Futility Closet - 164-Vigil on the Ice

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 Kipling's runes to flag-colored pigs. This is episode 164. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1930, British explorer Augustin Courtauld volunteered to spend the winter alone on the Greenland ice cap, manning a remote weather station. As his supplies dwindled and the snow gradually buried his

Starting point is 00:00:37 hut, his expected relief party failed to arrive. In today's show, we'll follow Courtauld's increasingly desperate vigil on the ice. We'll also retreat towards George III and puzzle over some unexpected evidence. The explorer J.M. Scott compared Greenland to an enormous plate surrounded by a rim of mountains. Someone is constantly pouring sugar into the center of the plate, and after millions of years, its own weight has pressed it into a solid mass as much as 10,000 feet deep. As the sugar piles up, it gradually slips outward toward the edges between the mountains and into the sea. Greenland is the largest island in the world, but most of it is a lifeless desert, a vast plateau of ice 500 miles across and 8,000 feet above sea level. In 1930, the interior

Starting point is 00:01:27 was a blank spot on the map. It had been crossed only twice anywhere near its center, and no one had ever crossed it in winter. This began to change with the advent of air travel. It became clear that many of the most efficient routes between England and North America would pass through the Arctic, and in particular, the best route for a flight from London to Western Canada would pass over the least known part of Greenland. Before these routes could be used, they had to be explored scientifically to be sure they were safe to fly, with no impassable mountains in the way or impossibly difficult weather. So in 1930, the explorer Geno Watkins organized the British Arctic Air Route Expedition to the interior of Greenland. He assembled a team of 14 men. One of the more

Starting point is 00:02:06 experienced members was 26-year-old Augustin Courtauld, who had studied engineering and geography at Cambridge and had already visited Greenland twice on earlier expeditions. Courtauld had already joined the expedition when he and his sweetheart, Molly Montgomery, were engaged to be married. The expedition would take a year, and after that they'd get married and begin their life together with a tour of Europe. Molly didn't like losing him for a year, but she understood his love of exploring. She wrote to him, you know I love you now as I have learned to love you during the last few months. It gets worse and worse when you are away. You will always be the person to me. The expedition sailed up to Greenland and established their main base on the southeast

Starting point is 00:02:42 coast. When the ship returned to England, it carried a letter from August to Molly saying, if I get the chance to do anything worthwhile, it will be for you. But now there'd be no communication possible between them until the following summer. The explorers worked their way up onto the ice cap on sledges and drove inland. They established the meteorological station about 130 miles northwest of the base at an altitude of 8,200 feet. The plan was that they would stay there in shifts, two men at a time, each pair taking regular weather readings for about six weeks until the next pair relieved them. The first pair started on August 30th, and they were replaced on October 2nd, but then violent winter storms set in. The first gale

Starting point is 00:03:20 registered winds of 129 miles per hour before they blew the wind gauge away. Similar storms would blow two to three times a week throughout the winter. They had just drastically underestimated how violent the weather would be up there. So this meant that relieving the ice cap station would be much harder than they'd anticipated. The next relieving party left the coast on October 27th, hoping to reach the station in three weeks, but it took them 39 days. Along the way, they'd had to dump the portable wireless set they'd been bringing with them, and they had to eat a lot of the food that had been intended for the station. So now they faced a choice. It seemed clear that the relief party after this one wouldn't be able to reach the station until the spring, and there wasn't enough food to support

Starting point is 00:03:58 two men for that length of time. So the choice was they could either just abandon the station altogether, or a single man could occupy it, in which case the food and fuel might last through the end of April if he ate reduced rations. Many of the men said they just wanted to shut it down, but Courtauld volunteered to man the station alone until the spring. He said his feet and hands had become somewhat frostbitten on the journey, which would make traveling difficult, and he insisted he was ready to stay alone at the station through the winter. The others argued with him, but eventually gave in and agreed to relieve him as soon as they could in the spring. They all had an early Christmas dinner together on December 5th, and the next morning the others wished him well and began to make their way back across the ice.

Starting point is 00:04:37 Courtauld watched them go and wrote in his diary, Now I am quite alone, not a dog or even a mosquito to look at. The station was a dome-shaped tent, nine feet in diameter and six feet high, encased in a shell made of snow blocks. There were no doors or windows. Instead, there was a square hole in the floor that led to a 16-foot horizontal tunnel that emerged outside near the weather instruments. Midway along this tunnel were two side passages that led to small igloos that they used for storage. And they built a wall of snow around this whole complex and put a Union Jack in the wall.

Starting point is 00:05:15 Courtauld had six boxes of rations, two bottles of concentrated lemon juice, and one bottle of cod liver oil. He had a primus pressure stove to use for cooking and heating, and candles and a paraffin lamp for light. There were 26 gallons of paraffin to use as fuel. At first, there was plenty to keep him busy. He had to thaw ice from his frozen sleeping bag, dry his clothes, clear snowdrifts from the yard, and bring stores into the tent. The paraffin lamp gave him light, and he kept the stove going for heat even when he wasn't cooking. He had his pipe, which was a gift from Molly, and he calculated he had enough tobacco to last 17 weeks. He worked out a schedule to manage the rest of his supplies.

Starting point is 00:05:46 He decided that a relief party would arrive by March 15th, and he left a bear allowance after that. His diary is interesting to read because it's an odd mix of perfect calmness and British sang-froid and the acknowledgement that he's increasingly grim and kind of scary conditions. On the first evening, he wrote, There is nothing to complain of unless it be the curse of having to go out into the cold wind every three hours to observe the weather. Six times a day, he had to put on full Arctic clothing and fight his way through the tunnel and out into the world to read the instruments.

Starting point is 00:06:17 He found that wind was forever blowing snowdrifts into the tunnel entrance. He could push the snow aside, but it compacted against the walls and made the tunnel narrower. And the frostbite in his fingers and toes made it hard to dig. But when his work was done, his time was his own, and he found ways to amuse himself. He played chess against himself, he took a star sight with a theodolite to check the error of his watch, and he read books, both his own and those that had been left by the earlier occupants of the station, including Thackeray, Scott, Gullsworthy, and Whitaker's Almanac. He wrote, there were times when the Bible made very good reading. His food was monotonous, pea flour, oatmeal, pemmican, and biscuits. So to amuse himself, he drew up a plan for a dinner for his friends, a table plan for 36, oysters, soup, sole with mushrooms, turnado of beef, woodcocker

Starting point is 00:07:02 grouse, chestnut and orange pudding, strawberry or raspberry ice, caviar or pancakes flambé. On December 17th, a storm forced him to dig himself out every three hours, and he had nowhere to put the snow but behind him. Soon there was just a small gap below the roof of the tunnel, and even then his digging couldn't keep pace with the snowfall. A half hour after he dug himself out, the tunnel entrance was full of snow again. On December 20th, the storm cleared, but the temperature dropped to 40 below zero. On the evening of the 21st, he wrote, Aurora wonderful tonight, like purple smoke wreaths twisting and writhing all over the sky. At 10 o'clock, it was completely still. The silence

Starting point is 00:07:39 outside was almost terrible, nothing to hear but one's heart beating and the blood ticking in one's veins. On Christmas Eve, he made a worrying discovery. Two of the paraffin tins were damaged and four gallons of fuel had leaked away. He'd have to use the primus stove for cooking only and rely on the lamp for heat. But he was still in good cheer. He wrote, I really don't miss the good things of Christmas very much, though I should rather like a bit of fresh meat and a mince pie and even more a bit of plum pudding. He speculated about where the expedition would land on its return to England. He studied a map of Scotland and resolved to do another cruise on the West Coast. On New Year's Eve, half an hour before midnight, he wrote, It Certainly Is Quiet. His stock of paraffin was down to 14 gallons.

Starting point is 00:08:20 He wrote out a list of New Year's resolutions, to mend his moccasins and sleeping bag, to get home and marry Molly, to find a house, a boat, and a job, and to give up exploring and collect a library. Three days later, a severe gale struck. He struggled out four times to read the instruments, but finally the tunnel was too blocked to get out, and he had to give up observations for the first time in nearly a month. He lay in his sleeping bag feeling useless and hoped that the carbon monoxide from his lamp wouldn't kill him and that the mounting snow above wouldn't collapse the roof. But he wrote, my end should be peaceful enough and I have four slabs of chocolate to eat during it. Anyhow, it won't be attended by the fuss and frills of pegging out at home. The next morning, he decided the tunnel would be impossible to keep clear. After some thought,

Starting point is 00:09:02 he dug his way into one of the two snow igloos and cut a hole up through its roof. It didn't collapse, and he managed to get out. He wrote THANK GOD in all caps in his diary. Later, when the gale had died down, he felt secure enough to make notes for his ideal yacht and plan a dream cruise in her around Scotland. But the tent was almost buried now. The walls bulged inward, and he heard cracks and groans, but nothing gave way. The hatch he had made in the igloo was working well. It was still above the level of the snow, and he didn't have to dig it out. But most of the spare food and paraffin was out in the yard, and he wasn't sure where it was. He had to dig for it with the spade, which took days digging down six feet through the snow. And the situation was getting grim. In February, the gales were coming from

Starting point is 00:09:45 every direction, and even in clear weather, it was too cold to stay outside for long. During one nerve-wracking gale, he ran out of paraffin and had to dig frantically in the yard to find more. The holes he dug filled up nearly as fast as he dug them, and it was three days before he found a tin. Both of the snow igloos had partly caved in by now, and he expected his own tent to fall in on him any day. He noticed that his legs were thinner. But he wrote, One can't be bored living an entirely novel life under such interesting conditions.

Starting point is 00:10:16 He had a philosophical calmness that almost never wavered. After finishing Samuel Peep's diary, he wrote, What a hopeless fool Charles II seems to have been. Not only by his effeminacy and incompetence did he let down the country, but he broke people's faith in kings forever. He deserved the block fully as much, if not more, than his father. I guess you got to do something, right? Yeah, there's a lot of time to film. He noted his father's birthday and celebrated it with boiled rice and homemade toffee. He noted his brother's 21st birthday in his diary and wrote, Wish I had something to drink his health in.

Starting point is 00:10:51 Must remember to get him a present when I get back. In mid-February, the temperature outside fell to 50 degrees below zero. He was running out of food, but it was too cold to go out and find another ration box. The homemade hatch he'd built into the open igloo didn't fit properly, and twice Gales had filled the igloo with snow. Now, after three months of solitude, he was lying most of the time in darkness, becoming thinner and more feeble.

Starting point is 00:11:13 His only warm food was a daily plate of porridge. In the mornings, instead of tea, he sucked a lump of ice. On March 7th, he wrote, I reckon unless something has gone wrong, the relief should arrive between the 15th and the end of the month. One can only trust in God. On March 15th, he wrote, I reckon unless something has gone wrong, the relief should arrive between the 15th and the end of the month. One can only trust in God. On March 15th, he reduced his food to less than a pound a day. That seemed to be enough since he took no exercise and had little

Starting point is 00:11:33 appetite. He used the lamp only for brief periods now, reading the Master of Balintre in the Forsyte Saga. At pessimistic moments, he sometimes thought of things that might have slowed down the relief party. Perhaps an epidemic had killed the dogs, or a fire at the hut had destroyed the sledges, or everyone had fallen into a crevasse. But he knew that this was irrational. On the night of March 17th, snow forced its way past the hatch he had made in the storage igloo and filled it up again. He tried to burrow through and failed. He considered trying to dig up through the roof of the tunnel,

Starting point is 00:12:03 but there was probably eight feet of snow above it now, and he knew he could never do it. He dug his way into the second igloo, cut a hole in the roof, then dug upward through five feet of snow to reach daylight. It was good to be out, but eventually he had to go back in, and it was difficult to seal the shaft with the ration box. He made it work for a while, but on March 22nd, Gale filled the shaft with such a weight of frozen snow that he could no longer push the box upward. So he wrote, so I am completely buried. Paraffin has very nearly run out and things are generally pretty dismal. Now he's completely buried under feet of snow on top of an ice cap with no living thing within a hundred miles. Was he worried about his oxygen running out? You mentioned that briefly, like the carbon monoxide from his lamp.

Starting point is 00:12:46 So I just wonder, like, does he have any air holes even? Yeah. In fact, that's what I'm going to do next year. Now that he couldn't get out, there were three things that frightened him. The first was that the accumulating snow on the roof might crush the tent now that he could no longer clear it off. The second was that his air might become fouled if the ventilator pipe wasn't enough to freshen it. There was a pipe that went up into the air, but that wasn't guaranteed to supply all the air that he needed. And the third thing he was worried about was that the relief party might not find him, since he could no longer keep a lookout for

Starting point is 00:13:13 them. But he wrote, it was clearly futile to get anxious, when by no possible endeavor on my part could I make any difference to the course of events. By the end of March, he was down to four gallons of paraffin. He still felt confident that a relief team would reach him in time, but he had begun to dream of green peas, new potatoes, and Brussels sprouts. He wrote, Why is it that men come to these places? So many reasons have been ascribed for it. In the old days, it was thought to be lust for treasure,

Starting point is 00:13:36 but the treasure is gone and still men wander. Then it was a craving for adventure. There is precious little adventure in sledging or in sitting on an ice cap. Is it curiosity, a yearning to look behind the veil onto the mysteries and desolations of nature in her forlorn places? Perhaps, but that is not all. Why leave all whom we love, all good friends, all creature comforts, all mindly joys, to collect a little academic knowledge about this queer old earth of ours? What do we gain? Occasionally he crawled through the tunnel and scratched with a knife at the roof of one of the igloos with the idea that if necessary he would cut his way out

Starting point is 00:14:09 and walk back to camp. This was clearly impossible and he gave it up. One day he kept the lamp burning and wrote, the following pleasures I should like to have granted most if wishing were any good. One, sitting in an armchair before dinner in front of a roaring fire listening to Molly playing and singing. Two, eight o'clock on a fine summer morning at before dinner in front of a roaring fire, listening to Molly playing and singing. 2. 8 o'clock on a fine summer morning at sea, at the helm of a small boat, a fresh breeze blowing, all sails set, with Molly and a smell of breakfast coming up to say good morning. 3. Just having got into bed with clean sheets and ditto pajamas. 4. Bright autumn morning, eating an apple in the garden before breakfast. An enormous one. Kippers, poached eggs, kidneys, he wrote, For the first time, he addressed Molly directly. He wrote, if it were not having you to think about as I lie

Starting point is 00:15:10 in the dark and can't sleep, life would be intolerable. I wonder what you were doing. If I could be sure you were happy, I wouldn't mind, but I trust in God absolutely. I am sure he doesn't mean me to die alone here. Eight days later, on April 13th, he finished his last pipeful of tobacco and wrote, There is now precious little left to live for. He could afford to light the lamp only briefly for meals, and the tent was now very cold. Its walls bulged inward and icicles dripped on him. Condensation turned to ice in his sleeping bag. His feet froze, and he had to warm his socks with his hands.

Starting point is 00:15:43 A week later, there was only a single candle left and almost no paraffin. One of his feet was swelling up. He hoped it wasn't scurvy. He passed the time by planning the perfect yacht and the perfect meal. When the last candle was finished, there was nothing to do but lie in the dark, imagining what was going on in the world and singing snatches of Gilbert and Sullivan songs that he had learned from Molly. A faint ray of light came down the ventilator pipe, reminding him of the world of sunshine above the snow. He tried to be thankful that he'd finished his books before he'd run out of fuel. He thought of his family and home. He thought of Molly and read her last letter again. He wrote, it is the only thing left to do

Starting point is 00:16:17 that gives me real pleasure. A week after that, he was down to his last two biscuits. He wondered what he would do for water when he ran out of paraffin for melting snow. Since he could no longer make tea, he filled his pipe with tea leaves and smoked those. May 1st came, and there was still no sign of relief. He had run out of biscuits. He still had a little pemmican and margarine and a few drops of lemon juice. He began to entertain the impossible thought of digging out and walking to the coast. On May 5th, 1931, he wrote,

Starting point is 00:16:47 The Primus gave its last gasp as I was melting water for the morning meal. I was lying in my bag after this so-called meal of a bit of pemmican and margarine and had just decided that I should have to start to walk back on June 1st if I could get out, when suddenly there was an appalling noise like a bus going by, followed by confused yelling. I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was at the house falling in at last. A second later, I realized the truth. It was somebody, some real human voice, calling down the ventilator. It was a very wonderful moment. I couldn't think what to do or say. I yelled back some stuttering remarks that seemed quite futile

Starting point is 00:17:18 for the occasion. Hooray, they shouted. Are you all right? Yes, thank God you've come. I'm perfectly fit. Thank God, they said. They were as relieved as I was. The whole world seemed turned inside out. At one moment, I was lying in the dark wondering however I was going to see anybody again or ever get home, and the next home was in sight. His friends hauled him out and fed him and drove him back to the base. He lay on the sledge smoking a pipe and reading the Count of Monte Cristo in the sunshine. He wrote, it is more wonderful than words can express to be free out of that dark place under the snow and to be really going home. They told him what had happened. They had struggled out to relieve him twice by plane and twice by sledge. When a plane had managed to fly over the ice cap, they couldn't find the station.

Starting point is 00:17:58 Two men had driven out by sledge in March and had reached the neighborhood of the station on March 26th, but they couldn't find it even after 15 days of looking. The weather was so bad that they had often been unable to leave their tents. It turned out that this was the same five-day blizzard that had finally snowed him in. He hadn't known it, but during the storm, three rescuers had been within a mile of the station trying to find him. That group finally had to turn back on April 10th. Meanwhile, another airplane attempt had tried and failed to find the station. Another sledge party set out on April 21st. They had reported their first failure to London, and a notice appeared in the Times that there was now some anxiety for his safety.

Starting point is 00:18:36 They said that on reduced rations, his food might last to the end of May, but there was some doubt whether he had enough fuel. His family had organized a relief expedition, and Molly had been interviewed by the newspapers. She said, I can only hope and pray. It is, of course, a terrible suspense, but I am very sanguine. I cannot say why that we shall hear good news soon. It is all too terribly painful for me to talk about now. The noted Swedish aviator Albin Ehrenberg flew over to join in the search, having to navigate the ice cap by compass as there were no landmarks. At one point, five searches were underway at the same time. His friends finally found him on May 5th. It's almost surprising that anyone found him at all.

Starting point is 00:19:07 By the time they reached the station, all that projected above the snow were the tops of two weather instruments and the tattered remains of that Union Jack. Altogether, he'd been alone for five months and shut in for six weeks. He was delighted to be reunited with his friends and appalled at the fuss that had been made about him. Back at the base, he washed, shaved off his beard, and sent a wireless message to Molly. It said, got back from ice cap today. Fit as an orchestra. Terribly sorry to keep you so long without news. He returned to her in England, and they were married, finally, the following January,

Starting point is 00:19:36 six weeks after he got back from Greenland, and a year and a day after the resolutions he had made on the ice cap. Molly later wrote, said softly, I hope you won't be taking the lady to the Arctic, sir. Charles Hargrove sent in a follow-up to episode 155. I was listening to the recent podcast that mentioned mistakes at Queen Victoria's coronation and was reminded of my favorite coronation mistake. When King George III was crowned, there was a nobleman who was supposed to ride down the aisle of the church and then, because it was rude to turn your back on the king, have the horse back down the aisle. He trained the horse well, so well, in fact, that it backed down the aisle to King George and then backed out again to applause. down the aisle to King George and then backed out again to applause. And this incident is reported in Matthew Konservik's book, Sex, Scandal, and Celebrity in Late 18th Century England. And thanks to Charles for sending the reference. After George III's 1761 coronation at the state feast, Lord Talbot, the designated king's champion, was to enter Westminster Hall on horseback,

Starting point is 00:21:03 throw down a gauntlet, and challenge anyone who wanted to contest the authority of the new king. As Charles noted, Talbot trained his horse to walk backwards so that it wouldn't present its rear end to the king when it walked back out of the hall. However, when Talbot made his entrance toward the king, the horse insisted on walking backward down the hall to George, which I guess would have defeated the whole purpose of its having learned the trick in the first place. That is fantastic. I always wonder when I hear something like that, if aliens are observing us, what would they make of that?

Starting point is 00:21:34 The whole thing, having a horse there at all and then bagging it both ways up the aisle. What would aliens make of a coronation? Yeah, the whole thing. In his book, Canservic also says that after the coronation was over, the whole thing. In his book, Konservik also says that after the coronation was over, a large diamond fell out of George's crown, an incident that people later claimed was a symbolic foreshadowing of Britain's loss of America during George III's reign. Though it seems to me that you can always find a meaning for these kinds of things after the fact, it would be a lot more impressive to me if it were clear what they meant when they actually happened, right? Yeah, that must be nerve wracking,

Starting point is 00:22:07 all these symbolic portents, no matter what happens. And I have a bit of an update to the puzzle from episode 161. So spoiler alert for that. That was the puzzle about a law in Pitkin County, Colorado in 2010, that would require external doors to have round doorknobs to make it harder for bears to get into people's homes. Orion wrote, I just listened to episode 161 which included the puzzle about round doorknobs. I grew up in western Massachusetts and we had black bears in the woods by our house. If we left our bird feeder up too long in spring after they woke from hibernation, we would sometimes find one of the bears on our second floor deck gnawing at the feeder. This was a serious concern since the doors to the deck had long handles instead of knobs and opened inward. Our parents warned me

Starting point is 00:22:54 and my siblings to keep these doors locked if the bear came, lest it lean on the handle and fall into the house. Thanks for all the work you put into the show. And I have some follow-ups on this topic myself that show that this bears getting into houses thing is actually a real concern. In July, a homeowner in Colorado Springs, Colorado, woke up to find his kitchen torn apart. When he checked the surveillance video for his house, he discovered that a bear had gotten in and had opened the fridge, torn apart cabinets, and wandered through the house, rummaging through every room that had an open door.

Starting point is 00:23:28 The homeowner had been oblivious to the whole thing, so that must have been pretty unsettling to see what he'd slept through, no? Yeah. So I guess the bear found its way back out before. Yes, yes. Thank goodness he didn't wake up to find the bear in there. He just found his whole house torn apart. That's, and really badly. I think if a bear does a number on your house, it really doesn't hold back. And parks and wildlife officers

Starting point is 00:23:50 later tracked down the bear and euthanized it as they couldn't think of a way to ensure that it wouldn't break into other homes and be a threat. And we'll have some links to some of that video in the show notes if you want to see a bear rummaging through someone's kitchen. It was kind of amazing to me how easily it seemed to be able to open the refrigerator

Starting point is 00:24:05 and some of the cabinets. It's like, where did it learn that skill? Closer to our area, there were some incidents last month in western North Carolina of bears getting into people's vehicles. In North Asheville, a woman learned that a bear was trapped in her SUV after a sheriff's deputy knocked on her door to tell her there was a bear sitting in her car. The bear may have been lured in by a pack of gum and a protein bar that had been left in the vehicle, and apparently it couldn't figure out how to get

Starting point is 00:24:33 back out after the door closed on it. The bear ripped up the interior of the SUV and was reported to be panting badly when it was finally let out by a game warden, so they think that the bear had likely been in the vehicle for several hours. And a family in Cashers, North Carolina, found a bear in their SUV after they heard it honking the horn. That vehicle's interior was also shredded by the trapped animal before it was let out by a sheriff's deputy. Apparently in these cases, they just open the door of the vehicle

Starting point is 00:25:02 and let the bear get out. I wouldn't particularly want that job myself, but at least in these cases, the bears weren't euthanized. I wonder if auto insurance covers marauding bears. I guess maybe it does. Yeah. At least the woman in North Asheville, yes, her insurance policy did pay for it. It was labeled attack by animal or something like that. It did cover it. Yeah. by animal or something like that. It did cover it, yeah. And it seems that this whole thing isn't really that uncommon.

Starting point is 00:25:31 A quick internet search showed me plenty of reports of bears getting stuck in vehicles in various states and even parts of Canada, though Colorado did seem to be overrepresented in the reports. But no word whether anyone there is proposing putting round doorknobs on vehicles. Oh, good thinking. So thanks so much to everyone who sends in their comments and feedback. If you have anything you'd like to say, you can reach us at podcast at futilitycloset.com.

Starting point is 00:25:55 And a special thank you in advance if you give me some tips on how to correctly pronounce your name. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle i am going to give him an odd sounding situation and he has to try to figure out what's going on asking only yes or no questions this puzzle comes from me oh good a man's expensive house burns down the man claims that he was sleeping when the fire started and that he managed to save many of his belongings by stuffing them into bags smashing the window with his cane, hurling the bags out of the window before climbing out of the window himself.

Starting point is 00:26:29 Investigators suspect arson and insurance fraud, but there are no witnesses or cameras that could tell them what had happened. However, one of the investigators comes to realize that there was some information that could be used to either corroborate or help disprove the man's story. What was that? Is this true?

Starting point is 00:26:45 It is true. Really? I saw a strange newspaper article and thought, wow, I got to make a lateral thinking puzzle out of that. Okay. Okay. You said what they discovered is that there was some information available that would help decide it.

Starting point is 00:26:57 Yes. Not that they did. Oh, never mind. Okay. He's saying he put his valuables into bags. Yeah. Smashed the window. Threw the bags out the window. Climbed out the window himself. Okay. He's saying he put his valuables into bags. Yeah. Smashed the window. Threw the bags out the window.

Starting point is 00:27:06 Climbed out the window himself. Okay. And so they think there might be something fishy about that story. The whole story. Yeah. Is that something to do with the window? No. Not that it's unbreakable or something.

Starting point is 00:27:15 Correct. You said he smashed it with his cane. Yes. Is that important? Yes. He's not the healthiest of people. Does it have to do with the fact that he just wouldn't be strong enough to do the things he describes?

Starting point is 00:27:25 That was part of what they suspected, although that would be hard to prove, right? I guess they could set up another bedroom and have him try to do it. But yeah, that was part of what made them start to be suspicious. Okay. So does the information that they're talking about have to do with his physical strength? No. Or health status, just his ability to do this thing? Not exactly.

Starting point is 00:27:48 But somewhat? Yeah, it's related to health. His health? His health. Okay, so would you call these health records the information that they're looking for? Some kind of record about his health or abilities, physical abilities?

Starting point is 00:28:02 Not exactly. Do we need to know more about him, his identity or occupation, anything like that? No, no. Okay, he's a man. He's a man. Are there other people involved? No.

Starting point is 00:28:09 Okay, so it's just that. Yes. It's pretty straightforward. Okay. Well, do we need to know more about the belongings or the bags or anything like that? Nope, nope. All he's saying is he threw this stuff out the window. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:19 And there's maybe something fishy about that. So there's some, just to finish this out, they realize there's some information they could get that would help them to decide whether... Yes, it would either help corroborate or disprove his story. And presumably they went and got that and reached some conclusion. Yes. Well, if it's not his... You're saying it's somewhat important his health is somewhat a factor. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:42 Do I need to know more about what the belongings were specifically? No. I think it was a barbell collection. No. Or the, well, what the heck else is there? Does it matter what more, do I need to know more about the building?

Starting point is 00:29:02 Like what floor he's on, anything like that? Mm-mm. What more do we need to worry about the building? Like what floor he's on, anything like that. So he's claiming he was asleep and then he's basically claiming that he was doing all this activity and there's just suspicious of the whole story and they're trying to figure out what could they use to help them see if the

Starting point is 00:29:21 story could be right or not. He was asleep in the fire broke out. That's what he's claiming. Yes. And there are, they find some, did they think it's fishy that perhaps he might not have woken up or have been able to operate at this level right after waking up? No. So it's not that it happened when he was asleep.

Starting point is 00:29:37 No, they find some more objective data than that, rather than we just don't think you could have done that, you know, kind of thing. They find some very objective data. That shows that he couldn't have, did he turn kind of thing. They find some very objective data. That shows that he couldn't have, did he turn out to be guilty? Was it fraud? Yes. Oh, so they found, you would call then,

Starting point is 00:29:52 they found some evidence that showed that his story couldn't be true. It was extremely unlikely to be true, yes. Did it show that he hadn't been asleep? Yes. They found evidence that showed that, was it as like his clock had been set to a different time or something? No, they found evidence that showed that showed that he wasn't asleep when he claims he was unlikely to have been asleep when he claims he was, and that he was unlikely to have done as much activity as it would take to do this whole stuff your stuff, stuff all your belongings in bags and smash a window and throw them out the window.

Starting point is 00:30:17 And that's a lot of activity in a short period of time. Did it have to do with his heart rate or something like that? Yes. Some kind of monitor that showed how active he'd been. Yes. Yeah, I don't know quite what that would be, but like a fitness tracker or something. I thought about that. Nowadays, yeah, you could say a fitness tracker and that would have been it, but that wasn't actually what they used because you'd have to be pretty stupid to leave your fitness tracker on, right, while you were doing this. But this is something that he couldn't have changed, but you're really on the right path. And it has to do with

Starting point is 00:30:48 his health status. Like a pacemaker or some kind of heart monitor. That's exactly what it is. He was wearing a pacemaker. And that's basically an electronic heart monitor for people who have cardiac arrhythmias. This happened in 2016 to Ross Compton and his home in Middleton, Ohio. And the data investigators were able to get data from his pacemaker that included his heart rate and cardiac rhythms prior to, during, and after the fire. So Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Spalding said, it won't say what you're doing, obviously, but it would help corroborate his story. It was much more informative than we had thought. So they could see that he was much more active than he should have been when he was supposedly

Starting point is 00:31:25 asleep. That's good. And that he was a lot less active. There was a lot less strain on his heart when he should have been running around and smashing windows and throwing bags out of them. That's really clever because he obviously, you wouldn't think of that. Right. And he couldn't change it.

Starting point is 00:31:38 I mean, you can't take your pacemaker out on your own, right? That's really clever for them to have thought to look there. He was arrested and charged with aggravated arson and insurance fraud. Wow. Crime does not pay. If anybody has a puzzle they would like to send in for us to try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. And if you'd like one of us in particular to read your puzzle, you can put that in the subject line. Futility Closet is a full-time commitment for us,

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Futility Closet - 164-Vigil on the Ice

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