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Space Case · 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 are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the cabinet of curiosities. All of us have
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  Speaker 1: days we don't quite feel like ourselves. We wake up
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  Speaker 1: on the wrong side of the bed, we miss that
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  Speaker 1: early morning latte to get ourselves going, or we notice
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  Speaker 1: something is just off. It doesn't take much for one
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  Speaker 1: little thing to throw our whole world off balance. However,
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  Speaker 1: in one man's case, something had been wrong for some time.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't quite feel right on two worlds. Kirk Allen
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  Speaker 1: first showed up on doctor Lindner's Baltimore doorstep in the
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  Speaker 1: mid nineteen forties. Another physician in a governmental research facility
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  Speaker 1: across the country had asked doctor Lindner to provide a
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  Speaker 1: second opinion on his patient. Mister Allen didn't have a
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  Speaker 1: deadly disease or anything like that, but his symptoms were unique.
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  Speaker 1: The physician just wanted to make sure the man didn't
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  Speaker 1: pose a threat to himself or to his colleagues. Kirk
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  Speaker 1: Allen had had no outbursts or incidents while employed at
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  Speaker 1: the research station, He got along just fine with his coworkers,
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  Speaker 1: and no one questioned the quality of his work. However,
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  Speaker 1: the people around him were worried. You see, Kirk Allen
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  Speaker 1: believed he had two homes. I don't mean two houses
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  Speaker 1: in different cities. He believed he spent half of his
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  Speaker 1: time on Earth and the other half on another planet.
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  Speaker 1: He spoke matter of factly about it, as though it
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  Speaker 1: were perfectly normal. For him. In a way, the other
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  Speaker 1: planet was a means of escape. He'd been born in
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  Speaker 1: Hawaii to a wealthy diplomat father. His mother, a native Hawaiian,
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  Speaker 1: spent most of her day's working and almost never with her.
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  Speaker 1: With both parents absent, Kirk spent his formative years in
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  Speaker 1: the care of nurses and governesses. The governesses were tasked
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  Speaker 1: with educating him, which proved difficult as Kirk had an
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  Speaker 1: unquenchable curiosity and a passion for learning. He'd loved to read,
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  Speaker 1: and his teachers had trouble keeping up, and one governess
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  Speaker 1: was so obsessed with cleanliness she instilled in the young
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  Speaker 1: Kirk a debilitating fear of germs from the very environment
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  Speaker 1: and people he'd grown up around. When she left, another
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  Speaker 1: governess entered his life. By then, he'd already been living
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  Speaker 1: within two worlds, that of a child with everything he
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  Speaker 1: needed and that of a child who lacked parents in
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  Speaker 1: a real and practical way. Because of that, crossing the
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  Speaker 1: line into adulthood wasn't easy for him, but he still
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  Speaker 1: had his books. When the world was weighing down on
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  Speaker 1: him and he felt like he needed to get away,
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  Speaker 1: he retreated into the pages of fantasy and science fiction stories.
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  Speaker 1: The Wizard of Oz books had been his favorite until
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  Speaker 1: one day when a crate of novels was delivered to
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  Speaker 1: his house. There were religious texts, essay collections, and biographies,
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  Speaker 1: but Kirk found himself drawn to a novel by an
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  Speaker 1: English author. He recognized the main character immediately caught his attention,
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  Speaker 1: as he and Kirk shared the same name. He finished
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  Speaker 1: the book in a single day, and then read it
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  Speaker 1: all over again. He reread it three times before moving
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  Speaker 1: on to another book with a character who bore the
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  Speaker 1: same name, Kirk Allen. The third time he discovered a
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  Speaker 1: main character with the same name as his, he felt nothing,
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  Speaker 1: almost like it had been fated to happen. It had
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  Speaker 1: been These Latest Stories, a series of American science fiction
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  Speaker 1: novels about an earth born man taken to another planet
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  Speaker 1: that captivated him in a way no other books had.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't just become engrossed in the tales. The fourteen
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  Speaker 1: year old Allan truly believed they were about him, an older,
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  Speaker 1: wiser him, biographies of a life he'd lived among the stars.
