1 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:08,000 Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history 2 00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:11,200 Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are 3 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:14,680 Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. 4 00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:29,200 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The humble farmer the 5 00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:32,400 Speaker 1: backbone of the American way of life. They grow and 6 00:00:32,560 --> 00:00:35,199 Speaker 1: harvest to provide not only for their own families, but 7 00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:39,120 Speaker 1: ours as well. Everything from corn to potatoes to squash 8 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:43,280 Speaker 1: is cultivated across world farmland from coast to coast. However, 9 00:00:43,360 --> 00:00:47,680 Speaker 1: in eighty nine, something else was unearthed in a farmer's field, 10 00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:52,440 Speaker 1: something that didn't make sense, something that didn't belong there. 11 00:00:54,480 --> 00:00:56,880 Speaker 1: Workers in Vermont were digging up land to build the 12 00:00:56,920 --> 00:01:00,880 Speaker 1: first railroad between Burlington and Rutland. During the dig, one 13 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:04,400 Speaker 1: of the workers noticed something sticking up in the dirt, bones, 14 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:07,679 Speaker 1: quite a few of them. In fact, he didn't think 15 00:01:07,760 --> 00:01:09,759 Speaker 1: much of them at the time, seeing as how horse 16 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:12,240 Speaker 1: skeletons had been spotted from time to time as they 17 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:15,160 Speaker 1: were pulling up the land. So they kept working, not 18 00:01:15,319 --> 00:01:17,720 Speaker 1: caring too much about what happened to the former horse. 19 00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:23,080 Speaker 1: They just unearthed. A local residents, Mr John G. Thorpe, 20 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:25,839 Speaker 1: had been passing by when he too saw the bones 21 00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:28,559 Speaker 1: poking out from the dig site. There was something about 22 00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:31,640 Speaker 1: them that struck him as odd, though he certainly didn't 23 00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:34,119 Speaker 1: think they were horse bones, so he convinced the man 24 00:01:34,160 --> 00:01:36,480 Speaker 1: in charge of the railroad project to move his workers 25 00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:39,000 Speaker 1: to another plot of land so he could collect and 26 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:44,160 Speaker 1: analyze the bones. Naturalist ZADEK. Thompson was brought in for 27 00:01:44,319 --> 00:01:47,559 Speaker 1: his expertise in identifying what kind of animal the bones 28 00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:51,200 Speaker 1: had once belonged to. Thompson was a prolific author of 29 00:01:51,240 --> 00:01:55,720 Speaker 1: many animal and nature guides. Despite serious limitations to his situation. 30 00:01:56,240 --> 00:01:58,440 Speaker 1: No one else was working in his field, and he 31 00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:01,680 Speaker 1: had no access to specimens or books to further his studies. 32 00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:06,280 Speaker 1: He was charting new territory for the scientific community, but 33 00:02:06,360 --> 00:02:08,840 Speaker 1: that didn't stop him from studying the various flora and 34 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:12,760 Speaker 1: fauna in his native Vermont, including the skeleton Mr. Thorpe 35 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:18,840 Speaker 1: had rescued from the railroad workers. After some consideration and examination, 36 00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:22,120 Speaker 1: Mr Thompson identified it as having belonged to the ancient 37 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:26,040 Speaker 1: ancestor of the Beluga whale. While there was no way 38 00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:28,920 Speaker 1: to determine its sex, its skull and teeth indicated the 39 00:02:28,960 --> 00:02:31,760 Speaker 1: twelve foot long specimen had been a full grown adult 40 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:35,280 Speaker 1: before its death. It was a fascinating discovery, but there 41 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:38,440 Speaker 1: were two questions the men shared, as did everyone else 42 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:42,840 Speaker 1: who came across the specimen. First, how did a beluga 43 00:02:42,880 --> 00:02:45,280 Speaker 1: whale wind up in the middle of a farmer's field 44 00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:49,960 Speaker 1: in Vermont, one fifty miles from the closest shore. And second, 45 00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:52,440 Speaker 1: how had it made its way so far down from 46 00:02:52,440 --> 00:02:55,520 Speaker 1: the native Arctic waters of the North. Such a creature 47 00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:59,919 Speaker 1: had no business being so far from its home. Well, 48 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:03,400 Speaker 1: it took a while for technology and environmental studies to 49 00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:06,919 Speaker 1: catch up. The scientists eventually learned that the Charlotte whale, 50 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:09,600 Speaker 1: named for the town where it was discovered, had been 51 00:03:09,639 --> 00:03:13,200 Speaker 1: stuck in Vermont for a very long time. The bones 52 00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:16,240 