Futility Closet - 018-The Mystery of the Disappearing Airmen

Episode Date: July 14, 2014

In 1942 Navy lieutenant Ernest Cody and ensign Charles Adams piloted a blimp out of San Francisco into the Pacific, looking for Japanese subs. A few hours later the blimp drifted back to land, empty. The parachutes and life raft were in their proper places and the radio was in working order, but there was no trace of Cody or Adams. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the events of that strange day and delve into the inquest that followed. We'll also sample some unpublished items from Greg's trove of Futility Closet research and puzzle over a drink of water that kills hundreds of people. Sources for our segment on the L-8 blimp mystery: Mark J. Price, "60 Years Later, Pilots' Fate Still a Mystery -- 2 Men Aboard Navy Blimp Vanished," Seattle Times, Aug. 18, 2002. Darold Fredricks, "Airships and Moffett Field," San Mateo Daily Journal, July 22, 2013. United Press International, "Goodyear Blimp Retires," July 9, 1982. Some inquest records are available online here. Links mentioned in listener mail: Thad Gillespie explains how George Washington came to have two different birth dates in this blog post. This Gizmodo page, sent by Brian Drake, includes artists' renditions of Pyke's envisioned aircraft carrier and the Sagrada Familia made of pykrete; photos of students and professors from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands using pykrete to make the world's largest ice dome, with a span of 98 feet; and a link to a video of the making of the dome. You can subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [e-mail]. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Futility Closet, a celebration of the quirky and the curious, the thought-provoking and the simply amusing. This is the audio companion to the popular website that catalogs more than 8,000 curiosities in history, language, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and art. You can find us online at futilitycloset.com. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to episode 18. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In today's show, we'll investigate the disappearance of two Navy pilots from a blimp in 1942, sample some unpublished oddities from Greg's database, and puzzle over a drink of water that kills hundreds of people.

We have another disappearance to talk about this week. Back in episode 15, we talked about the Flannan Isles Lighthouse, this week. Back in episode 15, we talked about the Flannan Isles Lighthouse, which was concerned the disappearance of three men from a pretty bare rock in the Atlantic about 100 years ago. And this week, the story concerns a blimp. Two men, seems on the face of it even more mysterious, two men disappeared from a blimp over the Pacific during World War II, which is such a simple setting that it seems really bewildering what could have happened to them. But as with the Flannan Isles, if you actually look at the official documents, there is some mystery there, but there's also a pretty good guess as to what happened. The name of the blimp was the L-8. It was one of a

class of training airships that were used by the Navy in World War II. And on the morning of August 16, 1942, two men, Ernest Cody and Charles Adams, were aboard flying out of San Francisco, going west into the Pacific for about 25 or 30 miles to scout for Japanese submarines, which had been sighted off the coast of California and Oregon. So the mission was just to go out west and reconnoiter a bit. A blimp doesn't sound like a very scary craft or aggressive one to be hunting Japanese subs with, but they actually were. This one was fitted with depth charges and machine guns. And a blimp is good for this kind of work because it can hover, if it needs to, over one spot for as long as it wants to, and they get

pretty good, they're pretty efficient with fuel, so they can stay out for a long time. So they've been using it this way for quite some time, and both of these men were well trained in using it. So everything started simply enough. They departed at 7, sorry, 6.03 a.m., going west from Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay Bay out into the Pacific. They got about 25 miles out when at 7.42 a.m. Cody radioed the base that they'd spotted what looked like it might be an oil slick in the water, which could have been a sign of a submarine. So he said they were going to go down lower and investigate. And that's the last anyone heard of them. That was 7.42 a.m. About an hour went by and at 8.50 a.m., the controllers made some radio calls to the blimp, and those went unanswered.

So a little bit more time go by, and then at 9.30 and then at 10, they began sending messages out to other planes and ships in the area, just asking them to see if they could spot a blimp, at least to see what was going on. spot, at least to see what was going on. And the answer was yes. A ship reported seeing them at 1049 and another plane said it saw them around 11, successively closer to the beach. And sure enough, by 1115, bathers on the beach, they were within eyesight of that. The blimp came drifting back in with the prevailing winds. And something was obviously badly wrong. The engines were off, the door was open, and apparently no one was manning it. The blimp snagged on a cliffside on the beach and actually dropped one of the depth charges on a golf course, which must have been rather frightening.

