WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.120 --> 00:00:04.799 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today 2 00:00:04.919 --> 00:00:08.839 I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated April May 3 00:00:08.919 --> 00:00:12.279 twenty twenty six. As a reminder, Radio Eye is a 4 00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:15.199 reading service intended for people who are blind or have 5 00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:18.239 other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. 6 00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:22.640 Please join me now for the first article, which is 7 00:00:22.679 --> 00:00:26.879 part two of an article from the March edition. One 8 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:30.280 of the Ally's secret weapons against the Nazis was a 9 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:33.159 twenty one year old woman armed with the microphone and 10 00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:38.479 a script of lies by April White. In the first part, 11 00:00:38.679 --> 00:00:41.479 we learned the story of Agnes Bernauer, a twenty one 12 00:00:41.560 --> 00:00:45.399 year old German Jewish refugee who became an unexpected Allied 13 00:00:45.439 --> 00:00:49.600 weapon during World War II by broadcasting propaganda under the 14 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:54.399 persona Vicky with three Kisses. Using a seductive, affectionate radio 15 00:00:54.520 --> 00:00:59.119 voice and popular big band music translated into German, Bernauer 16 00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:03.520 helped draw in German soldiers listening to clandestine Allied stations 17 00:01:03.799 --> 00:01:07.519 that were designed to sound like official Nazi broadcasts. Her 18 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:12.599 on air character evoked romance, nostalgia, and longing, subtly encouraging 19 00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:16.560 listeners to question the sacrifices demanded by the Nazi cause 20 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:22.239 while disguising subversive messages beneath entertainment. Our story's first part 21 00:01:22.439 --> 00:01:26.359 places Bernauer's work within the Rise of Black Propaganda, a 22 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:30.799 secret Allied strategy that mixed truthful details with deliberate deception 23 00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:36.840 to confuse, demoralize, and emotionally manipulate enemy audiences. Operating from 24 00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:41.239 a hidden English estate, the Political Warfare Executive and OSS 25 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:46.640 assembled refugees, defectors, and artists to weaponize radio and disinformation. 26 00:01:47.319 --> 00:01:52.120 Though many listeners suspected the broadcast's true origins, their popularity 27 00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:56.799 unsettled Nazi leadership and demonstrated how modern media, emotion and 28 00:01:56.879 --> 00:02:00.799 repetition could blur truth and fiction, foreshaft gioing the power 29 00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:07.040 of disinformation in the modern world. Here now is Part two. Meanwhile, 30 00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:12.919 inside Buchenwald, the concentration camp, prisoner Ougen Kogan tuned in 31 00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:17.080 on a Pilford radio. He transcribed the questionable reports of 32 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:20.360 approaching Allied troops on scraps of paper to be passed 33 00:02:20.360 --> 00:02:23.960 among his fellow prisoners. It was all important for us 34 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:27.199 to remain well informed about the situation at the fighting 35 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:30.360 fronts so that we could take appropriate measures in time, 36 00:02:30.719 --> 00:02:34.919 Cogan wrote after being liberated as the fighting dragged into 37 00:02:34.919 --> 00:02:38.360 the spring of nineteen forty five. Each night brought stories 38 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:42.120 crafted to exploit cracks and German morale and complicate the 39 00:02:42.159 --> 00:02:46.479 logistics of the war machine in the Allies, telling Nazi 40 00:02:46.479 --> 00:02:50.000 officials were abandoning the cause in droves, and those who 41 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:54.080 remained lived extravagantly. Some were said to have fled via 42 00:02:54.199 --> 00:02:58.400 submarine to Argentina, a fiction that caused an international man hunt. 43 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:03.120 Another reports sugested that Nazi leader Hermann Geering had moved 44 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:05.879 his family in a trove of stolen art to a 45 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:09.560 castle in the Alps, while civilians in Berlin died from 46 00:03:09.639 --> 00:03:13.520 lack of shelter. For Bernauer, the best lies were the silliest, 47 00:03:13.960 --> 00:03:16.840 like the time she told listeners that the government requested 48 00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:19.400 they each send a urine sample to the Ministry of 49 00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:22.639 Health in Berlin. She liked to think she clogged up 50 00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:27.599 the German postal service for days. By March nineteen forty five, 51 00:03:27.719 --> 00:03:31.319 the Allied broadcasts had a grateful audience and were beginning 52 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:34.840 to have a noticeable effect on the German people. Giebels 53 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:39.479 reported in his diary the Nazi propagandists worried that the 54 00:03:39.639 --> 00:03:43.479 enemy now proposes to bring into action his big psychological 55 00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:47.800 warfare guns. He was right. As Allied troops prepared to 56 00:03:47.919 --> 00:03:51.960 enter Germany, the broadcasters at Milton Bryan prepare to unveil 57 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.960 their biggest lie, Operation Intruder. The Allies had long known 58 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:00.879 that German radio stations signed off as air force approached 59 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:04.280 to prevent being used as beacons. With the power of 60 00:04:04.360 --> 00:04:09.280 the medium wave transmitter that aired soldatanzen Deer West, broadcasters 61 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:13.439 could hijack the Nazi frequencies and segue seamlessly from authentic 62 00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:18.000 content into fraudulent news. The capability had been held in reserve. 63 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:21.680 Now it would be unleashed to cause a stampede of 64 00:04:21.720 --> 00:04:25.319 the population by suggesting to them that the Party has 65 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:28.680 given an evacuation order for a chosen few and is 66 00:04:28.759 --> 00:04:32.360 leaving the rest to be destroyed where they are according 67 00:04:32.399 --> 00:04:36.839 to a top secret memo. Bernauer balked at the idea, 68 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:40.160 she would later tell her family. Everyone at m B 69 00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:44.519 knew that their broadcasts targeted not only German soldiers but 70 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:49.360 also unsuspecting civilians. Only now the propagandists would be putting 71 00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:54.560 them in harm's way. Despite her hesitations, Bernauer participated in 72 00:04:54.600 --> 00:04:58.639 this unprecedented effort to tangle supply lines and stymy the 73 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:03.399 movement of German troops. On March twenty fourth, nineteen forty five, 74 00:05:03.759 --> 00:05:07.800 the fraudulent German evacuation orders for those on whose preservation 75 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:11.639 the continued life of the nation depends were given. As 76 00:05:11.639 --> 00:05:14.759 for everyone else, the evacuation of a great number of 77 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:18.800 our compatriots will for the time being be impossible. Their 78 00:05:18.879 --> 00:05:21.639 duty therefore is to stick it out, and, if need be, 79 00:05:21.959 --> 00:05:25.839 faced death bravely. According to a memo written in late 80 00:05:25.879 --> 00:05:31.040 March by a Nazi officer in Westphalia, Germany, considerable misunderstandings 81 00:05:31.079 --> 00:05:34.279 and great unrest were caused among the population by the 82 00:05:34.319 --> 00:05:39.519 intrusion of enemy wireless announcements on the German wireless Bernauer 83 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:43.240 would always regret her part in that. After the war, 84 00:05:43.439 --> 00:05:48.240 even Britain's top propagandist Sefton Delmer, seemed abashed. On a 85 00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:51.319 visit to Germany just months before the war ended, he 86 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:54.800 saw the roads crowded with refugees. I did not stop 87 00:05:54.839 --> 00:05:56.800 to ask any of them whether it was a message 88 00:05:56.800 --> 00:06:00.959 on Radio Cologne or Radio Frankfurt. German's days targeted an 89 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:04.279 operation Intruder that had first started them on their trek. 90 00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:07.439 He wrote, I did not want to know, but the 91 00:06:07.480 --> 00:06:11.079 confusion caused one delay for which Bernauer would later be 92 00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:16.199 very grateful. As Operation Intruder continued into April, a train 93 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:20.000 left the bergen Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany. It 94 00:06:20.120 --> 00:06:23.240 was loaded with twenty five hundred prisoners bound for Teratzine, 95 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:28.120 a camp in German occupied Czechoslovakia, about seventy five miles 96 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:32.439 west of Berlin. The train stopped abruptly, its progress halted 97 00:06:32.480 --> 00:06:37.360 by reports of approaching forces and nearby Allied bombings. No 98 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:40.319 one knew what was true or false, the ultimate goal 99 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:43.600 of black propaganda. What is clear is that the German 100 00:06:43.639 --> 00:06:47.040 troops believed what they heard, abandoning the train and those 101 00:06:47.079 --> 00:06:50.920 crammed on it, who were later discovered by American soldiers. 