E493 Wiffle Ball Whimsy and Tastebud Tickling Treats (featuring Guest Host Bethany Watson)

I planned on doing this with Hank by my side as my little co-host today, but he decided that eating a carrot was more important. We would like to thank EmbarkVet.com for supporting, and that's why we drink. If you go to EmbarkVet.com, you can save $10 on the breed and health test and get free shipping with promo code DRINK. We cover cryptids, and I have my own little carrot-eating cryptid in the corner right now. And one of my biggest unsolved mysteries was what breed is he? To solve this, I went to Embark's dog DNA test. They have the most accurate dog DNA test available, and all I had to do was take a little cheek swab from him. I had to mail it to them in a prepackaged envelope that they provided for me, and two weeks later, we got the results. And everyone thought when we got Hank, they were like, oh, clearly he's a cattle dog. Big surprise indeed. He's actually a Bernweiler, which is half Bernie's Mountain Dog and half Rottweiler. He's also Pomeranian, which was an even bigger surprise. And a pinch, like 3% German Shepherd. If you want to see for yourself, what your dog's breed is, and not just what their breed is out of curiosity, but how you can actually help them based on their breed, what's going to help them health-wise, what their diet should look like, what their exercise should look like, what their lifespan will look like, then check out Embark. It's been so helpful to us. Get the dog DNA test that is trusted by millions. And this August, if you'd like, you can add a donation for shelters and rescues right at checkout. Go to EmbarkVet.com to get free shipping and save $10 with promo code DRINK. Visit EmbarkVet.com and use promo code DRINK to save $10 today. All the summer escapes start here. Travel the worlds of Netflix IRL. Inspired by fan favorites like Stranger Things and Squid Game. Brave the upside-down. Face off with the frontman. Play leveled-up arcade games. Shop exclusive merch. And enjoy themed food and drinks. Beat the heat. Play, eat, and shop on repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas. Bring your crew and save. Get your tickets today at Netflix.com/House. Hello, everybody. Welcome to And That's Why We Drink. I am not with Christine today. She cannot make it. But we have someone who is here to help me out. It is one of my, I think, like, I think you're one of my longest friends now, Bethany. This is Bethany Watson. Hello. I, I was. Prepared to give you like a whole little intro and I got nervous. I just I can't believe I'm recording with you. This is we're both. We're both podcasters and we're both in this world. And that's how I met you. But I have never actually done an episode with you before. I don't think, have we? Oh, my God. Is this our first time? This if this is our first time, that is a travesty. Did we? Did Kathleen and I never have you on Acquired Taste? We didn't really do guests very often. Oh, my gosh. This is our first time recording together. This is incredible. How long have we been friends? We have been friends. So we have been friends for at least seven, probably eight years, I think, which is crazy. Yeah, because, you know, it's funny, I was originally a fan of yours. And I remember. I remember meeting you in in my DM. Do I think is that how we became friends? I think so. Yeah. So I think that I had been listening to and that's why we drink for years and years. And I would always listen to you guys as I took the train into onto Long Island to take like my aerial circus fabric classes. I would listen to you guys. And then, like, we I think we started following each other. And then that's right. You reached out and you were like. I listened to an acquired taste, which is the podcast I used to do with my co-host Kathleen at the time. And I remember I almost fell over because I didn't think anyone had heard of our show who hadn't already heard our show. You know? No, I remember. I remember saying something. Either you mentioned us or we mentioned you on our part. I think you mentioned me anyway. I was a big fan and I ended up DMing you. And then somehow we became friends throughout all this. And you've come to. My shows. I visited you in your place. And anyway, just to give everyone an intro as to who you are. But no, you're where we've been longtime friends and Christine couldn't make it. So I asked Bethany if she could hop on and you are equally into the spooky stuff. So I I had a feeling you would be able to throw out a true crime case in a pinch. So thank you for doing that. It's my absolute pleasure. It's funny because right before we recorded. I was on a phone call with a police officer getting information about blood spatter patterns for my my day job. I'm a researcher and a script writer for a true crime YouTube channel called The Lore Lodge. The Lore Lodge. They've been going on for a while and they are very evidence focused. Like they're they are not super into let's believe everything is aliens unless we know it's aliens. Which I think most of us are kind of like we would love to believe it's aliens. But let's make sure it's not just like the mundane first. Right. So I was researching a script that I'm writing for them. And so I had to talk to a police officer because I didn't know the difference between different kinds of bullets. So I'm psyched to be further dipping my toe in the true crime world today with you. It's going to be really fun. I really appreciate it. Before we even get into that, though. I have to ask you. I did ask you to very last minute to bring a drink. And then you said, don't worry, I have three. So you're in exactly the right thing. What do you drink or what are all three of your drinks? So I'm drinking today. I'm drinking a Diet Coke because I am a millennial and it's I can't help it. And I am also drinking a Fresca because I am my mother's daughter and my mom is a Fresca. Bitch. And then I'm also drinking a water with a little bit of lemon in it because I am a white woman. And so these are all the required beverages we drink. You know, I it's my mom was also she was in the 90s. She was that girl about Fresca and also same with she was specifically. May she rest in peace. The Diet Coke with lemon and the Diet Coke with lime. Oh, yeah. Really had a choke hold on her. So I feel like now I'm just podcasting with my mom. That's what I just I mean, look, it's fine with me. I can give off that maternal energy if you want. Hell, yeah, you know, you and her in a wet bar with Diet Coke. It sounds like just history in the making that and like a lemon cello. Martini and we'll go to town. Oh, she loved who Linda? I feel like she loves a lemon cello. Okay. Oh, and then I should ask. Of course. Sorry. I'm used to being the sole. I should be asking you. I should be like doing this in return. I'm not being a very good co-host. No, no, no. I want to know what you drink. I also want to know why you drink. Is there like a good bad anything small big? I think so. I drink because it's a good I drink because my partner Dennis and I recently discovered a wiffle ball set that we didn't know we had. And M and gentle listener. I don't know when the last time you hit around a wiffle ball was, but it is so dang fun. And now that it is getting kind of warm on the East Coast and things are starting to be a little bit more outside, we have started at the end of the day going outside and like hitting wiffle balls back and forth at each other. And it is so fun. It is like, and when is the last time you played in a lawn? Oh, a lawn. Man, it has to have been a decade. I think maybe and you know, what's even sadder about that? I don't think I was playing. I think I was monitoring others on the lawn. Yeah. During like a slip and slide situation. An S.S.S. slip and slide situation. Yeah, not even a fun one. Like it was children and I was making sure they didn't careen into a fence. Like I. Man, I don't know. I just told Allison last night that I want to start throwing a Frisbee around. I don't know who the fuck I've turned into. But I was like, yes, I think. I think all of us, first of all, and I clump you in. Tell me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think I am. The millennials, we yearn for whimsy. We yearn for nostalgia. Obviously, you're 90s fresca, and now you just want to go play some catch. I mean, I think we just all want to live in a Full House theme song, like just kind of like, you know what I mean? So I think that we've realized that life is harder than we were led to believe it was going to be. And so, like, let's have fun when we can. And then we're just like drawing on our childhood memories of what fun looks like. And yeah, playing with football was that you know, I remember playing dizzy bat a lot with a wiffle ball bat. But I don't remember ever really playing with a wiffle ball. They're fun. That's so fun. Have you ever played disc golf? I have. I have not. Is that is that is that frisbee? Is that frisbee golf? It's yes, it's like. frisbee but but darts i don't know they're it's it's target frisbee you just throw it until you hit the basket i don't know the official rules or anything but allison and i during the pandemic were trying to find like an an isolating thing to do outside and it really became like such a fun thing for us we again still don't know the rules it's basically like we just want to throw something and then walk to the next spot and then throw it again so but it's very straight that sounds great i that's great next time you and i are in the same proximity we're going to throw things at things and hopefully try to hit them that's great perfect perfect perfect great well today i drink the leftover of a water bottle that i fell asleep with and then i also um the exact same type of water bottle but i threw a little talk about the 90s what's happening here a little crystal light packet threw her in she looks red what flavor you know the only one that i have found in the store is raspberry lemonade so um i'm a loyalist by force you know what i mean delicious she's the yummy um i actually will chug these i am turning into an old man where if i'm really enjoying something i'm drinking by the end of the drink i go oh like i like i was like i'm just oh like i like i got raced for no reason but with myself i'm like that was incredible and that's how i am with these little crystal light packets i'm like holy shit this is delicious if you find something that's something that tickles your taste buds like that hardcore you gotta go for it and i'm and i'm glad that you're going for air by the end oh god it's so good um m why do you drink why do you drink if for those you can't see they just took a long sip and then their eyes rolled back in their head like and if you were wearing pearls you would have clutched them i've never like i was trying to do it quietly because there was a microphone but like usually like when the microphone isn't here it's like the whole house here is that i've had crystal light um that's that's so funny why do i drink you know i didn't even really think it through but i'm gonna land on my dog is a little sick today oh and i he clearly just ate something but in the middle of the night we we taught him early on we i taught him early on that um had a little bit of a ring bells on the door if he has to go to the bathroom because i was not gonna be someone who had to guess when he needs to go outside yeah um and i was already hesitant on getting a dog it's a whole thing i was like how do i make this as convenient for me as possible i mean look and so i remember following your social