Citation Needed - Jasper Maskelyne

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

Jasper Maskelyne (29 September 1902 – 15 March 1973) was a British stage magician in the 1930s and 1940s. He was one of an established family of stage magicians, the son of Nevil Maskelyne and a grandson of John Nevil Maskelyne. He is most remembered for his accounts of his work for the British military during the Second World War, in which he claimed to have created large-scale ruses, deception, and camouflage in an effort to defeat the Nazis.[1]

Hello and welcome to citation needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm no illusions and I'm going to be baffling your eyes and dazzling your brains with the ancient arts of podcasting. But to keep you distracted, while I bend the spoons, I'm going to need some lovely assistants, Tom, Cecil, and Eli. Yeah, I don't give the spoon as bent as long as I still get the ice cream.

There you go. The gravity of my body actually bends the spoons when I hang them on my chest. Oh, interesting. There you go. And before we get going, I want to thank our listeners for the most important thing they offer us. A shred of validation when we tell our wives and kids that some people find our stories very interesting, actually. Also giving us money is nice. If you'd like to learn how to do that last bit, be sure to stick right to the end of the show.

And with that out of the way, tell us Cecil, what person plays thing, concept phenomenon, or event? are we going to be talking about today? A guy named Jasper. Maskelyne? Is that really? Oh my God. Is it masculine? Okay, Jasper Maskelin.

Maskeline. But it's spelled very, very weird. Yep, yep. So, Eli, you read the article about this guy. Are you ready to assert? Indeed I am, Noah. Indeed I am. So tell us, Eli.

Who was Jasper Maskely? As Tom conducts the final stages of his experiment about whether one can get paid for a podcast they never appear on, we've had as a special guest, skeptical activist Michael Marshall. And at least so far, Marsh's essays have followed a bit of a pattern. He introduces a heartwarming, inspiring, or otherwise intriguing tale, only to shit all over it with facts and truth. Yeah. Well, today, my friends, we are in no such danger. Today, we're going to learn the incredibly true story of Jasper Maskely, the magician who defeated Hitler.

Incredibly true. I just want to say, as one fifth of the cast, I think I am entitled to skip one third of the episodes. As long as you guys pick up my slack, I don't see the problem. It's fine. I don't know if anybody's keeping score at home, but Tom, you write like 11 essays for everyone at Eli's. Don't even play along. That's true.

It is bullshit. I don't know there. So, I should say at the outset that almost everything written about Jasper Maskelyne was either written by Maskelyne himself, ghost written by him,

or written by someone who he'd literally just fooled with a card trick. So I will be combining those sources in our tale and sprinkling in facts only when absolutely necessary. So, you know, citation needed.

That said, if you would like the bulls, shittiest possible version of his life, I highly recommend the family history. Jasper wrote called White Magic, the story of the masculines. That book begins with his great-grandfather having a wizard battle with the devil and gets less true from there. Huh.

White Magic, the story of the masculine sounds like a fucking debate bro book. Take on now. Yeah. No, it is. I'm worried about any whites having magic battles with the wizard. This is not. Yeah. Anyways, on with our story.

Jasper came from humble beginnings. Born in England in 1902, his grandfather was a simple, most famous magician in Britain. His father, a simple, most famous magician in Britain after his grandfather. Jasper's first appearance on stage was at the tender age of three when he wandered onto the stage and began loudly explaining to the audience how his father's tricks were done. And daddy's girlfriend? doesn't really disappear. She just hides in the closet until mommy stops crying. I'm unsupervised.

I've known a few three-year-olds in my days. I would love to hear one to explain how to do a double lift. Exactly. At age nine, or lunch-making age of your Cecil, he was an lunch-making age is six, dude.

Get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here. All right. You're all fine. In age nine, he was an on-stage assistant to also famous magician David Devon at the first ever Royal Command performance for music hall artists. But young Jasper harbored a secret dream. Jasper dreamt of being a magician. But his father would hear none of it. Jasper was sent to a preparatory school in Kensington, and from there, he learned to farm at an agricultural school in the forest of Dean.

The fuck, it's 1902. You wouldn't need a... college degree to be a doctor for eight more years in his day. Is this kid in formal schooling for farming somehow? No, I see his parents' point, though. Like, none of us can pretend with a straight face that we'd be happy to see our kids like, follow us into podcast. Right?

I get it. I get it. Learn to fucking farm, man. He's going to have turnips at the end of the day. Shit. After college, Jasper worked on a farm, tilling soil, living off the land. by the sweat of his brow.

But in his heart, his secret magic dream lived on. Then, at the tender age of 20, he had a breakthrough. He performed as Robin Hood in the farm play. And his father, who was in attendance,

was so impressed that he agreed to let him join their humble theater, building that they owned in London. No, no, no, Eli, I got to stop you again. Eli, the farm play?

Yeah, thank you. What the fuck is happening. Are they auditioning for some turn of the century farmers have talent competition? Okay. What the fuck is a farm play? Okay, so as Tom points out, if Michael Marshall were here, he might say something like,

so we're sitting, start a podcast with seafood, and then go on vacation with everyone by Eroy I will. But he might also question whether or not farms have plays. So yeah, maybe Jasper's farm

was slightly more of an estate than a farm. But it had an orchard and his family owned it. And whoever owns the farm is the fucking farmer. It's not who does the most work on it. That's just English. Marsh. I might want to go to Enderberger. I might.

Do you just want us to come back in a bit when you settled down? Do you want us to just let you? If it's any consolation, Eli, when Marsh spent a delightful couple of days showing me and Lucinda around Liverpool with Nicola and Dr. Alice, it was rainy one of the days. The other day was lovely. Anyways.

I'll let Jasper tell us about the first part he played in his dad's magic show. Quote, Egyptian tombs and tomb robbers were the topic of the day, and St. George's Hall, always ready to reflect public opinion, instantly staged a magic playlet, written by my father and entitled the scarab, in which direct reference was made to this fascinating subject. In the sketch, an archaeologist discusses with a dealer the sale of a mummy of King, Rother, of Egypt. But proceedings are complicated by the appearance of Joe Billyboy, a burglar who tries to steal the valuable mummy, and the coming to life of an 8,000-year-old royalty who is principal

in these affairs. I was given my first professional stage part as Joe Billyboy, and and earned three pounds a week for playing it. It was simple and easy enough. It consisted chiefly in making a dramatic appearance in the Egyptologist study, clad in a Bill Sykes cap and muffler. I took very little part in the numerous magic transformations and illusions that provided the real thrills of the playlet. But for me, it was a great occasion nonetheless, end quote.

Yeah, I'm sure an equal delight for the farmhands who actually worked all day, now having to politely applaud as the boss forces them to watch the family talent show. Yeah. Bar Mands who, by the way, we're making on average like 15 shilling us a week for actually working all day. Watching this shit. Guys, he was back in London.

These poor people weren't allowed to see the show. Oh, this was after the big, his break out. Why don't you do a magic show for poor people? Still don't take it back. At the tender age of 22, Neville, He was finally able to make his own sandwich. That's the thing.

None of us turned out okay. Just some of us know how to make a fucking sandwich. We didn't turn out hungry. I did turn out hungry. That's true. This is all starting to come together. Then at just 22, Neville, Jasper's father passed away, leaving Jasper and his brother Clive destitute

with only the theater, the entertainment company, and the traveling show that they also owned to sustain them. Well, and at least one estate. Did Jasper's mother have to win the Lee Bennett Hopkins Award to support the families? He might have, Cecil. He might have. Perhaps nobody was more affected by the Great Depression than Jasper, but through hard work, dedication, and the modest amount of money he'd inherited, Jasper built a new touring show for modest,

small town venues like the 12th Royal Variety Performance before locals, King George the 5th and Queen Mary. He released a book, the masculine book of magic, as well as the family history I mentioned earlier, white magic. He also recorded magic demonstrations for the Parlophone, featured as a clothes model and acted in the film's Room 19 and the Dizzy Limit, later retitled Kidnapped. He also was in Terror on Tiptoe, which were a the first, which were among the last silent films ever to be made. Okay, I would bet all the money I have that the silence of these films came as a stunning relief to everyone who watched them.

As Jasper scraped out a living, another inconvenience would disrupt his magic career. World War II. Mr. Hitler and his band of baddies had decided to conquer the world. And there was only one man with the skill set to stop him. magician nepo baby Jasper Maskeland All right Well kudos to Eli for stretching out

Once there was a Nepo baby magician Into a half of an essay And now With the promise of something eventually happening We can take a quick break For a little apropos of nothing And I says to him The cow ain't getting better us

Just stand in here about it Right you uh Right you bloody Well, uh... Hello, gentlemen. Fine morning. Good morning, sir. What's this, sir?

