Fortune and Glory

Obsession is an endless, all consuming hunger that is never satisfied. English explorer Percy Fawcett had that hunger and it led him to the ends of the Earth. Born in Devon, England in eighteen sixty seven, Fawcett grew up surrounded by outdoorsmen and adventurers. His father was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, while his brother used his experiences as a mountain climber to influence the many adventure novels he wrote. He joined the British Army, then eventually got married and

started a family. He and his wife, Nina, had two sons and a daughter. Around the turn of the century, Fawcett followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a member of the Royal Geographical Society himself. He hoped his time in the RGS would help him hone his skills in cartography by surveying land in such regions as North Africa and eventually South America. South America was entirely new to the young Fawcett, who made his first trip there in nineteen

o six when he was thirty nine years old. He had been tasked by the r GS with exploring an unknown patch of jungle along the border between Bolivia and Brazil, and from the get go, it seems Fawcett's travels would be nothing short of extraordinary. Several months after he first arrived in Bolivia, he encountered wildlife unlike anything he'd ever seen back in England, including an anaconda that was over sixty feet long, which, of course Fawcett shots and killed.

The explorers stories of enormous and dangerous animals were certainly entertaining, but rarely believed by his more scholarly colleagues. Still, something about the area captivated him that he didn't let professional ridicule stop him from finding out more Fossett made several return trips to South America over the years. At first his visits were met with hostility by the local tribes, but through generous offerings and friendly behavior, he was welcomed

into their villages as a guest. There was something Faucett noticed about the native people he met. They had thrived for generations in one of the harshest environments on the planet, without the conveniences of the modern world. Fossett interpreted their survival as evidence of something more than he had seen. He believed that somewhere deep within South America there was a place, not just a place, a city, one that had been lost for thousands of years, all but consumed

by the jungle. His theory were confirmed by the discovery of a journal that had been written by an early Portuguese explorer over a hundred and fifty years earlier. Within its pages, the explorer had described the abandoned ruins of an ancient advanced civilization. It was massive in size, with great big arches and a temple, the walls of which

had been overrun with drawings and hieroglyphs. The documents had been cataloged in the National Library of Brazil simply as Manuscript five twelve, and the mystery of its origins were surpassed only by the mysteries within its ten pages, mysteries which had taken over Fawcett's imagination and fueled his new obsession.

He called it the Lost City of Z, but the adventurer did an attempt to find Z until after he'd done a tour of duty in the First World War, after which he came back to Brazil with the sole purpose of locating his lost city. He didn't get far, though the weather it took a turn for the worse, and Fawcett was struck with a bad fever, forcing him to turn back. But he wasn't done. He knew the Lost City of Z was still out there, waiting to

be rediscovered. His contemporaries called him crazy for wanting to try. They hadn't believed his wild stories before, and they certainly didn't believe him as he fought to fund a second mission five years later, though Fawcett returned. The fifty seven year old was joined by his son Jack and Jack's friend Raley Rimmel. They focused their efforts on the deep, lush jungles of the Matto Grosso region where Fawcett believes

Z to exist, and sadly, that's where their story ended. Fawcett, his son, and their companion all disappeared on their expedition. Subsequent efforts to recover their bodies turned up nothing, and as for Z, well, it's still lost. To Somewhere out there might be a city waiting to be found, a city that has claimed the hearts and minds of explorers across generations. A city was legend and lore have been built on one thing, obsession. Certain things can evoke conflicting

emotions inside us. The sound of a crying baby can either stir up empathy or frustration. A clown can be funny or terrifying, And in most cases, the site of a balloon is something to inspire joy and happiness. Like I said, in most cases. As America and Germany were looking for their next big weapon to end World War Two,

Japan was studying the weather. A cold jet stream of air had been detected about thirty thousand feet above the country and was found to be so strong it could carry a weather balloon five thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean in only three days. Using this knowledge, scientists went to work. They constructed thirty foot long spheres out of rubberized silk filled with hydrogen, which were then tethered to mechanical instruments and dozens of sandbags. Temperature fluctuations had to

be taken into account. Sunlight during the day caused the silk to expand at nights when the temperatures dropped, so with the balloons to prolong their journeys, a system was engineered using an altometer. If the balloons dropped below thirty thousand feet, two sandbags at a time would be cut loose automatically, allowing the balloons to maintain their altitude. If they flew too high or the pressure inside them became too dangerous, hydrogen was vented out to keep them balanced.

For three days, the balloons were carried along the jet stream over the ocean to the west, at which point they discarded their ballast and dropped to Earth. The balloons weren't devised to study weather patterns, though they were bombs. Between nineteen forty four and nineteen forty five, Japanese forces launched more than nine thousand balloons toward the United States, each one carrying a combination of TNT, thermite, gunpowder, and

other explosive chemicals. Out of those nine thousand, only about three hundred actually made it to their intended destinations. They landed all over North America, in places like Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, and even parts of Canada. The Japanese had been mulling over a plan for retaliation after American forces bomb Tokyo

in the Doolittle Rate of nineteen forty two. They couldn't fly man aircraft to the United States as their planes were incapable of traveling those long distances, so the balloons provided an easier way of inflicting mass casualties from overseas. The plan was not without its flaws, though, most balloons fell into the Pacific without harming anyone, and the death toll was far lower than expected. Unfortunately, several of the incendiary devices that did cross into America wound up causing

quite a bit of destruction. Reverend Archie Mitchell had recently become the pastor of a church in Bli, Oregon. He'd wanted to get to know the youth of his congregation a little better, so on May fifth of ninety five, he and his wife, who was pregnant with their first child, invited five students from their Sunday school class out on a picnic. A couple drove the children forty five minutes

outside of Bligh to the Bucala Gerhardt Mountain. Once Mitchell had parked his car, everyone disembarked to explore the surrounding area. There was a creek at the bottom of a small hill, but it wasn't the rushing water that had caught the children's attention. A young girl named Joan Patsky noticed a large white object on the ground. The children and Elsie gathered around it. Mrs Mitchell beckoned her husband to join her and come see what they'd found, noting it looked

like some kind of big balloon. He tried to warn them from the car, screaming at them to back away from the object blanketing the grass, but he couldn't get the words out in time. One of the other children touched it, his curiosity getting the better of him. Elsie, her unborn child, and the students were all killed. In a less tragic incident, one Japanese balloon fell on a power line in Hanford, Washington. The resulting blackout put nearby

Hanford engineer works out of Commission. It wasn't down for long, though, and resumed operations once the debris had been cleared and the power had been restored. What did Hanford Engineer Works make plutonium? The same plutonium used to fuel a bomb the Allies would drop five months later on Nagasaki, Japan. 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 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 over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye