Futility Closet - 149-The North Pond Hermit

Episode Date: April 10, 2017

Without any forethought or preparation, Christopher Knight walked into the Maine woods in 1986 and lived there in complete solitude for the next 27 years, subsisting on what he was able to steal from local cabins. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell the story of the North Pond hermit, one man's attempt to divorce himself completely from civilization. We'll also look for coded messages in crosswords and puzzle over an ineffective snake. Intro: Disneyland's Matterhorn contains a basketball goal. Two tombstones in the Netherlands "hold hands" across a cemetery wall. Sources for our feature on the North Pond hermit: Michael Finkel, "Into the Woods: How One Man Survived Alone in the Wilderness for 27 Years," Guardian, March 15, 2017. Associated Press, "Christopher Knight: Inside the Maine Hermit's Lair," April 12, 2013. "Hermit Caught After 27 Years in Maine Woods," Guardian, April 11, 2013. Wikipedia, "Christopher Thomas Knight" (accessed April 6, 2017). Nathaniel Rich, "Lessons of the Hermit," Atlantic, April 2017. Michael Finkel, "The 27-Year Hunt for Maine's North Pond Hermit," Toronto Star, March 26, 2017. Betty Adams, "'North Pond Hermit' Knight Balks at Paying Costs Related to His Remote Campsite," Kennebec Journal, April 26, 2016. Craig Crosby, "After 27 Years of Burglaries, 'North Pond Hermit' Is Arrested," Kennebec Journal, April 9, 2013. Brian MacQuarrie, "In Rural Maine, a Life of Solitude and Larceny," Boston Globe, May 26, 2013. Michael Finkel, "The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit," GQ, Aug. 4, 2014. Leonard Dawe and the D-Day crosswords: Michelle Arnot, Four-Letter Words: And Other Secrets of a Crossword Insider, 2008. Nicholas Lezard, "One Hundred Years of Solvitude," Independent, Dec. 16, 2013. Michael E. Haskew, "In Spite of All the Preparation, D-Day Remained a Gamble," World War II 16:2 (July 2001), 6. R. Murray Hayes, "A Beach Too Far: The Dieppe Raid," Sea Classics 44:4 (April 2011), 18-22, 24-25. George J. Church and Arthur White, "Overpaid, Oversexed, Over Here," Time 123:22 (May 28, 1984), 45. Val Gilbert, "D-Day Crosswords Are Still a Few Clues Short of a Solution," Telegraph, May 3, 2004. Tom Rowley, "Who Put Secret D-Day Clues in the 'Telegraph' Crossword?", Telegraph, April 27, 2014. Fred Wrixon, Codes, Ciphers, and Secret Languages, 1989. Gregory Kipper, Investigator's Guide to Steganography, 2003. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Dave Lawrence. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music 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 we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page 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 the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities, from basketball in the Matterhorn to tombstones holding hands. This is episode 149. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1986, without any forethought or preparation, Christopher Knight walked into the woods of Maine. He lived there in complete solitude for the next 27 years, subsisting on what he was able to steal from

local cabins. In today's show, we'll tell the story of the North Pond Hermit, one man's attempt to divorce himself completely from civilization. We'll also investigate wartime crosswords and puzzle over an ineffective snake. We're going to have a slight change in our usual format this week. Usually when I do a follow-up to a story we've already covered, we do that in a listener mail segment after the main story. But this week, I have a follow-up story that was such a good story in itself that we're giving it the main spot. This is a follow-up to the story in episode 146, where we talked about how in 1913, Joseph Knowles wagered that he could survive two months alone fending for himself in the woods of Maine. And Greg Askins let us know about a related and

more recent story. In 1986, 20-year-old Christopher Knight parked his car on a remote trail in Maine and walked into the woods with very few supplies. Unlike Joseph Knowles, Knight hadn't made any plans to do this, and as far as anyone can tell or he can explain, his chief motivation was simply to avoid contact with people. What's amazing about this story is that Knight ended up living alone in the Maine woods for 27 years until he was caught and arrested for stealing in April 2013. Knight had been working for less than a year at a job installing home and vehicle alarms near Boston, Massachusetts, when he abruptly quit his job and left town without telling anyone. I had no one to tell, he said. I didn't have any friends. I had no interest in my co-workers. He just started driving down the East Coast, staying in the cheapest motels he could

