal, and the local paper, the Natal Mercury,
Speaker 1: reported her arrival in the area. You might say they
Speaker 1: weren't exactly expecting her. About one miles along the road,
Speaker 1: hubert To set up camp briefly in the lagoons at
Speaker 1: the mouth of the Milonga River. By this point she
Speaker 1: had already become something of a celebrity, and crowds showed
Speaker 1: up to give her food and gifts for her pilgrimage.
Speaker 1: It was here that she faced the first obstacles of
Speaker 1: her seemingly spontaneous journey. There was an attempted kidnapping the
Speaker 1: price of fame, I suppose, but Huberta escaped, crossing into Durban,
Speaker 1: and there she lived a luxurious life. By day, she
Speaker 1: walked the city streets and swam the beautiful beaches spanning
Speaker 1: the Golden Mile from the Bay of Plenty to Dairy Beach.
Speaker 1: And by night she hit the links at the famed
Speaker 1: Beechwood golf course that even bathed in a pond of
Speaker 1: a moonlit monastery garden. She even crashed lavish country club parties.
Speaker 1: By now everyone was tuned into Huberta's journey. News stands
Speaker 1: around the world reported her travels. More kidnapping and assassination
Speaker 1: attempts were made, but through it all she proved elusive.
Speaker 1: Things did get a bit dicey when she stalled out
Speaker 1: on the train tracks. Literally thoroughly exhausted, she fell asleep
Speaker 1: and required a gentle awakening from the locomotive workers to
Speaker 1: help her off the tracks and move forward in request,
Speaker 1: and so hubert To continued to walk for three whole years.
Speaker 1: She covered a thousand miles on her mission to find well,
Speaker 1: whatever it was she was looking for. No one ever asked,
Speaker 1: but she probably wouldn't have answered the question anyway. That's
Speaker 1: how mysterious she was. Unfortunately, with celebrity comes risk. While
Speaker 1: taking a swim in a river, Huberts's assassins finally caught
Speaker 1: up with her. Three separate men shot her, ending her
Speaker 1: tireless journey for good. When her body was found, it
Speaker 1: had washed up on the shore downriver. The following day,
Speaker 1: the Natal Mercury told the world of the grizzly news.
Speaker 1: The public was furious. Numerous international publications, including the Chicago
Speaker 1: Tribune and Nigeria's The Punch, published tributes to the life
Speaker 1: of this mysterious wanderer. Even South Africa's Parliament discussed her
Speaker 1: life as well as what was to be done about
Speaker 1: the end of it, and well wishers sent sympathy, wreaths,
Speaker 1: cards and donations in her honor. Just an independent gal
Speaker 1: determined to find her place in the world, out for
Speaker 1: an innocent walk. Even more tragic, the three men who
Speaker 1: assassinated her, pleaded ignorance and were slapped with a measly
Speaker 1: twenty pound fine, further stoking the fire of public outrage
Speaker 1: around the death of an international celebrity, Hubert to the Hippo. Eventually,
Speaker 1: her body was shipped all the way to England where
Speaker 1: she was stuffed and sent back to South Africa. When
Speaker 1: she was finally put on display at the Durban Museum,
Speaker 1: twenty thou people came to see her and to this
Speaker 1: day she's still there, standing proudly at the museum in
Speaker 1: King Williamstown. End of the Road or a Curious Journey.
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 an other award winning
Speaker 1: show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and
Speaker 1: television show and you can learn all about it over
Speaker 1: at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious. Yeah,