Futility Closet - 051-Poet Doppelgängers

Episode Date: March 29, 2015

In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll look at the strange phenomenon of poet doppelgängers -- at least five notable poets have been seen by witnesses when their physical bodies were elsewhere. We'll also share our readers' research on Cervino, the Matterhorn-climbing pussycat, and puzzle over why a man traveling internationally would not be asked for his passport. Sources for our feature on poet doppelgängers: John Oxenford, trans., The Autobiography of Wolfgang von Goethe, 1969. G. Wilson Knight, Byron and Shakespeare, 2002. Julian Marshall, The Life & Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1889. Jon Stallworthy, Wilfred Owen, 2013. W.E. Woodward, The Gift of Life, 1947. The stories are recounted in the corresponding posts on Futility Closet: Goethe, Byron, Shelley, Owen, Powys. Listener mail: Little House of Cats has a photo of Cervino, the (purported) Matterhorn-scaling kitty cat of 1950. The Daily Mail has photos of Millie, Utah mountaineer Craig Armstrong's rock-climbing cat. More at Back Country. Further data on cat rambles: BBC News, "Secret Life of the Cat: What Do Our Feline Companions Get Up To?", June 12, 2013 (accessed March 26, 2015). National Geographic, "Watch: How Far Do Your Cats Roam?", Aug. 8, 2014 (accessed March 26, 2015). This week's lateral thinking puzzles are from Kyle Hendrickson's 1998 book Mental Fitness Puzzles. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. 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]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 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 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 51. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In today's show, we'll review the strange phenomenon of poet doppelgangers, five cases where poets have appeared to human witnesses when their physical bodies were known to be elsewhere.

We'll also share our listeners' research and thoughts on the Matterhorn climbing kitty cat and puzzle over why a man traveling internationally would not be asked for his passport. Our podcast is supported primarily through our awesome patrons, and we are now at about 75% of the goal that we set for continuing the show. Our latest extra special super patron is Reed Savory, whose generous pledge of $20 a show gets him access to our monthly bonus show, where Greg and I try to stump each other with a brain-teasing game. Thanks so much to Reed and to all of our incredible supporters.

If you value our show and want to give some of that value back, please check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. We really appreciate every donation and pledge that we get. I've been doing Futility Closet for 10 years now, gathering odd facts and anecdotes from a million different sources. And in that time, there are two trends, two sort of patterns that have jumped out at me from different sources that just struck my attention. One of them is the disturbing frequency

with which the heads of great men are taken from their bodies after death, either as weird souvenirs or because they request it, or just it's a disturbingly frequent practice. This happened to Rene Descartes, Sir Walter Raleigh, Joseph Haydn, Oliver Cromwell, Jeremy Bentham. I suppose we could add Einstein to this list. Someday I'll do a feature about that. The other one, though, is there seems to be an odd sort of pattern about great poets being associated with anecdotes involving doubles, body doubles or doppelgangers, which is just strange. And I didn't go looking for this, but in gathering anecdotes over the years, there's just a distinct pattern that I've seen. So I thought I would talk about that today. talk about that today. I've got five anecdotes here, which don't seem to be linked in any way,

each involving a notable poet and some instance where somebody saw a double of him. And none of these are explained. I don't have anything to say about this. I suppose I should stay at the part at the start that I don't believe in this phenomenon, you know, without some pretty compelling evidence. I don't think this sort of thing actually happens. But nonetheless, it's very striking that we have so many anecdotes, and all of them involve poets. actually happens. But nonetheless, it's very striking that we have so many anecdotes, and all of them involve poets. So here we go. The first one involves the British poet John Cooper Poeys, who was friends with Theodore Dreiser. Dreiser also knew the writer William Woodward. And I'm taking this anecdote from Woodward's 1947 autobiography, which is titled The Gift of Life. So this is a story that Theodore Dreiser told to someone about John Cooper Poe.

