Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: Why can't we find Amelia Earhart?

Episode Date: July 15, 2017

In this week's SYSK Select episode, famed aviator Amelia Earhart's disappearance in 1937 is a mystery that endures to this day. Why don't we know what happened to her? In this episode, Josh and Chuck examine the facts and evidence behind the famous case. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey everybody, it's me, Josh, and for this week's SYSK Selects, I chose our episode, Why Can't We Find Amelia Earhart, which first aired in December of 2010.

Recently, a photo's been making the rounds that purports to show Amelia and her navigator, poor Fred Noonan, after they disappeared, which supposedly gives credence to the theory that the Japanese captured them. So I thought it was a good reason and a good time to revisit our episode on it. Hope you enjoy.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Chuck Tran. Jerry's in the other room with a golf putter that she's going to come in here and swing at us any second now. Which makes this Stuff You Should Know.

I think we're on our last nerve today. Yes, well, it's Friday. It's the last Friday in October. It's like three o'clock, and we're going to get out of here after this. Yeah, plus we've been gone a week, and then we just get carried in here by our minions on our thrones,

and we were plopped down, and we just told Jerry to make it so. Yeah, wasn't that standing ovation from everyone we work with? Just amazing. It was weird. Doesn't it just touch you? I'm kind of used to them by now.

Chuck, yes. Do you ever get any Time Life books? No, I've never gotten them, but I used to love those when I was a kid, the commercials. Yeah, there's some cool ones. The old West ones, especially. I like the ones that were just kind of like out there, like what the heck is going on.

Like I first heard of Trepanation, thanks to Time Life, ancient brain surgery. From the what the heck is going on series? Yes, exactly. Very underrated. There's one, the Wild West ones, huh? Oh yeah, he once killed a man just for snoring too loud. That had a big impact on me.

Yeah. So I don't snore. My dad liked the World War II ones. Yeah. But he liked anything from World War II for a while. That was kind of out of it. Really? Yeah.

He's like, yeah. Kind of. Well, there is a book. It's still in print as far as I can tell. It's called, it's Life, not Time Life, because I think Time went on with Warner and AOL. Oh, OK. Which, by the way, someone at Time Life,

or Time Warner said that their acquisition of AOL was one of the worst mistakes in the history of business recently. Well, that's not nice. No. But there is a life book called The Greatest Mysteries of All Time. Oh yeah, those are great.

And it's like a top 50. And it's things like, was Anastasia alive? Princess Anastasia. She escaped the Bolshevik Revolution. Pompeii. Who was, that's not really a mystery. Oh, did they figure that one out? Yeah.

Oh, no, I'm in Atlantis. Oh, OK. Yeah, I was like, you know, they've got that one licked. We can go there, actually, if you'll pay for the plane tickets. There's Jack the Ripper, one of our faves. And among them, as she should be, in all lists of The Greatest Sun-Solved Mysteries,

is Amelia Earhart. Oh yeah. Right? In 2007, we saw the 70th anniversary of her disappearance. Yeah. She just kind of flew into history. And I wrote an article about it last summer. And I was really shocked to find that there

is a lot of pieces in place that if one thing would change, we'd know for sure what happened to her. But still, this mystery endures. And it drives people crazy and makes them want to go, like, people spend tons of money and time and effort to try to figure out what happened to her. And some people have come up with some theories that are interesting.

One was that she was actually captured by the Japanese. This is right before World War II. Right. And they were kind of adversarial. What they leave out is that the Japanese actually helped with her search. Right. So that's not true.

But that is a theory that still is going on, that she was captured by the Japanese and either executed or forced into servitude to become Tokyo Rose, who was a group of English-speaking women who basically said, GI, your girlfriend back home is having sex with Captain America and Superman. Right. Yeah.

It's true. They said things along those lines. That's good. Another one is that there was an alien abduction. That's what I'm siding with. Have you heard of Irene Craig-Mile Bollum? Yeah. That was the apparently, there was one theory

that Amelia Earhart had just assumed the life of a New Jersey housewife by that name. A successful banker who retired to become a New Jersey housewife. She's a very worldly woman. She had her pilot's license in the 30s. There was a lot of stuff that she actually had a mutual friend with Amelia Earhart. So they kind of ran in the same circles.

And not much is known of her life before World War II. She kind of appears out of nowhere supposedly. So alleged this guy who was about to release a biography in 1970 saying, this lady is Amelia Earhart. And the woman sued and won $1.5 million. And the book was never published, I believe. Interesting. Yeah.

