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Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Have you ever thought much about the common pigeon? If you've spent any time in a major city, you've likely seen more of them than any other kind of bird. Many dismiss them as a nuisance. Rats with wings that exist to snatch crumbs from the trash, barely better than a pest. What we think of today as the common pigeon is more officially known as the rock dove, a sort of bird that originally was well suited to rocky coastal areas. And throughout human history, we've realized that they are a versatile bird suited to all manner of tasks. In 1840s Germany, an apothecary owner named Neubranner realized this very thing. Carrier pigeons had been employed for centuries by kings, army commanders, and spies. But Neubranner was the rare small businessman who. Who figured out a way to make them useful in his small community. He distributed carrier pigeons to doctors in his city of Kronberg and told the doctors to send the pigeons back to him when they gave out an urgent prescription. And this way, the apothecary would have the medicine ready before the patients ever arrived at his door. Neubranner's son, Dr. Jules Neubrahner, would continue this practice, expanding it to a wider variety of tasks. He'd have the pigeons convey messages to a nearby sanatorium or even deliver medicines themselves. However, the younger Neubranner soon encountered an inevitable problem. Sometimes carrier pigeons would get lost. A message or a delivery would go awry, and he'd have no way of knowing for a very long time. Usually, the pigeon in question would eventually return, but there was no guarantee of knowing what had happened while it was gone. This was a long time before the invention of gps. But Jules had a tool that his father had not. It was the 20th century, an era of invention. And one of the inventions that was taking the world by storm was photography. So Dr. Neubranner created a small harness of elastic bands that could fit comfortably on his pigeons. And on this harness, he hung a small camera. As the pigeon flew, the camera shutter would operate automatically, snapping photos of landmarks on the pigeon's route. That way, if a pigeon went astray and came back late, Jules could check the developed photographs to see where it had gone. This ingenious Little piece of technology unwittingly became part of the global arms race. As Europe careened toward the First World War. German army officials heard of Dr. Neubranner's device and immediately sought to harness it as a tool for the fatherland. No pun intended. Once war broke out in Europe, intelligence became a necessity. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of pigeons were outfitted with little cameras and sent flying over the trenches and battlefields. They would weave their way above the shells and bullets, snapping photos constantly. Neubranner's device was of great use in the battles of Verdun and the Somme, although the German military seemed to have turned on him. After the German surrender, he made an inquiry and was told that the pigeons had no military value. In spite of this seeming dismissal, pigeon photography continued to develop, not just in Germany, but in France, Russia and America as well. In 1937, a Swiss clockmaker named Christian Adrian Mitchell patented a version of Neubrunner's camera adapted for 16 millimeter film. It was just as lightweight, and the shutter would be run by an internal clockwork. During the first and second world wars, it was noted that pigeon photographers were a more reliable source of intelligence than radio communication. American pigeons allegedly are the most decorated of any animal, earning medals of honor for distinguished service. And after the end of the second World war, use of pigeon photography passed into civilian fields. The CIA also allegedly developed a battery powered pigeon camera in the 1970s, but its use is still classified. Apparently, nowadays, the carrier pigeon and the photographer pigeon are curiosities of the past, eclipsed by instant messaging and drones. But in our modern age, perhaps we should revise the cultural view of the pigeon to be more forgiving. They may appear to be rats with wings, but maybe they've earned a place in our cities. A just reward for an animal that allowed humanity to communicate across thousands of miles and see for the first time with a bird's eye view. It was Halloween night, 1992, and the cast and crew of BBC's Ghostwatch was celebrating. Their ambitious program was going off without a hitch, giving the British viewing public a good scare before bed. They pulled off a feat never before seen in public television. A mockumentary ghost hunting show that every viewer thought was broadcasting live. Show creator Stephen Volk was just raising his glass to toast the crew to a job well done when a woman burst into the studio. This woman producer, Ruth Baumgarten, was ashen faced. She told them that over at the BBC main offices, the switchboard was completely jammed. More than 20,000 people had called in about their show. And every single caller was scared, confused or Simply furious. The 1992 Ghostwatch debacle started, like most things, with good intentions. Stephen Volk had initially wanted to broadcast a simple six part drama about a haunting, but was convinced by Ruth Baumgarten to shorten it to 90 minutes. It was then that Volk had a stroke of inspiration. Rather than filming a cinematic ghost story, what if they framed it like a BBC investigation? A special broadcast live from a real live haunted house. Ruth loved the idea and Ghostwatch was born. They put together a program following a supposedly live investigation team into a haunted house. The feed would cut back and forth to the studio. A BBC host would react in real time to what he was seeing and hearing during the investigation. Of course, both of these pieces were pre recorded, but the effect was to make it seem like a live show. Ruth and Steven went a step further too, casting known and trusted BBC anchors and presenters. Sarah Greene, a host who was normally featured on children's shows, joined the investigative team in the Haunted House. To someone watching at home on Halloween night, all of these factors made Ghostwatch appear to be a live broadcast BBC documentary, which made its contents all the more frightening. Before their eyes, viewers saw things fly around the room and ghostly apparitions appear. Spirits wrestled for control of the cameras from the crew. And in the final minutes of the program, they watched Sarah Greene, the children's TV host, as she was dragged backward through a door and disappeared into the darkness. To the crew of Ghostwatch celebrating at the studio, the night was marked as successful. But to the families watching at home and the children seeing their favorite TV host kidnapped by a ghost, the mood was much more horrifying. Thousands of complaints poured into the BBC, from hysterical children to priests convinced the BBC had just broadcast witchcraft. Equal in number were the angry calls made by viewers who were upset that they had been duped. Remember that back in 1992, reality TV as we know it was still a thing of the future. There had been a few shows that had blurred the line between documentary and scripted drama for sure. But 1992 was the same year as the first season of the Real World. It would be another eight years before Survivor and another 14 before the Hills, probably the most well known reality show that fully scripted most of its drama. So put yourself in the 1992 viewers shoes. These people were primed to think that documentary style investigative shows produced by the BBC were always going to be 100% real. Ghostwatch had an immediate and wide ranging fallout. Viewers believed that they couldn't trust the BBC anymore. Multiple children were allegedly diagnosed with ptsd, and perhaps most tragically, one young viewer even died by suicide. The British Broadcasting Standards Commission ruled that the BBC had a duty to make it clear that their program was fictional. It seemed that by featuring hosts commonly seen on children's programs, the BBC had made it seem like Ghostwatch was appropriate for children. Much like the Orson Welles 1938 Broadcast of War of the Worlds, the unexpected use of documentary style to present a drama threw people into a panic. Ghostwatch was never broadcast again, and its creators were chastised by the public and the press. But in retrospect, it seems like Ghostwatch was simply ahead of its time. If it had aired just a few years later, maybe then it would have had the ghost of a chance at success. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting curiositiespodcast.com this show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series and television show and you can learn all about it over@theworldoflore.com and until next time, stay curious. Foreign.
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