The Mysterious Star-Shaped Towers of Sichuan Province

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.

Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel.

Our colleague Matt is on Adventures. They called me Ben. We are joined with our guest producer, Matt the Madman. Still, most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Uh No.

Should we give a.

Little bit of context before we get into today's story.

I guess so to why we might sound a little punchy, a little bit different, Yeah, a little different. We are coming to you, not live live for us. I guess from the web summit in Qatar? What do you say Ben? Is it cut her or kutar?

It?

Usually when you pronounce it in the Western world, it's okay to say Qatar. People know what you're talking about. The correct pronunciation, from what I understand, is something more like cultter cutter.

And we are in the wonderful, beautiful, very futuristic city of Doha.

That is correct. We will be rejoining Matt now. People know that we've been on the road quite a bit, quite a bit looking forward to being homeward bound. As Paul Simon and Three Dogs once said.

The three dog the Night of the three Dogs.

Do you know why it's called three dog night.

I've never really looked at so that bank just used my imagination and had probably my own narrative or with the three dogs and that night question.

Apparently because apparently three dog night is inspired by this idiom or this saying in Australia that when things get really cold you would sleep with three of your dogs instead of one.

Why not make it an even four.

I don't know what a four dog night looks like. We are very much punching kids. Yeah, it's funny for us, as we wanted to. You know, there are so many parts of the world that remain unexplored. Here in this part of the world, there's so much hidden history. Getting in we saw, you know, ancient cities out and forts out in the desert. Maybe we'll be able to visit them. But tonight today we have something more on our minds.

Yeah it is, and it is a hidden history episode. We are here Ben and I for some ridiculous history activities. So this is almost like a crossover in a way, right it.

Very much is? It very much is. And we can't shout out our guest super producer, Matt well enough, who's gonna be so so freaking tired of us?

No? No, no, we're great, We're nice.

Yeah you say that now Matt's doing just that.

Out.

Yeah, all right, that's our We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsors and then we'll dive in.

Let's do it.

Here are the facts. No, let's travel to switch one China.

Let's why not. We're already on the road. What's another ten hour flight between friends?

That was the thing. I remember. It was obnoxious because I realized it the moment when we hadn't slept and I thought, dang, Remember I was telling you, like, if I know where you're going with yeah, if I just kept going Japan, yeah that I will have circumnavigated the globe.

Oh, man, I think you should do it. Ben, I fully support you, and I think iHeart Financing will also support this endeavor.

Do you want to go?

Yes?

Do you want to go? Matt? What are you doing later?

And Matt says okay, yeah, yeah, all right.

So if we do that, then on the way we will fly over Sichuan, we'll fly over part of Tibet. What's your do you remember? Do you remember back in the nineteen I want to say the nineteen nineties when a lot of Western musicians rallied for a Tibetan concert.

The Tibetan Freedom Concert, I believe founded by the Beastie Boys. The Beastie Boys, they were really a big part of that. Adam Yauch I believe was his name, was a big booster for the Tibetan freedom movement and that was a massive, very nineties series of concerts. Bands like the Smashing Pumpkins performed, and it was all what was the deal that what was Tibet was under the yoke of an impressive government. Essentially, critics will say, so, yeah, Tibet is technically it's an

Yes, yeah, and we're giving you this to kind of situate these sitution. Yes, though a high five. You earned it, so we high fived on that one. So this is to sichuanuate amazing the province of Sichuan, which is sort of to the if you look into map, it's kind of to the right, or it's adjacent to Tibet.

It's a basin if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, could you tell us a little bit more about that.

Bordered on all sides by mountains and highlands. To the north, the kin Or Shin Mountains, I believe it's a q i n situation. Stretching from the east to the west. To the northeast, we have the Daba Mountains and then the Dahalu Mountains form much of the southern border. To the east, it's dominated by the Wu Mountains, home to the legendary yang Tsi Gorges, some gorgeous gorges if you ask me. Then to the west we have the Daksu Mountains of the Tibetan borderlands.

Yeah, and this is we're describing things that are absolutely stunning views. So when you think about this, think of, you know, so many adventure films you've seen in the West,

Beliefs community cultural identity. Perfect.

Yeah, there's the Han, which is, you know, the dominance kind of ethnicity of China, the Ye, the Mong, the Tujia, the Hue. And of course they're there are oh and the way are practitioners.

Of Islam, and they're also way cool.

They're also cool. Sorry, So we said a little bit about this, like they they want to maintain their autonomy, right, and uh, they have this kind of paradigmatic maybe not a word pushe there. It is just say with confidence. They make it a they're at longerheads sometimes with this push for modernity versus this powerful need, this compulsion to retain one's cultural identity.

History is very important to them.

Yeah, it's nuts. You can even see it in the language, that's right.

For example, the Han speak a southern dialect of Mandarin, which I know that you've been studying for quite some time. They're just Mandarin in general, and I know there are many many flavors of Mandarin, to the point where it can be absolutely overwhelming to even settle.

On one right dialects. Yeah, A way to compare it would be not even counting Cantonese.

Right.

A way to compare it I was thinking about this would be to talk about different dialects of English that we have, because you know, I don't I don't know if there's a hot take, and all with great affection to our friends up in the Scottish Highlands. Sometimes you know it's tough. Oh yeah, it's tough for me to tell. Can't watch train Spotting without the subtitles on.

Let's put it that way.

Yeah, is that too far?

No? Is that too far? That's the truth. And I mean, if you experience it and you live with it, and you're surrounded by a lot you can definitely take it in, but it is something that you have to train your ears to recognize the difference. Even though we know English and they are speaking English, are there slang? There are various prounciations. There is a rhythm and a cadence to the language that is just different from what we would know as modern standard English, right.

Yeah, yeah, So this gives us a way to compare the experience with this mix of people in this very diverse area. Because everybody will speak the lingua franca, the idea of you know, the Southern Mandarin dialect, but different communities will use Turkish and Arabic in their religious really yeah yeah, I didn't realize that. So what we're saying is for a long time, this has been a really fascinating land. It's witnessed empires rise and full and.

We are back to the Han as well. By the way, just I know, we kind of took a little detour just talking about language, but we started off with the Han and the way they speak this southern dialect of Mandarin, which also can consist of some of this Turkish and Arabic kind of flavor.

Depending on the communities. Yeah, so for centuries traveling into or out of Sichuan because of those mountains you described, it was very difficult. It was treacherous. It was difficult just to get there, much much more difficult, or to say nothing of actually holding the land. And it's also this was something. This was one of the side notes that I think delighted the two of us and Matt.

Well, it is the home of kung paw chicken, which I'm a fan of, claimed claimed home and speaking of cuisine, I mean, I think I asked you this off, Mike, But Sichuan the name of the region, it is spelled differently than Seschuan, the seasoning or the genre of flavor profile absolution cuisine. Right, Yeah, you nailed it, important distinction. So, yes, home of kung pou chicken, which is a spicy, you know, kind of brown sauce peanut based dish.

Peanuts are big there and even now, isolation often reigns in the area. Despite you know, the massive successful push for modernization, the dialect thing is still an issue. People one valley over may speak an entirely different dialect. So imagine just walking literally walking the space of a few

Each other a little bit of a maybe you know, false equivalency. But think about neighborhoods in someplace like New York City, where between various neighborhoods you're going to have like a difference in culture, you know, almost immediately as you you know, cross a certain boundary.

Or I'll say it.

You said it, and I'm gonna back you up. Another weird fact that's not that weird, but it's very interesting, is that this region is also a natural environment for giant pandas.

Yes, that is true, fellas, I love it, and and that the initiative to save the giant pandas pretty amazing. It might be something we do on ridiculous history, yeah, which will also be recording.

That's true. And in our home place of Atlanta, Georgia, the Atlanta Zoo has for a long time been home to some giant pandas from this region that were very very popular attractions, and also our zoo. You know, I think what you will about zoos in general is very conservation focused.

Yes, yeah, And just to keep it a little bit conspiratorial. You know, one fact, not everybody learns about the giant pandas they are all owned by China.

That's right, they were like leased out the essentially to the Atlanta Zoo. It was. It's a cultural exchange in many ways that is very important.

And so what we're saying here about this place in particular, this isolated place with so much history, so many different cultures. We're telling you all of this, fellow conspiracy realists, to give ourselves and to give you a sense of place and to set up the second act of this episode. Because it's isolated, yes, it accessible, it's a huge area, it's historically self sufficient. It's got a big population, similar to Tibet. Especially the further west you go, this becomes a place all its.

Own very much so. Even now in twenty twenty five, as we record this episode, experts wonder about. They continue to wonder and speculate about the hidden history of these

Yeah.

Yeah, they're also beautiful.

They're also beautiful, and they're older than dynasties, they're older than empires. They've survived earthquakes, they could have obliterated more modern constructions. And this is what's fascinating about this aspect of it is it reminds me a bit of you know, we mentioned Lovecraft, HP Lovecraft stories. He has things like the Plateau of Lang or so on. This feels like

And we're going to meet our star player after a quick word from our sponsor.

Here's where it gets crazy. All right, let's get this out of the way first. Sure, Thank goodness, no one claims to have as you would say, Noel discovered these towers.

That's right. All the locals knew about them. I mean they were a pron prominent feature of the landscape for you know, thousands of years. No One, however, in living memory, had used these things, you know, for any sort of functional purpose.

Right, You're absolutely right, nobody in living memory. Is important to note people are not using these right. You go to some maybe ancient towns in Turkey or in Europe or other parts of the world, and you'll see people still living in very old strip absolutely but not here, and no one is much research on them. At this point. This all changed when we meet our hero of the story. Yes, let's give.

Our veritable Indiana Jones esque figure here.

Yes, yes, that is Martine Frederic Derragon, who traveled originally born in France, traveled to New York City, New York City, New York City, and then as the Salsey commercials say New York City.

Also true, I was doing more of a Matt Berry thing.

And then from there, Deragon has long held and she lives a very fascinating life. She's long held an interest in sustainability and animal rights. So she travels to western China to this rural area. It's nineteen ninety eighteen ninety eight, ninety seven, ninety eight.

Yeah, and in the height of the Free Tibetan movement. By the way, this is nineteen ninety eight, was peak Tibetan freedom concert area just to bring it back.

Yeah, that's right. And here's the thing. She doesn't know about the towers. Most Westerners don't. And her entire thing is that she wants to learn more about the endangered snow leopard.

Yeah, okay, beautiful, beautiful.

Snow leopards look like they're out of an anime.

I just saw a thing on the internet that was a rocky outcrop and the idea was, or where's waldoe situation? Find the snow leopard. And the first thing you need to know, there's also some snow. They're not pure white, no, they it blended in more with the beige, non snow covered parts of the of the cliffs than the white but your mind immediately tries to look forward in the snow, but not accurate. Right, let's bust a little mythy.

There we go. Well done, and this also speaks to the unique biodiversity of the region. Now, obviously her mission changes when she sees the towers. She's walking around and you know, she's in areas where there's not at this point a lot of infrastructure built up the wilderness, like you're in the places where you could find a snow leopard. And then she says, wait, that's not a natural rock formation. Somebody built a tower. She's a curious investigator. She starts

That's the thing. Can we set the stage a little bit more here and kind of describe what these look like? In my mind, I'm picturing a like two towers Lord of the Rings esque situation I have saw on Yes, I don't know, maybe it was your your Lovecraftian analogy, but help us out then, not.

Too far off, nol, because what you'll see is a lot of the towers are in their heyday.

Right.

These are stone structures that vary in height, vary in age. But we're not we're not blowing smoke when they when we say skyscraper esque, some could go from one hundred to two hundred feet. There would be an entry way at the bottom, and then they would have different features, so like a defensive tower would have slits where someone could shoot an arrow.

Oh what do you call those? There's a name for those little little holes in fortified towers arrow arrow holes, row slots, slots. Yeah, I like exactly what you're talking about. But these are also not particularly adorned, right. These are very straightforward kind of designs.

That's the tricky part because it seems this is a great question. There are clues afoot because they don't all have the same design. You see some of these towers almost stood up here. But some of these towers are in a star shape. Like if if you if you had a a cookie cutter, okay, that was a star shaped cookie cutter, then it looks like this tower was built in that shape, not none.

