Latest / Ridiculous History / CLASSIC: Who Solves Murders in Antarctica?

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CLASSIC: Who Solves Murders in Antarctica? · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: always so much for tuning in. We are getting back
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: in the game. In two we had some breaks, but
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: once again I am joined with the one and only
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. I am Ben and Noel. We have
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: reconvened with a great classic episode. This is one of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the ones that full confession. I used the research for
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: this to also do an episode on our other show Stuff.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They don't want you to know, because this topic is
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: just perfect. Is this Ridiculous History confessional corner. It can
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: be you know what your sins my son? Okay, as
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I am, I am ordained. I am an ordained minister
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: in the Church of Ridiculousness, as as are we all
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: as are all of you as well, just by you know,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: by listening. Um. But yeah, it's true. It's a really
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: cool episode. It reminds me I think I probably say
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: it in the Thing, literally the Thing. It reminds me
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of the movie The Thing. The idea of you know,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: being ruined by choice on an antarctic or something somewhat
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of a tundra like um, you know, frozen wasteland where
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you're there, you know, doing research and then people go
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a little snow crazy, um, and you know you can
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: do that with or without some sort of parasitic shape shifting,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you know, body snatcher. Yeah, yeah, this is interestingly enough.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: This episode is one of those episodes that gifted me
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: with a lot of trivia that was not going to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: make it into the show but was still interesting to know,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: such as, did you know folks that Metallica has performed
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: in Antarctica, making them, I think the only band to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: play a show on all seven continents. Doesn't make it
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: into the episode, but it is pretty metal, and this
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: episode is pretty metal. Do you think that's why they
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: did it? It It wasn't specifically just to get the record,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and they seem like those kind of guys, especially large
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Total Pedanta. He was probably his ideas, like, hey, you guys,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: we gotta be the best. We've gotta be the only
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: ones the book a gig in an article. All as
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: you do is play Master of Puppets like halfway through,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and then we can check that off our our bucket list.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: He's like, otherwise, woo Tangle, beat us to it. I'm
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  Speaker 1: just wondering if there's a band that has done like
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  Speaker 1: six continents, but one of those six is an Arctica.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: They're just missing like South America or something. Never got
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: to Brazil. That's amazing. Not to mention, what's the music
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  Speaker 1: scene like in Antarctica. Is it exclusively populated by weird,
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  Speaker 1: insane science people or is there like a little niche
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: community that's playing like super super dark black metal. I
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: just expected it to be like solely like cigare Ross
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the entire time. Uh. Antarctica, as we'll learn, is has
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: a very interesting population. You know. I think scientists are
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  Speaker 1: endlessly fascinating people for the most part, and they also
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: have a population of staff, you know, folks who cook
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: the food, folks who keep things clean and do maintenance.
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  Speaker 1: But there aren't a ton of people there. They are
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  Speaker 1: living in very kind of sequestered, closed environments, and personalities
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  Speaker 1: can rub each other the wrong way. Also, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if we mentioned this in our classic episode, but
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: alcoholism is a big problem and it leads to some
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  Speaker 1: uh less than professional behavior. Okay, really quickly, I just
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: have to bring this up because I literally just googled
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Antarctica music scene and an article came up on a
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  Speaker 1: Journal of Musical Things dot com called Behold the World's
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  Speaker 1: smallest music scene. It's an Antarctica. And here's the best part.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: As you might guess, there are very few bands on
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the entire continent of Antarctica. Nano Cyborg uber Holocausts was
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  Speaker 1: formed by two scientists stationed at a research out post,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: so they and they're kind of their Their music scene
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  Speaker 1: and their science scenes seem to be somewhat interwoven, which
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: so yeah, totally. I mean people on submarines or people
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  Speaker 1: on long naval excursions will also seek some kind of recreations,
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  Speaker 1: so it's not surprising that musicians might for bands. But
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: going back to my earlier point there, you can't blame
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: it all on the booze. But it is known that
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  Speaker 1: while crime is rare in Antarctica, the isolation, the boredom,
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  Speaker 1: the tedium, the personality clashes can lead to crime. And
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  Speaker 1: a few years back, we asked ourselves what happens if
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  Speaker 1: a murder occurs in Antarctica and just it heads up.
