Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / A Light in the Dark

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A Light in the Dark · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Nke'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: You go on a blind date with a friend of
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  Speaker 1: a friend, and five minutes into cocktails, discover that they
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  Speaker 1: share your birthday. You dream about someone you haven't thought
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  Speaker 1: about in years, and then get a call that they
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  Speaker 1: have passed away. Your partner asks you to pick up
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  Speaker 1: a specific shampoo brand from the store, and all of
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  Speaker 1: a sudden, you start seeing commercials for it everywhere. Odd
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  Speaker 1: little coincidences like this happen all the time. History is
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  Speaker 1: full of them, but when they appear out of the blue,
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  Speaker 1: it can feel downright uncanny. Take the story of ten
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  Speaker 1: year old Laura Buxton. In June of two thousand and one,
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  Speaker 1: Laura was in Staffordshire, England, celebrating her grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary,
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  Speaker 1: and on a whim, Laura's grandfather suggested that they release
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  Speaker 1: one of the gold Milar balloons that were decorating the grounds.
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  Speaker 1: Laura would attach a note to the balloon with instructions
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  Speaker 1: to contact her. If they were lucky, someone would get
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  Speaker 1: in touch and they'd find out exactly how far their
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  Speaker 1: balloon had gone. Well, that balloon traveled one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: forty miles south before landing in a hedge in the
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  Speaker 1: county of Wiltshire. A farmer found it and read the
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  Speaker 1: attached note, and then he headed next door. As chance
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  Speaker 1: would have it, this farmer was neighbors with an entirely
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  Speaker 1: different girl, also named Laura Buxton. He gave the balloon
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  Speaker 1: to the second Laura, who followed the instructions and got
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  Speaker 1: in touch with Laura number one. The girls and their
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  Speaker 1: parents were all amused by the odd turn of events
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  Speaker 1: and agreed that they should meet in person. And that's
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  Speaker 1: when the coincidences really started to balloon. As it turned out,
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  Speaker 1: Laura one and Laura two didn't just share a name.
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  Speaker 1: They were both in the fifth grade and both had
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  Speaker 1: no siblings. They had the same build, same eye color,
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  Speaker 1: and similar hair color. They each owned three year old
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  Speaker 1: female labradors, rabbits, and guinea pigs. They even dressed the same. Reportedly,
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  Speaker 1: the Lauras arrived to their first meeting in nearly identical
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  Speaker 1: ensembles of pink jumpers and blue jeans. In the year
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  Speaker 1: since their first meeting, the story of the Lauras and
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  Speaker 1: their balloon has proliferated online. Exactly what makes it so
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  Speaker 1: sticky is hard to pin down. On face value, It's
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  Speaker 1: the mundane story of a chance meeting between two girls
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  Speaker 1: with a lot in common, made a bit sweeter by
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  Speaker 1: the fact that they remained friends for years afterwards. On
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  Speaker 1: another level, though, the story taps into our sense of
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  Speaker 1: the supernatural. Like all uncanny coincidences, it makes us feel
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  Speaker 1: that the universe isn't random but meaningful, that there's a
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  Speaker 1: logic governing everything, and we're connected to each other in
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  Speaker 1: ways we can't begin to fathom. After all, in a
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  Speaker 1: meaningless random universe, would the Lauras ever have found each
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  Speaker 1: other at all? The answer, according to some staticians, is
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  Speaker 1: actually yes. This is due to the law of truly
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  Speaker 1: large numbers, which states that with a large enough data set,
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  Speaker 1: any highly implausible result is likely to be observed. In
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  Speaker 1: Layman's terms, it means that with enough people doing enough
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  Speaker 1: things in enough different places all over a long enough
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  Speaker 1: period of time, seemingly unlikely events become extremely likely, even inevitable.
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  Speaker 1: But the story of the two Lauras isn't just about probability,
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  Speaker 1: and we don't have to believe in fate or a
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  Speaker 1: supernatural universe to appreciate the story. The thing that truly
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  Speaker 1: makes it resonates isn't just how unlikely it was that
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  Speaker 1: two girls met. It's the fact that they almost didn't.
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  Speaker 1: If not for that balloon, they could have lived their
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  Speaker 1: whole lives not knowing that the other Laura existed. They
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  Speaker 1: would have missed out on a unique, fun and memorable experience,
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  Speaker 1: not to mention friendship. David Spiegelhalter, a risk researcher at
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  Speaker 1: the University of Cambridge, said that, and I quote, a
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  Speaker 1: coincidence itself is in the eye of the beholder, and
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  Speaker 1: by this he means that the significance of any given
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  Speaker 1: coincidence is born from the fact that someone was present
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  Speaker 1: to witness and draw meaning from it. If the first
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  Speaker 1: Laura hadn't released her balloon and the girls never met,
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  Speaker 1: then they would have just been statistical anomalies. But because
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  Speaker 1: they found each other, having so much in common, became
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  Speaker 1: special and maybe there's a lesson here for us, because
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  Speaker 1: whether you believe in an intentional universe or a random one,
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  Speaker 1: the reality is sometimes we are connected to each other
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  Speaker 1: in surprising ways. But if we never step outside our
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  Speaker 1: comfort zone, if we don't set our balloons loose once
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  Speaker 1: in a while, then you or I will never know
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  Speaker 1: how truly special we are. When we think of ancient Egypt,
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  Speaker 1: our minds go straight to the pyramids. These monuments of
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  Speaker 1: the ancient world are massive structures containing subterranean chambers, long
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  Speaker 1: windowless hallways, and winding corridors. You can imagine the builders,
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  Speaker 1: the priests, and anyone else who had access to these
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  Speaker 1: tombs would have needed some kind of light to get around,
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  Speaker 1: which is why it's strange that in many Egyptian tombs
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  Speaker 1: there's a distinct lack of torches. There's also very little
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  Speaker 1: soot residue on the ceilings, which you would expect to
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  Speaker 1: find if torches had been used during the building process.
