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Look Out Below · 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: You ever get that feeling you meet somebody at a
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  Speaker 1: party or sit down with a new colleague, and for
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  Speaker 1: some reason you can't help but think that they seem familiar,
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  Speaker 1: and at some point you just have to ask, don't
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  Speaker 1: I know you from somewhere? For nineteen year old Bobby Schaffron,
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  Speaker 1: it seemed everyone at Sullivan County Community College had that
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  Speaker 1: same feeling. It was moving day in nineteen eighty and
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  Speaker 1: a dozen people had welcomed him back to school, which
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  Speaker 1: was very nice, but a little odd because Bobby was
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  Speaker 1: a brand new student. And another thing. Some people were
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  Speaker 1: greeting Bobby and they kept calling him by the wrong name, Eddie. Finally,
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  Speaker 1: one of the other students asked him a strange question,
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  Speaker 1: was he adopted? When Bobby replied yes, the student grew excited. Bobby.
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  Speaker 1: He said, I think that you might have a twin.
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  Speaker 1: It turned out that Bobby Schaffering looked exactly like Eddie Galland,
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  Speaker 1: another student who attended the college the year before. When
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  Speaker 1: Bobby met Eddie face to face, the similarities were unmistakable.
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  Speaker 1: They had both been born on July twelfth of nineteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty one, They were both adopted through the Louise Wise
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  Speaker 1: adoption agency, and they looked exactly alike. Now, long lost
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  Speaker 1: twins finding each other is already an amazing story right.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, it got Bobby and Eddie on the front
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  Speaker 1: page of several New York newspapers. But the truly miraculous
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  Speaker 1: twist happened several days later when the boys got a
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  Speaker 1: call from a guy named David Killman. Bobby and Eddie
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  Speaker 1: looked exactly like him. They weren't long lost twins, they
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  Speaker 1: were triplets, and these three men were carbon copies of
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  Speaker 1: each other. They all had the same curly hair and
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  Speaker 1: big smiles. They were all adopted by Jewish families in
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  Speaker 1: New York, and each had an adopted sister who was
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  Speaker 1: two years older. But the similarities didn't stop there. They
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  Speaker 1: had big, gregarious personalities. They all liked Chinese food, smoked
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  Speaker 1: Marlboroughs and wrestled in school. They had never met before,
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  Speaker 1: but they felt like the oldest of friends. In the
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  Speaker 1: years after Bobby, Eddie and David found each other, they
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  Speaker 1: became minor celebrities. They headlined every major talk show and
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  Speaker 1: were fixtures on the club circuit. They opened a restaurant
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  Speaker 1: called of Course, Triplets. They even landed a cameo in
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  Speaker 1: a Madonna movie. But still, the trio had some burning questions.
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  Speaker 1: For instance, why did they have to find each other
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  Speaker 1: in the first place. It wasn't common for adoption agencies
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  Speaker 1: to split up siblings, let alone keep their existence a
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  Speaker 1: secret from each other. Why had the Louise Wise agency
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  Speaker 1: lied to the three boys and their families at the
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  Speaker 1: same time? And the Triplets were asking these questions, so
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  Speaker 1: was a journalist, Lawrence Wright. He'd been working on a
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  Speaker 1: story about twins separated at birth, and in his research
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  Speaker 1: he found references to an obscure study. A psychologist, doctor
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  Speaker 1: Peter Neubauer, was studying the effects of nature versus nurture. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: Neubauer wanted to know what had a bigger effect on
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  Speaker 1: someone's life, their genetics or the environment that they grew
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  Speaker 1: up in. To find out doctor Neubauer purposely separated sets
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  Speaker 1: of twins and had them adopted by different families and
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  Speaker 1: the adoption agency that he used for his experiment the
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  Speaker 1: Louise Wise Agency where Bobby, Eddie and David had been
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  Speaker 1: adopted from. So when Lawrence Wright reached out to the
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  Speaker 1: triplets with this revelation, at first they couldn't believe it,
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  Speaker 1: and then they started comparing notes. All three remembered strangers
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  Speaker 1: coming to their houses throughout their childhoods. These people would
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  Speaker 1: film the boys and ask them questions. They'd tested their coordination,
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  Speaker 1: their cognitive development, even their IQ and their parents had
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  Speaker 1: been told that it was just part of a study
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  Speaker 1: on how adopted children adjusted to their new homes. But
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  Speaker 1: each boy never knew that he had two identical brothers
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  Speaker 1: just a few miles away. Bobby, Eddie, and David were
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  Speaker 1: devastated by this revelation. It felt like every aspect of
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  Speaker 1: their lives had been tightly controlled for some experiment. Even
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  Speaker 1: their families were carefully selected. David was purposely placed into
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  Speaker 1: a working class family, Bobby's parents were middle class, and
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  Speaker 1: Eddie grew up upper class. The pressure of fame coupled
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  Speaker 1: with the discovery was a lot for the brothers to bear.
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  Speaker 1: For Eddie, it appeared to be too much. He took
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  Speaker 1: his own life in nineteen ninety five at the age
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  Speaker 1: of thirty three. The two remaining brothers, Bobby and David,
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  Speaker 1: are still looking for answers, namely why this unethical study
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  Speaker 1: was carried out in the first place and what the
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  Speaker 1: results were. Unfortunately, answers have not been forthcoming. Doctor Peter Nubauer,
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  Speaker 1: who ran the study, died in two thousand and eight.
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  Speaker 1: He donated all of his materials to Yale University on
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  Speaker 1: under one condition that all of his notes would be
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  Speaker 1: sealed until twenty sixty six. Perhaps one of the saddest
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  Speaker 1: parts of the whole tale is that there are some
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  Speaker 1: Neubauer study subjects who have never been found, People who
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  Speaker 1: have lived their whole lives without knowing about their twins,
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  Speaker 1: just like Bobby, Eddie and David. Who knows if there
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  Speaker 1: are other yous wandering around out there. It's enough to
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  Speaker 1: make you do a double or even a triple take.
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  Speaker 1: There have been a lot of crazes over the years.
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  Speaker 1: The nineteen sixties saw Beatlemania. The nineties had kids collecting
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  Speaker 1: little cardboard discs called pugs, and the nineteen seventies had
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  Speaker 1: the pet rock. But before mop tops and slammers and
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  Speaker 1: caged minerals, there were balloons. Not the kind that can
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  Speaker 1: lift a house in a Disney movie. I'm talking about
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  Speaker 1: the big one, hot air balloons. It all started in
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  Speaker 1: seventeen eighty three. That year, the Montgofier brothers launched their
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  Speaker 1: two man hot air balloon over Paris. It flew five
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  Speaker 1: and a half miles in just under half an hour,
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  Speaker 1: with a rooster, a sheep and a duck in tow,
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  Speaker 1: and when it landed the world was changed. Ballooning took
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  Speaker 1: off in Europe like nothing else before. No pun intended
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  Speaker 1: the idea of floating in a giant gas field sphere
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  Speaker 1: was too powerful to ignore. Lots of people with grand
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  Speaker 1: ideas about air travel flocked to cities like London and
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  Speaker 1: Paris to show off their creations. This led to the
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  Speaker 1: formation of flying circuses that would draw large crowds to
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  Speaker 1: watch them from the ground. Strangely enough, this was not
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  Speaker 1: where Monty Python got their name. That's a curiosity for
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  Speaker 1: another day. But not everyone was enthralled. Some believe this
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  Speaker 1: new age of aviation would be the downfall of society.
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  Speaker 1: In a letter to a contemporary of his, art historian
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  Speaker 1: Horace Walpole wrote, I hope these new mechanic meteors will
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  Speaker 1: prove on any playthings for the learned and the idol.