Speaker 1: had been preserved under ten feet of blue clay sediments 53 00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:19,880 Speaker 1: left over from the Champlain Sea, a temporary inlet that 54 00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:22,359 Speaker 1: had formed when glaciers retreated at the end of the 55 00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:25,920 Speaker 1: last glacial period. The sea had dried up thousands of 56 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:29,840 Speaker 1: years ago, leaving the whale and presumably other creatures in 57 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:33,640 Speaker 1: the middle of Vermont with no way out. Today, the 58 00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:37,240 Speaker 1: Charlotte whale is the official state marine fossil of Vermont, 59 00:03:37,640 --> 00:03:40,600 Speaker 1: and while it's certainly strange to find something as large 60 00:03:40,680 --> 00:03:43,400 Speaker 1: as a dead whale so far from the ocean. It 61 00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:47,080 Speaker 1: happens more than we realize. Discoveries like this teach us 62 00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:50,680 Speaker 1: about how the Earth changes, how oceans shift over time, 63 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,120 Speaker 1: and even how those changes affect the migration of wildlife 64 00:03:54,160 --> 00:03:58,440 Speaker 1: around the globe. The world around us is never constant. 65 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:02,280 Speaker 1: We may think we're fine, but if we sit still 66 00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:05,400 Speaker 1: long enough, we might discover we've missed our window to 67 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:23,039 Speaker 1: get out, just like the Charlotte whale. While America is 68 00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:26,120 Speaker 1: a relatively young country, the history of the land upon 69 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:28,880 Speaker 1: which it sits extends as far back as the beginning 70 00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:32,360 Speaker 1: of time itself. Culture has lived and died for thousands 71 00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:34,760 Speaker 1: of years before we got here, and we can still 72 00:04:34,760 --> 00:04:37,440 Speaker 1: see remnants of their existence if we look hard enough. 73 00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:42,240 Speaker 1: Drawings on cave walls and artifacts left behind offer insight 74 00:04:42,360 --> 00:04:45,280 Speaker 1: into how they lived and what they cared about. Shards 75 00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:47,840 Speaker 1: of ornate pottery can tell us how a culture might 76 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:52,240 Speaker 1: have valued craftsmanship as much as they valued practicality. But 77 00:04:52,279 --> 00:04:55,840 Speaker 1: what about the artifacts that defy explanation, the ones that 78 00:04:55,880 --> 00:05:00,320 Speaker 1: cannot be explained and in one case, shouldn't exist at all. 79 00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:06,200 Speaker 1: Near a small town in Minnesota, in a Swedish resident 80 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:09,320 Speaker 1: named Olaf Omen had recently purchased a plot of land 81 00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:12,120 Speaker 1: needing some clean up. The trees and old stumps had 82 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:14,840 Speaker 1: to be pulled out so he could start plowing. As 83 00:05:14,880 --> 00:05:17,159 Speaker 1: he was working with his ten year old son Edward 84 00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:19,800 Speaker 1: at his side, it came across a poplar tree with 85 00:05:19,920 --> 00:05:23,520 Speaker 1: something tangled in its roots. It was large and gray 86 00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:27,239 Speaker 1: and heavy, a slab of rock weighing over two hundred pounds. 87 00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:31,400 Speaker 1: While unusual for something so large to be found at 88 00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:33,719 Speaker 1: the base of a tree, Olaf didn't think much of 89 00:05:33,760 --> 00:05:36,520 Speaker 1: it until his son mentioned the strange markings all over 90 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:39,320 Speaker 1: its sides and face. He had assumed they'd found an 91 00:05:39,320 --> 00:05:42,520 Speaker 1: old Native American almanac, a record of past and future 92 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:45,960 Speaker 1: events as predicted by the local native population from hundreds 93 00:05:45,960 --> 00:05:49,560 Speaker 1: of years ago. Olaf had a copy of the inscriptions 94 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:53,840 Speaker 1: sent to several universities for analysis, and the results weren't 95 00:05:53,880 --> 00:05:57,000 Speaker 1: what he'd expected. It spoke of a mixed group of 96 00:05:57,040 --> 00:06:00,400 Speaker 1: Norwegians and Germans setting out on a journey from Vinland 97 00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:05,440 Speaker 1: to America in thirteen sixty two, on thirty years before 98 00:06:05,520 --> 00:06:10,039 Speaker 1: Columbus would set foot in the New World. According to 99 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:13,279 Speaker 1: the historians and linguistic experts at the time the stone 100 00:06:13,320 --> 00:06:16,840 Speaker 1: was a forgery, a fake. The symbols weren't Native American 101 00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:20,680 Speaker 1: but modern Scandinavian in origin, and while the stone itself 102 00:06:20,839 --> 00:06:24,120 Speaker 1: was many centuries old, the tree that it had supposedly 103 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:28,520 Speaker 1: been buried beneath was only about thirty years old. Olaff 104 00:06:28,680 --> 00:06:32,039 Speaker 1: later sold the stone to