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. We've all taken a
Speaker 1: joke too far. Maybe it was a mistimed zinger or
Speaker 1: a prank gone awry. We knew it was wrong, but
Speaker 1: by the time it was over, it was too late.
Speaker 1: That's the problem with some jokes. They tend to take
Speaker 1: on a life of their own. In Sir Francis Drake's
Speaker 1: at sail for the Strait of Anian, a way of
Speaker 1: reaching the Atlantic Ocean from the fabled Northwest Passage over
Speaker 1: the top of North America. Instead, he reached the shores
Speaker 1: of northern California and began exploring. Unlike other adventurers who
Speaker 1: might have left behind a lasting t tomitt to their presence,
Speaker 1: Drake left only a small brass plate or plaque. Upon
Speaker 1: it had been inscribed the declaration from Drake claiming the
Speaker 1: land in the name of Queen Elizabeth. It was signed
Speaker 1: with his name and the day he landed. The plates
Speaker 1: existence was noted by English diarist Francis Pretty, who had
Speaker 1: detailed his travels with Drake as they circumnavigated the globe
Speaker 1: over three d Fifty years later, a chauffeur named William
Speaker 1: Caldera discovered the small brass artifact in northern California while
Speaker 1: his employer and a friend were hunting. Caldera held onto
Speaker 1: the plate so that he could research its origins on
Speaker 1: his own, but accidentally tossed it out during a routine
Speaker 1: cleaning of his employer's car. It sat on the side
Speaker 1: of the road in San Rafael for three years before
Speaker 1: another young man named Beryl Shinn found it and rushed
Speaker 1: it over to historian Herbert Eugene Bolton. Bolton was an
Speaker 1: expert on Spanish American history. He knew exactly what Shinn possessed.
Speaker 1: He checked the plate and its inscription against Francis Pretty's
Speaker 1: diary entry. It was exactly as Pretty had described. Elevated
Speaker 1: at the discovery, he contacted the president of the California
Speaker 1: Historical Society, Alan Chickering, as well as Robert Gordon Sprowl,
Speaker 1: president of the University of California. They confirmed that Shin
Speaker 1: had indeed found Sir Francis Drake's long lost brass plate.
Speaker 1: Bolton together with Chickering, pulled their resources to buy the
Speaker 1: plate from Shin for a hefty sum at the time,
Speaker 1: but Shin wasn't quite ready to part with it just yet.
Speaker 1: He disappeared for four days, claiming he wanted to have
Speaker 1: his uncle examined the plate before he sold it. Bolton
Speaker 1: panicked when he didn't hear from him and upped his
Speaker 1: bid to thirty That seemed to do the trick, and
Speaker 1: not long after, Herbert Bolton was the proud owner of
Speaker 1: Sir Francis Drake's brass plate. He and Chickering announced their
Speaker 1: acquisition to the California Historical Society in ninety seven, before
Speaker 1: donating the plate to the University of California's Bancroft Library. Bolton,
Speaker 1: incredulous at his good fortune, had finally fulfilled a decade's
Speaker 1: long dream of finding one of the most elusive totems
Speaker 1: in history. But not everyone was as enthralled with their discovery.
Speaker 1: Critics pointed out a whole host of problems with the plate.
Speaker 1: For example, the spelling of certain words were not historically accurate,
Speaker 1: they were too modern. Also, the queen was referred to
Speaker 1: as Queen Elizabeth when the common form of her title
Speaker 1: during Drake's time was Elizabeth, by the Grace of God,
Speaker 1: Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith.
Speaker 1: There were also the physical attributes of the brass itself.
Speaker 1: It didn't look old or aged enough, but Bolton and
Speaker 1: Chickering were not dissuaded. They had explanations for every supposed
Speaker 1: flaw pointed out to them. Unfortunately, even the president of
Speaker 1: the university, Robert Spraul, who had encouraged their purchase of
Speaker 1: the plates, came to doubt its origins. Bolton sought out
Speaker 1: a third party to help confirm its authenticity. So he
Speaker 1: solicited the services of Colin Fink, professor at Columbia univer Versity,
Speaker 1: who specialized in electro chemistry. Fink tested the plate and
Speaker 1: no doubt about it, it was the real deal. The
Speaker 1: plates was authentic, and that was the final word on it.
Speaker 1: For over forty years, photos of Drake's plate of brass
Speaker 1: found their way into textbooks and onto posters. Replicas were
Speaker 1: made and presented to Queen Elizabeth the Second Though despite
Speaker 1: the authoritative stance of Dr Fink, something never quite sat
Speaker 1: right with the other academics. By the nineteen seventies, technology
Speaker 1: had come so far as to allow researchers to dig
Speaker 1: even deeper into the plates chemical and physical makeups. The
Speaker 1: four Anniversity of Drake's Landing in California was coming up,
Speaker 1: and it seemed like the perfect time to reanalyze the plate.
Speaker 1: Scientists bombarded it with all kinds of X rays and
Speaker 1: gamma rays, and the results came back much different than
Speaker 1: Dr Fink's. One clue they noticed was that the plate
Speaker 1: hadn't been hammered flat as it would have in the
Speaker 1: fift hundreds. Instead, it had been old out, which was
Speaker 1: a much more modern technique. Also, its edges had been
Speaker 1: precisely cut with power tools, and its chemical composition showed
Speaker 1: that it was made up of too much zinc to
Speaker 1: be from the time period. In short, it was a fake.
Speaker 1: What Bolton never realized at the time was that he
Speaker 1: had been meant to find it. It had been made
Speaker 1: for him. Members of a fraternal history organization known as
Speaker 1: e Clampus Vitis or e c v knew all about
Speaker 1: Bolton's obsession with the plate. As a joke, they used
Speaker 1: Francis Pretty's description of it as a recipe to make
Speaker 1: their own. They had planted it in a popular area
Speaker 1: known to other California Historical Society members, expecting one of
Speaker 1: them to find it and bring it to Bolton. When
Speaker 1: the chauffeur lost it, the prank fizzled out until it
Speaker 1: was rediscovered several years later. Unfortunately, by the time it
Speaker 1: was announced to the public, it was too late for
Speaker 1: the pranksters to come forward without seriously damaging the credibilities
Speaker 1: and careers of everyone involved, so they simply let it go.
Speaker 1: But even though the plate is fake, it's journey and
Speaker 1: origin story have cemented it as a new kind of artifact,
Speaker 1: one that is part of two separate histories and is
Speaker 1: a testament to the lengths people will go to to
Speaker 1: confirm their obsessions. Or maybe the whole thing was just
Speaker 1: e clampus vitas in a nutshell. After all, their motto
Speaker 1: translates into something pretty clear. I believe it because it's absurd.
Speaker 1: Where do we go when we die? Is there an afterlife?
Speaker 1: Do our souls get left behind? Or is there another
Speaker 1: plane of existence for the human spirits after these physical
Speaker 1: vessels have expired? We ask ourselves these questions because for
Speaker 1: the most part, we fear death. More importantly, we fear
Speaker 1: what we don't know. About death. It's not like those
Speaker 1: who have experienced it can tell us what it's like,
Speaker 1: although one man thought he could find out. Thomas Edison
Speaker 1: is known to history as the inventor of the phonograph,
Speaker 1: the movie camera, and the practical electric light bulb. He's
Speaker 1: often portrayed as a shrewd, cold businessman, a man who
Speaker 1: valued proof above belief and who had no patience for
Speaker 1: philosophy or existentialism. Yet he was fascinated by the afterlife,
Speaker 1: particularly in how one reached it. While many people believe
Speaker 1: in the concept of heaven or hell, where one soul
Speaker 1: would end up depending on how they behaved in life,
Speaker 1: Edison theorized something else entirely. He believed life was like energy,
Speaker 1: and that there was a set amount of it available
Speaker 1: and it could not be created or destroyed. What we
Speaker 1: consider to be a soul was actually a bunch of
Speaker 1: microscopic consciousness that monitored what was going on inside our bodies.
Speaker 1: When they got along, they kept us alive. When they argued,
Speaker 1: we died, and the consciousness either passed on to another
Speaker 1: host or they began to create new life in which
Speaker 1: to inhabit, and if they could be rearranged back into
Speaker 1: their original state back when they got along in the
Speaker 1: previous host, that person could be resurrected to some degree.
Speaker 1: For example, a deceased person's personality could find its way
Speaker 1: into another living human, or a newborn baby might be
Speaker 1: someone else's second chance at a new life. Edison's ideas
Speaker 1: weren't typical, as I'm sure you've noticed. Even still, he
Speaker 1: searched for a way to find these particles to validate
Speaker 1: that his theory was correct. Test after test, he built
Speaker 1: prototypes of devices he thought would detect the personalities of
Speaker 1: the dead, but had no luck. Not even the teams
Speaker 1: of scientists he had working for him could figure it out.
Speaker 1: So he did what he did best. He went to
Speaker 1: the media. In the fall of ninety Edison announced to
Speaker 1: the world that he had been hard at work on
Speaker 1: a new invention, one that would allow him to communicate
Speaker 1: with the dead. He called it the spirit phone. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: something as spiritual as talking to the dead did not
Speaker 1: affect him on a spiritual level. He refused to acknowledge
Speaker 1: the public's interest in the occult or seances. This was
Speaker 1: a scientific endeavor, he said, and one meant to yield proof,
Speaker 1: not further muddy the waters. He reached out to another inventor,
Speaker 1: Sir William Crooks in England, who had allegedly taken photographs
Speaker 1: of ghosts that he encountered. Edison was inspired by the
Speaker 1: visual proof he'd gathered that ghosts were in fact susceptible
Speaker 1: to man made gadgets, and it wasn't long before he
Speaker 1: set to work on his spirit phone. Allegedly, after his
Speaker 1: public announcement, Edison didn't speak about the project again, nor
Speaker 1: did he show anyone what he might have been working on. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the famous inventor died in one taking the paranormal telephone
Speaker 1: with him. No one has found proof that he ever
Speaker 1: actually worked on such a device. Some believe the whole
Speaker 1: thing had been a hoax to keep his name in
Speaker 1: the papers, while others swear to this day that there
Speaker 1: are blueprints and even a prototype somewhere evidence of his
Speaker 1: dedication to his claims. A decade after his death, a
Speaker 1: seance was conducted and contact was allegedly made with Edison's ghost.
Speaker 1: He was asked about the spirit phone and whether it
Speaker 1: had been real. According to the entity, not only was
Speaker 1: it real, but the blueprints for it had been left
Speaker 1: in the possession of three of his former assistants. Sadly, though,
Speaker 1: that's where the story ends. As you might expect, Edison's
Speaker 1: assistants have all passed away and it couldn't be reached
Speaker 1: for comment. 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 Come and until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. H