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Shapes Shifted · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:03
  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 are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of curiosities. There are things that
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  Speaker 1: go bump in the night. When the sun has set
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  Speaker 1: in the shadows come out to dance. They tend to
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  Speaker 1: play tricks on our eyes, making us see things that
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  Speaker 1: aren't really there. And sometimes those shadows step into the light,
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  Speaker 1: showing us exactly what they are. Whether we're able to
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  Speaker 1: accept them, well, that's a different story. Lee Parish left
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  Speaker 1: his girlfriend's house in the wee hours of a frigid
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  Speaker 1: January morning in nine The trip back to his house
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  Speaker 1: and Prospect, Kentucky should have taken less than ten minutes.
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  Speaker 1: As he drove along the pitch black highway, a cigarette
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  Speaker 1: perched between his lips. Something near the tree line caught
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  Speaker 1: his attention. It was long, roughly ten ft by forty feet,
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  Speaker 1: in a shape of a triangle. It burned a reddish orange,
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  Speaker 1: and it was moving. Soon it was right above him,
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  Speaker 1: and a moment later his car radio cut out. Lee
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  Speaker 1: couldn't move, and neither could his car. And then the
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  Speaker 1: shape was gone. It flew off like a rocket until
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  Speaker 1: it disappeared into the distance, leaving the young man confused
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  Speaker 1: and scared. He eventually arrived home, his mother waiting by
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  Speaker 1: the door for him. It's so late, she said, where
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  Speaker 1: have you been all this time? He told her he
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  Speaker 1: had just left his girlfriend's house ten minutes before, around
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  Speaker 1: one am, and she said that that was impossible because
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  Speaker 1: it was almost two o'clock in the morning. Puzzled by
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  Speaker 1: the loss of time, Lee went to bed but found
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  Speaker 1: it hard to sleep. His eyes burned whenever he shut them,
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  Speaker 1: and a quick look in the mirror explained why they
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  Speaker 1: were completely bloodshot. The next morning, he couldn't remember a
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  Speaker 1: thing that had happened. His mother, instead of calling a doctor,
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  Speaker 1: contacted a different kind of expert to help her son
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  Speaker 1: recall what had transpired the previous night. She reached out
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  Speaker 1: to a hypnotist by the name of Lawrence Allison. His
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  Speaker 1: area of expertise was in helping people regain hard to
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  Speaker 1: access memories, specifically in people who had contact with UFOs.
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  Speaker 1: The hypnotist, along with a pair of local UFO investigators,
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  Speaker 1: invited Lee and his girlfriend over to his home that
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  Speaker 1: evening for a session He put the young man into
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  Speaker 1: a trance and asked him to walk through the previous
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  Speaker 1: night's events like he was telling a story. Lee told
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  Speaker 1: him about the glowing rectangle, which turned to black, then white,
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  Speaker 1: before everything went dark. Suddenly he was in a round,
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  Speaker 1: white room surrounded by three oddly shaped beings. To his left,
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  Speaker 1: he saw a tall wall shaped black creature with a
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  Speaker 1: small round head and an arm like pole sticking out
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  Speaker 1: of it. When the creature touched him, Lee said it
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  Speaker 1: felt like burning ice. On his right was a smaller creature,
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  Speaker 1: boxing in shape and colored red. It had a kind
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  Speaker 1: of nondescript arm jutting in front of it like the
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  Speaker 1: black one. When this creature touched him, it sent a
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  Speaker 1: sharp needle like sensation all throughout Lee's body. And then
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  Speaker 1: there was the last being, the white one, as Lee
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  Speaker 1: called it, about as tall as him and shaped like
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  Speaker 1: a mailbox. It had two arms that it kept against itself,
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  Speaker 1: and it glowed with a bright light, and Lee said
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  Speaker 1: that he understood this creature to be the one in charge.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't touch him, though it only watched. It made
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  Speaker 1: a kind of scraping sound before the three beings merged
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  Speaker 1: into one and disappeared. Lee woke up in his car
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  Speaker 1: as though no time had passed at all. The rectangle
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  Speaker 1: above him sped away before he resumed his drive home.
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  Speaker 1: When he woke up from his trance, Lee remembered everything.
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  Speaker 1: The UFO investigators asked him questions about what had happened
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  Speaker 1: in the car during the dents and whether he'd ever
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  Speaker 1: encountered such beings before the car had floated in mid air.
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  Speaker 1: He told them he didn't actually get in and out
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  Speaker 1: of it, but was phased through it to get into
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  Speaker 1: this ship. And while he personally had not had any
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  Speaker 1: close encounters in his life, his mother had experienced at
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  Speaker 1: least three. Although Lee himself had witnessed UFOs from a
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  Speaker 1: distance on several occasions, the story of an alien abduction
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  Speaker 1: by a soul witness isn't much of a story. People
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  Speaker 1: will come out of the woodwork all the time to
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  Speaker 1: make walth claims for attention and money, But Lee Parish's
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  Speaker 1: tail is a bit different for two reasons. First, another
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  Speaker 1: UFO investigator who lived a few miles away had reported
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  Speaker 1: his neighbor's children screaming wildly at something in the sky.
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  Speaker 1: There was a round, white object with a dome on top,
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  Speaker 1: which hovered briefly before zipping away. And second, the day
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  Speaker 1: after Lee's incident, his car malfunctioned. When the mechanic took
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  Speaker 1: a look inside, he noted it would need significant electrical
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  Speaker 1: work to get moved, and again because of the damage,
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  Speaker 1: though was completely unknown. Curious, what didn't you say? Millions
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  Speaker 1: of thoughts run through our minds each day, what to eat,
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  Speaker 1: what to wear, whether we're going to make it to
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  Speaker 1: that meeting on time, or if we said the wrong
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  Speaker 1: thing on that date last week. It's enough to keep
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  Speaker 1: us awake at night, wondering how we can pause the
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  Speaker 1: images in our brains. But one man didn't want to
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  Speaker 1: silence them. He wanted to use them to show the
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  Speaker 1: world what was going on inside his mind. His name
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  Speaker 1: was Ted Serios, and he'd been a Chicago bellhop during
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties before finding fame as a photographer. Ted
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just any kind of photographer, though he claimed to
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  Speaker 1: be able to project an image from his brain onto
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  Speaker 1: a of film using telepathy. He would hold something he
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  Speaker 1: called a gizmo to his head, a small paper tube
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  Speaker 1: of some kind, and the other end would be pressed
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  Speaker 1: against the lens. Then Ted would concentrate, his body would
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  Speaker 1: tense up, his eyes wide open, and his mouth a
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  Speaker 1: straight line. His limbs would tremble, and the veins on
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  Speaker 1: his forehead would throb, and then he would release the camera.
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  Speaker 1: When the film was developed, much of the time what
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  Speaker 1: came out was an image that was either completely white
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  Speaker 1: or completely black. There was no visible object detectable anywhere
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  Speaker 1: in the photo, but every now and then a blurry
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  Speaker 1: image of a landscape or a structure would appear, and
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  Speaker 1: it happened often enough to catch the attention of Dr
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  Speaker 1: Jewel Eisenbud, who put Ted through a battery of tests
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  Speaker 1: over the course of three years, hoping to gain some
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  Speaker 1: insight into how the former bellhop was able to conjure
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  Speaker 1: up the images. For one, Ted was drunk when he
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  Speaker 1: took his photographs, like really drunk. Eisenbudd thought maybe he
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  Speaker 1: was even an alcoholic, given his lack of self control
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  Speaker 1: and disregard for social standards. Still, the doctor was impressed
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  Speaker 1: by the results. During one experiment, several people had gathered
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  Speaker 1: in another doctor's home to watch him perform. Serrios asked
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  Speaker 1: for a suggestion, a place or a thing for him
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  Speaker 1: to imprint on the film. The daughter of the host
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  Speaker 1: was going to be leaving soon to study at the
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  Speaker 1: University of Rome, so she asked him to produce a
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  Speaker 1: picture of one of the school's buildings. She carried with
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  Speaker 1: her a folder of photos from the university for reference,
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  Speaker 1: which she held far from Ted's view. He went through
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  Speaker 1: his process of concentrating and yelling until he'd sufficiently transferred
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  Speaker 1: his thoughts to the film in the camera. When it
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  Speaker 1: was developed, a photo of a vague structure appeared, which
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  Speaker 1: looked a lot like the picture of the Roman church
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  Speaker 1: in the girl's folder. Sadly, what Ted had produced didn't
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  Speaker 1: convince everyone in the room. The good doctor was the
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  Speaker 1: only one who believed in his abilities, and his word
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  Speaker 1: got out about the man who could project his thoughts
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  Speaker 1: on the photographs. Professionals of all kinds wanted a closer look.
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  Speaker 1: A man named Nile Root decided to see exactly what
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  Speaker 1: all the excitement was about. He and six others spent
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  Speaker 1: an evening with Serios watching him perform his miraculous feet,
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  Speaker 1: paying close attention to the gizmo that he claimed he
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  Speaker 1: needed to focus his mental energy. Everyone in attendance was
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  Speaker 1: told to bring five rolls of polaroid film with them.
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  Speaker 1: As the night wore on, Serios got increasingly drunk, shoving
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  Speaker 1: the paper tube against his head and demanding whoever was
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  Speaker 1: holding the camera to take a photograph. It was during
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  Speaker 1: one of those particularly drunk moments when Root caught a
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  Speaker 1: glimpse of what might be behind the images supposedly coming
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  Speaker 1: straight from Ted's mind. The photographer was in such a
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  Speaker 1: state that he flailed his arms around as he shouted
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  Speaker 1: at the guests. As he swung his hands, Roots saw
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  Speaker 1: it something shiny inside the small tube in Ted's hand.
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  Speaker 1: It could have been a piece of micro film, which,
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  Speaker 1: when photographed by the camera's lens, would have produced the
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  Speaker 1: ghostly blurry images that had captivated Dr Eisenbud. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: magician and skeptic James Randy, also known as the Amazing Randy,
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  Speaker 1: proved such a theory on national television. He held an
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  Speaker 1: inch long tube with a magnifying glass on one end
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  Speaker 1: to his head and on the other end was a
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  Speaker 1: slide of thirty five millimeter film. Randy placed the tube
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  Speaker 1: to his head and lined the end up with the
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  Speaker 1: camera lens. The photographer took the picture, and what came
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  Speaker 1: out was a distorted but clearly visible version of the
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  Speaker 1: image on the slide. Serio swore he never used tricks
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  Speaker 1: or slide of hand to create his own photographs, but
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  Speaker 1: it didn't matter. Once the explanation came out, the eccentric
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  Speaker 1: Bellhop faded from the public eye for decades until he
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  Speaker 1: resurfaced on television in the nineties. Asked one last time
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  Speaker 1: to prove his powers were real, Ted couldn't produce a
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  Speaker 1: single image on film. Maybe his powers had worn themselves out.
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  Speaker 1: Or perhaps, if you're of the believing kind, the explanation
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  Speaker 1: is a lot more simple. Ted's unusual ability just wasn't
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  Speaker 1: fully developed. 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,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.