It didn't go off. And then the blimp broke away and continued eastward. And observers noted that it was sagging in the middle, the envelope was. It's normally, the blimp's about 150 feet long, and it's normally full of helium, but here it was sort of sagging, beginning to bow down in the middle. An eyewitness named Bruce McIntyre told a newspaper reporter, it was dished on top and appeared to be drifting with its motors off. So it drifted along for a while, bumping into houses and cars,

and finally came to rest on a street, a residential street in Daly City, which is just south of San Francisco. And the alarming thing is that onlookers rushed in to help the pilots and found there was nobody in the cabin. The door was open and there was a headset and microphone hanging out of the door, but there was no one inside. Firefighters tore open even the envelope at the blimp looking for the men and couldn't find any trace of them. So that's the mystery.

What happened to them? How did two men disappear from a blimp? Right, just disappeared off the blimp, yeah. Yeah, on a random morning in 1942. On investigation, what they found is that the door was latched fully forward. As I say, the microphone and a radio handset were hanging out. And there happened to be a briefcase of highly classified information, which was still in place,

which sort of rules out any skullduggery or Japanese spies or anything like that. Espionage, yeah. There were all sorts of safety equipment on the blimp that were still in place. There were two parachutes, a life raft, which were both in their proper places. The radio was in working order and tuned to the proper frequency. But it's commonly said that everything was in place, and that's not actually true. There were two life vests missing and two float lights, which are devices that emit smoke and flame when they hit the water. So those are missing. That's a quote. They searched up and down the coast for weeks and never found the pilots,

and to this day no one knows what's become of them. No bodies were ever found. So as happened in the Flannans, and tends to happen in these cases, you get all kinds of fanciful theories that were floated. They were captured by a Japanese sub. There was some sort of love triangle. Somehow they fought each other and both fell out together. They were dueling on a blimp.

Yeah. They were abducted by UFOs. One hung out somehow perilously from the gondola and pulled the other out with him. There was some disturbance like the Bermuda Triangle. One newspaper story I found said that there were half-eaten sandwiches and still warm cups of coffee in the gondola, which is three for three now. That's the Mary Celeste, the Flannan Isles, and this L8 blimp. Someone always adds to the story of a disappearance

that they were in the middle of a meal when it happened. There's no truth to that. They weren't. Oh, somebody just makes up that there's this happening at the meal. Someone always adds that because it just makes the whole thing much more dramatic. No, it's not true. I just thought it was amusing that someone always says that. So it is mysterious, and formally we don't know what happened to them, but on the investigation the Navy came up with it thought was a pretty good

guess based on the evidence that they did have. The Navy report says, quote, while there is a strong presumption that both Lieutenant Cody and Ensign Adams fell out of the gondola of the L-8 and were drowned, there is no definite evidence to that effect. You can reconstruct it like this. Cody radioed about the oil slick about 7.42 a.m., as I said, and then about an hour later, at 8.50, the controllers found themselves unable to contact them. So something happened. It happened in that window of about an hour that morning.

The crews of two fishing vessels said they'd seen the blimp descend to about 300 feet over the water at one point and circle the oil slick and then eventually rose again. They said they didn't see anything fall out of it but i think they could have been mistaken about that uh the most impressive thing that i found in the inquest concerns a man named james riley hill who was an aviation machinist mate who was scheduled that morning to join c and Adams on the trip. So there would have been three of them. There were originally supposed to be three of them, but then they changed plans at the

last minute and Cody asked Hill just to stay out and just join the car party, which left just Cody and Adams to disappear. Anyway, the investigators during the inquest interviewed Hill and he says he thinks the door to the blimp was unlocked when the ship took off. This is quoting now directly from the inquest. Question, what did you do then when Lieutenant Cody advised you he was not going to take you? Answer, I unlocked the door, turned the handle, and stepped out and shut the door. From then on, I was a member of the car party. Did you see anyone lock the door from the inside after you got out? No, sir.

Were you in a position to observe if anyone had attempted to lock the door? Yes, sir. Do you feel certain that from the time you left the car to the takeoff, the door was not locked from the inside? No, sir. I think the door was not locked. So based on that and the other evidence found at the scene, the Navy's opinion surmises that what happened is that the latch, while they were coming down toward the oil slick, the latch released accidentally. Presumably the passenger just leaned against that door thinking it was locked.

Fell out. And then the pilot dropped the two float lights and the two life belts, both to help him and to mark the spot where he'd fallen. And then began rapid maneuvers close to the water. both to help him and to mark the spot where he'd fallen, and then began rapid maneuvers close to the water.

The fact that the parachutes were found on the blimp and it was recovered showed that no one had tried to abandon the craft when it was up at altitude, at a high altitude. And the fact that the life raft was there and that no radio transmission had been made shows that the pilot had hoped to recover the man who'd fallen pretty quickly. I mean, I don't know what the regulations are i think what he ought to have done would be to drop the life raft and i guess uh the markers and then radio for help it looks like what he did instead was try to go down after him in the blimp with the door open hoping he could just recover him quickly right out of the water have to get the blimp right up just above the water. Yeah, I mean, this is just me speculating, but that seems to be what the Navy was thinking, too.

The Navy says, in such an attempt, the pilot might himself have gone overboard. So we don't know exactly how that would have happened, but apparently he, something, according to the story, this theory at least, he was down with the door latched open and somehow fell out himself. What's interesting about this theory is if they had had the third guy go, the door never would have been unlocked. Yeah. Like the guy unlocked it to get off the blimp,

and they basically decided it was only going to be two and not three of them. Yeah. The Navy says, No other adequate explanation offers itself for the abandonment of an airworthy airship in the absence of fire or other casualty, nor does any other theory explain failure to use the radio. So this is, it's an interesting thing, having just done all this research on the

Flannan Isles thing. They're very different circumstances, but the pattern is quite similar, that one man got into trouble, and then the others took some unnecessary risk to try to help him in a hurry, and then ran into trouble themselves. That's according to the theory anyway. Yeah. And I imagine it must have

been really eerie at the time, just this blimp comes sagging into shore, banging into things. Yeah, and then there's nobody on it. Yeah. I mean, that is kind of creepy. We do have to say that even if this is true, this theory that I just floated out there, we still don't know. The report says there's no satisfactory reason to explain why surface vessels didn't see the two men in the water, which they didn't. Yeah, because it sounds like there were vessels in the area.

There were. And he threw out the life exactly they said their inability to make their way to some nearby ship there were ships nearby um so that is they had life jackets they say unless the latter failed or some further accident occurred after they fell from the airship you would think even if they died out there somehow if they had life jackets their bodies would have been recovered or even even the life, their bodies would have been recovered. Floating, yeah. Or even the life jackets at least would have been found, and none of them were.

I still don't know. Oh, really? So even the life jackets weren't found. So that's... That is kind of creepy. That is kind of creepy and mysterious. But if you follow this out, the rest of the story makes sense.

The door... Let's just assume that happened. The door was propped open. Most of the equipment is still in place the radio is tuned to the right frequency the way

the blimp was designed once it was relieved of the men's weight if they both fell out it would start to rise but it's built with a pressure relief valve that would automatically

open when it reaches a certain altitude releasing helium just to keep it from getting any higher which would explain why it was sort of dished in at the top

when it finally arrived back at shore. That's what you would expect to happen. And the rest of it is sort of what the witnesses say happened. It would sort of bounce along the shore and then arrive, come to rest somewhere, as it lost enough helium with no one aboard. So as I say, it's very similar to the Flannan Isles in that sense. And if there's a moral in any of this, it's that if you're trying to rescue someone, you shouldn't take undue risks yourself. But so that's the best guess I can find.

That's sort of what the Navy came up with. But officially, it's still unexplained what happened to Cody and Adams. A year after the incident, they were both officially declared dead, but their bodies were never found. And to this day, no one can say exactly what happened to them. The ship itself is sometimes referred to as a ghost blimp,

but if it's haunted, it never haunted anybody else. It was repaired after this and continued to serve the Navy as a training vessel. And after the war, it was returned to Goodyear, which had lent it to the Navy in the first place. And the cabin was used for years to televise sporting events. And then the gondola was finally retired in 1982, and it's now in the National Museum of National Aviation. If you've been enjoying the esoteric trivia that we talk about in these podcasts,

you should be sure to check out our book, Futility Closet, an idler's miscellany of compendious amusements, which contains hundreds of assorted curiosities, as well as wordplay, puzzles, paradoxes, and other bite-sized amusements and conundrums. Look for it on Amazon or iTunes, and discover why other readers have called it awesome and addictive and small increments of joy. When we first started planning to do a podcast, we thought that one of the features that we might do was me reading notes from my files.

The way Futility Closet works is basically I read a million books and just share the parts that I like. So I've got a giant database full of material that I've never published. And I thought, oh, that's a good idea, and I forgot all about it. So here you go. Here's a random shovelful from my notes in no particular order. Some of these I haven't confirmed, but I'll try to note those as we go along. The eccentric British baronet Sir George Sitwell invented a tiny revolver for shooting wasps. It's also said that Queen Christina of Sweden used a silver cannon to shoot fleas, and there was actually apparently evidence for that. From what I can tell, as recently as the middle of the 19th century, the cannon was said to be on display at the Royal Arsenal at Stockholm.

I don't know any more about it than that. Speaking of British eccentrics, I've written before about the entirely pointless 104-foot tower that Lord Berners installed at his house in Farringdon in 1935. He added a sign reading, Members of the public committing suicide from this tower do so at their own risk. One little addition to that item that I turned up later, guests at the opening of the tower were invited to bring effigies of their enemies to fling onto a bonfire. They asked him how many effigies they could each bring, and he said six, and they said that number was most inadequate. You'd want to fling more than six. Well, we're a friend of Berners. How would you carry more than six? Another Briton, Alistair Cook, spent a lot of the 1970s writing about the United States and accumulated hundreds of books about various dimensions of the United States. So many

of them, in fact, that they covered an entire wall of his study in his Fifth Avenue apartment. And he had trouble figuring out how to arrange those books. If you organized them by author, say, or by subject, it was never easy for him to lay his hand on the book he wanted until finally he hit on the idea of doing it geographically. So he set it up in the end so that books on New England were shelved in the upper right corner, books on California were down at the lower left, and Abe Lincoln in Illinois was anchored right in the center. The New York Times said he is probably the only New Yorker who thinks of his bookcase as a map of the United States. An item from Raymond Chandler's notebooks. In shaving,

the side opposite the shaving hand will usually be cut higher on the sideburn than the side on the shaving hand, he wrote, used to tell whether a corpse was left-handed. Martin Gardner, in his book Science Fiction Puzzle Tales, claims that an observer on the moon would see the sun's equator make one turn in about 28 days, and vice versa, an observer on the sun would see the sun's equator make one turn in about 28 days and vice versa an observer on the sun would see our moon rotate once in about 28 days i'm very willing to believe that i respect martin gardner but i've never been able to confirm it if there's someone out there who knows whether that's true let me know uh algorithm is an anagram of logarithm west side story was originally called east side story in the first draft of Arthur Lawrence Libretto.

Any idea why they changed it? No. It doesn't seem like there's much reason for that. Maybe it just sounds better to say West Side. In his 1966 book, Recreations in the Theory of Numbers, Albert Beiler states that nothing that Pierre de Fermat, the 17th century French lawyer and mathematician, nothing that Fermat ever stated that he had proved has ever been disproved. That's another one. I'm not sure if it's true, but I think it probably is.

A memo from New Yorker editor Harold Ross to James Thurber, September 23, 1935. Mr. Thurber. While bathing this morning, it came into my mind that what that dog is doing on your New Year's cover is winking. Dog winking. I'm not exactly clear on how a dog winks, but it's probably as you've drawn it. It's important that it be clear in the final picture, of course. I will not take a bath again for some time. In 1895, Mike Grady, third baseman for the New York Giants, fumbled a ground ball and threw it

over the first baseman's head, so the runner tore around first and headed for second. The first baseman retrieved the ball and threw it to Grady on third, who again fumbled it, allowing the runner to pass from second to round third and head for home. Grady then threw the ball over the catcher's head, and the runner scored. Grady was charged with four errors in one play. The Ulipo Compendium, which is a list of oddities from the French experimental writers group, the Ulipo Compendium which is a list of oddities from the French experimental writers group the Oulipo claims that

someone once ventured the remark at a dinner party that it is impossible to compose a serious limerick and supposedly Alfred Lord Tennyson immediately improvised this response there are people now living in Ereth whom nobody seeth or heareth and down by the marge of the river a barge that nobody roweth or steereth.

I've seen that poem elsewhere. I've never seen it attributed elsewhere to Tennyson, though. I hope he did come up with that. It would be great. Party booby trap is a palindrome. Edward Everett, president of Harvard, admitted the first black student there over protests of white students in 1848. He said,

Then he was admitted. Ernest Rutherford once met a pompous government official and was heard to say, That man is like the Euclidean point. He has position without magnitude. And finally, H.G. Wells said that his epitaph would manifestly have to be, I told you so, you damn fools. So we've recently heard from some of our really well-informed listeners who had some addenda for us on some topics that we've covered in some of our previous shows. In our very first episode, we discussed our puzzlement over a scene in Alfred Hitchcock's movie Vertigo.

In that movie, James Stewart, as Scotty, tracks Kim Novak playing Madeline to a motel, a hotel, where she seemingly vanishes from the second floor. Madeline to a motel, a hotel, where she seemingly vanishes from the second floor. Scotty clearly sees her at an upstairs window, but she somehow manages to leave the hotel while he has a clear view of what appears to be the only staircase. Yeah. And we found this very puzzling. Nicola Simpson-Culler wrote in, a former film professor and a big Hitchcock fan, saying that she has a possible explanation.

Good. She says, With regards to the mysterious disappearance of Madeline from the hotel, I had always assumed that she went down the back servant's staircase while the clerk and Scotty were talking at the desk. Most houses of that size and age, e.g. old Victorian mansions converted to a hotel, had separate service stairs down to the kitchen-slash-scullery.

As Madeline knew that Scotty was following her and was leading him on a prescribed and performed chase, I believe she eluded him on purpose at that point to keep him intrigued. Nicole's explanation is definitely possible, but you don't really see any hint of a separate stairway. And Scotty himself seemed like confused. For a black spot. Yeah, like he didn't think to look for another stairway, and Scotty himself seemed, like, confused. For a black spot. Yeah, like he didn't think to look for another stairway or something. But that is a good point, because those...

Yeah. If you think about it, those clues were in the film. You are told that it used to be a house, a residence. Right. And you do find out that Gavin had sort of induced her to sort of... Be mysterious. Yeah. Right.

So that fits very well. That's a really good... It's the only explanation we sort of be mysterious. Yeah. So that, that fits very well. It's a, that's a really good, it's the only explanation we've kind of got. Yeah. I sort of wonder if it's just the way that it was, uh, between Stuart's acting and the editing,

it just made him look a little more bewildered than maybe, than maybe he was supposed to be. Yeah. Okay. And he might've just been bewildered as to why she left rather than how did she get out. But in the movie, it sort of seems very mysterious how she,

yeah, how she got out. And he does seem b it sort of seems very mysterious how she got out, and he does seem baffled by it. Yeah, but those clues are definitely in there. That's the best guess I've heard. In episode 15, we discussed how Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday may have ended up being given to the President of the United States. Some of our listeners wrote in speculating about which president

might have received the birthday and what the effects might be on presidents of having two birthdays. And Tad Gillespie wrote in to let us know that President George Washington, in fact, had two birthdays. So there was at least one president that did have two birthdays. And that's even before Stevenson showed up. That's true, right. So this has nothing to do in that way with Stevenson. On his blog, Tad explains that George Washington's birth date was both February 11th,

1731 and February 22nd, 1732. Tad writes, the reason for the discrepancy was the dramatic change from Julian calendar to Gregorian calendar later in his life. It wasn't really over a year's worth of correction though, because Britain and her colonies, including America, used March 25th as the first day of the new year. In the Julian system, Washington was born in the month before the new year, and in the Gregorian, he was born a month after the new year. So Tadd notes that basically, in a nutshell, what happened in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII declared that the Julian calendar would be replaced by the Gregorian. And while most Catholic countries switched soon after that,

England didn't switch for almost another 200 years. So in 1751, England decided that that year would last only from March 25th to December 31st. So it was going to be a short year. The first day of 1752 would then be January 1st to start with the new calendar. Also in 1752, September 2nd was followed by September 14th. They had to cut out 11 days to readjust the equinoxes

so that they were at the correct times of the year. So 11 days just vanished. 11 days just vanished. Tad states, it turned out that Washington favored the switch and happily adopted the 22nd as his new birthday, while many of his contemporaries held on to the old style for theirs. Maybe it made him feel younger. And we'll have a link to Tad's more detailed blog post about this in our show notes if anybody wants to see more of the details. In our last episode, we had a story about Jeffrey Pike, an inventor who proposed that the

British Royal Navy should build an enormous aircraft carrier out of pykrete, a mixture of wood pulp and ice, during World War II. Brian Drake wrote in to say, Hey guys, I don't know if you know this, but it looks like pykrete might be making a comeback. Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands built a giant dome of the material and intends to build a replica of Sagrada Familia out of the stuff this winter. Out of pykrete. Out of Pycrete. Out of Pycrete.

And I looked it up to find out what Sagrada Familia was, since I did not know, and it turns out to be a very large, very ornate Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Spain. They're making it a church out of ice and wood pulp. Yes, they're planning to. They haven't done it yet, but they are planning it. How do you come up with an idea like that? I don't know. Brian wrote on to say,

Pike actually did develop a few items that saw use during the war, one of which was known as the weasel, which was a kind of snowmobile that used an Archimedes screw instead of caterpillar tracks. After the war, he established the National Health Service in the UK before committing suicide. Pike had some rather extraordinary adventures during the First World War, which he described in his memoir, To Roul and Back, A Great Adventure in Three Phases. He wound up being captured by the Germans, managed to escape back to England wearing little more than a bathrobe, pajamas, and rubber boots. I've often wondered if this wasn't the inspiration for Arthur Dent's costume in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Pike's nephew can be seen in the Thomas Dolby video, She Blinded Me with Science. He's the gentleman who shouts, science! That matches everything I've heard about Pike. It's just like there's so much... Very flamboyant and colorful life. Yeah, just as much color in every frame of his life. Brian included a link in his email that we'll put in our show notes.

At that website, you can see artist renditions of Pike's envisioned aircraft carrier and the Sagrada Familia made out of pikecrete. Photos of students and professors using pikecrete to make the world's largest ice dome with a 98-foot span. This thing is enormous. And a link to a video of how they actually made the dome. So thanks so much to Nicole, Tad, and Brian for writing in. And if you have any comments, you can send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. So this is our lateral thinking puzzle segment. And this week, I'm going to be giving Greg a scenario that will sound odd or unusual or contradictory somehow.

And he will have to figure out what the underlying situation is just odd or unusual or contradictory somehow. And he will have to figure out what the underlying situation is just by asking yes or no questions. If he starts struggling too much, we will be kind and give hints. I needed hints last week. This week, we have a puzzle that was sent to us by Ingrid Sousa all the way from Lisbon, Portugal. One of our fans in Lisbon. Okay, so Ingrid wrote, A man wakes up feeling thirsty. He goes downstairs, opens the fridge, gets a bottle of water from inside it, drinks it, goes upstairs, turns off the light, and goes to bed.

In the morning, he finds out hundreds of people died. How did this happen? Wow. Okay. Where do I start? Is there a direct causal link? I mean, if he hadn't drunk whatever was in the fridge, these people wouldn't have died?

Is that fair to say? That's not correct. Oh, is there no link at all? That's not correct. Okay. Is the fact the whole business about this happening in the middle of the night, is that important? I mean, if he had just drunk the water in the middle of the day, would the same outcome have happened? I think probably not. I think it probably is important that it's the middle of the night.

