The strangest aspects of the human experience

File 0142: Four Exceptional Years

02/20/2025
  •  (February 28 2025

We celebrate another year around the sun for our dear podcast by reviewing this last year's topics and talking about any updates we have since found out

Our Fourth Exceptional Year 


File 0116-0118: A Recipe for Madness and Mayhem

  • The History of Recipes: Humans have been playing with our food since the beginning of time and we have been writing those experiments down since at least 1700 BC. Cookbooks tell us a lot about a people and the culture of the times. Also they help us make delicious things
  • Nellie Bly: The scrappy young reporter who faked mental illness so that she could sneak her way into a mental hospital to find out the truth about the conditions and the people committed there.
  • Brother XII: A mystic who in the later 1920s founded a cult in Nanaimo BC, known as the Aquarian Foundation

  • Brother XII – No new information but after the purchase of the land in 2016 it has been put up for sale in 2021, it doesn't look like there has been any takers
    https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/de-courcy-island-farm-of-notorious-cult-leader-up-for-sale-4689224 

File 0119-120: A Belly-Splitting Good Time

  • Perchta: In Austria and Bavaria, Dec 5th + 6th are special days, these are the days that Krampus visits children. The rest of the month is primarily dedicated to Santa, but on the week leading up to January 5th, that's when the Perchten rule in the name of Perchta
  • Cold Plunges: A unique new way to better your health? Or a dangerous practice supported by unlicensed "health experts"
  • Rollerskates and Parol: In Venezuela they have a unique way of getting to mass during the holidays: on roller-skates. Meanwhile in the Philippines, paper lanterns shaped as stars are used throughout the holidays

  • San Fernando switches to sustainable lighting this year for Parol
    https://www.rappler.com/philippines/luzon/san-fernando-pampanga-shifts-sustainable-parol-2024/ 

File 0121-0122: More Than a Hiccup of Justice

  • The Chamberlain-Kahn Act: On Jul 9 1918, US Congress brings in the Chamberlain-Kahn act. The law implemented a public health program that came to be known as the American Plan, whose stated goal was to combat the spread of venereal disease. Who was responsible for this spread? Women of course!
  • Hiccups: Some people are blessed to never have had hiccups in their life, but most of us know the torment. But what happens if you get hiccups and don't stop? How can you actually stop them?

File 0123: Laura R Samotin, the Debut Author

  • We have a very special guest, Laura R Samotin author of The Sins on Their Bones, a queer, historical fantasy book rooted deep in Jewish folklore and mysticism. Halli got the opportunity to get an early read of this book and was blown away so she had to bring Laura on so that we could talk about her inspirations and the stories behind this deeply personal novel. 

File 0124-0125: When Houses BITE Back

  • New House Rituals: Courtney tells us about new house rituals, practices based in folklore, superstition or tradition designed to bring luck, prosperity and clear out bad energy in a new living space
  • Jehovah's Witnesses and the BITE Model: The BITE model of Authoritarian Control and a system developed by Steven Hassan designed to identify when a group or organization is exhibiting dangerous cult-like behavior. We will go through the checklist and discuss which items the Jehovah's Witnesses practice and what exactly makes them so dangerous

File 0126-0127: Going Wilde in 18th Century London

  • Jonathan Wilde: Thief-Taker General: Often called the first fence, Jonathan Wilde lived a bizarre and devious life, one where he took advantage of both the public and law enforcement. A criminal Robin Hood who didn't share the wealth he conned people out and even had an office in the Old Bailey for a time, Wilde was a fascinating figure and a trash human

File 0128-0129: Nazis won't change their spots but cheetahs will

  • The German American Bund: Nathan tells us about a weird time in American history between 1936 and 1941 where some thought the most American thing you could do was join a Nazi organization
  • Cheetahs: People know a lot of things about cheetahs, they're really fast, they live in Africa, they're cool looking. What most people don't know is they are the most inbred creature on this planet

