Speaker 1: Introducing The Fountain Road Files, a new horror fiction podcast
Speaker 1: from Unexplained creator Richard McLane Smith. In March twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: twenty seven year old cafe worker Ben Williams began recording
Speaker 1: an audio diary of the coronavirus pandemic. Two months later,
Speaker 1: he was found dead in the South London flat where
Speaker 1: he was spending lockdown alone, or so he thought. Search
Speaker 1: the Fountain Road Files wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: for more information go to the Fountain Road Files dot com.
Speaker 1: In his famed and controversial seventeen ninety eight paper An
Speaker 1: Essay on the Principle of Population, the Reverend Thomas Robert
Speaker 1: Malthus outlined the theory for which he has since been immortalized. Mauthusianism,
Speaker 1: as it came to be known, broadly speaking, is the
Speaker 1: belief that the global human population will increase inevitably to
Speaker 1: the point where it could no longer be sustained by
Speaker 1: the resources available to it unless it is curbed by
Speaker 1: either natural disasters or state intervention. Without such checks, Malthus
Speaker 1: believed many would be fated to a lifetime of financial
Speaker 1: poverty and destitution, as more and more people would be
Speaker 1: forced to scrap over ever diminishing proportions of food. Malthus's
Speaker 1: theory was undermined emphatically in the next hundred years by
Speaker 1: the sheer human capacity for ingenuity and its rapacious thirst
Speaker 1: for commodities. Throughout the nineteenth century, although global population continued
Speaker 1: to increase at a rapid rate, it was more than
Speaker 1: compensated for by the equally rapid technological advances of the
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution. With new tools such as the threshing machine,
Speaker 1: came the ability to farm far more intensively than ever before.
Speaker 1: But just as crucial was the introduction to Europe and
Speaker 1: the United States of an extremely unlikely nitrogen rich fertilizer.
Speaker 1: It was back in eighteen o two that the brilliant
Speaker 1: Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt first came across it while
Speaker 1: trekking through Peru. Called guano by those local to the region,
Speaker 1: otherwise known as guano, this natural fertilizer, comprised of bat
Speaker 1: and bird excrement, had long been considered an extraordinarily effective fertilizer,
Speaker 1: used even by the ancient Incas. Humboldt's introduction to guano
Speaker 1: set in motion a chain of events that would not
Speaker 1: only change the world as we knew it, but change
Speaker 1: it in ways that we may struggle to ever recover from.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McClane Smith. A
Speaker 1: veritable polymath, Humboldt had spent much of his early years
Speaker 1: studying a vast array of disciplines, including languages, geology, anatomy,
Speaker 1: and astronomy, amongst many other things. He is credited with
Speaker 1: reintroducing the word cosmos into popular usage, and is also
Speaker 1: regarded as the first person to describe the phenomenon of
Speaker 1: human induced climate change. By his forties, Humboldt was already
Speaker 1: a well established member of the European science community when
Speaker 1: he received the blessing of the King of Spain to
Speaker 1: undertake an expedition to the America's Humboldt would spend the
Speaker 1: next five years trekking extensively throughout the continent. After returning
Speaker 1: to Europe, Humboldt wrote effusively about the merits of guano,
Speaker 1: encouraging industrialists to look into the possibility of incorporating it
Speaker 1: into Western agricultural practices. Within thirty years, as many began
Speaker 1: to see the benefits of it for themselves, millions of
Speaker 1: tons of guano, largely harvested by slaves from China, Africa,
Speaker 1: the Polynesian Islands, and Hawaii, was being exported and traded
Speaker 1: throughout Europe and the United States, as is often the
Speaker 1: way of such things. Before long, with the unquenchable desire
Speaker 1: for it, deposits of guano were all but exhausted. By
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies. This pitfall was swiftly overcome, however, with
Speaker 1: the discovery of vast quantities of natural sodium nitrate found
Speaker 1: in Chile around the same time. But as many were
Speaker 1: quick to recognize, sodium nitrate was also a finite resource,
Speaker 1: and much like the wants bountiful supply of guano, it
Speaker 1: too would someday run out. By the eighteen nineties, the world,
Speaker 1: it seemed, was once again in a perilous position, with
Speaker 1: global population now fifty percent larger than it had been
Speaker 1: in Malthus's time, thanks in part art to dramatically increased
Speaker 1: crop yields, Fears of a Mouthusian catastrophe were once again
Speaker 1: being espoused. In eighteen ninety eight, Sir William Crooks, president
Speaker 1: of the British Academy of Sciences, through attention to this
Speaker 1: worrying predicament. It was his belief that unless a viable
Speaker 1: alternative to the natural but finite fertilizers could be found,
Speaker 1: soon food supplies would no longer be sufficient to sustain
Speaker 1: the global population. There was one great hope, however, he added,
Speaker 1: Since nitrogen made up seventy nine percent of the Earth's atmosphere,
Speaker 1: there was certainly more than enough of it to go around.