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  Speaker 1: I think we really lean into the law and order
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: jokes on this one, I believe. So I wanted the
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: case you go back through and like remove all those
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: law and order sounds, things less less dick wolf coming
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: for us. Oh wait, before we start, what thing this happened?
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: This occurred to me? I thought you guys would appreciate it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: So I was watching a Law and Order marathon of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: different spinoffs, and I started realized that some of the
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: stories are very similar, Like there's always a prom goes
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: wrong episode, and I'm starting to wonder, did something happen
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to Dick Wolf? Like, if you're listening, what went down
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: at your problem man? Are you okay? Like? How much
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: of this is coming from his real life? Please send
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: your answers. We'd love to hear them. It's a very
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: good question. And lastly, before we dive headlong into the
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: snow bound mania, it is this episode. The genre of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: music that Nano Cyborg uber Holocaust plays is listed as ambient, cosmic, extreme, funeral, drone,
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  Speaker 1: doom metal, or post noise. Perfect music to be murdered too, Indeed,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Enjoy Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, lads and gentlemen, thank you so
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. I'm Ben Boland, I am Noel Brown,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and Noel I have to tell you we're exploring a
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: very strange, someone dark story about one of my favorite places,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: one of my like bucket list places to travel somewhat uncharted, yes,
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  Speaker 1: slightly charted. It is the continent with the smallest population
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  Speaker 1: out of all of the continents and the entire area
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  Speaker 1: there are a little bit over one thousand people. And
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  Speaker 1: that continent would be that continent is Europe. Just kidding, switch,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't study for that one. It's uh we we
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  Speaker 1: all know. You can probably guess just from hearing that
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  Speaker 1: population statistic, it's Antarctica. What lies hidden beneath the Antarctic?
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  Speaker 1: I love it when you do the vo movie voice
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  Speaker 1: you know what it is? What is it? Apparently madness,
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  Speaker 1: chaos and murder, most volum. I mean, Antarctica is basically
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  Speaker 1: like a cathulhu esque love craft Ian healthscape by many accounts. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it is not made for people, and yet somehow people
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  Speaker 1: hang out there. And out of all the continents in
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  Speaker 1: the world, out of all the places on the planet
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  Speaker 1: where humans can exist for a sustained amount of time,
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  Speaker 1: this is an exception. And in many ways, the laws
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: governing Antarctica, or we were talking about this affair, they're
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  Speaker 1: like the laws governing the Moon. It's all for the
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  Speaker 1: good of science, for doing science, So no one can
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  Speaker 1: no one country can own a piece of Antarctica, as
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  Speaker 1: you know, like an extension of their own sovereign territory.
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  Speaker 1: This place is for research, it's for environmental protection or conservation.
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  Speaker 1: It's not the place where humanity is going to build,
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  Speaker 1: you know, a stadium or a strip mall or another
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  Speaker 1: large city. As it turns out, seven countries, we've got Argentina, Australia, Britain, Chile, France,
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  Speaker 1: New Zealand and Norway. They all have sort of misshapen
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  Speaker 1: territorial claims on this I see hellscape. Uh, I'm probably
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  Speaker 1: editorializing a little bit there. I'm sure some people think
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  Speaker 1: it's nice. Um, and the US and Russia actually have
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  Speaker 1: sovereignty over are their own research stations for doing the science.
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  Speaker 1: But none of these are officially recognized in the Antarctic Treaty,
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  Speaker 1: which is a thing. And some of them actually even
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  Speaker 1: overlap each other. Yeah, yeah, and this and these scientists
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  Speaker 1: and these stations work together because there's literally no one
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  Speaker 1: else there. And when when we say sovereignty, it's interesting
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  Speaker 1: because it's similar to the way that a an embassy
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  Speaker 1: would be sovereign soil, right regardless of which country or
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  Speaker 1: which area the world is located in so there's severenity
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  Speaker 1: within these research stations and under the constraints of the
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  Speaker 1: Antarctic Treaty. Let's get a little bit true crime. You
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: want to go kind of true crime? Okay, alright, alright,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: just this is my elevator pitch. Let me know I'm listening.
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  Speaker 1: If this doesn't work, all right me two thousand's fellow
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  Speaker 1: named Rodney Marks, smart guy astrophysicist. He is spending the
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  Speaker 1: winter at the South Pole. Wintering in the South Pole. Yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: as you do, very popular amongst astrophysicists. He had been
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: vomiting blood and hyperventilating. He had not been feeling well
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  Speaker 1: before this, but twenty four hours of vomiting, hyperventilating and
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  Speaker 1: he dies from it. Are you sure you're not describing
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the plot of the thing. It's very it feels very
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  Speaker 1: close at this point. We don't believe there were extraterrestrials.
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  Speaker 1: Did a parasitic wolf burst forth from his remains and
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  Speaker 1: devour faces? No, I know that didn't happen. I'm well,
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  Speaker 1: we were we weren't there, and it's an isolated place.
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  Speaker 1: It's pretty difficult, depending on the season, to know exactly
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  Speaker 1: what's happening, right, And it can also be even more
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  Speaker 1: difficult to transport people in and out of the place,
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  Speaker 1: especially during winter. So when Rodney Marks unfortunately passes away,
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  Speaker 1: they had to store his body for months until actually
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  Speaker 1: late October. And then in New Zealand, the nearest you know,
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  Speaker 1: quote unquote civilized neighbor of Antarctica, they conducted an autopsy
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  Speaker 1: there and this the single mysterious death Knel. It touched
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  Speaker 1: off an international incident because, as it turns out, after
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  Speaker 1: the autopsy, the case was ruled a homicide. And because
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  Speaker 1: of everything we said at the top of the show,
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  Speaker 1: all of these overlapping interests and territorial you know, jurisdic jurisdictions,
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  Speaker 1: I guess you could say, where would you try a
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  Speaker 1: case like this? Yeah, and it gets complicated. See, this
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  Speaker 1: astrophysicist was working on a US base but was an
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  Speaker 1: Australian national. And now the autopsy is occurring in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 1: We're three countries deep, not even counting Antarctica. So if
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  Speaker 1: this is a homicide, where is the case tried? You know,
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty one Antarctic Treaty says, as as we
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  Speaker 1: have pointed out, earlier that this continent belongs to no nation.
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  Speaker 1: It's not. While there might be severenity over research bases,
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  Speaker 1: no country can say this whole part of this, this
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  Speaker 1: whole eastern coast, or whatever is ours, or this whole
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  Speaker 1: shebang is ours. This means that, uh, there's not a
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  Speaker 1: clear case of who would be the law around those parts. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: let me read you a little exerpt from the I
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  Speaker 1: guess abstract from the text of the treaty itself. The
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  Speaker 1: Antarctic Treaty, the earliest of the post World War two
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  Speaker 1: arms limitation agreements, has significance both in itself and as
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  Speaker 1: a precedent. It demilitarized the Antarctic continent and provided for
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  Speaker 1: its cooperative exploration and future use. It has been cited
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  Speaker 1: as an example of nations exercising foresight and working in
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  Speaker 1: concert to prevent conflict before it develops, Based on the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: premise that to exclude armaments is easier than to eliminate
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  Speaker 1: or control them once they have been introduced. The treaty
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  Speaker 1: served as a model and its approach and even its
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  Speaker 1: specific provisions for later non armament treaties. The treaties that
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: excluded nuclear weapons from outer space from Latin America and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: from the seabed. So this is obviously like a very
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  Speaker 1: specific case, and there are certain things that are not allowed,
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  Speaker 1: like nuclear weapons, any kind of detonation or testing of
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  Speaker 1: nuclear materials, or to use it as a dumping ground
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  Speaker 1: for any kind of nuclear waste or anything like that.