But the guy was relentless. After she died, he asked to be able to photograph and fingerprint her body. Really? And the family was like, no. But he's taking it like, exactly. Why would you not let me do that, you know? Because assuming a body isn't a picnic.

I think it was before she was buried. He was trying to get his hands on her. Well, still. Yeah. I have a theory, Josh. I'd like to hear it, Josh. I have a theory that if you asked 1,000 people who Fred Noonan was, that 999 of them would have no idea who you were talking to.

Yeah. I had no idea who he was until I researched this. Fred Noonan was in the plane in the Lockheed Electra as the navigator that went down on July 2nd, 1937, or supposedly went down. You might not have seen him. There's a picture of him in Earhart. And he is the quintessential old-timey navigator.

Oh, yeah. His button down shirt is buttoned all the way up to his apple. He's got some papers in this front shirt pocket. It's like a pocket protector. His pants are pulled up to just below his nipples. And it just looks like he's like all business. That's who I would have hired. Definitely.

And here's a good guy, apparently. There was before they went off on their equatorial trip around the world. Yeah. Explain to people, because some people might not even know the backstory. We assume everyone knows. But what they were trying to do was circumnavigate the globe.

Along the equator. Along the equator. Just as long as you could possibly take to get around the globe. Right. Obviously not all in one shot. They did this in installments. But they were definitely not doing it in installments

of four or 500 miles at a pop. No. And by this time, we should also say this is 1937 when they undertook this trip. But by this time, Amelia Earhart was already like this worldwide internationally famous figure. Sure. She was a well-known pacifist, which is pretty cool.

She was a women's rights advocate. Very cool. Like women can do anything that guys can do kind of thing. Right. She was a study in contrast, though. Apparently, one of her friends had given her a 50-50 chance of surviving this trip. And she actually agreed with it.

And she had said that she wasn't worried for herself. Because she maintained this what she called a feminine conceit that she was afraid of aging. Right. So she wasn't really worried about dying. But she was worried about Fred. Oh, that's nice. Because he was like this nice guy with the family.

Yeah. And she was right to worry because on July 2nd, 1937, they just peered off the face of the earth. So what you're saying is she had guts of steel, nurses of steel. She did. She'd already been awarded the Flying Cross by Congress. She received the National Geographic Award

from President Herbert Hoover. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic. 10 years before, she'd broken an altitude record. She was the first woman to fly around the world. Wow. So all of this in about a 10 or 12-year career, she'd done all this stuff. So when she disappeared, the whole world knew.

Oh, yeah. It was big, big news. And she, well, we'll talk about where she disappeared broadly because they still don't know for sure, which is one of the problems. She departed in her Lockheed Electra, which is, to me, one of the coolest-looking planes ever built, shiny silver, just really cool-looking plane.

And she departed Lai Papua New Guinea? Yes. Papua New Guinea? To probably escape a Kiri outbreak. Oh, really? I don't know. That's the only place that that is found. Well, they departed Lai to go for one of the longest stretches

of this flight. And they were setting out for Howland Island, which was about 2,500 miles away from when they were going. Right. So consider this, Chuck. They'd already flown most of the way around the world. Yeah, they were about 7,000 miles short. Yeah, and then this was the longest stretch.

Yeah. And it was also going to eat up a lot of that last 7,000 miles. It was 2,500 miles from Papua New Guinea to Howland Island. And Howland Island itself was pretty small. Yeah, a mile and a half by a half mile. Yes. Tiny little atoll. And it only rose 20 feet out of the Pacific Ocean.

Yeah. And basically, these atolls out there in the Pacific just are basically columns coming out of the ocean floor. And that's it. So there's no shelf on either side. Yeah, it's like trying to land on a postage stamp, I would think. Right. And it was very apparent to everybody, including

Noonan and Earhart and the US Coast Guard and government, that this is a very dangerous, this is probably the most dangerous leg of the journey. So they had a Coast Guard cutter, the Etasca, who was tasked with tracking them. It was Etasca'd. Right. Yeah, and they also had two additional ships for markers

to help her along. So she wasn't just completely out there alone. They were trying to keep up with her. Because clearly, everyone had a stake in her being successful. And I say her and Fred, poor Fred. He just never gets any accolades. No. No one even knows who he is.

No one knows who he is. So Fred was trying to use celestial navigation, but it was really overcast, so he couldn't do that. They fell out of radio contact. And at dawn, the Etasca picked up a transmission where she said that Noonan kind of figured that they were, should be just over where they were. She was like, look up.

Right over the boat, which was right off of the shore of Howlin Island. Right. But apparently, they didn't see her and the Lockheed Electra. They didn't hear. There was no trace of her. Yeah, they had nothing.

