Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Hypnosis is one of
Speaker 1: those things most people laugh about when it's discussed as entertainment.
Speaker 1: It's fake. They say. You can't control someone just by
Speaker 1: swinging a pocket watch in front of their face like
Speaker 1: a pendulum. The people in those Vegas shows must be
Speaker 1: plants individuals higher to pretend like they have no control
Speaker 1: over their body. They hop on one foot or bite
Speaker 1: into an onion like it's an apple, and the audience
Speaker 1: applauds because they don't know any better. But hypnosis is
Speaker 1: one of those strange places where art and science intersect.
Speaker 1: As a therapy tool, Hypnosis can be incredibly beneficial to
Speaker 1: those who need it, but it takes time. It can't
Speaker 1: be induced in the time it takes to put on
Speaker 1: a short stage show, not unless you're Arthur Everton, whose
Speaker 1: powers of persuasion we're second to none. Arthur was a
Speaker 1: professional hypnotist way back in n nine, often inviting audience
Speaker 1: members to come up on stage and be part of
Speaker 1: his act at a performance in Somerville, New Jersey. One night,
Speaker 1: he pulled the audience for a volunteer. The man who
Speaker 1: raised his hand was a piano mover and street car
Speaker 1: conductor from Newark named Robert Simpson. A moment later, Simpson
Speaker 1: climbed on stage and then awaited Arthur's instructions. The hypnotist
Speaker 1: placed him under a trance one meant to induce a
Speaker 1: cataleptic state. In other words, Simpson's body went as stiff
Speaker 1: as a board. Arthur then lowered him down, positioning him
Speaker 1: between two chairs like a kind of bridge, with his
Speaker 1: head on one chair and his feet on the other.
Speaker 1: Arthur then put his skills and Simpson's body to the
Speaker 1: test by climbing up and standing on the man's chest
Speaker 1: for a few seconds. The audience went wild. Amazingly, Simpson
Speaker 1: didn't move. He showed no signs of pain or stress,
Speaker 1: even though Arthur had just used him as a makeshift platform.
Speaker 1: After Arthur stepped down, he eased Simpson down off the
Speaker 1: chairs before standing him back up. It was time to
Speaker 1: bring him out of his trance send back to reality.
Speaker 1: Arthur called to him, demanding that he wake up, but
Speaker 1: Simpson just stood there. Rigid and unmoving. Arthur tried again,
Speaker 1: but Simpson still refused to pop out of his trance
Speaker 1: and return to normal. This was surprising to the audience
Speaker 1: for sure, but it was even more troublesome for Arthur.
Speaker 1: Why because he and Simpson had performed the trick dozens
Speaker 1: of times before. Yes, Robert Simpson was a plant. In fact,
Speaker 1: he was what they called a leader, someone planted in
Speaker 1: the audience to lead the rest of the crowd deep
Speaker 1: into the fantasy. Finally, after several moments with no movements,
Speaker 1: Simpson's body began to relax, and then he collapsed on
Speaker 1: the floor. Arthur quickly dragged his friend off stage, where
Speaker 1: he attempted to revive him, but shockingly, it was too late.
Speaker 1: A doctor in the audience pronounced Robert Simpson dead at
Speaker 1: the scene, much to Arthur's consternation. You see, Arthur believed
Speaker 1: the man wasn't dead, but merely still stuck in his trance.
Speaker 1: Given time, he thought he'd be able to wake him up,
Speaker 1: just as he had so many times before. The doctor
Speaker 1: even led him accompany Simpson to the hospital, where the
Speaker 1: hypnotist spent all night trying to pull him back out
Speaker 1: of his trance, but nothing worked, and the following morning,
Speaker 1: Arthur Everton was arrested for manslaughter. As the newspapers reported
Speaker 1: the story, hypnotists from all over the country came out
Speaker 1: of the woodwork with suggestions of their own for how
Speaker 1: to reanimate the late piano mover. One man named William Davenport,
Speaker 1: at the request of Mr Everton, also tried his hand
Speaker 1: bringing Mr Simpson back. His methods were a lot less
Speaker 1: mystical than you might imagine, though. Davenport simply leaned over
Speaker 1: Simpson's body, rested his hand upon the man's heart, and
Speaker 1: then whispered into his ear, bob your heart, your heart
Speaker 1: is beating. But nothing, because Robert Simpson wasn't trapped in
Speaker 1: a catatonic state or some sort of hypnotic trance. No,
Speaker 1: his a order had ruptured, killing him almost instantly. But
Speaker 1: the doctors couldn't tell whether Arthur's trick had been the
Speaker 1: cause of it all or if it had just been
Speaker 1: an unfortunate coincidence. In the end, though they decided the
Speaker 1: hypnotist was not to blame. The grand jury soon agreed
Speaker 1: and Arthur Everton was found not guilty. He returned to
Speaker 1: performing a short while later, but his business took a
Speaker 1: hit thanks to the bad publicity. Even though every stage
Speaker 1: performer dreams of the day they might kill it, as
Speaker 1: they say, most audiences have a very different goal. They
Speaker 1: just want to make it out of the show alive.
Speaker 1: They say, a picture is worth a thousand words, although
Speaker 1: some can be worth far more than that. The world
Speaker 1: famous photo of the loch Ness Monster, taken by Dr
Speaker 1: Robert Kenneth Wilson in nineteen thirty four, depicts the shadowy
Speaker 1: image of the creatures famous long neck sticking out of
Speaker 1: the water, the waves around it rippling outward. It's an
Speaker 1: image that everyone knows, it's instantly recognizable, and it's inspired
Speaker 1: decades of speculation of what might be living beneath the
Speaker 1: waters of Lochness. But there is another photo, one that
Speaker 1: is also at the center of a decade's long debate
Speaker 1: over its authenticity and what it might signify about humanity
Speaker 1: and where we really sit within the food chain. It
Speaker 1: was taken by a man named Eric Shipton in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty one. Shipped In was a mountaineer who had clim
Speaker 1: numerous him Alayan peaks, but had wanted to scale the
Speaker 1: yet unscalable mount Everest. Nowadays, Everest is a popular destination
Speaker 1: for thrill seekers with money to burn, but during Eric
Speaker 1: Shipton's time it was a very different ordeal. The most
Speaker 1: common route used by folks trying to climb Mount Everest
Speaker 1: was along the northern side, but Shipton and his crew
Speaker 1: were set on exploring the southwestern side to see if
Speaker 1: there was a way up to the top that no
Speaker 1: one had found yet. Along for the trip were three
Speaker 1: other British climbers, William Murray, Tom border Lawn and W. H. Ward,
Speaker 1: as well as local sherpas that were there to guide them.
Speaker 1: One of those men, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became friends with
Speaker 1: Shipton and would eventually accompany him on future expeditions. The
Speaker 1: climb didn't pan out, though, and the climbers descended the mountain,
Speaker 1: but they never stopped trying. During another expedition several months later, Shipton, Norgay,
Speaker 1: and a doctor Michael Ward, were exploring a glacier west
Speaker 1: of Mount Everest, when they stopped to look at something
Speaker 1: strange in the snow. It was a footprint thirteen inches
Speaker 1: long and twice as wide as a man's foot. It
Speaker 1: bore four small toes and one big toe and was
Speaker 1: discovered at an altitude of nineteen thousand feet. Just ahead
Speaker 1: of that print was another, and then another, and then another.
Speaker 1: They were tracks. The men followed them from a mile
Speaker 1: to a chasm, where it was clear that whatever creature
Speaker 1: had made the Prince had jumped across, and from where
Speaker 1: they stood they could see the tracks continued on the
Speaker 1: other side. Shipt In, unable to follow them any farther,
Speaker 1: returned to the trail and continued his work. He would
Speaker 1: later publish his findings in both a book and an
Speaker 1: article that each detailed what he had found. Biologists and
Speaker 1: zoologists tried to discredit his claims, assuring people that the
Speaker 1: only creatures living at that elevation were bears and languor monkeys.
Speaker 1: London's Natural History Museum even commissioned to him Alayan bear
Speaker 1: to walk across a stretch of sand so that they
Speaker 1: could compare the footprints to photographs taken by Shipton, but
Speaker 1: the test backfired because they didn't match, and the biggest
Speaker 1: languor monkey prints are only about eight inches long, much
Speaker 1: smaller than the imprint discovered near Mount Everest. Yet, despite
Speaker 1: the claims from experts, all over the world that the
Speaker 1: Prince were animal in nature. Shipton refused to believe it,
Speaker 1: so did the Sherpas, who were familiar with the region,
Speaker 1: because they'd all seen the creature that made the Prince firsthand,
Speaker 1: or at least knew someone who had. It had been
Speaker 1: described as a being about five ft six inches tall
Speaker 1: and covered with a reddish brown hair. Except for its face.
Speaker 1: It stood upright like a human being, but it lumbered
Speaker 1: through the snow with ease. It had only ever been
Speaker 1: seen in passing and had never been captured on camera,
Speaker 1: which of course only adds to the legend. Tenzing Norgay
Speaker 1: went on to become the second man to summit Mount Everest,
Speaker 1: alongside Sir Edmund Hillary in three He was clearly a
Speaker 1: brave and determined man, but on that earlier trip, when
Speaker 1: he saw the enormous footprints in the snow with his
Speaker 1: own eyes, he froze in place with fear, and then
Speaker 1: he uttered a single word that would carry more weight
Speaker 1: than any photograph of a footprints ever could, at least
Speaker 1: to our modern ears. He muttered the name of the
Speaker 1: creature that he believed had left the print, Yettie. I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities,
Speaker 1: subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay sarious.