It goes like this. Theodore Dreiser said that when he was living in New York on West 57th Street, John Cooper Poe came occasionally to dinner. At that time, Poe was living in this country in a little town about 30 miles up the Hudson, and he usually left Dreiser's place fairly early to catch a train to take him home. One evening, after a rather long after-dinner conversation, Poeis looked at his watch and said hurriedly that he had no idea it was so late and he would have to go at once or miss his train. Dreiser helped him on with his overcoat, and Poeis, on his way to the door, said, I'll appear before you right here later this evening. You'll see me. Are you going to

turn yourself into a ghost or have you a key to the door? Dreiser laughed when he asked that question, for he did not believe for an instant that Poe is meant to be taken seriously. I don't know, said Poe. I may return as a spirit or in some other astral form. This is just apparently out of the blue. That's just very odd. Dreiser said that there had been no discussion whatever during the

evening of spirits, ghosts, or visions. The talk had been mainly about American publishers and their methods. He said that he gave no further thought to Poe's promise to reappear, but he sat up reading for about two hours all alone. Then he looked up from his book and saw Poe standing in the doorway between the entrance hall and the living room. The apparition had Poe's features, his tall stature,

loose tweed garments, and general appearance, but a pale white glow shone from the figure. Dreiser rose at once and strode towards the ghost, or whatever it was, saying, Well, you've kept your word, John. You're here. Come on in and tell me how you did it. The apparition did not reply, and it vanished when Dreiser was within three feet of it. As soon as he had recovered somewhat from his astonishment, Dreiser picked up the telephone and called John Cooper Poe's house in the country. Poe's came to the phone, and Dreiser recognized his voice. After he'd heard the story of the apparition, Poe's house in the country. Poe's came to the phone, and Dreiser recognized his voice.

After he'd heard the story of the apparition, Poe's said, I told you I'd be there, and you oughtn't to be surprised. Dreiser told me that he was never able to get any explanation from Poe's, who refused to discuss the matter from any standpoint. And that's the end of the anecdote. That's all we know about that. I don't know if Dreiser ever wrote about this, but there doesn't seem to be a reason to think that Woodward was kidding or misled about this. I mean, I don't know what to say about any of these stories.

Maybe I don't understand what a doppelganger is, but I thought that was just somebody who looked exactly like somebody else. But that's more of an apparition, what you just described there. Yes. Well, it's hard to tell. In this case, it's an apparition. Some of these other ones I'll get to in a second. It's hard to tell. With Byron's, it could snapper. In some of these other ones, I'll get to in a second, it's hard to tell. With Byron's, it could be either.

I see. I mean, I'm not sure what the exact definition of a doppelganger is. I think it's used in both senses. In both senses, okay. So here's, I don't know. I feel like I should draw some conclusions. I don't know what to say about that. So I'm just going to pass right on to the next one.

This is much earlier. This is about 300 years earlier. This involves the German writer Goethe, who in his youth, this happened about age 22, which means it was probably in 1771 or thereabouts. He was going to see Frederica, who was a Parsons' daughter with whom he had a brief but intense affair. This is from his autobiography. I rode along the footpath toward Drusenheim, and here one of the most singular forebodings took possession of me. I saw, not with the eyes of the body, but with those of the mind, my own figure coming towards me on horseback, and on the same road attired in a dress which I had never worn.

It was pipe gray with some gold about it. But as I shook myself out of the stream, the figure had entirely disappeared. So he saw his own image coming toward him. That would be creepy. That's strange enough but there's a little twist at the end here he says it is strange however that eight years afterwards i found myself on that very road on my way to pay one more visit to frederica wearing the dress of which i had dreamed and that not from choice but by accident so the first time he'd seen

himself he was wearing the apparition was wearing something he didn't recognize right and the second time he found himself wearing that very thing. And on the same road. Wow. I don't know what to make of that either. He says, whatever one may think of such matters in general, in this instance, my strange illusion helped to calm me in this farewell error. He was going to say goodbye to her.

But he doesn't say anything more about that than that. That's almost like time travel. One way you could explain these things that's natural is to say, well, poets have great imaginations to begin with. And maybe it's not surprising that they might be more prone to this than the average person. But the thing that these five anecdotes have in common is that it's not the poet who's seeing the apparition. The poet... Well, in this case, it was. Is the apparition.

Well, in Gertrude's case, it's both. Right, right. But the others, for instance, Poets. Poets was the one who appeared. He wasn't the one who witnessed it. Right, right. So it's not his imagination that's in appeared. He wasn't the one who witnessed it. Right, right. So it's not his imagination that's in question. I don't know what to make of that either.

The next one I have is Lord Byron, of all people. This is from a letter he wrote to John Murray on October 6th, 1820. Just another sort of random anecdote that's hard to make any sense of. He writes, In the latter end of 1811, I met one evening at Alfred, my old school and form fellow, Robert Peel, the Irish secretary. He told me that in 1810 he met me, as he thought, in St. James Street, but we passed without speaking. He mentioned this, and it was denied as impossible, I being then in Turkey. A day or two afterwards, he pointed out to his brother,

a person on the opposite side of the way. There, said he, is the man whom I took for Byron. His brother instantly answered, why it is Byron and no one else. But this is not all. I was seen by someone to write down my name among the inquirers after the king's health, then attacked by insanity. Now at this very period, as nearly as I could make out, I was ill of a strong fever at Patras, which is in Greece, caught in the marshes near Olympia from the malaria. If I had died there, this would have been a new ghost story for you. And he adds, you can easily make out the accuracy of this from Peel himself, who told it in detail and who apparently corroborated the story. So that, I was going to say that could have been someone who looked very like Byron.

Right. I was going to say that too. According to the story, whoever this was actually signed Byron's name. Ah, unless it's a Byron imposter. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I feel like I should be drawing some conclusions, and I can't help you there. That's the only one that's like, well, okay, maybe. It's somebody who looked a lot like Lord Byron,

who was trying to pass himself off as Lord Byron. Yeah, that's possible. Like, that one, like, there's some possible explanation for. And this, like the others, doesn't connect to anything else. It's just hanging out there. Yeah. The English literary critic G. Wilson Knight says, I know of only two great writers

of whom an example of soul projection has been objectively reported, Poeis and Byron. But I've got two more here. Okay. For whatever they're worth. Byron's friend Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned famously in 1822. But shortly

before that, there was an instance or episode where his friend, uh, Jane saw him, thought she saw him, passed twice past a window when he couldn't possibly have been there. This is from a letter that Mary Shelley wrote, uh, to a friend, uh, concerning Shelley, their mutual friend, Jane Williams. Mary Shelley's, their mutual friend, Jane Williams. Mary Shelley writes, she was standing one day at a window that looked on the terrace with Edward Trelawney. It was day. She saw, as she thought, Shelley pass by the window, as he often was then without a coat or jacket. He passed again. Now, as he passed both times the same way, and as from the side towards which he went, each time there was no way to get back except past the window again, except over a wall 20 feet from the ground.

She was struck at seeing him pass twice thus, and looked out, and seeing him no more, she cried, Good God, can Shelley have leapt from the wall? Where can he be gone? Shelley, said Trelawney, no Shelley has passed. What do you mean? Trelawney says that she trembled exceedingly when she heard this, and it proved indeed that Shelley had never been on the terrace

and was far off at the time she saw him. And then three weeks later, Shelley drowned. Mary Shelley points out, she says, Jane, though a woman of sensibility, has not much imagination and is not in the slightest degree nervous, neither in dreams or otherwise. So this is another case where it's not the poet who's having the vision, but he shows up in it.

Also, apparently before, in the weeks leading up to the accident in which he drowned uh shelly was apparently prone to nightmares uh he had on june 23rd had a nightmare and talking it over the next morning he told me that he had had many visions lately he had seen the figure the figure of himself, which met him as he walked on the terrace and said to him, How long do you mean to be content? Which is the importantest thing to say. She writes, No very terrific words and certainly not prophetic of what has occurred, but Shelley has often seen these figures when ill, but the strangest thing is that Mrs. Williams saw him. So that's four anecdotes of people encountering visions of poets.

And only one of them could you come up with, like, even a halfway plausible explanation for. And I don't, as I say, I don't think any of these are connected. I don't think any was inspired, for example, by the others. None of them mention any of the other, or mentioning that poets in general are sort of prone to this sort of thing. Not that I was able to find. The last one I have concerns Wilfred Owen, the poet who wrote so impressively of the horrors of World War I. His own story is terrible.

He went through the whole war and then was killed in action in France a week before the armistice. In fact, his mother received the telegram informing her of his death while the bells were ringing celebrating the end of the war, which is terrible.

Oh, that is awful. But when his family found out about his death, his brother, his younger brother Harold, wasn't there and didn't know about the death. Harold was anchored with a British cruiser off West Africa, and Harold said, while ignorant of his brother's death, he claims he had what he called an extraordinary and inexplicable experience. He writes, I had gone down to an extraordinary and inexplicable experience. He writes, I had gone down to my cabin thinking to write some letters.

I drew aside the door curtain and stepped inside, and to my amazement I saw Wilfred sitting in my chair. I felt shock run through me with appalling force, and with it I could feel the blood draining away from my face. I did not rush towards him, but walked jerkily into the cabin, all my limbs stiff and slow to respond. I did not sit down, but looking at him, I spoke quietly, Wilfred, how did you get here? He did not rise, and I saw that he was voluntarily immobile, but his eyes, which had never left mine, were alive with the familiar look of trying to make me understand. When I spoke, his whole face broke into the sweetest and most endearing dark smile. I felt not fear, I had none when I first drew my door curtain and saw him

there, only exquisite mental pleasure at thus beholding him. He was in uniform, and I remember thinking how out of place the khaki looked amongst the cabin furnishings. With this thought, I must have turned my eyes away from him. When I looked back, my cabin chair was empty. I wondered if I had been dreaming, but looked down, and I saw that I was still standing. Suddenly, I felt terribly tired, and moving to my bunk, I lay down. Instantly, I went to a deep, And he learned, in fact, later that his brother had died the preceding week. And no one knows what to make of that either. Wow. So those have been, over the years, those have just sort of popped up one after another.

And each time I find a new one, I think, wow, this is really strange. But it doesn't seem to, there's a pattern, but it doesn't seem to make any sense. But I've always just wanted to share that with someone because it just seems so odd. So if you, if anyone out there can make any sense of this, or if this is some known pattern that other people have remarked on, I'd love to hear about it. Or if you have more instances of poets showing up in unlikely places, please write to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. In episode 49, Greg told us about a kitten that reportedly climbed the Matterhorn in 1950. Greg was skeptical that this story could be true,

but he couldn't find any indication that it was a hoax or a joke, and he asked if any of our listeners could shed any more light on the topic to please let us know. And that's just what some of our listeners did. Good. Greg was limited to English language accounts of the story, but two of our listeners went to a fair amount of trouble to track down sources in other languages for us. We really appreciate the work that they went to, and I heartily apologize in advance for my benighted American mangling of any names or places.

Stefan Pluttner checked German language sources and found a report of the incident in Volume 6 of Berge der Welt, or Mountains of the World, from 1951. Stefan contacted the owner of the book, who looked into the story for him and confirmed that it does appear to be true. According to Stefan's sources, the cat lived in the Belvedere Hotel, followed some climbers to the summit, and was brought back down in a guide's backpack, all of which corresponds to the story that Greg had learned. Yeah. While a United Press story from 1950 reported that the cat was then named Matt, Stefan's sources have the cat being named Cherbino, which is Italian for man or horde. That's a better name anyway. Greg didn't have any information on what happened to the cat

after the famous incident, but Mountains of the World reports that fairly soon after the incident, the cat was apparently stuffed and put on display as a tourist attraction in a cafe in Brueville, which implies that Cherervino didn't survive his celebrity very long. I hate to say it, but it sounds like the sort of thing that

might happen to such a cat. I know. It was kind of not very pleasant to see. Denise Mantagner checked Italian language sources for us and found articles in La Stampa, which Denise says is a well-known newspaper from Turin. He found articles from June 1951 that recounted the story from the London Times and then explained that the embalmed cat was to be exhibited at an upcoming dog show. So they again have the cat being not among the living anymore. And no one is saying this is just poppycock, it didn't happen. No, exactly. One of the La Stampa articles explained that the cat had died many months earlier without that being mentioned in the newspapers and was now apparently embalmed and put on display. Denise further found a website by an artist and further former