And we're not talking about a star shaped array of multiple structures. This is a single tower that, when looked at from an aerial view, is itself in a star shaped pattern.

Yes, God, just so great description, especially because we're an audio podcast. Exactly siate that. So it's like a so imagine if someone took a shape of an eight point star and just pulled it longways.

Like Plato kind of situations pasta like Apasta is good like it, it's I'm thinking about Plato though. From my youth they had those little extreuting kind of things that you could push a plunger thing, and then the Plato would get pushed through.

Yes, yeah, so just so, and then sometimes they would have twelve points m. Questions, Yeah, questions begin to occur to Derek on One of the first wins, of course, is what what what on earth is going on here? The second is how do these things? How did any of this survive? First off, why are there so many? How did so many survive through antiquity in an area that is very prone to earthquakes?

Craftsmanship, my friend, how do you even get a contiguous struck sure like that in this shape?

I think about this all the I think about this all the time. To be honest with you, reading the the amazing works of the great thinkers and architects of old, and realizing that more than once I have fallen asleep trying to put on a pair of pants.

Of course, it really makes one one.

And then that's just look upon my works.

You might.

So this is weird because Deregon not weird. But Deregon is obviously not the type of person to leave a stone unturned.

Okay, I'll allow it. Yeah, I can allow it.

Okay, I'm staring about it like he like, it's his job to have you allow it, he says.

So.

So she has a great series of conversations with a journalist named Richard Stone writing for the Smithsonian, And this is where we get a look at.

Just Richard Stone. This is kind of his whole wheelhouse, right, no Stone on there.

We we have, we already paid for the drum riff sound cue. Yeah, we got to use to get your county to get us. So okay, can Noel, can we share a quote from Stone which describes Derrogut. She like, the world's most interesting.

Person, absolutely like the what's that? The do sekis guy?

Yes?

The world?

Yes?

Anyway, yeah, yeah. The Aragon is a self described free spirit. He says with an eclectic resume, an undergraduate degree and economics founder of an organization that supports education in world China, star polo player in Argentina, sailboat racer and artists. Artist, ye see, filmmaker, Uh, incredible, uh, designer, several things, a person for all seasons.

And we'll we'll get to some more stuff about her personal life later. I think we're excited to explore that photographer. Yes, yeah, very much so, right, which makes.

Sense with the way she was traveling and wanting to documents all of these rural areas and just an absolute archivist in and of herself.

Yeah, and they were gone again. It's nineteen ninety eight. She's going to places that many people, especially Westerners, and they have on travel.

No, it's just important work.

It's difficult to get that far to the west of China, and she travels to the area no less than nine times from nineteen ninety eight to the early two thousands. She documents almost two hundred separate towers between Sichuan and to that.

That many that I had no idea. This is incredible. She took measurements again, she took photographs. When possible, she would climb within the structures. These were again ben these were fortified kind of towers, so there would be some sort of spiral staircase situation in them, different obviously case by case basis.

Yeah, some way to access the elevation, assuming that they were still structurally sound, so many of them were, and many of them were possible.

She would she would climb within them, which is.

Quite courageous when you think about it. And she also did the thing you should do anytime you're investigating a local mystery, whether it be some of the stuff we've seen in Guatemala, whether it be the stone jars of Laos which we talked about earlier.

Consult the work of others who came before you.

Right, yes, and then talk to the locals.

That's right.

Don't be those nerds who thought they rediscovered the celicaf no no.

So, to be fair, Dregan did discover some references to these towers in some relatively unrelated Chinese and European travel logs. She also consulted monasteries. She poured over centuries of other internal documents that were collected by the monks themselves, who actually could find no particular references to the origins of the towers in terms of who right.

Yeah, Yeah, when she's looking, she realizes that, as you said, she has to dig through all possible sources and get this. She she does find mentions.

Yes, and in some diaries if I'm not mistaken from some of those predecessors in terms of European explorers.

Yeah, So the monasteries don't appear like the locals appear not to be too perplexed about this.

They're not worried about it. To them, it's just a thing that's around that has always been there.

Yeah.

They are not really asking the how, the where the moon? Yeah, and so the where they already know where they are, why why, It's just a feature of their everyday lives. They've just always accepted as fact.

