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The Atomic Whoops: When the US Air Force Bombed South Carolina · Ridiculous History

0:24
Speaker 1: Boom or not to boom. Welcome to the show, ladies
0:27
Speaker 1: and gentlemen. My name is Ben. Ben. You startled me.
0:30
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, nol. It was not my intention to startle
0:33
Speaker 1: you. You You startled me so much that I forgot to
0:35
Speaker 1: announce my name. But you did it for me, so
0:36
Speaker 1: thank you for that. I know how you did that,
0:39
Speaker 1: though you dropped a bomb on me, Ben, you dropped
0:41
Speaker 1: the bomb on me. I just go beat. It's going
0:44
Speaker 1: to be. And of course we would be remiss if
0:47
Speaker 1: we did not shout out our super producer, good friend
0:51
Speaker 1: Casey Pegrum who is uh who is sipping a coffee
0:54
Speaker 1: and gave us a cheerful a cheerful nod and toast
0:57
Speaker 1: a good day, a good day. Yeah. And we're at
1:00
Speaker 1: the very end of the years we record this right yeah, yeah,
1:04
Speaker 1: I mean the magic of podcast post production will be
1:08
Speaker 1: giving you this episode later, but it is in fact
1:11
Speaker 1: very close to the end of the year as we
1:12
Speaker 1: sit and record this right now. Yes, absolutely, and here
1:17
Speaker 1: in the podcast world, as we approached the end of
1:19
Speaker 1: the year, in vacation times and stuff, things can get
1:22
Speaker 1: a little hectic, So both of us are a little
1:25
Speaker 1: bit punchy and filled with some nervous energy as we're
1:28
Speaker 1: finishing everything up this week, right, really, and we can
1:31
Speaker 1: relate to this idea of multitasking and having to really
1:35
Speaker 1: scramble to get things done. And such was the case
1:38
Speaker 1: during the Cold War when America was gripped by paranoia
1:43
Speaker 1: surrounding a potential nuclear war with Russia, and part of
1:48
Speaker 1: that involved the clandestine um transportation of atomic bombs over
1:55
Speaker 1: American soil. And again with that theme of multitasking and rambling,
2:01
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, mistakes are made, Yes, yes, oh gosh,
2:07
Speaker 1: what an infamous understatement. Yes, sometimes mistakes were made. Multitasking
2:14
Speaker 1: is tricky. And when you feel like you are juggling
2:17
Speaker 1: something while you're driving something, while you're also doing a
2:21
Speaker 1: very difficult math in your head, maybe you begin to
2:25
Speaker 1: feel a little bit like, uh, something approaching a pilot.
2:29
Speaker 1: And imagine if one of those things you're juggling was
2:31
Speaker 1: a seventies six hundred pound or three point four metric
2:35
Speaker 1: ton nuclear warhead. Once upon a time, Friends and neighbors.
2:40
Speaker 1: In January of nineteen fifty three, the greg family moved
2:44
Speaker 1: into a home in a rural part of eastern South Carolina,
2:48
Speaker 1: and it was on land that their family had owned
2:50
Speaker 1: for a century. Would you describe it as idyllic, Yes, yeah,
2:53
Speaker 1: bucolic even Uh, they had no idea that five years
2:58
Speaker 1: later they would er a very strange, distinctive and dangerous
3:03
Speaker 1: honor by becoming the first and only American family to
3:08
Speaker 1: survive the first and only atomic bomb dropped on American
3:12
Speaker 1: soil by Americans. Are pal Lori L. Dove wrote this
3:17
Speaker 1: great article for How Stuff Works, and she did not
3:20
Speaker 1: bury the leave. The title of the article is the U. S.
