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two for twenty two free meals plus

1:00

free shipping. Sometimes

1:12

the thing you're looking for is right there

1:14

in front of you. You just need to

1:16

look harder. That was the case

1:18

about a decade ago when Peter Williams,

1:20

a historian at the University of Cambridge,

1:23

asked his students to take images of

1:25

a medieval document home to study

1:27

over the summer of two thousand twelve. The

1:30

manuscript in question dates back to

1:32

the sixth century, so it's pretty old and

1:34

significant on its own. But it turns

1:37

out, it was hiding something even

1:39

more amazing. You see, it

1:41

was actually a Pelham Sest manuscript,

1:43

a fancy term for a recycled book,

1:46

At some point, fourteen hundred years

1:48

ago, some economical scribe took

1:50

an older document and washed

1:52

and scraped it until it was blank again.

1:54

So that they could use it in their own project.

1:57

But it was never a perfect process. And

1:59

ten years ago, student Jamie

2:01

Claire spotted those earlier shadows.

2:04

After putting it through a series of x rays

2:06

and photographic tests that can see the

2:08

microscopic metal from the original pigment,

2:11

the older script actually came to life.

2:14

And with it, a historical document

2:16

that was long thought to be gone forever.

2:19

It was a passage by the Greek astronomer,

2:21

hipparchus. Well, it

2:23

was more than that actually. It

2:25

was a list of coordinates for stars

2:27

that hipparchus himself tracked and studied

2:29

more than two thousand years ago. In

2:31

fact, they were able to prove that hipparchus

2:33

himself wrote it by finding the

2:35

correct date for those star's positions using

2:38

known data about the Earth's procession. Which

2:41

pinned the date right in the middle of his writing

2:43

career. And the discovery proved

2:46

something else. That for a very

2:48

long time, Humans all over the world

2:50

have been looking up at the sky for answers

2:52

to their questions. Not that they've

2:54

always found them though. In fact, sometimes

2:56

those gazey eyes have spotted

2:58

something else wholly unexpected. And

3:01

the results have been terrifying.

3:06

I'm Erin and

3:08

this is Laura. If

3:23

you live near a major city or even

3:25

in the suburbs, then you know what you typically

3:27

see when you look up at night. Almost

3:29

nothing. Sure the odd planet

3:32

shines through and of course the moon, but

3:34

most of the view is polluted by our electric

3:36

lights. But head out into the

3:38

wilderness, away from civilization, and

3:40

you'll get a better idea of what our ancestors

3:43

saw every single night. A sky

3:45

filled with an uncountable number of

3:47

stars. In fact, they were so intimate

3:49

with that view that they started to

3:51

draw them as collections known as

3:53

constellations. The

3:56

first constellations drawn by humans that

3:58

we can put a definitive date on come

4:00

from ancient Mesopotamia, way back

4:02

in thirteen hundred BC. But

4:04

there's also a cave in France that has

4:06

dotted markings that some archaeologists believe

4:08

represent stars, and it dates

4:11

to over seventeen thousand years ago.

4:13

Basically humans have been looking

4:15

up and sketching what they see there for a

4:17

very long time. Now,

4:19

if I Mahnke you to name a few constellations,

4:22

you would probably mention the Big Dipper or

4:24

Orion's belt. But when the Greek astronomer

4:26

Murtolome published his star charts

4:28

about eighteen hundred years ago, It included

4:31

over a thousand stars, grouped

4:33

into forty eight distinct constellations.

4:35

Then in the seventeenth and eighteenth

4:37

century, astronomers all over

4:39

the place started making up their own constellations

4:42

and the list grew into the hundreds.

4:45

The eighty eight official constellations that

4:47

we know today were selected back

4:49

in nineteen twenty two by the international

4:52

astronomical union, cutting all

4:54

the rest out. Constellations like

4:56

Erenia, the long legged Spider

4:58

Hippocampus, The Sea Horse, The

5:00

Leech Harudo, and one that was

5:02

supposed to look like the heart of Charles the

5:05

first of England, who was beheaded

5:07

in sixteen forty nine. Yeah.

5:09

Of course, over the centuries, there

5:11

were other things that humans decided

5:13

that they could do with what they saw in the sky.

5:16

There was Aeromancy, the practice of

5:18

divination using the shape of clouds,

5:20

the patterns of bird migrations, and

5:22

other atmospheric conditions to

5:24

predict the future, sort of a supernatural

5:27

meteorology, I guess. The ancient

5:29

Sumerians thought that by tracking the movement

5:31

of certain stars, they were literally keeping

5:33

an eye on the gods, watching them move

5:36

across the night sky. And in

5:38

ancient China, it was commonly believed the

5:40

things like visible sun spots

5:42

or full or partial eclipses were

5:44

a sign of how things were going to go for the emperor,

5:47

good or bad. And then there

5:49

were other things, objects

5:51

in the sky that people have been unable

5:53

to identify. And of course, when I

5:55

mentioned that sort of phenomenon, your mind

5:57

probably drags up images of the nineteen

5:59

forties and fifties, but UFO's

6:02

aren't just a modern concept and

6:04

sightings date back further than Roswell

6:06

and Rendorsham and Bay Area fifty

6:08

one. One early sighting

6:10

that was recorded in the diary of a public

6:12

official tells us a most unusual

6:14

story. The writer, John,

6:16

tells us that a man named James Everell

6:18

had been in a rowboat with two other friends

6:21

on a river just outside of Boston

6:23

when they spotted a bright light in the

6:25

sky. John tells us that

6:27

when it stood still, it flamed up

6:29

and was about three yards square. When

6:31

it ran, it was contracted into the

6:33

figure of a swine. John,

6:35

by the way, wasn't a random guy who was

6:37

just writing things down for fun. He

6:40

was John Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts

6:42

Bay Colony, and that diary entry was

6:44

dated March first of sixteen

6:46

thirty nine, almost four centuries

6:48

ago. And according to the rest of the text,

6:51

other well respected citizens came forward

6:53

to report the exact same siding,

6:55

same night, same place, same

6:57

unexplainable object that moved quickly

6:59

and then stopped on a dime. Oh,

7:01

and mister James Everoll reported something

7:03

else that sounds very UFOish

7:06

today. When the mysterious light

7:08

finally vanished, he and his friends

7:10

discovered that they had traveled a full mile

7:12

against the current of the river without

7:14

remembering that it happened. Winthrop

7:17

would go on to record many more sightings,

7:19

but so did a lot of other people over the

7:21

years. In May of nineteen hundred, One

7:24

woman reported seeing what appeared to be a

7:26

massive illuminated shape of a

7:28

cross floating a thousand feet above

7:30

her town. Sparks seemed to drip

7:32

off of it as the object zipped around the

7:34

sky. But when pushed comes

7:36

to shove, no one witnessed more

7:38

dramatic, mysterious visions in the

7:40

sky than the folks who lived across

7:42

America in the late eighteen nineties. It

7:44

was both a national craze and

7:46

a local experience. And to

7:48

those who lived through it. It was

7:50

also the fright of their

7:52

life. We

8:05

have to begin with the overall mood of the

8:07

world at the time. For context, in

8:09

eighteen fifty two, a French engineer

8:11

named Henri Giffard, had the

8:13

bright idea to attach a steam powered

8:15

engine to a balloon filled with hydrogen

8:17

gas, and it propelled the craft

8:19

seventeen miles. Not too bad

8:21

for a first go at it. In

8:23

eighteen ninety five, a German guy

8:25

named Ferdinand filed a patent for a fully

8:28

designed airship It had a rigid

8:30

frame covered by a tough skin, which

8:32

was filled with hydrogen gas.

8:34

Beneath a long thin balloon was

8:36

something like a cable car, which housed two engines,

8:39

passenger compartments, and a place

8:41

for the crew. And it could zip around at

8:43

twenty five miles per hour.

8:45

Fertenan's last name by the way was Zeppelin,

8:47

which is where the airship's name comes

8:49

from. These were first

8:51

steps rare machines that

8:53

were pioneering something new,

8:55

powered, divertable flight.

8:57

They weren't the jetliners of their

8:59

day yet, So most people only read

9:01

about them in papers and books, which

9:03

is what makes the events of eighteen ninety

9:05

six and eighteen ninety seven, so

9:07

unusual, I suppose. It

9:10

started on November seventeenth of eighteen

9:12

ninety six out in Sacramento,

9:14

California. That evening between

9:16

six and seven PM, hundreds of

9:18

people looked up and spotted something

9:20

strange in the sky. As the front page

9:22

article described it the following morning,

9:24

they saw coming through the sky over

9:26

the house tops what appeared to them to

9:28

be merely an electric arc lamp

9:30

propelled by some mysterious force.

