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Fly By Night · 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: Many high achievers excel at more than one thing. Great
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  Speaker 1: actors who are also karate masters or pro athletes with
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  Speaker 1: degrees in chemistry. For example, legendary Queen guitarist Brian May
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  Speaker 1: is also an astrophysicist. It makes sense that someone with
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  Speaker 1: the drive to succeed at that level would be driven
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  Speaker 1: to achieve even more. But sometimes a driven person doesn't
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  Speaker 1: find some success but multiple failures. And in one curious
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  Speaker 1: case from the Civil War era in America, a man
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  Speaker 1: made a historic entire career out of being bad at
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  Speaker 1: everything he set out to do. Daniel began his career
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  Speaker 1: as a lawyer before getting elected to the House of
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  Speaker 1: Representatives in eighteen fifty six. Pretty good for a guy
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  Speaker 1: in his thirties, right, But he was also a notorious womanizer.
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  Speaker 1: He brought sex workers into the congressional chambers and even
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  Speaker 1: introduced one to Queen Victoria. So he wasn't much of
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  Speaker 1: a congressman. But most infamously, he married the fifteen year
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  Speaker 1: old daughter of one of his friends after getting her pregnant.
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  Speaker 1: Her name was Teresa, and as you'd expect, he didn't
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  Speaker 1: remain faithful to Teresa, but she felt no loyalty to
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  Speaker 1: him either. With Daniel often away on business or having affairs,
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  Speaker 1: Teresa was regularly escorted to social functions by her friend
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  Speaker 1: Philip Barton Key. He was a prominent socialite, being the
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  Speaker 1: son of Francis Scott Key, the writer of the Star
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  Speaker 1: Spangled Banner. Before long, Teresa and Philip began an affair
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  Speaker 1: of their own. The affair was one thing, obviously Daniel
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  Speaker 1: was having affairs all the time, but Teresa's infidelity soon
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  Speaker 1: became known throughout Washington. Daniel couldn't be seen as someone
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  Speaker 1: who allowed this to go on, so he armed himself
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  Speaker 1: and prepared to prove his manhood to the whole town.
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  Speaker 1: Confronting Philip on the street, Daniel fired a shot into
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  Speaker 1: Philip's groin. As the wounded man crawled away, Daniel fired again,
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  Speaker 1: hitting Philip in the chest, killing him. It seems that
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  Speaker 1: Daniel hadn't really thought past this point, though he was
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  Speaker 1: now a murderer, which surely must have hurt his reputation
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  Speaker 1: as much as his wife cheating on him. He was
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  Speaker 1: a terrible congressman and a terrible husband. But Daniel, for
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  Speaker 1: all his failures, wouldn't give up. He hired an excellent
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  Speaker 1: lawyer who portrayed Daniel as the victim. He told the
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  Speaker 1: jury a total sob story about how Daniel was completely
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  Speaker 1: thrown by his wife's affair, how in a moment of
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  Speaker 1: insanity he set out to kill Philip, not truly in
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  Speaker 1: control of his own actions. And so the jury ruled
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  Speaker 1: the Daniel wasn't guilty, marking the first successful temporary insanity
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  Speaker 1: plea in US history. It's not an accomplishment to be
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  Speaker 1: proud of, I know, but Daniel took it as a win,
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  Speaker 1: then prepared to take on a new role, that of
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  Speaker 1: a Civil War general. The war broke out in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty one and gave Daniel the opportunity to regain his
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  Speaker 1: lost honor. By eighteen sixty three, he was a major
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  Speaker 1: general leading a brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg. It
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  Speaker 1: shows how at the time these positions were as much
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  Speaker 1: about class as merit. Daniel was the only Civil War
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  Speaker 1: general without a military education, but because he was from
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  Speaker 1: the upper class, his friends were able to pull some
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  Speaker 1: strings and put him in a leadership position, and once
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  Speaker 1: again his desire for honor and glory outpaced his actual ability.
