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Speaker 1: Airport Home Appliance unbeatable price selection and people. Friedrich Joergensen

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Speaker 1: did not believe in ghosts, at least not in the

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Speaker 1: traditional sense of something that had once lived, somehow remaining

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Speaker 1: after death, much less that the debt could talk. He

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Speaker 1: did not follow any religion or pin his mask to

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Speaker 1: any one political party, and neither did he believe in

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Speaker 1: an interventionist god. He had seen too much for that.

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Speaker 1: Jurgensen was born in Odessa in February nineteen oh three,

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Speaker 1: then a major city of the Russian Empire and soon

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Speaker 1: to be cradle of revolution. Though his family lived a

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Speaker 1: relatively charmed life by comparison to many of its citizens,

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Speaker 1: his formative years were nonetheless surrounded by misery, as he

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Speaker 1: once put it, and it certainly wasn't lacking in drama.

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Speaker 1: By the time he was forty years old, Jurgenson will

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Speaker 1: have fled from Bolshevik revolutionaries to Estonia, before later moving

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Speaker 1: to Berlin to train as an opera singer under the

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Speaker 1: great Italian tenor Tito's Skeeper. After a period of almost

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Speaker 1: unrivaled sexual and creative freedom in the city, he will

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Speaker 1: later watch in horror as a new Puritanism takes hold,

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Speaker 1: while those not blessed with the privilege of being able

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Speaker 1: to work in the arts, struggling under crippling poverty and unemployment,

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Speaker 1: are drawn ever closer to the rising tide of fascism.

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Speaker 1: Its subsequent fanning of a growing antisemitism leaves the Jewish

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Speaker 1: skeeper no option but to escape to Palestine, where Friedrich

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Speaker 1: will join him for eight years, swapping one war zone

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Speaker 1: for another. Returning to Europe in nineteen thirty eight, Fredrick,

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Speaker 1: now a successful opera singer in his own right, makes

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Speaker 1: plans to continue his career in Italy. However, after visiting

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Speaker 1: his parents in Estonia, the cold climate plays havoc with

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Speaker 1: his health and his voice, eventually forcing him to give

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Speaker 1: up his singing dream. He returns to Italy soon after

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Speaker 1: with the tension of becoming a professional painter, only to

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Speaker 1: find war waiting for him once again. Unwilling to fight

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Speaker 1: for a fascist cause and having no distinct nationality of

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Speaker 1: his own to defend, Friedrich, whose mother was Swedish, flees

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Speaker 1: to her home country. By the end of the Second

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Speaker 1: World War in nineteen forty five, Jurgenson, who by now

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Speaker 1: speaks ten different languages, is forty two years old, married,

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Speaker 1: and finally ready to settle down. Incredibly, despite all that

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Speaker 1: he has seen and experienced, the most extraordinary moment of

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Speaker 1: his life still awaits. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm

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Speaker 1: Richard McClean smith. It is thirteen years later, and a

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Speaker 1: now fifty five year old Friedrich has established himself as

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Speaker 1: a talented portraitist and archeological painter, admired even by the Pope.

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Speaker 1: At some point in nineteen fifty seven, having spent many

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Speaker 1: years working at the ruined Roman city of Pompeii, he

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Speaker 1: accepts an invitation to hold an exhibition in its grounds.

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Speaker 1: The magic of the place had infatuated him since he

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Speaker 1: was a child, how it had once been forgotten, buried

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Speaker 1: under fire and ash, only to be unearthed by chance

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Speaker 1: and rescued from its violent end to stand once more

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Speaker 1: as a testament to civilization. The offer was made even

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Speaker 1: more appealing when he was given the opportunity to work

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Speaker 1: on site, establishing a studio in the House of the

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Speaker 1: Tragic Poet, one of the more well preserved buildings, elaborately

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Speaker 1: decorated throughout exquisite mosaics depicting scenes from Greek mythology. But

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Speaker 1: best of all was being granted a key to the city.

