[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Skeptics quickly arrived with theories of their own. That the family hadn't really seen mysterious creatures after all. Just a series of encounters with large great horned owls. And sure, if you've seen the viral video of the baby owls in the crawlspace of a house, it's true that they can resemble little people from certain angles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So much of what Lucky and his family say they experienced won't fit into that neat little box.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Others suggested the family had simply gotten drunk over their card game and started to shoot up the farmhouse. But Lucky's mother, Glennie, was a religious woman who never allowed drinking in her house. The fact that the police never found evidence of alcohol or even noticed the smell of it suggested that the family was completely sober when everything happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Belief and doubt seem to occupy the same space around the story. And the fact that people are still talking about it 65 years later speaks to just how much of a puzzle it really is. And as we discussed before, puzzles are addictive. They pull us in and invite us to solve them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once the police and investigators and journalists had finished their work for the night, the entire family was left where they started. Alone on a dark farm, surrounded by trees and shadows and memories of what they had seen. And it apparently wasn't over just yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After settling back in, Glennie claimed that she glanced out one of the windows and spotted the same eerie, unnatural face looking back in, with its large eyes, gray skin, and narrow mouth. It disappeared when she screamed for help, but just to be safe, Lucky and Billy Ray resumed their guard posts for the rest of the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's something magnetic about puzzles. The disparate pieces that beg to be reunited. The chaos that requires order. And the questions that need to be answered. Whether it's the Voynich manuscript or the daily crossword puzzle, our brains really never stop trying to solve a good mystery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But of course, we all know that there's risk involved. The answer to a mystery can be incredibly elusive. It might be as inconsequential as penciling in the wrong answer for 16 down, or as devastating as spending a lifetime chasing a riddle that never gives up its solution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The events that took place on the Sutton farm back in 1955 have lingered in the air for over six decades because of that very same attractiveness. A family reunion disrupted by a visit by mysterious creatures that left them fearful for their lives and sent them running for help. What's not attractive about a story like that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sadly, most people at the time assumed the entire thing was a hoax, or a cry for attention, or a grab for money. It didn't matter that the family never made a dime off what they claimed. And it didn't matter that their nearest neighbor heard all of the gunshots from his own farm, and even spotted unusual lights in the woods that separated their properties.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The most, it was all just too unexplainable to be real. Some people viewed it differently though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the days and weeks that followed, UFO fanatics tracked down the farm and traveled there. They were trespassing, of course, but that didn't stop them from leaving with pieces of the farmhouse as souvenirs of their adventure. In fact, some UFO historians consider the Sutton's experience to be one of the best documented cases in history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] None of that mattered to the family at the center of it all, though. They honestly just wanted life to return to normal. But of course, it never did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Glennie was so traumatized by the aftermath that she ended up selling the farm and moving into town.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe it was the constant stream of visitors reminding her of a night she wanted to forget. Or perhaps it was the farm itself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the fear that those small gray creatures might return, we'll never know for sure, but I think we can sympathize either way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lucky and his wife Vera would go on to settle down and have children, and over time they too would learn about what happened to their parents and grandmother back in 1955. One of their daughters, Geraldine,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] would go on to write and speak extensively about her bizarre family legacy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She believes her parents were telling the truth and at the same time has expressed frustration over how easily the local paper got so many details wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most importantly, Geraldine claims that despite her parents only ever claiming that there were three or four of the mysterious creatures, the newspaper ran articles that claimed the number was much higher, usually a dozen or more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was one other error by the newspaper that bothered her the most.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In that article, the mysterious creatures were described as not gray, but green.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The result of the mistake was the birth of a phrase that would quickly take root in the mind of popular culture. And it's never really faded away. Which is why...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hope you've enjoyed this tour through one of the most influential moments in the development of the folklore surrounding UFOs. But it's a story that also features something else. And it's an idea that's far older than sightings of flying disks and glowing little gray men. And to help you understand it, I've found another tale that strums the same chord.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stick around after this brief sponsor break and I'll tell you all about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing creates an overwhelming feeling of fear, like war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Throughout history, innumerable armies have faced off against each other. And while their leaders and goals have been almost as varied as their uniforms, one thing that all of them have in common is fear. Fear of danger. Fear of pain. Fear of death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That fear only gets worse when we add in unusual circumstances or elements of the unknown. And a great example of that can be found in the countless tales that we've inherited from the First World War and the experiences that were had at sea. Although if one story can be believed, it's easy to see why some sailors were afraid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The events in question took place in April of 1918, in the waters of the Irish Sea north of the Isle of Man, off the coast of Belfast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was where a British patrol vessel was keeping watch up and down the coast for German U-boats. They were a pretty new addition to warfare on such a large scale, but had quickly developed a reputation for being a deadly nuisance and a fierce adversary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First of all, they spent most of their time beneath the surface of the waves, making them nearly impossible to track. And typically, they only resurfaced at night to recharge their batteries and handle necessary maintenance. But they were also highly aggressive, known to shoot first and ask questions only as an afterthought.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the time you spotted one, it was often already too late. And because of that, whenever the opportunity presented itself to take one out of commission, the British would jump at the chance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On April 30th though, this patrol vessel, the HMS Coriopsis, spotted a German U-boat floating on the surface of the water, exposed and visible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost immediately the British fired upon the enemy, causing the submarine to take on water and begin to sink. But not before the Coriopsis was able to move in and rescue the German soldiers on board, who were immediately held as prisoners of war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After the U-boat had quietly sunk into the depths of the ocean and the patrol ship began to leave the area, the German commander offered up his explanation for why they had been such an easy target and why he was relieved to see the British arrive despite his capture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it turns out, the reason was probably the last thing the British commander would have expected.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to the Germans, they had resurfaced during the early hours of the morning while it had still been dark, for the usual reasons. But while they were there, drifting beneath the black sky and brilliant stars, something broke the surface of the water alongside the submarine. Something large and unnatural. Something alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They describe the creature as having enormous eyes, and a head covered in what looked like horns. Its mouth opened over and over again, as if looking for something to bite, all while exposing vicious teeth that shone in the moonlight. And it immediately began to climb the side of the U-boat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At first, the Germans were unable to stop it. As it scaled the side of their ship, its claws tore into the metal plating that skinned the sub, making it impossible to die for safety. When it reached the deck of the sub, they claimed it wrapped its powerful jaws around the forward gun, before using it as a leverage point to pull the submarine onto its side.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a panic, the men on board retrieved their handguns and fired hundreds of rounds into the flesh of the creature. Either because of the pain or because of fear of the sound, the monstrous creature released the ship and quickly slipped back into the water, where it vanished beneath the surface.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not too long after, the British arrived, and the crew made the easy choice to become prisoners rather than food for a creature they were certain would return.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To this day, no one is sure what the creature might have been. But we do know that the crew of the U-boat reacted to its mystery and threat the same way humans have for thousands of years. When we face the unknown or unexpected, the things we feel threatened by simply because they've entered our territory, we attack them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether it's unnamed creatures hiding in the shadows, or other human beings who don't look or speak like us, our first instinct has almost always been to lash out, to hurt, and to conquer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It might not be the right answer to every mystery or challenge, but shoot first has certainly been our go to solution since the dawn of time. And the right one? Sadly, history has shown us


