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Disorder in the Court · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
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  Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: What makes ghost stories so frightening is how powerless we
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  Speaker 1: feel in the face of something that we can't explain.
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  Speaker 1: We know how to deal with human conflict, but the
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  Speaker 1: supernatural is a whole different story. After all, you can't
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  Speaker 1: exactly arrest a ghost or sue a demon, at least
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  Speaker 1: you can't in movies. In real life, it seems that
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  Speaker 1: things are different, And in two thousand and nine, one
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  Speaker 1: family didn't just try to their demons. They took them
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  Speaker 1: to court. That year, a family living near the Holy
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  Speaker 1: City of Medina in Saudi Arabia came to the head
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  Speaker 1: of their local tribunal with a strange claim they wanted
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  Speaker 1: the courts helped to settle a dispute with a genie. Now,
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  Speaker 1: for Westerners, the word genie conjures up images of little
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  Speaker 1: men living in oil lamps, granting wishes with magical powers.
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  Speaker 1: The role these chaotic figures play in literature, religion, and
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  Speaker 1: popular imagination is much more diverse than that. Though genies
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  Speaker 1: were originally spirits worshiped by pre Islamic Arab people called Gin,
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  Speaker 1: they appeared in folk tales, poems, and traditions from Eastern
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  Speaker 1: Asia to North Africa. When Islams spread across the region
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  Speaker 1: and the six hundreds, it adopted genies into its belief system.
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  Speaker 1: They're even mentioned several times in the Quran. According to tradition,
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  Speaker 1: gin or genies are spirits made of air that can
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  Speaker 1: shape shift into shapes like dogs, snakes, or even human beings.
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  Speaker 1: They're not good or evil, but ei genie is as
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  Speaker 1: morally complex as a person, free to make their own decisions,
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  Speaker 1: live a noble life, or cause mischief. Interestingly, many early
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  Speaker 1: Arab poets credited their verses to genies, who they said
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  Speaker 1: inspired them, much like ancient Greek muses. Some even claimed
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  Speaker 1: to fall in love with them. For the most part,
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  Speaker 1: though genies are seen as dangerous spirits. They might grant
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  Speaker 1: you knowledge or talent, but they may just dis easily
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  Speaker 1: bring you misfortune. In some especially dire cases, a genie
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  Speaker 1: might stalk you, haunt you, or even possess your body,
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  Speaker 1: which brings us back to our family living near Medina.
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  Speaker 1: As strange things kept happening to them, the stories they
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  Speaker 1: heard of malicious genies began to ring true. The family,
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  Speaker 1: which wished to remain anonymous, had lived in the same
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  Speaker 1: house for around fifteen years. Beginning in two thousand and seven,
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  Speaker 1: they started to notice strange things happening inside their home.
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  Speaker 1: At first, it was just odd, unexpected noises in the night,
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  Speaker 1: noises made when there was nobody there, or sounds that
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  Speaker 1: no human could have made. The family ignored it. It
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  Speaker 1: was the house shifting, they said, or their imaginations, nothing
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  Speaker 1: to worry about. Displeased that being ignored, whatever was making
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  Speaker 1: the noise decided to escalate. One night, the family awoke
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  Speaker 1: to hard thumps against the wall, which scared the children.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever was attacking them had started throwing rocks at the
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  Speaker 1: side of the house. Although frightened by the inexplicable attacks,
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  Speaker 1: the family refused to leave their home of fifteen years,
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  Speaker 1: so the genie decided to send them a message that
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  Speaker 1: they couldn't ignore. Months into this strange activity, members of
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  Speaker 1: the family began getting calls from strange numbers on their
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  Speaker 1: cell phones. Someone or something was leaving threatening voicemails, and
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  Speaker 1: the rock throwing picked up too, so that stones came
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  Speaker 1: flying at the family members themselves whenever they wanted to
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  Speaker 1: leave the house at night. The being that was attacking
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  Speaker 1: the house didn't just want to disturb them, It wanted
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  Speaker 1: to hurt them. Every member of the family had some
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  Speaker 1: kind of experience with this unseen dangerous entity. As they
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  Speaker 1: put the incident side by side, though, they came to
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  Speaker 1: the same conclusion, a malicious genie must be the one
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  Speaker 1: targeting the family. In many schools of thought in Islam,
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  Speaker 1: genies are considered real intelligent beings beholden to these same
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  Speaker 1: divine laws as humans. Looking for a solution, the family
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  Speaker 1: figured that if genies must follow the same heavenly rules,
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  Speaker 1: maybe they would follow the same earthly ones as well.
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  Speaker 1: The family moved out of their house, went to their
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  Speaker 1: local courts and petitioned to open a case. They were
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  Speaker 1: going to sue the genie. Now it's not clear whether
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  Speaker 1: or not the case made it through the Saudi court system,
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  Speaker 1: but what we do know is that court officers opened
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  Speaker 1: an investigation, and since every member of the family filed
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  Speaker 1: the case instead of it just being a complaint by
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  Speaker 1: one person. The court swore to fully examine the matter.
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  Speaker 1: They'd find out what was going on inside the house
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  Speaker 1: and whether the court could even make rulings on the
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  Speaker 1: behavior of a genie. Hopefully, threatening legal action got the
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  Speaker 1: family what it wanted. If not, then they most likely
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  Speaker 1: went to trial, and for some lucky lawyer, all those
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  Speaker 1: years of playing devil's advocate finally paid off. Deep down,
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  Speaker 1: everyone wonders if they have what it takes to be
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  Speaker 1: a hero. You can't really know for sure until your
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  Speaker 1: metal is tested by fire. But when that moment of
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  Speaker 1: crisis arrives, there is no hiding from it. You either
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  Speaker 1: run freeze up, or you seize your destiny and act.
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  Speaker 1: During World War II, for example, British civilians got more
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  Speaker 1: than their share of opportunities to prove their heroism. In
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  Speaker 1: the early years of the war, Germany tested the nation
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  Speaker 1: with the Blitz, a mass aerial bombing campaign targeting London
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  Speaker 1: and major industrial centers around the United Kingdom. Their main
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  Speaker 1: objective was to interrupt the production of tanks, planes, and
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  Speaker 1: other weapons, but it also led to the destruction of
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  Speaker 1: some two million homes and forty three thousand, five hundred
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  Speaker 1: civilian deaths. Despite the constant threat of attack, people went
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  Speaker 1: about their lives as normally as possible, while contributing to
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  Speaker 1: the war efforts in whatever ways they could. They literally
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  Speaker 1: kept calm and carried on by walking to work past
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  Speaker 1: the leveled houses of their neighborhoods, thus proving the stiff
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  Speaker 1: upper lip that they were famous for. But underneath, everyone
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  Speaker 1: waited in anticipation for the next attack, not knowing if
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  Speaker 1: their home would be next. When the bombs fell, many
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  Speaker 1: everyday citizens flew into action, putting out fires and dragging
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  Speaker 1: their neighbors to safety. Still, one British civilian stands out
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  Speaker 1: for saving her family not once, but twice during the war.
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  Speaker 1: The first instance came in April of nineteen forty one,
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  Speaker 1: during an attack on London. An incendiary bomb came crashing
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  Speaker 1: through the roof of a London house. Rather than being
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  Speaker 1: designed to explode, these bombs contained highly flammable materials that
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  Speaker 1: would ignite upon impact, producing fires hot enough to melt steel.
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  Speaker 1: But rather than fleeing, a young civilian named Juliana, who
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  Speaker 1: lived in the house, raced straight for the bomb. She
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  Speaker 1: didn't have any training with explosives or materials on hand
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  Speaker 1: to help fight the fire that was starting to ignite.
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  Speaker 1: But despite the obvious danger, she didn't run away. She
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  Speaker 1: simply squatted over the bomb and urinated on it. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm realizing right now that it might help you to
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  Speaker 1: picture this scene more accurately to note that Juliana was
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  Speaker 1: a dog, a great Dane to be precise, and by
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  Speaker 1: peeing on that Nazi incendiary bomb, she saved her owners
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  Speaker 1: from almost certain death that night. Soon after, she was
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  Speaker 1: honored for her bravery with a Blue Cross medal. This
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  Speaker 1: award has been used in the UK since World War
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  Speaker 1: One to recognize animals for their bravery and selflessness. Initially,
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  Speaker 1: it was most often given to horses who carried their
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  Speaker 1: officers into battle compared to those warriors, though Juliana was
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  Speaker 1: just a civilian, but she proved herself to be a
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  Speaker 1: hero all the same. A few years later, she did
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  Speaker 1: it again. In November of nineteen forty four, a fire
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  Speaker 1: broke out in her owner's shoe shop. This time, Juliana
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  Speaker 1: barked to wake her owners up, giving them time to
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  Speaker 1: put out the flames. For this incident, she received her
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  Speaker 1: second Blue Cross medal, but Sadly, Juliana died soon after
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  Speaker 1: the war under nefarious circumstances. We don't know who was
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  Speaker 1: responsible or what motivated them, but someone slipped poison through
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  Speaker 1: her master's mail slot one night. Juliana ingested it and
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  Speaker 1: passed away soon after. It's a tragic end for our hero,
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  Speaker 1: but her story lives on. It came to lights in
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  Speaker 1: twenty thirteen when one of the medals was sold at
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  Speaker 1: an auction in Bristol, along with a watercolor portrait of
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  Speaker 1: Juliana herself. They went for eleven hundred pounds, many times
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  Speaker 1: above the asking price, and the impressed auctioneer concluded the
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  Speaker 1: sale by praising Juliana's accomplishments, commenting that she was a
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  Speaker 1: great Dane with a great bladder. But she's more than
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  Speaker 1: just a dog who peed on a bomb. In a way,
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  Speaker 1: she represents all the British citizens who rode out the blitz.
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  Speaker 1: They may not have been soldiers, but they stepped up
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  Speaker 1: when their country needed them. They fought the war with
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  Speaker 1: every tool at their disposal, by collecting scrap metal, working
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  Speaker 1: in factories and forming bucket brigades when their neighborhoods caught fire,
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  Speaker 1: and in the same way Juliana fought the Nazis with
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  Speaker 1: everything she had loyalty, courage, and one powerful stream. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldolore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.