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Dear Diary · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. A journal is a sacred thing. It holds
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  Speaker 1: our deepest dark it's secrets. It doesn't judge us, it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't betray our trust, and it doesn't hold a grudge.
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  Speaker 1: A journal or a diary can be our best friend,
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  Speaker 1: as long as it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.
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  Speaker 1: That is. During the nineteen fifties, enormous husband had encouraged
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  Speaker 1: her to keep a diary of her own. She was
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  Speaker 1: a bit of a social butterfly, often attend lavish parties
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  Speaker 1: and meeting fun and interesting people. He thought it would
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  Speaker 1: be good to save those stories for posterity, so Norma
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  Speaker 1: started writing down her encounters. Except unlike most people who
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  Speaker 1: kept their private thoughts hidden from the rest of the world,
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  Speaker 1: Norma had no qualms about sharing hers with almost everyone
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  Speaker 1: she met. A close friend of hers named Robert claimed
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  Speaker 1: to have seen the diary for himself. He wrote about
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  Speaker 1: his time with Norma and the thing she'd allegedly written about. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: days after he'd caught a glimpse of it, she died.
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  Speaker 1: Ever since then, the circumstances surrounding her death had been
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  Speaker 1: discussed and debated. Was it an accident or was it
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  Speaker 1: foul play? Robert wanted to learn more, and he thought
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  Speaker 1: the diary would have been a great place to start,
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  Speaker 1: But it was gone. It had been full of anecdotes
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  Speaker 1: about the people in her inner circle. Politicians, athletes, and
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  Speaker 1: celebrities of the time had all graced its pages, some
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  Speaker 1: more than once. In fact, rumor had it that her
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  Speaker 1: dealings with a pair of brothers were what did her in,
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  Speaker 1: and the diary the CIA made sure no one ever
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  Speaker 1: saw it again. The Norma I'm referring to is none
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  Speaker 1: other than Norma Jean Mortenson a k a. Marilyn Monroe.
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  Speaker 1: Maryland's book of Secrets was known as her Red Diary,
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  Speaker 1: and between its covers was a lifetime's worth of trouble
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  Speaker 1: for both its author and the men in her life.
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  Speaker 1: Her husband, the legendary baseball player Joe DiMaggio, had suggested
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  Speaker 1: she start the diary as a way to remember all
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  Speaker 1: the amazing actors she worked with in Hollywood. He never
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  Speaker 1: expected her to record state secrets in it. Though Monroe
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  Speaker 1: had been involved with President John F. Kennedy, but rumors
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  Speaker 1: started to circulate that his brother Robert was also tied
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  Speaker 1: to the star. According to certain reports, both men had
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  Speaker 1: decided to cut ties with her, and she threatened to
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  Speaker 1: go public with their affairs. Of course, they couldn't let
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  Speaker 1: that happen. On top of that, Monroe had recorded details
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  Speaker 1: about a White House plot to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro,
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  Speaker 1: which she had learned about from JFK himself, Kennedy's though
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  Speaker 1: We're only the tip of the iceberg. In the days
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  Speaker 1: and weeks leading up to her deaf Monroe was being
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  Speaker 1: monitored by the CIA, the FBI, and even the mob.
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  Speaker 1: They had all tapped her phone lines and bugged her
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  Speaker 1: house in an effort to learn what she knew. But
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  Speaker 1: the key details were in her diary, including state secrets,
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  Speaker 1: pillow talk, and a lot of information that could have
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  Speaker 1: put the country in jeopardy had it ever gotten out.
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  Speaker 1: Mobster Sam Giancara saw the diary as a way to
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  Speaker 1: blackmail JFK and his brother Robert. Some people thought he
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  Speaker 1: had killed Marilyn Monroe just to get it. Others still
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  Speaker 1: held to the idea that it had been Robert Kennedy
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  Speaker 1: who gave her the drugs that inevitably took her life.
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  Speaker 1: You see, Peter Lawford of rat Pack fame had planned
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  Speaker 1: on visiting Monroe along with Kennedy the day she died.
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  Speaker 1: They were going to have her fake a suicide to
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  Speaker 1: get back in the news, which would have enticed twentieth
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  Speaker 1: century Fox to rehire her. Except something went wrong. The
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  Speaker 1: FBI knew about it. They've been listening the whole time.
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  Speaker 1: By the time the authority showed up to estigate her death,
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  Speaker 1: the diary was gone. So the natural question is who
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  Speaker 1: took it? Did Robert Kennedy take the diary? It's possible.
