Futility Closet - 180-An Academic Impostor

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 the last human checkers champion to the Hoover Dam star map. This is episode 180. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. Marvin Hewitt never finished high school, but he taught advanced physics and math under assumed names at a string of universities in the 1940s and 50s. In today's show, we'll trace the curious career of an

Starting point is 00:00:36 academic imposter whose story has been called one of the strangest academic hoaxes in history. We'll also try on a flash-proof scarf and puzzle over why a healthy man would check into a hospital. Marvin Hewitt was born in 1922 in Philadelphia, the son of a police sergeant, and he found almost immediately that his high intelligence made him an outsider. No one in his family could understand him and neither could his friends. He later said, I did not relate to other children. I was an isolate. When he was 10 years old, he wandered into a library and found a big red book called Functions of a Complex Variable, and he started reading mathematics. He said, I took math books out of the library when the other kids took out fairy tales. As his knowledge increased,

Starting point is 00:01:20 he started buying books on math, physics, and electronics, and by his teens, he'd built up a considerable library. School bored him. He later said, My teachers were non-perceptive and couldn't understand what I was talking about, so he left at 17 without a diploma. He wanted to go to college and study math and physics, but instead he found himself working a series of heavy labor jobs in factories and freight yards.

Starting point is 00:01:40 He was working in a warehouse when he saw a want ad posted by a new military school. They needed an 8th grade teacher. At the sight of this, he felt an overwhelming desire to teach. yards. He was working in a warehouse when he saw a want ad posted by a new military school. They needed an eighth grade teacher. At the sight of this, he felt an overwhelming desire to teach. Apparently, he himself didn't understand this very well. He applied for the job, describing himself as Marvin Hewitt, an undergraduate from Temple University, which he wasn't, and they gave him a job teaching eighth grade arithmetic, geography, and history. On the first day, he was nervous, but when he saw that the boys looked up to him, he felt confident and at home for the first time. The school closed at the end of the spring term, so he started studying college catalogs, and he chose a faculty name he liked

Starting point is 00:02:12 and used it to apply for a summer job as an aerodynamicist at an aircraft factory. He had no trouble getting or holding the job, he understood the math, but he was using the name of quite a prominent man, and he knew he'd eventually be discovered if he stayed, so he quit and went back to the library. But now he'd really fallen in love with teaching. Toward the end of the summer, he started calling local colleges, asking if they needed a physics teacher. At the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, the head of the physics department asked who's calling. Hewitt identified himself as Julius Ashkin of Columbia University, a name he'd found in the Columbia catalog. The real Julius Ashkin was about to start teaching at the University of Rochester in New York. The school hired Hewitt

Starting point is 00:02:49 as a part-time instructor at $1,750 a year, thinking he was Julius Ashkin. He taught calculus, college algebra, and trigonometry, and he reveled in the admiration that his students gave him. Eventually, he realized that he ought to know something about this man he was impersonating, so he looked into it, and he discovered that he could write to any university, and for a dollar, they'd send him a full transcript of anyone's academic record. As an instructor, he bluffed his way through the laboratory work, but he found that teaching itself was no problem for him. He said, intellectually, it was like clerking.

Starting point is 00:03:17 They gave me a copy of the textbook to be used and told me how much I was to cover during a semester. I mapped it out by lessons and just tried to cover each lesson in a clear manner. And he found that his classes scored as well as those of other teachers. But there were some close calls. He was on the street one day with an acquaintance when a student said, Hello, Dr. Ashkin. He walked by without responding, not knowing what else to do, but he could feel a student looking at him. On another occasion, he was in a library with his girlfriend when a student approached them, but in five minutes of conversation, the student never happened to address him by name. Students would sometimes come to the house and ask for Dr. Ashkin. He

Starting point is 00:03:47 would get them inside as quickly as possible so the neighbors wouldn't hear and then get rid of them as quickly as he could. When his father and another police officer were shot by a car thief, he told his students there had been a death in his family, but he told the faculty that this was a cover story and really he was eloping. In fact, he needed a reason to avoid the funeral because photographers and reporters would be there and if his picture were taken, he risked being recognized. By spring, he wanted to get away from Philadelphia and this constant fear of discovery, and he wanted the pay that Julius Ashkin, this man he was impersonating, deserved. So he started to write to distant colleges. He got a response from Bemidji State Teachers College in Minnesota, so he sent them

Starting point is 00:04:22 a copy of Ashkin's transcript and a reference from a fake company called the Christie Engineering Company of Philadelphia, which he just made up. He got some letterhead printed in that name and hired a secretarial service to handle the mail and messages that it received. When they got an inquiry from Bemidji, he wrote a glowing recommendation and signed it Robert Christie, and they gave him a job at $4,000 a year. He told his wife that he'd got a job in Minnesota, but told her he'd taken some degrees in someone else's name, so he'd have to teach under that name. She accepted that and agreed to marry him. I should say here that his wife has come to fascinate me as I've researched this. I don't know anything about her really, but she just put up with living with a serial imposter who was

Starting point is 00:04:57 dragging around the country working different academic jobs that he wasn't qualified for, and just apparently gamely went along with it. After their honeymoon, they moved to Bemidji, where he was the only physicist in his department and felt relatively safe. He taught analytical and solid geometry, college algebra, and physics, and occasionally he attended town group meetings to speak about atomic energy and the atom bomb. As time passed, he bought a car and started to feel secure. It turned out that the college president had attended Columbia, as Julius Ashkin had, so Hewitt had to learn about the faculty, campus, and layout of that area so he could pretend he'd been there. When his wife's parents said they wanted to come up and visit, he rented a post office box in his own name so that they could write to his wife as Mrs. Hewitt,

Starting point is 00:05:36 but he had to ask her to stall them until the academic year ended to reduce the risk of being caught. Eventually, he got bored teaching undergraduates. He wanted to engage with minds that were on his own level, so he started writing to universities again. He got an encouraging reply from St. Louis University, but just as they asked him to visit, the real Julius Ashkin published an important paper in the Physical Review, and that listed him as a member of the faculty of the University of Rochester. To avoid getting caught, he would decline the interview, saying that he couldn't get away. Finally, they hired him by mail at $4,500 a year, plus several hundred dollars more for teaching summer school. This was a step up for him academically. St. Louis offered a doctoral program. He taught 10

Starting point is 00:06:12 hours a week, mainly graduate courses, and covered nuclear physics, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, and tensor analysis, part of the mathematical basis of relativity theory. His students liked him, and his colleagues respected him, though they noticed some gaps in his knowledge of basic physics. And he did have some more close calls. One professor occasionally went to Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, and one day he returned and told Hewitt that he'd run into an old friend of his there, a man who'd worked with him at Los Alamos. Of course, Hewitt had never been to Los Alamos, the man he was impersonating had. Hewitt froze, but nothing happened. His friend said the man had simply asked about him. This happened several more times, but each time the other professor mentioned a conversation with this man,

Starting point is 00:06:47 somehow he never mentioned personal appearance, Rochester, or anything else that might have given him away. This was just pure dumb luck, but it was all working in his favor. Toward the end of that year, he was on track to get an associate professorship, but he was afraid to stay any longer for fear of being discovered, so he started writing again to other universities. This time he got an invitation from the University of Utah. This was quite a prestigious appointment. They rolled out the red carpet for him, or for Julius Ashkin, which is who they thought they were getting. They met him at the airport. They gave him a room at the best hotel. They entertained him and drove him around the city. The president

Starting point is 00:07:16 of the university interviewed him deferentially. Finally, they told him they liked him and would be checking his references in preparation for hiring him. In his hotel room, he waited to be told that they found him out, but that didn't happen. They called Los Alamos, Argonne, and Columbia, and everyone agreed that Julius Ashkin would be a wonderful addition to any faculty. They didn't happen to call Rochester, which would have sunk him. He negotiated hard, and they gave him a salary of $5,800 a year and made him a full professor. He took it. By hopping from one institution to another in a year, he'd gone from assistant to full professor, a path that normally took 10 years. At Rochester, the real Julius Ashkin was still an assistant professor. Oh my. In Utah, Hewitt taught six

Starting point is 00:07:54 hours a week, graduate students only. The head of the physics department took him downstairs and told the clerk, give Dr. Ashkin a nice office. Dr. Ashkin, she said, why don't you remember me? He broke out in a cold sweat and said nothing. She said, I was a secretary in the optics school at Rochester. I often talk to you on the telephone. Once again, he'd lucked out, but he could feel her looking at him. A couple of weeks later, he received a letter addressed to Dr. Julius Ashkin, question mark. It was from the real Julius Ashkin at the University of Rochester. He'd found out that someone was impersonating him at other universities. He asked him to stop, but he also wrote, let me assume that you were versed in theoretical physics and that you are fundamentally a decent man. I should then be willing to help you to relieve

Starting point is 00:08:32 yourself of what must have become an almost unbearable burden. It is on these assumptions that I have decided not to take any immediate steps to notify any university officials. Hewitt panicked for several days, then the university president summoned him and told him that they'd received information that he was an imposter. He denied this at first, but they showed him a letter from the University of Rochester, and he confessed. It's not clear, I should say, whether Julius Ashkin had sent this. In light of what happened later, I don't think he did. It was only from a Rochester faculty member. That's all Hewitt could remember. So I think there's probably someone that Ashkin had mentioned this to.

Starting point is 00:09:09 The university kept the affair quiet out of respect and pity for him rather than out of fear. The faculty members who learned about it only chuckled at how they'd been duped. He was asked to stay in Salt Lake City until the FBI cleared him, since a deception in nuclear physics could potentially involve national security. That took ten days, and then he slunk back to his mother's house in Philadelphia. It took him a few months to collect himself, but then he started looking around for something else to teach. He settled on electrical engineering, which he already knew somewhat and knew he could master with a month's reading. He wrote to a teacher's placement agency, identifying himself as George Hewitt DSC, a graduate of Johns Hopkins and a former research director for the Radio Corporation of America.

Starting point is 00:09:41 For a reference, he listed a non-existent vice president of RCA, and he used his secretarial service to intercept the mail, as before. The University of Arkansas College of Engineering hired him for $4,500, and he and his wife moved to Fayetteville. So he was back in the game. There were dangers in Arkansas as there had been at the other schools. He learned that one of his new students had attended St. Louis University, but fortunately it hadn't been when Hewitt had been there. And when he attended a Rotary Club luncheon to welcome new faculty, he worried that the dining room might contain someone from the previous five schools he'd defrauded, but fortunately it didn't. And since he was no longer impersonating a real person, Hewitt could now publish papers. He began

Starting point is 00:10:16 to write and present ambitiously at a National Engineering Society and at a meeting of the Arkansas Academy of Science, and he began to hope that he could eventually become a national figure in electrical engineering. But in the spring, a talent scout from RCA came to Arkansas looking for a promising young electrical engineer that RCA might hire. The dean said, RCA, oh yes, we have your former research director here, you know, George Hewitt. Oh yeah, him. The RCA man said, who's George Hewitt? So he was discovered again and drummed out and retreated again back to Philadelphia.

Starting point is 00:10:45 By now he was a new father of twins and had to jump right in again immediately. He considered other fields but went back to physics and started studying college catalogs and American Men of Science, which is a who's who of prominent American scientists, to decide who he could impersonate next. He picked Clifford Berry, a University of Iowa PhD who now worked on the West Coast, because he liked the name Cliff. a University of Iowa PhD who now worked on the West Coast because he liked the name Cliff. He started calling schools on the East Coast and found that the New York Maritime College in the Bronx needed someone to teach second and third year physics and calculus. He submitted the usual forged references and they hired him at $4,000 a year. He established his family in a small apartment under his own name on Long Island, a safe distance away. He was bored with the ordinary

Starting point is 00:11:22 college curriculum by now, so he was sometimes accused of talking over the students' heads. He made a list of industrial jobs he might go after, but he found it was much harder to break into industry than academia. Most of the jobs he wanted required a security clearance, which meant he'd have to provide a birth certificate, fingerprints, and photographs. And misrepresenting himself in industry would bring stiff penalties. So he went back to academia. He adopted the identity of Kenneth P. Yates, a physicist with a doctorate from Ohio State University, and in January 1953, he got a mid-year appointment to teach at the University of New Hampshire in Durham for $4,500 a year. But there was no joy in this anymore. He learned that one student in the math department was planning to go to Columbus that

Starting point is 00:11:58 summer to do graduate work at Ohio State. That would reveal his ruse, but he found he didn't care. As it happened, the student didn't return to New Hampshire, so he was safe, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he was found out. At New Hampshire, he got into a conflict with a student named Wayne Overman. He felt that Overman was a poor student, and Overman became suspicious about his identity. Hewitt knew this, but he found that he was doing nothing to stop the revelation. He was tired and stubborn and basically lost hope. Overman had looked up Kenneth P. Yates in American Men of Science and found that he had a doctorate from Ohio State, which meant that he should have a knowledge of German that Hewitt simply didn't have. You had to know some German to get a doctorate in physics. The book also said that Yates was working for an

Starting point is 00:12:36 oil company near Chicago. Hewitt felt he couldn't give Overman a passing grade given his performance. He wondered if passing him would keep him quiet, but he respected his profession too much to do this. When Hewitt flunked him, Overman went to the faculty with his suspicions. They confronted him, and he confessed and resigned. This time, though, the story leaked out to the newspaper, so he had to stop for good. He said, It was a relief. I felt glad about it. Once the thing broke in the papers, I knew that it was finished for keeps. He was relieved that the masquerade was over, but he felt he'd done nothing wrong morally. He said, gave, and only to professors, was on renormalization and relativistic quantum electrodynamics.

Starting point is 00:13:28 I am one of the top nuclear physicists in the country, and when I left that university, they could find no one else to give the course and had to drop it. He said that society was wrong in being so demanding. He understood the risk of being found out, but he said that this was balanced by being able to work at such an astute level. In retrospect, some of the colleges he fooled said that they'd been suspicious all along. They said that his lectures were disorganized. In fact, he'd never seen a lecture until he started giving them. They said he was secretive and they'd noticed that he avoided photographs. But they were also amazed that he didn't have a PhD. Some of these institutions had regarded him as brilliant.

Starting point is 00:13:56 Robert F. Chandler, president of the University of New Hampshire, said he regretted that they'd had to fire him. He called Hewitt a brilliant physicist and said his teaching had been very satisfactory. Another college president said, just about all I know about the atom bomb I learned from Ashkin. In fact, the real Julius Ashkin wrote to Utah begging compassion for Hewitt. He asked them to tell Hewitt that he wasn't the one who'd exposed him, which is amazing forbearance, I think, because he didn't know anything about him except that he was impersonating himself. Yeah, that did seem very sympathetic of him. Hewitt said he'd look for a job with the government or a private firm, and he still hoped he might get an appointment at a university

Starting point is 00:14:28 on the strength of the recommendations from the schools where he taught. He said, If they'd only let me be a professor, I'd never want anything else or lie. You know I lied only to get those jobs. I was a good teacher. I've never really hurt anyone. After the story broke, Marvin Hewitt basically disappeared again. I found only one further trace of him, a brief follow-up article in Life magazine in 1957. It says that Life's earlier

Starting point is 00:14:48 story had caught the eye of George Trimble Jr., a vice president of the Glenn L. Martin Company, who felt that such obvious talent as to Hewitt's shouldn't be wasted. He offered him a job as a design specialist in the company's Earth satellite program, and in 1957, Hewitt had published a paper under his own name, The Effect of the Earth's Oblateness and Atmosphere on a Satellite Orbit. Hopefully he did no more impersonating after that, but I guess there's no way to be sure. This episode is brought to you by our patrons and by Harry's, who remind you that men can be hard to shop for. It can seem impossible to find a gift that's thoughtful and special,

Starting point is 00:15:30 but is also useful and practical. That's why Harry's razors make a great gift. I've been using them for a while now. The blades are well made, and they really do give a great shave. And this holiday season, Harry's is offering custom and limited edition shaving sets that make perfect gifts. Sets come with German-engineered five-blade cartridges, foaming shave gel, special limited edition winter chrome and emerald green handles,

Starting point is 00:15:51 and you can even personalize them with engraving. Sets come in beautifully designed gift boxes and start at just $10. Harry's also has great stocking stuffers. No matter what you're looking for, Harry's has you covered. You can even just get something for yourself, because as a special offer for our listeners, Harry's will give you $5 off your order when you go to harrys.com slash closet. This offer is only available for the holidays. This holiday, give Harry's and give handsome. Get your holiday shopping done early and take advantage of free shipping.

Starting point is 00:16:17 To get a limited edition holiday shave set while supplies last, go to harrys.com slash closet right now. That's harrys.com slash closet. In episode 173, Greg told us about how in 1911, three British explorers made a perilous journey in the dead of the Antarctic winter to collect some penguin eggs with the goal of advancing scientific knowledge. Dave Lawrence wrote, Hi Greg, Sharon, and Sasha. We were wandering around the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London yesterday and came across one of the emperor penguin eggs you talked about in episode 173.

Starting point is 00:17:00 It is on display in the treasures section in the Cadogan Gallery. After everything the team went through to get those eggs, and even though they proved to be worthless in terms of research, it is good to see that the NHM has recognized it as one of only 22 chosen for its scientific, historical, and cultural importance. They don't mention the fact they lost it. And Dave sent a photo of the exhibit of the egg, which of course we'll have in the show

Starting point is 00:17:25 notes, as well as a link to the website for the museum's page for its treasures in the Cadogan Gallery, which lists the egg under its star specimens and exhibits, which is very nice of them given how disdainfully they treated it originally. Dave also noted that the gallery has an audio guide which describes the egg and a bit about the travails of collecting it, and then states that the lead scientist on the expedition perished in Antarctica and the egg remains as a fragile symbol of the quest for knowledge. That's good to hear. I didn't know they'd done that. Yeah, no. As I said, given how, you know, how much they dismissed it originally, it's nice that they value it now. And how much agony it cost to get it.

Starting point is 00:18:06 Yeah. Dave also said, Seeing the actual penguin egg in the Natural History Museum I'd heard about from Futility Closet only a week or two earlier was a happy coincidence. It's so easy to glance at museum exhibits not really appreciating the backstory. Although the egg was clearly of major importance,

Starting point is 00:18:23 hence its appearance in the special collection, Greg's research and presentation of the expedition really brought it to life. Kevin Cedroni, whose last name I certainly would have gotten wrong without his help, wrote about the dazzle camouflage and computer vision dazzle that we also discussed in episode 173. Hi, Sharon and Greg and Sasha. I found the attached picture after listening to your episode discussing dazzle camouflage. It is not dazzle camouflage per se, but it is tangentially related, the best kind of related. It's a scarf apparently designed to frustrate paparazzi using flash photography. Thanks for all your great work. And we'll have this photo in the show notes as well as links to other photos

Starting point is 00:19:05 and a video, but what Kevin is talking about is a brand of clothing that uses nanotechnology and millions of crystals to reflect back the light of flash photography, making the clothing glow brightly while the person wearing it only appears as a vague dark shape. The inventor of the technology was inspired by seeing how a bike's reflector ruined a photo a friend of his took several years ago, and some celebrities have taken to wearing these garments to try to avoid being photographed. The clothing line started with scarves, but apparently there are now also anti-flash hoodies, sweaters, and ties. The clothing looks just like simple patterned garments until they reflect back a bright light and then start glowing,

Starting point is 00:19:46 which should, as Kevin also noted in his email, make them helpful for cycling safely in the dark. Though I should say that they do not help with non-flash photography. So despite being compared by some to an invisibility cloak, they are not completely foolproof yet. I was just thinking if there is some way to use this, if a criminal could use it. I mean, if it made you invisible to cameras, to all cameras, then you'd think immediately there'd be some nefarious ways to use it. Oh, definitely. But if it's only flash bulbs, it's really kind of tailor-made for celebrities. Yeah, yeah. Paul Trenary, who said that he's not quite sure himself how to properly pronounce his last name, but did his best to give me some guidance that hopefully I was able to follow adequately, wrote,

Starting point is 00:20:29 Hi all, you mentioned something recently about dazzle makeup, and I was reminded of this from last year. Even looking back at it now, I momentarily wondered if it was an April Fool's, but the paper is far too long-winded and convincing to be a leg pull. And Paul sent links to articles about specially designed eyeglasses that can really mess up facial recognition software. A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University has found that they can use these glasses to trick face recognition algorithms, enabling wearers to not just be able to obscure their identity,

Starting point is 00:21:01 but also to be misidentified by the software as people who look completely different. So not only did specific glasses cause a South Asian female to be identified as a Middle Eastern male 88% of the time, but other glasses enabled a male researcher to pass as female actress Mila Jovovich with about the same effectiveness. Their system isn't quite perfected yet, though, as their attempts to pass off a Middle Eastern male as the white actor Clive Owen only succeeded about 16% of the time. The glasses, as shown in an article in New Scientist, look a bit odd, with overly large frames and odd coloring and patterns. But Mahmoud Sharif, one of the co-creators of the glasses, was quoted as saying, with some refinement, our glasses would just look like someone had frames with normal tortoise shell pattern.

Starting point is 00:21:49 If this is true, then that means that the glasses could fool computers without alerting humans to the subterfuge. And these patterned glasses are able to work this way because the software algorithms don't rely on the same features that humans do to try to recognize faces. So changing just a small area of a face can completely disrupt a computer's attempted recognition and result in the software confusing two people who actually look very different. In some cases, the researchers were quite successful at this, enabling one of the male researchers to be identified by the software as the actor John Malkovich in 100% of the trials. So this all sounds kind of concerning, particularly if you're

Starting point is 00:22:26 John Malkovich. But for now, at least, this practice will only work in some situations, as all that needs to be done to thwart the deception is to ask the person to remove their glasses, which apparently is standard procedure in at least some higher security situations. That's incredible that they can do that. It is pretty incredible. And there is, as Paul noted, a long-winded paper about all the math and algorithms and everything if anybody wants to dig into how they're doing it. Because you've got to figure that's the first attempt at this sort of thing, so it's only going to get more sophisticated.

Starting point is 00:22:58 Right, yeah. And that is kind of concerning in a way, unless the people building the algorithms can sort of outpace the people trying to deceive the algorithms, right? And Paul ended his email with, I was about to sign off and mention I only live about 25 miles away from the site of the Devil's Footprints when I googled the original 1855 story and found this from 2009, elsewhere in Devon, in Woolsey. And Paul is referring to our story from episode 22 about how in 1855, residents in Devon saw some unusual hoof-shaped footprints in the snow in odd and unlikely places that defied any natural explanation and had some residents speculating that they had been made by the devil. In March 2009, another set of odd hoof-shaped footprints appeared in Devon in the Garden of Jill Wade.

Starting point is 00:23:47 The 1855 prints were extremely puzzling because they had appeared in a straight line many miles long and seemingly went right through or over 14-foot walls, locked gates, and whole houses. The 2009 prints were only in the one yard, but like the earlier prints, they were unusual because they generally didn't display the typical left-right, left-right pattern that you usually see in animal footprints, but rather were in a single line. Jonathan Downs, the director of the Center for Fortean Zoology, said of the prints, none of us are saying the devil's in Devon. If it was Satan, then he's only about 18 inches tall, looking at the size of the prints. I think they've been made by a hare or a rabbit, hopping in an unusual way.

Starting point is 00:24:31 Similarly, Graham Inglis, a zoologist from the center, said, This is certainly a first for me. The footprints are peculiar, but they are not the devil's. I don't believe the horned one has been in Woolsey. Personally, I think it belongs to a rabbit or hare, but quite an academic punch-up has started over it. I think that's fascinating. Whatever it turns out to be. It'd be amazing if this finally solved...

Starting point is 00:24:53 How old is that now? The original mystery is like 160 years old? Yeah, from 1855. If they finally figured it out now. Right. They weren't able to photograph the original 1855 footprints, but of course they were able to photograph the original 1855 footprints but of course they were able to photograph the 2009 ones and the center for 40 and zoology has even put a video of the prints

Starting point is 00:25:10 on youtube and they're hoping that that might help aid in solving the mystery this way more people can see them and weigh in on them uh but the investigator in the video says that he does think that whatever happened in devon in 1855 did happen again in 2009, but whatever that was is still just completely unknown, because this was more than eight years ago now that this second occurrence happened, right? And I wasn't able to find that any more light has been shed on the incident. Even if they did, like if it's something as mundane as a rabbit, why was it this long gap between the two appearances of the prince?

Starting point is 00:25:44 Yeah. It's just strange. Well, hopefully we'll find out. And if anybody hears any more about this, please let us know. So thanks so much to everyone who writes in to us. We really appreciate your comment, feedback, and updates. And if you have any you'd like to send in to us, please send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an

Starting point is 00:26:17 odd sounding situation and he has to figure out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. Here's your puzzle. Earlier this year, an Italian man showed up at a hospital claiming to be deathly ill, even though he was perfectly healthy. He doesn't have mental health issues, wasn't trying to get out of or avoid something, and wasn't seeking drugs. What was his motive? Okay, this is true, I guess. This is a true story.

Starting point is 00:26:42 You say an Italian man. Did this happen in Italy? It happened in Italy, yes. Showed up at a hospital asking to be admitted, you say? Yeah, claiming to be deathly ill. Do I need to know specifically what he thought his ailment was? No. He just thought, did he think he was ill?

Starting point is 00:26:56 No. So he was dissembling. He was trying to convince them of something that he didn't himself think was true. Correct. For some reason. Yes. Are there other people involved besides this man? Like, I don't, I'm just guessing.

Starting point is 00:27:10 Was there someone inside? He was just trying to get into the hospital so he could see them? No. Something like that? No. Is there another person involved? No. No?

Starting point is 00:27:18 It's just him in the hospital? It's just him in the hospital. Is there some history I need to figure out? No, not exactly. Is it important that this happened in Italy? I mean, could it have happened elsewhere? It could have happened elsewhere. Okay, so a man shows up at the hospital, says, I'm deathly ill, you got to take me in.

Starting point is 00:27:32 Yes. And knows that's false. Right. His goal then was to get into the hospital. But this isn't like a Munchausen thing. You say he wasn't mentally ill. He didn't have mental health issues. He wasn't trying to get out of or avoid something.

Starting point is 00:27:47 And he wasn't seeking drugs. But he wanted to be in the hospital. He did want to be in the hospital. Like in a bed somewhere being attended to? No. He wanted to be in the hospital. He wanted to be in the hospital. He wanted to be in a particular hospital?

Starting point is 00:28:01 He wanted to be in a particular hospital. Oh, really? That's helpful. So, okay, let's say they let him in. Okay, let's say they had. Let's say they somehow believed that he really was sick, at least momentarily. And they take him and they put him in a room, I guess. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:17 At that moment, let's say they take him and they put him into bed. Okay. At that moment, does he feel he's gotten what he wanted or is there something more than that? There's something more than that. But it doesn't involve another person? It does not involve another person. Is there crime involved? No.

Starting point is 00:28:33 Is his occupation important? No. It is important that it was this particular hospital, though. Is the location of the hospital important? Yes. Why would you want... Okay. All right.

Starting point is 00:28:51 So, okay. Let's say the building was in the same location, but it wasn't a hospital. Okay. Say it was an office building. Okay. Would he still want to get in there? Yes. So the whole health business is incidental. It's just that he wants to be in this location. That's true. Yes. So the whole health business is incidental.

Starting point is 00:29:05 It's just that he wants to be in this location. That's true. Yes. But it's not crime. Picture him like he's a burglar or something. Right. There's no crime involved. And it's not another person.

Starting point is 00:29:15 All right. So why would you want to get into a random building because of its location? And that's the situation. It just happened to be a hospital. Okay. Once he's in, does he care where they put him? Like what room he's in? He might care, yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:29 Like he'd prefer to be high up or? I'd say he'd prefer to be probably high up. On an upper floor? Yes. Does this have to do with what he thinks of as his own safety? No. Okay, why would you want to be? Why would you want to be at an upper floor?

Starting point is 00:29:50 So this would be true if it was an office building or any other building. Right. He just wants to be in a certain location up... Right, in this area. Would you say as high as possible? Or at a certain height? Probably a certain height. Because of something he thinks will happen? I don't even know what I'm asking. I'll say yes yes to that although i'm not quite sure how you mean it but in some meanings of that question yes

Starting point is 00:30:10 it's not that he has specifically plans of his own right like if he thinks i don't know say a tidal wave or something is coming oh oh i see no that's not quite it no No, that's not quite it. No, not like that. But the distinction is that that's something that would just, it's exogenous, it would be something he expects to happen, but he's going to be relatively passive. It's not that you're saying. It's that he plans to do something himself. You can't answer that. It's kind of tricky.

Starting point is 00:30:38 He expects something to happen. Some future event. Yes. But not like a tidal wave. It's not like you asked, like, is his safety involved? No, he's not trying to protect himself against something. But he is expecting a future event to occur. Oh, is it? Does he want to be on the roof? Does he want to see the sky? No, but that's a good thought. But no, he doesn't necessarily want to be on the roof. Does he want to witness or see something clearly? Yes. Some event outside? Yes. Is it a sporting

Starting point is 00:31:04 event? Yes. that's exactly it. He was trying to see an association football game that was going to be played near the hospital. And this took place in Crotone, which is a small Italian town. And for the first time, its team made it to the top tier of the professional league for what they call football and we call soccer.

Starting point is 00:31:21 So there was going to be a big game that was going to be played at the town's small stadium, which was completely sold out because they don't normally get like the big top tier games there. And the windows of the hospital happened to look right out onto the stadium. A decade earlier, when there was going to be another big game played in that town, some locals had tried to get into the hospital by pretending to visit patients there. The hospital had figured this out. And so this time on the day of the game, they weren't going to be allowing any visitors in, so this super fan tried to convince them that he was terribly ill, hoping to be admitted, but the hospital caught on and he was turned away. That's clever, though. You deserve some points

Starting point is 00:31:59 just for thinking of that. We really appreciate all the puzzle submissions that we get, so please keep sending them in. And if you have one you'd like to send to us, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is supported primarily by our wonderful patrons. We do sometimes have some advertising on the show, but that doesn't by itself cover the big commitment of time that the podcast takes us to make. So we really wouldn't be able to keep making the show without the generous support of our listeners. Thank you to everyone who's been contributing to Futility Closet, and if you would like to help support your weekly dose of the quirky and the curious, then please check out our Patreon page at

Starting point is 00:32:37 patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or see the support us section of the website. While you're at the site, you can also check out over 9,000 exceptional esoterica, browse the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes for the podcast, with the links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by the ever-impressive Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 180-An Academic Impostor

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.