politician from the Aosta Valley, which was where the guides who carried down the cat were also from. The website displays photos of an embalmed cat, which is supposedly the same famous one, and claims it is now in a hotel in Bruetville, supposedly owned by the website owner, although Denise notes that on the site there are two different versions of the story about how the cat actually came to be at this hotel, and they not only somewhat

contradict one another, but also the original story that the cat was brought back to the hotel Belvedere. So that's a little confusing. One of the stories in Italian reports that the hotel owner that was given the cat had the cat put down because it had developed pneumonia from the cold and then he had had the cat embalmed the other version uh didn't really fully explain how the cat came to be embalmed or at the hotel maybe there were i hate to be so simple maybe there's more than one stuffed cat that's earning some well and that's that's the thing too um you know you show a stuffed cat and you say this is the famous cat uh denise, this is all I could find about the Matterhorn cat from Italian online sources. It didn't actually solve the mystery of how the cat managed to get to the top of the mountain, and it actually added the mystery about his fate.

But yeah, but nothing contradicted it. So basically among all the different sources of the story, whether they were in German, Italian, or your English stories, they all seem to agree on certain facts, which was that a young cat followed an ascending party, but climbed to the summit alone, and it was brought back down the mountain by a guide in a backpack. Yeah. Nobody's found any indication that the story was fabricated, although now we have a new mystery of exactly what happened to the cat after it came back down.

And we didn't hear from anybody. I saw the emails as they were coming in. We didn't hear from a single person who said this isn't true. Right. Nobody seemed to find any evidence that it had been fabricated or was a joke or anything. As for whether a cat could possibly climb the Matterhorn, we had a couple of listeners weigh in with some ideas on that. Charlie wrote in to say,

If we consider this as a purely physical problem, the power-to-weight ratio of a cat versus a man would really give the advantage to the cat. The natural strength of a cat for its size makes it highly likely that a cat could easily best a human at climbing a peak. Only in the ability to stretch or reach across a chasm might tilt things in favor of the man. Since cats are obviously

smarter than men, being that most of them manage to spend their lives sleeping, eating, and playing, while we seem to get caught up in years of arduous labor to little or no profit, one wonders what point the cat saw in the climb. Well, being naturally curious, maybe he just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. That could be it. Paul Buda, who for us is our resident mountain climbing expert since he recently climbed Mount That could be it. People have difficulty climbing mountains because our bodies are big, heavy, and clumsy. A cat would find all the little crevices and protrusions in the rock to be very useful, while those same features would be too small or weak for a person to use. So both of them seem to find it very plausible that a cat could climb a mountain. But would a cat climb a mountain?

Well, we'll get to that later. Paul also noted that one of the big difficulties for humans in mountain climbing is adjusting to the altitude. And since the cat had been living at an altitude of about 10,000 feet, then the additional 4,000 feet of altitude really wouldn't be that big of a difference for it, unlike humans who might live normally at, say, 500 feet and try to adjust to the great difference. Paul goes on to say, the only two things that make the story difficult for me to accept at face value is that the temperatures on the Matterhorn would have been very cold and I don't know how long a house cat can survive at those temperatures.

Also, I don't know why a cat would willingly climb a mountain in the first place. I would think it would be more happy to curl up in front of a fire at the hotel rather than brave the elements to climb a mountain for no particular reason. What do you think about that? Whether the cat would or not? Yeah. I would need to know a lot more about the cat, but, I mean, you can be amazed sometimes at the things animals take it into their heads to do. Yeah. I mean, who knows what the cat thought might be up there or just watched people going up.

The stories seem to say that it just watched people going up and just pure curiosity. It's just person after person head on. Yeah. And thought, well, gee, I wonder what's up there. Interestingly, Claire Rousseau sent in an email that addresses some of these points. Okay. Okay.

Claire wrote, I don't know much about cats' mountaineering abilities, but one thing that struck me as missing from all the reports about Matt the Matterhorn Climbing Kitty was his breed. The only indication we get of breed in the article you read in the podcast mentions that the cat was black and white, which could indicate a number of different breeds. Claire notes that there are some breeds that can be quite large, and thus a 10-month-old kitten of one of these breeds could be a pretty good size. Because that's one thing we had questioned was, could a kitten do this? Claire also says, some breeds are also better suited to cold weather conditions, high altitudes, and snow than others. The idea of a 10-month-old Sasha climbing a mountain doesn't seem plausible, but the story improves if you imagine a Siberian or Norwegian forest cat.

