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Speaker 1: Think of a door, not just you know, any door,

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but a heavy steel door at the end of a long,

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otherwise completely unremarkable hallway. Now put a massive rusted padlock

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on it, oh, sure, and drape a thick chain right

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through the handle. And finally you slap a bright, glaring

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red sign right at eye level that just says keep out,

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do not enter.

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Speaker 2: The classic warning sign exactly.

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Speaker 1: And suddenly it does not matter what is behind any

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of the other like one hundred open doors in that building, no,

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not at all. That locked door is literally the only

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one you care about.

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Speaker 2: It becomes an obsession, right.

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Speaker 1: What is it about a boundary?

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Speaker 2: You know?

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Speaker 1: About being explicitly told no? That just instantly weaponizes our curiosity.

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Speaker 2: It's fascinating.

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Speaker 1: I remember when I was younger, there was this massive

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chain link fence at the edge of my neighborhood and

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it was topped with barbed wire guarding this old, I

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don't know, industrial lot.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, every town has one of those, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And I spent weeks just standing on the pedals of

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my bike, scraping my knees, just trying to see over it.

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Just get a gumps, right, And I had no idea

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what was back there, but the sheer effort someone put

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into keeping me away made it feel like the most

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important secret in the world.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's a textbook example of psychological reactors reactions. Yeah,

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the moment our freedom to access information or physical space

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is restricted, we experience this huge surge of motivational arousal,

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like a pushback. Exactly. The brain interprets the restriction as

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a threat to our autonomy, and the immediate hardwired response

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is this intense drive to restore that freedom by just

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breaching the barrier.

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Speaker 1: I have to get in because you said I can't.

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Speaker 2: Right. But when you scale that psychology up, when we

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aren't just talking about a locked warehouse door, but entire islands,

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oh wow, or sprawling subterranean labyrinths and modern cities sealed

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off behind military blockades, the magnetic pull of that curiosity

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magnifies exponentially.

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Speaker 1: Right to the core of our discussion today.

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Speaker 2: It certainly does.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to thrilling Threads and to you listening right now.

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We are so glad you're here. We have pulled together

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an incredible stack of source materials for this one.

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Speaker 2: Really amazing stuff. Historical records, structural engineering reports.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, restricted area logs and these wild accounts from the

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very edges of forbidden territories.

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Speaker 2: The places people are absolutely not supposed to go.

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Speaker 1: Exactly today, we are looking at ten of the world's

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most terrifying, heavily restricted, and completely abandoned locations.

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Speaker 2: Places where entry is just outright banned by law.

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Speaker 1: Or physically impossible without courting death.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, truly dangerous spots.

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Speaker 1: But I want to make sure we do more than

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just act like tourists peeking through a keyhole.

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Speaker 2: Here, right, We need to dig deeper.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. The true mission of this thrilling

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Threads journey is to understand the mechanics of the eviction.

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Speaker 2: The eviction I like that phrasing.

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Speaker 1: Thanks. We're going to examine the exact forces, the geological betrayals,

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the biological arms races, is the catastrophic human errors, the

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things that forced humanity to just drop the keys and run.

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Speaker 2: And that is really the perfect lens for this material. Yeah,

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because you know, these forbidden zones are not merely empty spaces, right,

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they're unintended time.

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Speaker 1: Capsules and intended time capsules.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. By erecting a fence and banning human entry for decades,

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we inadvertently freeze a specific moment in human.

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Speaker 1: History while simultaneously hitting the fast forward button on the

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natural world.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. These ten locations force us to confront a deeply

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uncomfortable reality, which is the absolute fragility of human civilization.

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I mean, we pour concrete, we engineer these colossal structures,

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and we operate under the delusion that we have permanently

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conquered a landscape.

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Speaker 1: We think we own.

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Speaker 2: It, right, but these restricted zones prove that we merely

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hold a temporary lease.

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Speaker 1: Wow, temporary lease.

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Speaker 2: Once we step away, the earth just begins the relentless

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mechanical process of taking it all back.

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Speaker 1: That is a chilling way to frame it, but incredibly

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accurate it really is. So let's look at what happens

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when the landlord decides to terminate that lease.

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Speaker 2: And sometimes that termination is shockingly violent and sudden.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's travel to Washington State in the US

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to the Iron Goat Trail.

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Speaker 2: A beautiful area.

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Speaker 1: It is. If you pull up photos of this area

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today or you hike the permitted sections, it looks like

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a serene lush path cutting right through the stunning Cascade Mountains.

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Speaker 2: It looks like a postcard.

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Speaker 1: It really does. But this child trail passes right through

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the site of the deadliest avalanche in United States history.

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Speaker 2: The Wellington disaster of nineteen ten. Yeah, it is a

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masterclass in the sheer kinetic energy of nature.

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Speaker 1: The accounts of this are just suffocating. So in late

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February of nineteen ten, you had two massive Great Northern

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Railway trains.

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Speaker 2: Right a passenger train and a mail train exactly.

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Speaker 1: They were trapped on the tracks just west of Stephens Pass.

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They were completely snowbound for days, just stuck there. Yes,

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a passengers were stranded listening to these storms just rage outside.

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And then on March first, a localized thunderstorm rolled right

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over the mountain.

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Speaker 2: A thunderstorm in the winter.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the lightning in the sudden temperature shift triggered a

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massive slab avalanche.

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Speaker 2: A literal wall of snow.

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Speaker 1: A wall of snow essentially wiped the town to Wellington

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and those two massive trains completely off the map, sweeping

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them one hundred and fifty feet down into a gorge.

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Speaker 2: Unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: Ninety six people were killed. The source material notes they

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were buried under forty feet of crushing snow.

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Speaker 2: You know, to truly grasp this we have to stop

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thinking of snow as the light, fluffy material we see

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in holiday movies.

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Speaker 1: Right, It's not powder, not at all.

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Speaker 2: In an avalanche of this scale, the snow acts more

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like wet concrete.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The kinetic energy generated by thousands of tons of

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snow accelerating down a mountain slope creates intense.

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Speaker 1: Friction, which causes it to melt.

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Speaker 2: Exactly localized melting. And when it finally stops moving, it

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instantly refreezes.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, So those.

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Speaker 2: Train cars, these massive, heavy miracles of early twentieth century

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steel and iron engineering, they were treated like hollow aluminum

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cam just crushed. Yeah. The forty feet of snow that

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buried them was essentially a solid block of ice.

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Speaker 1: That physical reality is just terrifying.

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Speaker 2: It's unimaginable.

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Speaker 1: But here is the part that fascinates me about the

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site today. Remnants of those old railway tunnels, the concrete

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snow sheds, and the tracks. They are still out there.

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They are now. The open air trail is safe for hikers,

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but entering those abandoned tunnels is strictly.

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Speaker 2: Forbidden, very heavily restricted.

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Speaker 1: Right. The authorities have sealed them off and strongly discouraged

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anyone from attempting to bypass the barriers. The official reason

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is severe structural instability. Right, But I mean you're telling

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me a tunnel built into a solid mountain is still

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an active collapse risk over a century after the avalanche.

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Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, shouldn't.

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Speaker 1: The earth have settled by now? Like, why is still

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so physically dangerous to step inside?

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Speaker 2: It is actually becoming more dangerous as time.

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Speaker 1: Wait?

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Speaker 2: Really yeah, and it all comes down to the mechanics

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of water and freeze thaw cycles. Okay, when the railway

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abandoned those tunnels, they stop maintaining the drainage systems. Right,

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makes sense, And the passcade mountains receive massive amounts of precipitation.

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So for over a century, water has been seeping into

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the microscopic cracks and the concrete and the surrounding rock.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I see where this is going.

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Speaker 2: During the winter, that water freezes and expands by about

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nine percent.

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Speaker 1: Which acts are like a wedge exactly.

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Speaker 2: This exerts tremendous hydraulic pressure from the inside out, slowly

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shattering the concrete and the stone.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Furthermore, the massive timber supports used in the early nineteen

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hundreds have been subjected to decades of damp.

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Speaker 1: Rot so they're basically useless now, right.

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Speaker 2: A structural engineer looking at those tunnels doesn't see solid rock.

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They see a decaying, water logged house of cards that

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could be brought down by a minor tremor or just

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gravity finally winning out.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that makes complete sense. It isn't just an old tunnel.

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It is an active decay zone precisely. But there is

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a psychological layer to this restriction too, isn't there?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: The source material highlights that hikers who walk near the

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crash site frequently report strange echoes and unsettling sounds emanating

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from the ruins.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the ghost stories.

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Speaker 1: Right. It adds this deeply chilling, almost supernatural atmosphere to

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the location. And I want to process this allow for

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you and for me. I know tunnels Moan and Creek

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because of the physical decay.

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Speaker 2: You just described the physics of it.

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Speaker 1: Sure, but there is a jarring contrast here. You are

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on a bright, sunny hike and suddenly you were standing

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on a mass grave. Yeah. Does the mere knowledge of

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the nineteen ten tragedy fundamentally rewire how visitors perceive the

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physical space?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely. It is a phenomenon known as psychological priming.

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Speaker 1: Priming.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, human cognition is heavily influenced by context. If you

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walk into a decaying tunnel, knowing nothing of its history,

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a sudden groaning sound will likely be interpreted rationally.

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Speaker 1: Like, oh, it's just wind or settling rock exactly.

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Speaker 2: But when your brain is primed with the knowledge that

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ninety six people experienced a violent and terrifying death precisely

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where you are standing.

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Speaker 1: Your whole prospective shift.

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Speaker 2: Your sensory threshold shifts. You're amigdalais on high alert. You

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subconsciously search for patterns or threats, interpreting acoustic anomalies like

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the wind whistling through jagged debris, or water dripping in

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a rhythmic pattern through the specific lens of trauma.

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Speaker 1: That's wild.

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Speaker 2: The sounds are physical, but the eer equality is entirely

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manufactured by human historical memory.

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Speaker 1: So the restriction is really twofold. It keeps you safe

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from the collapsing roof, but the restriction itself acts as

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a memorial, yes, a boundary demanding respect for the lives

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lost precisely.

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Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that to treat the site as

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a mere playground for urban exploration ignores the profound tragedy

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embedded in the soil there.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, Now, nature's evictions aren't always a sudden, violent sweep.

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Speaker 2: Like an avalanche, so sometimes they're agonizingly slow.

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Speaker 1: Right, Sometimes the eviction notice is served inch by inch

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over decades. So let's leave the snow of Washington and

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travels to the sun baked hills of southern.

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Speaker 2: Italy to the go city of Craco.

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Speaker 1: Craco. It is a staggering monument to human perseverance.

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Speaker 2: And ultimately human defeat.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, visually it is just stunning. The source describes this

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battered medieval settlement clinging desperately to the precipice of an

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imposing rock.

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Speaker 2: Formation, overlooking a valley.

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Speaker 1: Right, and from a distance, the clustered stone houses in

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the ancient Norman tower make it look like a timeless fortress.

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Speaker 2: It looks like the set of a fantasy film.

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Speaker 1: It really does. But the record show this wasn't abandoned

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in the Middle Ages. Creco was a living, breathing, modern

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community right up until the late twentieth century.

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Speaker 2: People were going to work running bakeries.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, living modern lives in this ancient shell and.

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Speaker 2: This introduces the concept of the slow eviction.

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Speaker 1: Okay, tell me about that.

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Speaker 2: The original founders of Kreco built the city atop a

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steep cliff in the eighth century.

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Speaker 1: For defensive purposes high ground, right, if.

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Speaker 2: You are trying to repel marauders, high ground is essential.

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But geologically it was a catastrophic choice. Why the rock

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formation is primarily composed of clay and sand hills, which

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are highly susceptible to water saturation.

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Speaker 1: Right. The accounts note that the town was plagued by landslides,

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minor earthquakes, and fundamentally unstable terrain for its entire existence.

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Speaker 2: Its entire existence.

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Speaker 1: But the detail that blows my mind is how the

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residents reacted. They didn't leave, No, they stayed for generations.

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They just coexisted with the ground literally shifting beneath their feet.

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Speaker 2: It's incredible.

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Speaker 1: A wall would crack and they would patch it. A

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street would buckle and they would pave over it. They

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fought a war of attrition against the earth for hundreds

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of years.

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Speaker 2: Just absolute stubbornness.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't until a series of severe landslides in the

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nineteen sixties, followed by a massive earthquake in nineteen eighty

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that the town was finally deemed entirely uninhabitable.

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Speaker 2: And completely abandoned.

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Speaker 1: It forces us to ask how much of nature's hostility

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are we willing to absorb before we surrender our concept

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of home.

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Speaker 2: The psychology of the Krako residence is fascinating. We see

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a similar cognitive dissonance today with communities rebuilding in floodplains

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or known wildfire corridors.

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Speaker 1: Right it happens all the time.

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Speaker 2: There is a deep ancestral stubbornness attached to geography. People think,

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my grandfather built this house, so I will buy more

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mortar to fix the cracks.

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Speaker 1: We just refuse to give up.

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Speaker 2: But geology operates on a timeline of millions of years.

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Human stubbornness operates in decades.

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Speaker 1: Nature always has more time, exactly.

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Speaker 2: Eventually, the structural integrity of the Clay Hills reached a

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tipping point. The friction holding the town together simply failed.

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Speaker 1: So today this gorgeous town is a total exclusion zone.

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Heavy entry restrictions are in place. Very heavy Tourists can

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view it from a safe distance, but entering the hollowed

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out corridors is incredibly dangerous due to constantly falling.

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Speaker 2: Masonry, and the looming threat of the entire cliff face

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giving way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the descriptions of the wind whistling through the broken

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windows of the empty skyline just paint this picture of

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an empty shell. It really feels like the Earth just behave,

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like a giant dog slowly shrugging off a bad case

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of fleas.

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Speaker 2: That is an apt if somewhat humbling metaphor, the Earth

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simply shrugged.

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Speaker 1: Right. Well, let's pivot from the stubbornness of building on

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crumbling cliffs to the absolute madness of trying to conquer

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the ocean.

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Speaker 2: Oh, this is a wild wak.

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Speaker 1: We're heading off the coast of Oregon, USA to the Tillamook.

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Speaker 2: Lighthouse, known to maritime history as Terrible Tilly.

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Speaker 1: Nicknamed Terrible Tilly for very good reason. This structure stands

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completely isolated on a jagged, rocky sea stack more than

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a mile off shore in the Pacific Ocean.

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Speaker 2: Just a rock sticking out of the sea.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. It is constructed in eighteen eighty one, and the

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accounts describe battered walls, a rusty tower, and darkened doorways.

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Speaker 2: It endured relentless punishing.

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Speaker 1: Storms, incredibly supply runs, and it witnessed numerous shipwrecks before

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it was finally decommissioned in nineteen fifty seven.

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Speaker 2: A long, brutal run.

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Speaker 1: I look at the photos of this rock and I

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just have to ask, how on earth did humans in

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eighteen eighty one even build a stone pillar on a

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wave battered rock a mile out at sea. It seems

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logistically impossible.

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Speaker 2: The engineering logistics of Tillamook are bordering on lunacy. Seriously,

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just getting the surveyor Alexander Rolofsen onto the rock to

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map it required him to leap from a violently pitching

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boat onto a slick algae covered basalt precipice.

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Speaker 1: Aw ways are crashing over it exactly.

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Speaker 2: And then to build the foundation, crews had to use

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dynamite to blast the top of the sea stack.

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Speaker 1: Flat out in the ocean.

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Speaker 2: Yes, they had to erect heavy timber derricks to hoist

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giant blocks of stone off ships that were constantly being

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thrown around by the Pacific swells.

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Speaker 1: That sounds like a nightmare.

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Speaker 2: The workers essentially lived in a wooden shack bolted to

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the rock, terrified that a rogue wave would wash.

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Speaker 1: Them into the sea, which almost.

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Speaker 2: Happened several times during construction.

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Speaker 1: It's an unbelievable testament to sheer human willpower, it really is.

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But that willpower had a massive psychological cost for the

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people's stationed there. Imagine being a lighthouse keeper on Terrible

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Tilly in the winter.

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Speaker 2: You couldn't tame me enough, right, You.

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Speaker 1: Are trapped inside a stone cylinder. The ocean'swells are so

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violent that the source material note storms would literally hurl

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boulders into the glass lantern.

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Speaker 2: Room over one hundred feet above sea level, boulders.

