S03 Episode 5 Extra: When Apples Fall

Shop online, over the phone or in store. Airport Home Appliance, unbeatable price selection and people Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClean smith. For the weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the show. In last week's episode, Bangorng, we traveled to the town of hump de Doo in Usustralia's Northern Territory, where in nineteen ninety eight, five of its residents was seemingly terrorized by what some have claimed

to have been a poltergeist. Many of the journalists and researchers who also witnessed the bizarre series of strange events came to the conclusion that they centered on one person in particular, either as the perpetrator of a hoax, or

perhaps for reasons a little more fantastical. In the world of parapsychology, it has long been supposed that apparent poltergeist activity, if it were to exist at all, is not the malevolent workings of the deceased, but rather the result of telekinesis, the potential ability of an individual to manipulate material things

without physical contact. I find this notion particularly alluring, not least because it has featured in many of my favorite films, such as Bryant de Palmer's nineteen seventy eight classic The Fury, as well as David Kroniberg's equally intense take on a similar theme, Scanners, and also in perhaps the most affecting and enigmatic of ways, in the nineteen seventy nine masterpiece Stalker Andrey Tarkovski's adaptation of Boris and Archidis Drugatsky's short

story Roadside Picnic. Often, those who believe in the potential for humans to wield such power have tended to link the phenomena to the hormonal roller coaster of adolescence or the consequence of a profound trauma, the suggestion being that something in the untethered emotions, particularly of teenagers, could be unwittingly unleashing some as yet unknown faculties of the mind.

The notion of influential forces such as gravity or electromagnetism, essentially invisible to the human eye, is well accepted, yet despite years of scientific research, there remains no widely accepted evidence that we can manipulate them with our minds alone. There is one individual, however, that some belief came closer than most to suggesting otherwise. Her story begins almost a century ago in the ruins of a city, where once

majestic buildings have been reduced to stilted husks. They're pretty facades, replaced by gaping holes, mangled iron and shattered concrete. Emaciated faces peek out from behind the rubble. On the streets, people drift like ghosts, neither men nor women, but mere skeletons, their chests sunken and stomachs perversely swollen from severe malnutrition. Others life frozen to death on the pavement, their bodies

still wrapped in their thick clothes. On one street corner, the remains of a frozen horse are gathered up by desperate frost bitten hands and piled onto a sledge. Elsewhere, from out of a dark alleyway, the smell of cooking flesh rises into the air. Only it is no horsemeat that cooks here, but rather something a little closer to home. On the outskirts of the city, a line of Soviet T thirty four tanks roll out towards the front. Small blank faces watched them silently from the edge of the

road as they pass, and staring back at them. Standing up through an opened turret is a young radio operator. As she takes in the image of their lifeless, sunken eyes, she is reminded just what she is fighting for, before dropping down back into the tank and closing the hatch behind her. The radio operator is Nina Mikhailova. She is

fifteen years old and already a veteran of war. In June nineteen forty one, the German Reich's Army had begun Operation Barbarossa, an attempt by Adolf Hitler to capture the Soviet Union and secure Leban's Round for the people of Germany, a chance to build a new nation free from the non orion Slavic subhumans and Jewish Bolshevik conspirators, as he called them. The battle would be swift, beginning with the taking of Leningrad, the cultural capital of the Soviet Union

and its beating heart. By the first week of September, German forces had reached the shores of Lake Ladoga, barely twenty kilometers from the city, and together with the Army of Finland to the north, they had it surrounded. Deciding it too complicated to invade, German high command took the decision instead to starve them mount severing all road and rail links to the city. Together with a relentless campaign of aerial bombardment, they hoped to wipe Leningrad from the

face of the earth. Only they hadn't quite counted on the strength of those non orion, Slavic subhumans and Jewish Bolshevik conspirators. The Siege of Leningrad has since become known by some margin as the deadliest in human history. For seventeen months after the air raids began, no civilian could leave the city, nor any food enter it without making

the treacherous journey through air or across Lake Ladiga. For eight hundred and seventy two days, with virtually no food, running water, or fuel, with temperatures sometimes dropping to forty degrees celsius below zero, The Soviet army held out against the assault. By the time it was over, roughly two million lives had been lost, including eight hundred thousand citizens of Leningrad, forty percent of its entire population, most of

whom had staved to death. In January nineteen forty four, but by then, seventeen year old Nina Makhailova, who had risen to the rank of senior sergeant, was badly wounded when her tank was hit by artillery fire. Although she would survive her injuries, the young soldiers fight was over. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you.

You deserve it. Tele Adoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best to feeling like yourself again. With tele adoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven am to nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a personal or family issue.

Teldoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy to change counselors if needed. For free. Teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com forward slash Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. Within a year, the war had ended, and to physically and psychologically shattered, Nina did what she

could to forget the horrors of the past. After marrying naval engineer Victor Koulagina, Mikhailova adopted his name, becoming Nina Koulagina, and together the couple would go on to have three children. But like many of her countrywomen and men, the war had never truly left Nina, and in nineteen sixty three, she suffered a nervous breakdown. Having been swiftly admitted to Leningrad hospital, she was encouraged to take up knitting to

help aid her recovery. It was only a short time later that a nurse noticed something peculiar one morning about Nina's knitting technique, the funny way in which she seemed able to select the correct color thread from her basket of wool without looking at it. When she asked Nina how she knew which color to choose, she replied that it was simple, she saw it with her fingers. Nina's peculiar ability was quickly brought to the attention of doctor

Leonid Vasiliev, professor of physiology at Leningrad University. A number of years, for Siliev had been developing a parapsychology lab at the university based on the model first introduced in the nineteen thirties by Joseph Banks Ryde and his colleagues at North Carolina's Duke University in the United States. After Kulagoner's release from hospital, for Siliev arranged to meet with her to discuss her apparent extrasensory perception, only to discover

something far more extraordinary in the process. When she gets angry, things move or break themselves, said her husband Victor, shortly after the three of them had sat down together in the Kolagoner's living room. How do you mean, inquired for Siliev. It had started soon after returning from war objects seemed to move around Nina whenever she became frustrated, as if drawn to her like a magnet. At one time, a jug had apparently slid from a table and smashed onto

the floor. Lights would flicker off and on whenever she drew near to the bulb. Sensing the esteemed doctor's incredulity, Victor proceeded to show him a series of homemade films he had shot of Nina's apparent telekinetic abilities. The doctor watched in amazement as the grainy, black and white footage

played out before him. Images of Nina sat huddled over various objects, a look of intense concentration on her face as she moved her hand over the top of them, until finally they began to move unaided across the surface. Cautious that he wasn't being taken for a ride, Forsiliev arranged for Nina to replicate the feet under laboratory conditions at the University of Leningrad, which she apparently did successfully, prompting for Siliev to proclaim that he had seen nothing

like it in over thirty years of paranormal research. In nineteen sixty eight, Koulagina was introduced to the rest of the world at the first Moscow International Conference on Parapsychology. Over the course of the next twenty five years, Nina continued to amaze countless scientists, keen to put her abilities

to the test. Doctor Ganadi Sagayev, a neurophysiologist attached to Leningrad's Military Institute, described one experiment where Koulagina, again sat at a table, was apparently able to influence a compass needle, a box of matches, and a number of loose cigarettes with nothing but her mind. Nina had been heavily scrutinized by Sergeyev and a number of his colleagues, while also being requested to change positions at the table throughout the experiment.

In another, again under laboratory conditions and supervised by Sergeyev, Kulaganer was invited to stop a frog's heart from beating. The heart had been removed and placed in a solution where it was kept animated by an electrical current. Nina is said to have first made the heart beat faster,

then slower, before making it stop entirely. It was also said that Kolagoner's own heart rate would rise to as much as two hundred and forty beats per minute when in the process of utilizing her apparent powers, also that she would lose up to two elos in a single session, which would routinely leave her with blurred vision, dizziness, and

terrible pains in her spine. After almost three decades of experiments, Nina Kolagner eventually died at the age of sixty four in nineteen ninety, apparently due in part to the strain the performing of her abilities had placed on her body. Koulagener was understandably the subject of much skepticism within the scientific community, with many suggesting her powers to be nothing more than common parla tricks using magnets and invisible threads to pull and manipulate the objects in front of her.

Others were quick to suggest that she had merely been a pawn of a Cold War era Soviet Union who had fabricated her powers in an attempt to intimidate the United States government. Those who claimed to have witnessed her separating the yoke from the white of an egg when standing two meters away from it would beg to differ. If you enjoy listening to unexplained and would like to help support us. You can now go to Unexplained Podcast dot com Forward Slash support. All donations, no matter how

large or small, are massively appreciated. All elements of Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, or feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained Pod Now. It's time to take care of yourself.

To make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video any time between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's t e LA DC dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast