Futility Closet - 359-Stranded in Shangri-La

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 12,000 quirky curiosities from fleeting monopoly to a phonetic address. This is episode 359. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1945, a U.S. Army transport plane crashed in New Guinea, leaving three survivors marooned in the island's mountainous interior. Injured, starving, and exhausted, the group seemed beyond the hope of rescue. In today's show, we'll describe the plight of the stranded survivors

Starting point is 00:00:44 and the remarkable plan to save them. We'll also reflect on synthetic fingerprints and puzzle over a suspicious notebook. On May 13, 1945, a U.S. Army C-47 transport plane took off from the northern coast of Dutch New Guinea and headed inland. Aboard were two dozen officers, soldiers, and WACs, members of the Women's Army Corps. Ostensibly, they were on a navigational training mission, but victory had just been declared in Europe, and really it amounted to a Sunday sightseeing jaunt. Their destination was dramatic, a hidden valley that had been discovered in the mountainous jungles of the interior.

Starting point is 00:01:30 New Guinea is the world's second largest island, and in 1945 it was still largely uncharted. Its difficult terrain ranged from swamps and lowlands on the coasts to mountains and rainforests in the interior, so that even its indigenous people tended to isolation. And as the end of the war approached, it was believed that thousands of armed Japanese might still be hiding on the island. A year earlier, a pilot named Myron Grimes had discovered a large, uncharted tabletop valley amid the peaks and ridges of the island's forested mountains. The valley was enormous, 40 miles long and 8 miles wide, and hundreds of villages, housing perhaps 100,000 people, were visible from the air,

Starting point is 00:02:12 but nothing was known about the inhabitants. The spot became known as Hidden Valley and later as Shangri-La after the peaceful Tibetan paradise in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon. As word spread, sightseers clamored to see it, and plane loads of soldiers would occasionally fly over to wonder about the life of this isolated people. But flying over was all they could do. The valley was 150 miles from the coast, a mile above sea level, and surrounded by mountains 13,000 feet high. The ground was too soft, uneven, and grassy to support a natural landing, and the air at that altitude was too thin to carry helicopters over the surrounding mountains. So Shangri-La retained its mystique as a self-sufficient valley paradise. A lieutenant named William J. Gatling Jr. wrote to his family in Arkansas,

Starting point is 00:03:03 flying over was like holding candy just out of reach of a baby. Beyond what has been observed from the air, it is believed nothing firsthand is known of these primitive people and their habits and customs. Probably after the war, the Dutch government will send an expedition into the valley or missionaries may penetrate it, so until then, the natives will know nothing of the white man except that he flies a big bird that makes a lot of noise. Who knows, maybe they are much better off the way they are. At any rate, I am sure if they knew of the turmoil in which we are now engaged, they would be much happier to stay ignorant of the civilized world. The current flight, on Mother's Day 1945, departed Santani

Starting point is 00:03:42 airstrip in a C-47 known as the Gremlin Special, after a mythical aircraft-sabotaging creature invented by Roald Dahl. Aboard were nine officers, nine WACs, and six enlisted men. They took off at 2.15 p.m., expecting a three-hour outing, but as they were flying up a side valley, a mountain suddenly loomed through the clouds. The valley was too narrow to permit a turn, and they couldn't climb fast enough to clear an approaching ridge. The plane sheared the tops of the trees and then collided with the jungle-covered mountainside.

Starting point is 00:04:15 The wings were torn off, the tail section broke away, and the wreckage caught fire. Lieutenant John McCollum crawled out the back, largely unhurt, and was followed a minute later by Corporal Margaret Hastings. On hearing a cry, McCollum went back into the burning plane and emerged with Margaret's friend Laura Besley, then returned for another whack, Private Eleanor Hanna, who was badly burned. By then the fire was too hot to go in again. McCollum was doubting that any other passengers could remain alive when a man walked around the right side of the plane, Technical Sergeant Kenneth Decker. No one ever discovered how Decker had survived the crash. He himself never managed to remember anything that had happened between takeoff and the moment of his reappearance. Possibly he'd escaped through a hole

Starting point is 00:04:59 in the fuselage. Possibly he'd been thrown through the windscreen. He'd hurt his head badly in the crash, and Hastings had suffered blistering burns on her face, feet, and legs. The five of them were 165 miles from civilization in a dense thicket of jungle 9,000 feet above sea level. It was late afternoon, and as the temperature fell, it began to rain. From the tail section, they retrieved a life raft, two tarpaulins, and some basic supplies. They used the raft and the tarps to cover Besley and Hannah, cleaned and bandaged the wax wounds, and gave them anti-infection tablets. But they had only candies to eat. Several times during the night, they heard a plane overhead and saw some flares, but they had no way to signal their presence.