No, my good fellow. I am a humble farmer. Like you. A man who squeezes his living from the land and the... Theatre in London, his family owns. You what? We, party types, we understand the feel of good, clean soil under our boots, don't we?

Well, not boots. These are dress shoes. Haven't quite gotten boots yet. Oh, but I did all. order repair made in Saville Road they are going to be amazing. Lovely. Lovely is the, the smell of the fields, you know?

Right, sir. If I might say. Of course. Just us farmers here, you may. You may. Why exactly are you wearing a tuxedo? Well, it's Sunday, isn't it? Evergoat calendar.

Right. Well, it is. If you say so, sir. You guys are bummers. Dude, let me out. Sorry, Tom, rules or rules. You made the rules. Hey, um, Eli, why is Tom in a cage?

Yeah, did he start talking about how he realized people are meat again? No, no. I'm worried he's going to scamper off with my cash. Okay, I borrowed a dollar from you for the vending machine one time. Still, still. Look, Eli, if you like keeping an eye on where your money goes, you should switch to Mint Mobile. What's Mint Mobile? Okay, see, now I wouldn't let you out even if it wasn't a money thing.

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I love how I get the same great service for a fraction of the cost. That's why I, no illusions, personally endorse MintMobile. All right, Noah. I'm sold. Where do I sign up? If you like your money, MintMobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com slash citation. That's mintmobile.com slash citation.

A front payment of $45 for a three-month, five-gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full-price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. All right, Noah, thanks. You hear that, Tom? You're free. No. I really should wait in here for a bit.

Noah reminded me people are meat again. Yep. Fair. Hand away from bars. Thank you. Okay, Doc, but what I'm asking you is, what if it's milky in texture but not in color? Hey, Cecil. It's Eli on speakerphone with his doctor again?

Yep. I don't know how he doesn't understand that that's a terrible way to protect his privacy. Yeah, tell me about it. He doesn't even use ExpressVPN. What? No, the color is an orange-brown emphasis on read. What's ExpressVPN?

Because all your traffic flows through their servers. Internet service providers, including mobile network providers, know every single website you visit. And in the U.S., ISPs are legally allowed to sell that information to advertisers. ExpressVPN rerout 100% of your traffic through secure encrypted servers so your ISP can't see your browsing history. That sounds great. It is.

And with plans starting at just $3.49 a month, that's only 12 cents a day. Plus, it's easy to use. Just fire the app up and click one button to get protected. That's amazing. I use ExpressVPN for security when I'm online shopping. That's why I know illusions personally endorse ExpressVPN. Now, how important is it for you to know about viscosity? Not important at all?

Well, write this down anyways. All right, Noah, I'm sold. Where do I sign up? Secure your online data today by visiting ExpressVPN.com slash citation. That's EXPR-E-S-V-PN.com slash citation. to find out how you can get up to four extra months. ExpressVPN.com slash citation. All right, no, thanks.

Okay, so I'll see you for my appointment on Monday at, uh... Sorry, one second. You guys mind giving me a little privacy? Oh, you want privacy for your appointment time? You're violating hippos. Okay. And we're back. When we left off, once was firmly placed upon a time.

What happened next, Eli? Or first, what happened first, Eli? So, before we dive into Hibbos. how Jasper single-handedly won the war for England. Yeah, we don't want to hurry into this story. Exactly. I don't want to rush. No, I got you. But I want to quickly talk about magicians and lying. So, as you may have noticed during our episode about Chungling Sue,

Erie Geller, and Alistair Crowley, a lot of magicians end up lying about helping the government or being a spy or otherwise applying their magical powers to real problems. Now, first and foremost, this comes from the natural magician's inclination, to self aggrandize. The hell you say. Yeah. If you make your living knowing very special secrets

in your very special boy club, then you're a lot more likely to make shit up to make yourself look cooler. But the other problem comes with the performance of magic. So a lot of magic kind of lowers the fourth wall with the audience in a way that isn't intended, right? So like,

if I'm doing a card trick, I could say, like, and now I'm going to do a magic trick about poker. or I could say, here's a skill taught to me by the most famous gambler in Vegas. Now, during your show, that's fine, right? The problem is,

nobody asks the actor who played Hamlet if he really killed his dad when he gets off stage. But they do ask magicians if they really learn that skill from the most famous gambler in Vegas. And sometimes those magicians say, yes.

Right, okay, so with that out of the way, almost everything we know about what masculine did from the war comes from what masculine himself or the 1983 novel and soon to be movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch, the war magician tells us. Now, to be clear, that novel does admit that it is only based on a true story, but just how true that story is remains in question. Also, speaking to truth, that movie has been in development since, like, for at least 23 years, while people

try to sort out how full of shit this guy is. So soon to be movie might be based on a true story as well, I'm just saying.

I'll believe it till Benedict is dead. So enough marching about. It's time to get to the case of stuff. Listen, there's like a page and a half left

of Eli says. It's not a good stuff here. A long lie. It's just a lie. So, The war gets started and Jasper enlists because he's brave and a patriot, obviously, but he doesn't want to, you know, get shot at. That's for poor people.

So he joined the Army Corps of Engineers proposing that his skills as a magician could be useful to the cause. According to the story, his superiors were skeptical. So he proposed a test. They would meet on a hill just outside of camp the following morning so he could demonstrate his skill. When the officers arrived the next morning, they were horrified to find that none other than the German warship, Croft Spley was floating in the Thames in front of them. Masculine whipped away a

curtain to reveal that it had all been an illusion he created using mirrors. Alex Jones would later claim that they did the same trick with the Holocaust. As a cherry on top, Maskeland revealed that he had replaced the hill his superiors were standing on during the

night with a machine gun turret perfectly hidden in plain sight. Yeah, the German show up an hour early, 20 degrees to the left of the focal point of the mirrors. I don't fare, you guys. You got it was made from center stage. Yeah.

Oh, what's that? You shot me? That seems unsporting. Good chaps, unsporting. And dink. Exactly. Yeah. So in 1940, Masculine was trained at the Camouflage Development and Training Center

at Farnham Castle. According to his book, quote, a lifetime of hiding things on stage and taught him more about camouflage than rabbits and tuesday. Tigers will ever know, end quote. Okay, but that's not very much, though, because they don't know things.

It's not a very big claim. Yeah, so according to Masculin, he did way more teaching than learning when he was there. A quick tip, if you're going to lie, try not to lie about a real job, especially one with the government, because people will check

if you know a bunch more than their experts when you came by, and he did not. The officer in charge of camouflage training, which I learned in the course of writing this essay is called a camouflage. Admitted later in the interview that Maskeland mostly did card tricks at dinner when he was there, but they were good cartricks.

Yes, it says a gilly suit. Marvelous, marvelous for an amateur, of course. You see, yes. Now, if the crowds come by air, we'll employ a series of endless handkerchiefs to cover the trenches. The other consequence of lying about how good you are at something is that people might believe you and then ask you to do it again. So, Brigadier Dudley Clark, the head of the A-Force deception department, recruited masculine to work for

MI9 in Cairo. Quote, he created small devices intended to assist soldiers to escape if captured and lectured on escape techniques. These included tools hidden in cricket bats, sawblades inside combs, and small maps on objects such as playing cards, end quote. I told you guys we should have been suspicious when they said they were perfectly normal everyday combs. You have to be suspicious. Also, guys, why did we lock them up with their cricket bats in the first place?

It seems like in retrospect, it seems obvious that was in time. That's on me. That's on me. I'm sorry. But again, masculine's reputation once again called him away and he was made head of subsidiary camouflage experimental section at Abysia. It quickly became clear that he was a fucking magician. So he was transferred to welfare, in other words, to entertaining soldiers with magic tricks.

Peter Forbes writes that the, quote, flamboyant magician's contribution was either absolutely central, if you believe, his account and that of his biographer, or very marginal, if you believe, the official records and more recent research, end quote. Okay, so big if true, got it. Okay. He just takes his top off, spins his tassels, each in opposite directions. Grumbling, pretty much the same as Hamlet, though. Exactly, yeah.

It is in this time period that Jasper recollects in his ghostwritten book, Magic Top Secret. According to masculine, he was asked to create an elite team called the Magic Gang, the top secret team that nobody else ever heard about.

