October 5, 2017 • 11 mins
There are the things you accidentally bury, and then there’s everything on this list. Will, Mango and Gabe discuss the weirdest facts they've unearthed about things that have been unearthed.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Mango. So, I know we've both spent some
(00:01):
time in San Francisco over the years, but did you
know there's somewhere between thirty and sixties ships buried under
the city there, right, Yeah, it's true. And this this
goes back to the eighteen hundreds and prospectors were in
such a hurry to find fortune in San Francisco that
they would abandoned their vessels right there in the harbor,
you know, So part of the town was just built
on top of any ships and debris that got abandoned
(00:24):
in that shallow water there. I mean, I mean that
just sounds lazy. You're like careless or something, I know.
But you know, historians looking at old photos apparently said
it looked like a forest of masts, and some ships
got run aground to be used as bars or hotels.
But what's even weirder than that, According to the National
Geographic if you sunk a ship, you could actually claim
(00:44):
the land under it, So a bunch of the ship's
got sunk deliberately. In fact, today, according to the San
Francisco m t A, if you've ever taken the Muni
train to the Embarcadero station, you've actually passed through a
ship's hole without knowing it. And that's the first of
today's not Things, all about the weirdest stuff intentionally buried
by people. Welcome to part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson
(01:25):
and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Ticketer.
And behind the soundproof glass assembling an Ikea Schmore board
is our producer Tristan McNeil. Good job, Tristan, We've got
our wonderful research. Extraordinary gave Luisier joining us as well. So, Mango,
how do we decide on this week's nine things topic? Well,
you know, you and I were brainstorming, or we were
about to brainstorm topics when this Twitter user Jason st
(01:49):
wrote in with the request. And of course, you know
we love requests and listener suggestions, and Jason had a
great one. He asked if we could do a list
of the weirdest things intentionally buried by pole, which of
course made a smile. Yeah, it's a great idea, all right,
So we took him up on the challenge and I
started with the ships of San Francisco. So, Gabe, how
are you today? I'm doing well? All right, Well, we're
(02:10):
gonna put you on the spot and let you go.
Let you go next. Okay, cool, I can do that. Actually,
I want to start with the problem of beach whale.
All right. So sometimes, as you might expect, when it
dead whales shows up on shore, you can kind of
just let nature take its course. But the problem is,
you know, that causes a big smell, and it can
take months or even years for the whale to fully decomposed.
(02:33):
So another option is to cut it up and take
the pieces to a landfill. But you know that's that's
some grizzons. Yeah, that's some grizzly work. And and again
the stench. Uh So a sart option is to make
the same mistake the Oregon the Highway Division did and
then King seventy, and that's to use dynamite and you know,
blow up a beach whale. Yeah, this is possibly the
(02:56):
worst idea and definitely not recommended. But the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, which has been tasked with taking care
of all stranded marine mammals in that he sometimes recommends
simply burying the whale. And what's crazy about that is
the effort it takes to bury in eighty thousand pounds creatures.
(03:17):
According to Wire, you need a hold. It's at least
two stories deep, and that's because you need to cover
the whale in a minimum of ten feet of stands.
It's a lot of work, but it actually happens with
some frequency off the California coat. That's crazy. Well, uh,
you know, since you started with dead bodies, the first
thing I wanted to talk about was the Pringles inventor
(03:38):
Frederick Bauer, who I remember was cremated and buried in
a Pringles can. But when I actually looked him up,
I found out he wasn't actually the only snack inventor
who wanted a tasty tribute in his afterlife. So the
Dorrito's inventor, Arch West was buried in an urned that
was dusted in a layer of Doritos. No way. Yeah,
and just because you're wondering. While he didn't seem to
(03:59):
mind the blazon Offlow or Pizza Supreme or even the
third degree burned scorch in habit narrow flavors, according to
a Washington Post article, he took one bite of the
late Night, All Night or Cheeseburger Dorrito's and had to
spin him out. Actually saw that Washington Post eulogy, and
I like the way it ended. I think it said
ashes to ashes, crunch to crunch. Alright, so we've got ships,
(04:22):
whales and to snack food geniuses. How about we tackle
something a little more I don't know, conniving. So let's
think about things that were buried out of spite or
I don't know, less than pure intentions. Mango, you got one? Yeah,
I actually do so. I don't know if you remember this,
but in two thousand and eight, the New York Yankees
management presided over an excavation ceremony where they dug up
(04:43):
a David Ortiz Red Sox jersey. Apparently this construction worker
from the Bronx secretly buried under two and a half
feet of concrete, all in the hopes that would lead
to a new Yankees curse. And how would the Yankees
find out about this? Well, apparently to his fellow workers
ride him out. But the Yankees organization clean up the
shirt and said it to Boston with a T shirt
of their own, and at the jersey and the shirt
(05:04):
were actually auctioned for charity, or at least it has
a happy ending. So all right, gay, what do you have? Alright? Well, well,
this is just kind of funny to me. But inten
seventy eight, some kids were playing in the mud in
the backyard of the house in l a and they
were kind of you know, digging around that when they
uncovered something shiny. So they kept digging and eventually called
the cops because it turned out they had found a Ferrari.