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  Speaker 1: But there are exceptions. Military personnel are allowed to be
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  Speaker 1: employed in these research facilities, of which there are numerous ones. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's surprising. So when we think of Antarctica, most of
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  Speaker 1: us will think of this vast, frozen, love crafty and
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  Speaker 1: waste land with non Euclidean geometry in these hidden cities
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  Speaker 1: minus the ancient alien stuff. It really I mean, it's
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a desert. And we can only really rank civilization by
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  Speaker 1: the amount of research stations. There's seventy five, and of
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: those operate around the year, around the clindrical clock. However,
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  Speaker 1: there is a three month window when people can fly
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: in and out for most of these places. And let's
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: talk about crime speaking in fantastic segways, right, Uh, Can
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I give you some greatest hits of some of these
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  Speaker 1: research stations. Yeah, yeah, just one that I just have
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to mention. So we have a one that's run by
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: France and Italy called Concordia. Um, there's one by Italy
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: alone called Mario's, Kelly. New Zealand's is called the scott Base,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and my personal favorite is Norway's, which is simply called
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: troll troll station, troll station. I'm in maybe they maybe
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: there are trolls in Antarctica, And the idea is if
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: we name it this, it will be right under their noses.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: No one will know, no question. Troll stations research, which
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: would of course be polar trolls clearly, clearly. But the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: crime the crime. So in the US, where we're recording
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: this show and where Noel and I have lived for
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: quite some time, if you commit a crime, a lot
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: of the later investigation and prosecution of that crime hinges
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: upon your location when you commit the crime. So you're
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: either tried by state or a federal court. And that
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: also depends on the type of crime, right, so like
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: a parking ticket for instance, or a let's say, let's
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: say something a little more serious, um a theft for instance,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: versus a planned homicide. American courts have jurisdiction for some
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: crimes that have been outside of the United States, like
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: on a ship or something like that, that the flying
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: on American flag a military vessel or in this case
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: a American operated research facility. And as we as we
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: have sort of painted here, just just in the very
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: beginning of this investigation, Antarctica is the opposite of straightforward
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and cut and dry. This is very complicated. There are
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: experts on the governance of Antarctica, one of them being
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Dr Alan Hemmings. He spent two winters at the South
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Pole with the British Antarctic Survey and according to Dr Hemmings,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: there are no clear legal jurisdictions in Antarctica because there
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: are as we said earlier, there are no recognized territories.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: They're just all these research stations. And of the seven
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: countries that we named that make these territorial claims, none
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  Speaker 1: of them are recognized by the treaty from one, and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Asnell said, some of them overlap. The general rule for
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: people in the US is that a crime committed by
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: US national, US citizen at a US owned research facility
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: would be prosecuted in the U S. Court. That makes sense, right,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: our citizens, our area, right our facilities, therefore our rules,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: our legal system, and the same goes for the other
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: countries they're operating this that that checks out right so far,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: that seems on the up and up totally. But then
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Hemmings goes on to say, and I'll just read this quote. Um,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: if the dead person and the alleged murderer are from
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: different states or countries and don't recognize each other's claims,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: which most do not, particularly if the critical events occur
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: away from anybody's station, Uh, like you know, wandering snow
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: blind in the frozen tundra of Antarctica. Uh, and you know,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: maybe murdering somebody with a claw hammer and the snow
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: or something of that effect. I'm not saying, I just
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: you know, you could happen to Haer Um, you know,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: in a campsite, is what he says. That's his example,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: that's way better than mine. Uh. Then it won't necessarily
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: be clear who has jurisdiction, right, And this becomes the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: crux of the complication. As far as Dr Hemmings knows,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: there's never been a criminal prosecution for murder committed in Antarctica.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm gonna go on record here on our show
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and say that I think there were probably murders that
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: occurred in Antarctica over the span of human history. We
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: know that there is violence and vice in this continent.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And we just brought up a real life example that
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: claw hammer thing happened. Yeah, no, the claw hammer thing
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: actually happened, not not in the way that I speculated earlier,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: but um in n six there was an incident at
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: an Australian facility where a cook in the galley attacked
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: one of his uh fellow workers with the back end
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: of a claw hammer and uh, you know, no one
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: was killed and ultimately resulted in both both guys getting
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: stitches and they actually ended up having to call him
