1 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:07,520 Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 2 00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:14,480 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 3 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:18,520 Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 4 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:22,200 Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 5 00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:28,920 Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 6 00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:39,839 Speaker 1: It was February of nineteen fourteen, and a chill had 7 00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:42,920 Speaker 1: fallen over Aurora, Illinois. It was a cold that went 8 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:46,880 Speaker 1: deeper than the snow covered streets and isolated rivers, straight 9 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:50,040 Speaker 1: to the city's heart. A young woman had been murdered, 10 00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:52,360 Speaker 1: and the details were straight out of an Edgar Allen 11 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:55,160 Speaker 1: Poe's story. The victim was a twenty year old named 12 00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:58,080 Speaker 1: Teresa Hollander, and she had been killed while crossing the 13 00:00:58,120 --> 00:01:02,880 Speaker 1: cemetery of Saint Nicholas Church. The murder weapon a gravesteak. 14 00:01:03,280 --> 00:01:06,600 Speaker 1: According to newspaper reports, the small metal plaque had been 15 00:01:06,640 --> 00:01:09,720 Speaker 1: pulled from the earth and used to bludgeon Teresa to death. 16 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:12,880 Speaker 1: When her father found her frozen body the next morning, 17 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:16,119 Speaker 1: her eyes were wide open, staring up in a final 18 00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:20,399 Speaker 1: expression of horror. It was this fact, oddly enough, that 19 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:24,880 Speaker 1: gave investigators hope. Recent scientific discoveries suggested that the human 20 00:01:24,920 --> 00:01:28,480 Speaker 1: eye was capable of recording images, much like a camera. 21 00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:31,640 Speaker 1: Since Teresa's eyes were open in the moment of death, 22 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:34,240 Speaker 1: it stood to reason that the last thing she ever 23 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:37,360 Speaker 1: saw was likely the face of her attacker. If the 24 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:41,600 Speaker 1: image could be replicated, investigators would have the killer dead 25 00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:45,080 Speaker 1: to rights. Now, most people hearing this story today would 26 00:01:45,080 --> 00:01:48,000 Speaker 1: be quick to write this off as foolishness. An eye 27 00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:50,480 Speaker 1: is not a camera, they would reason, and they don't 28 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:55,360 Speaker 1: record images. But that's not entirely true. Eyes and photography 29 00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:57,240 Speaker 1: have a lot more in common than you might think. 30 00:01:57,640 --> 00:02:00,480 Speaker 1: Both have a mechanism for controlling how much light is 31 00:02:00,600 --> 00:02:03,480 Speaker 1: let in, a lens to focus that light, and a 32 00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:07,440 Speaker 1: sensor to capture images. In a traditional camera, the sensor 33 00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:10,720 Speaker 1: is celluloid film coded in an emulsion of light sensitive 34 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:15,360 Speaker 1: silver halite crystals. Briefly exposing the emulsion to light results 35 00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:18,200 Speaker 1: in a latent image, which is treated with chemicals to 36 00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:21,760 Speaker 1: create a photograph. Now, for our eyes, the sensor is 37 00:02:21,919 --> 00:02:25,080 Speaker 1: the retina, a structure made up of tiny rods and cones. 38 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:29,200 Speaker 1: Hitting the retina with light produces electrical impulses that travel 39 00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:32,239 Speaker 1: through the optic nerve to our brain, and as you 40 00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:34,680 Speaker 1: might guess, we don't have any way of hacking our 41 00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:38,440 Speaker 1: brains to pull those images out, especially after death. But 42 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:42,040 Speaker 1: here's where things get interesting. In eighteen seventy six, a 43 00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:45,800 Speaker 1: German physiologist discovered that the rods in our retinas contain 44 00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:49,919 Speaker 1: a purplish red pigment. It's called rhodapsin, and it turns 45 00:02:49,919 --> 00:02:52,680 Speaker 1: white when it's exposed to light, and then it darkens 46 00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:55,639 Speaker 1: again soon after the light is removed. It's not too 47 00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:58,400 