For this Thanksgiving episode of the Futility Closet podcast, enjoy seven lateral thinking puzzles that didn't make it onto our regular shows. Solve along with us as we explore some strange scenarios using only yes-or-no questions. Happy Thanksgiving! You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly , or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset . If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com . Thanks...
Nov 24, 2014•26 min•Ep. 35
Between 1837 and 1904, rumors spread of a strange bounding devil who haunted southern England, breathing blue flames and menacing his victims with steel talons. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we review the career of Spring-Heeled Jack and speculate about his origins. We also recount Alexander Graham Bell's efforts to help the wounded James Garfield before his doctors' treatments could kill him and puzzle over why a police manual gives instructions in a language that none of the o...
Nov 17, 2014•37 min•Ep. 34
Abraham Lincoln's eldest son, Robert, is the subject of a grim coincidence in American history: He's the only person known to have been present or nearby at the assassinations of three American presidents. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we describe the circumstances of each misfortune and explore some further coincidences regarding Robert's brushes with fatality. We also consider whether a chimpanzee deserves a day in court and puzzle over why Australia would demolish a perfectly...
Nov 10, 2014•36 min•Ep. 33
In August 1977, Ohio astronomer Jerry Ehman discovered a radio signal so exciting that he wrote "Wow!" in the margin of its computer printout. Arriving from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, the signal bore all the characteristics of an alien transmission. But despite decades of eager listening, astronomers have never heard it repeated. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the story of the "Wow! signal," which remains an intriguing, unexplained anomaly in the...
Nov 03, 2014•30 min•Ep. 32
For 500 years of European history, animals were given criminal trials: Bulls, horses, dogs, and sheep were arrested, jailed, given lawyers, tried, and punished at community expense. In the latest Futility Closet podcast we'll explore this strange practice and try to understand its significance to the people of the time. We'll also rediscover the source of Futility Closet's name and puzzle over how a ringing bell relates to a man's death. Sources for our segment on animal trials: Anila Srivastava...
Oct 27, 2014•31 min•Ep. 31
Nova Scotia's Oak Island hides a famously booby-trapped treasure cache -- or so goes the legend. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast, we review the many attempts to recover the treasure and wonder who could have engineered such a site, what might be hidden there -- and whether, indeed, it contains anything at all. We also puzzle over what a woman's errands can tell us about how her husband died. Sources for our segment on Oak Island: "The Secrets of Oak Island", Joe Nickell, Skeptical...
Oct 20, 2014•33 min•Ep. 30
In 1828, a 16-year-old boy appeared in Nuremberg, claiming that he'd spent his whole life alone in a dark cell. In the latest Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the short, sad life of Kaspar Hauser and ponder who he might have been. We'll also revisit the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, encounter some self-landing planes, and puzzle over why a man would bury 15 luxury cars in the desert. Sources for our segment on Kaspar Hauser: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Lost Prince: The Unsolved Mystery of K...
Oct 06, 2014•37 min•Ep. 29
Sherlock Holmes was based on a real man, a physician who trained Arthur Conan Doyle at the University of Edinburgh. During his medical lectures, Joseph Bell regularly astonished his students with insights into his patients' lives and characters. "From close observation and deduction, gentlemen," he said, "it is possible to make a diagnosis that will be correct in any and every case. However, you must not neglect to ratify your deductions." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll mee...
Sep 29, 2014•32 min•Ep. 28
In September 1940 Polish army captain Witold Pilecki volunteered to be imprisoned at Auschwitz. His reports first alerted the Allies to the horrors at the camp and helped to warn the world that a holocaust was taking place. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Pilecki into the camp, hear his reports of the atrocities he witnessed, and learn why his name isn't better known today. We'll also meet the elusive Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus and puzzle over how hitting a target...
Sep 22, 2014•34 min•Ep. 27
In 1810 someone told hundreds of London merchants that Mrs. Tottenham at 54 Berners Street had requested their services. She hadn't. For a full day the street was packed with crowds of deliverymen struggling to reach a single door -- and the practical joker was never caught. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll hear descriptions of the chaos in Berners Street and meet Theodore Hook, the man who probably planned the whole thing. We'll also revisit the mysterious corpse found on an...