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that one has been more than a little elusive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Michelle Muto and music by Chad Lawson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can learn more about both of those shows, the TV show, and the books, and everything else going on over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At first glance, it's difficult to make out what they are. Small corroded pieces of metal, roughly the length of modern flatware, all lined up on a museum shelf. But if you lean in and look past the rough surfaces of the objects, their purpose becomes clear. They were surgical tools.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Discovered in 1989, inside the ruins of a third century Roman building known as the House of the Surgeon, there are dozens of them. Within the collection are a lot of items that are immediately recognizable, despite their separation from modern medicine by 1800 years. Things like scalpels and forceps, and small iron needles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's easy to imagine their use and feel a sense of connection to the past while doing so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Others are more mysterious, such as the various hooks and a spoon-shaped object that experts think is advice called the Spoon of Diocles, which was used to remove arrowheads from wounded soldiers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then there are the tools that hint at a more barbaric time, like the large saw blades and drill bits, used respectively to amputate limbs and drill holes in the skull, an ancient technique known as trepanation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These dark, rough metal tools are a stark reminder to us of just how far we've come, technologically speaking. With our brightly lit operating rooms, gleaming surgical steel, and a vast assortment of electronic instruments, medicine has come a long way, and no one would dispute the value of that progress. But not all advances are good for us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every now and then, changes arrive on the scene that look shiny and new. They seem to solve a whole list of problems and become incredibly popular as a result.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in the process, they build a brand new stage for history to be played out on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When Philip Layton needed to move coal from a mine on his property outside Liverpool, England to a distribution point about a half mile away, he used technology to make it easier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had a rail line installed and then used it to haul the heavy coal at a much faster rate. And honestly, nothing about that story is surprising except for when it took place. 1594.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he wasn't the last. All through the 1600s and 1700s, inventive people adopted this same technique, laying wooden track and using it to guide horse-drawn carriages.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Toward the end of the 18th century, though, some of those people began to switch over to metal, making the tracks more durable and efficient. Which is why, in the first half of the 1800s, the world seemed ready for another invention. The steam engine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, the steam engine wasn't new either. The ancient engineer Hero of Alexandria had created something in the first century that was essentially a steam turbine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he never seemed to see the potential of hooking it up to other devices as a power source. Later, in the 16th and 17th centuries, others would take the technology further. All of it leading to England's first steam locomotive in 1802.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1804, the world had one of those rare peanut butter and chocolate moments when a steam-powered locomotive engine was combined with an iron railway and then used to haul a train of cars. It wasn't very efficient and it had a lot of mechanical problems, but it was the seed of a new idea. An idea that would soon take the world by storm. And America was keeping pace too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Back in the 1700s, wooden wagonways had begun to sprout up all over the northeast. And as England began to stitch its vast countryside together with threads of steel and steam, the folks in America were building their own network of rail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And people were passionate about it too. In fact, when construction on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad began in 1828, they kicked things off with an opening ceremony on July 4th.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And who did they pick to have the honor of turning over the first shovel full of dirt? 91-year-old Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can't blame people for throwing their enthusiasm behind this new technology. It was estimated at the time that switching the transportation of goods from horse-drawn carriage to the railroad could reduce shipping costs by as much as 70%. Plus trips that once took a full day could now be completed in about an hour.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cheaper and faster were two qualities that people had a difficult time refusing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the railroad was a technology that came at a price. Most businesses that depended on frequent road travelers, like inns and taverns, saw a loss of revenue. Many went under entirely. The old way of living seemed to be pushed into the shadows of the locomotive. In a very real sense, the past was standing still, while the future rushed on by.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We see the pain it caused in the early folklore that sprung up around that industry. And one of the most popular stories hands down was that of John Henry. Now I will be perfectly transparent here. The story of John Henry is filled with all the trappings of a legend, complete with unverifiable details.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There are dozens of variations of his story, and very little historical evidence to back most of it up. But that doesn't make them any less important or valuable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The basic legend tells us that John Henry was an African American steel driving man, a laborer who was tasked with pounding a large drill bit into rock so that explosives could be inserted and used to carve out a tunnel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the story, we meet a strong, proud man who is respected and renowned for his skill and hard work, but we also meet new technology that threatens his value.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When a steam-powered drilling machine arrives on his job site, John Henry challenges the soulless contraption to a duel. Which of them can drill farther over the course of the day?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Against all odds, John Henry is said to have won the contest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His story has gone on to wedge itself firmly in popular culture. Dozens of songwriters across all sorts of genres have recorded ballads about him over the years. Historians have dug for more and more details about his life. But all of that aside, the legend of John Henry has shown us something bigger and more troubling. It shows us the true cost of progress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And begs us to consider whether it's really worth it in the end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that wasn't the only question people were asking. They also wondered if the railroad was a safe new technology. And we can see that drama play out in the story of Casey Jones, the legendary train engineer from the late 1800s. Because it's in his story that many people saw the darkness of this new and glorious industry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jones was born in rural Mississippi in 1864 to a pair of school teachers. A few years into his childhood, the family packed up and moved to the town of Casey, Kentucky. And as he moved into adulthood, people around him started to refer to him by the name of that place rather than his birth name, John.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As Casey Jones, he got married, had a family, and eventually found work in that growing industry, working his way up to become an engineer with the Illinois Central Railroad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he quickly built a reputation, too. Jones was known to be a bit reckless and frequently pushed his train to the limits of its speed. But it was all in the service of the company, he told the people. After all, the trains had to run on time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that hunger for perfection would eventually catch up with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On April 30th of 1900, Jones filled in for a sick coworker and guided a train from Canton, Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But things were slow. By the time he was turning around for the return trip, he was already 90 minutes behind schedule. And the only way to make it up was to go faster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the train sped toward Vaughan, Mississippi, they entered a long curve through tall trees that kept much of the track ahead out of view. And at close to 75 miles per hour, that meant that he had no way of stopping quickly to avoid danger. So when a freight train was spotted ahead, he sounded the whistle to warn them of the inevitable.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Casey's train collided with the other with incredible force. He had managed to reduce his speed by about half, but he still plowed into its rear car and then continued on through the next few as well. Instead of jumping to safety though, Jones stayed at the helm, pulling hard on the brake while tugging furiously on the rope that operated the whistle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Eventually, Jones' train jumped the tracks and came to a stop on the embankment beside them. When the wreckage was examined, rescuers found Jones dead beneath a cab. He had been struck in the head with debris and his breaking arm had been torn from his body. But his refusal to leave the front cab had also saved the lives of everyone else on board.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His heroic death earned him his own slew of ballads and legends. But it also helped introduce most of America to an unsettling idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This technology they had enthusiastically supported was more than just a road into the future. It was an avenue to destruction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Death has been associated with trains for a very long time. While it might not be a natural fit, it's amazing how quickly the two paired up in the popular mindset. And some historians think we have one man to thank for that. President Abraham Lincoln.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More than any other president in history, Lincoln is probably one of the most closely linked to the idea of death. In the years leading up to his assassination, he had multiple dreams about his own funeral. And the most famous of those dreams took place just two weeks before John Wilkes Booth killed him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But a lot of people tend to forget about another moment from his life that took place a year or two before his death. Lincoln's son Robert was walking on a train platform in New Jersey when a group of men accidentally crowded him off the platform at the exact moment that the train had begun to move. He was moments from death when a man pulled him to safety.