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Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is

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Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The Minister Norman Vincent Peel inspired millions with

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Speaker 1: his famous book The Power of Positive Thinking. The Religious

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Speaker 1: Self helped text encourage readers to visualize their success and

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Speaker 1: recite daily affirmations. Peel famously said, shoot for the moon,

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Speaker 1: even if you miss, you'll fall among the stars. James

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Speaker 1: certainly had his eyes pointed skyword on New Year's Day

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Speaker 1: of nine. He lived in Evergreen Park, Illinois, and was

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Speaker 1: a bit of an eccentric. On January one, he marched

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Speaker 1: down to the Cook County Office for the Recorder of

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Speaker 1: Deeds and Titles with one simple request. He wanted to

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Speaker 1: register his own country. James didn't own any vast plots

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Speaker 1: of land, and he hadn't conquered any neighboring towns. He

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Speaker 1: wanted to colonize a place that had yet to be

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Speaker 1: claimed by anyone else. He called his new country the

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Speaker 1: Nation of Celestial Space Celestia for short. Its borders extended

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Speaker 1: into infinity. All anyone had to do was look up.

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Speaker 1: His new micro nation was outer space itself. His official

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Speaker 1: title would be the Founder and First Representative of Celestia.

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Speaker 1: The country's initial members were made up of James's own family.

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Speaker 1: He declared his wife the Empress of Celestia, of course,

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Speaker 1: and his brother Glenn, was originally named the Earl of Mars,

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Speaker 1: but was eventually promoted to the Marquis of the Red Planet. Naturally,

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Speaker 1: a few people outside of his inner circle took his

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Speaker 1: claim seriously. It's possible that his family was even just

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Speaker 1: humoring him, but that didn't stop James from trying to

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Speaker 1: prove Celestia's validity among more established countries. The ethnic groups

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Speaker 1: said to inhabit Celestia were bundled into one large category

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Speaker 1: called Humanity, and it claimed English as its official language.

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Speaker 1: As for location, well, the country could be found all

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Speaker 1: over the universe, except on Earth, of course. For years,

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Speaker 1: James worked to increase Celestia's recognition among the world's superpowers.

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Speaker 1: He issued a statement in nineteen forty nine to leaders

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Speaker 1: of the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and the

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Speaker 1: United Nations that there would be no further atmospheric nuclear

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Speaker 1: tests in Celestia. Most nations ignored him, but a few

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Speaker 1: paid attention they had no choice, like when he unveiled

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Speaker 1: the official flag of Celestia in nineteen fifty eight. The

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Speaker 1: blue flag featured a musical, sharp symbol set against a

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Speaker 1: circle of white, and the event was aired on national television.

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Speaker 1: The day after the broadcast, the flag was officially raised

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Speaker 1: outside the United Nations Building in New York. But he

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Speaker 1: didn't stop there. Celestia had its own official stamps and

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Speaker 1: currency to gold and silver coins were minted featuring the

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Speaker 1: image of James's daughter Ruth on one side. The gold

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Speaker 1: coins amounted to one Celesti on each, while the silver

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Speaker 1: coins were called jewels, named after the scientific units of energy.

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Speaker 1: James even had plans to enter the real estate business

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Speaker 1: by selling large swaths of space to eager buyers. By

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Speaker 1: May of nine, applicants had signed up to each by

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Speaker 1: one space lot the size of Earth, for the princely

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Speaker 1: sum of one dollar. By the time the space riot

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Speaker 1: got into full swing between the United States and the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union, James started getting territorial he penned letters against

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Speaker 1: both nations, claiming that they were on the verge of

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Speaker 1: trespassing on his land. He eventually relented, though, and allowed

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Speaker 1: the US to send their satellites into orbit. James Thomas

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Speaker 1: Mangan did get to see a man walk on the Moon,

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Speaker 1: but sad his dream of living among the stars would

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Speaker 1: never be realized. He died in nineteen seventy at the

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Speaker 1: age of seventy three. Celestia sort of died with him too.

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Speaker 1: The flag eventually came down outside the United Nations, the

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Speaker 1: coins and stamps were bought up by collectors, and Celestia

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Speaker 1: was all but forgotten, except for Mangan's children and grandchildren,

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Speaker 1: who continue to hold their royal titles today. His daughter

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Speaker 1: Ruth is the Princess of the Nation of Celestial Space,

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Speaker 1: and his three grandsons are the Duke of Selenia, the

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Speaker 1: Duke of Mars, and the Duke of the Milky Way.

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Speaker 1: It sure beats having a star named after them, after all.