And so they so deregn fies is so nuts. She goes to the diaries like you were, mentioning of eighteen eighteen hundreds esque explorers from the West. And these guys are kind of like the locals because they they don't they mention it as a like a tangent in another story about something they're more interested about, you know.

Which is unusual.

I was walking through and you know, there were like towers, but my main thing was insert here.

That's right. I guess maybe it's just because of what we do. We ask why about everything, that's sort of our thing. It's just interesting to me that some of these thinkers and these explorers would just accept these and not be curious about where they came from. They are unusual features, and they're clearly not natural.

Yeah, I think part of it comes from the A big part of it comes from the fact that, in the context of their day, these Chinese scholars and these Western explorers had seen a bunch of towers, you know what I mean.

That's a good point.

It wasn't a new structure. They were on the way to something else. It took time for people to appreciate the extraordinary nature of these of these structures. And Deregon had advantages that didn't exist in the sixteen hundred and seventeen hundreds, eighteen hundreds, sure.

Stuff like radiocarbon dating, for example.

Yeah, and she talks about it in her documentary, which has been sometimes called The Secret Towers of the Himalayas and then sometimes The Mystery of the Towers of Eastern Tibets.

Which was also adapted into print form in two thousand and five, she started excavating pieces of some of these towers, which which were in part made.

Of wood, right, yes, yeah, And she salvage more than thirty pieces of wood from different towers, thirty two different towers. And one of the things that she was immediately already clocking was that this is not a UNESCO World Heritage Site yet, not yet, and it should be right that's her aim, and so she says, Okay, to do this, we have to step back in time. If we can prove the age or determine the age of the towers, then that sets us up for this World Heritage pursuit.

Yeah, I mean sure that Miami contains multitudes, but there are some forensic research labs there that she employs. If she could arrive at an approximate date for some of these wooden salvage pieces, she figured she could then determine the approximate age of a tower. And yet this research or this forensic data only yielded further.

Mysteries, absolutely one hundred percent, because it turned out that not all of these towers were in the same in the same age range. Interesting, So some were built just a few centuries ago, which I know sounds maybe a little big glib a little bit, but it's a big deal still. But in the grand scheme of things, that's relatively young. In contrast, some towers were built between one thousand to one thousand and two hundred years ago. That makes them more than a millennium old.

Incredible. This means that at least a few of these towers were built by someone before the Mongolian forces invaded that region of Tibet back in twelve forty.

And this is the beginning of a incredibly curious mystery, curious and curiouser or, as as they say in Lord of the Rings Way or the Hobbit Way, leads on the way. Second breakfast, second breakfast, potato, eleven zies and ad breaks.

Here we go.

We've returned. So if you look at some of again, Derragan has never described herself as a PhD ar archaeologist. She's self professed just an enthusiast. She's interested in this. She wants to save history. She wants to say just the way she wants to to save you know, the snow leopard which led her to this way, leads onto way.

By the way, I was just I had to find out. I had to look aeroslits absolutely correct. Oh really another term put log holes that for me utlog also known as embrasiers. I like embraziers because it sounds more specific. Also known as arrow loops, arrow.

Loops or loopholes. A little amalogy there. Indeed, So of course the Europeans then they're not going to be impressed because they recognize this as a tower from a castle. And then there's a second kind of thing, and this one, this one's really interesting.

To be I agree, towers disseminated over mountain slopes that are not along main historic trade routes. Is this from our buddy stone, This is from Derregan herself, deregun herself and often hidden from view. So you stumble upon these things not because you're on the main stretch of you know, the Silk Road or something, sure, but because you are, you are in the know, and when you see it,

And then third, we've got towers that were in wealthy agricultural valleys where the ground was quite fertile, and there were a bunch of trading routes, and they had two purposes. The secondary purpose was that if you rolled into town and you're a merchant, you know, you gotta sell your what are people selling pelts? You gotta sell your pelts? And you roll in you're you're a humble Peltzman and

We say ostentation.

Yeah, and then someone's scare stands maybe a top it, with their fingers steepled, and they say, beltsmen, welcome.

Yes, look upon my works mighty. And what's the does that one go despair there? Yeah? Maybe don't despair. It's okay. Let's let's be a little more cheerful than that welcome. There was an implication, there was a bit of a flex. It was a bit of a show of force as well.

Right, yeah, and uh, I love that we're referencing, uh one of my favorite poems that are osumandias m. Do reread it. It won't take a second and it'll stay with you. However, the primary purpose of these, uh this third type of tower was really to facilitate trade. So there was a lot of capacity to store goods. Be that a silo kind of issue, yeah, should be the agricultural products or pelts. And perhaps more importantly, this is where you would trade

Absolutely, you know what I mean. Fourth, and again this is from Dereghn herself. Tower situated on mountaintops, entrances to valleys or other strategic positions for Gondo. Indeed, I was very much on the Lord of the rings tip this. These were the type of places where smoke signals could be sent up ways of communicating across long distances before like you know the Internet.

Yeah yeah, and they had they had their own code and language and everybody understood it kind of like a smoke based semaphore. And we definitely just.

Is a semaphore like a pettifour.

And that they rhyme and that they rhyme.

I don't know what a semaphore is. Where you have you know, flag code, oh, the flags like traffic controllers.

Sure yeah great, so uh it's weird that I know semaphores.

And just so you know, folks, as being an audio podcast, Ben was flopping his arms around in flagsmen uh.

Fashion, and it's specifically I'm talking about flag semaphore. Of course, semaphore can mean other things. And apologies to some folks who drop by the studio and got our slightly neurodivergent info dump on that. Yeah, because we were surprised.

That's how we roll. Yeah, we were definitely taken by surprise. But it was a lovely visit.

It was a lovely visit. And so this is a really effective way to not just communicate, but also to sort of lay out your order space. Yeah, yeah, and there were likely Derregune finds thousands of these towers, and she as she's looking at the footprint of where these are built, she finds that some are much further away than you would originally assume. It forms all, all in all, from what we know, a territory that's as large as a third of modern day France.

Wow.

So someone was building a lot of towers.

And some were more typical free standing towers, others that had that iconic star shape eight points for some towers, twelve points for others. That's the part where we're not quite sure. Was it an aesthetic thing? Was there some estrological purpose? Maybe it reminds me of the Georgia guidestones and something, you know, the idea of using it to mark time, to measure the changing of the seasons and the changing of the day. We don't know this. I'm

Yeah, and that also makes us wonder is there a possibility that some of these were purely religious constructions. We know that according to Tibetan legend, the mood cord Dmu is said to connect heaven and earth. So you'll find people arguing that this is almost like the Pyramids.

Extension, you know, from our mortal coil into the great beyond right.

Right, And this leads us to more questions. All right, if there are thousands of these that were built over some period of time, what happened to the rest?

It's a good question. What about the two similar structures further west in modern day Afghanistan, which is pretty far away, pretty far away ben the Gosny minarets have a very similar appearance to these Tibetan towers, And the most important question is why were they abandoned? May know the most important and an additional important question.

Yeah, right, what happened? Because we know that there are other again, there are other structures that are roughly around the same time as some of these towers, and people still live in those, you know, and they still kick it. You can get an air B and B from like the fourteen hundreds, you know what I mean?

Is that true?

Yeah, that's kind of true. How it's like it's like podcast true.

Okay, you point that the other day we did a lovely live event as part of on Air Fest in Brooklyn with our pal Matt Frederick, and I believe that Ben is either in conversation or maybe even during the event itself where you coined podcast accurate.

For us, that means a proximately indeed true. Okay, I'm looking through this. We're going to go back to this in a later episode, and it's not gonna make any sense to Matt Frederick.

That's okay, keep him on his toes.

So yeah, so you're in on that conspiracy, folks. But there are these great questions, you know, why are they abandoned? What happened to all the other thousands of towers, Like we were saying, the most likely answer is simply the ravages of time. Right, we're in a very earthquake prone area. Clearly there were attacks by rival or invading communities, because a lot of these towers were defensive fortications with arrow loops or loopholes, and sometimes the thing about defenses is they fall.

They do. But many of these obviously remain, and we're built to last, and we're looking at we also have to remember we are looking at the flotsam and jetsam of history.

The range of these towers, however many there were one point or another.

There were way more.