media when you were like hank needs a forever home and i think i and everyone else was like yeah m yeah he does really what i need to do is lock the fuck in and just accept what's happening um but he so i taught him how to how to ring the bells when he has to go and i didn't teach him this but he did learn that if he based on intensity i know how badly he has to go and all through the night he's been like slamming on these bells he's like open the door i gotta go oh but um and so i and then i i woke up this morning we had to delay our recording because i had to clean up again for him and then i just walked over to his dog bed right before we recorded and found out that he threw up and so um he's having a bad tummy day so we might be taking a trip to the vet so that's why i drink not mean not one that he's sick but i know he'll be fine but it's like oh i just gotta keep cleaning and cleaning and cleaning i'm cinderella over here so anyway yeah you are yeah um i know it's just like that's literally the fucking point of having a dog like i need to get over it but man some days are harder than the others you know you know what it's like having a pet is just having a permanent toddler and um and that's what i say yeah you're in that like terrible time and you're like oh my two's and for a decade yeah yeah yeah yeah yep forever well okay i have a story for you today i need you to know i again we have been friends for a very long time i've never hosted you on the show before you also like not just the spooky but like the weird and mysterious and the what the fuck kind of stuff going on actually you're the one who taught me on your old podcast and acquired taste um you're the one who taught me about the kentucky meat showers oh yes i remember that i remember that i remember the kentucky meat showers i remember listening to that and thinking that's a fucking slam dunk of a story so i wanted to find a story like that because i remember you being so like jazzed about that so i was like okay i gotta i gotta bring that energy here so i i found something similar and for all i know you actually have covered this before on your own show or when you did radio in my mind you did the exact same thing on radio i know you didn't but i wish that would be so cool it would have been so cool but um i just i just tell myself that in the last few days people have done some very kind things uh for me i have it just stayed on my mind where allison made me a cake when i came home from my long trip someone sent me a thank you note which like never happens it's so rare these days and my barista this morning uh she charged me for a small when she knows full well that i ordered a large and if you're hiring great candidates can also go the extra step and tell you what you think about the show and what you think about the show and tell you what you think about the show and tell you what you think about why they're interested in your job on zip recruiter as a way to stand out from the others right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com drink and zip recruiter has a new feature that shows you the most interested qualified candidates first so you meet the right people faster we are always singing zip recruiters praises they helped us find eva within 24 hours and that's because zip recruiters powerful uh matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly candidates can also tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job so everyone finds exactly what and who they're looking for try zip recruiter and meet great candidates uh who will go the extra step for your job four out of five employers who post on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day guilty as charged try it for free today at zip recruiter.com drink that's zip recruiter.com drink zip recruiter meet your match on zip recruiter anyway i'm covering frano zilak do you know who that is i do not oh i'm excited perfect okay he's no contender he's a good candidate for the job he's a good candidate for the job he's a good candidate but he's something so is he is he an exploding whale you know do you know but have you covered have you covered you've covered the exploding whale right no oh you need to cover the exploding whale that time that whale exploded on the beach i okay i haven't covered that and i one time we covered spontaneous combustion yes um that was fine i've i really have i mean a majority of my stories are ghosts but i i do remember every now and then and allison has been very kind to remind me because sometimes i'm like oh my god i'm a ghost i'm a ghost i'm a ghost i'm a ghost i get stumped on what to cover next and she's like you literally started this podcast saying that you'll also just cover like what the fuck things that was like the way i used to phrase it i think so i was like all right i'm gonna do that um so here we go this is frano zilak he was born in 1929 he's from croatia and whether or not you'll agree by the end of this story but i'm interested in your answer he was nicknamed in his life mr lucky or lucky one even though he was actually probably the most famous person in the world and he was the most famous person in the world and he was the unluckiest man alive yo i've never heard of this man in my life i'm so excited to see if he is unlucky or so truly unlucky i even he i mean he has an answer i won't tell you yet but he he has been asked like do you think you're lucky or unlucky and he i'll insert the quote later um but this is a shout out to um one of the shows on our network uh creeps and crimes you have met them many times on the show all the listeners uh but morgan of creeps and crimes is actually the one who suggested this to me so i was like i need something real silly and then this was the first suggestion she gave me so thank you morgan thank you