Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke'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: Humans are social creatures. Ever since our ancestors first walked
Speaker 1: on two legs, we've depended on each other to survive.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but to thrive. We need people to
Speaker 1: talk to, to relate to, to share our thoughts and
Speaker 1: emotions with. Life is already hard enough. We don't want
Speaker 1: to go it alone. Sometimes, though we don't have a choice,
Speaker 1: we could be forced to venture out on our her own,
Speaker 1: or we might be cast out of society, or sometimes,
Speaker 1: like in the case of the Lone Woman of San Nicholas,
Speaker 1: we are left behind. In the summer of eighteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: hunter George Nidiver landed on the tiny windswept island of
Speaker 1: San Nicholas, off the coast of southern California. He had
Speaker 1: come to the island on a mission to finally find
Speaker 1: the woman rumored to live there before long, they came
Speaker 1: upon a small hut where two dogs growled at the intruders.
Speaker 1: Sitting in the yard by a small cook fire was
Speaker 1: a figure in a dark cloak. As she rose to
Speaker 1: her feet to greet them, nidover realized that it was
Speaker 1: a woman wearing a dress made from cormorant feathers, and
Speaker 1: they were the first humans to interact with her in
Speaker 1: nearly eighteen years. The Lone Woman of San Nicholas did
Speaker 1: not begin her life in isolation. When she was born
Speaker 1: in the early eighteen hundreds, she was a member of
Speaker 1: the Nicolana. They were an indigenous group of about three
Speaker 1: hundred people who had lived on the island for thousands
Speaker 1: of years. Shortly after the Lone Woman's birth, their way
Speaker 1: of life came to a violent end. In eighteen eleven,
Speaker 1: a ship full of Russian and Native Alaskan seal hunters
Speaker 1: landed on the island in search of first to trade.
Speaker 1: A conflict broke out, and the Alaskans and Russians massacred
Speaker 1: most of the Nicolinea men on the island. After they left,
Speaker 1: the population dwindled until in eighteen thirty five, there were
Speaker 1: only seven people left. That November, the missionaries in Santa
Speaker 1: Barbara on the mainland sent a ship for the remaining Nicolinya's.
Speaker 1: It might have been a humanitarian mission, seeing them struggling
Speaker 1: after the massacre. It may also have been to claim
Speaker 1: more converts for the Catholic Church and with that more
Speaker 1: workers to labor at the mission. The sailors rounded up
Speaker 1: six of the Nicolineas, but grew nervous when a storm
Speaker 1: started to brew, so they cast off, leaving the seventh person,
Speaker 1: a young woman, behind. It's hard to say what happened
Speaker 1: to the woman during the next eighteen years, because when
Speaker 1: she was finally contacted by night of her in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty three, she wasn't able to communicate. The only other
Speaker 1: people who spoke her language, the other six Nicolanos had
Speaker 1: either moved to Los Angeles or passed away. She could speak,
Speaker 1: but no one could understand her. What we do know
Speaker 1: about her is that she adapted well to solo life.
Speaker 1: She hunted seals and seabirds, fished in the sea, and
Speaker 1: foraged for roots on the island. She carved stone fish hooks,
Speaker 1: woven fiber baskets, and even braided ropes of animal sinew.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the hardest part of survival for her, though, was
Speaker 1: the loneliness. She trained two wild dogs as pets, who
Speaker 1: undoubtedly kept her company over the long years. Still it
Speaker 1: must have been hard. San Nicholas was not a remote island.
Speaker 1: On a clear day, she could likely see the other
Speaker 1: nearby islands, even the mainland, but she couldn't reach them.
Speaker 1: Night of HER's expedition spent several weeks on the island,
Speaker 1: and the Lonely Woman grew to like them. It seemed
Speaker 1: that even for her, the loneliness was getting to be
Speaker 1: too much, so when Night of Her and his crew
Speaker 1: set sail for Santa Barbara, she came with them. Just
Speaker 1: weeks after leaving her island, The Lonely Woman contracted dysentery
Speaker 1: while living on Santa Barbara. Shortly before death, the missionaries
Speaker 1: baptized Herjuana Maria. Due to the language barrier, no one
Speaker 1: ever learned her real name. Over the years, the story
Speaker 1: of the Lone Woman inspired many, including Scott O'Dell, author
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixty novel The Island of the Blue Dolphins.
Speaker 1: In recent years, however, a surprising twist has appeared in
Speaker 1: her take. It seems that she was not alone. According
Speaker 1: to new contemporaneous accounts unearthed by researchers, she may have
Speaker 1: had a reason to stay behind. In eighteen thirty five,
Speaker 1: a baby boy the lone woman allegedly remained on the
Speaker 1: island to care for her son, and the two lived
Speaker 1: together for years until the teenage boy was killed by
Speaker 1: a shark attack. This is probably the reason why, after
Speaker 1: years of hiding from visitors to Sant Nicholas, she finally
Speaker 1: decided to come to Santa Barbara. For eighteen years, the
Speaker 1: a woman and her son may have been alone, they
Speaker 1: were never lonely. The fall of nineteen forty is often
Speaker 1: remembered as the darkest hour of World War two. France
Speaker 1: had just surrendered to the Nazis, the Allied forces had
Speaker 1: evacuated from Dunkirk, and England stood alone as the only
Speaker 1: major power facing Germany and Italy. In this moment of desperation,
Speaker 1: when victory seemed impossible, some British intelligence officers looked to
Speaker 1: the stars for hope, or at least, they turned to
Speaker 1: a man who claimed to be able to read them.
