Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 2: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Bob Nelson was born in Boston, Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty six. From the moment he let out
Speaker 2: his first cry, the cards were stacked against him. His
Speaker 2: father left, his mother struggled with substance abuse. His stepdad
Speaker 2: was a literal mob boss. With zero support or guidance.
Speaker 2: Bomb dropped out of high school in the mid nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: He drifted around Boston before moving to Los Angeles, California,
Speaker 2: where he got a job as a television repairman. Bob
Speaker 2: liked to work, and he kept the job for years,
Speaker 2: and then in nineteen sixty two, when he was twenty
Speaker 2: seven years old, something happened that changed the course of
Speaker 2: his life forever. He happened upon a book called The
Speaker 2: Prospect of Immortality. The title caught his eye and he
Speaker 2: started reading. In the opening pages, the author, doctor Robert
Speaker 2: Ettinger wrote, most of us now living have a chance
Speaker 2: for personal physical immortality. We need only arrange to have
Speaker 2: our bodies after we die stored in suitable freezers against
Speaker 2: the time when science may be able to help us.
Speaker 2: Sooner or later. Our friends of the future should be
Speaker 2: equal to the task of reviving and curing us. This
Speaker 2: idea became known as the theory of cryonics, and it
Speaker 2: must have come as quite a shock to Bob. Remember
Speaker 2: this was nineteen sixty two. There had never been a
Speaker 2: successful heart transplant before. The theory that a person could
Speaker 2: be frozen and brought back to life was less medical
Speaker 2: and i'm more science fictional. But Bob, nearing thirty years
Speaker 2: old and not having much to show for it, desperately
Speaker 2: needed something to believe in. The prospect of immortality became
Speaker 2: his bible, and he wasn't the only one. That same year,
Speaker 2: he saw a flyer for a meeting of the Cryonics
Speaker 2: Society of California. The prospect of immortality had made such
Speaker 2: a stir that people were actually organizing and trying to
Speaker 2: make the author's theory a reality. The Bob made a
Speaker 2: note of the date and address. The night of the meeting,
Speaker 2: he was nervous. He later told a reporter, and I quote,
Speaker 2: I remember going and thinking I'm not going to be
Speaker 2: allowed in because I'm not a scientist. I went in
Speaker 2: and I came out voted president. Just like that, Bob
Speaker 2: found himself serving as a leader in a growing movement.
Speaker 2: He embraced his role, connecting with dozens of others who
Speaker 2: were as passionate about cryonics as him. There was just
Speaker 2: one problem. None of them were actual doctors or scientists.
Speaker 2: On the whole.
Speaker 1: The Los Angeles cryonics community was populated by self identified futurists,
Speaker 1: people who were interested in technology that might arise in
Speaker 1: the future. They were basically a ragtag group of dreamers
Speaker 1: with a very loose grip on medical science. All their
Speaker 1: plans for freezing human bodies were purely theoretical, that is
Speaker 1: until nineteen sixty six. That year, a seventy three year
Speaker 1: old psychology professor named doctor James Bedford joined the Cryonic
Speaker 1: Society of California. But he didn't plan on being a
Speaker 1: member for long. He was dying of kidney cancer, and
Speaker 1: he volunteered to be the first ever human cryonically frozen.
Speaker 1: The Cryonic Society agreed to doctor Bedford's wishes. As morbid
Speaker 1: as it sounds, they were actually excited about the opportunity
Speaker 1: to make their dreams a reality, and they got to
Speaker 1: work right away. Bob contracted a company to build a
Speaker 1: cryonic capsule, which is basically a super insulated coffin, and
Speaker 1: started trying to source liquid nitrogen. But the Society's plans
Speaker 1: quickly went awry. Doctor Bedford died much sooner than anticipated,
Speaker 1: weeks before or the cryonic capsule was set to be finished,
Speaker 1: and before they had any liquid nitrogen at their disposal.
Speaker 1: As the president of the Cryonic Society, this was Bob's
Speaker 1: problem to solve. Unsure what else to do, he contacted
Speaker 1: friends and neighbors, asking them for help. He scrounged up
Speaker 1: enough ice to fill the bed of his truck, and
Speaker 1: then he put doctor Bedford's body inside and drove the
Speaker 1: corpse to a friend's house, where it stayed in a
Speaker 1: freezer for three weeks. Surely this wasn't what the late
Speaker 1: professor had signed up for, but there was no turning
Speaker 1: back now. When the cryonic capsule was finally finished, doctor
Speaker 1: Bedford was frozen right away, or at least the way
Speaker 1: the Cryonic Society thought was right. A mortician injected him
Speaker 1: with a medical grade anti freeze, and a special machine
Speaker 1: pumped oxygen into a system. The liquid nitrogen still hadn't
Speaker 1: come in yet, so they lined the coffin with dry
Speaker 1: ice and put doctor Bedford's body inside, for all its
Speaker 1: gore and imperfection. The Cryonic Society touted this as a success.
Speaker 1: Nelson had led the world's first cryonic freeze, and he
Speaker 1: did it without so much as a high school diploma.
