For Sale By Owner

Although the most curious items in the Cabinet are small, sometimes they're as big as a country. Today we'll explore two examples of that rare category.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, they're constant listener. Before we dig into another curious
tour through the Cabinet today, I wanted to let you
know about a brand new podcast we've put together called
Strange Arrivals. It's a ten part journey into the weird
and unusual experiences that happened to Betty and Barney Hill
back in nine, experiences that have given us just about
every bit of alien abduction folklore we have today, lost time,

(00:23):
stopped watches, brightly lits exam rooms. Strange Arrivals is written
and hosted by author Toby Ball and produced by me
and the team at My Heart. The first weekly episode
landed on March thirty one, but it's such a fascinating
ride that I wanted to make sure you didn't miss
a moment of it. Stick around after today's episode for
the Strange Arrivals trailer. You're going to love it. And

(00:45):
now let the show begin. 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. Island,

(01:16):
living palm trees, blue waters, and coconut drinks with those
little paper umbrellas in them. It all means rest and relaxation,
doesn't it. But not all islands are a sandy slice
of heaven. Most don't even exist in tropical climates. Their
environments can be too harsh for humans to live there,
or they may just be too small. That's not the

(01:37):
case with the principality of Sea Land, though, residing off
the coast of Suffolk, England. Seland was founded in nineteen
forty three. During World War Two, the British military used
it as the location for the first of four planned
naval forts. They called the fourth their HM Fort Roughs
or Roughs Tower. It was meant to provide defense against
Nazi aircraft that were dropping mines in local estuaries you

(02:00):
used by supply ships at the time. Up the three
hundred Royal Navy personnel lived on the island. After the war,
they returned to their homes and Sea Land was left
practically deserted, but Rough's Tower still remained. The funny thing
about the island was that it was only seven nautical
miles off the coast of Suffolk, placing it just outside

(02:20):
United Kingdom territory. Sea Land existed in international waters. Once
the British Royal Navy had left Roughs Tower and the
island on which it stood were up for grabs. It
remained abandoned until the mid nineteen sixties, when Jack Moore
and his daughter Jane took control of the tower. They
planned to use it as a new broadcast location for

(02:41):
a London based pirate radio station. Two years after their takeover,
a rival pirates station owner named Roy Bates came ashore
and claimed the island for his own station, Radio Essex.
He had been thwarted by the British government once already
after attempting to take over another abandoned naval fort. Rather
than get into a long drawn out fight, Jack and

(03:01):
Jane left. Bates brought in all the equipment he needed
to get a station off the ground, but never used
any of it. Radio Essex stalled because Bates saw an alternative.
He was now the de facto king of an empty island.
He used his power to declare Seeland's independence from England
and to start his own nation. Bates was left alone

(03:22):
for the most part. In nineteen sixty seven, he brought
along his wife Joan, his daughter Penelope, and his son
Michael and a few of their friends to live peacefully
on the island. However, the British government got worried to
them Sea Land was a ticking time bomb, even though
Bates and his family had no intention of going to
war with the entire British military, so England deployed helicopters

(03:44):
to drop bombs on nearby structures as a warning. A
tug about carrying a crew of Navy workmen drove by
the island as well, taunting the family. Roy's son Prince Michael,
fired a few warning shots in their direction. The men
retreated A short time later. Bates, who was still a
British citizen by the way, received a summons to appear
in courts. If convicted, he faced to have the penalty

(04:08):
under the British Firearms Act, but Bates no longer resided
in England. By living on an island in international waters,
he'd committed no crime that could be prosecuted by English
courts and was released. He and his family continued to
live on Sea Land well into the nineteen seventies, when
he drafted a constitution, created a national flag, and even

(04:29):
developed Sealand's own currency. Unfortunately, someone was lying in wait
to knock him off his perch. Alexander Achenbach had worked
alongside Bates early on. He was a lawyer from Germany
as well as the Prime Minister of Sealand. He'd wanted
to convert the island into a luxury resort, complete with
hotel and casino, even trying to convince Bates to join him,

(04:51):
but the former pirate radio DJ had no interest in
things like that. Achenbach took matters into his own hands.
He hired German mercenaries to infiltrate the island and captured
Joan and Michael. Bates, however, had been prepared. He had
been stockpiling weapons in case of another attack, which he
used against Achenbach and his men. He charged his former

