Some stories are too crazy to believe because we can't see the proof, while others are unbelievalbe despite the physical evidence. Both of those stories will be great additions to today's tour through the Cabinet.
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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. The human spirit is rarely satisfied. There's always another goal, another milestone to reach. Scientists with their eyes to the sky don't see a final victory. They see an endless horizon of possibilities. In the nineteen seventies and eighties, the United States and the Soviet Union were in competition, sending small craft and rovers towards Mars to learn everything they could about a potentially brand new world. But our fascination with the right planet didn't start there. Since the late nineteenth century, when it was discovered that there were trenches on Mars, possibly man made, we've wondered whether we're truly alone in the universe. Perhaps not. H. G. Wells famously wrote about a Martian invasion in his eight nine classic War of the Worlds, and our obsession with what could be up there hasn't debated. Nikola Tesla once claimed that Martians were even communicating with him via signals they sent to Earth. Dr Hugh Mansfield. Robinson also thought Martians were communicating with him. In the nineteen twenties, Robinson had surrounded himself with as much literature as he could find about mars Wells story was his favorite, but science fiction soon turned to science fact when Robinson began receiving transmissions, though unlike Tesla, he wasn't getting them over the air to some kind of receiver. Robinson was the receiver. He had claimed to have made telepathic contact with the Martian race, specifically their princess Umaruru. She him all about her people, how their lives were not unlike those of humans on Earth. They drove cars and lived in houses. They weren't planning on a takeover of our planets either, They simply wished to exist peacefully on their own. Martian males were said to be eight feet tall, while the women came in at about a foot or two shorter. They had big ears and a lot of hair on their heads. Physical attributes vary depending on the class of Martian, the wealthier ones being much better looking than those in the lower casts. But Robinson's mental conversations could only go one way. Umaru U could beam her words at him, but not hear his in return. That's when Robinson came up with a way for him to talk to her. He called it a psycho motor meter, a device of his own making that facilitated two way communication between Earth and Mars. Robinson allegedly even traveled to Mars using astral projection, helped along on his journey by the Martian Princess. His stories about his communication with Mars did not go unnoticed, nor were they widely accepted. A scientist studying psychic phenomena and paranormal medium both met with Robinson and asked him to walk them through what he'd learned from Mars. He showed the men the Martian alphabet that he had transcribed, which looked something like a child might draw. He also sang a song that umaru U had taught him. It was comprised of bizarre shrieks and klucks, but it was only a small taste of a culture he desperately wanted to learn more about. Robinson's ultimate goal was to get a message to all of Mars, not just to the princess. Using modern technology of the time, he planned on beaming a message over radio waves to the whole Martian population. In ninety six, Mars's orbit had placed it relatively close to Earth, the perfect time for Robinson to put his plan in motion. With the help of a telegraph operator, he transmitted the message love to Mars from Earth O pesti nipitiya secomba. Those last three words didn't make any sense to anyone else in the room other than Robinson. Presumably they were part of the Martian language he had picked up in his talks with the princess. For two years, nothing happened. The Martians sent back no response, but Robinson continued to beam telegraphs towards the stars. His next message read comga mar or God is love in Martian. When he failed to get a reply the second time, he blamed Earth's primitive technology. So he returned to communicating via telepathy, which inspired him to start his own school, devoted to teaching students how to converse using the power of the mind. The College of Telepathy opened to no fanfare. His reputation in the community had plummeted, which resulted in only two students registering to attend his new school, one of which was a dog named Nell. Robinson grew more reclusive as the years went on, especially after aiming to have spoken to the spirit of Cleopatra, who is now also living on Mars. His legacy has been mostly forgotten today, but it's worth remembering the man who believed when no one else would, that there might be life on another planet. One we're only now just getting to know, and now that technology has advanced, we might not need to beam a message to whatever might be living on Mars. We could just send it along with the next rover, or eventually even take it there ourselves. Some people just seem to have a cloud that follows them wherever they go. No matter how hard they try, bad news isn't far behind. Roy Sullivan knew all about trying to get out from under a cloud. Born in Virginia in nineteen twelve, Roy had, depending on how you look at it, either an extremely lucky life or maybe the luckiest of all. He was one of eleven children, fourth in line, and didn't care much for school, but he loved the outdoors. When he was twenty four, he got a job as a ranger and Shannandoah National Park, which had only been established one year prior. His job of monitoring activity in the park was uneventful for the first several years until he had been stationed in a fire tower looking out over an area of the park known as Miller's Head when he found himself in the middle of a thunderstorm. As the rain pounded against the tower and the thunder rattled its frame, lightning struck. There was no lightning rod attached to the tower, but that didn't stop the bolts from hitting it over six times, causing a fire to spread. Roy ran and as he retreated from the flames, another bolt struck, this time in his leg. A strip of flesh roughly half an inch wide, ran the length of his leg all the way down to his big toe, which lost its nail in the blast. As it has often been said, lightning never strikes in the same place twice. That's not entirely true, though, While rare, lightning has definitely been known to hit an area more than once, and nobody knew more about that than Roy Sullivan. He'd serve as a park ranger for another twenty seven years before his luck would be tested again, this time in July of nineteen sixty nine. However, he wasn't high up in a fire tower like he'd been back in nineteen forty two. He was much lower to the ground driving in his truck. Normally, a vehicle absorbs the blast from a lightning strike and protects the driver from being zapped, but Roy had been driving with his window down when the lightning hit a tree before bouncing into his truck through the open window. Roy was knocked out and his hair was set on fire while the car rolled to the edge of a cliff and then stopped a close call in more ways than one. A year later, Roy wasn't even in the park when he was struck by lightning for a third time. He was in his front yard. A blast arct off a nearby transformer and burned his shoulder. In nineteen seventy two, he was in a ranger station when another storm resulted in a lightning strike that set his hair on fire once again. He tried putting it out in the bathroom sink, but couldn't fit his head under the tap. Instead, he wrapped his sine scalp in a wet towel and waited for the storm to pass before getting help. Roy started to think that something was after him, that he was being targeted by some unknown entity that was out to get him. From that point forward, he never drove during a storm, especially with the window open. He'd pulled off to the side and wait for it to finish before continuing on. He avoided crowds, worried he might attract a bolt of lightning no matter where he went, and he never left home without a full container of water to put out hair fires. But for all his precautions, he couldn't escape fate. In August of nineteen seventy three, he noticed a storm moving in over the park. He got into his truck to drive away, terrified of the dark cloud he swore was following him. He waited. After several minutes, it's seen the cloud had passed. When he got out to check, though, it was like someone was playing a lifelong practical joke on him. Lightning hit his left side and blew his shoe right off before jumping to his right leg. He managed to make it to his truck for his emergency water, which he used to put out the fire atop his head. Again, things were quiet again for a few years until nineteen seventy six when Roy hurt his ankle, but that didn't keep him out of the park. During a routine patrol, Roy watched the cloud follow him as he retreated for safety. He didn't make it in time, though, lightning struck him and set what was left of his hair on fire. Then, in nineteen seventy seven, Roy broke the Guinness World Record. He was fishing in the middle of a pond when a final strike hit him on top of his head and burn him all the way down to his chest and stomach. But it wasn't the only thing threatening his life that day. A bear had wandered over to take fish that Roy had caught. Still conscious, after the strike, Roy grabbed a large tree branch off the ground and smacked the bear with it, sending it back into the woods without its meal. Roy Sullivan sounds like some kind of superhero, a man capable of surviving seven lightning strikes and stopping a bear attack. But like many heroes, roy superpower came at a high cost. Those who knew him eventually stopped spending time with him, afraid that they too might be caught by a stray bolt from above. The rest of his life was pretty lonely, and he passed away. And while death and lightning share some common traits, both usually come out of nowhere and happened when we least expect it. There is one major difference that Roy must have been thankful for. Death at least is the sort of lightning that only strikes once. 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, Ye