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that man in a wild twist of fate was Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth. Perhaps even more ironic is the fact that Robert Lincoln would go on to be the only Lincoln child to live into adulthood, all thanks to the actions of a Booth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After Lincoln's death, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton commandeered a railroad line from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois for the transportation of Lincoln's body. I think everyone knows this, so it doesn't need much explaining. Springfield was his adopted hometown, and that's where he belonged. But most people forget that there was another coffin on the train as well. Lincoln's young son, Willie,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] William Wallace Lincoln, who was lovingly called Willie by everyone around him, had passed away at the age of 12, just three years earlier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His body had been temporarily interred at a crypt in Georgetown, waiting for the day that his father left office and headed home to Illinois. And while the circumstances weren't what anyone had expected, Willie's time had finally come.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On April 21st of 1865, a funeral train pulled by an engine called the Nashville left the station in Washington DC. And then it began a nearly 2,000 mile journey across the eastern half of the country. But it made a lot of stops along the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Partly to allow mourners a chance to pay their respects, and partly because of the smell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You see, Lincoln hadn't been embalmed in DC, so his body wasn't doing so well inside that warm train car. There were a number of professional undertakers on board and they did their best, but sometimes filling his car with flowers was the only solution, so they had to stop every couple of days to buy new ones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They also stopped four funeral processions through a number of large cities, including Philadelphia, New York City, Cleveland, and Chicago, among many others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And with all of that ceremony and mourning, the string tying it all together was the train, that dark metallic beast that seemed to be dragging Lincoln into the underworld ever so slowly, mile by mile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Within a year, there were already stories and whispers. People within communities that had been along the train route began to report unusual experiences on the anniversary of the funeral procession. Some claimed to see lights on the track that night, while others said they could hear the whistle of a train despite not being able to see one at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The most common experience, though, seemed to follow the same pattern.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thick fog would descend on the tracks at night, and a train would be seen emerging from it, towing a number of cars all draped in black fabric. This train would never make a sound other than the occasional blow of the whistle, but those who witnessed it claimed that they could see lights and feel the wind as it passed by.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But few reports can hold a candle to one woman's experience just a few decades ago. According to her, she was driving home one evening in April and was about to cross the local railroad tracks when the crossing gate arm began to lower, lights flashing to indicate an oncoming train. So she stopped to wait in her car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A moment later, the silence was broken by the sound of a train whistle, and then the shape of an old-fashioned engine appeared in the darkness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Behind it was a long row of train cars, each one decorated with black fabric that hung in ribbons beneath the windows. And despite the complete lack of sound from the massive engine, the flags on the train could be seen flapping in the wind as it moved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Suddenly, the train began to slow down, and before this woman knew it, it had come to a complete stop. Right there in front of her car and the small train depot at the side of the road.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After what felt like an eternity, the whistle sounded again, and the ghostly train began to lurch forward, eventually vanishing into the darkness beyond the road.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In all, the experience took no more than 20 minutes, but it understandably left the woman feeling shaken. Glancing out her car window, she noticed that a pair of railroad employees had stepped outside the depot, and both of them appeared to be equally shocked. So she opened her car door and walked over to them to have a chat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A coffin draped in an American flag, and surrounded by soldiers dressed in Union Army blue, like an honor guard of sorts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the most unsettling part of that scene happened when one of those soldiers turned and looked out the window toward them. His face, they claimed, wasn't a face at all. It was nothing more than a skull.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were already running late when they pulled into the station. Every stop along the way had added more time to their route, and the westbound number 9 passenger train was falling farther and farther behind schedule. But that was bad for more than one reason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First, the Richmond and Danville Railroad, as a company, wasn't doing so well. By 1890, they had expanded to cover over 3,000 miles of track all throughout the American South, places like Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, and North Carolina. But the executives had overextended themselves, and now the R&D railroad was on the edge of collapse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their lateness was also bad because one of the passengers was none other than the railroad superintendent who was sleeping in his own private car toward the back. It was bad enough to be late, but to do so with the boss right there? Well, it looks sloppy. So the engineer, William West, decided to try and make up for their lost time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They pulled out of the station in Statesville, North Carolina around 2.30 in the morning on August 27th of 1891 and then poured on the speed. Moments later, the train was cruising at around 40 miles per hour and the engineer began to feel hopeful. About 30 minutes later though, all of that changed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The train had approached a long span of stonework known as the Bastian Bridge, which stretched about 60 feet above a wide ravine and a creek that ran through it. There were no other trains on the track and there was no bad weather as far as I can tell. It was just a normal, ideal crossing that should have gone smoothly. But that never happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Instead, the train left the tracks just as it began to cross the bridge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Instantly the engine and all of the cars behind it were launched at top speed into the air over the ravine. And if you've ever seen the movie Back to the Future 3, I'm sure you can conjure that image of what it might look like. An agonizing slow motion flight as a thing that was never meant to leave the ground, plummeted to its doom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The train crashed into the creek, which was swollen from the recent rains. They had been moving so fast that the sleeper car filled with passengers landed over 150 feet from the start of the bridge. And everywhere you looked, there was wreckage and suffering.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some of the survivors who could walk began to stumble their way back towards Statesville to get help, while others began to pick through the debris. But the rising water level was faster than their efforts and, all told, 22 passengers died that night, either from the crash itself or by drowning in the ravine below.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, the railroad went looking for someone to blame. The train might have been moving quickly, but it hadn't been going too fast. At least that was their corporate response.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, they believed someone else had caused the accident, because after examining the tracks leading up to the bridge, they claimed that a number of the spikes had been removed, leaving the iron rails loose and unsafe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But finding an explanation would never erase the loss of life or even help them salvage the business and it would never make the echoes of the tragedy go away.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which might explain why, for years after the deadly accident, locals would report unusual experiences near that bridge, most frequently on the anniversary of the crash.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the most powerful episode took place in the early morning hours in late August of 1941. A woman and her husband had been driving along Buffalo Shoals Road, which ran parallel to the old rail line. And as they approached the spot where their path crossed the tracks, they felt their car shudder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stepping out, the husband discovered that the rear tire had suddenly gone flat. So he locked the doors, waved goodbye to his wife, and then began the long walk to Statesville for help. And I wish that I could tell you that she sat in fear while he was gone. Or that she cheerfully listened to the radio and sang along. But I don't know how she passed her time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What we do know is that a long while later she heard an eerie sound in the distance. It was the whistle of a train.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Looking up and out into the darkness, she began to see the light of a headlamp cutting through the trees in the direction of the tracks and the bridge. And then, as she sat in her car watching, the train emerged, jumped the tracks, and plummeted into the ravine below.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a panic, the woman opened her door and stepped outside. She later claimed that she could hear the explosions and the screams from passengers below. She even ran toward the bridge itself and peered into the valley where she could see the glow of burning wood glistening off the swollen creek.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was only when she heard the sound of an approaching car that she pulled herself away again and headed back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She found her husband there, along with a local man who had come back with him to help with their car. But both of them could see that she was disturbed by something and asked what had happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The woman stopped in her tracks and stared with her mouth wide open.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our love affair with technology has given us many gifts over the years. In fact, scholars today measure much of prehistory with terms that reflect the inventiveness of the people in that era. The Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age. They all make sense and they all make a point. Humans are really good at creating new things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a lot of fields, that's been a wonderful thing. Every time we go to the doctor and they don't prescribe bloodletting or trepanation, we get to enjoy a bit of that technological advancement. Our foods are safer, our jobs are easier, and our hobbies are more delightful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Heck, even just being able to Netflix and chill is a product of decades of pushing the needle of invention forward, inch by inch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as someone who sat in a classroom and watched the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster live on television, there's an understandable amount of risk that comes with technology. The more complex our creations become,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The more they take on new points of failure and opportunities for human error.