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: World War One was a uniquely violent conflict. It existed
Speaker 1: at a strange intersection between the past and the future,
Speaker 1: where horses and swords clashed on the battlefield with tanks
Speaker 1: and machine guns. As much of that dichotomy wreaked havoc
Speaker 1: on the battlefield, it also caused problems at home. Civilian
Speaker 1: life struggled to keep up with rapid changes in technology,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventeen, in Hall Facts Nova Scotia, the
Speaker 1: past and the future collided to disastrous results. During this time,
Speaker 1: Halifax was already a prosperous Atlantic harbor town. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was the closest large North American port to Europe.
Speaker 1: As such, thousands of ships passed through carrying weapons, supplies,
Speaker 1: and soldiers for the war. The city grew quickly without
Speaker 1: much planning for it. The small stretch of harbor that
Speaker 1: the community crowded around was called the Narrows. It was
Speaker 1: a name that was accurate and, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: also an ominous warning. On the morning of December sixth,
Speaker 1: the Norwegian ship the Imo was exiting the harbor after
Speaker 1: a few delays. It wasn't carrying much, but it was
Speaker 1: instead headed to New York to pick up supplies. Its captain,
Speaker 1: William Hayes, allowed the ship to go over the speed
Speaker 1: limit to make up for lost time. Unfortunately, many regulations
Speaker 1: seemed to be poorly enforced in order to serve the
Speaker 1: war effort. For example, ships were supposed to sail on
Speaker 1: the right side of the harbor, kind of like driving
Speaker 1: on the right side of the road in America. But
Speaker 1: on that day the Imo came upon two ships that
Speaker 1: were sailing on the wrong side, heading straight toward them,
Speaker 1: so the Imo had to correct course. Both times, it
Speaker 1: sailed farther and farther to the left, but this put
Speaker 1: it at further risk of collision. Another ship, the French
Speaker 1: vessel mont Blanc, was traveling into the harbor at the
Speaker 1: same time, only it was on the correct side of
Speaker 1: the harbor for incoming vessels. Its captain Francis Mackie seemed
Speaker 1: to be just about the only one following the rules,
Speaker 1: but this, of course meant that he was on a
Speaker 1: collision course with the IMO. Unfortunately, by the time the
Speaker 1: ships came upon each other, there was nothing the two
Speaker 1: captains could do to avoid collision. The IMO scraped up
Speaker 1: against the mont Blanc, leaving a gash in its hull,
Speaker 1: a hull that was not empty like the IMO, it
Speaker 1: was full of explosives intended for the war. The collision
Speaker 1: created a spark that started a fire on the mont
Speaker 1: Blanc and ignited barrels full of volatile chemicals on the deck.
Speaker 1: They exploded into the air like pockets, leading to a
Speaker 1: huge cloud of smoke above the wreck. The fire on
Speaker 1: the deck spread too. The ship's crew all evacuated, screaming
Speaker 1: in French about the danger, but few could understand them.
Speaker 1: Local firefighters raced to put out the fire. However, they
Speaker 1: weren't fast enough, and after about twenty minutes the rest
Speaker 1: of the explosives in the ship's hull ignited. The blast
Speaker 1: had the explosive force of three thousand tons of T
Speaker 1: and T for comparison, the atomic bombs that were dropped
Speaker 1: decades later on, Nagasaki and Hiroshima had a force of
Speaker 1: just three times that. The shockwave traveled faster than the
Speaker 1: speed of sound and instantly killed sixteen hundred people. The
Speaker 1: closest to the blast were vaporized. Those slightly further away
Speaker 1: were crushed as the force threw them up against buildings
Speaker 1: or collapsed those buildings on top of them. Those on
Speaker 1: the outskirts of the blast were perforated by shards of
Speaker 1: glass from shattered windows. The glass was absolutely deadly, too,
Speaker 1: traveling so fast that it severed heads and limbs or
Speaker 1: just blinded those who were lucky. Twelve miles away, windows
Speaker 1: continued to shatter and people felt themselves pushed backwards. Sixty
Speaker 1: two miles away, windows shattered and people could still hear
Speaker 1: the blast. Hundreds of miles away in Massachusetts, some fishermen
Speaker 1: heard a strange boom on the horizon, and back in
Speaker 1: Halifax Harbor, the water vaporized by the explosion left a
Speaker 1: vacuum that was filled by a tsunami that killed even
Speaker 1: more people and leveled more buildings. When it was all
Speaker 1: said and done, nearly two thousand people were dead, nine
Speaker 1: thousand were horrifically injured, and twenty five thousand were left homeless.
Speaker 1: A blizzard ravaged the area the next day, hindering recovery
Speaker 1: efforts for the teams. It was a terrible moment of
Speaker 1: the past and future colliding, of a city failing to
Speaker 1: maintain safety standards while keeping up with its own growth.
