Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The Vietnam War lasted
Speaker 1: from nineteen fifty five to nine, and in its wake,
Speaker 1: almost four million souls were lost. A tragedy and one
Speaker 1: they'll write books and documentaries about until the end of time.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't the only war taking place during that period.
Speaker 1: Neighboring countries waged their own campaigns alongside the turmoil going
Speaker 1: on inside Vietnam. One such country was Laos, which, beginning
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five, was the site of a massive
Speaker 1: civil war between the communist Pottit movement from North Vietnam
Speaker 1: and the Royal Laotian Government, the official governing body of
Speaker 1: South Vietnam. The CIA had dubbed it the Secret War
Speaker 1: because we had recruited and trained a Lowatian hill tribe
Speaker 1: called the Hamong to fight the North Vietnamese on our
Speaker 1: behalf in order to stop the spread of communism. The
Speaker 1: United States feared that if Laos fell to communism, nearby
Speaker 1: countries would be next Laos had been designated a neutral territory,
Speaker 1: but by using the Hamoan to fight this war, they
Speaker 1: had turned them into targets for the pet Lao. After
Speaker 1: the Vietnam and Secret Wars ended, the padet Lao didn't
Speaker 1: forget about what happened and who had been responsible. They
Speaker 1: began hunting down massive numbers of Hamong people in what
Speaker 1: is now known as the Hamong Genocide, some of which
Speaker 1: still goes on today. As a result, many Hamoan fled
Speaker 1: the mountains to avoid persecution, while a good number found
Speaker 1: their way to America. In that number had grown too,
Speaker 1: over thirty five thousand. But even though they managed to
Speaker 1: escape Laos, they couldn't escape the horrors that they had witnessed.
Speaker 1: Their death would always follow them. No one here really
Speaker 1: knew how to help them. Almost none of the hamongk
Speaker 1: spoke in English, and their language was not well known
Speaker 1: outside their own country. It wasn't like you could go
Speaker 1: down to the local bookstore and buy a Hamong to
Speaker 1: English dictionary. So not only were they still suffering years
Speaker 1: after fleeing their homeland, but they were doing so all
Speaker 1: on their own. But this suffering didn't come in the
Speaker 1: form of internal bleeding or gunshots. There were no stab
Speaker 1: wounds or broken bones. Their pain was on a different level,
Speaker 1: but still justice traumatizing, and it was beyond frightening to
Speaker 1: the others around them. One night, a refugee would go
Speaker 1: to sleep, and the next morning they wouldn't wake up.
Speaker 1: Eighteen among refugees, mostly men between the ages of nineteen
Speaker 1: and fifty seven, died unexpectedly in their sleep. Doctors at
Speaker 1: the c d C were baffled. Autopsies revealed nothing except
Speaker 1: that the men had all been in good health, except
Speaker 1: there's one part of the human body that doctors can't autopsy.
Speaker 1: There's no way to cut into a person's brain and
Speaker 1: see their thoughts. The among people living in the United
Speaker 1: States had been burdened with some of the worst memories imaginable.
Speaker 1: These memories kept many of them awake, and the ones
Speaker 1: who did manage to sleep didn't do so for long.
Speaker 1: They couldn't, not with the images of murdered friends and
Speaker 1: loved ones burned into their minds. After days without sleep,
Speaker 1: their hearts, already exhausted and broken, would simply give out
Speaker 1: in the night. Doctors called it sudden unexplained death syndrome
Speaker 1: or SuDS. In the Philippines. They gave it a name
Speaker 1: that essentially means nightmare. Around the time these reports of
Speaker 1: unexplained deaths hit the papers, former professor was looking to
Speaker 1: make his mark on Hollywood. He'd already directed a small
Speaker 1: film about a family tormented by cannibals in the Nevada Desert,
Speaker 1: but this was the eighties and he felt America was
Speaker 1: ready for something truly frightening. That's when he came across
Speaker 1: an article about the Hmong refugees who were dying in
Speaker 1: their sleep, and their stories sparked a question in his mind,
Speaker 1: can our nightmares really kill us? And if so, how,
Speaker 1: Whether or not he answered the question professionally, this professor
Speaker 1: did go on to give birth to one of the
Speaker 1: most frightening horror films of the nineteen eighties. Today, we
Speaker 1: might view his career with enthusiasm, but Wes Craven understands
Speaker 1: that his dark stories have even darker roots. And now
Speaker 1: you know how Nightmares landed on the big screen, all
Speaker 1: thanks to one monster. Freddy Krueger m Eugene was born
Speaker 1: in Texas in the early nineteen twenties. His father was
Speaker 1: a police officer who moved the family to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: shortly after Eugene's birth. After high school, Eugene, eager to
Speaker 1: follow in his father's footsteps, was accepted to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: City College, where he planned to study police science. But
Speaker 1: plans have a habit of changing, especially when your window
Speaker 1: to the world is opened wider than you've ever seen before.
Speaker 1: Eugene quickly abandoned the idea of wearing a badge when
Speaker 1: he discovered the science of aeronautical engineering, designing airplanes and
Speaker 1: flying them. That was a dream come true. Eugene joined
Speaker 1: the United States Army Air Corps in order to obtain
Speaker 1: his pilot's license and enlisted in December of nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: eleven days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Desperately in
Speaker 1: need of reinforcements, he was sent to Oahu as part
Speaker 1: of the three Bomb Squadron, the same squadron responsible for
Speaker 1: piloting the B seventeen flying Fortress. He'd been flying for
Speaker 1: a few years when his B seventeen, on its way
Speaker 1: out of Vanuatu, missed the runway and crashed into nearby trees.
Speaker 1: Two members of his team were killed, and Eugene, not
Speaker 1: wanting this to happen, to anyone else. Ever, again stopped
Speaker 1: flying planes and started investigating why they crashed. He earned
Speaker 1: medals for his work, but after he left the army,
Speaker 1: he found the courage to start flying again, this time
Speaker 1: for Pan American Airways. He fought his days of crashes
Speaker 1: were over now that he no longer faced the threat
Speaker 1: of being shot out of the sky, but some people
Speaker 1: just can't escape their fate. On June eighteenth of ninety seven,
Speaker 1: pan AM Flight one one was scheduled to depart from Karachi, Pakistan,
Speaker 1: and delivered twenty six passengers and crew members, including third
Speaker 1: Officer Eugene, all the way to Istanbul. Everything seemed to
Speaker 1: be going fine for several hours until one of the
Speaker 1: engines failed. Thankfully, the other engines compensated to keep the
Speaker 1: bird in the air, but that caused them to overheat. Eventually,
Speaker 1: one of those caught fire and then fell off the aircraft.
Speaker 1: With two engines down, the plane descended eventually crashed, landing
Speaker 1: in the Syrian desert. Fifteen people had died, while another
Speaker 1: eleven passengers were in dire need of medical attention. Eugene
Speaker 1: suffered a few broken ribs, but that didn't stop him
Speaker 1: from assuming control of the situation and dragging passengers out
Speaker 1: from the burning wreckage and into safety. And that was
Speaker 1: the final straw for Eugene. Between the tragedies of his
Speaker 1: time in the military to his new civilian crash, he
Speaker 1: was ready to walk away from flying ships forever. He
Speaker 1: resigned from PanAm a short while later and began to
Speaker 1: pursue that original dream of becoming a police officer. That
Speaker 1: dream brought him back to l A where his father's
Speaker 1: footsteps were waiting for him. He served for a time
Speaker 1: in the Traffic division, but was eventually moved to the
Speaker 1: Public Information division, where he developed the taste for writing,
Speaker 1: a taste that grew into an insatiable hunger. Suddenly, Eugene
Speaker 1: saw a way to put all of his expertise to
Speaker 1: better use. The nineteen fifties had arrived, and with them
Speaker 1: came the dawn of a new age of entertainment. Motion
Speaker 1: pictures were expensive to make, and audiences didn't always want
Speaker 1: to go out to enjoy a few hours of distraction.
Speaker 1: But television was a different story, and thanks to his
Speaker 1: police knowledge, Eugene landed a job as an advisor on
Speaker 1: a new crime procedural. The show ran for just one
Speaker 1: year before being canceled. He went on to pitch a
Speaker 1: number of other TV shows, all with lawyers and cops,
Speaker 1: but none of them lasted beyond a handful of episodes.
Speaker 1: To pay his bills, he wrote scripts for our he
Speaker 1: established shows. Life seemed to be one fiery wreck after another,
Speaker 1: both literal and metaphorical, but he understood that out of
Speaker 1: failure came new opportunities for success. If the networks didn't
Speaker 1: want shows centered around police officers and lawyers, then Eugene
Speaker 1: would look elsewhere for his inspiration. He looked up. Eugene
Speaker 1: had explored the sky and crashed earth. He was a
Speaker 1: survivor who had saved numerous lives, and a decorated pilot
Speaker 1: with a brilliant mind. So rather than give Hollywood one
Speaker 1: more of the same old, he used his past to
Speaker 1: make something futuristic, and in nineteen sixty six it arrived
Speaker 1: a diverse new crew on a bold mission, and it's
Speaker 1: still with us today. Thanks to everything he experienced in
Speaker 1: his early years, Eugene Wesley Rowdenberry gifted us with one
Speaker 1: of the most beloved and influential science fiction world's ever created,
Speaker 1: Star Trek. I hope you've enjoyed Today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.