(05:26):
Oh my god, that must have been so psyched about this. Yeah,
I mean, I'm surely we're Initially the car only had
five hundred miles on it and it was worth about
twenty K at the time. But sadly the kids didn't
get to keep it, and I don't even think they
got a finders to be The whole thing was apparently
an insurance scam and the guy would have got away
with it, but you know, these sky meddling kids. So
(05:48):
the car was ultimately sent back to the insurance company
who had you know, already paid out good money for
it to the owner. Uh, don't worry, though, the car
had a happy after life. It was auctioned off to
a guy named Brad Hours and he ended up having
a car registered with the license of course. All right,
so this one isn't exactly duplicitus it's more that the
(06:09):
game was buried out of shame. But I kind of
like it anyway. And that's Atri's notorious ET game. And
I think we've talked about this was before. I'm sure
you both know. The game is considered the worst video
game of all time. I think it was rushed to
market in something like thirty or thirty four days or
something like that. You know, the idea was that you
wandered aimlessly trying to find three pieces of a phone
(06:31):
in the hopes that ET can phone home. And that's stupid.
That's just such a bad idea for a game, right right, Well,
on top of the terrible plot, it was really buggy too,
and it was it was such an embarrassment that Atari
paid New Mexico to hide the eight hundred thousand copies
that couldn't sell into a landfill. But then the company
kept denying the whole thing. So the whole thing was
(06:52):
kind of this urban legend until when the games were excavated.
I mean, that's a great story, but how does that
kind of thing. We're like, if you're excavating for one
thing in particular, how do you know when you're Well,
that's the weird part about the story is the reports
on what they were finding is they actually started hitting
artifacts from that era like Donnie and Marie Osmond posters,
(07:14):
and there were even other games like Mrs. Pac Man
and Pale Soccer. But about a foot before they got
to the actual treasure trove, they found a local newspaper
with a nineteen eight three headline about this dumping. Isn't
that weird? It's like the best foreshadowing. Yeah, well all right,
well you guys, it's time to up your game to
try to match that. So it's the final round of
(07:34):
nine things, Mango, what do you have for your last fact? Uh? So,
so you know I can't follow rules, So I'm actually
gonna talk about an invention that I thought was awesome,
And uh do you know that Verizon developed a special
knife to cut into the ground. Didn't It's for laying
their fiber optics, But according to the New York Times,
the company uses like pressurized air to slice into the earth,
(07:55):
and one description I saw the slicing ability was compared
to like cutting butter a hot knife. But what's amazing
is that it's also a smart device. So while it
cuts clean through the ground, it actually doesn't cut pipes
or gas lines or even your sprinkler host. Oh wow,
that's actually pretty cool. All right, you broke the rules,
but I still like it's so Gabe, your turn. Well,
I was trying to figure out the most valuable thing
(08:16):
that was buried, and I came up with two contenders.
