Latest / Crime and Horror / They saw their own deaths - MrBallen

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They saw their own deaths - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

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  Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell you four stories that are
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  Speaker 1: about people who had really incredible experiences. Some incredibly good,
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  Speaker 1: some incredibly bad. But in all of these experiences, the
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  Speaker 1: people in these stories came out of them believing that
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  Speaker 1: everything that happened had a purpose. But before we get
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  Speaker 1: into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark,
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  Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to
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  Speaker 1: like button a nice ice cold coffee, but don't tell
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: them it's just watered down mud. Also, please subscribe to
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  Speaker 1: miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into
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  Speaker 1: today's stories. On the night of October 23rd, 1975, a
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  Speaker 1: middle-aged man named Mike Crane closed the garage door of
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  Speaker 1: the taxi cab company that he owned in Boston, Massachusetts.
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  Speaker 1: He was getting ready to head home for the night,
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  Speaker 1: but as he went around checking that all the doors
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  Speaker 1: were locked and that the lights were off, the phone
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  Speaker 1: in the office began to ring. And so Mike was
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  Speaker 1: a little annoyed because it's late, he wants to go home,
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  Speaker 1: but still he went over, he answered the phone, and
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  Speaker 1: it was one of his drivers. And the driver said
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  Speaker 1: that his car battery had died on the road and
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  Speaker 1: he now needed to jump. Now, Mike did think about
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  Speaker 1: just calling a tow truck because then he could just
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  Speaker 1: go home. But this particular driver was really young and
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  Speaker 1: he was new to the job. And so Mike felt
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  Speaker 1: bad leaving him stranded out there. So he said, all right,
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  Speaker 1: I'll be there in a minute. He grabbed his car
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  Speaker 1: keys and he headed out the door. A few minutes later,
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  Speaker 1: Mike was driving a spare taxi cab down a dark
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  Speaker 1: side street full of apartment buildings on either side until
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  Speaker 1: he saw the broken down cab on the side of
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  Speaker 1: the road. And his cab driver was outside waving him
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  Speaker 1: down on the sidewalk. So Mike pulled over, he popped
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  Speaker 1: the hood of his own cab, he got the jumper
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  Speaker 1: cables out and he went out and he connected them
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  Speaker 1: both to the broken down cab and his own. And
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  Speaker 1: then once they were in place, Mike got back in
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  Speaker 1: his own cab and he started the engine. Then he
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  Speaker 1: rolled down his window and he was about to lean
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  Speaker 1: out and tell the young driver what to do next
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  Speaker 1: when there was this flash of movement outside the passenger
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  Speaker 1: side window that caught his eye. And he squinted into
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  Speaker 1: the darkness and he saw there were these two men,
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  Speaker 1: sort of shady looking guys, leaning up against this wall
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  Speaker 1: of an apartment building across the street. And they weren't
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  Speaker 1: doing anything. They were just standing there. And all of
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  Speaker 1: a sudden, Mike, who was a very practical, no-nonsense person,
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  Speaker 1: had what he could only describe as a vision. In
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  Speaker 1: this vision, he saw those two strange men walking across
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  Speaker 1: the street and coming over to the driver's side window
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  Speaker 1: of his cab. And then one of them asked Mike
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  Speaker 1: for a cigarette. And while Mike was distracted fumbling for
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  Speaker 1: his pack of cigarettes, the second man yanked open the
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  Speaker 1: door and put a knife to Mike's throat. And as
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  Speaker 1: soon as he saw that, the vision faded and it
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  Speaker 1: went back to, you know, the two guys still standing
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  Speaker 1: across the street. It was just this vision that Mike's
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  Speaker 1: had sort of inexplicably. But to Mike, the vision was
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  Speaker 1: so clear, so vivid that this shock of fear coursed
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  Speaker 1: through his body. It was like it had been beamed
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  Speaker 1: into his mind from somewhere else, like a a movie
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  Speaker 1: projected onto a screen. I mean, he had never experienced
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  Speaker 1: anything like this before. In fact, really, he didn't even
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  Speaker 1: believe in the idea of psychic visions. But for some
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  Speaker 1: reason now, he had a feeling in his gut that
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  Speaker 1: he had just seen a glimpse of his own fate.
