For Sale By Owner

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

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, 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 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 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

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

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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, 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 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, 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,

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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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

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, 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.