Futility Closet - 351-Notes and Queries

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 11,000 quirky curiosities from a terrible novelist to a knife-swallowing sailor. This is episode 351. I'm Greg Ross.. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In today's show, we'll explore some curiosities and unanswered questions from Greg's research, including a novelist's ashes, some bathing fairies, the mists of Dartmoor, and a ballooning leopard. We'll also revisit the Somerton Man and puzzle over an armed traveler.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Hello, listeners. Someone mentioned recently that we haven't done a Notes and Queries episode in a while, and I find, in fact, it's been three years. So here's a new one. These are questions that have come up in my research that I can't seem to answer, and also just interesting miscellaneous facts that I couldn't find a place for. I'll put my sources for all this in the show notes, and if you have anything to add, you can write to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Here we go. ad appeared in a San Francisco newspaper in 1860. Wanted. Young, skinny, wiry fellows, not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 per week. Apply. Central Overland Pony Express. Alta Building, Montgomery Street. This is widely quoted, but no one's proven its authenticity. It appears in a

Starting point is 00:01:45 book on the Pony Express written by a Missouri amateur historian named Mabel Loving. She began her work in 1913, early enough to interview some of the surviving riders, but she told no one about her project, and it came to light only at her death 40 years later when her will directed that it be published. The book describes this ad, but it doesn't name a source. The ad is part of the official account of the Pony Express published by the U.S. Postal Service, but early histories of the Express don't mention it. In his own history, published in 2004, Christopher Corbett says this is one of the most disputed claims about the service. Many people, including me, have searched old newspapers for the ad, but no one's found it. Although the phrase orphans preferred turns up surprisingly often. I found 345 instances

Starting point is 00:02:31 in American papers between 1827 and 1870. Why did they want orphans specifically? Well, I'm guessing this. They tend to show up, the ones I found, tend to show up in little mini classified ads, basically, asking for domestic help or actually children to adopt, a couple seeking children. Okay, children to adopt makes sense, but— So my inference is that they were just trying to do the most good in each of those positions. They figured someone who needs a job, an orphan in particular, would be needy, child seeking adoption would you know an orphan would be particularly because with the pony express one it it sort of implied like they were more disposable if you don't have family i think that's why that ad is so famous it's one of the most popular pieces of lore connected to the pony express as i understand it i think it's because

Starting point is 00:03:20 out of context that's how it looks that's how how it sounds, yeah. But once you see, I was surprised to see all these ads and, you know, just decades of... So that was just a typical thing to say. Apparently. And that's just, people don't do that anymore. In his 2011 book, Lives of the Novelists, John Sutherland writes that the poet John Gosworth kept the ashes of novelist M.P. Scheel, quote, in a biscuit tin on his mantelpiece, dropping a pinch as condiment into the food of any particularly honored guest. I've found this anecdote in several places, but all of them are quoting Sutherland, and he gives no source. I'm wondering whether anyone knows any more about this. In Tempest Tossed, his 1951 novel about an amateur production of The Tempest, Robertson Davies mentions that the

Starting point is 00:04:05 Victorian actor Henry Irving said, the hardest thing for an amateur actor to do is to get over the habit of stressing personal pronouns. I've never been able to confirm that, and I wonder if it's true. Joseph Addison defined a pun as, quote, a conceit arising from the use of two words that agree in the sound but differ in the sense. The only way, therefore, to try a piece of wit is to Incidentally, Theodore Hook held that his own best pun was made on seeing a wall placard that had once advertised Warren's blacking. The latter half of the sign had been defaced so that it now read Warren's B, and Hook observed that what ought to follow is lacking. Hook, incidentally, was a great practical joker.

Starting point is 00:04:57 He's the one who perpetrated the Burner Street hoax that we described in episode 26, in which he summoned hundreds of tradesmen to a single address in London in 1809. In my research on the Cottingley Ferries for episode 347, I ran across this anecdote by the Durham University lecturer Richard Sugg. Quote, there is a great story about a chap called William Butterfield who was the attendant at Whitewell's Bath in Ilkley. One morning in 1815, he had trouble opening the door. When he did, he swore he saw dozens of fairies all taking a bath. William was reluctant to talk further about his experience, but locals were keen to vouch for his honesty and sobriety.

