Killer Act

Published Aug 22, 2019, 9:00 AM

Some shows are difficult to believe until you see them, while other things are impossible to believe even after you've laid eyes on them. Today's tour will introduce visitors to one of each.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Hypnosis is one of those things most people laugh about when it's discussed as entertainment. It's fake. They say. You can't control someone just by swinging a pocket watch in front of their face like a pendulum. The people in those Vegas shows must be plants individuals higher to pretend like they have no control over their body. They hop on one foot or bite into an onion like it's an apple, and the audience applauds because they don't know any better. But hypnosis is one of those strange places where art and science intersect. As a therapy tool, Hypnosis can be incredibly beneficial to those who need it, but it takes time. It can't be induced in the time it takes to put on a short stage show, not unless you're Arthur Everton, whose powers of persuasion we're second to none. Arthur was a professional hypnotist way back in n nine, often inviting audience members to come up on stage and be part of his act at a performance in Somerville, New Jersey. One night, he pulled the audience for a volunteer. The man who raised his hand was a piano mover and street car conductor from Newark named Robert Simpson. A moment later, Simpson climbed on stage and then awaited Arthur's instructions. The hypnotist placed him under a trance one meant to induce a cataleptic state. In other words, Simpson's body went as stiff as a board. Arthur then lowered him down, positioning him between two chairs like a kind of bridge, with his head on one chair and his feet on the other. Arthur then put his skills and Simpson's body to the test by climbing up and standing on the man's chest for a few seconds. The audience went wild. Amazingly, Simpson didn't move. He showed no signs of pain or stress, even though Arthur had just used him as a makeshift platform. After Arthur stepped down, he eased Simpson down off the chairs before standing him back up. It was time to bring him out of his trance send back to reality. Arthur called to him, demanding that he wake up, but Simpson just stood there. Rigid and unmoving. Arthur tried again, but Simpson still refused to pop out of his trance and return to normal. This was surprising to the audience for sure, but it was even more troublesome for Arthur. Why because he and Simpson had performed the trick dozens of times before. Yes, Robert Simpson was a plant. In fact, he was what they called a leader, someone planted in the audience to lead the rest of the crowd deep into the fantasy. Finally, after several moments with no movements, Simpson's body began to relax, and then he collapsed on the floor. Arthur quickly dragged his friend off stage, where he attempted to revive him, but shockingly, it was too late. A doctor in the audience pronounced Robert Simpson dead at the scene, much to Arthur's consternation. You see, Arthur believed the man wasn't dead, but merely still stuck in his trance. Given time, he thought he'd be able to wake him up, just as he had so many times before. The doctor even led him accompany Simpson to the hospital, where the hypnotist spent all night trying to pull him back out of his trance, but nothing worked, and the following morning, Arthur Everton was arrested for manslaughter. As the newspapers reported the story, hypnotists from all over the country came out of the woodwork with suggestions of their own for how to reanimate the late piano mover. One man named William Davenport, at the request of Mr Everton, also tried his hand bringing Mr Simpson back. His methods were a lot less mystical than you might imagine, though. Davenport simply leaned over Simpson's body, rested his hand upon the man's heart, and then whispered into his ear, bob your heart, your heart is beating. But nothing, because Robert Simpson wasn't trapped in a catatonic state or some sort of hypnotic trance. No, his a order had ruptured, killing him almost instantly. But the doctors couldn't tell whether Arthur's trick had been the cause of it all or if it had just been an unfortunate coincidence. In the end, though they decided the hypnotist was not to blame. The grand jury soon agreed and Arthur Everton was found not guilty. He returned to performing a short while later, but his business took a hit thanks to the bad publicity. Even though every stage performer dreams of the day they might kill it, as they say, most audiences have a very different goal. They just want to make it out of the show alive. They say, a picture is worth a thousand words, although some can be worth far more than that. The world famous photo of the loch Ness Monster, taken by Dr Robert Kenneth Wilson in nineteen thirty four, depicts the shadowy image of the creatures famous long neck sticking out of the water, the waves around it rippling outward. It's an image that everyone knows, it's instantly recognizable, and it's inspired decades of speculation of what might be living beneath the waters of Lochness. But there is another photo, one that is also at the center of a decade's long debate over its authenticity and what it might signify about humanity and where we really sit within the food chain. It was taken by a man named Eric Shipton in nineteen fifty one. Shipped In was a mountaineer who had clim numerous him Alayan peaks, but had wanted to scale the yet unscalable mount Everest. Nowadays, Everest is a popular destination for thrill seekers with money to burn, but during Eric Shipton's time it was a very different ordeal. The most common route used by folks trying to climb Mount Everest was along the northern side, but Shipton and his crew were set on exploring the southwestern side to see if there was a way up to the top that no one had found yet. Along for the trip were three other British climbers, William Murray, Tom border Lawn and W. H. Ward, as well as local sherpas that were there to guide them. One of those men, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became friends with Shipton and would eventually accompany him on future expeditions. The climb didn't pan out, though, and the climbers descended the mountain, but they never stopped trying. During another expedition several months later, Shipton, Norgay, and a doctor Michael Ward, were exploring a glacier west of Mount Everest, when they stopped to look at something strange in the snow. It was a footprint thirteen inches long and twice as wide as a man's foot. It bore four small toes and one big toe and was discovered at an altitude of nineteen thousand feet. Just ahead of that print was another, and then another, and then another. They were tracks. The men followed them from a mile to a chasm, where it was clear that whatever creature had made the Prince had jumped across, and from where they stood they could see the tracks continued on the other side. Shipt In, unable to follow them any farther, returned to the trail and continued his work. He would later publish his findings in both a book and an article that each detailed what he had found. Biologists and zoologists tried to discredit his claims, assuring people that the only creatures living at that elevation were bears and languor monkeys. London's Natural History Museum even commissioned to him Alayan bear to walk across a stretch of sand so that they could compare the footprints to photographs taken by Shipton, but the test backfired because they didn't match, and the biggest languor monkey prints are only about eight inches long, much smaller than the imprint discovered near Mount Everest. Yet, despite the claims from experts, all over the world that the Prince were animal in nature. Shipton refused to believe it, so did the Sherpas, who were familiar with the region, because they'd all seen the creature that made the Prince firsthand, or at least knew someone who had. It had been described as a being about five ft six inches tall and covered with a reddish brown hair. Except for its face. It stood upright like a human being, but it lumbered through the snow with ease. It had only ever been seen in passing and had never been captured on camera, which of course only adds to the legend. Tenzing Norgay went on to become the second man to summit Mount Everest, alongside Sir Edmund Hillary in three He was clearly a brave and determined man, but on that earlier trip, when he saw the enormous footprints in the snow with his own eyes, he froze in place with fear, and then he uttered a single word that would carry more weight than any photograph of a footprints ever could, at least to our modern ears. He muttered the name of the creature that he believed had left the print, Yettie. 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 sarious.

Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

From the creator of the hit podcast Lore comes a new, bite-sized storytelling experience. Each twice 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 702 clip(s)