The 9 Weirdest Things Intentionally Buried By People

in that shallow water there. I mean, I mean that just sounds lazy. You're like careless or something, I know. But you know, historians looking at old photos apparently said it looked like a forest of masts, and some ships got run aground to be used as bars or hotels. But what's even weirder than that, According to the National Geographic if you sunk a ship, you could actually claim the land under it, So a bunch of the ship's

got sunk deliberately. In fact, today, according to the San Francisco m t A, if you've ever taken the Muni train to the Embarcadero station, you've actually passed through a ship's hole without knowing it. And that's the first of today's not Things, all about the weirdest stuff intentionally buried by people. Welcome to part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Ticketer. And behind the soundproof glass assembling an Ikea Schmore board

is our producer Tristan McNeil. Good job, Tristan, We've got our wonderful research. Extraordinary gave Luisier joining us as well. So, Mango, how do we decide on this week's nine things topic? Well, you know, you and I were brainstorming, or we were about to brainstorm topics when this Twitter user Jason st wrote in with the request. And of course, you know we love requests and listener suggestions, and Jason had a

great one. He asked if we could do a list of the weirdest things intentionally buried by pole, which of course made a smile. Yeah, it's a great idea, all right, So we took him up on the challenge and I started with the ships of San Francisco. So, Gabe, how are you today? I'm doing well? All right, Well, we're gonna put you on the spot and let you go. Let you go next. Okay, cool, I can do that. Actually, I want to start with the problem of beach whale.

All right. So sometimes, as you might expect, when it dead whales shows up on shore, you can kind of just let nature take its course. But the problem is, you know, that causes a big smell, and it can take months or even years for the whale to fully decomposed. So another option is to cut it up and take the pieces to a landfill. But you know that's that's some grizzons. Yeah, that's some grizzly work. And and again

the stench. Uh So a sart option is to make the same mistake the Oregon the Highway Division did and then King seventy, and that's to use dynamite and you know, blow up a beach whale. Yeah, this is possibly the worst idea and definitely not recommended. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has been tasked with taking care of all stranded marine mammals in that he sometimes recommends

simply burying the whale. And what's crazy about that is the effort it takes to bury in eighty thousand pounds creatures. According to Wire, you need a hold. It's at least two stories deep, and that's because you need to cover the whale in a minimum of ten feet of stands. It's a lot of work, but it actually happens with

some frequency off the California coat. That's crazy. Well, uh, you know, since you started with dead bodies, the first thing I wanted to talk about was the Pringles inventor Frederick Bauer, who I remember was cremated and buried in a Pringles can. But when I actually looked him up, I found out he wasn't actually the only snack inventor who wanted a tasty tribute in his afterlife. So the Dorrito's inventor, Arch West was buried in an urned that was dusted in a layer of Doritos. No way. Yeah,

and just because you're wondering. While he didn't seem to mind the blazon Offlow or Pizza Supreme or even the third degree burned scorch in habit narrow flavors, according to a Washington Post article, he took one bite of the late Night, All Night or Cheeseburger Dorrito's and had to spin him out. Actually saw that Washington Post eulogy, and I like the way it ended. I think it said ashes to ashes, crunch to crunch. Alright, so we've got ships,

whales and to snack food geniuses. How about we tackle something a little more I don't know, conniving. So let's think about things that were buried out of spite or I don't know, less than pure intentions. Mango, you got one? Yeah, I actually do so. I don't know if you remember this, but in two thousand and eight, the New York Yankees management presided over an excavation ceremony where they dug up

a David Ortiz Red Sox jersey. Apparently this construction worker from the Bronx secretly buried under two and a half feet of concrete, all in the hopes that would lead to a new Yankees curse. And how would the Yankees find out about this? Well, apparently to his fellow workers ride him out. But the Yankees organization clean up the shirt and said it to Boston with a T shirt of their own, and at the jersey and the shirt were actually auctioned for charity, or at least it has

a happy ending. So all right, gay, what do you have? Alright? Well, well, this is just kind of funny to me. But inten seventy eight, some kids were playing in the mud in the backyard of the house in l a and they were kind of you know, digging around that when they uncovered something shiny. So they kept digging and eventually called the cops because it turned out they had found a Ferrari.

