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Serpentine · 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: Over the years, between this show and my other podcast, Lore,
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  Speaker 1: we've talked about a number of cryptids, miraculous creatures that
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  Speaker 1: made their presence known a handful of times before vanishing
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  Speaker 1: into legend. Some of these creatures have been readily identified.
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  Speaker 1: Others remain in substantial impossible to pin down by either
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  Speaker 1: science or superstition. In August of eighteen seventeen, a pair
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  Speaker 1: of women were walking along the harbor at Cape Ann,
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  Speaker 1: not far from Gloucester, Massachusetts. One of them saw something
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  Speaker 1: strange in the water, and she stopped a stare. There
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  Speaker 1: seemed to be a great creature moving through the water,
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  Speaker 1: not a fish or a trap shark, but something more
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  Speaker 1: like an enormous life serpent. When they told their neighbors
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  Speaker 1: what they had seen, it was dismissed out of hand
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  Speaker 1: as a fanciful tail. They'd both let their imaginations get
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  Speaker 1: the best of them. But four days later, near ten
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  Speaker 1: Pound Island, it appeared again. This time, it was a
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  Speaker 1: sailor named amos' Story who saw it between twelve and
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  Speaker 1: one o'clock. He described it as a sleek creature with
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  Speaker 1: a head like a sea turtle. By the third sighting,
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  Speaker 1: the creature was starting to attract a frenzy of local attention.
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  Speaker 1: Scores of men and women sighted it from shore. It
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  Speaker 1: must have been at least forty feet long, they said,
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  Speaker 1: maybe as long as fifty, with a sharp horn protruding
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  Speaker 1: from its head. Four boats took to the water, aiming
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  Speaker 1: to catch the strange creature. One of the ships came
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  Speaker 1: close and the carpenter aboard fired at it with his musket,
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  Speaker 1: even though it was almost point blank range. He didn't
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  Speaker 1: even leave a scratch on the creature's head, and a
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  Speaker 1: vanish beneath the waves before he could reload. Now, these
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  Speaker 1: sightings seemed to lend credence to a story the local
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  Speaker 1: indigenous people had been telling for years about a serpent
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  Speaker 1: that coiled itself around the rocks. This story had been
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  Speaker 1: told as early as sixteen thirty eight, but none of
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  Speaker 1: the settlers had believed it until now. For two whole years,
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  Speaker 1: this creature swam in the local waters near Gloucester, generating
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  Speaker 1: a public frenzy among the locals. However, no one was
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  Speaker 1: ever able to catch it. At one point they thought
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  Speaker 1: that one of its spawn had washed ashore, but it
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  Speaker 1: was only a beached sea snake. Enthusiasm started to weighing
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  Speaker 1: when they realized they hadn't caught the fabled sea monster,
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  Speaker 1: but not before the events of eighteen seventeen to eighteen
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  Speaker 1: nineteen were dramatized for this stage in a play called
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  Speaker 1: The Sea Serpent or a Gloucester Hoax. It's the plays
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  Speaker 1: telling of the events. The Sea Serpent's identity as a
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  Speaker 1: deliberate anti climax, not a monster, but a mackerel that
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  Speaker 1: had been misidentified by an eager public. Reality, however, would
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  Speaker 1: not be so clear cut. In the century since the
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  Speaker 1: creature's first appearance, the so called Gloucester Sea Serpent became
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  Speaker 1: a mascot of sorts in the area. Sightings of the
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  Speaker 1: creature continued into the twenty first century, although photographs would
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  Speaker 1: be scarce. Instead, local artists would depict the creature in murals, paintings,
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  Speaker 1: and statues. In the modern day, skeptics of the mythology
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  Speaker 1: went through all the accounts of the time and came
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  Speaker 1: to an entirely different conclusion about what the people of
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  Speaker 1: Gloucester had seen. They had witnessed not a sea monster
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  Speaker 1: out of a Jules Vern story, but something that had
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  Speaker 1: yet to be fully understood by the colonists of the day.
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  Speaker 1: They had seen a narwhale. It's not quite a serpent,
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  Speaker 1: of course, as described by those contemporaneous accounts, but a
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  Speaker 1: narwhal would match the coloring, the general shape, and characteristics
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  Speaker 1: of the creature that these seventeenth century Gloucester residents witnessed,
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  Speaker 1: particularly the long horn protruding from its head, which is
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  Speaker 1: described variously as a sting or a spear. Another characteristic
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  Speaker 1: that is ascribed to the Gloucester sea serpent is its
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  Speaker 1: ability to dive sharply into the water without any visible
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  Speaker 1: contortion of its body. The fast deep diving is something
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  Speaker 1: that nar walls are extremely capable of doing, swimming fast
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  Speaker 1: and able to disappear in a heartbeat under the surface
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  Speaker 1: of the water. Our imagination is a powerful thing. It
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  Speaker 1: can transform an unusual sea creature into something otherworldly. The
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  Speaker 1: ocean as ever, provides us with the opportunity to imagine
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  Speaker 1: infinite possibilities just off the shore. Monsters and mermaids and
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  Speaker 1: sea serpents. Nar walls are mostly relegated to Arctic waters
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  Speaker 1: near Canada and Greenland, but it is not impossible for
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  Speaker 1: one to have gotten lost and swim south. Whatever brought
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  Speaker 1: this unlucky creature to Massachusetts, we may never know, but
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  Speaker 1: it lives on in the memory of the people of
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  Speaker 1: Gloucester forever, and that is curious enough for me. Liechtenstein
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  Speaker 1: is a tiny country, at just sixty two square miles
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  Speaker 1: with a population of just over forty thousand people. It
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  Speaker 1: is the sixth smallest country in the world, with a
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  Speaker 1: smaller area and population than the size of Cleveland, Ohio.
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  Speaker 1: It is not surprising that Liechtenstein no longer feels it
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  Speaker 1: needs a standing army. In fact, they haven't needed one
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  Speaker 1: for over one hundred and fifty years. But the very
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  Speaker 1: last time Liechtenstein marched a war, something amazing happened. The
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  Speaker 1: country actually grew. In eighteen sixty six, the region around
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  Speaker 1: Liechtenstein was embroiled in the Austro Prussian War. Liechtenstein and
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  Speaker 1: several other small kingdoms were part of something called the
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  Speaker 1: German Confederation. This was an organization of mostly German speaking
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  Speaker 1: states ruched across what today would be most of Central Europe.
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  Speaker 1: The German Confederation had existed for a few decades, but
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  Speaker 1: now Prussia, a powerful kingdom in modern day northern Poland,
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  Speaker 1: had allied with Italy to overthrow it. Fighting against them
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  Speaker 1: were a few other states and the Austrian Empire. Now
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  Speaker 1: technically speaking, Liechtenstein was in neutral, but they retained close
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  Speaker 1: ties to Austria. So when Austria requested back up, Liechtenstein
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  Speaker 1: sent all the forces they could muster just eighty soldiers
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  Speaker 1: to guard a place called Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy.
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  Speaker 1: The Liechtenstein soldiers were supposedly there to fight off any
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  Speaker 1: attacks from Prussians or Italians, but by all accounts they
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  Speaker 1: didn't have much to do when no opposing army was forthcoming.
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  Speaker 1: They spent most of their days drinking wine, smoking tobacco,
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  Speaker 1: and looking out at the beautiful mountains that surrounded the pass. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: there are a lot of worse places to be stationed
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  Speaker 1: than the Italian Alps, for sure. The war did it
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  Speaker 1: last very long, In fact, it was over in just
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  Speaker 1: about six weeks, so when the liechtenstein S got the
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  Speaker 1: call that peace had been declared, they reluctantly rose to
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  Speaker 1: their feet and left their Italian alpine vacation behind. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't until the soldiers returned back to the border that
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  Speaker 1: the officers noticed something odd. They had set out for
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  Speaker 1: Italy with eighty soldiers, but now they were returning with
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  Speaker 1: eighty one. So who was this mysterious new recruit on
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  Speaker 1: this well, accounts differ now. Some claim that the new
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  Speaker 1: immigrant was an Austrian officer who enjoyed the company of
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  Speaker 1: the Liechtensteiners, and when they headed back home, he decided
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  Speaker 1: it was time for a fresh change of pace and
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  Speaker 1: he joined them. Others say the addition was an Italian defector,
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  Speaker 1: or perhaps just a farmer from near the pass. Either way,
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  Speaker 1: he followed the troops home in search of work after
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  Speaker 1: the war. Whatever the true story might be, the second
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  Speaker 1: that man crossed over the border, Liechtenstein's tiny population actually
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  Speaker 1: got a boost, which is pretty unusual for a war.
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  Speaker 1: Their minuscule army was disbanded just two years later in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen six s eight. Small as the army was, it
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  Speaker 1: was just too expensive to keep up. After that, Liechtenstein
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  Speaker 1: declared an official position of neutrality, which it kept through
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  Speaker 1: both World Wars, although it did ban the Nazi Party
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen forty three, which any smart country would have
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  Speaker 1: done today. Liechtenstein is a tiny country nestled between Austria
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  Speaker 1: and Switzerland. Like the Swiss, the country made itself a
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  Speaker 1: tax haven in the late twentieth century. The companies it
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  Speaker 1: attracted in the past few decades have made it one
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  Speaker 1: of the wealthiest monarchies in the world. And I'm sure
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  Speaker 1: the Liechtensteiners have more than enough money to fund an
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  Speaker 1: army these days. Whether they can feel it, well, that's
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  Speaker 1: another story. Unless they start counting corporations as people. They
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  Speaker 1: don't even have enough to fill Yankee Stadium. So perhaps
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  Speaker 1: it's time to send another expedition to the Alps. After all,
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  Speaker 1: Who knows what they might come back with this time.
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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 I for free on Apple Podcasts, or
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  Speaker 1: learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey 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 Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.