Speaker 1: Halifax had braced for German u boat attacks, but the
Speaker 1: biggest threat had turned out to come from within. The
Speaker 1: Himalayan Mountain Range is one of the most daunting features
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. Some fifteen hundred miles long, it contains
Speaker 1: Earth's tallest mountain and also holds some of humanity's most
Speaker 1: chilling secrets, because we're drawn to explore every inch of
Speaker 1: our world, even if that means reaching for heights that
Speaker 1: can prove fatal for us. In the winter of nineteen
Speaker 1: forty two, a forest ranger named Hari Kishen Madhwal was
Speaker 1: hiking through the Himalayans when he made a shocking discovery.
Speaker 1: Among these icy peaks, a five day trek from the
Speaker 1: nearest village was a glacial lake surrounded by bones, hundreds
Speaker 1: of them, some with flesh still attached. The lake was
Speaker 1: named Rupkun, but in popular lore it's become known as
Speaker 1: skeleton lake. After discovering what seemed to be a mass grave,
Speaker 1: Madhwal reported this to the Indian government, which at the
Speaker 1: time was under British rule. There was an immediate panic
Speaker 1: among the British as they suspected that this grave could
Speaker 1: be the remains of an attempted invasion of India by
Speaker 1: Imperial Japan. For context, this was the height of the
Speaker 1: Second World War and the British Empire was not prepared
Speaker 1: for that kind of attack. This initial theory was, of
Speaker 1: course incorrect. The bones were too ancient to be Japanese soldiers,
Speaker 1: and besides, other than one iron spearhead, there was no
Speaker 1: evidence of weapons among the remains, either ancient or modern.
Speaker 1: The snow and ice melted the following summer, revealing that
Speaker 1: Madwal's discovery had only been part of the picture. The
Speaker 1: lake was three meters deep and there were even more
Speaker 1: bones at the bottom visible from the surface. So who
Speaker 1: were these people and how had they come to die
Speaker 1: in such a remote location. Rukund is sixteen thousand feet
Speaker 1: above sea level, an altitude which is incredibly hostile at
Speaker 1: the best of times. Over the years, various expeditions attempted
Speaker 1: to catalog and study these bones in an attempt to
Speaker 1: ascertain their origin. In nineteen fifty six, they were carbondated
Speaker 1: and determined to be between five and eight hundred years old.
Speaker 1: Speculation ran wild, of course, was Roupcooned, once a remote
Speaker 1: place where holy men committed ritual suicide, was at the
Speaker 1: final resting place of a thirteenth century army, an open
Speaker 1: air grave for the victims of a plague. The bones
Speaker 1: showed no evidence of violent deaths, and there were no
Speaker 1: horse skeletons among the dead, which meant that it was
Speaker 1: unlikely to be an army, even if their weapons had
Speaker 1: disintegrated over time. Most of the bodies analyzed were between
Speaker 1: eighteen and thirty five years old at the time of
Speaker 1: death and showed no evidence of disease men, women, and children.
Speaker 1: Adding to this mystery was the fact that there had
Speaker 1: never been any trade routes through the region, so these
Speaker 1: must have been individual travelers. One hint at the truth, though,
Speaker 1: came from folklore. The closest villages claimed that a ridge
Speaker 1: above Roupcoon was once part of a pilgrimage to honor
Speaker 1: Non d Devi. It was a deadly route that came
Speaker 1: up often in local stories. Finally, a breakthrough in the
Speaker 1: case came from analyzing the skulls that were found there.
Speaker 1: They showed small compression fractures, evidence of sudden blunt trauma
Speaker 1: to the skull before death. The theory became that a single,
Speaker 1: large group of pilgrims had fallen victim to one of
Speaker 1: the region's violent hailstorms. In the early two thousands, Rupcund
Speaker 1: became a pilgrimage site, all of its own visitors flocking
Speaker 1: to the famous skeleton lake. Even as researchers worked away
Speaker 1: analyzing the bones, tourists were there paying to see what
Speaker 1: was left behind. It seemed for a long time that
Speaker 1: the cryptic mystery was just to become another tourist trap,
Speaker 1: until twenty nineteen. That is, modern testing revealed that the
Speaker 1: remains were far more diverse than originally theorized. The bones
Speaker 1: were not just of South Asian origin, but from Crete
Speaker 1: and the Mediterranean as well. Skeletons belonging to three separate
Speaker 1: genetic groups were identified, having then deposited over a period
Speaker 1: that star banned a thousand years. It was not a
Speaker 1: single group of pilgrims after all, Given that it's unlikely
Speaker 1: that Greek islanders were part of a pilgrimage to honor
Speaker 1: Nanda Devi. With the location's current status as a tourist destination,
Speaker 1: the bones around Rupcoond are at increased risk of contamination
Speaker 1: as visitors actually rearrange them, take some away, and leave
Speaker 1: trash among the dead. Even today, research among these remains
Speaker 1: is ongoing, but it's uncertain whether we will ever find
Speaker 1: out where all the remains came from. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: it's a helpful reminder that even in the most remote
Speaker 1: parts of the Earth, there are stories that remain untold.
Speaker 1: While human nature has always led us into the unknown,
Speaker 1: that adventurous spirit has also left us some curious mysteries.
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 Curiosity's 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: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.