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Speaker 1: One hundred feet up. You are deafened by the roar

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of the ocean for weeks on end, completely isolated. The

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name Terrible Tilly wasn't just about the weather. It was

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about the psychological toll of being trapped in a sensory nightmare.

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Speaker 2: Isolation of that magnitude begins to fray the edges of

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human sanity.

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Speaker 1: I can't even imagine.

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Speaker 2: And remember, the keepers were tasked with maintaining a vital

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navigational beacon to prevent mass casualty.

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Speaker 1: Shipwrecks, so the pressure is immense.

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Speaker 2: Exactly so, not only are they dealing with their own

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survival in a terrifying environment, but they carry the immense

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psychological burden of knowing that if they let the light

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go out, sailors will.

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Speaker 1: Die, which makes the second chapter of Tillmok's history so

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bizarrely ironic.

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Speaker 2: Oh, this is where it gets strange.

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Speaker 1: After AZ commissioned in nineteen fifty seven, because it was

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simply too expensive and dangerous to maintain, the source notes,

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it was eventually purchased for fifty thousand.

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Speaker 2: Dollars by a real estate broker named Mimi Morrissett and

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her grand plan.

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Speaker 1: She turned it into a columbarium.

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Speaker 2: A repository for cremated human remains.

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Speaker 1: Which she branded Eternity at Sea.

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Speaker 2: The pivot from a life saving beacon, a structure designed

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specifically to ward off death, into a literal monument for

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the dead is one of the strangest repurposings of infrastructure

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in modern history.

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Speaker 1: It completely flips the script. But even Eternity at Sea

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couldn't beat the Pacific Ocean.

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Speaker 2: Now the ocean always wins.

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Speaker 1: The logistics of delivering the urns were just as dangerous

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as delivering lighthouse supplies. The project failed, the license was revoked,

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and today the lighthouse is privately owned but off limits.

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Speaker 2: It's just a death trap. Now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. The treacherous access conditions and the crumbling, rust eaten

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infrastructure make it impossible to visit. It just sits out there,

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battered by the waves, a haunting, lonely tomb off the coast.

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Speaker 2: It perfectly illustrates our theme. We tried to plant a

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flag on a hostile ocean rock. We failed to maintain it.

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We tried to turn it into a graveyard, and we

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failed at that too.

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Speaker 1: The ocean ultimately reclaimed.

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Speaker 2: Its territory without a doubt.

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Speaker 1: So we have seen nature evict us with snow, landslides

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and ocean waves. But the forces that enforce a restricted

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zone aren't always massive kinetic elements of weather.

383
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Speaker 2: No, Sometimes they are much much smaller.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the threat is microscopic. Sometimes it is biological, which

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brings us to the quarantines of biology, venom, and myth.

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Speaker 2: A fascinating shift.

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Speaker 1: We are starting in an environment that couldn't be more

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different from an isolated sea stack. We're heading right into

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the heart of New York City, to North Brother Island.

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Speaker 2: It is an anomaly, an uninhabited wilderness existing squarely within

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one of the most densely populated urban centers.

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Speaker 1: On the planet. The juxtaposition is what makes it so striking.

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So for you listening, North Brother Island sits in the

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East River, right between the Bronx and Rikers.

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Speaker 2: Island, right in the middle of everything.

396
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Speaker 1: Passing ferries and boats have a clear view of it.

397
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Yet the source describes it as a place completely displaced

398
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in time.

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Speaker 2: It really is.

400
00:18:23,599 --> 00:18:27,000
Speaker 1: It was originally the site of Riverside Hospital, established in

401
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:30,920
the late nineteenth century to quarantine patients suffering from highly

402
00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:32,640
contagious diseases.

403
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Speaker 2: Diseases like smallpox, tuberculosis, and typhus.

404
00:18:35,839 --> 00:18:39,039
Speaker 1: This is the very island where the infamous typhoid Mary

405
00:18:39,079 --> 00:18:43,079
Mallin was confined against her will for decades, a very

406
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dark chapter. Later in the nineteen fifties, it transitioned into

407
00:18:46,319 --> 00:18:50,079
a rehabilitation center for adolescent drug addicts, before being completely

408
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abandoned in the nineteen sixties.

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Speaker 2: You know, Riverside Hospital represents a very dark complex era

410
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of public health house before antibiotics. The only way to

411
00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:02,359
protect them matre propolis from a devastating outbreak was brute

412
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force isolation.

413
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Speaker 1: You just had to lock people away exactly.

414
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Speaker 2: The island was chosen precisely because the treacherous currents of

415
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the East River acted as a natural moat. It was

416
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a prison designed by epidemiology.

417
00:19:15,799 --> 00:19:20,000
Speaker 1: Wow, a prison designed by epidemiology, and that history makes

418
00:19:20,039 --> 00:19:25,119
its current state so fascinating Today. All the massive brick pavilions,

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the dormitories, and the coal houses.

420
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Speaker 2: Are still there, but they are in a state of

421
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:31,319
profound advanced decay.

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00:19:31,079 --> 00:19:33,960
Speaker 1: And you are strictly forbidden from setting foot on the island.

423
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The New York City Parks Department fiercely protects it, and

424
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armed Coastguard boats patrol the waters.

425
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Speaker 2: If you are caught trespassing, you face severe legal consequences.

426
00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:46,240
Speaker 1: But here is where it gets really interesting. We aren't

427
00:19:46,279 --> 00:19:49,400
kept out because the island is infectious anymore. We are

428
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kept out because the island is now a protected sanctuary

429
00:19:52,079 --> 00:19:52,880
for nesting.

430
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Speaker 2: Birds, particularly the black crown night heron.

431
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Speaker 1: Wait. So, by building a brutal isolation facility to lock

432
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:01,880
sick humans away from society, we accidentally engineered a perfectly

433
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:04,839
isolated twenty first century fortress for wildlife.

434
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Speaker 2: That's exactly what I seed.

435
00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:08,240
Speaker 1: That completely flips the definition of a quarantine.

436
00:20:08,279 --> 00:20:12,279
Speaker 2: It is a remarkable paradigm shift and the physical mechanics

437
00:20:12,319 --> 00:20:15,119
of how the wildlife took over are fascinating.

438
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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear how that actually works well.

439
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:18,960
Speaker 2: Once the city shut off the power and the maintenance

440
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,240
crews left in nineteen sixty three, the island's environment went

441
00:20:22,279 --> 00:20:26,559
to work on the architecture. Bird droppings carry seeds. Those

442
00:20:26,599 --> 00:20:29,720
seeds land in the gutters of the brick buildings without

443
00:20:29,759 --> 00:20:33,880
anyone to clean them. Saplings take roots right into the gutters. Yeah,

444
00:20:34,079 --> 00:20:37,440
and the roots secrete mild acids that slowly dissolve the

445
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mortar between the bricks. As the roots expand, they physically

446
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pry the walls apart. Then vines like porcelain berry and

447
00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:49,400
poison ivy blanketed the structures, trapping moisture against the wood framing,

448
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which accelerates rot.

449
00:20:51,079 --> 00:20:54,160
Speaker 1: So nature is just systematically dismantling the hospital.

450
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Speaker 2: Within just a few decades, a multi story brick hospital

451
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was structurally compromised by a forest.

452
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Speaker 1: Descriptions talk about this eerie, absolute silence out there, broken

453
00:21:04,799 --> 00:21:06,799
only by the shrieks of the birds and the wind

454
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:08,000
through the collapsed roofs.

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Speaker 2: It's a surreal time capsule, it really is.

456
00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:14,200
Speaker 1: You have the towering glass skyscrapers of Manhattan visible just

457
00:21:14,319 --> 00:21:17,960
miles away right a testament to relentless human progress and

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00:21:18,079 --> 00:21:18,720
urban density.

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Speaker 2: And right next to it, North Brother Island is actively moving.

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Speaker 1: Backward, exactly reverting to the primordial ecosystem it was before

461
00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:30,759
Henry Hudson ever sailed into the harbor. It proves that

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00:21:30,839 --> 00:21:33,680
nature doesn't need thousands of years to erase us, It

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just needs a few decades of our absence.

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Speaker 2: It is a humbling reminder for any city dweller. Our

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concrete jungle is incredibly fragile if we stop maintaining the

466
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illusion of control.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, But while the birds on North Brother Island are harmless,

468
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our next biological quarantine zone is aggressively lethally hostile.

469
00:21:52,279 --> 00:21:53,359
Speaker 2: Yes, yes it is.

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Speaker 1: We are traveling off the coast of Brazil to Ila

471
00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:58,960
da Camara Grande, universally known as Snake Island.

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Speaker 2: This is a location or the restriction isn't just a

473
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,799
legal formality. It is a desperate matter of biological survival.

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Speaker 1: The source material paints a picture of a breath takingly

475
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:11,200
beautiful place. It is a stunning splash of emerald green

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vegetation sitting in the brilliant blue Atlantic Ocean.

477
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:18,359
Speaker 2: It looks like an idyllic, untouched tropical paradise.

478
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,680
Speaker 1: But it is one of the most heavily restricted, legally

479
00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:26,240
off limits places on Earth. The Brazilian Navy strictly forbids

480
00:22:26,319 --> 00:22:29,440
anyone from landing there without a complex web of special

481
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:30,400
clearances and.

482
00:22:30,319 --> 00:22:32,039
Speaker 2: The mandatory presence of a doctor.

483
00:22:32,279 --> 00:22:36,799
Speaker 1: Right. Why, because this tiny island is infested with roughly

484
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:39,920
four thousand golden lancehead vipers.

485
00:22:40,039 --> 00:22:44,440
Speaker 2: The golden lancehead or bothorp's in Solaris is a phenomenal

486
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:48,240
case study in a biological process called insular evolution.

487
00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:51,599
Speaker 1: Insular evolution, and the results of that evolution are terrifying.

488
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:54,279
Very The source notes that the venom of the golden

489
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:56,960
lancehead is up to five times more potent than its

490
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:57,960
mainland cousins.

491
00:22:58,200 --> 00:22:59,079
Speaker 2: Five times.

492
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:01,400
Speaker 1: The account's really state that if you step onto the

493
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:04,920
rocky terrain and brush past the thick vegetation, you're essentially

494
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:07,000
guaranteeing a particularly painful death.

495
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:07,759
Speaker 2: It's no joke.

496
00:23:08,039 --> 00:23:10,200
Speaker 1: I'm trying to wrap my head around the mechanism here.

497
00:23:10,559 --> 00:23:13,519
Why does a snake on an isolated island need venom

498
00:23:13,519 --> 00:23:16,160
that is five times stronger than normal? What is the

499
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,680
evolutionary advantage of biological overkill?

500
00:23:18,839 --> 00:23:21,480
Speaker 2: Well, it is all about the available food source. At

501
00:23:21,519 --> 00:23:24,440
the end of the last ice Age, rising sea levels

502
00:23:24,599 --> 00:23:27,680
cut this island off from the mainland. The snakes that

503
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,960
were trapped there eventually ran out of ground dwelling rodents

504
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:31,319
to eat.

505
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:32,880
Speaker 1: Oh, because they ate.

506
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:38,079
Speaker 2: Them all exactly. Their only available prey became migratory birds

507
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:40,119
that used the island as a resting point.

508
00:23:40,319 --> 00:23:41,079
Speaker 1: Ah.

509
00:23:41,319 --> 00:23:44,160
Speaker 2: Now, think about the logistics of a snake hunting a bird.

510
00:23:44,279 --> 00:23:45,640
Speaker 1: That sounds difficult, right.

511
00:23:45,759 --> 00:23:48,599
Speaker 2: If a mainland snake bites a mouse, the mouse might

512
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:52,400
run ten feet die and the snake tracks it by scent. Sure,

513
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:54,599
But if a golden lance head bites a bird and

514
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,200
the venom takes a few minutes to work, the bird

515
00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:59,559
takes off in a panic and dies two miles out

516
00:23:59,599 --> 00:24:00,559
over the open.

517
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:02,000
Speaker 1: Ocean, and the snake starves.

518
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 2: Exactly so they were trapped on an evolutionary treadmill. The

519
00:24:05,799 --> 00:24:10,319
environment brutally selected for snakes with incredibly fast acting, highly

520
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:14,960
potent hematoxic venom ematoxic yes venom designed to rapidly destroy

521
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:18,200
tissue and coagulate blood, essentially dropping the bird out of

522
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:20,720
the sky almost instantly before it can fly away.

523
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:22,079
Speaker 1: That is horrifying.

524
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:25,920
Speaker 2: Generation after generation, the venom became a biological weapon of

525
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,960
mass destruction out of pure ecological necessity.

526
00:24:29,279 --> 00:24:32,920
Speaker 1: It's like a real life serpentine Jurassic Park. I mean,

527
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:35,680
put yourself on a boat approaching that island for a second.

528
00:24:35,759 --> 00:24:38,599
I'd rather not just imagine it. You are looking at

529
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:42,240
a lush, green canopy, but you know that beneath every

530
00:24:42,279 --> 00:24:46,359
single fern, wrapped around every tree branch, is a hyper

531
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,759
evolved strike waiting to happen.

532
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 2: The sheer density is terrifying too, one snake per square

533
00:24:52,759 --> 00:24:53,200
meter in.

534
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,759
Speaker 1: Some areas an absolute nightmare. But the restriction placed by

535
00:24:56,839 --> 00:25:00,039
the Brazilian government serves a brilliant dual purpose, doesn't.

536
00:24:59,759 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 2: It It does. It is a two way quarantine, how so,

537
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:06,960
obviously it protects foolish tourists and curious bots from an agonizing,

538
00:25:07,039 --> 00:25:10,400
screaming death. The venom is so potent it can literally

539
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:12,160
melt human flesh around the bite site.

540
00:25:12,319 --> 00:25:12,759
Speaker 1: Yikes.

541
00:25:12,799 --> 00:25:16,599
Speaker 2: But equally important, the restriction protects the snakes right because

542
00:25:16,599 --> 00:25:19,599
they are confined entirely to this one tiny rock. The

543
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,839
golden lancehead is critically endangered.

544
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I didn't think about that.

545
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,759
Speaker 2: If humans brought an invasive disease, or if a careless

546
00:25:26,799 --> 00:25:30,119
campfire sparked a massive brush fire, or if poachers arrived

547
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:32,799
to capture them for the illegal wildlife trade.

548
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:34,079
Speaker 1: The whole species is gone.

549
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,839
Speaker 2: The entire species could be wiped off the planet in

550
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,599
a matter of weeks. That do not enter sign is

551
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:44,279
an impenetrable shield for a highly vulnerable, albeit deadly population,

552
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:45,680
a two way quarantine.

553
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:49,319
Speaker 1: We protect ourselves from monsters, and we protect the monsters

554
00:25:49,319 --> 00:25:52,799
from us exactly. But what happens when the threat keeping

555
00:25:52,799 --> 00:25:56,359
people away isn't a physical viper you can see, but

556
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:58,519
a threat that is entirely unseen.

557
00:25:58,759 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 2: A shift to the supernaw.

558
00:26:00,519 --> 00:26:03,319
Speaker 1: Let's move from biology to the realm of myth and

559
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,880
head to Rajasthan, India to the Boar Fort.

560
00:26:06,039 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 2: This is a remarkable intersection of architectural decay and cultural psychology.

561
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 1: The Bangar Fort is a sprawling late sixteenth century ruined settlement.

562
00:26:15,519 --> 00:26:20,240
The accounts describe magnificent, crumbling stone temples, marketplaces, and palace

563
00:26:20,279 --> 00:26:22,839
walls that have been slowly overtaken by jungle vegetation.

564
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 2: It's beautiful during the day.

565
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, during the day. It is a relatively popular tourist attraction.

566
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,640
But the moment the sun begins to set, the rules change.

567
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 2: Drastically, the atmosphere completely shifts.

568
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 1: The Archaeological Survey of India has erected a large sign

569
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:41,880
board explicitly and legally prohibiting anyone from entering or staying

570
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:45,400
within the fort boundaries between sunset and sunrise.

571
00:26:45,319 --> 00:26:47,400
Speaker 2: A government mandated curfew on.

572
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:52,079
Speaker 1: A ruin exactly now. The official bureaucratic reason for this

573
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,799
nighttime ban is safety. The authorities maintained that the sixteenth

574
00:26:55,839 --> 00:26:59,519
century structures are dangerously unstable.