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Speaker 1: Their titles demonstrate the most important rule in real estate, location,

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Speaker 1: Location Location. Today, almost everyone on Earth has a camera

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Speaker 1: in their pockets thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones. In

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Speaker 1: modern technology, we can't go a day without capturing a

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Speaker 1: snapshot of our daily lives. You know, very important things

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Speaker 1: like the food on our plates, or a new pair

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Speaker 1: of shoes, and lots and lots of dogs. The idea

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Speaker 1: of carrying a camera at all times is a fairly

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Speaker 1: modern construct, though back in Night three it probably would

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Speaker 1: have been handy to have one at the ready, especially

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Speaker 1: if your name was Owen Burnham. Burnham was a young

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Speaker 1: teen from Britain visiting West Africa with his family. The

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Speaker 1: fourteen year old was walking along the beach with his

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Speaker 1: father's sister and brother one morning when he noticed a

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Speaker 1: creature buried in the sand. It had washed ashore in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the night, and two locals were in

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Speaker 1: the process of removing its head, which they planned to

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Speaker 1: sell to tourists. Burnham wanted to record his finding, but

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Speaker 1: he didn't have a camera with him. Instead, he took

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Speaker 1: extensive written notes of the creatures measurements. According to him,

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Speaker 1: it was roughly sixteen feet long from end to end.

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Speaker 1: The tail alone measured five feet in length. Each flipper

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Speaker 1: was about a foot and a half long. The top

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Speaker 1: half of the body was a muddy brown color which

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Speaker 1: faded away to white down closer to the tail and

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Speaker 1: inside its jaws. Burnham said he counted eighty razor sharp teeth.

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Speaker 1: Locals assumed it was a dolphin due to its smooth

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Speaker 1: skin and elongated snout, but Burnham noticed several inconsistencies in

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Speaker 1: its structure. For one, the tail wasn't triangular like a dolphin's,

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Speaker 1: it was rounded on the end, more like a rudder,

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Speaker 1: and the creature also lacked a blowhole. Burnham continued to

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Speaker 1: record as much about the thing as quickly as he could.

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Speaker 1: There was its deep red flesh visible from the wound

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Speaker 1: caused when its rear flipper was ripped away from its body.

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Speaker 1: Its reproductive organs were also two mangled to determine the

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Speaker 1: animal sex. The beast's nostrils were located at the tip

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Speaker 1: of its beak, and it had no trace of a

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Speaker 1: dorsal fin. By the time he finished writing everything down,

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Speaker 1: the two African men who had been trying to remove

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Speaker 1: the creature's skull had finally succeeded. Burnham thought about buying

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Speaker 1: it for himself as proof of his discovery, but he

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Speaker 1: had no way to bring it back home to England.

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Speaker 1: He stuck around on the beach, though, asking local fishermen

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Speaker 1: what they thought the creature was. Again, dolphin was the

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Speaker 1: common response, but Burnham wasn't convinced. Its size, shape, and

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Speaker 1: general makeup didn't look like any dolphin he had ever

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Speaker 1: seen before. Some biologists disagreed. Some said that it was

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Speaker 1: a dolphin but its flukes had worn off. Others claimed

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Speaker 1: that it was actually a shepherd's beaked whale. The sizes

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Speaker 1: lined up for sure. Shepherd's beaked whales were known to

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Speaker 1: grow as long as twenty three feet, and their coloring

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Speaker 1: was also similar to the animal he found, But according

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Speaker 1: to Burnham's notes, the tribes of the Gambia didn't make

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Speaker 1: up names for the new creatures they saw. If it

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Speaker 1: looked enough like a dolphin, that's what they would call it,

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Speaker 1: even if it was a whale or something else Entirely.

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Speaker 1: While everyone else assumed that it was a dolphin, Burnham

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Speaker 1: noticed its striking similarity to much older animals such as

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Speaker 1: the pilosaur and the chronosaur Us, and cryptozoologists agreed. They

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Speaker 1: hypothesized that it could have been anything from Amosa sore

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Speaker 1: to an Ileosaurus, or any other kind of ancient aquatic

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Speaker 1: reptile without photographic evidence, though there's no way to know

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Speaker 1: for sure what Burnham saw that morning, if he saw

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Speaker 1: anything at all. His notes, after all, could have been

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Speaker 1: nothing more than a hoax, something to keep a board

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Speaker 1: teenager's attention on a slow summer day. After the head

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Speaker 1: was removed, the rest of the body was buried in

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Speaker 1: the sand. Scientists returned to the beach in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: nineties to dig up its carcass for confirmation, but nothing remained.

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Speaker 1: It had either rotted away or been destroyed by the

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Speaker 1: police station that had later been built right on top

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Speaker 1: of it. Nobody knows the truth about the creature they

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Speaker 1: call the Gambo. Nobody except Owen Burnham, of course, and

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Speaker 1: the tourist who bought the skull that day in three Now,

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Speaker 1: that's one skull I'd love to see in a Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of

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Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast

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Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky

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Speaker 1: in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make another award

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Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,

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Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it

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Speaker 1: over at the world of lore dot com. And until

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Speaker 1: next time, stay curious, ye