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. Cities are proof that
Speaker 1: the sky is the limit. Soaring towers, crowded streets, people
Speaker 1: shuffling from one thing to the next, and those miraculous
Speaker 1: feats of engineering and artistry. Cities are organic and constantly changing,
Speaker 1: and yet they're anchored in our minds and hearts by
Speaker 1: their landmarks. Imagine New York without the Empire State Building,
Speaker 1: or Paris without the Eiffel Tower. They wouldn't just look different,
Speaker 1: it would look like they didn't exist at all. Now,
Speaker 1: imagine a city rich in history and culture, home to
Speaker 1: author politicians and titans of industry. This one, in particular,
Speaker 1: is located in northwest Germany, a little over one hundred
Speaker 1: miles from Dusseldorf. It was founded in the early twelve
Speaker 1: hundreds and for a very long time was known as
Speaker 1: the city of Linden. In fact, it once produced so
Speaker 1: much of the fabric that in the nineteen twenties it
Speaker 1: started issuing Linen currency as well as notes made of
Speaker 1: velvet and silk. This, my friends, is Bilafeld. It's a
Speaker 1: city much like any other. It boasts a university and
Speaker 1: serves as headquarters for a number of companies, including food, plastics, textiles,
Speaker 1: and home appliance manufacturers. Bethel Institution, a hospital for the
Speaker 1: mentally ill, was built in eighteen sixty seven and protected
Speaker 1: patients from Nazi forces during World War Two, a time
Speaker 1: when Hitler had ordered the executions of all mentally ill
Speaker 1: people across Europe. There's a local theater, several Gothic churches,
Speaker 1: an art museum, a concert hall, of a anicle garden,
Speaker 1: and even a football team. And if you've made it
Speaker 1: this far, you'll notice something interesting about bi Lafeld. Nothing,
Speaker 1: even though its citizens might think differently. There's nothing particularly
Speaker 1: special about Bilafeld, at least when compared to other cities
Speaker 1: just like it around the world, which is what makes
Speaker 1: one particular claim so bizarre. You see in the dial
Speaker 1: up days of the Internet, the mid nineties, online forums
Speaker 1: where where people gathered to gossip, joke, and talk politics
Speaker 1: before social media took over our lives. In one such forum,
Speaker 1: German computer science student named Akim Held posited that Bila
Speaker 1: Feld Gibt s Nickt. As with many languages, such a
Speaker 1: sentiment has multiple meanings. It could mean Bila Feld is empty,
Speaker 1: as in there's nothing to do or see. But it's
Speaker 1: the other meaning that went viral. Long before the idea
Speaker 1: of going viral was even a thing, Bila Felt they
Speaker 1: say doesn't exist. According to Akam Held, the city's existence
Speaker 1: was a hoax carried out by a clandestine organization known
Speaker 1: as Them, and anyone who said otherwise was part of
Speaker 1: the conspiracy. Of course, he knew his claim wasn't real.
Speaker 1: It was an experiment, but as we've learned from stories
Speaker 1: of undead monsters and multiple personalities, experiments can take on
Speaker 1: a life of their own. From there, the joke spiraled
Speaker 1: into full blown conspiracy theory, including references to the Illuminati.
Speaker 1: One good example would be the focus on the number
Speaker 1: twenty three. Bila Feld's city hall sits at twenty three
Speaker 1: meter wall and its area code zero five seven zero
Speaker 1: zero zero adds up to the number twenty three. As
Speaker 1: the concepts of memes and online folk tales take off
Speaker 1: in the mid two thousands, so two did this bizarre theory.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and fourteen, Bila Feld Mayor Pitt Clausen
Speaker 1: used the conspiracy as a way to increase tourism for
Speaker 1: the city's eight versary. German Chancellor Angela Merkel once attended
Speaker 1: a town hall meeting there, later adding as a joke
Speaker 1: if it even exists. Bilafeld certainly does exist, but some
Speaker 1: people still resist the idea. If you claim to have
Speaker 1: been there or know someone who has, you might get
Speaker 1: labeled as one of them. And while some may see
Speaker 1: this tale as a harmless prank, it's also slightly disturbing.
Speaker 1: One offhanded comment can wipe a city off the map
Speaker 1: in our minds at least. It's crazy to think that
Speaker 1: a joke like this could ever be taken seriously, but
Speaker 1: it raced around the web for years. Finally, fed up
Speaker 1: with all the lies and rumors, the city decided to
Speaker 1: issue an official press release. In it, they assured everyone
Speaker 1: that yes, the city does in fact exist. There was
Speaker 1: just one small problem with their efforts to dispel the rumors.
Speaker 1: The date they chose to publish their announcement just happened
Speaker 1: to be the first April, otherwise known as April Fool's Day.