find until he reached Florida. And then he turned around and started driving north. He ended up in Maine, the state he had grown up in. And when he reached a really remote area of the state, he said, I drove until I was nearly out of gas. I took a small road, then a small road off that small road, then a trail off that. Knight parked his now useless car, left the keys in it, and walked into the woods with a tent, a backpack, a few articles of clothing, and just a little food. He had no other supplies and no particular destination in mind. He said, I can't explain my actions. I had no plans when I said, I can't explain my actions. I had no plans when I left. I wasn't thinking of anything. I just did it. His goal seemed to be

to just lose himself in the woods. Knight felt content with the choices that he'd made and the life he was living, except for one thing. He was very hungry. The Maine woods didn't offer a lot of easily available food, and he didn't eat much for several days until he came to a paved road, found a road-killed bird, and without any way to cook it, ate it raw. He passed houses with gardens, but he'd been raised with strict morals and a great deal of pride. He believed that you make do for yourself and you don't do what's wrong. And those beliefs lasted for about 10 hungry days until he began to take a few vegetables from different gardens. And once he broke that barrier to stealing, he began a way of life that involved stealing whatever he needed.

Knight noted that the cabins in the woods around the ponds in central Maine tended to have little security. Windows were often left open, and there were few permanent residents in the area. He began carefully watching the owners of the cabins. Knight said, I looked for patterns. Everyone has patterns. He learned when families went shopping and when cabins were likely to be unoccupied. He discovered that the best time to break into a cabin was in the middle of the night,

midweek, and preferably when it was raining. The heavier the rain, the better, as people stayed out of the woods in bad weather. when it was raining. The heavier the rain, the better, as people stayed out of the woods in bad weather. If he had something large or heavy that he intended to steal, he would borrow a canoe, sometimes paddling for hours to get to his destination. A missing canoe would be noticed and likely reported to the police, so he was always careful to return the boat and sprinkle pine needles over it to make it look unused. Some cabins were left unlocked, and others he found keys to during his burglaries, and these keys he would hide on the properties of Some cabins were left unlocked and others he found keys to during his burglaries, and these keys he would hide on the properties of the cabins they belonged to. He had dozens of

these hidden keys and he never forgot where he had hidden any of them. He also created a lock breaking kit for himself, a stolen gym bag containing a collection of stolen screwdrivers, flat bars, and files. As the local residents began installing security systems, Knight adapted, using the knowledge from his previous job, to disable systems or remove memory cards from the surveillance cameras. A burglary report filed by one police officer noted the criminal's unusual neatness. Another officer said, the level of discipline he showed while he broke into houses is beyond what any of us can remotely imagine. The legwork, the reconnaissance, the talent with locks, his ability to get in and out without being detected. For his part, Knight said that every time he broke into a house, he felt a wave of shame.

Every time I was very conscious that I was doing wrong. I took no pleasure in it, none at all. He also found the burglaries very stressful and described that during them, my adrenaline was spiking, my heart rate was soaring, my blood pressure was high. I was always scared when stealing, always. I wanted it over as quickly as possible. He would move purposefully through a cabin, hitting the kitchen first and then sweeping through the rest of the rooms looking for anything else that could be of use to him, such as the batteries he constantly needed. All in all, Knight estimated that he made about 40 break-ins a year, or over 1,000 in total. When these break-ins started, they greatly confused the residents in the area. Families would come to their cabins and discover that just a few seemingly random items would be missing. Flashlights would be gone, or spare