They were pretty sure that they were way off. And about an hour after that, they knew the fuel was running low, and about an hour after that, they got the final transmission from her, which basically just said, we are running north to south. Those were her last words that anyone ever heard. Yeah. Very sad.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal?

No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it

and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road.

OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god.

Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander

each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So about that time, the news got back that they never showed up to Howland Island. Yeah. And President Roosevelt, who is a friend of hers, he also was a great admirer of hers as well, ordered a massive search by the Navy.

And remember, we said the Japanese helped as well. So it was a multinational search and rescue mission that covered a quarter of a million square miles. Yeah. That is a huge, huge area. Yeah, Texas is a little less than 270,000. And so it's just slightly less than the state of Texas. Right.

And it was open water that they're searching. Yes. And you know, the old joke is, look at all that water. And the reply is, yeah, and that's just the top of it. Right. That's one of the problems. Yeah, exactly. You're scanning an area the size of Texas

and what possibly lies beneath all that. Right. And but you're hoping that if the thing broke up, you would find some wreckage, some sign of life, something floating. Sure. And they found nothing, nothing that they could link to Earhart or Noonan.

Like they just disappeared. And actually, FDR took a lot of flak, we should say, because he spent $4 million in the middle of the Great Depression just to search for this one person or, well, these two people. See, poor Fred Noonan. Yeah. But he always stood by that as far as I know.

Again, though, it was a fruitless search. And they turned up nothing, right? I think that'd be a great band name. I know I say that, but poor Fred Noonan. That's a good one. I'm going to have to remember that in case El Cheep over breaks up. After the Navy search, they basically

discontinued their search and said, you know what? We can't find her and Fred. And we're going to send a destroyer out to Gardner Island. It was called Gardner Island back then. And now it's Nicumaroro. Nicumaroro. Nicumaroro. Yeah.

And they did this because radio transmissions on her frequency were being broadcast in that area. Which is pretty substantial, because this is an uninhabited area. And this is still an unexplained aspect of this mystery. There were sporadic bursts of radio transmissions. And no one still can say why. They were from some guy named Fred Noonan, so they didn't

pay any attention. Exactly. They were like, who's that? Have you seen Amelia Earhart? I guess he's a swimmer. So they basically sent a couple of dispatch planes to that island, found nothing, and said, all right, we're calling off this area.

She's not out here. There was no evidence of life. Right. And that would have been that. That was 1937, right? Yeah. And the planes went back to the destroyer, their aircraft carrier, and left.

And that probably would have been the end of the association between Gardner Island, or Nika Nakumaroro, and Amelia Earhart had it not been colonized by the British in 1938. Had it not been for their penchant for colonization. Yes, period. If British imperialism didn't exist, these artifacts never would have turned up.

But how they like to colonize things, they colonize this remote outpost. They actually gathered up some other islanders nearby and said, hey, you're going to live here now. And when these islanders went on the island, they found evidence that a castaway had been there recently. They found some pretty jarring stuff, right, Chuck? Yeah, and I mean, most certainly a castaway,

because they found a woman's shoe, a man's shoe, a liquor bottle, and a container for a sextant, which is one of those, you know, those are the cool looking navigational device that you hold up. And it looks like something at a league of extraordinary gentlemen or something. Which Fred Noonan had on the plane with them. Of course he did.

Yes. You know, Fred. And then they also found, certainly not the least of which would be human skull and bones. Yeah, here's where this thing would be just done, probably, in my opinion. Oh, where they just say this is them? Yeah, yeah.

They found one set of human remains. The islanders took this to the governor of the island. His name was Gerald, oh, I can't remember his name. Gerald Gallagher. Thanks, buddy. Yeah. They took it to Gerald Gallagher. Gallagher says, I suspect I know who this is.

Let's get a physician looking at this. The physician examines it, and the bones are promptly lost forever. No one has any idea what happened to them. Luckily, this physician took pretty methodical notes and wrote descriptions and drew drawings of the bones. And so in the 90s, some forensic anthropologists got their hands on these notes.

And they said, pretty much unequivocally, that these bones were the bones of a woman of northern European ancestry. Bingo. Who was about five foot seven, and Amelia Earhart was five foot eight. Well, there you have it. Well, you would think.

They're off by an inch. It wasn't her. Exactly. But in this day and age, you have to have DNA evidence to prove it controversially, right? Sure. So the bones go missing. We can't get a DNA match.

But consider that on an uninhabited island where they think that Amelia Earhart might have gone down, the remains of a woman of northern European ancestry who was pretty much the same height as Amelia Earhart were found a few years after her disappearance. I say score. I say score as well. Game set match.

But they also found some other cool stuff. In the area, the island was called Seven Sight. And that was the little encampment that they believe was used by them. And they found some other cool stuff like clam shell fragments that basically they were smashed open by somebody. Right, and exposed to fire, which unless they were

struck by lightning, that's pretty much definitive evidence of human use. Well, yeah. And they also found bones of fish and birds and turtles that had been exposed to fire. So in other words, somebody was cooking up something to eat. What else did they found? They found pieces of bottle that show signs of use as a

cutting and sawing tools. They also found a little piece of a knife, which they managed, I don't know how they did this, because you sent me this link. There's a picture of just the knife blade, and they went back and managed to identify it as a type of jack knife that was produced within this time period by this company in Rhode Island.

So it was produced from 1930 to 1942 or something like that. Score. And then they went back this year. This group called the, we should say their name, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or TIGHAR. Yeah, they've been, I think, three or four different times

over the years to this island. They went this summer, as I was writing this, they were preparing the expedition. And they found the rest of the knife. And this is where they hope to get DNA evidence from. Well, yeah, and the reason that the knife discovery is important, or the rest of the knife, they originally found the blades only.

And then they found the knife this summer, and it showed that the knife blades had been forcibly removed from the knife, indicating that maybe that they took out each blade to maybe, and of course, we're speculating, but maybe to attach it to an end of a spear or something like that for fishing. For fishing? Which totally makes sense.

Anyone who's seen Castaway knows what that's all about. I just saw that the other day again, by the way. They also found Gardner Island, by the way, became uninhabited. In 1963, there was a prolonged drought, and the British government were just like, just forget it. Everybody just leave. And the group, Tighar, when they went to excavate around

there, they found, in this abandoned village, folk art made of aluminum aircraft metal. Right, which they can't definitively prove came from her plane, obviously, so come on. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence of female Castaway handicrafts, or maybe Tom, he was the big crafty guy. But there, I don't think Tom made it.

I think Amelia Earhart made it. I think Tom was maybe killed on impact or drowned, and Amelia made it to the island and died there alone. Quite possibly, and she may have even eaten him. No. That's a new theory, I think, you just launched. That goes in with your disappearance of the Neanderthals. That's right, they melted.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our

friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the

I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart Podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing.

Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there

for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one.

Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You were the reason we're talking about these objects that they've recently recovered, though, is because they're trying to get some DNA, called Touch DNA, off of a few of these items. They submitted 10, I believe, out of 100. It's one of the reasons why finding that knife was very important. It's huge.

Because I believe they submitted the blades, and then they found some glass from what looked like a cosmetics jar, and a couple of buttons, and they submitted these things to a place in Canada. And I think, as of today, I still don't think they have the results of that DNA testing done. I didn't see that they had it done yet. It's so guarded, but they wouldn't guard that.

It'd be such enormous news that we would have known. That's what I think. Chuck, there's a lot of people out there who also think that her plane survived intact and is at the bottom of the Pacific. That's awesome. And people still, and I think Tigar included, undertake sonar searches of the ocean bottom.

And there's a good chance that the plane did make it. They were flying supposedly at about 1,000 feet, which is extremely low. They were doing about 100 miles an hour, which is pretty slow for a plane, especially a Lockheed Electra. So it conceivably didn't necessarily bust into a million pieces. Right.

So it's possible it's still out there at the bottom of the ocean. Well, I am totally sold. And I know I said, every single Jack the Ripper killer we brought up, I said, yeah, he sounds like the guy. But I'm completely convinced that this is where she spent her last days, like you. And that she ate Fred Noonan?

I don't know about that. Poor Fred. Poor Fred. But we should also mention, too, that they used a new, well, it's new to them at least, ground penetrating radar, GPR for the first time on this last trip to summer. And that is when you can actually look beneath the surface for anything that was buried, like Fred.

It's magic. And they didn't find anything, though, because not because there was anything there necessarily, but there were lots of roots and air pockets underneath the thing. And I get the feeling that this looks, since you're looking for something buried, looks for pockets of air, and so that it was completely inconclusive, they threw it in the ocean.

She may have also pulverized his bones to cover up her abomination. Maybe so. Yeah. I wonder, I think this is what happened. I wonder how long they survived, though. I wonder if it was weeks or months or what. Well, consider it.

I mean, if her plane went down in 1937 and they started colonizing it in 1938, she lasted less than a year. But can you imagine if she just gave up? And then a week later, the British come to colonize Gardner Island? Yeah. I mean, how horrible would that be?

So she made it less than a year if she made it to Gardner Island or Nicomororo. What I'm surprised about, and maybe she tried to do this, and Fred tried to do this, I'm surprised she didn't leave something behind. Like, instead of doing a handicraft, maybe try and scratch the name Amelia into the aluminum and bury that or something.

Or maybe something is there and they just haven't found it yet. Yeah, there's a tree that says, crow a towing on it, because she was a history buff. Yeah. Amelia was here. Well, that's it. As it stands so far, huh? Do you think we'll ever do an update if they find her?

We always say we will. And we never do. And we never do. So the answer to that question is no. If you want to learn more about Amelia Earhart and see a picture of how cute Fred Noonan is in his little old-timey aviator get up, you should type Earhart into the search bar

at HowStuffWorks.com. That's E-A-R-H-A-R-T. And that should bring it up, I would think, unless we have articles on other Earhards. I don't think so. I guess it's time then for Listener Mail, right? Yeah. I got one here. I asked for rehab experiences quite a while ago.

And I've got one that I meant to read earlier. And here it is. And I'm going to jump around here. It's kind of long. This is from Scott. And in 2005, he had pretty much worked himself into a rehab hospital. He was working three different jobs, hit a wall,

couldn't decide to walk this way or that way, or even pick up a pencil. So he went to the ER after a 15-minute interview with a psychiatrist, who he said was quite attractive. I'm not sure why he told me that. He said she left. And a guard came to stand outside the room. And she said, you know, you're not just

going to take a break. She said, you need to be checked in. And this is how I learned of the 72-hour hold, where a doctor decides you're at risk. So that's what happened to him initially. Next, I wound up in an ambulance for a trip to a psych lockdown ward called Station 22. It sounds like the beginning of a very bad movie,

like a horror film. Yeah, Station 22. Exactly. They dropped me off behind two heavily locked doors. And the next thing I knew, I was relieved of my laces and belt. Now, I should say I was not suicidal. I was just really out of ideas. I don't know what that means.

Out of ideas? Like, he was indecisive. He couldn't. No, I think he means he was just burned out. Was he having a nervous breakdown? Out of options, out of ideas. Yeah, it sounds like it. I spent eight days in Station 22

and saw some interesting things. And here are a few. A meth addict was admitted. She looked like she should weigh about 110 to 120 pounds. But she weighed more like 80. She took one drink of orange juice, promptly dropped to the floor like a sack of bones. And this is what I learned what a code red was.

The crash cart, the ER, and the whole parade. After leaving Station 22, I transferred to a place in the suburbs for a 28-day program. It was pretty cool. I met a very well-known author and many other fascinating people. Saw the girl sneaking out of the guy's room, the whole thing. Had to bear the AA rhymes and sayings.

And I totally understand Sandra Bullock in 28 days now. The big news was the guy who wrote a million little pieces was coming the next week because he had stayed there before when he was writing the book. And the Oprah people came on site to work out camera locations and blocking. And two days before they were to descend, the I made it up scandal occurred.

So he never showed. Wow. Clearly. And here are just a few other little tips. People in rehab are insane about sweets. I think there's a definite link between sugar and addiction. Everyone seemed to want to hook up with something sweet. I have seen that heroin sickness looks worse

than dying in a fire. Wow, that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. And a surprising number of people were repeats. I'm talking like, yeah, this is my seventh time here. And I also saw a lot of people who snuck off for a drink and got kicked out. So Scott is doing much better now.

He is back on track, living a great life. Way to go, Scott. And he says, I love what you guys do and how you do it. I now give to Kiva and Coed. Awesome. And pretty much paste the hauls into your next episode. Awesome. Thank you very much, Scott.

I'm very glad you're feeling better, right, Chuck? As long as you're not pasting the hauls of Station 22, buddy. Keep in touch with us on Facebook and Twitter. Yeah? Yeah, you know, quickly can I say that if you have written listener mail, we don't answer all those anymore because there's just too many.

Facebook is a great place to submit questions and get answers quicker or at all. That's facebook.com slash stuff you should know. But we still read the listener mail. Sure, sure. Twitter is S-Y-S-K podcast. We also have that Kiva team, K-I-V-A dot org slash team slash stuff you should know.

Coed's website is C-O-E-D-U-C dot org. And you can always email us. Like Chuck said, we don't always respond. I do sometimes. Do you still? Yeah, OK. Send us an email to let us know what you do or what you think you would do or what you should do

when you run out of ideas. Wrap it up. Send it to us at StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our home page. The HowStuffWorks iPhone app has arrived.

Download it today on iTunes. On the podcast, hey dude, the 90s called David Lacher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass

on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.