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Open Water · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
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  Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
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  Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
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  Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
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  Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. The ocean is a dark and
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  Speaker 1: mysterious place. One can get disoriented, bobbing like a cork
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  Speaker 1: in the water with no land in sight. Sailors who
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  Speaker 1: are dehydrated or sleep deprived have been known to hallucinate,
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  Speaker 1: seeing ships, islands, and even people that aren't really there,
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  Speaker 1: and history is riddled with tales of vessels turning up
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  Speaker 1: with their crews missing or a lone survivor who can't
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  Speaker 1: remember what happened next. Ships have ways of signaling for help,
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  Speaker 1: of course, from flares to radios and even satellite phones nowadays.
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  Speaker 1: But back in the nineteen forties, one ship in distress
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  Speaker 1: didn't have a radio or a telephone, and it didn't
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  Speaker 1: shoot a flare into the sky either. It sent a harrowing,
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  Speaker 1: cryptic message in a last ditch effort for help that
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  Speaker 1: came too late. What followed could not be explained it
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  Speaker 1: started well, No one is quite sure about that. The
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  Speaker 1: event was said to have occurred in seven with a
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  Speaker 1: cargo ship named the S. S. Orange Madon sent out
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  Speaker 1: a distress call. It was a forty year old steamer
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  Speaker 1: whose name in Malaysian translated to Man of Madon. Much
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  Speaker 1: of the twenty three man crew was made up of
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  Speaker 1: native Indonesians, but whether they had just set out or
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  Speaker 1: were returning home is not known. The ship was traveling
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  Speaker 1: through the Strait of Malacca, a narrow passage separating the
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  Speaker 1: Malay Peninsula and the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. On
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  Speaker 1: a faithful day in June. A message was sent from
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  Speaker 1: the Orange Madon in Morse code that scots and dashes
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  Speaker 1: translated to we float. All officers including the captain dead
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  Speaker 1: in chart room and on the bridge, probably whole of
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  Speaker 1: crew dead, followed by the words I die. No other
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  Speaker 1: details followed. That was the last thing transmitted by the
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  Speaker 1: radio operator on board the ship to other ships in
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  Speaker 1: the area. One called City of Baltimore and one named
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  Speaker 1: Silver Star received the message, but it was the Silver
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  Speaker 1: Star that reached the Madan first. They attempted to communicate
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  Speaker 1: using their loudspeaker, but there was no response. No damage
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  Speaker 1: was detected on the ship's hull either. With all other
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  Speaker 1: options exhausted, Silver Stars crew boarded the vessel to investigate.
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  Speaker 1: What they found stopped them in their tracks. The entire
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  Speaker 1: crew was dead, their faces frozen in terror, as though
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  Speaker 1: something had scared them to death. Their bodies were twisted
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  Speaker 1: in unnatural positions as well, though they bore no visible injuries,
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  Speaker 1: and there were other signs of strangeness play, possibly even supernatural.
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  Speaker 1: For one, the outside temperature was around one hundred degrees fahrenheit,
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  Speaker 1: but the Silver Star crew felt a haunting chill as
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  Speaker 1: they stood on the ship. There was also just a
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  Speaker 1: single lifeboat missing, and the bodies were in a bad
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  Speaker 1: state of decay, despite having died only hours earlier. The
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  Speaker 1: search party had planned on taking a closer look at
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  Speaker 1: the bodies, but were forced to leave in a hurry
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  Speaker 1: when one of the Maddon's smokestacks caught fire. Instead, they
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  Speaker 1: decided to tow the ghostly ship back to shore and
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  Speaker 1: salvage it for parts. Almost as soon as the men
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  Speaker 1: left the Madon, an explosion went off somewhere below deck,
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  Speaker 1: then another. In total, four explosions rang out before the
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  Speaker 1: Orange Madon's smoking hull slip below the waves, taking its
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  Speaker 1: cruise remains with it. After the story got out, it
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  Speaker 1: was believed that the ship had been part of a
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  Speaker 1: smuggling operation involved in transporting harmful nerve agents and other
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  Speaker 1: toxic chemicals. It was possible that ocean water had breached
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  Speaker 1: the cargo hold and cause as to chemical reaction with
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  Speaker 1: the toxins inside. The ensuing cloud of gas would have
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  Speaker 1: poisoned everyone on board. Another theory suggested that it was
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  Speaker 1: carbon monoxide gas that had killed captain and crew, caused
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  Speaker 1: by an undetected fire in the ship's boiler. The mystery
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  Speaker 1: of the Orange Madon is one that has stumped sailors
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  Speaker 1: and researchers for decades, namely because on paper, the ship
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  Speaker 1: never existed. It could not be found on any register,
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  Speaker 1: and the first mentions of it were in the news
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  Speaker 1: stories coming out of Indonesia. They were based on an
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  Speaker 1: account told by an Italian officer from the Silver Star
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  Speaker 1: who had seen the bodies for himself. A photograph was
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  Speaker 1: allegedly taken to but when a newspaper editor tried to
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  Speaker 1: get in touch with him, the officer had vanished. But
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  Speaker 1: Once the story was out, there was no stopping it.
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  Speaker 1: Papers in England and the United States republished it without
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  Speaker 1: checking its veracity. There are people today who don't believe
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  Speaker 1: that the Orange Madon even existed at all. Then again,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps the key was in the missing lifeboats. Maybe some
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  Speaker 1: who really knew what happened had gotten away before he
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  Speaker 1: could be caught. The world may never know the truth
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  Speaker 1: for sure, but the story of the Oranguemdon lives on
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  Speaker 1: as a terrifying reminder that the ocean can be unforgiving
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  Speaker 1: and that dead men really do tell no tales. When
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  Speaker 1: someone is incredibly skilled at something, they can make it
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  Speaker 1: look easy. What we don't see, however, are the hours
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  Speaker 1: of training and rehearsals that got them there, the flooded
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  Speaker 1: lyrics in a song, or the foul balls they hit
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  Speaker 1: into the stands, or the wrong notes on the sheet music.