  • Efforts to help cheetahs continue to persist. In October the DOE (Department of Environment) continued its work around Tehran-Mashhad road, a road in Iran that is known to run through Cheetah habitat and has been a high risk area of cheetahs

    DOE has been working tirelessly over the years to remove domestic animals from the area and has ultimately secured 150,000 hectares as well as the nearby Golestan National Park as prime cheetah habitat

    They have a captive breeding program in place and all of this effort is to ensure that those animals when released have their best chances at survival. Part of this is increasing the lighting around this road, decreasing the speed limits, adding fencing and even drones to monitor the situation, spending nearly $3million on these efforts 
    https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/508583/Don-t-lose-hope-for-cheetah-s-survival 

  • I also came across this wild story, which isn't news but I had to share it

    Did you know that some zoos use dogs as emotional support animals for cheetahs?/

    The San Diego Zoo was the first zoo in the United States to pair dogs with cheetahs. The first pairing was established in 1980. A Golden Retriever named Anna was paired with a male cheetah named Arusha. Arusha was raised by hand and needed an animal companion.

    It wasn't possible for another cheetah to stay at the zoo, so zookeepers decided to try pairing Arusha with Anna the dog. At the time, it was unheard of to pair a dog with a wild cat. However, the zookeepers reasoned that out of all the big cats, cheetahs have temperaments most similar to dogs. So, they took a chance and introduced Arusha to Anna.

    At first, Arusha didn't like Anna and swatted and hissed at her, but Anna didn't react defensively or aggressively. The zookeepers discovered that Anna's lack of reaction was due to her desire to please the humans. When the zookeepers hid from sight, Anna stood up for herself and barked at Arusha. She eventually became a strong influence on Arusha, and they became a bonded pair.

    Since the success of Arusha's and Anna's revolutionary relationship, at least 15 other zoos in the US have adopted emotional support dog programs for cheetahs. The majority of cheetah and dog pairings occur when the animals are young cubs and puppies that are about 3 to 4 months old. The introduction process is very slow, especially since cheetahs can be very timid.

    The two animals will start off in separate enclosures with a fence between them. When they get used to each other, zookeepers and trainers will leash the puppy and remove the fence. The puppy remains leashed until the cheetah cub becomes more comfortable around the puppy.

    If the introduction is successful, the two animals will get used to each other and start to play together. They eventually become quite inseparable and usually stay together except during mealtimes.

    Although various dog breeds and mixed breeds from animal rescues have successfully paired with cheetahs, the most popular dog breeds for these programs are Golden Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers, and Anatolian Shepherds. You'll notice that these dog breeds often have devoted and confident temperaments and have a hardy build that can withstand some roughhousing.

    Over time, zookeepers and researchers discovered that dogs make good companions for cheetahs because they tend to help cheetahs feel calm. Their good-natured and happy-go-lucky personality seems to rub off on cheetahs. If the dogs are calm, then the cheetahs don't feel a need to be so nervous.

    Another reason why dogs are good companions is that they can handle a cheetah's play style, and they both end up expending a lot of each other's energy. Since dogs are more social animals, many also end up teaching cheetahs social cues.

    Zookeepers have noticed that the dog's calming presence doesn't just end with keeping cheetahs relaxed. The relaxed state of cheetahs also encourages them to breed. Cheetahs that are too nervous aren't able to breed successfully. So, dogs have also been helping with cheetah conservation programs 

    https://www.dogster.com/lifestyle/cheetah-emotional-support-dogs 

File 0130-0131: Eat the Rich

  • Brave Little Hunter and Friends: Courtney tells us about the orca calf that became orphaned on Vancouver Island and how a community came together to take care of it. Then she talks about the exciting new classification of another species of orca

  • The Yeongno (영노): The yeongno is a character from Korean masked dances, a creature supposedly fallen from heaven that will only return once it has eaten 100 yangban, the noble elite of the Joseon era

