Futility Closet - 075-The Sea Devil

Episode Date: September 28, 2015

Felix von Luckner was a romantic hero of World War I, a dashing nobleman who commanded one of the last sailing ships to fight in war. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll describe Luckner's uniquely civilized approach to warfare, which won admiration even from his enemies. We'll also puzzle over how a product intended to prevent drug abuse ends up encouraging it. Sources for our feature on Felix von Luckner: Lowell Thomas, Count Luckner, The Sea Devil, 1928. Edwin P. Hoyt, Count von Luckner: Knight of the Sea, 1969. In all, Seeadler captured 16 ships totaling 30,099 tons between Dec. 21, 1916, and Sept. 8, 1917. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener David White, who sent these corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). 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]. 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 75. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. Felix von Lueckner was a romantic hero of World War I, a dashing nobleman who commanded one of the last sailing ships to fight in war. In today's show, we'll describe Luckner's unique style of waging war without casualties, which won admiration even from his enemies. We'll also puzzle over how a product intended to prevent drug abuse actually ends up encouraging it. intended to prevent drug abuse actually ends up encouraging it.

Felix von Lückner was a German nobleman and sailor during World War I who was hugely popular on both sides because he found a way to wage war without killing anyone. This one was kind of distressing to research. I presume he's still well-remembered in Germany, but it's been hard to research him because he's quickly being forgotten in the English-speaking world as well as I can tell, which is a shame because he's great, and it's a great story, and that's only, come on, 100 years ago. It's not that long. Luckner is fondly remembered on both sides. The writer Lowell Thomas called him the most romantic and mysterious figure on the side of the central powers in the World War. The story, his story, is actually more an adventure story than a war story, because

there's not a lot of war in it, but it's very dashing and romantic. Luckner was born in 1881 in Dresden and dreamed almost immediately of going to sea. He just fell in love with the sea, but unfortunately he was born into a family where the tradition was instead to go into the cavalry, which is what his father pressed him to do. He failed his school exams and then ran away to sea anyway at age 13, promising himself that he wouldn't return until he was wearing, quote, the emperor's naval uniform and with honor. So he was ambitious even as a kid, I guess.

He signed up under an assumed name as an unpaid cabin boy on a Russian sailing ship traveling to Australia and then held a whole succession of odd jobs in Australia. But he kept his promise to himself. At age 20, he entered a German navigation training school and did get his naval commission, so he was able to return to his family in uniform as he told himself he would. His family had actually thought he was missing. They'd reported him as lost. Yeah, I was going to say, how did they feel, like, having him show up in his naval uniform?

At least he turned up. When World War I broke out, Germany started converting merchant ships into merchant raiders, which is a merchant raider is basically a warship that instead of attacking the other side's fighting ships, it attacks merchant ships, cargo ships carrying goods. Oh, the supplies, yeah. Because Germany, in this case, thought,

and particularly with regard to Britain, that if they couldn't beat them fighting on the supplies, yeah. Because Germany, in this case, thought, and particularly with regard to Britain, that if they couldn't beat them fighting on the sea, if they could intercept all the resources they needed just to run the country and to fight the war, they'd have to submit. That's sort of a standard strategy, and Germany was going about it with steamships. But the problem was that by 1916, the Allies had blockaded all the German warships in the North Sea, which gave them two problems. One is that they're blockaded there and can't get out to do this merchant raiding on the Atlantic.

The second was, even if they could, this is 1916, so most of these ships are steamships powered by coal, and there weren't that many friendly ports on the Atlantic for them to refuel at. So even if one could break through this blockade and get into the ocean, they'd have trouble lasting very long because they wouldn't be able to get access to fuel. Someone in the Imperial Navy who had a rich imagination, this wasn't Luckner, I'm not sure who it was,

came up with the idea of saying, well, look, if we can't do this with a steamship, let's go back and get one of the old-timey sailing ships. For two reasons. One, no one would ever suspect that that was actually a warship as it approaches the blockade, which is true. And two, if it does manage to get through the blockade and into the Atlantic,

it doesn't need coal. It's a sailing ship. It can just sail around. But it needs wind. I mean, it does need wind, but... That's true. But so there were good reasons to try this. So what they did was they impounded a three-masted sailing ship

and outfitted it secretly with all the special gear below the decks. Two 105mm guns that would emerge from the deck dramatically. Two hidden heavy machine guns, rifles for boarding parties, and two 500hp auxiliary engines. But all that stuff was

under the deck, so from the outside it just looked like an ordinary sort of unassuming sailing ship. Which is clever. And they gave it... They thought if it could get through the blockade, it could last for some time. No one knew quite how long, but they gave it provisions for two years just to go as long as they could.