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Speaker 1: As dusk settled over the ruins, long after everyone else

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Speaker 1: had left, Friedrich would be free to wander the deserted

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Speaker 1: homes and streets alone in the eerie silence. The quieter

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Speaker 1: it was, the more fiercely he felt the ghosts fighting

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Speaker 1: to emerge from the shadows. As he walked, he let

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Speaker 1: his imagination drift. From a street corner, an exuberant shopkeeper emerges,

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Speaker 1: measuring grain for his customers. Over there, a horse and

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Speaker 1: cart trundles by, as rogued dignitaries saunter behind, while the

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Speaker 1: sound of children playing echoes through the streets, and if

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Speaker 1: he listens carefully enough from a distance, the fleeting roar

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Speaker 1: of a crowd packed into the city's amphitheater is carried

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Speaker 1: on the wind and sometimes the imagining of the sudden explosion,

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Speaker 1: followed by a growing plume of ash, the darkening of

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Speaker 1: the sky, and the billowing cloud of boiling heat speeding

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Speaker 1: down the mountainside as the screams grow louder and louder.

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Speaker 1: Soon summer is approaching and Frederick's exhibition is coming to

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Speaker 1: its end. As a final thank you for his work,

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Speaker 1: he has offered the chance to fulfill a lifetime's ambition

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Speaker 1: when the Pompey Archeological Commission invites him to take part

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Speaker 1: in an excavation of a newly discovered property the following year.

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Speaker 1: He gladly accepts the offer and returns to Stockholm soon

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Speaker 1: after to begin putting together his plans for his next visit.

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Speaker 1: Little did he know, then, however, that he would not

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Speaker 1: be turning to Pompeii anytime soon, for something was about

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Speaker 1: to occur that would change his life and understanding of

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Speaker 1: it forever. In June nineteen fifty eight, Friedrich and his

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Speaker 1: wife Monica traveled to their country house just south of Mernenbou,

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Speaker 1: a small village located sixty kilometers southwest of the capitol, Stockholm.

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Speaker 1: The property, which backed onto a placid and tranquil lake,

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Speaker 1: was as idyllic a country retreat as one could imagine.

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Speaker 1: Aside from the main house, the property consisted of an old,

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Speaker 1: dilapidated hut by the water's edge, as well as a

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Speaker 1: guest house on the fringes of a nearby forest bordering

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Speaker 1: the garden. Itself an enchanting mess of wild flowers and

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Speaker 1: apple blossom, it was the perfect place to capture the

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Speaker 1: sound of singing birds, as Friedrich had long planned to do,

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Speaker 1: but never quite had the time. This year, he determined

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Speaker 1: to do it once and for all, making sure to

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Speaker 1: bring his tape recorder down from Stockholm. After spending the

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Speaker 1: day by the lake, it was sometime in the afternoon,

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Speaker 1: with the local birds in full voice, that Fredrick retired

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Speaker 1: to the house to collect the tape recorder, before making

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Speaker 1: his way out to the forest cabin and up into

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Speaker 1: its attic. Moments later, having rigged up a microphone, he

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Speaker 1: slid open the window and pointed the microphone out of

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Speaker 1: it just as a gentle finch came to rest on

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Speaker 1: the roof, flicking the switch to record. Fredrick sat back

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Speaker 1: in his chair and listened to the birds sing as

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Speaker 1: the tape slowly unspoiled from one reel to the other.

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Speaker 1: After a few minutes, with the bird having taken off,

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Speaker 1: Fredrick stopped the recording and rewound the tape. He pressed

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Speaker 1: play and waited eagerly to hear what he had captured.

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Speaker 1: But something was wrong. Though he could just about make

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Speaker 1: out the merry chirping of the finch, it was completely

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Speaker 1: drowned out by a blaring burst of static, as if

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Speaker 1: someone had been taking a shower right next to the microphone.

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Speaker 1: Friederich made a quick check of all the connections and

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Speaker 1: spun the tape forward to see if something was wrong

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Speaker 1: with the tape itself, but all seemed fine. Repositioning the

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Speaker 1: mic he tried again. After another few minutes, he rewound

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Speaker 1: the tape, pressed play, and waited, but yet again, much

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Speaker 1: to his annoyance, after a short period of quiet, the

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Speaker 1: speakers blared out the same static hiss of interference. Since

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Speaker 1: he could still just about hear the sound of birds

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Speaker 1: singing in the distance, clearly the record function was working,

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Speaker 1: But as he was about to switch off the tape,

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Speaker 1: something else burst through the noise. It sounded like a voice.

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Speaker 1: As he moved closer and listened more carefully, he could

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Speaker 1: hear it clearly now. It was a male voice speaking

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Speaker 1: in Norwegian about the sound of birdsong at night. Though

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Speaker 1: it was a bizarre occurrence. The tape player must merely

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Speaker 1: have somehow picked up a Norwegian radio transmission, he reasoned,

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Speaker 1: though it was certainly an extraordinary coincidence that it would

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Speaker 1: be all about birdsong, he thought, as he made his

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Speaker 1: way back to the house that evening. For the next month,

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Speaker 1: unable to make clean recordings, Frederick turned his attention to

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Speaker 1: another pet project he had been working on, researching the

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Speaker 1: fate of Russian Princess Anastasia. Though today it is widely

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Speaker 1: accepted that the youngest daughter of Zara Nicholas the second

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Speaker 1: and Zarina Alexandra Fyodorovna, was murdered along with the rest

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Speaker 1: of her immediate family in July nineteen eighteen, in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, her whereabouts remained very much a mystery. But

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Speaker 1: as Friedrich tried to concentrate on the task, he found

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Speaker 1: his mind continually wandering back to the strange recordings he

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Speaker 1: had made weeks before. Though he tried a few times

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Speaker 1: to recapture the peculiar broadcast, it appeared to have since

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Speaker 1: come to an end. That was until one evening in

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Speaker 1: mid July, with Monika having now returned to Stockholm. That night,

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Speaker 1: Friedrich was once again sat alone in the outhouse attic,

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Speaker 1: trying in vain to capture another radio transmission. Since he

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Speaker 1: didn't have headphones, he kept his eyes glued to the

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Speaker 1: recording light for any sign that something was being received.

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Speaker 1: But as the moon outside the window rose higher into

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Speaker 1: the sky. With nothing to show for his efforts, Fredrick

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Speaker 1: was beginning to get tired. Just as his eyelids were

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Speaker 1: starting to close, the control light flashed red. That's strange,

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Speaker 1: he thought, since all about him was completely still. After

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Speaker 1: waiting for a few minutes, as the recording light continued

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Speaker 1: to flash, Fredrick stopped the recording before rewinding the tape

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Speaker 1: and pressing play. After a brief moment of light atmospheric sound,

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Speaker 1: Fredrick was overjoyed to hear that familiar hissing roar once again,

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Speaker 1: and as he strained to listen through the interference, once

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Speaker 1: again came the familiar Norwegian voice. Tired but pleased with

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Speaker 1: the Knight's results, Fredrick went to bed, returning to listen

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Speaker 1: to the tape the following morning, just as he thought

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Speaker 1: he had indeed captured the same voice as before, only

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Speaker 1: this time something was different. It wasn't just the one voice.

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Speaker 1: It was multiple speaking in a range of languages, including English, German, Swedish, Italian,

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Speaker 1: and Polish, all crossing over each other, reciting strange and

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Speaker 1: incomprehensible sentences. And then one other voice, a little clearer

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Speaker 1: than the rest, burst through the static. Fredrick sat back

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Speaker 1: in astonishment. It couldn't be, he thought. He stopped the

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Speaker 1: tape and looked around the empty room. Satisfied he was alone,

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Speaker 1: he spun back the tape and played it again. Friedrich said,

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Speaker 1: the voice you're being observed. Are you always taking care

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Speaker 1: of your family? Do you often take care of others

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Speaker 1: and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself,

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Speaker 1: to make time for you. You deserve it. Teledoc gives

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Speaker 1: you access to a licensed therapist to help you get

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Speaker 1: back to feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again.