Well, that's how top secret it was. Yes. The team consisted of an electrician, a chemist, a stage scenery maker, an architect, a picture restorer, a painter, and a carpenter. Their first mission, concealing the entire city of Alexandria from German bombers. They mocked up nightlights, fake buildings, and lighthouses and anti-aircraft batteries in a bay three miles away. And when the Luftwaffe flew in, they even blew up some.

of the fake buildings, so the pilots believed they had successfully hit their targets. Yeah, if he had illustrated this story with speech balloons, narrating the action, it would actually be more believable. But Jasper's greatest trick would come at the battle of El Almalion. So before El Almalion, the British were getting their asses kicked in North Africa. They needed one big push to turn the tide. And for that, they needed the element of surprise. According to Masculin's book, as he stepped off the plane to North Africa,

Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery said to him, The entire war will turn on what happens here. I hope you've brought your magic wand with you. And indeed he had. Jasper decided it was time for the oldest trick in the book. Hey, everybody, look over there. Okay, I would have a harder time believing this if, for at least sometime, battles weren't fought by basically

lining up opposing sides in firing squad formation and seeing who falls down the most first. That's true. That's true, yeah. The plan was simple. Make German field marshal Erwin Rommel think the Allied attack was coming from the south when in fact, it was coming from the north. The Magic Gang used canvas and plywood

to disguise 1,000 tanks as trucks in the north and created 2,000 fake tanks, plus a fake railway line, fake water pipeline, fake radio conversations and fake sounds of construction in the South. The tanks even had their own pyrotechnics. Additionally, the Magic Gang made, quote, dummy men, dummy steel helmets, dummy guns by the 10,000, dummy tanks, dummy shell flashes by the millioned, and dummy aircraft, end quote. Just a bunch of gymnast tanks tucked into the beds of the trucks laying really flat the whole time.

When British troops whipped off their. tanks disguises and charged into battle, the Nazis were caught completely off guard. And with the Battle of El Almenien, the Allies turned the tides of the North African campaign. Before Almeil, said Winston Churchill. We never had a victory. After it, we never had a defeat.

Okay, I mean, he said all kinds of bullshit. But, like so many magicians, who are the heart and soul of their podcasts, Maskeman and his war gang received no official recognition for his war work neither the British nor the Germans

make mention of the maneuver in their descriptions of the battle and weird and no soldier reported their tank being disguised as a really big truck really? Yeah but that's probably because they were jealous

the simple conjurer had won the war for them the world may never know And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would that sentence be? If Marsh ever starts a story about me that says something I did was almost unbelievable, shoot him before he can finish. Okay. Are you ready for the quiz? I am indeed. All right.

So all of us write stories for this show that match our interests. Makes sense while you write about lying magicians. Which of the below best describes our various interests based on this show? A. Noah writes about space, gaming ephemera, and Bill Bryson. Bill Bryson a lot. Cecil, historical battles and the swords he longs to use. So true. Heath books whose spark notes made him mad.

And me, those brave men and women with the courage to wander away from civilization and die. It's true. I'm going to go with D. Ah, C and G. Yeah. Amazing. He just read those spark notes. We all know it.

All right. So we record these ahead. But last, a couple nights ago, I think it was two nights ago, there was a shooter at the, the correspondent dinner. Trump hired a magician

for the correspondent dinner. What was the grand finale? A, bullet catch, B, Bitcoin drop, C, Cabinet Escape, or D,

grope trick. Oh, nice. Gotta be grope trick. I don't know. He's your friend, so maybe. All right. So I have one for you, E. What will your next essay be about?

A, that guy who said he wouldn't come in her mouth and then he did. B, that time it turned out that those pants did make her ass look big and he knew that they did. And he said otherwise. C, Stephanie Mercer, who was told you in high school that she had to wash her hair that night, even though it was already clean. Or D, the coworker of ours who once told you, me and Heath over Bongrips that he was the one that came up with the name Sour Diesel and was really kicking himself for not copyrighted. I do remember that. Is it D?

I feel like it's D. It is D. That will be your next essay. So I guess that means that you are this week's winner. All right. Well, Tom's going to wander off any minute now. So let's get one less session from him. All right.

Well, for Cecil, Eli and Tom, I'm Noah thanking you for hanging out with us today. We're going to be back next week. By then, Tom will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can check out Cecil's new TikTok channel. Can I cut this in half with a sword while I'm wearing a suit of armor and overalls just as soon as we convince him to start it. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com or leave a five-star review everywhere you can.

And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes. Connect with us on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com. com.