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  Speaker 1: And what he'd just pictured in his mind was literally
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  Speaker 1: about to happen. He just knew it. But before Mike
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  Speaker 1: could figure out what to do with these thoughts he
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  Speaker 1: was having, the two men across the street They began
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  Speaker 1: walking in their direction, just like Mike had envisioned. And
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  Speaker 1: as soon as this began happening, Mike's heart began to race.
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  Speaker 1: He looks out his windshield and he sees his cab
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  Speaker 1: hood is still popped. He and the other cab, they're
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  Speaker 1: still connected. So he couldn't just drive away without first
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  Speaker 1: getting out and disconnecting and shutting everything. And then also
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  Speaker 1: he didn't want to just abandon his other driver whose
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  Speaker 1: cab didn't work right now. Like the battery was still dead.
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  Speaker 1: It had not been jumped yet. But then Mike remembered
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  Speaker 1: that he had a gun in his briefcase, which he
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  Speaker 1: kept with him because he had to carry these large
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  Speaker 1: sums of money around town for his business. And so
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  Speaker 1: just before these two strange men crossed the road and
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  Speaker 1: came to his window, just like in the vision, Mike
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  Speaker 1: quickly fumbled and opened up his briefcase, pulled out the
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  Speaker 1: gun and positioned it under the window, aiming outside where
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  Speaker 1: the men couldn't see he had the gun. And at
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  Speaker 1: the same moment that Mike has this gun in position secretly,
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  Speaker 1: one of the men came around right to the driver's
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  Speaker 1: side of the window and he leaned into the window
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  Speaker 1: sort of conspicuously. And just like Mike envisioned it, he
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  Speaker 1: asked Mike for a cigarette. The second man was positioned
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  Speaker 1: behind the first man and he was sort of near
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  Speaker 1: the door handle, right where Mike had originally seen him
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  Speaker 1: in his vision. And even though Mike couldn't see a
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  Speaker 1: knife in the guy's hand, he just knew it was there.
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  Speaker 1: And so he knew he had to act right now.
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  Speaker 1: So Mike raised the gun out of hiding and aimed
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  Speaker 1: it at the two men and shouted at them to
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  Speaker 1: drop the knife. And the men, they froze in confusion.
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  Speaker 1: And Mike suddenly wondered what on earth he was even doing.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, he really had no reason to believe these
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  Speaker 1: guys actually meant him any harm other than the fact
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  Speaker 1: he had had this vision, which he couldn't explain. But
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  Speaker 1: then the second man He reached through Mike's window and
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  Speaker 1: he dropped something into Mike's lap. And then both of
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  Speaker 1: these men turned and they ran away. Once these guys
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  Speaker 1: were gone, Mike, who's got this incredible surge of adrenaline
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  Speaker 1: going through his body, he like can't believe this is real.
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  Speaker 1: He picks up the item that's been dropped in his
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  Speaker 1: lap and it's a knife. And Mike was so shocked
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  Speaker 1: that he had been right, that this vision had been right,
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  Speaker 1: that he began turning the knife over. just to make
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  Speaker 1: sure it was real, that it wasn't like his mind
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  Speaker 1: playing a trick on him. And as he rotated the
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  Speaker 1: knife and just sort of looked at it from every angle,
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  Speaker 1: he saw something on the knife that was so crazy,
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  Speaker 1: he just couldn't believe it. To Mike, it felt like
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  Speaker 1: the last of many signs that his vision was real.
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  Speaker 1: And wherever it came from, it was meant specifically for him.
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  Speaker 1: Because what he saw was his own name, Mike. Scratched.
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  Speaker 1: into the handle of this knife. Once it's out there,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: it can spread, contributing to endless spam and making some
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  Speaker 1: scams surprisingly convincing. That's where Aura comes in. Aura finds
• 7:26
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  Speaker 1: remove it. And because that information reappears, Aura keeps checking
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and keeps submitting removal requests. And unlike the data brokers
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Aura removes your information from, doesn't sell your personal information.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Aura also monitors for signs of identity theft and fraud
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and can alert you to suspicious activity. You can't stop
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: every company that's collected your information, but you can start
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: taking back control. Go to Aura.com slash Mr. Ballin and
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: try Aura for free for 14 days. On the afternoon
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  Speaker 1: of June 6th, 2026, a man in his 50s named
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  Speaker 1: Adam Sandbeck sat in the passenger seat of an off-road
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  Speaker 1: vehicle called a side-by-side, which is basically like a golf
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  Speaker 1: cart with a powerful engine, big tires, and a roll cage.