Okay, meaning the time is important, not just the fact... No, not the specific time. But the fact that it was at night. I think, I'm going to say yes. Okay, so if, was what he drank water? Yes. A bottle of water, I think you said. And nothing else, it was just a bottle of water, just what he thought it was.

And you're saying that if he'd drunk the same bottle of water, but during the day, these people wouldn't have died. That's not what I'm trying to say. Okay. You said he woke up in the middle of the night, came downstairs, is that right? but during the day these people wouldn't have died. That's not what I'm trying to say. Okay. You said he woke up in the middle of the night, came downstairs, is that right? Uh, yes. Drank the water, went back upstairs, and went to sleep. Uh, yes.

Are the stairs important? No. Is the location important? Yes. I mean the geographic location. No. The location of the house? Is he in a house?

Can we assume he's in a house? Depends on your definition. Okay, you said the geographic location is not important. Somewhat, but... Is the time period important? Let's say no. So this could have happened today. Yes, so yes. Ish.

Sure. Happened on Earth. Yes. It could have happened today. Yes, so yes. Ish. Sure. Happened on Earth. Yes. It could have happened today. The geographical location is somewhat important. Did this really happen? Not that I know of. Does this guy have a specific identity that I need to know?

What do you mean by a specific identity? Well, I mean, I don't know, an occupation? Yes. Oh, he does? Yes. Okay. Okay. He drank.

Let me ask this. Okay. He drank... Let me ask this. Okay. He drank the water, went back to sleep, woke up the next day? Yeah, in the morning, yeah. And learned later that how many people died? Hundreds of people. Hundreds of people died as a result of what happened? Yes.

How... You can't ask me that. Did he learn this immediately or might he have immediately upon waking? Were the people already dead when he woke up? Yes, the people were already dead. They had died between the time of his drinking the water and them waking up. Yes. And Tim waking up.

Yes. And his occupation is important. Yes. Did drinking the water cause him, did it affect his sleep? No. And you say the location is important. The location is important. Like a lighthouse keeper or something? Is that what he sleep? No. And you say the location is important. The location is important. Like a lighthouse keeper or something?

Is that what he is? Yes. I'm still not quite there yet. People, hundreds of people died because a ship sank. Yeah. Because they couldn't, because the lighthouse wasn't operating? Yes. But you say it wasn't his sleep?

He didn't oversleep or something? Correct. Somehow his drinking the water prevented the lighthouse? No. No. He went downstairs. Yes. Do you want to hear the question again?

Yeah. Okay. A man wakes up feeling thirsty. He goes downstairs, opens the fridge, gets a bottle of water from inside it, drinks it, goes upstairs, turns off the light, and goes to bed. Oh, turns off the light. He turned off the light. Yes.

The lighthouse. Yes. Oh, that's good. I like that. Is that the whole thing? Did I get it? Yes. That's basically it. Not bad turns off the light. He turned off the light. The lighthouse. Yes. Oh, that's good. I like that. Is that the whole thing? Did I get it? Yes, that's basically it. Not bad. I like that. Thank you, Ingrid. Yes, thank you, Ingrid. That was very cute. We are enjoying getting puzzles sent in from readers. That's being a big help for us. So if anybody else wants to send in puzzles, please do. Just remember to kind of hide the answer so that the answer won't be spoiled for the person who opens the email. I have a special plea. Sharon is extremely good at solving these,

and she has a long memory because she and I have been doing these on and off for years, and she tends to remember the good ones that we've already done. So I'm having trouble finding good puzzles that can stump her. So if you have a particularly good one, please send it to me because I need them. Be sure to send the emails to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Well, that wraps up another episode for us. You can see our show notes at blog.futilitycloset.com, where you can post comments or questions, listen to past shows, and see the links and images mentioned in today's episode. You can also email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. If you enjoy Futility Closet, be sure to look for the book

on amazon.com or check out the website at futilitycloset.com where you can sample over 8,000 captivating diversions, perfect for filling five minutes or 50. If you'd like to support Futility Closet, you can recommend us to your friends or leave a review of the book or podcast on Amazon or iTunes. You'd be surprised what a help that is for us. Our music was written and produced by Doug Ross. Futility Closet is a member of the Boing Boing Family of Podcasts. Thanks for listening and we'll talk to you next week.