102 00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:56.199 Ilma Bernauer's dear cousin, was among those liberated that afternoon. 103 00:06:56.800 --> 00:07:01.120 Ilma's mother, Gazella, did not survive. She died in Auschwitz 104 00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:05.240 in nineteen forty two. The fight was finally over. According 105 00:07:05.279 --> 00:07:08.399 to the propagandists. It is expected that the end of 106 00:07:08.399 --> 00:07:10.839 the war will be announced in the very near future, 107 00:07:11.160 --> 00:07:14.920 simultaneously with the death of the Furer. The stations reported 108 00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:18.480 on April twenty ninth, nineteen forty five. The assumption that 109 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:21.839 the Furor has already been quietly liquidated in the last 110 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:26.079 days by Heinrich Himmler is now confirmed. As usual, the 111 00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:30.439 news was almost accurate. Hitler died by suicide the following day, 112 00:07:30.759 --> 00:07:35.000 and Germany surrendered a week later. The voices of Atlantic, 113 00:07:35.079 --> 00:07:39.079 Zender and zoldatn Sender West fell silent at dawn on 114 00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:43.079 May first. There was no more reason to lie. There 115 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:46.000 was no grand on air send off, just a note 116 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:49.879 at the end of that night's script zogbeim abshid Liza 117 00:07:49.959 --> 00:07:54.040 servus say good bye silently. But where is the most 118 00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:57.120 listened to station in Europe since May first? Wondered a 119 00:07:57.160 --> 00:07:59.639 Swiss newspaper. As the war in Europe drew to a 120 00:07:59.720 --> 00:08:03.120 close less than a week after the German surrender, the 121 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:08.120 answers started to emerge. Radio Atlantic disclosed as Allied propaganda 122 00:08:08.199 --> 00:08:13.079 roofs and associated press headline blared. Some of Germany's best 123 00:08:13.079 --> 00:08:16.680 pre war actors entertained the enemy and shipped at his morale. 124 00:08:17.319 --> 00:08:20.720 Allied officials did not confirm the scoop because one said, 125 00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:22.959 there's a war on the other side of the world. 126 00:08:23.639 --> 00:08:26.800 Even then, it was clear that the disinformation model built 127 00:08:26.800 --> 00:08:31.600 at Milton Bryan would be expanded upon and used again next. 128 00:08:32.039 --> 00:08:35.559 The Librea tar Pits have been sucking in visitors for millennia. 129 00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:40.039 Paleontologists are still finding out what lies within the ouze 130 00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:45.200 by Richard Conneff. Unusually for a major tourist attraction, the 131 00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:48.320 phrase death trap features prominently in the signage and the 132 00:08:48.399 --> 00:08:51.919 lore at the Librea tar Pits, the celebrated fossil site 133 00:08:51.919 --> 00:08:55.279 in the heart of Los Angeles. Death trap for meat eaters, 134 00:08:55.360 --> 00:08:57.960 says the sign at one site, though in truth it's 135 00:08:57.960 --> 00:09:00.960 a death trap for plant eaters too. Over the past 136 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:04.600 sixty thousand years or so, animals by the millions, including 137 00:09:04.679 --> 00:09:08.840 giant ground sloths, saber toothed cats, dire wolves, and ten 138 00:09:08.879 --> 00:09:12.519 ton Columbian mammoths, were stuck in the goo and died here, 139 00:09:12.799 --> 00:09:15.960 and were quickly preserved in exquisite detail by the same 140 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.279 stuff that killed them. For scientists, the Librea death trap 141 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:24.840 matters because the animals entombed here, now mostly extinct, are 142 00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:28.240 remnants of a lost North America. Not so long ago, 143 00:09:28.399 --> 00:09:32.679 big scary animals, both predator and prey dominated the landscape, 144 00:09:32.759 --> 00:09:35.440 much as they still do. In parts of Africa to day. 145 00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:40.720 Their abrupt disappearance roughly thirteen thousand years ago makes Librea 146 00:09:40.759 --> 00:09:44.679 a tantalizing window into the American past what the International 147 00:09:44.759 --> 00:09:48.320 Union of Geological Sciences