Speaker 1: All that was needed was for someone to find a
Speaker 1: way to convert it into a compound that plants could
Speaker 1: feed off. In nineteen o nine, chemist Fritz Harbor was
Speaker 1: working as an assistant and lecturer at Carlsborough University in Germany.
Speaker 1: Though not especially well known at the time, Harbor had
Speaker 1: been steadily making a name for himself, specializing in the
Speaker 1: technology of dye for textiles and electrochemistry. That year, however,
Speaker 1: working in their lab at Carl's Ruhre, Harbor and his
Speaker 1: assistant Robert le Rosignon, would make one of the greatest
Speaker 1: discoveries of modern science. Spurred on by the global hunt
Speaker 1: for a synthetic fertilizer to match the nutrient rich nitrates
Speaker 1: such as those from Chili, Harbor devised a process that
Speaker 1: successfully combined nitrogen from the air with hydrogen to create ammonia,
Speaker 1: a nitrogen rich compound capable of fertilizing plants. Harbor's process
Speaker 1: was acquired by the German chemical company Baden Aneline and
Speaker 1: Soda factory in July the same year, who in turn
Speaker 1: assigned chemist Carl Bosch to scale it up for industrial use.
Speaker 1: With the help of what would become known as the
Speaker 1: Harbor Bosch BASF were producing industrial quantities of ammonia by
Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen, which couldn't come soon enough for the German nation.
Speaker 1: With the outbreak of war in July nineteen fourteen. Recognizing
Speaker 1: that Chile's sodium nitrate deposits would not only be vital
Speaker 1: for agriculture but also the production of explosives, the German
Speaker 1: government attempted to secure access to it for themselves. However,
Speaker 1: the German naval fleet that was sent to complete the
Speaker 1: task was destroyed a few months later by the British Navy.
Speaker 1: Left with no access to this vital resource, Carl Bosch
Speaker 1: and his team at BASF duly stepped in to help,
Speaker 1: turning their hands to generating vast quantities of ammonia at
Speaker 1: the military's request to produce nitric acid for use and
Speaker 1: explosives for its Harbor, who, thanks to the genius of
Speaker 1: the harbor Bosch process, was well known to the German government,
Speaker 1: was invited to take up a slightly different task and
Speaker 1: turn his talent for chemistry to figuring out how it
Speaker 1: might best be used in the field of war. Harbor
Speaker 1: had little trouble excepting the task and quickly began experimenting
Speaker 1: with tear gas. But Harbor would go much further than that.
Speaker 1: Though many on both sides of the war had predicted
Speaker 1: a swift and early resolution to hostilities, by April nineteen
Speaker 1: fifteen a very different picture was beginning to emerge, with
Speaker 1: both sides now thoroughly locked in a seemingly endless war
Speaker 1: of attrition. Fighting by this point was largely confined to
Speaker 1: the Western Front, a vast line of trenches and fiercely
Speaker 1: contested territory stretching south from the coast line of the
Speaker 1: North Sea through Belgium, France and Germany all the way
Speaker 1: to Switzerland. Located at the northern end of the front
Speaker 1: was the Epre Salient, a ten mile stretch of the
Speaker 1: line just to the east of the Belgium city of
Speaker 1: Epra as one of the few sections of the front
Speaker 1: at the time where the British, Canadian and French armies
Speaker 1: had succeeded in pushing back into German occupied territory. The
Speaker 1: Epres salient was a vital, strategic and symbolic landmark. So
Speaker 1: heavily was this section contested, the German military became convinced
Speaker 1: that if they could just break through it, it would
Speaker 1: be such a blow to the opposition's morale that their
Speaker 1: victory would be all but guaranteed. By April twenty second,
Speaker 1: the surrounding area had been obliterated by artillery shells from
Speaker 1: both sides, transforming the once rich and verdant farmland into
Speaker 1: hellish stretches of mud and twisted wire, pockmarked by vast
Speaker 1: yawning craters, and all of it strewn with the rotting
Speaker 1: corpses of fallen soldiers. The trenches not much better. Bogged
Speaker 1: down with water due to the low water table, they
Speaker 1: offered little respite from the elements. They too, were littered
Speaker 1: with the bodies of the dead. After days of intense
Speaker 1: fighting around a nearby hill, the morning of the twenty
Speaker 1: second had begun with another period of heavy shelling as
Speaker 1: the German army once again did their best to disrupt
Speaker 1: the line. By early afternoon, however, the guns had fallen silent.