File 0132: Kate and the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen

  • This week we have a very special guest, Kate! A survivor of CMRI, the Congregation of Mary Immaculate queen, a high control Catholic group that has existed right under our noses for the last 50 years 

File 0133-0134: Trasmoz Hot Binturongs

  • Nashville Hot Chicken: Seems like every restaurant these days has hot chicken on the menu, but where did that idea originate?
  • Binturongs: I have not seen a binturong in person, as far as I can recall. I certainly hope I would have remembered something that looks like a cross between a cat, a small bear, and a racoon, with a prehensile tail that's roughly the weight of a kindergartener.
  • Just a fun update! In late October 2024, the Louisville, KY Zoo welcomed a 1 year old binturong named Bianca! She came to them from North Carolina and is adorable
    https://www.lex18.com/news/covering-kentucky/louisville-zoo-welcomes-1-year-old-bianca-the-binturong 
  • Trasmoz, Spain: In the 13th century, the entire village of Trasmoz, Spain, was excommunicated for witchcraft and in 1511, Pope Julius II ordered the village to be cursed and it is said to still be cursed today. That's the story anyways

File 0135-0137: Crappy Caraboo Metal

  • Coprophagy: "Eat shit". It's a phrase we've all heard, but have ever truly thought about it? Courtney tells us about coprophagy and why so many animals do it and where this phrase originally came from
  • Folk Metal: Nathan gives us some fun information on the birth of Folk Metal. A sub-genre that deviates from the traditional anti-Christian themes, but still celebrates those themes of accepting "otherness"
  • Nathan's playlist
  • Princess Caraboo: A few miles north of Bristol in Southwest England is the small town of Almondsbury. It's the sleepy kind of English town where not a whole lot happens but on Apr 3 1817 something did happen. You see a an unknow woman had turned up, seemingly disoriented and speaking an unknown language. In a little over a week the entire town and surrounding area would know who she was: her name was Caraboo and she was a princess

  • While I was wrapping up my research on Princess Caraboo, I decided to look into the graveyard where her daughter was said to be buried. I found out that the cemetery has a service where you can pay to find a grave there, so I did that but didn't hear back before we recorded

    Here is what I found

  • "I have checked our records and can confirm that Mary Ann Baker, aged 55 years – address showing as 2 Queen Street, Bedminster, Bristol was buried on the 15th February 1900 in a common interment grave at Arnos Vale Cemetery.

    A common interment is a grave which could have been excavated to hold up to twenty people. Generally, those who were buried in a common interment, had either no surviving family or relatives, or if there were family or relatives, then they didn't have the means to pay for a private grave plot.

    I have provided a site map which shows the areas that were used for common interments; most of these areas would not originally have had any grave markers and most at this time are very overgrown. Unfortunately, we are unable to confirm which common interment area was used.

    Best wishes,

    Ruth Preece

    Research & Operations Officer

    Arnos Vale Cemetery, West Lodge, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3EW"

File 0138-0139: So, You Want to Publish a Book

  • In this two-part episode our hosts, Cayla, Nathan and Courtney get to grill Halli on what it takes to break into self-publishing. Halli explains the importance of editors, formatting, ISBNs, covers and so much more!

File 0140-0141: Werewolves of Pangea

  • The Beast of Gévaudan: In 1764, the quiet countryside of Gévaudan, France, had become not so quiet. Something was killing people, but no one was quite sure what and still aren't to this day
  • How Trees Nearly Ended the World: 300 million years ago life as we know it nearly ended in the frigid grasp of a seemingly unstoppable ice age, and trees may have be an the root of it

Updates on Topics of Years Past

Cunning Folk (File 0104)

  • There's a new book out about the history of Cunning Folk - Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic by Tabitha Stanmore. Stanmore's work is the first time I've come across the topic of cunning folk meant for the everyday reader, instead of a feature in an academic article or paper. It's readable and fascinating, as she draws portraits of "service magic" and "service witches", and helps to upend our idea that all magic was seen as vile and evil by religious folk. As we talked about, for a few centuries before the famous witch hunts led by zealots like Witchfinder Matthew Hopkins, magic and religion easily co-existed.
    https://bookshop.org/p/books/cunning-folk-life-in-the-era-of-practical-magic-tabitha-stanmore/20328456?ean=9781639730537 

The Michael Jackson Allegations (File 0099):

  • From Here to the Great Unknown 
  • In October last year, Lisa-Marie Presley's autobiography was released, in case you forgot, she had been married to MJ for a couple years and were friends for decades. This memoir was something Lisa Marie had tried to do for years but could never quite figure out how, she asked her daughter, Riley, to help then a month later she died. Riley later found all these tapes of Lisa Marie talking about her life The book is split between transcripts of what Lisa Marie said/wrote and Riley adding her memories and additional context LM and MJ had just started to become friends right before the first allegations at which point he disappeared. She put it out in the ether that if MJ needed someone to talk to she'd be that someone. Which he took her up on and they began to talk a lot They had met a handful of times before this but just more in passing, but talking during the allegations caused them to get really close a lot faster and she was one of the few people he was talking to at that time. LM talks about how there was just this connection she couldn't explain LM is still married to get first husband (and father of her children) at this time, but MJ invites her out to Las Vegas they spent a week together, she says nothing happened but right before the end he confessed that he loved her but totally understood if she couldn't return that affection But she had been feeling it too, LM says she goes home and she tells her husband who was like "you turned him down, right?" Which she said "I didn't say anything" which he saw as the death knell of their relationship and they split very shortly after that and she entered a relationship with Michael She says around her he wasn't the king of pop, he wasn't the calculated soft spoken the public saw but still was incredibly kind, patient and thoughtful She says the way MJ treated her, his interest in knowing everything about her and all her thoughts and feelings really reminded her of her dad and that those was some of the happiest times of her life Apparently he also told her everything and one time she was having a conversation with his mom and Janet and mom was like "he told you that stuff?" In surprise and Janet said "I wish he'd talk to us like that" He also was used to controlling his environment and the people in it, if something came up he didn't want to talk about he'd shut it down. But he never did that with her and loved that she could be just blatantly and brutally honest with him that she had no qualms with sharing what she really thought about something, it would make him laugh sometimes just because he loved how real he could be with her, no one else dare talk to him like that Which when you think about it growing up as Elvis Presley's daughter kind of puts you in a unique position of seeing really really famous people as normal and treating them like anyone else. Her dad was her dad, not some rock star and Michael was Michael he had specific songs he sang for LM and each of her kids and Riley talks about how they were just like any other parents they'd drop her off at school or just hang out together, he loved spending time with the kids and very much treated them like his own LM also says in no uncertain terms that she never saw anything that would make her suspicious for even a moment that he might be a predator. That she would've killed him if she had, after the shit her stepfather had done to her while growing up Around the release of History MJ became more reclusive and LM began to sense he was using drugs and keeping secrets and some of the behaviors he was exhibiting reminded her far too much of her father in his final years LM had been a scientologist at this point, her mom have joined and forcing her to join as a child. The church had tried to ger her to recruit MJ, but he wouldn't bite. With scientology's anti drug stance she was incredibly opposed to drug use some of their worst fights were about that She would confront him about his drug use and he'd dodge the question. Both of them began to have several people whispering in their ears telling them to do this that and the other. She was becoming paranoid It was David Miscaviage (the current leader of Scientology) who told her that Michael was planning to file for divorce and it would be better for her she did first. So she did only to find out that Michael had no intention of doing such a thing and he was so hurt by this he refused to talk to her for a long time They eventually began to talk again and hanging out. He would marry Debbie Rowe because he wanted to have kids, but Riley says they spent a lot of time at Neverland and she wonders if he and her mom had an on and off again relationship, but if they did they never said Then on a trip to South Africa to see him perform their plane nearly crashed and this gave LM serious concerns feeling like it was some kind of omen so after that cut off her relationship with him as it had become too toxic, at this stage in their lives they were both bad for each other and it was hurting them both They wouldn't talk for years until one late night he called her. She says he wasn't sober and he kept saying "you were right, everybody around me wants to kill me" that would be the last conversation they had before he died Apparently during their relationship Michael told her he was scared of ending up like her father When he died she attended his funeral and she spent hours with his coffin, feeling horrible that she hadn't been there for him in the last couple years The parts that include Michael are pretty small, but I really enjoyed the book regardless, I had never been an elvis person and hadn't known much about LM, but she was a compelling storyteller and the audiobook is narrated in part by Riley, but in part by Lisa with some of the tapes Riley found. So I recommend checking it out if you have a spare audible credit or something, especially if you have any interest in scientology as there are some interesting insights

The Voynich Manuscript (File 0087)

  • We went through a lot of claims about the Voynich Manuscript in episode 91, but there's an update!!

    • "About 10 years ago, several folios of the mysterious Voynich manuscript were scanned using multispectral imaging. Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of the Medieval Academy of America, has analyzed those scans and just posted the results, along with a downloadable set of images, to her blog, Manuscript Road Trip. Among the chief findings: Three columns of lettering have been added to the opening folio that could be an early attempt to decode the script. And while questions have long swirled about whether the manuscript is authentic or a clever forgery, Fagin Davis concluded that it's unlikely to be a forgery and is a genuine medieval document."

    • "When the manuscript first came into Wilfrid Voynich's hands in 1912, he noted that the first page had an effaced inscription in the lower margin, applying a chemical reagent to the page around 1914 to make it more visible. He thought he could make out a signature: "Jacobi à Tepenecz," aka an alchemist in Prague named Jacobus Sinapius, who probably owned the manuscript in the late 16th or early 17th century…Fagin Davis's analysis confirmed Voynich's discovery. She also noted that there was no evidence that the Voynich manuscript is a palimpsest, i.e., parchment that had been reused and thus showed evidence of underwriting."

    • Fagin Davis also discovered Roman alphabetical characters in the margins, as if someone long ago tried to unravel the manuscript's secrets. In turn, she tried to decode them, and figure out who made that original decoding attempt.

    • "To find out, Fagin Davis combed through several letters written in the so-called 'humanistic bookhand' commonly used by Petrarch and Boccaccio in 14th-century Italy, since the two Roman alphabet columns in the Voynich manuscript were also written in that style. She compared those handwriting samples with the columns in the Voynich manuscript…One was a very close match: a September 12, 1640 letter to Athanasius Kircher written by Johannes Marcus Marci, a doctor in Prague who inherited the manuscript from his friend Georg Baresch when the alchemist died in 1662. Marci sent the manuscript to Kircher in Rome in 1665, hoping that the Jesuit scholar and polymath would be able to decipher it."

    • But ultimately, Fagin Davis said the discoveries are not going to help scholars decode the Manuscript itself, but these clues on early decoding attempts add a fascinating historical footnote to a still largely-unraveled mystery.

The Satanic Temple (File 0080)

The Georgia Guidestones (File 0068)

  • I will freely admit to some deep skepticism around this 2024 CNN article about the potential identity of the man who commissioned the Georgia Guidestones (it reads like sensationalism to some degree and is from CNN, which is no longer a trustworthy news source). They posit a theory that a physician from Fort Dodge, Iowa named Herbert Kersten may have been this man. Kersten was a known eugenicist and racist and was troubled by "overpopulation", a concern literally carved into the Guidestones. And if that wasn't bad enough, Kersten promoted the views of people like the notorious Klansman and Neo-Nazi David Duke.

    • "Most important of all, America should now begin to direct the attention of the world to solving the fundamental problem which threatens to engulf all humanity in social and economic catastrophe," Herbert H. Kersten, M.D. wrote in a letter published by the Des Moines Register on January 25, 1981, less than a year after the Guidestones were unveiled. "I refer to the uncontrolled reproduction of our species, which has already caused human numbers to far exceed the level which our planet can support in decency."