(05:11):
friend and business partner with treason against the country, demanding
thirty five thousand dollars in restitution. A German diplomat traveled
to Sealand and negotiated Achenbach's return. Bates let him go
and revoked his passport. Twenty years later, when it came
to light that fake Sealand passports were being issued to
help traffic drugs and launder money from Russia and Iraq,

(05:33):
the family revoked all remaining passports in circulation, but that
didn't stop people from applying for passports anyway. Despite Roy's
death in two thousand twelve and his wife's death in
two thousand sixteen, the Principality of Seland continues to receive
thousands of passport requests each year, which is pretty strange
for an island that isn't even a real island. You see,

(05:54):
Sealand wasn't discovered in ninety it was built. It was
actually forty ton offshore platform constructed by the British military.
The platform itself is one sixty eight feet long by
eight feet wide, and it sits upon two sixty ft
tall concrete columns, and those columns are hollow inside. Each

(06:15):
one is subdivided into seven floors, with each floor providing
living quarters, a dining hall, and storage space for fresh
water and of course weapons. Sea Land may not have
been a tropical haven like other islands, but two soldiers
in World War Two, and of course, to the Bates family,
it was certainly home sweet home. In the Superman film,

(06:50):
Lex Luthor played by Gene Hackman, tells his assistant that
stocks may rise and fall, Utilities and transportation systems may collapse.
People are no good, but they'll always need land, and
they'll pay through the nose to get it. Gregor McGregor
was no lex Luthor, but he did have what everyone
wanted land. He was born in Glengal, Scotland, on Christmas Eve,

(07:14):
seventeen eighties six. His father was a respected sea captain
for the East India Company, and Gregor himself was the
great great nephew of Scottish folk hero Rob Roy. When
he turned sixteen, he joined the British Army, just as
the Napoleonic Wars were getting under way. He spent an
entire year defending the town of Kent from a French invasion,
a feat which earned him a promotion to lieutenant. It

(07:36):
was also during this time when Gregor met Maria Bowder.
Her father was an admiral with the Royal Navy and
she came from a wealthy family. The two were married
in June of eighteen o five, and Gregor returned to
the Fray. He purchased the rank of captain, a common
practice between the seventeenth and nineteen centuries, and then continued
to fight. Unfortunately, the fighting followed him off the battlefield.

(07:59):
After a particular the nasty spat with a superior officer
in Portugal, he was discharged and retired from the army.
Back at home, he and Maria moved to Edinburgh, where
Gregor underwent some changes. He started calling himself a colonel
and traveling around in a colorful coach while wearing a
badge associated with a Portuguese military order. When he spoke

(08:19):
to neighbors and rich elites, he referred to himself as
Sir Gregor McGregor, Baronet, and boasted of his relation to
dukes and earls. But his domestic life, as strange as
it had become, would be short lived. In December of
eighteen eleven, Maria passed away. Along with her, also went
Gregor's wealth and status. For a brief moment, he considered

(08:40):
rejoining the military, but that was made more difficult by
the circumstances surrounding his prior discharge. Instead, Gregor traveled to
South America, where he joined in the Venezuelan War of Independence.
General Francisco day Miranda immediately took a liking to Gregor,
who had positioned himself as a soldier of fortune, and
gave him his own allien to command during the war.

(09:02):
He also took a new wife, Josepha, and continued to
fight on behalf of the Venezuelans during their crusade. By
the end, however, he was forced to retreat and eventually
found his way to the Mosquito Coast in modern day
Nicaragua and Honduras. There, King George Frederick Augustus gave Gregor
his own country. It was called the Poias, named for

(09:22):
the Poyer people who lived along the nearby Black River,
and then Gregor, newly crowned as Prince of Poias, returned
to London to the upper crust. The Prince was an
exotic conversation starter. He found himself invited to dinner parties
and social events, But he had also come back on
a mission. The Poyers had sent him to recruit investors

(09:43):
on their behalf. Gregor was now in charge of a
country with its own government and a modest army. His
hope was to wou colonists back to the Mosquito Coast
and take advantage of the abundance of natural resources that
could provide. Gregor had come prepared with paperwork that explained
everything from the banking system to the designs of the
military uniforms. There was even a coat of arms. To Gregor,

(10:07):
Poias was perfection. It was everything a rich colonist could want,
and he did his best to make them want it.
He provided testimonials and pamphlets to both British and Scottish settlers,
encouraging them to purchase in one hundred acre increments for
eleven pounds each. He also sold commissions to the Pous
Army to his fellow veterans for a sizable amounts. To

(10:29):
help sell his new venture, he hired publicists to write
up ads in popular newspapers and gave interviews to local journalists.
But his land wasn't just open to rich citizens and
military men. He wanted British businesses and banks to set
up shop and Poias as well. Everyone was welcome and
there was plenty of land to go around. He explained

(10:49):
it all in his three hundred fifty five page guide
book titled Sketch of the Mosquito Coast, including the Territory
of the Poias. The illustrations within portrayed the land as
bus sailing with tradeships and fishermen. There was an opera
house and even a cathedral. The first group of settlers
arrived in eighteen twenty two on the shores of the
Black River and were shocked, to say the least Poias was. Indeed,

(11:14):
in sight, it just wasn't the site they were expecting.
There were no banks or opera houses anywhere. In fact,
there was almost nothing but endless jungle in all directions.
The environment could not sustain livestock, and to colonize the
area to make it livable would have taken much more
money on top of what everyone had already spent. The
Powyers couldn't help them either. They had no idea who

(11:36):
the newcomers were or why they'd come. They hadn't sent
Gregor to negotiate on their behalf. They had no army,
no coat of arms, and no democratic government. As Gregor
had claimed, he did procure the land from King George
Frederick Augustus, as he had told his investors, but for
the paltry sum of rum and jewelry. Everything else he'd
said about the country had been a lie. Gregor McGregor,

(12:01):
the Prince of Poias, had pocketed two hundred thousand pounds
in one of the most successful confidence schemes ever conducted.
He'd sold British and Scottish settlers land in a fake country,
and then disappeared to Paris to try his luck again.
The French government eventually caught on. They stopped the grift
from going further and caught Gregor hiding out in the

(12:21):
French countryside. He stood trial, but was never convicted, and
he never learned his lesson either. He tried multiple times
to recreate the scheme in different ways, procuring loans and
funds from banks and hapless investors, but none of them
could capture the magic of his first and most successful attempt.
Many years later, Gregor eventually returned to Venezuela and was

(12:44):
made a full citizen there. He died extremely wealthy and
holds an infamous place in history as one of the
most successful conmen to have ever lived. 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

(13:04):
show by visiting Curiosities 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 World of Lore
dot com and until next time, stay curious. Yeah. On

(13:30):
September six, Betty and Barney Hill cut their vacation short
and decided to drive home. They were having difficulty finding
their way around the city, and Barney decided he just
wanted to drive home, Knowing that they would arrive at
their home on New Hampshire Sea Coast at about two
o'clock in the morning. What they saw that night in

(13:50):
the New Hampshire sky would change everything. I begin walking
across the highway, looking up at the object with the binoculars,
putting them down, thinking my aunt's saying, this can't be true.
I don't believe it. A light in the sky. At first,
she thought of a falling star, but she realized that
following stars don't fall upwards, and that's what this one

(14:11):
was doing. Two years later, the Hills would undergo hypnosis.
How about did you regress that? I started telling, well,
I just look back to a starting point of Montreal.
A sinister story would emerge. She's trying to start the
car walked stat because I think, well, I can't get

(14:33):
away for this. I guess if I get the card
or like a brother than Wits of Hide that became
known the world over. Doctor Simond gave me a post
upnotic suggestion. He said, if I wanted to, I could
sketch the star mapp but if I didn't want it,
I didn't have to. So about two weeks later I
sketched it. Their account has been scrutinized under the influence

(14:54):
of hypnosis, especially if you're highly hypnotize herbal you are
even more receptible to contamination and distortion by scientists, skeptics, theorists,
and believers. She wound up building a total of more
than twenty three dimensional models and was able to find

(15:15):
one and only one pattern that matched what Betty had drawn.
What happened on that night journey in? Were the Hills
confused about what they saw? Or did they have an
encounter with beings not of this world? From My Heart
Radio and Aaron Manky's Grimm and Mild, this is Strange Arrivals.
Listen to Strange Arrivals March thirty one on the I

(15:38):
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.