9:33

It came out of the east and sailed

9:35

unevenly toward the southwest dropping

9:37

now near to Earth and now suddenly

9:39

rising into the air again as

9:41

if the force that was whirling it through

9:43

space was sensible of the dangers of

9:45

collision with objects upon the

9:47

earth. More unusual

9:49

though was that many of the witnesses

9:51

claim to have heard men shouting from

9:53

the craft, things like lift her

9:55

up quick. You are making for that

9:57

steeple, and we ought to get to San

9:59

Francisco by tomorrow. If that

10:01

was the end of it, We could write it off as

10:03

a random, degradable enthusiast

10:05

who wanted to go for a joyride in a

10:07

state of the art European technology

10:10

on the western edge of the United States.

10:12

But it didn't. In fact, it was just

10:14

the first of many similar sightings.

10:17

Each came with a description, and while there

10:19

are a lot of details that varied from

10:21

place to place, many were eerily

10:23

similar. People frequently

10:25

described a white central headlamp

10:27

with colored bites beside it,

10:29

often in red and green. But

10:31

the strangest similarities centered around

10:33

the body of the craft. Most

10:36

described it as nearly two hundred feet

10:38

long, much larger than any derigable

10:40

at the time. Weirder

10:42

still, a good number of witnesses claimed that the

10:44

aircraft had wings described

10:46

as almost as long across as the

10:48

ship's own length. Some of the ship's

10:50

surfaces were apparently metallic, and there was

10:52

a sort of basket hanging from its

10:54

underside, which many said

10:56

contained a pilot. And

10:58

I mentioned that there were a lot of witnesses,

11:00

but I'm not sure that fully represents what

11:02

I mean. Over the span of just five

11:04

months, reports came in from over hundred

11:06

and fifty different witnesses. The craft

11:09

was spotted across twenty different

11:11

states in the US, sometimes hundreds

11:13

of miles apart on the same

11:15

day. I could spend

11:17

hours telling you all about them, but

11:19

here are a small handful of examples.

11:21

On April sixth of eighteen ninety

11:23

seven, Hundreds of people in Wilmington,

11:25

North Carolina stood on the Wharf

11:27

and watched as a craft covered in

11:29

green and red lights passed overhead.

11:32

Some people even saw rope hanging down

11:34

from the basket. Eight days

11:36

later on April fourteenth, a farmer

11:38

in Wolf Creek, Arizona named Richard

11:40

Butler spotted an airship while he was out

11:42

in his horse drawn wagon. When

11:44

they spotted the thing in the air, his

11:46

horses bolted and capsized the

11:48

wagon, And on the exact same day, all the

11:50

way over in Rochester, New York,

11:52

local man Cyrus Wheatley was helping

11:54

the neighbor with the sick cow when

11:56

he spotted red and green lights in the sky,

11:59

flanking a brighter white headlight.

12:02

And reading through them, it's easy to assume

12:04

that all of these encounters were benign

12:06

and safe and from a distance. But in

12:08

at least one report, things became

12:10

much more dangerous. On March

12:12

ninth, out in Utah, People all

12:14

over town looked up at about nine

12:16

thirty in the morning and spotted a

12:18

strange craft in the sky. They claim

12:20

that smoke billowed out of three distinct

12:22

smoke stacks. And moving quickly.

12:24

And then the craft

12:26

exploded. Witnesses say that the

12:28

sound of the blast was heard as far away

12:30

as twenty miles, but it had

12:32

been so low in the sky that the explosion

12:34

was also felt like the

12:36

concussion of some sort of bomb.

12:38

Windows in houses for mild were

12:40

shattered by the force of it, and lights

12:42

were knocked out. After it

12:44

was all over, one man, David

12:46

Liefer, went out to his barn to

12:48

check on the horses. He found one of them

12:50

unresponsive to sound as if the

12:52

explosion had caused it to go deaf.

12:54

And the other, according to the reports,

12:56

had been decapitated by some

12:58

of the debris. And that

13:00

right there would be enough for anyone

13:02

to be afraid of. And yet

13:04

just a decade later, one

13:06

woman experienced something that would

13:08

change not only her own life,

13:10

but that of her entire

13:12

family. It

13:26

was nineteen

13:30

eleven, and the whispers of the airship

13:32

sightings from fourteen years earlier

13:34

had sailed off over the horizon. Folks all

13:36

across America had settled back into the

13:38

more mundane aspects of life,

13:40

although I'd have to assume they sometimes

13:42

glanced up at the sky. People

13:44

probably never will stop doing that.

