Parallel Paths

On today's tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities, we take a long look at two men who shared a lot more than a job title, and then we try to wrap our minds around a series of events that simply can't be true.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
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. If we were in an

(00:28):
actual cabinet of curiosities, a massive room full of oddities
and wonders that we could browse and admire, I would
probably lead you over to a corner where two paintings
hung on the wall. Looking up, you would recognize each
of the subjects immediately, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

(00:49):
I don't need to tell you how similar these two
men were, right, you can put the pieces together yourself.
Both served as presidents of the United States, and both
were assassinated while in office. They each represented sad moments
in American history where great leaders were struck down before
their time. For the generations that went through the aftermath

(01:09):
of these tragedies, they were foundational, unforgettable events. But you
don't know everything, such as why I might have placed
their portraits here in a place where you come to
find the unusual and unexplainable. Don't worry, though, what sort
of tour guide would I be if I didn't reveal
it all to you first, It's helpful to look at

(01:32):
the numbers. Lincoln and Kennedy both served in Congress before
ascending to the presidency, and each of them was elected
to those roles in years that ended in forty six.
When they were elected to the White House, both of
them did so in years ending in sixty weird, right,
It gets weirder though. Kennedy was killed in the seventh
car of his motorcade, while Lincoln was shot in theater

(01:55):
box number seven. Both men were shot in the head.
Both assassin nations happened on a Friday. Even the killers
were similar. John Wilkes Booth escaped the theater and was
found in a barn sort of a nineteenth century warehouse.
Lee Harvey Oswald fled from a warehouse and was caught
in a theater, and both of them were killed before

(02:16):
they could go to trial. When it was all over,
each man was succeeded by their vice president, as is
the tradition, except both of those men were named Johnson,
each were born in years ending oh eight, and each
were from the South. I know, it's easy to look
at a lot of that and just shrug coincidences happen, right,

(02:39):
especially when they have a century to line up and
counting the letters, and a person's name is pretty weak
according to some. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'll
leave that up to you. One last thing. It said
that Lincoln had a dream about his assassination. In it,
he found himself standing in the White House, which was

(03:00):
fully decorated for a state funeral. There in the east room,
he could see a body laid out for burial. Who
is dead in the White House? Lincoln asked one of
the nearby soldiers guarding the body. The president came the
soldier's reply, killed by an assassin. Here's the odd thing, though,

(03:20):
other than dreaming about a murdered president. Of course, Lincoln
told some friends about his dream a short time after
it happened, and he told them something else. It turns
out the body on display was not him, but another
man that Lincoln did not recognize. Knowing what we do
about the deep similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy, it wouldn't

(03:41):
hurt to stop and wonder and ask the most obvious
question of all the questions. Yet, was Kennedy the man
that Lincoln dreamed about when he checked into the hotel

(04:07):
on Long Island. He did so under a false name.
It was April seventeen night, and the man listed as
Albert C. White was very much not who he claimed
to be. He was actually the twenty eight year old
nephew of legendary steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and even shared
his name. He was Andrew Carnegie Whitfield. He paid in

(04:30):
advance four dollars for a single night if you're curious
what hotel rates were like in nineteen thirty eight, and
deposited his belongings in the room before taking a card
to the nearby Roosevelt Field Airport, where he had a
plane waiting for him. It was silver and red, very
flashy and very noticeable, and he planned to take it
for just a quick flight. His destination, he claimed, was

(04:53):
an airfield in Brentwood, New York, about twenty two miles away.
He had plenty of fuel, perfect weather, a heavily populated
landscape to fly over, and hundreds of hours of flight
time under his belt. He was happily married, was enjoying
success as an executive for a large company, and was
even planning to relocate his family to a better home

(05:14):
at the end of the month. He had everything going
for him on land and in the air, and then
he vanished. When they searched his hotel room, they found
a lot of things to raise questions. There were records
of a phone call to his own home. His clothing
was still there in the room too, along with his

(05:35):
monogrammed cuff links. Oddly, he had even brought along to
life insurance policies and several stock and bond certificates that
had his name on them. But Andrew Whitfield was nowhere
to be found. It didn't make sense, and no matter
how hard they tried, the authorities couldn't locate him or
his red and silver airplane. They had simply vanished into

(05:57):
thin air. One other thing, though, remember that phone call
he made to his home from the hotel room. Well,
it was unusual for two reasons. First, when no one answered,
the operator who was trying to connect their call overheard
him mutter, well, I'm going to carry out my plan. Weird, right,

(06:19):
Not as weird as the second detail. That call, it seems,
took place while his family was out of the house.
They were out of the house because they'd gone to
join the search party looking for him. The call, you
see didn't happen before his flight. It was placed hours
after he vanished. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour

(06:44):
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

(07:06):
over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious.