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Tangled Web · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. There are some strange and disturbing things crawling
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  Speaker 1: around the bowels of the Internet. Some are better left unmentioned,
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  Speaker 1: while others have been thankfully forgotten. Early memes and hamster
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  Speaker 1: dances have gone the way of free a O L
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  Speaker 1: c d S, never to be heard from again. Today
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  Speaker 1: we express ourselves online with emoticons, emojis, and cartoon dogs,
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  Speaker 1: unfazed by encroaching flames. But one piece of the Internet
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  Speaker 1: of old still lingers on in our memories. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: it predates the Web as we know it. Back in
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  Speaker 1: the mid nineteen nineties, a series of cryptic messages haunted
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  Speaker 1: usenet boards, kicking off an adventure with the potential to
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  Speaker 1: either become an epic treasure hunt or a digital dead end.
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  Speaker 1: Usenet was an online venue where people would share news
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  Speaker 1: and messages, sort of like today's Internet. Forums. In August
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  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety six, Usenet users were bombarded with hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of strange messages comprised of blocks of text with no
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  Speaker 1: clear meaning, and they all had been sent with the
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  Speaker 1: same subject line, Marcovian parallax denigrate Today, As the saying goes,
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  Speaker 1: the Internet is forever, meaning that what we share, even
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  Speaker 1: if we delete it remains cataloged somewhere on the web.
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  Speaker 1: That wasn't the case back then. Most users believe these
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  Speaker 1: Marcovian parallax messages to be spammed, so they deleted them.
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  Speaker 1: Many were lost. Only one still remains today. It's contents
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  Speaker 1: are nothing but random words and names strung together without
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  Speaker 1: any punctuation. On first glance, the message is meaningless. For example,
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  Speaker 1: it starts jitterbugging McKinley, abe break Newtonian inferring call update,
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  Speaker 1: and then continues on for a few dozen words or so.
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  Speaker 1: But it didn't take long for several curious users to
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  Speaker 1: start looking deeper into the messages. Their inquiries kicked off
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  Speaker 1: what would become known as the first true Internet mystery,
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  Speaker 1: a puzzle to be solved by the web's best and brightest.
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  Speaker 1: One theory suggested the CIA was transmitting coded information within
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  Speaker 1: the text. Another believe the key would be found in
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  Speaker 1: the subject line Markovian you see could have been related
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  Speaker 1: to the Markov chain, or a mathematical system based on
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  Speaker 1: the probability that one state will transition to another, for example,
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  Speaker 1: whether a tornado will strike a particular area based on
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  Speaker 1: the behavior of previous tornadoes. Users toiled over possible solutions,
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  Speaker 1: always coming up emp But it was one particular sender
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  Speaker 1: who raised a few eyebrows years later. Her name was
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  Speaker 1: Susan Lindauer, and she had sent one of the messages
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  Speaker 1: from an email address trace back to the university in Wisconsin.
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  Speaker 1: Lindauer had been a journalist who in two thousand four
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  Speaker 1: was arrested by the FBI and charged with acting as
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  Speaker 1: an agent of a foreign government. In other words, she
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  Speaker 1: was accused of being a foreign spy. At the time
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  Speaker 1: the parallax messages were sent, however, she was believed to
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  Speaker 1: be working for the CIA. After her release, she denied
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  Speaker 1: any involvement in sending any of those messages. In reality,
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  Speaker 1: she never had anything to do with them. The truth
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  Speaker 1: was a lot less exciting. There was a second Susan Lindauer.
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  Speaker 1: She had been a student at the University of Wisconsin.
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  Speaker 1: While the former journalist was living in Washington, d C.
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  Speaker 1: Someone had used her email address in order to hide
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  Speaker 1: their real one. Still strange coincidence did occur in two
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  Speaker 1: thousand nine, when the connection between the parallax messages and
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  Speaker 1: the alleged spy Lindauer were first made. The Wikipedia page
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  Speaker 1: for the Markovian parallax detegrade was deleted without warning. To
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  Speaker 1: those who trafficked in conspiracy theories and distrust of the government.
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  Speaker 1: That was a giant red flag which brings us to
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  Speaker 1: the simplest possible explanation of all, especially for anyone who
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  Speaker 1: has spent more than five minutes on the Internet. It
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  Speaker 1: must have been done by trolls. When the messages couldn't
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  Speaker 1: be deciphered or decoded, it was assumed that they were
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  Speaker 1: a prank or a hoax, something to rile people up
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  Speaker 1: in the days before Twitter and Facebook, and typically after
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  Speaker 1: enough time has passed, someone always steps forward to like
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  Speaker 1: claim to their handiwork. Gibberish messages that have endured on
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  Speaker 1: the Internet for a quarter century seemed like the kind
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  Speaker 1: of things someone would want to own up to by now,
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  Speaker 1: and yet no one has all this time later, and
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  Speaker 1: they are still as much a mystery as they were
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  Speaker 1: back then. So was it an early attempt to code
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  Speaker 1: a chatbot or share confidential information. We may never know
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  Speaker 1: the truth, but somewhere one is out there still working
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  Speaker 1: on a solution to the Marcovian parallax detegrate, fueled by
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  Speaker 1: their curiosity and the compulsive urge to be the one
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  Speaker 1: to type first in all caps in the comments section. Ancient,
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  Speaker 1: not at all, but it certainly is curious. With age
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  Speaker 1: and experience often comes wisdom. Those who perform difficult jobs,
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  Speaker 1: like doctors, pilots, and teachers, developed new perspectives shaped by
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  Speaker 1: their daily lives. One of the hardest jobs in the world,
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  Speaker 1: or at least in America, is that of President of
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  Speaker 1: the United States. Just look at the hair of those
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  Speaker 1: who have occupied the seat dark brown or black on
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  Speaker 1: inauguration day, only to fade to a dreary gray by
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  Speaker 1: the time they leave office. One president with one of
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  Speaker 1: the toughest times in office was Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was
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  Speaker 1: first elected in eighteen eighty four, but his two terms
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  Speaker 1: were very different from other presidents in history in that
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  Speaker 1: he did not serve them consecutively. Cleveland lost his re
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  Speaker 1: election in eighteen eighty eight, only to win it again
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  Speaker 1: four years later in eighteen ninety two. He was no
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  Speaker 1: stranger to higher office, as he had gone from sheriff
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  Speaker 1: of Erie County, New York, to the mayor of Buffalo
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty two until he became Governor of New
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  Speaker 1: York in eighteen eighty three. Cleveland's rise to the presidency
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  Speaker 1: was fast, and with it came a lot of stress.
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  Speaker 1: The Democrats spent much of his first campaign fighting corruption
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  Speaker 1: in Washington. His opponent, James G. Blaine, was known as
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  Speaker 1: greedy and immoral, causing many Republicans to defect to Cleveland's side. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: he was not free from scandal himself. Years earlier, Cleveland
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  Speaker 1: had been seeing a woman named Maria Helpin. The two
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  Speaker 1: had a child together, and after she accused him of
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  Speaker 1: sexual assault, he had her locked away in an institution
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  Speaker 1: and the child was sent to be raised by friends.
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  Speaker 1: Blaine and the rest of the GOP made sure the
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  Speaker 1: public was well aware of just what kind of man
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  Speaker 1: Grover Cleveland really was. Despite this setback, the presidential hopeful
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  Speaker 1: clinched his winds in every swing state, beating Blaine to
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  Speaker 1: become the twenty second president of the United States. However,
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  Speaker 1: his troubles were only at the beginning. One big issue
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  Speaker 1: that he and his administration faced early on was a
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  Speaker 1: currency crisis. A rift had been created between two bipartisan
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  Speaker 1: groups of Democrats and Republicans, one of which one of
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  Speaker 1: the U S Dollar to be backed by silver, while
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  Speaker 1: the other groups stood by the gold standard. Cleveland backed gold,
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  Speaker 1: those in the West and the South advocated for silver,
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  Speaker 1: which was cheaper and could help the impoverished in those areas.
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  Speaker 1: The conflict resulted in a stalemate, with no changes made
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  Speaker 1: on either side. Cleveland also faced numerous civil rights issues
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  Speaker 1: during his two terms, as well as Native American land disputes,
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  Speaker 1: voting rights battles, labor strikes, and countless other conflicts. All
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  Speaker 1: this political turmoil turned the man's hair a little grayer,
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  Speaker 1: his heart beat a little faster, and the stress of
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  Speaker 1: the job took its toll on his health. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: he already started feeling the effects of the presidency as
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  Speaker 1: early as his first term. Some days, keeping his true
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  Speaker 1: feelings hidden was harder than he thought. In eighteen eighty seven,
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  Speaker 1: an old friend from New York had come to Washington.
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  Speaker 1: His name was James, and he wanted to build a
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  Speaker 1: canal across Panama that would connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
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  Speaker 1: Two decades before the United States would embark on such
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  Speaker 1: a project, James needed Congress to convince Nicaragua, which controlled
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  Speaker 1: the area, to let him dig his canal. He moved
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  Speaker 1: to Washington and lobbied for months, hoping to move the
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  Speaker 1: needle in his direction. During his time there, he also
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  Speaker 1: made sure to drop by the White House and visit
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  Speaker 1: his good friend Grover Cleveland. Days before he set to
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  Speaker 1: move back to New York, James asked Cleveland if he
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  Speaker 1: could bring his son, Frank with him. Cleveland agreed, and
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  Speaker 1: the following day, father and son walked through the doors
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  Speaker 1: of six hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. On their visit, they had
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  Speaker 1: arrived during one of Cleveland's rougher days. The President had
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  Speaker 1: been locked in his office for a long while, but
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  Speaker 1: James and Frank waited patiently outside. When he eventually emerged,
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  Speaker 1: Cleveland bent down and shook five year old Frank's hand
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  Speaker 1: and muttered something odd. He said, my little man, I
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  Speaker 1: am making a strange wish for you. May you never
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  Speaker 1: grow up to be president of the United States. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't something anyone expected to hear that day. Frank didn't
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  Speaker 1: seem to pay it any mind, though he actually went
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  Speaker 1: on to have quite a successful career in politics later
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  Speaker 1: in life. And if that unusual wish muttered to him
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  Speaker 1: by Grover Cleveland had seemed like some kind of an agreement, well,
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  Speaker 1: Frank broke it and offered a new deal instead. Voters
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  Speaker 1: never knew him as Frank, though to them he was
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  Speaker 1: the thirty second President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribed for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,