Of course, another rule breaker here. Alright, we'll go ahead
and give them to us. All right. So the first
is a time capital that was placed in the ground
in Amarillo, Texas. According to the book Oddball Texas, the
capital was put in the ground in honors a hundred
anniversary of Helium, and there are four capitals there intended
(08:38):
to be opened on various anniversaries, and the whole thing
shaped like a helium. Adam uh. And you know there's
some of your typical time capital fare from the era, included,
like ten cigarettes, their popular Hollywood movies. But the greatest
thing might be a ten dollars savings account past book
that's supposed to be turned over to the US Treasury
when the capitals opened in ernaing four interest at the moment,
(09:01):
which you know is estimated to be worth a cool
ten quadrillium by the time, which shimmy just enough to
solve any budget crisis. I like that. So, well, what's
your other fact? All right, well, this is a different
type of valuable. But in Russian scientists found his seed
that they assumed was buried by a ninth age world
(09:22):
And how would they know that? It was buried about
thirty below the perma frost according to National Geographic which
dates to about thirty two thousand years ago. But that's
not the weirdest part either. The seat has been encased
in nice and frosts and whatever, so it was a
little bit damaged. The scientists were still able to extract
tissues and replant them and viled and through this process
(09:45):
they managed to bring the flowering Siberian plants back to life.
Oh wow, that is incredible. So my fact is that
there's a steam train buried under New York City. I
feel like all your facts have to do a giant
transportation hiding under city. I know, that's my thing, man.
So that apparently in eighteen eighties six there was an
underground steam train line that was corrupt, so the city
(10:06):
just bricked it off and kept it underground, and over
the years the tunnel got used for bootlegging and smuggling,
and growing mushrooms apparently, but no one's been able to
find the giant steam engine. It's just a giant transportation
treasure waiting to be found. I love that well. I mean,
I think uh, heralda Special could uncover it for US's
gonna be right. Um. I do think the fact that
(10:28):
gave somehow uncovered both the futuristic answer to our budgetary
woes and hope for life existing in another thirty eight
thousand years. I think that's all amazing, and so I
think he deserves this one. Yeah, but I don't know.
Maybe we put an asterisk by his name and the
record books for that extra fact in there. Okay, that's fair.
I'm fine at that. We'll legit judge. All right. Well,
that's it for today's nine things. Thanks for listening to
(10:50):
Part Time Genius. Will be back with a regular episode tomorrow, y,
thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several
(11:11):
brilliant people who do the important things. We couldn't even
begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy
sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay
Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams, and
even Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
(11:32):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we do?
We forget Jason? Jason who
All right, Mango. So, I know we've both spent some
(00:01):
time in San Francisco over the years, but did you
know there's somewhere between thirty and sixties ships buried under
the city there, right, Yeah, it's true. And this this
goes back to the eighteen hundreds and prospectors were in
such a hurry to find fortune in San Francisco that
they would abandoned their vessels right there in the harbor,
you know, So part of the town was just built
on top of any ships and debris that got abandoned
(00:24):
in that shallow water there. I mean, I mean that
just sounds lazy. You're like careless or something, I know.
But you know, historians looking at old photos apparently said
it looked like a forest of masts, and some ships
got run aground to be used as bars or hotels.
But what's even weirder than that, According to the National
Geographic if you sunk a ship, you could actually claim
(00:44):
the land under it, So a bunch of the ship's
got sunk deliberately. In fact, today, according to the San
Francisco m t A, if you've ever taken the Muni
train to the Embarcadero station, you've actually passed through a
ship's hole without knowing it. And that's the first of
today's not Things, all about the weirdest stuff intentionally buried
by people. Welcome to part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson
(01:25):
and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Ticketer.
And behind the soundproof glass assembling an Ikea Schmore board
is our producer Tristan McNeil. Good job, Tristan, We've got
our wonderful research. Extraordinary gave Luisier joining us as well. So, Mango,
how do we decide on this week's nine things topic? Well,
you know, you and I were brainstorming, or we were
about to brainstorm topics when this Twitter user Jason st
(01:49):
wrote in with the request. And of course, you know
we love requests and listener suggestions, and Jason had a
great one. He asked if we could do a list
of the weirdest things intentionally buried by pole, which of
course made a smile. Yeah, it's a great idea, all right,
So we took him up on the challenge and I
started with the ships of San Francisco. So, Gabe, how
are you today? I'm doing well? All right, Well, we're
(02:10):
gonna put you on the spot and let you go.
Let you go next. Okay, cool, I can do that. Actually,
I want to start with the problem of beach whale.
