1 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:08,200 Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Menk's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio 2 00:00:08,280 --> 00:00:15,520 Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, 3 00:00:16,120 --> 00:00:18,880 Speaker 1: and if history is an open book, all of these 4 00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:22,720 Speaker 1: amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for 5 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:36,880 Speaker 1: us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. He's 6 00:00:36,920 --> 00:00:40,440 Speaker 1: the only astronaut without a military and aviation background to 7 00:00:40,560 --> 00:00:43,560 Speaker 1: have set foot on the Moon. He and other scientists 8 00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:46,360 Speaker 1: entered the history books as the first time NASA sent 9 00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:49,960 Speaker 1: scientists to accompany astronauts into space. But that's not the 10 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:54,600 Speaker 1: most curious fact about Harrison Schmidt. Not even close. You 11 00:00:54,600 --> 00:00:57,640 Speaker 1: could say he's studied and prepared his entire life for 12 00:00:57,720 --> 00:01:00,760 Speaker 1: the moment when he stepped foot on Apollo seven on 13 00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:04,680 Speaker 1: December eleventh of nineteen seventy two. After studying geology at 14 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:07,400 Speaker 1: the California Institute of Technology, he spent a year at 15 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:10,440 Speaker 1: the University of Oslo. In nineteen sixty four, he received 16 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:13,960 Speaker 1: his PhD from Harvard. From Rocks to Gas and the 17 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:16,560 Speaker 1: matter that makes up planets and their moons, I think 18 00:01:16,600 --> 00:01:18,880 Speaker 1: it's safe to say that Schmidt knew a lot about 19 00:01:18,920 --> 00:01:22,600 Speaker 1: the material that makes up our world. While most geologists 20 00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:26,120 Speaker 1: work for energy companies or mining sectors, Schmidt took a 21 00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:29,160 Speaker 1: different route. In nineteen sixty five, he found work creating 22 00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:34,120 Speaker 1: geological field techniques at the US Geological Surveys Astrological Center 23 00:01:34,240 --> 00:01:37,280 Speaker 1: in Flagstaff, Arizona. Those techniques would go on to be 24 00:01:37,360 --> 00:01:40,880 Speaker 1: used by Apollo Cruz. When NASA decided to send scientists 25 00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:44,679 Speaker 1: to the Moon with astronauts, they selected Schmidt. Schmidt trained 26 00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:46,800 Speaker 1: with the Air Force for the next year, learning to 27 00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:49,920 Speaker 1: become a jet pilot. Schmidt made his second mark in 28 00:01:50,040 --> 00:01:54,520 Speaker 1: history as the only geologist in the Astronaut Corps. From there, 29 00:01:54,720 --> 00:01:57,120 Speaker 1: he moved to Houston, where he put his lifelong love 30 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:00,200 Speaker 1: of geology to use, training the astronauts to be come 31 00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:04,760 Speaker 1: better at recognizing geologic changes while in orbit and collecting 32 00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:08,560 Speaker 1: material from the Moon's surface. In March of nineteen seventy, 33 00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:12,120 Speaker 1: Schmidt was assigned to the Apollo eighteen crew. Unfortunately, his 34 00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:16,000 Speaker 1: hopes were dashed when NASA scrubbed the mission. All wasn't lost, though, 35 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:19,080 Speaker 1: and his breakthrough came in late August when scientists convinced 36 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:22,720 Speaker 1: NASA to reassign Schmidt to the Apollo seventeen mission. It 37 00:02:22,760 --> 00:02:26,200 Speaker 1: would be the last Apollo mission, Schmidt certainly had some 38 00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:29,000 Speaker 1: shoes to fill, replacing an astronaut Joe Angel as the 39 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:32,519 Speaker 1: lunar module pilot. Two years later, on December seventh of 40 00:02:32,600 --> 00:02:36,320 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, Schmidt and his crewmates Commander Jean Cernan 41 00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:40,000 Speaker 1: and Ronald E. Evans boarded Apollo eleven at the Kennedy 42 00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:43,120 Speaker 1: Space Center for launch. A few days later, Cernan and 43 00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:46,400 Speaker 1: Schmidt landed on the Moon. Before collecting rocks, Schmidt took 44 00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:49,560 Speaker 1: pictures and claimed to have snapped the iconic blue Marble 45 00:02:49,639 --> 00:02:52,560 Speaker 1: photo of Earth. To date, it's the most widely circulated 46 00:02:52,600 --> 00:02:57,680 Speaker 1: photo ever taken. Schmidt collected formations, picked a sample that 47 00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:00,720 Speaker 1: became one of the most significant rock specimens ever collected. 48 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:04,680 Speaker 1: At just five ounces, the plutonic rock has helped NASA 49 00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:08,079 Speaker 1: support its theory about what material makes up the Moon's core. 50 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:12,639 Speaker 1: After collecting samples, Schmidt's and Commander Sernan returned to the 51 00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:16,960 Speaker 1: Lunar module. Both men removed their helmets. Moments later, Schmidt 52 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:19,560 Speaker 1: realized that he was congested was at the start of 53 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:22,400 Speaker 1: a cold With his next breath, the inside of his 54 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:26,120 Speaker 1: nose felt irritated. It was then that he understood the source. 55 00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:29,919 Speaker 1: He and Sernin had moon dust on their suits, helmets, 56 00:03:29,919 --> 00:03:33,720 Speaker 1: and boots. Schmidt felt his throat tightened, his voice faltered. 57 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:36,040 Speaker 1: It turned out that Schmidt was allergic to the very 58 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:39,960 Speaker 1: thing that he had trained for the Moon's surface. He 59 00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:42,280 Speaker 1: wouldn't be the only one, though, One of the flight 60 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:45,800 Speaker 1: surgeons on the mission also suffered an instant and severe reaction. 61 00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:49,800 Speaker 1: Both men recovered, though, and the mission resumed. Apolo seventeen 62 00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 1: splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean on December nineteenth 63 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:57,000 Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy two. In the fifty years since the 64 00:03:57,040 --> 00:04:00,960 Speaker 1: Apollo seventeen mission, Schmidt has advocated test in future pilots 65 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:05,280 Speaker 1: against such allergic reactions. The soft, powdery material is difficult 66 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:08,240 Speaker 1: to remove, even when the astronauts attempt to brush it off. 67 00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:11,520 Speaker 1: For Schmidt, the ease with which moondust can make its 68 00:04:11,560 --> 00:04:15,280 Speaker 1: way into astronauts lungs, it seems there is nothing to 69 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:32,560 Speaker 1: sneeze at. The world is a massive place, with billions 70 00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:35,800 Speaker 1: of people separated by thousands of miles of oceans. But 71 00:04:35,920 --> 00:04:40,320 Speaker 1: every once in a while, something serendipitous takes place. We 72 00:04:40,400 --> 00:04:43,279 Speaker 1: might run into an old friend in an unlikely location, 73 00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:46,640 Speaker 1: or realize that the differences between our cultures aren't as 74 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:50,080 Speaker 1: vast as we had once thought. But Cornish missionary William 75 00:04:50,080 --> 00:04:53,240 Speaker 1: Colenzo discovered something quite unexpected on his trip to New 76 00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:56,159 Speaker 1: Zealand in the late eighteen thirties that the world was 77 00:04:56,279 --> 00:05:00,279 Speaker 1: a lot smaller than any of us really knew weren't. 78 00:05:00,279 --> 00:05:04,120 Speaker 1: In Penzance, Cornwall, England in eighteen eleven, Colenzo was a 79 00:05:04,200 --> 00:05:07,479 Speaker 1: printer's apprentice before he joined the Church Missionary Society to 80 00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:10,520 Speaker 1: spread the gospel. It was eighteen thirty four when he 81 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:13,240 Speaker 1: first traveled to New Zealand and came face to face 82 00:05:13,279 --> 00:05:16,240 Speaker 1: with the native Maori people and their customs. According to 83 00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:19,320 Speaker 1: some reports, he was the first European to ever set 84 00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:22,440 Speaker 1: foot within the village. They welcomed him in, allowing him 85 00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:25,960 Speaker 1: to witness their customs. Colenzo was watching some Maori women 86 00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:28,920 Speaker 1: cooked potatoes when he noticed something strange about the pot 87 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:33,279 Speaker 1: they were using. It was made of bronze. These people 88 00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:35,719 Speaker 1: wouldn't have cooked in a bronze vessel. They would have 89 00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:39,279 Speaker 1: used something wooden with heated stones inside to warm their food. 90 00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:42,719 Speaker 1: Not to mention, Colenzo was, if not the first, then 91 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:46,480 Speaker 1: among the first Europeans to enter their community. The Maori 92 00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:49,520 Speaker 1: had never traded with foreigners before, so where had they 93 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:53,280 Speaker 1: gotten this bronze pot. Well. As he began to examine 94 00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:55,839 Speaker 1: it more closely, he realized that it wasn't a pot 95 00:05:55,920 --> 00:05:58,920 Speaker 1: at all. It measured six inches across by six and 96 00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:01,840 Speaker 1: a half inches tall, with a jagged lip going around 97 00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:04,840 Speaker 1: its opening. There was also an inscription embossed around its 98 00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:08,279 Speaker 1: middle in a language Colenzo didn't understand. But what he 99 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:10,320 Speaker 1: did know was that the object the Maori had thought 100 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:13,159 Speaker 1: was a pot was in fact actually the crown of 101 00:06:13,200 --> 00:06:16,280 Speaker 1: a ship's bell. It had apparently been in their possession 102 00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:19,359 Speaker 1: for decades, and had been discovered tangled among the roots 103 00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:21,480 Speaker 1: of a tree that had been felled during a storm. 