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  Speaker 1: So were the ancient Egyptians just groping around in the dark. Well,
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  Speaker 1: if you've ever seen the nineteen ninety nine film The
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  Speaker 1: Mummy starring Brennan Fraser, then you know the answer. The
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  Speaker 1: Pharaohs used intricate systems of mirrors to bring the power
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  Speaker 1: of the sun into their tombs, bouncing the light from
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  Speaker 1: one shiny surface to the next until every chamber was illuminated.
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  Speaker 1: Except that's probably just a bit of Hollywood fantasy. In reality,
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  Speaker 1: Egyptian mirrors were much too crude for such a feat.
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  Speaker 1: But there's another possibility, and it seems even more fantastical.
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  Speaker 1: The idea was sparked by a discovery in a temple
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  Speaker 1: dedicated to the goddess Hathor near the city of Dundera.
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  Speaker 1: In a remote corner of that temple, a series of
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  Speaker 1: hieroglyphic carvings depict a strange scene. A bulb shaped device
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  Speaker 1: is shown sprouting from the floor, with a socket at
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  Speaker 1: one end and a long cable extending from the other.
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  Speaker 1: The socket continues into a long tube rounded at one
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  Speaker 1: end with a curving snake at its center. A priest
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  Speaker 1: stands nearby, aiming the device upwards. It sounds impossible, but
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  Speaker 1: if you see the carvings, they look an awful lot
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  Speaker 1: like modern electric lights, complete with a wire inside. The
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  Speaker 1: snake's body serves as the filament of the light bulb.
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  Speaker 1: But aside from looking similar to a light, there's not
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  Speaker 1: a lot of hard evidence to suggest that's actually what
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  Speaker 1: the reliefs show. You would think that if the Egyptians
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  Speaker 1: had access to electric lighting, they probably would have left
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  Speaker 1: behind some wires or glass bulbs, but nothing like that
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  Speaker 1: has ever turned up. Instead, most Egyptologists believe that the
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  Speaker 1: Dendera reliefs don't show a device, but an Egyptian creation myth.
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  Speaker 1: They was said that at the beginning of time, reality
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  Speaker 1: was covered by a primordial sea. The first thing to
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  Speaker 1: emerge from these dark waters was a single lotus flower.
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  Speaker 1: The flower then gave birth to the sun god autumn Ra,
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  Speaker 1: who went on to create the entire universe. In the
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  Speaker 1: official interpretation of the Dendera carvings, this socket is the
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  Speaker 1: lotus flower from that myth, while the snake inside that
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  Speaker 1: bulb shaped bubble is autumn Ra. It's less exciting than
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  Speaker 1: thinking the hieroglyphs show us an ancient flashlight, but more believable,
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  Speaker 1: and that means that we're still in the dark. Sorry
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  Speaker 1: pun intended when it comes to explaining how the Egyptians
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  Speaker 1: actually lit their tombs. Ultimately, the truth was hiding in
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  Speaker 1: plain sights all along. While ancient Egyptian tombs are short
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  Speaker 1: on torches. They do have plenty of bulls. There's nothing
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  Speaker 1: special about them, which is why archaeologists overlooked them for
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  Speaker 1: so long. But a text by the Greek historian Herodotus
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  Speaker 1: reveals that the Egyptians use these bulls as a unique
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  Speaker 1: kind of torch by filling them with castor oil and salt.
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  Speaker 1: The salt kept the oil from spilling and dropping the wick,
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  Speaker 1: and that's why the bulls didn't need a groove or
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  Speaker 1: a notch that you would typically see in a torch.
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  Speaker 1: The castor oil burns clean, which explains the missing soot
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  Speaker 1: case closed right well probably. However, fringe theorists still cling
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  Speaker 1: to the possibility that the Dendera reliefs our evidence of
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  Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian electricity, and in the nineteen eighties an engineer
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  Speaker 1: named Walter Garn created a working replica of the Dendera
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  Speaker 1: light based on the carvings. When he turned it on,
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  Speaker 1: the glowing filament inside the bulb pulsed and writhed, coiling
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  Speaker 1: and uncoiling a lot like a serpent rising from the
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  Speaker 1: bud of a lotus. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.