Bats and spooks feature heavily on today's midnight tour.
Welcomed. Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Some of the best legendary figures from history are the ones shrouded in mystery. Where they came from and what their upbringing was like always seems to make them more human than myth, which makes us unable to fill in the gaps with our own embellished details. But little is known about Vincent de Groof. Some say that he was Dutch, others Belgian. He was born around eighteen thirty eight and once we're as a shoemaker, but his ambitions took him much higher. Literally. Vincent fancied himself something of an aeronaut at the time when many were exploring the skies. In the mid to late eighteen hundreds, aeronauts like Henry Coxwell and James Glacier were setting records and making advances in the field of flight, specifically with hot air balloons. In eighteen sixty two. For example, Glacier and Coxwell reached an altitude between twenty nine thousand and thirty five thousand feet in a balloon with a ninety three thousand cubic foot capacity, the largest such vessel built up to that point. Vincent wanted to make a name for himself like Coxwell and Glacier, but hot air balloon was only part of the plan. He'd also built a contraption like something out of one of those Leonardo da Vinci notebooks. It was an ornithopter comprised of a pair of silk wings and a silk covered tail, all of which was operated by a series of levers that he pulled while strapped into the device. Vincent had given all the details of his ornithopter and his historic flight to The Morning Post, an English newspaper, which published everything with the following disclaimer, the attempt will not be more dangerous than the descent of a parachute, if only they had known. On Sunday, June eighteen seventy three, over one thousand people gathered in Brussels to watch Vincent take his creation on its maiden voyage. He had organized the events on the grounds of a local military Academy, which had only been allowed because the lieutenant at the school had insisted on inspecting the flying machine beforehand. Vincent wasn't worried, though. In fact, he was so sure his ornithopter would fly that he had a program printed and handed out to the crowd that described how the whole spectacle would go down. First, he would flap the wings to propel himself upward and fly over the spectator's heads. Then, once they were properly amazed, he would be lifted by a hot air balloon high into the sky. Once he was at the proper altitude, he would cut himself loose and soar through the skies in his homemade rig. Vincent's was nothing if not ambitious, even when reality did its best to keep him grounded. When the event finally started two hours after its scheduled start time, by the way, he was only able to elevate himself a few feet off the ground, after which he faced planted into the dirt and damaged part of the ornithopter. Still, the minor setback didn't dampen his stubbornness to succeed. He simply carried on with the show, tying himself to the hot air balloon with a rope and allowing it to hoist him barely a few inches into the air. The rope you see snapped and Vincent once again came crashing back to earth. The crowds were more than a little upset. They shredded his balloon in protest, and many an attendance were arrested for rioting. It took a full year before Vincent made another earnest attempt at flight. He chose London as the venue and brought a brand new flying machine with him, one that bore a striking resemblance to a giant bat. Its wings measured around thirty five ft long and were made of silk, just like the last one. He tried it total of three times to achieve the kind of flight that he dreamed of. His first attempt, on June twenty nine, eighteen seventy four, saw him going up about four feet with the help of the hot air balloon. He was supposed to cut himself loose, but was still attached to the balloon when the whole apparatus caught in a tree. The second launch, on July seven was scrubbed due to high winds. Two days later, Vincent made his third and final attempt. Taking off from Cromorne Gardens and Chelsea, he hooked himself into his bat like horne thopter while the balloon it was tied to, rose above the city. Unfortunately, there was an error in communication due to Vincent and the hot air balloon operators speaking different languages. Vincent tried to warn him that he was headed straight for St. Luke's Church and its soaring tower. Someone on the ground shouted at the men, who prompted Vincent to cut the ornathopter free and coast to safety. The balloon operator, however, realized that he was about to crash into the church and tossed out three bags of ballast to gain altitude. Those bags landed directly on since contraption, The wings collapsed, and its pilot plummeted to the street below. Thirty five year old Vincent de Groff died on July nine, eight seventy four. Very little was known about who he was or where he had come from, but he became something of a legend, dying while doing what he loved, even if his efforts did sort of fall flat. During the Great Depression, Americans converged on movie theaters to get out of their heads. For a while, Hollywood hit its golden age and people wanted to be amused, so for the price of a quarter per show, they could have a special treat and be delighted or scared by the films that we considered classics today, like Frankenstein, Dracula, or The Mummy. No one can resist a good scare. America already had a deep fascination with the great beyond thanks to the influence of spiritualism in the late nineteenth and early twenty centuries. Clairvoyance, mystics, mediums, and psychics all promised to fill americans deep seated need to contact their loved ones. On the other side, some were true believers, others were quacks, and many were downright criminal, but they all fan the flames of America's enthusiasm for the supernatural and with being scared out of their wits as well. But as people moved from the seance table to the theater seats, theater owners discovered that it wasn't just horror films that were packing in the crowds. It was the midnight ghost shows that had become a sensation. Ghost shows, also called spook shows or monster shows, were a combination of something very old and very new. At these performances, audiences could expect a night of creepy stunts and special effects that seemed supernatural, in addition to psychic readings and other magical acts. One of the earliest examples dates back to France in seventeen ninety eight, when a Belgian named Etienne Gaspard Robertson used a magic lantern to project images that seemed to move right before viewers eyes, nearly one hundred years before the motion picture camera was invented. But it was someone else, a guy named Elwyn Charles Peck, who was considered the father of the midnight ghost show. Sometime around nineteen nine, he created an act that he called Elwyn's Midnight Spook Party and drew on the tricks and illusions of his spiritualist predecessors. Teenagers loved the ghost shows, and whenever they saw advertisements for the performance pop up in town, they cheerfully trooped off to the movie theater to hopefully get their pants scared off of them. Onlookers were lured in with the promise of a good scare and shamed if they didn't take the bait. Girls were encouraged to bring their new boyfriends to see if they were courageous or cowardly. Most went together in groups called a spook party to better protect themselves. When the ghosts swept into the audience or people were pulled onto the stage, patrons shuffled into theaters, talking and laughing nervously as they found their seats. When the show would start, the house lights with dim The host emerged, usually dressed in a costume that wouldn't look out of place in a psychic's gothic parlor. He would talk for a few minutes, priming the audience for the performance, and then he would step aside and introduce the rest of the act. The entire performance consisted of magic tricks, illusions, conjuring, and audience participation, and lasted about forty five minutes, followed by the inevitable yet sudden blackout at the end. By the end of the nineteen thirties, these blackouts heralded the start of a horror film that would become a staple of the whole escapade. If you went to a ghost show at a drive in theater, you might look out your car window to see masked and costumed ghosts monsters and demons scuttling between the cars, popping up randomly to make unsuspecting audience members jump in their seats. Unfortunately, World War Two put a halt to Elwyn and the other ghost shows that had begun touring during the depression. Though people still frequently went to the movies, many teenagers and young men who participated in these acts went overseas to fight. Some assumed the horrors of war would drive people away from the horror genre altogether once they returned from Europe and the Pacific, but a funny thing happened instead. Horror film popularity exploded. Films like Frankenstein and Dracula were re released and sequels were produced as audiences embraced the terror with new Augusto. Ghost shows found new life in the post World War two. Raymond Really Raymond Corbin operated the Zombie Jamboree, which toured from nineteen forty three to nineteen fifty three. In his shows, Blood and Guts flew as a mad doctor operated on a kicking and screaming patient. The terrifying scene ended spectacularly when a cast member waving a bone saw, ran into the crowd to chop off an audience member's head all magic tricks. Of course, ghost shows made decent money too. Some troops pulled in almost four thousand dollars per night in larger theaters, more than sixty dollars today. Through the late nineteen forties and fifties, it seemed like the ghost shows were writing the high that would never end. I mean, everyone loves a good scare right well, just like video killed the radio star, it almost killed the ghost show too. As television became more popular, and as the gimmicks ghost shows relied on became less believable, people stopped going. A mysterious rapping sound and glow in the dark paint weren't enough anymore. Slowly, troops disbanded and ghost shows disappeared, giving way to a new horror experience. Still, the spectacle and costumes became hugely influential on other stage shows, like the rock and Roll Acts of Alice Cooper and Kiss. We probably won't see the return of the Ghost show, but who knows. Trends are cyclical after all, and there's always the chance we'll see people flocked to the theater once again for a good old fashion phantomime. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.