Speaker 1: At the northern section of the salient. French Algerian troops
Speaker 1: waited nervously for whatever might come next. At just after
Speaker 1: five pm, with the light beginning to fade, the aerial
Speaker 1: bombardment began afresh, the shells pummeling down into the mud,
Speaker 1: becoming louder and louder with each passing minute. When suddenly
Speaker 1: one of the lookouts observed something unusual in the distance,
Speaker 1: a thick cloud of smoke slowly billowing towards across no
Speaker 1: man's land. Is there something interfering with your happiness or
Speaker 1: preventing you from achieving your goals? Better Help will assess
Speaker 1: your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist.
Speaker 1: Sign up today and start communicating in less than forty
Speaker 1: eight hours. You'll get timely and thoughtful responses. Plus, you
Speaker 1: can schedule weekly video or phone sessions so you won't
Speaker 1: ever have to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room. You
Speaker 1: can also log into your account any time to send
Speaker 1: a message to your counselor Better Help is not a
Speaker 1: crisis line nor self help. It is professional counseling done
Speaker 1: securely online, with a broad range of expertise available, and
Speaker 1: with better helps commitment to facilitating great therapeutic matches. They
Speaker 1: make it especially easy and free to change counselors. To
Speaker 1: help you find the right fit. Visit betterhelp dot com
Speaker 1: forward slash reviews to read the many glowing testimonials posted
Speaker 1: every day from grateful clients, and if you're interested in
Speaker 1: signing up, go to betterhelp dot com forward slash unexplained
Speaker 1: one zero and get ten percent off your first month.
Speaker 1: That's better help dot com forward slash unexplained one zero
Speaker 1: and join the over one million people taking charge of
Speaker 1: their mental health with the help of an experienced professional.
Speaker 1: Better Help wants you to start living a happier life today.
Speaker 1: Thinking the smoke was cover for an imminent attack, officers
Speaker 1: across the line screamed at their men to get ready,
Speaker 1: ordering their troops to stand too and mount the first
Speaker 1: step in preparation for a defensive charge. Gathering weapons, helmets
Speaker 1: and AMMO. The men threw themselves dutifully against the side
Speaker 1: of the trenches, hearts thumping in their chests as they
Speaker 1: awaited the next order. Up above, officers gripped tighter on
Speaker 1: their revolvers as they braced themselves for the sudden onrush
Speaker 1: of German soldiers. But the soldiers never came. The officers
Speaker 1: could only look on with bemused stairs as that peculiar smoke,
Speaker 1: seeming a little thicker, now continued to draw nearer and nearer.
Speaker 1: It was almost beautiful the way it shimmered, a peculiar
Speaker 1: shade of yellow and green in the light. And then
Speaker 1: the smell hit them, an acrid whiff of bleach that
Speaker 1: scraped at the back of the throat. Then the men
Speaker 1: began to cough and pull back, clawing at their necks.
Speaker 1: While some cried out for water, others were already on
Speaker 1: the ground, screaming in agony as they writhed about in
Speaker 1: the mud, frothing at the mouth and gasping for breath.
Speaker 1: And still the cloud of smoke kept coming until the
Speaker 1: entire trench had been engulfed. But it wasn't smoke at all.
Speaker 1: It was chlorine gas. Just a kilometer away to the north,
Speaker 1: at the German line, the bald, bespectacled figure of Fritz
Speaker 1: Harbor watched with satisfaction as the gas he had so
Speaker 1: meticulously helped to manufacture continued on its southerly direction across
Speaker 1: the rest of the opposition's line. Harbor later said that
Speaker 1: his intention had been merely to use the gas to
Speaker 1: cause mass disruption, leaving the opposition forces a frayed and
Speaker 1: shaken but able to retreat to safety if need be.
Speaker 1: It was, he claimed, merely a tactical attempt to bring
Speaker 1: a quick end to the war that would ultimately save
Speaker 1: lives in the long run. Harbor's technique was to place
Speaker 1: six thousand metal canisters containing one hundred and sixty eight
Speaker 1: tons of liquid chlorine along a six kilometer stretch of
Speaker 1: the German army's line. After waiting all day for the
Speaker 1: wind to change direction, the canisters were finally prized open,
Speaker 1: turning the liquid chlorine instantly to gas. Up to one thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred soldiers a thought to have died in the attack,
Speaker 1: and over two thousand were injured, the chlorine being so
Speaker 1: potent it corroded the soldier's silver buckles and badges to
Speaker 1: a greenish black. Harbor's hope that the gas attack would
Speaker 1: result in a fast resolution to the conflict did not
Speaker 1: come to pass. Not only did the German army fail
Speaker 1: to capitalize on the initial attack, it simply opened the
Speaker 1: door to the development of even more devastating weapons. When
Speaker 1: an effective solution was found to combat the chlorine gas.
Speaker 1: For example, Harbor simply developed something even more lethal. Where
Speaker 1: chlorine gas had to be inhaled, nitrogen mustard needed only
Speaker 1: to settle on exposed skin to do lasting damage to
Speaker 1: the body. Symptoms of a mustard gas attack, as it
Speaker 1: would be called, ranged from extensive blistering to weeks spent
Speaker 1: coughing and choking on blood until you died. Though many
Speaker 1: were quick to condemn the German high command, even some
Speaker 1: within the German military itself, for permitting such a heinous act,
Speaker 1: the other nations were equally quick to follow suit. Despite
Speaker 1: the British senior officer Sir John French being amongst the
Speaker 1: most vociferous of critics, describing the use of the gas
Speaker 1: as of barbarous disregard of the well known usages of
Speaker 1: civilized war, whatever that is, the British Army would launch
Speaker 1: their own gas attack only five months later. By the
Speaker 1: end of the war, the British, French and Belgian forces
Speaker 1: had used more tons of gas than the German army.
Speaker 1: Out of the forty million or so casualties of the
Speaker 1: First World War, A hundred thousand are thought to have
Speaker 1: been killed by gas, with one million believed to have
Speaker 1: been wounded. Only ten years before, at the nineteen o
Speaker 1: seven Hague Convention, most nations involved in the war had
Speaker 1: signed an agreement forbidding the use of poison or poisoned weapons. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: the Harbor Bosch process would earn Fritz Harbor a Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize in nineteen eighteen, and the ammonia it's used to
Speaker 1: create today forms the basis of all manufactured nitrogen fertilizer,
Speaker 1: a method that is credited with feeding roughly a third
Speaker 1: of the global population and saving billions from starvation. There
Speaker 1: is perhaps a no more polarizing figure in science, and
Speaker 1: with the release of that gas in nineteen fifteen, there
Speaker 1: was no putting it back in the canister. As reports
Speaker 1: of the attacks and those haunting images of soldiers in
Speaker 1: bug eyed gas masks drifted back from the front, few
Speaker 1: could fail to be disturbed by it. It had changed
Speaker 1: our concept of warfare indelibly, and as it would turn out,
Speaker 1: the specter of those thick, yellow tinged toxic clouds would
Speaker 1: disperse far wider and linger far longer than Harbor had
Speaker 1: perhaps ever intended them to. On the evening of Friday,
Speaker 1: December twenty second, nineteen thirty three, out in the snow
Speaker 1: covered fields of Buddataut County in Virginia in the US,
Speaker 1: local farmer Clarence cal Huffman and his wife Mattie were
Speaker 1: preparing for bed when Mattie became aware of an unusual
Speaker 1: acrid odor in the air. Feeling suddenly overcome with nausea,
Speaker 1: she laid herself down and waited for it to pass.
Speaker 1: With Mattie finally drifting off to sleep, Cow was just
Speaker 1: about to join her when he too caught a whiff
Speaker 1: of the unusual odor. Being a farmer, Cow was all
Speaker 1: too aware that it wasn't uncommon around those parts for
Speaker 1: thieves to use gas to knock out livestock before stealing it.
Speaker 1: In recent years, some enterprising burglars had even utilized gas
Speaker 1: to knock out guard docks before ransacking people's homes. Hurriedly
Speaker 1: lighting a lantern, Cow grabbed his gun and quickly made
Speaker 1: his way to the back door. Pulling it open, he
Speaker 1: held up the lamp and stared out into the chill
Speaker 1: of the night, seeing little but empty fields and the
Speaker 1: usual trees standing bare and skeletal in the dark. He
Speaker 1: felt suddenly all too aware of just how isolated he
Speaker 1: and his family were. With his wife and children to
Speaker 1: think about, he decided it best to call in the police.
Speaker 1: Special officer Oscar Lemon arrived thirty minutes later to find
Speaker 1: Cow waiting for him on his porch, shotgun in hand.
Speaker 1: His wife and children roused from bed by the excitement,
Speaker 1: waited expectantly side. After he explained the situation to Lemon,
Speaker 1: Cow joined him in making a quick circuit of the property.
Speaker 1: Their home, a large stone building known locally as the
Speaker 1: Brian McDonald Junior House, was one of the more recognizable
Speaker 1: properties in the county, a likely target, perhaps for unwanted attention.
Speaker 1: As the officer flicked his flashlight about looking for anything unusual,
Speaker 1: Lemon noticed one of the windows to the enclosed front
Speaker 1: porch was slightly open. Shining the light underneath it, He
Speaker 1: spotted the print of a small, high heeled shoe in
Speaker 1: the dirt, unlike anything anyone in the family owned, and
Speaker 1: neither did anyone remember leaving the window open. As unlikely
Speaker 1: as it sounded to offers a Lemon, it seemed that
Speaker 1: someone might have tried to poison the family with gas,
Speaker 1: with the possibility that used the porch window to pipe
Speaker 1: it into the property. After checking in on Mattie, who
Speaker 1: was by then feeling better, Officer Lemon suggested that the
Speaker 1: family tried to get some rest and call back if
Speaker 1: anything else strange occurred, with Lemon then leaving the property
Speaker 1: around one am. It was a few hours later when
Speaker 1: Cal and Mattie were awoken by the sound of coughing
Speaker 1: and spluttering coming from their children's bedrooms. Lighting the lamp again,
Speaker 1: the couple rushed through to the hallway just in time
Speaker 1: to see their twenty year old daughter, Alice, stumble from
Speaker 1: her bedroom, seemingly unable to breathe, before collapsing on the floor,
Speaker 1: yelling that they were under attack again. Ashby Henderson, a
Speaker 1: neighbor who was staying with the family at the time,
Speaker 1: thought he saw a movement outside a window and dashed
Speaker 1: out of the house to investigate. Cal joined a moment later,
Speaker 1: but after a few minutes scanning the area, they saw nothing.
Speaker 1: Local doctor, the twenty eight year old Samuel Driver, arrived
Speaker 1: on the scene shortly after, only to find Alice completely unresponsive.
Speaker 1: Turning her on to her front, he attempted resuscitation, splaying
Speaker 1: her arms out to the side like wings and carefully
Speaker 1: pushing down on her back as he lifted her arms
Speaker 1: up by the side. After a minute or so, the
Speaker 1: family were much relieved to see the young woman finally
Speaker 1: coming round, no longer smelling the gas. It seemed this
Speaker 1: second apparent attack was over. With not much else to
Speaker 1: be done, the family thanked the doctor and made their
Speaker 1: way back to bed. Green Chef is a USDIER certified
Speaker 1: organic company that makes eating well easy and affordable with
Speaker 1: plans to fit every kind of lifestyle. With Green Chef,
Speaker 1: it's easy to eat well and discovering new recipes every
Speaker 1: week that you'll love to cook with meal plans that
Speaker 1: include pay Alio, plant powered keto, and balanced living. Whether
Speaker 1: you're looking to try out some healthier food options or
Speaker 1: just save time in the kitchen after a long day
Speaker 1: of work, let Green Chef make cooking easy with dinner
Speaker 1: options that work around your lifestyle, not the other way round.
Speaker 1: Green Chef's expert chefs design quick and easy, flavorful recipes
Speaker 1: with step by step instructions, chef tips and photos to
Speaker 1: guide you along. Green Chef is also the most sustainable
Speaker 1: meal kit of setting one hundred percent of its direct
Speaker 1: carbon emissions and plastic packaging in every box, so not
Speaker 1: only can you enjoy what you're eating, but you can
Speaker 1: also feel good about how it got to your table.
Speaker 1: Use code unexplained eight zero. To get eighty dollars off
Speaker 1: your first month plus free shipping on your first box,
Speaker 1: go to greenchef dot com. Forward slash unexplained eight zero
Speaker 1: to redeem and for more details. Once again, that's unexplained
Speaker 1: eight zero. To get eighty dollars off your first month
Speaker 1: plus free shipping on your first box, go to greenchef
Speaker 1: dot com. Forward slash unexplained eight zero to redeem and
Speaker 1: for more details. A few days later, over in Cloverdale,
Speaker 1: just three miles south of the Huffman Home, Clarence and
Speaker 1: Lucy Hall were attending a Christmas church service with their
Speaker 1: three children. Returning to their house at nine pm, the
Speaker 1: couple noticed a sickly acrid smell in the air. Within moments,
Speaker 1: their eyes were beginning to sting. Telling the others to
Speaker 1: wait outside, Clarence moved in further to investigate, only to
Speaker 1: stop suddenly looking as though he might keel over at
Speaker 1: any moment. Watching on in horror, Lucy dashed in to
Speaker 1: grab her husband and pulled him back outside. Doctor William Breckenridge,
Speaker 1: who attended the scene shortly after, suggested that what happened
Speaker 1: to Clarence was consistent with the effects of inhaling some
Speaker 1: kind of gas. The following night, with the Halls staying
Speaker 1: at Lucy's parents home for safety, Lucy's sister Ada was
Speaker 1: having past the Hall's home with her husband when they
Speaker 1: saw a figure in the dark poking about with a
Speaker 1: flashlight near a window of the house. When they pulled
Speaker 1: in for a closer look, the figure drove off swiftly
Speaker 1: into the night. The following day, the news hit the
Speaker 1: papers that a mysterious assailant nicknamed the Phantom Gasser, was
Speaker 1: on the loose in Badatak County that appeared to be
Speaker 1: releasing a poisonous gas into people's homes. Having at first
Speaker 1: assumed it to be little more than kids messing about.
Speaker 1: After a third apparent attack on local welder Albert Kelly
Speaker 1: offered Sir Lemon stepped up his efforts to catch the perpetrator,
Speaker 1: with the community, like much of America, only just getting
Speaker 1: back to its feet. After the ravages of the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: this was the last thing they needed on their hands.
Speaker 1: On the twenty eighth of December, Offer, Sir Lemon, received
Speaker 1: word that an unknown man and woman were seen passing
Speaker 1: Kelly's home around the time he claimed to have been attacked.
Speaker 1: The couple had driven back and forth a number of
Speaker 1: times in a nineteen thirty two Chevrolet. However, a check
Speaker 1: on the vehicle's license plate failed to identify the owner.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, several miles away, in an area
Speaker 1: known as Howl's Mill, Missus Moore, a woman staying at
Speaker 1: the home of Gertrude and Homer Hilton with her baby,
Speaker 1: was alerted to the sound of muffled voices coming from
Speaker 1: somewhere in the yard. Keeping her eye on her baby,
Speaker 1: who was fast asleep in its cot, she listened quietly
Speaker 1: as she heard the sound of rustling footsteps drawing closer
Speaker 1: to the window. Moments later, missus Moore smelled gas. It
Speaker 1: was followed by a sudden, numbing sensation that seemed to
Speaker 1: be spreading slowly into her limbs. Hearing her cries for help,
Speaker 1: the Howls dashed downstairs to find her. Outside shivering on
Speaker 1: the front step with her baby, but no sign of
Speaker 1: anyone else around Homer. Hilton gathered up his shotgun and
Speaker 1: took a seat in the front room, vowing to keep
Speaker 1: watch or night, but nobody came. The following day, Homer
Speaker 1: spread news of the attack to his neighbors Sally and Tom,
Speaker 1: who in turn passed it on to their children. Before long,
Speaker 1: their son Roy was sharing it with their neighbors Laura
Speaker 1: and Emmett Lee, who, like an invisible virus, brought the
Speaker 1: news into their home, sharing it with each of their
Speaker 1: ten children. As a panic spread among them, the Lees
Speaker 1: spent the rest of the day plugging up holes in
Speaker 1: their property, using tin to patch up their windows, terrified
Speaker 1: that any gaps might provide an opportunity for the phantom
Speaker 1: gasser to pipe a gas into their home. That night,
Speaker 1: with everyone sleeping together in an upstairs room, Emmett watched
Speaker 1: over them all with his shotgun. Sometime later, as they
Speaker 1: were drifting off to sleep, they heard a piece of
Speaker 1: tin rattling in one of the windows. Emmett ran immediately
Speaker 1: to the landing and stared down into the darkness below,
Speaker 1: demanding to know who was there. Hearing the rattle again.
Speaker 1: He pulled open a nearby window, stuck out his gun
Speaker 1: and fired a quick warning shot into the air, and
Speaker 1: then all was still. With news of the mysterious gas
Speaker 1: attacks spreading rapidly throughout the community, the once open and
Speaker 1: friendly citizens of Buddatok County had begun to retreat into
Speaker 1: their homes, locking all their doors and windows and eyeing
Speaker 1: their neighbors with suspicion. Families and the more isolated parts
Speaker 1: of the county slept at their friends homes for added security,
Speaker 1: while many had taken to patrolling the roads at night
Speaker 1: or sitting out on their front steps nervously chewing on tobacco,
Speaker 1: their breath billowing about them in the cold air as
Speaker 1: they kept their eyes fixed ahead for any hint of
Speaker 1: a shadow moving about in the darkness. Vague reports circulated
Speaker 1: of unknown vehicles being seen in the area on the
Speaker 1: night of the attack on the Hall property, and some
Speaker 1: also claimed to have heard muffled voices near their properties
Speaker 1: too shortly before missus Moore had apparently done at the
Speaker 1: Hilton house. Visiting the home of another apparent victim, doctor
Speaker 1: Samuel Driver became convinced that the gas being used was
Speaker 1: chlorine On Tuesday's sixteenth of January, local resident mister Duval
Speaker 1: arrived at his home shortly after eleven thirty pm, a
Speaker 1: quiet place not far from Cloverdale, to find that his
Speaker 1: family had been attacked. After calling off a Sir Lemon
Speaker 1: to alert him, they arranged to meet up to search
Speaker 1: the local area. En route, Duval spotted a man standing
Speaker 1: by the side of the road. Realizing he'd been seen,
Speaker 1: the man sprinted straight off to a car parked nearby
Speaker 1: and jumped into the passenger side. The vehicle sped off
Speaker 1: before de Vaal could give chase. Later, when he returned
Speaker 1: to the site with Officer Lemon, the pair discovered another
Speaker 1: print in the dirt next to where the car had
Speaker 1: been parked up a small, high heeled shoe, just like
Speaker 1: the one found at the Huffman property back in December.
Speaker 1: By January twenty second, nineteen thirty four, news of the
Speaker 1: phantom gassa had gone national, with The New York Times
Speaker 1: declaring Virginians are terrorized by gas thrower who flees in
Speaker 1: the night after making victims ill. The following week, in
Speaker 1: one of the more shocking incidentss five friends were gathered
Speaker 1: at the home of Ed Stanley in an area known
Speaker 1: as Colon Siding when the phantom gassa struck again. The
Speaker 1: friends were sat chatting amiably in the front room when
Speaker 1: one of them, Oscilia Weddle, began choking uncontrollably. The friends
Speaker 1: looked on in terror as Cecilia fought for air, when
Speaker 1: suddenly they too began to choke, before being overcome with
Speaker 1: a collective nausea. Suspecting they'd been gassed, one of the group,
Speaker 1: Frank Guy, staggered to his feet and clawed opened the
Speaker 1: front door. As the others helped to drag Acilia out
Speaker 1: of the house, Frank caught sight of four men running
Speaker 1: off toward a nearby wood. Racing back inside, he picked
Speaker 1: up the family's shotgun and took aim at the men,
Speaker 1: but as the shot rang out, the men were nowhere
Speaker 1: to be seen. With fear having completely gripped the county,
Speaker 1: the local Board of Supervisors convened for a meeting the
Speaker 1: next day. In desperation, the board announced a five hundred
Speaker 1: dollar reward for the capture of those responsible. This move
Speaker 1: was followed swiftly by the Virginia State Assembly, where delegates
Speaker 1: from Baddatort and neighboring Roanoke County introduced a bill promising
Speaker 1: a prison sentence of up to ten years for anyone
Speaker 1: in court attacking the public with toxic gas, and so
Speaker 1: it continued into February. Only now the gassa and its
Speaker 1: associated panic had begun to spread further, affecting residents of
Speaker 1: Roanoke County. Two at least one resident required oxygen and hospitalization,
Speaker 1: only to be discharged the following day with no apparent
Speaker 1: side effects. By mid February, after a sudden spate of
Speaker 1: false alarms throughout Badda, tort and Roanoke Counties, reports of
Speaker 1: mysterious gassings began to tail off. With no concrete clues
Speaker 1: or evidence with which to mount an investigation, police were
Speaker 1: forced to abandon any efforts to hunt down the phantom,
Speaker 1: if indeed there had ever been one at all, And slowly,
Speaker 1: but surely, the people of that quiet corner of rural
Speaker 1: Virginia returned to their normal lives, not quite sure what
Speaker 1: it was they had experienced, only that for a brief moment,
Speaker 1: a very real fear had stalked the land, a fear
Speaker 1: born in a laboratory two decades before and unleashed on
Speaker 1: the world in a toxic cloud of death thousands of
Speaker 1: miles away in a field in Belgium, and before long
Speaker 1: new fears would emerge to take its place. It's unlikely
Speaker 1: that when Alexander von Humboldt was espousing the virtues of
Speaker 1: guano that he could ever have known just how much
Speaker 1: it would change the world, nor how over one hundred
Speaker 1: years later it would indirectly lead to the development of
Speaker 1: devastating chemical weapons. And despite being one of the first
Speaker 1: to understand the effects of human made climate change, it
Speaker 1: is also unlikely he would have predicted what impact bat
Speaker 1: excrement would ultimately have on the environment. As it is.
