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True Genius · 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 right
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Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Thomas Rawley seemed to come
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Speaker 1: out of nowhere. He was a monk from Bristol, England,
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Speaker 1: in the mid fifteenth century, and his poetry captivated audiences
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Speaker 1: right from the start. He published his first piece while
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Speaker 1: he was still in boarding school, and readers loved it.
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Speaker 1: In fact, his works were likened to Chaucer, but his
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Speaker 1: influences extended over a wide range of authors from his time.
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Speaker 1: His beginnings hadn't been as extraordinary though. Fifteen weeks after
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Speaker 1: Raleigh's birth, his father sadly passed away. His mother did
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Speaker 1: her best to raise him and instilled in him the
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Speaker 1: benefit it's of a good education with a focus on
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Speaker 1: the arts. His father had also been a poet, so
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Speaker 1: it only seemed fitting that Raleigh would join in the
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Speaker 1: family business. But Thomas was more interested in his uncle's background,
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Speaker 1: specifically with regard to the church and the family history within.
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Speaker 1: He spent his time studying the tombs and examining the
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Speaker 1: furniture as well as pouring over the centuries of documentation
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Speaker 1: preserved in the records room. From the very beginning, Thomas
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Speaker 1: Raleigh was obsessed with legacy, his families and his own.
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Speaker 1: He wanted people to know his name. Yet, despite his
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Speaker 1: outward nature, he was very quiet and closed off from others.
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Speaker 1: He spent much of his time with his nose in
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Speaker 1: a book or staring into space for hours on end,
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Speaker 1: lost in his own mind. As he got older, though,
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Speaker 1: his mother fed his curiosity by inundating him with books
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Speaker 1: of all kinds. Eventually he realized reading alone would not
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Speaker 1: quench the desire burning within him. It was time for
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Speaker 1: him to write books of his own. He started with
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Speaker 1: religious poems he had published in a local paper called
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Speaker 1: The Bristol Journal. Within the church's attic, he set himself
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Speaker 1: up with towers of books and papers pilfered from the
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Speaker 1: records room. He referred to his little corner of the
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Speaker 1: world as his study, and it was where he did
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Speaker 1: much of his writing and reading. Raleigh also made friends
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Speaker 1: with local book collectors who possessed the volumes he wanted
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Speaker 1: to study. The more he read, the more he learned,
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Speaker 1: hoping to one day find a wealthy patron who had
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Speaker 1: fund his art and help him elevate his mother out
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Speaker 1: of poverty. There were a few other people of means
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Speaker 1: who offered to help with the bill for the young
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Speaker 1: Mr Raleigh, but their checks eventually ran out as they
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Speaker 1: discovered the work he was producing was not as successful
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Speaker 1: as they'd hoped. Raleigh then pivoted. He stopped writing poems
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Speaker 1: and put his pen to more serious topics like politics.
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Speaker 1: Using a pseudonym, he wrote devastating letters against dukes, earls,
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Speaker 1: and even princes in an effort to get recognition and
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Speaker 1: a little money or his work. The letters proved more
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Speaker 1: lucrative than the poems, but he was amitted to Bristol.
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Speaker 1: He knew he had to go somewhere larger to find
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Speaker 1: greater success. He made some money in London, contributing to
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Speaker 1: publications like Hamilton's Town and Country magazine, but it was
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Speaker 1: barely enough to get by. He sent what he made
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Speaker 1: back home to his mother in the form of gifts,
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Speaker 1: all while networking with other authors in the city for
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Speaker 1: a leg up, and he wrote. He wrote all kinds
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Speaker 1: of things, from prose to poems, to biting satire and
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Speaker 1: even operas, and though he was paid for it. It
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Speaker 1: was a pittance, not nearly enough to live on. He
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Speaker 1: went days without food, but his pride prevented him from
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Speaker 1: taking up his neighbors on their generosity and the pieces
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Speaker 1: that he had made decent money writing. The letters and
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Speaker 1: satirical essays were now rendered effectively illegal due to recent
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Speaker 1: prosecutions in the press. Unable to provide for himself or
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Speaker 1: his family any longer, Mr Raleigh destroyed his remaining works
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Speaker 1: and tragically took his own life. It wasn't until after
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Speaker 1: his death, though, when people learned the truth about Thomas Raleigh.