And they commissioned it as the auxiliary cruiser Seadler, which means Sea Eagle. This was one of the last sailing ships to fight in war. So this is kind of romantic. Everything else out there is just this big smoke belching steamship. It wasn't technically a clipper, but it was

one of the all-time three-masted sailing ships, which must have looked wonderful. In fact, Luckner got the command because he was the only officer in the German Navy who had actual experience on sailing ships. Everyone else had sort of come up in steamships. So those sort of early years when he was finding his way and running USA

paid off because he got this job. Their plan was to run through this British blockade disguised as a neutral ship. And I should explain this. They were going to disguise themselves as a Norwegian ship carrying lumber, which is a typical Norwegian export. The rules were, if you're fighting in the infantry, if you're fighting on land, you had to wear a uniform that showed which side you were on. But the rules are different at sea. It's okay, the rules at least then were, it's okay to disguise yourself as a ship of a different nationality in order to fool others,

the only rule is if you're going to outright attack them, you have to show your true colors before you start firing, just to prevent utter chaos. That's just kind of confusing. So you're allowed to pretend to be something you're not? Like that's allowed, quote-unquote? Okay. I don't see no reason for that convention.

I can understand why you'd have to show your true colors, because if they didn't, then someone would come back and say, we were attacked by a Norwegian ship, and that would cause instant battle. So the Ziegler left port on December 21st, 1916, and actually managed to slip through this British blockade disguised as a Norwegian ship. They had carefully, you know, set everything up so it would look Norwegian. He hired a crew who all spoke Norwegian. Right before they left, he stole the logbook from a Norwegian ship, and they timed the actual departure, so it was right a day before a legitimate Norwegian ship left its port, so that if the British intercepted them and

then radioed out, they'd get the news that, yes, there was a Norwegian ship that left port recently. Okay. Which is pretty good. The crew had six officers and 57 men, and they did get through the blockade, but then they were intercepted by a British merchant cruiser called the Aven woman to pretend to be the captain's wife. This lumber that they purported to be carrying was all carefully positioned so it lay across hatches and things so they couldn't, the inspection party couldn't actually get down into the ship. It was very well thought out and it worked. So they let them go and now they're abroad in the Atlantic and they can carry out this plan of attacking allied merchant ships. And they started doing that.

On January 9th, 1917, they came upon a steamer carrying coal, and this was sort of the typical way they would do it. They'd approach it with a signal requesting a time signal. They'd say, chronometer time, please. In 1916, a lot of sailing vessels still had very poor instruments, so that wasn't uncommon for a sailing ship

that was at sea for some time to need to approach a steamer and say, can you tell us what time it is, because we've sort of lost track out here. So that didn't look suspicious. They approached the steamer, and then it was too late for the steamer to take evasive action.

They ran up the German ensign and revealed that they were actually Germans, fired three shots across the bow, and they surrendered. That was sort of the standard way they did this. That must have been so confusing, you know, with these old three-masted ships. I mean, you know, people are looking like, hey, look, look at one of these old-timey ships.

Isn't that cool? Yeah, it must have been astonishing what actually happened. Okay, there's a problem here now. The way this typically went was, for any merchant raider, you'd get the other ship to sort of submit and then the crew aren't fighting men, they're civilians, so you don't want to harm them, but you have to do something with them while you sink their ship. So you take them on board to your own ship, sink their ship, and now you've got an enemy crew aboard your ship, sort of prisoners,

and you have to do something with them. What the steamship merchant raiders would do is just eventually put those people off on a neutral port somewhere and just go on their way making depredations. off on a neutral port somewhere and just go on their way making depredations. The Z-Adler couldn't do that because their whole shtick was this business of sneaking up, pretending to be a sailing ship, and only revealing their identity as Germans at the last minute. So secrecy was a big part of this. Okay.