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  Speaker 1: It's also possible that the CIA finally got ahold of
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  Speaker 1: it and burned it to erase any potential threats to
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  Speaker 1: national security. Much like the story surrounding Monroe's death, we
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  Speaker 1: may never know the truth about the Red Diary. Any
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  Speaker 1: proof went up in smoke a long time ago. Mascots
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  Speaker 1: aren't just limited to high schools and colleges, towns and
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  Speaker 1: cities all over the world have claimed fun and fascinating
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  Speaker 1: creatures as their animal representatives. In a town in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 1: for example, a sheep that had disappeared for six years
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  Speaker 1: was found hiding in a cave. Its wool had grown
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  Speaker 1: so thick and mangy the wily animal had picked up
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  Speaker 1: the nickname Shrek. Shrek was eventually caught and sheared on
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  Speaker 1: live television. Sixty pounds of wool were auctioned off to
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  Speaker 1: raise money for local charities, and Shrek became the town's
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  Speaker 1: on official mascots. But not all animals get such a warm,
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  Speaker 1: exciting welcome, though. In one town in Wisconsin, a certain
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  Speaker 1: beast has been both honored and feared for over one
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  Speaker 1: twenty five years. The town of Rhinelander, Wisconsin, had grown
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  Speaker 1: since a new railroad had turned it into a bustling
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  Speaker 1: hub of industry in two Ten years later, lumberjacks in
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  Speaker 1: the area started telling stories about a strange creature prowling
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  Speaker 1: the north Woods. They had the head of a frog
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  Speaker 1: with horns coming out the side. It also bore the
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  Speaker 1: face of an elephant, short stubby legs with enormous claws,
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  Speaker 1: the back of a dinosaur and a long, spear like tail.
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  Speaker 1: They called it the ho Dag. Its diet was made
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  Speaker 1: up of snakes, turtles, fish, and the occasional white bulldog.
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  Speaker 1: Though few had spotted it up till then, it was
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  Speaker 1: Eugene Shepherd who was credited with its discovery. Shepherd and
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  Speaker 1: a posse of local hunters banded together and headed into
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  Speaker 1: the woods. Armed with poisoned water, they tried unsuccessfully to
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  Speaker 1: take down the creature. Whatever poison they'd mixed together hadn't worked,
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  Speaker 1: it seems, so they turned to the next best thing, dynamite.
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  Speaker 1: As you'd imagine, that did the trick. The hodag was destroyed.
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  Speaker 1: The Wisconsin woods were quiet for the next few years
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  Speaker 1: until Shepherd showed up again, this time claiming to have
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  Speaker 1: captured a live hodag. He hadn't done it alone, though.
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  Speaker 1: Instead of hunters, Shepherd took a few bear wrestlers with
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  Speaker 1: him for assistance. They poured chloroform over the end of
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  Speaker 1: a long pole and stuck it inside the opening of
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  Speaker 1: a cave where the hodag was believed to be hiding.
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  Speaker 1: The fumes filled the cave, overpowering the hoodag until it collapsed.
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  Speaker 1: Shepherd and the wrestlers dragged it out and put it
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  Speaker 1: in a cage to be toured throughout the state. And
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  Speaker 1: the Hoodag was a gruesome looking creature, and it knew
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  Speaker 1: it too. It often cried about terrible appearance and it's
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  Speaker 1: rotten smell, which had been described as that of dead
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  Speaker 1: buzzards and skunks. Shepherd visited county fairs where he invited
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  Speaker 1: spectators into his tent to see it for themselves. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: they'd approached the cage and the Hodag would growl or
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  Speaker 1: lunge at them, sending them screaming back into the crowd.
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  Speaker 1: When he wasn't on tour, he allowed people to see
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  Speaker 1: the Hodag at his home, where it would inevitably elicit
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  Speaker 1: the same result. News of the creatures spread to the
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  Speaker 1: local newspapers before winding around Wisconsin and eventually the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the country. When representatives from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
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  Speaker 1: d c. Paid Shepherd a visit, the Rhinelander native knew
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  Speaker 1: the jig was up. It was time to tell the truth.
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  Speaker 1: The Hodag he'd taken to county fairs and displayed in
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  Speaker 1: his house hadn't been caught in the woods. It had
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  Speaker 1: been made fabricated out of wood and leather. He hooked
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  Speaker 1: it up to wires, which he would pull to make
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  Speaker 1: the creature move. However, just because one Hodag was fake
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  Speaker 1: didn't mean that it had an existed at all, at
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  Speaker 1: least not to Shepherd's fellow rhine Landers. Years later, the
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  Speaker 1: town adopted the Hodag as its official mascot, and so
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  Speaker 1: did the local high school. The story is about the
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  Speaker 1: mythical beast still circulate today. Anytime a fish is stolen
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  Speaker 1: off the end of someone's line, or a golf ball
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  Speaker 1: goes missing, rhine Landers claim it was the work of
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  Speaker 1: the Hodag, a creature whose legend has taken on a
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  Speaker 1: life of its own. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: 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 Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.