propane tanks. Books might be missing from the bedside table along with the steaks from the freezer. One family lost a frying pan, a paring knife, and a coffee pot. Usually every battery in the house would be gone, but things like computers, stereos, cameras, and jewelry would be untouched, and no doors or windows would be broken. At first, the residents didn't even call the police because, as the Toronto Star reported, do you call the police and tell them there's been a burglary, that all your D batteries and your Stephen King novel are gone? You do not. You probably just think you've mislaid them or something. Right. Yes. And people did. But neighbors started talking to each other and they all had similar tales. There had been a break in with minimal damage or disruption. Doors and windows were

relocked when the intruder left. Propane tanks, batteries, and books were the most consistently stolen items, but families also lost thermometers, shovels, cases of beer, and in one baffling case, a mattress that wouldn't have fit through any of the cabin windows while the cabin's only door was bolted and padlocked with no apparent damage to the locks. Many people, including the police, started referring to the intruder as the hermit or the North Pond Hermit after the area that was being particularly targeted. On some police reports where a suspect's full name was requested, he was listed as Hermit Hermit. Numerous theories were floated as to who he was and why he was doing this, but really people just had no good idea. One summer, a resident had the idea of leaving a pen on a string on his front door with a note that read, please don't break in, tell me what you need and I'll leave it out for you.

Several other residents followed suit and some started hanging shopping bags with books or other supplies on their doorknobs. But Knight was fearful of a trap or of entering into any kind of interaction with anyone, so he left everything untouched and soon people stopped trying. And so the break-ins continued and people lost sleeping bags and pillows, snowsuits, a year's worth of National Geographic magazines, underwear, deodorant, shampoo, razors, and Nintendo Game Boys. One kid had his entire stash of Halloween candy stolen, and everyone lost batteries, even the big blocky ones from cars and boats. The same family who had lost their mattress had a backpack stolen, which caused some panic as it had contained their passports,

until they discovered that the burglar had removed the passports and placed them in a closet before taking the pack. As always, the hermit rarely took anything very valuable and seemed to be careful to try not to damage anything. Residents started trying to deter the break-ins and installed alarm systems, motion lights, and sturdier windows and doors. Some of them spent thousands of dollars doing this. Hermit-proofing became a new phrase in the area, and residents found a new uneasiness and distrust settling in. Families began locking their doors for the first time. A few people were afraid to

come to their cabins. Two cousins who owned cabins near each other each thought the other was taking their missing propane tanks. One man suspected his own son was stealing from him. Another cabin owner spent 14 nights waiting in his cabin in the dark with a gun, watching for the hermit to break in. Some doubted that the hermit even existed and thought, like you said, that they were just misplacing items or that they'd forgotten what they'd had. But then in 2002, a security camera hidden in a smoke detector did catch some photos of Knight and people were surprised to see that the hermit appeared to be clean, healthy and well dressed and looking like a pretty ordinary person. The images were hung in shops and businesses throughout the area and police went from cabin

to cabin with the photos, but no one could identify the thief and the burglaries continued. went from cabin to cabin with the photos, but no one could identify the thief and the burglaries continued. More years passed and the police still had no real leads. Some people began to talk about putting out bear traps or poisoning food, but nobody ever actually did these things. Other people thought that he was harmless and gave the place some local color. At least two school children wrote papers about the mystery of the North Pond Hermit. And then in 2013, Knight was finally arrested for burglary and theft at the Pine Tree Camp, a facility for special needs people that was a frequent target of his break-ins, as it was a consistent source of food and other supplies. He was finally caught by a trap set by game warden Sergeant Terry Hughes, who'd been trying

to capture Knight for years. Hughes had set up a military-grade motion detector to trigger an alarm at Hughes's nearby home if anyone entered the camp's dining hall after business hours. When the alarm sounded, Hughes made it to the camp within minutes and watched Knight going through the kitchen collecting food. Hughes reported that he was the first person Knight had spoken to since a brief chance encounter with a hiker in the 1990s, when Knight had passed a person on a trail and exchanged hellos. When questioned by state trooper Diane Perkins Vance, Knight answered her slowly and uncertainly. That was due partly, he said, to feeling ashamed, and partly, he later explained, to his verbal skills having become rusty and slow. When he

was asked when he had started living in the woods, Knight paused and then asked when the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster had occurred. He'd gotten out of the habit of thinking in terms of months and years, but happened to remember this news event from before he left civilization. When he was arrested, Knight was wearing brand new shoes and jeans, a nice jacket and gloves, and was carrying a high-end backpack. In his camp, police found a nylon tent covered in tarps, several high-end sleeping bags, as well as various handheld video games, a battery run radio with an antenna attached to a tree, watches, a mattress and bed frame, propane cooking stoves and cooking gear, shovels, rakes, coolers, and a coffee pot, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer.