If they collected these enemy sailors and put them into a neutral port, they'd tell people what had happened and word would get out what was going on and they couldn't risk that. And there's not that many sailing ships around, so it would be really easy to know which one it had been. That's right, exactly. So fortunately, Luckner had thought of all this. He apparently thought of everything. And the solution he came up with was just to keep them with him, just to sail around the Atlantic. Picking them up. Accumulating enemy soldiers as they sank these ships. He had laid in 400 bunks for these prospective, quote-unquote, guests. This is from a book he wrote after the war called The Sea Devil, which was very popular.

And this kind of reveals his whole way of thinking, which is really wonderful. In addition to 400 bunks for prospective guests, I had special deluxe quarters made for visiting captains and mates. These were spacious cabins to accommodate two or three. We also designed a separate dining saloon for them with an assortment of books and magazines in French and English, and a gramophone with late English and French records. War or no war, I still considered all sailors my pals and had my own ideas as to how our prisoners should be treated. A sailor is a sailor no matter what his nationality,

and if I took any prisoners, I wanted them to feel as though they were my guests. That's Lüttner talking. It's not the German Navy. But that's why he was so popular. He thought just because we're enemies doesn't mean we have to hate each other. And he was so heroically successful at this

that no one bothered to complain about it. I mean, this actually worked. You couldn't do this, obviously, on land. If you're actually fighting, you sort of have to hate one another. But if you're a merchant raider, you can do your whole job quite successfully and not really be hateful enemies with anyone. And he realized that. And he kept going. So he just took these first crew just aboard and put them up there. The following day, they met another steamship. This one was carrying sugar from Madagascar and did the same thing. Approached and asked for the time, said, surprise, we're Germans, stick them up,

and took that crew aboard and sank their ship. You can see all these photographs in the book. Their book came out in 1928, but they took photos as all the enemy ships were going down after they'd been sunk. You can get a photo, too, of that sailor dressed up as the captain's wife. They were very carefully documenting all this stuff, apparently. So he just made his way merrily down south through the Atlantic, taking crews captive and sinking their ships.

So many so that I can't tell you about all of them. January 21st, he was in the mid-Atlantic when he encountered a French bark loaded with corn. Sank that one. January 24th, a 364-ton Canadian schooner named Purse, which they sunk by machine gun fire. January 24th, a 364-ton Canadian schooner named Perse, which they sunk by machine gun fire. February 3rd, a 3,000-ton French Foremaster. It just goes on and on from there. You've got 10 of these all together, racked up, with no problems. Everything's going according

to plan, and they're not being accosted by any of the Allied fighting ships, because apparently no one knew yet what was going on. I mean, these ships they were sinking didn't eventually show up at port, but no one knew why at the time.. I mean, these ships they were sinking didn't eventually show up at port, but no one knew why at the time. Most ships didn't even have wireless sets, so there was no way. He had the crews captive, and they had no way to tell anyone what was happening before it was all over. So it was a good plan on top of all that. On March 10th, there was a British ship that ignored the time,

ignored them when they asked for the time. So they lit a smoke generator and pretended that their ship was on fire, and that stopped and the other ship turned around and came back. They did the usual deal of revealing their German flag and firing three shots across the bow. This British ship was called the Horned Garth. It didn't respond, which was unusual. So they fired a fourth shot, which unfortunately hit the ship, which was not intended. It hit a ventilator near the bridge and sent fragments flying across the bridge and into the wireless room which put the radio out of commission but also wounded a junior officer on

the bridge. That man, they tried everything they could do to save him. They took him across to the Ziedler's doctor who worked on him all night but he died the following day and he was the only casualty in all of this in nearly a year of this whole adventure, whatever you want to call it. They only killed one man, and that was by accident. Completely by accident, yeah. All in reference to save him. Yeah. They buried him at sea with full military honors,

and that was the first human casualty of the Seadler in the capture of 11 ships. And they went on from there. By this time, Bluckner had accumulated 262 officers and men and two women who had to be kept i mean eventually he's going to have too many to fit yeah there's the other in addition to his own crew uh so even the way they got out of this was kind of clever and imaginative and humanitarian i think on march 20th they captured a four-masted french bark

called the cambrone and what they did was they took all of these accumulated Allied people and put them onto that French ship, which was a sailing ship, but then they cut off the top mast so it could still sail, but more slowly than normal and sent it off toward Rio and then quickly, hastily went off in the other direction. So these people would eventually reach a port and be able to explain what was going on. But by that time, they wouldn't be able to report their position because too much time would have elapsed. So even that was kind of considerate or humanitarian or large-hearted. I'm not sure what to call that. On top of that, if that wasn't impressive enough, they paid them.

I couldn't believe this. They paid these prisoners for their time. For their time. He writes in his book, We paid our prisoners off just as if they had been working for us. Each received wages for the time he had spent aboard, and each was paid the wage he ordinarily received from his shipowner. By Joe, that made them happy. This book. So it's almost like they got cheers for the Seattler. These are enemies. So it's almost like they got a paid vacation.

They got a paid cruise, basically. Yes, with champagne and magazines and a Victrola. So that's why, just to come to the end here, that's why he was so widely admired on both sides, because he was doing his job for the Germans, and he was doing it as humanely as possible for the Allies. At this point, they'd been out on the Atlantic for eight Germans, and he wasn't, you know, he was doing it as humanely as possible for the Allies. At this point, they'd been out on the Atlantic for eight weeks, and they were fairly sure that none of the Allies knew that they were at sea. But as I mentioned there, the Horned Garth, this last ship,

had carried a wireless, and they weren't positive that they hadn't had time to explain to someone what was going on before they'd intercepted it. So at that point, he decided they're in the south atlantic now they're just going to duck around the south end of south america and come up into the pacific just to get away from any possible searching that's going on in the atlantic at that point uh and they managed to do that they got out of the pacific in june uh they learned that the united states had entered the war which meant that there were some ports friendly to that country that they now couldn't use, but it also meant that

they could now go after American ships, which they did and sank three of those. So finally, what stopped them was after they'd been in the Pacific for five months, they'd sailed 35,000 miles. They were finally running out of provisions and the men were starting to get scurvy and very, very. So it wasn't attacks that slowed them down. It was just they were running out of provisions and the men were starting to get scurvy and bury bury so it wasn't attacks that slowed them down it was just they were running out of resources so they decided to go to mopelia which is a small coral atoll about 300 miles from tahiti and this is bizarre what finally stopped them is the least likely thing you can imagine the coral atoll is kind of a circle

made of coral which had a lagoon in the center but the ship was too big to get in there so they just anchored it on the outside which would would normally have been fine. And then they'd go to the atoll and hunt wildlife and basically get what they needed there and just spend some time there. Apparently it was beautiful. But on August 24th, they're getting ready to leave the ship for another day ashore. When Luckner looked out to the east at about 930 in the morning and noticed what he called a strange bulge on the eastern rim of the sea. This turned out to the east at about 9.30 in the morning and noticed what he called a strange bulge on the eastern rim of the sea. This turned out to be a tsunami, which just came out of nowhere. Apparently

it was caused by a submarine earthquake or a volcanic disturbance. And it was huge. He described it as 30 or 40 feet high, a whole mountain range made of water. Oh, wow. Like heading towards them? Yes, heading toward the atoll. And they're anchored on the outside, so they're going to get hit by it. The motor chose... They had all these auxiliary motors built into the ship,

but they chose this moment to fail. So they—I don't know if you can get out of the way of a tidal wave in any case, but they certainly didn't manage it. And that's what ended all this. No one was hurt. The wave hit the ship, and that drove the ship into the coral atoll, and that sort of did for it. That was the end of it, and the ship basically foundered against the atoll.

No one was badly injured and they managed to get away onto the Athol with 46 prisoners and did some, salvaged some provisions and firearms and two of the ship's boats.

So everyone's okay but they can't keep going. Yeah. And they're sort of marooned there. So that was sort of the end of this whole adventure. Luckner did one last final heroic chapter

because he's so optimistic. He took five of his men in a 33 foot open boat rigged it as a sloop with this desperate plan of trying to sail all the way to Fiji capture a sailing ship return for everyone else and just go on like as they had been

in this new ship he was going to steal somehow and he almost pulled this off they crossed 2300 miles in the open boat 2300 miles got all the way to Fiji and there they pretended to be some shipwrecked Norwegians. Most people even believed them, but one skeptic didn't and reported them to the authorities, and they were captured and basically taken to