3:22
Speaker 1: Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on South Carolina, and that, friends,
3:27
Speaker 1: is the subject of today's story, and it's and we
3:30
Speaker 1: want to be clear, it is an accidental bombing. It
3:34
Speaker 1: wasn't as if the Air Force said, you know who's
3:36
Speaker 1: really bugging us, the Gregg family. So on March eleventh
3:41
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty eight, two of the children of Walter
3:45
Speaker 1: Greg Helen aged six and Francis, age nine, we're playing
3:49
Speaker 1: with their nine year old cousin, Ella Davies. They were
3:52
Speaker 1: just paling around. They had a nice little playhouse in
3:55
Speaker 1: the backyard near a garden patch. And uh, the father
3:59
Speaker 1: Walt here along with their brother, Walter Jr. We're working
4:03
Speaker 1: on some projects in a nearby tools shed. Yes, a
4:08
Speaker 1: lovely day, Yeah, what could go wrong? You can almost
4:11
Speaker 1: hear the light music in the background right but elsewhere
4:16
Speaker 1: high in the air. At four nineteen pm, a member
4:20
Speaker 1: of the crew of the U. S. Air Force B
4:23
Speaker 1: forty seven bomber futs things up. A little mistakes were made,
4:29
Speaker 1: and the crew member accidentally released a nuclear weapon that
4:34
Speaker 1: landed on the girl's playhouse while they were about two
4:37
Speaker 1: hundred feet away and the families nearby garden, creating a
4:41
Speaker 1: massive crater that was had a circumference of about fifty
4:46
Speaker 1: oh and was more than thirty ft deep out of nowhere.
4:49
Speaker 1: Just but you know, a more a more dramatic sound,
4:54
Speaker 1: significantly more dramatic. This created like a shock wave that's
4:58
Speaker 1: cracked windows and shook homes in the nearby community of
5:03
Speaker 1: Mars Bluff, and it flattened there this playhouse just to nothing,
5:11
Speaker 1: and there were chickens that were described as having been vaporized.
5:15
Speaker 1: And it basically just put a hurting on their entire property.
5:20
Speaker 1: All of the buildings, their outbuildings became uninhabitable. It literally
5:25
Speaker 1: changed the slope of their land such that the foundation
5:30
Speaker 1: of the home was no longer secure and it injured
5:36
Speaker 1: at least somewhat everyone around, right. Yeah, Luckily it was
5:40
Speaker 1: not a fatal injury for everyone, but the it's difficult,
5:46
Speaker 1: although we laugh about it, Oh, it's difficult to fathom
5:49
Speaker 1: the amount of emotional distress this would cause. Right, So,
5:53
Speaker 1: before we dive into detail about the specs and stats
5:57
Speaker 1: of this bomb, let's look at it was happening that day, right,
6:03
Speaker 1: How did this crew get up in the air? Where
6:05
Speaker 1: were they? Where were they coming from? Where are they going?
6:07
Speaker 1: Earlier that day, the crew was part of a training
6:10
Speaker 1: exercise that would require the bomb to be loaded into
6:13
Speaker 1: an airplane and flown from Savannah, Georgia, across the Atlantic
6:17
Speaker 1: to England. This was a mock mission. Think of it
6:21
Speaker 1: like a training exercise. The operation snow Flurry is what
6:24
Speaker 1: it was called. And so Captain Earl Kohler, who was
6:28
Speaker 1: the pilot, Captain Charles Woodroffe who was the co pilot,
6:31
Speaker 1: Captain Bruce Kulta, the navigator, bombardier, and crew chief Sergeant
6:35
Speaker 1: Robert screp Talk had arrived at Hunter Air Force Base
6:39
Speaker 1: just outside of Savannah to fly in this operation scrap Talk.
6:43
Speaker 1: That is a fascinating sounding name. If it was just
6:47
Speaker 1: h just scrap talk instead of Robert script talk. It
6:50
Speaker 1: sounds like a character in a sci fire fantasy film.
6:53
Speaker 1: You're like Star Trek scrap talk, lord of the igneous
6:57
Speaker 1: rock people in this world. He's in Air Force pilot.
7:02
Speaker 1: Uh so as noll As he said, what was the
7:05
Speaker 1: name of that operation again? Operations snow flurring, operations snow flurry.
7:09
Speaker 1: They carefully load the bomb onto the plane, takes an hour.
7:13
Speaker 1: They put into a shackle mechanism that's designed to keep
7:16
Speaker 1: it in place, but they had a difficult time with
7:20
Speaker 1: a steel locking pin. Yeah. They actually noticed that there
7:24
Speaker 1: was like a light of fault light that started to glow,
7:27
Speaker 1: and that told them that the bomb's locking pin had
7:31
Speaker 1: not properly been engaged. So Navigator Captain Bruce Kulka went
7:38
Speaker 1: to take a look. So whild captain Navigator Captain Bruce
7:42
Speaker 1: Kulka is investigating this light and finding the source of
7:47
Speaker 1: the fault. He accidentally hit the emergency release pin as
7:53
Speaker 1: he reached around the bomb to pull himself up. The
7:57
Speaker 1: device hit the bombay doors. It was really a pin.
8:00
Speaker 1: It was like a like a like a lever. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
8:04
Speaker 1: and he uh when he did this, when he hit
8:06
Speaker 1: this it forced the doors open, and can you imagine, no,
8:10
Speaker 1: the look on this guy's face as he watched it
8:14
Speaker 1: leave the plane. Yeah, I mean the way I've seen it.
8:17
Speaker 1: As he was kind of crawling on top of the bomb,
8:21
Speaker 1: sort of had himself positioned like arms and legs spread
8:27
Speaker 1: trying to get to this pen. And then when he
8:29
Speaker 1: sort of lost his footing, he reached out and grabbed
8:33
Speaker 1: this release lever and all hell broke loose. And yeah,
8:37
Speaker 1: he apparently as that bomb fell out from under him,
8:40
Speaker 1: he was left. He was watched it, but he was
8:42
Speaker 1: left suspending himself from that handle and and whatever else
8:48
Speaker 1: he had a foothold and a grasp on there and
8:51
Speaker 1: just watching, looking straight down as that bomb hit those
8:54
Speaker 1: bay doors. Eventually the weight forced them open and then
8:59
Speaker 1: it was bombs away. And we're very lucky that he
9:02
Speaker 1: didn't fall out as well, right, because he's as as
9:06
Speaker 1: he said, he's staying there. Picture a letter X, just
9:09
Speaker 1: hanging out with nothing between the ground and himself except
9:14
Speaker 1: for a very dangerous drop through naked air. So back
9:18
Speaker 1: to the idyllic greg family homestead. The children are playing,
9:24
Speaker 1: the boys and and the father are are at work
9:28
Speaker 1: in the shed form right, and they look and they
9:32
Speaker 1: see this bomber flying overhead. But that would not have
9:36
Speaker 1: been an unusual side at the time, especially not in
9:38
Speaker 1: the nineties exactly, because these kinds of runs were pretty common.
9:42
Speaker 1: So when this chaos went down, Mr greg was was
9:47
Speaker 1: quoted as saying he thought that the plane had crashed.
9:51
Speaker 1: Can you imagine just the chaos that would have ensued,
9:53
Speaker 1: and just not being able to fully wrap your head
9:55
Speaker 1: around what had happened, and just trying to figure out
9:58
Speaker 1: the possibilities, And certainly the first one the go to
10:01
Speaker 1: would not be Oh, the Air Force accidentally dropped an
10:04
Speaker 1: atomic bomb on my kid's playhouse, right, And so, as
10:09
Speaker 1: we said, all five members of the family were injured,
10:12
Speaker 1: as was the cousin Ella, but they had no idea
10:16
Speaker 1: what was happening. Wasn't until later that night, when they
10:18
Speaker 1: were crashing at the house of their family doctor, that
10:22
Speaker 1: they learned it had been a bomb dropped by us
10:25
Speaker 1: by the U. S. Air Force. Now here's the thing.
10:28
Speaker 1: The most serious injury sustained in this event was the cousin,
10:33
Speaker 1: who I think got somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty
10:35
Speaker 1: one stitches. And you may ask, but Ben Noel, this
10:39
Speaker 1: was a nuclear warhead that was dropped on this family's house.