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  Speaker 1: He believed that they were nothing more than a fad,
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  Speaker 1: and that the obsession with hovering above the clouds would
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  Speaker 1: eventually pass, but the ballooning community showed no signs of
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  Speaker 1: slowing down. In fact, things escalated quickly. Some balloonists, like
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  Speaker 1: Vincenzo Lunardi, had to push the envelope by flying higher
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  Speaker 1: and farther. He was known as the Daredevil aeronaut. On
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  Speaker 1: September fifteenth of seventeen eighty four, he launched a balloon
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  Speaker 1: from Finsbury, England, with over two hundred thousand spectators watching,
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  Speaker 1: including the Prince of Wales. Along for the ride were
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  Speaker 1: a cat, a dog, and a pigeon. Unfortunately, the cat
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  Speaker 1: suffered under the intense cold at such a high altitude.
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  Speaker 1: Lunardi touched down and released it before ascending once again.
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  Speaker 1: He then landed one last time in a clearing about
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  Speaker 1: twenty four miles away. He planned another launch in seventeen
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  Speaker 1: eighty five over the city of Chester, but he was
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  Speaker 1: incapacitated due to a severe injury. Instead, he allowed a
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  Speaker 1: local enthusiast named Thomas Baldwin to rent his balloon and
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  Speaker 1: carry out his own flight. Baldwin had been obsessed with ballooning.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't see this flight as just a demonstration of
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  Speaker 1: engineering prowess. He had a scientific mind and planned a
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  Speaker 1: series of experiments to conduct while thousands of feet in
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  Speaker 1: the air. For one, he brought a bunch of different
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  Speaker 1: foods on board to see if they tasted different at
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  Speaker 1: higher altitudes. He also packed drafting tools like pencils and paper,
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  Speaker 1: along with a map. Oh, and one last thing another pigeon.
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  Speaker 1: Pigeons must have been a popular ballooning experiment back then.
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  Speaker 1: Once he reached the proper altitude, Baldwin did his taste
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  Speaker 1: tests and also experimented with the air pressure. He spent
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  Speaker 1: about two hours up there admiring the views below. There
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  Speaker 1: were the roads that snaked through town and the lush
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  Speaker 1: trees dotting the landscape. And when he finally planted his
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  Speaker 1: two feet back on the ground, he had a new
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  Speaker 1: goal in mind to show the rest of the world
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  Speaker 1: what he had seen. He sketched the winding roads and
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  Speaker 1: opened clearings as they had appeared from the air. He
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  Speaker 1: even included the clouds below him, which obscured part of
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  Speaker 1: his ground view. We might laugh about it today, but
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  Speaker 1: this was the next best thing to a photograph, which
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  Speaker 1: wasn't available at his time, and these were the first
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  Speaker 1: aerial maps that were created as a result of hot
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  Speaker 1: air ballooning. Some are colored in while others were left
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  Speaker 1: black and white, but all of them were as detailed
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  Speaker 1: as possible. Baldwin even included directions on how to look
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  Speaker 1: at them. He instructed viewers to roll up the map
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  Speaker 1: into a tube shape and peer through the center to
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  Speaker 1: get the full effect. Thanks to his desire to convey
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  Speaker 1: the Earth from the heavens, people were able to get
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  Speaker 1: a bird's eye view of the planet in a way
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  Speaker 1: that no one had ever seen before. Military strategists could
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  Speaker 1: now plan their attacks by seeing the terrain that lay
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  Speaker 1: miles ahead of them, Titans of industry could plot the
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  Speaker 1: optimal areas in which to build their factories, and even
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  Speaker 1: the average citizen was able to look at an aerial
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  Speaker 1: map and see just how big the world really was,
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  Speaker 1: and probably find the straightest route to the market, as straight,
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  Speaker 1: of course, as the pigeon flies. I hope you've enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
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  Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
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  Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
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  Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.