Personally, my money is on the Norwegian forest cat, which can be found in Europe as well as Norway. The Wikipedia page for that breed lists it as a good climber. So, I mean, apparently there are cats. You know, Paul had said, would it be able to survive the cold? I mean, there are some breeds of cat that are very good at climbing

and are well adapted to the cold. So this is a really good thought on Claire's part, but we don't know for sure the breed of Matt or Cherbino, whatever his name is. There is one photo that is supposed to be of this cat, and in it, Matt does appear to be a small, standard domestic short hair. It looked to me like a young, skinny Sasha, who, no, would not be able to withstand the cold of the Matterhorn. This photo is shown on the website for Little House of Cats, and it accompanies the Matterhorn climbing story. And it's implied that the photo is from the Times of London news story,

but that's not actually ever explicitly said. So we can't really be certain that it actually even is a photo of Matt. It is just a photo of a guy holding a cat, and it doesn't really ever say where the photo is from. So it's possible that Claire could be right, and he could be one of these specialized breeds. And we'll have a link in the show notes to the Little House of Cats photo so people can see the cat that is supposedly Matt, if they want to see, yeah, for themselves. Claire also notes that the BBC and National Geographic report studies that show that cats can roam quite a bit farther than we might think. National Geographic reports on a feral cat that had a home range of 13,000 acres, which is really pretty darn big.

Wow. Yeah. That's gigantic. That is. I know. They put, like, little GPS tracking collars on these kitties. It was very cute. And the cat regards that whole space as its territory?

Yeah, it seems to just range around this area. Yeah. So, I mean, cats go a lot further than you might think. Yeah, the BBC did a whole study where they took domesticated cats and did the same thing, kind of tracked where they went. And the fully domesticated cats do tend to have somewhat smaller ranges than feral ones. But Claire notes that we don't actually know how fully domesticated Matt was. And the BBC report notes that cats can be varying degrees of domesticated. So there's just a lot we really don't know about the background of Matt and whether he had done any mountain climbing previously and how much he was used to roaming around outside. That's true. For more on the topic of could or would cats climb mountains, Anna Steinstroh wrote in to let us know about a cat in Utah named Millie that goes mountain climbing with her human

companion, Craig Armstrong. According to the article in the Daily Mail, Millie was adopted at a few days old by Armstrong, who is an avid mountaineer, and now Millie and Armstrong do quite a lot of hiking in caves and canyons and up mountains. In an article posted by Armstrong on Backcountry, he says, We enjoy the same kinds of climbing and prefer the same areas. I'm weak and she doesn't have opposable thumbs. So we tend to like similar routes, slabby tech routes that require more technique and balance than raw power. Millie and Armstrong can do six mile round trip hikes in a day.

And her highest summit so far has been a five stage climb that totaled 1000 feet. So I mean, this is this cat is mountain climbing on her own. I misjudged cat. Armstrong says, Millie has all the qualities a good climbing partner should have. She never complains no matter how bad it gets. She always wants to go higher and she pushes herself hard. But she also knows when to stop. When she's done, she's done.

She'll find a cave or climb a tree and won't move until she's rested. She takes big risks and doesn't bitch when they don't pan out. And she cuddles at night inside your sleeping bag and keeps you warm. That's a bonus. What could be better? As Anna says, this clearly doesn't prove anything regarding Matt, but perhaps lends some credibility to the idea of a cat climbing a mountain. We'll have links in our show notes to the articles that Anna sent on Millie. They make for some really fun reading and the photos in them are just really amazing.

Yeah, to just see this cat in the act of mountain climbing or at the top of some of the mountains it's gotten to the top of, it's really cool. So thanks so much to everyone who wrote in on this topic. Yes, thank you. And if you have any questions or comments for us, please send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. It is amazing how quickly two weeks goes by and it is already my turn again to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to present me with an odd sounding

situation and I have to try to make some sense out of it asking only yes or no questions. Okay, what do I get? Does somebody die? This one is from Kyle Hendrickson's 1998 book Mental Fitness Puzzles. Okay. Eric spends his vacation in the Swiss Alps. Unfortunately, he ends up spending the greater part of his visit in the hospital after having taken a nasty spill while skiing. On his return trip home to the U.S., the authorities do not ask him to show his passport. Why not? Nobody died. Nobody died.

Well, Eric might die of his injuries. Okay, Eric is a human being? Yes. Okay. Does it matter what nationality he is? No. Do you say in the puzzle that he's American? Eric is a human being Yes Okay Does it matter what nationality he is? Do you say in the puzzle that he's American? I say his return trip home to the US But it doesn't matter like what nationality

He claims what citizenship he claims No Because he could live in the US but be a citizen of the country No Okay They don't ask him to show his pet oh eric is dead oh eric is dead that's oh and i was saying oh nobody died yay but that's why he doesn't have to show a passport because he's dead how did you just before we close this one out how did that just come to you like all

of a sudden i was trying to think under what circumstances would he not have to show a passport and i thought well maybe he's like too sick he's in a coma or something i'm like no he's I was trying to think under what circumstances would he not have to show a passport? And I thought, well, maybe he's like too sick. He's in a coma or something. I'm like, no, he's dead. I just saw his light bulb go on all of a sudden. Do you have another puzzle? I do.

Okay. Okay. I won't even guess this time whether somebody dies or not because apparently that's... That's quite common. Apparently that's not safe to do. I have two. Where's the other one? Hold on. Bear with me me one second i had a bunch picked out for you you're tricky to pick these things for i know sometimes i just suddenly solve them and sometimes i just bumble around for ages okay let's try this one ready yes uh this is from the same book. Christopher learns about a terrible crime that has been committed by John and Bob.

He has known both of these men for many years and cares for them equally. Why, then, does he only report John to the authorities and not Bob? Okay. Okay. Are John and Bob both human adult males? That's always your first question. Yes. Yes.

Well, if they're goldfish or golden retrievers or something, it just changes everything. They could be dogs. They could. We did a whole show on animals on trial. I think that's actually, I should do more of that myself.

Okay, so are they Siamese twins or something? No. Okay, so it's not like you report one and you really report both of them. They're both equally guilty of a crime? Yes. What are their names again? John and Bob.

John and Bob are both equally guilty of a crime, but he only reports one of them. Yes. Does he have a different relationship to one of them? Like a relationship like married or they're a relative or, you know, something like that. To one rather than the other. Yeah, yeah. No. No.

Okay. So it's not like he has a particular relationship to one of them. Like he's the twin brother of one of them or he's the wife or husband of one of them or whatever. That's correct. That's correct. Okay. So why does he only report one and not the other? Is one of them dead?

That would be so great, but no. Because you wouldn't bother report the guy if he's dead. That's actually a really good solution. Is one of them already in jail or in a coma? No, no. So is one of them in outer space? No. So there's no point in reporting them. Okay. Are nationalities important? No. Does where any of this takes outer space? No. There's no point in reporting them. Okay. Does nationalities, are nationalities important?

No. Does where any of this takes place important? No. Time period? No. Occupations? Yes. Yes.

Oh, is one of them his client? He's a lawyer and one is a client. And so there's like attorney-client privilege or he's a priest and one of them has confessed. Something like that? Yes. Something along those lines? Is that what it is? In fact, that's exactly it.

Christopher was a priest. In the confessional at church, John told the priest about his involvement in the crime. Christopher later learned of Bob's role while attending a church bake sale. Catholic priests are constrained from revealing information imparted to them in a confessional. Okay, but nobody did die in that one. No, in this case, no. Although that would have worked if one of them was dead. That would have been an entirely satisfactory solution.

It would have been great following the first puzzle. If anybody out there has any puzzles that they'd like to send in for us to use, you can send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That wraps up another episode for us. If you're looking for more Futility Closet, you can check out our books on Amazon, follow us on Twitter or Facebook, or visit the website at futilitycloset.com, where you can sample over 8,000 beguiling tidbits. At the website, you can also see the show notes for the podcast and listen to previous episodes.

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