morgan so basically as soon as he was born his life got pretty interesting he was born two months premature when his parents were out boating together and i don't know if that's like fun rich people speed boating or like we're on like an old oil tankard you know i don't know yeah what that means boating feels like it's one or the other extreme ends of a spectrum you're never boating because you're comfortable you're boating because you have so much money or because you are trying to get to a different country because everything is bad you know you're like a pirate yeah yeah yeah yeah well so i'm assuming they were fishing because when she when her water broke i don't know how long they were or how far out into sea they were because it sounds like the water broke and she had all of her labor and gave birth in this boat all at once jesus so maybe they were living on a ship yeah maybe it was a houseboat yeah so maybe actually that that goes against everything we just said that you can just live on a boat okay so that's true that's true that's true erase erase so his father delivered him and cut the umbilical cord with his own fishing knife which feels dirty that feels like i mean it's better i've heard of men biting it like i don't know i've never look i've never delivered a baby i don't i don't know i don't know how that works i guess a fishing knife is if that's all you got it's all you got i guess it's i i hope there was a little sink in some dawn soap and we like did a scrub but like yes i yeah maybe not maybe just the first thing that ever made human contact with him was just a germy old fishing knife oh god we don't know but anyway so uh within that same year He's already like, I guess, I don't know if we're calling that lucky, but certainly in interesting yeah within that same year frano nearly died from an intestinal issue he wasn't even a year old yet and then as a child he nearly lost his vision he recovered from both of those which i would consider pretty darn lucky yeah um and growing up he loved music his parents actually were able to send him to a conservatory he learned piano and i think violin and he also learned how to like compose music and he grew up to be a music teacher um okay great he got married he had a son and when i say he got married i mean like four times maybe five times no hate just interesting just saying um sometimes is this a sometimes you're with someone for a reason for a season or for a lifetime and he had several reasons and a couple seasons he had at least four or five seasons and um as someone who has grown up in a family of four or five marriages i certainly are not poo-pooing on it i'm just saying him and i would have finally something in common so totally absolutely so he ends up kind of just living a normal life until he's about 28 years old and the most fun fact he had at the time was probably like my dad cut me with the cut my cord with a fishing knife um yeah however we're now in 1957 and he's 28 okay and this is when his mr lucky nickname starts kind of making the rounds because he a music teacher is riding the school bus home after a field trip and while he's on that bus the bus driver i'm imagining it like a cartoon but it's actually like so effing scary he's on a on the school bus and then the driver tried to like make a turn and the wheel just fell off in his goddamn head no no that's a nightmare which like did we not feel the wheel was loose like did we not we should tighten that you know or it's just like snap off like and in that case are you the hulk like that's a nightmare i don't know i don't know like right is he like so so very strong how does that a wheel by nature should be able to turn many times and not come off right my definition i think yeah that's its job is to turn and stay where it is so it breaks off in the driver's hands the bus crashes into a nearby river however the river was incredibly shallow so i don't know even if the bus hit the the floor of the water it seems that they were able to kind of like just walk out it sounds like they fell into a puddle it sounds like not a river i when you said however the river i thought you were going to say however the river was okay i was gonna be like that is not what we're not a bruise on her she's sturdy she laughed all the way home yeah yeah um so it was super shallow it sounds like they were able to just like kind of like open the door and walk out so that ended up being fine but still super scary i mean i think the scariest part of that is absolutely the wheel coming off and you and the driver look at each other like well now what because all you can do is stare there's like what else are you going to do you have to take that moment it's just like genetically ingrained in all of us now because we've seen so many comedies and cartoons so you have to take the moment and just stare at it and then look at someone else and stare and now you've lost like five seconds of reaction time it like in that moment i'm praying that the other person is like a wheel expert and knows exactly how to put it back on right now so this is just the beginning of uh frano cheating death multiple times in his life and since this is the first time which i would argue not really because as a baby it sounds like he survived something but that one doesn't count i guess okay um but so okay this bus situation is the first time this ever happens and this incident by the way isn't even listed this bus one include just i know i just said the the time when he was a baby but this one also isn't even listed as one of the official near-death experiences he had this is like the prequel i guess imagine if you knew what your day was going to look like when you first woke up in the morning and frano frano wakes up and he's like oh no the bus is going to crash into a river and