Speaker 1: different from the way the images are recorded on traditional 48 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:02,119 Speaker 1: film stock, although it does fade fairly quickly, but that's 49 00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:06,640 Speaker 1: not all. Shortly after rhodapson was discovered, another researcher named 50 00:03:06,639 --> 00:03:10,680 Speaker 1: Wilhelm Kuhn conducted a series of experiments using the eyes 51 00:03:10,720 --> 00:03:14,400 Speaker 1: of frogs and rabbits. He successfully managed to freeze the 52 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:18,320 Speaker 1: rhodapsin at the moment of death, effectively recording the last 53 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:22,560 Speaker 1: thing the animals saw before it died. His most famous experiment, 54 00:03:22,639 --> 00:03:25,720 Speaker 1: although also most gruesome, involved an now by no rabbit. 55 00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:28,799 Speaker 1: After spending several minutes in total darkness, it was made 56 00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:32,160 Speaker 1: to stare out a barred window and then promptly decapitated. 57 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:35,400 Speaker 1: The rabbit's eyes were immediately removed and dissected, and the 58 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:39,160 Speaker 1: retina was washed with a chemical solution and photographed. The 59 00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:43,440 Speaker 1: resulting image, which Kuhn called an optogram, is blurry but readable. 60 00:03:43,760 --> 00:03:46,240 Speaker 1: It's a clear white space at the center that looks 61 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,040 Speaker 1: very much like the barred window the rabbit saw in 62 00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:53,200 Speaker 1: its final moments. Naturally, Kuhn's next task was to replicate 63 00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:56,960 Speaker 1: the experiment with humans, but this was easier said than done. 64 00:03:57,080 --> 00:03:59,560 Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty, he dissected the eye of a convicted 65 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:03,360 Speaker 1: murderer moments after he was beheaded by a guillotine. Even then, 66 00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:05,360 Speaker 1: the best he was able to produce was a bunch 67 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:08,040 Speaker 1: of squiggly lines. Some people thought that it looks like 68 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:11,600 Speaker 1: a guillotine blade or the steps of an execution platform, 69 00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:14,320 Speaker 1: but I think those are a stretch at best. So 70 00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:18,279 Speaker 1: here's the rub. Rhodapsin can hypothetically be used to capture 71 00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:21,440 Speaker 1: some aspects of the last images that we see before 72 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:24,080 Speaker 1: we die, but the images are far too blurry and 73 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:27,640 Speaker 1: simplistic to be used for forensic purposes. Even if you 74 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:31,320 Speaker 1: were to somehow remove and process the eyes moments after death, 75 00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:35,240 Speaker 1: you still couldn't capture something as detailed as a human face. 76 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:40,600 Speaker 1: That didn't stop detectives from using optograms in murder investigations, 77 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:43,240 Speaker 1: like the case of Teresa Hollander, the girl murdered in 78 00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:47,159 Speaker 1: the Aurora Graveyard. During the autopsy, her eyeballs were removed 79 00:04:47,200 --> 00:04:50,760 Speaker 1: and photographed. The resulting optogram was used as evidence in 80 00:04:50,800 --> 00:04:55,000 Speaker 1: the trial of her former boyfriend, Anthony Petris. The optogram 81 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:57,640 Speaker 1: itself from that trial has been lost, but it must 82 00:04:57,720 --> 00:05:00,560 Speaker 1: not have been all that convincing, because Anthony was found 83 00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:05,120 Speaker 1: not guilty. Nevertheless, the practice captured the imagination of the public, 84 00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:08,240 Speaker 1: and many people came to believe that optograms were a 85 00:05:08,320 --> 00:05:12,119 Speaker 1: genuinely effective tool for catching criminals. They appear as plot 86 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:15,880 Speaker 1: devices in the works of several nineteenth century authors, including 87 00:05:15,960 --> 00:05:20,200 Speaker 1: Rudyard Kipling and Jules Vern. Meanwhile, real life criminals started 88 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:23,640 Speaker 1: blindfolding their victims or removing their eyes after death to 89 00:05:23,760 --> 00:05:27,200 Speaker 1: avoid getting caught, and in at least one case, an 90 00:05:27,240 --> 00:05:30,880 Speaker 1: optogram was successfully used to bring a killer to justice, 91 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:34,400 Speaker 1: not because science worked, but because the culprit assumed it did. 92 00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:37,280 Speaker 1: When detectives told the murderer that his face had been 93 00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:40,800 Speaker 1: recorded by the victim's eyes, he confessed on the spot, 94 00:05:41,360 --> 00:05:43,800 Speaker 1: so you might say that truth is in the eyes 95 00:05:43,839 --> 00:05:46,919 Speaker 1: of the beholder, and while science is generally our best 96 00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:50,320 Speaker 1: tool for catching criminals, sometimes it takes a bit of 97 00:05:50,320 --> 00:06:07,520 Speaker 1: fiction to get the job done. When it comes to 98 00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:11,839 Speaker 1: strange ways of undermining foreign regimes, nobody beats the CIA. 99 00:06:12,080 --> 00:06:14,320 Speaker 1: In the nineteen sixties they tried to get Cubans to 100 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:17,520 Speaker 1: believe that Fidel Castro was the Antichrist, and in two 101 00:06:17,560 --> 00:06:20,360 Speaker 1: thousand and five they created an Osama bin laden action 102 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:23,800 Speaker 1: figure with paint that chipped away to reveal the devil's 103 00:06:23,839 --> 00:06:26,880 Speaker 1: face underneath. The plan, as I understand it, was to 104 00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:29,479 Speaker 1: give them to Afghan children to turn them against him, 105 00:06:29,560 --> 00:06:32,800 Speaker 1: but the CIA never went through with it. But World 106 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:35,599 Speaker 1: War II saw the CIA at its most creative or 107 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:38,800 Speaker 1: maybe unhinged, depending on how you look at it. It 108 00:06:38,839 --> 00:06:42,560 Speaker 1: was called Operation Fantasia, a whimsical name for an otherwise 109 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:45,880 Speaker 1: hair brain scheme. It came to fruition in nineteen forty 110 00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:49,440 Speaker 1: five after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. But the goal 111 00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,520 Speaker 1: of this mission wasn't to take out the enemy directly. Rather, 112 00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:55,080 Speaker 1: the idea was to shatter their morale, using their own 113 00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:57,440 Speaker 1: beliefs against them. And it was all thanks to a 114 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:02,400 Speaker 1: businessman named Ed Salinger had operated an import export business 115 00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:05,880 Speaker 1: in Tokyo and therefore was familiar with certain intricacies of 116 00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:09,080 Speaker 1: Japanese culture. Oh and he also happened to be a 117 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:13,240 Speaker 1: master of psychological warfare working for the OSS in America. 118 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:16,680 Speaker 1: He knew that the Japanese people were superstitious and would 119 00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:20,120 Speaker 1: react strongly to seeing an evil spirit in real life. 120 00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:24,120 Speaker 1: According to Salinger, the Japanese were deeply afraid of kitsune 121 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:27,440 Speaker 1: or fox spirits. But how is he supposed to create 122 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:31,240 Speaker 1: such an entity. One plan involves spraying a fox like 123 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:35,880 Speaker 1: musk and amplifying artificial animal cries where Japanese could hear them, 124 00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:38,200 Speaker 1: But that plan was quickly dismissed in favor of an 125 00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:42,200 Speaker 1: even stranger one, a plan that involved actual live foxes. 126 00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:45,720 Speaker 1: Salinger decided the best course of action was to release 127 00:07:45,760 --> 00:07:49,120 Speaker 1: a bunch of foxes into the woods to frighten the Japanese. 128 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:52,880 Speaker 1: In his outline for the operation, he wrote, the foundation 129 00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:55,560 Speaker 1: for the proposal rests upon the fact that the modern 130 00:07:55,680 --> 00:08:00,360 Speaker 1: Japanese is subject to superstitions, beliefs in evil spirits, and 131 00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:05,720 Speaker 1: unnatural manifestations which can be provoked and stimulated. He tested 132 00:08:05,720 --> 00:08:08,800 Speaker 1: his theory by gathering thirty foxes and letting them loose 133 00:08:08,840 --> 00:08:12,280 Speaker 1: in a public park. But he didn't just release them haphazardly. 134 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:14,320 Speaker 1: He wanted to make sure that they could be seen 135 00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:17,720 Speaker 1: even in the dark, so he grabbed his brush and 136 00:08:17,800 --> 00:08:20,040 Speaker 1: a can of paint and gave the red and white 137 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:23,320 Speaker 1: vulpines a coat of green to make them pop. This 138 00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:26,200 Speaker 1: paint had a unique quality a glowed in the dark 139 00:08:26,240 --> 00:08:29,600 Speaker 1: thanks to a little ingredient called radium. This was the 140 00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:32,000 Speaker 1: same kind of paint that had mutilated and killed the 141 00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:35,200 Speaker 1: Radium Girls in nineteen twenty eight. They would lick the 142 00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,320 Speaker 1: brushes to a fine point and then apply the luminescent 143 00:08:38,360 --> 00:08:42,520 Speaker 1: coating to clockhands and dials. Salinger, though, gave the foxes 144 00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:46,000 Speaker 1: an unhealthy glow before unleashing them into Washington d C's 145 00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:49,040 Speaker 1: Rock Creek Park, only a few miles from the White House. 146 00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:52,560 Speaker 1: This was a popular spot for hikers and birdwatchers, so 147 00:08:52,679 --> 00:08:56,640 Speaker 1: it was almost guaranteed that a few unsuspecting individuals would 148 00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:01,360 Speaker 1: witness the glowing fox's firsthand, and they did. The National 149 00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:04,679 Speaker 1: Park Police started getting reports of leaping, ghost like animals 150 00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:08,280 Speaker 1: that were terrifying locals. It looked like Salinger's plan was 151 00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:10,800 Speaker 1: going to be a success. But how was the US 152 00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:13,200 Speaker 1: supposed to get the foxes all the way to Japan. 153 00:09:13,800 --> 00:09:16,120 Speaker 1: One idea was to drop them off the coast and 154 00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:20,240 Speaker 1: let them swim to shore. The oss, however, was skeptical, 155 00:09:20,520 --> 00:09:24,080 Speaker 1: so Salinger conducted another test. He and a few colleagues 156 00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:27,160 Speaker 1: loaded a few foxes onto a boat and navigated to 157 00:09:27,200 --> 00:09:30,000 Speaker 1: the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, but the animals in place, 158 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:33,680 Speaker 1: The scientists tossed them overboard and watched, and sure enough, 159 00:09:33,760 --> 00:09:36,280 Speaker 1: the foxes found their way back to dry land. The 160 00:09:36,320 --> 00:09:39,160 Speaker 1: tests proved that Salinger was right. All that was left 161 00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:42,280 Speaker 1: was to actually carry out the plan. Oh but wait, 162 00:09:42,720 --> 00:09:45,880 Speaker 1: there's more. Based on the memos and notes published at 163 00:09:45,880 --> 00:09:49,199 Speaker 1: the time, Operation Fantasia was about to get even weirder. 164 00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:52,960 Speaker 1: You see, Salinger had apparently wanted to exploit another fox 165 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:56,400 Speaker 1: related superstition by gluing a skull to the head of 166 00:09:56,440 --> 00:09:59,800 Speaker 1: a stuffed fox. He wanted to symbolize the death's head 167 00:09:59,880 --> 00:10:03,439 Speaker 1: on it's crown. It was, in a sense, weaponized folklore. 168 00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:05,680 Speaker 1: The body of the animal would have been covered in 169 00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:08,160 Speaker 1: black cloth and adorned with glow in the dark paint 170 00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:11,360 Speaker 1: that looked like exposed bones, and the skull would have 171 00:10:11,360 --> 00:10:13,280 Speaker 1: been rigged with the way to move the jaw up 172 00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:16,199 Speaker 1: and down to strike even more fear into the hearts 173 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:20,079 Speaker 1: of the Japanese. And that's where everything stopped. The head 174 00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:23,400 Speaker 1: of the OSS branch, in charge of Operation Fantasia, looked 175 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:26,240 Speaker 1: at Salinger's concept and thought that it was entirely too 176 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:29,320 Speaker 1: dumb to put into action. He shut it down and 177 00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:33,040 Speaker 1: put everyone to work on more feasible projects. Looking back, 178 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:36,040 Speaker 1: I think it's clear that Ed Salinger just wasn't the 179 00:10:36,120 --> 00:10:43,040 Speaker 1: sly fox that he thought he was. I hope you've 180 00:10:43,120 --> 00:10:47,079 Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe 181 00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:49,720 Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the 182 00:10:49,720 --> 00:10:54,520 Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was 183 00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:58,400 Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. 184 00:10:58,840 --> 00:11:01,840 Speaker 1: I make another a war winning show called Lore, which 185 00:11:01,880 --> 00:11:05,320 Speaker 1: is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you 186 00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:09,440 Speaker 1: can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com. 187 00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:11,880 Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.