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Fairy Bureau of Investigation · 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 right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: When we think of an investigator, we picture someone in
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  Speaker 1: a dark suit and sunglasses with a badge on their
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  Speaker 1: hip right. They talk fast and ask a lot of
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  Speaker 1: questions in search of the truth. Well, one British organization
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  Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century did ask a lot of questions,
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  Speaker 1: but whether it had found out the truth or not
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  Speaker 1: is still up for debate. It was formed in the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties when author Bernard's Slay published his novel The
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  Speaker 1: Gates of the Horn. The actual title a lot longer
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  Speaker 1: than that, but it's not the part that caught people's eyes.
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  Speaker 1: It was the subject matter inside it. Within the pages
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  Speaker 1: of Slay's book were ten short stories, each one the
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  Speaker 1: written testimony of a member of a clandestine organization known
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  Speaker 1: as the Fairy Investigation Society. Slay had written the stories
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  Speaker 1: as though they'd been real reports from people who'd come
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  Speaker 1: into contact with fairies. And they aren't whimsical childlike Tales
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  Speaker 1: of Wonder either. They dealt with death and loss, as
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  Speaker 1: well as themes of a sexual nature, and they were
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  Speaker 1: apparently so convincing readers started to believe that the society
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  Speaker 1: was real. Pretty soon life began to imitate art. A
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  Speaker 1: man named Quinton Crawford, who'd served in the British Navy,
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  Speaker 1: had fallen down the rabbit hole of spiritualism and paranormal science,
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  Speaker 1: popular topics at the time. In nineteen twenty seven, he'd
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  Speaker 1: been tinkering with a wireless radio that he designed when
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  Speaker 1: he started hearing music. He described it as the sound
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  Speaker 1: of harps and bells. Believing that he had found a
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  Speaker 1: special frequency known only to fairies, Crawford started talking to
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  Speaker 1: the voices on the other end of the signa, and
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  Speaker 1: they started talking back. This event is considered by many
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  Speaker 1: to have inspired his belief in fairies. Soon after, he
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  Speaker 1: was gifted a copy of Slay's novel, a book that
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  Speaker 1: would change the direction of his life forever. Taken with
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  Speaker 1: the idea of the Fairy Investigation Society, he immediately met
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  Speaker 1: with the author to discuss starting up a real version
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  Speaker 1: of the organization, and so in nineteen twenty seven, the
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  Speaker 1: Fairy Investigation Society or FIS was formed. Its purpose was twofold. First,
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  Speaker 1: they wanted to catalog personal accounts about fairy encounters from
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  Speaker 1: people all over the world. They collected letters, magazine articles,
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  Speaker 1: and even stories told by them word of mouth. And secondly,
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  Speaker 1: they hope to unite humanity with nature and reach a
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  Speaker 1: higher plane of existence. Now, despite the fantastic topic, FIS
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  Speaker 1: meetings were pretty standard, almost like any other meeting you
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  Speaker 1: might find in a corporate boardroom, just you know, with
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  Speaker 1: more fairies. The chairman of the group would give an
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  Speaker 1: opening statements, wherein he would discuss current fairy evidence meant
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  Speaker 1: for further examination. The members would then raise a toast
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  Speaker 1: to the fairies before handling the day to day administrative
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  Speaker 1: work like financial records and other reports. The FIS was
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  Speaker 1: quite active during the late twenties and throughout the thirties. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: Slay retired early to rural Gloucestershire. Crawford was left in
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  Speaker 1: charge and he took his role very seriously. Among his
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  Speaker 1: many jobs, he worked on the FIS newsletter, which reached
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  Speaker 1: out to fairy curious people like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
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  Speaker 1: and he also talked to fairies. He had been in
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  Speaker 1: touch with beans called marsh fairies since his early experiments
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  Speaker 1: with the radio. He'd ask them questions and report the
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  Speaker 1: answers back to other FIS members. According to Crawford, the
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  Speaker 1: fairies used ancient Saxon words for Society members to interpret.
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  Speaker 1: He would also challenge them to phase through walls or
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  Speaker 1: tell him where ancient relics were buried. Of course, some
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  Speaker 1: members were skeptical. They would sit in on these sessions
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  Speaker 1: to see if their leader was just leading them on,
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  Speaker 1: but the truth is unknown. The society disbanded just before
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  Speaker 1: the start of World War Two, and many of the
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  Speaker 1: group's records were lost during the war. It wasn't until
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine when the Fairy Investigation Society started up again.
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  Speaker 1: Quentin Crawford, along with a secretary named Marjorie Johnson, got
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  Speaker 1: the ball rolling. Johnson helped recruit new members as well
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  Speaker 1: by publishing newsletters and other literature. For the next ten years,
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  Speaker 1: the Fairy Investigation Society counted among its ranks the likes
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  Speaker 1: of Scottish poet Naomi Mitchison and even Walt Disney himself. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: over time, membership dwindled, and the society eventually faded away
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties. Did people just come to the
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  Speaker 1: conclusion that fairies weren't real? Maybe, but the actual reason
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  Speaker 1: is probably a lot simpler. The magic was finally gone.