10:43
Speaker 1: Where's the mushroom cloud? What about the radiation? Here's the
10:46
Speaker 1: nuclear fallout? Why does Mars Bluff still exist? Where where
10:49
Speaker 1: are the ghouls? Why is this not you know, like
10:52
Speaker 1: mad Max Overnight, especially considering that this Mark six bomb
10:57
Speaker 1: was actually larger than its predecessor, the Part four or
11:00
Speaker 1: Fat Man used in World War Two. And the look
11:03
Speaker 1: of this thing is is is pretty cartoonish, and it
11:06
Speaker 1: looks like kind of something that you would see in
11:08
Speaker 1: a Loney Tunes cartoon on the side or it makes
11:12
Speaker 1: me think of that seeing Dr Strangelove where Slim Pickens
11:15
Speaker 1: rides the bomb cowboy style, which could could have got
11:18
Speaker 1: close to doing exactly. Very very interesting and the same
11:21
Speaker 1: time period that's being described in that that paranoid cold
11:24
Speaker 1: war fear. But here's the thing. We we did kind
11:31
Speaker 1: of bury the lead here a little bit. It turns
11:34
Speaker 1: out that in order to transport these weapons they would
11:38
Speaker 1: be what's called safe in other words, they still had
11:43
Speaker 1: explosives in them, but they did not have that nuclear payload,
11:48
Speaker 1: that core of plutonium. And thank god, because as we
11:52
Speaker 1: said at the top, this was a mock mission. This
11:54
Speaker 1: was timed to see how long the operation would take
11:59
Speaker 1: were it to happen in a genuine conflict. So they
12:03
Speaker 1: did safe it, but safety it is not the same
12:06
Speaker 1: thing as just making it a dummy bomb. It did
12:08
Speaker 1: possess explosive power, it did explode. It did not, thank
12:13
Speaker 1: sweet Pete, contain any sort of nuclear payload. Yeah, that
12:17
Speaker 1: part was actually transported separately, which you know, good good
12:21
Speaker 1: on you Air Force, smart smart smart going uh. And
12:24
Speaker 1: you know this thing did lead to updated security measures
12:30
Speaker 1: where it was absolutely required that these locking pins be
12:36
Speaker 1: in place at all times, um, even during takeoff and landing.
12:42
Speaker 1: I would think, especially during day that's what I get dislodged.
12:45
Speaker 1: And you know they they yell at us about our
12:47
Speaker 1: overhead luggage bins that may shift during takeoff and landing.
12:51
Speaker 1: Watch out. I would think it'd be pretty important to
12:53
Speaker 1: have that locking pin make sure that that bomb didn't
12:56
Speaker 1: shift during takeoff and landing. And in this mission in
12:58
Speaker 1: snow flurry, they actually the jury rigged a bit because
13:01
Speaker 1: they used a hammer to bang the pin in place.
13:04
Speaker 1: But imagine banging a nuclear warhead with a hammer. This
13:07
Speaker 1: is interesting because it may seem ridiculous to us now,
13:10
Speaker 1: but we have the benefit of hindsight in a very
13:12
Speaker 1: real way. The technology behind nuclear weapon detonation changed as
13:18
Speaker 1: a result of this in a very very important h fashion.
13:22
Speaker 1: So back in the fifties and this time. One thing
13:25
Speaker 1: that's so scary about knocking this thing around with a
13:28
Speaker 1: hammer is that nuclear weapons had a trigger that compressed
13:32
Speaker 1: the uranium plutonium core to set off the chain reaction
13:36
Speaker 1: of a nuclear explosion, and things like this Mark six
13:39
Speaker 1: that got dropped on the greg family homestead could be
13:42
Speaker 1: set off or triggered by concussion, which means anything from
13:46
Speaker 1: shooting it with a bullet, knocking on the ground, dropping
13:50
Speaker 1: out on a playhouse, dropping it on a playhouse. And
13:53
Speaker 1: so the bomb's trigger did explode when it hit the ground,
13:56
Speaker 1: when they hit the ground of the Greg's, the ground
13:59
Speaker 1: to the Greg's. I'm feeling though, one if the nuclear
14:01
Speaker 1: components had been there, it would have been a massive catastrophe.
14:07
Speaker 1: We're talking hundreds of thousands of people would have died.
14:10
Speaker 1: Because you know, I hadn't heard of this story until
14:13
Speaker 1: we looked into it for the show. I would bet
14:16
Speaker 1: that many listeners have not heard of this, the US
14:19
Speaker 1: accidentally dropping an atomic bomb on an unsuspecting family in
14:23
Speaker 1: the South. And that's because at the end of the day,
14:27
Speaker 1: nobody died. There was no atomic fallout. It was not
14:32
Speaker 1: a catastrophe of epic proportions. It did, however, become one
14:35
Speaker 1: of the driving forces for very important change, which is
14:38
Speaker 1: that today nuclear weapons are going to be set off
14:44
Speaker 1: not by concussion but by a specific type of electrical impulse.