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Speaker 1: He didn't actually exist. His real name had been Thomas Chatterton.
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Speaker 1: He had been born in seventeen fifty two in Bristol,
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Speaker 1: and his father had died fifteen weeks after he was born.
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Speaker 1: Almost everything you've heard about his life was true, although
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Speaker 1: he wasn't a monk and he didn't live during the
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Speaker 1: fifteenth century. Raleigh had been a persona away for the
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Speaker 1: teenage Chatterton to have his work published. He was an
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Speaker 1: expert forger, having written dozens of medieval poems and selling
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Speaker 1: them as real historical artifacts to unwitting journalists and collectors.
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Speaker 1: He could mimic the writing styles of countless authors in
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Speaker 1: a variety of mediums such as poems and essays. He
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Speaker 1: hadn't plagiarized anyone. All of his pieces, including the full
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Speaker 1: length manuscripts he had painstakingly aged over a lit candle,
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Speaker 1: had been conjured from his own mind. He'd only been
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Speaker 1: seventeen when he had done it, but he couldn't tell anyone.
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Speaker 1: His lack of money and the notion of never be
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Speaker 1: being recognized for his talents were what contributed to his downfall,
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Speaker 1: and the world was worse off for his loss. It
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Speaker 1: wasn't until many years after his death, when scholars and
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Speaker 1: authors were debating the merits of Chatterton's work, that he
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Speaker 1: was finally recognized. He was immortalized in poems by the
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Speaker 1: likes of Shelley, Wordsworth, cool Ridge and Keats, as well
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Speaker 1: as plays and operas. Artists painted portraits of him which
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Speaker 1: now hang in museums all over Britain, and Chatterton's own
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Speaker 1: poems have been adapted into songs and stories. Thomas Chatterton
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Speaker 1: produced an incredible library of work during his tragically short life,
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Speaker 1: though he wasn't able to tell anyone at the time.
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Speaker 1: His legacy has been preserved so that generations to come
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Speaker 1: can see how one person with boundless talent managed to
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Speaker 1: fool the world all before he was old enough to drink. Paradolia.
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Speaker 1: It's something that we've all experienced, even if the word
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Speaker 1: is unfamiliar to us, every time we see a shape
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Speaker 1: in the clouds or a face comprised of the knots
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Speaker 1: of a piece of wood. We experienced paradolia. In Clearwater, Florida,
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Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen nineties, the image of the Virgin
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Speaker 1: Mary appeared in the glass on the outside of an
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Speaker 1: office building. What many considered an act of divinity was
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Speaker 1: eventually revealed to be the result of water deposits on
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Speaker 1: the weathered glass. The Biblical Jesus has also made appearances
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Speaker 1: in everyday objects, such as cheetos, rocks, and even tortillas.
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Speaker 1: Now whether these were truly spiritual acts or not is
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Speaker 1: up for debate, and I will leave that to you
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Speaker 1: to decide. But for one Spanish woman in nineteen seventy one,
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Speaker 1: the paradolia she faced was real, But it wasn't Jesus
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Speaker 1: or Mary that she saw. It was something so much worse. Maria,
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Speaker 1: her husband, and their son lived in Belmez, a small
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Speaker 1: village in the coastal community of on the Lucia, Spain.