At one time, he had also had a battery-powered TV, but found it drained his batteries too quickly. Knight had also accumulated $395, most of it in single-dollar bills in case there was ever an emergency and he needed to try to buy something, but he'd never ended up spending any of it, and some of the bills, dated from the 1990s, were growing moldy. Knight acknowledged stealing everything he had except for his outdated eyeglasses, which he had been wearing when he took to the woods in 1986. Knight claimed that in all his time in the woods, he only spent one night indoors. That was during his first weeks when he stayed overnight in an unoccupied cabin.

He said that it was a stressful, sleepless night full of anxiety about being caught, and after that he only slept outdoors no matter how cold or wet the weather was, which meant that he had to endure main winters where temperatures can go as low as negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit overnight, which he said he got through by using multiple sleeping bags or by pacing across his campsite in the early morning hours to fend off frostbite. He had never lit a fire for fear of its being seen. Local residents were skeptical that Knight had lived outdoors in the bitter sub-zero weather, and they speculated that he had probably stayed inside one of the dozens of cabins he'd been burglarizing. But trooper Perkins Vance, who questioned Knight many times, was convinced that he had stayed outdoors year-round and said, there's no doubt

in my mind that this man lived in the woods for 27 years. Knight later reported that there were some winters where he almost didn't make it and felt that he might actually die. In preparation for the winters, each fall, Knight would put on extra weight and stockpile food so that he could avoid needing to leave his camp and risk leaving footprints in the snow. His campsite was hidden within dense trees and ringed with boulders, but Knight still took precautions to keep it from being spotted from above by spray painting shiny surfaces like metal trash cans or pots or coolers, and even his clothespins, in forest colors. During his first few years in the woods, Knight had moved campsites fairly often, but Warden Dan Christensen said that Knight reported having been at his final camp since 1989.

Christensen pointed to a spot a few feet away from Knight's tent and said, he says he's watched this mushroom grow for the last four years. When Knight later learned that someone had visited his campsite, he asked in some concern if the mushroom was still there, or whether someone had knocked it down. Besides watching mushrooms grow, Knight said that he spent his days at camp reading or listening to the radio. When asked what kind of books he read, he replied, whatever I can steal. When he was arrested, Knight didn't know if his parents were still alive, and when his brothers came to see him in jail, he didn't know who they were. For their part, his family apparently never filed a missing persons report. His brothers apparently

had believed that he was dead, but they had tried to pretend to their mother that Knight might still be alive. Knight wouldn't see his mother while in jail. He said, look at me. I'm in my prison clothes. That's not how I was raised. I couldn't face her. Knight's arrest caused quite a sensation. Many people were intrigued by his story and wanted to meet or write to the hermit, and about 500 journalists requested an interview with him. One woman even proposed marriage. Knight did eventually permit one journalist, Michael Finkel, to speak with him over several one-hour interviews after exchanging some correspondence with him. For his crimes, Knight was sentenced to seven months in jail in October 2013, of which he'd already served all but one week while awaiting his sentencing. Living in the woods had taken a toll

on Knight. His eyesight had deteriorated considerably, and despite trying on all the glasses he could find during his raids, none of them had been helpful. Some of his teeth were bad and had hurt him constantly. As he got older, he lost some of his agility, and he found that wounds were healing much more slowly. The cold was never easy to endure, and there had been some agonizingly hungry winters when his food ran out too early. And still, despite all that, he found his time in jail to be much worse than his time in the woods. The noise and the dirtiness of the jail, the overstimulation after his time in nature, and his difficulty interacting with others all combined to make him depressed and withdrawn. He couldn't sleep and lost a lot of weight. He wrote to Finkel, I suspect more damage

has been done to my sanity in jail in months than years, decades in the woods. As he was facing his release, he told Finkel, Sitting here in jail, I don't like what I see in the society I'm about to enter. I don't think I'm going to fit in. It's too loud, too colorful. The lack of aesthetics, the crudeness, the inanities, the trivia. After leaving the jail, Knight went to live with his mother and was hired by one of his brothers to help take apart cars for his scrap metal business.

His father had died in 2001. Knight had seemed to find his visits with Finkel to be difficult. He found making eye contact to be overwhelming, and had told Finkel he was meeting with him in order to practice interacting with people. On their final visit in the jail, he had asked Finkel to leave him alone and said he didn't want to be anyone's friend. After Knight's release from jail, he ignored Finkel's request for further meetings, but Finkel showed up at Knight's mother's house anyway. Finkel reported that Knight appeared to be depressed and disoriented, and Knight suggested that death would be preferable to him than the life he was leading. He told Finkel that he missed the woods, and then urged the journalist to never contact him again. Futility Closet is supported primarily by our listeners.

We just wouldn't be able to keep putting in the amount of time that the show takes to make if it weren't for the donations and pledges we get. If you'd like to make a one-time donation to help us out, you can find a donate button in the supporters section of the website at futilitycloset.com. And if you'd like to join our Patreon campaign, you can get access to our activity feed, where you'll find post-show discussions, outtakes, and extralateral thinking puzzles, and learn more about Sasha, our very own futilicat, and what else she likes to do besides trying to interrupt our recordings. You can check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or see the link at the website. And thanks again to everyone who helps support the show.

We wouldn't still be here without you. In episode 68, I mentioned steganography, the hiding of one message within another message. During World War II, counter-spy units would rearrange the hands on clocks being delivered to timepiece dealers, replace loose stamps with new postage, assign experts to study sports statistics, examine the number of X's and O's on lovers' letters, and even scrutinize knitting directions, all in case they concealed messages to the enemy. Since that episode, I've run across a bit more on this. In his Investigator's Guide to Steganography, Gregory Kipper writes that during the war, chess games by mail were banned, children's Christmas lists were censored,

blank paper was tested for invisible ink, and cables ordering flowers were forbidden to mention any flower species. Song requests to radio stations could not be made by telephone or telegraph, and those made by mail would be held for a random period of time before the song was played. Personal ads were censored, including ads for lost dogs, and there were no man-on-the-street interviews because an enemy agent might arrange to be interviewed accidentally and pass a message to his handlers. These practices can seem paranoid, but they can also be vitally important.

It's usually hard to tell which measures are necessary. One of the strangest instances of this confusion occurred in England in the spring of 1944 as the Allies were preparing for D-Day, the massive invasion of Normandy later that year. On May 2nd, military intelligence noticed that the word Utah turned up in the crossword puzzle in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. That might be nothing. Utah was certainly a common word in crossword puzzles. But it was also the codename for the westernmost landing sector in the upcoming invasion. Was that a coincidence? The next day, May 3rd, two more sensitive words showed up,

Juno and gold. The crossword clues identify these as a Roman goddess and a precious metal, which they certainly were, but they were also codenames. Juno was a beach assigned to Canadian forces, and gold was assigned to the British. Again, these are common words, so it's not clear whether this was cause for alarm. Certainly, it seemed unlikely that someone would reveal codenames by publishing them in a crossword puzzle. But three weeks later, another codename showed up, Omaha, another beach sector in the planned invasion. On May 27th, the word Overlord appeared, which was the codename for the whole D-Day operation. On May 30th, Mulberry appeared, the codename for the artificial harbors the Allies would use to fuel their supply boats. And on June 1st, just five days before the planned

invasion, 15 down was Neptune, which referred to the naval portion of the assault. All of this was alarming in itself, but a similar incident had happened just two years earlier. In August 1942, as the Allies were preparing to attack the German-occupied town of Dieppe on the northern coast of France, the telegraph crossword had included the word Dieppe. In fact, the crossword solution was published on August 18 fact, the crossword solution was published on August 18th, the day before the Allies attacked, with someone using the crossword to pass intelligence to the enemy. At that time, the War Office had asked a Canadian intelligence officer to investigate. The officer, Lord Tweedsmuir, later said,