historian Yalmar Holland for ten 105 00:06:32,080 --> 00:06:36,000 Speaker 1: dollars and walked away from his discovery. Holland, however, wanted 106 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:38,440 Speaker 1: the world to know about it. He believed in its 107 00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:41,920 Speaker 1: authenticity and wrote an article that went about as viral 108 00:06:42,040 --> 00:06:44,719 Speaker 1: as an article could get. Back in the nineteenth century, 109 00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:48,000 Speaker 1: he took the Kensington Ruined Stone, named for the town 110 00:06:48,040 --> 00:06:51,120 Speaker 1: it was found in, on a tour across Europe, struggling 111 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:53,760 Speaker 1: for forty years to convince the smartest people in the 112 00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:58,920 Speaker 1: world that what he possessed was a truly unique historical artifact. Unfortunately, 113 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:01,640 Speaker 1: historians and x where It's concurred that despite the stone 114 00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:04,960 Speaker 1: itself being quiet ancient, the language and the carvings found 115 00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:06,920 Speaker 1: on it were no more than a hundred years old. 116 00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:10,360 Speaker 1: It didn't help that in nineteen seventy six, an interview 117 00:07:10,400 --> 00:07:12,560 Speaker 1: with the son of a man who had known olaf 118 00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:15,880 Speaker 1: Omen came to light, wherein he confessed that Omen himself 119 00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:19,160 Speaker 1: had carved the inscriptions, and that seemed to be the 120 00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:21,840 Speaker 1: end of the story. The Ruined Stone had been nothing 121 00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:25,320 Speaker 1: more than an elaborate hoax, to what end no one knows. 122 00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:29,640 Speaker 1: But in night two a professor at Cornell University named 123 00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:32,520 Speaker 1: Robert Hall decided to take another crack at it. He 124 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:36,120 Speaker 1: re examined the ruins, eventually publishing a book on his findings. 125 00:07:37,360 --> 00:07:39,960 Speaker 1: He took issue with how the stones critics had conducted 126 00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:42,840 Speaker 1: their research and claimed that the bizarre mix of ancient 127 00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:45,800 Speaker 1: and modern Scandinavian could have been due to the Swedish 128 00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:49,200 Speaker 1: language starting to change at the time. Two distinct groups 129 00:07:49,240 --> 00:07:52,440 Speaker 1: from different regions in the world traveling together for so 130 00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:56,480 Speaker 1: long might have resulted in the linguistic equivalent of cross pollination. 131 00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:00,280 Speaker 1: In addition, a letter written by Dutch cartog or for 132 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:04,760 Speaker 1: gerardis Mercator to the mathematician John d referred to a 133 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:07,240 Speaker 1: man who had received word of eight men traveling to 134 00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:10,240 Speaker 1: the Arctic Islands from Norway in the mid thirt hundreds. 135 00:08:10,680 --> 00:08:14,200 Speaker 1: Journeys from Scandinavia to North America at the time, we're 136 00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:18,560 Speaker 1: apparently not unheard of today. The Kensington Ruined Stone is 137 00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:23,320 Speaker 1: the centerpiece of the aptly named Ruinstone Museum in Alexandria, Minnesota, 138 00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:27,680 Speaker 1: and its influence extends far beyond its questionable origin story. 139 00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:31,280 Speaker 1: The stone and its alleged Viking heritage have inspired the 140 00:08:31,320 --> 00:08:34,800 Speaker 1: state's official football team, the Minnesota Vikings, as well as 141 00:08:34,800 --> 00:08:39,520 Speaker 1: countless other buildings and businesses with similarly themed names. What 142 00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:43,480 Speaker 1: began as a curious discovery in an empty field transformed 143 00:08:43,520 --> 00:08:47,640 Speaker 1: an entire state's identity. The debate over the Kensington Runestone 144 00:08:47,800 --> 00:08:51,520 Speaker 1: continues to this day, but it's authenticity might not even 145 00:08:51,559 --> 00:08:55,160 Speaker 1: matter anymore. It's not the reality that people have lashed onto, 146 00:08:55,800 --> 00:08:59,520 Speaker 1: but the belief in what it could be, who we are, 147 00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:06,240 Speaker 1: It's names is never set in stone. I hope you've 148 00:09:06,320 --> 00:09:10,280 Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe 149 00:09:10,280 --> 00:09:12,920 Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the 150 00:09:12,920 --> 00:09:17,720 Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was 151 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:21,640 Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. 152 00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:25,200 Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is 153 00:09:25,280 --> 00:09:28,679 Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can 154 00:09:28,760 --> 00:09:31,080 Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore 155 00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:35,080 Speaker 1: dot com, and until next time, stay curious.