Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Clowning Around

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Clowning Around · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of curiosities. A good president needs to
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  Speaker 1: have a lot to win. They need to be likable.
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  Speaker 1: They must have sound policies that benefit the American people.
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  Speaker 1: And well, none of that is actually true. Politicians are
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  Speaker 1: a rare breed mix a pinch of charm, dash of authority,
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  Speaker 1: and a whole heaping bowl of hubris, and you'll eventually
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  Speaker 1: have yourself a red blooded American individual with grand dreams
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  Speaker 1: of running the country. One man had such a dream
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  Speaker 1: over one d seventy years ago when he tried running
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  Speaker 1: for president. His name was Dan Rice, and he made
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  Speaker 1: a living as an entertainer. He trained animals, he dabbled
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  Speaker 1: in political comedy, performed in stage shows, and parodied Shakespearean
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  Speaker 1: plays with his own humorous versions. Early in his career,
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  Speaker 1: when he had no money to his name and only
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  Speaker 1: one horse, larger circuses and troops made fun of his
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  Speaker 1: one horse show. Although they intended to insult him, the
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  Speaker 1: aspiring star flipped it around and used the phrase to
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  Speaker 1: advertise his surprisingly enjoyable performance. As he gained in popularity,
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  Speaker 1: his show was able to generate more income and was
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  Speaker 1: eventually dubbed the Greatest show on Earth. Years before P. T.
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  Speaker 1: Barnum's own traveling circus would fly that flag. Legendary American
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  Speaker 1: author Mark Twain admired Rice so much that his description
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  Speaker 1: of a circus in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was based
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  Speaker 1: on the performer's famous spectacle. But Rice was best known
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  Speaker 1: for his enduring role as a circus clown. He didn't
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  Speaker 1: just run around and perform slapstick for cheering kids, though
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  Speaker 1: his was more like a stand up comedy routine than
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  Speaker 1: your typical clowning around. He'd perform observational humor and sing
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  Speaker 1: songs about the news, which let audiences in on another
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  Speaker 1: passion of his politics, Rice once invited then candidate Zachary
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  Speaker 1: Taylor to campaign aboard his circus wagon, encouraging the future
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  Speaker 1: twelfth President of the United States to jump on the bandwagon, which,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, is how that phrase came to be.
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  Speaker 1: Later on, Rice decided to stop sharing the stage with
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  Speaker 1: other politicians and enter the fray himself. In eighteen sixty four,
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  Speaker 1: he ran for the Pennsylvania Senate, using his immense popularity
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  Speaker 1: to help power his campaign, But when it later appeared
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  Speaker 1: that he wouldn't secure enough votes to gain traction in
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  Speaker 1: the polls, he dropped out. He didn't let the experience
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  Speaker 1: discourage him, though. Rice wanted to serve the people as
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  Speaker 1: best he could, and as they say, the show must
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  Speaker 1: go on. When Rice tried again four years later to
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  Speaker 1: get elected to public office, he aimed higher, this time,
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  Speaker 1: much higher. You see, he wanted to be the president.
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  Speaker 1: At first, it's seeing the papers were supportive of his plans.
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  Speaker 1: He was a national treasurer, after all, beloved by audiences everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, Rice had his detractors, and not everyone thought
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  Speaker 1: that a former circus clown had the ability to lead
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  Speaker 1: the people. In fact, during the campaign, a newspaper called
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  Speaker 1: The Somerset Democrat mocked his bid for the presidency, claiming
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  Speaker 1: that he had an I quote amassed wealth by catering
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  Speaker 1: to the tastes of the very lowest order of society
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  Speaker 1: in the disreputable capacity of a clown and showman, and
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  Speaker 1: that seemed to open the floodgates. More papers followed with
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  Speaker 1: rebukes of their own, and although he tried to respond
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  Speaker 1: through open letters and opinion pieces. His efforts had little effect.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't help that a popular military general was moving
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  Speaker 1: up in the polls, no doubt bolstered by his impressive
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  Speaker 1: performance during the Civil War. So when it became clear
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  Speaker 1: that he wouldn't get the nomination, Rice withdrew from the race,
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  Speaker 1: allowing Ulysses S. Grant to go on and become the
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  Speaker 1: eighteenth President of the United States. Dan was an entertainer,
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  Speaker 1: a showman, and a patriot. He loved his country and
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  Speaker 1: thought of no better way to show that love than
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  Speaker 1: to become an elected public servant. But don't think of
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  Speaker 1: him as a failure. He was incredibly patriotic, and those
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  Speaker 1: images of him with his long white beard went on
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  Speaker 1: to inspire a character we all know from the recruitment
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  Speaker 1: posters that were printed and distributed during World War One
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  Speaker 1: and two. He might not have become president, but without
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  Speaker 1: Dan Rice, America wouldn't have its most famous mascot of all,
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  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam. Typically when someone here is a tapping noise
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  Speaker 1: in their house, they tend to think the worst. It
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  Speaker 1: could be a leaky pipe dripping inside the walls, or
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  Speaker 1: someone on the outside looking for a way in. In
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  Speaker 1: the case of the Irving family, it was an animal
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  Speaker 1: that had found its way inside. However, in ninety one,
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  Speaker 1: on the Isle of Man, it wasn't just an animal.
