InterestingPOD

Dr. Chase A. Thompson

Not every tale from history made the textbooks. Some were too strange. Too secret. Too… interesting. Debunking myths and digging up the facts, we don't peddle half-baked lies, rumors, or unfounded conspiracies. And we don't accept easy answers either. Your host is Doctor Chase: historian, author, storyteller. You bring the curiosity, and we'll bring the intrigue. Ready for a mystery? Or an adventure? Let's go!

Episodes

  1. 09/22/2025

    Anatoli Bugorski and the Splitting Headache. (Hit in the Face with a Particle Accelerator)

    Episode 9: Anatoli Bugorski. Anatoli and the Splitting Headache.  One more story to tell today in our mini series of scientific heroes who work in dangerous mediums and, like the last couple of episodes, today's story  is also a cautionary tale of sorts, but it's a story of a mistake most of us won't even have a chance to duplicate even if we wanted to. I'm looking forward to telling you about today's subject, Anatoli Bugorski, but even MORE looking forward to the next few episodes when we dive into the primary sources - pre all of this societal polarization and vitriol - and learn in their own words what a Nazi is and what a Fascist is. What did each of those parties believe, what were their planks, and how did they behave? In a world where everybody who disagrees with you politically is a vile Nazi or Fascist, it might just be helpful to look up what each party was all about. That's history-history, and a time period that is right in my wheelhouse, a few years before and after WW2. Sometimes science brushes so close to the edge that it leaves a scorch mark. Today's story is about a man, unlike our other heroes of science, who escaped the flash "brighter than a thousand suns" ( Discover), even though it hit him square in the head.  It's also about how a human life can thread the needle between disaster and miracle and keep on going, to finish a PhD, show up to work, and survive. This is the tale of Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski, "a Russian retired particle physicist … known for having survived a radiation accident in 1978, when a high-energy proton beam from a particle accelerator passed through his head." Yep, you heard me correctly. Essentially, he is the Phineas Gage of the nuclear era. And if you don't know about Gage…look him up. Ouch!  We start in Protvino, in the Russian SFSR, at the Institute for High Energy Physics. Bugorski "worked with the largest particle accelerator in the Soviet Union, the U-70 synchrotron" (..). On July 13, 1978, he walked into the kind of malfunction that turns a routine check into legend: "he was checking a malfunctioning piece of equipment when the safety mechanisms failed. Bugorski was leaning over the equipment when he stuck his head in the path of the 76 Giga electron volt proton beam" (..). He didn't really feel pain as such, at least not immediately. Instead, he saw light. Specifically, he "reportedly saw a flash 'brighter than a thousand suns'" In that instant the beam "passed through the back of his head, the occipital and temporal lobes of his brain, the left middle ear, and out through the left-hand side of his nose"  The dose in the exposed pathway: "200,000 to 300,000 roentgens  Discover puts the energy another way: "2,000 grays … on the way in, and … 3,000 grays by the time it left. A dose of around 5 gray can be lethal to humans" (Discover). How do those two things cohere, considering that Bugorski didn't die? I've no idea. Like Homer Simpson, I'm no nuclear scientist, and unlike Homor Simpson, I don't even work at a nuclear power plant.  Somehow, someway, Bugorski "understood the severity of what had happened, but continued working on the malfunctioning equipment, and initially opted not to tell anyone" (..). That detail feels very Soviet, very scientist, and very human: finish the job, then process the catastrophe. It reminds me of the time I was bit by a racoon…..And, you know what? Don't expect anybody to make a podcast in the future about my raccoon incident…Bugorski's story is a billion times better.  Let's talk about What Particle Beams Do (And Don't Do) to Flesh There's a reason we generally don't put our hands in beams. When I was a kid, if I heard my mom say that once, I heard her say it a million times.   As The Atlantic frames the broader thought experiment: "What would happen if you stuck your body inside a particle accelerator? The scenario seems like the start of a bad Marvel comic" (The Atlantic), according to the Atlantic, but a GOOD Marvel comic if you're asking me.  Accelerators "allow physicists to study subatomic particles by speeding them up in powerful magnetic fields and then tracing the interactions that result from collisions" (The Atlantic). But that neat chalkboard world becomes very real when "a beam of subatomic particles traveling at nearly the speed of light meets the flesh of the human body" (The Atlantic). Discover says it plainly: "protons are still very much physical objects, and when you take trillions of them and force them through something as delicate and complex as a human cell, the collisions tend to tear biological structures apart" (Discover). Radiation harms by "breaking apart chemical bonds that hold DNA and other cellular components together" (Discover). With enough energy, "cells are unable to duplicate and begin to die, leading to organ failure" (Discover). And yet, unlike fallout or whole-body exposure, "the particle beam was narrowly focused," meaning "only his brain received any exposure to the radiation, keeping the damage concentrated to a single area" (Discover). That narrowness, Discover suggests, may be part of why he lived: "He may have just been lucky, and the beam missed important areas of his brain, or perhaps proton beams affect the body differently than other sorts of radiation" (Discover). Reading the Discover article, I wonder if they realize just how important the brain is. I don't feel like Bugorski got lucky because the particle accelerator beam only hit him in the face.    The Atlantic zooms out: this kind of radiation—protons at these energies—"is a rare beast indeed"  Almost no one ever encounters a dose like this in such a focused line. When they do, it's usually deliberate and medical: "Particle accelerators can deliver targeted doses of radiation to cancer patients, a process known as proton beam therapy … Those doses are around 300 times smaller than the one Bugorski sustained" (Discover). So cancer-destroying proton beams are 300 times smaller than the beam that smacked our guy in the head. Wild!  So no, this isn't an origin story for Super-Anatoli. As the Discover article cracks: "Were this a comic book, Bugorski would certainly be endowed with fearsome powers … As it is, he's probably just happy to be alive"  One possibility they didn't consider is that Burgorski did, in fact, develop superpowers, but like Superman with his glasses on, he is clever enough not to advertise his powers to the rest of the world. Yeah, that's the ticket.  Back to 1978. Like with Slotin, Kelley, and Daghlian, Bugorski's Doctors expected a death watch. "They expected him to die, but he survived with severe but non-fatal injuries" (..). The physical toll was immediate and visual: "The left half of Bugorski's face swelled up beyond recognition and, over the next several days, the skin started to peel, revealing the path that the proton beam had burned through parts of his face, his bone, and the brain tissue underneath" (..). Discover's article version is also a tad grisly but concise: "his skin blistered and peeled off where the beam had struck" (Discover). Permanent damage for Bugorski coincided with the beam's route through his head. He "completely lost hearing in the left ear, replaced by a form of tinnitus" (..). "The left half of his face became paralyzed due to the destruction of nerves" (..). "He was able to function well, except for occasional complex partial seizures and rare tonic-clonic seizures." Or as Discover translates the neurology: "in the long-term, Bugorski suffered for a time from both petit mal and grand mal seizures and found that he became more easily mentally fatigued" (Discover). One other side effect: Apparently, The paralyzed side of his face never aged, but if you are dealing with wrinkles and looking for a fountain of youth style medical cure here, you might want to verify that in person before sticking your body into a particle accelerator.   What about his mind? Did he lose his wits? Most reports note that "There was virtually no damage to his intellectual capacity, but the fatigue of mental work increased markedly" (..). After the accident, Discover magazine reports that Bugorski "nevertheless went on to earn his doctorate, and even returned to work at the same facility where his accident occurred" (Discover). The Atlantic underscores the same improbable normalcy: "Despite having nothing less than a particle accelerator beam pass through his brain, Bugorski's intellect remained intact, and he successfully completed his doctorate after the accident" That's pretty impressive, and puts him in a tier of one. I'm pretty sure he's the only guy in history to earn a doctoral degree after taking a million-mile fastball from a particle accelerator to the face. Impressive.  After the accident, he "continued to work as a physicist … eventually becoming the experiment coordinator for the same particle accelerator by which he was injured" (..). In an institutional world that can sometimes be quick to sideline, that's a quiet triumph.   The human story here runs on two tracks: private medical vigilance and public silence. .. again: "Because of the Soviet Union's policy of maintaining secrecy on nuclear power-related issues, Bugorski did not speak publicly about the accident for over a decade" (..). Meanwhile, he "continued going to the Moscow radiation clinic twice a year for examinations and to meet with other nuclear accident victims" (..). In that circle, he was "described as 'a poster boy for Soviet and Russian radiation medicine'" (..). Money and medication brought their own hard edges. "In 1996, Bugorski applied unsuccessfully for disability status to receive free epilepsy medication" (..). It's not just the US that denies legit insurance claims, folks.  He "showed interest in making himself available for study to Western researchers but could not afford to leave Protvino" (..). There's sadness tucked between those line

    33 min

  2. 09/21/2025

    Quicksilver: The Life and Loss of Karen Wetterhahn

    Quicksilver: The Life and Loss of Karen Wetterhahn   Hello friends, and welcome to episode #8. Today we have another riveting but tragic story for you.    If you haven't listened to episode 7 yet, it isn't absolutely necessary, but it would do you well to hear the stories of early nuclear pioneers like Louis Sloten, Cecil Kelly, and Harry Daghlian, and the dangers that ended their lives. I think this is going to be an intriguing episode, with a fascinating scientist that most won't be familiar with.   Today is not so much in my wheelhouse - Nuclear history, toxic chemical history, safety history, and high velocity subatomic history. I'm not a scientist, and I didn't stay recently at a Holiday Inn, but I am certainly a science hobbyist, and keep up with science news daily, and the fact that the last few topics are out of my milieu, so to speak, means I've had to research them more thoroughly, fact-check my assumptions, look up terms, and generally do the due-dilligance to get things right. I may miss something here or there, but I am trying hard to get it right. Just let me know where I whiff, and I can tell the DJ to fix it in the mix.  You know the podcast things. Sharing the show, telling people about it, posting about it, and leaving Apple Podcast reviews all help…a lot. I appreciate those of you who do that. Thank you! Some stories make you hold your breath. Some make you check your gloves. Today we'll do both, and hopefully, when we do - we'll be all the better for it.  We begin with the story of Dr. Karen Elizabeth Wetterhahn, chemist, teacher, builder of programs, and teacher of  people, and of one "tiny glistening drop" that rewrote laboratory safety across the world . It's a story I want to tell with reverence and a little warmth, because we are talking about a person who balanced world-class science with backyard pool parties and baby rabbits. We're also going to talk frankly about a super-toxic compound, because Karen would have insisted that we learn everything we can. And I know what you might think when you hear the word Karen, but let's be fair. Karen Wetterhahn was anything but, and the Karens I've known have all been lovely. Don't judge people by their name - they had no say in it.  Karen Wetterhahn was born October 16, 1948, in Plattsburgh, New York. She grew into a scholar of the highest order. "She earned her bachelor's degree from St. Lawrence University in 1970 and her doctorate from Columbia University in 1975," and joined Dartmouth in 1976, publishing "more than 85 research papers" (Wikipedia). Dartmouth later remembered her as "the founding director of Dartmouth's Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program," an "expert in the mechanisms of metal toxicity," and a scholar with "expertise in biochemistry and molecular toxicology" (Dartmouth Tribute). She rose to become Dartmouth's Albert Bradley Third Century Professor in the Sciences (Dartmouth Tribute) and in 1990 helped establish the Women in Science Project, which "helped to raise the share of women science majors from 13 to 25 percent" … and has become a national model for recruiting more ladies into STEM careers.  She didn't just research metals; she organized people. She "played an integral role in the administration of the sciences at Dartmouth," serving as Dean of Graduate Studies, Associate Dean of the Faculty for the Sciences, and Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (Dartmouth Tribute). She "trained 14 postdoctoral research associates, 20 graduate students and over 50 undergraduate research students" (Dartmouth Tribute). And she did this while building programs that actively welcomed women into the lab. She was "co-founder of Dartmouth's Women in Science Project … and was active in the Women in Cancer Research group" (Dartmouth Tribute). Now bring in the home front—because Karen's life was never just pipettes and publications. Neighbors remembered that "we never knew she was a world-famous scientist," because, in Lyme, New Hampshire, "she was just Char and Leon's mom" (The Tennessean/AP). She loved "rock music—heavy metal was her favorite," she "tended her garden," and she hosted some great neighborhood pool parties. (The Tennessean/AP). This is the paradox and the beauty: the same person who would lecture in Norway and Hawaii would also her drag family to the golf course and cheer at Ashley's hockey game (The Tennessean/AP). A life in balance. On a summer day in 1996, the story turns. Karen was "studying the way mercury ions interact with DNA repair proteins" and also investigating cadmium (Wikipedia). She was using an incredibly dangerous substance that we really don't mess with much anymore called dimethylmercury—Hg(CH₃)₂ She did what a careful chemist does. She wore "safety glasses and latex gloves," worked "in a fume cupboard," handled "very small quantities behind the fume cupboard sash," and the sample arrived in a "sealed glass vial" cooled in ice water to reduce volatility (Bristol "Dimethylmercury"). On August 14th, she transferred liquid and, by her own later recollection, "spilled several drops of dimethylmercury from the tip of a pipette onto her latex-gloved hand" (Wikipedia; NEJM). "Not believing herself in any immediate danger, as she was taking all recommended precautions," she cleaned up before removing the gloves (Wikipedia). That detail—the glove—matters. Tests later showed dimethylmercury "can, in fact, rapidly permeate several kinds of latex gloves and enter the skin within about 15 seconds" (Wikipedia; Bristol "Dimethylmercury"). In other words, the glove was no barrier, but rather provided a false sense of security, like many other modern protective measures.  The Tennessean would capture the image like this: "It was just a drop of liquid, just a tiny glistening drop. It glided over her glove like a jewel" (The Tennessean/AP). There's poetry in that line, and tragedy too. The article adds: "She washed her hands, cleaned her instruments and went home. It was just a drop of liquid, just a tiny glistening drop" (The Tennessean/AP). Dimethylmercury is slow, stealthy, and cumulative. It is the very definition of insidious and more perfidious than Agatha Harkness. It is "one of the most potent neurotoxins known," crosses the blood-brain barrier, and "is a cumulative poison, being very slowly excreted from the body, and by the time its effects are noted it is too late to do anything about it" (Bristol "Dimethylmercury"). What an awful, awful sentence. Like the Blue Flash of a supercritical reaction that we discussed in our last episode, once that Dimethylmercury hits you, it's too late…even if it takes you much slower than Gamma or neutron radiation does.  For months, there were no obvious signs. Then her body started sending signals. Roughly "three months after the initial accident," there were "brief episodes of abdominal discomfort" and "significant weight loss." "The more distinctive neurological symptoms … including loss of balance and slurred speech, appeared in January 1997, five months after the accident" (Wikipedia). The NEJM case report—the clinical, careful voice of medicine—notes that she presented with "a five-day history of progressive deterioration in balance, gait, and speech," after losing "6.8 kg (15 lb) over a period of two months," with episodes of "nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal discomfort" (NEJM).  How many of us would know what caused such symptoms when they didn't begin until 3 months after exposure??  Her own memory solved the riddle: "in August 1996 … she spilled several drops … onto the dorsum of her gloved hand" (NEJM). Hair analysis would later show a "dramatic jump in mercury levels 17 days after the initial accident, peaking at 39 days," then a slow decline (Wikipedia). In the hospital, the numbers were grim: "whole-blood mercury, 4000 μg per liter (normal range, 1 to 8; toxic level, >200); urinary mercury, 234 μg per liter (normal range, 1 to 5; toxic level, >50)" (NEJM). That's a lot, an awful lot of dimethyl mercury.  Clinicians tried everything they reasonably could: chelation, and Vitamin E was added "as a potentially protective antioxidant" (NEJM). They even attempted exchange transfusion, and it had partial impacts, as her "mean whole-blood mercury concentration" dipped from 2230 to 1630 μg/L two hours after, only to re-equilibrate to 2070 μg/L by 16 hours (NEJM). How does that happen? I know a microgram is a tiny, tiny amount of material - 1 millionth of a gram, but that is wild to me that the mercury concentration would seemingly reduce, then come back.  For reference, one sand grain weighs around 12 milligrams, or 12000 micrograms, so maybe the measurements in the 1990s weren't the most precise, or maybe mercury levels can fluctuate.  Dimethyl mercury is extremely toxic, and .1 milliliters is enough to kill you, I repeat, POINT 1 milliliters. One milliliter of water weighs one gram, and is about 1 cubic centimeter, or 10 cubic millimeters in size. .1 milliliters would be 10 percent of that size, or more like 1 cubic millimeter in size. That is small, considering a flea can be about 3 milimeters in size, and a regular black garden ant - the small kind - can grow to well over 4 milimeters long…but we're not done yet, because dimethyl mercury is almost three times denser than water, so a drop of it big enough to kill you would be about a third the size of water of comparative mass. This means a drop of dimethly mercury large enough to kill you would be a good bit less than 1 cubic milimeter in size, provided my math is correct…a somewhat dodgy caveat. How big is that? The average size of a drop of water from an eyedropper is .05 mililiters, so - factoring in the density of dimethyl mercury, the amount that's needed to kill you would be smaller than the drop of water from an eyedropper. Would you even notice such a small amount hitting your glove?? I probably wouldn't.  We've done

    34 min

  3. 09/15/2025

    The Nefarious Demon Core and the Physicists it Killed in the Pursuit of Nuclear Dominance. (Dangers in the workplace #1)

    InterestingPOD

    55 min

  4. 09/04/2025

    Balloon Boy and Jetpack Guy Take to the Skies! Wacky History of Flight #4.

    EPISODE 6: Balloon Boy and Jetpack Guy Take to the Skies! Wacky History of Flight #4.  Well, we finally made it! This is the final episode of our look at the lesser known facets of the history of flight. I thought this would be a short task, but each week's research unearthed more and more fascinating stories and interesting characters to the point where my shownotes for all four episodes put together check in at almost 25,000 words - enough for a short book. Maybe one day!  Next week we launch into an entirely new series of episodes, which I hope should be fascinating too, as we learn about the immensely dangerous demon core that killed two fantastic physicists, as well as the pioneering toxicologist killed by a single drop of lethal poison that bled through her safety suit, and the still living particle physicist who was literally blasted in the face by a particle accelerator. But today's episode is much lighter than that - both literally and figuratively. But before we get to that, let me do the typical podcast host drivel for a moment. SHARE THE SHOW.  One example of those different times happened much more recently, and also involved a balloon and a backyard launch. "Live From Fort Collins: A Silver Saucer, a Missing Kid, and the Media's Longest Two Hours"   October 15, 2009. Fort Collins, Colorado. A homemade, helium-filled craft shaped like a silver flying saucer, equal parts science project and shiny backyard UFO, just like Larry's contraption, slips its leash and rises into the bright mountain air. Two parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, ostensibly panic with fear their six-year-old son Falcon is inside that backyard UFO. Newsrooms do the fastest pivot known to man: from morning show banter to rolling Breaking News. National Guard helicopters scramble. Commercial planes adjust. America stares at live video of a silver dot drifting for miles and miles and wonders: Is there a child in that thing?    By late afternoon, the balloon lands near Denver International Airport. Rescuers rush in, pry, peer—and find nothing. No child. Cue a wider-than-Colorado search. There are actually alarming and terrifying reports that someone saw "something" fall, and then, finally, the twist: The boy, named Falcon - you can't make this stuff up! -  is alive, uninjured, and at home, discovered in a box tucked up in the rafters above the family's garage. I remember this story, and if you do too, If you felt whiplash watching it live, imagine being the sheriff. Or the pilots chasing the balloon.    What happened? Let's rewind a few years, all the way back to 1997, where Richard and Mayumi Heene met at an acting school in Los Angeles and married. If you're a detective, you just got a big fat clue. These two people met at ACTING SCHOOL. Unlike Agatha Christie, I just spelled it out for you.   They tried acting and stand-up comedy, produced demo reels for actors, and Richard worked as a handyman and storm chaser. Accounts describe him as a "shameless self-promoter who would do almost anything to advance his latest endeavor." He chased tornadoes (once on a motorcycle) literally and said he flew a small plane around the perimeter of Hurricane Wilma in 2005. The Heenes took their kids along storm-chasing and UFO-hunting; they also appeared on a tv show called  Wife Swap twice—once as a fan-favorite return for the show's 100th episode. Reality-TV pitches (including The PSIence Detectives) were floated before 2009; network interest, not so much. By the way, I'm happy to report that Wife-Swap - a show I've never watched - has been off the air for five years, which I think is a good thing for the collective nation's psyche.  Enter the saucer. Richard - Mr. Heene, the dad, called the contraption an early prototype of a vehicle people could "pull out of their garage and hover above traffic." He also claimed that with "the high voltage timer" on, the balloon would "emit one million volts every five minutes for one minute" to move left and right—statements that set off approximately one million eyebrow lifts among engineers, and probably more groans and laughs than that. The craft was about 20 feet in diameter and 5 feet high, built from plastic tarps taped together and covered with aluminum foil, tied up with string and duct tape. The gondola area was a thin plywood/cardboard box, also lashed by string and duct tape. At full inflation, the balloon held a little over 1,000 cubic feet of helium, with lift estimates ranging—under ideal conditions—from roughly 65 pounds at sea level to 48 pounds at 8,000 feet, so this podcaster ain't flying around in that thing. Fort Collins sits around 5,000 feet; authorities later measured the balloon and concluded it couldn't lift a 6-year-old of Falcon's size. More on that in a bit. What we know from the calls and reports: the family contacted authorities; there were media calls; a 911 call at 11:29 a.m. in which Richard referenced the balloon "emits a million volts on the outer skin." That sounds like a lot, but A. it probably didn't, and B. The power or danger of a million volts depends on the amperage (current) and energy available from the source, as voltage alone does not determine the overall power of an electrical source or shock. As an example, a tiny, non-harmful static discharge can have high voltage, but not be dangerous. The balloon drifted roughly 60 miles through Colorado, passing through multiple counties. Planes were rerouted around the flight path. One report that Denver International Airport shut down briefly was later determined to be incorrect, though some sources indicate at least a short closure, or consideration of same. Even with a story less than 20 years old, it can be difficult separating myth from fact.  The next day after the incident, a home video of the 'launch' surfaces: It shows Dad Richard inspecting the base, a family countdown—"three, two, one"—then the release. The craft rises; panic erupts. In the recording you can hear Richard shout amid a flurry of language not commonly used in Sunday School: "You didn't put the blank tether down!" Notably, no one on the video says Falcon is in the balloon in that moment; accounts differ on what the family believed as it floated away.  Two hours after launch, or t-minus two hours in NASA parlance, around 1:35 p.m., the balloon "saucer" lands near Keenesburg, about 12 miles northeast of the Denver airport. Upon examination, the capsule is empty. A deputy had reported seeing something fall earlier near Platteville; and indeed, some photographs appeared to show a small black dot beneath the balloon at one point; so panicked searchers fan out. Then, just past 4 p.m., the sheriff's briefing gets interrupted with the words everyone wanted to hear: Falcon is safe, found at home, reportedly in a cardboard box in the garage rafters. On camera with CBS4 Denver, Falcon says, "I was hiding because my dad yelled at me." Asked why he got yelled at, he replies: "I was playing in the flying saucer." What a mess!  The recovery operation's price tag is as follows: search and rescue costs estimated at more than $40,000—about $14,500 of that for helicopter flights (the Colorado National Guard used a Black Hawk and a Kiowa). Even at government rates, that's a lot of rotor time for a box in a garage. Honestly, in terms of military prices, that sounds kind of cheap, but in terms of a regular dad paying for something out of pocket - that's a lot of simolians.  After that, just like the Lawnchair Larry incident, the publicity machine ramped up and along came the evening interviews. On Larry King Live, Wolf Blitzer asks Falcon why he didn't come out when people were calling his name. After his parents prompt him to answer, Falcon says, "You guys said that, um, we did this for the show." #awkward. You can feel the floor drop out of the room. The next morning on Good Morning America and Today, Falcon literally barfs on camera when asked about the comment, then barfs again when his dad is asked about it. That is sketch as a millennial might say, or Sus as my kids would have said last year or the year before. I don't know what they say now, because I am old.  All of this caused Investigations kicked up. Early on, Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden was, if not naive, at least encouragingly credulous, and he said that the whole thing didn't "appear to be a hoax," but by October 18—three days after the flight, he announced his conclusion: it was a hoax, "a publicity stunt…to better market themselves for a reality show." He suggested a grab bag of potential charges: conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, filing a false report, and attempting to influence a public servant. In a press conference, Alderden also admitted his earlier public credulity was part of a "game plan" to earn the family's trust while investigators kept digging. As a line, "on the bizarre meter, this rates a 10," pretty much sums up the week. I'd love to know if Alderden was really that clever - kind of a Walt Longmire type - or was he just covering? I feel like the latter is more likely, but what do I know?  Physics joined the party. A Colorado State University professor initially told authorities—based on dimensions Richard provided—that lift with a child might be plausible, but more precise measurements were needed to be sure. After the balloon was analyzed, that changed: the craft weighed more than claimed and, by the revised math, couldn't have carried Falcon as alleged. Meanwhile, a supporting affidavit asserted that mom Mayumi later admitted she "knew all along that Falcon was hiding in the residence," and alleged that the couple planned the stunt about two weeks prior and instructed their three sons to lie, all to make the family more marketable for "future media interests." As we will discuss, Mr. Heene will dispute these allegations of hoax down the road.    By mid-November 2009, lawyers a

    34 min

  5. 09/03/2025

    Lawnchair Larry, the Floating Hero-Priest and Backyard Aeronauts Take Flight. (History of Flight #3)

    Interesting Pod #5 - LawnChair Larry and Backyard Aeronauts Take Flight.    Today we finally get to the inspiration for this set of episodes: Lawnchair Larry himself - the man who tied a bunch of balloons to his lawnchair and flew off into history. A great, great story - and a cautionary tale.   But before we get to that, let me do the typical podcast host drivel for a moment. As an Indie show not hosted by a celebrity, the Interesting Pod relies on word of mouth. Please tell folks about us, and share episodes on social media. Our growth depends, in large part, on you guys. Leaving a review on Apple Podcasts would be helpful as well. I've been podcasting since 2005, and believe in the medium as an excellent way to communicate. From about 2005 to 2015, podcasting was a ground-leveling way for normal people to reach lots of people with all kinds of fascinating topics, but now the podcasting world is flooded and saturated with celebrities. That's fine, I suppose, but I hope there's still a place for indie shows and little podcasts like this one, and when you tell people about it, you help little efforts like this carve a niche. Thank you!  On our last episode, we introduced you to the real Wonder Twins - The scientists, aeronauts and deep sea exploring Piccard Twins, likely the inspiration behind Starfleet Captain Jean Luc Picard. Before the Piccard twins inspired the creation of Captain Picard, however, they inspired another luminary, this one much more like Dr. Zefram Cochrane than Picard. A high-strung - in more ways than one - truck driver and aeronaut named Larry Walters. He dreamed of becoming an ace pilot in the USAF, but poor eyesight and maybe other factors grounded him. At least, it grounded him temporarily, but not permanently! I'm Chase, and today we're telling the story of Lawnchair Larry—the man who lashed helium-filled weather balloons to a lawn chair, rose to an altitude that Isaiah might call "mounting up with wings like eagles," and drifted his way into American folklore, aviation case studies, and even a blackout in Long Beach. This is a story about ingenuity and longing, the thin line between gumption and folly, bravery and recklessness, and some of the depressing factors of life after kissing the sky.  It's July 2, 1982, and Los Angeles is doing what Los Angeles does best, sunshine, smog, and improbable dreams. The front page of the LA Times for that day discussed the benefits and dangers of radio therapists - around 11 years before Frasier appeared on the airwaves. Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization were, unsurprisingly, going at it, and Ronald Reagan weighed in on the insanity plea of his would-be assassin John Hinkley. The weather that day called for a high of 78 and a low of 59, a bit cold for LA at that time of year.   In the backyard of a San Pedro home, a Sears aluminum lawn chair is tethered to dozens of weather balloons like a suburban version of Jules Verne. A rope slips loose earlier than planned, and our hero, Larry Walters, truck driver and thwarted Air Force hopeful, shoots into the relatively cool Southern California sky. Not metaphorically. Literally. Up, up, and away…straight toward controlled airspace. A Delta pilot gawks. A TWA pilot confirms. And somewhere on a CB radio, Larry calmly informs the REACT volunteers: "Ah, the difficulty is, ah, this was an unauthorized balloon launch." You don't say, Larry. Long before he tangled with those power lines, Larry tangled with a different kind of line: the Air Force's vision requirements. He wanted to fly, but his eyesight grounded the dream. Like many of us who don't get Plan A, he did what you do, he settled. Truck driver by trade; dreamer by nature. And that dream, according to Larry, started early. At 13, he walked into a military surplus store, looks up at a ceiling of weather balloons, and thinks: there's a way to get airborne without a fighter jet. The seed is planted. Fast forward to 1982. Ronald Reagan's in the White House, E.T. is in theaters, and Larry, now in his early thirties, decides to cash in the dream. The plan is simple in a Rube Goldberg kind of way: attach roughly 42 (sometimes Larry said 43) eight-foot weather balloons to a lawn chair, fill them with helium, lift off gently, drift over the Mojave, and, this is the key, shoot a few balloons with a pellet gun when it's time to descend. What could go wrong besides literally everything? Oh yeah,  about that lawn chair. It was reportedly a Sears special, about $109 at the time… Pause - $109 for a lawnchair in the early 1980s?? That's like 350 today. On the one hand, if you are going to take your lawnchair up to the edge of space, then I get wanting to have the absolute best lawnchair possible. On the other hand, that's a LOT of money for a lawnchair!   This is the American tinker spirit with a dash of…creative paperwork, because Larry and his longtime girlfriend, Carol Van Deusen, bought 45 balloons and helium, using some forged documents and fudged reasonings. The launch site? The backyard at 1633 West 7th Street, San Pedro, which turned out to be Carol's mom's house. Equipment list for this manned aerostat included: parachute, CB radio, sandwiches, Coca-Cola - that's regular Coca Cola before the New Coke debacle -  a pellet gun, and a camera he would later be too awestruck (read: busy not dying) to use. Let's talk about that backyard at 1633 West 7th Street. If you aren't from Cali, you may not know this, but if you are a californian not named Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerburg, you probably live in a house with a surprisingly small backyard. I come from Alabama, where giant backyards are owned by even lower middle class folks, and in Cali, even upper middle class and some rich folks have comparatively small backyards. Carol's mom's house fits this bill. I've never been there, but I'm looking at it on satellite view right now, and it is TINY. Like so small it could only fit a few lawnchairs. But I guess it really only had to fit that one!  Then, the critical moment: Larry's sitting in his chair, hovering a bit, and hoping for a SOFT launch. He's attached balloons to his chair, and it is held to the ground by a seemingly strong tether. Unfortunately, that tether snaps earlier than planned. No gentle 30-foot float; instead, Larry rockets skyward to something like 16,000 feet—three miles up—right into controlled airspace near Long Beach Airport. I ride roller coasters, but I get nervous as they go up steep hills - especially huge roller coasters like Six Flag's Goliath. One time in Atlanta, I looked at my friend Sam as we rode up together, and simply asked him - "What are we doing? This is insane." I can only imagine that Larry had similar thoughts as he rocketed from 10 feet to 16,000 feet IN A LAWN CHAIR.  And somewhere on the ground, a handful of friends are staring upward at a little aluminum throne sailing the firmament, wondering if this is still technically a backyard barbecue.    Unfortunately, as Plane and Pilot reports, Larry got too high, too fast:  I can almost hear the power-chords and wails from Dokken as Larry goes up, Too high to fly, but you should've seen him there (Yeah) The sun shines down on his face, but he did feel a thing, sadly.  Larry didn't need to look at his altimeter to know he went much higher than he had intended. He began to feel cold and dizzy from the thin air and feared that if he shot out any of the balloons that the balance of his chair would become unstable, causing him to fall. Which is the kind of thing he might should have considered earlier. He used his CB radio to call REACT, a citizens' band radio monitoring organization. REACT: "What information do you wish me to tell [the airport] at this time as to your location and your difficulty??" Larry: "Ah, the difficulty is… this was an unauthorized balloon launch… I'm sure my ground crew has alerted the proper authority… just tell them I'm okay."  This transcript is real, recorded by REACT—the volunteer radio monitors who found themselves dealing with perhaps the most unique mayday in SoCal history. After about 45 minutes in the air, he finally found the courage to shoot out some of the balloons, starting with those in the outer ring, but accidentally dropped his gun in the process. He poured out ballast to control the descent from there.  Let me repeat what you just heard…Larry eventually starts carefully shooting balloons to descend…and then drops the pellet gun. That seems like one of the more significant fumbles in history. A small, gravity-obedient mistake, but by then he'd punctured enough balloons to begin coming down—slowly, and then not so slowly, but - grace upon grace - Larry and his makeshift gondola snagged some power lines in Long Beach. Bummer for the neighborhood though, because Lights flicker and die across a broad swath of the community.  Twenty minutes of blackout, so nobody lost their steaks or anything. Larry, by grace and plastic tethers, avoids electrocution, clambers off the chair, and steps back onto the earth. Unharmed. Score one for improbable Providence—and maybe for water-jug ballast. Sadly for Larry, but unsurprisingly for everyone else, The Long Beach Police Department is waiting. Larry is promptly arrested, a bewildered slow and confused, "what do we even charge this guy with?" kind of arrest. An FAA regional safety inspector, Neal Savoy, says the line that belongs in a museum of deadpan regulation: We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, some type of charge will be filed. That right there is a stereotypical bureaucrat speaking. This looks and feels wrong, but we don't know why it's wrong until we pore over the standards and regulations. I don't disagree with Neil, but that's definitely hall of fame level bureaucrat thinking there. If Larry had a pilot's license, they'd suspend it. He did not. It

    46 min

  6. 08/23/2025

    The Space Race Begins: The Real Wonder Twins, First Female in Space, First Female Astronaut, and other Flight Adventures.

    Interesting Pod #4 - The Space Race Begins: The Real Wonder Twins, First Female in Space, First Female Astronaut, and other Flight Adventures.  Last week we put on our wingsuit, or aired up our balloon, which is probably safer, and took a look at the history of humans engaging in flight, and a few early aeronautical pioneers like the Montgolfier Brothers and Franz Reichelt, and also a few early aviation disasters like the Hindenburg explosion. Flying is risky, and today's episode chronicles some of the riskiest - and bravest - attempts by amateur flyers to ascend to the Heavens. Some, like Icarus, had a bad ending to their airspirations, but others accomplished some really impressive feats of flying with readily available technology. And some, just plane pulled our leg with tales of children flying off into the ether.  Welcome to the Interesting Pod. Our goal on this show is to tell stories that have two characteristics. One is in the name - Interesting. We want to be INTERESTING. But not only that - I'm a historian, working on finishing up a Ph.D in history, and not only do we want to be interesting, but we also want to have accuracy based on historical rigor - good research - without being tedious or dry, pedantic, or condescending. Interesting means that we will seek to tell stories that are fascinating and moving. Some episodes might be inspiring, some wacky, some unnerving, some downright scary, but all should be - hopefully - interesting. But we want to be ACCURATE too. Practically, what that looks like is that this week, we had a seemingly good source that said that Tacitus, the first-century Roman historian, had accused Livia, the first-century wife of Caesar Augustus, of using aphrodisiacs to help control the Roman court and have her way. This was reported by a fairly reputable book, but it didn't have a direct source or quotation from Tacitus, so I spent some extra time combing through Tacitus' Annals to try and find that story, and failed. It might be there, but this podcast isn't a dissertation, and it was a minutely important facet of the story, so I didn't want to spend all day on it. So when we talk about it, you'll know that the story is possibly apocryphal. Thus, we aim for interesting, and we do our due diligence. That doesn't mean the show will be infallible, but we'll try!  Today we're going to look at the wild balloon rides of the Catholic priest Adelir de Carli, who attached 1,000 helium-filled party balloons to a chair, rose to over 20,000 feet, and got caught in a terrible storm over the Atlantic Ocean. We will also find out about Jonathan Trappe, who crossed the English Channel over the White Cliffs of Dover, the Piccard twins, who pioneered balloon flights to the edge of space AND the bottom of the ocean, and the magician David Blaine, who may have outflown them all, reaching nearly 25,000 feet via hand-held balloons. So this episode is fun for anybody who is interested in the history of flight, OR those who dream of insane adventures that launch from your own backyard. You are NOT alone. And you may not survive.  Our ultimate focus today is on Lawnchair Larry, the backyard pilot who strapped balloons to his - lawnchair - and flew over three miles high - but before we get to our guy Larry, we're going to go back in time a little bit. All the way to Jean Piccard.  No, actually, not that Jean Piccard, but possibly the guy he's named after. Actually, not just Jean Piccard, but also his brother Auguste Piccard, and not just them, but also Jean's wife Jeanette, who may have been the best balloon pilot of them all.  So let's talk about the amazing Piccard family. Jules Piccard, born in 1840, was a Swiss chemist and the father of the Piccard twins Jean and Auguste. His mentor at the University of Heidelberg was Robert Bunsen, and yes! That's the same guy who invented the Bunsen burner that you used in high school chemistry class. Jules studied a bunch of weird chemicals, including Dinitro-ortho-cresol, which is a poison that kills people and bugs, and also cantharidan, which is interesting enough to talk about for 60 seconds or so. Cantharidan is odorless and colorless, but extremely dangerous. Some people know it as Spanish Fly, and it is said that the first-century Roman historian Tacitus discusses cantharidan as an aphrodisiac, and notes that Livia, the wife of Augustus Caesar, supposedly used it as part of her nefarious scheming, but I couldn't find that in any primary sources. Regardless, does it work?  Maybe…but more importantly than that - it kills. Cantharidan is an extreme poison, and as little as 10 milligrams - which is about the weight of a large grain of sand or salt - can kill a person. So, no thank you!  The archives of Mcgill University also tell me that Jules Piccard did research into the chemical weight of Rubidium, which I've nver heard of, but melts at 102.7 degrees and looks a lot like Mercury.    So yeah - rabbit trails - Jules was the father of Jean and Auguste, who were really quite remarkable. Jean followed in his father's steps as a chemist, and Auguste bucked the trend and became a physicist, but both brothers were aeronauts and balloon pioneers, and one of the brothers was ALSO a hydronaut - a deep sea pioneer!  Who should we talk about first - they are both so interesting! I guess let's start with Auguste, who was born in January of 1884 in Basel, Switzerland. Auguste was a big science kid, and he went to the prestigious Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and ultimately became a physics professor at the University of Brussels, Belgium the same year his son Jacques Piccard was born. Auguste was very interested in flight and ballooning, and in 1930 he designed an aluminum pressurized gondola that would be attached to a balloon and allow somebody to ascend to unheard of heights into the atmosphere without dying.   Two things in that sentence should pique your interest. First - a gondola, second the part about ascending without dying.  If you're like me, and you hear the word 'gondola', you might be thinking of a flat bottomed boat piloted by an oarsman in Venice that travels around the canals there. That is indeed a gondola.  If you live near the mountains - particularly mountains that have skiing - when you hear gondola, you might be thinking of an enclosed cabin-style ski-lift, suspended from a cable, that can carry groups of people up into the mountains. That is also a gondola. OR, in this case, a gondola is the basket or enclosed capsule like thing that is suspended below a balloon, and it usually has room for passengers, equipment, and maybe even instruments. So a gondola is all three things - an enclosed people carrier on a ski lift, a flat-bottom boat dating back to the 1000s primarily used in Venice's canals, and the basket or capsule below a balloon.  By the way - rabbit trail alert - a gondelier is what they call the pilot of a gondola in Venice. This is a licensed position by the city, there are about 400 licenses given per year, and it takes 400 hours of intense training over a period of six months to become a gondolier…which pays around $150,000/year in US equivalent salary, so it's a pretty decent job!  Anyway, back to my sentence with two interest-piquing facts. Auguste Piccard designed the first pressurized, enclosed gondola, and the reason he designed it is because of the second interesting thing in that sentence, the part about ascending the heights without dying. What's that all about? Well, to answer that question, we need to go back a few years to the mid 1920s, and there we will meet a heroic captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps - no Air Force yet - named Hawthorne Charles Gray. Captain Gray was an aeronaut and a brave man. He was born in Pasco, Washington to a prominent steamboat captain, who outlived his son by a few years, always a tragedy. In 1921, young Gray, then a second Lieutenant, began piloting balloons with the US Army Air Service, and showed a remarkable ability as a balloonist. March 9, 1927, Captain Gray climbed to previously unreached heights in his balloon launched from Scott field near Belleville, Illinois, climbing to 28,510 feet. On that trip, in what would be a portend of the future, Gray passed out from lack of oxygen in such thin air, and barely regained consciousness in time to drop the ballast he needed to slow his balloon down before it landed.  May 4, Gray set another unofficial record for highest altitude reached by a human being, becoming the first man to climb above 42,000 feet above the earth. This time, his balloon was coming down too fast yet again, so Gray parachuted out of it at 8,000 feet, landing safely.  His November 4, 1937 flight would not go so well. On ascent, Gray, who was using oxygen to survive, threw one of his empty tanks out of the gondola and it broke his radio antenna, which cut off contact between him and the ground.  One wonders about that oxygen tank…I hope it didn't land on anybody! Can you imagine? That would be quite a mystery for a Hercule Poirot or what's an American detective active in the 1920s….maybe an Ellery Queen or Continental Op.  They come upon a dead body who has been smashed over the head with an oxygen tank, laying nearby. Quite a mystery to solve unless you read the newspapers!  So - Captain Gray is ascending, heading up to 40,000 feet. He kept a journal of the flight, and his last entry says, "Sky deep blue, sun very bright, sand all gone."  Somewhere around 40,000 feet, Gray loses consciousness again, but the balloon rises a bit more, reaching somewhere over 43,000 feet and under 44,000 feet. Eventually, it begins to drop without Gray … and it rapidly descends. This time, Captain Gray doesn't wake up, and he either died due to crash landing, or due to hypoxia, or possibly even organ rupture/failure due to the extreme low pressure up that high, because atmospheric pressure reduces with height. Let's all salute C

    46 min

  7. 08/14/2025

    Oh, the Humanity! - Lawnchair Larry, The French Superman, The Magnificent Montgolfiers, and the Pursuit of Human Flight!

    Who doesn't want to fly?? From ancient times, humans have looked to the Heavens and imagined what it might be like to glide among the clouds. 1000 years before the birth of Christ, the Psalmist looked in wonder to the skies and imagined flying through them, writing, "If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 9 If I fly on the wings of the dawn and settle down on the western horizon, 10 even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold on to me." But flight wouldn't be possible for humans for another 2800 years after he pinned those words, and even then, in the early and pioneering days of human flight, it was a dodgy and dangerous business. Today we are going to trace the history of human flight in a very non-traditional way. From wingsuits to straw-powered balloons, to flying bombs and levitating lawn chairs flying as high as jet planes. This episode's song, which you can hear in full at the end of the podcast is all about the first human-powered flight, a failed jump off of the Eiffel Tower, the Hindenburg Disaster and Lawnchair Larry's amazing trip across the West coast floating at 16,000 feet in his lawnchair. Here's a little preview, put together just for the InterestingPod by our friends in Dayton, Ohio, the band Four for Flying out of the Kayfabe Municipal Airport.  Franz Reichelt was an amazing guy, and a wannabee aeronaut who should serve as a cautionary tale for those who want to fly. Reichelt was born in Austria-Hungary, and immigrated to France in 1898, where he opened a successful dressmaking business. As you might guess, Franz was unmarried, because any married man who tried to jump off of a tall tower in a homemade wingsuit would be beaten mercilessly by his sensible wife until he gave up on the idea before it happened. At least, that's what my wife would do. In love.  Somewhere around the summer of 1910, Reichelt began to develop what he called a "parachute-suit" which was just a little more bulky than one normally worn by an aviator, but also contained some rods, a silk canopy and a small amount of rubber that should have allowed it to fold out to become what Reichelt hoped would be a practical and efficient parachute/wingsuit outfit. The February 5, 1912 edition of the Paris Le Petit Journal suggested that Reichelt had made a couple of experimental test jumps with dummies wearing his wingsuit from the first deck of the Eiffel Tower at some point in 1911.  L'Ouest-Éclair similarly noted that in 1911, Reichelt had personally jumped from a height of around 30 feet at Joinville; a failed attempt that didn't lead to serious injury because of a pile of straw that he landed on.  The Le Matin newspaper reported an attempt at Nogent from a height of 8 metres (26 ft) that ended with a broken leg.  Pretty much all of Reichelt's later tests failed, including the Eiffel tower ones, but Reichelt insanely convinced himself that the reason for their failure was not a design problem, but because the tests took place TOO CLOSE TO THE GROUND.    So logically, he decided that his suit would perform better when used on a much HIGHER jump. Yeah, that's the ticket.  The Tailor Who Tried to Fly: Franz Reichelt's Leap into History (and the Ground) On February 4, 1912, Paris awoke to an icy winter morning, a biting wind off the Seine, and the curious sight of a small Austrian-born tailor preparing to defy both gravity and common sense. Franz Reichelt, a 33-year-old single man whose moustache was as impressive and ambitious as his dreams - think Hercule Poirot here - stood at the base of the Eiffel Tower wearing his own invention: a hybrid contraption somewhere between a parachute, a wingsuit, and a very heavy set of curtains with a metal exoskeleton. I'm no engineer, but taking a look at his design, I imagine that if I wore it to jump off of my dresser onto my bed, it would hurt me worse to have it on when I landed, than not. Would Reichelt be correct, however, that his suit was made to thrive at high altitude jumps, rather than low altitude? You be the judge.  Reichelt had a goal as noble as it was dangerous, which was to save the lives of aviators by giving them a wearable parachute they could deploy in midair. In an age when flying machines were fragile and safety regulations were more of a suggestion, this was no small contribution. Unfortunately, Reichelt also possessed a confidence so unshakable that it refused to be weighed down by things like wind resistance, aerodynamics, or prior testing from a safe height. There is a reason that most Darwin award winners are male.  To be fair to Reichelt, he had previously tested versions of his wingsuit with some slight success. He dropped dummies from his fifth floor apartment building window, and his wingsuit had successfully protected them from harm. I doubt those dummies were made of ballistic gel, or were roughly as dense as humans, but we'll never know.  Unfortunately, later tests of his wingsuit design did not perform as well as the early tests, which probably should have been an important data point for our guy.  Here's how it happened. Reichelt had told the authorities that he was going to test his parachute from the Eiffel Tower using a dummy. This seemed sensible. After all, the Eiffel Tower is over 300 feet tall, and no human had yet tried to jump from it without immediately regretting the decision. However, when the big day came, the "dummy" turned out to be Reichelt himself. This reveal did not delight the Paris police, who had envisioned more of a "stuffed sack of flour" situation and less of a "live, breathing tailor with rent payments due" kind of scenario. The police tried to talk him out of it. His friends begged him to reconsider. A gathered crowd of journalists, photographers, and curiosity-seekers watched as he dismissed their concerns. "I want to try the experiment myself and without trickery, "as I intend to prove the worth of my invention." he declared. Famous last words, I guess.  Whether this was courage, stubbornness, or the 1912 equivalent of, "Hold my beer," is still up for debate. Maybe Reichelt was actually born in Alabama? Nah, I'm just kidding. I think I can say that, because I myself was born in Alabama. Roll Tide!  Now, about the suit: Imagine a heavy wool overcoat mated with a camping tent, then adopted a bat costume as its personal trainer. That's roughly the silhouette. It was meant to fold up neatly for walking, then spread open to catch the air when falling. Reichelt believed it would open like the wings of a bird, cradle him gently, and float him to safety. The problem? Physics. Up on the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, Reichelt paced. The cameras rolled, yes, this was all caught on film, and yes, you can watch it today if you're feeling historically morbid. I don't recommend it, but I will tell you that he looks a lot like what the 1912 version of French Batman would look like, had superhero comic books existed back then. He tested the air, peered over the railing, and for a moment, seemed to have doubts. Then, with the kind of determination that makes both heroes and headlines, he climbed onto the railing, hesitated briefly, and leapt. Well, actually, that's not accurate. He really hesitated for a long time…literally 29 seconds, and yes, I timed it. It's hard to watch, and he looks, just - so brave…and so foolhardy.  What followed was not flight. The suit, perhaps offended at being dragged into this, did not blossom into a parachute. It stayed mostly folded, flapping only slightly, the aerodynamic equivalent of a sigh. It just didn't work, didn't come close to working. Imagine a rock with a handkerchief parachute, and it looked something like that. The suit flaps helplessly in the wind, not even slowing Reichelt by a fraction, and he fell to earth like a very stylish anvil, striking the frozen ground moments later.  He died immediately, which I guess is a small mercy, but it's really heartbreaking to see, and I mean that literally. Not funny at all. What he did was just really dumb, but also really brave and really poignant. As I said, Like the Hindenburg disaster, Reichelt's jump took place AFTER the invention of motion pictures, and there is video readily available online of both the airship burning up as people flee, and of Reichelt's fateful and foolish jump. That said, I don't advise you to watch either. They are both disturbing without being the least bit gory.    The press called him "The Flying Tailor," but he didn't fly at all. His jump became infamous not only for its tragic outcome but for the fact that it was witnessed by so many, recorded for posterity, and served as a grim reminder that bravery and wisdom are not the same thing. In fairness to Reichelt, wearable parachutes were still in their infancy, and someone had to push the boundaries. Unfortunately, pushing the boundaries without rigorous testing tends to result in pushing up daisies. His design wasn't entirely mad, and he was genuinely onto something. He was really something of a pioneer and later inventors would successfully create wingsuits and compact parachutes, but the materials, the weight, and the lack of prior human trials made success for Reichelt virtually impossible. He had the right idea but not the rigor needed to test that idea, admit failure and do the work to fail and keep failing forward until success can be found. Success for a pioneer never comes easy. There has to be volumes of trial and error, and Reichelt was just impatient with the process. We should learn from that!  That said, it's hard to dismiss him as merely foolish. I admire the guy…The man had vision. He wasn't motivated by money or fame alone, though both would have been welcome. His goal was to save lives. He was a craftsman trying to solve a deadly problem with needle, thread, and imagination. He was a tailor, a skilled clothesmaker. If he had worked with a process, acc

    54 min

  8. 07/25/2025

    Myth Smashing: Is the Bolton Strid 100% Fatal? What is the MOST Dangerous Water Body in the World?

    On the last episode, we told you all about the Bolton Strid, which is a fairly short section of the River Wharfe in Northern England near Yorkshire that is legendary as a drowning machine. The Strid has had a reputation for literally CENTURIES as being a place where there is a 100% fatality rate - CERTAIN DEATH - for those who fall in. The reasons for that, as we discussed last time, have to do with the geomorphology of the river. In the Strid portion, it's as if the River Wharfe turns on its sides and becomes very narrow but also very deep and rushing. Kind of like a river flowing rapidly through a canyon.  And often, when people fall in, they are either immediately pulled under water or pulled underwater and under the rock shelves on the sides of the Strid, where rescue is impossible, and it is impossible to surface. It's like you are all of the sudden cave diving without any sort of scuba gear.  All around the river are signs warning of danger, as well as something I've never seen around rivers before - boxes where you dial a code, and out comes a rescue rig and to throw into the water for people who are drowning.    But is the river that dangerous? Is the Strid really 100 percent lethal? Or, as a travel writer Daniel Piggott wrote, is the Strid simply a legend, a myth that hasn't actually verifiably claimed ANY lives??    Time to go to the archives and do some grunt work research.  I'll add a few dilithium crystals to our time machine, and we will keep going back, back back. Here's where we put on our historian's robe and cowl. The oldest newspaper record I can find that covers the Strid comes from Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, the February 20, 1819 edition. That article doesn't talk much about the Strid itself, but favorably reviews Samuel Rogers' epic poem, the Boy of Egremond, which is all about William De Romilly falling into the Strid.    The next oldest easily accessible newspaper reference I can find to the Strid is from the Manchester Guardian, June 26, 1839, and it gives a colorfol description of the Strid:        I found several non-detailed mentions of the Strid in books from the mid 1700s, but the earliest detailed record I can find of the Strid dates to 1780, with one likely exception from the 1500s…I'm sure there are older references out there, but alas, the brand new podcast budget doesn't allow me a visit to Yorkshire and a few weeks going through the Abbey and local library records. So, we will have to settle for 1780's Viator, a poem: or, a journey from London to Scarborough, by the way of York  by Thomas Maude. Maude was a bit of a dabbler in everything - a doctor, poet, essayist, estate manager and author. Maude and his wife were married at St Mary Magdalen Old Fish Street church, and I only mention that because I'll bet some of you pastors listening might want to consider changing your church's name to Saint Mary Magdalen Old Fish Street too! In his Viator book, Maude writes, "The Strid or Stride, falls here likewise under the traveller's inspection. It is the cleft of a rock in the bed of the river through which chasm the Wharfe in Summer, entirely passes. In was in stepping this gulph that the last male hier of the family of Romelius lost is life." Maude goes on to mention that there was a 1670 painting of the boy and his dog, but I do believe that painting is lost to history. It's lost to me, at least. I couldn't find it. The next oldest comes from an 1805 book that I do actually have a copy of Dr. Thomas Whitaker's The History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven in the County of York. Which is a book written in 1805. If you don't know Whitaker, he's a pretty fascinating guy. He originally planned to be a lawyer, and got his doctoral degree in law even after getting called into ministry.  He started out at a smaller chapel and paid for the restoration of that chapel out of his own pocket in 1788. He wasn't just a pastor/vicar/lawyer either - he was a peacemaker in the various villages of his parish and a scientist, studying and writing about topography and forestry. He wrote nine books, mostly on history, edited some others, and published multiple academic articles. He instituted a literary club, and had a vast library, and an impressive array of knowledge. He's a legit historian, and a highly educated one. True, his doctoral degree wasn't in history, but PhDs in history didn't come along until after Whitaker. So when this guy writes about history, we should take notice. He's not infallible, but he's solid, and in 1805, writing about the Strid, he mentions the legend - or true story - behind Wordsworth's poem.    Whitaker writes, "In the deep solitude of the woods betwixt Bolton and Barden, the [River] Wharfe suddenly contracts itself to a rocky channel little more than four feet wide, and pours through the tremendous fissure with a rapidity proportioned to its confinement.  This place was then, as it is yet, called the Strid, from a feat often exercised by persons of more agility than prudence, who stride from brink to brink, regardless of the destruction which awaits a faltering step. (Great sentence!) Such, according to tradition, was the fate of young Romille, who inconsiderately bounding over the chasm with a greyhound in his leash, the animal hung back, and drew his unfortunate master into the torrent. The forester who accompanied Romille, and beheld his fate, returned to the Lady Aaliza, and, with despair in his countenance, inquired, "What is good for a bootless Bene?" To which the mother, apprehending that some great calamity had befallen her son, instantly replied, " Endless sorrow." The language of this question, almost unintelligible at present, proves the antiquity of the story, which nearly amounts to proving its truth. But bootless bene means unavailing prayer; and the meaning, though imperfectly expressed, seems to have been, "What remains when prayer is useless? "   BACK TO ME: This misfortune is said to have occasioned the translation of the priory from Embsay to Bolton [around 1152], which was the nearest eligible site to the place where it happened.  Whitaker goes on to note that, even though history records young Romilly as signing documents in his adult life, that QUOTE "Yet I have little doubt that the story is true in the main; but that it refers to one of the sons of Cecilia de Romille, the first foundress, both of whom are known to have died young." In other words, Whitaker believes that the a young Romille son died - just not the eldest one.    Whitaker also describes the Strid colorfully later in his book writing,"This chasm, being incapable of receiving the winter floods, has formed on either side a broad strand of naked gritstone, full of rock basins which bear witness to the restless impetuosity of so many northern torrents. But, if the Wharf is here lost to the eye, it amply repays another sense by its deep and solemn roar, like the voice "of the angry spirit of the waters," heard far above and beneath, amidst the silence of the surrounding woods.   Coming shortly after Whitaker's work, we have Ms. Barbara Hofland's "A Season at Harrogate" which describes the Strid in spiritual terms:      "Chid" is the past tense and past participle of the verb "chide," meaning to scold or rebuke someone, typically in a mild or constructive manner.    One more find of note. W. Wheater edited an obscure book on Old Yorkshire in 1885, and that book contains a mixture of very old documents, and his reflections. I have a copy of that book, and in his discussion of the Arthington Priory, which was dissolved in Reformation fervor around 1540, Wheater includes a poem. The poem at least dates to the 1800s, but it very possibly, even likely dates to the 1500s. He simply does not say in the book for some reason. That poem discusses the Strid, and I believe it is one of the oldest extant references to the river (barring searching old, old books in monasteries and paper archives and such). I inadvertently took the name of this episode from that poem. By that, I named this episode, and it's accompanying song by the Bolton Bardeaters, "The Merciless Strid," and then decided to search and see if that name had been used. Turns out it has. One time in history, and it was in this poem that I think is from the 1500s, but could be from the 1800s.  it goes like this:    Has the Wharfe*s limpid stream borne a curse down the dale  From yon shavelings whom Romelli's bride  Set to pray for the lad whom the merciless Strid  Swept away with their o'er-weening pride?   (A shaveling is a derogatory name for a Catholic monk/priest, wih a tonsured (monk haircut) shaved head)    Alright, let's Smash some myths. Generally speaking, the Bolton Strid is genuinely dangerous, and many, many people have drowned there. Buuuuttt.    Have 100 percent of the people who have fallen into the Strid died? So many websites - even newspapers trumpet the supposed fact that the Strid has a 100 percent case fatality rate for all who enter into its waters. For instance, a 2024 Metro.co.uk article claims, "None who have entered the Strid have ever come out alive" A slightly older Ranker article contends, "Bolton Strid: The Stream That Swallows Anyone Who Falls In" Many other sites say the same, but is it TRUE?    Actually, and happily, no, it is not true. In the same way that Rabies is not 100 percent fatal - but ALMOST - there have been people who have survived a plunge into the Strid.  One example is Tom Barrett, an eight year old who got pulled into the Strid from the Wharfe in 1996. He says: "it was a moment that's forever etched in his memory. One second I was laughing with friends and the next moment I couldn't even shout for help because my head was going under the water and was getting into my lungs. I can picture it like it was yesterday and it still gives me shivers." A nearby group of men were alert

    40 min

  9. 07/24/2025

    The Merciless Strid - Deadliest Body of Water in the World. 100% Fatal?!

    Interesting Pod #1:  "Bloodthirsty River": The Bolton Strid, The most dangerous body of water on earth - The Bolton Strid, River Wharfe, Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire. "   Thalassophobics beware - today we're talking about one of the scariest bodies of water on Earth! From the book of Genesis until today, floods have been one of humanity's greatest enemies. On August 15, 1998, Barry and Lynn Collett were married at Long Sutton Church near Hampshire, UK, before spending their wedding night at a hotel in Maiden's Green, Berkshire, and travelling north on Sunday.    By all accounts, the couple were sensible, fine people who loved each other greatly, but I can't help but think their wedding day was marred by one of the worst United Kingdom terror incidents that happened in the twentieth century. You see, the day the Colletts were married was the same day the Real IRA a provisional splinter group of the I.R.A. (Irish Republican Army) set off a massive bomb in Omaugh (Owe-Muh), Northern Ireland, that killed 29 and injured 220. It was the deadliest Northern Ireland incident of the Troubles, and it happened because the Real IRA, who were not, in fact, the Real IRA, but just called themselves that, opposed the IRA's ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement, signed earlier in the year. They were against peace. So I imagine that the Collett's had mixed feelings in August as they drove towards the Bolton Abbey area of North Yorkshire, wondering if the bomb might be an omen, or a harbinger of something worse to come. Barry was a computer guy and his new wife Lynn a student nurse…good people. They got married on a Saturday, and by Sunday night, they were near Bolton Abbey, staying in a holiday cottage in Appletreewick, a tiny village of 200 on the shores of the River Wharfe. That Sunday night, they likely huddled up in that cottage as a fierce rain storm beat down, swelling the River Wharfe to dangerous levels. Monday the 17th, the rain abated for a bit, and Barry and Lynn decided to go for a walk by the river, not overly familiar with the area, and apparently not aware of the dangers of the Strid, a stretch of river that many today call a "drowning machine."    U.K. Officers believed the couple went into the water slightly north of Bardon Bridge near stepping stones after setting off from their honeymoon cottage at Appletreewick on Monday. They just wanted to have a bit of a nature walk and stretch their legs after a long drive, and being cooped up in their cottage during the rain. Totally understandable. Unfortunately, they were never seen alive again.    A local, Desmond Thomas, of Pembroke Dock was walking near the river that fateful Monday with his family and said: "The level, speed, and turbulence of the water looked like flood water. It rose a matter of feet in seconds." He also apparently saw Mr. Collett, caught in the deadly current of the Strid, rush past him in a blur. "I went to the water's edge and just as I got there I saw a man's body, who I now know to be Barry, pop out of the water. "The face popped up towards me and within a matter of seconds it disappeared." Terrifying and heart-wrenching.    What happened? Many people over the years have tried to jump across the Strid. Certainly, it's doable - only about 6.5 feet wide in some places, but on this particular Monday, that would have been even more ill-advised than normal. The River bailiff for that stretch of the Strid - if you're American, think of a Game Warden - was Charles Hoyle. He found Mrs Collett's jacket in the water the Tuesday after she disappeared, and he said that on the Monday the couple was lost, he personally witnessed the river rise five feet in less than 60 seconds because of the rain from the night before. This was something he said he had only seen happen about six times before.   ELEVEN LABS Superintendent Parker of the local Constabulary said, "They were a sensible couple. We do not believe they tried to jump the Strid - the water was very high and we have no reason to think they would do anything like that," We don't know exactly what happened. We don't know precisely how the Strid claimed those two lovely honeymooners, but it did. Somehow, someway, Barry and Lynn just got too close to what may well be the most dangerous tiny stretch of water in the world.    There were not the first victims of the Strid, and they may  not have been the 100th or even the 1000th.    In 1875, the Craven Herald and Pioneer reports that two grappling irons - for rescue - were suspended from trees near the Strid so that people who fell in might somehow, someway, be rescued. The paper reports:      For centuries, people in that area have respected and trembled at their beautiful river, and the poet William Wordsworth, he of "I wandered Lonely as a Cloud" fame, also wrote an utterly haunting, poignant, and striking poem over 200 years ago about a young boy who also lost his life while trying to leap across the Strid. Now, I need to tell you that I wasn't ever much of a fan of poetry or Wordsworth back in the day when I began college as an English major. Had I been exposed to this poem, however, I might have felt quite different. It's tragic, to be sure, but in a pretty evocative way, almost like a ghost story. Let's read a few lines of that amazing poetry, and then - after that, I'd like to preview a song about the Strid that was written and performed JUST FOR THIS EPISODE by the Bolton Bardeaters. I'll just play a short clip of the song, but you can listen to the whole thing at the end of the episode. It's sad, but it hits hard, and I really like it. Hope you do too!    Here's Wordsworth's The Force of Prayer, which revolves around a Strid disaster:    Young Romilly through Barden Woods Is ranging high and low; And holds a Greyhound in a leash, To let slip upon buck or doe.   And the Pair have reached that fearful chasm, How tempting to bestride! For lordly Wharf is there pent in With rocks on either side. 6:18 for 1000 words.    This Striding-place is called The Strid, A name which it took of yore: A thousand years hath it borne that name, And shall, a thousand more.   And hither is young Romilly come, And what may now forbid That he, perhaps for the hundredth time, Shall bound across The Strid?   He sprang in glee,—for what cared he That the River was strong and the rocks were steep? —But the Greyhound in the leash hung back, And checked him in his leap.   The Boy is in the arms of Wharf, And strangled by a merciless force; For never more was young Romilly seen Till he rose a lifeless corpse! Hello, and thanks for listening. I'm Doctor Chase, a historian and writer originally from Birmingham, now living in the Monterey, California area. The song you just heard was commissioned by the podcast for this episode, and was performed by a Bolton group, the Bolton Bardeaters, an ersatz Celtic fusion heavy metal group that might be from that area. You can hear the whole song in full at the end of the episode, and the lyrics were written by friend of the show William Wordsworth over 200 years ago, with a few modern modifications.    I love history, and history is the whole focus of this podcast, but not just any history. Here, we specialize in the strange, the fascinating, the mysterious, the whimsical, the wild, the provoking, the adventurous, and, like today, the eerie. We'll cover the topics that Dan Carlin and Hardcore History probably won't touch, but we'll try to do them with that kind of commitment to research and detail. I've got a doctoral degree in counseling, and am finishing up a PhD in history, but I never really grew up from that fifth-grade boy in Alabama that loved mysteries, urban legends, myths, and great stories. Now, with a bit of academic experience, I'd like to explore the truth of some of those fantastic tales, and I'm glad you're willing to join me on that ride.    For a show with interesting in the title, there's a lot of pressure to pick out a really engaging, really captivating topic for the first episode, and I think you'll be pleased with the choice, even if most of you have never even heard of the Bolton Strid, a harrowing and deadly stretch of the Wharfe River that runs for a few hundred meters in Northern England near the picturesque village of Bolton Abbey. Locals call the Strid "the stream that swallows people" and "England's Killer Creek" but even up close it doesn't appear to be all that dangerous. Like a coral snake, it is a beautiful sight to behold, until you touch it…or it, touches you.    An 1839 article in the Manchester Guardian newspaper notes that nobody can stand beside the Strid long "without feeling a sense of its power and savage grandeur grow upon him. It is indeed a place "most tempting to bestride," or jump across. "One slip of the foot, and the leap is into eternity." The New York Times, in describing the Strid, writes, "The Strid is a segment of the River Wharfe, which runs past the tranquil ruins of Bolton Priory, an ancient monastery. A few yards upstream from the Strid, the river is shallow and wide, about 30 feet from bank to bank. But then the terrain squeezes the river so tightly that it is effectively turned on its side. Instead of wide and shallow, it becomes narrow and deep, a powerful wedge of water racing through a crevasse riddled with underwater caves and overhangs. This is the Bolton Strid." Legend claims the Bolton Strid is the most dangerous stretch of water in the entire world. They say, and have said for decades if not centuries, that the Strid has a 100 percent fatality rate for those who fall in it. There's no escape, and no rescue.  But to look at it, it's just a rapidly flowing, but not terrifying stream, about 45 minutes northwest of Leeds and a little over an hour west of York, England in the middle of a wide patch of beautiful fields. The Strid is in Northern England,

    45 min
  10. InterestingPOD Trailer - Episode #0

    Season 1 Trailer

    InterestingPOD Trailer - Episode #0

    Not every tale from history made the textbooks. Some were too strange. Too secret. Too… interesting. Debunking myths and digging up the truth—we don't peddle half-baked lies, rumors, or unfounded conspiracies. And we don't accept easy answers either.  You bring the curiosity—we'll bring the intrigue. Ready for a mystery? Or an adventure? Well, here's a preview of some of our first few episodes:  Did you know that there is a forbidden Hawaiian island owned by one family, and the residents can leave when ever they want, but they can't bring anybody back with them? If you're lucky enough to live there, it's rent free, you get all of the meat to eat that you want, but there's not really much electricity, plumbing, internet, tv or running water. Speaking of primitive conditions, how would you survive a winter in Victorian England if you were dirt poor and homeless? Well, if you could somehow get at least a penny a day, you could sleep in a penny shelter sitting up on a bench. (NO LYING ON THE BENCH) And you'd likely be sitting next to one or two other dudes also. If you had two pennies, you could sleep hanging over on a rope at a two-penny hangover…but not on the floor. If you had FOUR pennies…well, my friend, you're in luck because you'd be able to sleep in a coffin like box on a hard floor, with bugs in it, and you'd also have 50-100 more people in that seem ill-heated room, many of them sleeping in their own coffin boxes just inches away from you. Yuck!  In another episode, we will shift gears and explore the documented prophetic dreams that predict the future. Could such a thing really happen? In 1979 David Booth dreamt ten nights in a row about a terrible air crash that would soon happen. He called Jack Barker with the FAA multiple times leading up to the cross, but though he provided specific details, and though Barker took him seriously, they couldn't figure what exact plane Booth's dream might be referring to. A few days later, in a scenario eerily similar to Booth's dream, American Airlines flight 191 crashed shortly after takeoff, the worst aviation disaster in American history. How could that be possible? We will explore that incident in depth.  A few more early episodes: Did John F. Kennedy, in trying to address a crowd in Berlin, inadvertently call himself a jelly donut in German? The truth might surprise you! Speaking of surprises, what about witches burned at the stake in Salem?? Everybody knows that happened, right? Right? Related to facts everybody knows…if you are even a casual sports fan, I'll bet you know that Jackie Robinson was the first black Major league baseball player, right? Except…actually, he wasn't.  Well, that's enough of a preview. I'm your host, Doctor Chase, and I'm a historian, author, storyteller and podcaster. I began podcasting in early 2005, and was one half of the first podcast in Alabama history, which is an achievement that probably won't go on my gravestone. I have a doctoral degree in counseling, and I'm close to finishing a PhD in history. I care as much about footnotes, historiographical analyses, Turabian formatting, and memorizing dozens of dates as you do, but the thing I love about history is the STORIES. I love a good story, and I've stayed up many late nights listening and telling a good tale.  That said, I also love truth, and facts. We live in an age of accelerated conspiracy theories, and urban legends are as common as online political disagreements. When I was a kid, I didn't want to grow up to be a teacher, or a historian, or a pastor, or a counselor…I was a Hardy Boys guy. A wannabe Sherlock Holmes, and even though I was a History major in college, my eyes were dead set on being an FBI agent, or some other form of detective, and I even attended Criminal Justice graduate school at the University of Alabama before my life took a different turn…but I never lost my love of a good mystery, or love of investigations, and I want to apply that passion for investigating to history. On this show, we will put on our deerstalker hat (even if Holmes didn't wear one in the canonical books) get out our magnifying glasses, and do the actual research that's necessary to get at the truth. I can't promise that we will be infallible, but I do promise you will get maximal effort to put together an interesting - hopefully fascinating -  podcast that prioritizes excellent research and values the truth. If we miss it, we'll own it. It's cliche for podcast hosts to tell people to "hit that subscribe button," so I won't say that, but deep down, I'll secretly be hoping that you do.

    6 min

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About

Not every tale from history made the textbooks. Some were too strange. Too secret. Too… interesting. Debunking myths and digging up the facts, we don't peddle half-baked lies, rumors, or unfounded conspiracies. And we don't accept easy answers either. Your host is Doctor Chase: historian, author, storyteller. You bring the curiosity, and we'll bring the intrigue. Ready for a mystery? Or an adventure? Let's go!

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  • Creator
    Dr. Chase A. Thompson
  • Years Active
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  • Episodes
    10
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    © 2025
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    InterestingPOD