Futility Closet - 272-The Cannibal Convict

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 10,000 quirky curiosities from singing sand to Dickens poetry. This is episode 272. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1822, Irish thief Alexander Pierce joined seven convicts fleeing a penal colony in western Tasmania. As they struggled eastward through some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth, starvation pressed the party

Starting point is 00:00:38 into a series of grim sacrifices. In today's show, we'll follow the prisoners on their nightmarish bid for freedom. We'll also unearth another giant and puzzle over an eagle's itinerary. Alexander Pierce was 30 years old when he arrived in Van Diemen's Land, what we now call Tasmania, an island about the size of Scotland, south of the Australian mainland. He'd been sentenced to seven years' transportation for stealing six pairs of shoes in his native Ireland. In 1820, there were 5,000 people on the island, and more than half of them were convicts. The colony had been established just 16 years earlier, and the governor had requested them to work for the government and to support the largely English free settlers who bred sheep and cattle there. The capital, Hobart Town, was the southernmost settlement in the world. When Pierce

Starting point is 00:01:29 arrived, it was a European speck on an isolated island of six million hectares. A repentant convict could simply work his time and earn his freedom, but Pierce was rebellious by nature and he was continually in trouble. By November 1821, he'd been hauled before a magistrate three times for thieving and drinking. In one period of six and a half months, he received 175 lashes, a hundred of them within five days. And twice he'd escaped into the bush, where he'd survived for months with other men by eating stolen sheep and kangaroos. That was enough for the legal officers of Hobart Town, who sent him to Sarah Island, the penal colony in Macquarie Harbor on the west coast of the island. If Van Diemen's Land was the end of the world, Macquarie Harbor was the end of Van Diemen's Land.

Starting point is 00:02:13 The lieutenant governor, William Sorrell, called it a place of ultra-banishment. It's where they sent the most hardened felons, the ones who refused utterly to reform. The convicts there faced severe discipline and very hard labor, often in chains, in a place that was so isolated geographically that escape was thought to be impossible. Sorrell wrote, the great tier of mountains which runs nearly north and south the whole length of the island offers a barrier which renders escape by land always very difficult and for years probably impracticable. To add to the misery, the whole region was lashed continually by the roaring forties, the cold, saturating westerly winds of that latitude. When Pierce arrived in July 1822,

Starting point is 00:02:51 there were already about 170 prisoners at Macquarie Harbor. Their regimen was brutal. Each day they rose to a bell at six and assembled on the parade ground, where they were put into work gangs and rode to the mainland to cut pine or mine coal, and they were lashed unmercifully for the slightest infraction. The work was exhausting, the shelter was inadequate, and the meager food left the prisoners malnourished and constantly ill with scurvy. Pierce was assigned to an eight-man logging gang who fell immediately to discussing escape. The most influential member was an English sailor named Robert Greenhill who was serving a 14-year sentence for theft. He believed

Starting point is 00:03:25 that escape was possible and told them that they might even hope to get away from Van Diemen's Land altogether and reach China or a Pacific island. So on September 20th, 1822, they overpowered their logging overseer and made off in a boat with as many provisions as they could find. But soon fires began to appear on the shore behind them. That was an escape alarm to the military lookout on Sarah Island, which could soon get word to the troops at the harbor's mouth. Their plan to escape by boat would never work now. So they improvised a new solution. They landed and made their way inland, hoping now to reach the settled districts at the center of the island. They had been told this was impossible, but Greenhill's experience at sea had taught him how to navigate by the sun

Starting point is 00:04:02 and stars, and if they could reach the island's center, they might hope to meet a sympathetic farmer or another group of escapees who could help them evade capture. By 3 p.m., they had begun to climb the first range of mountains, hoping not to be spotted by the Commandant's telescope as Macquarie Harbor came into view behind them. He very likely did spot them, but decided not to send soldiers after them. He was shorthanded, and the missing men must either come back or die in the bush. No other outcome was possible. The escapees expected to be pursued, though, and in the morning they continued their flight eastward and passed into a rainforest full of disastrously dense scrub. It's hard to describe how exhausting this terrain is, cold, wet, and choked with vegetation. In 1822, no European had ever passed through it. In fact, it would remain

