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Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities,

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a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and

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Mild. Our

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world is full of the unexplainable,

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and if history is an open book, all

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of these amazing tales are right

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there on display, just waiting

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for us to explore. Welcome

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to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

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You go on a blind date with a friend of

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a friend, and five minutes into cocktails,

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discover that they share your birthday.

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You dream about someone you haven't thought about

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in years, and then get a call that they

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have passed away. Your partner asks

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you to pick up a specific shampoo brand

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from the store, and all of a sudden, you start

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seeing commercials for it everywhere.

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Odd little coincidences like this happen

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all the time. History is full

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of them, but when they appear out of the blue,

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it can feel downright uncanny.

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Take the story of ten year old Laura Buxton.

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In June of two thousand and one, Laura

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was in Staffordshire, England, celebrating her

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grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary,

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and on a whim, Laura's grandfather

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suggested that they release one of the gold Milar

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balloons that were decorating the grounds. Laura

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would attach a note to the balloon with instructions

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to contact her. If they were lucky, someone

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would get in touch and they'd find out exactly

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how far their balloon had gone. Well,

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that balloon traveled one hundred and forty miles

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south before landing in a hedge in the

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county of Wiltshire. A farmer found

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it and read the attached note, and

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then he headed next door. As

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chance would have it, this farmer was neighbors

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with an entirely different girl, also

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named Laura Buxton. He gave

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the balloon to the second Laura, who followed

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the instructions and got in touch with Laura

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number one. The girls and their parents

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were all amused by the odd turn of events

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and agreed that they should meet in person.

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And that's when the coincidences really

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started to balloon. As it turned

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out, Laura one and Laura two didn't

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just share a name. They were both in the fifth

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grade and both had no siblings. They

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had the same build, same eye color, and

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similar hair color. They each owned

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three year old female labradors, rabbits,

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and guinea pigs. They even dressed

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the same. Reportedly, the Lauras arrived

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to their first meeting in nearly identical

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ensembles of pink jumpers and blue

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jeans. In the year since their first

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meeting, the story of the Lauras and their

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balloon has proliferated online.

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Exactly what makes it so sticky is

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hard to pin down. On face value,

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It's the mundane story of a chance meeting

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between two girls with a lot in common, made

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a bit sweeter by the fact that they remained friends

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for years afterwards. On another

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level, though, the story taps into our sense

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of the supernatural. Like all uncanny

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coincidences, it makes us feel that the

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universe isn't random but meaningful,

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that there's a logic governing everything,

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and we're connected to each other in ways

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we can't begin to fathom. After

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all, in a meaningless random universe, would

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the Lauras ever have found each other at all?

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The answer, according to some staticians,

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is actually yes. This is due

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to the law of truly large numbers,

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which states that with a large enough data

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set, any highly implausible result

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is likely to be observed. In Layman's

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terms, it means that with enough people doing enough

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things in enough different places all over

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a long enough period of time, seemingly

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unlikely events become extremely

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likely, even inevitable. But

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the story of the two Lauras isn't just

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about probability, and we don't have to

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believe in fate or a supernatural

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universe to appreciate the story. The

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thing that truly makes it resonates isn't just how

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unlikely it was that two girls met. It's

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the fact that they almost didn't. If

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not for that balloon, they could have lived their whole

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lives not knowing that the other Laura

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existed. They would have missed out on a

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unique, fun and memorable experience,

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not to mention friendship. David

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Spiegelhalter, a risk researcher

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at the University of Cambridge, said that, and I

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quote, a coincidence itself

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is in the eye of the beholder, and by

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this he means that the significance of any given

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coincidence is born from the fact

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that someone was present to witness and

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draw meaning from it. If the first Laura

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hadn't released her balloon and the girls

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never met, then they would have just been statistical

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anomalies. But because they found each

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other, having so much in common, became

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special and maybe there's a lesson

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here for us, because whether you believe

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in an intentional universe or

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a random one, the reality is sometimes

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we are connected to each other in surprising

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ways. But if we never step outside

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our comfort zone, if we don't set our balloons

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loose once in a while, then you or I

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will never know how truly special

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we are. When

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we think of ancient Egypt, our minds

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go straight to the pyramids. These monuments

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of the ancient world are massive structures

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containing subterranean chambers, long

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windowless hallways, and winding

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corridors. You can imagine the

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builders, the priests, and anyone else

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who had access to these tombs would have

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needed some kind of light to get around, which

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is why it's strange that in many Egyptian

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tombs there's a distinct lack of

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torches. There's also very little

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soot residue on the ceilings, which

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you would expect to find if torches had been used

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during the building process. So were

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the ancient Egyptians just groping around

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in the dark. Well, if you've ever seen

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the nineteen ninety nine film The Mummy starring

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Brennan Fraser, then you know the answer.

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The Pharaohs used intricate systems of mirrors

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to bring the power of the sun into their tombs,

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bouncing the light from one shiny

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surface to the next until every chamber

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was illuminated. Except that's probably

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just a bit of Hollywood fantasy. In

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reality, Egyptian mirrors were much

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too crude for such a feat. But there's

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another possibility, and it seems even

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more fantastical. The idea was

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sparked by a discovery in a temple dedicated

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to the goddess Hathor near the city of

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Dundera. In a remote corner of that

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temple, a series of hieroglyphic carvings

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depict a strange scene. A bulb

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shaped device is shown sprouting from

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the floor, with a socket at one end

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and a long cable extending from the other.

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The socket continues into a long tube

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rounded at one end with a curving

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snake at its center. A priest stands

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nearby, aiming the device upwards.

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It sounds impossible, but if you see the carvings,

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they look an awful lot like modern electric

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lights, complete with a wire inside.

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The snake's body serves as the filament

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of the light bulb. But aside from looking

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similar to a light, there's not a lot of

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hard evidence to suggest that's actually

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what the reliefs show. You would think that if

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the Egyptians had access to electric lighting,

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they probably would have left behind some wires

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or glass bulbs, but nothing like that has

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ever turned up. Instead, most Egyptologists

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believe that the Dendera reliefs don't show a

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device, but an Egyptian creation myth.

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They was said that at the beginning of time, reality

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was covered by a primordial sea. The

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first thing to emerge from these dark waters

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was a single lotus flower. The flower

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then gave birth to the sun god autumn

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Ra, who went on to create the entire

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universe. In the official interpretation

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of the Dendera carvings, this socket

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is the lotus flower from that myth, while

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the snake inside that bulb shaped bubble

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is autumn Ra. It's less

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exciting than thinking the hieroglyphs show us

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an ancient flashlight, but more believable,

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and that means that we're still in the dark. Sorry

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pun intended when it comes to explaining

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how the Egyptians actually lit their tombs.

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Ultimately, the truth was hiding in

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plain sights all along. While

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ancient Egyptian tombs are short on torches.

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They do have plenty of bulls. There's

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nothing special about them, which is why archaeologists

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overlooked them for so long. But a text

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by the Greek historian Herodotus

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reveals that the Egyptians use these bulls

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as a unique kind of torch by filling them

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with castor oil and salt. The

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salt kept the oil from spilling and

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dropping the wick, and that's why the bulls

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didn't need a groove or a notch that you would

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typically see in a torch. The castor

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oil burns clean, which explains

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the missing soot case closed

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right well probably. However,

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fringe theorists still cling to the possibility

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that the Dendera reliefs our evidence of ancient

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Egyptian electricity, and in the

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nineteen eighties an engineer named Walter Garn

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created a working replica of the

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Dendera light based on the carvings.

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When he turned it on, the glowing filament

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inside the bulb pulsed and writhed, coiling

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and uncoiling a lot like a

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serpent rising from the

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bud of a lotus.

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I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of

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the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe

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for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn

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more about the show by visiting Curiosities

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podcast dot com.

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The show was created by me Aaron

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Mankey in partnership with how Stuff

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Works. I make another award winning

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show called Lore, which is a podcast,

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book series, and television show, and

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you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore

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dot com. And until next

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time, stay curious.