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Speaker 1: Maria had been in her kitchen when she spotted a
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Speaker 1: stain on the floor. Thinking that something had been spilled,
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Speaker 1: or perhaps been tracked into the house by her son,
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Speaker 1: she grabbed a scrub brush and started removing the stain,
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Speaker 1: except she couldn't. It wouldn't come up. The stain grew
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Speaker 1: bigger as time passed, and Maria noticed something else about
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Speaker 1: it as well. It was changing. In fact, it was
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Speaker 1: shifting into much more than just a stain. It had
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Speaker 1: the appearance of a face, and Maria knew she had
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Speaker 1: to get rid of it. She tried to scrub it
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Speaker 1: away again, but did more harm to the floor than
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Speaker 1: to the stain, which wouldn't budge her. Husband, Juan had
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Speaker 1: a better idea. He and their son grabbed a pick
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Speaker 1: axe and started ripping up the floor. Once the whole
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Speaker 1: thing was in pieces, wand cleared out the debris and
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Speaker 1: poured a new floor from cement. Soon it dried and
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Speaker 1: Maria was able to resume her life without the stain
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Speaker 1: watching her from below. But then it came back. The
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Speaker 1: problem with the small village is that once one person
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Speaker 1: knows something, it isn't long before everyone else knows about
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Speaker 1: it too. News of Maria's floor spread far and wide,
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Speaker 1: with a mayor himself stepping in to make sure nothing
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Speaker 1: happened to it. Surveyors were brought in to excavate the
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Speaker 1: kitchen to find the cause of the stain. It might
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Speaker 1: have been a leaking pipe in the ground, or even
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Speaker 1: a spring of some kind that was bubbling up to
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Speaker 1: the floor. They dug and they dug, eventually locating the
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Speaker 1: source of the face. When they'd finished, the family were
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Speaker 1: allowed back into their home and their kitchen floor was
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Speaker 1: restored to its former glory, and the face did not return.
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Speaker 1: Weeks later, another face took its place, then another Where
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Speaker 1: the original stain took days or weeks to materialize, These
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Speaker 1: new faces appeared over the course of ours. Men, women, children,
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Speaker 1: Faces of all kinds had taken over their floor. Soon
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Speaker 1: the faces weren't the only things invading their home. It
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Speaker 1: was overtaken by curious visitors hoping to see the ghostly
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Speaker 1: formations for themselves. Everyone from students, the clergymen to the
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Speaker 1: police came to glimpse what they had dubbed as the
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Speaker 1: bell Mez faces. The first thought was that the whole
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Speaker 1: thing had been a hoax. It wouldn't have been the
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Speaker 1: first time, and the sudden jump from one face to
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Speaker 1: five or six was severe. Yet there was no evidence
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Speaker 1: that Maria, her husband, or their son were behind any
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Speaker 1: of it, which brought the discussion back to what the
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Speaker 1: surveyors had found beneath the floor in the first place.
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Speaker 1: During their excavation, diggers had found the remains of several
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Speaker 1: bodies under the house, dated to be about seven hundred
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Speaker 1: years old. They told the story of a mass grave
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Speaker 1: that had been filled in with concrete before the house
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Speaker 1: was built. On top of the skeletons, some of which
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Speaker 1: were missing their heads, were moved to a nearby Catholic
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Speaker 1: cemetery where they were reinterred properly, Yet it seems their
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Speaker 1: spirits refused to leave the family's home. Scholars attributed the
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Speaker 1: paranormal activity to Maria herself, claiming that she was forming
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Speaker 1: something called thoughtography. Basically, Maria's thoughts were manifesting in the floor.
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Speaker 1: This theory gained steam as researchers realized that the faces
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Speaker 1: seemed to appear and shift only when she was around.
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Speaker 1: Others concluded Maria's son Miguel had drawn the faces himself,
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Speaker 1: using a combination of paint and acid. How a child
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Speaker 1: was able to figure out how to convincingly pull off
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Speaker 1: such an elaborate hoax, though, remains to be seen. Maria
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Speaker 1: passed away in two thousand four. The faces are still
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Speaker 1: there parts of the kitchen floor, and although everyone has
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Speaker 1: a theory, the fact is there is no definitive conclusion
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Speaker 1: as to their origin. Maybe, though, if we're lucky, Maria
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Speaker 1: will show her face as well and tell us all
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Speaker 1: about it. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visit Curiosities podcast
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Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
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Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
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Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
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Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Yeah,