Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Killer Act

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Killer Act · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  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.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Hypnosis is one of
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  Speaker 1: those things most people laugh about when it's discussed as entertainment.
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  Speaker 1: It's fake. They say. You can't control someone just by
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  Speaker 1: swinging a pocket watch in front of their face like
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  Speaker 1: a pendulum. The people in those Vegas shows must be
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  Speaker 1: plants individuals higher to pretend like they have no control
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  Speaker 1: over their body. They hop on one foot or bite
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  Speaker 1: into an onion like it's an apple, and the audience
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  Speaker 1: applauds because they don't know any better. But hypnosis is
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  Speaker 1: one of those strange places where art and science intersect.
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  Speaker 1: As a therapy tool, Hypnosis can be incredibly beneficial to
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  Speaker 1: those who need it, but it takes time. It can't
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  Speaker 1: be induced in the time it takes to put on
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  Speaker 1: a short stage show, not unless you're Arthur Everton, whose
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  Speaker 1: powers of persuasion we're second to none. Arthur was a
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  Speaker 1: professional hypnotist way back in n nine, often inviting audience
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  Speaker 1: members to come up on stage and be part of
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  Speaker 1: his act at a performance in Somerville, New Jersey. One night,
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  Speaker 1: he pulled the audience for a volunteer. The man who
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  Speaker 1: raised his hand was a piano mover and street car
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  Speaker 1: conductor from Newark named Robert Simpson. A moment later, Simpson
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  Speaker 1: climbed on stage and then awaited Arthur's instructions. The hypnotist
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  Speaker 1: placed him under a trance one meant to induce a
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  Speaker 1: cataleptic state. In other words, Simpson's body went as stiff
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  Speaker 1: as a board. Arthur then lowered him down, positioning him
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  Speaker 1: between two chairs like a kind of bridge, with his
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  Speaker 1: head on one chair and his feet on the other.
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  Speaker 1: Arthur then put his skills and Simpson's body to the
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  Speaker 1: test by climbing up and standing on the man's chest
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  Speaker 1: for a few seconds. The audience went wild. Amazingly, Simpson
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  Speaker 1: didn't move. He showed no signs of pain or stress,
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  Speaker 1: even though Arthur had just used him as a makeshift platform.
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  Speaker 1: After Arthur stepped down, he eased Simpson down off the
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  Speaker 1: chairs before standing him back up. It was time to
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  Speaker 1: bring him out of his trance send back to reality.
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  Speaker 1: Arthur called to him, demanding that he wake up, but
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  Speaker 1: Simpson just stood there. Rigid and unmoving. Arthur tried again,
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  Speaker 1: but Simpson still refused to pop out of his trance
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  Speaker 1: and return to normal. This was surprising to the audience
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  Speaker 1: for sure, but it was even more troublesome for Arthur.
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  Speaker 1: Why because he and Simpson had performed the trick dozens
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  Speaker 1: of times before. Yes, Robert Simpson was a plant. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: he was what they called a leader, someone planted in
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  Speaker 1: the audience to lead the rest of the crowd deep
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  Speaker 1: into the fantasy. Finally, after several moments with no movements,
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  Speaker 1: Simpson's body began to relax, and then he collapsed on
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  Speaker 1: the floor. Arthur quickly dragged his friend off stage, where
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  Speaker 1: he attempted to revive him, but shockingly, it was too late.
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  Speaker 1: A doctor in the audience pronounced Robert Simpson dead at
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  Speaker 1: the scene, much to Arthur's consternation. You see, Arthur believed
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  Speaker 1: the man wasn't dead, but merely still stuck in his trance.
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  Speaker 1: Given time, he thought he'd be able to wake him up,
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  Speaker 1: just as he had so many times before. The doctor
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  Speaker 1: even led him accompany Simpson to the hospital, where the
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  Speaker 1: hypnotist spent all night trying to pull him back out
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  Speaker 1: of his trance, but nothing worked, and the following morning,
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  Speaker 1: Arthur Everton was arrested for manslaughter. As the newspapers reported
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  Speaker 1: the story, hypnotists from all over the country came out
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  Speaker 1: of the woodwork with suggestions of their own for how
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  Speaker 1: to reanimate the late piano mover. One man named William Davenport,
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  Speaker 1: at the request of Mr Everton, also tried his hand
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  Speaker 1: bringing Mr Simpson back. His methods were a lot less
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  Speaker 1: mystical than you might imagine, though. Davenport simply leaned over
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  Speaker 1: Simpson's body, rested his hand upon the man's heart, and
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  Speaker 1: then whispered into his ear, bob your heart, your heart
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  Speaker 1: is beating. But nothing, because Robert Simpson wasn't trapped in
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  Speaker 1: a catatonic state or some sort of hypnotic trance. No,
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  Speaker 1: his a order had ruptured, killing him almost instantly. But
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  Speaker 1: the doctors couldn't tell whether Arthur's trick had been the
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  Speaker 1: cause of it all or if it had just been
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  Speaker 1: an unfortunate coincidence. In the end, though they decided the
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  Speaker 1: hypnotist was not to blame. The grand jury soon agreed
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  Speaker 1: and Arthur Everton was found not guilty. He returned to
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  Speaker 1: performing a short while later, but his business took a
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  Speaker 1: hit thanks to the bad publicity. Even though every stage
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  Speaker 1: performer dreams of the day they might kill it, as
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  Speaker 1: they say, most audiences have a very different goal. They
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  Speaker 1: just want to make it out of the show alive.
