One tale of tricks, and another of treasure. Both are more than entertaining, and both are part of 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 right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Scene is believing. It's a well known phrase that has come to me in the opposite of its original intent. Writer and physician Thomas Fuller originated the quote in seventeen thirty two when he said scenes believing, but feelings the truth, meaning your eyes may deceive you, but what you can touch and feel will be the true test of what's real. Students and faculty at Cornell University got a test in truth in the early nineteen twenties. After a major storm coated the campus in snow. Someone noticed to set a footprints, large footprints bigger than any human could make. The Prince started on campus and traveled until they reached nearby bb Lake, where they stopped. The lake had frozen over, but something had opened up a wide hole in the ice, presumably whatever creature had made the footprints. A zoologist at the university rushed to the scene and identified the kind of animal that could have made such imprints and such a large hole in the ice it was, he said a rhinoceros. Authorities were called in to drag the water for a body. The local paper announced that a rhinoceros had drowned in bb Lake, and nobody on campus, students or staff would drink water from the tap, as the university's water supply came directly from that lake. A few people who did drink it claim that they could taste the rhinoceros. One thing is true about the story. A rhinoceros did make those tracks, well part of one. Professor Louis Agassi was an ornithologist at Cornell. He had traveled all over the world and brought back many souvenirs from his jarnie. One such item was a waste basket made from a hollowed out leg from a rhinoceros. But I guess he didn't make the tracks. That was all the work of a prankster and Cornell student, Hugh Troy. Troy had snuck into the professor's office to borrow the leg for his stunt. He and a friend filled it with scrap metal to weigh it down, then tied a thirty foot clothesline to it, which they held at each end. Together, the friends walked to the lake, pressing the basket into the snow to give the illusion of rhino tracks. Then Troy cut away a part of the ice over the lake to make it look like the rhino had simply walked in and drowned. It wasn't until much later when an anonymous letter penned by Troy explained the hoax to everyone on campus. Troy was a mastermind of pranks, and fooling an entire university was only the beginning. He once painted bare feet on a lecturer's galoshes, then covered them in soot. After the lecture was over, the owner of the shoes put them back on and stepped outside into the rain, which washed away the soot, making it look like the speaker was walking around campus without his shoes on. He also once cut a piece of corned beef to look like a human ear, then hung it at a Van Go exhibit in New York's Museum of Modern Art. The plaque that he had made to go with it claimed that the ear had been the one van Go himself had cut off before he died. Museum goers swarmed the display until employees realized what had been done. But perhaps the greatest trick this devil ever pulled happened in New York City's Central Park. Troy had purchased a park bench for himself and decided to walk through the park carrying it. The police, upon seeing a man hauling a park bench by himself, thought he was stealing it. However, every time they tried to arrest him, Troy pulled out the receipt to show them that he had in fact legally purchased the item. He did it so often the authorities eventually stopped arresting him. That's when Troy put the real prank at emotion. He organized a group of friends to go through the park and take the real city benches. The various cops on the beat thought that it was Troy up to his old tricks again, so they let them go, and all the benches were carried off from Central Park. From rhinoceros prints in the snow and a severed ear hanging in a museum, to coordinating a mass theft of park benches, Hugh Troy pulled off so many practical jokes he could talk about them for hours to impact auditorium. That is, of course, if the audience could find a seat first. It lies just three d miles off the coast of Costa Rica, a lush green paradise. Crystal blue waters lap at golden shores, while hundreds of species of insect and nineties species of birds coexist in a tropical wonder in. Step foot on Cocos Island and you'll think you're standing in the middle of a mirage. An island so beautiful it might be too good to be true. Well, depending on who you ask, it is. English pirate Edward Davis first landed on Cocos Island in seventeen o nine, albeit by accident. He and his crew were sailing their ship, The Bachelor's Delight, to the Galapagos Islands, hauling ten years worth of gold and jewels, in search of a hiding spot. They stumbled upon the deserted Cocos Island and decided to stash their booty there where nobody would find it. Over one years later, Captain Bloody Sword Bonito and his men stormed the shores of Cocos Island with one hundred fifty tons of gold. They'd intercepted a Spanish galleon on its way to Acacoco, Mexico, capturing its guard and donning their uniforms as a disguise without killing anyone, They simply unloaded all of the gold from that ship and loaded it onto their own before heading west. The pirate captains spread the gold around Cocos, bearing in some beneath the white sand, while stashing the rest in a cave. Bonito, not want to leave any loose ends, blew up the cave's entrance by igniting some powder kegs from his ship, closing it for good. And the crewmen who had helped him. He killed most of them so nobody else would know the location of the treasure, while the men he had spared died at sea not long after, Bonito had been the sole survivor. Then, in eighteen twenty, Cocos lured another captain to its shores. William Thompson, reputable British sea trader, had been hired by the Spanish viceroy in Peru to hide valuable artifacts belonging to over fifty Spanish churches. General Jose de San Martin had been leading a revolution for South America's independence from Spain. As his forces marched towards Lima, the viceroy new San Martin would take everything they had, so they loaded all their gold and silver onto Thompson's boat. Also included among the riches was a life size statue of the Virgin Mary, cast entirely in gold and covered in jewels. Thompson's instructions had been to eild the ocean with the viceroys treasure safely hidden aboard his ship, the Married Deer, until San Martin was out of the picture. Spanish guards were even brought on board to protect the bounty in case Thompson got any ideas. But Thompson did get an idea or two. Carting a load of gold, silver, and gems worth millions of dollars proved almost impossible to resist. After they left Lima and the shoreline had disappeared into the horizon, Thompson and his men killed the guards and dumped them overboard. Then they sailed to Cocos to hide what had become known as the Treasure of Lima. The plan afterward had been for Thompson and his crew to part ways until things died down, then returned to the island together and split the treasure among them. However, as soon as they departed Cocos, the Married Deer was stopped by Spanish forces who arrested everyone on board. Thompson and his first mate made a deal to show the Spanish guard where they buried everything in exchange for their lives, while the rest of the crew was hanged for piracy. The two remaining members of the Married Deer escorted the armed soldiers to the island as promised, and then made a run for it. They escaped into the dense jungle, hiding among the trees. The guards searched for hours but came up empty, eventually sailing away exhausted and embarrassed, Thompson and his first mate remained behind. As of today, the treasure of Lima has never been recovered. Cocos Island and the legends surrounding it have captivated the imaginations of people everywhere, from treasure hunters to writers. Over three hundred attempts have been made to find the various caches of gold and jewels that have been hidden there over the last several hundred years. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt took a shot at it in the nineteen thirties. Since then, Cocos Island's reputation has only grown, influencing numerous fictional islands in literature and film. Daniel Dafoe based the Island of Despair in his novel Robinson Crusoe on Cocos. Treasure Island, as described by Robert Louis. Stevenson's book of the same name, was also based in part on Cocos and the story surrounding it, and author Michael Crichton used Cocos Island as a model for island knew Are, the location of the ill fated dinosaur themed resort Jurassic Park. The buried gold hidden around the island may never be found, especially since the Costa Rican government has refused to issue any more permits for treasure hunting. But the island isn't going anywhere, and neither is the treasure. And if we've learned anything from films like Jurassic Park, it's that life uh finds away. 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