Starting point is 00:05:42 In the morning, Eleanor Hannah was dead. They wrapped her in a tarpaulin and laid her at the base of a tree. It wasn't clear that the crash site was visible from the air. The jungle was heavy, the plane was demolished, and it had been painted in camouflage to begin with. At 11 a.m. on Monday, they heard another plane, and McCollum flashed furiously with a signal mirror, but the sound of the engine soon faded away. Mist and rain came that afternoon, and they set up two cots. At about midnight, Margaret awoke to find that Laura had died as well. McCollum wrapped her body in a tarp and laid it next to Hannah's.

Starting point is 00:06:17 Margaret, who was wearing only cotton bandages on her bare feet, was keeping a shorthand diary on scraps of paper. She wrote, I ought to have cried. I ought to have felt some kind of terrible grief for this dear friend. But all I could do was sit on the cot and shake. I couldn't even think that Laura was dead. I just sat there and shook, and all I could think was, now the shoes belong to me. McCollum climbed a tree and spotted a clearing several miles away. That seemed a better prospect than remaining with the wreck, so they decided to try to reach it. They set out for the clearing on

Starting point is 00:06:49 Tuesday, May 15th. McCollum had hoped to wait until Margaret and Decker were feeling stronger, but now he feared they would only grow worse with time. All three were injured, tired, and hungry, and the thin air made their journey more difficult. The jungle was probably teeming with sustenance, but they didn't trust themselves to find it. The undergrowth was so thick that Margaret soon had to ask McCollum to cut off her hair with his pocket knife as it kept getting tangled. Eventually, the three came across a gully,

Starting point is 00:07:17 a creek bed that formed a sort of path for them down the mountain. Margaret wrote in her diary, It is foolish to think that we could have cut our way out of that dense, clinging jungle with a pocket knife, our only weapon. The gully promised two things, a foothold in the jungle, precarious though it was, and eventual water. The lower they went, the stronger the stream became, until they were regularly negotiating waterfalls. From time to time, they heard search planes overhead but could only keep moving. At the end of the day, they spread a tarp on the bank and fell asleep. Several times that day, they'd seen fresh human footprints in the river mud, and now, as they huddled under the tarps, they heard human voices in the distance.

Starting point is 00:07:56 At dawn on the third day, they got up and resumed marching downstream, near the end of their resources. Margaret wrote, By this time, my feet, my leg, and my cut hand were infected. We were all in the last stages of exhaustion. But that morning they reached the clearing, which lay atop a small knoll, and within an hour a B-17 had appeared and spotted them. They were beginning to look forward to their rescue when dozens of people emerged from the forest. What the survivors had taken for a clearing was a mountainside garden of sweet potato and wild rhubarb, and it belonged to the people of a nearby village.

Starting point is 00:08:31 About 40 now emerged from the jungle, armed with adzes made of stone and wood. The three survivors had little to offer. They smiled and held out candies and McCollum's pocket knife. A gully separated the two parties, and the villager's leader stepped onto a log bridge. McCollum met him halfway, and the two shook hands. With that, the ice was broken, and soon there were handshakes all around. McCollum said later, we weren't afraid of the natives after our first encounter with them. They carry spears and bows and arrows, but from the way they looked at us from behind trees, we knew they were more afraid of us than we were of them. When rain began to fall around 4 p.m., the people of the valley departed, and the

Starting point is 00:09:11 survivors lay down between their tarps and went to sleep. When Margaret awoke in the middle of the night, she found that the leader had come back to check on them. Comparing notes later, the three survivors found that he had watched over them all night. Back at the base, the search organizers were overjoyed that at least three people had survived the plane crash, but now they faced a difficult logistical problem. While they could drop supplies and even people down to the group by parachute, there seemed no way to pull them out by air, and it was impossible to expect them to hike 100 miles through the jungle. On Thursday morning, May 17th,

Starting point is 00:09:45 a C-47 dropped some food and a two-way portable FM radio that the three could use to communicate with their rescuers. The villagers returned, sat around a fire, and smoked small green cigars. There was still no way for the two groups to communicate, but McCollum borrowed a light and the survivors smoked cigarettes of their own. Two days of bad weather

Starting point is 00:10:05 prevented medics from jumping down to attend to Margaret and Decker's injuries. On the afternoon of the sixth day, the lead villager, whom they had come to call Pete, appeared on the opposite knoll, this time with a woman who Margaret took to be his wife. McCollum went to them, shook hands, and tried again to communicate, with little success. The couple returned in the evening with a pig, sweet potatoes, and some green bananas. The survivors, who were now well-supplied with army rations, used sign language to show as politely as they could that they were too tired and sick to appreciate more food. The visitors seemed to understand and withdrew. Though their circumstances were easier now, the survivors still felt a grave

Starting point is 00:10:45 urgency. Margaret wrote, it was patent to all of us now, though we never once mentioned it, that Decker might die and I would surely lose my legs unless the medical paratroopers reached us immediately. Fortunately, they did. On Saturday, May 19th, two medics jumped from a plane. They landed some distance from the survivors and were surrounded by villagers, but when they communicated their errand through sign language, Pete ordered a group of boys to lead them through the jungle. They reached the clearing and set about treating Margaret and Decker. At noon the following day, 10 paratroopers dropped into the main valley, 15 to 20 miles from the survivors and medics. They were surrounded at first by scores of warriors with spears, bows,

Starting point is 00:11:25 and arrows, but again the villagers seemed to see that these interlopers weren't their enemies. Six of the paratroopers set out for the survivors' camp. When they reached it three days later, the medics were tending to Decker while the friendly local villagers were retrieving supply drops themselves and bringing them to the camp. Now there were 10 men and one woman in the survivors' camp. Though language differences 10 men and one woman in the survivors' camp. Though language differences still hampered their communication, the villagers demonstrated their archery skills and did what they could to keep the visitors out of their sweet potato patches. Earl Walter, leader of the paratroopers, wrote, these are possibly the happiest people I've ever

Starting point is 00:11:59 seen. The survivors recuperated slowly, and twice Walter had to push back the date of their return to the base camp. But on Friday, June 15, 33 days after the crash, the medics declared that Decker and Margaret were fit to travel. Margaret wrote, We tried to say our farewells to Pete and his men. The term savages hardly applied to such kind, friendly, and hospitable men as these natives. We could never understand each other's language, but we could always understand each other's hearts and intentions. The greatest miracle that befell McCollum, Decker, and me, aside from our escape from death in the crash, was the fact the natives were good and gentle people. By Monday morning, June 18th, the crash

Starting point is 00:12:40 survivors, medics, and paratroopers had returned to the base camp in the main valley. In other circumstances, this might have been the end of the story, but the whole contingent were still stranded. These 15 people had somehow to be removed from a remote village in the highlands of New Guinea. The planners had ruled out rescue by blimp, helicopter, amphibious plane, and PT boat. They even considered dropping bulldozers into the valley to build a temporary landing strip for a C-47, but decided that even if a plane managed to land successfully, it might never return to the coast, unable to clear the surrounding mountains in such thin air. In the words of writer Mitchell Zukoff, the solution they settled on is the highest altitude and downright strangest mission in the history of military gliders. the highest altitude and downright strangest mission in the history of military gliders.

Starting point is 00:13:31 Under the plan, a C-46 would tow a glider known as the Waco CG-4 from the coast to the valley, where the glider would disengage and land on the valley floor. Once passengers had boarded, a C-47 would fly overhead and snatch the glider into the air by catching a nylon loop with a steel hook attached to its undercarriage. The tow plane would then carry the glider over the mountains and back to the base, where the two craft could disengage and land separately. This was a dangerous plan. No one had ever tried to snatch a glider from the ground a mile above sea level, where the glider's weight might slow the tow plane so badly that it stalled. Even if that didn't happen, no one knew whether a C-47 could summon enough power to climb to 10,000 feet quickly enough to bear a loaded glider through the

Starting point is 00:14:11 pass that led out of the valley, and both pilots would have to contend with low clouds and shifting winds as they managed all this. Even if they succeeded, in this thin air a glider could carry only five passengers, which meant that they'd have to pull off this maneuver three times to get everyone out. The day of the snatch came on June 28, 1945. A C-46 entered the valley towing a glider on a nylon leash. When Shangri-La was below him, the glider's pilot pulled a lever to disengage from the tow cable and touched down on a makeshift landing strip that the men had constructed. Five passengers, including Margaret Hastings, were put aboard the glider where they fastened their seatbelts and braced themselves against the coming whiplash. A C-47 slowed to 135 miles per hour, descended to 20 feet above the valley floor, and approached the waiting glider. Margaret wrote,

Starting point is 00:15:01 The greatest thrill I got was when that tow cable held and our glider swooped off the valley floor. I prayed the cable wouldn't break. When we started off into the air safely, I figured someone else could do the praying for me from now on. The burden of the glider slowed the C-47 to 90 miles per hour, only 10 miles per hour above its stalling speed. But with a struggle, it gained enough altitude to make its way out of the hidden valley,

Starting point is 00:15:25 and in an hour and 20 minutes minutes it was back at the base. The glider was too damaged to fly again, so the rescuers went back the following day with another CG-4 to withdraw five more people. The final group were lifted out two days later, on July 1st, 1945. Margaret Hastings said afterward, I always felt sure we'd get out all right. I don't know why. I suppose I just had that much faith in the army. Fear is something I don't think you experience unless you have a choice. If you have a choice, then you're liable to be afraid.

Starting point is 00:15:56 But without a choice, what is there to be afraid of? You just go along doing what has to be done. She would add later, The natives of Shangri-La are a wise people. They are happy. They know when they're well off. They are too smart to permit a few chance visitors from Mars to change the rhythm of centuries. I'd like to go back to Shangri-La. I really would, provided, of course, we could get out easier at this time. We got some interesting follow-up to the puzzle in episode 352, and this will contain spoilers.

Starting point is 00:16:38 The puzzle asked why the Japanese government had warned its citizens to stop making peace signs in photos, why the Japanese government had warned its citizens to stop making peace signs in photos, with the answer being that because such photos could be used to reproduce the subject's fingerprints, which could potentially lead to identity theft. Brian Ford sent a link to an article in Popular Mechanics from 2016 about how a company named Nanotips has developed a polyurethane fingerprint sticker that you can stick on the fingertip of a glove so that you can use it on your phone's fingerprint sensor without having to remove your gloves. It's not your actual fingerprint, but rather a created one that you can train your

Starting point is 00:17:15 phone to recognize. The article says, of course this technology presents a massive security problem. Suddenly, anyone with your glove can access anything you have locked this way on your phone. On Nanotip's Kickstarter page, they say that their TAPS product is a touchscreen sticker with a unique fingerprint for Touch ID that turns your ordinary gloves into touchscreen gloves. It looks like the company did surpass their Kickstarter goal, and they now have a website for selling their products, but when I checked on it over several days recently, everything they sell was listed as being sold out. I don't know quite what to make of that. Brian noted that the Popular Mechanics article was rather negative and said, but I think it's a neat idea. You can't change

Starting point is 00:18:00 your fingerprints, so if they're compromised, it's game over. Synthetic fingerprints would allow you to change them if this happened. Which is actually a good point, and I don't know if the company has thought of that angle. So that's like changing a password. If someone steals your fingerprints, you can just change them. Yeah, you could come up with a new one now. That does seem more flexible. And Jeff Coyne and Dan Cash both sent us information about a case where a criminal's fingerprints in a photo were successfully used against him.

Starting point is 00:18:29 Dan said, Hi, Futilitarians. I just got through listening to episode 352 and only got the solution to the puzzle slightly sooner than Greg, because I remembered there was a case here in the UK of a drug dealer getting caught because he had posted pictures of his hand holding a piece of cheese, I'm not kidding, on a platform he used to sell Class A drugs, and the police used it to identify him from the fingerprints on his already long prison record. And Jeff and Dan sent links to an article from May about how 39-year-old Carl Stewart from Liverpool, England, was sentenced to 13 and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, heroin, ketamine, and MDMA