Sep 15, 2014•32 min•Ep. 26
On Dec. 1, 1948, a well-dressed corpse appeared on a beach in South Australia. Despite 66 years of investigation, no one has ever been able to establish who he was, how he came to be there, or even how he died. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll delve into the mystery of the Somerton man, a fascinating tale that involves secret codes, a love triangle, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. We'll also hear Franklin Adams praise the thesaurus and puzzle over some surprising consequenc...
Sep 08, 2014•30 min•Ep. 25
William McGonagall has been called "the only truly memorable bad poet in our language," responsible for tin-eared verse that could "give you cauliflower ears just from silent reading": Alas! Lord and Lady Dalhousie are dead, and buried at last, Which causes many people to feel a little downcast; And both lie side by side in one grave, But I hope God in His goodness their souls will save. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll sample McGonagall's writings, follow the poor poet's sad...
Sep 01, 2014•30 min•Ep. 24
On New Year's Day 1886, London grocer Edwin Bartlett was discovered dead in his bed with a lethal quantity of liquid chloroform in his stomach. Strangely, his throat showed none of the burns that chloroform should have caused. His wife, who admitted to having the poison, was tried for murder, but the jury acquitted her because "we do not think there is sufficient evidence to show how or by whom the chloroform was administered." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll learn about Edw...
Aug 25, 2014•34 min•Ep. 23
On Feb. 9, 1855, the residents of Devon in southern England awoke to find a bewildering set of footprints in the newfallen snow. "These are to be found in fields, gardens, roads, house-tops, & other likely and unlikely places, deeply embedded in snow," ran one contemporary account. "The shape was a hoof." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll examine the surviving descriptions of the odd marks and consider the various explanations that have been offered. We'll also revisit the...
Aug 18, 2014•36 min•Ep. 22
In December 1943, American bomber pilot Charlie Brown was flying a severely damaged B-17 out of Germany when he looked out the cockpit window and saw "the world's worst nightmare" off his right wing -- a fully armed German fighter whose pilot was staring back at him. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the strange drama that ensued, in which German fighter ace Franz Stigler weighed the human impulse to spare the wounded bomber against his patriotic duty to shoot him down....
Aug 04, 2014•33 min•Ep. 21
In 1944, fully a year before the first successful nuclear test, Astounding Science Fiction magazine published a remarkably detailed description of an atomic bomb. The story, by the otherwise undistinguished author Cleve Cartmill, sent military intelligence racing to discover the source of his information -- and his motives for publishing it. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the investigation that ensued, which involved legendary editor John W. Campbell and illuminated ...
Jul 28, 2014•38 min•Ep. 20
In 1898, 19-year-old W. Reginald Bray made a thorough study of British postal regulations, which laid out rules for mailing everything from bees to elephants and promised that "all letters must be delivered as addressed." He resolved to give the service "a severe test without infringing its regulations." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the antics that followed, in which Bray sent turnips, bicycle pumps, shoes, and even himself through the British post. We'll also symp...
Jul 21, 2014•35 min•Ep. 19
In 1942 Navy lieutenant Ernest Cody and ensign Charles Adams piloted a blimp out of San Francisco into the Pacific, looking for Japanese subs. A few hours later the blimp drifted back to land, empty. The parachutes and life raft were in their proper places and the radio was in working order, but there was no trace of Cody or Adams. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the events of that strange day and delve into the inquest that followed. We'll also sample some unpublishe...
Jul 14, 2014•32 min•Ep. 18
In 1943 German submarines were devastating the merchant convoys carrying supplies to Britain. Unable to protect them with aircraft or conventional ships, the resource-strapped Royal Navy considered an outlandish solution: a 2-million-ton aircraft carrier made of ice. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we follow the strange history of the project, which Winston Churchill initially praised as dazzling but which ended in ignominy at the bottom of a Canadian lake. We'll also discover a l...
Jul 07, 2014•31 min•Ep. 17
In 1864 Nevada mining merchant Reuel Gridley found a unique way to raise money for wounded Union soldiers: He repeatedly auctioned the same 50-pound sack of flour, raising $250,000 from sympathetic donors across the country. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll discover the origins of Gridley's floury odyssey. We'll also hear H.L. Mencken's translation of the Declaration of Independence into American English and try to figure out where tourism increases the price of electricity. ...
