Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Down the Drain

Transcript

Down the Drain · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. John was a young
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: minister at his local church. He believed in miracles, that
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: much was certain, even so having one appear inside his
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: bathroom was a bit too much. John lenn was the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: leader of the folk over at St. Mark's Church in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, a little town in the mountains south
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: of Scranton. Life was simple and maybe even idyllic, so
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: it was hard for him to expect anything other than
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the ordinary. But that's the trouble with assuming, isn't it.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: One summer day ninety eight, a storm blew into the area.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Not one of those gray clouds and rain sort of storms,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: but the kind that drift in low and black with
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: a rumble that seems to shake the very earth you're
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: standing on. You'll know one when you see it, because
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the clouds will resemble a cauldron of black, magic and chaos.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: From the windows of his home there in town, John
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: could see darkness descend in the middle of the day,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: punctuated every few moments by great flashes of lightning. To
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: a god fearing man, it was a powerful display of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: God's majesty. To the people rushing to bring their kids
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: inside and close their windows, it was just annoying. At
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: some point during the storm, John stepped into the bathroom.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: He was standing in front of the sink when something
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: caught his attention. Just outside the window was a ball
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of light, roughly the size of a grapefruit. He later
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: described the color as something like old sodium arc lights
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: that lined so many streets in America, yellow, weak and flickering.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: A bit even before the sight of it fully registered
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: with him, the ball of light was already moving. It
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: slipped through the screen of his window and floated softly
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: to his bathroom floor. After a brief pause, the ball
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: began to roll around his feet in a circle and
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: spiraled up as it went. John panicked and stepped backwards,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: getting out of the light's way, and then watched as
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: it reached the lip of the porcelain sink and fell inside.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: When he stepped closer to inspect it, the ball of
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: light was gone, but it had left evidence of its passing.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: The metal chain that connected the rubber stopper to the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: sink had been melted clean through nothing else had been damaged,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: though I realized this is a difficult story to believe.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Most of the accounts I've read referred to the thing
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that floated into John's window as ball lightning, but that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: doesn't make it any easier to swallow. It just gives
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the bizarre event a name. But it gets weirder than that,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: it turns out. A few weeks after his unusual bathroom experience,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the Good Reverend was visited by another black summer storm.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Perhaps out of curiosity and maybe just because he needed
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to pee, John paid the bathroom yet another visit, and
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: while he was in there, a ball lightning made its
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: repeat visit. This one, he later claimed, circled his feet
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: before bouncing to the edge of the bathtub, and then
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: toppled in. When he glanced inside, he saw exactly what
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: he'd been expecting. The rubber stopper had been severed from
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the tub, just as it had inside the sinc weeks before,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the metal chain laying in pieces around the drain. The
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: ball of light, though it was nowhere to be found.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I wish this was one of those objects we could
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: capture and store in a glass jar, just like a
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: collector might display a fine mineral specimen or a butterfly.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: But there's nothing left for us to hold onto. No
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: flickering yell glow, no bouncing ball of light, nothing but
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a bizarre, unexplainable memory. The proof, according to John, went
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: down the drain. On June, Joseph left his home in
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Cambridge to take a walk through the local market. He
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: was a theologian and scholar who taught at christ College
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: right there in the city, and what better way to
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: wrap up a long Tuesday spent inside than by going
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: out for an early evening stroll. The market was full
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of vendors selling all sorts of necessities, meats and cheeses,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: bread and vegetables. All of it was fresh, and most
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: of it smelled wonderful. All of it except the fish,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: of course, That wasn't surprising though. What was surprising, however,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was the crowd gathered around one of the fishmonger stalls.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Much like you and I, Joseph was a curious person,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: so he veered off his intended path to go and
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: see what had captured the attention of so many people.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: When he arrived and pushed his way to the front
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of the crowd. He found a woman holding a fish
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: knife and standing in front of a recently decapitated fish.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: It was a cod, which is a good sized fish
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: if you've ever seen one, they're typically around forty inches
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: long and way upwards of two hundred pounds. But the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: only thing fascinating about this dead fish was the bundle
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: of cloth sitting beside it on the stall work table.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: The crowd was muttering excitedly, and from all the whispers,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Joseph was able to piece together the story. This bundle,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: it seems, had been found inside the fish. It was small,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: maybe four by six inches, and it was wrapped in
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: slimy sailcloth, but it was a familiar shape to a
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: scholar like Joe of Mead. He reached into his pocket
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and pulled out a coin and then offered it to
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the woman. She hesitated a moment and then completed the transaction.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Back in his study, Joseph unwrapped the bundle and then
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: caught his breath. Inside was a small book, handwritten and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: signed by a man named John Frith. Joseph recognized the
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: man's name. He had been a Protestant minister roughly a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: century earlier, but had been thrown in prison by the
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Inquisition for taking a stand against various Roman Catholic teachings.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Frith spent eight months locked up in a group prison
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: cell inside the Tower of London before being dragged out
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and burned at the stake as a heretic of the church.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: But he didn't waste that time. Instead, he managed to
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: obtain paper and ink so he could write about his
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: views on various topics. Most of those made it out
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: before his death. This book, though, seemed new. I don't
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: have answers for you about how it ends it up
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: wrapped in sailcloth, let alone, inside the belly of a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: large fish. Some sources claim that Frith was held for
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: a short while in a fish seller in Oxford, but
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: I can't find proof of that. He was arrested in London,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: jailed there, and executed there. How the book ended up
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: someplace else is unknown. How it ended up inside a
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: dead cod a century later, well, that one's a mystery.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: We do know how it all ended, though. A year
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: after Joseph unwrapped that slimy little package in his study
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: in Cambridge, the book was finally published. The original cover
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: featured an engraving of a fish, a knife, and a
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: little book, and they gave it the most obvious title
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: they could think of vox pieces, The Voice of the Fish.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.