All right. So sometimes, as you might expect, when it
dead whales shows up on shore, you can kind of
just let nature take its course. But the problem is,
you know, that causes a big smell, and it can
take months or even years for the whale to fully decomposed.
(02:33):
So another option is to cut it up and take
the pieces to a landfill. But you know that's that's
some grizzons. Yeah, that's some grizzly work. And and again
the stench. Uh So a sart option is to make
the same mistake the Oregon the Highway Division did and
then King seventy, and that's to use dynamite and you know,
blow up a beach whale. Yeah, this is possibly the
(02:56):
worst idea and definitely not recommended. But the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, which has been tasked with taking care
of all stranded marine mammals in that he sometimes recommends
simply burying the whale. And what's crazy about that is
the effort it takes to bury in eighty thousand pounds creatures.
(03:17):
According to Wire, you need a hold. It's at least
two stories deep, and that's because you need to cover
the whale in a minimum of ten feet of stands.
It's a lot of work, but it actually happens with
some frequency off the California coat. That's crazy. Well, uh,
you know, since you started with dead bodies, the first
thing I wanted to talk about was the Pringles inventor
(03:38):
Frederick Bauer, who I remember was cremated and buried in
a Pringles can. But when I actually looked him up,
I found out he wasn't actually the only snack inventor
who wanted a tasty tribute in his afterlife. So the
Dorrito's inventor, Arch West was buried in an urned that
was dusted in a layer of Doritos. No way. Yeah,
and just because you're wondering. While he didn't seem to
(03:59):
mind the blazon Offlow or Pizza Supreme or even the
third degree burned scorch in habit narrow flavors, according to
a Washington Post article, he took one bite of the
late Night, All Night or Cheeseburger Dorrito's and had to
spin him out. Actually saw that Washington Post eulogy, and
I like the way it ended. I think it said
ashes to ashes, crunch to crunch. Alright, so we've got ships,
(04:22):
whales and to snack food geniuses. How about we tackle
something a little more I don't know, conniving. So let's
think about things that were buried out of spite or
I don't know, less than pure intentions. Mango, you got one? Yeah,
I actually do so. I don't know if you remember this,
but in two thousand and eight, the New York Yankees
management presided over an excavation ceremony where they dug up
(04:43):
a David Ortiz Red Sox jersey. Apparently this construction worker
from the Bronx secretly buried under two and a half
feet of concrete, all in the hopes that would lead
to a new Yankees curse. And how would the Yankees
find out about this? Well, apparently to his fellow workers
ride him out. But the Yankees organization clean up the
shirt and said it to Boston with a T shirt
of their own, and at the jersey and the shirt
(05:04):
were actually auctioned for charity, or at least it has
a happy ending. So all right, gay, what do you have? Alright? Well, well,
this is just kind of funny to me. But inten
seventy eight, some kids were playing in the mud in
the backyard of the house in l a and they
were kind of you know, digging around that when they
uncovered something shiny. So they kept digging and eventually called
the cops because it turned out they had found a Ferrari.
(05:26):
Oh my god, that must have been so psyched about this. Yeah,
I mean, I'm surely we're Initially the car only had
five hundred miles on it and it was worth about
twenty K at the time. But sadly the kids didn't
get to keep it, and I don't even think they
got a finders to be The whole thing was apparently
an insurance scam and the guy would have got away
with it, but you know, these sky meddling kids. So
(05:48):
the car was ultimately sent back to the insurance company
who had you know, already paid out good money for
it to the owner. Uh, don't worry, though, the car
had a happy after life. It was auctioned off to
a guy named Brad Hours and he ended up having
a car registered with the license of course. All right,
so this one isn't exactly duplicitus it's more that the
(06:09):
game was buried out of shame. But I kind of
like it anyway. And that's Atri's notorious ET game. And
I think we've talked about this was before. I'm sure
you both know. The game is considered the worst video
game of all time. I think it was rushed to
market in something like thirty or thirty four days or
something like that. You know, the idea was that you
wandered aimlessly trying to find three pieces of a phone
(06:31):
in the hopes that ET can phone home. And that's stupid.
That's just such a bad idea for a game, right right, Well,
on top of the terrible plot, it was really buggy too,
and it was it was such an embarrassment that Atari
paid New Mexico to hide the eight hundred thousand copies
that couldn't sell into a landfill. But then the company
kept denying the whole thing. So the whole thing was
(06:52):
kind of this urban legend until when the games were excavated.
I mean, that's a great story, but how does that
kind of thing. We're like, if you're excavating for one
thing in particular, how do you know when you're Well,
that's the weird part about the story is the reports
on what they were finding is they actually started hitting
artifacts from that era like Donnie and Marie Osmond posters,
(07:14):
and there were even other games like Mrs. Pac Man
and Pale Soccer. But about a foot before they got
to the actual treasure trove, they found a local newspaper
with a nineteen eight three headline about this dumping. Isn't
that weird? It's like the best foreshadowing. Yeah, well all right,
well you guys, it's time to up your game to
try to match that. So it's the final round of
(07:34):
nine things, Mango, what do you have for your last fact? Uh? So,
so you know I can't follow rules, So I'm actually
gonna talk about an invention that I thought was awesome,
And uh do you know that Verizon developed a special
knife to cut into the ground. Didn't It's for laying
their fiber optics, But according to the New York Times,
the company uses like pressurized air to slice into the earth,
(07:55):
and one description I saw the slicing ability was compared
to like cutting butter a hot knife. But what's amazing
is that it's also a smart device. So while it
cuts clean through the ground, it actually doesn't cut pipes
or gas lines or even your sprinkler host. Oh wow,
that's actually pretty cool. All right, you broke the rules,
but I still like it's so Gabe, your turn. Well,
I was trying to figure out the most valuable thing
(08:16):
that was buried, and I came up with two contenders.
Of course, another rule breaker here. Alright, we'll go ahead
and give them to us. All right. So the first
is a time capital that was placed in the ground
in Amarillo, Texas. According to the book Oddball Texas, the
capital was put in the ground in honors a hundred
anniversary of Helium, and there are four capitals there intended
(08:38):
to be opened on various anniversaries, and the whole thing
shaped like a helium. Adam uh. And you know there's
some of your typical time capital fare from the era, included,
like ten cigarettes, their popular Hollywood movies. But the greatest
thing might be a ten dollars savings account past book
that's supposed to be turned over to the US Treasury
when the capitals opened in ernaing four interest at the moment,
(09:01):
which you know is estimated to be worth a cool
ten quadrillium by the time, which shimmy just enough to
solve any budget crisis. I like that. So, well, what's
your other fact? All right, well, this is a different
type of valuable. But in Russian scientists found his seed
that they assumed was buried by a ninth age world
(09:22):
And how would they know that? It was buried about
thirty below the perma frost according to National Geographic which
dates to about thirty two thousand years ago. But that's
not the weirdest part either. The seat has been encased
in nice and frosts and whatever, so it was a
little bit damaged. The scientists were still able to extract
tissues and replant them and viled and through this process
(09:45):
they managed to bring the flowering Siberian plants back to life.
Oh wow, that is incredible. So my fact is that
there's a steam train buried under New York City. I
feel like all your facts have to do a giant
transportation hiding under city. I know, that's my thing, man.
So that apparently in eighteen eighties six there was an
underground steam train line that was corrupt, so the city
(10:06):
just bricked it off and kept it underground, and over
the years the tunnel got used for bootlegging and smuggling,
and growing mushrooms apparently, but no one's been able to
find the giant steam engine. It's just a giant transportation
treasure waiting to be found. I love that well. I mean,
I think uh, heralda Special could uncover it for US's
gonna be right. Um. I do think the fact that
(10:28):
gave somehow uncovered both the futuristic answer to our budgetary
woes and hope for life existing in another thirty eight
thousand years. I think that's all amazing, and so I
think he deserves this one. Yeah, but I don't know.
Maybe we put an asterisk by his name and the
record books for that extra fact in there. Okay, that's fair.
I'm fine at that. We'll legit judge. All right. Well,
that's it for today's nine things. Thanks for listening to
(10:50):
Part Time Genius. Will be back with a regular episode tomorrow, y,
thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several
(11:11):
brilliant people who do the important things. We couldn't even
begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy
sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay
Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams, and
even Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
(11:32):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we do?
We forget Jason? Jason who
Part-Time Genius News
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Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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