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Invention might be in our blood, and nothing will ever stop the march of progress, but it often comes at a price.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And nowhere is there a better example of this truth in action than in the early world of the railroad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, trains sped up travel and transportation, and provided jobs for tens of thousands of people across the country. And yes, those long metal rails stitched together a new nation on many levels, economically, socially, and politically. But they came with more risk, too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Disasters like the one at the Boston Bridge in North Carolina were more common than people were comfortable with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At least 75 people died in 1879 when the Tay Bridge in Scotland collapsed, taking a train with it. And just six years later, a train traveling between Boston and Montreal jumped the tracks as it crossed a bridge over the White River in Vermont. At least 37 people lost their lives that night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Clearly, these tragedies weren't the norm. But whenever they happened, they added a new reminder that our hunger for bigger and better can sometimes backfire on us. And those reminders haven't stopped either. In fact, even the Bastian Bridge seems unable to escape its painful legacy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For years since that tragic night in 1891, people have traveled to the bridge to pay their respects, to imagine the wreckage with their own eyes, and maybe to look for something more. And in recent years, some of those visitors have taken on a bit too much risk in the process. After all, curiosity can be a dangerous thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 2010, a dozen or so self-proclaimed ghost hunters trespassed on the land where the bridge still stands. They climbed up onto the tracks and wandered out into the middle of the span across the ravine and then settled in to wait.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You see, it was August 27th, the anniversary of the tragedy, and they were hoping for a glimpse of the ghost train.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Around 2.45 in the morning, close to the time of the original accident, these explorers glanced down the tracks and saw a light, a light that was quickly moving in their direction. Most of them ran away, but one young man stayed behind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's when he realized that the train on the tracks was, in fact, a real one and not a ghost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that realization came too late. Before he could move out of the way, he was struck by the oncoming train, most likely dying instantly on impact.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We can debate forever about whether or not trains from the past can haunt the land of the living.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over the years, we've explored a lot of unique pieces of folklore, and they can be found all around the world. But what I love the most about today's journey is just how American it feels. From the drive to innovate and improve, to the never-ending balance between progress and tradition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is why I want to give you a taste of our brand new show, American Shadows, because all of those themes are front and center.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear it for yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Taylor Haggardorn and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think that you'd enjoy both of them. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place. GrimAndMild.com


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over an 800-year period, 24 Buddhist monks in Japan managed to achieve the pinnacle of self-denial and mastery over their own bodies. When they were finished, they had successfully preserved their own physical remains for burial, all while they were still alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They are known as soku shinbutsu, monks who have taken the idea of asceticism so far that they were able to mummify their own bodies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was an act of devotion and discipline, but something that was rarely achieved. Those 24 bodies that have been discovered are thought to be the few who succeeded out of hundreds who attempted it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Practice was outlawed in Japan in the late 19th century, so we've lost a lot of the details as to how the process actually unfolded. But the core of the experience was a retreat into the mountains, where the monks would subsist only on what they could forage there, mainly pine needles, seeds, and small buds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over time though, even that food would be given up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These Buddhist monks had found an extreme use for the tradition known as fasting. By denying themselves the food they needed and only ingesting items that were rich in resin, they were able to slowly alter their body's makeup. And for many people today, that goal would sound familiar. To a lesser degree, of course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For thousands of years, cultures around the globe have used fasting as a tool of religious devotion, mental focus, political protest, and as a folk remedy for illness and disease. Some view it as the reset button for the human body, while others see it as a chance to elevate their consciousness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whatever the goal though, the means are always the same.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The absence or reduction of food for a period of time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Linda Burfield was born in Minnesota in 1867, one of eight children who filled their parents' house with noise and laughter. But, like a lot of homes, trouble eventually arrived to upset the peace. For the Burfields, that trouble came in the form of a traveling doctor and a gullible father.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] According to Linda's own account, she and her siblings were perfectly healthy when the doctor arrived for the first time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The pills consisted mainly of licorice, honey, and glycerol, which all sound safe enough, except for the biggest ingredient, that is, mercury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Within hours of taking these pills, the children would experience the symptoms of poisoning, including diarrhea and vomiting, which the doctor told them was the drug removing their disease.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Year after year, this doctor returned and each year he gave the children the same blue pill. By her early teens, Linda's digestive system had become so damaged that she was extremely thin, constantly tired, and plagued by a never-ending stomach ache. But looking back, two things probably saved Linda from death. The first was her wedding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In February of 1896, she married a young man named Edwin Perry, and the two moved away to set up their new life together elsewhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A month later the second lifesaver arrived when her father suddenly passed away in a mill accident.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No longer would she be forced to take those awful pills. And maybe that meant she could begin to heal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Six years later, though, her marriage ended in divorce after Edwin skipped town and never returned. But while one chapter of her life was closing, another was just beginning to open. It all started with her discovery of a book called The Gospel of Health written by a man named Dr. Edward Hooker Dewey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The book was a testimonial of sorts about the medical breakthroughs Dewey had made through the use of therapeutic fasting. And Linda fell in love with Dewey's message. So much so that she wrote him and convinced him that she would make a great student of his teachings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A short while later, she set up shop there in Minnesota where she offered her services to people in need.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Around the same time, she met Sam, a former military officer who had been kicked out for defrauding the army. He was a drunk and a cheat and possibly still married to at least one other woman before he met Linda, but she didn't see that as a deterrent. More of a challenge, really. And by 1905, she had won. And the two were married.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Word spread about Linda's fasting treatments, and people began to travel long distances to receive her special brand of care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Looking back though, I'm not sure the word care is even remotely appropriate, but that's certainly how she sold it. Whatever it really was, it was barbaric.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Patients would arrive and be put into a strict system of treatment that included therapeutic massages and a diet of broth from boiled asparagus and tomatoes. Oh, and those therapeutic massages weren't relaxing. They consisted of Linda slapping the patient on the stomach while shouting the word, eliminate, over and over again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like you, I find that sort of medical treatment, with large air quotes, difficult to trust. But apparently some patients found relief. One woman, 65 year old J.B. Barnett, left after 46 days of treatment and claimed that she was fully healed, both physically and mentally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another woman spent 43 days there before declaring herself well enough to return home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But not all was as it seemed. While Linda was spreading her message of therapeutic fasting and attracting a constant stream of new patients, trouble was brewing for her and Sam. It seemed that far too many of her patients weren't leaving at all due to the fact that they were simply wasting away and dying before they could get better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After the number of treatment-related deaths reached the point that Linda's reputation began to take on a darker tone, she and Sam packed up everything and headed west, hoping to start fresh and build the clinic of her dreams. In 1907, the couple arrived in Seattle and decided that it was the perfect place to continue her work. But the deaths also continued.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the people of Seattle weren't too happy about that. The newspapers were filled with articles about her during 1909 and 1910. And as you read through them, you can see the city struggling to put a stop to her deadly treatments.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Linda had somehow obtained a medical license, and that prevented Seattle from closing her down. And because patients checked in voluntarily, she wasn't guilty of a crime.