Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen sixties and seventies, the US and the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union were in a race for control, for nuclear power,
Speaker 1: for outer space, and of course for our minds. But
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about propaganda or even ideology. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about how in nineteen seventy one lone housewife in Russia
Speaker 1: set off a new type of Cold War where two
Speaker 1: world powers tried to create weapons of psychic destruction. Sometime
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen seventies, tapes smuggled out of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union made their way to the CIA. One video,
Speaker 1: recorded on March tenth of nineteen seventy quickly became an
Speaker 1: object of fascination to the agency. The tape showed forty
Speaker 1: four year old Nina Cooliina, a housewife and former Red
Speaker 1: Army soldier, in an observation room somewhere in Leningrad. Sitting
Speaker 1: in front of her on a table was a tiny,
Speaker 1: still beating heart. The heart had been taken from a
Speaker 1: frog just minutes before and placed in a solution that
Speaker 1: would allow it to keep beating for up to an
Speaker 1: hour after death. Both Nina and the tiny heart were
Speaker 1: wired with electrodes which recorded their heart rates. As CIA
Speaker 1: analysts watched the small, dark haired woman on the tape
Speaker 1: focused intently, to their amazement, the frog heart began to
Speaker 1: beat faster. Nina screwed up her face in concentration again,
Speaker 1: and the frog heart beat slowed, and finally, after a
Speaker 1: few minutes, Nina focused one last time, and right before
Speaker 1: the analyst's eyes, through the power of thought alone, she
Speaker 1: stopped the frog heart cold. Dozens of tapes trickled in
Speaker 1: from across the Iron Curtain, showing Nina moving matchsticks across
Speaker 1: a table with her mind, separating egg whites from yokes,
Speaker 1: even accelerating a researcher's heartbeat to dangerous levels. And needless
Speaker 1: to say, the CIA was shocked. It seemed that the
Speaker 1: Soviets had found someone who could master ESP or extrasensory perception.
Speaker 1: You see for decades, researchers at the fringes of respectable
Speaker 1: science had been looking into the world of ESP. Psychical researchers,
Speaker 1: as they called themselves, were bent on discovering whether humans
Speaker 1: could do extraordinary things with psychic energy, such as reading
Speaker 1: another person's thoughts, viewing a place halfway around the world,
Speaker 1: or even moving objects with their minds. With the discovery
Speaker 1: of Nina's tapes, the world of psychical research immediately went
Speaker 1: from crackpot theories to serious, government funded science. The American
Speaker 1: government commissioned an intelligence report on what they called Soviet
Speaker 1: psycho energetic threat. When it was finished, it was a bombshell.
Speaker 1: Researchers and intelligence officials believed the Soviets were trying to
Speaker 1: develop mind control and wanted to use people with powers
Speaker 1: like Nina's to defeat their enemies. By nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: the CIA began its own top secret ESP program, which
Speaker 1: they called Stargate, hoping to spy on the Soviets. Researchers
Speaker 1: especially focused on remote viewing, or using a psychic to
Speaker 1: see inside a place on the other side of the world.
Speaker 1: They gave their subjects the coordinates of Soviet military bases
Speaker 1: and asked them to describe what they saw in some cases,
Speaker 1: the results were scarily accurate. Both countries continued psychical research
Speaker 1: for the next few decades, although as far as we know,
Speaker 1: they've yet to employ telekinesis or remote viewing as wide
Speaker 1: scale weapons. However, sources report that military psychics were used
Speaker 1: by Russia as recently as the Chechen Wars, which ended
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. And as for Nina Well,
Speaker 1: she gained international note notoriety for her part in the
Speaker 1: psychic Cold War. She claimed the newspapers that she realized
Speaker 1: her powers when she was young when she noticed that
Speaker 1: things near her would move when she got angry. According
Speaker 1: to her, her mother had the same ability to fine
Speaker 1: tune it. She began to meditate to prepare herself to
Speaker 1: concentrate intensely unmoving objects with her mind, and while she
Speaker 1: had many supporters in the military, she found even more
Speaker 1: critics once she went public with her powers. It was
Speaker 1: pointed out that many of her miraculous tricks could be
Speaker 1: faked using sleight of hand. Not to mention, the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union had a reputation for exaggerating their victories for use
Speaker 1: in propaganda, and wouldn't you know it, Nina was caught
Speaker 1: cheating during demonstrations using magnets and tiny threads, and it
Speaker 1: was believed by some that she had faked all of
Speaker 1: her powers. Even Pravda, the official communist newspaper of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, called her a fraud. In nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: another magazine called her a fake, and Nina sued and
Speaker 1: won the lawsuit, and she maintained the truth of her
Speaker 1: abilities until she died in nineteen ninety. Maybe Nina really
Speaker 1: did have powers, or perhaps she was faking all along.
Speaker 1: Either way, with all the news coverage of the debate,
Speaker 1: she really did a great job of getting inside our heads.