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  Speaker 1: The Irvings encountered. On one fateful September night, James, Margaret
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  Speaker 1: and their daughter Voiri came face to face with a
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  Speaker 1: creature unlike anything they'd ever seen before or heard. It
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  Speaker 1: started with scratching and bizarre sounds emanating from the walls.
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  Speaker 1: The noises, which sounded like a cross between a baby's
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  Speaker 1: cooing and the squeaks of a rodent, caused them to investigate.
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  Speaker 1: And that's when they were introduced to Geff, a mongoose
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  Speaker 1: from India. And when I say introduced, I mean Geff
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  Speaker 1: introduced himself to them with his voice. Geff explained to
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  Speaker 1: the Irvings that he was a ghost that had taken
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  Speaker 1: the form of a mongoose. Rather than shoo him away
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  Speaker 1: or capture him and invite the press photograph him, the
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  Speaker 1: Irvings instead invited him to stay with them. He guarded
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  Speaker 1: the house from intruders and hunted mice that had found
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  Speaker 1: their way inside. He put out the fire at night
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  Speaker 1: after everyone had gone to bed, and acted like the
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  Speaker 1: Irvings alarm clock, waking them up when they slept too late.
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  Speaker 1: The family rewarded Geff with food like chocolates and bananas,
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  Speaker 1: and often brought him with them to the grocery store,
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  Speaker 1: although he usually stayed outside and talked to himself. Eventually
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  Speaker 1: word got around about the Irvings chatty house guest, and
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  Speaker 1: the papers did come knocking. Everyone wanted a glimpse of
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  Speaker 1: the talking animal. Some allegedly did, claiming that they even
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  Speaker 1: heard him speak, but not Everyone was willing to believe
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  Speaker 1: the family story, though for one, Geff had never been
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  Speaker 1: caught on camera. There were photos of parts of the
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  Speaker 1: house where Geff was supposedly heard, as well as one
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  Speaker 1: of James Irving pointing to a set of pause coming
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  Speaker 1: out of the wall. Any attempts to snap a picture
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  Speaker 1: of the mongoose himself, though, resulted in shapeless blurs captured
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  Speaker 1: on film. And Geff didn't just talk. He made grandiose
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  Speaker 1: claims about his abilities. He said he could split the
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  Speaker 1: atom and read people's minds. He once told the Irvings,
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  Speaker 1: I could kill you all, but I won't. Geff also
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  Speaker 1: had a strong attachment to the family's thirteen year old
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  Speaker 1: daughter Fire. James once tried to pull her bed into
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  Speaker 1: their bedroom, and the mongoose screeched that he would follow
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  Speaker 1: her wherever they moved her. This was seen by some
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  Speaker 1: as evidence that Vary herself had learned to throw her voice,
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  Speaker 1: making it sound as though it was coming from some
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  Speaker 1: small animal in the room when it wasn't naturally. People
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  Speaker 1: wanted proof. There were plenty of stories, for sure, but
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  Speaker 1: very little in the way of actual evidence. The Irvings
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  Speaker 1: allowed photos of footprints and stains on the walls to
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  Speaker 1: be taken. They also provided a first sample for study.
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  Speaker 1: Once everything was analyzed, though it was clear what the
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  Speaker 1: Irvings really had on their hands. A sheep dog, not
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  Speaker 1: a talking sheep dog, just a regular kin sheepdog, their
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  Speaker 1: own named Mona. The fur, the stains, and the footprints
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  Speaker 1: all belonged to her, and the blurry photos they claimed
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  Speaker 1: her of Geff those were of Mona. To just on
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  Speaker 1: the move, and after James died in Margaret and Voirie
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  Speaker 1: sold the house, claiming they left Geff the mongoose behind.
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  Speaker 1: Vary claimed until the day she died in two thousand five,
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  Speaker 1: that Geff had been real. She hadn't made him up,
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  Speaker 1: nor had she performed ventriloquism to fool everyone into thinking
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  Speaker 1: they lived with a talking mongoose. In the years following
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  Speaker 1: their departure from the house, though, psychic investigators and ghost
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  Speaker 1: hunters stayed there for extended periods hoping to hear from
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  Speaker 1: the elusive mongoose. What they discovered, though, were possible explanations
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  Speaker 1: for gifts tiny chatty voice. As it turned out, the
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  Speaker 1: walls of the house had been built with significant airspace
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  Speaker 1: between the wood on the inside and the stone on
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  Speaker 1: the outside. That gap basically turned the walls into eight
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  Speaker 1: big amplifiers, able to carry voices all over the house
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  Speaker 1: without anyone having to shout. As for Geff himself, few
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  Speaker 1: actually believed a talking mongoose had lived with the Irvings.
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  Speaker 1: A member of the International Institute for Psychical Research, theorized
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  Speaker 1: that Geff was nothing more than a creation of James Irving,
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  Speaker 1: a kind of split personality he created to help him
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  Speaker 1: deal with the stresses of daily life. But that's all.
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  Speaker 1: It was just a theory. Even though much of the
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  Speaker 1: physical evidence points to the Irvings dog rather than a
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  Speaker 1: talking mongoose. The fact is that no one knows who
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  Speaker 1: Geff was or where he came from. Was he a
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  Speaker 1: ghost that had taken the form of a small weasel
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  Speaker 1: like creature, or was he a figment of James Irving's imagination.
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  Speaker 1: Whether we discover the truth or not, there's no denying
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  Speaker 1: that the possibilities are very curious. I hope you've enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
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  Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
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  Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
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  Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.