Speaker 1: A lifeless body beside bloody knife, A woman in her
Speaker 1: living room, dangling by her neck from a clothesline. A
Speaker 1: man slumped over the door of his convertible in his garage.
Speaker 1: At first glance, some of these deaths might seem like
Speaker 1: suicides or accidents. Not so. There are three of twenty
Speaker 1: unsolved murders, each with a different motive but connected by
Speaker 1: one common thread. A woman named Fanny born in Chicago
Speaker 1: in seventy eight. Fanny led a traditional, sheltered nineteenth century life.
Speaker 1: Her father was a successful farm equipment manufacturer who expected
Speaker 1: his family to adhere to the strict gender norms of
Speaker 1: the time. Men, he said, should go to college and
Speaker 1: then get jobs to support their wives, who were meant
Speaker 1: to stay at home with the children. Fanny and her
Speaker 1: brother were homeschooled and both dreamed of attending Harvard. However,
Speaker 1: only her brother was allowed to go, which was disappointing
Speaker 1: because Fanny had dreams of her own, the kinds of
Speaker 1: dreams she couldn't share with anyone else, and no way
Speaker 1: of fulfilling them while she still lived in her father's home.
Speaker 1: Respecting his wishes, she instead got married at the age
Speaker 1: of nineteen. The marriage was perfectly fine for a while.
Speaker 1: They had three children and Fanny seemed satisfied, but deep
Speaker 1: down she never forgot about her dreams. Eventually, they proved
Speaker 1: too powerful to hold back, driving her to divorce her
Speaker 1: husband in order to make them all come true, something
Speaker 1: that was unheard of at the time. Fanny, now in
Speaker 1: her forties, used the inheritance from her late father and
Speaker 1: her recently deceased brother to pursue a passion that she'd
Speaker 1: repressed for far too long murder, specifically the homicide cases
Speaker 1: described to her by one of her brother's college classmates.
Speaker 1: With his help and her new found wealth, she created
Speaker 1: a new department at Harvard, the Department of Legal Medicine.
Speaker 1: She also helped set up a library named in his honor,
Speaker 1: as well as a curriculum known today as the Harvard
Speaker 1: Seminars in Homicide Investigation. Of course, Fanny did all of
Speaker 1: this in the nineteen forties, so it should come as
Speaker 1: no surprise that she was often discouraged from visiting crime scenes. Instead,
Speaker 1: she decided to create her own. It was the perfect cover,
Speaker 1: really inserting herself into the growing world of murder investigation
Speaker 1: to better understand how to study and teach it. Throughout
Speaker 1: the second half of her life, Fanny went from housewife
Speaker 1: to homicidal architect. She carried out elaborate murders, mostly of
Speaker 1: women who had strayed from the safety of their domestic lives.
Speaker 1: She then used her crimes to educate others on best
Speaker 1: practices in analyzing crime scenes. Her technique required the students
Speaker 1: to employ a geometric search pattern, such as a clockwise
Speaker 1: spiral when examining the crime scene. Scanning from one side
Speaker 1: of the room to the next, in a three hundred
Speaker 1: sixty degree fashion, students would get an idea of how
Speaker 1: her murders had been committed. Despite her grisly actions, Fanny's
Speaker 1: work earned her numerous accolades, and she was even made
Speaker 1: an honorary captain in the New Hampshire State Police, making
Speaker 1: her the first female police captain in the United States.
Speaker 1: As I said at the beginning, her crimes remain unsolved.
Speaker 1: You might be asking yourself, if we know who Fanny
Speaker 1: was and what she did, why would her murders still
Speaker 1: be unsolved today. The answer is a lot more simple
Speaker 1: than you'd imagine. They never happened. You see, while her
Speaker 1: crimes were based on real cases, they were actually completed
Speaker 1: as highly detailed dioramas. Today they're known as the Nutshell
Speaker 1: Studies of Unexplained Death. Each scene is like a room
Speaker 1: from a grotesque dollhouse, articulously researched and recreated in order
Speaker 1: to teach detectives how to look for clues. And Fanny,
Speaker 1: known throughout law enforcement as Francis Glesner Lee, is the
Speaker 1: pioneer who made it all possible. In fact, eighteen of
Speaker 1: the twenty that she created are still in use today
Speaker 1: by Maryland's Medical Examiner's Office, who also keep their solutions
Speaker 1: hidden from the public. The old cliche reminds us that
Speaker 1: the best way to learn is to do. Let's all
Speaker 1: be grateful that Fanny didn't take that piece of advice
Speaker 1: too far. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television and show, and you can learn all about
Speaker 1: it over at the World of Lore dot com. And
Speaker 1: until next time, stay curious. H