104 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:24,520 Speaker 1: Colenzo knew it needed to be studied further, and so 105 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:27,719 Speaker 1: he bartered with the women, offering them an actual cast 106 00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:31,359 Speaker 1: iron pot in exchange for the bell. They acquiesced and 107 00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:34,040 Speaker 1: allowed the missionary to take it back to England. It 108 00:06:34,080 --> 00:06:37,200 Speaker 1: was later revealed that the writing around its rim was Tamil, 109 00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:41,520 Speaker 1: a language spoken in parts of India, Singapore and Sri Lanka. 110 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:43,799 Speaker 1: But how had it wound up so far from home? 111 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:47,040 Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty two, a New Zealand scientist named William 112 00:06:47,040 --> 00:06:49,320 Speaker 1: Maskell suggested that it might have been owned by a 113 00:06:49,320 --> 00:06:51,920 Speaker 1: sailor who had traveled to South Asia and taken it 114 00:06:51,960 --> 00:06:54,599 Speaker 1: for his own before ultimately losing track of it. Later, 115 00:06:55,040 --> 00:06:58,880 Speaker 1: almost a century beyond that, historian Robert Gossett claimed that 116 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:00,680 Speaker 1: it had been part of a ghost ship that had 117 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:03,680 Speaker 1: lost its crew and traveled thousands of miles away from 118 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:07,120 Speaker 1: its home before crashing into New Zealand. Neither story, though, 119 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:10,400 Speaker 1: was ever confirmed. And then there was the matter of 120 00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:13,000 Speaker 1: the inscription. At first, it was believed to date back 121 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:15,960 Speaker 1: as far as the fourteenth century, but that theory was 122 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:19,640 Speaker 1: dismissed as of several years ago. Nalina gopol, a museum 123 00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:23,280 Speaker 1: curator in Singapore, examined the bell in twenty nineteen. A 124 00:07:23,400 --> 00:07:26,840 Speaker 1: native Tamil speaker herself, Gopel easily read the text along 125 00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:30,520 Speaker 1: the bell's edge without question. That was because it was 126 00:07:30,560 --> 00:07:34,160 Speaker 1: more modern than earlier researchers had determined. Gopel knew that 127 00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:37,080 Speaker 1: an older version of Tamil would have been almost impossible 128 00:07:37,080 --> 00:07:39,040 Speaker 1: to read because it would have been too different from 129 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:42,120 Speaker 1: the current iteration of the language. She figured it was 130 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:45,880 Speaker 1: only as old as the seventeenth or eighteenth century. As 131 00:07:45,920 --> 00:07:49,360 Speaker 1: for what it said, the literal translation read the Bell 132 00:07:49,520 --> 00:07:53,520 Speaker 1: of the Ship of Mohideen Bucks. Early experts assumed that 133 00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:55,560 Speaker 1: meant that the ship had been owned by a person 134 00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:59,240 Speaker 1: with the name of Mohideen Bucks, but not Gopel. After 135 00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:01,800 Speaker 1: quite a bit of search, she determined that Bucks wasn't 136 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:04,160 Speaker 1: the owner, nor was it the name of the ship. 137 00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:06,600 Speaker 1: It was the name of a saint. In fact, many 138 00:08:06,640 --> 00:08:09,200 Speaker 1: ships coming out of Southeast Asia at the time would 139 00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:11,440 Speaker 1: have been named mo hitting Bucks as a way to 140 00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:14,400 Speaker 1: bless them on their journeys, to keep them safe, and 141 00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:17,520 Speaker 1: at least in this instance, it didn't work out so well. 142 00:08:18,040 --> 00:08:20,280 Speaker 1: Not only did Gopel nor any of the other experts 143 00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:23,160 Speaker 1: who studied the bell know how it arrived in New Zealand, 144 00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:25,520 Speaker 1: there was no trace of the ship that had carried 145 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:28,000 Speaker 1: it either, and we might never know the true story 146 00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:30,720 Speaker 1: behind the bells providance. The sea may get angry and 147 00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:33,240 Speaker 1: loud at times, but there is no greater keeper of 148 00:08:33,280 --> 00:08:36,680 Speaker 1: secrets on this earth than the water that covers it. 149 00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:43,800 Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet 150 00:08:43,800 --> 00:08:47,679 Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn 151 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:52,240 Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. 152 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:55,880 Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mank in partnership 153 00:08:55,920 --> 00:08:59,240 Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show 154 00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:03,400 Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, 155 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:05,520 Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the 156 00:09:05,720 --> 00:09:10,439 Speaker 1: World of Loore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.