calls one of the most important 148 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:53.720 fossil localities in the world. Emily Lindsay, a Librea paleoecologist 149 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:57.200 with a passion for the strangeness of giant ground slots, 150 00:09:57.240 --> 00:10:00.559 goes further, there is almost nothing on Earth of any 151 00:10:00.639 --> 00:10:03.399 time period that can match the number of fossils and 152 00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:10.639 the diversity of fossils. This range includes megafauna and microfossils, plants, insects, snails, 153 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:15.279 even fungi, all preserved together. Lindsay and Reagan Dunn, a 154 00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:19.039 former river guide and ski instructor turned paleobotanist, are the 155 00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:23.080 scientific leads at Librea. The big question researchers hope these 156 00:10:23.080 --> 00:10:26.679 fossils can answer is why such a world suddenly disappeared 157 00:10:26.679 --> 00:10:29.919 when it did, and what, if anything, those findings can 158 00:10:29.960 --> 00:10:33.360 tell us about our own world. For non scientists, though, 159 00:10:33.480 --> 00:10:37.159 Librea's death trap image has a different appeal. Lots of 160 00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:40.679 screenwriters live in the area, says Done. Her eyes widen 161 00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:43.799 but do not quite roll. You sometimes see them around 162 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:47.799 with their laptops. Act one. Seen one often takes place 163 00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:51.240 at the sizeable lake pit by Librea's front gate, just 164 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:55.919 off Wiltshire Boulevard. The location is production friendly, just fifteen 165 00:10:55.960 --> 00:11:00.679 minutes from major Hollywood studios, and suitably apocalyptic, with methane 166 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:03.840 bubbling ominously from the surface and a statue of a 167 00:11:03.879 --> 00:11:08.080 desperate mammoth mired hip deep in tari liquid. In the 168 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:12.200 recent Nimbi ce television series Librea, a sinkhole opens here 169 00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:16.440 and drops attractive people into a primeval underworld. And in 170 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:19.960 the nineteen eighty eight movie Miracle Mile a boy meets Girl, 171 00:11:20.039 --> 00:11:23.679 Boy loses girl, boy finds Girl's story. The happy couple 172 00:11:23.720 --> 00:11:27.279 are racing away from a nuclear apocalypse when their helicopter 173 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:31.000 suddenly spins down into the tar. As the goo rises 174 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:34.279 around them, they console themselves with the thought that their 175 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:38.679 fossilized remains might some day be displayed in a museum. 176 00:11:38.799 --> 00:11:42.200 Such depictions may be Hollywood kitsch, but they live in 177 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:45.120 the hearts of fans. This is right where the movie 178 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:48.720 Volcano Happened. Right, exclaims a middle aged man and a 179 00:11:48.759 --> 00:11:51.840 cowboy hat to two pals one morning as they stride 180 00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:54.600 past the tar pit bound for the George See Page 181 00:11:54.679 --> 00:11:59.159 museum on the Librea grounds. In that nineteen ninety seven movie, 182 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:03.360 Librea gives rise to a volcano which flings flaming lava 183 00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:06.559 bombs and sends a river of molten rock flowing through 184 00:12:06.600 --> 00:12:10.559 the city. Perhaps as a nod to the site's morbid reputation, 185 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:13.320 the man in the cowboy hat has dressed for his 186 00:12:13.399 --> 00:12:16.559 Librea visit and a black T shirt printed with lyrics 187 00:12:16.759 --> 00:12:19.879 from the heavy metal group Venom. We suck the blood 188 00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:22.360 of the Beast and hold the key to Death's door 189 00:12:23.399 --> 00:12:26.080 for visitors. The first clue that there is something different 190 00:12:26.120 --> 00:12:29.120 about the land around the museum is the bare patches 191 00:12:29.159 --> 00:12:32.000 among the trees, where the exposed earth is a little 192 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:35.759 too dark and dead leaves are stuck in place. On 193 00:12:35.759 --> 00:12:38.600 one such patch, a stray soccer ball waits like an 194 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:42.879 invitation to come closer. Don't. In fact, there are fences 195 00:12:42.919 --> 00:12:46.200 to keep you away. These dark patches have always been 196 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:49.919 the real hazard, not the lake out front. Lindsay, who 197 00:12:49.960 --> 00:12:53.279 is the excavation site director, dismisses the lake as a 198 00:12:53.320 --> 00:12:56.600 giant hole in the ground left behind by commercial mining 199 00:12:56.879 --> 00:13:00.559 in the late nineteenth century. The almost ordinary patches of 200 00:13:00.600 --> 00:13:04.480 ground are more deadly for being less obvious. What they 201 00:13:04.559 --> 00:13:07.360 hide beneath the leaves is not a lake or even 202 00:13:07.399 --> 00:13:11.080 a pit, but a shallow seep. The dirt is saturated 203 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:14.720 with asphalt, the lowest grade of crude oil. Long before 204 00:13:14.759 --> 00:13:19.440 commercial mining, Native Americans harvested the asphalt here to waterproof 205 00:13:19.559 --> 00:13:24.840 baskets and boats. Early Spanish colonists likewise used the asphalt 206 00:13:24.840 --> 00:13:27.600 to seal their roofs. They were the ones who named 207 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:31.840 the place librea, which means the tar. The oil pushes 208 00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:34.679 up through narrow cracks in the rock from oil deposits 209 00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:38.679 between what five hundred and one thousand feet underground. The 210 00:13:38.759 --> 00:13:41.559 asphalt didn't pull its victims down into the earth, as 211 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:45.519 Hollywood likes to suggest. Even a shallow puddle was enough 212 00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:48.360 to lock creatures in its adhesive grip, where they died 213 00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:52.120 of exposure or starvation, or were finished off by predators 214 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:56.600 that often then got trapped themselves, as did many scavengers 215 00:13:56.600 --> 00:14:01.240 following behind. Inside the museum, school children and parents flock 216 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:03.440 to an exhibit that invites them to pull up on 217 00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:06.679 the handle of a shaft stuck in tar and see 218 00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:10.519 what being trapped might have been like. These encounters suggest 219 00:14:10.559 --> 00:14:12.799 that most of these people would have gone the way 220 00:14:12.919 --> 00:14:17.240 of the parished mammoths. There are, however, other quieter ways 221 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:21.080 to approach Librea. The museum as part of Hancock Park, 222 00:14:21.399 --> 00:14:24.759 a twenty three acre refuge from the traffic and chaos 223 00:14:24.759 --> 00:14:28.279 of central Los Angeles. Parents wander with the child or 224 00:14:28.279 --> 00:14:32.720 two down winding paths shaded by live oak trees. School 225 00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:37.159 groups picnic under the date palms. An exercise class works 226 00:14:37.159 --> 00:14:40.440 through its routine at the foot of a slope. Visitors 227 00:14:40.440 --> 00:14:43.519 can amble in through the museum's back gates and visit 228 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:47.559 Project twenty three, a fenced in area where a palaeontological 229 00:14:47.879 --> 00:14:52.240 excavation is in progress. Now a wooden crate stands open, 230 00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:56.360 revealing what looks like a crude sculpture roughly five feet tall. 231 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:02.559 It's a tableau of death, a cataclysmic mix of blackened ankles, teeth, femurs, 232 00:15:02.559 --> 00:15:07.159 and skulls jammed together. This mass grave was carefully excavated 233 00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:11.120 and set aside during construction at the site. The bones 234 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:14.080 in the crates are still embedded in asphalt, just as 235 00:15:14.120 --> 00:15:18.879 they were underground before removing them from the crates. Sean 236 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:23.639 campbell a palaeontological preparator at the museum uses a laser 237 00:15:23.720 --> 00:15:27.759 to measure each one and carefully documents its position relative 238 00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:31.519 to the others. Next, Campbell goes to work excavating a 239 00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:35.279 large rib, spraying on solvent to soften the asphalt that 240 00:15:35.399 --> 00:15:39.080 holds it in place. The asphalt yields to gentle scraping 241 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:42.559 with dental tools and accumulates in glistening little heaps, like 242 00:15:42.600 --> 00:15:46.960 couscous cooked in motor oil. So far, Campbell says as 243 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:50.799 he works, I have a baby ground sloth, a baby bison, 244 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:55.360 a baby horse. Visitors often pay special attention to the 245 00:15:55.360 --> 00:15:58.360 babies in the collection. People are just like, oh God, 246 00:15:58.399 --> 00:16:01.200 that's so terrible, And I'm like, yes, but they would 247 00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:04.240 have died forty thousand years ago by now anyway. But 248 00:16:04.320 --> 00:16:07.320 at least they're now present for the scientific record for 249 00:16:07.399 --> 00:16:10.080 us to study and analyze them and learn more about 250 00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:13.919 their lives. He continues with his roster of the dead 251 00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:17.279 in the crate. One deer, a few dwarf prong horns, 252 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:21.159 tons of coyotes, at least three adult dire wolves, and 253 00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:25.720 at least one sub adult sabertoothed cat, a partially articulated 254 00:16:25.799 --> 00:16:30.960 rodent time and geological upheaval below ground have left many 255 00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:34.720 of the bones battered, including the rib. Campbell wraps it 256 00:16:34.759 --> 00:16:37.679 in aluminum foil to keep it intact as he gently 257 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:40.559 rocks it back and forth out of the dirt. Then 258 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:42.600 he brings it to a bench and wraps it again, 259 00:16:43.080 --> 00:16:46.639 this time an orthopedic casting tape. A half hour in 260 00:16:46.679 --> 00:16:49.080 the sun will harden it, leaving it ready to be 261 00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:52.320 cleaned up and repaired more durably at a lab inside 262 00:16:52.360 --> 00:16:55.519 the museum. What comes out of the ground here is 263 00:16:55.639 --> 00:17:00.879 true buried treasure. A nearly intact sabertoothed cats skull unearthed 264 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:04.000 near by in the nineteen sixties sold at auction in 265 00:17:04.039 --> 00:17:07.279 two thousand nine for three hundred thirty four thousand, six 266 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:11.640 hundred dollars, but the museum doesn't sell its discoveries. A 267 00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:15.279 volunteer named Lynne Schneider, retired from a career as a 268 00:17:15.319 --> 00:17:19.079 government contractor, has been working for months on a dire 269 00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:23.079 wolf skull that's very broken up. Now. She says she's 270 00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:26.079 almost getting to the point where I can start consolidating 271 00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:30.359 a bone and gluing it together. Barbara Hill, another volunteer 272 00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:34.000 and a former aerospace worker, stands on the opposite side 273 00:17:34.039 --> 00:17:37.799 of the same blackened mass of bones. Both women volunteer 274 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:41.319 two days a week. Hill divides her time between Project 275 00:17:41.319 --> 00:17:45.039 twenty three and the prep lab inside the museum, though 276 00:17:45.079 --> 00:17:48.200 that schedule can change depending on where she is needed most. 277 00:17:48.960 --> 00:17:51.799 It feels like a custody battle. Hill jokes of her 278 00:17:51.839 --> 00:17:56.880 split schedule. At the lab, preparators stand at a long 279 00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:02.400 horseshoe shaped bench facing out into the public visitors watched 280 00:18:02.400 --> 00:18:06.200 through plate glass windows. Jars of Q tips, toothpicks, and 281 00:18:06.279 --> 00:18:09.480 foam tip make up applicators stand at the ready for 282 00:18:09.519 --> 00:18:14.319 the cleaning and sorting process. Manicure sticks the kind peutitions 283 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:17.839 used for pushing back cuticles, are very nice for removing 284 00:18:17.880 --> 00:18:22.359 stubborn matrix, says Connie Clark, a staff preparator, referring to 285 00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:26.640 the sediment that hardens around fossils. An electric toothbrush is 286 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:31.640 good for removing a clay layer alongside the bone. Consolidates 287 00:18:31.680 --> 00:18:35.200 and glues are degreasers for cleaning the bones. In the 288 00:18:35.240 --> 00:18:39.200 old days, they used boiling kerosene, Clark says, but boiling 289 00:18:39.319 --> 00:18:43.680 of flammable liquid, she says, is not ideal. Like Schneider 290 00:18:43.720 --> 00:18:47.640 and Hill, the other preparators are mostly long time volunteers, 291 00:18:48.039 --> 00:18:53.079 an anthropologist, a veterinarian, a software developer, a fun mix. 292 00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:56.880 Clark says, today they're working from a gallon paint can. 293 00:18:57.359 --> 00:19:01.319 It's the oily couscous that originally surround the bones out 294 00:19:01.359 --> 00:19:05.279 at Project twenty three, now dried and thoroughly cleaned. When 295 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:08.759 the preparators view them through a microscope, items in the 296 00:19:08.799 --> 00:19:12.480 mix sharpened in to bits of sticks, shells, bones, plants, 297 00:19:12.519 --> 00:19:16.279 and insects. They use the bristles of a fine artist's 298 00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:20.079 paintbrush to nudge pieces to one side or another, sorting 299 00:19:20.119 --> 00:19:23.759 them by type. Next the gallon can, the results of 300 00:19:23.799 --> 00:19:28.559 recent sortings occupy clear plastic boxes. Clark carefully opens a 301 00:19:28.599 --> 00:19:32.839 box full of the glossy, blackened heads of insects, some smooth, 302 00:19:32.920 --> 00:19:36.839 some pitted, Their rounded skull like shapes resembling the singed 303 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:41.400 aftermath of a mass catastrophe. Sometimes a sneeze or a 304 00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:45.839 deep sigh will send things rocketing away, she warns. Dung 305 00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:50.720 beetle fossils have lately become Hill's specialty. A palaeontologist helpfully 306 00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:54.039 told the volunteers that the underside of a dung beetle's 307 00:19:54.039 --> 00:19:57.000 head looks like a toilet seat, and so far, in 308 00:19:57.039 --> 00:20:00.599 a few days of microfossil sorting, Hill has found two 309 00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:04.920 dung beetle heads that may represent previously unknown species. She 310 00:20:05.039 --> 00:20:08.920 hopes to find another today. It's a treasure, Hill says, playfully, 311 00:20:09.039 --> 00:20:11.599 giving herself a pep talk. You're going to find it. 312 00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:15.920 Open a whole new page of history. The big animals 313 00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:19.279 that thrill the popular imagination may have died at Librea 314 00:20:19.359 --> 00:20:22.400 only once or twice in a decade, but across millennia 315 00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:27.200 those numbers added up. In the museum's collection rooms, sabertoothed 316 00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:30.119 cat skulls fill a line of cabinets eight and a 317 00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:33.880 half feet high and fifty feet long, while drawers full 318 00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:38.720 of sabertoothed cat astragali or ankle parts and other bones 319 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:42.839 are lined up like spoons. A public display Wow's museum 320 00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:47.119 goers with four hundred dire wolf skulls in almost military formation. 321 00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:51.599 Another four hundred thirty are stored in back for scientific research. 322 00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:54.920 Is it real? A visitor demands, in front of a 323 00:20:54.960 --> 00:20:59.000 massive skeleton of a Harlan's ground sloth. It's a standard 324 00:20:59.079 --> 00:21:03.839 questionablebrea and becka Prater, an educator on staff confirms that, yes, 325 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:07.799 it's real. We have found over nine thousand of their fossils, 326 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:11.400 so we do have a fully articulated skeleton of a 327 00:21:11.440 --> 00:21:17.200 Harlan's ground sloth here. Then scrupulously she adds those nine 328 00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:21.559 thousand bones probably came from about sixty individuals. Like nearly 329 00:21:21.599 --> 00:21:25.680 all skeletons at natural history museums, this one is a composite. 330 00:21:26.119 --> 00:21:29.799 The bones of individual animals rarely turn up intact or 331 00:21:29.839 --> 00:21:33.039 even in the same place. So whoever had that skull 332 00:21:33.160 --> 00:21:35.880 never knew the guy with those ribs, and probably never 333 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:38.440 was friends with the sloth that now holds his legs up. 334 00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:42.839 So we frankenstein them altogether and build these big composite 335 00:21:42.920 --> 00:21:47.119 skeletons with the pieces we find. The viewer goes away satisfied, 336 00:21:47.640 --> 00:21:51.680 but the is it real question will inevitably recur. The 337 00:21:51.799 --> 00:21:55.400 challenge for Librea, says Lindsay, is that it's a spectacle, 338 00:21:55.480 --> 00:21:57.559 and it's also in the middle of the worst city 339 00:21:57.640 --> 00:22:00.920 to be a spectacle. People come to el expecting to 340 00:22:00.920 --> 00:22:05.480 see made up experiences like Universal Studios or Disney's Hollywood Land, 341 00:22:05.720 --> 00:22:08.759 which builds itself as a place where moving moments come 342 00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:12.759 to life. When they come to Librea, Lindsay says, they're like, oh, 343 00:22:12.839 --> 00:22:16.640 it's the Librea tar pit's experience. It doesn't always fully 344 00:22:16.680 --> 00:22:19.960 register that these fossils are real and they're still coming 345 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:22.200 out of the ground. In the third largest city in 346 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:26.400 North America, several seeps on the property are active enough 347 00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:30.200 to require fencing. Other smaller seeps turn up from time 348 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:34.119 