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A Curious Cabinet · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: It's not easy finding someone who shares our passions. One
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  Speaker 1: person might love playing video games or building model airplanes,
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  Speaker 1: while their partner would rather watch a movie or go
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  Speaker 1: out dancing. But sometimes we get lucky and the people
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  Speaker 1: we spend our lives with become a part of our
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  Speaker 1: passions as well, and in doing so, we get closer
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  Speaker 1: to them and the hobbies that bring us so much joy,
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  Speaker 1: Like Victor Martin. Victor lived in a farmhouse on the
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  Speaker 1: Isle of Shepey, off the northern coast of Kent, England.
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  Speaker 1: He loved trains so much so that in nineteen twenty
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  Speaker 1: three he got a job running Warden Central Station in London.
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  Speaker 1: The station was part of the Midland main Line, which
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  Speaker 1: he also helped build. He would work on it a
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  Speaker 1: little each day with the help of his first wife.
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  Speaker 1: She saw his love for trains and joined him to
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  Speaker 1: construct this pre war line with their own hands. It's
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  Speaker 1: unclear how long it took to complete, since at some
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  Speaker 1: point during the construction their marriage ended. Sometime later, Victor
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  Speaker 1: got remarried to a woman named Louise. Her father had
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  Speaker 1: been a railroad station master at Saint Pancras, so she
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  Speaker 1: was quite familiar with the concept of running a train line,
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  Speaker 1: but building one that was new and still. Together, they
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  Speaker 1: completed their project and pretty soon engines were traveling between
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  Speaker 1: the two stations throughout the day. During the holiday season,
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  Speaker 1: they would even add extra cars to carry the additional
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  Speaker 1: Christmas cards and letters to Santa that filled the mailbags
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  Speaker 1: each year. The line ran between Saint Pancras and Saint Albans,
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  Speaker 1: a distance of about twenty four miles. This was a
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  Speaker 1: pretty difficult stretch of terrain for two people to build
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  Speaker 1: by themselves, but they didn't mind. They only needed about
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  Speaker 1: a miles worth of track anyway. Plus it helped that
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  Speaker 1: all of the people, trees, livestock, and even the sky
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  Speaker 1: were fake because this train line, with its five hundred
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  Speaker 1: engines and cars, was only a scale model.
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  Speaker 2: You see, Victor and his first wife had started building
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  Speaker 2: it in the shed behind his house in the early
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  Speaker 2: nineteen twenties. It was an exact replica of the Midland
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  Speaker 2: main Line between Saint Pancras and Saint Alban stations as
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  Speaker 2: it existed back in the nineteen thirties. But they didn't
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  Speaker 2: stop at constructing a lifelike facsimile. They also treated it
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  Speaker 2: like a real train station. On the property was a signal,
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  Speaker 2: a crossing gates, and even a platform, all of which
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  Speaker 2: were full sized. Inside this shed was an elaborate control room,
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  Speaker 2: like one that you might see managing the actual train lines.
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  Speaker 2: Both Louise and Victor had their own signal boxes, complete
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  Speaker 2: with dials, switches and light up boards to indicate where
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  Speaker 2: on the tracks the trains were at all times. This
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  Speaker 2: was necessary because eventually the model outgrew the shed. Victor
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  Speaker 2: and Louise were only able to see the trains when
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  Speaker 2: they passed by their signal boxes in the tiny building.
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  Speaker 2: Outside were yards of track and tunnels that stretched across
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  Speaker 2: their half acre of land. To the couple, though these
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  Speaker 2: trains weren't heading through grass and past the trees in
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  Speaker 2: their garden. They were zooming through Leicester and Manchester, collecting
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  Speaker 2: passengers and hauling freight to complete the effect of running
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  Speaker 2: an actual train line. Victor and Louise would wake up
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  Speaker 2: every morning, don their uniforms and tend to their duties
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  Speaker 2: as station masters of their model system for hours at
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  Speaker 2: a time. Their schedule adhere to the same timetable used
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  Speaker 2: by the Saint Pancras station before World War Two. They
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  Speaker 2: also made sure to keep up to date with current events.
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  Speaker 2: When the docks would strike, they would add more freight
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  Speaker 2: cars to haul the additional loads, just as the real
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  Speaker 2: line had done, and they modified it again in nineteen
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  Speaker 2: fifty six. That year, the Egyptian government nationalized the Suez Canal,
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  Speaker 2: ripping it from the grasp of the British and French
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  Speaker 2: company in charge of it. Victor and Louise stayed up
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  Speaker 2: all night running secret troop trains to transport military personnel
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  Speaker 2: as part of the Suez Crisis. If it was happening
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  Speaker 2: in real life, it was happening in victor shed Sadly,
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  Speaker 2: Victor eventually had to reduce his schedule to once a
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  Speaker 2: week after Louise died in nineteen eighty six. With both
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  Speaker 2: of them gone, today, we're unsure of what happened to
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  Speaker 2: the model, but hopefully someone has kept it intact and
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  Speaker 2: is running the trains with the same passion and enthusiasm
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  Speaker 2: as Victor and Louise had done for all those years.
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  Speaker 2: Depending on how old you are, you might or might
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  Speaker 2: not remember the days of the early Internet. I'm talking
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  Speaker 2: twenty years ago, when MySpace was all the rage, Amazon
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  Speaker 2: was just a bookstore, and eBay was the prime destination
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  Speaker 2: for online shopping. Today's story starts on that bidding website.
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  Speaker 2: In two thousand and three, a man named Jason Haxton
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  Speaker 2: hunched over his computer, placing bids on an item he
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  Speaker 2: desperately wanted to win. The price kept climbing, though, and
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  Speaker 2: Jason kept offering more money. He put up two hundred
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  Speaker 2: and eighty dollars and he finally won. A few days later,
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  Speaker 2: a box arrived on Jason's porch. Inside was an antique
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  Speaker 2: Spanish wine cabinet. It was made out of dark wood
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  Speaker 2: and was big enough to fit maybe two or three
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  Speaker 2: bottles of wine. The front had two doors with images
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  Speaker 2: of grapes on them. Below that was a small drawer. Now,
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  Speaker 2: if you're wondering why Jason was so set on buying
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  Speaker 2: this curious cabinet, it's because it came with a mystery attached.
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  Speaker 2: You see, the eBay listing gave clear instructions to whoever
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  Speaker 2: won the auction. It said, in so many words, do
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  Speaker 2: not ever opened this cabinet, And well, curiosity killed the
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  Speaker 2: cat right. The first thing Jason did was open it up.
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  Speaker 2: What he found inside was confusing. There was a goblet,
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  Speaker 2: a few pennies from the nineteen twenties, a dried up rose,
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  Speaker 2: a candlestick holder, a granite statue engraved with letters written
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  Speaker 2: in Hebrew, and last, but certainly not least, two locks
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  Speaker 2: of hair tied together with a string, Which would have
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  Speaker 2: been strange enough, But what happened next is way weirder.
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  Speaker 2: According to Jason, anytime he touched the box, he was
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  Speaker 2: struck with this terrible pain, like a knife going into
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  Speaker 2: his stomach. He began having nightmares about an old woman
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  Speaker 2: trying to hurt him. His eyes became bloodshot, he broke
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  Speaker 2: out in hives. But as scary as those symptoms sound,
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  Speaker 2: Jason wasn't entirely surprised. It turns out something similar had
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  Speaker 2: happened to the person that he bought the wine cabinet from.
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  Speaker 2: The cellar had been very forthright about the box's history.
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  Speaker 2: He'd said that he had originally perched at an estate
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  Speaker 2: sale for a Jewish woman who lived to be one
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  Speaker 2: hundred and three years old. The woman's granddaughter sold him
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  Speaker 2: the box but told him to never ever open it.
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  Speaker 2: But just like Jason, he couldn't help but look inside.
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  Speaker 2: Shortly after opening the box, his hair started falling out,
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  Speaker 2: his home became filled with a terrible odor, insects started
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  Speaker 2: crawling all over his walls. To this guy, only one
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  Speaker 2: explanation made sense. The cabinet was haunted by an evil
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  Speaker 2: spirit and it was wreaking havoc on his life. Naturally,
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  Speaker 2: he didn't want the cabinet in his house anymore, so
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  Speaker 2: he listed it on eBay under the title Diebook Haunted
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  Speaker 2: Jewish wine cabinet box. Now in Jewish folklore, adebook is
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  Speaker 2: a malicious spirit. So the eBay listing literally said that
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  Speaker 2: this item was evil, and Jason bought it anyway. Apparently,
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  Speaker 2: he wanted to see if this supposed haunting was real,
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  Speaker 2: and after suffering his own spate of odd symptoms, he
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  Speaker 2: was very much convinced that it was. He didn't want
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  Speaker 2: to keep the cabinet, but he also so didn't want
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  Speaker 2: to unleash its power on anybody else. So he consulted
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  Speaker 2: with scientists and rabbis, who told him that he should
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  Speaker 2: lock the cabinet in a box lined with gold to
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  Speaker 2: neutralize its effects. Now I know all of this is
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  Speaker 2: beginning to seem pretty far fetched, but Jason claims the
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  Speaker 2: golden box worked. He stopped having nightmares and his hives
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  Speaker 2: went away. Case closed, right well, No, Jason started doing
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  Speaker 2: interviews about his ghostly experience, and next thing he knew,
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  Speaker 2: Hollywood producers were offering to buy the rights to his story.
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  Speaker 2: He agreed, and the Die Book Box saga was adapted
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  Speaker 2: into a twenty twelve horror film called Possession, which is
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  Speaker 2: about a young girl who buys an antique box at
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  Speaker 2: a yard sale then becomes possessed by the evil spirit inside.
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  Speaker 2: At some point, the star of the Ghosted Ventures TV show,
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  Speaker 2: Zach Baggins, caught wind of the creepy cabinet and he
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  Speaker 2: managed to convince Jason to give it to him. Baggins
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  Speaker 2: put the Die Book Box on display at his Haunted
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  Speaker 2: Museum in Las Vegas in twenty eighteen. He took his friend,
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  Speaker 2: musician Post Malone to the museum to check out the box,
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  Speaker 2: maybe to try to freak him out. Baggins touched the
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  Speaker 2: box and then touched post malone, and you know what
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  Speaker 2: after that, Post became plagued by bad luck. Two tires
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  Speaker 2: on his private jet blew out during takeoff, armed intruders
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  Speaker 2: broke into his house, and he got into a car
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  Speaker 2: crash in his rolls Royce And I know, maybe it's
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  Speaker 2: all a coincidence, or some story drummed up for fame
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  Speaker 2: and fortune, or perhaps that weird wine cabinet really does
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  Speaker 2: have some kind of supernatural power. Either way, if you
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  Speaker 2: happen to find yourself in its presence, I would suggest
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  Speaker 2: you avoid opening it and trying to find out for yourself.
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  Speaker 2: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 2: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 2: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 2: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 2: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 2: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 2: and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore
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  Speaker 2: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.