Speaker 1: The story inspired futurists worldwide, and more signed up to
Speaker 1: have their bodies preserved. Many of the attempts were total disasters,
Speaker 1: but around five hundred people, including doctor Bedford, remained frozen
Speaker 1: to this day, awaiting a future in which they might
Speaker 1: be resurrected. And while many modern scientists say cryonics is
Speaker 1: just wishful thinking, others believe there could be some truth
Speaker 1: to the theory. Just ask MIT graduate Robert McIntyre. In
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, he successfully froze a rabbit and then brought
Speaker 1: it back to life. The rabbit was unable to make
Speaker 1: an official statement on the matter. But if doctor Bedford
Speaker 1: is ever revived, I imagine that he'll be anxious for
Speaker 1: some conversation. Luckily he won't have any problem breaking the ice.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a mistake is like a pencil on paper. It's
Speaker 1: easy to erase. You can apologize, go back and fix
Speaker 1: your work and do better in the future. But other times,
Speaker 1: one small oversight is like stepping on a landmine. It
Speaker 1: sends your whole life up into smoke. Just take the
Speaker 1: story of e. Forbes Smiley. Beginning in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: Smiley worked as an antique map dealer. A tall, well
Speaker 1: dressed man with glasses and gray hair, he certainly looked
Speaker 1: the part. He specialized in rare maps with artistic or
Speaker 1: historical value, especially those from the American colonial era, and
Speaker 1: he was credited with assembling some of the most important
Speaker 1: map collections in North America. He often spent his days
Speaker 1: pouring through the archives at esteemed institutions like the British Library,
Speaker 1: the New York Public Library, and Harvard University. Smiley was
Speaker 1: extremely successful in his field. He owned multiple homes, He
Speaker 1: went on frequent lavish vacations. He had last network of
Speaker 1: friends in the art community, including wealthy clients and well
Speaker 1: respected academics. All of this to say, when Smiley entered
Speaker 1: Yale University's bin a key rare book and manuscript library
Speaker 1: on June eighth of two thousand and five. The staff
Speaker 1: recognized him. They were happy to set him up with
Speaker 1: a table in a chair where he could sit and
Speaker 1: peruse a stack of books filled with rare maps. As
Speaker 1: he flipped through the pages, Smiley felt a tickle on
Speaker 1: his nose. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket
Speaker 1: and sneezed into it. He had no idea, though, that
Speaker 1: at that very moment, he had made a mistake that
Speaker 1: would ruin his career forever. When he was finished with
Speaker 1: the books, he got up, pushed in his chair, and
Speaker 1: wave goodbye to the librarian. She went to tidy up
Speaker 1: the table and notice something on the floor right beside
Speaker 1: the chair that Smiley had been sitting on was the
Speaker 1: blade of an exacto knife. The librarian panicked. There was
Speaker 1: only one reason a person would bring something like that
Speaker 1: into the biny key. She ran to call security, and
Speaker 1: officers caught Smiley before he made it off campus. They
Speaker 1: searched the antique dealer's briefcase, and inside they found three
Speaker 1: rare documents, one of which was extremely significant. It was
Speaker 1: the first ever North American map to label Plymouth, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and it was made by Captain James Cook. This paper
Speaker 1: alone is estimated to be worth more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars, and Smiley had cut it right
Speaker 1: out of those library books. He probably would have gotten
Speaker 1: away with it too, if not for that sneeze. When
Speaker 1: he reached into his pocket for his handkerchief, he accidentally
Speaker 1: dropped the blade of his Exacto knife onto the floor.
Speaker 1: Talk about a fatal mistake, E Forbes. Smiley was promptly arrested.
Speaker 1: A further search of his briefcase revealed even more rare documents.
Speaker 1: When he went to trial in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: Smiley admitted to stealing at least ninety seven maps from
Speaker 1: six different institutions, worth a total of about three million dollars.
Speaker 1: As for why he did it, well, apparently the successful
Speaker 1: antique dealer had accumulated quite a bit of debt. His
Speaker 1: lavish lifestyle was bought on credit, and he found himself
Speaker 1: unable to make the necessary payments, so he took to
Speaker 1: nabbing rare maps and selling them quickly at a massive profit.
Speaker 1: Because many of the documents he'd stolen had already been sold.
Speaker 1: Collectors were forced to return items that they had paid
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of dollars for. According to the judge,
Speaker 1: though Smiley was very remorseful. After the ruse was up,
Speaker 1: he made the effort to return as many stolen maps
Speaker 1: as possible and agreed to pay two point three million
Speaker 1: dollars in restitution. Because of this, he was only sentenced
Speaker 1: to three and a half years in prison. These days,
Speaker 1: Smiley is once again a free man, but his time
Speaker 1: in the antique business is definitely over. He now works
Speaker 1: as a web designer and landscaper on Martha's Vineyard, keeping
Speaker 1: relatively low profile. It's obvious that e Forbes Smiley made
Speaker 1: some very bad choices, but I think he'd prefer to
Speaker 1: say that he simply lost his way. He fell off
Speaker 1: the map for a while, and now hopefully he's back
Speaker 1: on the right path. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
Speaker 1: another Award winning show called Lore which is a podcast,
Speaker 1: book series, and television show and you can learn all
Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.