14:49
Speaker 1: Within days out of this accidental bomb drop, the Air
14:53
Speaker 1: Force published new regulations that I think you already mentioned
14:57
Speaker 1: right where they said, hey guys, let's make sure that
15:00
Speaker 1: we don't, you know, act we want to drop bombs
15:03
Speaker 1: where we are supposed to drop them. No more of
15:05
Speaker 1: this willy nilly, you know, pin hammering business. But what
15:09
Speaker 1: about the Greg's What about I feel like we've we've
15:12
Speaker 1: talked about the near miss right that occurred, But what
15:17
Speaker 1: about the actual Gregg families and poor cousin Ella, Well,
15:22
Speaker 1: they never returned to that home out there in the
15:26
Speaker 1: Mars Bluff. They received about fifty four thousand dollars and
15:30
Speaker 1: damages from the Air Force, which by today's standards would
15:34
Speaker 1: be in the neighborhood of half a million bucks, which
15:36
Speaker 1: is not too bad. But also we have to think.
15:39
Speaker 1: You know, they owned that land, it was in their
15:41
Speaker 1: family for a hundred years. There's some things that you
15:43
Speaker 1: can't really put a price on. And they moved to
15:46
Speaker 1: a nice little cozy bungalow in nearby Florence, South Carolina,
15:51
Speaker 1: and this became. Of course, we don't know if Walter
15:56
Speaker 1: greg was the kind of guy to hang out in
15:58
Speaker 1: a bar, but we do know was a church member
16:01
Speaker 1: for all of his life. Wherever he was hanging out
16:04
Speaker 1: and spinning his free time, you know, this was his
16:07
Speaker 1: go to story when people are spinning tales. You know,
16:11
Speaker 1: he pointed it out. Not too many people can say
16:14
Speaker 1: they've had a nuclear bomb dropped on them. Oh and also, uh,
16:18
Speaker 1: he was a former paratrooper, so he's familiar with aspects
16:22
Speaker 1: of military aviation. And he also spent most of his
16:26
Speaker 1: non military life working as a conductor for the railroads.
16:30
Speaker 1: And he finishes that quote with and not too many
16:32
Speaker 1: people would want to And I would side with Walter
16:37
Speaker 1: on that point. Um to this day, you can actually
16:40
Speaker 1: go visit this site. There's a historical marker which is beautiful,
16:46
Speaker 1: embarrassing historical marker. It says atomic bomb accident at Mars
16:50
Speaker 1: Bluff marchha Leavin. The bomb landed in the woods behind
16:55
Speaker 1: the asbestos shingle sided home of the railroad conductor Walter
17:00
Speaker 1: Bill Gregor. Greg his wife, their three children, and a
17:05
Speaker 1: niece were injured by the concussion, which destroyed the house
17:09
Speaker 1: and outbuildings and did slight damage to build things within
17:12
Speaker 1: a five mile radius. And that's when we say slight
17:15
Speaker 1: damage to think of like the windows breaking exactly so
17:19
Speaker 1: they One of my favorite parts of this story is
17:23
Speaker 1: there's something that I picture as a very Wes Anderson moment.
17:27
Speaker 1: It's the the Greg's and the Air Force crew. They
17:31
Speaker 1: got in touch with each other, and the crew would
17:34
Speaker 1: hang out with them because they felt so bad, you know,
17:37
Speaker 1: and write them letters. And to me, I just picture
17:39
Speaker 1: something in a lost Wes Anderson film where you know,
17:42
Speaker 1: there's this immaculately decorated and choreographed room, right, it's perfectly set,
17:50
Speaker 1: everything is just so, and then Captain Kolka navigator walks
17:55
Speaker 1: in and says, hello, this is the anniversary of the
17:58
Speaker 1: time that I accidentally dropped the bomb on you. And
18:02
Speaker 1: then Walter Gregg says, yes, Captain, I'm aware. It's just
18:07
Speaker 1: like I have brought you this gift and then they
18:09
Speaker 1: then they eat a nice Thanksgiving style meal together, but
18:13
Speaker 1: it's like I brought you a gift, is like, well,
18:15
Speaker 1: I hope it isn't another bomb. And speaking of bombs,
18:18
Speaker 1: there is also you can go to where the crater
18:21
Speaker 1: is and it's still there. It looks kind of like
18:24
Speaker 1: a crappy pond now because it's basically just you know,
18:27
Speaker 1: it's it's obviously filled in over time, um, but it's
18:29
Speaker 1: still there. It's it's it just tends to be full
18:32
Speaker 1: of standing water and there's a plywood silver spray paint.
