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Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist. This is a classic bit of hidden history.

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Speaker 1: For a long time, we have been obsessed with lost civilizations,

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Speaker 1: lost cities, and there's one everybody knows about, Atlantis, right,

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Speaker 1: but there's one that I think a lot of people

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Speaker 1: in the West never really heard about until the video

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Speaker 1: game series Uncharted or the Magic Card?

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Speaker 2: Oh, which one are we talking about this episode that

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Speaker 2: we're doing today.

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Speaker 1: Ubar, the Lost City of Ubar. Isn't that an MPTG card?

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Speaker 2: Maybe I don't remember, but you would know.

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Speaker 1: You're my expert on this side.

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Speaker 2: I don't know all the magic cards. There's been so

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Speaker 2: many sets.

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Speaker 1: Didn't cut that part out. No, we'll keep it. We'll

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Speaker 1: keep it. We actually paused for a second because I'm

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Speaker 1: probably incorrect about this. Matt. You are my resident expert

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Speaker 1: for all things MTG, so I will take your word

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Speaker 1: on this as our expert. But you remember, man back

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Speaker 1: in Gosh was twenty twenty when we started looking into

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Speaker 1: the story of the so called Atlantis of the Sands.

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Speaker 2: I seem to recall something about this, but I am

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Speaker 2: blanking on most of the details, which means there's still

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Speaker 2: stuff to discover in here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Also known as a Ram of the Pillars. This city

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Speaker 1: has long been rumored to exist somewhere in the endless

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Speaker 1: stretch of desert called the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia

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Speaker 1: or the Arabian Peninsula. This city's even mentioned in the

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Speaker 1: Koran like Atlantis. Over centuries and centuries, people have been

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Speaker 1: constantly trying to find this place. But as we learned

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Speaker 1: in this classic episode, somebody might have actually found Ubar.

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Speaker 2: Amazing. I think the card you might be thinking about

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Speaker 2: this called City of Brass. Maybe, dude, that's it. Okay,

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Speaker 2: that's an amazing magic card.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. I feel much better. Wait, what does what

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Speaker 1: does it do?

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Speaker 2: It deals damage to you when you add mana to

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Speaker 2: your manipol. But I believe you could add any mana

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Speaker 2: you want, so like any color. But it's still going

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Speaker 2: to ping you for one damage every time you use it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's exactly what it is.

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Speaker 1: That's a real FASTI em parkin. All right, here's our episode.

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Speaker 3: From UFOs to Psychic Powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 3: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 3: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 3: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.

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Speaker 1: Our friend Noel is on adventures today. They called me Ben.

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Speaker 1: We're joined as always with our super producer, Paul Mission

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Speaker 1: Control decand most importantly, you are you. You are here,

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Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 1: Quick check in, Matty, my dear dear friend over these

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Speaker 1: many years, how are you today?

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Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you. I know, I'm great. I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna get to play some magic later tonight with my

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Speaker 2: buddy Charlie, who lives in upstate New York and I

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Speaker 2: haven't talked to him in forever, and he finally agreed

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Speaker 2: to just you know, to let me be my middle

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Speaker 2: school self again and play some magic with him. And

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Speaker 2: I'm very excited about that. You and I are gonna

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Speaker 2: have a game together pretty soon.

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Speaker 1: That's right, That's right, Matt. Yeah, I've got to go

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Speaker 1: back to the office and pick up one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite gifts I ever received, a deck of magic cards

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Speaker 1: that I suppose are vintage nowadays that you and Tyler

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Speaker 1: made for me many moons ago. I'm quite excited. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna I'm probably gonna scoop those up this weekend and

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Speaker 1: spend some time doing what I did pretty often as

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Speaker 1: a child playing multiplayer games with myself. Shout out to

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Speaker 1: my one D and D campaign just to make sure

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Speaker 1: I know what's going on there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and for other listeners just who are interested here,

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Speaker 2: there is a reason that we don't have to talk

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Speaker 2: about on air here, that you and Nolan and I

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Speaker 2: may have to be at least somewhat close to each

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Speaker 2: other in proximity. Very soon. I'm thinking about bringing a

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Speaker 2: deck for Nol and forcing him to play a game

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Speaker 2: with us, because I don't know that he's ever played

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Speaker 2: Magic before. We'll see if it works out.

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Speaker 1: I imagine he'll be delighted. I am Magic, He'll be delighted.

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Speaker 1: So before we get into today's episode, we do have

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Speaker 1: one on air correction that a couple of listeners caught,

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Speaker 1: and I just wanted to get this out here because

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Speaker 1: it's important. Specifically, earlier in our episode Operation Infection with

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Speaker 1: a K, we had a couple of times referred to

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Speaker 1: AIDS as standing for auto immunodeficiency syndrome. That is incorrect.

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Speaker 1: I misspoke there. I think probably I'm the most egregious

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Speaker 1: person with this one. It is actually acquired immuno deficiency syndrome.

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Speaker 1: So maybe a small difference in terms of speech, but

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Speaker 1: it's a big difference in terms of what it stands for,

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Speaker 1: and of course it affects a great many people. If

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Speaker 1: you don't know what we're talking about, please check out

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Speaker 1: Operation Infection, where we do, in fact uncover a proven

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Speaker 1: conspiracy about HIV and AIDS.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and specifically some meddling that occurred from from Russian actors.

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Speaker 2: Let's say, there we go.

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Speaker 1: When we say Russian actors, we don't mean the stars

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Speaker 1: of screen and stage right, we mean the other actors. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: today we're I'm super excited about this one. Maybe a

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Speaker 1: way to segue into this is the world of games,

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Speaker 1: specifically video games. Now, I'm you know, Matt, you and

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Speaker 1: I have talked at length over more than a decade

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Speaker 1: now that we've been hanging out about video games of

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Speaker 1: all sorts and all stripes. You remember Uncharted three?

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Speaker 2: I do Uncharted as a fabulous franchise. The fourth iteration

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Speaker 2: recently was available on PS Plus or PlayStation Plus. If

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Speaker 2: anybody subscribes to that, hopefully you've played it. Great treasure

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Speaker 2: Hunter series. And in the third version, the third iteration,

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Speaker 2: oh boy, you get into a lost city? Is it

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Speaker 2: Lomurria Lemuria that is featured in that one, or is

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Speaker 2: it Atlantis.

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Speaker 1: It is a lost city in the wild desert of

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Speaker 1: the Middle East, a city that was rumored to be

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Speaker 1: home to Jin, a city that was rumored to have

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Speaker 1: untold wealth before it was cursed by the divine. We

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Speaker 1: won't spoil it too much. I believe you can still

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Speaker 1: get at least Uncharted one through three for free on

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Speaker 1: PlayStation's special looking Out for You during the Quarantine deal.

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Speaker 1: So I recently replayed this. It's a fantastic game if

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Speaker 1: you're a fan of Indiana Jones. If you're not really

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Speaker 1: a fan of video games, but you do like film

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Speaker 1: and films like Indiana Jones, then think of that almost

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Speaker 1: as at times, it's more like an interactive movie, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's a journey, and you could

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Speaker 1: set the if you're particularly unmotivated for video game stuff,

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Speaker 1: you can set the levels low enough such that you're

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Speaker 1: just kind of sitting through a movie where you occasionally

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Speaker 1: push buttons. Well, you know, it's like, what was that

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Speaker 1: Dragon's lair? That's another old old one. But you're right, Matt,

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Speaker 1: Lost cities they play a big part and Uncharted because

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Speaker 1: lost cities play a huge part in human civilization. Like typically,

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Speaker 1: right when you hear people talk about ancient lost cities,

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Speaker 1: Let's say you're flipping through television and you're flipping through

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Speaker 1: your books and you come across that phrase lost city,

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Speaker 1: lost civilization. In the modern day, we tend to dismiss

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Speaker 1: that concept like right out. You know, places like you

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Speaker 1: mentioned Lemuria or it's the Beatles to its Rolling Stone,

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Speaker 1: Atlantis and so on. These are all kind of thought

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Speaker 1: to be legends, right, and we've done stories on those

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Speaker 1: in the past. I think we actually to a pretty

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Speaker 1: surprisingly solid answer on the mystery of Atlantis a while back.

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Speaker 1: But lost cities, lost civilizations, the amazing and disturbing thing

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Speaker 1: about this is they're not that crazy. It turns out

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Speaker 1: our species, as you said before, we're cartoonishly good at

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Speaker 1: losing things, whether we're talking about car keys, passwords, technologies, cities,

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Speaker 1: entire civilizations. The vast span of human history is this

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Speaker 1: like long running joke about us making stuff and then

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Speaker 1: completely forgetting about it, or at least mostly forgetting about it.

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Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I mean you can look at almost every

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Speaker 2: major civilization space, so a place where a civilization began,

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Speaker 2: you can look even if it's a city. Now, let's

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Speaker 2: say in a place like Atlanta, just as an example,

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Speaker 2: there are versions of Atlanta that exist below it, that

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Speaker 2: were built on top of you know, for cities to exist.

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Speaker 2: London is a really good example of that, New York,

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Speaker 2: where there's a version of that place of history that

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Speaker 2: literally went away or went underground essentially. And you can

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Speaker 2: think about all kinds of things that we've lost over time,

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Speaker 2: you know, entire technologies that have come and gone, you know,

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Speaker 2: even just an entire civilization, a whole place where humanity

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Speaker 2: grew and thrived for a while and just went away

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Speaker 2: for one reason or another.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes even when we know the location of a

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Speaker 1: lost place quote unquote lost, even when we know where

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Speaker 1: the ruins are, we still can run into mysteries about

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Speaker 1: why tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people one

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Speaker 1: day just left. Right, there are a lot of questions

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Speaker 1: that remain unanswered because history is alive. Right in today's episode,

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Speaker 1: we're exploring a city that some people may not have

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Speaker 1: heard of, but a city that occupies a unique place

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Speaker 1: in folklore and in science here in the modern date.

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Speaker 1: In fact, we call this a lost city. But it

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Speaker 1: may have already been found. And where better to start

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Speaker 1: with this story than with a legend. So here are

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Speaker 1: the facts.

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Speaker 2: There was once, according to legend, a place known as

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Speaker 2: Iram of the Pillars. It was also known as Ubar

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Speaker 2: or Ubar for short. We're going to be calling it

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Speaker 2: a Ubar in this in this story, but it was

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Speaker 2: also known as Wubar with a w irem rum. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: it was just known as the city of the Pillars.

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Speaker 2: It was this legendary place. It was, or it has

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Speaker 2: been over the course of history, taken as this indisputable

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Speaker 2: fact that there was a true place a thing that

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Speaker 2: existed by one of these names, generally by people who

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Speaker 2: follow in the faith of Islam. It's explicitly mentioned by

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Speaker 2: the way in the Quran, which is a good thing

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Speaker 2: to know for the rest of this story. Here the

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Speaker 2: specific phrase, by the way that's found there is Iram

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Speaker 2: dot al Imad, and it's sometimes translated to you know,

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Speaker 2: maybe a less prestigious sounding phrase called Iram of the

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Speaker 2: tent poles, eh, not so not so cool. Sounds much

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Speaker 2: better when it's al imad. But the English translation of

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Speaker 2: its meant but we've got it. Actually here, we've got

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Speaker 2: the English translation of it's mentioned in the Quran.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, here's how the explicit mention in the Koran

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Speaker 1: reads in English. Quote, and we're because of the differences

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Speaker 1: between English and Arabic, there are good there's gonna be

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Speaker 1: some slippage here. There are some words or pieces of

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Speaker 1: sentence structure that don't white translate. But we'll give you

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Speaker 1: the gist. Quote. Have you not considered how your Lord

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Speaker 1: dealt with Aram, who had lofty pillars, the likes of

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Speaker 1: whom had never been created in the lands, And with

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Speaker 1: the mood who carved out the rocks in the valley,

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Speaker 1: and with Pharaoh, owner of the stakes, all of whom

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Speaker 1: oppressed within the lands and increased therein the corruption. So

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Speaker 1: your Lord poured upon them a scourge of punishment. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: your Lord is in observation. That's the words of the

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Speaker 1: prophet right in the Qur'an. That's the story of the

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Speaker 1: story of this kind of warning to the reader. It's like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: think about what happened to this place, Think about what

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Speaker 1: happened to this guy. And that last line comes off

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Speaker 1: I think a little bit mild where it says indeed

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Speaker 1: your Lord is an observation. Maybe a more direct way

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Speaker 1: to say that in American English today would be you know,

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Speaker 1: watch out, God is watching you.

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Speaker 2: You know, yeah, it always feels like somebody's watching me,

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Speaker 2: because it has been stated here that he she it is. Indeed,

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Speaker 2: there's another version of this, by the way, where or

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Speaker 2: I guess, of the story of the legend, where Ubar

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Speaker 2: was this center of trade, of wealth of society. It

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Speaker 2: was located along this really lucrative trade route that existed

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Speaker 2: at the time, in which it was a place that

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Speaker 2: was you know, thriving, and it's you know, it's where

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Speaker 2: merchants would transport all kinds of things, or of this

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Speaker 2: this trade route is where merchants would trade all kinds

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Speaker 2: of things, and Ubar was a major stop there and

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Speaker 2: one of the big things that they traded was frankinsense.

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Speaker 2: And this is has been mentioned a lot, or at

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Speaker 2: least is a major point of this one version of

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Speaker 2: the legend.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, they were balling out. They were making so

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Speaker 1: much money off this frankencense trade, which included murr. You

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Speaker 1: know for people who people.

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Speaker 2: Were fans of the three the three wise men.

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Speaker 1: Then then you'll notice that franken sense and MRR, which

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Speaker 1: are not super big commodities to a lot of people

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Speaker 1: today were profoundly impressive gifts. Back then, they were you know,

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Speaker 1: they were status symbols. They were associated with things that

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Speaker 1: were holy, and so being a part of this trade,

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Speaker 1: the people of Ubar made a lot of money. They

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Speaker 1: obtained many riches, jewels, et cetera. And this story follows,

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Speaker 1: you know, the kind of Pixar version. Once upon a time,

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Speaker 1: as you said, matt Ubar was the center of the

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Speaker 1: trade and Franken sense, and every day they got wealthier

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Speaker 1: and wealthier, wealthier, until one day a prophet arrives, and

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Speaker 1: this is a pre Islamic prophet, by the way. In

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Speaker 1: this legend, a prophet around and foretells that the city

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Speaker 1: and the entire civilization of Ubar would be destroyed by

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Speaker 1: God as punishment for their wicked, wicked ways. The king,

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Speaker 1: who was not aware that he was to be the

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Speaker 1: last king of Ubar, ignored the prophet, and a short

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Speaker 1: while later the city disappeared from the historical record. It

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Speaker 1: was buried under the shifting sands of the empty quarter

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Speaker 1: in Arabia. They called it then, but Saudi Arabia we

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Speaker 1: call it now.

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Speaker 2: And it's a It feels maybe at first glance or

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Speaker 2: first listen as a similar parable that has existed in

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Speaker 2: a couple of different holy books and a couple of

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Speaker 2: different societies and kind of historical records, where there's this

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Speaker 2: place that became so wealthy, they just were bored in

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Speaker 2: some ways because they had so much time on their hands,

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Speaker 2: and they started to do the things that idle hands do,

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Speaker 2: which is generally considered, you know, the devil's work or

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Speaker 2: the bad things, the wicked, evil things. And then it

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Speaker 2: gets destroyed because a force of good. In this case,

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Speaker 2: God comes through and says no. But and you know,

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Speaker 2: but if you continue along the legend, even though it

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Speaker 2: was destroyed, it, you know, if it, if it was real,

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Speaker 2: then it would still exist out there somewhere, right at

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Speaker 2: least according to legend.

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Speaker 1: Right somewhere out there in the dry ocean of the desert,

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Speaker 1: one may still discover the ruins of ancient Ubar, all

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Speaker 1: the riches within, and possibly all the all the curses

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Speaker 1: and consequences you would run into for uh, for violating

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Speaker 1: the wishes of the divine and you know.

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Speaker 2: I'm man, yeah, but but mostly mostly all those all

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Speaker 2: those vases full of that dank frankincense.

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Speaker 1: Dank and sense that would be the dame of the company.

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Speaker 1: We start Dank and sense, Uh, yeah, we'll find something

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Speaker 1: for MRR as well, because Murr is still very much

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Speaker 1: of the game in this part of the story. But

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Speaker 1: you're right, so the details of the disaster are naturally

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Speaker 1: vague the idea, you know, at the time this story

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Speaker 1: takes place, when it's traced to antiquity, Usually natural disasters

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Speaker 1: are always seen as happening for some sort of reason.

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Speaker 1: No one is ever saying, hey, we have famine because

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Speaker 1: we couldn't grow crops because of the drought. They say, oh,

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Speaker 1: we are encountering famine because we have crops because of

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Speaker 1: the drought. Because God is super po'd at us, you know,

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Speaker 1: because we didn't make the right sacrifices or you didn't

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Speaker 1: propitiate the right prayers at the right time in the calendar,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's just

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Speaker 1: the human mind, because humans have always been you know,

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Speaker 1: these are still homo sapient. They're very much like us.