a POW camp in New Zealand. So that was sort of it. Lugner did actually even escape from the camp, but they recaptured him again. So that's it for him. The people who were remaining back on the atoll heard of this by radio, captured a ship themselves, and set up for South America, but they struck some rocks off Easter Island, and they basically wound up in a POW camp in Chile. So basically, after the tidal wave hits them, everyone's sort of eventually captured pretty quickly after that. But the final record is, Zeadler captured and sank 15 ships totaling 30,000 tons in 225 days and killed one guy by accident. After the war, Luckner was repatriated to Germany in 1919, where he wrote this best-selling book, The Sea Devil, and became a popular speaker in Germany, which was sort of looking for a symbol of hope or just inspiring

stories since they'd lost the war, and he certainly fulfilled that for them. And remarkably, he was popular, if anything, more popular in the United States, which is amazing because that was the enemy. In 1926, he went to the U.S. and spoke widely there. He was admired for his seamanship and for having fought the war with so little loss of life. He often spoke three times a day in schools and in churches. And Henry Ford gave him a car. Calvin Coolidge wanted to meet him. San Francisco made him an honorary citizen.

And he could apparently tear a phone book in half with his bare hands. It sounds like I'm just making this up now. Apparently, on top of all the rest of this, he was gigantically strong and could tear a phone book in half and bend a coin with one hand. Wow, okay. So just throw that in there. As if there wasn't a big enough draw for, you know, cows.

I would see that. I guess there were fewer phones back then but still that's pretty impressive so uh he lived the rest of his life fairly quietly died in hamburg in 1966 which is pretty late for a sailing ship captain to die uh but he left this great legacy really admired on on both sides he was one of the most decorated men in germany with medals all down the left breast of his uniform as far as his belt. One author, Edwin Hoyt, says, he was one of those rare men who neither feared nor hated, who by nature made friends

of his enemies. He also said, there never was a more gallant ship to sail the sea, never one whose men fought with more gentility, and never one which saw so much action, and yet inflicted so little human casualty. One commentator points out that Luckner may be the only person who's won both the Iron Cross,

which is one of Germany's highest military awards, and a humanitarian award from the Pope. He did both of those, which is pretty good. Luckner says near the end of his book, as a sailor who has sailed under many flags and whose friends and pals are the citizens of many countries and many climes, it is my dream that one day we shall all speak the same language and have so many common interests that terrible wars will no longer occur.

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This one was sent in by David White. Good. Another David White puzzle and this is true. All right. Okay. In 1998, a product was released that was designed to help stop drug abuse. However, within a few days, the product was recalled when it was discovered that using the product would actually encourage drug abuse. Wow.

What was going on? And that's true. And this is a true story yes uh is that in this country yes um you said 1998 1998 yes designed to stop drug abuse yes um designed to stop abuse of any particular drug no oh just stop wow really yeah okay um a product was it would you call it a pharmaceutical product no So it wasn't a drug that people took. Correct, correct. And you said it had the effect of actually increasing abuse.

It was discovered that using the product might encourage drug abuse. All right. Not increase it, but encourage it. Okay. So would you say that, can I call it, it's a product? That's what we're calling it? Yes, yes. Would you say that it worked as intended?

In other words, for at least some people, it would have had the intended effect of discouraging drug abuse? I don't know. It's not that it just failed outright. Right. Yeah, that's not the right line of thinking on it. All right. Do I need to know more about... Okay, do I need to know more about sort of a movement behind it,

like whether it was a government initiative or anything like that? Oh, no, you don't need to know that. Yeah. Do I need to know more about how the... Whatever it was actually worked? You say it wasn't a drug, but the actual mechanism of whatever the thing was. You say it was a product or something. It was a product.

Intended to prevent people who weren't drug abusers from becoming drug abusers yes and intended to discourage that okay rather than prevent rather than to stop people who already were using drugs possibly i mean it was intended really to just discourage drug abuse is better than a word than prevent. Okay. All right. Did it do that? Okay, it didn't do that pharmaceutically. Did it do it by changing the economics of? No. Okay.

And was this like a federal initiative? Was it for the whole country, as far as you know? I'm not sure. I'm not sure whether it was for the whole country or not. But it might have been. I don't need to know that it was some particular region. Right, exactly. Right, it doesn't matter where specifically it was for the whole country or not. But it might have been. I don't need to know that it was some particular region. Right, exactly. Right, it doesn't matter where specifically it was.