Starting point is 00:04:44 a blank space on the map for three more decades. In 2009, a group of volunteers from a Tasmanian search and rescue service tried to retrace the convict's route and could sometimes cover only three kilometers in a 12-hour period, even with modern navigational equipment, camping gear, and ample food. One of them said it was like doing an all-day gym session carrying a heavy pack while taking a shower. And Pierce's party were poorly clothed, malnourished, and trying to evade pursuit while navigating by sun and stars. Pierce said later, it kept on a constant rain, which greatly added to make us far more miserable than we was. And the oldest man, Little Brown, was already struggling to keep up. The others were sympathetic, but by the fourth day, they told him that if he couldn't

Starting point is 00:05:22 keep the pace, they'd have to leave him behind. By that point, they'd crossed the Darwin Range and entered the valley of the Andrew River, having struggled 14 miles into the ranked mountain ranges that barred their way. That was progress, but they were running out of food now, and there was no prospect of finding more. Doubts began to set in on the fourth night as they struggled to build a fire with wet green scrub on the slopes of the Engineer Range. Pierce wrote, Some of them began to see their folly and wished themselves back at Macquarie, although it was a place where they undoubtedly had to encounter numerous difficulties. As bad as Sarah Island had been, it was surely better than their present misery, and they saw no hope of relief.

Starting point is 00:05:56 Greenhill was still the leader and would have tried to keep their thoughts on the freedom ahead of them, but relationships were fraying under the strain. Probably the three oldest men, Brown, William Ketterly, and Alexander Dalton, would have banded together as they were the slowest. On the fifth day, the heavy rain forced them all to stop, and they took what shelter they could, fighting over who should gather wood for a fire. On the sixth night, Kennerly suddenly said he was so hungry that he could eat a piece of a man. Their rations had run out two days earlier. Kennerly had probably meant nothing by the comment, but Greenhill, a sailor, had found his own thoughts tending in the same direction.

Starting point is 00:06:29 His friend Matthew Travers supported him, and it would have been difficult for the others to oppose them. They were all relying on Greenhill to navigate. So on the seventh day, they began to talk seriously about sacrificing one of their number. They were near the southeastern base of the Engineer Range, heading east toward the Franklin River, and Pierce, Greenhill, Travers, and John Mather happened to be in front. Greenhill broached the subject and said it might be the only option they had left.

Starting point is 00:06:51 Mather said it would be murder to do it. Greenhill said, I'll warrant you I will eat the first part myself, but you all must lend a hand that we all may be guilty of the crime. They considered who the victim should be, and Greenhill suggested Dalton, who he had said volunteered to help officers flog prisoners back on Sarah Island. We don't know whether that's true, but the others accepted it. According to Pierce's later confession, in the early morning of the eighth day, in the rainforest near the western bank of the Franklin River,

Starting point is 00:07:16 quote, Dalton, Brown, and Kennerly had a fire by themselves as a little break wind. At three o'clock in the morning, Dalton was asleep. Greenhill got up, took an axe, and struck him on the head with it, which killed him as he never spoke afterwards. Mather, Travers, and Greenhill sated their hunger that night. The others refused, but Thomas Bodin and Pierce joined them in the morning. Dalton's friends Kennerly and Brown refused. They must have realized that one of them was next, and together they quietly vanished during that morning's march. Amazingly, they made it back to Macquarie Harbor, where they arrived on October 12th, 22 days after the escape and about 13 after Dalton's murder. The official report says they

Starting point is 00:07:53 were in a state of the greatest exhaustion. Unfortunately, Sarah Island was not the place to nurse anyone back from great exhaustion, and both of them died within a few days. But it appears that they didn't mention murder or cannibalism to the commandant, perhaps fearing that they themselves might be punished for it. That was good news for the escapees in the bush who would have faced hanging for what they'd done. They pushed on, crossing the Franklin River, the Deception Range, and the button grass of the Lightning Plains. After four days, they were severely hungry again and needed another victim. We know that this turned out to be Thomas Bodinam, but Pierce's confessions give differing accounts as to how it happened. Ten years later, in 1832, the surveyor William Charland discovered human remains in the area. He wrote, they may probably be the remains

Starting point is 00:08:34 of some of those unfortunate wretches who have absconded from Macquarie Harbor to seek this melancholy termination of their existence. The party was now down to four men. Greenhill took Bodinam's shoes, and they struggled on. They resolved not to resort again to cannibalism, but this resolution couldn't last. Privately, Mather had suggested to Pierce that they kill Greenhill, but in fact the next to die was Mather himself. Here again, Pierce's accounts differ. He tends to claim that he was away from camp when these deeds were done, which may not be true.

Starting point is 00:09:02 But the outcome is the same. Near Mount Aerosmith, John Mather was sacrificed for the rest of the group. This was a gruesome game, and Pierce must have seen that he was unlikely to win it. His two remaining companions, Greenhill and Travers, were friends. The party still relied on Greenhill to find their way, so for the present Pierce had to remain with them. But the land was changing, coming more and more to resemble the backcountry near the center of the island, where all three men had worked. This might have led them to hope for an end to their suffering, but four days after John Mather's death, Matthew Travers was bitten by what Pierce calls some venomous reptile, perhaps a tiger snake. He was incapacitated, and Pierce and Greenhill had to half carry and half drag him

Starting point is 00:09:38 forward. They struggled eastward like this for two more days until it became clear that gangrene was setting in, and Pierce and Greenhill retreated into the woods to discuss what to do. According to Pierce, Greenhill suggested that they kill him, and in fact, when they returned to the campfire, Travers was in such pain that he begged them to do it. After he'd fallen asleep, one of the others took up the axe and finished him. That left two men, Greenhill and Pierce, who now watched each other warily as they stumbled into increasingly fine country, probably west-northwest of the present-day town of Ouse. They were now trying to reach Table Mountain, which Pierce knew,

Starting point is 00:10:10 because the prison had once assigned him to work on a sheep farm there. But by this time it was hard to think straight and navigate. The two probably wandered in circles for a time, making little headway and increasingly distrusting each other. They kept their distance during the day, and at night Green Hill slept with the axe under his head while Pierce made his own fire some distance away. Pierce seldom slept, he said in his confession. I acted with the greatest precaution, never trusting myself near him, particularly at night. This descended into a miserable, starving stalemate, with the two men traveling together and yet unwilling to trust one another. Pierce was smaller than Greenhill, but at least as strong. He said that he several times caught Greenhill preparing to kill him, but when he moved to defend himself,

Starting point is 00:10:48 the other man backed down. In the end, it came down to a contest of wakefulness, and Pierce won. He said, one evening while he was asleep, I crept slyly to the brush where he lay and took the axe from under his head and gave him a severe blow on the head, which deprived him of his life. That removed the threat of murder, but it left Pierce exhausted and alone in a trackless wilderness with no means of finding his way. After three days, he was still searching for Table Mountain. He'd considered killing himself, but had neither the energy nor the means to do it, and he was starving now. When he stumbled into an abandoned aboriginal camp and ate some raw scraps of kangaroo and possum meat from the ground, it was the first non-human meat he had tasted in nearly seven weeks. Several days later, he managed to catch two ducks, which he ate raw,

Starting point is 00:11:30 and four days after that, after struggling through some of the most difficult country on earth for at least 49 days, he heard the sound of a flock of sheep. He managed to catch and kill a lamb, but he'd hardly started eating when someone put a musket to his head. By a great coincidence, this turned out to be Paddy McGuire, a fellow Irishman whom he'd met when he'd worked in this area. He told him his story without saying what had happened to the others. He spent two weeks recovering his strength, first with Paddy and then with his brother Mick. At length, he threw in with some other escaped convicts, but he was captured with them on January 11, 1823, when someone turned them in for a reward. Greenhill had led the escapees well. Pierce was

Starting point is 00:12:05 recaptured 150 kilometers due east of Macquarie Harbor, having remained at large for almost four months. Two days later, he was in Hobart Town Jail. He freely told his story of murder and cannibalism, but they refused to believe him, assuming he was covering for the five men who were still at large. Even if his story was true, there were no witnesses to the murders, so there'd be no way to convict him of the crime. So they simply sent him back to Sarah Island to complete his sentence of seven years. There he was a hero to the other convicts, having shown that escape was more viable than they'd been told. His story was inconsistent, but no one was attending very closely to the details.

Starting point is 00:12:38 To discourage the other prisoners from following his example, the commandant gave him a turn in solitary confinement and made him wear heavy leg irons in the logging operations. That might have made for a grim sort of happy ending if it weren't for Thomas Cox, a young Shropshire robber in the same logging operation, who began entreating Pierce to escape with him, hoping to gain by his experience. Pierce turned him down until Cox managed to gather some fishhooks, a knife, and tinder, and Pierce began to think they might have a chance. He couldn't face the journey eastward again, but he thought they might head north up the coast toward the settlement at Port Dalrymple. They slipped away into the dense forest and by the fifth day had reached the King River, where they felt increasingly sure that they'd evaded their pursuers.

Starting point is 00:13:15 But Pierce became enraged when he learned that Cox couldn't swim, which meant he would be a burden at every river along the coast. In a rage, he killed him, butchered his body, and ate some of the remains. He swam across the river and got as far as the upper end of Macquarie Harbor, hoping to reach the southern ocean and pass up the beach, heading north. But at last something stopped him, perhaps the knowledge that he'd be hungry again, or fear that he'd be killed by aboriginal people, or fear of another arduous journey. He went back to the harbor, hoping vaguely to survive near the King River, and finally simply gave up. He lit a fire to attract a ship, which arrived to find him wearing Thomas Cox's clothes.

Starting point is 00:13:50 He freely admitted to killing him. Strictly speaking, because Alexander Pierce was the only survivor of this whole gruesome business, we don't know how much of the story is true. In the flight east, all we really know is that eight men went into the bush and three came out. The first two said nothing about murder or cannibalism. Only Pierce described those, though it's hard to see why he'd invent such a damning confession. In the second escape, the remains of Thomas Cox were eventually found half-butchered, which lends some credence to the rest. Pierce was tried for murder, quickly found guilty, and hanged on July 19, 1824. Reports claimed that on the gallows he said, man's flesh is delicious. It tastes far better than fish or pork.

Starting point is 00:14:26 Afterward, his body was dissected by surgeons, as was usual with the corpses of murderers in those days. His skull was passed into the keeping of the American phrenologist Samuel Morton, and today it resides in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. In 2002, Janet Monge, the keeper of skeletal collections, told the Melbourne Herald Sun, I know Alexander well. I pat him on the head each morning. Seen purely as a feat of endurance and navigation, Alexander Pierce's journey is a stunning achievement. The Tasmanian search and rescue team, who followed his steps almost 200 years later, wrote, the fact that Pierce survived this epic journey is a remarkable testament to him. He was unprepared, ill-equipped, poorly clothed,

Starting point is 00:15:03 and negotiated unknown terrain. If it weren't for the cannibalism, he'd probably be hailed as an Australian folk hero. To have left footprints where Pierce had walked before gave us a great sense of achievement. We stand in awe. The murder and cannibalism considerably cloud the picture, though. Pierce is quoted as saying, no person can tell what he will do when driven by hunger, and no doubt that's true. But his murder of Thomas Cox was driven more by rage than desperation, by his own admission, and his life up to that point was one of unrepentant, incorrigible crime, drink, and defiance. Even after his struggle in the wilderness, I think he might be surprised that we remember him today. Thank you. section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or if you'd like to make a more ongoing donation to our show, you can join our Patreon campaign, where you'll also get access to bonus material

Starting point is 00:16:11 like outtakes, more discussions on some of the stories, extralateral thinking puzzles, and updates on Sasha, our dedicated Futility Closet mascot. You can learn more at our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or see the Support Us section of our website for the link. And thanks so much to everyone who helps keep Futility Closet going. We really couldn't do this without you. Ian Bruce from Westport, Connecticut sent a follow-up to the story from episode 242 about the Cardiff Giant, an 1869 hoax perpetrated in Cardiff, New York. Ian wrote,

Starting point is 00:16:52 Dear Mascot and Mascoteers, My wife Linda and I are new to the podcast but very much enjoyed listening to 30 or so episodes during a recent 2,000-mile driving trip. One of our stops was in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. While visiting Teganik Falls State Park near Trumansburg and Cayuga Lake, and only 55 miles from Cardiff, we were taken aback by an information point discussing the Teganik Man, known apparently as Toggy. The sign and the Wikipedia page for the park give a capsule history.

Starting point is 00:17:22 Toggy was a stone giant discovered in 1879, shockingly at the site of a tourist hotel, and over 5,000 people paid to see him before he was revealed as a fraud. Unlike the Cardiff giant, he was not carved from out-of-state gypsum, but rather made of a mixture of stone dust, eggs, minerals, iron filings, and beef blood, all baked in a very large oven. A couple of links below give some more color and a photo, and include the detail that the hoax was revealed by one of the perpetrators after overindulgence at the local pub. We love quirky history and look forward to listening to the full backlog of over 200 podcasts while we were in the car for long

Starting point is 00:18:01 drives. Keep up the good work. So thank you for that follow-up, Ian, and the links, which are always much appreciated, and your pronunciation tips, which everyone probably knows by now how I feel about those. In July of 1879, workers were widening a road near the Teganek House Hotel in what is now part of the Teganek Falls State Park when they uncovered what appeared to be the figure of an enormous petrified man, with what seemed to be roots from a nearby tree growing around its neck. News of this discovery traveled fast, and reporters and spectators started arriving at the site. John Thompson, the owner of the hotel, quickly arranged to have photographs of the giant taken for him to sell, and he set up a tent over the hole the figure lay in, charging 10 cents admission to

Starting point is 00:18:45 go in and see it. And on reading this, I thought that 10 cents was rather a bargain, given that 10 years earlier, the charge to see the Cardiff Giant had initially been 25 cents and was quickly raised to 50 cents. A 2017 article in Thompson Weekly reports that within two days of the discovery, a reporter from the New York World described the Taganic Giant like this. He is nearly seven feet long and was apparently a muscular man without a super abundance of flesh, but with the muscles, joints, and bones quite prominent. He lies upon his back with his head slightly raised, the right arm following the line of the body, and the hand resting on the right thigh, the left arm crossed over the right, with the right leg crossing the

Starting point is 00:19:25 other just below the knee, the left foot being somewhat deformed or claw-shaped and resembling slightly a summer squash, as an honest country woman present remarked. The head indicates a low degree of intellect, the forehead slopes back, and the crown is shaped like an ape's. The nose is flat and broad at the end, and the cheekbones are low rather than high. The joints, knees, etc. are very distinct, and the muscles and bones are indicated perfectly. Surprisingly, given that the Cardiff Giant was one of the most well-known hoaxes in American history, and that surely people still remembered it in 1879, thousands of people paid to see this new giant and buy the photographs of it. Scientists chipped off small fragments of the figure to study, and I read both that they either rendered a variety of mixed

Starting point is 00:20:09 opinions, or according to an article originally published in 1953, after analyzing these bits of the body, the scientists proclaimed that without a doubt, here was an authentic petrifaction of a human being of an extinct prehistoric race. The Tompkins Weekly article does report that there was at least some skepticism in the press about this new spectacle. A headline in the Watkins Express a week after the find read, An article in the Waterloo Observer from the same day said, Although fossils have been frequently found in the immediate vicinity and petrifications of various kinds are occasionally brought to light, there is a suspicion that the specimen lately discovered is the handiwork of clumsy man and not of nature. As Ian noted, the hoax was revealed when Frank Kreck confessed in a tavern that the giant was a fake. Thompson, the hotel's owner, had devised the scheme

Starting point is 00:21:06 in order to attract business to his hotel and had engaged Kreck and Ira Dean, a local mechanic and engineer, to help. It's said that Dean studied chemistry in order to learn the main ingredients of the human body and then developed the mix of eggs, beef blood, iron filings, and cement that was used to fashion the giant. One thing I couldn't find out was where he got access to a large enough oven to then bake his concoction. But after it was baked, the three men worked late at night to bury the 800-pound figure. They tunneled in from the side so that the earth above it would remain undisturbed,

Starting point is 00:21:40 and pushed the giant in, wrapping a tree root around its neck to further create the impression that it had lain there for a considerable time. And the fact that the ground above the figure didn't show any signs of having been disturbed, it was said, for a thousand years, was later cited as rather convincing proof that the giant must be authentic. It's said that even after the giant was exposed as a fraud, there were scientists who refused to believe that Dean had created it himself and that he had to make a new miniature version in order to convince them. It's not known where exactly the Taganic giant is today. While it was being removed from the spot where it was found, it fell and broke into pieces. It's thought that those pieces were buried in an orchard near Trumansburg, but that's all we have to go on for where it might be now.

Starting point is 00:22:23 And you said all this happened within 55 miles of... Yeah, and 10 years later. So, I mean, people had to have remembered it. That seems like a giant red flag. I mean, why would anybody fall for that? You know, I wondered if, like, in 1879, there's so little new to see each day that, like, even if there's a chance it's a hoax, maybe it's just exciting and different. Yeah, maybe it looked like a giant coincidence. Also, one of the articles that I read, the reporter said that in that time period, people were really drawn to the unusual and to spectacles. I mean, P.T. Barnum was at his height and people wanted to believe there were

Starting point is 00:23:00 these miraculous, wonderful things. That would be exciting if you could get yourself to believe it. And next I have a possible spoiler for one of the puzzles in episode 266. Clay Roper wrote, Howdy, podcat and pod crew. I just listened to your September 30 lateral thinking puzzle episode, and I had a totally different answer for number seven. 29.

Starting point is 00:23:22 I heard there are 30 cows, 28 chickens. How many didn't? And interpreted 28 as an ordinal describing the number of one of the cows and chickens as a verb describing the action of reacting in fright. In other words, I took 28 chickens to mean that one specific cow, number 28, was spooked, leaving 29 that didn't. Anyway, love the show as always. Best to you three, and thanks for starting my weeks out right. So that was another possible interpretation and answer. And I still think it was a really cute puzzle, so I was glad to have a chance to revisit it. Yeah, that's a completely valid answer. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We really appreciate the comments and follow-ups we get.

Starting point is 00:24:08 So if you have any that you'd like to send to any of us pod crew or mascoteers, 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 a strange sounding situation and he has to try to work out what is going on, asking only yes or no questions. An eagle flew into Iran and a group of scientists went broke. Why? That's got to have a lateral answer. An eagle flew into Iran and a group of scientists went broke. Yes. Is the eagle a jet? No. Oh, man, you're kidding. No. It's supposed to be a jet.

Starting point is 00:24:46 It's supposed to be a jet. An actual eagle, then. I got the puzzle wrong. An actual eagle, a bird with feathers. Okay, did the scientists went broke? Had they made some kind of wager? No. On anything?

Starting point is 00:24:58 No. Nothing. Well, maybe they did in their personal lives, but not that I know about. Went broke because of an investment they'd made in something that went south? No. Okay. Did they go broke because the eagle flew into Iran? That was the first, yes, the first thing that happened.

Starting point is 00:25:14 Yes. You have to check everything. Yes. Okay. So the eagle is a bird. Yes. Is it native to that region? No.

Starting point is 00:25:23 Wow. Were the scientists experimenting with the eagle in some way, connected directly to the eagle? Were they studying the eagle? Yes. Did they expect it to go into Iran? No. Did they go broke because they couldn't retrieve the eagle? No.

Starting point is 00:25:38 That's a good guess. That's a good guess. It's a very special prized eagle. Yes. Are these American scientists? Why do I assume that? No. They're Russian. Russian scientists. And they were studying a Russian eagle. Studying a Russian eagle. Yes. An eagle native to Russia. Yes. What's it doing in Iran? Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:56 Were the scientists in Russia when they lost the money? Yes. Okay. And when you say the eagle flew into Iran, was it, it flew under its own power the way a bird flies? Yes. Flew across an international border. Yes. Into Iran. Yes. Does this center on the, on the idea that they, that this hadn't been expected and that they can't get the, maybe I already asked this, can't get the eagle back?

Starting point is 00:26:19 It wasn't expected, but it has nothing to do with getting the eagle back. Okay. So they were studying, was it a wild eagle? Yes. They were just observing it in the wild, would you say? Yes. As opposed to having it captive and just... Yes. Okay.

Starting point is 00:26:35 Are there other eagles? There are other eagles, and some of them flew into Iran too, which didn't help either, but one in particular really messed them up. Okay. Did it messed them up. Okay. Did it mess them up because of what the eagle was going to do in Iran? No. Do we need to know where it flew from, what the other, I guess, country was?

Starting point is 00:26:55 No. I can tell you it was in Kazakhstan, if that helps you. It had spent several months in Kazakhstan and then flew to Iran. Kazakhstan to Iran. But I don't need to know its history or... Like, I picture it's like an invasive species and it's going to breed other eagles or something. No, I think maybe you should focus more on how the scientists were studying it or what they were trying to study about it.

Starting point is 00:27:15 Okay. Migration? Yes. They were trying to track the locations of a group of eagles. And it turns out... That some of them fly further than they were expected. From Kazakhstan into Iran. Yes, which wasn't expected.

Starting point is 00:27:29 Okay, well, if they're migrating, then presumably they would come back eventually. Do I need to know that? Yes, and that has nothing to do with it. It was just going, this bird just going into Iran, just really messed them up. Are there people, are there, does something happen in Iran? So this bird flies into Iran Iran and then does something happen? Yes. Okay.

Starting point is 00:27:48 Involving humans? No. Involving other eagles? No. Involving other living creatures? No. Technology? Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:58 Okay. Okay. We're getting somewhere. You are getting somewhere. Military technology? No. Okay. The eagle. Military technology? No. Okay, the eagle flies into Iran. Yes.

Starting point is 00:28:10 And is, I'm picturing, like, sensed by some kind of technology? Not quite. Imagine you're a scientist trying to study birds and their movements. What might you do? Well, you'd attach some kind of a tracking device on the eagle. Yes. So they could use that like GPS or something? So they could use that to track its movements and see it go from Kazakhstan into Iran?

Starting point is 00:28:40 Yes. Did that give them more information that's germane here somehow? Did they learn something that they hadn't known before? Well, they did. They learned that some of these eagles go into Iran, which they didn't expect. But there was a problem, specifically because of international borders and it going into countries they hadn't planned on. A legal problem? No.

Starting point is 00:29:04 Financial. Do they pay a fine or a penalty of some kind? No, but they do have to pay something. A duty or a fee of some kind for allowing technology to cross the border? Not exactly. Do they pay it to Iran? No. Do they pay it to their own government?

Starting point is 00:29:25 No. Some governing body? No. Do they pay it to their own government? No. Some governing body? No. I mean, try to think about this. The eagle's got a tracking device on it. And it's actually, what it's sending them back is text messages about where the location of the eagle is. But how does that lose the money is what I'm not able to see. Oh, it was just the cost of sending the message itself?

Starting point is 00:29:47 Yes, yes. The fees for sending text messages from Iran to Russia. So these were Russian scientists that were tracking the movements of some members of an endangered species of eagles in Russia. And the birds were carrying these tracking devices that would send text messages of their locations very frequently back to the scientists. tracking devices that would send text messages of their locations very frequently back to the scientists. But unexpectedly, some of the birds flew into Iran and Pakistan, where the texting charges are much higher than the scientists were counting on. One eagle in particular spent the summer in Kazakhstan in an area where there wasn't any mobile coverage. And then once she flew into Iran, her tracking device started sending out hundreds of text messages that couldn't have been

Starting point is 00:30:23 sent from Kazakhstan. So just hundreds of these really expensive text messages. And there's no way to stop them. And it completely wiped out their budget. So in the end, they had to launch a crowdfunding campaign just in order to be able to continue their research. So happily, no eagles died, though. It just flew further than was expected. If anyone has a puzzle that they'd like to send in for us to try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our podcast wouldn't still be here today without the generous support of our wonderful listeners. If you'd like to help support the show, please check out our Patreon page at patreon.com

Starting point is 00:31:03 slash futilitycloset or see the support us section of the website at futilitycloset.com. While you're at the site, you can also browse through Greg's collection of over 10,000 compendious amusements. Check out the Futility Closet store in case you want a penguin-themed mug or t-shirt or baby's bodysuit. Learn about the Futility Closet books and see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the podcast with links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by my stupendous brother-in-law, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 272-The Cannibal Convict

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