Jun 30, 2014•29 min•Ep. 16
In 1900 three lighthouse keepers vanished from a remote, featureless island in Scotland's Outer Hebrides. The lighthouse was in good order and the log showed no sign of trouble, but no trace of the keepers has ever been found. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll explore the conundrum of the men's disappearance -- a classic mystery of sea lore. We'll also ponder the whereabouts of Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday, admire Esaw Wood's quest for a wood saw that would saw wood, and ...
Jun 23, 2014•32 min•Ep. 15
Stewardess Violet Jessop was both cursed and blessed -- during the 1910s she met disaster on all three of the White Star Line's Olympic class of gigantic ocean liners, but she managed to escape each time. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll accompany Violet on her three ill-fated voyages, including the famous sinkings of the Titanic and the Britannic , and learn the importance of toothbrushes in ocean disasters. We'll also play with the International Date Line and puzzle over th...
Jun 16, 2014•32 min•Ep. 14
Georgia slaves Ellen and William Craft made a daring bid for freedom in 1848: Ellen dressed as a white man and, attended by William as her servant, undertook a perilous 1,000-mile journey by carriage, train, and steamship to the free state of Pennsylvania in the North. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the couple's harrowing five-day adventure through the slave-owning South. We'll also discover the best place in the United States to commit a crime and sample the ...
Jun 09, 2014•36 min•Ep. 13
The New York Times proposed an outrageous undertaking in 1908: An automobile race westward from New York to Paris, a journey of 22,000 miles across all of North America and Asia in an era when the motorcar was "the most fragile and capricious thing on earth." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the six teams who took up the challenge and attempted "the most perilous trip ever undertaken by man." We'll also see how a tomahawk linked Alec Guinness and Grace Kelly for 25 yea...
Jun 02, 2014•29 min•Ep. 12
Irish practical joker Horace de Vere Cole orchestrated his masterpiece in 1910: He dressed four friends as Abyssinian princes and inveigled a tour of a British battleship. One of the friends, improbably, was Virginia Woolf disguised in a false beard and turban. We'll describe how the prank was inspired and follow the six through their tension-filled visit to the HMS Dreadnought . We'll also examine the value of whistles to Benjamin Franklin and present the next Futility Closet Challenge....
May 26, 2014•33 min•Ep. 11
When Albert Marr joined the South African army in 1915, he received permission to bring along his pet baboon, Jackie. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Jackie's adventures in England, Egypt, and Belgium, his work for the Red Cross after the war, and his triumphant return to Pretoria in 1919. We'll also meet a Rhode Island lighthouse keeper's daughter who saved the lives of 18 people over a period of 48 years, and present the next Futility Closet Challenge....
May 19, 2014•34 min•Ep. 10
After losing his feet in an accident in the 1880s, South Africa railway worker James "Jumper" Wide found an unlikely friend in a baboon named Jack. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll learn how Jumper taught Jack to work as a signalman on the railway line, where he won the trust of both authorities and passengers. We'll also meet an Englishman who dreamed the winners of horse races, ponder the strange case of the Stringfellow Acid Pits, and present the next Futility Close...
May 12, 2014•34 min•Ep. 9
In 1888 a mixed-breed terrier appointed himself mascot of America's railway postal service, accompanying mailbags throughout the U.S. and eventually traveling around the world. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll recount Owney's postal adventures and the wave of human affection that followed him. We'll also look at an Air Force pilot who dropped candy on parachutes to besieged German children in 1948, learn the link between drug lord Pablo Escobar and feral hippos in Colo...
May 05, 2014•33 min•Ep. 8
Two weeks before Charles Lindbergh's famous flight, a pair of French aviators attempted a similar feat. Their brave journey might have changed history -- but they disappeared en route. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the flight of the "White Bird" -- and ponder what became of it. We'll also examine a proposal to build hippo ranches in the Louisiana bayou in 1910, investigate historical outbreaks of dancing, laughing, and other strange behavior, and present the ...
Apr 28, 2014•30 min•Ep. 7
The 1850s saw a strange experiment in the American West: The U.S. Army imported 70 camels for help in managing the country's suddenly enormous hinterland. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll see how the animals acquitted themselves in an unfamiliar land under inexperienced human masters. We'll also learn a surprising theory regarding the origin of zebra stripes; follow the further adventures of self-mailing ex-slave Henry "Box" Brown; ask whether a well-wrought piano can ...
Apr 21, 2014•33 min•Ep. 6