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Speaker 1: There's still trying to categorize and frame and understand the world.

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Speaker 1: So when you hear details about Ubar's demise, you might.

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Speaker 1: You'll hear people say, you know, well it was God

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Speaker 1: that struck them down, and then we'll hear other people say, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's God who struck them down. But God did it

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Speaker 1: this way, right through an earthquake maybe, or through a

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Speaker 1: sandstorm that never stopped. It's kind of like Atlantis, right,

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Speaker 1: that's another example, or Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Speaker 2: It's a it's a that's a good example.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because it has the wickedness right, and it's

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Speaker 1: and it's still you know, it's a story that's common

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Speaker 1: to what they call people of the book, right Jedeo

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Speaker 1: Christian Islamic belief systems. But Ubar has a couple of

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Speaker 1: things and it's legend that make it different. First, speculation

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Speaker 1: about Ubar has continued, you know, since the writing of

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Speaker 1: the Qur'an, which really popularized it, because that is that

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Speaker 1: is a book that is fundamental to many civilizations. And

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Speaker 1: then some other lost city legends just by contrast, they

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Speaker 1: claim that there are ancient origins to them, but they

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Speaker 1: end up being examples of embellishment maybe or outright hoaxes.

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Speaker 1: This is not the case here. I mean aram Ubar

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Speaker 1: was popularized in the West in the thirties and really

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Speaker 1: picked up some modern shine and PRTLC in the nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: But again, it's been known in the Middle East. The

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Speaker 1: West alone is not the world. It was known in

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Speaker 1: the Middle East since the Kuran. Since before then. It

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Speaker 1: assumed its more modern interpretation way back during the aggregation

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Speaker 1: and dissemination of the anthology we know of as one

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Speaker 1: thousand and one Nights, fantastic book that was composed over

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Speaker 1: centuries during the Islamic Golden Age. We still don't know

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Speaker 1: to be completely clear, how that book was formed. It's

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Speaker 1: a mystery of its own. But that's not the only

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Speaker 1: reason Ubar is unique.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are some some pretty old maps that actually

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Speaker 2: placed a physical location of Ubar On these maps, there

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Speaker 2: was there's one where it's depicted as Omanum Emporium there

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Speaker 2: and that's on Ptolemy's lap P. T O. L. E.

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Speaker 2: M Y his map of the world. This guy, Claudius Ptolemy,

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Speaker 2: he was born in Greece, lived in Egypt, and this

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Speaker 2: is around one hundred and ten to one hundred and

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Speaker 2: seventy a d. So that's some time ago. Let's say.

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Speaker 2: It's also mentioned by several other Islamic commentators throughout the years,

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Speaker 2: the centuries that have existed as possibly existing in one

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Speaker 2: place or another and in multiple versions of it, essentially

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Speaker 2: of the legend. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the primary evidence, which you know, we're very thankful

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Speaker 1: for a lot of the primary evidence comes from religious

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Speaker 1: or religious affiliated text. So there's going to be this

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Speaker 1: ongoing debate about translation, you know, and then about like

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Speaker 1: you said, Matt, is this literally a city? Is this

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Speaker 1: literally a civilization? Is this a metaphor you know, is

347
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Speaker 1: this like a larger version of all those stories that

348
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Speaker 1: even today kids here like, don't do act A, B

349
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Speaker 1: or C or else you'll have consequence X, Y or z.

350
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Speaker 1: What if it wasn't a city at all? What if

351
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Speaker 1: it was a region instead? So instead of you know,

352
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Speaker 1: like what if or whenever the US falls and you

353
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Speaker 1: fast forward a couple of millennia or something, what if

354
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Speaker 1: no one remembers the city of Atlanta and they talk

355
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Speaker 1: about the Lost City of Georgia. It's located somewhere on

356
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Speaker 1: this continent and everybody but everybody's got weird ideas about it.

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Speaker 2: It would be the Lost City of coming.

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Speaker 1: There we go. That stuff happens all the time. And

359
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Speaker 1: then the name we get distorted and telephoned and it

360
00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:11,000
Speaker 1: would be like Kuminkh or Kumang or something like that. Yeah,

361
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:15,399
Speaker 1: that happens constantly, constantly. So maybe it wasn't even a region,

362
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Speaker 1: Maybe it was not geographical. Maybe it was a name

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Speaker 1: for a people, which also happens pretty often, right, because

364
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:26,119
Speaker 1: we know that in ancient times and even now, groups

365
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:30,640
Speaker 1: of people, communities and tribes, the names that outsiders use

366
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Speaker 1: refer to the place where those people are found, right,

367
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Speaker 1: and the places where they live get named after them. Israelites,

368
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Speaker 1: Israel you know what I mean. Especially the Middle East

369
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Speaker 1: is full of this stuff. So Ubar has long been

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Speaker 1: associated with a group of people called the Ud, spelled

371
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Speaker 1: like apostrophe Ad but pronounced more like Uld. And back

372
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Speaker 1: in the eleventh century was a a commentary named Nashwan

373
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Speaker 1: bin said Himyari, who said, quote, Ubar is the name

374
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Speaker 1: of the land which belonged to Ud in the eastern

375
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,399
Speaker 1: part of Yemen. Today it's an untrodded desert owing to

376
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Speaker 1: the dying up of its water. There are to be

377
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Speaker 1: found in it great buildings which the wind is smothered

378
00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 1: in sand. Doesn't really mention God, just mentions these people

379
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 1: built some stuff, and they're no longer in the game.

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Speaker 2: How intriguing is that though, I mean again like bring

381
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Speaker 2: back Indiana Jones. Just some of these concepts that at

382
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,880
Speaker 2: least I as a child and then growing up were

383
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 2: so fascinating of you know, finding being able to one

384
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:42,280
Speaker 2: day maybe chase down some historical place like this, or

385
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 2: discovering a lost place, a lost people that existed somewhere.

386
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:54,200
Speaker 2: It's it's just such fuel for the imagination. And you know,

387
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 2: it really just depends on where you look, who you ask,

388
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Speaker 2: who you just want to believe, I guess, on how

389
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 2: you think about Ubar, where it could be, what it

390
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 2: could be, who the actual people were and what occurred

391
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 2: there or And it also depends on your faith honestly,

392
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Speaker 2: depending on you know, the books you grew up with,

393
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:19,160
Speaker 2: as in the important pillars of your faith and your

394
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:22,679
Speaker 2: understanding of the world. But it's really cool that this

395
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:27,199
Speaker 2: place has all of this potential built within it. You know, you.

396
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 1: May have grown up most familiar with that description in

397
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:36,919
Speaker 1: the Kloran. You may have you may have been a

398
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 1: fan of Te Lawrence, the famous and very strange explorer

399
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:47,640
Speaker 1: and military officer. He's the one who I think popularized

400
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: calling it the Atlantis of the Sands. But the most

401
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 1: important thing about the Atlantis of the Sands is that

402
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: we're pretty sure someone found it. What are we talking about.

403
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 1: We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor. Here's

404
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:19,360
Speaker 1: where it gets crazy, Matt. We gotta we gotta talk

405
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,439
Speaker 1: about these searches. You know. It's oh yeah, people are

406
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 1: out here changing the world.

407
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 3: Man.

408
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 1: One time I fell asleep trying to put on a

409
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: pair of pants, like this is this This is a

410
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 1: great examination of human ingenuity, if nothing else.

411
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 2: The other day I fell asleep. I stuck my head

412
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:39,679
Speaker 2: into my son's rocket ship tent and I was playing

413
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 2: with him really actively, and I totally passed out right there.

414
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,680
Speaker 2: So I feel you ben just saying, uh, maybe maybe

415
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 2: we should stop falling asleep on our various jobs such

416
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 2: as pants putting on. But other people have not been

417
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 2: sitting around getting drowsy. They've been out there searching the

418
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 2: desert for stuff, which is really really cool. There are

419
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 2: several individuals who believe they have uncovered this place that

420
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 2: was mentioned in the Koran, and you know, there's there's

421
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 2: debate on who's right who actually found it. And we're

422
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 2: gonna go through all that stuff right now. But you

423
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 2: really can find people who have claimed at least to

424
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 2: have found this legendary place Ubar or Iran that was

425
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 2: mentioned in the Qoran, that specific version of it, and

426
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 2: they think they found it in the Middle East, in

427
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 2: places from Oman to Yemen to Jordan. Places in Jordan

428
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 2: the place called the Wadi Room, and the Wadi Room.