Speaker 1: When we think of World War II, we picture the
Speaker 1: forces of the US and Western Europe coming together unanimously
Speaker 1: to defeat the Germans. But it's easy to forget that
Speaker 1: every nation had a diverse population with different views on
Speaker 1: the war. There were Nazi sympathizers inside America, England, and France,
Speaker 1: and there was resistance to the Nazis inside Germany and Austria.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most colorful example of this, though, came right
Speaker 1: at the end of the war, when Americans, Germans, and
Speaker 1: the French joined together at a castle in Austria to
Speaker 1: defeat a Nazi assault. Castle. It was the Nazi version
Speaker 1: of a luxury prison located in western Austria, sandwiched between
Speaker 1: Germany and Italy. It housed French VIPs from the very
Speaker 1: beginning of the war. Among the many who were held
Speaker 1: there were Paul Renaud, former French Prime Minister, Marie Agnes Cayu,
Speaker 1: sister of then leader of the French military Charles de Gaul,
Speaker 1: and Tennis star Jean Buautra. As the Allies closed in
Speaker 1: on Germany and Austria in April of nineteen forty five,
Speaker 1: the guards at Castle Eiter fled, but the region was
Speaker 1: still swarming with Nazis belonging to the ESS, the most
Speaker 1: loyal and brutal organization within the German military, and the
Speaker 1: French prisoners worried that if THEESS found them trying to escape,
Speaker 1: they would kill them, and so they sent one of
Speaker 1: their own to sneak out of the castle and through
Speaker 1: the countryside to the nearest village, where they made contact
Speaker 1: with Major Josef Gongel. Now Josef was Austrian, but he
Speaker 1: had defected from the German military recently after seeing what
Speaker 1: it had become under Hitler. He was filled with regrets
Speaker 1: over his role in helping them conquer Europe. Joseph heard
Speaker 1: about the plights of the French prisoners and immediately went
Speaker 1: on a covert mission of his own, sneaking through the
Speaker 1: countryside and making contact with a nearby American tank division.
Speaker 1: It speaks to how late in the war this all was,
Speaker 1: that these different factions were all right there on top
Speaker 1: of each other. The combined pleas of Joseph and the
Speaker 1: French prisoner were enough to motivate at least one of
Speaker 1: the Americans, Captain John Kerrie Lee. He was only twenty
Speaker 1: seven years old and a football player back home, and
Speaker 1: as much as his men just wanted to keep their
Speaker 1: heads down and avoid putting their lives on the line
Speaker 1: this close to German surrender, Lee knew that it would
Speaker 1: be wrong to leave the French prisoners there to die,
Speaker 1: so he rallied his men and they began to drive
Speaker 1: their tanks toward the castle. This was a process of attrition,
Speaker 1: as they had to cross several bridges into the mountains
Speaker 1: leading to the castle. The bridges were narrow and weak,
Speaker 1: so Lee ended up leaving behind all but one of
Speaker 1: his tanks. When they finally arrived at the castle, they
Speaker 1: prepared to defend it from any SS troops who might
Speaker 1: take an interest. Lee even blocked the entrance with his tank,
Speaker 1: and the French prisoners were determined to help. Imagine the
Speaker 1: elderly French prisoner Agnes holding a machine gun next to
Speaker 1: a young American soldier, and of course Josef also continued
Speaker 1: to assist, providing what insight he could into SS tactics.
Speaker 1: They went to bed that night, hoping that all their
Speaker 1: precautions wouldn't be needed, but as it so happened, a
Speaker 1: lookout spotted grappling hooks on the castle walls. Just hours
Speaker 1: into his watch, the SS were on their way, and
Speaker 1: soon enough they were pouring out of the woods heading
Speaker 1: for the castle. The Americans, the French, and Joseph all
Speaker 1: stood side by side, firing machine guns down at the
Speaker 1: invading army. Lee's tank fired off shells from the front gates,
Speaker 1: blowing away any Germans who came close. But then things
Speaker 1: took a turn for the worse. As morning arrived, German
Speaker 1: eighty millimeter guns appeared on the horizon, blowing massive holes
Speaker 1: in the side of the castle. Then one of the
Speaker 1: shells got especially lucky, striking Lee's tank. His men had
Speaker 1: just enough time to flee before it exploded into flames,
Speaker 1: and so Joseph and Lee kept moving everyone further and
Speaker 1: further into the castle. But this was a losing game.
Speaker 1: In one last desperate gamble, they sent a volunteer, Jean
Speaker 1: the Tennis Star, to pull vault over a castle wall
Speaker 1: and sneak past the enemy lines to find help. While
Speaker 1: they waited, Paul Renaud, the elderly former Prime Minister of France,
Speaker 1: viciously fired down from a castle window, refusing to give up. Joseph,
Speaker 1: sensing that Paul was in danger, rushed forward, throwing his
Speaker 1: body in front of him. Joseph's instincts were correct, too.
Speaker 1: A sniper's bullet meant for Paul struck him in the head,
Speaker 1: killing him instantly. He had given everything to make up
Speaker 1: for his role in the German Army, and that included
Speaker 1: his life. Just as all hope seemed lost, new arrivals
Speaker 1: appeared on the horizon. Jean the Tennis Star had been successful.
Speaker 1: He'd found a second American tank division and led them
Speaker 1: straight to the castle. He even showed up wearing one
Speaker 1: of their uniforms, and soon enough the tanks tour through
Speaker 1: the SS, driving them away from Castle Eider. The prisoners
Speaker 1: were saved and the curious band of Americans, French and
Speaker 1: German soldiers suffered zero casualties, that is except for Joseph,
Speaker 1: who was later honored as an Austrian war hero, and
Speaker 1: just three days later, the war in Europe was over.
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 Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: Worldolore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.