Speaker 1: The explosion of crop yields that started with guano, accelerated
Speaker 1: by processes such as harbor bosch and later the Green Revolution,
Speaker 1: has meant we are now farming more intensively than ever before,
Speaker 1: and though we might be right to congratulate ourselves on
Speaker 1: the ingenuity it took to get here, we are once
Speaker 1: again facing a moment of crisis, both Malthusian and otherwise.
Speaker 1: A study published in Bioscience Journal in twenty seventeen predicted
Speaker 1: that despite our increased yields, population growth is once again
Speaker 1: approaching a point of catastrophe, suggesting that food production would
Speaker 1: need to increase by somewhere between twenty five to seventy
Speaker 1: percent to compensate. And yet, just taking the impact of
Speaker 1: nitrogen fertilizers derived from the harbor Bosch process as one example,
Speaker 1: we are paying a hefty price for those increased yields.
Speaker 1: Applying too much nitrogen as destabilized the natural nitrogen cycle,
Speaker 1: with more being created than can ever be absorbed. This
Speaker 1: in turn has led to a steady depletion of nutrients
Speaker 1: in the soil, making it ultimately less efficient for farming,
Speaker 1: with much of it ending up back in the atmosphere
Speaker 1: as nitrous oxide an ozone depleting greenhouse gas, the traps
Speaker 1: heat at a staggering three hundred times the rate of
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide. Today, there is twenty percent more nitrous oxide
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere than only two hundred years ago. When
Speaker 1: the nutrients become depleted in the soil, even more nitrogen
Speaker 1: based fertile lisa is applied to make up the shortfall,
Speaker 1: creating a disastrous cycle of diminishing returns. And if that
Speaker 1: wasn't damaging enough, As the demand for food goes up
Speaker 1: with the population, so too does the demand for land
Speaker 1: to grow it, and where that land doesn't currently exist,
Speaker 1: it is made often by clearing rich, vital, and ancient
Speaker 1: forest ecosystems. Mouthless may yet be proved right in the
Speaker 1: long run, but its crucial mistake back in seventeen ninety
Speaker 1: eight was to underestimate the human capacity for problem solving.
Speaker 1: Doubtless we create many more with the ones we solve,
Speaker 1: and there is no cosmic obligation to care about each
Speaker 1: other or the planet even. But perhaps there is reason
Speaker 1: not to despair, though we might sometimes be more ruthless
Speaker 1: when our backs are against the wall. So two are
Speaker 1: we at our most resourceful, compassionate, and brilliant. Perhaps, instead
Speaker 1: of devising new ways to produce and consume more, what's needed,
Speaker 1: just as it was back in Malthus's day is just
Speaker 1: a new way of thinking. History tells us that for
Speaker 1: better or worse, we will find it. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: Unexplained and would like to help support us, you can
Speaker 1: now do so via Patreon To receive access to add
Speaker 1: three episodes, discount or merchandise, as well as brand new
Speaker 1: video and audio content exclusive to Patreon members. Just go
Speaker 1: to patron dot com forward Slash Unexplained Pod. To sign up,
Speaker 1: or if you'd like to make a one time donation,
Speaker 1: you can go to Unexplained podcast dot com Forward Slash Support.
Speaker 1: All donations, no matter how large or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained,
Speaker 1: the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never
Speaker 1: been before being covered on the show, is now available
Speaker 1: to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
Speaker 1: and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including
Speaker 1: the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts
Speaker 1: or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like
Speaker 1: to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast
Speaker 1: dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast