Futility Closet - 156-The Most Dedicated Soldier

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 a balloon railway to James Bond's boss. This is episode 156. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. When American forces overran the Philippines in 1945, Japanese intelligence officer Hiro Onoda withdrew into the mountains to wait for reinforcements. He was still waiting 29 years later. In today's show, we'll meet the dedicated soldier who fought World War II until 1974.

Starting point is 00:00:41 We'll also dig up a murderer and puzzle over an offensive compliment. In December 1944, a 22-year-old Japanese soldier named Hiro Onoda was sent to Lubang, which is a small island in the northern Philippines about 93 miles southwest of Manila. Onoda was an intelligence officer. The Americans had been trying to retake the Philippines, and his orders were to do everything he could to hamper their efforts on this island. If they succeeded in capturing Lubang, he was to go underground and conduct guerrilla raids to tie them down until the Japanese could reclaim the region. Shortly after getting his orders, by chance he met Akira Muto, who was the chief of staff of

Starting point is 00:01:24 Japan's 14th Area Army, and Muto told him explicitly, you are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens will come back for you. On Lubang, he joined up with the Japanese soldiers who had already arrived, but on February 28, 1945, U.S. and Filipino forces landed, and they soon captured the island. Onoda and the remaining Japanese troops withdrew into the mountains, and they couldn't know it, but by March, Manila was officially liberated, and on September 2nd, Japan formally surrendered, and effectively the war was over. But hidden as he was in the mountains, Onoda could only wait for the Japanese counterattack

Starting point is 00:02:01 that he'd been told was coming. He wrote, From May until August, enemy patrols came into the mountains daily, and we could hear shots from their guns. After the middle of August, they stopped coming. Still, we frequently heard shots from the lower reaches of the mountains, and it appeared that the enemy had control of the accesses. I thought this meant that they were trying to starve us out. There were some other Japanese troops on Lubang, but their numbers dwindled as they surrendered or were killed, There were some other Japanese troops on Lubang, but their numbers dwindled as they surrendered or were killed until only four men remained, ranging in age from 22 to 30. Onoda was 23. These four began a regular life on Lubang, moving around the island in a circuit among these different camps that they'd worked out to avoid being discovered.

Starting point is 00:02:46 The island was 16 miles long and 6 miles wide, which is pretty small but big enough to avoid being found if you're trying to stay low. Occasionally, they had run-ins with the islanders themselves, who they assumed were on the Allies' side because they fought back when they had these encounters. In October 1945, one of these islanders was fleeing when he dropped a leaflet, apparently he'd been told to carry, that said, in Japanese, the war ended on August 15th, come down from the mountains. So the four of them put their heads together and they decided they mistrusted this. If the war was really over, they wouldn't have been fired on in the first place, they thought. At the end of 1945, when they'd been in hiding for more than a year, more leaflets were dropped from a plane. These bore a surrender order from General Tomoyuki Yamashita of the 14th Area Army.

Starting point is 00:03:23 But they found reasons to suspect this too. They thought the phrasing was odd. Onoda later wrote, the others all agreed with me. There was no doubt in our minds that this was an enemy trick. And that to me is what's fascinating about the story. When I started researching it, I thought I'd be talking just about how they stayed alive in the jungle for so long. But what's more remarkable is that they kept alive this idea that the war was still going on and Japan at any moment was going to come back and liberate the island. And they just held that on for year after year. It turned out that jungle life, it was hard, but it wasn't desperately hard once they got the hang of it.

Starting point is 00:03:57 During the first year, they slept crowded together in a little tent, which was often soaked during the rainy season. But they figured out how to stay alive. Their staple food was bananas, which they stole from fields around the island. Sometimes they'd steal rice from the islanders' camps, and sometimes they'd shoot the islanders' cows, trying to kill each one with a single bullet to conserve ammunition. But they couldn't believe that peace had come. After a full year, they rarely heard guns anymore, but they once saw an aircraft carrier off the coast, and sometimes fighters passed overhead. Onoda wrote, obviously the war was still going on. They saw more leaflets, and he wrote, from time to time we heard people calling to us in Japanese.

Starting point is 00:04:31 Later on, the Japanese who had surrendered began leaving notes for us saying, nobody is searching for you now but Japanese, come on out. But they couldn't believe the war had really ended. They thought the enemy was forcing prisoners to do this. Onoda wrote, every time the searchers called out to us, we moved to a different location. They lived this way for four years until September 1949, when one of them, Yuichi Yakatsu, walked away and surrendered to the Filipinos. He had been weaker than the others and found it hard to live in the jungle, so his loss wasn't really unexpected, but now they had to worry that he might tell everything he knew to the enemy.

Starting point is 00:05:04 About ten months after that, at the end of the rainy season in 1950, they found a note in his handwriting. It said, when I surrendered, the Philippine troops greeted me as a friend. The day after that, they heard a loudspeaker asking them in unaccented Japanese to surrender. It said they had 72 hours to do so or a task force would be sent in after them. They doubted this too. They thought the wording seemed American. Onoda says that Japanese do not speak of three days as 72 hours, and Onoda wanted proof that his division commander had rescinded his orders, so they ignored the appeal. It's sometimes said that he was forgotten on this unregarded island, but that's not at all

Starting point is 00:05:39 the case. You can see that both the Japanese and the Filipinos were trying actively, constantly. They knew he was there, knew that all of them were there, and were trying every way they could think of to get a hold of them and to convince them to come out. But they just wouldn't believe it. In February 1952, a plane dropped leaflets with messages from their relatives with photos urging them to surrender. Onodoff said this was an American trick, but even he wrote, I could not figure out exactly how the trick had been carried out. Another of the soldiers, Shoichi Shimada, saw a photo of his wife with his new daughter. When he left to go to the war, she had been pregnant. And he said, it's supposed to be a

Starting point is 00:06:13 photograph of my immediate family, but that man on the left is not in my immediate family. He's only a relative. I think this is just another enemy hoax. In May 1954, Shimada was shot by a search party that was looking for them. So now there were just two of them, Onoda and Kinchichi Kozuka. Ten days after this, a Philippine Air Force plane dropped some more leaflets and a loudspeaker called Onoda Kozuka, the war has ended. They found this infuriating because they thought basically they were being taunted, but they kept their silence and stayed in the jungle. A few days after that, there was a noise in the forest. They decided it was only islanders cutting trees and they withdrew to another of their campsites.

Starting point is 00:06:49 Much later, in 1959, they learned that Onoda's brother, Toshio, and Kozuka's younger brother, Fukuchi, had been visiting Lubang looking for them. At one point, he found a Japanese flag. This is the most, in his book, this is the most contrived example of just twisted logic to try to keep alive the idea that the war was still going. At one point, they found a Japanese flag that had been left for them with Onoda's family names written on it, but misspelled. He said, we did not believe for an instant that the war had ended. On the contrary, we expected the Japanese army to send a landing force to Lubang. So here's how he explained this to himself. He decided that the Japanese had deliberately let this flag fall into American hands so that the Allies would realize that the Japanese were planning to

Starting point is 00:07:34 reoccupy the airfield at Lubang and attack Manila from the west. Japan had done this, he thought, so that the Americans would transfer their sea and air forces from New Guinea, Malaya, and French Indochina to this region, and that would help out the Japanese efforts in those other locations. The Americans, having intercepted this flag, would then use it to try to entice Onoda out of the jungle, and the Japanese, realizing that, had deliberately misspelled the names on the flag as a warning to Onoda, which is ridiculously contrived. He wrote himself, today all of this sounds ridiculous, but I had been taught always to be on the lookout for

Starting point is 00:08:10 fake messages, and it did not seem to me that my attitude was overly cautious. Indeed, I would have considered it extremely careless at the time not to question each and every character written on the flag. One day he thought he heard his brother on a loudspeaker calling him, and he approached actually within 150 yards of the man, but he decided this was really a prisoner who was being forced to impersonate his brother's voice. The man sang a student song from their high school, but his voice went off the tune at the end, and Onodot thought this proved that he was an imposter. Much later, when he'd finally gotten back to Japan, his brother told him, While I was singing, I began thinking that this was my last day on Lubang, and I choked up, so you did hear me after all. He got within

Starting point is 00:08:49 150 yards of his brother and turned around and went back into the jungle. Onoda wrote, I had been taught that the war might last a hundred years, and I had received special orders directly from a lieutenant general who had assured me that eventually the Japanese army would come after me no matter how long it might take. Onoda and Kozuka conducted what they called beacon fire raids to clear areas for the Japanese landing party that they kept expecting to show up. They just assigned themselves these duties just to be doing the right thing for the war effort. They wanted to enlarge their territory and keep out enemy trespassers. So what they would do is twice a year, they'd set fires to piles of rice that the islanders had harvested so that their friends out in the world, other Japanese who might be watching this, could see that they were alive and carrying out their duties.

Starting point is 00:09:31 In late 1965, they found a transistor radio in a cabin, but Onoda wrote, we did not believe anything we heard on the radio concerning military affairs or foreign relations. We considered that we were listening not to live broadcasts, but to tapes made by the Americans. So they could sort of rationalize their way out of anything, any evidence. relations, we considered that we were listening not to live broadcasts, but to tapes made by the Americans. So they could sort of rationalize their way out of anything, any evidence. Yeah, well, I guess because, you know, they have it in their head. They were told what to expect and what's going to happen. And they're sticking to that. And I guess they would have had to have decided that Japan had lost the war in order.

Starting point is 00:10:02 Yeah, which is hard to. Which, you know, if they have it in their heads that Japan's going to win and be victorious, then... In 1972, Kozuka was killed in an encounter with Philippine police during one of their beacon fire raids. So now Onoda was alone, and the efforts to reach him continued. He heard the voices of his sister and brother broadcast on loudspeakers, as well as fellow students from primary and middle school and soldiers he trained with. So they're really trying everything they can possibly think of to convince him that this effort is sincere. He ignored all of these. Six months after Kazuka's death, he visited

Starting point is 00:10:33 a mountain hut that they'd built, but visited only infrequently, and found a haiku written by his father. It said, not even an echo responds to my call in the summary mountains. Onoda wrote, it gave me a strange feeling to know that even my aged father had been brought down to Lubang. In the hut, they left him a pile of newspapers and magazines, as well as two uniforms. He took these and left a note in return that said, Thank you for the two uniforms and the hat which you kindly left for me. In case you are not sure, let me inform you that I am in good health. Hiro Onoda, Army Second Lieutenant.

Starting point is 00:11:04 He read the newspapers. They didn't mention the war, of course, but he decided that they'd been printed specially by the Japanese Strategic Command to be left on Lubang. He thought a big battle was going on and America was losing. That's why they were lavishing so much attention on this little island. Japan was winning the war, but they didn't want him to know that because he might come out of the jungle. On one night, on February 20th, 1974, he saw a light in the jungle and found a Japanese man there building a fire. This turned out to be Norio Suzuki, a young man who was traveling the world. Suzuki had told his friends that on this trip, he was going to look for Hiroo Onoda, a panda, and the abominable snowman in that order. After only four days on Lubang, he had found Onoda.

Starting point is 00:11:46 I don't know if he found the other two. Maybe he did. Suzuki told him that the war was over and asked him to come back to Japan. Angrily, Onoda said, no, I won't go back. For me, the war hasn't ended. Suzuki asked him why, and he said, you wouldn't understand. If you want me to go back to Japan, bring me my orders. There must be proper orders. He said, Major Taniguchi is my immediate superior. I won't give in until I have direct orders from him. Suzuki left, promising to return,

Starting point is 00:12:09 and at that point, Onoda said he believed about 1% of Suzuki's story. He said the strategic command had not rescinded my orders. That meant simply that they wanted me to stay on the island. In fact, even at this point, he intended to hold out for another 20 years if necessary. He checked his remaining ammunition and divided by 20 to get 30 bullets a year that he'd be able to shoot. He was 52, but he felt that physically he was about 37 or 38. He wrote, if ever I did manage to return to Japan, I would still have to work and sweat every day, and I could do that just as well on Lubang. But two weeks after he'd met Suzuki, a message appeared at this message box where they'd agreed to leave messages for each other, asking for

Starting point is 00:12:45 another meeting. Suzuki wrote, I've come back for you just as I promised. There were also copies of two army orders. One was the same one that they'd been dropping in leaflets for years trying to convince them the war was over, but the other said instructions will be given to Lieutenant Onoda orally. Onoda wrote, oral instructions, that was what I'd been waiting for all these years. To men in special units like mine, there were always direct oral orders in addition to the usual printed ones. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to maintain secrecy. On March 9th, 1974, he was trepidatious about this because he thought it might be a trap, but Suzuki led him to a tent and he found his old superior officer, Major Yoshimi Yatanaguchi. Onoda presented himself and said, Lieutenant Onoda, sir, reporting

Starting point is 00:13:22 for orders. The major gave him some cigarettes and said, I shall read your orders. Essentially, they said that all combat activity had stopped and that all units and individuals were to place themselves under the command of the nearest superior officer. Taniguchi said, that is all. Onoda wrote, the pack on my back suddenly seemed very heavy. He gave a detailed field report to the major, which took almost all night because he had to account for 29 years of activities. And in the book, he does give some private recriminations here. I mean, he's not a machine. He really did start to wonder, why did I do this all these years?

Starting point is 00:13:55 But he'd done a very good job. He still had his sword, his rifle, which was still functioning, 500 rounds of ammunition and several hand grenades, as well as a dagger his mother had given him so he could commit suicide if he were captured. He'd never considered using them. He'd kept a calendar and found that after 30 years, it was off by six days. Three weeks later, he was received by Ferdinand Marcos, who was president of the Philippines. He presented his sword to Marcos, and Marcos returned it. Onoda had killed people and engaged in shootouts with police while he was on the island, but Marcos pardoned him because he'd thought that a war was going on while he'd done this. He was received in Japan like a triumphant general, or like the ghost of one. The nation had few sources of pride in its post-war years,

Starting point is 00:14:35 and its history and literature are full of heroes who remain loyal to a cause, often a lost or a hopeless one. He learned that he'd been declared dead in December 1959. He was greeted by his parents and by crowds waving flags. Asked what had been on his mind all that time in the jungle, he said, nothing but accomplishing my duty. An editorial in the Mainichi Shimbun, a leading Tokyo newspaper, said, To this soldier, duty took precedence over personal sentiments. Onoda has shown us that there is much more in life than just material affluence and selfish pursuits.

Starting point is 00:15:04 There is the spiritual aspect, something we may have forgotten. He spent 19 days in Tokyo's first national hospital where they carried out more than 200 tests. They found that his physical and mental health were better than a Japanese of the same age who lived in a modern city. He was given a military pension, traveled, and took driving lessons, but he was disappointed by what he thought was the country's growing materialism. He thought that Japan had begun to neglect its pre-war virtues of endurance, obedience, and sacrifice. In 1975, he went to live with his brother for a time in Brazil at a ranching enclave that was populated by dozens of Japanese families. Then he went back to Japan and set up an organization to train young people in the survival skills that he learned on Lubang.

Starting point is 00:15:41 His students called him Uncle Jungle. When he was asked to account for this long vigil on the island, he gave some revealing answers, I think revealing, late in life. In an interview in 2001, he said, in Japan, you go to war because you are ready to die. That is the absolute precondition. To become a prisoner is the worst thing possible. Japan could be described as a culture based on shame. I think this helps society with so many people in such a small space. On Lubang, I didn't want to be seen as a society with so many people in such a small space. On Lubang, I didn't want to be seen as a failure, so I protected my honor and carried out my mission to the end. And there's one interesting passage in his autobiography, which he published in 1974. He's just talking about how they were getting along, staying alive on the island, the four of

Starting point is 00:16:20 them, and talking about what they were eating. And he said, we actually had more food than we wound up eating. We could have indulged ourselves a bit more. But he said, if they indulge their baser instincts, quote, we would gradually become demoralized to the point of admitting to ourselves that we were stragglers from a defeated army, which is the only time in the whole book that he acknowledges that that idea passed through their head, that maybe the war really is over and we're doing this for no reason. We're fighting a war that doesn't exist anymore. for no reason.

Starting point is 00:16:43 We're fighting a war that doesn't exist anymore. So I think it's, I've never gone through anything close to what he's gone through, but I would imagine just to get up in the morning, you have to have some purpose, some principle to organize your life around. And you maybe can't allow the doubt to creep in. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:00 Yeah. I mean, that makes some sense to me. At the very end of the book, he's, this helicopter, he's in a helicopter that's taking off from the island. He's finally able to look down at this place where he'd been fighting this imaginary war for 29 years. And he writes, for the first time, I was looking down upon my battlefield. Why had I fought here for 30 years? Who had I been fighting for? What was the cause? And Charles Terry, who wrote the book with him, gave his own answer to this question. He wrote, my opinion is that it was for integrity. Whether Onoda continues to be

Starting point is 00:17:28 regarded as a hero is for the future to decide, but I suspect he will because in the end, he won his war. Father's Day is coming up, and dads can be so hard to shop for. Fortunately, our friends over at Harry's have a special offer that you and your dad are both going to love. Go to harrys.com slash closet and get $5 off one of their shave sets, including a limited edition Father's Day set, which comes with a storm gray razor handle, chrome razor stand, foam shave gel, and three replacement blades, all packaged in a sleek, giftable box. A Harry's shave set would make a great gift. It's practical and attractive. It gives a close, comfortable shave, and they've made it really convenient to order. Harry's is all about a great shave at a fair price, And thanks to their 100% quality guarantee,

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Starting point is 00:18:53 In episode 144, Greg told us the grisly story of H.H. Holmes, America's first documented serial killer and his 19th century murder castle. Jay Inesco wrote to let us know that there are some recent developments to this story. Holmes was convicted of murder and hanged in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1896, but almost immediately stories started circulating that Holmes, a highly skilled con man, had carried out some trickery to avoid being executed. Witnesses claimed that Holmes had maintained his cool all the way to the very end, supposedly even telling the executioner not to rush. And Holmes had left very specific instructions for his burial. He was to be laid in a pine box, which was to be filled with cement, buried 10 feet in the ground, and covered with more cement.

Starting point is 00:19:33 These instructions were carried out, which meant that it would be very difficult for anyone to check and see who was actually buried in the coffin. After the execution, some local newspapers printed stories that claimed that Holmes had managed to convince his prison guards that he was innocent and that they had helped him escape. The guards had supposedly hidden a fake body behind a partition below the scaffold and then stood around Holmes when he was brought out for the hanging, hiding him from view. The executioner had pretended to be binding his arms and placing a hood over his head while the hooded substitute body was raised up and Holmes slipped away, and it was this substitute body that was hanged. These rumors have persisted for more than a century, and now Holmes's great-grandchildren

Starting point is 00:20:15 are having the remains exhumed so that they can be tested and compared to the DNA samples of the three descendants of Holmes to try to determine the identity of the grave's occupant. According to the judge's order that permitted the exhumation, the body is to be returned to the same grave no matter who it does or doesn't turn out to be. That's a clever scheme. I mean, whether it's true or not, I don't know who thought that up, but they deserve some credit. Yeah, and it's hard to know. I mean, did somebody actually know this or just think, wow, you know, he's such a good con man, maybe he could have... And it's that kind of case. It was so sensational. It kind of invites that kind of speculation. But would it be wild, though? It seems very unlikely, but it wouldn't be amazing if they do the test and it's not him.

Starting point is 00:20:56 And it turns out it's not Holmes. That would be pretty cool. There's a certain amount of the Holmes case that still remains unknown even to this day, such as exactly how many people he killed. Uh, but hopefully we'll soon know for sure whether or not he was actually hanged for his crimes. Um, although the different news accounts that I read were unable to say when the results of the DNA tests were expected to be released. So if anyone sees any further updates on the story, please let us know. Bill Bowser wrote to let us know about a different update to Holmes' story. A woman in New Jersey was cleaning out her mother's old books when she found a handwritten note signed by Holmes inside an old Bible. Claire Fennell says that the Bible belonged to the first cousin of her great-grandfather, Father Patrick Daly, who was a Catholic priest at the turn of the last century. Church records show that Daly

Starting point is 00:21:45 worked at a church near the site of the old prison where Holmes was held, and Fennell believes that Father Daly ministered to the inmates awaiting execution there. The note Fennell found was dated the day of Holmes's execution and begins, Dear Father Daly, I must write and make you know the kind feelings I have for you. The middle of the note is unfortunately now unreadable, but it concludes with, I need your prayers after my death with all of my heart, H.H. Holmes. And that does shed a bit of an interesting light on his state of mind at the time, although it's a shame that we can't make out more of the note. Yeah, it shows real presence of mind that she even, I mean, unless she knew that name, there's so little there

Starting point is 00:22:25 to go on. It strikes me that she would have thought this might have been significant in any way. It's just an old note in a Bible. That's true, yeah. I didn't see how she knew. I mean, obviously she knew it was old, and I guess you figure something that old that somebody has held on to. And she may have known the name.

Starting point is 00:22:41 I mean, it's kind of a famous case. That's true, too. But it's interesting to see that he felt he needed prayers after his death. Yeah. Also on the topic of trying to DNA test long-dead people, Ralph Ilcheff and Katie Borman sent in an update on the Somerton Man story, with Ralph asking,

Starting point is 00:23:00 Did you see this update on Somerton Man? He's one of yours. We had covered the story of the Somerton Man in episode 25 and have covered a few updates since in episodes 26 and 61. This is the mystery man that showed up in 1948 as a well-dressed corpse on a beach in South Australia. Despite 69 years of investigation, no one has ever been able to establish who the man was, why he was there, or even how he died. Derek Abbott, a biomedical engineer at the University of Adelaide, has been studying the mystery for several years, but has been unable to gain permission from the Attorney General of South Australia to exhume the body for DNA testing. Thwarted on that line of inquiry, a few years ago, Abbott turned to researching Jessica Thompson,

Starting point is 00:23:44 a nurse who lived very near the Somerton Beach where the dead man was found. There were some tantalizing clues linking the mystery man to Thompson, who at the time was unmarried and had a one-year-old son named Robin. This son had some unusual physical characteristics in common with the Somerton man, which, according to the Adelaide newspaper The Advertiser, led investigators to conclude there is a 99% probability the two were related. Unfortunately, Robin died and was cremated in 2009, but he did leave behind a daughter, Rachel, and last year Colleen Fitzpatrick, a forensic genealogist, analyzed DNA from Rachel

Starting point is 00:24:23 and her mother to identify which portions of her genome would have come from her father, the supposed son of the Somerton man. Using massive worldwide DNA databases, Fitzpatrick concluded that Rachel's paternal DNA traces back to the mid-Atlantic states of the U.S., centered around Virginia. She said, We see traces of Native American ancestry and chromosomes linked to relatives of Thomas Jefferson. That puts Mr. X's ancestry with some authority in America. And thus Ralph's declaration that the Somerton Man is one of ours. Of course, all of this only hangs together if Robin was indeed the Somerton Man's son, and that really can't be definitely settled unless they are allowed to exhume the mystery

Starting point is 00:25:05 man's corpse, which doesn't seem very likely at this time. It's interesting we're at this point in history where this sort of thing is happening. People were buried before the advent of DNA testing, but still available to be tested if they're exhumed. Yeah. I mean, eventually the day will come when, I guess, any corpse where there's any question at all about it, they can do a test before it's buried. It's kind of an odd point in history where you have to dig them up again to do the test. Although even when they can do the test before the person is buried, sometimes they still can't match up who the person is. They have to have something to match it to.

Starting point is 00:25:38 That's true. Although I suppose in this case, they're at least saying that they can match it to maybe what part of the world he came from, and that's at least a start. But you're right, it's all predicated on the idea that Robin is the man's son. Right, right. There is one other piece of evidence that possibly does link the Somerton man to the case released by the South Australia police, Derek Abbott found in the case file a 1949 letter from the U.S.'s FBI stating that they were not able to match the dead man's fingerprints to any they had in their records. Abbott is quoted as saying, even though the FBI found no records of the man on its fingerprint database, the fact that there

Starting point is 00:26:21 are no other documents or reports from any other police jurisdictions around the world suggests police here were set on him being American. And one interesting little side note to the whole story is that after Abbott met Rachel, the suspected granddaughter of the Somerton man, in 2010, they fell in love and were later married. Now they have three children of their own, all of whom may be descendants of the mystery man that Abbott has been dedicated to trying to identify. This is how I met my wife, he was quoted as saying. It just kind of happened. It's one of those crazy things.

Starting point is 00:26:54 Life is sometimes stranger than fiction. And that's definitely an assertion that we quite agree with here at Futility Closet. We seem to be saying that all the time ourselves. So this ongoing story of the Somerton Man does seem to get more coverage in Australia than it does in the US. So we really appreciate our Australian listeners like Katie and Ralph keeping us updated, as well as everyone who writes in to us. So many of you come across things that we haven't seen yet for ourselves.

Starting point is 00:27:20 So please do keep sending in any questions or comments or updates that you have and send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him a strange sounding situation and he has to work out what is going on, asking only yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Noah Kurland. While standing in the street one day, Guillermo paid his wife a sincere compliment and invited her to dinner at their favorite restaurant. This made her very angry.

Starting point is 00:27:54 Why? I was going to ask if this is true, but I suppose it doesn't matter. What the heck, is this true? Do you know? Yes. Guillermo. Yes. Is that someone I know? Someone whose identity is famous?

Starting point is 00:28:06 It's probably not famous enough that you would know him, but it is a real person. But this really happened to him. Yes, it did. Is the time period important? No. Is the location important? No. You said she got angry?

Starting point is 00:28:15 Yes. He paid her a compliment and invited her to dinner. Yes. And that alone, those two things, made her angry. Do I need to know more about the dinner? No. Would she still have gotten angry if he'd just done the first part, if he just paid her this, whatever it was, he gave her a compliment? Possibly.

Starting point is 00:28:35 So can I drop the dinner part or does that help illuminate the whole thing? You can drop it if you want. Either part would have made her angry. Either part, even the dinner? Yes. Actually, the dinner would probably make her a little more angry than the first part, but the whole thing. Are there other people involved? No.

Starting point is 00:28:51 Is there some past history I have to dig out? No, I don't think so. So it's just a man and his wife, and he says something to her that he thinks is a compliment. Yes. And then invites her to dinner. Yes. Is it the particular place that he invites her that's upsetting to her? No.

Starting point is 00:29:09 Like the nature of the food or something? No, no, no, no. It's just the fact that he's invited her to dinner? Yes. And she's his wife? Yes. And she's upset? Yes.

Starting point is 00:29:19 Okay. Does the compliment have to do with? It doesn't matter what the compliment has to do with. Really? Yes. He pays her a compliment. Yes. And invites her to dinner at their favorite restaurant, and she gets very angry.

Starting point is 00:29:38 That's a good puzzle. It is. Okay. You said it doesn't matter where this happened. The fact that his name is Guillermo sounds like it's a clue. Yeah, I mean, I believe it's in Argentina, but that doesn't matter. Does this have to do with some social convention, like a holiday or something? Nope.

Starting point is 00:29:56 Like it's a faux pas of some kind that he's done these things? No. I mean, this could have happened in almost any country that I know of and it would have had the same results. So it's nothing about special social customs of the country. Paisley, our compliment invites her to dinner. Yes. And you say there aren't other people involved. There are not other people involved.

Starting point is 00:30:19 And it doesn't matter where the compliment is. Right. Right. You said she's very upset. Is she upset with him? Yes. For doing those things? Yes.

Starting point is 00:30:31 Did she understand that they were compliments that he was? Yes. He imagined, did he think he was treating her well in doing this? Sure. I mean, I don't know if you'd say that he thought he was treating her well. I mean, that's not exactly what he thought he was doing, but he wasn't trying to offend her. And she was upset with him for doing this? Yes.

Starting point is 00:30:55 Pay her a compliment. Okay, did this seem to imply, obviously, something to her? Yes. The fact that he did this? Yeah. Did you like calling her another woman's name or something? Not that that was it. Not that that was it, but that's on the right track.

Starting point is 00:31:11 Something like that. It showed her that he was unfaithful to her? Yes. But it's not that he confused her with this other woman. I mean, she was getting upset not because... That's a little specific. But that's on the right track completely that's specific yeah there's something specific about guillermo that

Starting point is 00:31:34 you need to know that would help to know to solve this but you say it doesn't matter what the compliment is i keep going back to like he complimented her appearance or something. Right. It doesn't matter what the compliment was. But like sometimes you ask if there's anything like particular about this person that you need to know. And I will say there is. Okay. His occupation? No.

Starting point is 00:31:57 Does he have a disability? Yes. He does? Yes. Is he blind? He has very poor vision. And he complimented his wife and invited her to dinner. Yes.

Starting point is 00:32:13 Because, but it was his wife he was speaking to? It's not that he confused her with someone else? It was his wife that he was speaking to, but... But it was that he confused her with someone else. He called her another woman's name? Right. Well, he didn't call her another woman's name, but he just didn't understand that it was that he confused her with someone else he called her another woman's name right well he didn't call her another woman's name but he just didn't understand that it was his wife she could tell by the way he was talking to her that she didn't realize it was his wife so he was complimenting her and inviting her out to dinner noah says this is a true event from the life of Guillermo Borges, father of the writer Jorge Luis Borges.

Starting point is 00:32:47 Guillermo was a notorious philanderer and continued to chase women even when he was nearly blind. His son inherited the blindness, but not the philandering. That's interesting. Yeah. I didn't know that. That's great. So thanks so much to Noah for that puzzle.

Starting point is 00:33:01 And if anyone else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. And if you want to specify which one of us should read the puzzle, you can put that in the subject line if you like. And we also have been appreciating that people have been using various methods to hide the answer to the puzzle that they send so the wrong person doesn't accidentally see them. So thank you to everyone for that. Futility Closet is supported primarily by our wonderful listeners. We do have some advertising on the show, but that doesn't cover the big commitment of time that it takes us to make the show each week.

Starting point is 00:33:33 If you would like to help support the show, you can check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see the support us section of the website to find that link or a donate button. And thanks so much to everyone who has been helping to keep us going. 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 obliquing dating snaddox. At the website, you can also see the show notes for the podcast with the links and references

Starting point is 00:34:02 for the topics in today's show. 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 the inimitable Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 156-The Most Dedicated Soldier

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