575
00:26:59,079 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 2: And there is no word of lighting right.

576
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,079
Speaker 1: Plus, the surrounding jungle is home to nocturnal predators like

577
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,799
leopards and tigers that frequently wander through the ruins.

578
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:09,279
Speaker 2: Very real physical dangers.

579
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:13,720
Speaker 1: But the source material highlights the powerful unofficial reason. Local

580
00:27:13,759 --> 00:27:17,279
folklore insists the fort is deeply violently cursed.

581
00:27:17,599 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 2: The legends surrounding Bongar are heavily ingrained in the regional culture.

582
00:27:21,519 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: Tell me about the legend.

583
00:27:22,559 --> 00:27:25,680
Speaker 2: The most prominent legend involves a dark magician who fell

584
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,839
in unrequited love with the princess of Bongar Okay. When

585
00:27:28,839 --> 00:27:31,119
she thwarted his attempt to slip her a love potion,

586
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,880
he cursed the entire city to destruction and death.

587
00:27:34,079 --> 00:27:36,039
Speaker 1: Just before he was killed, a classic curse.

588
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:39,559
Speaker 2: According to the folklore, a subsequent invasion wiped out the

589
00:27:39,559 --> 00:27:42,680
population and their spirits remain trapped in the ruins.

590
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:46,759
Speaker 1: The accounts note that as daylight fades, the long shadows

591
00:27:46,759 --> 00:27:50,599
stretching across the empty stone corridors create an atmosphere that

592
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:54,279
is palpably heavy, chilling, and deeply foreboding.

593
00:27:54,319 --> 00:27:55,599
Speaker 2: People genuinely feel it.

594
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:58,559
Speaker 1: Locals claim that anyone who stays inside after dark is

595
00:27:58,599 --> 00:28:01,119
never seen again. Now I have to look at the

596
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:04,160
mechanics of this from a modern perspective. Okay, you have

597
00:28:04,319 --> 00:28:08,920
a government agency tasked with protecting a massive, sprawling heritage site.

598
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:13,400
Is the Archaeological Survey of India really just worried about

599
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:16,759
falling rocks and a stray leopard? Or have they weaponized

600
00:28:16,799 --> 00:28:17,720
a ghost story?

601
00:28:18,039 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 2: This raises an important question, doesn't it. It is an

602
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:24,559
incredibly shrewd pragmatic use of sociology. I mean, consider the

603
00:28:24,599 --> 00:28:28,640
economics of managing a vast archaeological site. To properly secure

604
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:32,359
the perimeter of Bangar Fort at night against vandals, looters,

605
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:34,200
or thrill seeking urban explorers.

606
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:35,799
Speaker 1: It would cost a fortune, right.

607
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:39,559
Speaker 2: The government would have to install miles of fencing, floodlights,

608
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,880
and pay a small army of security guards to patrol

609
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,200
in the dark. That is immensely expensive.

610
00:28:46,359 --> 00:28:47,319
Speaker 1: So what's the alternative?

611
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 2: What is the most cost effective security system in the world.

612
00:28:50,839 --> 00:28:56,519
A deeply ingrained, terrifying local legend, a metaphysical pad loss. Precisely,

613
00:28:56,680 --> 00:29:00,759
the official hazards are completely legitimate. Stumbling through decaying unlit

614
00:29:00,839 --> 00:29:04,000
ruins where a leopard might be resting is objectively a

615
00:29:04,079 --> 00:29:04,720
terrible idea.

616
00:29:04,839 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, no arguments there.

617
00:29:06,079 --> 00:29:09,079
Speaker 2: But a warning sign about unstable rocks will never deter

618
00:29:09,359 --> 00:29:13,680
a rebellious teenager. A warning sign that implicitly validates a

619
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:17,440
century's old curse, however, taps into a primal fear of

620
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:18,079
the unseen.

621
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: The folklore creates an atmosphere so oppressive and terrifying that

622
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:23,759
it acts as a self policing boundary.

623
00:29:23,839 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 2: People stay out because their own imagination enforces the perimeter

624
00:29:27,359 --> 00:29:29,200
far better than any human guard could.

625
00:29:29,319 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: It is brilliant. The darkness itself becomes the barrier.

626
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:33,079
Speaker 2: It really does.

627
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 1: And speaking of darkness and the unseen, that leads us

628
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,319
perfectly into our next section, the underworld.

629
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:39,799
Speaker 2: Oh this is a dark one.

630
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: Literally, we are leaving the open air of India and

631
00:29:43,799 --> 00:29:47,039
descending deep beneath the streets of France into the catacombs

632
00:29:47,039 --> 00:29:47,480
of Paris.

633
00:29:47,519 --> 00:29:50,119
Speaker 2: The catacombs are unique on this list because they exist

634
00:29:50,119 --> 00:29:54,519
directly beneath a thriving modern metropolis. It's a shadow city.

635
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: The contrast is mind bending. Up above, you have Paris,

636
00:29:58,519 --> 00:30:00,799
the city of Light, the capital of ro romance, art

637
00:30:01,119 --> 00:30:02,920
and bustling cafes.

638
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 2: And right below, just.

639
00:30:03,839 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: Below the pavement, lies a terrifying, unmapped labyrinth of tunnels

640
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:11,319
containing the skeletal remains of over six million people six

641
00:30:12,039 --> 00:30:15,680
million bodies. The source notes that a tiny, sanitized portion

642
00:30:15,759 --> 00:30:18,519
of these tunnels is open to the public as a museum.

643
00:30:18,759 --> 00:30:21,000
You can buy a ticket and walk through a safely lit,

644
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:22,720
structurally supported.

645
00:30:22,319 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 2: Area the tourist experience, But the.

646
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: Vast majority of this subterranean network, nearly two hundred miles

647
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,400
of it, is heavily restricted. It is illegal to enter,

648
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,000
incredibly dangerous, and largely unmapped.

649
00:30:34,039 --> 00:30:36,119
Speaker 2: To understand why it is so dangerous, we have to

650
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,079
look at why it exists in the first place.

651
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: Right, I want to explore that history, because you don't

652
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,880
just accidentally bury six million people under a city. How

653
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:44,559
did this happen?

654
00:30:44,799 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 2: It was a crisis of urban planning in the late

655
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:51,799
eighteenth century. Okay, Paris was growing rapidly and its cemeteries

656
00:30:51,839 --> 00:30:57,079
were catastrophically overflowing catastrophically. Yes, the largest lais in Aissan

657
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:00,759
had been accepting bodies for centuries. It got to the

658
00:31:00,799 --> 00:31:04,079
point where the ground was so saturated with human remains

659
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:08,680
that it was causing massive public health issues. The stench was.

660
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:10,559
Speaker 1: Unbearable, that's grim.

661
00:31:10,839 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 2: The breaking point occurred in seventeen eighty following a period

662
00:31:14,519 --> 00:31:18,119
of heavy spring rains. The earth in the cemetery became

663
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:21,839
completely water logged, and the sheer weight of the rotting

664
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:23,880
mass caused a retaining wall to burst.

665
00:31:24,079 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 1: You're kidding.

666
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 2: Thousands of decaying corpses literally spilled directly into the basements

667
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:30,440
of adjacent apartment buildings.

668
00:31:30,519 --> 00:31:33,079
Speaker 1: That is unimaginable. It's a literal tidal wave of the dead.

669
00:31:33,319 --> 00:31:36,079
Speaker 2: It was a horrifying wake up call. The city realized

670
00:31:36,119 --> 00:31:38,519
they had to move the bodies, but where.

671
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: Right, where do you put them?

672
00:31:39,559 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 2: Well, centuries earlier, the stone used to build Paris had

673
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,960
been mined from limestone quarries deep beneath the.

674
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:48,559
Speaker 1: City, leaving all those empty tunnels, leaving.

675
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:52,319
Speaker 2: A massive network of empty structural voids. So under the

676
00:31:52,319 --> 00:31:55,880
cover of night, over the course of decades, carts transported

677
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,880
the bones of millions of Parisians down into these abandoned quarries.

678
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,279
Speaker 1: That's incredibly resourceful.

679
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 2: Honestly, they effectively use the empty space left from building

680
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,559
the city to store the citizens who had lived in it.