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the FBI, which set kind of an unusual precedent here, because,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: like we were saying earlier, typically they can deal with
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: this stuff in house. Yeah, routine offenses, right are Usually
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: usually what happens is the person gets fired the contract,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: their their contract is not renewed or their grant if
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: there are scientists, you know, and without that contract or
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: without that grant, you can't go to Antarctica. You know,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: he'd be a bummer, that that would be. That would
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: be a bummer if that was like your thing, you know,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that's how you define yourself. Was I am I am
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: an Antarctic Galli cook and this visitors can also be banned. Yeah.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: In this ap article there's this fantastic line is just
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: tossed off very casually, and I adore it. Uh. It
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: says visitors who taught the penguins and seals remove rock
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: samples or break other strict environmental laws are normally handled
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: by the station's chief scientist, who is a deputized U. S.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Marshal a k A. The most interesting person to talk to.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Write their chief scientists Nantarctica, they're also US Marshal. They're like,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: they're like the law, you know what I mean, They're
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the law around these parts. To me, that's that's fascinating
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: because we usually think of those two roles as being separate.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: They're very much separate in our country. I just picture
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: them all as as being like Kurt Russell or Tommy
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Lee Jones esque figures. And that's not the only Antarctic
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: horror story or crime story they're they're actually either numerous ones.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: There's the Russian chess game where in someone I guess
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the chess game went south no pun intended, and someone
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: attacked someone else with an X yeah, apparently killed them
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: in fact, but that happened on a Soviet facility, so
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it stands the reason that it was dealt with, you know,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: internally and with through the Soviet government. And then there's
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: another story of a scientist who, driven mad by isolation,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: burned down their own station. I can't help but think
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: all of this stuff is just wonderful fodder for um
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: stories like John Carpenter's film The Thing, where a team
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of Antarctic researchers are essentially driven mad with paranoia and
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you know, with the help of an invasive alien body
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: snatcher chest Burster kind of situation. And there's even episode
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of The X Files that follows a similar path with
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: an outbreak of a plague like disease on a research
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: facility and the accompanying paranoia that that follows. So you know,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: it's all pretty rife with potential for great storytelling, for sure,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and it's something that I think can be universally recognized
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: on some level by any human being. The psychological claustrophobia involved,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: right you're in a you're in a confined space with
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: interaction with the same people, whether or not you want it,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and that leads to problems right now when we're when
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: we're describing this, you know, we're just we're just barely
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: scratching the surface of the history of Antarctica. But the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: reason we are describing this is not just because it's
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: a oh, gali g that's interesting legal problem. It's because
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: it will be come increasingly important as time goes on.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: For you see, friends and neighbors. Antarctica has a secret
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: there's oil beneath the ice. And I did that like
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: we're gonna introduce something like there's gonna be a bum
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: bum kind of signal. We can we've already used that
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: sound effect that we can just we can just reuse them. Well,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: we'll lean on our super producer, give us a cool
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: sound queue here. Perfect, Okay. So it turns out that
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Antarctica has rich oil reserves and they are a rife
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: for future exploration, which means that it is it is
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: pretty much certain that in the near to mid future,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: more and more organizations, whether they are countries or whether
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: they are private companies working with the country, are going
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: to attempt to tap those oil reserves, which means that
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: more and more where people are going to be living
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: on this continent, and they're going to be people from
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: all around the world, Australians, people from the United States,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: people from China, people from like name a country, yeah, sure, yes,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: filled some time by naming more countries. Sure I can.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: I can name some countries with you. Let's see. There's
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: also wait, we're not really We're not really, OK. That
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: would be very cheap. So right now we are as
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a species that's sort of a wild West stage in
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the legal story of Antarctica. In two thousand and three,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: UH professor named W. Michael Is said, we've got to
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: figure something out. We need to have the country, as
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the nations that are active in Antarctica, establish a unified
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: criminal code. Let's all get on the same page. Right Currently,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: according to sign Is, one cannot easily determine whether an
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: action is a criminal act because of the various countries
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: involved and multiple basis for jurisdiction. This is an intolerable
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: situation for criminal defendant and violates any reasonable concept of
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: due process, Which is an interesting way to look at it,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: because not all crimes are prosecuted the same way or