Starting point is 00:05:37 He had trouble opening the door? Like they'd magically sealed it or something? Or there were just so many fairies in there. You know how it is. When you first said it, until you got to the part about his sobriety, I just wondered if maybe he was drunk or something. I can't say.

Starting point is 00:05:52 It would make it hard to open the door. In their 2011 book, Hidden Harmonies, Robert and Ellen Kaplan present a proof of the Pythagorean theorem by a blind Massachusetts girl, Emma A. Coolidge, who had lost her sight in a bout of whooping cough at age one. The Kaplans found her proof in Elisha Scott Loomis' 1940 book, The Pythagorean Proposition. Loomis found it in an 1888 issue of the Journal of Education that it

Starting point is 00:06:17 turns out I can't get my hands on, and both Loomis and the Kaplans have amended the proof a bit. I'm trying to get a look at the original version. The girl Coolidge, by the way, graduated from the Perkins School for the Blind, studied at Wellesley for a year, then returned to teach at Perkins. Interestingly, one of her students there is said to have been Annie Sullivan, who became Helen Keller's tutor. Dartmoor in southwest England is prone to impenetrably thick mists. William Crossing, who chronicled the moor and its inhabitants in the late 19th century, wrote, The wife of Mr. Hooper, who lives at the little farm at Nunn's Cross, went out one evening about six o'clock to fetch in their cows to be milked, and a mist quickly enveloping her, when, at no distance from the house, she wandered on the moor until four o'clock the next morning, reaching home in a drenched condition, for the driving mists quickly soak one to the skin.

Starting point is 00:07:08 By her statement to me, she could not have gone far from her house, not more than a mile or two, but in vain endeavored to find her way to it. She got into the valley of the Plym and came more than once upon the ruins at Islesborough Mine, and appears to have been wandering in a circle, which is usual with persons lost in a mist. Similarly, the autumn fogs of Paris in the 1780s were reportedly so thick that residents hired blind men to lead them home. The chronicler of the city, Louis-Sebastien Mercier, wrote, One year the fogs were so dense that a new expedient was tried, which was to engage blind men, pensioners, as guides. They got good pay, up to five louis a day,

Starting point is 00:07:46 and deserved it, for they know Paris better than those who have made our maps. And this was how people contrived to get about when some freak of our climate turned day into night. You took hold of the skirt of the blind man's coat, and off he started, stepping firmly, while you more dubiously followed towards your destination. The Big Umbrella, John Lucas's 1973 history of the parachute, says that 19th century balloonist Charles Green once went up on horseback and on another occasion took up a lady and a leopard as passengers. I've never been able to confirm the details of either of those ascents. According to Irish folklore, a woman named Grace Connolly was washing clothes at Loch Glenad in northwestern Ireland in 1722 when her husband heard her screaming.

Starting point is 00:08:32 He arrived to find a very large otter-like creature on her body. The creature is known as the Duvercoux, and from what I understand, it's depicted on Grace's headstone in the cemetery there. But for some reason, I've never been able to find a good photo of the headstone, and presumably that's the best representation we have of the creature that's supposed to have killed her. Edmund Lester Pearson's 1929 book Queer Books mentions a strange volume published by G.V. Damiano in 1922. It's called Hadhuk Anti-Hell War and bears the subtitle Monarchy's Victory, Constitution's Triumph, Tribute's Annihilation. I've never been able to find a copy. Pearson says it seems to have been inspired by the Divine Comedy, but he writes, it will

Starting point is 00:09:15 probably leave most of its readers as mystified as Alice after she first read Jabberwocky when she was only able to conclude that somebody killed something. For example, one chapter is outlined, 1. How I opened the infernal vestibule and entered into the first bulge. 2. How I been attacked by certain caravans of cows. 3. How I discovered the first infernal spy. The cows are described as without horns and with sweet breath, but they were making a terrible ball in an order to thunder the entire bulge.