18:36
Speaker 1: It looks like plywood. Um. Actual size bomb it's like
18:41
Speaker 1: a silhouette m K six seventy hundred pounds. And there's
18:44
Speaker 1: like an Instagram photo on the How Stuff Works article
18:47
Speaker 1: where the girl standing next to it and saying I've
18:49
Speaker 1: been wondering for years where exactly the atomic bombs I
18:51
Speaker 1: was and we finally found it. We do want to
18:54
Speaker 1: say that it is on you can visit it. However,
18:58
Speaker 1: the site is located on private prop. The Gregg's did
19:00
Speaker 1: sell the land and right yeah, and it's currently on
19:05
Speaker 1: private property. There's no public access road. So we don't
19:09
Speaker 1: want ridiculous history to be known as a show that
19:14
Speaker 1: encourages trespassing. So do check with the do check with
19:17
Speaker 1: the locals before you go on an expedition, and be
19:20
Speaker 1: careful how to get snake bit or get a tick
19:22
Speaker 1: or something. There's probably some tall grass around there, um,
19:25
Speaker 1: but yeah, to get to it, you have to go
19:26
Speaker 1: through this abandoned lot that used to have a trailer
19:29
Speaker 1: park and walk through a totally overgrown path and then
19:33
Speaker 1: you come upon this crappy pond that was created by
19:37
Speaker 1: the one and only time that an atomic bomb was
19:39
Speaker 1: dropped on American soil by American forces. And so this
19:45
Speaker 1: this got me thinking. As I was I was always
19:48
Speaker 1: reading this, I was remembering this poem by Elizabeth Bishop
19:51
Speaker 1: called one Art, which is the art of losing isn't
19:55
Speaker 1: hard to master. That's that's the first line, and it
19:58
Speaker 1: goes on, I don't want to ruin it. It's it's
20:00
Speaker 1: worth reading. No poetry spoilers, No poetry spoilers, ridiculous, right,
20:05
Speaker 1: no trespassing, no poetry spoilers. But but it's a poem
20:10
Speaker 1: essentially about how easy it is to lose things. And
20:15
Speaker 1: it also inspired me to to think about the other
20:19
Speaker 1: times that nuclear weapons around the world have been lost.
20:21
Speaker 1: And it turns out that since nineteen fifty there have
20:24
Speaker 1: been thirty two nuclear weapon accidents UH the accidental launching
20:30
Speaker 1: firing Debtonatin, the after loss of weapon. I mean around
20:32
Speaker 1: the world, you know, in Canada, in England, and the
20:37
Speaker 1: strangest thing that happens is in in a few cases
20:42
Speaker 1: the exact location is unknown. There was a incident in
20:47
Speaker 1: March tenth of nineteen fifty six, just a couple of
20:50
Speaker 1: years before this incident UH in the Carolinas, where a
20:55
Speaker 1: B forty seven carrying two nuclear capsules on a flight
20:59
Speaker 1: from Tampa, Florida to an overseas base was reported missing.
21:03
Speaker 1: It didn't make contact in the Mediterranean when it was
21:06
Speaker 1: supposed to for second refueling, and no one ever found
21:08
Speaker 1: the plane. It's just out there somewhere in the oceans. Yeah.
21:13
Speaker 1: So at least thirty two of these broken Arrow events occur,
21:17
Speaker 1: which is why that John Travolta movie is called Broken Arrow?
