Strange Odyssey

of you who didn't sleep through high school English. These are the first lines of Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey An eight hundred BCE. Homer wrote down the story of an ancient Greek's incredible journey to find his way home. Two thousand years later, another Greek went on his own journey to see if he could find Odysseus, the King of Old, right in his own backyard. The time described in the Odyssey is what historians call the Mysinean period.

Mycetaean Greece was made up of several distinct, sophisticated kingdoms that shared a common culture and language. According to Homer, Odysseus was the ruler of a Mysonian kingdom called Ithaca. In Homer's previous poem The Iliad, Odysseus led his troops into battle with the rest of the Greeks to sack the city at Troy. Probably his most famous contribution to

the legend was coming up with the Trojan horse. After the war, Odysseus angers Poseidon, the god of the Sea, and is cursed to wander the Mediterranean for ten whole years. He encounters monsters, sorceresses, the cyclops, and sirens before he finally makes it home to his wife and son in Ithaca. Now, for years, the island of Ithakei, off the western coast of Greece has claimed that it was the ancient site

of Odysseus his homeland Ithaca. Today you'll find dozens of things named after him there, from apartments to boat tours. The island's website calls it the home of Odysseus, and a statue of the ancient king watches over the harbor. Honestly, a whole cottage industry has sprung up marketing ithake as

Homeric Ithaca. But back in nineteen ninety one, a local man named MICUs Metexas began to think something didn't quite fit, namely because there were no mycene in Greek ruins on ithake Macchus was born and raised in Kefalonia, the island just to the west of Ahaki, and just like any proud Greek man, he spent hours as a schoolboy study in the Odyssey. As he read Homer's verses over and over, something began to bother him. Homer's description of Ithaca did

not match the island of ITHAKEI. First, there is the river. Homer describes Ithaca's port as being the mouth of a river. There are no rivers on Ithaca. And then there's the Cave of the Nymphs. In the Odyssey, Homer describes a great hidden sea cave that ships may enter from the harbor, but no such cave exists in Ehachi either. Finally, there's Raven's Rock, a geological feature that Odysseus uses as a meeting place for him and a friend to plot his

return to his throne. Many spots on a Thaki have been rumored to be this place, but none seem to really fit Homer's description. Macchus realized that while all these places don't exist on a THAKEI. They perfectly correspond to Kelonia. There is a harbor with the river flowing into it, a great lake trapped in a cave, and most importantly, the boulder that he'd grown up climbing as a boy, the boulder that everyone knows Aschricoptra, which means Raven's Rock.

Following these clues, Macchus zeroed in on the place near Raven's Rock where Homer says that Odysseus's palace was located, and he noticed something strange. Hidden behind a thick cops of trees was a series of roughly carved stones stacked together. He could already tell that they were very, very old. Following ancient directions from Homer himself, Macchus had stumbled upon

one of the largest Mysonyan tombs ever discovered. After decades of excavations, Macchus's discovery shakes down to this a giant beehive shaped tomb hidden in the side of the mountain, and although it had already been looted by ancient grave robbers, several artifacts remained which pointed toward it being the resting place of a Mysonian king and hidden in the grave

a strangely unique seal. You see in the Odyssey. Odysseus is known to be wearing a cloak pin which depicts a dog attacking a fawn, and hidden at the bottom of this grave was a small piece of carved crystal, the carving a hound pinning a deer to the ground. At this point, the historical record is not complete enough to definitively state whether this tomb is part of Ithaca

or if the body inside had belonged to Odysseus. In fact, it's hard to say whether Odysseus himself ever really existed, and the island of Athake has put up a fight, using bureaucracy to slow down investigation into the site. Odysseus had a long and difficult voyage home, but maybe after thousands of years and many more obstacles, the journey to find him again is almost over. John Denver's nineteen seventy one song take Me Home, Country Roads paints a beautiful

picture of West Virginia. It references both the rolling tree covered Blue Ridge Mountains and the crystal clear Shenandoah River. But West Virginia isn't all sunshine and roses. It has a darker side, one that is full of strange creatures. West Virginia is allegedly home to many cryptids, which are animals whose existence hasn't been proven yet. In West Virginia, the mothman is probably the most famous cryptid of all, but there are many others, like the snelly gaster sheep,

squatch than bat boy. If those sound ridiculous to you, it's because they are. But West Virginia has had other supernatural sightings that are more difficult to dismiss. In nineteen sixty six, for example, traveling salesman Woodrow Darrenberger was returning from a sales trip to Ohio. He was driving down the interstate towards his home in Mineral Wells, West Virginia. It was dark out and he was nearly home when

another car suddenly sped past him. He wouldn't have thought anything of it, except another vehicle of some kind followed right behind the first car. But this second vehicle was strange. It was larger than a car and it didn't have any lights. As Woodrow kept driving, his headlights illuminated more of the object. It was about eight feet long and had a sort of tulip shaped to it even more incredible. It had no wheels, and it hovered above the ground.

It rose into the air and then settled across the road, blocking Woodrow's path. He had no choice but to pull over. Before he knew what was happening, a voice in his head told him to roll down his window. He complied, only to find a man standing just outside his car. The man was illuminated by Woodrow's headlights and the cabin lights inside. He had dark hair and tan skin. He

was handsome, but otherwise looked more or less normal. He wore a dark trench coat, and underneath it was some sort of shirt that Woodrow could only describe as metallic. There was one other thing about the man that Woodrow found unnerving, though his smile. It never seemed to fade, and it felt out of place so late on the side of the road. According to Woodrow, the man began to speak, but his mouth did not move. He just kept smiling, and Woodrow heard the voice in his head.

Don't be frightened. The voice said, we wish you no harm, said that his name was Cold, and then he asked Woodrow about the city that was ahead, which Woodrow told him was called Parkersburg. Even stranger Cold asked if most all the people lived there, as if he didn't understand the concept of a city. Woodrow explained it to him, and then Cold said that his people referred to cities

as gatherings. Cold kept smiling, mouth never moving through this whole conversation, and then finally he said, we will see you again, and then got back into his aircraft and flew away. As soon as he got home, Woodrow reported all of this to the police. Unfortunately, he was just another in a long list of UFO witnesses throughout the nineteen sixties, but his story caught the attention of a UFO investigator named John Keel, who found Woodrow credible when

compared to many other UFO witnesses. Woodrow lived a very normal life prior to his sighting and was not prone to making up stories. Then, once John met him, he had him analyzed by a psychoanalyst who said that Woodrow was not suffering from mental illness. John spent more and more time in West Virginia, and while he was there

he met dozens of other people with similar stories. Woodrow went on to be interviewed about his sighting multiple times throughout his life, including on live TV in West Virginia, and as the years passed by, he claimed to have even more sightings of that same being named Cold who told him that his first name was Indrid and that he came from a distant planet. Now, if all of that sounds too ridiculous to believe, John Keel thought so too.

He often found that his interview subjects had a believable first sighting, only to share wilder and wilder stories as time went on. John didn't believe in aliens, but he did believe that some sort of psychic phenomenon was causing these sightings. In his opinion, West Virginia just had too many strange occurrences during this time for all of them to be made up. Was it a case of the researcher giving into his subject's delusions or is there something

out there in the woods. Well, if you're curious, make a stop in West Virginia on your next road trip. But if a mysterious aircraft lands in front of you on the highway, it might be best to just drive around it. 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 Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.