681
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:12,319
Speaker 1: And today those unmapped restricted sections are the domain of

682
00:32:12,359 --> 00:32:14,640
a subculture known as cataphiles.

683
00:32:14,799 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 2: The urban explorers.

684
00:32:16,039 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. The source accounts describe these individuals as explorers who

685
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:24,160
dedicate themselves to navigating the illegal pitch black maze.

686
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 2: It's incredibly risky.

687
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: They squeeze through impossibly tight claustrophobic passageways, wading through waste

688
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:35,000
deep freezing water. They risk massive fines, completely losing their

689
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,319
way in the dark, or being crushed by sudden ceiling collapses,

690
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,160
all for the thrill. The source describes the atmosphere down

691
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:44,880
there as absolute oppressive silence, broken only by the sound

692
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:47,200
of dripping water echoing off limestone.

693
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 2: Pure sensory deprivation.

694
00:32:49,039 --> 00:32:53,079
Speaker 1: Exactly to me. That sounds like pure sensory deprivation mixed

695
00:32:53,119 --> 00:32:56,160
with a massive graveyard. Why do people do this? What

696
00:32:56,279 --> 00:33:00,440
drives someone to risk a terrifying, suffocating death in the dark.

697
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 2: It is a fascinating psychological drive to reclaim exploration. So

698
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:06,960
we live in an era where the surface of the

699
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,480
earth is entirely known. You can open an app on

700
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:11,799
your phone and look at a satellite image of almost

701
00:33:11,839 --> 00:33:13,519
any street corner on the globe.

702
00:33:13,559 --> 00:33:15,039
Speaker 1: There is no mystery left.

703
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 2: Exactly, but the Pear's Catacombs represent a chaotic, unmapped frontier

704
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:24,480
hidden in plain sight. For a cataphile, navigating that absolute

705
00:33:24,559 --> 00:33:27,279
darkness isn't just a cheap adrenaline rush. No, it is

706
00:33:27,319 --> 00:33:30,920
a rejection of modern surveillance and predictability. When you are

707
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:34,519
one hundred feet underground with no cell service, relying entirely

708
00:33:34,559 --> 00:33:36,920
on a headlamb and a hand drawn map passed down

709
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:38,680
through a secretive community.

710
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,119
Speaker 1: You are entirely self reliant.

711
00:33:40,279 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 2: Yes, the physical dangers, the collapsing limestone roofs, the disorientation

712
00:33:45,119 --> 00:33:48,400
are the necessary toll to access a world that society

713
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:50,759
has literally paved over and tried to forget.

714
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate rebellion against the maced world. They are

715
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,279
finding freedom in a claustrophobic tone.

716
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:58,799
Speaker 2: It's beautifully poetic in a dark way.

717
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: But let's clim out of the dark back into the

718
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,759
sunlight and move into our final section, modern time capsules.

719
00:34:06,039 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 2: Ah the recent evictions right.

720
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 1: The places we have discussed so far were abandoned due

721
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:15,000
to ancient history, nature or biology, but these final locations

722
00:34:15,039 --> 00:34:19,440
were evicted by modern geopolitics and atomic hubris. Let's start

723
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:23,199
with Varosia, located in Famagusta on the island of Cyprus.

724
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:27,119
Speaker 2: Varotia is a profound example of how instantly an entire

725
00:34:27,159 --> 00:34:28,519
paradigm can be shattered.

726
00:34:28,599 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 1: The before and after imagery here is absolutely staggering. Before

727
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,000
the summer of nineteen seventy four, Varosia wasn't just a town.

728
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,360
It was the crown jewel of the Mediterranean.

729
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:39,039
Speaker 2: A premier destination.

730
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:42,559
Speaker 1: It was a glamorous, thriving resort city packed with luxury

731
00:34:42,639 --> 00:34:46,920
high rise hotels, vibrant beachside cafes, and high end boutiques.

732
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:49,880
It was the playground for the rich and famous. Celebrities

733
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:51,960
like Richard Burton of Brigitte Bardo vacation there.

734
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:52,760
Speaker 2: It was the place to be.

735
00:34:53,039 --> 00:34:55,880
Speaker 1: But then an abrupt political crisis split the island.

736
00:34:56,119 --> 00:34:58,760
Speaker 2: The complex geopolitical conflict right.

737
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:03,039
Speaker 1: The details of the geopolitical conflict are incredibly complex, and

738
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:06,440
obviously we aren't taking a stance on the politics themselves,

739
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:11,000
but the visceral result on the ground was immediate. The

740
00:35:11,199 --> 00:35:15,400
entire population of Eroosia was forced to flee literally overnight.

741
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 2: And following that sudden evacuation, the military drew a hard line.

742
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 1: They sealed it off.

743
00:35:20,079 --> 00:35:23,280
Speaker 2: A un buffer zone was established, and Varosia fell squarely

744
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:26,800
into an off limit's heavily guarded military exclusion zone.

745
00:35:27,119 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 1: Because of the deeply sensitive political stalemate.

746
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 2: Exactly, it was sealed behind barbed wire and oil drums,

747
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:37,400
completely inaccessible to the public. It became a paralyzed bargaining chip.

748
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,159
Speaker 1: And it stayed that way for decades. The source material

749
00:35:40,199 --> 00:35:43,719
describes a result as a deeply unsettling ghost town completely

750
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:45,599
frozen in the year nineteen seventy four.

751
00:35:45,559 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 2: A literal time capsule.

752
00:35:47,159 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 1: The descriptions are haunting. You have modern multi story luxury

753
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,679
hotels slowly crumbling under the Mediterranean sun.

754
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,159
Speaker 2: The balconies are structurally failing, plummeting into the empty streets below.

755
00:35:57,239 --> 00:35:59,679
Speaker 1: The winders are blown out by sea storms. And because

756
00:35:59,679 --> 00:36:01,840
of the event vacuation was so sudden, it left behind

757
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:03,320
these hyper specific.

758
00:36:03,039 --> 00:36:05,039
Speaker 2: Detail The everyday object.

759
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:08,320
Speaker 1: There are car dealerships in Votia with nineteen seventy four

760
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:11,800
model vehicles still sitting in the showroom windows, their tires

761
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:13,639
completely rotted away to the rims.

762
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:14,280
Speaker 2: Wow.

763
00:36:14,519 --> 00:36:18,519
Speaker 1: There are clothing stores with Mannikins wearing nineteen seventies summer

764
00:36:18,559 --> 00:36:21,480
fashion bleached white by decades of sunlight.

765
00:36:21,639 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate disruption of our expectation of permanence.

766
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:26,199
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?

767
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 2: Well, when humanity builds a luxury high rise, we construct

768
00:36:29,559 --> 00:36:31,760
it with the arrogant assumption that it will stand and

769
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:35,800
be utilized for centuries. We view concrete as permanent, but

770
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:40,119
Varosia proves that human habitation is entirely conditional on political stability.

771
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:44,440
Without maintenance, the salty sea air acts as a corrosive agent.

772
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,119
Speaker 1: It rusts the metal, it rusts.

773
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:50,079
Speaker 2: The rebar inside the concrete, causing the buildings to essentially

774
00:36:50,119 --> 00:36:51,840
explode from the inside out.

775
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:53,079
Speaker 1: And nature just takes over.

776
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:58,519
Speaker 2: Simultaneously. Nature ignores the military checkpoints, rare sea turtles, which

777
00:36:58,519 --> 00:37:01,239
were previously driven away by two tourists, and bright lights

778
00:37:01,519 --> 00:37:04,760
have returned to nest on the pristine, silent beaches.

779
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,800
Speaker 1: The conflict created an unintentional, heavily guarded nature preserve.

780
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 2: It's deeply ironic.

781
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:14,159
Speaker 1: Only very recently, the sources note, have Turkish authorities opened

782
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:17,639
up small, heavily supervised portions of the main streets for

783
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:21,880
daytime visits. They mentioned music returning to Varotia a glimmer

784
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,159
of life, but the vast majority of the city remains

785
00:37:24,199 --> 00:37:27,239
a rotting shell, a monument to an interrupted summer vacation.

786
00:37:28,039 --> 00:37:31,880
And speaking of sudden catastrophic intereruptions, yes, let's move to

787
00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:34,440
a place where the eviction was caused by a terrifying

788
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:38,960
combination of natural disaster and modern technology. Let's travel to

789
00:37:39,039 --> 00:37:41,800
Japan to the Fukushima Exclusion Zone.