There were way more. We're seeing the remnants of something like the stories about how Grecian architecture was actually quite colorful, right, right, you remember hearing about.

That, well, the frescoes and things like that. Yeah, but like the colors faded over time, of course. Yeah, And they're pigments that would not have necessarily lasted as long as the stone medium that they were put.

Upon, right, or statues painted in bright colors and sold, yes, plaster one hundred percent. So now we only see the ruins of structures that once upon a time were doubtlessly h just a feast for the eyes, you know what I mean. And the towers may have been like that, or perhaps technology involved. Perhaps it became less useful, maybe the populations just shifted, maybe everybody just moved out of town.

Yeah, and thankfully, however, we can explain for the most part the construction. They were a mix of stone and wood, which is the part that was a to be passed along for radiocarbon dating. Along with these star shapes of some of the towers. Turns out to be a very fantastic protection that array against earthquakes.

Yeah, it gives you a kind of stability in a fascinating construction technique. A descendant of it is used today in other parts of China and other parts of the East Asian theater.

Overall, it reminds me of some designs of modern skyscrapers that are designed to shift with a little bits. Yeah, with one hundred percent they are able to sway along with the shifting earth.

Yeah, it's like, look at that skyscraper. It's kind of a slinky.

It feels weird when you feel it, though, and you're up really high in one of those.

I have to say, the higher you get, the more apparent. The effect is kind of like sitting on the back of a plane.

Even in the amazing venue that we just performed at National Sawdust, when we went down into the guts of the building, there were springs inside of the structure. Very similar concepts.

Yes, very much so, because again, people in the ancient empires were just as intelligent as people in the modern day. Now, we also have a little bit of fun stuff. We wanted to end on here before our super producer, Matt's still gets tired of us.

I didn't know that was Yeah, I'm sorry. There's the toilers.

There's a Ted Turner connection to this. It's another plot twist to our story, our own Georgia boy. The also a sailor, also a sailor. That's how they met? Is it really that's how they met?

That makes sense? Remember this, I don't remember what I saw this and it was a documentary. I think about Ted. His name is Ted Turner, Ted Turner. He was almost lost at sea during this crazy sailboat race. Yeah, real adventure himself makes perfect sense. They would have crossed paths.

In nineteen sixty nine, Deregon meets Ted Turner and they become friends. She cruise on one of his vessels for a while, and they you know, this is before he gets into bfalow. Yeah, and this is before you know, a lot of for Jane Fonda. He I believe he was with Fonda at the time. Wait a minute, No, No, they were just friends at that point. Oh but didn't it didn't it? Bossom didn't romance. I think several years after Fonda and Turner split, Okay, okay, and then they came back together.

Don't you dare Jane that way?

Oh?

Ted? Uh?

And when they came together, Turner also through You can read about the story in the Chicago Tribune, a couple of New York Times like posh upper class explorations of culture.

Anyway, he helped fund some of this recently, helped fund a lot. He was a big you know, he was a bit of an Indiana Jones figure himself.

Yes, very much so. And he wanted to, like like Derek, and he wanted to explore research, understand the mystery of the towers. And this is something that I find wholesome. I think we should make clear here. No, Matt derek On is not trying to make money off of this at all. All the proceeds from her documentary, from her speeches, her from her printed work. It all goes directly to something called the Unicorn Foundation, which she created with Ted

Though, Yeah, it's okay, I mean, I think we have enough of an understanding. I mean, I'm sure would like to know more. We do have a decent grasp of the why, a pretty solid understanding of the how, but the who remains anyone's guess, and I you know, we've talked about this. Sometimes a little bit of mystery remaining is cool.

Yeah, Also a plausible guess would be it's most likely these were techniques that were shared across and transmitted across multiple civilizations cultures.

As indicated by the presence of very similar structures in Afghanistan.

You mention, you find something that works, So maybe what we're seeing now were the most effective tower designs and people just made their own improvements along the way, or just maybe it's the stuff they don't want you to know.

It's true, So hey, why don't you let us know conspiracy realists out there? What do you think these things were? Well, it kind of know what they're for, but who do you think built them? Do you have any additional theories as to this, this idea of the religious aspects behind them or the astrology? I like it too. Let us know.

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