We noticed that the crossword contained the word Dieppe, and there was an immediate and exhaustive inquiry which also involved MI5, which is the UK counterintelligence service. But in the end, it was concluded that it was just a remarkable coincidence, a complete fluke. A single word might be a fluke, but now, during the preparations for D-Day, fully seven Allied codenames had appeared in a national newspaper on the eve of the largest amphibious invasion in history. It seemed too much to believe. A pair of MI5 officers paid a visit to the man who had compiled all these crosswords, Leonard Daw. Daw was headmaster of the Strand School, a boys' school in the London suburbs. He'd been setting the telegraph's crossword since its inception in 1925 and was now in his 50s. Tom Weston, who had been head boy at the school, remembered the day the

MI5 arrived. He said, an official-looking car turned up. I was interested, so I kept watching. After a time, I saw Mr. Dahl go off in the car with whoever it was. We were astonished at the thought that Dahl was a traitor. He was a member of the local golf club. It was a complete mystery to most of us. Dahl returned to school a few days later. He resumed setting crosswords, but he said nothing about the incident for more than a decade. Finally, in a BBC interview in 1958, he described the interrogation. He said, they turned me inside out and collected naval intelligence. They went to Berry State Edmonds, where my senior colleague Melville Jones, the paper's other crossword compiler, was living,

and put him through the works. But they eventually decided not to shoot us after all. There was no evidence that Daw or Jones had intended any treachery, and the D-Day invasion went ahead as planned. But the question remained how so many Allied codenames had found their way into a newspaper crossword. Finally, in 1984, as the 40th anniversary of the invasion approached, a former student of Daw's named Ronald French came forward and explained his part in the crossword mystery. He said that Daw would sometimes invite his students to assist him in constructing the puzzles. He considered this an excellent mental discipline. French, who was 14 at the time, had been one of these assistants. The biggest excitement in the students' lives had been the preparation for D-Day. Their school was

next to a military camp, and after school they spent hours talking to the British and American soldiers who were readying for the invasion. French said he had picked up some code words from the soldiers' conversation and had offered these words to the headmaster without understanding their significance. They were good words, well-suited to a crossword puzzle, so Daw had entered them in the grid and written clues for them, not guessing their importance. French claimed that he'd kept notebooks of what he'd learned from the soldiers. He said, I was totally obsessed about the whole thing. I would play truant from school to visit the camp, and I used to spend evenings with them, and even whole weekends there, dressed in my army cadet

uniform. I became a sort of dog's body about the place, running errands and even once driving a tank. Everyone knew the outline invasion plan, and they knew the various code words. Omaha and Utah were the beaches they were going to. They knew the names, but not the locations. We all knew the operation was called Overlord. French said these old soldiers talked freely in front of him because I was obviously not a German spy. Hundreds of kids must have known what I knew. He said he'd slip these words into the crossword, perhaps to show off his knowledge. Boys at the time certainly were affected by war talk,

and it's reasonable to suppose that they suggested some of these words for Dawes' crosswords. Other telegraph crosswords around this time included words such as warden, Poland, aircraft, and disarm. French said, soon after D-Day, Daw sent for me and asked me where I had got the words from. I told him and he asked me to see my notebooks. He was horrified and said that the books must be burnt at once. He then gave me a stern lecture about national security and made me swear that I would tell no one about the matter. I have kept to that oath until now. Others of Daw's students have come forward with similar stories. In 2004, Strand graduate Richard S.J. Wallington confirmed that Daw sometimes invited his students to help him compile puzzles, and he said that the boys had passed along words that they'd heard from American soldiers, possibly as a prank.

Brian Belfont, who had been a student a year below French, said, The soldiers were obviously lonely. Many had children of their own, and they more or less adopted us. We'd sit and chat, and they'd give us chocolate. So, odd as it sounds, that appears to be the most likely explanation. Allied soldiers mentioned code words in the hearing of curious schoolboys. The boys suggested the words for their headmaster's crossword, and the words were published and read by millions of unsuspecting Britons. Whether this is a danger worth guarding against is hard to say. It seems unlikely ever to happen again. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me an odd-sounding situation, and I have to try to work out what is actually going on,

asking only yes or no questions. This is from listener Dave Lawrence, based on a true story told by a friend in Botswana. Okay. I am driving and see a man praying next to his car. I ask what he is doing. He says that he is making peace with God as he knows he's going to die as he's been bitten multiple times by a deadly black mamba. He shows me his arm, which is covered in bites, and the snake, which he has killed.

We are far from civilization and have no hope of calling emergency services, so he asks me to sit with him in his final minutes. As it gets dark, he closes his eyes and asks me to wait with him overnight and to take his body home to his wife in the morning. Next day dawns, and the man wakes up, clearly still alive. How did he survive? Huh. Dave adds, I'm sure Sharon will like this one as no one dies.

As no one dies. That actually would have been a really sad story. Okay, so he was bitten several times by a black mamba. Are they venomous? Yes. I was like, okay. First asking. Bitten by a non-venomous snake.

Okay, so you would typically expect a human to die after being bitten multiple times by a black mamba. Yes. Correct. But this man did not die. Does this have something to do with his specific history? No. Oh, his specific identity? No. The location that they're in? The location that they're in? No. Anything about the location? No. Something that the non-dying person did to help the man not die? No.

Okay. Let's back up. So there was a man who was seen praying because he was bitten several times by a venomous snake. That's right. Right. Does it have something to do about the timing of when this happened? Anything about the timing? Time of year?

Time of day? No, no. Nothing like that, no. And he didn't die at any point? That's right. Okay. It's not like it just took him a very long time to die. Very bad puzzle. Okay. It's not like it just took him a very long time to die. Very bad puzzle. Okay. So he was bitten, and he was actually bitten, like the bites punctured his skin.

Yes. And he was actually bitten by a mamba, not a different snake. That's right. I'm confused at what. Did the man who thought he was going to die, did he take some action that actually prevented him from dying? No, he didn't. Was it a lack of action that allowed him to live? No, I wouldn't say that either. Something they didn't do.

Okay, let's back up. If a different person had been bitten by the same snake, would you have expected that other person to have died? Not in these circumstances. Not in these circumstances. Not in these circumstances. So there's something specific about the circumstances. Okay. Something about the snake I need to know? Yes. Ah. Was it like a juvenile, so it wasn't venomous yet?

No. Was it that it had previously bitten prey and used up all of its venom, so it hadn't- Yes. Yes? Oh! Oh! like bitten prey and used up all of its venom so it hadn't yes yes that is exactly uh dave writes i asked the man one question why were you out of your car in the first place to get bitten by the snake he said he'd stopped because the road was full of cows that had escaped through an open gate and he was herding them back when he was bitten i asked him if he could show me in the field were a small herd of cows grazing and half a dozen dead ones. The mamba was being trampled by the cows and had retaliated by injecting venom.

By the time the man arrived, the snake turned to attack him but was dry biting him. He didn't realize this and knowing that even a single mamba bite is fatal, assumed he was doomed. Lucky guy. Yay, nobody died. So thank you, Dave. Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to use, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com.

And if you want your puzzle to be read by one of us in particular, you can put that in the subject line if you like. That's another show for us. If you're looking for more quirky curiosities, check out the Futility Closet books on Amazon or visit the website at futilitycloset.com, where you can sample more than 9,000 undemious scrimptions. At the website, you can also see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics in today's show. If you like our podcast and want to help support it, please see the support us page of our website. You can also help us out by telling your friends

about us or by leaving a review on iTunes or other podcast directories. If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.