to time, and green traffic cones labeled sticky and gooey 349 00:22:34.279 --> 00:22:39.680 worn pedestrians away. Workers scoop asphalt out of inconvenient areas 350 00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:42.640 and empty it into the lake pit, which is periodically 351 00:22:42.680 --> 00:22:46.720 pumped out by a hasmat service. There are seeps outside 352 00:22:46.759 --> 00:22:50.559 the museum grounds too, Nearby homeowners who do not realize 353 00:22:50.599 --> 00:22:53.720 they live above an oil field sometimes called to complain, 354 00:22:54.240 --> 00:22:58.000 your tar is coming up in my garage. Old seeps, 355 00:22:58.039 --> 00:23:01.519 now cut off from their source, also libraried and pockets 356 00:23:01.559 --> 00:23:05.640 around the neighborhood As preparatoris continue to sort through the 357 00:23:05.680 --> 00:23:09.039 original batch of twenty three crates. Construction for a new 358 00:23:09.039 --> 00:23:12.319 wing of the Los Angeles County Art Museum recently brought 359 00:23:12.359 --> 00:23:15.559 thirty seven more crates to the museum. Faced with so 360 00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:20.799 many specimens, some seemingly insignificant. When does a palaeontologist decide 361 00:23:20.799 --> 00:23:25.000 to stop excavating. Librea is planning a major redesign with 362 00:23:25.079 --> 00:23:28.200 a new center for ice age research that will emphasize 363 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:31.720 lessons from microfossil research. The aim is to get it 364 00:23:31.759 --> 00:23:34.000 done in time for the twenty twenty eight Olympics in 365 00:23:34.039 --> 00:23:39.160 Los Angeles. Microfossils are really cool, really important done, the 366 00:23:39.160 --> 00:23:43.759 botanist tells an evening audience of museum donors. They're superabundant 367 00:23:43.799 --> 00:23:45.839 if you look hard enough, and if you know how 368 00:23:45.839 --> 00:23:48.680 to look for them. And these small critters are really 369 00:23:48.680 --> 00:23:53.039 important for ecosystem function. While the monsters for which Librea 370 00:23:53.160 --> 00:23:57.359 is now celebrated roamed widely across the region, size kept 371 00:23:57.400 --> 00:24:01.440 their smaller counterparts mostly local. We study them to interpret 372 00:24:01.480 --> 00:24:03.559 what the environment was like right here at the tar 373 00:24:03.640 --> 00:24:08.160 pits and the surrounding area. And these small fossils tell 374 00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:12.400 really big stories. A twenty twenty three paper published in 375 00:24:12.440 --> 00:24:15.559 the leading journal Science shed new light on the abrupt 376 00:24:15.599 --> 00:24:19.799 disappearance of species including the western horse, the American lion, 377 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.480 a bison species, saber toothed cats, and dire wolves. Lindsay 378 00:24:24.519 --> 00:24:29.000 and Dunn's collaborators at Marshall University and the University of California, 379 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:33.000 Irvine used updated techniques to remove all traces of asphalt 380 00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:36.240 from the fossils, which is crucial for accurate carbon dating, 381 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:39.920 and then says done. They said, oh my god, we 382 00:24:40.039 --> 00:24:43.680 know the timing of the extinction event, but what was 383 00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:48.880 the extinction event? Botanists like Dunn thought that phytoliths might 384 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:54.039 hold the answer. These infinitesimal stones form when plant species 385 00:24:54.079 --> 00:24:57.559 take up silica from groundwater and channel it into shapes 386 00:24:57.720 --> 00:25:01.119 that are visible only under a high powered microscope, and 387 00:25:01.160 --> 00:25:04.400 then only after grinding up stony matrix and running it 388 00:25:04.440 --> 00:25:08.720 through a series of acid baths and heavy liquid flotation treatments. 389 00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:14.279 Different types of plants left behind differently shaped phytoliths. On 390 00:25:14.359 --> 00:25:18.759 her computer screen, Done points out examples. You see kind 391 00:25:18.759 --> 00:25:21.240 of like a spiky golf ball at the top center. 392 00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:24.240 Those are palms. The one on the left with these 393 00:25:24.279 --> 00:25:27.519 parallel lines. That's a fern. The one that's like a 394 00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:30.359 worm with spirals on it. It comes from the veins 395 00:25:30.359 --> 00:25:34.720 and leaves. Phytoliths are everywhere in the plant world. When 396 00:25:34.759 --> 00:25:36.720 you run your hand up a blade of grass and 397 00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:41.000 feel a spiky edge, she says, you're touching phytoliths, and 398 00:25:41.079 --> 00:25:44.880 they provide clues about the habitat. Certain phytoliths from the 399 00:25:44.960 --> 00:25:48.000 upper surface of a leaf can reveal, for instance, whether 400 00:25:48.039 --> 00:25:52.000 the plant lived under forest cover or in open grassland. 401 00:25:52.640 --> 00:25:57.119