429
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 2: This is, oh, the infamous what has this been? I

430
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:50,879
Speaker 2: don't know this, the infamous Rube al Khali.

431
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, the Rube al Khalai. We should or

432
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: the Empty Quarter. We should note that, as far as

433
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: we know, neither of us are Arabic speakers, unless we

434
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: had a wild weekend and forgot about it. The Empty

435
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: Quarter is a vast stretch of immensely inhospitable land. And

436
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:14,640
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk about in a little bit. But I noticed, Matt,

437
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: you pointed out Waldi Room, Wadi Room. Let's let's let's

438
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 1: talk about this a little bit. So it's in Jordan.

439
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 1: It's it's name translates or it's called the Valley of

440
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 1: the Moon. And this looks otherworldly. It's a desert landscape picture,

441
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: a lot of flat, sandy valley beds, Wadi is Arabic

442
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: for valley, and they're bordered by these enormous red sandstone cliffs.

443
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: It's the largest valley in Jordan. And it also carries

444
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: the signs of ancient human occupation. We've got inscriptions, petroglyphs,

445
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: ruins of temples, graffiti, stuff that dates back as far

446
00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: as twelve thousand years. People have been there for a

447
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: long long time.

448
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's one of those places that the glory of,

449
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 2: you know, the natural surroundings in this you know, the

450
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 2: somewhat starkness of it as well, wasn't really known by

451
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 2: the West until some guy walked through there who happened

452
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 2: to be British, a man named T. E. Lawrence. He

453
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 2: was a British military officer. He really brought it to

454
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 2: the West's attention who was passing through there during the

455
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 2: Arab Revolt which occurred between nineteen sixteen and nineteen eighteen.

456
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 2: And he he, you know, was moved by the experience

457
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 2: of going through that area, and he wrote a book

458
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 2: about his experience called Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

459
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 1: And then we get into a weird circumstance here, a

460
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: little bit of a pr move because there's a formation

461
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: at Waldi room called the Seven Pillars of Wi that's

462
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: what it's called today. It's great for tourism. That's not

463
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: its original name. Its original name was like Jabal al Mamzar,

464
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 1: the Mountain of the plague, and so.

465
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 2: Ooh yeah, nobody wants to visit the Mountain of the plague.

466
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm down, but you know, I'm sure there's

467
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: another mountain of a plague somewhere. So this was this

468
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: was renamed even though the formation that's mentioned has nothing

469
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: to do with the Seven Pillars actually mentioned in Lawrence's book.

470
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: Even in like later editions, it is all about tourism there.

471
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: It is a hugely popular tourist destination, and it's of

472
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: course an enormously important side of human civilization. It's also

473
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 1: something that you fellow conspiracy realists, have probably seen before.

474
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 2: You just didn't know it.

475
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 1: You might have thought it was Planet Mars in the

476
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: Martian You might have thought it was any number number

477
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: of backdrops for film set in the Middle East or

478
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: on our red neighbor, just just to plan it away.

479
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 1: It's also in it's in some famous ones.

480
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's a Star Wars movie, Rogue one that

481
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 2: used it. The Transformers. Revenge of the Fallen featured this

482
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 2: and my favorite one, even though it wasn't my favorite movie,

483
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 2: but my favorite version of it is seen in Prometheus.

484
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 2: I really liked the way it was treated there, at

485
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 2: least on camera.

486
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, of course it's in the Aladdin reboot, the

487
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 1: live action.

488
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 2: I forgot about that one.

489
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: I never asked you, you know, I forgot to ask

490
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:42,160
Speaker 1: your opinion that I know that we both love that

491
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 1: film growing up, and I still think it holds up.

492
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: But what did you see the.

493
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 2: Remake hot take? I suffered through it until Will Smith's

494
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 2: like tenth line, and then I turned it off. All right,

495
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 2: I didn't turn it off. My son and my wife

496
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 2: continued to watch a little bit, but I left the room.

497
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: They handle it in silent protest.

498
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't. It wasn't very silent. It was definitely

499
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 2: like then left.

500
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:15,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, Robin Williams left some big shoes to fill. And

501
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 1: I don't think it's I mean, it's funny because I

502
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: really liked I really enjoyed all the other actors in there.

503
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: I thought they nailed it. And for some reason, again

504
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: this is just one person's opinion. We'll have to get

505
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: Paul's about this off air too. It just felt like

506
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 1: they were trying to make it will Smith plays will

507
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: Smith as a genie. I mean, to be fair, That's

508
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: that's what Robin Williams was doing too. I just I

509
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: liked the earlier songs.

510
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. It's a real Mountain of the plague

511
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 2: seven Pillars of Wisdom scenario. You know, the translation just

512
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 2: story to change up, just didn't didn't play as in

513
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 2: this case, didn't play as well.

514
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, true. But again visually, you know there there's

515
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: stunning scenes in there, and and again, I think the

516
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: vast majority of the actors nailed it. So I don't

517
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: want to be unfair. I just I just I think

518
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: I figured out how I like my culturally appropriated idea

519
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: of Gin in Disney films, because it's not like it's

520
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: not like the Robin Williams genie is in any way

521
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: accurate to begin with. Uh indeed, But if.

522
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 2: You're gonna if you're gonna make a scary version, like

523
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 2: the scariest version of a Gin, which is the one

524
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 2: that this genie is supposed to inhabit, and you're gonna

525
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 2: make them like a family friend friendly g version, then

526
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 2: you know, go all the way with it, just make

527
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 2: them super happy and transforming into all kinds of different

528
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 2: Western characters from pop culture.

529
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 1: That's right. So I'm going to watch that later. As

530
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 1: long as we don't get disappeared, I think we can

531
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,359
Speaker 1: close the book though. On the wa Do Room. It's

532
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 1: definitely an historically significant site, but it is probably not

533
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 1: the Atlantis of the Sands, as T. Lawrence called it.

534
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: It's probably not a lost city. There are some ancient

535
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 1: temples there, but the fact is there's so much tourism

536
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: there now that if there were an ancient empire or

537
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:36,839
Speaker 1: gigantic city, it would have been found like the I mean,

538
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 1: people travel from around the world to visit and film there.

539
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 2: I would say that just going with the name the

540
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 2: Mountain of the Plague may make you think if you

541
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 2: put yourself in the shoes of maybe someone exploring the

542
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 2: area who isn't fully familiar with it, may make you

543
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 2: think that, well, you know, this place was named the

544
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 2: Mountain of the Plague. Perhaps there was something that happened

545
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 2: here or a long time ago that we don't fully understand.

546
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 2: I can imagine that scenario, or at least that thought.

547
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: Process totally, totally and I agree. I mean, you know,

548
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 1: when you get to a place that has had human

549
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: beings for that long, I'm sure there were several plagues,

550
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I'm yeah, I don't think

551
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 1: somebody probably didn't make that name up for fun. I

552
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:26,479
Speaker 1: didn't think it was cool. They remembered when people died

553
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: of the plague in the area, and they were like,

554
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: don't even get to where you can frigging see that mountain, bro,

555
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 1: it's messed up. Yeah, I could totally see that. History

556
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:37,880
Speaker 1: is filled with ghosts.

557
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 2: We gonn shoot all our movies there, and.

558
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: Now we shoot movies there. Now we shoot movies there.

559
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: So there are also a lot of films shot around

560
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:53,399
Speaker 1: the area of the Empty Quarter the Rulebuck Cully. If

561
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: you're going just off the oral traditions and the legends,

562
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,320
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense to think that a

563
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 1: city might have been there and vanished, because it feels

564
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: like the easiest place for human beings to vanish. It's vast,

565
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 1: it's a sand desert. It covers most of the southern

566
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: third of the Arabian Peninsula, and it is huge. It's

567
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:25,799
Speaker 1: like two hundred and fifty thousand square miles. It means

568
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 1: it goes across Saudi Arabia, goes across the United Arab Emirates,

569
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 1: goes across Aman Yemen, and today it's a rough neighborhood

570
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: for humans. It's actually rougher for humans now than it

571
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:40,799
Speaker 1: was in ancient times. And even then it was no

572
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: walk in the park. It rains like or sorry, not

573
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:48,439
Speaker 1: even rain. The precipitation is like maybe one point four

574
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: inches on a good year. The temperatures can reach as

575
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: high as fifty one degrees celsius.

576
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 2: For everyone in the well fifty one. That's not bad, right, for.

577
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: Everyone in the States, it's one hundred and twenty four

578
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: degrees fahreadheit and then and it gets cold af at night.

579
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: It's like one of those places in the world where,

580
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 1: if you look at it objectively, are humans supposed to

581
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: be here? Are we really do we need to go

582
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: out here? You know, like I don't know, man, I

583
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:19,759
Speaker 1: really don't know.

584
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 2: Well maybe not anymore. But back before the intense desertification,

585
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 2: desertification that's been occurring out there, and you know, on

586
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 2: a continual level and increasing, it was a pretty cool

587
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 2: place to be, a good place to at least travel through.

588
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 2: In a lot of the areas of it because guess what.

589
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 2: Guess what they did. They traded things in caravans like

590
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 2: frankincense and mer and mer and mer.

591
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 1: I don't know why, it feels like it feels like

592
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:58,919
Speaker 1: there's a Simon and Garfunkl thing going on with frank

593
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 1: and sense of mirror. Or maybe it's like if we

594
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: were selling a box of frankensense and would say, like,

595
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: franko sense now with mer.

596
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:09,399
Speaker 2: Dude, No, I'll tell you a better one.

597
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's.

598
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:11,960
Speaker 2: Hall and oats.

599
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: Oh wow, because.

600
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 2: It feels so healthy. It's or something like extra. They

601
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 2: don't need you just want the hall.

602
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: So yes, I get it. You know. It's like it's

603
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:29,439
Speaker 1: like people will eat the uh eat the oats, but yeah,

604
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 1: we're here for the halls. That makes that makes a

605
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,279
Speaker 1: lot of sense, Like so maybe that's it. Maybe that's it,

606
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 1: but your point is right. Desert desertification, the process of

607
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:43,839
Speaker 1: becoming more desert like, has increased over time to the

608
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:47,839
Speaker 1: present level today. Before then, it was still very much wasteland,

609
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: but caravans, often on camelback, would would be able to

610
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 1: traverse established roots here to get that sweet sweet Franken

611
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: sense and r and it to move it to more

612
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: densely populated areas where it would fetch a great premium

613
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,800
Speaker 1: as much as for its rarity as for its smell.

614
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,399
Speaker 1: And this trade occurred till around and estimated like three

615
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:17,360
Speaker 1: hundred a d people were doing this. But the problem

616
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: with the empty quarter is the same thing that made

617
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: people think that's where Aram could be or who Bar

618
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: could be. It's that is it is huge. In the

619
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 1: days before satellite observation, it would be really difficult for

620
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: early explorers, especially as you said, the British guys, the Aristos,

621
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 1: who are walking in and quote unquote discovering all this stuff.

622
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: It would be really tough for them to systematically comb

623
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 1: the desert without without dying of thirst starvation when they

624
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 1: got lost. Now, the native people, the Bedouin, knew their

625
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: way around, right, But.

626
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Well, especially if you're trying to do it,

627
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 2: you know Spaceball's style and combing the desert like that,

628
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:02,240
Speaker 2: that'd be a rough gig.

629
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,399
Speaker 1: It's a rough gig. It takes a lot of people

630
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:08,360
Speaker 1: in a lot of time. So yeah, there could be

631
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 1: an ancient oasis in the area. We know there are

632
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:17,760
Speaker 1: oases all around the edges of the empty quarter. That's

633
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 1: what defines the empty quarter. It's the empty part and

634
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: the stuff around the edges has stuff there. But if

635
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,839
Speaker 1: you were gonna find something, if you're gonna find an

636
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 1: ancient city, where would you start looking? How would you

637
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: find it? This leads us to the various attempts to

638
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: discover it. So we've nailed down that it's probably not

639
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: in the empty Quarter, at least so far as we know,

640
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: it's unlikely that it would be. And then it's probably

641
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:54,879
Speaker 1: not in uh waddie room in Jordan. But we got

642
00:40:54,920 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: a bunch of pretty moneyed British explorers who have nothing,

643
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: who have no other goals other than to make some

644
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 1: money off the native cultures and later brag to their

645
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:12,399
Speaker 1: friends at the Royal Geographic Society, and they were all

646
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 1: about this.

647
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 2: And we also have satellite technology now and other you

648
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 2: advanced technology. So that's a bit of a spoiler, and

649
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 2: we'll tell you about the potential discovery after a word

650
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 2: from our sponsor.

651
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: We're back. So let's start in nineteen thirty there is

652
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 1: an explorer named Bertram Thomas. Bertram Thomas has the goal

653
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: of being the first European, in his opinion, to officially

654
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: cross the sands of the Empty Quarter. He's at the

655
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 1: southern edge of the area. And I'd just say in

656
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 1: his opinion, because I take issue. I take issue with

657
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 1: the idea of him being the first person ever from

658
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:06,319
Speaker 1: Europe to do that, because this is nineteen thirty and

659
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:08,360
Speaker 1: there was a lot of stuff that happened before he

660
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 1: got this idea. Anyway, So he starts this journey, and

661
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 1: he's ready, and he gets camels, guys, entourage and stuff.

662
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:21,360
Speaker 1: People who are native to the land, and some members

663
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: of his Bedouin entourage tell him about the story of

664
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: this lost city and he says, all right, well, I'm

665
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: gonna find that. That's gonna be something I can rag

666
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: to the rest of my lads about back home. He

667
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: didn't find it, but he did tell te Lawrence about it.

668
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: T Lawrence is the guy who popularized the phrase the

669
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:46,759
Speaker 1: Atlantis of the Sands. He didn't just tell him about it.

670
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: He said, roy a old chap and he marked a

671
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 1: map for Lawrence with the supposed location. Lawrence again, very weird, dude.

672
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:00,400
Speaker 1: I don't want a kink shame anyone. I don't want

673
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:05,280
Speaker 1: to yuck anyone's youum as Chuck would say, But Lawrence

674
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: was a smart dude, and he immediately knew what we

675
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 1: had just talked about, the vast difficulties of finding this

676
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 1: needle of civilization in this haystack of the wild. So

677
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: we said, you know, the only way we're going to

678
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: be able to find this is if we somehow get

679
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: in the air. We searched by airship, by a blimp,

680
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: but he never followed through with it. You know, again,

681
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: it's the nineteen thirties, nineteen forties, a lot of stuff's

682
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: going down in the Middle Eastern Europe. But these statements

683
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: that he made and that other explorers made cemented the

684
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: idea of this lost Arab city in the Western zeitgeist,

685
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 1: so people were obsessed with it.

686
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, and remember T Lawrence that we spoke about earlier,

687
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 2: is the Seven Pillars of Wisdom guy in the Waddie

688
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 2: room that we talked about, same dude, same British military officer,

689
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 2: who tended to write a lot about these kinds of things.

690
00:43:58,440 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 2: So that's why it makes sense that it kind of

691
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:02,760
Speaker 2: expanded out there in the minds of people in the West,

692
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 2: but it didn't stop there. Everybody. Let's jump forward sixteen

693
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 2: years to nineteen forty six. And to another English explorer,

694
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:19,919
Speaker 2: a Iritish fellow named named Wilfrid Thesiga. Actually will maybe

695
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 2: it's Wilfrid the seizure. I don't know how to say. Wow,

696
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:26,840
Speaker 2: it's it's English messager.

697
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,400
Speaker 1: Maybe put a little right, pull a little British Polish

698
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 1: on it. I think he nailed it. It could be the

699
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 1: Seeger we'll call We'll call it Wilfrid Thesiger.

700
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 2: Well, so, uh, he's hanging out in a place called Schisser.

701
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,280
Speaker 2: It's in southern Oman. He's hanging out by this well,

702
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 2: that's that's over there, just in an area that's an

703
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 2: undefined area. And he notes that he's seeing some kinds

704
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 2: of crude stone, some kind of ruins, maybe from a fort.

705
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:05,440
Speaker 2: You's see him on this rocky Eminence. That's a quote

706
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 2: there about the Eminence and some of the things that

707
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 2: he finds there, let's call them shards, some of the

708
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 2: things he finds in the area. Maybe in his opinion,

709
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 2: they may be early Islamic. And you know, he tells

710
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 2: the Royal Geographic Society this, but nothing you know, official

711
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:27,560
Speaker 2: comes out of it. There's no like exploration in the

712
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 2: moment because of this guy, Wilfred Thesiger's experience.

713
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:38,239
Speaker 1: But people remember, right, people be blay keeping note. Just

714
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 1: two years later, nineteen forty eight, a party of Bedouins

715
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:48,320
Speaker 1: and oil company employees are traveling there. They're surveying no

716
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 1: far province. This is of course, part of Western Europe's

717
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 1: state sponsored push to divide up the territories for resource acquisition.

718
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 1: And they first see this place, Shesrah or also called

719
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: ashis here. They're approaching it from the south and the

720
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,360
Speaker 1: first thing they see is this white cliff in the distance.

