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Up in Smoke · 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 are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Don worked as a
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: meter reader for the gas company in a small Pennsylvania
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  Speaker 1: town in the mid nineteen sixties. It was one of
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  Speaker 1: those idyllic jobs you imagine seeing in old black and
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  Speaker 1: white television shows like Leave It to Beaver. He would
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  Speaker 1: show up each morning, bright and early in his smart,
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  Speaker 1: tidy uniform and begin walking through town and knocking on doors.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, it was December when this story took place,
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  Speaker 1: so I imagine it was slightly less idyllic with all
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  Speaker 1: the snow and ice around. But still Don got to
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  Speaker 1: spend time outside in the unshine and fresh air. Well
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  Speaker 1: most of the time, he still had to step inside
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  Speaker 1: the homes to read the meters. On September five, his
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  Speaker 1: first stop was at the home of a retired doctor
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  Speaker 1: named John Bentley. Dr John was two years old, so
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  Speaker 1: Don made it a point to check on the man
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  Speaker 1: each month and see how he was doing. But when
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  Speaker 1: he knocked on the door on December five, no one
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  Speaker 1: answered it was, however, unlocked, which was very unusual. Don
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  Speaker 1: stepped in out of the cold and called out for
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  Speaker 1: Dr John, but no one answered. Assuming the older man
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  Speaker 1: was out for the morning, Don descended the stairs to
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  Speaker 1: the basement and headed towards the gas meter. On his
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  Speaker 1: way across the basement floor, though he encountered something odd.
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  Speaker 1: It was a pile of ash. Don later described it
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  Speaker 1: as a circle of dark powder about a foot in diameter,
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  Speaker 1: standing maybe five inches high. He gently kicked the toe
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  Speaker 1: of his shoe into the ash, which scattered a bit,
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  Speaker 1: but then moved on to the meter. When he had
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  Speaker 1: recorded the number on his pad of paper, he headed
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  Speaker 1: back upstairs, and that's when he noticed the smoke. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't thick, but the sunlight coming in one of the
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  Speaker 1: living room windows highlighted a few wisps of smoke that
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  Speaker 1: still hung in the air. More concerned now, Don began
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  Speaker 1: to shout for doctor John and walk across the house,
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  Speaker 1: checking all of the rooms for signs of a fire.
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  Speaker 1: That search eventually led him to the downstairs bathroom and
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  Speaker 1: a bizarre, unsettling scene. It was a human leg laying
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  Speaker 1: beside a large charred hole in the bathroom floor. Dr
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  Speaker 1: John's old metal walker had partially fallen in the hole
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  Speaker 1: and was leaning against the bathtub where a tattered robe
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  Speaker 1: had been thrown. Stepping in and peering down the hole,
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  Speaker 1: Don was surprised to see the pile of ash on
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  Speaker 1: the basement floor, his toe marks still visible in the
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  Speaker 1: gray surface. The coroner would later try to put the
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  Speaker 1: pieces together. No pun intended, of course, because there was
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  Speaker 1: only one leg. They searched the house for signs of
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  Speaker 1: foul play, but found nothing out of the ordinary. They
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  Speaker 1: tossed around theories about Dr John lighting his pipe and
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  Speaker 1: catching himself on fire, but there were no signs of
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  Speaker 1: burns anywhere in the house except for the bathroom floor
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  Speaker 1: where his walker had been found. And that was the
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  Speaker 1: oddest thing about it. All the plastic parts on Dr
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  Speaker 1: John's walkers were still intact, as if the fire had
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  Speaker 1: somehow limited itself to a very small space. So small
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  Speaker 1: the coroner suggested that when the victim's leg fell out
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  Speaker 1: of the blaze, it failed to burn up. There was
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  Speaker 1: even a shiny black loafer still fitted to the foot,
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  Speaker 1: untouched by fire. When it was all said and done,
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  Speaker 1: the authorities simply had no way of explaining what had
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  Speaker 1: happened to poor old doctor John Bentley without clear evidence
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  Speaker 1: to point out. His cause of death was officially listed
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  Speaker 1: as as fixiation and burning, which honestly sounds more like
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  Speaker 1: a description of the results rather than an explanation for
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  Speaker 1: the cause. Some, however, think that Dr John's death is
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  Speaker 1: a rare example of something almost supernatural, spontaneous human combustion.
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  Speaker 1: Was his death really the result of some unnatural internal
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  Speaker 1: fire or was he simply the victim of an accident
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  Speaker 1: to that left no evidence for people to find that?
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  Speaker 1: Of course, is the burning question, isn't it. Francis had
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  Speaker 1: found himself in possession of an abundance of free time.
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  Speaker 1: It's a long story that I honestly don't want to
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  Speaker 1: get into here, but let's just say that he had
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  Speaker 1: been worked king in one field for most of his life,
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  Speaker 1: but a mistake at the age of sixty five earned
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  Speaker 1: him some prison time, a hefty fine, and permanent expulsion
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  Speaker 1: from the industry he loved. So there he was in
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  Speaker 1: March of six with not much else to occupy his time.
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  Speaker 1: As the story goes, he was writing in his carriage
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  Speaker 1: through the snow covered streets of the village of Highgates,
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  Speaker 1: now a suburb located to the north of London when
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: he called for his driver to stop near Pond Square,
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  Speaker 1: and idea had fallen out of the air and struck
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  Speaker 1: him metaphorically. Of course, he had been watching other carriages
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  Speaker 1: passed by and noticed how their wheels pulled up the
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  Speaker 1: snow to reveal the grass beneath. What struck him as
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  Speaker 1: odd thought was that the grass was always perfectly green,
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  Speaker 1: rather than dead and yellow, and it occurred to him
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  Speaker 1: that maybe the snow had something to do with that.
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  Speaker 1: Francis climbed out of the carriage into the damp, cold
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  Speaker 1: air and looked around. Calling his driver over, he instructed
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  Speaker 1: the man to go to a nearby farm and purchase
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  Speaker 1: a chicken. When the coachman returned, he was told to
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  Speaker 1: kill the bird, pluck it clean, and clean out its
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  Speaker 1: insides as if he were preparing it for a meal.
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  Speaker 1: When the pale, white remnant of the chicken was ready,
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  Speaker 1: Francis took it and laid it in the snow alongside
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  Speaker 1: the park. There, a crowd began to gather as this
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  Speaker 1: strange man started doing even stranger things. First, he scooped
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  Speaker 1: up handful after handful of snow and packed it into
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  Speaker 1: the chickens abdomen. Then, after retrieving a sackcloth from the carriage,
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  Speaker 1: he put the chicken inside and packed it with even
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  Speaker 1: more snow. Not remember this was sixteen twenty six, so
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  Speaker 1: even though the sight of a frozen chicken at the
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  Speaker 1: grocery store might strike us as normal, there were no
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  Speaker 1: freezers back then. What Francis was testing was a theory
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  Speaker 1: that we all knew would pay off. Snow, because of
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  Speaker 1: it's cold temperature, could preserve raw meat for later. It
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  Speaker 1: was genius. Sadly, Francis wouldn't live to see if his
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  Speaker 1: hypothesis worked. That hour out in the wet and cold
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  Speaker 1: must have weakened his body, and by that evening he
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  Speaker 1: was in bed with pneumonia. A few days later he
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  Speaker 1: was dead. The frozen chicken, as far as I can tell,
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  Speaker 1: disappeared after that. There are stories, of course, there always
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  Speaker 1: are in situations like this. Many people over the years
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  Speaker 1: of claim to see the pale shape of a naked
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  Speaker 1: chicken running around the area of Pond Square. The most
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  Speaker 1: common version of these sightings is that the bird appears
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  Speaker 1: from nowhere, runs in a circle two or three times,
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  Speaker 1: and then vanishes. While the tales of the ghostly chicken
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  Speaker 1: might fall within the realm of fantasy. Francis is embedded
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  Speaker 1: firmly in the pages of history. He's been referred to
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  Speaker 1: as the father of empiricism, who used inductive reasoning to
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  Speaker 1: build scientific knowledge, much as he did that cold day
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  Speaker 1: in Pond Square with his frozen chicken, but he did
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  Speaker 1: much more. He served Queen Elizabeth as her legal advisor
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  Speaker 1: and was knighted by King James the first. You and
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  Speaker 1: I might know him as that crazy old guy with
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  Speaker 1: a bag full of snow and a dead chicken, but
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  Speaker 1: thankfully history will remember him with a bit more respect.
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  Speaker 1: Our Francis, you see, was none other than the Lord
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  Speaker 1: High Chancellor of England, Sir Francis Bacon. I hope you've
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
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  Speaker 1: dot com and Until next time, stay curious, h