Oh my god, that must have been so psyched about this. Yeah, I mean, I'm surely we're Initially the car only had five hundred miles on it and it was worth about twenty K at the time. But sadly the kids didn't get to keep it, and I don't even think they got a finders to be The whole thing was apparently an insurance scam and the guy would have got away

with it, but you know, these sky meddling kids. So the car was ultimately sent back to the insurance company who had you know, already paid out good money for it to the owner. Uh, don't worry, though, the car had a happy after life. It was auctioned off to a guy named Brad Hours and he ended up having a car registered with the license of course. All right, so this one isn't exactly duplicitus it's more that the game was buried out of shame. But I kind of

like it anyway. And that's Atri's notorious ET game. And I think we've talked about this was before. I'm sure you both know. The game is considered the worst video game of all time. I think it was rushed to market in something like thirty or thirty four days or something like that. You know, the idea was that you wandered aimlessly trying to find three pieces of a phone in the hopes that ET can phone home. And that's stupid.

That's just such a bad idea for a game, right right, Well, on top of the terrible plot, it was really buggy too, and it was it was such an embarrassment that Atari paid New Mexico to hide the eight hundred thousand copies that couldn't sell into a landfill. But then the company kept denying the whole thing. So the whole thing was kind of this urban legend until when the games were excavated. I mean, that's a great story, but how does that

kind of thing. We're like, if you're excavating for one thing in particular, how do you know when you're Well, that's the weird part about the story is the reports on what they were finding is they actually started hitting artifacts from that era like Donnie and Marie Osmond posters, and there were even other games like Mrs. Pac Man and Pale Soccer. But about a foot before they got to the actual treasure trove, they found a local newspaper

with a nineteen eight three headline about this dumping. Isn't that weird? It's like the best foreshadowing. Yeah, well all right, well you guys, it's time to up your game to try to match that. So it's the final round of nine things, Mango, what do you have for your last fact? Uh? So, so you know I can't follow rules, So I'm actually gonna talk about an invention that I thought was awesome, And uh do you know that Verizon developed a special

knife to cut into the ground. Didn't It's for laying their fiber optics, But according to the New York Times, the company uses like pressurized air to slice into the earth, and one description I saw the slicing ability was compared to like cutting butter a hot knife. But what's amazing is that it's also a smart device. So while it cuts clean through the ground, it actually doesn't cut pipes or gas lines or even your sprinkler host. Oh wow,

that's actually pretty cool. All right, you broke the rules, but I still like it's so Gabe, your turn. Well, I was trying to figure out the most valuable thing that was buried, and I came up with two contenders. Of course, another rule breaker here. Alright, we'll go ahead and give them to us. All right. So the first is a time capital that was placed in the ground

in Amarillo, Texas. According to the book Oddball Texas, the capital was put in the ground in honors a hundred anniversary of Helium, and there are four capitals there intended to be opened on various anniversaries, and the whole thing shaped like a helium. Adam uh. And you know there's some of your typical time capital fare from the era, included,

like ten cigarettes, their popular Hollywood movies. But the greatest thing might be a ten dollars savings account past book that's supposed to be turned over to the US Treasury when the capitals opened in ernaing four interest at the moment, which you know is estimated to be worth a cool ten quadrillium by the time, which shimmy just enough to solve any budget crisis. I like that. So, well, what's your other fact? All right, well, this is a different

type of valuable. But in Russian scientists found his seed that they assumed was buried by a ninth age world And how would they know that? It was buried about thirty below the perma frost according to National Geographic which dates to about thirty two thousand years ago. But that's not the weirdest part either. The seat has been encased in nice and frosts and whatever, so it was a

little bit damaged. The scientists were still able to extract tissues and replant them and viled and through this process they managed to bring the flowering Siberian plants back to life. Oh wow, that is incredible. So my fact is that there's a steam train buried under New York City. I feel like all your facts have to do a giant transportation hiding under city. I know, that's my thing, man.

So that apparently in eighteen eighties six there was an underground steam train line that was corrupt, so the city just bricked it off and kept it underground, and over the years the tunnel got used for bootlegging and smuggling, and growing mushrooms apparently, but no one's been able to find the giant steam engine. It's just a giant transportation treasure waiting to be found. I love that well. I mean, I think uh, heralda Special could uncover it for US's

gonna be right. Um. I do think the fact that gave somehow uncovered both the futuristic answer to our budgetary woes and hope for life existing in another thirty eight thousand years. I think that's all amazing, and so I think he deserves this one. Yeah, but I don't know. Maybe we put an asterisk by his name and the record books for that extra fact in there. Okay, that's fair. I'm fine at that. We'll legit judge. All right. Well, that's it for today's nine things. Thanks for listening to

Part Time Genius. Will be back with a regular episode tomorrow, y, thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things. We couldn't even begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy

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