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Ocean Commotion · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:03
  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. Moving to a new place
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  Speaker 1: can be rough. Not only do you have to learn
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  Speaker 1: a new environment, there is also the hassle of finding
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  Speaker 1: someplace to live. Baldassar Forestier learned this the hard way
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  Speaker 1: when he left his home in Italy in nineteen o one.
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  Speaker 1: Baldassar had begun his life in Sicily in eighteen seventy
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  Speaker 1: nine before moving to America at the turn of the century.
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  Speaker 1: He'd had a huge argument with his father about his future.
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  Speaker 1: His father wanted him to stay in Italy and abide
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  Speaker 1: by what he thought was best for him, but Baldassar
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  Speaker 1: had other plans. He wanted to run his own busin
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  Speaker 1: nous build a life for himself halfway across the world.
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  Speaker 1: He defined his father's wishes and set off on his
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  Speaker 1: own for California. He purchased ten acres of farmland in Fresno,
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  Speaker 1: intent on capitalizing on the warm climate by starting his
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  Speaker 1: own citrus empire. As he started planting fruit trees and
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  Speaker 1: cultivating grapevines on his property. However, he noticed two problems
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  Speaker 1: with his new home. First, it was too hot. The
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  Speaker 1: temperatures in Fresno during the summer often reached as high
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  Speaker 1: as one degrees fahrenheit, which made working in the fields
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  Speaker 1: a grueling endeavor for the new farmer. Second, the land
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  Speaker 1: he purchased was worthless. The soil was too hard and
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  Speaker 1: the climate too dry, and not to mention that it
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  Speaker 1: got so cold during the winter that everything died. Nothing
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  Speaker 1: could grow in such a harsh environment, but Baldassarre tried anyway.
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  Speaker 1: All summer, he picked and dug and planted until he
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  Speaker 1: couldn't take the sun's aggressive heat any longer. Except he
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  Speaker 1: couldn't retreat to his farmhouse. Air conditioning didn't exist yet,
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  Speaker 1: so his choices were either to boil in the fields
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  Speaker 1: or boil in the house. Then he remembered something about
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  Speaker 1: his home back in Italy, how cool it was in
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  Speaker 1: the darkened catacombs under the streets. Baldassarre needed some place
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  Speaker 1: to get out of the heat, and the only way
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  Speaker 1: he would get one is if he dug it himself,
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  Speaker 1: which is exactly what he did. He dug himself a
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  Speaker 1: celler on his land, where he could rest in the
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  Speaker 1: shade during the middle of the day and then get
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  Speaker 1: back to work when things cooled down. He loved it.
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  Speaker 1: Ducking underground dropped his surrounding temperature by twenty degrees, and
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  Speaker 1: it gave him an idea. What if he could do
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  Speaker 1: more than rest in his little spot. What if he
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  Speaker 1: could not only beat the heat but also mother nature
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  Speaker 1: at her own game. The farmland above ground may have
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  Speaker 1: been worthless, but citrus had a better chance down where
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  Speaker 1: it was cooler and the fruit could be protected from
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  Speaker 1: things like wind and frost during the winter months. He
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  Speaker 1: dug a little more, and a little more after that.
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  Speaker 1: He even got his brother to help him. Eventually he
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  Speaker 1: was able to carve out a spot big enough to
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  Speaker 1: plant a citrus growth, with clear access to sunlight and rain,
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  Speaker 1: but shielded from animals, human hands, and troublesome weather. And
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  Speaker 1: it worked. Oranges, lemons, grapefruits, and grapes flourished in the cool,
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  Speaker 1: damp environment the foresti Are brothers had dug out. Not
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  Speaker 1: content with having fixed his farming situation, though, Baltazar set
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  Speaker 1: out to fix his living situation as well. He built
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  Speaker 1: himself a new house on the property bigger and properly cooled.
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  Speaker 1: For those sweltering summer months. He crafted new patios and
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  Speaker 1: grottoes in which to relax away from the heat. Winding
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  Speaker 1: hallways connected sixty five rooms, each adorned with custom stone
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  Speaker 1: work and greenery, and he was able to enjoy it
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  Speaker 1: throughout the building process, which took over forty years to complete.
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  Speaker 1: And forty years does sound like a long time to
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  Speaker 1: build a house, but that's because it isn't easy digging
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  Speaker 1: and moving ten acres were of dirt, even with the
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  Speaker 1: help of your own brother. Rather than build his new
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  Speaker 1: home on top of his land, Baldassarre kept digging out
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  Speaker 1: his space away from the heat. He took his love
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  Speaker 1: for the Italian catacombs even further by digging out a
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  Speaker 1: kitchen complete with a wood burning stove, as well as
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  Speaker 1: a bathroom and multiple bedrooms. He turned the citrus grove
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  Speaker 1: into an open courtyard with over twenty varieties of trees,
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  Speaker 1: and they're still growing and producing fruit today. The foresti
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  Speaker 1: are underground gardens are a tourist destination today, maintained by
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  Speaker 1: Baldassare's descendants. The location has even become a popular destination
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  Speaker 1: for weddings. If only Baldassarre had lived long enough to
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  Speaker 1: see what he'd created become so popular. After all, it
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  Speaker 1: was he who said, to make something with a lot
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  Speaker 1: of money, that is easy. But to make something out
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  Speaker 1: of nothing, now, that is something. You might be surprised
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  Speaker 1: to learn that what we know about the ocean pales
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  Speaker 1: in comparison to what we know about space. Even though
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  Speaker 1: over seventy of the Earth is covered by water, we've
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  Speaker 1: only explored roughly five percent of it. A total of
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  Speaker 1: three people have been to the deepest part of the
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  Speaker 1: ocean in the Mariana Trench, while four times that number
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  Speaker 1: have been to the Moon. And given our preoccupation with
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  Speaker 1: life on other planets, it's no wonder we've spent most
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  Speaker 1: of our time and energy focusing on what's above us
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  Speaker 1: instead of what's below us. Just think what might have
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  Speaker 1: happened or not happened, had deep sea fortune hunter Peter
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  Speaker 1: Lindbergh not been focused on the ocean floor. In the
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  Speaker 1: summer of two thousand eleven, Lindbergh and his Ocean X
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  Speaker 1: team were on a mission. They've been scouring the depths
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  Speaker 1: of the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland in search
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  Speaker 1: of sunken ships. The treasurers they were seeking weren't gold
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  Speaker 1: or jewel, as though the wine and other spirits. As
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  Speaker 1: it turns out, alcohol recovered from shipwrecks sells for a
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  Speaker 1: pretty penny. They've been sweeping the area for hours at
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  Speaker 1: two five ft below, but the team's sonar had come
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  Speaker 1: up empty. They couldn't give up, though, not yet, not
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  Speaker 1: with the jackpot awaiting them aboard some sunken wreck, so
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  Speaker 1: they kept at it, watching for any changes on the screen.
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  Speaker 1: When suddenly something appeared. It was big and round, and
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  Speaker 1: it didn't make a lick of sense. The object measured
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  Speaker 1: sixty feet in diameter, and there was a deep track
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  Speaker 1: in the ground behind it. Whatever it was, it had
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  Speaker 1: traveled roughly a thousand feet before coming to a stop.
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  Speaker 1: The divers took their finding public. Nothing they had encountered
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  Speaker 1: at that depth had that shape. It was unnaturally circular,
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  Speaker 1: and its size should have prevented it from moving so
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  Speaker 1: far along the ocean floor. Lindbergh wondered if maybe it
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  Speaker 1: hadn't come from nature. May be it hadn't come from
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  Speaker 1: Earth at all. While geologists have claimed the object is
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  Speaker 1: nothing more than a very large rock formation that hasn't
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  Speaker 1: stopped enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists from speculating about what has
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  Speaker 1: become known as the Baltic Sea anomaly. Tabloids and websites
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  Speaker 1: picked up lindbergh story, immediately taking their cues from him
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  Speaker 1: and reporting the mysterious object as a sunken UFO, and
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  Speaker 1: if that had been the only instance of such an oddity,
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  Speaker 1: the story might have died there. However, what they found
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  Speaker 1: in the Baltic Sea was not the only one of
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  Speaker 1: its kind. Online groups that investigate u s O s
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  Speaker 1: unidentified submersible objects stumbled upon something similar and equally as
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  Speaker 1: strange as Lindbergh's anomaly. USO enthusiasts had been trawling images
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  Speaker 1: of the ocean floor in Google Earth when they too
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  Speaker 1: noticed something disc shaped. This discovery happened to be at
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  Speaker 1: the bottom of the North Atlantic. It measured almost three
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  Speaker 1: miles wide, and there was a forty six mile long
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  Speaker 1: trench behind it. Yep, the objects had also moved again.
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  Speaker 1: Experts were quick to dispel any notions of extraterrestrial activity.
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  Speaker 1: Their story was and will continue to be that the
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  Speaker 1: object is just a large rock of some kind, But
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  Speaker 1: that hasn't been enough to dissuade the hopefuls. These objects
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  Speaker 1: are impossibly circular, so much so that they don't look organic,
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  Speaker 1: and the one in the North Atlantic hasn't shown any
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  Speaker 1: signs of stopping its migration. Why would something so large
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  Speaker 1: and heavy continue to move as far as it has already?
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  Speaker 1: The answer is no one knows for certain, but it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't look like any submarines are planning an expedition anytime soon.
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  Speaker 1: Until then, these underwater anomalies will continue to confound skeptics
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  Speaker 1: and inspire dreamers. There's still a good chance that life
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  Speaker 1: exists beyond our planet. We just don't know where we'll
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  Speaker 1: find it. We'll continue looking among the stars, but we
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  Speaker 1: shouldn't forget that there's a whole world to explore right
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  Speaker 1: here on this rock we call home. Maybe all we
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  Speaker 1: need to do is look a little closer below the surface.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television
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  Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
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  Speaker 1: the world of Lore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.