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  Speaker 1: In an infamous moment from the battle, Daniel ordered his
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  Speaker 1: men to take the high ground in a part of
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  Speaker 1: the battlefield known as the peach Orchard. This went against
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  Speaker 1: his own orders, but it seemed to him that the
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  Speaker 1: high ground was always desirable, only in this case it
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  Speaker 1: meant that his men were leaving a gap in the
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  Speaker 1: line with the rest of the army, leaving them all
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  Speaker 1: vulnerable to a charge from the enemy. Daniel's forces were devastated,
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  Speaker 1: but for him, that wasn't even the worst of it.
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  Speaker 1: He took a cannonball to the leg, shattering his tibia
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  Speaker 1: and fibula, but even then this wasn't enough to keep
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  Speaker 1: Daniel down. He had his leg amputated and donated the
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  Speaker 1: shattered bones to the Army Medical Museum, and for years
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  Speaker 1: afterward he would actually take his friends to see it
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  Speaker 1: at the exhibit, bragging about his own bravery. At one
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  Speaker 1: point none other than Samuel Clemens. The author Mark Twain,
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  Speaker 1: was brought along on one of these tours. This led
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  Speaker 1: Twain to remark, the General valued his lost leg away
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  Speaker 1: above the one that is left. I am perfectly sure
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  Speaker 1: that if he had to part with either of them,
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  Speaker 1: he would part with the one that he has got.
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  Speaker 1: Failed congressman, failed husband, and failed general. Instead of being
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  Speaker 1: a high achiever, Daniel Sickles was a frequent failure, but
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  Speaker 1: he always spun his failure years into personal wins. It
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  Speaker 1: would be so inspiring if it weren't for the fact
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  Speaker 1: that people died because of his mishaps. Curiously, Daniel did
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  Speaker 1: go on to assist in reconstruction efforts, with mixed results
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  Speaker 1: as always, Although his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg
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  Speaker 1: were notorious, he was also instrumental in assuring that the
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  Speaker 1: battlefield itself became a national park. Doctor Lytel Adams, or
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  Speaker 1: Doc as he was known to his friends, was not
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  Speaker 1: a mechanical engineer or a weapons manufacturer. He was a dentist,
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  Speaker 1: and in December of nineteen forty one, he was on
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  Speaker 1: a long overdue vacation in New Mexico. While exploring the
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  Speaker 1: Carlsbad caverns. One evening, Doc Adams was treated to one
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  Speaker 1: of the most incredible sights in the southwestern United States.
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  Speaker 1: As the sun dipped below the horizon, the air filled
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  Speaker 1: with chirps and chattering squeaks, and then the thrum of
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  Speaker 1: tiny wings. He watched as millions of bats came pouring
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  Speaker 1: out of the caves, taking to the sky in a chaotic,
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  Speaker 1: screaming swarm. And this mesmerizing sight stuck with Doc Adams,
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  Speaker 1: and he was still thinking about it a few days later.
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  Speaker 1: During his long drive home to Pennsylvania. He had just
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  Speaker 1: crossed out of New Mexico when the radio broadcast he
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  Speaker 1: was listening to was interrupted by breaking news. Japan had
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  Speaker 1: just launched a devastating attack on the US naval base
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  Speaker 1: at Pearl Harbor. Thousands of Americans were dead or injured,
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  Speaker 1: and rumors were already flying the Congress was going to
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  Speaker 1: declare war. Doc Adams was so overwhelmed by the announcement
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  Speaker 1: he had to pull over to process the news. At
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  Speaker 1: sixty years old, there was no chance of being drafted himself,
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  Speaker 1: but nevertheless, he found himself burning with a desire to contribute.
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  Speaker 1: He had just started to wonder about the military's dentistry
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  Speaker 1: needs when he was struck by an idea. He suddenly
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  Speaker 1: imagined a weapon unlike anything the military had in its arsenal,
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  Speaker 1: a bomb that could give his country the edge against
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  Speaker 1: its enemies. Doc Adams sped home and penned a letter
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  Speaker 1: to the White House describing his planned invention. While acknowledging
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  Speaker 1: that the idea sounded strange, he promised that it would
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  Speaker 1: be practical, inexpensive, and effective in his words, and Roosevelt agreed.
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  Speaker 1: The President immediately greenlit the project, granting Doc Adams military
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  Speaker 1: status and a multi million dollar budget. With no time
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  Speaker 1: to waste, the former dentist got to work. His first
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  Speaker 1: act was to assemble an eclectic team straight out of
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  Speaker 1: a Hollywood heist film. There was a pilot, a former mobster,
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  Speaker 1: a pair of US Marine brothers, a biologist, two teen
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  Speaker 1: lab assistance, and a world famous Harvard chemist known for
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  Speaker 1: inventing napalm. Most of the members were skeptical when they
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  Speaker 1: first learned what Doc Adams had planned, but they all
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  Speaker 1: signed on and moved to a high security Air Force
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  Speaker 1: base in New Mexico. For the next two whole years,
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  Speaker 1: they worked around the clock developing the top secret device,
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  Speaker 1: which had been codenamed Project x RAY. Nothing like this
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  Speaker 1: had ever been attempted before, and there were plenty of
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  Speaker 1: kinks to work out. From the start, the project was
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  Speaker 1: plagued by problems. Gathering the parts for the bomb they
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  Speaker 1: wanted to make was especially challenging, and their volatile nature
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  Speaker 1: made them difficult to work with. In one catastrophic incident,
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  Speaker 1: six of the unfinished devices were triggered by mistake, sparking
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  Speaker 1: a fire that destroyed the base's new airfield. Doc Adams
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  Speaker 1: team was determined, though, and soon enough they had a
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  Speaker 1: working prototype. The team tested the weapon on a simulated
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  Speaker 1: Japanese village, which they had built just for this purpose,
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  Speaker 1: and it worked. The village didn't just burn to the ground,
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  Speaker 1: it was completely immolated. Based on that test, Doc Adams
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  Speaker 1: team estimated that their device was twelve times more destructive
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  Speaker 1: than the incendiary bombs the military was currently using. Despite
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  Speaker 1: that success, Project x Ray hit a roadblock in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: forty four, just as the team was getting ready to
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  Speaker 1: enter mass production. After two years of an expensive war,
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  Speaker 1: the military needed to make some cut and Doc learned
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  Speaker 1: that they were about to choose between funding his device
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  Speaker 1: or another experimental weapons project based out of New Mexico.
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  Speaker 1: In the end, Project x Ray got the axe, the
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  Speaker 1: team was disbanded, and the weapon was never used on
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  Speaker 1: an enemy target. Because of that, few people know how
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  Speaker 1: close the US came to using napalm equipped bats against
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  Speaker 1: its enemy. Yeah, that was Doc's big idea. Capture millions
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  Speaker 1: of Mexican high tail bats, fit them with tiny incendiary bombs,
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  Speaker 1: and load them by the dozen into large canisters that
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  Speaker 1: could be dropped from a plane. Once the shell plummeted
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  Speaker 1: to four thousand feet, a parachute would trigger and the
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  Speaker 1: shell would open. The bats would spread far and wide,
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  Speaker 1: seeking out dark atticts and eaves to roost in, and
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  Speaker 1: then a timer would trigger the bombs and the bats
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  Speaker 1: would explode all at once. That kind of weapon could
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  Speaker 1: have been especially catastrophic in the wooden cities of World
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  Speaker 1: War II era Japan. It also would have been uniquely nightmarish.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine your neighborhood burning to the ground while winged balls
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  Speaker 1: of flame plung from the sky canceling. Doc adams project
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  Speaker 1: prevented that image from becoming a reality and spared the
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  Speaker 1: lives of millions of bats. In its place, though the
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  Speaker 1: world got another kind of nightmare because Project x ray
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  Speaker 1: lost its funding to another project with more promise, a
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  Speaker 1: secret military program to develop the world's first atomic bomb,
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  Speaker 1: the Manhattan Project. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
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  Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.