21:22
Speaker 1: Who else can't bring you Broken Arrow? Who else don't
21:28
Speaker 1: bring you about? A lover y? And if you were
21:33
Speaker 1: the Greg's what would you have done when you found
21:36
Speaker 1: out that this occurred? Personally? I don't play the lottery
21:40
Speaker 1: but I would think my my probability odds are pretty
21:43
Speaker 1: cool right now. Or it could be like a final
21:45
Speaker 1: destination kind of scenario where it's like, you know, the
21:48
Speaker 1: Reaper was robbed and then I'd be looking for like
21:51
Speaker 1: any number of things to kill me in my just
21:54
Speaker 1: basic surroundings, which those movies got stranger, stranger and more
21:59
Speaker 1: and more like intricate. They had to double down with
22:02
Speaker 1: the room Goldberg nest of it all. Enough, there we go,
22:04
Speaker 1: that's the correct phrase. So I guess we're done here, right. No, wait,
22:14
Speaker 1: what is that? Do you hear it too? Oh? Yeah,
22:17
Speaker 1: I hear that. Wait, casey, where are you laughing? Oh? No,
22:24
Speaker 1: here it comes. It's time, gentlemen. Yep, I'm back. It's
22:29
Speaker 1: the Quister, Quister Jonathan Strickland. Ye, we thought the show
22:33
Speaker 1: was over. No, no, it has only just begun, my friends.
22:38
Speaker 1: For it is time to test your ability to tell
22:43
Speaker 1: fact from fantasy. Okay, then let's get on with this.
22:46
Speaker 1: So this is the segment of the show where in
22:49
Speaker 1: our nemesis, the evil Quister Jonathan Strickland comes in to
22:54
Speaker 1: test our ability both to discern fact from fiction, as
22:58
Speaker 1: he said, and also to to see whether we can
23:02
Speaker 1: work together to figure it out and also to slowly
23:06
Speaker 1: wear us down over time until we crack. And and
23:09
Speaker 1: for those who did not hear the previous installment, here
23:12
Speaker 1: are the general rules that hold sway from one incident
23:17
Speaker 1: to the next, which is, you have three minutes three
23:22
Speaker 1: trying something out. Three. I'll probably have a different one
23:25
Speaker 1: every time. I'm on three minutes three in order for
23:31
Speaker 1: you can talk with one another. You can address me
23:33
Speaker 1: with any questions. If I have any more information, I
23:36
Speaker 1: will give it to you based upon the way you
23:39
Speaker 1: ask the question. I may not give you all the
23:41
Speaker 1: information you wish, but you have those three minutes to
23:44
Speaker 1: make your determination, at the end of which you must
23:46
Speaker 1: then tell me whether or not the scenario I present
23:49
Speaker 1: to you was fact or fantasy. And I also create
23:54
Speaker 1: an arbitrary rule every time, and it will change every
23:59
Speaker 1: single time. So last time you had to proceed every
24:02
Speaker 1: question with a phrase. This time you have to and
24:05
Speaker 1: every question to me with the words tick tick tick boom,
24:11
Speaker 1: three ticks in a boom, three ticks followed by a boom.
24:15
Speaker 1: And as as soon as I finished giving you your scenario,
24:19
Speaker 1: you will start the timer of three months. The enormous
24:21
Speaker 1: Grandfather timer. As we have previously established, we's been our
24:25
Speaker 1: whole budget on that thing, you know, I know it's
24:29
Speaker 1: I really had this whole like like sketch for a
24:32
Speaker 1: costume and a mask, and instead I'm just I'm just
24:35
Speaker 1: hearing a plaid shirt. It is. It's an audio podcast, though,
24:39
Speaker 1: you could be wearing anything just right in my work. Alright,
24:45
Speaker 1: So alright, so yeah, I'm hanging I'm hanging on the
24:49
Speaker 1: edge of the second hand. I'm gonna do a pull
24:52
Speaker 1: up and start the timer when it's excellent. So here
24:54
Speaker 1: is your scenario. In October twenty s the Royal Navy
25:01
Speaker 1: was called out to detonate an unexploded World War One
25:06
Speaker 1: era bomb which previously had been used by a family
25:10
Speaker 1: as a doorstop. Start the timer, okay, okay, so it's
25:15
Speaker 1: a World War One era bomb which in and a doorstop.