And I don't need to know more about the time except for the fact that it was about 1998? No. I don't know how long this took or anything like that. Right, and it could have happened at any time. It didn't need to have been 1998. It just was. Okay, and you say it wasn't related to any particular

drug. It was drug abuse in general. Right. Okay, so if it wasn't an intervention that stopped it pharmaceutically, and it wasn't economic, how else would you try it? Was it sort of, would you call it like a PR campaign in some way? Yes, yes. Of telling people, of trying to convince people psychologically that it's a bad idea to abuse drugs. That's progress.

That is really good progress, actually. Okay. And you say it backfired. Yes. Using the product would actually encourage drug abuse. All right. Well, I just want to be clear here. So we say we're still calling it a product, but you're saying actually it's more like a campaign or a...

Well, it's both. All right, but the... And it's germane that the campaign involved a product. All right, but it wasn't just like an advertising campaign. Correct, because there was a product involved, but it's closer to like a PR campaign, but it involved a product. Okay. And that's the key point. Was the product pre-existing?

Yes. Was it something that was already... Oh, okay, so it's not like they came out with a new product. Right. All product. Okay. And that's the key point. Was the product pre-existing? Was it something that was already? Oh, okay. So it's not like they came out with a new product. Right. All right. Right. So, okay, that helps in a weird way.

Right. Well, you don't have to come up with something they invented that you've never heard of. All right. So the product. Yeah. There's some pre-existing product. Right. And some group, let's say it's the government. Right.

Makes some public claim about that product or a statement about that product. No. No. No, that's not it. Says, okay, but the product's already there. The product's there. And it's related somehow to this effort to discourage people from abusing drugs. It's related to this effort.

It becomes related to this effort. The product is pre-existing on its own. Okay. But the statement, this public campaign, whatever it was, doesn't refer specifically to the product you're talking about? It does not refer to the product. Okay. But they're related somehow. They are related.

Would you say then that the way this thing backfired or went haywire is that it put an idea into people's heads that wasn't there before um that it suggested a way to abuse drugs no or a benefit a hidden benefit no nothing like that that people hadn't considered correct nothing like that okay all right would it help me to try to figure out what this product is it would if you if you could yeah is it a is it a drug in itself no no no a food product no a consumer product yes of some kind yes that's that was associated with abusing drugs that was no no think about i mean how would you if you come up with a pr campaign and you want to get it out there why would you be using a product that already exists that people are already using and what way would you be using a product that already exists, that people are already using? In what way would you make use of that?

That would help you. Well, what I have fuzzily in mind is that you'd appeal to it as a symbol of something. No, nothing like that at all. Is it, but you say they don't refer to it explicitly. They don't. So they're not. They're making use of an existing product, but how? How would you do that in a, how would you make use of a marketing campaign or a... To convey the message?

Yes. Yes. It's not so abstract. I'm making progress, but it's very abstract. No, you're doing great. All right. So somebody wants to discourage drug abuse. Yes.

And they use an existing product... Yes. ...as a vehicle for disseminating that message. Exactly. That's excellent. And that backfires somehow. Yes. Okay. So let me back up one step. Okay. They launched this on some day. Yes. Did it ever work? Was it working for a while and then fell apart? I mean, was it ever successful? Well, I don't know whether it was successful in helping stop drug abuse, but at least at first the message would have gotten across properly. Okay, all right.

So I'm just trying to make this more concrete. Right. They put a message on milk cartons or the sides of buses or something. Exactly. It's something like that. Okay, so I'm trying to figure out what that is. Yes. And just to follow it out then. So I'll figure out what that is, but the message is conveyed on this product, whatever it is.

Right, and part of the puzzle says it's discovered that using the product would actually encourage drug abuse. The problem came about when the product was actually being used. All right. The product, okay, whatever the product was, it had a use that was preexisting. Preexisting and more than just conveying information. Exactly. So it's not like... Like you said, like a milk carton.