721
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: As they get closer, they say, hey, this cliff is

722
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:20,760
Speaker 1: not just a cliff. It's man made. It's the wall

723
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 1: of a ruined fort, and it's built above this large cave,

724
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: and there's an entrance to this cave, but it's obscured

725
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: by a sand dune. I mean, I'm just I am picturing.

726
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 1: I don't know about you guys, but I'm picturing like

727
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:38,719
Speaker 1: this crazy Indiana Jones music in my head. They found

728
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 1: the fort had been built from the same white rock

729
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 1: as that cliff, and this gave them. This to them,

730
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 1: seemed to indicate that this whole thing was a single structure.

731
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:53,840
Speaker 1: One of the geologists said, you know, there are no

732
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 1: houses or tents or people here. There's just this tumble

733
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:03,800
Speaker 1: down ruin Islamic for it, wompwomp. Because the geologists didn't

734
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 1: have modern satellites, we're throwing so many spoilers in this.

735
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: They didn't have archaeological equipment. They were unimpressed by the ruin.

736
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: They were like, there's not even oil here.

737
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:16,839
Speaker 2: Bro.

738
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:21,359
Speaker 1: In fact, their guides and them, they all referred to

739
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 1: it as quote difficult water because it was the only

740
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 1: watering hole for miles and miles and miles around, and

741
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 1: they had to spend three days trying to get water

742
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:37,840
Speaker 1: from this dying well for their camels. So it's like

743
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 1: they they stopped in a place because it had one

744
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 1: thing that they needed they barely had that. They wrote

745
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:48,480
Speaker 1: down a one star review of it in their Yelp

746
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 1: travel journal, and then they dipped out. But all of

747
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 1: those things that happened were still on a record. Fast

748
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 1: forward to the eighties and nineteen nineties.

749
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, zero Michelin stars for Schisser before that.

750
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:13,360
Speaker 2: Now jump in nineteen ninety one, same area. There's a

751
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:17,160
Speaker 2: just before we get into this, there is a fantastic

752
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 2: New York Times Old school article from ninety two. I

753
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:24,799
Speaker 2: think that was written about this that we recommend you

754
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 2: go check out. The title of it is on the

755
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 2: Trail from the Sky Rhodes point to a Lost City.

756
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,399
Speaker 2: So if before we talk about it, if you want

757
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:37,839
Speaker 2: to read it, hey, good stuff in there. So there's

758
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 2: a filmmaker from Los Angeles named Nicholas Clapp. Really really

759
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 2: cool spelling, by the way. I don't know if he

760
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:47,879
Speaker 2: spells it that way because of a screenwriter's guild thing,

761
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:53,799
Speaker 2: but Clapp is his last name. You know, he's one

762
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 2: of those guys. It's the nineties. This guy has grown

763
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 2: up with a fascination of you know, the the romantic

764
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 2: mystery that exists out there in ancient you know, Arabia

765
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 2: and the sands as well as you know this the

766
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 2: concept of these huge caravanning frankincense trade that's occurring, right,

767
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 2: And he goes out to that same area she sir,

768
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 2: And really what he wants to do is use that

769
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:26,279
Speaker 2: new technology that has been developed since people have been

770
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 2: looking at this place, and he wants to you know,

771
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:33,040
Speaker 2: he really just wants to discover this place, right, and

772
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 2: he ends up finding things things that have never been

773
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 2: found out there before.

774
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:45,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he assembles this this crew of specialists, as

775
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:50,800
Speaker 1: you said, to investigate. They include financial backers, they also

776
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: include scientists from JPL jet propulsion laboratories. And then he

777
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:02,839
Speaker 1: also gets with Randolph, who, yes, is related to the

778
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:06,799
Speaker 1: actor Ralph Finds, who plays Voldemore. I thought you would

779
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 1: enjoy that, Paul. He also plays the antagonist in Red

780
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: Dragon in the Silence of the Lambs franchise. Anyhow, he

781
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:19,560
Speaker 1: has his relative Randolph Finds. He's a well to do

782
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: European and he is also affiliated with the Sultan of Oman,

783
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:28,839
Speaker 1: so he's kind of their fixer on the ground. So

784
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:34,239
Speaker 1: they get together and they're reviewing this footage from the satellites.

785
00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: And again there's the very early days of this. This

786
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 1: is before you know, widespread use of a lot of

787
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:43,160
Speaker 1: other technologies that people have today. But they see things

788
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't see if you're walking on the ground.

789
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: One of the most important things they find is a

790
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:52,799
Speaker 1: network of ancient camel tracks caravan roots that seem to

791
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:56,200
Speaker 1: converge on a couple of different places, one of them

792
00:50:56,239 --> 00:51:01,719
Speaker 1: is our in Oman. And this like they you know,

793
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:04,160
Speaker 1: they do all the ground, they do all the mental

794
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:07,440
Speaker 1: legwork they can before they go there because it's a

795
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:10,839
Speaker 1: bit of a journey. So their first ground exploration takes

796
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:14,280
Speaker 1: place in nineteen ninety one. They learn so much stuff,

797
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,799
Speaker 1: and that's where we get to that that breathless, like

798
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 1: old school NYT headline on the Trail from the Sky

799
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: Road points to a lost city. And then it begins

800
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 1: with this beautiful quotation. It's the first sentence, is just

801
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 1: is just solid gold? Matt Dov do you have maybe

802
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 1: like a I must hate to ask, do you have

803
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:36,879
Speaker 1: a Transatlantic voice for this one?

804
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, I'll do it. Guided by ancient maps and

805
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 2: shop eyed surveys from space, archaeologists and explorers have discovered

806
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:49,399
Speaker 2: a lost city deep in the sands of Arabia. They

807
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 2: are virtually sure it is Ubar, the fabled entropo of

808
00:51:55,239 --> 00:52:01,200
Speaker 2: the Rich frankensense trade thousands of years ago. And it continues.

809
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:05,360
Speaker 1: Yes, and now doesn't seem to be much question that

810
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 1: we have discovered or mono membarium, says doctor Jorisaradas, the

811
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:14,080
Speaker 1: expedition's chief archaeologist. At that sight, he has is very rich,

812
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. So is this the real Ubar?

813
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 2: You know?

814
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:23,600
Speaker 1: Under the direction of Doctors Errands, the team starts digging.

815
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: They excavate the walls and towers this fortress. They're working fast.

816
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:31,399
Speaker 1: They find a site that dates back more than two

817
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,239
Speaker 1: thousand years. How can they work that fast? You know,

818
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:38,600
Speaker 1: archaeological digs are a huge issue in the Middle East,

819
00:52:38,719 --> 00:52:41,839
Speaker 1: and because there's so many ancient civilizations, and because there

820
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: are so many modern civilizations of war over history right now,

821
00:52:45,719 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 1: they're able to do this again because Ranald finds his

822
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 1: buddy buddy with the sultan. What he says goes. So

823
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:59,279
Speaker 1: doctor Zarns doesn't just find this this ancient site. He

824
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 1: also find is able to trace its demise a little bit.

825
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:08,799
Speaker 1: And he says, look, the site has this huge sinkhole

826
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:11,719
Speaker 1: kind of bisecting it if you look at the pictures,

827
00:53:12,080 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: and he says it fell sometime between AD three hundred

828
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:20,360
Speaker 1: and AD five hundred, And if you recall earlier at

829
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:23,400
Speaker 1: the top of the show, we said AD three hundred

830
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:26,760
Speaker 1: is about when the frankincense trade is suspected to have declined.

831
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:32,480
Speaker 2: Interesting, right, And you know, when you keep thinking about

832
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:34,520
Speaker 2: it in this way, if there was some kind of

833
00:53:34,640 --> 00:53:39,120
Speaker 2: cataclysm or a huge earthquake or a big sinkhole that

834
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 2: formed and sucked in everything pretty quickly over the course

835
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 2: of you know, even a couple of years. You can

836
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:49,560
Speaker 2: imagine how perhaps that would have been blamed on an

837
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:53,879
Speaker 2: act of God of some sort.

838
00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: And he says specifically, it's like, look, you know, there

839
00:53:57,640 --> 00:54:01,279
Speaker 1: was fossil water here. Fossil water is something we talked

840
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:06,240
Speaker 1: about a little bit in our work on Libya years ago.

841
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,239
Speaker 1: Fossil water is a non renewable source of potable or

842
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 1: drinkable water. And so it's kind of how this oasis

843
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 1: was working. But it was also built over limestone, and

844
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 1: so as more and more people and animals and agriculture

845
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:24,720
Speaker 1: because they had irrigation schemes, more and more things started

846
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 1: draining more and more water. It probably contributed to an earthquake,

847
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 1: or maybe it was the primary cause of this collapse.