Starting point is 00:09:49 Later, quote, I met a lady, one, with her hairs, two, disheveled and naked, three, herself, but, and for authority, were beating her and saying to her that she would not appear as well and making a scandal. Still later, in the eleventh or twelfth bulge, the hero has a conversation with the princess. Quote, Hey, princess, thou shalt not be joyful of my beautifulness as the nature has performed. Also thou shall not enjoy thyself having me near thee. All the consequences between us are to yield my pass and for this beg thee. Otherwise, one of us has to get his fate. my pass, and for this beg thee, otherwise one of us has to get his fate. This reminds me of the 1855 Portuguese-English phrasebook English as She Is Spoke, which, as we discussed in episode 58,

Starting point is 00:10:32 seems to have been written by forcing French phrases mechanically through a French-English dictionary. Pearson guesses that Damiano was, quote, rather rashly choosing to write in a language in which he was not altogether at ease. But I don't know any more than that. I haven't been able to learn anything more about Damiano or the book, and I've seen only the passages that are quoted in Pearson. It's amazing that these things actually get published. Apparently, this is quite a long book, too. Again, I haven't put my hands up, but that's how Pearson describes it. So I'd love to see it. Probably the whole thing is like that, just utterly incomprehensible. In 2017, listener Albert Howell sent me an article from the Vancouver Sun that relates

Starting point is 00:11:09 a story told by local typewriter repairman Art Skill about the origin of the typewriter brand Optima. He says that during the Second World War, as the Russians were advancing on Berlin, the workers at the Olympia typewriter factory in Erfurt collected their plans, fled northwest to Wilhelmshaven, and established a typewriter works there. In the years that followed, it was ruled that the old works, now in East Germany, couldn't use the Olympia name, so it became Optima. I'm trying to find out whether that story is true, and in particular, whether any of

Starting point is 00:11:39 those workers could have made the trip by bicycle, as Skill says they did. From what I can see, that's a journey of at least 24 hours. Finally, this is an odd one. Back in 2016, listener Alex Johnston sent me an inquiry concerning an anecdote that appears in the designer's notes for a war game covering the Battle of Malvern Hill, one of the Seven Days Battles of the American Civil War. The anecdote says that at one point, Confederate General John B. Magruder was looking for the Darbytown Road near Richmond, Virginia, but the rebel maps were bad and he couldn't find a place called Darbytown, much less a road to it. All the likely local places were marked not Darby, but Enrity or Enrupty, E-N-R-O-U-G-H-T-Y. The designer writes, the explanation for this

Starting point is 00:12:22 seeming mismatch is one of those stories that no one would believe if it were fiction and no writer could invent. According to the anecdote, in that area, the name Enrufti was pronounced Darby. The members of the Darby family who had settled around the Willis Church referred informally to the whole area as Darby Town, so Magruder had spent most of the day looking for a road he was already on. The reason for this strange state of affairs, supposedly, is that before emigrating to America, one of the original members of the Enrufti, or Enrity family, had lost a legal decision and was stripped of the right to use that name. In a fit of obstinacy, he'd adopted the name Darby, but insisted that it be spelled the same as his former name, and when the family had reached

Starting point is 00:13:04 America, they'd seen no reason to change this. For five years on and off, I've been trying to find out whether this is true. I can't find anyone who says outright that it's apocryphal, but each of the writers who claims to confirm it gives a different explanation. In 1912, a Lawrence Grant wrote to the New York Times asking how to, quote, speak your southern name and rufty. Another reader, H. Lee Sellers, responded, this word is pronounced Darby. He explains, two men named Enrufti were left a fortune by Mr. Darby,

Starting point is 00:13:35 provided they would change their name from Enrufti to Darby. They did not change the spelling, but they were ready to fight anyone who did not call them Darby. In 1956, John N. Ware of Shorter College in Rome, Georgia, sent a letter to American Heritage Magazine in which he recalled playing in a semi-pro baseball game in Richmond in 1903, in which the name of the opposing team's first baseman was Jim Darby. Looking at the box score the next day, Ware told a teammate, they've got this guy's name wrong, and rough-dy, it was Darby. His teammate said, yes, that's the way the nut spells Darby. The story Ware gives is that in the middle of the 18th century, a daughter of the honorable but poor Enrufti family of England had married a plebeian Darby. The Enruftis had snubbed him, and when he died rich, he got his revenge by leaving them his money on condition that they

Starting point is 00:14:20 change their name to Darby. Supposedly, the family had met and agreed, let's keep on spelling it in rough-ty and pronounce it Darby. Ware also gives the story about the Civil War, but in his version it's James Longstreet who gets confused, not John Magruder. Ware writes, in 1948, I went over the entire route twice, spending the night each time in a farmhouse diagonally across from Willis Church, burned down since. I told my host the above story. Fantastic, isn't it? I asked. Not to me, he said. Bill Darby still lives there and spells his name Enrufty, and cousin Joe Enrufty lives not far away and spells his name Darby. So Ware concluded, this version may not be the right one, but the cold fact remains that there are still Enruftys

Starting point is 00:15:01 in Virginia who call themselves Darby. That was in 1948. I've also found confirming mentions in Verbatim, the language quarterly, in the Newport News Daily Press, and in the Civil War Times in an article on mapmaking. Unfortunately, as I said, each writer gives a different explanation. The most plausible one I've found is from Park Rouse, a journalist and historian in Tidewater, Virginia, who once researched this question for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He was told that two branches of the Enrufty family had fallen out, and that one branch, who lived on Darbytown Road in Henrico, took to calling themselves the Darbytown Enrufties, and this was eventually shortened to the Darbys. Rouse writes, in later years, sanity prevailed, thank goodness, which I take to mean that the family is reconciled, but I'm not sure even about that. And that's it. Again, I'll put my sources

Starting point is 00:15:49 for all this in the show notes, and if you have any answers or comments or further questions, you can reach us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. We first covered the mystery of the Somerton Man in episode 25, a corpse that was found on a beach in South Australia in 1948 and whose identity is still unknown after more than 70 years of investigation. I've covered a few updates on this topic, most recently in episode 185, where I last reported that Derek Abbott, a professor at the University of Adelaide who's been working on this case for several years, kept being stymied by the South Australian government's refusals to allow the corpse to be exhumed for DNA testing.

Starting point is 00:16:43 Several of our listeners let us know recently that that has finally changed. For example, Courtney Rohde from Victoria, Australia wrote, Hi there. As always, first off, wanted to say I'm a big fan after only recently starting to listen to and thoroughly enjoy your podcasts. Having been relatively new also means I haven't quite made it to all of your content yet, but your early work is fresh in my mind. That being said, this week there has been an update regarding the Somerton Man, who was the

Starting point is 00:17:10 topic of podcast number 25. South Australian police exhumed the body of the Somerton Man this last Wednesday, the 19th of May, in the hopes of using modern forensic technologies to finally put to bed the mystery of his death and discovery. This is part of SA Police Operation Persevere, which is in part aimed at identifying unidentified human remains, and Operation Persist, which involves active investigation into cold case homicides. I also found it interesting that in Operation Persist, one of the investigative tactics is distributing decks of playing cards with the photos and details of homicide victims and rewards for any leads to correctional facility inmates in the hopes that someone comes forward with information. They have seen some success,

Starting point is 00:17:55 although I couldn't find a recent post since the link below from 2019, which stated that at least two murders had been closed at that time, with 111 cold cases. Take care and thanks again for the fascination you inspire. So, as Courtney said, they did finally exhume the Somerton Man, although it didn't sound like this will necessarily provide any answers, or at least not very soon. The first step will be to determine whether there even is any useful DNA that can be recovered from the corpse after this length of time and the embalming chemicals that were used, which preserve remains by breaking down the proteins so that they aren't available for bacteria to consume. This,

Starting point is 00:18:35 unfortunately, has a rather detrimental effect on DNA. If they do determine that there is usable DNA available, the next step would be deciding on the best method for recovering it, and then would come the potentially protracted process of matching any recovered DNA to other people. The Australian ABC quoted Professor Abbott as saying that assuming any usable DNA gets extracted from the remains, then the most likely way of identifying him would be to compare the DNA with that on genealogical websites like 23andMe and Ancestry.com. CNN noted that Australia also has three DNA databases used in law enforcement that can be checked, and they quoted Abbott as saying, I'm not holding my breath. Similar tricky

Starting point is 00:19:18 cases that have been solved in America have taken anywhere between a few months to a couple of years, so you know I'm prepared for a two-year haul, if that's what it takes. And thanks to everyone who wrote in on this and sent helpful links. And please let us know if you see more updates. This case gets more attention in Australia than in the U.S., so we appreciate the follow-ups. I suppose even if they're able to identify him by the DNA, that still won't give us the whole story.

Starting point is 00:19:43 It won't explain everything that happened back then. Yeah, there were all these weird elements that nobody could make sense out of, and it might not explain how he ended up dead on this beach. There may be, I suppose, other people who knew at the time, but it's been so long now, they're probably not. Right, right. Even if they can manage to link him up to some living people that he shares some DNA with, because it's been more than 70 years,

Starting point is 00:20:06 it's extremely unlikely there's anybody still alive that would know anything really about who he was. I was also interested in what Courtney said about Operation Persist, a campaign by the SA police to provide new leads in long-term unsolved murder cases. Some of the tactics of this operation are distributing playing cards that describe the cases and potential rewards to prisoners and installing information screens to display this information at Department for Correctional Services facilities. Operation Persist began in 2015, and as of 2019, arrests had been made in connection with six murders, with two convictions and the other four cases still in the courts at the time. I don't think I'd heard of using playing cards like

Starting point is 00:20:49 this to help in criminal cases, but I had heard of the military doing something similar, and Wikipedia refreshed my memory of how the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency made playing cards designed to help troops recognize the most wanted members of President Saddam Hussein's government during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Saddam, for example, was the ace of spades, and his two sons were the aces of clubs and hearts. Wikipedia says that using playing cards in this way dates back as far as the U.S. Civil War, and that in World War II, the U.S. military had decks of cards printed showing the silhouettes of German and Japanese fighter aircraft. As for giving decks of playing cards highlighting unsolved cases to prisoners, it turns out that several states here in the U.S. do that also. An article in Slate from 2016

Starting point is 00:21:36 suggests that this practice began in Florida in 2005 and was inspired by the decks given to U.S. troops during the Iraq War, and since then several other states have begun doing the same. The article quotes a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as saying at the time, it's kind of like interviewing 93,000 inmates for new leads and it has worked wonders. And Michael Sullivan, the chief inspector in the Connecticut office of the chief state's attorney, said that the cards work because inmates brag to each other about their past crimes. So if prisoners see cards that match stories they've heard, they realize that they might be able to earn a reward or get some time taken off their prison terms. Sullivan said, they're the only cards in the Connecticut prison

Starting point is 00:22:19 system. You can't get another deck. There are approximately 15,000 folks in the penal system here in Connecticut at any one time, and they're kind of bored in there. So they play a lot of cards, and they sit and talk about these cases. That's a clever idea. Thinking, what's an artifact that they spend a lot of time paying attention to? Yeah. I mean, it makes perfect sense after someone explains it to you, but whoever came up with that in the first place is really... It is a good idea. And I think it would actually make the playing cards more interesting if they have little stories on them and stuff. And on the cards used in war, I saw several sources mentioning the aircraft spotter

Starting point is 00:22:54 cards from World War II, though it seems that these included both Allied and Axis aircraft for training purposes. But I had a harder time confirming the Civil War cards. I did come across a couple of references to decks made at that time that featured either Union or Confederate generals and leaders, but it wasn't clear that they were used to instruct troops, as it seemed that it might have been that each side was using cards that featured their own side's leaders. But if anyone knows that Civil War playing cards were used to help with enemy identification or troop training, please let us know. I wonder, I guess it's been forgotten by now. Who was the person who actually came up with that in the first place? Using them to help train the troops? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because that predates the whole Iraq war and using them for the

Starting point is 00:23:39 criminals. Yeah, exactly. In episode 344, I covered a story about a pilot who survived the crash of his small plane in the Amazon. Milan wrote, Dear Greg and Sharon, hello from Serbia. My boyfriend and I have been longtime listeners of your podcast, and we love it, especially during long drives. All the interesting topics and lateral thinking puzzles make the trips a lot more fun. Today, we were listening to the latest episode, and we heard the part about the airplane crash survivor. That brought to my mind a flight attendant named Vesna Vulevic from my country, who survived the fall from 33,330 feet after the airplane she was in exploded. According to Wikipedia, although she passed away several years ago, she still holds the Guinness World Record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute, and I thought you might find it interesting. Here's the link. Keep up the good work.

Starting point is 00:24:30 So this was a pretty dramatic story. Vulović was a flight attendant with JAT Airways and was the sole survivor after a DC-9 exploded in 1972 as it was flying over Czechoslovakia, probably from a briefcase bomb. Investigators concluded that Vulović survived because she was trapped by a food cart in part of the fuselage when it broke away from the rest of the plane, in contrast to the 27 others on board who were blown out of the aircraft when it broke apart. The section of fuselage landed in a heavily wooded and snow-covered area, which is believed to have cushioned the impact. Vulović was found by a local who had been a medic during World War II and was able to

Starting point is 00:25:09 attend to her until the rescuers arrived. Vulović was in a coma for some time and was hospitalized for several months with a number of injuries, including a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, broken ribs and legs, and a fractured pelvis. But she made an almost complete recovery, and with no memory of the incident, she said she had no qualms about flying again. Although JAT Airways gave her a desk job as she had become a celebrity in Yugoslavia, and they thought that her presence on flights would attract too much attention.

Starting point is 00:25:41 And I guess probably remind passengers of what had happened on that earlier flight, which I guess an airline wouldn't really want to do. Good point. That's a mercy that she didn't remember, you know? Yeah. Apparently, she lost about a whole month where she has just a complete blank memory of an entire month. Yeah. Fritz Ulrich Sievert sent a follow-up to the puzzle in episode 344, spoiler alert, about the woman who was trying to get some yeast from a brewery to use in her own beer.

Starting point is 00:26:04 spoiler alert, about the woman who was trying to get some yeast from a brewery to use in her own beer. Dear Sharon and Greg, the lateral thinking puzzle in episode 344 reminded me of a project here in Germany. Two scientists are trying to find forgotten strains of brewing yeast in old beer cellars and breweries. By bringing them back to life, they hope to create beer with more diversity in flavor and other characteristics. Greetings from Germany and keep up the great work on your wonderful podcast. And Fritz sent a link to an article in My Bivyala from June 2020 that explains that yeast is responsible for about 80% of the flavor in beer. Two scientists, the German Matthias Hutzler and the American Steve Wagner, met at the World Brewing Congress in Portland and discovered their shared passion for the yeast used in beer.

Starting point is 00:26:47 Hutzler and Wagner began a mission to hunt down old strains of yeast from decades or even centuries ago that are no longer being used, as modern brewers turn to using high-performance strains that ferment faster, causing some unique flavors from the past to be lost. So, as Fritz said, Hutzler and Wagner are scouring old brewery cellars in Germany, scraping long unused equipment such as fermentation tanks in hopes of finding samples of older yeasts. At the time of the article, the scientists had so far found 300 different yeast strains, although most of them were uncultivated yeasts that had probably not

Starting point is 00:27:21 been used in beer making. But 14 of the strains did seem likely to have been used in brewing, and the two men have been working on getting breweries to develop products using some of these strains. I wasn't able to find an update on this story to see how the older yeast strains are working out for the breweries, so if any of our German listeners see an update on this, please let us know. And not previously knowing much about the significance of yeast for beer making, the puzzle makes even more sense to me now with this context. I wonder if there's any systematic effort to save samples of the yeast used in modern beers, today's beers. Yeah, in case they change again in the future and then we'll lose these flavors. Future historians or

Starting point is 00:27:58 something would ever want to know. Maybe you can start a project. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We always appreciate how much we learn from all of you. If you have anything that you'd like to add, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. And I continue to really appreciate all the pronunciation help that I get. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me a strange-sounding situation,

Starting point is 00:28:28 and I have to try to guess what's going on by asking yes or no questions. This is from listener Sarah Gilbert. A man travels for work and plans to be away for several days. He packs a gun even though he knows he won't use it until he's back home. Why? He packs a gun. Is this a gun that is like a standard weapon? I'll say yes.

Starting point is 00:28:52 Okay, because there's like different kinds of guns. Like a starter's gun or a flare gun? Yeah, there's all kinds of flare guns and... No, this is what you're thinking of. A standard weapon. Okay. Does it matter what kind of gun it is? Like, is it a specific kind of gun?

Starting point is 00:29:04 No, I don't think you'd need to say that. Okay. Does it matter what kind of gun it is? Like, is it a specific kind of gun? No, I don't think you'd need to say that. Okay. He packs a gun even though he knows he won't need it until he's back home? Yes. But maybe he'll need it before he gets into the house. Will he need it before he gets into his house? I'll say yes. So even though he'll be back home, per se. Oh, does he have two homes?

Starting point is 00:29:27 Is he traveling to another home? No. Okay. So he's only has one place that he would call home. That's right. Okay. But he'll want to have the gun on him. Yes. Before he enters the house. And that's why he has to pack it with him to take it with him on his trip. Okay. Does it matter the nature of the trip? I'm apparently asking questions you can't ask. No, I'm still considering that last one. That's all accurate, I think, what you said before. Okay.

Starting point is 00:29:56 So he has to pack it with him because he'll need it before he gets into the house. So he would have to have it with him. He thinks he may need it. He may need it. He just can't leave it in the house. Okay. Is he expecting there to be something in the house that he might need a gun to deal with? No.

Starting point is 00:30:13 No. And does it matter the nature of the trip? Yes. Yes. Is that connected to his occupation? Yes. Is he leaving the earth? Yes.

Starting point is 00:30:23 He is? He is? Is he an astronaut? Where did that come Earth? Yes. He is? He is? Is he an astronaut? Where did that come from? Yes. Why does an astronaut need a gun? Do astronauts typically bring guns with them? Cosmonauts apparently did.

Starting point is 00:30:42 Oh, like cosmonauts, like meaning from the Soviet Union? Yes. Is he from the Soviet Union? Yes. Is it the Soviet Union versus Russia? I mean, does it matter? No. I mean, no, basically you've got it.

Starting point is 00:30:56 Okay. Why? Why would a cosmonaut need a gun? Does he feel like he might need it for protection? Yes. I mean, you've basically got it it i can just give it would people have moved into his house while he was gone no because i asked if he expected to find something in his house you said he would need it for protection he if he needed it at all is it because he doesn't know where he's gonna come down yes is there something

Starting point is 00:31:23 about the expression on my face or something? No, no, no. I'm like, my mind is trying to come up with hypotheses. Yes. The man is a Russian cosmonaut and the gun is a TP-82 cosmonaut survival pistol. This would have been carried on many Russian space missions as even the slightest error could drastically change where they landed. Carrying the pistol became standard practice after the Voskhod 2 mission, when a delay of 46 seconds caused the spacecraft to land 386 kilometers from the intended landing zone, and it landed instead in the Siberian wilderness. Oh! Where you might need a gun. Where you might need a gun. Wow. Thank you, Sarah. And we are always on the lookout for more lateral thinking

Starting point is 00:32:01 puzzles, so if you have one to send in for us to try, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is supported entirely by our phenomenal listeners. If you'd like to help support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, you can find a donate button in the section of the website at futilitycloset.com or you can join our patreon campaign where you'll not only help support the show but also get outtakes more information on some of the stories extra lateral thinking puzzles and peeks behind the scenes you can find our patreon page at patreon.com slash futility closet or see our website for the link at our website you can graze through greg omniana of over 11,000 arrestive furlies.

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