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Speaker 1: you feel overwhelmed. Sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious,

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Speaker 1: depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a

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Speaker 1: personal or family issue. Teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed

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Speaker 1: to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy

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Speaker 1: visit teledoc dot com forward slash Unexplained podcast today to

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Speaker 1: get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. Fredrick

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Speaker 1: played the tape back again and again. It was clear

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Speaker 1: somebody was trying to communicate with him. Later, after hearing

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Speaker 1: a second mention of his name, came a bizarre, cryptic request, Fredrick,

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Speaker 1: when you translate and interpret into German during the day,

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Speaker 1: try to solve the truth. Every evening with the ship

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Speaker 1: in the dark. Worried he might be losing his mind,

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Speaker 1: Fredrick promptly played the tapes to Monica, as it was

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Speaker 1: for anyone who would later hear them. It was hard

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Speaker 1: to discern much of anything through the violent roar of

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Speaker 1: the static, but slowly as her ears began to adjust

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Speaker 1: to the different frequencies, buried within it. Monica two heard

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Speaker 1: the voices. It was a strange predicament coming across this

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Speaker 1: apparent phenomena so unexpectedly. Frederick had not been looking for this,

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Speaker 1: nor even spent any time considering it. He also had

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Speaker 1: much work to do, not only preparing for the excavation

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Speaker 1: in Pompeii the following spring, but keeping up with his

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Speaker 1: commissions in Sweden too, But everything seemed suddenly to pale

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Speaker 1: into comparison with what was occurring in that attic room

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Speaker 1: on his tape recorder. Another set of recordings made soon

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Speaker 1: after revealed yet more voices, but distinguishing between them all

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Speaker 1: was near impossible listening to them being played back on

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Speaker 1: the machine. Eventually, Frederick brought a pair of headphone to

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Speaker 1: better interpret just what exactly was going on. Now he

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Speaker 1: was able to hear the sounds being captured as they

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Speaker 1: were being recorded. It wasn't long after that he realized

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Speaker 1: slowing the recordings down made it much easier to pick

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Speaker 1: out the voices, But despite having a crude a number

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Speaker 1: of similar recordings, he was no closer to figuring out

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Speaker 1: exactly what they were. Naturally, his first assumption, and surely

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Speaker 1: the only reasonable one, was that he was continuing to

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Speaker 1: pick up a number of converging radio signals, signals that

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Speaker 1: are constantly traveling through the air around us. Those mentions

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Speaker 1: of his name just coincidence and a form of confirmation

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Speaker 1: by us, he thought. Either way, Ascertaining their provenance became

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Speaker 1: his top priority. A few weeks later, having returned to Merlinbou,

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Speaker 1: this time with his poodle Carino for company, Fredrick returned

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Speaker 1: again to his attic room, plugged in the headphones, and

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Speaker 1: switched the tape player to record. No sooner had he

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Speaker 1: put the headphones on, the peaceful atmosphere of the Merlibou

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Speaker 1: country air was suddenly obliterated in a blare of static,

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Speaker 1: and before long he could hear the voices coming through again,

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Speaker 1: mixed also this time with a variety of other strange

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Speaker 1: sounds and music too. After listening for a few minutes,

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Speaker 1: Fredrick heard the phone ringing downstairs. Leaving the tape to record,

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Speaker 1: he headed down to answer it, escorted by his ever

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Speaker 1: faithful Carino, who followed him closely behind. It was Monica

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Speaker 1: on the line, just wanting to know how the days

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Speaker 1: wecordings were going. With Carino sitting patiently next to him.

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Speaker 1: Frederick was just telling Monica about what he had heard

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Speaker 1: so far when his dog abruptly rose to his feet

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Speaker 1: and scampered out of the room. As he continued talking

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Speaker 1: on the phone, Fredrick heard what he took to be

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Speaker 1: the dog in the attic, jumping up around his chair

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Speaker 1: before finally settling down in it. Returning to the top

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Speaker 1: floor a few minutes later, sure enough, Fredrick found Carino

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Speaker 1: sitting on the chair, wagging his tail in excitement. Fredrick

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Speaker 1: picked him up and placed him on the spare bed

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Speaker 1: before returning again to the tape player. After a few

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Speaker 1: more minutes recording, he decided to stop and listen back

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Speaker 1: to what he had captured. Having rewound the tape to

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Speaker 1: just before the phone call, he hit play, sat back

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Speaker 1: and listened once again. Came the heavy burst of static,