Starting point is 00:19:11 and to transferring criminal property. Stewart was identified by police after he shared a photo of a block of Stilton cheese that he'd found in an upscale grocery store held in his hand. He shared the image via EncroChat, an encrypted messaging service used by criminals that had been infiltrated by police the previous year. Police saw the photo and were able to analyze his fingerprints from it and determined that the hand in the photo, and therefore presumably the account it was posted from, belonged to Stewart. It didn't seem to be clear why Stewart had posted this photo of the cheese, but it was really helpful to the police that he did. So he must be kicking himself,

Starting point is 00:19:49 you know, to be caught for doing something as needless and innocent as holding cheese. And there have been other cases of criminals who have been identified from photos of their hands. In 2010, a British man received a sentence of 10 months after police found a photo on his phone of him holding stolen watches, and a fingerprint specialist was able to identify him from the ridges in his hands. In 2018, police in Wales were able to secure 11 convictions against a man who sent out photos of ecstasy tablets held in his palm to potential customers. While the photo didn't tell police who the dealer was, forensic scientists were able to use it to match a suspect that they later apprehended based

Starting point is 00:20:31 on other evidence to the hand holding the drugs in the photo. I guess it doesn't tend to occur to people how incriminating a photo of their hands can be. Yeah, it wouldn't have occurred to me. No, I don't know if I would have thought of it either. I mean, not that I am involved in criminal activity, so it doesn't matter, but I guess, right, it just doesn't occur to you how that could be used to identify you. One of the things that Greg had guessed in the puzzle was that people were being warned not to make the peace sign because it could be misinterpreted as having a different or potentially offensive meaning. Dan also said, I had thought at the beginning of the puzzle, like Greg, that the gesture could be misinterpreted.

Starting point is 00:21:09 You just have to look at the Japanese sign language gesture for brother to see how easily this could happen. Love you loads. Stay safe. And Dan sent a link to a YouTube video that demonstrates signs for family members in Japanese sign language. The sign for brother has you thrusting up your middle finger on first one hand and then the other, which I imagine could potentially be misinterpreted by those who don't know Japanese sign language. I wonder if that's ever misinterpreted in the other direction, or someone who knows Japanese sign language...

Starting point is 00:21:39 Oh, thinks you're saying brother to them? Sees that gesture and doesn't know the Western, you know, meaning. And Jesse Onlinden, Kitchener, Ontario wrote, the lateral thinking puzzle in episode 352 was about the possibility of fingerprints being duplicated from photos. It reminded me of the fact that many keys can be duplicated from photos fairly easily. And sure enough, a bit of searching shows that this has been the case for several years now. Articles from 2008, for example, reported on a demonstration at a computer conference of how keys could be successfully duplicated from photos taken of them, even from 200 feet away. Stefan Savage, a computer security expert, searched for pictures that included people's keys

Starting point is 00:22:20 on the photo-sharing website Flickr. And Savage's team then used software they had developed to analyze the keys in the photo sharing website Flickr, and Savage's team then used software they had developed to analyze the keys in the photos. In an article on CNET, Savage explained, there is a five-digit number that represents all of the information in a standard key. You type that code into a key cutting machine and it makes a perfect replica. The software they were demonstrating could provide those codes for keys in photos, even for ones taken of a set of keys lying on a cafe table using a telephoto lens from the roof of another building. Previously, those with enough expertise could duplicate keys by hand

Starting point is 00:22:55 using high-resolution photos, but this was the first demonstration of some simple-to-use technology that would allow almost anyone with some basic know-how to be able to copy keys. I guess almost any security system that people tend-how to be able to copy keys. I guess almost any security system that people tend to use would be vulnerable to hacking of some sort. Probably these days. I mean, and again, it's like with the hands, you just wouldn't think if your keys happen to be included in a photo, or if you leave your keys on a table and somebody can take a photo of them, how easy it might be for them to copy them. It's just hard to think of every vulnerability that's just guaranteed to be secure.

Starting point is 00:23:27 Yeah. There are even apps now that allow you to store photos of your keys on your phone, and then you can use the app to order copies of your keys by mail, or to get a new key made at special kiosks, or even to send the info to friends or family so that they can copy your key on the fly. I will note, though, that the apps that I happened to see didn't have the best reviews with a variety of complaints noted by reviewers, so take that into consideration if you're thinking of trying it yourself.