13:47

Idela was thirty six at the

13:49

time, living in Central Ohio, In

13:51

mid May of that year, she decided she wanted to

13:53

go visit her grandmother who lived about forty

13:55

miles to the east. So she bought a

13:57

ticket and boarded a train for the town

13:59

of Broadway. Heading out with a

14:01

smile on her face and the anticipation

14:03

that comes with seeing loved ones that you

14:05

miss. When she

14:07

arrived at her grandmother's home later that

14:09

day though, something was wrong.

14:11

Idela had left that good mood

14:13

behind and seemed to be a shell of

14:15

her former self. She was in

14:17

emotional distress, barely spoke,

14:19

and was sullen and dark. And that

14:21

was just on the inside. Her

14:24

body also showed signs of some sort of

14:26

immense physical trauma As

14:28

if she had been in an accident, there

14:30

were burn marks on her face. Her

14:32

tongue was badly swollen, and there was

14:34

a strange indentation across the back

14:36

of her lower leg. As if some

14:38

enormous rope had bound her tightly

14:41

leaving a mark in the skin. Understandably,

14:44

her family was concerned Upon

14:46

seeing the state's Idela was in, her

14:48

grandmother called for Idela's mother to come

14:50

help. Her mother then called Idela's two

14:52

brothers and one sister, and the family

14:54

sort of converged on the house in

14:56

Broadway to surround and support

14:58

her. When it became clear

15:00

that Idela wasn't going to recover

15:02

anytime soon, One of her brothers caught a train

15:04

home to make sure someone was there to take care of

15:06

Idyllis's kids. The rest just sort

15:08

of moved in, becoming full time

15:10

caretakers to a woman they had known

15:12

and loved for years, but they weren't

15:14

hopeful. Idela could barely

15:16

manage life anymore. And while she would

15:18

attempt small talk from time to time,

15:20

whenever anyone asked her what had happened, she

15:22

would immediately become so terrified that

15:24

she was unable to speak. There

15:27

were darker days ahead. Idela

15:30

attempted to take her own life a number of

15:32

once even throwing herself into a nearby river

15:34

until her mother jumped in to save her. But

15:36

the truth came out one night in the kitchen

15:38

as she stood over the sink with her

15:40

mother and sister Elsie in the room.

15:42

She told them how on her journey

15:45

to the house in May, they had

15:47

come out of the sky. And told her that they

15:49

were going to destroy everything.

15:51

Her kids, her family, and the

15:53

rest of the world. She

15:55

even set up at night and wrote her experiences

15:57

down. But according to Elsie, their mother

15:59

burned the pages every time. Out

16:01

of shame for the fantastic identical

16:03

lies that they assumed she was telling.

16:06

By February of nineteen twelve, Idela

16:08

had been sent to a mental health facility

16:10

in Columbus, Ohio. And a few

16:12

months after that, she managed to sneak away

16:14

from the caretakers there and end her own

16:16

life. A very dark

16:18

chapter had ended for her family. And

16:20

on a tragic note, And from

16:22

that day forward, no one spoke of

16:24

it again. It was a mystery that the

16:26

family would lock away and

16:28

never tell another soul. But

16:30

no secret can stay hidden forever. It

16:32

took six decades, but eventually Elsie

16:35

had to speak out. And the reason for

16:37

that was because of something she read.

16:39

You see, in nineteen seventy two, a man named

16:41

Jay Allen Heinek had started an organization

16:43

that published articles and research of a

16:45

very particular kind. He had

16:47

worked for years as a consultant to the US

16:49

Air Force, but he left after they

16:51

made it clear that they weren't interested in his

16:54

unusual ideas. And

16:56

it was those ideas that Elsie read about in nineteen

16:58

seventy three, sixty one years

17:00

after her sister's mysterious encounter

17:02

and tragic death. Reports

17:05

of other events that sounded eerily similar

17:07

to Idelas, reports of

17:09

lost time. On explainable injuries,

17:11

and talk of someone or something

17:14

coming out of the sky.

17:16

It helped Elsie finally put a name

17:18

to the events that happened to her sister

17:20

and helped her better understand the

17:22

physical and emotional damage she and

17:24

her family were all witnessed to. It

17:27

happened decades before the events at

17:29

Roswell, New Mexico but the

17:31

clear. Jay Allen Hynick,

17:33

the man who coined the term close

17:36

encounter, had inadvertently helped her

17:38

discover the truth. Idella

17:40

hadn't suffered through an accident. She

17:42

had been the victim of something darker.

17:45

A UFO encounter. Today,

18:05

the skies above us are busy. If

18:07

you're like me and live in the vicinity of a

18:09

major airport, it can often seem

18:11

like there's always giant metal bird

18:14

to look at whenever we glance

18:16

upward. We still can't help ourselves after

18:18

all. The sky is a

18:20

playground as the food fighter saying,

18:22

There's always something going on above us.

18:24

But that doesn't explain the mysterious

18:26

sightings across America in eighteen ninety

18:28

six and ninety seven.

18:30

Yes, it was the sort of vessel that a few

18:33

people in Europe had heard about, but it was

18:35

far from common and nothing that anyone

18:37

would expect to find popping up all over

18:39

the United States. Even if those sightings

18:41

were truly just some giant

18:43

airship in the sky, they were

18:45

wildly out of place on the timeline of

18:47

powered balloon flight. Sadly,

18:50

it seems to be a mystery that will never be

18:52

solved. At the time, a number of people came

18:54

forward with claims to be the mastermind behind

18:56

one or more of the ships. In

18:59

fact, right after that first siding in

19:01

Sacramento in November of eighteen ninety

19:03

six, an attorney announced that he had been

19:05

hired to represent the anonymous

19:07

scientist who built the airship. A

19:09

second attorney disputed that story,

19:11

though, claiming that he was the

19:13

true representative. A month

19:15

later, Henry Hern, learned about the airship

19:17

and claimed the invention was his

19:19

own, but the designs had been stolen.

19:21

His outburst of anger, turned

19:23

violence, and he was placed in an institution to

19:25

make sure that he could no longer harm himself

19:27

or others. In April the following

19:29

year, a woman in Ohio named Eleanor

19:32

Woodruff started to violently attack friends and family members

19:34

because they refused to give her the money necessary

19:36

to build an airship of her

19:39

own. She too was placed in

19:41

an asylum. People were so

19:43

desperate for answers that they sent

19:45

countless letters to Thomas Edison,

19:47

assuming that he was either behind it or knew

19:49

who was. Edison

19:51

eventually had to respond publicly,

19:53

making it clear that he had nothing to do

19:55

with the mysterious airships.

19:57

One last thing. Remember how

19:59

I told you of the hundreds of

20:02

constellations that were killed off in nineteen twenty

20:04

two by the International Astronomical

20:07

Union One good bit of news is that all of

20:09

ptolemy's forty eight original constellations were

20:11

kept, even if that meant that we lost

20:13

so many curious and wonderful

20:15

alternatives in the process. Honestly,

20:17

this world is a little less cheerful

20:19

without Curis Volens, the flying

20:21

squirrel looking down on us from the

20:24

night sky. Oh, and one other constellation that

20:26

was once common only to be cast

20:28

aside a century ago. Its

20:30

name Argo Navi,

20:32

the ship of the Argonauts,

20:34

a gigantic ship hovering

20:38

in the air, It's

20:50

honestly astounding

20:52

the sorts of stories you can track down

20:54

in newspapers across the country.

20:57

In a day and age when most people were looking at the ground

20:59

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Ferdinand von

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Zeppelin was a groundbreaking. There's no

24:54

doubt about that. But a

24:56

century before he filed this patent,

24:58

another man was making his own mark on the

25:00

world of balloons. Actually,

25:02

we need to go back even further in

25:04

time first. To the brothers, Joseph

25:06

Michel and Jacobyen. They were the

25:08

ones who gave us the hot air balloon that we

25:10

think of today, the large

25:12

globe like structure with a longer bottom,

25:14

like an upside down teardrop. And it

25:16

was their experience with the family business.

25:19

Paper manufacturing that helped them find

25:21

the right materials. In

25:23

seventeen ninety three, that design set

25:26

a record demand free flight by soaring three

25:28

thousand feet above Paris and traveling

25:30

nearly six miles. It sounds

25:32

pretty weak by today's standards, but back

25:34

then it drew a massive crowd.

25:36

Historians think that upwards of a hundred

25:38

thousand people gathered to watch it

25:40

happen, including King Louie the

25:42

sixteenth, and a guy most of us have heard of named Benjamin

25:45

Franklin. But hydrogen entered the picture a

25:47

couple of decades earlier and balloon

25:49

enthusiasts were looking for ways to

25:51

use it. In seventeen eighty five, a

25:53

Frenchman named Jean Pierre Blanchard,

25:55

along with an American doctor, became the first

25:57

to fly over the English Channel in a

25:59

hydrogen balloon. It took them two and a half

26:01

hours. And Blanchard became an

26:03

overnight celebrity in his home

26:05

country. He went on to be the first to fly a

26:07

balloon in America Germany, Belgium,

26:09

Poland, and the Netherlands. And

26:11

as his fame grew, he started to

26:13

travel around putting on balloon

26:15

shows that's judging by the stories

26:17

were the monster truck madness

26:19

events of the seventeen eighties. Seriously,

26:21

this man would strap dogs into

26:23

parachutes and toss them out

26:25

of his balloon. His shows included pyrotechnics

26:28

too, literally shooting

26:30

fireworks from his hydrogen filled

26:32

balloon. It was like a rock show just without

26:34

the loud music. Thanks to Blanchard,

26:36

Europe was swept up in balloon

26:39

mania. Everywhere you looked, there were balloons

26:41

for sale. Ceramic ones, ones

26:43

printed on fabric and even

26:45

reproduced in fashion through round puffy

26:47

sleeves and voluminous skirts.

26:49

Some folks even copied the man's haircut. Honestly,

26:52

people loved him. In

26:54

eighteen o four, he married Sophie

26:56

Arment, a woman half his age, and

26:58

started taking her along on his tour. Through

27:00

on the job training, she became a star

27:02

right alongside him. In fact, just a

27:04

year later, she became the first woman to

27:07

fly solo. And then

27:09

tragedy struck. While giving a

27:11

balloon demonstration, Blanchard had a

27:13

heart attack and plummeted out of

27:15

his balloon. It's unknown if the

27:17

fall ended his life or if he was

27:19

already dead when he hit the ground, but it

27:21

seemed as if his balloon tour

27:23

was over. And yet,

27:25

Sophie wasn't ready to walk

27:27

away. Instead, she kept the show going and

27:29

just sort of took over. And

27:31

despite the fact that she was a nervous

27:33

woman on the ground, once she climbed

27:35

into that basket and lifted off, she

27:37

became an absolutely fearless performer.

27:40

And she did it all too. She launched

27:43

fireworks from the balloon at her shows,

27:45

dropped explosives, and flew

27:47

enormous distances. And, sadly, yes,

27:49

she also tossed dogs wearing

27:51

parachutes out into the open sky.

27:53

I suppose no one is perfect. Right?

27:56

ten years, Sophie was the queen

27:58

of balloons. Hek Napoleon named

28:00

her chief air minister of

28:02

ballooning and tasked her with planning and air

28:04

invasion of England which

28:06

never came about. Four years later, King

28:08

Louie the eighteenth named her the

28:10

official aeronaut of the restoration.

28:12

It seems that everyone loved Sophie

28:15

Blanchard. In July of

28:17

eighteen nineteen, she arrived in Paris for

28:19

one of her regular performances, but

28:21

she and her team noticed that there were a lot more fireworks

28:23

than normal. Again, her

28:25

balloon was filled with hydrogen gas,

28:28

not hot air, so it's a

28:30

detail worth mentioning, and she

28:32

discussed the dangers with her team and

28:34

almost almost canceled the

28:36

show. But at the last minute, she caved

28:38

into the chance of the crowd. Climbed

28:40

into her basket and lifted

28:42

off. There she was soaring

28:44

higher and higher above the crowd wearing a

28:46

white dress and white hat, waving

28:48

a white flag. She was an angel ever

28:50

there was one. And then

28:52

a spark ignited her balloon.

28:55

Unable to descend due to high winds,

28:57

she was blown of course. Minutes

28:59

later, the basket struck the roof of a nearby

29:01

building, spilling Sophie out, and

29:03

dropping her to her death below.

29:06

Today, she's buried in Peerless' cemetery

29:08

there in Paris. Her epitaph makes sense,

29:10

if you know her story, victim

29:12

of her art and intrepidity.

29:15

But visitors are given an extra hint

29:18

by way of the image carved into the

29:20

stone above it. It's an image

29:22

of a balloon engulfed in

29:25

flames. This

29:37

episode of lore was written and produced

29:39

by me, Aaron Mahnke, with

29:41

research by Generos Leathercot and

29:43

Music by Chad Lawson. Laura is

29:45

much more than just a podcast. There's a book

29:47

series available in bookstores and

29:49

online and two seasons of the television

29:51

show on Amazon Prime video. Check them both

29:53

out if you want more lore in your life. You

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can find more information on all things lore over

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at lore podcast dot com. For

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fans of video, lore is also on

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YouTube. Each new episode is released alongside

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