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  Speaker 1: Every detail, every character the fictional Kirk encountered was instantly
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  Speaker 1: recognizable to the real person. To Kirk, while his physical
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  Speaker 1: body went to work, ate in diners and slept in
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  Speaker 1: the same bed every night, another piece of him was
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  Speaker 1: off having fantastic adventures, battling strange creatures and wooing galactic princesses.
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  Speaker 1: It was as though the author had found out about
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  Speaker 1: the real Kirk Allen and had transcribed his story. And
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  Speaker 1: once he'd ran through all of the volumes of his
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  Speaker 1: quote biography, Kirk began writing his own. Despite his fantastical
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  Speaker 1: other life, reality never got away from him. Kirk earned
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  Speaker 1: a degree and tried to build a normal life for
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  Speaker 1: himself on Earth, but he never forgot about his obsession.
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  Speaker 1: He started filling in the gaps and the stories and
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  Speaker 1: building them out with what he thought were his own memories,
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  Speaker 1: memories that eventually turned into hallucinations. Kirk was told to
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  Speaker 1: seek help or find employment elsewhere, which brings us to
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  Speaker 1: doctor Lindner's office. A good doctor saw only one way
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  Speaker 1: of curing Kirk Allen of his delusions by entertaining them.
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  Speaker 1: He went along with his patient, establishing that his memories
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  Speaker 1: of intergalactic space travel were real. From there, the two
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  Speaker 1: men worked back through his real biography, including all the
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  Speaker 1: neglect and abuse that had brought him to this point.
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  Speaker 1: It was only when Kirk understood why he'd believed the
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  Speaker 1: stories were about him, that he was able to shake
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  Speaker 1: the delusion. There was just one problem. Doctor Lindner had
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  Speaker 1: now become obsessed with Kirk's stories. He found himself daydreaming
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  Speaker 1: and fantasizing, not just about new adventures on distant planets,
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  Speaker 1: but the very idea of allowing one's brain to exist
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  Speaker 1: on another plane of existence while the body languished on Earth.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed a bit of doctor Lindner's patient had rubbed
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  Speaker 1: off on him, though not to the same degree. He
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  Speaker 1: understood that none of it was real, but he wondered
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  Speaker 1: if it could be. Could we be in two places
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  Speaker 1: at once? Could we bear memories of lives unlived? We
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  Speaker 1: may never know, just like we may never know the
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  Speaker 1: real kirk Ellen. Kirk Allen, you see, was a pseudonym
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  Speaker 1: used to protect his identity. The fictional character's name was
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  Speaker 1: also not kirk Allen. Some have theorized the books that
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  Speaker 1: kicked off the man's obsession was the Barsoom series by
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  Speaker 1: Edgar Rice Burrows. To this day, though we still don't
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  Speaker 1: know what his real identity was, which only adds to
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  Speaker 1: the mystery behind the man. What isn't so mysterious is
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  Speaker 1: how what happened to kirk Allen could have happened to anyone.
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  Speaker 1: The books we read have a tendency to affect us
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  Speaker 1: in ways we aren't even aware of at the time.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps the author George R. R. Martin says it best
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  Speaker 1: a reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The
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  Speaker 1: man who never reads lives only one. The fishing boat
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  Speaker 1: known as the High Aim six left a Taiwanese port
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  Speaker 1: in the fall of two thousand and two. Aboard the
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  Speaker 1: vessel where the captain and his first mate and engineer.
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  Speaker 1: They stopped in Indonesia to pick up a crew of
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  Speaker 1: eight other men to assist with their expedition, and then
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  Speaker 1: the ten fishermen set out to sea, their ship filled
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  Speaker 1: with fuel and provisions enough to last the whole trip.
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  Speaker 1: There were no storms that had doomed them to a
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  Speaker 1: watery grave, nor engine failure leaving them stranded in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the ocean. By all accounts, the voyage was
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  Speaker 1: supposed to be a standard fishing outing, like many they
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  Speaker 1: and other ships from the region had been known to make,
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  Speaker 1: which is why it was so odd when Australian naval
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  Speaker 1: officials spotted the High Aim six drifting eighty nautical miles
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  Speaker 1: off their coast. They hailed the ship on the radio,
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  Speaker 1: but only received silence. Something was clearly amiss. Officials boarded
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  Speaker 1: the vessel and found the engine had been running at
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  Speaker 1: full throttle, but the gas tank was empty and the
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  Speaker 1: rudder was locked. The ship couldn't have moved if it
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  Speaker 1: wanted to, so it drifted aimlessly until it was found.
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  Speaker 1: They then searched for signs of distress or struggle, but
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  Speaker 1: found nothing out of the sorts. In fact, it appears
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  Speaker 1: as though nothing had gone wrong at all. A half
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  Speaker 1: empty pack of cigarettes rested above the helm, seven toothbrushes
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  Speaker 1: were found in the living quarters, and the refrigerator was
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  Speaker 1: fully stocked, oh and over three tons of rotting tuna
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  Speaker 1: and mackerel sap below stinking up the hold. The ship
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  Speaker 1: was ultimately towed to Australia's western coast for an investigation
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  Speaker 1: as to what had happened. There was just one problem.
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  Speaker 1: Investigators couldn't interview a single crew member about what had happened.
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  Speaker 1: The vessel had been empty when they found it. All
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  Speaker 1: ten of them were assumed dead. It seemed Australia had
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  Speaker 1: a real life ghost ship on its hands. There was
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  Speaker 1: one survivor. One of the Indonesian crew members had made
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  Speaker 1: it off the ship safely and was arrested shortly after
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  Speaker 1: the High aimsix's discovery. According to his story, the captain
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  Speaker 1: and the engineer had been murdered. Though he didn't know
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  Speaker 1: what had caused the mutiny or where the rest of
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  Speaker 1: his crew mates had gone, he assumed they'd hitched a
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  Speaker 1: ride back to their homeland. That tall tale didn't sit
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  Speaker 1: well with police, however, they'd noticed nothing of value had
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  Speaker 1: been taken from the ship and not a single trace
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  Speaker 1: of blood could be found, and all the other crew
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  Speaker 1: members had disappeared. There was no sign of them back
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  Speaker 1: in Indonesia. Australian police and naval authorities searched the water
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  Speaker 1: for any signs of the captain, the engineer or the crew,
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  Speaker 1: but came up empty. It was as if they'd disappeared
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  Speaker 1: into thin air. When investigators checked the call logs on
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  Speaker 1: mobile phones belonging to the captain and the engineer, they
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  Speaker 1: noticed something even more bizarre, a series of calls made
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  Speaker 1: from the engineer's phone to his daughter folloween his disappearance.
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  Speaker 1: When she picked up, she said she heard sounds from
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  Speaker 1: a karaoke bar in the background. The call had been
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  Speaker 1: traced back to the Philippines. She feared that her father
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  Speaker 1: had not been murdered, but kidnapped and held by the
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  Speaker 1: Indonesian crew, though no ransom demand was ever made. Similar
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  Speaker 1: calls were made from the captain's phone around the same time,
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  Speaker 1: only his came from the island of Bali. Had the
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  Speaker 1: crew really murdered the captain and his first mate, as
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  Speaker 1: the survivor claimed, or had they taken the two men
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  Speaker 1: hostage and let the ship float away. The Australian police
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  Speaker 1: and Navy still don't have any answers, and the fate
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  Speaker 1: of the men involved is still unknown. The idea of
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  Speaker 1: pirates isn't entirely out of the question. Piracy and all
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  Speaker 1: that comes with it, including murder and kidnapping, are still
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  Speaker 1: a large problem for cargo ships and fishing vessels in
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  Speaker 1: many parts of the world. We may never know what
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  Speaker 1: happened to the nine other men aboard the High Aim
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  Speaker 1: Six or where might be today. All we know is
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  Speaker 1: at a certain point the authorities stopped looking and assumed
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  Speaker 1: that they were dead. It seems that they bought the
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  Speaker 1: survivor's story bookline and sinker. I hope you've enjoyed today's
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  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
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  Speaker 1: me Aaron Mank in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
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  Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Loore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.