Speaker 1: His name was Lewis de Wall, a German born author
Speaker 1: of Hungarian and Jewish descent who had fled to London
Speaker 1: before the start of the war. After struggling for years
Speaker 1: as a novelist and screenwriter, he found success as a
Speaker 1: high society astrologer, performing private horoscope readings for wealthy clients.
Speaker 1: His career really took off when he published a book
Speaker 1: containing Hitler's horoscope. By analyzing the fearers star sign Taurus
Speaker 1: with Libra Rising, he concluded that Hitler's success was all
Speaker 1: thanks to the positions of heavenly bodies, especially Saturn and Jupiter.
Speaker 1: Fortunately for the Allies, the stars foretold that Hitler's luck
Speaker 1: was about to run out. The book sold like hotcakes
Speaker 1: and eventually got the attention of mi I five, Britain's
Speaker 1: domestic intelligence agency. They saw Dewall's work as a powerful
Speaker 1: propaganda tool, which would be made even more effective by
Speaker 1: bringing him on in an official capacity. Besides, it was
Speaker 1: already widely believed that Hitler took advice from a team
Speaker 1: of astrologers. Wasn't at high time that the Allies had
Speaker 1: their own stargazer. Churchill decided that it was at least
Speaker 1: worth a shot. Dewall was given a paycheck and an
Speaker 1: office which he the Psychological Research Bureau. He took to
Speaker 1: the role with Gusto strutting about London in his new
Speaker 1: military uniform while continuing to published astrology essays that predicted
Speaker 1: Germany's collapse. At least at first, that's all the intelligence
Speaker 1: agencies wanted from him. They saw astrology as a way
Speaker 1: of distracting the populace from the grim monotony of war,
Speaker 1: and by encouraging Dwall to continue predicting Hitler's demise, they
Speaker 1: could help him keep the nation's spirits up. But Dwall
Speaker 1: wanted to be more than just a propaganda tool. He
Speaker 1: badgered his handlers with suggestions, promising that he could help
Speaker 1: them by predicting Hitler's next attack or by telling them
Speaker 1: when they should attack, to catch Hitler at his most fearful,
Speaker 1: and some of his superiors were eager to take him
Speaker 1: up on the offer. As the director of Naval Intelligence argued,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to believe in astrology to use it
Speaker 1: against Germany. If Hitler was making decisions based on the
Speaker 1: movements of stars and planets, then someone with Dewall knowledge
Speaker 1: could get inside his head. But there was one major
Speaker 1: flaw in this thinking. Hitler had already lost faith in
Speaker 1: astrology after a falling out with a Cabinet member who
Speaker 1: had supported its use. In nineteen forty one, he ordered
Speaker 1: a purge of astrologers, occultists, and faith healers. His top
Speaker 1: astrologer was arrested and sent to a concentration camp, dying
Speaker 1: from the poor conditions before he even got there. As
Speaker 1: a result, Duwal had very little useful insight into Hitler's mindset.
Speaker 1: Few of his predictions panned out, and British intelligence quickly
Speaker 1: lost faith in his value as a seer. MI five
Speaker 1: documents reveal that he was internally viewed as a huckster
Speaker 1: and a charlatan, possibly even a Nazi plant. To get
Speaker 1: him out of their hair, they sent him on a
Speaker 1: tour of the United States, where he gave a series
Speaker 1: of presentations predicting Germany's defeat. It was far from the
Speaker 1: impressive role Duwall wanted, but he did end up having
Speaker 1: a massive impact on the war, even if he wasn't
Speaker 1: aware the whole time that he was on their payroll.
Speaker 1: You see, British intelligence used the wall as a smoke
Speaker 1: screen to cover for work being done by their code breakers.
Speaker 1: Whenever the Allies foiled an attack that they shouldn't have
Speaker 1: known about or landed their troops at exactly the right place.
Speaker 1: They spread the word that it was all thanks to
Speaker 1: Dwall's psychological research Bureau. In reality, the Allies didn't need
Speaker 1: astrology to predict Hitler's decisions. Alan Turing and a team
Speaker 1: of British mathematicians had already cracked the German Enigma code,
Speaker 1: allowing them to decipher messages radioed between Nazi commanders. The
Speaker 1: team decoded thousands of messages each month for several years,
Speaker 1: leading to critical Allied victories and ultimately shortening the war
Speaker 1: by an estimated two to four years. Of course, if
Speaker 1: the Nazis had known their code was cracked, they would
Speaker 1: have stopped using it immediately. By serving as a plausible
Speaker 1: cover to explain how the Allies were always one step ahead,
Speaker 1: Dwall helped change the course of history. So, no matter
Speaker 1: how many times his predictions missed the mark, he was
Speaker 1: right about one thing. Hitler's defeat was indeed written in
Speaker 1: the stars. 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 Mankey
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 Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious.