February 18, 2025 • 10 mins
Some dangers are preventable, while others are a mystery. Today's tour will show you how.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. 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.
(00:36):
World War One was a uniquely violent conflict. It existed
at a strange intersection between the past and the future,
where horses and swords clashed on the battlefield with tanks
and machine guns. As much of that dichotomy wreaked havoc
on the battlefield, it also caused problems at home. Civilian
life struggled to keep up with rapid changes in technology,
(00:57):
and in nineteen seventeen, in Hall Facts Nova Scotia, the
past and the future collided to disastrous results. During this time,
Halifax was already a prosperous Atlantic harbor town. In fact,
it was the closest large North American port to Europe.
As such, thousands of ships passed through carrying weapons, supplies,
(01:18):
and soldiers for the war. The city grew quickly without
much planning for it. The small stretch of harbor that
the community crowded around was called the Narrows. It was
a name that was accurate and, as it turns out,
also an ominous warning. On the morning of December sixth,
the Norwegian ship the Imo was exiting the harbor after
a few delays. It wasn't carrying much, but it was
(01:40):
instead headed to New York to pick up supplies. Its captain,
William Hayes, allowed the ship to go over the speed
limit to make up for lost time. Unfortunately, many regulations
seemed to be poorly enforced in order to serve the
war effort. For example, ships were supposed to sail on
the right side of the harbor, kind of like driving
on the right side of the road in America. But
(02:01):
on that day the Imo came upon two ships that
were sailing on the wrong side, heading straight toward them,
so the Imo had to correct course. Both times, it
sailed farther and farther to the left, but this put
it at further risk of collision. Another ship, the French
vessel mont Blanc, was traveling into the harbor at the
same time, only it was on the correct side of
(02:22):
the harbor for incoming vessels. Its captain Francis Mackie seemed
to be just about the only one following the rules,
but this, of course meant that he was on a
collision course with the IMO. Unfortunately, by the time the
ships came upon each other, there was nothing the two
captains could do to avoid collision. The IMO scraped up
against the mont Blanc, leaving a gash in its hull,
(02:43):
a hull that was not empty like the IMO, it
was full of explosives intended for the war. The collision
created a spark that started a fire on the mont
Blanc and ignited barrels full of volatile chemicals on the deck.
They exploded into the air like pockets, leading to a
huge cloud of smoke above the wreck. The fire on
(03:04):
the deck spread too. The ship's crew all evacuated, screaming
in French about the danger, but few could understand them.
Local firefighters raced to put out the fire. However, they
weren't fast enough, and after about twenty minutes the rest
of the explosives in the ship's hull ignited. The blast
had the explosive force of three thousand tons of T
and T for comparison, the atomic bombs that were dropped
(03:27):
decades later on, Nagasaki and Hiroshima had a force of
just three times that. The shockwave traveled faster than the
speed of sound and instantly killed sixteen hundred people. The
closest to the blast were vaporized. Those slightly further away
were crushed as the force threw them up against buildings
or collapsed those buildings on top of them. Those on
(03:47):
the outskirts of the blast were perforated by shards of
glass from shattered windows. The glass was absolutely deadly, too,
traveling so fast that it severed heads and limbs or
just blinded those who were lucky. Twelve miles away, windows
continued to shatter and people felt themselves pushed backwards. Sixty
two miles away, windows shattered and people could still hear
(04:09):
the blast. Hundreds of miles away in Massachusetts, some fishermen
heard a strange boom on the horizon, and back in
Halifax Harbor, the water vaporized by the explosion left a
vacuum that was filled by a tsunami that killed even
more people and leveled more buildings. When it was all
said and done, nearly two thousand people were dead, nine
(04:31):
thousand were horrifically injured, and twenty five thousand were left homeless.
A blizzard ravaged the area the next day, hindering recovery
efforts for the teams. It was a terrible moment of
the past and future colliding, of a city failing to
maintain safety standards while keeping up with its own growth.
Halifax had braced for German u boat attacks, but the
(04:53):
biggest threat had turned out to come from within. The
Himalayan Mountain Range is one of the most daunting features
(05:14):
on planet Earth. Some fifteen hundred miles long, it contains
Earth's tallest mountain and also holds some of humanity's most
chilling secrets, because we're drawn to explore every inch of
our world, even if that means reaching for heights that
can prove fatal for us. In the winter of nineteen
forty two, a forest ranger named Hari Kishen Madhwal was
(05:34):
hiking through the Himalayans when he made a shocking discovery.
Among these icy peaks, a five day trek from the
nearest village was a glacial lake surrounded by bones, hundreds
of them, some with flesh still attached. The lake was
named Rupkun, but in popular lore it's become known as
skeleton lake. After discovering what seemed to be a mass grave,
(05:57):
Madhwal reported this to the Indian government, which at the
time was under British rule. There was an immediate panic
among the British as they suspected that this grave could
be the remains of an attempted invasion of India by
Imperial Japan. For context, this was the height of the
Second World War and the British Empire was not prepared
for that kind of attack. This initial theory was, of
(06:19):
course incorrect. The bones were too ancient to be Japanese soldiers,
and besides, other than one iron spearhead, there was no
evidence of weapons among the remains, either ancient or modern.
The snow and ice melted the following summer, revealing that
Madwal's discovery had only been part of the picture. The
lake was three meters deep and there were even more
(06:40):
bones at the bottom visible from the surface. So who
were these people and how had they come to die
in such a remote location. Rukund is sixteen thousand feet
above sea level, an altitude which is incredibly hostile at
the best of times. Over the years, various expeditions attempted
to catalog and study these bones in an attempt to
(07:01):
ascertain their origin. In nineteen fifty six, they were carbondated
and determined to be between five and eight hundred years old.
Speculation ran wild, of course, was Roupcooned, once a remote
place where holy men committed ritual suicide, was at the
final resting place of a thirteenth century army, an open
air grave for the victims of a plague. The bones
(07:24):
showed no evidence of violent deaths, and there were no
horse skeletons among the dead, which meant that it was
unlikely to be an army, even if their weapons had
disintegrated over time. Most of the bodies analyzed were between
eighteen and thirty five years old at the time of
death and showed no evidence of disease men, women, and children.
(07:44):
Adding to this mystery was the fact that there had
never been any trade routes through the region, so these
must have been individual travelers. One hint at the truth, though,
came from folklore. The closest villages claimed that a ridge
above Roupcoon was once part of a pilgrimage to honor
Non d Devi. It was a deadly route that came
up often in local stories. Finally, a breakthrough in the
(08:05):
case came from analyzing the skulls that were found there.
They showed small compression fractures, evidence of sudden blunt trauma
to the skull before death. The theory became that a single,
large group of pilgrims had fallen victim to one of
the region's violent hailstorms. In the early two thousands, Rupcund
became a pilgrimage site, all of its own visitors flocking
(08:27):
to the famous skeleton lake. Even as researchers worked away
analyzing the bones, tourists were there paying to see what
was left behind. It seemed for a long time that
the cryptic mystery was just to become another tourist trap,
until twenty nineteen. That is, modern testing revealed that the
remains were far more diverse than originally theorized. The bones
(08:49):
were not just of South Asian origin, but from Crete
and the Mediterranean as well. Skeletons belonging to three separate
genetic groups were identified, having then deposited over a period
that star banned a thousand years. It was not a
single group of pilgrims after all, Given that it's unlikely
that Greek islanders were part of a pilgrimage to honor
Nanda Devi. With the location's current status as a tourist destination,
(09:13):
the bones around Rupcoond are at increased risk of contamination
as visitors actually rearrange them, take some away, and leave
trash among the dead. Even today, research among these remains
is ongoing, but it's uncertain whether we will ever find
out where all the remains came from. In the meantime,
it's a helpful reminder that even in the most remote
(09:34):
parts of the Earth, there are stories that remain untold.
While human nature has always led us into the unknown,
that adventurous spirit has also left us some curious mysteries.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
(09:57):
more about the show by visiting Curiosity's podcast dot com.
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey 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
Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. 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.
(00:36):
World War One was a uniquely violent conflict. It existed
at a strange intersection between the past and the future,
where horses and swords clashed on the battlefield with tanks
and machine guns. As much of that dichotomy wreaked havoc
on the battlefield, it also caused problems at home. Civilian
life struggled to keep up with rapid changes in technology,
(00:57):
and in nineteen seventeen, in Hall Facts Nova Scotia, the
past and the future collided to disastrous results. During this time,
Halifax was already a prosperous Atlantic harbor town. In fact,
it was the closest large North American port to Europe.
As such, thousands of ships passed through carrying weapons, supplies,
(01:18):
and soldiers for the war. The city grew quickly without
much planning for it. The small stretch of harbor that
the community crowded around was called the Narrows. It was
a name that was accurate and, as it turns out,
also an ominous warning. On the morning of December sixth,
the Norwegian ship the Imo was exiting the harbor after
a few delays. It wasn't carrying much, but it was
(01:40):
instead headed to New York to pick up supplies. Its captain,
William Hayes, allowed the ship to go over the speed
limit to make up for lost time. Unfortunately, many regulations
seemed to be poorly enforced in order to serve the
war effort. For example, ships were supposed to sail on
the right side of the harbor, kind of like driving
on the right side of the road in America. But
(02:01):
on that day the Imo came upon two ships that
were sailing on the wrong side, heading straight toward them,
so the Imo had to correct course. Both times, it
sailed farther and farther to the left, but this put
it at further risk of collision. Another ship, the French
vessel mont Blanc, was traveling into the harbor at the
same time, only it was on the correct side of
(02:22):
the harbor for incoming vessels. Its captain Francis Mackie seemed
to be just about the only one following the rules,
but this, of course meant that he was on a
collision course with the IMO. Unfortunately, by the time the
ships came upon each other, there was nothing the two
captains could do to avoid collision. The IMO scraped up
against the mont Blanc, leaving a gash in its hull,
(02:43):
a hull that was not empty like the IMO, it
was full of explosives intended for the war. The collision
created a spark that started a fire on the mont
Blanc and ignited barrels full of volatile chemicals on the deck.
They exploded into the air like pockets, leading to a
huge cloud of smoke above the wreck. The fire on
(03:04):
the deck spread too. The ship's crew all evacuated, screaming
in French about the danger, but few could understand them.
Local firefighters raced to put out the fire. However, they
weren't fast enough, and after about twenty minutes the rest
of the explosives in the ship's hull ignited. The blast
had the explosive force of three thousand tons of T
and T for comparison, the atomic bombs that were dropped
(03:27):
decades later on, Nagasaki and Hiroshima had a force of
just three times that. The shockwave traveled faster than the
speed of sound and instantly killed sixteen hundred people. The
closest to the blast were vaporized. Those slightly further away
were crushed as the force threw them up against buildings
or collapsed those buildings on top of them. Those on
(03:47):
the outskirts of the blast were perforated by shards of
glass from shattered windows. The glass was absolutely deadly, too,
traveling so fast that it severed heads and limbs or
just blinded those who were lucky. Twelve miles away, windows
continued to shatter and people felt themselves pushed backwards. Sixty
two miles away, windows shattered and people could still hear
(04:09):
the blast. Hundreds of miles away in Massachusetts, some fishermen
heard a strange boom on the horizon, and back in
Halifax Harbor, the water vaporized by the explosion left a
vacuum that was filled by a tsunami that killed even
more people and leveled more buildings. When it was all
said and done, nearly two thousand people were dead, nine
(04:31):
thousand were horrifically injured, and twenty five thousand were left homeless.
A blizzard ravaged the area the next day, hindering recovery
efforts for the teams. It was a terrible moment of
the past and future colliding, of a city failing to
maintain safety standards while keeping up with its own growth.
Halifax had braced for German u boat attacks, but the
(04:53):
biggest threat had turned out to come from within. The
Himalayan Mountain Range is one of the most daunting features
(05:14):
on planet Earth. Some fifteen hundred miles long, it contains
Earth's tallest mountain and also holds some of humanity's most
chilling secrets, because we're drawn to explore every inch of
our world, even if that means reaching for heights that
can prove fatal for us. In the winter of nineteen
forty two, a forest ranger named Hari Kishen Madhwal was
(05:34):
hiking through the Himalayans when he made a shocking discovery.
Among these icy peaks, a five day trek from the
nearest village was a glacial lake surrounded by bones, hundreds
of them, some with flesh still attached. The lake was
named Rupkun, but in popular lore it's become known as
skeleton lake. After discovering what seemed to be a mass grave,
(05:57):
Madhwal reported this to the Indian government, which at the
time was under British rule. There was an immediate panic
among the British as they suspected that this grave could
be the remains of an attempted invasion of India by
Imperial Japan. For context, this was the height of the
Second World War and the British Empire was not prepared
for that kind of attack. This initial theory was, of
(06:19):
course incorrect. The bones were too ancient to be Japanese soldiers,
and besides, other than one iron spearhead, there was no
evidence of weapons among the remains, either ancient or modern.
The snow and ice melted the following summer, revealing that
Madwal's discovery had only been part of the picture. The
lake was three meters deep and there were even more
(06:40):
bones at the bottom visible from the surface. So who
were these people and how had they come to die
in such a remote location. Rukund is sixteen thousand feet
above sea level, an altitude which is incredibly hostile at
the best of times. Over the years, various expeditions attempted
to catalog and study these bones in an attempt to
(07:01):
ascertain their origin. In nineteen fifty six, they were carbondated
and determined to be between five and eight hundred years old.
Speculation ran wild, of course, was Roupcooned, once a remote
place where holy men committed ritual suicide, was at the
final resting place of a thirteenth century army, an open
air grave for the victims of a plague. The bones
(07:24):
showed no evidence of violent deaths, and there were no
horse skeletons among the dead, which meant that it was
unlikely to be an army, even if their weapons had
disintegrated over time. Most of the bodies analyzed were between
eighteen and thirty five years old at the time of
death and showed no evidence of disease men, women, and children.
(07:44):
Adding to this mystery was the fact that there had
never been any trade routes through the region, so these
must have been individual travelers. One hint at the truth, though,
came from folklore. The closest villages claimed that a ridge
above Roupcoon was once part of a pilgrimage to honor
Non d Devi. It was a deadly route that came
up often in local stories. Finally, a breakthrough in the
(08:05):
case came from analyzing the skulls that were found there.
They showed small compression fractures, evidence of sudden blunt trauma
to the skull before death. The theory became that a single,
large group of pilgrims had fallen victim to one of
the region's violent hailstorms. In the early two thousands, Rupcund
became a pilgrimage site, all of its own visitors flocking
(08:27):
to the famous skeleton lake. Even as researchers worked away
analyzing the bones, tourists were there paying to see what
was left behind. It seemed for a long time that
the cryptic mystery was just to become another tourist trap,
until twenty nineteen. That is, modern testing revealed that the
remains were far more diverse than originally theorized. The bones
(08:49):
were not just of South Asian origin, but from Crete
and the Mediterranean as well. Skeletons belonging to three separate
genetic groups were identified, having then deposited over a period
that star banned a thousand years. It was not a
single group of pilgrims after all, Given that it's unlikely
that Greek islanders were part of a pilgrimage to honor
Nanda Devi. With the location's current status as a tourist destination,
(09:13):
the bones around Rupcoond are at increased risk of contamination
as visitors actually rearrange them, take some away, and leave
trash among the dead. Even today, research among these remains
is ongoing, but it's uncertain whether we will ever find
out where all the remains came from. In the meantime,
it's a helpful reminder that even in the most remote
(09:34):
parts of the Earth, there are stories that remain untold.
While human nature has always led us into the unknown,
that adventurous spirit has also left us some curious mysteries.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
(09:57):
more about the show by visiting Curiosity's podcast dot com.
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey 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
Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!