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  Speaker 1: And next to him was his best friend Mike, and
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  Speaker 1: they were driving down this wooden trail in northern Minnesota.
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  Speaker 1: There'd been a rainstorm in the area recently, so the
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  Speaker 1: ground was pretty muddy and their side-by-side was absolutely filthy.
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  Speaker 1: But Adam loved it. because driving on difficult terrain was
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  Speaker 1: exactly what they were here to do. So he and
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  Speaker 1: Mike had known each other since the second grade, and
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  Speaker 1: they'd been making the hundred mile drive from their hometown
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  Speaker 1: of West Fargo to these woods for years, because the
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  Speaker 1: trails out here were perfect for off-roading. And every single
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  Speaker 1: time Adam and Mike came out here, they did basically
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  Speaker 1: the exact same things. They always stayed at the same
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  Speaker 1: RV park. They always took the same trails. They always
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  Speaker 1: drove the trails as fast as they could. And each
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  Speaker 1: man always drove his own vehicle. But today, for some reason,
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  Speaker 1: they had decided not to do the same old thing
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  Speaker 1: they always did. As soon as they'd gotten to the woods,
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  Speaker 1: Adam had had this strange feeling that they should change
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  Speaker 1: things up. And Mike said that actually he was thinking
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  Speaker 1: the exact same thing. So now they were taking only
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  Speaker 1: Mike's side by side instead of riding separately like they
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  Speaker 1: always did. And also instead of just shooting through the
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  Speaker 1: trails as fast as they could, today they were riding
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  Speaker 1: at a nice, leisurely pace so they could actually talk
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  Speaker 1: and explore some new trails together. And as they rode along,
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  Speaker 1: actually taking the time to look at the towering pine
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  Speaker 1: trees and beautiful landscape around them, Adam noticed the entrance
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  Speaker 1: to an old maintenance road. Now, Adam and Mike had
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  Speaker 1: driven past this entrance for years and never gone to
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  Speaker 1: it before. But for whatever reason, looking at it now,
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  Speaker 1: Adam had that same strong feeling that he'd had earlier.
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  Speaker 1: Couldn't really say why, but he had this sudden urge
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  Speaker 1: to mix it up and go down this road and
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  Speaker 1: see what was down there. And so, moments later, Adam
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  Speaker 1: and Mike were making their way down this maintenance road,
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  Speaker 1: which was even muddier and more treacherous to drive on
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  Speaker 1: than any of the other trails. So it was thrilling,
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  Speaker 1: but also it was like kind of a sketchy ride.
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  Speaker 1: And in fact, the mud got worse and worse the
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  Speaker 1: further they went. And there was a big fallen tree
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  Speaker 1: they had to get around and like enormous potholes created
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  Speaker 1: by the recent storms. I mean, this was a treacherous ride, really.
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  Speaker 1: But then at some point, their side-by-side rounded a corner
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  Speaker 1: and Adam saw something really weird in the trail up ahead.
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  Speaker 1: A minivan. And this was just like a normal, everyday minivan.
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  Speaker 1: The kind of car that absolutely should not be driving
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  Speaker 1: around the wilderness on rough terrain. In fact, as soon
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  Speaker 1: as they saw it, the first thing Mike said out
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  Speaker 1: loud was, how did this thing even get this far
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  Speaker 1: out here? Like, this is crazy it even got this
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  Speaker 1: deep into the wilderness here. And so as Adam and
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  Speaker 1: Mike slowed down for a better look at this minivan,
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  Speaker 1: Adam saw there was a huge puddle that was right
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  Speaker 1: next to the van. And he noticed... There was something
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  Speaker 1: oval-shaped that was poking up out of this puddle. And
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  Speaker 1: so he told Mike to stop. And then the friends,
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  Speaker 1: they hopped out of their vehicle and they walked over
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  Speaker 1: to get a better look. And as they got close
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  Speaker 1: enough to actually see what this oval was poking out
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  Speaker 1: of this puddle, like when they realized what it was,
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  Speaker 1: they both just froze. They couldn't believe what they were seeing.
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  Speaker 1: Because the oval-shaped object was a woman's face with only hair.
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  Speaker 1: her nose and lips and her eyelashes just barely poking
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  Speaker 1: up out of the water. And so instantly, Adam and
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  Speaker 1: Mike are like, we found a dead body. But just
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  Speaker 1: as Adam was about to ask Mike, like, what do
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  Speaker 1: we do? The dead woman opened her eyes and the
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  Speaker 1: water's like sloshing on her face. And she began desperately
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  Speaker 1: choking out, help me, help me. It would turn out
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  Speaker 1: the woman was 68-year-old Catherine Wessner. and her van had
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  Speaker 1: gotten stuck in the mud days earlier, after she had
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  Speaker 1: taken a wrong turn and got lost. And then when
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  Speaker 1: she got out of her van to try to get
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  Speaker 1: the van unstuck, she'd stepped into that puddle next to
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  Speaker 1: the van, which actually was like this very deep mud pit,
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  Speaker 1: and it was so thick, it actually sucked her down
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  Speaker 1: and trapped her like quicksand. Now, at first, Catherine was
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  Speaker 1: only partially submerged in the mud, and she just spent
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  Speaker 1: a long time screaming for help, but nobody heard her.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: And as the hours turned into days, it started to
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  Speaker 1: rain and Catherine couldn't move. And then the water levels
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  Speaker 1: slowly began to rise until she was completely submerged with
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  Speaker 1: just her mouth, her nose, some of her eyes and
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  Speaker 1: the fingers of one hand barely sticking up above the
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  Speaker 1: surface of the water. And so when Adam and Mike
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  Speaker 1: found her, she wasn't dead, but she was very close
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  Speaker 1: to it. And in fact, all it would have taken
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  Speaker 1: is a little bit more rain or if she had
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  Speaker 1: just sunk a little bit lower then she would have drowned.
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  Speaker 1: But the two men found her right in the nick
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  Speaker 1: of time, pulled her out, and they saved her life.
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  Speaker 1: Catherine was taken to a hospital and is expected to
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  Speaker 1: make a full recovery. She offered Adam and Mike a reward,
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  Speaker 1: but they declined. Instead, they said they were just really
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  Speaker 1: happy that they had decided to do things differently that day.
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  Speaker 1: If they had followed their normal routine like they had
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  Speaker 1: for years and years and years, there was no way
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  Speaker 1: they would have made it to that spot in time
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  Speaker 1: to save her life. And so in an interview... Mike
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  Speaker 1: said that, well, everything happens for a reason. On September 8th, 1941...
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  Speaker 1: A scientist named Alexander Shukin hurried up a flight of
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  Speaker 1: stairs in a large building in the Soviet Union. In
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  Speaker 1: his hands, he held a box of samples, which he
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: needed to file safely away in his lab upstairs. So
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  Speaker 1: Alexander worked at this world-renowned lab and research facility in
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  Speaker 1: the city of Leningrad, which is now called St. Petersburg
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  Speaker 1: in Russia. The facility was located in this huge old
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: palace in the middle of the city. So it was
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: massive and it had a ton of space and labs
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  Speaker 1: and storage facilities that that housed all the amazing work
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  Speaker 1: that Alexander and his colleagues did. And what they did
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  Speaker 1: is basically they were leading the entire world in genetic research.
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  Speaker 1: And Alexander considered this both his life's work and also
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  Speaker 1: essential to the future of humanity. And right now, this
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  Speaker 1: work was all at risk. So at the time, it
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  Speaker 1: was the middle of World War II. And just a
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: few months earlier, in June, the German army had invaded
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  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. and surrounded the city of Leningrad. Now
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: they hadn't actually attacked them yet, but Alexander and his
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: colleagues wanted to make sure all their research and specimens
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: stayed safe for when the Germans did eventually invade. And
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: so earlier that morning, many of Alexander's colleagues had moved
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: into the facility and they planned to basically live there
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  Speaker 1: and continue their research until this whole thing was over,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: like until World War II was over. And so now
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  Speaker 1: Alexander got to the top of the staircase and he
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: rushed towards his office at the end of the hall.
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  Speaker 1: And once he was inside, he set that box of
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  Speaker 1: samples down on his desk and began flipping through his notes.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: And as he was doing this, all of a sudden, outside,
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  Speaker 1: he hears this deafening boom, and then the whole building
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  Speaker 1: began to tremble. And so Alexander, he ran to the window,
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  Speaker 1: and what he saw terrified him. Outside, there were dozens
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and dozens of German planes soaring through the sky, dropping
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  Speaker 1: bombs all over the city. And so Alexander, he looked
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: out and he's hearing explosions. He's seeing flame and smoke
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and fire everywhere. And he knew that finally the attack
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  Speaker 1: had begun. Over two months later, on the evening of
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: December 24th, 1941, Alexander, who was still alive, he was
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  Speaker 1: sitting at his desk in his office, bundled up in
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  Speaker 1: layers of sweaters and scarves, just trying his best to
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  Speaker 1: stay warm. In front of him were a few packets
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  Speaker 1: of the specimen that he'd been testing. His hands shook
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: so hard he could barely write down his notes, but
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: he forced himself to keep going. He knew at this
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  Speaker 1: point he was very sick and he probably didn't have
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of time left, but he needed to finish
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: this research, which he was so sure was going to
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: change the world. So by this point, things had gotten very,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: very bad. The city hadn't fallen to the German army yet,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: but they were still surrounded and were enduring relentless bombing
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: from German planes. And it was winter, so temperatures had
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: dropped well below freezing, and there was no electricity or
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: coal or firewood in the city, so the research facility
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  Speaker 1: was completely unheated. And also, all the bombing had blown
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: out most of the windows, which let even more cold inside.
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  Speaker 1: But the bigger issue was that Leningrad was running out
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  Speaker 1: of food, and rations had dropped to only about 300
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: calories per person per day. For reference, that's like a
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  Speaker 1: fraction of a fraction of what someone needs to survive on.
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  Speaker 1: And so people all over the city who were still
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: alive at this point were now starving to death. Alexander
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  Speaker 1: himself was so thin and so weak that he could
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  Speaker 1: barely stand anymore. And his hands had turned black from
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  Speaker 1: the cold. But even though Alexander knew he must be
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  Speaker 1: near death, he and the other scientists that he worked
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  Speaker 1: with had never been more dedicated to their work. And
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: so as the bombs continued to explode all around them,
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  Speaker 1: They'd sworn to keep up their work and protect it
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  Speaker 1: at all costs, even if it killed them. So Alexander finally,
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  Speaker 1: he reached out for one of the specimens on his desk.
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  Speaker 1: And as his brittle black hand wrapped around it, his
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  Speaker 1: breath got shallow and his vision began to blur. He
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: gripped it tightly in his hand and then he closed
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: his eyes. A few hours later, early in the morning
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  Speaker 1: on December 25th, the head of the research facility, Nikolai Ivanov,
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  Speaker 1: walked down a long hallway toward Alexander's office. Like Alexander
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and literally everyone else in the city, Nikolai had been
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: unbearably hungry for months. But now he had a good
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: reason to finally be hopeful. A city official had just
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: knocked on their door to tell Nikolai that everybody was
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: getting an increase in rations, four extra slices of bread
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  Speaker 1: per day per person. This was a huge increase, and
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Nikolai was so relieved he could almost cry. And the
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: first person that Nikolai wanted to tell was Alexander, who
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: he knew was incredibly sick from starving. I mean, Alexander
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: had been on the verge of death for weeks now.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And so if anybody could use that bread, it was him.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And so he reached Alexander's office and he knocked on
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the door, but there was no answer. So he tried again,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: but when there was still no response, Nikolai just pushed
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the door open. And there, seated in his chair behind
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: his desk, was Alexander. but his eyes were closed and
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: he wasn't moving. Nikolai ran over and he shook him,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: but Alexander was stiff and cold and Nikolai knew he
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: was dead. But as Nikolai stood there, you know, dealing
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: with this tragedy, he noticed that Alexander was holding something
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: in his hand. It was a bag containing a few
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: of Alexander's specimens. And seeing that made Nikolai both unbearably
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: sad and just incredibly proud. Because Alexander had died of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: starvation with a pack of almonds in his hand and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: surrounded by a giant assortment of other foods. The research
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: facility where Alexander worked was called the Plant Institute. and
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: it specialized in the genetic testing and storage of crops
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: like rice, peas, corn, wheat, and nuts. So while Nikolai
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and Alexander and their other colleagues literally starved to death,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: there was an enormous amount of food all around them.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: The scientists had spent years collecting a lot of these
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: plants and seeds that weren't found anywhere else in the world.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: And the samples had the potential to do amazing things
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: like create new medicines or super crops that would potentially
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: eliminate famine. So, Alexander and Nikolai and all of their colleagues,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: they had all decided it was more important to die
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: protecting their work than to consume it. The siege of
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Leningrad lasted over two more years and didn't end until
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: January 1944 when Germany was defeated by the Soviet Union.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: At least 19 scientists at the Plant Institute died during
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: that time, but their work survived. And by the 1970s,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a third of all Russian farmland was made with seeds
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and plants from the Plant Institute's labs. So really, their
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: work had survived generations and was providing for millions and
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: millions of people. One winter afternoon in the 1960s, a
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: saleswoman was working behind the counter of a furniture store
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: in Faggia, Italy, when the bell above the door jingled
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and she looked up to see a customer come inside.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: He was an older man who was dressed head to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: toe in black, and he walked right up to the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: saleswoman and he told her he was looking for a
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: very specific kind of bed. And the woman told him that,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: you know, unfortunately, the store didn't carry anything like what
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: he was asking for, but If he was prepared to wait,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: they could potentially make a custom bed for him. They
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: could work with their vendors and make this thing for him.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: It would just take some time. And the man said
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: that was fine, that he was not in a hurry.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: In fact, he told her he'd already waited for many,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: many years and he could wait a bit longer. After that,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: he handed her a piece of paper with a drawing
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: showing exactly what he wanted, along with his name, his address,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and a telephone number. And the saleswoman, I mean, she
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: was happy to take the order. It was unusual, but
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Her pay was based on commission, so if this kind
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: of strange customer was willing to spend all this money
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: on this bizarre custom piece of furniture, well, she was
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: going to make that happen, and she was going to
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: get paid for it. However, after the saleswoman took down
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: all of his information and wrote down the specs of
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: what he wanted, she looked up, thinking the man would
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: still be there. But he wasn't. He was gone. And
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: in fact, she hadn't even heard or seen him leave.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, she realized she was kind of engrossed in
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: taking down the information, so she could have maybe missed it.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: But it was just kind of odd that he was
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: already gone. I mean, she hadn't even given him a
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: price quote. And so the saleswoman, she ultimately got in
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: touch with her supervisor and explained to him what had happened.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: And they agreed that the whole thing was really strange.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: But ultimately, the man had left them his name, his
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: contact information, an address, and a very detailed drawing of
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: exactly what he wanted. And he'd made it very clear
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: that he was willing to wait for this thing to
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: be built. So they decided to just go ahead and
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: make this custom bed. Over the next few weeks, the
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: store worked with its vendors to put together this customer's
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: very unusual order. And then finally, the bed was finished.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: It was loaded onto a delivery truck and the driver
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: headed out to the address the old man had provided.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: But later that afternoon, the phone rang back at the
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: furniture store and that saleswoman picked it up And it
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: was the delivery driver. And he wanted to know if
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: this was some kind of a joke. Because the address
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: that he had been told to drop this bed off at, well,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: there was nowhere to put it. The address the customer
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: had given them was to a cemetery. It would turn
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: out the information that old man had written down led
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: not just to some cemetery, but a very specific section
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: of the cemetery reserved for victims of the World War
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: II bombing of Faggia, Italy. And when they located the
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: specific headstone corresponding to the information that this old man
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: had given them, there was a name written across it,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: across the headstone. It was Franco Severio Ricci, which was
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the name of the old man who ordered the bed. Now, obviously,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: this story sounds completely insane. But according to reports at
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the time, this bizarre incident actually made the Italian newspapers crazy.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: And that saleswoman was not the only person at the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: furniture store who became involved. There was that other employee
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: who helped her look around the store for this guy
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: after he had vanished. And also, the store's owner later
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: examined the note, the sketch that was left behind by
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: this guy with the drawing of the bed and all
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the information he had left, including his name and his location,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the cemetery. So whether the real Franco Severio Ricci, who
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: was killed in a bombing run during World War II...
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: really walked into that furniture store in the 1970s from
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: beyond the grave is impossible to know. But what we
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: do know is that somebody in the 1970s who claimed
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: to be Franco Severio Ricci walked into that furniture store
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: and they ordered a very custom bed, a bed that
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: was designed specifically to fit inside of a coffin. Thank
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: you so much for watching today's episode. Let me know
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: what you thought of it in the comments below. And remember,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: we have a whole playlist of Places You Can't Go
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: episodes ready for you to binge right now. So go
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: ahead and click here and give them a watch. All right,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: until next time, see ya.