Starting point is 00:23:56 Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We really appreciate how much we learn from all of you. So if you have any follow-ups to send to us, please send those to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me a strange sounding situation, and I'm going to try to work out what's going on by asking yes or no questions. This is from listener Bill Spencer. A man was walking along the seaside above the beach. He thought of something he wanted to commit to paper, sat down, and began writing in his notebook. After some time went by, he was accosted by a boy and placed under arrest. Why? Did this really happen? Yes.

Starting point is 00:24:49 This really happened. So the person who's writing in his notebook was like a real person? Yes. Was somebody I might have heard of? Yes. Oh. Possibly. Possibly. Is his occupation germane? Yes.

Starting point is 00:24:57 Is he an author? No. Is he in the creative arts, like filmmaking or an author or something like that? Is he in the film industry? No. Television? No. Is he an artist?

Starting point is 00:25:11 Like a visual artist? Yeah. No. Would you say he's in the entertainment industry? Not really. Okay, so more like the artistic or creative industry. Nothing. What did I skip for? Okay. you said he was writing in a notebook yes um was he writing words no was he drawing no was he writing something in code

Starting point is 00:25:38 no was he writing math like numbers no He was writing in a notebook. Yes. Was he using a pen or pencil? Yes. Does it matter which? No. Would the notebook be what I would consider to be a notebook? Yes. Was it somebody else's notebook?

Starting point is 00:25:58 No. It was his own notebook? Yes. But he wasn't writing words or numbers or codes or drawing. That's correct. But he was writing something. And you would call it writing. Yes, I would.

Starting point is 00:26:13 What do you write that aren't words? Okay. And he's somehow in the creative industries, but not any of them. I'm like, so not putting this together. And it's not some kind of code. It's not like Morse code or some other kind of them. I'm like, so not putting this together. And it's not some kind of code. It's not like Morse code or some other kind of code. I wouldn't say so, no. Some kind of cipher or...

Starting point is 00:26:31 No. It's connected to his occupation. It's connected to his occupation. What do you write? Was he writing something that you would consider to be directions or instructions? Only in the broadest sense. Was he writing this intending for somebody else to read it? No, I'll say no. Did the boy who accost him misunderstand what the person was writing? Yes.

Starting point is 00:26:55 So was he arrested because he was believed to be doing something other than what he was doing? Yes. Did this happen during war? Yes. So he was thought to be a spy? Yes. Wow. Okay. So somebody who was not a spy, the man on the beach was not a spy? Correct. Yes. Okay. But he was mistaken as a spy because he was putting something in his notebook that other people didn't understand. So they thought it was some kind of like a code, like a spy might use.

Starting point is 00:27:22 You're doing very well. Okay. Do I need to figure out which war and where this took place? Was it World War II? No. Oh, everything's always World War II. Actually, you don't need to know that. I don't need to know that.

Starting point is 00:27:34 I mean, you have enough. Okay. All right. So I've understood why he was arrested. Was there anything else that the boy did that is important? No, all you're missing is that one piece. Was he writing some kind of like a puzzle, like a crossword puzzle or something?

Starting point is 00:27:47 No. What else? What am I missing for... Not words, not a puzzle, not numbers, not a code. Which of the arts haven't you considered? I have no idea that's... Oh, music. He's writing musical notation.

Starting point is 00:28:05 Yes. And they didn't recognize musical notation? You've got it. In the autumn of 1914, the English composer Rafe Vaughan Williams was walking along the land overlooking the English Channel when he thought of a tune that he wanted to get down on paper before he lost it. He became absorbed in his writing and eventually found himself accosted by a Boy Scout who, not understanding musical notation, insisted that he was creating coded maps to send to

Starting point is 00:28:29 the Germans. The Scout led Vaughn Williams to the local police station where the composer was let off with a warning. Oh, that's... I mean, wow. Okay. Thanks, Bill. The dangers of writing music during war.

Starting point is 00:28:43 Thank you. And we are always on the lookout for more lateral thinking puzzles. So if you have one that you'd like to have us try, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is supported entirely by our incredible listeners. If you'd like to help support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, you can find a donate button in the support section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or you can join our Patreon campaign, where you'll not only help support the show,

Starting point is 00:29:13 but also get more information on some of the stories, extra lateral thinking puzzles, outtakes 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's collection of over 12,000 sapid esoterica, browse the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes 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 the non-Parel, Doug Ross.

Starting point is 00:29:50 Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 359-Stranded in Shangri-La

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