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yet, common sense says she was. She was offering a medical treatment that left far too many of her patients dead. Of course, she was responsible. But the way the laws existed at the time left the authorities with no other option but to watch and wait.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While they did, Linda kept moving forward with her deadly practice. She moved her clinic across Puget Sound to the west, to a small community called Ulala. But it was really nothing more than a house surrounded by a few poorly built cabins. Cabins that contained slowly dying patients.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Apparently, some managed to escape. There are accounts of locals finding emaciated patients wandering the woods outside of town, looking for help. Most people avoided these escapees though because they were afraid of the powerful and now very wealthy Linda and Sam Hazard. But Linda was about to make a fateful decision.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One that had the potential to either enlarge her fortune exponentially or cost her everything she had worked to build. Linda Hazard was about to cross the line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Claire and Dora Williamson were inseparable sisters and friends. They were the daughters of a wealthy English military officer and the sole survivors of their family after a wave of illness washed them out of their lives. By 1910, they were young, rich, and left to battle through a series of medical challenges all on their own.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While they were suffering, they weren't lacking for any material wants. Gorgeous gowns from Paris and Hong Kong, trips around the still massive British Empire, even a few stops in some of the more elite health clinics. But to date, nothing had helped them heal and move on. Heal from what, you might ask?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Dora complained of rheumatic pain in her legs and knees. As far as I can tell, both women had pains in their abdomen. One London physician had told Dora that it was her uterus putting pressure on her spine, or perhaps her ovaries were inflamed. But without a solution, the women were left to suffer through their days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the fall of 1910, the sisters found themselves staying at the Empress Hotel on the southeastern tip of Vancouver Island, just north of Seattle, when Claire found an advertisement in the local paper for the Hazard Institute for Natural Therapeutics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was near enough and they still hadn't found a cure for their maladies, so they wrote to the address and asked for more information.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Within a week, they had a reply from Dr. Linda Hazard herself. She claimed that she could help them with their respective illnesses and asked them to come to her clinic as soon as they were able.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After discussing it for months, they set off in mid February of 1911 and arrived in Seattle on the 26th, ready to find healing and feel better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Less than an hour later, they were inside Dr. Hazard's Seattle office. She was charismatic and powerful, with the sort of charming arrogance that you might expect from a turn-of-the-century itinerant revival preacher. And she insisted that they begin treatment that very day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Soon enough, they were moved into a Seattle apartment and told that once accommodations had been settled across the Sound and Ulala, they would be transported there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That treatment was exactly what you might expect from Linda Hazard. The sisters were put on a strict diet of broth, and then would be given their daily enema, sometimes lasting nearly two hours, before settling in to wait for their next serving of broth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure they talked a lot as they sat alone in that apartment, dreaming of the day they would be completely healed, and discussing whether they could feel any improvement yet. And they waited.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Through it all, Claire was the bigger fan of the treatment methods used by Dr. Hazard. She was the one who had found the advertisement and reached out to the clinic. She was the one who had asked for help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dora, on the other hand, simply followed her sister's lead. Yes, she was an adult and could make her own decisions. But she had always been, even back into childhood, more of a follower than a leader.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] March of 1911 came and went. The women continued their treatment on a daily basis and as they did, they lost more and more weight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As they became weaker from the lack of food, Dr. Hazard had them placed in separate bedrooms in the apartment and forbid them to disturb each other. It would slow their progress, she told them, and no one wanted that now, did they?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was about the time that Hazard also insisted that the sisters keep their valuables someplace more secure than their apartment. She offered the use of her private safe back at her office. And eventually, after being asked a few times, the women gave in and handed everything over to her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On April 22nd, the clinic in Olalla was ready to receive them. An ambulance arrived at the apartment and carried both women out on stretchers because they were too weak to walk on their own.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hazard had covered their bodies in cotton wrappings, evoking the image of Egyptian mummings. But before the back door to the ambulance could close, someone else stepped inside. It was Linda Hazard's attorney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His name was John Arthur and he was there to take care of the less medical portions of their treatment. He handed a piece of paper and a pen to Claire and instructed her to write a letter to her childhood caretaker, a woman named Margaret Conway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She had cared for the sisters since their youth, and after the deaths of their parents, Conway had become a sort of surrogate mother to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the letter, Claire, under John Arthur's instruction, of course, told Conway that the Hazard Institute had full control over her care and assets. It was, for all intents and purposes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A last will and testament. And by signing it, Linda Hazard acquired her first foothold on the young lady's fortune.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Upon arriving in Olalla, at the clinic built on land once known as Wilderness Heights because of its remote and rustic location, the sisters were put in separate lodgings and their treatment was accelerated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Along with the frequent enemas and infrequent meals, they were given that same Linda Hazard beating as well as being placed into scalding hot bathwater. More paperwork was signed by both women and their possessions began to slowly disappear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Soon after, Margaret Conway received the telegram at her home in Australia and immediately felt as if something wasn't right. She boarded a ship soon after and began the three-week journey to Seattle, hoping to find the sisters and make sure they were well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there was no way she could have known just how bad things had become.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When Margaret Conway sat down in Linda Hazard's office, she was a storm of emotions. The doctor's hand rested on a blue leather notebook as she told Conway about just how sick Claire had been. Hazard described the autopsy in detail, right down to the texture of the young woman's liver,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then asked, matter of factly, if Conway wanted to see the body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Too numb to fight the current, Conway found herself swept out of the office and out into the busy Seattle streets. Soon she was entering through the front door of the mortuary service run by local businessman Edgar Ray Butterworth. Inside, Conway was given a chance to look over Claire's body. But something wasn't right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, the body of a young woman laid out before her was clothed in a gown she recognized, but nothing else was familiar about her appearance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The face, the hair, even the hands, all of it felt like looking at a stranger. In fact, that's exactly what Conway believed she was doing. But before she could ask, they were leaving again, this time to visit Dora across the Sound in Olala.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When they arrived on the grounds of the sanatorium, Conway was overwhelmed by just how remote the facilities were. Newer patients wandered through the spaces between the small cabins, but others could only be heard crying out in agony. And after she was led to Doris Hut, she understood why.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The young woman she had known for two decades looked like a skeleton. According to historian Greg Olson in his book Starvation Heights, Dora probably only weighed about 50 pounds. Her bones could be seen beneath almost every inch of her skin, and that skin had an unnatural blue tint to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Worse, Margaret reported later that the scent of death filled the small one-room cabin, hinting at what was just around the corner for poor Dora.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Margaret wasn't about to let that happen. She immediately set the work fighting against the hazards to get Dora released into her own custody. At the same time, she began sneaking richer foods into her cabin, hoping to restore some of the young woman's strength.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the battle with the hazards soon proved to be too challenging for her. So she called for help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That help came in the form of Dora's uncle, a well-connected attorney back in England, who in turn reached out to a government official in nearby Tacoma. And after a drawn out negotiation process, they finally found success.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dora was set free from the Hazard Institute and placed into the care of Margaret Conway. But it came at a hefty price, close to $25,000 in modern American dollars. Hazard called it a fee for services rendered, but everyone else knew what it really was. It was a ransom payment, and they played along.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But while that chapter of the story was finally over, another was about to begin. Because Dora's uncle and his friend in Tacoma weren't about to let Linda Hazard get away with what she had done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, the state of Washington permitted Hazard to receive patients and provide treatment. And yes, if those patients died, she was not legally responsible. But they believe there was more going on than broth diets and marathon enemas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On August 15th of 1911, Linda Hazzard was arrested on the charges of murder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The bigger story were the revelations that would come to light later. It turns out that she had a history of shady business practices, including an unusual focus on wealthy patients. In fact, the land her entire Institute for Natural Therapeutics was situated on had been signed over to her by a local politician named Louis Radar, who died after seeking treatment from the good doctor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Others suffered the same fate, and the Williamson sisters were just the newest names on a long list of what looked like a con game. Lure in the wealthy fish, hook them with the hope of renewed health, and then keep them isolated until they starved themselves to death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some think Hazard was responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen patients like that. But because the bodies had a way of vanishing without a trace, there was no way to know for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The trial began in January of 1912, and the testimony that was given by witnesses only added to the darkness of the true story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Linda and her husband Sam had taken everything of value from their patients, right down to their gold fillings, and used it for their own gain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Linda would eventually add clothing from female patients to her own wardrobe, including a kimono that she took from Claire Williamson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The hazards fought back, of course. Their attorney managed to prevent Linda from actually taking the stand to answer questions. And for every witness who had a horror story to tell about life at the sanatorium, there seemed to be another who was only too happy to declare Linda's innocence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all of this went on for an entire month, drawing in massive crowds and filling the headlines of the local paper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Toward the end of the trial, one prosecutor did manage to get hazard on the stand, and he inquired about the cure she offered to her patients. Did you make money at it? he asked her. She paused, looked at the crowd in the courtroom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the surface, there was nothing wrong with Linda Hazard's personal obsession with fasting. As I mentioned at the beginning of the story, fasting is nearly as old as humanity itself. We have records of it serving religious and medical purposes for thousands of years, from ancient Near Eastern cultures to modern times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ancient Greeks saw fasting as a preventative step because they believed that demons could only enter a person's body through the mouth. By abstaining from food, they were essentially locking the body down against evil.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the Puritans of early New England, fasting was a common response to troubled times. Cotton Mather, one of the prominent religious leaders during the Salem witch trials, actually recommended it as a solution to Salem's ongoing witchcraft panic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's still around today in many forms. Some of them sitting just as close to the fringe as the beliefs of Linda Hazzard. One woman in 2013, in Seattle of all places, claimed that she was going to undertake a 100 day fast. With her only source of nourishment being sunlight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was not shocked in the least to discover that her plans failed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unusual beliefs aside, there's another undercurrent flowing through the story of Linda Hazzard. And that's the twisting of her role as a healthcare provider. People came to her from across the country to have their ailments cured. And she promised them that she could do it. With a single one-stop-shop approach, too. To her, every tool was a hammer. And the hammer was fasting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what's most frightening about Linda Hazard is how she began from a place of compassion, wanting to help and heal people, and yet allowed her convictions and beliefs to evolve into a different, more aggressive attitude. One that said, well, if you can't survive this treatment, then you just weren't strong enough to begin with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's something cold and heartless about that, amplified by her utter lack of actual medical training and understanding of human physiology. And it's that mixture of pride and arrogance that led to the deaths of so many people under her care. It was frightening to the people of Seattle a century ago, and it's frightening to us today because, deep down, we know it could happen again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Linda Hazard arrived alone at the penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington, shortly after her sentencing. She had one suitcase with her, had lost her medical license, and expected to be there for the next two decades. But two years later, Governor Ernest Lister made her an offer she couldn't refuse, promised to leave the country, and I'll let you out now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hazard agreed. She and Sam packed up what they had and moved to New Zealand, where she apparently had a large number of supporters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And wouldn't you know it, she set up shop there as a physician who used fasting to cure patients. Patients who, just like those in Seattle, had a bizarre knack for dying under her care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1920, she returned to Seattle, breaking her promise to Governor Lister, who had died a few months earlier. She arrived with enough cash to build the sanitarium she had always dreamed of. And when it was complete, there were enough beds for 100 patients. The basement, of course, had an autopsy room.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A massive fire burned the structure to the ground 15 years later, and three years after that, in 1938, Linda Hazard became ill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She was 71 years old and had lived a long and controversial life. But she knew how to get better. She was a doctor, after all. Wasn't she?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In June of that year, her husband Sam walked into her bedroom one morning, only to find that she had passed away in her sleep the night before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Her body was gaunt and frail and unnaturally thin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which makes sense, of course, because Hazard hadn't taken the traditional approach to curing her own illness.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, she did what she had asked countless other patients to do over the years and had approached it with that same dangerous confidence. She starved herself. To death.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The tale of Linda Hazzard is a horrifying example of healthcare gone bad, and is full of so many tragic players, from the Williamson sisters to her treatment of her own illness. But there are other characters in the story that deserve a second look.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear one more tale from the outer edges of the Hazard Institute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For as long as Edgar could remember, he could see dead people. Not moving and talking, mind you, but real, actual dead things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the age of just 14 in 1861, he left his home in New England to serve the Union in the Civil War.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was in his blood to be a soldier, after all. His own grandfather Noah had fought in the Revolutionary War, and this was his chance to make his own sacrifice. But he was deemed too young to fight, and sent home with nothing but a heart full of disappointment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He supported his family through his teens, but also managed to study law. By 21, he was a member of the Bar Association in Massachusetts, and a year later, he married a woman named Grace Whipple. But two years into their marriage, Grace died while giving birth to their first child, Gilbert, and Edgar was left to raise his son alone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe it was the grief and disappointment of his time in New England. Or maybe it was his restless spirit. But in 1872, he and Gilbert moved west, picking up work along the way. They lived in Missouri in 1873, and then headed to Kansas in 1876.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Specifically, the remains of dead bison. It turned out that there were buyers who paid upwards of $10 for every ton of bison bone he could find. Yes, it involved carting wagonfuls of the stuff over 125 miles to the nearest train station, but those $10 were equal to about $250 today, and he needed the money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then one day, fate stepped into his life. He was returning from a delivery of bison bones when he encountered a lone settler on the side of the road.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The man was in tears and after Edgar stopped to see if he needed help, he discovered that the settlers wife and child had just died and that the man had no coffin to bury them in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What Edgar did next was the stuff of legends. He took the box off the back of his wagon, you know, the long wooden walls that held his cargo in place, and began to construct a coffin for the desperate man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he was done, he stepped back and admired his work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had encountered the dead once more and managed to meet its needs in a practical way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By 1881, the family had moved yet again, this time settling in Washington state.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Edgar opened a furniture store in the southwestern town of Centerville, and for a long time, things went very well for him and his family. And when an outbreak of diphtheria rocked Centerville to its core, Edgar was called upon to help the dead once more by building coffins.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then in 1891, he moved the family one last time and they headed north to Seattle. It was time to take his lifelong interest in serving the dead to its fullest potential. So he purchased a local undertaker business and began to build it into something bigger and more powerful than it had once been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Within a decade, he was the proud owner of a massive five-story facility that held all manner of services for his funeral business. There was a chapel inside that could seat 200 people, a crematorium, and even the West Coast's first elevator. Oh, and something else that we might take for granted today. A casket showroom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You see, Edgar was one of, if not the, first undertaker in America to popularize the funeral traditions that we know today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Elaborate caskets, crushed silk interiors, limousine caravans to the graveyard. His goal was to offer all of the services a grieving family might need from the moment they learned of their loved one's passing to the last moments of the burial service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Edgar and his sons managed it all. They would pick up each body, transport them to their facilities, wash and embalm them and then dress them for burial. They handled the newspaper announcements, floral arrangements and even hiring musicians for the service.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a one stop shop experience. And from a very clinical perspective, he made disposing of a body simple and easy, which was exactly what Linda Hazard needed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In business circles, you often hear about the concept known as strategic alliances. Services that complement each other, rather than compete for the same customers. Bakeries that make wedding cakes will often have brochures on hand for local flower shops and DJs because they know their customers will need those services.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in a weird, twisted way, Linda Hazard and Edgar Butterworth found a way to help each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She kept him busy with a constant flow of new bodies to dispose of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he provided a way for all her troubles to disappear without a trace. After all, even killers need to be efficient.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Robin Minniter and music by Chad Lawson.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As you know, some stories inspire a lot of you to go read further, to soak up as much of the background as you can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To that end, I wanted to recommend one of the primary sources for this episode, a book called Starvation Heights, written by Greg Olson. It's available on Amazon and Audible, and if you want to learn more about Linda Hazard's story, you really need to grab this book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lore is, of course, much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Makey's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, theworldoflore.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a stretch of land on the eastern side of Africa, starting around the coastal city of Durban and ending 900 miles later at Cape Town. And as for as long as ships have been sailing there, there has been tragedy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They call it the Wild Coast because of the frequency of shipwrecks that have taken place over the years, the Santo Alberto in 1593.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even today, ships occasionally fall victim to the rocky coast and stormy waves, like the Greek cruise liner, the Oceanos, which went down in August of 1991. Thankfully, there were no casualties.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But one ship wasn't so lucky. The SS Worata was also a passenger liner, built and launched in 1908, and measured over 500 feet long, with a weight of 10,000 tons. It was a big ship, and as a passenger liner, it was designed to hold a lot of people in relative luxury.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On its fateful journey, there were over 200 passengers on board, as well as dozens of crew members who served them and operated the ship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In July of 1909, the Warratah approached the southern tip of Africa after a long journey from Australia, and it came within sight of the wild coast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's one of the risks that humans accepted when they began to venture out into the dark, mysterious waters that separated them from the undiscovered. Because, if we're honest, there are simply too many opportunities for tragedy on the open water. And sadly, some ships don't make it home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if you read enough of the stories about lost ocean liners and missing schooners, you'll start to notice an exception to the rule. Yes, sometimes ships vanish from sight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our love affair with the sea is thousands of years old. All you have to do is read the histories and mythology of ancient cultures and you'll notice right away just how central the open water was to their worldview.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Homer's Odyssey, written around the 8th century BC, tells the tale of Odysseus and his decade of travels around the ancient world. And he does much of that travel by sea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Countless other ancient stories are connected to the ocean as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 400 years after Homer, the Greek historian Heronotus recorded the Egyptian tale of a pharaoh named Niko II, who had lived and ruled two centuries earlier. Niko was said to have assembled an expedition that left Egypt through the Red Sea on the northeastern corner, and then slowly circumnavigated Africa. They arrived at the mouth of the Nile, three years later. But sailing wasn't a new thing, even back then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most historians think that humans first jumped into small sailing ships similar to catamarans all the way back in 3000 BC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They began their migration from the island of Taiwan and slowly spread out south and east. A thousand years later, they were firmly established in what is now Indonesia. And soon after that, they spread as far as Vanuatu and Fiji.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the 10th century, they had reached more remote places of the Pacific like Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island. And some even made it all the way to the west coast of South America, now settling in what is now Chile.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 4,000 years of expansion giving birth to dozens of culture and all of it thanks to sailing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, it wasn't always about migration. For many cultures, the ocean represented the unknown, and each of them had a deep desire to go out, to explore and discover and learn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, and to get rich, of course. Because nothing kickstarts a new industry like the promise of massive wealth, does it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But as more and more ships set sail for uncharted lands, or even simply became part of growing naval fleets and merchant routes, the odds that tragedy could strike began to rise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most of what we know today about ancient seafaring cultures was born from that tragedy too, in the form of shipwrecks. And every year, it seems, older and older wrecks are being discovered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just last year in October of 2018, researchers announced the oldest yet, a 2,400-year-old Greek merchant vessel that was discovered at the bottom of the Black Sea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's so well preserved that researchers were able to recognize its design from images painted on ancient wine jars, which is crazy to think about. But of course, the shipwreck is real, and that means we can learn so much more about it than a wine jar could ever have taught us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shipwrecks were a tragic necessity in an age when humanity was spreading out and taking risks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So much so that shipping companies just sort of assumed they would lose some of their ships in the course of doing business. And that, of course, helped give rise to commercial insurance, where companies could hedge their bets and avoid going bankrupt when random chance got in the way of the bottom line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In London, many local sailors and ship owners would gather in a coffee house owned by a man named Edward Lloyd. By the late 1680s, he had so many customers who were connected to the shipping industry that he posted daily shipping news to keep them informed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But his cafe also became the place to buy insurance for ships. And even when all of those insurance underwriters left the cafe and set up shop on their own, they remembered his influence by naming their group after him. Today, it's still around and known as Lloyd's of London.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So many ships have sunk to the bottom of the ocean over the past few thousand years that we've even created stories about them. Stories that hint at our regret and longing, at the loss we've suffered through, and the deepest desire of our hearts. Namely, that those long lost vessels might one day return.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They even have a name, ghost ships, and folklore is filled with them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One example is a schooner known as the Young Teaser. It was active during the War of 1812 and worked as a privateer, a government-approved pirate ship, in an effort to torment and hamper the British ships off the coast of Nova Scotia. And things went according to plan for a while. Until June of 1813, that is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After an encounter with a British naval vessel, the crew of the young teaser found themselves trapped in Mahone Bay on the eastern coast of Nova Scotia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fearing that his capture might lead to execution, one of the crewmen was said to have ignited the powder magazine below deck. The resulting explosion left 30 men dead and the ship nearly destroyed, while the survivors were all captured and thrown in prison by the British. But it also began a new chapter in the ship's story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over the past two centuries, stories have been whispered about a flaming ship that has appeared in Mahone Bay. Locals refer to it as teaser light, and even though many skeptics have pointed out that the sightings could be nothing more than the reflection of the full moon on the water, it hasn't stopped folks from hoping for the alternative.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Another ghost ship found in folklore is also the most famous. The Flying Dutchman. As far as early modern ghost ships go, the Dutchman is one of the oldest, most likely dating back to the late 1600s. All of the sightings seem to repeat the same frightening details too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A mysterious ship spotted off in the distance, glowing with an eerie luminescence and devoid of all human life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But these stories are all just legends. Yarn that's been spun on the wheel of fantasy. Sometimes stitching together real events and people, but never fully true. And folklore is full of stories about ghosts for a very good reason.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We like to think that however dangerous the seas might be, that against all odds, those lost ships might somehow come back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amazingly though, life has managed to imitate art. Over the last few centuries, some lost ships have pulled off the impossible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in doing so, they've put themselves into a whole new category.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They'd been expecting its arrival in Newport, Rhode Island, but it never sailed into the harbor. The SV Seabird was a merchant ship that had departed weeks earlier from Honduras where it made regular trips. The ship's captain, John Huxham, knew the route well and shouldn't have had any trouble. But it's never safe to assume, is it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the ship was later found on nearby Easton's beach, it was clear it had experienced trouble. And when those who discovered it stepped on board, they entered into a mysterious scene.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Coffee was boiling on the stove in the galley. A pair of pets were walking on the deck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But other than that, the ship was completely and utterly empty. No crew were on board.