Amazing Story

which sent it crashing through the window. Never mind the bat in the kid's hand. Richard sharp Shaver also had some wild stories in his back pockets. Born in Virginia in seven, Richard of actually grew up to work in a factory where one day in nineteen thirty two, he experienced a bizarre event. It was around that time that he realized that his welding gun had become calibrated in such a way that it gave him the ability to

hear other men's thoughts. Not only that, apparently the signal was so strong that he was able to hear demonic beans deep below the surface of the Earth as they tortured other people. Now, the story behind how he came to possess these powers changed almost every time he told it, but he always swore that it was true. Richard eventually had to quit his job, but the factory. He also

gave up his home. As he put it, he became a hobo for several years before writing a letter to the popular science fiction magazine called Amazing Stories back in nineteen forty three. In the letter, Richard told the editors that he had discovered Man tongue, an ancient proto human language that predated all other known languages on Earth. Every syllable and sound in Man tongue had a double meaning, and Richard could translate those sounds using a special formula

he developed. He provided editor Ray Palmer with that formulas so that he could see for himself. Palmer used his technique to reveal the hidden meanings to a handful of words, and then replied to Richard asking him how he had discovered this language. Richard had been prepared for that question with a ten thousand word explanation. He told Palmer that mantongue had originated among a prehistoric alien race that were

technologically advanced beyond anything they had ever seen. They had carved out massive cities under the Earth, but fled the planet due to the Sun's harmful rays. Not all of them had left, though, and those who remained behind were split into two different groups. The Terrots were a minority who had retained their humanity. The other group devolved into

beast like creatures known as Darros or detrimental robots. The Darros, he claimed, still occupied those cities underground, occasionally snatching a person from the service to take them down below. Those humans were then tortured and fed to the Darros. Those awful creatures had been known to communicate with aliens in space and use rocket ships to get around. How did Richard know all of this well. He claimed to have been captured by the Darros and held against his will

for years. Palmer was entertained by the story, and he fleshed it out into a novella, which he then published in Amazing Stories in March of The magazine had gotten its fair share of letters to the editor before, but Richard's stories seemed to have sparked a movement. Thousands of letters poured into Palmer's office from readers who said that they had also encountered the Darros and heard voices inside

their heads, just as Richard had. Back in nineteen thirty two, one woman told Palmer that she had been taken captive in Paris and was kidnapped after writing a secret elevator into the building's sub basement. She was held in the underground caverns until a terrorists found her and let her go. It seems that Richard's story hadn't just connected with readers, it had spawned an entire organization known as the Richard Mystery Club, and local chapters started popping up all over America.

Richard continued to supply Amazing Stories with his well Amazing Stories. The magazine published his tales for years until a massive letter writing campaign forced them to stop. Authors like Harlan Ellison called Richard a publicity hound just looking for attention, while other readers believed his stories were symptoms of mental illness. Whatever the reason, Amazing Stories cut ties with Richard in

but he never cut ties with his prehistoric races. He started writing about the artifacts that he'd found that backed up his claims, such as books made of rocks with text and pictures etched inside them. He never again experienced the kind of success that he'd found while writing for Amazing Stories, though decades later his photographs and art would go on display in museums all over the country. But as hails of prehistoric beings living below the earth were

written off as run of the mills science fiction. Through it all, Richard sharp Shaver continued to believe that his stories were true, as did the thousands of witnesses who wrote into the magazine with their own frightening recollections. Was Richard telling the truth? It's difficult to know for sure until we do, though, it's probably best to watch our step and avoid those secret elevators. Big ideas often start

out small. We solve a tiny problem that we deal with every day, and then our solution finds its way to others with similar problems. It grows, and all we had to do was give it a little light. In nineteen sixteen, Westinghouse engineer Frank Conrad started a small experimental

radio station out of his Pennsylvania garage. During World War Two, Conrad moved his operation to the top of the westing House factory in Pittsburgh once the war ended, The westing House Company, with Conrad's help launched the first commercially licensed radio station in America called k d k A. Over the years, radio would go through several transformations, from transmitting wartime news and information to broadcasting ads, supported entertainment, and

everything in between. Heck, you might have learned about this podcast by listening to the radio, and as the technology grew, so did broadcast signals. However, there were certain areas of the world where radio waves just couldn't reach. During the nineteen sixties, Millet Morgan, a radio physics professor at Dartmouth,

had one particular place in mind, Antarctica. He had discovered that lightning and auroras generated natural radio waves and believed that those waves could be manipulated into carrying broadcasts from other countries or even submarines. His idea was simple, at least he thought so. He would generate artificial versions of these natural waves, which he called whistlers, using an island,

yeah an entire island. He began his search for the perfect venue in the Pacific Ocean, which possessed numerous islands of the appropriate size and shape. Unfortunately, these islands were home to freshwater lenses, thin layers of fresh groundwater that sat atop heavier salt water. These lenses would have caused interference with any nearby radio signals. His next potential location looked a lot more promising. It was called Deception Island,

a volcanic island off the coast of Antarctica. A profitable ceiling operation had been built on Deception Island in the early eighteen hundreds until the local seal population was close to going extinct. Then it became a hot spot for whalers, who erected crude homes and factories there until the nineteen thirties when their industry collapsed and Deception Island seemed perfect on paper. The area was known to produce a large

number of the whistlers needed to carry a signal. It's ring like lagoon even had a name made for radio telephon Bay. Morgan drew up plans for his island antenna. He would bounce radio waves between a web of transmission lines and the local mountain ranges. As the waves relayed back and forth, they would concentrate into a signal that could be transmitted back to military subs in the area or listeners on the island itself. Now, Morgan's proposal was

never put into action. But he wasn't alone in believing that the earth itself could be used as an antenna. As early as nineteen o four, U. S. Army General George Owen Squire realized that trees could do the talking. In nineteen Squire climbed up an oak tree near Washington, d C. And hammered a nail into its trunk. Then he ran an insulated wire down to an old Army radio back on the ground. The tree became an ton of that carried a signal from Germany four thousand miles away,

right to Squire's ears. With some fine tuning, he found that he could pick up messages from ships and other locations all over the world. Scientific American wrote about Squire's fluorophone and refer to the transmissions it picked up as Flora Graham's. His efforts were tested again in nineteen seventy five, when a group of scientists traveled to South America and compared their artificial antenna that they brought with them to

those made of the local trees. After a thorough test in the Panamanian jungle, they determined that it would be possible to cultivate a forest designed exclusively for collecting and broadcasting radio signals over vast distances, all of that power from something as simple as a tree. Curious to say the least. In the end, maybe it's a good thing that the birds outside our windows only have their whistles and warbles to wake us up with in the morning.

Imagine the noise complaint if someone plugged them microphone into a maple tree. 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 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,