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  Speaker 1: They say, a picture is worth a thousand words, although
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  Speaker 1: some can be worth far more than that. The world
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  Speaker 1: famous photo of the loch Ness Monster, taken by Dr
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  Speaker 1: Robert Kenneth Wilson in nineteen thirty four, depicts the shadowy
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  Speaker 1: image of the creatures famous long neck sticking out of
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  Speaker 1: the water, the waves around it rippling outward. It's an
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  Speaker 1: image that everyone knows, it's instantly recognizable, and it's inspired
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  Speaker 1: decades of speculation of what might be living beneath the
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  Speaker 1: waters of Lochness. But there is another photo, one that
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  Speaker 1: is also at the center of a decade's long debate
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  Speaker 1: over its authenticity and what it might signify about humanity
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  Speaker 1: and where we really sit within the food chain. It
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  Speaker 1: was taken by a man named Eric Shipton in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty one. Shipped In was a mountaineer who had clim
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  Speaker 1: numerous him Alayan peaks, but had wanted to scale the
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  Speaker 1: yet unscalable mount Everest. Nowadays, Everest is a popular destination
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  Speaker 1: for thrill seekers with money to burn, but during Eric
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  Speaker 1: Shipton's time it was a very different ordeal. The most
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  Speaker 1: common route used by folks trying to climb Mount Everest
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  Speaker 1: was along the northern side, but Shipton and his crew
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  Speaker 1: were set on exploring the southwestern side to see if
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  Speaker 1: there was a way up to the top that no
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  Speaker 1: one had found yet. Along for the trip were three
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  Speaker 1: other British climbers, William Murray, Tom border Lawn and W. H. Ward,
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  Speaker 1: as well as local sherpas that were there to guide them.
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  Speaker 1: One of those men, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became friends with
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  Speaker 1: Shipton and would eventually accompany him on future expeditions. The
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  Speaker 1: climb didn't pan out, though, and the climbers descended the mountain,
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  Speaker 1: but they never stopped trying. During another expedition several months later, Shipton, Norgay,
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  Speaker 1: and a doctor Michael Ward, were exploring a glacier west
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  Speaker 1: of Mount Everest, when they stopped to look at something
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  Speaker 1: strange in the snow. It was a footprint thirteen inches
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  Speaker 1: long and twice as wide as a man's foot. It
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  Speaker 1: bore four small toes and one big toe and was
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  Speaker 1: discovered at an altitude of nineteen thousand feet. Just ahead
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  Speaker 1: of that print was another, and then another, and then another.
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  Speaker 1: They were tracks. The men followed them from a mile
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  Speaker 1: to a chasm, where it was clear that whatever creature
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  Speaker 1: had made the Prince had jumped across, and from where
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  Speaker 1: they stood they could see the tracks continued on the
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  Speaker 1: other side. Shipt In, unable to follow them any farther,
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  Speaker 1: returned to the trail and continued his work. He would
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  Speaker 1: later publish his findings in both a book and an
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  Speaker 1: article that each detailed what he had found. Biologists and
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  Speaker 1: zoologists tried to discredit his claims, assuring people that the
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  Speaker 1: only creatures living at that elevation were bears and languor monkeys.
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  Speaker 1: London's Natural History Museum even commissioned to him Alayan bear
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  Speaker 1: to walk across a stretch of sand so that they
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  Speaker 1: could compare the footprints to photographs taken by Shipton, but
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  Speaker 1: the test backfired because they didn't match, and the biggest
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  Speaker 1: languor monkey prints are only about eight inches long, much
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  Speaker 1: smaller than the imprint discovered near Mount Everest. Yet, despite
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  Speaker 1: the claims from experts, all over the world that the
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  Speaker 1: Prince were animal in nature. Shipton refused to believe it,
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  Speaker 1: so did the Sherpas, who were familiar with the region,
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  Speaker 1: because they'd all seen the creature that made the Prince firsthand,
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  Speaker 1: or at least knew someone who had. It had been
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  Speaker 1: described as a being about five ft six inches tall
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  Speaker 1: and covered with a reddish brown hair. Except for its face.
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  Speaker 1: It stood upright like a human being, but it lumbered
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  Speaker 1: through the snow with ease. It had only ever been
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  Speaker 1: seen in passing and had never been captured on camera,
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  Speaker 1: which of course only adds to the legend. Tenzing Norgay
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  Speaker 1: went on to become the second man to summit Mount Everest,
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  Speaker 1: alongside Sir Edmund Hillary in three He was clearly a
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  Speaker 1: brave and determined man, but on that earlier trip, when
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  Speaker 1: he saw the enormous footprints in the snow with his
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  Speaker 1: own eyes, he froze in place with fear, and then
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  Speaker 1: he uttered a single word that would carry more weight
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  Speaker 1: than any photograph of a footprints ever could, at least
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  Speaker 1: to our modern ears. He muttered the name of the
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  Speaker 1: creature that he believed had left the print, Yettie. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities,
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  Speaker 1: subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay sarious.