  • I think the evidence is mildly compelling (CNN notes that the return address on the letters to the banker who handled the funds for the Guidestones construction was apparently the same as Kersten's, but I've seen no real proof of this other than the say-so of the author of the article). But it is an interesting twist, because if Kersten was the man who paid for the Guidestones, it's hilarious that the people who hated the thing (mostly Republican Evangelicals) and Kersten would likely have very similar ideals.
    https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/02/us/georgia-guidestones-mystery-cec-cnnphotos/ 

Simona Kossak (File 0066)

The Forty Elephants (File 0065)

  • I had mentioned in the episode about the all-female thief ring, Forty Elephants, may have a tv series in the works, and it's true! Just last week, the first images of the cast of the Hulu series called "A Thousand Blows" were released: https://tellyvisions.org/article/thousand-blows-who-playthe-forty-elephants 

    • From the official synopsis, it sounds like the showrunners are blending real history with drama, which is exactly what I would expect from a show like this.

      • "Inspired by the true life stories of a group of characters battling for survival in the brutal East End of London in the 1880s. Hezekiah Moscow and Alec Munroe, best friends on the run from Jamaica, are thrust into the criminal underbelly of London's thriving bare-knuckle boxing scene. As Hezekiah finds fortune and fame through the art of pugilism, he attracts the attention of the infamous Queen of the Forty Elephants, Mary Carr, who exploits his talents to further her criminal enterprise. Meanwhile, the menacing and self-declared emperor of the East End boxing world, Sugar Goodson, is determined to destroy Hezekiah, whose ambitions to fight in the West End threaten everything he has built. What ensues is a battle of the old world against the new."

  • The show is set to premier all episodes on February 21, 2025 on Hulu.

The Montauk Project (File 0063)

  • Remember when I covered the Montauk Project, one of the things I shared was footage from some people that grew up in the area and used to go to the old base and poke around and film?

  • The guy who filmed that content was Brian Minnick and he has released a book called "Montauk is Strange"

    In the book, and through speaking with him, it's clear Minnick is not swayed by the wildest conspiracy theories and myths told about the Montauk Project, but he's also seen too much to discount all the stories, and he keeps an open mind toward everything.

    "I do feel like it was a place to always roll out the first new technology and weaponry, and that's been proven back to the beginning of the century," Minnick says, referring to early wireless telegraphy and radio projects dating back to 1919 in the hamlet, among other important advancements which are chronicled in his book. "I also feel like it's a place of significance on the Earth itself. Just thinking back to ancient times and the land itself," he adds, also acknowledging, of course, Montauk's strategic position to protect New York City. "That is maybe a reason this property was selected in the first place to build something upon."

    https://www.danspapers.com/2024/08/montauk-is-strange-book-camp-hero/ 

  • The more than 400 pages are dense and absolutely jam-packed with fantastic photos, direct scans of documents, and heaps of information, both hard facts and carefully collected and preserved stories that might have otherwise been lost to time, much like the crumbling base and its lonely tower which will inevitably fall and vanish into memory.

    "I really feel like the time is limited out there," Minnick says, pointing to the deteriorating radar dish, which regularly drops large sheets of sharp, rusty metal, especially on windy days. "In fact, the last time we went might have been our last visit to the radar itself. It's in really bad shape, and I don't think it's safe to bring people into anymore or even show them."

    https://store.bookbaby.com/book/montauk-is-strange 

A Plague of Locusts (File 0029)

  • New studies may have found a way to use existing meteorological technology as an early warning system for locust swarms, and by early we're talking maybe 5-7 hours notice, but that's more than we have ever had so that's a win

Ryan Shtuka (File 0025)

The Yuba County 5 (File 0025)

  • Still no answers of what exactly happened to the Yuba County 5 but there has been some new details and perspectives A book named "Things Aren't Right" by Tony Wright was published in January last year. This book is by far the most extensive take I've seen on the topic. Tony Wright became absolutely fixated and developed relationships with the remaining family members of many of the men, and spent days down in the Yuba police station reading through case files. I have slowly been working through this book and it has been fascinating and absolutely worth a read if this topic interests you 
    https://geniusbookpublishing.com/products/things-arent-right
  • Interest in the story was renewed and brought to new audiences last spring when Netflix's Files of the Unexplained did an episode on the topicI have been meaning to watch the episode but haven't got around to it, but reviews seem to indicate some important details were left out

  • https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/files-of-the-unexplained-what-netflixs-yuba-county-five-doc-leaves-out/ 

Counterfeit Wine (File 0022)

  • In mid-October 2024, "Europol, the inter-European police force, announced…that it had dismantled a wide-ranging scheme that manufactured wine in Italy, mislabeled the wine as French, then clandestinely shipped the supposed Grand Cru vintages to unsuspecting wine merchants around the world. Six people, who were not identified by Europol, were arrested."

  • Apparently this ring had been around for at least a decade and their business boomed during the COVID years.

  • https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/world/europe/wine-fraud-france-italy.html 

Fugu: The Deadliest Sushi (File 0022)

  • The "essence" of pufferfish is condensed into a small packet of oil to be added to the soup base, Nissin said in a statement on its website, though it did not divulge how the potentially deadly flavouring is prepared.

    "In recent years … ramen shops specializing in fugu ramen have been popping up, grabbing the hearts of many ramen fans," it said.

    A Nissin spokesperson told CNN it has no plans to sell the fugu flavour outside Japan.

    Each cup comes with dried chicken meatballs, spring onions and Japanese-style shredded egg in a soup base enriched by a dash of yuzu, according to the statement.

    A CNN journalist who tried the instant noodles said it tasted of seafood broth and yuzu, a citrus fruit commonly used in Japanese cooking. Fugu generally has a mild flavour, which wasn't prominent in the dish.

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/cup-noodles-serves-up-notoriously-poisonous-pufferfish-1.6940349 

The Corrupted Blood Incident (File 0018)

  • Eons ago we talked about the corrupted blood incident, a unique event that occurred in the MMO World of Warcraft back in 2005. A player had managed to make a disease that was supposed to be reserved for a dungeon encounter spread rapidly through the common areas of Azeroth. This event is so significant that it has been used as a model for research on how people would react in similar circumstances and was even referenced in the early days of COVID

    The disease had been patched and hasn't been a threat in game ever since. But there are two versions of World of Warcraft, there's the main one that has all current content but then there is WoW classic. Classic is a version of the game hosted by Blizzard that reverses time to the olden days, several expansions and hundreds of patches ago.

    Last month blizzard reintroduced the corrupted blood disease in Wow classic and sure enough people found a way to bring it to the common areas and sure enough it also wreaked havoc. This iteration was left in the game for 6 days before it was removed after many complaints

    https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/wow-classic-corrupted-blood-incident-again/ 

Teal Swan (File 0008)

  • Jared Dobson, one of Teal's followers but also one of her romantic partners (and apparently father of one of her children), has a tell-all series on the YouTube channel Mormon Stories. I have not watched this yet but am planning to, as I'm really curious to hear his side of things. From the article where I found the YouTube channel, this sounds like it was a traumatic experience while he was part of Teal's group.

The Great Emu War (File 0007)

The Tunguska Event (File 0006)

  • In 1908 a massive explosion flatted a large chunk of Siberian countryside, the event we know today as the Tunguska Event. While what exactly happened has never been proven with absolute certainty the most common theory is that Tunguska experienced a near miss with an asteroid

    But of course this isn't the only theory and one new one caught my attention, that the event was caused by earth meeting with a black hole

    https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/tunguska-event-black-hole 

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