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most people think that Captain Huxham and the others must have exited the vessel while it was still away off from shore. The missing lifeboat seemed to confirm that idea. And with a bit more time to investigate, there's a good chance the authorities might have solved the riddle. But a week later, they traveled back to the beach, only to discover the ship was gone. And it was never seen again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A century later in 1884, another merchant ship was found drifting through the Atlantic. The SV Resolvin was sighted just outside of Catalina Harbor on the east coast of Newfoundland.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the seabird, the Resolvin was also missing its lifeboat and had been completely abandoned. The only sign of damage was a broken yard, that horizontal beam at the top of the mast that the sails hang from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ship that found the Resolvin was the HMS Mallard and they did their best to put the pieces together. They'd sighted a tall iceberg in the region and assumed the Resolvin had come a bit too close to it, which would explain the damage. But it wasn't enough to justify abandoning ship, which struck them as odd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even more mysterious were the signs of normal life inside the ship. All of the lanterns were still lit. And below deck, the stove in the galley was hot, with a fire still burning inside it. And most mysterious of all was the ship's log, which contained records of all the activities on board.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The most recent item on the page had been written down just six hours prior to the Mallard's arrival.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if we're going to talk about actual ships that have turned up empty, we simply can't ignore one particular story. Because it's quite possibly the one that introduced the idea of ghost ships to American culture, giving us our own version of those old world legends.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Amazon was built in 1860, first sliding into the water at the shipyard owned and operated by Joshua Dewis up in Nova Scotia. It was a wooden brigantine, a two-masted sailing ship, and it was of average size, measuring just shy of 100 feet long. But life didn't start out smooth for the Amazon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the ships made in voyage, which began in June of 1861, the captain became ill. Before they could even begin to transport their cargo across the Atlantic, the Amazon was forced to return to its home port, where the captain died a few days later. The next captain didn't fare any better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Under the supervision of John Parker, the Amazon had a number of accidents, including crashing into a brig in the English Channel. Somehow though, the ship survived.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When Captain William Thompson took over command in 1863, he ushered in a period of peace for the ship, and it traveled all over, performing the duties it had been designed to do. But four years later, in October of 1867, an ill wind blew the Amazon off course, where it ran aground on Cape Breton Island, at the northern tip of Nova Scotia. The extensive damage led the crew to abandon ship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And four days later, the wreckage was hauled off by a salvager.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the Amazon wasn't finished just yet. After being sold to a local businessman and restored to sailing condition, it was moved to New York City, where it became part of a merchant fleet owned by a man named James Winchester. Oh, and they changed the ship's name, too. No longer would it be called the Amazon. Instead, it would be the Mary Celeste.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first job for the newly restored ship was to carry a cargo of over 1700 barrels of denatured alcohol, a type of ethanol that's been colored and made toxic to discourage consumption.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The ship's owner has brought on a man named Benjamin Briggs as captain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And allowed him to hire a crew of seven experienced sailors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they began to plan the route to Genoa, on the northwestern coast of Italy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Captain Briggs was so confident in his ship and crew that he brought his wife Sarah along, as well as his son Arthur and daughter Sophia. Together with the crew, they all settled into the Mary Celeste and left port on November 7th of 1872. It was the last time any of them were seen alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A week later on November 15th, another ship left the same harbor in New York. The Degratia was captained by a man named David Morehouse, and depending on the sources you accept as reliable, he was a casual acquaintance of Benjamin Briggs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their destination was Gibraltar, located at the southern tip of Spain where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic, and it was a route that placed them on roughly the same line as the Mary Celeste.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A month later on December 4th, the Degratia was off the coast of Portugal when someone spotted a ship about six miles away. As they drew closer to it, everyone could make out the name on its stern. It was the Mary Celeste.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From a distance they noticed a few key details. The sails were in poor condition, some of the deck hatches were wide open, and the lifeboat was missing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Morehouse ordered two of his crew to row over and investigate. They found the interior cabins to be wet and disorderly, as if a storm had blown through, and Captain Briggs' sword was discovered beneath a bed. The ship's compass was damaged, and the cargo hold was filled with about three feet of water. It was chaos and disorder. But not entirely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While the hold had taken on water, all of the valuable cargo was still on board, ruling out pirates. And the ship's kitchen was neat and orderly too, with no signs that anyone rushed out unprepared. After searching the whole ship, nothing else alarming could be found. The crew and passengers had simply vanished.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the end, Morehouse decided to bring the ship with him to Gibraltar, where he might be able to earn a portion of its salvage price. It took another week, but eventually the Mary Celeste arrived in port, bringing its mysterious journey to an end.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But at least one abandoned ship in the past managed to evade capture entirely. It slipped from their grasp and drifted away, leaving its owners wondering if they would ever see it again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it comes to abandoned ships, few have drifted into the minds of sailors, like the story of the SS Bachimo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was a 1,300-ton steamer built in 1914, and for many years it served in the merchant fleet of the Hudson Bay Company. But that's not where it started out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It seems the Bachimo had actually been a German vessel for its first few months in the water.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Running the trade route between Germany and Sweden, where the company that operated it was located. But when World War I ended, part of Germany's reparation agreements included making amends for the loss of ships suffered by other countries, and the Bechimo was given to the United Kingdom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was there in Western Scotland that the Hudson Bay Company took ownership, and because the Bachimo is equipped with a powerful steam engine and a thick steel hull, it was assigned a route between Scotland and Northern Canada, where it picked up animal pelts in exchange for goods that were unavailable to the Inuit communities who lived there. It wasn't always an easy trip, though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 1928, the ship ran aground in Camden Bay, in northern Alaska. Thankfully, it was undamaged and moved back into the water, keeping the Hudson Bay Company from losing the cargo. But when it comes to the constant barrage of dangers from the sea, it's impossible to dodge all the bullets.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three years later, in October of 1931, the Bachimo got caught in heavy ice in the waters north of Alaska, bringing the massive steamer to a halt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The crew initially abandoned ship, but when the ice began to break up they happily returned. A week later though it happened again, this time farther out from land. To save the crew, the Hudson Bay Company sent an airplane out to rescue them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the plane arrived, all 37 crew members exited the ship for the last time. Only 22 were able to fit on the aircraft, so the other 15 stayed behind to wait for a second flight. A few days later, a powerful snowstorm brought whiteout conditions, and when it was over, the ship was gone. Sunk by the heavy ice, no doubt. But it hadn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A few days later, the ship was spotted in a new location, and the remaining crew were able to board it and remove the valuable cargo in case tragedy finally did catch up with it. And then they left, abandoning the Bachimo to the ice and harsh conditions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And kicking off a string of sightings that earned it a powerful reputation as an Alaskan ghost ship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In March of 1932, a man named Leslie Melvin was guiding his dogsled team along the coast on his way back to the city of Nome in western Alaska.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As he looked up from the sled at the scenery around him his eye was drawn to the ocean and he spotted something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was the Bachimo, floating peacefully without power up the coast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Later that summer, a trading party spotted the ghost ship farther north off the coast of Wainwright, and they actually managed to board the vessel. When they discovered it was empty though, they exited and went on their way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In March of 1933, a group of Athabaskans, part of the indigenous community in Alaska, also boarded the ghost ship, only to be trapped inside it for 10 days while the winter storm cut them off from land.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like to be inside in the dark with all the unidentifiable sounds that come with being on board a ship trapped in the ice and wind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the months went on, more and more rumors spread out, trickling through each of the nearby Hudson Bay Company outposts like water through a network of pipes. There was a July 1934 sighting by a team of scientific explorers, as well as multiple reports in September of 1935 from farther up north.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was clear that the boccemo had not gone away for good. And it was out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Haunting the shores and waiting for someone to capture it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The last time the ship was boarded was in November of 1939, eight years after it had first disappeared.