1 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:08,000 Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history 2 00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:11,480 Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right 3 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:16,640 Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome 4 00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:32,240 Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. On November, the night sky 5 00:00:32,360 --> 00:00:35,880 Speaker 1: above Sacramento, California, was a source of fear and dread. 6 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:39,199 Speaker 1: It had already been a miserable night, with the skies 7 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:42,199 Speaker 1: filled with dark clouds and a steady wind. But as 8 00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:44,879 Speaker 1: some of the more observant residents looked up, they were 9 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:48,280 Speaker 1: startled to see something else. There were lights in the 10 00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:53,360 Speaker 1: sky and they were moving. Now, before you jump straight 11 00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:55,959 Speaker 1: to assuming this was a UFO, let me give you 12 00:00:56,080 --> 00:00:58,720 Speaker 1: more of the details. When you hear the whole story, 13 00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:01,000 Speaker 1: it feels a lot less like an episode of the 14 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:03,240 Speaker 1: X Files and a lot more like something out of 15 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:05,759 Speaker 1: a Jewels Vern novel. And we have a man named 16 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,400 Speaker 1: George Scott to thank for that. He was an assistant 17 00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:13,120 Speaker 1: to Louis H. Brown, California's Secretary of State at the time. 18 00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:16,720 Speaker 1: With access to the Capitol building there in Sacramento, He 19 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:19,200 Speaker 1: and a few friends climbed up to the roof for 20 00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:22,840 Speaker 1: a better look and discovered something more mysterious than lights. 21 00:01:23,440 --> 00:01:26,279 Speaker 1: According to him, it was a set of three lights. 22 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:29,679 Speaker 1: They seemed to bob slightly as they moved, almost like 23 00:01:29,760 --> 00:01:32,840 Speaker 1: a ship on the water. Above the lights, all of 24 00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:35,640 Speaker 1: the observers could make out the dark shape of something 25 00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:40,040 Speaker 1: long and curved. Another local claims he heard people up 26 00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:43,120 Speaker 1: above him where the lights were, calling out orders for 27 00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:45,760 Speaker 1: guiding the vessel. He said he could make out the 28 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:48,680 Speaker 1: full shape of the object above the lights, calling it 29 00:01:48,760 --> 00:01:52,200 Speaker 1: a cigar shaped balloon with wheels at the side like 30 00:01:52,360 --> 00:01:55,200 Speaker 1: a steamboat. But let's step back for a moment and 31 00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:58,520 Speaker 1: let that soak in. This man was claiming to see 32 00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:03,320 Speaker 1: a paddle wheeled boat in the sky over his community. 33 00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:09,399 Speaker 1: More than unlikely, this theory seemed practically impossible. For context. 34 00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:12,640 Speaker 1: Hot air balloons had been around for a while. The 35 00:02:12,680 --> 00:02:16,080 Speaker 1: first aerial photos of Boston were taken by a photographer 36 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:19,080 Speaker 1: by the name of James Wallace Black in eighteen sixty. 37 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:21,560 Speaker 1: He climbed into the basket of a balloon owned by 38 00:02:21,639 --> 00:02:24,520 Speaker 1: Samuel King and let it take him over a thousand 39 00:02:24,520 --> 00:02:27,160 Speaker 1: feet into the sky above the city where he took 40 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:30,639 Speaker 1: his photos. It was a new use for a technology 41 00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:34,720 Speaker 1: that had been around since the seventeen eighties. No one though, 42 00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:37,560 Speaker 1: had managed to find a way to power and control 43 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:42,399 Speaker 1: those flights. Remember the reported hot air balloon steamboat contraption 44 00:02:42,600 --> 00:02:46,680 Speaker 1: thing over Sacramento happened in eighteen ninety six, a whole 45 00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:49,840 Speaker 1: seven years prior to the first recorded powered flight by 46 00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:52,760 Speaker 1: the Right Brothers, So if the reports were true and 47 00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:56,560 Speaker 1: this was a powered flight, it could rewrite the history books. 48 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:01,200 Speaker 1: Over the months that followed, the un identified aircraft was 49 00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:04,400 Speaker 1: seen hundreds of times. For a while, it seemed to 50 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:07,480 Speaker 1: stick to the Pacific coast, flying down to San Francisco 51 00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:11,280 Speaker 1: before heading north to Washington State. It vanished again for 52 00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:16,880 Speaker 1: a while before reappearing near Omaha, Nebraska in February, which 53 00:03:16,919 --> 00:03:19,440 Speaker 1: seems to have been part of a larger journey eastward. 54 00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:24,320 Speaker 1: On April eleven, witnesses reported that the airship had finally 55 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:28,240 Speaker 1: reached Chicago. There's an old photo of it online, like 56 00:03:28,320 --> 00:03:31,800 Speaker 1: a dark cigar against the pale, white, cloudy sky, but 57 00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:36,480 Speaker 1: most historians think it's fake. Still, people saw it, and, 58 00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:39,320 Speaker 1: just like in Sacramento, they wondered what it could be. 59 00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:43,240 Speaker 1: Even though later reports claimed the mysterious airship had crashed, 60 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:46,640 Speaker 1: rumors about it continued to fly all over the country 61 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:51,920 Speaker 1: for some time, no pun intended. I swear whatever it was, 62 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:54,840 Speaker 1: we may never know. In a culture that was deeply 63 00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:57,280 Speaker 1: in love with the idea of Jules Verne's captain Nemo, 64 00:03:57,400 --> 00:04:00,960 Speaker 1: who sailed the oceans in a highly advanced submarine, anything 65 00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:03,880 Speaker 1: was possible, and it spoke to the deep hunger most 66 00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:06,400 Speaker 1: people have for answers to the mysteries of this world 67 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:10,080 Speaker 1: that we call home. If anything, perhaps the story should 68 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:14,080 Speaker 1: serve as a lesson to all of us today. Keep 69 00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:17,440 Speaker 1: your eyes on the sky. You never know what you 70 00:04:17,520 --> 00:04:33,320 Speaker 1: might be missing. The model was meant to be a glider, 71 00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:36,719 Speaker 1: but committee was certain of that. They were a collection 72 00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:40,080 Speaker 1: of aeronautical engineers and experts in flight, so for them 73 00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:42,440 Speaker 1: to look at the small, wooden model and see its 74 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:46,760 Speaker 1: potential was a huge relief. There are certain elements that 75 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:49,320 Speaker 1: help an airplane fly through the air, and this model 76 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:52,040 Speaker 1: glider seemed to have nailed all of them. The wings 77 00:04:52,279 --> 00:04:55,160 Speaker 1: had that perfect curve built into them for generating lift, 78 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:59,000 Speaker 1: what engineers referred to as the cambering. Those wings also 79 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:02,080 Speaker 1: bent downward toward or the tips, another key element of 80 00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:05,920 Speaker 1: aeronautical design, and the shape of the entire model craft 81 00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:08,640 Speaker 1: was exactly what you might expect a pair of main 82 00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:11,719 Speaker 1: wings that extended away from the body and a raised 83 00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:15,560 Speaker 1: tail fin with two protruding stabilizer wings. The committee could 84 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:18,839 Speaker 1: immediately see the usefulness of the design. With a small 85 00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:21,760 Speaker 1: engine at the rear, they suggested this glider might be 86 00:05:21,839 --> 00:05:25,919 Speaker 1: perfect for low speed flight, maybe even cargo transport. It 87 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:30,760 Speaker 1: was brilliant, and that was the problem. You see. This 88 00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:33,880 Speaker 1: model was brought to the committee in nineteen six one 89 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:36,880 Speaker 1: after having been found in storage where it had been 90 00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:40,080 Speaker 1: for decades. In fact, it had first been discovered five 91 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,000 Speaker 1: years before the Right Brothers made their historic flight at 92 00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:46,320 Speaker 1: Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. It was a problem because 93 00:05:46,320 --> 00:05:49,800 Speaker 1: it predated powered flight, something modern men and women have 94 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:53,160 Speaker 1: taken a lot of pride in. The box it had 95 00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:56,240 Speaker 1: been rediscovered in was part of a collection of artifacts 96 00:05:56,279 --> 00:05:59,479 Speaker 1: removed from a tomb in Sakara, which had been the 97 00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:02,880 Speaker 1: burial ound for the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, a 98 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:06,560 Speaker 1: tomb that had been opened in eight and dated back 99 00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:10,359 Speaker 1: over two thousand years. And the glider model wasn't a 100 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:14,520 Speaker 1: one off either. Archaeologists had found over a dozen others 101 00:06:14,520 --> 00:06:17,560 Speaker 1: just like it, all of which are brilliantly designed for 102 00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:22,160 Speaker 1: powered flight. We tend to view history as a never 103 00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:26,240 Speaker 1: ending slope upward, where each new century places us farther 104 00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:30,760 Speaker 1: up the technological ladder. We believe we're always gaining altitude, 105 00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:35,800 Speaker 1: climbing to new heights, and soaring over our ancestors. It 106 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:40,839 Speaker 1: turns out we might be wrong. In the end, our 107 00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:44,760 Speaker 1: pride might be nothing more than a flight of fancy. 108 00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:50,800 Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet 109 00:06:50,839 --> 00:06:54,680 Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn 110 00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:59,320 Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. 111 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:02,920 Speaker 1: The show is created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership 112 00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:06,240 Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show 113 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:10,440 Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, 114 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:12,560 Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the 115 00:07:12,760 --> 00:07:17,440 Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.