25:22
Speaker 1: So clearly not the size of our giant forehead they
25:27
Speaker 1: were talking about today. It sounds more like maybe the
25:30
Speaker 1: size of like a like a propane tank or something maybe, yeah, yeah,
25:34
Speaker 1: what kind of bombs are they using in world? Definitely
25:36
Speaker 1: not nuclear? No, uh, all right, the quister, could you
25:43
Speaker 1: could you repeat the salient points one more time? Tick? Tick,
25:47
Speaker 1: tick boom. Yes. October two thousand seventeen, Royal Navy has
25:51
Speaker 1: called out to a farm in Devon, England to detonate
25:58
Speaker 1: an unexploded mom of the World War One era that
26:02
Speaker 1: had previously been used as a doorstop. I'm going to
26:08
Speaker 1: say true. I think true. I think we're gonna I
26:10
Speaker 1: think we're gonna call this one earlier. I think maybe
26:12
Speaker 1: we will. All right, are we official on it? Yes?
26:15
Speaker 1: Locking the answer, locked in. We think it's true. Gentlemen,
26:21
Speaker 1: you are two for two. Yes. As it turns out,
26:28
Speaker 1: there was a farm in Devon, England and the while
26:32
Speaker 1: it had been previously used as a doorstop, what had
26:35
Speaker 1: actually happened was that they found this bomb inside a wall.
26:39
Speaker 1: It had been placed on purpose inside the wall when
26:42
Speaker 1: the wall was constructed. The grandparents of the owners of
26:46
Speaker 1: the farm said, oh, we used to use as a doorstop.
26:48
Speaker 1: It was a corroded twenty five pound unexploded ordinance from
26:55
Speaker 1: the UK. Chances are it was actually uh fire into
27:00
Speaker 1: the farm area by accident from a nearby firing range.
27:04
Speaker 1: So that's what I was gonna ask. Is this sort
27:06
Speaker 1: of like a mortar round? Almost along those lines? Pund
27:11
Speaker 1: Shell got it. Yes, very well done, very well done.
27:14
Speaker 1: So you've gotten one fantasy correct, one fact correct? What
27:19
Speaker 1: will next time bring? Who's to say it's except me?
27:23
Speaker 1: I have like the next three written, so I yes, okay,
27:26
Speaker 1: you know what Quistion does his homework. You know, you
27:30
Speaker 1: can say a lot about Jonathan, but he definitely does.
27:32
Speaker 1: Got to respect the craft, you know, I got to
27:34
Speaker 1: respect that, gotta respect the quiz. Well, Jonathan, you know,
27:38
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming aboard the show. Thank him. Okay, Jonathan,
27:44
Speaker 1: I acknowledge that you are here. We can't we can't
27:48
Speaker 1: really deny it. I, as we've also previously established, I
27:52
Speaker 1: have no way of getting out of this room without
27:53
Speaker 1: someone from outside opening the door for me. Again, we
27:57
Speaker 1: spent a lot of the budget on our gigant grandfather Timer,
28:01
Speaker 1: and you know that we just didn't allocate the right
28:05
Speaker 1: money for locks. It's fine, I'll just sit in the corner. Now,
28:08
Speaker 1: get the hands, foul demon. I'm just back here. I'm sorry.
28:17
Speaker 1: It's okay. You can stay getting a call all right? O. Hey, yeah, okay, yeah, sure, no,
28:25
Speaker 1: you know I'll have lunch with you. We're recording so well,
28:29
Speaker 1: Jonathan makes his lunch plans. We we would like to,
28:33
Speaker 1: So while Jonathan is making his lunch plans, we would
28:35
Speaker 1: like to thank you listeners for joining us for another
28:38
Speaker 1: episode of Ridiculous History, another of of Jonathan's diabolical quiz segments,
28:44
Speaker 1: which you know, I could, I could, I could take
28:48
Speaker 1: her leave. I'm having a good time. I'm having I'm
28:51
Speaker 1: having a great time with it. I mean we're you know,
28:54
Speaker 1: technically we're winners. Now that's true. Let us know if
28:56
Speaker 1: you're having a good time, right I said ridiculous at
28:59
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works Talk and you can also find us
29:00
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, and uh Instagram right where we are
29:06
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History. And you can also of course find our
29:09
Speaker 1: nemesses Jonathan on his own show tech Stuff, which is
29:13
Speaker 1: available wherever you find your favorite podcast. So be well,
29:17
Speaker 1: have a fantastic week. Throw us a review if you'd like.
29:21
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you, and stay tuned for
29:23
Speaker 1: another episode of Ridiculous History. Guys, I'm on the phone.