790
00:37:42,159 --> 00:37:46,159
Speaker 2: Fukushima represents a collision between the immense kinetic power of

791
00:37:46,199 --> 00:37:49,199
the Earth and the vulnerabilities of the atomic age.

792
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: In March of twenty eleven, Japan was struck by a

793
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,960
devastating nine point zero magnitude earthquake, which in turn triggered

794
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:56,960
a massive tsunami.

795
00:37:57,039 --> 00:37:59,519
Speaker 2: A devastating series of events, the wall.

796
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: Of water slim and into the coast and completely overwhelmed

797
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:05,000
the sea walls protecting the Fukushima di each nuclear power.

798
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:08,239
Speaker 2: Plant, and that flooding destroyed the emergency generator.

799
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:10,280
Speaker 1: Right without power to run the cooling pumps. The plant

800
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:14,920
experienced catastrophic overheating, leading to massive meltdowns in reactors one, two,

801
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:15,559
and three.

802
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 2: Overnight. A massive radius had to be evacuated.

803
00:38:19,039 --> 00:38:21,559
Speaker 1: Thousands of people left their homes thinking they would be

804
00:38:21,559 --> 00:38:23,559
back in a few days. They never returned.

805
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 2: To understand the sheer terror of this event, we have

806
00:38:27,039 --> 00:38:28,639
to look at the mechanics of a meltdown.

807
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: Please explain it for us.

808
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:33,079
Speaker 2: When the backup diesel generators were flooded, the cooling water

809
00:38:33,159 --> 00:38:35,320
stopped circulating around the nuclear.

810
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:38,039
Speaker 1: Fuel rods, right because there's no power exactly.

811
00:38:38,679 --> 00:38:41,719
Speaker 2: Decay heat caused the water inside the reactor vessels to

812
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:44,239
boil off into steam, exposing the rods.

813
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: That's bad very.

814
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 2: The zirconium cladding on the fuel rods reacted with the

815
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:51,800
superheated steam to produce hydrogen.

816
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:53,559
Speaker 1: Gas, which is explosive.

817
00:38:53,199 --> 00:38:58,039
Speaker 2: Highly explosive, which eventually caused massive chemical explosions, blowing the

818
00:38:58,119 --> 00:39:01,559
roofs off the reactor buildings and spew doing radioactive isotopes

819
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,280
primarily caesium one thirty seven and idne one thirty one,

820
00:39:05,599 --> 00:39:08,960
into the atmosphere and across the surrounding countryside, and.

821
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 1: That invisible fallout completely redefine.

822
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 2: The landslide, it poison the earth.

823
00:39:13,519 --> 00:39:18,159
Speaker 1: The source material notes that while extensive, painstaking decontamination efforts

824
00:39:18,199 --> 00:39:21,199
have allowed some specific towns to reopen over the last decade,

825
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:26,519
large swaths of the difficult to return zones remain strictly restricted.

826
00:39:27,039 --> 00:39:31,159
Speaker 2: Entry requires special authorization, decimiters, and protective gear.

827
00:39:31,639 --> 00:39:34,119
Speaker 1: But the visual descriptions of these zones are what make

828
00:39:34,159 --> 00:39:37,679
it so uniquely eerie. Unlike the Iron Goat Trail where

829
00:39:37,679 --> 00:39:41,800
you see crush trains, or Kroco where you see collapse buildings.

830
00:39:41,519 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 2: The disaster at Fukushima is visually imperceptible exactly that is

831
00:39:46,039 --> 00:39:50,679
the defining psychological horror of radiation. Human senses evolve to

832
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,800
detect physical threats. We can see a fire, we can

833
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:57,199
hear a predator, we can feel a collapsing building, but

834
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:57,719
we have.

835
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:02,119
Speaker 1: No sensory apparatus to detect ionizing radiation. The accounts describe

836
00:40:02,159 --> 00:40:05,119
walking through these abandoned towns where the houses are perfectly intact,

837
00:40:05,519 --> 00:40:08,239
the airloads clean, the sky is blue, the grass is green.

838
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:09,679
Speaker 2: It's completely normal.

839
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: But inside the homes, personal belongings sit exactly where they

840
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,639
were dropped. The source specifically mentions calendars hanging on the walls,

841
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:21,159
literally frozen on March twenty eleven. There are bicycles leaning

842
00:40:21,159 --> 00:40:24,960
against fences, coffee cups left on tables. It looks like

843
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:29,800
the rapture happened. The juxtaposition of a visually peaceful, intact

844
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:34,119
neighborhood with the knowledge that the very soil is fundamentally

845
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:38,920
invisibly hostile to human DNA is profoundly unsettling.

846
00:40:39,039 --> 00:40:42,679
Speaker 2: The frozen calendar is the perfect symbol for Fukushima. Time

847
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:45,159
stopped for the humans, but the half life of the

848
00:40:45,199 --> 00:40:47,000
isotopes continues ticking down.

849
00:40:47,119 --> 00:40:48,199
Speaker 1: It's a sobering thought.

850
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:52,840
Speaker 2: Our most advanced vital energy technology, when compromised by an

851
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:57,280
unpredicted natural force, created a landscape we cannot safely occupy,

852
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:00,000
despite it looking like a perfect suburban neighborhood.

853
00:41:00,159 --> 00:41:02,840
Speaker 1: And when we talk about atomic energy compromising a landscape,

854
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:05,920
all roads eventually lead to the most infamous abandoned area

855
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:08,519
in the world. Yes, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

856
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:12,360
Speaker 2: In Ukraine, the defining technological catastrophe of the twentieth century.

857
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,079
Speaker 1: The source material lays out the grim reality of April

858
00:41:15,159 --> 00:41:18,480
nineteen eighty six. The operators at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power

859
00:41:18,519 --> 00:41:21,039
Plant were running a test on reactor number four.

860
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:23,119
Speaker 2: To see if the turbines could still power the cooling

861
00:41:23,199 --> 00:41:25,519
pumps while spinning down during a power failure.

862
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 1: Right but, due to a combination of fundamentally flawed reactor

863
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:33,760
design and a series of disastrously violated safety protocols, the

864
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:36,239
reactor experienced massive power.

865
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,599
Speaker 2: Surges and the core exploded.

866
00:41:38,159 --> 00:41:41,679
Speaker 1: Blowing the one thousand ton biological shield right off the

867
00:41:41,679 --> 00:41:45,320
top of the reactor, exposing the burning graphite core directly

868
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:46,119
to the open air.

869
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 2: The RBMK reactor design had a fatal flaw known as

870
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,280
a positive void coefficient.

871
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:53,159
Speaker 1: What does that mean in plain English?

872
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,840
Speaker 2: Essentially, as the cooling water turned to steam, the nuclear

873
00:41:56,840 --> 00:41:58,360
reaction actually sped.

874
00:41:58,199 --> 00:42:00,559
Speaker 1: Up, creating more heat, which creates more.

875
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:04,559
Speaker 2: Steam in an uncontrollable feedback loop. And when the operators

876
00:42:04,639 --> 00:42:08,079
finally hit the emergency shutdown button, the design of the

877
00:42:08,079 --> 00:42:12,880
control rods actually caused a massive instantaneous spike in reactivity, so.

878
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:14,599
Speaker 1: Hitting the brakes acted like the gas.

879
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,559
Speaker 2: Pedal exactly In a matter of seconds, the reactor simply

880
00:42:17,559 --> 00:42:18,519
tore itself apart.

881
00:42:18,639 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 1: The immediate area, including the entire city of Pripiat, just

882
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,199
a few miles away had to be completely evacuated.

883
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:27,039
Speaker 2: Pripiat was home to nearly fifty thousand people, and.

884
00:42:27,079 --> 00:42:31,599
Speaker 1: Today, while guided tours are permitted on very strict specific routes,

885
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:35,760
massive sections of the one thousand square mile exclusion zone

886
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:37,760
remain heavily restricted.

887
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:41,639
Speaker 2: Due to lethal radiation, hot spots, contaminated dust, and incredibly unstable,

888
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:43,079
decaying structures.

889
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 1: And we have to remember what Pripiat was before the explosion.

890
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:49,840
It wasn't just a town, It was a Soviet utopia.

891
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 2: It was built specifically for the scientists and engineers working.

892
00:42:53,559 --> 00:42:58,199
Speaker 1: At the plant. It had modern supermarkets, swimming pools, cultural centers,

893
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:02,000
and an amusement park. Is the absolute pinnacle of Soviet

894
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:04,400
community planning and technological pride.

895
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,559
Speaker 2: And now the accounts describe those same schools, hospitals, and

896
00:43:07,559 --> 00:43:10,840
that iconic yellow ferris wheel in the amusement park standing

897
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:12,760
completely eerily frozen in time.

898
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 1: But it isn't just standing still, it is being violently

899
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:19,400
reclaimed by nature. The source notes that full grown trees

900
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:21,760
have literally pushed their way up through the concrete floors

901
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:25,679
of hotel lobbies and schools. Incredible Geiger counters crackle constantly,

902
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:28,840
a clicking auditory reminder of the invisible danger lurking in

903
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:30,199
the moss and the soil.

904
00:43:30,159 --> 00:43:33,800
Speaker 2: And the efforts to contain the original destroyed reactor started

905
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:37,760
with a hastily built concrete sarcophagus in nineteen eighty six, but.

906
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 1: The source notes it eventually began leaking and structurally.

907
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:45,599
Speaker 2: Failing, requiring an entirely new, massive steel arch the new

908
00:43:45,679 --> 00:43:48,360
safe confinement to be slid over it just a few

909
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:48,880
years ago.

910
00:43:49,079 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: It is an ongoing multi generational battle to contain a

911
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,280
mistake made in nineteen eighty six.

912
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, when we

913
00:43:58,039 --> 00:44:02,840
look at Vasia, Fukushima, and Chernobyl collectively, we are looking

914
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:05,960
at monuments to the sudden halt of human progress. Yes,

915
00:44:06,159 --> 00:44:09,679
the source material explicitly refers to Chernobyl as a time

916
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,199
castle for the Soviet Union of nineteen eighty six, a

917
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:13,760
country that doesn't exist anymore.

918
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 1: That is heavy.

919
00:44:14,679 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 2: Think about the profound weight of that statement. The geopolitical

920
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:21,159
empire that built that city and that reactor completely collapsed,

921
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:24,320
but the radioactive isotopes they unleashed will persist in that

922
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:26,360
soil for tens of thousands of years.

923
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: The hubris of the empire was outlasted by its own

924
00:44:29,079 --> 00:44:32,760
toxic byproduct, and what's wild is what happened after we left.

925
00:44:33,599 --> 00:44:37,719
The accounts highlight that the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has ironically

926
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:42,000
become one of Europe's largest unintended wildlife sanctuary, booming with

927
00:44:42,119 --> 00:44:45,079
life without humans there to hunt paved roads or cut

928
00:44:45,159 --> 00:44:50,719
down trees. Populations of wolves, bears, lynx and Persowalski's horses

929
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:52,559
have absolutely exploded.

930
00:44:52,639 --> 00:44:56,519
Speaker 2: They roam freely through the irradiated, decaying streets of Pripiat.

931
00:44:56,639 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 1: It represents the ultimate triumph of nature. We split the atom,

932
00:45:00,119 --> 00:45:03,760
we built a concrete utopia, and we made a catastrophic error,

933
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,440
and nature simply moved right back in, adapting to the

934
00:45:07,519 --> 00:45:11,039
radiation that poisons us, completely ignoring our keepout signs.

935
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:14,199
Speaker 2: Nature is endlessly patient. It simply waits for us to

936
00:45:14,199 --> 00:45:16,760
make a mistake, and then it reclaims the territory.

937
00:45:17,039 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean that brings us full

938
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:20,199
circle in this entire discussion.

939
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 2: It's been quite a journey as.

940
00:45:21,679 --> 00:45:24,679
Speaker 1: We synthesize everything we've explored today on thrilling threads, from

941
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,440
the deadly snow crushed tunnels of the Iron Goat Trail

942
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,679
to the slowly crumbling medieval cliffs of Krako.

943
00:45:30,559 --> 00:45:34,679
Speaker 2: The wave battered, isolated madness of Tillamook Lighthouse, the.

944
00:45:34,599 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 1: Overgrown hospital wards of North Brother Island, the venom filled

945
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:41,840
jungles of Snake Island, the haunted twilight of Bangar Fort.

946
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 2: The pitch black labyrinth of the Paris Catacombs.

947
00:45:44,039 --> 00:45:48,239
Speaker 1: The rotting nineteen seventies luxury of Erotia, and finally, the

948
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:50,840
atomic ghost towns of Fukushima and Chernobyl.

949
00:45:51,079 --> 00:45:54,679
Speaker 2: The common thread binding all ten of these distinct, terrifying

950
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:58,519
locations is the boundary line itself of warning signs. Yes,

951
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:02,960
these are the physical and psychological borders where humanity's dominance

952
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:07,159
unequivocally ends and something much older, much stronger, or much

953
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:08,360
deadlier takes over.

954
00:46:08,599 --> 00:46:12,239
Speaker 1: We draw mapps, we pave roads, and we claim permanent

955
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:13,119
ownership of the earth.

956
00:46:13,199 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 2: But these restricted zones serve as a vital, humbling reminder

957
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:19,719
that our ownership is entirely conditional. We have guests here,

958
00:46:20,039 --> 00:46:23,000
and we can be evicted at any moment by geology, biology,

959
00:46:23,119 --> 00:46:24,840
or our own technological arrogance.

960
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:28,280
Speaker 1: Conditional ownership. It's a sobering reality check, it really is,

961
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:30,760
and it leaves me with one final provocative thought to

962
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,119
wrap up this journey. By putting up these do not

963
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:35,559
enter signs, by locking the gates and running away from

964
00:46:35,599 --> 00:46:39,519
these spaces, we are essentially creating unintentional museums of our.

965
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 2: Own hubris, unintentional museums.

966
00:46:42,079 --> 00:46:47,039
Speaker 1: I love that these places, the irradiated forests, appropriate the

967
00:46:47,119 --> 00:46:50,519
venomous canopy of Snake Island, the crumbling high rises of

968
00:46:50,559 --> 00:46:57,039
Erotia they might actually outlast, are currently bustling, thriving cities, precisely.

969
00:46:56,559 --> 00:46:59,199
Speaker 2: Because we aren't allowed inside them, to tear them down.

970
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 1: Or redevelop or pave them over. Our absolute absence is

971
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:05,559
the only thing guaranteeing their preservation.

972
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 2: It is a profound and deeply unsettling paradox. We preserve

973
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:11,360
the world best by being exiled from it.

974
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 1: And that is exactly where we turn to you, our listener.

975
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:17,320
We want to hear where you stand after taking this

976
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:19,159
journey with us. Let's do a thought experiment.

977
00:47:19,199 --> 00:47:20,119
Speaker 2: Oh, this is a good one.

978
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: Imagine for a moment that you were handed a magical

979
00:47:23,119 --> 00:47:26,639
one hundred percent guarantee of absolute physical safety and total

980
00:47:26,639 --> 00:47:28,760
immunity to any legal consequences.

981
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:30,039
Speaker 2: You're invincible for an hour.

982
00:47:30,119 --> 00:47:33,079
Speaker 1: Exactly which one of these ten forbidden places would you

983
00:47:33,159 --> 00:47:36,159
choose to explore for a single hour and why? Would

984
00:47:36,199 --> 00:47:38,800
you brave the absolute darkness of the catacombs to find

985
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:40,440
a hidden piece of Parisian history?

986
00:47:40,639 --> 00:47:42,559
Speaker 2: Or would you stand in the center of Pripiat to

987
00:47:42,599 --> 00:47:44,159
witness the Soviet time capsule?

988
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:47,599
Speaker 1: Or would you walk among the vipers on Snake Island

989
00:47:48,119 --> 00:47:51,679
just to see an untouched ecosystem. Let us know what

990
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:53,960
you think about this discussion and leave your choice in

991
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:54,800
the comments below.

992
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:56,039
Speaker 2: Can't wait to read those.

993
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us on this unraveling

994
00:47:58,599 --> 00:48:01,920
of thrilling threads. Keep questioning the boundaries, respect that do

995
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:04,280
not enter signs, and we will see you on our

996
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:05,000
next journey.