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: carry the same consequences from one country to the next.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: You know, this reminds me of UH that story we
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: did on our other podcast stuff they don't want you
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to know about the zone of death in Yellowstone Park.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: There's this like small area this uh sort of like
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: a triangle I guess, um where there's no legal jurisdiction
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: or it's like difficult to determine where to pull jurors
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: from for a case a crime that was committed there.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: And a researcher by the name of Cult kind of
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: pointed this out and wrote a paper about it, about
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: how you know how to commit the perfect crime in
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: um in the Yellowstone After In his defense, he only
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: published his paper after he had contacted numerous authorities and said, hey,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: can we fix this because I don't wanna you know,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I we have actually had correspondence with the good doctor Cult,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: and we we assure you he's a good guy. He
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't want people to commit crimes. Now. It wasn't like
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a tutorial, like a like a how to guide. It
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: was just literally pointing to a problem which is very
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: similar to what we're seeing with UH with Antarctica, where
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: we need some kind of consensus, some kind of you know, multination,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: you know panel, I guess that can address crimes committed
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: on the continent rather than and limiting them specifically to
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the research bases proper, because, like I said, what happens
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: if you just you know, go off the reservation and wander,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: you know, in a fit of madness and you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: commit some sort of horrible crime. What happens then if
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: you're just like out in the wild, right, What if
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: there are what if there's a situation where there are
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: multiple assailants or multiple homicides. And now we're looking at
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a case where we could quite easily look at a
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: case where, god forbid, there was a series of murders, right,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and multiple murderers and multiple murder victims, and they're all
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: from different countries. How how do you even begin to
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: unpack that? How do you begin to uh organize that
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: that bowl of spaghetti, that bowl of cold spaghetti? Because
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I'm doing weather references because we're talking about Antarctica. Well,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I think we should wrap up with, you know, the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: ultimate determination of what happened with our astro physicist friend
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Rodney Marks. It was determined that he most likely drank
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: a bad batch of liquor. Because that's another thing, you know,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: when you're board and you're kind of marooned, uh and
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: like sile it up in these these close quarters, there's
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be some drinking going on, and you know,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: maybe folks are brewing their own homebrew. And I know that,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: you know, when you make like white lightning or you know,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: any kind of you know, home brewed liquor, there is
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the potential for poisoning yourself if you don't do it right.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: And his autopsy showed that he had lethal traces of methanol,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: which is you know, points to that that very thing. Yeah,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: it's a tragedy anyway you look at it. And every
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: everything we've touched upon in this episode is making me
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: think of all the other strange stuff we can explore
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: about and our including the Nazi proposal to create the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: territory of New Schwabia, which is a story for another day.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: You know what I want to know? No, let us know.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: If you've been to Antarctica, we're automatically envious. We want
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to hear of your adventures. I don't think I want
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: to go. You don't want to go. I don't think
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: i'll go, and I'll I will FaceTime. I don't want
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to get snow murder madness. I will face time me
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: while I am in the grips of snow, murder, madness, uh,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: dangerously psychotic. Right, I'll try and talk you down, dude,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: but I can't. I can't guarantee I'll be successful. I
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: kind of just based on our friendship, I kind of
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: feel like you might end up accidentally enabling me. Okay, well,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: then just don't just you just call somebody else. What's
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: all right? All right? You can call me and you
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: can contact us directly. You might be thinking, ben, No,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I have been to Antarctica. I have a story about
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the history of it that is not just fascinating, it's
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: also wait for it, ridiculous. We would love to hear
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: from you. You can write to us directly. We are
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: ridiculous at how stuff works dot com and you know
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: we're on all the usual social media channels, um, you know, Twitter, Facebook,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Instagram and never Pinterest though never, never pinterrest. I'm not
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I'm not anti Pinterest. I just don't I don't understand it, right, Yeah,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it's you know, it like a vision board. It's like
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: a vision board, and you and I already have one
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: of those. It's up on the wall here in the podcast.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: It's great. We should we should send some pictures out
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: so we are off. I'm going to plan my descent
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: into antarctic madness. And Noel, thank you in advance for
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: saving my life. But we will be back very soon
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: with more ridiculous history. Thanks for listening, everybody, goodbye. For
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: favorite shows.