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  Speaker 1: An airport is a transitional space. It's one big waiting
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  Speaker 1: room where couples going on an exotic vacation sit side
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  Speaker 1: by side with refugees returning home. It's a site of
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  Speaker 1: reunions as well as separations, and one of the few
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  Speaker 1: places you can get a beer in the morning and
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  Speaker 1: a coffee at night. Thankfully, most of us only see
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  Speaker 1: the inside of a terminal for a few hours, which
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  Speaker 1: is what Meron Karreimi Nassiri assumed when he arrived at
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  Speaker 1: the Charles de Gaul airports in Paris. But Miran had
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  Speaker 1: stumbled into a web of bureaucratic red tape that would
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  Speaker 1: make Franz Kafka jealous. Miran, who liked to be called Alfred,
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  Speaker 1: arrived in nineteen eighty eight. His departure was delayed for
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  Speaker 1: eighteen years. Details on Alfred's life are a bit tricky
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  Speaker 1: to confirm, mostly because Alfred himself had a habit of
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  Speaker 1: reporting one thing as the truth and then later claiming
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  Speaker 1: that it was a lie. But we're pretty sure that
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  Speaker 1: Alfred was born in Iran in nineteen forty five, the
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  Speaker 1: son of a wealthy doctor. His family sent him away
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  Speaker 1: to England for school, and he ended up at the
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  Speaker 1: University of Bradford in the nineteen seventies, studying Yugoslavia. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't until he tried to go home to Iran in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven that his trouble truly began. When Alfred
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  Speaker 1: landed in Tehran, he was immediately seized by airport authorities
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  Speaker 1: and detained. You see, as a student in England, he
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  Speaker 1: had once joined a protest against Iran's shah An offense
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  Speaker 1: that carried prison time back in his home country. With
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  Speaker 1: his parents' help, Alfred was freed from prison, but was
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  Speaker 1: exiled from Iran. He bounced around from country to country
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  Speaker 1: until Belgium finally granted him political asylum in nineteen eighty six.
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  Speaker 1: For Alfred, though, the worst and the weirdest was yet
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  Speaker 1: to come. In nineteen eighty eight, he decided to return
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  Speaker 1: to England, flying out of Paris, but Somewhere during the journey,
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  Speaker 1: his passport was stolen. Unable to enter England without papers,
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  Speaker 1: he was shunted back to Charles de Gaul Airport, where
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  Speaker 1: Alfred found himself in a catch twenty two. Without his papers,
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  Speaker 1: he couldn't prove who he was in the eyes of
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  Speaker 1: the French authorities. That meant that he was traveling illegally.
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  Speaker 1: Alfred could get copies of his papers, proving that he
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  Speaker 1: was a political refugee by going to the Belgian embassy,
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  Speaker 1: but if he left the safety of the airport, he
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  Speaker 1: would be arrested and jailed by the French police. Faced
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  Speaker 1: with this impossible bureaucratic quagmire, Alfred decided to make a
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  Speaker 1: home for himself in Charles Dagall Terminal one. He stayed
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  Speaker 1: there for the next eighteen years. Alfred became something of
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  Speaker 1: a celebrity around the airport. He set up shop on
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  Speaker 1: a red bench situated between a pizzeria and a store
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  Speaker 1: that sold electronics. He christened himself Sir Alfred, refusing to
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  Speaker 1: go by his old name and claiming that he had
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  Speaker 1: cut all ties with Iran. As Alfred's case wound its
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  Speaker 1: way slowly through the international courts, he carved out a
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  Speaker 1: life for himself in Terminal one. He subsisted on airline
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  Speaker 1: meal vouchers and toiletries that kind flight attendants gave him.
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  Speaker 1: He spent his time reading books discarded by travelers and
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  Speaker 1: writing in his diary. He noted down every small thing
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  Speaker 1: that happened to him in an exhaustive journal that eventually
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  Speaker 1: filled several fileboxes. He started each morning with a wash
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  Speaker 1: in the airport bathrooms and a meticulous shave with an
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  Speaker 1: electric razor a passer by had given him. Over the years,
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  Speaker 1: Alfred got used to his little life in the airport.
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  Speaker 1: He struck up friendships with the airport's staff who worked
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  Speaker 1: in the stores around him. The ebbs and flows of
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  Speaker 1: passengers arriving and departing became the rhythm of his life,
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  Speaker 1: which is why it came as a shock when, in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine he was finally granted permission to leave
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  Speaker 1: after eleven years of waiting in captivity. Suddenly having freedom
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  Speaker 1: felt jarring. Alfred was used to this small, enclosed bubble.
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  Speaker 1: The world outside was large and frightening. So much had
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  Speaker 1: changed since he had entered the airport, which explained why,
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  Speaker 1: after gaining his freedom, Alfred decided to stay. He continued
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  Speaker 1: to live in Terminal one until two thousand and six,
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  Speaker 1: when health issues forced him to go to a nearby hospital.
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  Speaker 1: He bounced around between medical facilities and homeless shelters, never
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  Speaker 1: wanting to stay far from his beloved airport, and just
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  Speaker 1: a few months before Alfred passed away in twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: he moved back into Charles de Gaul, taking up residence
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  Speaker 1: on his old red bench. The storefronts and the people
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  Speaker 1: had changed, but Alfred remained the same. Meran Karimi Nasiri,
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  Speaker 1: or Sir Alfred as he preferred, may have had the
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  Speaker 1: world's longest layover. He spent most of his life in
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  Speaker 1: limbo waiting to arrive or to depart, But for Alfred,
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  Speaker 1: it was never about the start of his journey or
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  Speaker 1: the end. For him, the airport itself and the life
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  Speaker 1: he made there was his true final destination. I hope
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  Speaker 1: 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 Mankey 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 Worldoflore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.