It's a preexisting product that already had a specific use. But you can put a message on it also. But you can put a message on it also. Exactly. So it's not like you said, like a milk carton. It's a pre-existing product that already had a specific use. But you can put a message on it also. Exactly. All right. So people were also already using this product. It already existed. It had some other functions. Yes. And this message started appearing on it. Yes. Like the warning message on tobacco products. Yeah. Like that? No? Well, because the warning message on tobacco products is specifically about using that product. So it's not like it in that way. Okay, so it's not a warning. It's not just an explicit warning, don't use this. About this product, right.

The product was intended to be used. And it's legal and it's not pharmaceutical. Right, exactly. It's not a drug. It's more like milk cartons than tobacco. The, all right. If. But the problem came about when the product actually got used as intended.

Right. If I, was the, it had printed a message, whatever it was. Yeah. So if I, let's say I couldn't read for some reason. Okay, okay. Or I was blind or something. I just couldn't. Right.

Okay. Take in the message. But I used this product. Right. As I normally did. Right. Nothing would change, right? Nothing would change.

Unless I read it. Unless you read it. Let's say you take off my blindfold and then I read it. Right. Will I use the product differently as a result of that? No. All right. All right.

Do you want a hint? Yes. Do you want a hint? The product was intended to be used primarily by children. To discourage them from abusing drugs? Yes. Were they toys? No.

No. Some, okay. It's a product that unfortunately when you use it changes. If it's used properly as intended, the product will change. And that wasn't taken into account when they put the message on it. It's consumed in some way? Somewhat that and then discarded that doesn't matter it's the consumed in some way kids consume it but it's not a food and it's not a drug correct is it a drink i mean consume it's not not consume but consume in the very broadest sense right but it's used up and all right, so let's try to figure out what that is.

It's not a toy. It's not a food. It's not a drink. It's not a drug. But it is something that would be used primarily by children, or this was intended to be used primarily by children, so that they would get the message. And it's not, when you say product, it's not like a medium.

It's not like a... Correct. It's a product that would have a specific use it's not a food would i find it would i find it in a grocery store maybe it's not a food not don't even think about like food um okay would you say that so whoever's been using this product the message starts to show up on the product yes but you're saying that it wouldn't be accurate to say that it puts an idea into their heads

yeah I mean I don't know what you mean by that and it just doesn't encourage them to pervert the product itself towards some illicit use no no exactly read the a product was released that was designed to help stop drug abuse. However, within a few days, the product was recalled.

Within a few days, they discovered the problem. Within a few days, the product was recalled when it was discovered that using the product would actually encourage drug abuse. And as I said, the problem was people haven't thought about how the product was typically used and what would happen, how the product might change under normal use. But you're saying that that danger wasn't there before this message appeared, right? Well, the problem is the message is going to change as the product changes. That's a huge hint. Well, it is. All right, the product changes normally when it's used normally.

Yes, yes, yes. And that removes part of the message? Yes, exactly. Is it burned? No. Intended for use primarily by children. In schools. I'm sorry, I'm not.

Children use a product in schools that consumes it in such a way that part of the message that it bears is obscured. Yeah, exactly, or obliterated. Which leaves a different message behind. Yes, exactly, and that's the problem. And I'm not going to make you come up with what the message was, but the problem is that the message was changing as the children were using the product.

Pencils? Yes, because you sharpen them and the pencil gets shorter. So what was the message? Okay, this is great. This is what David writes. The product in our story was wooden pencils created by the Bureau for At-Risk Youth in New York and contained the slogan, Too Cool to Do Drugs. Unfortunately, nobody noticed the orientation of the words on the pencils or remembered how wooden pencils get used. Within a few days, the pencils were hurriedly recalled when a 10-year-old student noticed that sharpening the pencil

would take the slogan too cool to do drugs and change it to cool to do drugs, followed by do drugs and ending simply with drugs. And that's true? That really happened? She says a spokeswoman for the Bureau

commented, quote, we're actually a little embarrassed that we didn't notice that sooner. That's awful. I thought that was just a really cute story. So, thank you so much David for sending in that excellent

puzzle. And if anybody else has a puzzle for us to use, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com That's another episode for us. If you're a puzzle for us to use, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That's another episode for us. If you're looking for more Futility Closet, you can check out our books on Amazon or visit the website at futilitycloset.com, where you can sample over 8,000 intriguing diversions. At the website, you can also see the show notes for the podcast and listen to previous episodes. Just click podcast in the sidebar. If you'd like to support Futility Closet, please consider

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