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Speaker 1: and just audible, deep in the cacophony, he can just

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Speaker 1: make out the sound of a telephone ringing. Next, he

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Speaker 1: hears himself removing the headphones and pacing out of the room,

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Speaker 1: with Carino's poor steps following close behind. Strangely, as soon

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Speaker 1: as he has left the room, the hissing stops. In

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Speaker 1: the ensuing silence, Friedrich strains to hear the phone conversation

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Speaker 1: with Monica, but it is inaudible, so with nothing else occurring,

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Speaker 1: he skips the tape forward a few minutes. Soon the

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Speaker 1: sound of his approaching steps can be heard as he

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Speaker 1: returns to the room before opening the door and picking

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Speaker 1: Carino up from the chair. At the sound of him

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Speaker 1: putting his headphones back on, curiously, the loud static bursts

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Speaker 1: immediately come back in. Unable to decipher the subsequent set

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Speaker 1: of noises loading within the interference, Fredric decides to play

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Speaker 1: the tape back again to confirm with the static had

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Speaker 1: indeed only occurred when he was sat at the tape player.

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Speaker 1: He returns the tape back to the moment he left

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Speaker 1: the room and lets it play out. What he hears

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Speaker 1: next changes everything. At first, he hears only the faint

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Speaker 1: sound of his voice on the phone downstairs, when suddenly

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Speaker 1: a peculiar, high pitched noise cuts in, followed by a

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Speaker 1: male voice quietly humming the opening refrain of the song LAA,

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Speaker 1: and then a different sound Carino's approaching poor steps as

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Speaker 1: he makes its way up the stairs, and then the

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Speaker 1: sound at the door as he nudges it open, just

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Speaker 1: as the dog enters the room. Friedrich is stunned when

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Speaker 1: he hears a clear Italian accented voice whispering, Ah, Carino,

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Speaker 1: do you hear me? It asks, Carino, do you know me?

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Speaker 1: And in the background he hears Carrino joyously spinning about

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Speaker 1: on the chair, wagging his tail. Later in the autumn,

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Speaker 1: Monica's mother comes to stay at the house in Mernanbau,

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Speaker 1: having left a tape recording during the afternoon. When Fredrick

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Speaker 1: listens to it later that evening, he makes yet another

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Speaker 1: astonishing discovery. At one point, he is able to hear

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Speaker 1: Monica talking to her mother downstairs, when suddenly the volume

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Speaker 1: of the tape inexplicably drops drastically. Fredrick turns the volume

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Speaker 1: up as loud as it will go, and with Monica's

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Speaker 1: voice just audible in the background, another voice suddenly breaks in,

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Speaker 1: a male speaking in German. At Monica's It's cozy, it says,

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Speaker 1: and then another voice chimes in again in German. I

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Speaker 1: can see her, I hear her directly, it says. A

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Speaker 1: moment later the recording ends. Friedrich leans back in his

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Speaker 1: chair in a state of utter disbelief. As the weeks pass,

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Speaker 1: Friedrich continues to record and pick up the numerous disembodied voices,

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Speaker 1: but grows frustrated by the lack of coherence and begins

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Speaker 1: to wander what is the point of it all. Worried

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Speaker 1: also that he might somehow be the butt of an

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Speaker 1: elaborate joke, he decides to bring an end to the experiments,

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Speaker 1: but soon something else begins to occur terrifies him. Although

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Speaker 1: he is no longer listening to the tapes, he is

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Speaker 1: still hearing the voices. One afternoon, while resting in his

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Speaker 1: study as rain pours down outside, he is certain he

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Speaker 1: can hear a voice in the patter of the raindrops.

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Speaker 1: Then later he hears it again in the rustle of

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Speaker 1: the burning fire. The voices seem to be following him everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Concerned he is showing early signs of some form of schizophrenia,

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Speaker 1: he reassures himself that he is otherwise healthy, not suffering

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Speaker 1: any anxiety, and sleeping perfectly well. One afternoon, he is

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Speaker 1: certain he hears a voice calling out to him. Listen

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Speaker 1: to me, it says, take part in the work. Having

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Speaker 1: been convinced to return to his sonic research, Friedrich invites

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Speaker 1: a number of friends and scientists to join him in

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Speaker 1: his listening sessions. Though they are skeptical at first, they

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Speaker 1: too start to notice the peculiar messages buried in the recordings,

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Speaker 1: and though they are reluctant to speculate on what they are,

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Speaker 1: all agree that they are highly unusual. Frequently, most of

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Speaker 1: the voices are preceded by a female voice who seems

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Speaker 1: to be instructing Fredrick on how best to hear the

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Speaker 1: assumed communications. Eventually, he discovers that using a radio in

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Speaker 1: close proximity to the recorder intensifies the messages, and that

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Speaker 1: tuning to certain frequencies at specific times will work best.

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Speaker 1: In January nineteen sixty, Friedrick receives the upsetting news that

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Speaker 1: Boris Sakarov, an old friend from his childhood days in Asa,

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Speaker 1: had been killed in a car crash back in October

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Speaker 1: of the previous year. Shortly after, Friedrich learns that Zakarov

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Speaker 1: had recently become a renowned yoga teacher who also specialized

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Speaker 1: in the instruction of breathing exercises. Moments later, Fredrick raced

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Speaker 1: up to his study and pulled a tape from the shelf. Hurriedly,

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Speaker 1: he fixed it into place and pressed play. The recording

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Speaker 1: was one of a number he had made over the

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Speaker 1: Christmas period and had been confusing him ever since. He

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Speaker 1: understood it now that sound he had heard when sitting

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Speaker 1: alone in his room a few weeks ago had been

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Speaker 1: a deep exhalation of breath. Hearing it again on the

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Speaker 1: tape confirms his suspicions at the time. He had heard

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Speaker 1: the sound both in the room and through the headphones.

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Speaker 1: He spins the tape back a little further and lets

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Speaker 1: it play out. First, the violent cacophony of static blares

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Speaker 1: out into the room, and then from out of the

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Speaker 1: chaos come the words, as clear as day, your boris

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Speaker 1: is at the equipment. Over eight years in total, Friedrich

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Speaker 1: Jurgensen will record one hundred and forty tapes containing between

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Speaker 1: five to six thousand different recordings of what will later

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Speaker 1: become known as electronic voice phenomena, being left in no

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Speaker 1: doubt that what he had captured were the voices of

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Speaker 1: the dead. Further reported voices included those of his own mother,

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Speaker 1: as well as a number of recently deceased figures of

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Speaker 1: historical note, including in an odd twist, that of Adolf

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Speaker 1: Hitler and Winston Churchill. As a man of no little intellect,

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Speaker 1: Jurgensen was more than aware of the many rational explanations

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Speaker 1: that might account for what he had heard, with early

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Speaker 1: satellite communications and radio transmission being the most obvious. However,

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Speaker 1: not only did many of his friends and a number

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Speaker 1: of scientists keen to find an answer for the communications

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Speaker 1: hear them too, but often he would capture voices speaking

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Speaker 1: single sentences in multiple languages, which would seem to negate

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Speaker 1: the radio broadcast theory. Some have also suggested that the

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Speaker 1: multi lingual Jurgensen had somehow projected the voices onto the

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Speaker 1: tape himself. What seems never to have been endowed was

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Speaker 1: Friedrich's integrity or the authenticity of the raw recordings. He

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Speaker 1: died at the age of eighty four in late nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty seven. Whatever we believe about Jurgenson's peculiar findings, perhaps

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Speaker 1: we can take at least one thing from his experiences.

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Speaker 1: When all you can hear is the cacophony of chaos,

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Speaker 1: it pays not to turn away from the noise, but

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Speaker 1: to take the time to listen to what might be

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Speaker 1: buried underneath. Perhaps you too will hear the sound of

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Speaker 1: voices just wanting to be heard. If you enjoy listening

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Speaker 1: to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, You can

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Speaker 1: now go to Unexplained podcast dot com Forward slash Support.

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Speaker 1: All donations, no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated.

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Speaker 1: All elements of Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith.

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Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes. But feel

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Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas

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Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you

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Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.

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Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com

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Speaker 1: or on Twitter at Unexplained pod. Now. It's time to

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