848
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:39,000
Speaker 1: So the thing fell, the center could not hold. However,

849
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:43,480
Speaker 1: doctor Zarns himself is quick to point out that there

850
00:54:43,520 --> 00:54:46,280
Speaker 1: might be a chicken and egg thing because if Franken

851
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:48,920
Speaker 1: sense trade, if the Frankin Sense trade was still you know,

852
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:53,359
Speaker 1: doing Gangbusters, then there would have been enough finance, right,

853
00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:59,160
Speaker 1: there would have been enough political will to rebuild this

854
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: lost place. And that all depends on whether our modern

855
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:09,799
Speaker 1: idea of Ubar existed at all, because you see doc

856
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:11,280
Speaker 1: Z is not convinced.

857
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,239
Speaker 2: He's not. And by the way, it also depends on

858
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 2: whether or not they could actually get water. If if

859
00:55:17,120 --> 00:55:21,399
Speaker 2: that you know that fossil water was actually the reason

860
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:25,080
Speaker 2: that caused the collapse. But let's talk about doctors errands

861
00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 2: and why he was unsure. Because there was this great

862
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 2: interview with him from Nova. If you haven't watched a

863
00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 2: lot of Nova and you're listening to this, I highly

864
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:37,800
Speaker 2: recommend you do. It's really great. They're not a sponsor,

865
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 2: but I very much enjoy the programming with the stuff

866
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 2: they put out there. But they were speaking with him

867
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 2: about Ubar, and we've got a quote from him. He says,

868
00:55:47,920 --> 00:55:50,960
Speaker 2: there's a lot of confusion about that word talking about Ubar.

869
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:53,319
Speaker 2: If you look at the classical texts and the Arab

870
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:56,640
Speaker 2: historical sources, Ubar refers to a region and a group

871
00:55:56,680 --> 00:56:00,320
Speaker 2: of people, not to a specific town. People all always

872
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:03,399
Speaker 2: overlook that. It's very clear. On Ptolemy's second century map

873
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:06,960
Speaker 2: of the area it says in big letters law Bitarite,

874
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:10,239
Speaker 2: and in his text that accompanies the maps, he's very

875
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:13,320
Speaker 2: clear about that. It was only the late medieval version

876
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 2: of the one thousand and one Nights in the fourteenth

877
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 2: and fifteenth centuries that romanticized Ubar and turned it into

878
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:23,239
Speaker 2: a city rather than a region or a people.

879
00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 1: Instead, he says Shser, the site they found is one

880
00:56:26,719 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 1: of maybe three or four major trade and civilization centers

881
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:36,479
Speaker 1: of the Uberite at a time when this tribal group,

882
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 1: the Uberites, thrived along the edges of the empty quarter.

883
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:45,160
Speaker 1: So he's saying that they didn't discover the mythical city,

884
00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:47,640
Speaker 1: but in a way that they discovered something more important.

885
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:51,759
Speaker 1: They discovered the truth that inspired the myth. We have

886
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:56,440
Speaker 1: to remember that when people saw this city, they were

887
00:56:56,520 --> 00:57:01,839
Speaker 1: seeing it after seven eight days journey through utter desolation,

888
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 1: no food, no water. We also have to understand that

889
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:09,080
Speaker 1: when they saw it, like when you see it now.

890
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:12,279
Speaker 1: You can see photographs of the ruins today, along with

891
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:17,680
Speaker 1: artist depictions of how the actual fortress looked at its time, right,

892
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: and the fortress itself, especially after you've heard all these myths,

893
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:24,920
Speaker 1: it looks a little underwhelming, honestly, but you have to

894
00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:28,919
Speaker 1: consider that many of the people who are living there,

895
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 1: who were populating it, even on a permanent basis, they

896
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:35,800
Speaker 1: weren't living in this relatively small fortress. They were living

897
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:40,400
Speaker 1: outside around it. They were living in large tents that

898
00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: you could open up to catch a breeze and things

899
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:45,040
Speaker 1: like that. They would probably only be in the fortress

900
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:48,320
Speaker 1: if there were some sort of siege or attack. It

901
00:57:48,360 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 1: reminds me like it doesn't okay, it doesn't look like

902
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:54,120
Speaker 1: a shining city of pillars and the pictures of the

903
00:57:54,200 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 1: ruins or even in the artistic depictions. But you know,

904
00:57:58,000 --> 00:58:01,560
Speaker 1: then again, for anyone who's seeing the Tower of London,

905
00:58:02,080 --> 00:58:04,720
Speaker 1: stuff doesn't look like a skyscraper, right, We have very

906
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:08,120
Speaker 1: different definitions of towers hundreds of years ago, you know

907
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 1: what I mean, anything over two three floors that's a tower.

908
00:58:11,920 --> 00:58:14,720
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And I really like your point there of

909
00:58:15,080 --> 00:58:18,280
Speaker 2: just to reach that area, no matter for what reason

910
00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:21,280
Speaker 2: you're traveling through or you know, to get there, you

911
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:24,480
Speaker 2: would have been on a perilous journey. This is a

912
00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:27,600
Speaker 2: weird kind of way of think about it. But you

913
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 2: shot a picture into my head, been of a day

914
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:33,120
Speaker 2: that I worked a full day, like let's say, eight

915
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 2: nine hours, then immediately after that shot a film festival

916
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 2: forty eight hours thing immediately following a full day of work,

917
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 2: and I hadn't eaten food in like thirty hours or something,

918
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 2: and somebody suggested getting Popeyes. I didn't know what that was.

919
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:53,960
Speaker 2: I tried it for the first time with my wife,

920
00:58:54,480 --> 00:58:56,440
Speaker 2: and it was the best piece of chicken I had

921
00:58:56,440 --> 00:59:00,160
Speaker 2: ever eaten in my life. Now is that because it

922
00:59:00,200 --> 00:59:02,080
Speaker 2: was actually the best piece of chicken or is it

923
00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:06,280
Speaker 2: because I was starved or I felt starving and you know,

924
00:59:06,840 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 2: was so hungry that this just became a prized thing

925
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 2: in that moment. I wonder if that experience is correct.

926
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 2: And that's it's a really great point.

927
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:17,800
Speaker 1: Ben, that's I mean, you're making a really great point too.

928
00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:20,440
Speaker 1: And not to date you there, Matt, but that is

929
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:23,920
Speaker 1: before the famous chicken sandwich that was just like you

930
00:59:24,040 --> 00:59:26,040
Speaker 1: got a two or a three piece right with a biscuit.

931
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:27,800
Speaker 2: It's true.

932
00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:31,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I still I stand by Popeyes. This

933
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 1: is not an advertisement for Popeyes, but I think, at

934
00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 1: least here in Atlanta, one thing we love about Popeyes

935
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:39,720
Speaker 1: is you can tell how good the chicken's going to

936
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 1: be by like how abrasive. The people who work there

937
00:59:43,480 --> 00:59:47,240
Speaker 1: are the best, the probably some of the best Popeyes

938
00:59:48,240 --> 00:59:50,640
Speaker 1: here at our our neck of the Global Woods is

939
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:54,680
Speaker 1: right down the street from our office where famously, I

940
00:59:54,720 --> 00:59:57,560
Speaker 1: don't know about you, I went there for lunch one day.

941
00:59:57,920 --> 00:59:59,480
Speaker 1: I was just trying to pick up some d Is

942
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:02,320
Speaker 1: it a hurry? And what I pulled up at the

943
01:00:02,400 --> 01:00:05,040
Speaker 1: drive through? The person on the other end said, what.

944
01:00:07,640 --> 01:00:11,760
Speaker 2: It's a one to one ratio? How good the chicken

945
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 2: is going to be? And how much grief you get?

946
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:17,880
Speaker 1: But I think you make a really great point about

947
01:00:17,920 --> 01:00:22,040
Speaker 1: the psychology of people there, because you know, you are

948
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:25,080
Speaker 1: going into a place that a looked much more impressive

949
01:00:25,680 --> 01:00:29,120
Speaker 1: when it was in its glory days before it collapsed,

950
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:32,320
Speaker 1: back when there were hundreds of people there, there was

951
01:00:32,360 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 1: irrigation and stuff. It looked much better and people were

952
01:00:36,040 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 1: much more appreciative because some of them probably came pretty

953
01:00:39,840 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 1: close to dying while they were risking their lives and

954
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:47,000
Speaker 1: their fortunes in the frankinsonse trade. So there really was

955
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:50,440
Speaker 1: there an ubar of myth? Probably not. Was there a

956
01:00:50,480 --> 01:00:54,200
Speaker 1: real place upon which ubar is based? Yes, and we

957
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:58,440
Speaker 1: probably found it. This is a real life case of

958
01:00:58,480 --> 01:01:02,400
Speaker 1: a lost city that was like the Lost City of Troy.

959
01:01:02,840 --> 01:01:06,080
Speaker 1: And you know, if it looks disappointing and the Tower

960
01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:10,720
Speaker 1: of London, example, is maybe a little disappointing. To let's

961
01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:13,800
Speaker 1: be further disappointing. The pyramids used to look way better.

962
01:01:14,040 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 1: Those things used to be painted like you know, I

963
01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:19,320
Speaker 1: wish people would point that out more. They used to

964
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:25,240
Speaker 1: be more colorful. Anyway. This fortress was surrounded by smaller

965
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:28,880
Speaker 1: villages that stretched out as far as six miles.

966
01:01:29,480 --> 01:01:29,840
Speaker 2: It was.

967
01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:34,160
Speaker 1: It's an example kind of of a what's called a caravan,

968
01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:38,320
Speaker 1: Sarah that because you know, a roadhouse, a stop on

969
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:41,800
Speaker 1: the road, you know, like the same kind of thing

970
01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:47,720
Speaker 1: that made Samarkans in Zbekistan a huge global force, regional

971
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:51,400
Speaker 1: force it was. It's it's like, imagine if the only

972
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:58,360
Speaker 1: gas station for hundreds and hundreds of miles became a town.

973
01:01:59,640 --> 01:02:02,280
Speaker 1: That's that's another way to look at it. And I

974
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:05,680
Speaker 1: don't think I don't think that's pejorative or dismissive at all.

975
01:02:05,720 --> 01:02:09,240
Speaker 1: It's amazing. So maybe in conclusion, maybe the game of

976
01:02:09,320 --> 01:02:13,120
Speaker 1: telephone strikes again. I know that's disappointing to some people.

977
01:02:13,280 --> 01:02:15,440
Speaker 1: That's amazing to me. I love it. And you know

978
01:02:15,520 --> 01:02:17,240
Speaker 1: what it makes me think, Matt, I don't know about you.

979
01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:20,400
Speaker 1: I just wonder what else is out there. It's gotta

980
01:02:20,440 --> 01:02:20,800
Speaker 1: be more.

981
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:23,680
Speaker 2: That's exactly what I was gonna say. Just because we

982
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:26,479
Speaker 2: found this one doesn't mean other stuff isn't out there.

983
01:02:26,920 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 2: We haven't fully lied oar to that desert yet, at

984
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:32,960
Speaker 2: least I'm pretty sure we haven't, because it would take

985
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:36,760
Speaker 2: a lot of ldar to go through that desert. But

986
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 2: I'm just telling you, like my excitement for possibilities out

987
01:02:41,840 --> 01:02:45,720
Speaker 2: there in the Shifting sands, it remains peaked, and it

988
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:48,360
Speaker 2: will stay that way for a good time.

989
01:02:49,240 --> 01:02:52,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it'll probably have to stay a sense of

990
01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:56,200
Speaker 1: excitement and anticipation for a while because you know, so

991
01:02:56,280 --> 01:02:59,040
Speaker 1: much of that part of the world is embroiled in

992
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 1: political and stability. There are war zones, you know, in

993
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:08,560
Speaker 1: seats of ancient human civilization, and we're really being destroyed

994
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:12,200
Speaker 1: right right, And we're really faced with We're faced with

995
01:03:12,240 --> 01:03:17,480
Speaker 1: a powerful dilemma, which is, you know, will our species

996
01:03:17,520 --> 01:03:22,040
Speaker 1: be able to come together and save its past. It's

997
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 1: collective past, make no mistake, you know, the ancient history

998
01:03:27,240 --> 01:03:29,600
Speaker 1: of the Middle East. If you're listening to this, it

999
01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 1: is part of your history too. You trace yourself back

1000
01:03:33,480 --> 01:03:37,840
Speaker 1: far enough, it's part of your history somehow. So it's

1001
01:03:38,160 --> 01:03:41,320
Speaker 1: our collective responsibility to try to keep it around for

1002
01:03:41,320 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 1: those who come after. We're just as we said in

1003
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:48,360
Speaker 1: the very very beginning, we're very very good at losing things.

1004
01:03:48,680 --> 01:03:51,920
Speaker 1: Let's hope we get a little bit better at rediscovering

1005
01:03:51,960 --> 01:03:54,760
Speaker 1: and preserving them. Let us know what you think about

1006
01:03:54,800 --> 01:03:58,120
Speaker 1: today's episode. We've run a little long, but we hope

1007
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:00,800
Speaker 1: you enjoyed it. You can find us on Facebook. You

1008
01:04:00,800 --> 01:04:03,040
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram. You can find us on Twitter.

1009
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:08,160
Speaker 1: We're conspiracy Stuff on Facebook and Twitter. We're Conspiracy Stuff

1010
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:12,360
Speaker 1: show on Instagram. But personally, if you're a Facebook person,

1011
01:04:12,400 --> 01:04:16,080
Speaker 1: do check out our Facebook page. Here's where it gets crazy.

1012
01:04:16,120 --> 01:04:18,040
Speaker 1: You can meet some of the best mods in the business,

1013
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:21,160
Speaker 1: and the best part of this show you are fellow listeners.

1014
01:04:21,800 --> 01:04:26,160
Speaker 2: Yes, please do if you are a Facebook user. If

1015
01:04:26,200 --> 01:04:28,720
Speaker 2: you're not, and you have a cellular phone or a

1016
01:04:28,720 --> 01:04:32,160
Speaker 2: mobile phone or a landline, you can call the number

1017
01:04:32,440 --> 01:04:37,240
Speaker 2: one eight three three std WYTK and you can leave

1018
01:04:37,320 --> 01:04:40,040
Speaker 2: us a message that Ben and I will certainly hear.

1019
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:43,560
Speaker 2: Nol likely will as well. Paul refuses to listen to

1020
01:04:43,600 --> 01:04:48,080
Speaker 2: your messages on account of principle that his ears can

1021
01:04:48,440 --> 01:04:50,640
Speaker 2: only be used for a certain number of hours every day,

1022
01:04:50,640 --> 01:04:53,520
Speaker 2: and he's generally producing or having to listen to us.

1023
01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:57,080
Speaker 2: But we do look forward to hearing from you your

1024
01:04:57,080 --> 01:05:00,000
Speaker 2: thoughts on this episode or on future episodes, or just

1025
01:05:00,280 --> 01:05:02,919
Speaker 2: chatting with us, or you know, talking to us about

1026
01:05:02,920 --> 01:05:06,800
Speaker 2: your favorite Magic the Gathering cards or how Thomas middle

1027
01:05:06,840 --> 01:05:10,120
Speaker 2: Dish on the New Special talks about it in episode

1028
01:05:10,160 --> 01:05:12,680
Speaker 2: two A lot and it made me smile. Oh, just

1029
01:05:12,720 --> 01:05:15,400
Speaker 2: all day long. Thank you about Thomas middle Dish playing

1030
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:16,520
Speaker 2: Magic the Gathering.

1031
01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:21,160
Speaker 1: On their improv special. Yeah, yeah, that's really good. No, yeah,

1032
01:05:21,240 --> 01:05:24,360
Speaker 1: do check that out. And also if none of that

1033
01:05:24,440 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 1: quite bags your badgers, or if you are more comfortable

1034
01:05:28,600 --> 01:05:33,160
Speaker 1: with a little bit more anonymity, please remember you can

1035
01:05:33,320 --> 01:05:37,800
Speaker 1: always contact us to talk about lost civilizations, Magic the Gathering,

1036
01:05:38,120 --> 01:05:43,440
Speaker 1: Harry Potter, Popeye's Chicken, whatever crosses your mind. We would

1037
01:05:43,440 --> 01:05:45,760
Speaker 1: love to hear from you, and we have an easy

1038
01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:47,800
Speaker 1: way for you to do it. It'll be on as

1039
01:05:47,800 --> 01:05:49,880
Speaker 1: long as we have this show around. It's our good

1040
01:05:49,920 --> 01:05:51,440
Speaker 1: old fashioned email address.

1041
01:05:51,600 --> 01:06:14,520
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1042
01:06:14,560 --> 01:06:17,480
Speaker 2: want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

1043
01:06:17,600 --> 01:06:21,560
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1044
01:06:21,640 --> 01:06:23,520
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