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  Speaker 1: But sometimes someone is so good it can seem like
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  Speaker 1: there are supernatural forces at play. Robert Johnson, for example,
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  Speaker 1: died in at the age of seven, but was said
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  Speaker 1: to have been so proficient as a blues guitarist that
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  Speaker 1: he must have gotten his talent from the devil himself.
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  Speaker 1: According to a legend, Johnson took his guitar to a
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  Speaker 1: crossroad near a plantation in rural Mississippi at the stroke
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  Speaker 1: of midnight one night. A man appeared before him and
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  Speaker 1: tuned the guitar before strumming a few tunes and handing
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  Speaker 1: it back to him. The deal was done. Johnson had
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  Speaker 1: just become a blues master. And there's a reason these
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  Speaker 1: myths persist where expert artists are concerned. It's hard to
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  Speaker 1: imagine how someone can possess so much talent on their own,
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  Speaker 1: especially while they're still so young. But Robert Johnson wasn't
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  Speaker 1: the first person to have reputedly sold his soul for
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  Speaker 1: fame and fortune. Before the blues guitar, there was the
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  Speaker 1: classical violin and the man who made it sing like
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  Speaker 1: no other. Niccolo Paganini. Paganini was born in seventeen eighty
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  Speaker 1: two in Genoa, Italy. His father played the mandolin as
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  Speaker 1: a side business, an instrument. He began teaching his son
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  Speaker 1: when Niccolo was only five, but when the boy turned seven,
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  Speaker 1: his attention turned to the violin. Paganini was something of
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  Speaker 1: a prodigy. His talents earned him scholarships and opportunities to
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  Speaker 1: study with some of best violinists of his time, but
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  Speaker 1: his teachers quickly realized that they were no match for
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  Speaker 1: his growing skills. He was a force to be reckoned with.
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  Speaker 1: When Paganini turned eighteen, his plane earned him a top
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  Speaker 1: spot as first violin of the Republic of Luca, a
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  Speaker 1: now defunct state in Italy that was annexed by Napoleon
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen o five. Control of Luca was handed to
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  Speaker 1: Napoleon's sister Alyssa, and Paganini served as violinist in her
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  Speaker 1: court until eighteen o nine, when he began touring again.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't until eighteen thirteen when the virtuoso started making
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  Speaker 1: a name for himself as a violinist. After a successful
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  Speaker 1: concert in Milan, Paganini skyrocketed to success, traveling all over
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  Speaker 1: Europe and giving concerts to large audiences. Even the Pope
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  Speaker 1: was a fan. But Paganini's talents also earned him ire
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  Speaker 1: from rival violinists who were jealous of his abilities. For one,
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  Speaker 1: he didn't perform with sheet music, he memorized his pieces
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  Speaker 1: prior to playing them. Paganini was so blazingly fast too.
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  Speaker 1: His long, thin fingers were able to play twelve notes
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  Speaker 1: per second, a difficult nearly impossible feat for most violinists.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't long before rumors surrounding the origins of his
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  Speaker 1: abilities started to emerge. An audience member in Vienna claimed
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  Speaker 1: to have witnessed the devil himself assisting Paganini on stage.
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  Speaker 1: Another person said that they once saw the devil caused
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  Speaker 1: lightning to strike his bow during a performance. It eventually
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  Speaker 1: got to the point where audiences stopped attending his shows
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  Speaker 1: for fear of getting too close to evil. To remedy
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  Speaker 1: the situation, Paganini was forced to prove something he never
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  Speaker 1: thought he would have to, that he was human. To
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  Speaker 1: do this, he had a newspaper publish a personal letter
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  Speaker 1: his mother had written him. Clearly, if he had a
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  Speaker 1: regular human mother, then there was no way he could
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  Speaker 1: be a product of the devil. The letter was enough
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  Speaker 1: to quell the rumors and audiences started coming back. So
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  Speaker 1: why did Niccolo Paganini excel in a way no other
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  Speaker 1: violinist could well? That answer ties him to the other
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  Speaker 1: famous musician I mentioned earlier, Robert Johnson. It was believed
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  Speaker 1: that both men had something called Marfan syndrome, a genetic
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  Speaker 1: disorder that affected how their limbs and appendages grew. Those
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  Speaker 1: with Marfan syndrome were often tall, with long fingers and toes.
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  Speaker 1: Both Johnson and Paganini boasted elongated fingers that allowed them
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  Speaker 1: to move about their instruments with great speed and agility. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: Paganini died of cancer in eighteen forty. A priest tried
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  Speaker 1: to give him his last rites just before his death,
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  Speaker 1: but Paganini refused. He didn't think that it was yet
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  Speaker 1: his time. For those who had accused him of being
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  Speaker 1: in league with Satan, this was just one more reason
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  Speaker 1: to be suspicious. But Paganini did die then, regardless of
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  Speaker 1: what people thought of him, they had to give the
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  Speaker 1: devil his due, because that man left behind an impressive
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  Speaker 1: body of work, one that's still performed today. 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: so scribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more
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  Speaker 1: about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The
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  Speaker 1: show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with
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  Speaker 1: how 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 curious. Yeah,