no one's even going to write it down in my official life story because everything else is going to be so crazy that no one's even going to remember today today's going to suck and no one's going to know it and no one's going to really care because like they won't yeah at the at the bar i'm going to hear people talking about my life and they're going to miss like key points um imagine being the bus driver and you're like you're like no i was a part of that guy's story but like no one talks about that time when the wheel fell out of my hands exactly yeah no yeah he's the victim in all of this thank you i'm i mean he's certain to somebody that's true yeah um so okay he that was just like the the preview i guess of evidence that this guy has had close encounters okay the first official time is in 1962 he's 33 years old and frano is on a train guess where we're going so he's on a train and all of a sudden out of nowhere as if the grim reaper is just looking for ways to get this man a freak mudslide happens runs down a hill and debris lands on a bridge where the train tracks are no then the train ends up hitting that part of the bridge with all the debris flies off the rail and goes flying into the icy river below no somehow frano broke through the window with his arm and when the right when the train hit the water he held his breath long enough broke the window swam out of the window and like floated down the riverbank to safety some versions actually he floated all the way down the riverbank still wearing his best hat of course frano he might as well be smoking a cigarette being like i've done this before he's in a top hat and tails baby and he's just like gently kicking his legs he's lived his whole life on a boat baby he doesn't do is he did anyone else survive or is it just frano do we know no other passengers survived no and it's even said um i mean the only thing that that he had to deal with after that was a broken arm probably from smashing into a train window and hypothermia because the water was so cold but um he ended up being fine and that was just the beginning of people being like this guy has had a lot of experiences like i mean after that one i'd start making jokes at the bar with him like oh i'm not ever gonna take a trip with you you know no totally it's amazing that that this man is has not served like as a president or something like i feel like this like i how have i never heard of this like not that i've heard of everybody but i feel like the circles that i run in i would have heard of this man i'm i'm floored it certainly should be like like in today's world someone would have put him on a podcast by now and been like talk about this talk about this for sure yeah he would have been on rogan like talking about some sort of some sort of powder that you can take to make you bulletproof or something you know that's that's what joe would have snuck into an ad or something afterwards yeah totally so the second encounter is only a year later in 1963 he heard that his mother was sick and let's let's remember planes trains automobiles he's already done the trains and automobiles so now he's got to get on a plane no frano he hears his mom is sick and he needs to take the next flight out p.s this is his first ever flight and last ever by the way um on this flight he is either there were different accounts um or different interviews kind of handled different parts of the story but my my understanding is that he was either sat in the back of the plane near the flight attendants or he had gotten up at some point to make small talk with the flight attendants okay we don't know either way he's drinking tea with the flight attendant so he's getting real chummy okay um and so he's they're they're in flight and while at the back of the plane frano hears a really loud sound and he's like oh my god and the emergency door malfunctions no in the air in the air this is a quote from him a quote from him is one minute we were drinking tea and the next the door was ripped open and the flight attendant was sucked into midair followed shortly by me wait wait wait wait wait did so the flight attendant got sucked out and so did he they're flying through the air now they're defying gravity so frano is ripped out of the plane he he's ripped out of the plane and by the way the plane is now on fire so it's almost like would you rather be in a plane full of fire or just the sky falling yeah sky with no plane yeah i'll choose sky with no plane over plane full of fire any day so both of them come barreling down we don't know about the flight attendant anymore she's not she served her purpose you know what she got everyone seat belted and diet coked if she wanted her own story out there she gotta set it um we do actually find out about the flight attendant later uh but so right now it's just him and this plane and they're coming on down and the g-forces of him falling so quickly out of the air actually have him pass out mid-air and four days later he wakes up from a coma what shut up em get out this is how dare he how dare you this is insane. How does one, how does one? The craziest part is that other than the coma, no other injuries are on his body. He's not a, not a scratch like that river. Like the river. Just fine. Not a scratch on her. Did you see Unbreakable starring Bruce Willis? No. There's a scene in Unbreakable starring Bruce Willis where he is, he realizes that he's never had a cold and he's with his son and his son is like, how much weight can you lift? And as they just keep putting more and more weight on his barbell. And he's like, and they're just like, damn, you are Unbreakable. That feels like this moment for this man where it's just like, you fell out of a plane four days ago and you're Unbreakable. At this point, I'd be like someone just like, I mean, I wouldn't actually, but I would start to wonder like, if I got shot, what would happen? Like, I would start thinking I'm clearly Bruce Willis. And also, Unbreakable. Yeah. How soon, be honest, you've survived a river and you've survived falling out of a plane. How long before you start doing stupid experiments? Like I would at least do little ones. I would, I don't know. I don't know what the setup would be, but I, I'd at least start thinking there would be, there would be thoughts, but they're not for you. Oh no. I'd have someone shoot me in the leg. Like so fast. I mean, yeah. I'd make a real bad choice so fast. My first thought is like, I, I'd be like, there's got to, I have to have a kryptonite. And like, what if I go too far? And like, and I find out too quickly what that one is. Like, I would be like, maybe, I don't know, because all of them have, I don't know. I would get so in my head about it because every time so far has been something that he wasn't anticipating. Yeah. So maybe if he was anticipating it, maybe expecting it as the kryptonite. I don't know. Oh, dang. Okay. No, you're right. You're right. You would, you would live longer than I would. I'd be like, someone shoot me. Let's see what happens. And that would be the end of my story. I would be like the, the superpower I currently have is the mystere around it. Let's not break it. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So he wakes up from this coma four days later, not an injury on him. And he finds out that the reason he survived and nobody else did again is because he out of the sky landed, into a very large haystack and it just cushioned his fall. I mean, perfect target. This is cartoon physics, right? Yes. This is like Wile E. Coyote. Yes. I feel like he was carrying a sign in the, in the air that said, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. This is crazy. This is crazy. Like I can't, this is okay. Obviously this is crazy. I'm adding nothing useful or new to this story. This is crazy. Continue. Sorry. That's why you're here though. That's okay. That's okay. I just, I knew you would like this story. Cause I was reading it and I was like, this is some shit that Bethany would say like off the cuff, like while we're eating pizza, she'd go, Oh, you know, Frano Zilak, who obviously survived everything that's ever happened. Oh, you know, Tico Brahe, the man who died when his bladder exploded and had a metal nose, Tico. What? Tico Brahe. He was an astronomer and a mathematician and he died when his bladder exploded because he was at dinner with his patron and he didn't want to be rude, but he had to go to the bathroom so badly. Um, and that, and then that's how he died. And he, and that's how he died. So now you can bring that up. Just evidence that just, just evidence that, um, fuck manners, right? Like just no need to be polite. Absolutely. Nope. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta advocate for yourself. There's evidence that people die. If I don't pee, if like we have, that's right. We have to be, we have to now. Yeah. And that's what I'm talking about. Like the fact that you just whipped that out, like it was the ABCs is crazy. So like I knew I needed to bring it. Well, and I, I appreciate that because I have, I feel like I've used Tico Brahe to death and so no pun intended. And so I am happy that as a friend, you are giving all of us this gift of like the next random topic to bring up when you're uncomfortable in a social situation and you don't know what to say. Yeah. You bust out the weirdest thing you can think to say, and now it's this. So, uh, the third near death event, it was in 1966. So a couple of years later, he just was on another bus, which after the first one, I'd be a little nervous about buses, but he's on this bus and the bus skids off the road over an embankment into a river again. So it's just the same thing, a bus going into a river and he swims away and it's, he's totally fine. And yet the four other, I don't know if it was just five people, but four people on this bus, drowned. So he once again survived where others did not. This is, this is bonkers. In 1970 or 1972, depending on who you ask, Frano was driving his car and his engine caught on fire out of nowhere. And he gets out and like, I'm sure it happened at least once in Bruce Willis's movie, um, or at least one of them. It's very diehard. He sees that the car is catching on fire. He runs out right before the car explodes. That's so bad-ass. That's so honestly, that's my favorite one so far. Do you think that there was a part of him even in that moment going like, I bet that looked so cool. I would, you were thinking like you asked earlier what my thought would be through all of this. If there was a moment like that, I'd be like, that was a superhero shot for sure. I bet that looked awesome. And then there was one credible. There was, um, a quote, that someone wrote about him after this. And they said, finally, Zilak was then given a four year respite from death, messing with him, but all good things must come to an end. Because in 1973, yeah, in 1973, he's once again, driving his car, which there's not a way to transport yourself anymore. That's safe. Um, he's driving his car and he, and he notices that, um, his engine is now again on fire. This is years later. It's not the same car. This is a different car. It's a different car. Well, yeah, the other one exploded. That's right. No, you're right. And he walked away. I got so distracted by how cool he looked that I forgot that the car exploded. Basically he, so I guess some gas, like the, like one of the gas pumps he, he previously used was bad and like sprayed a gas all over. And then it looked like he landed on his hot engine and ignited. And the only way he found out was because he was flying down the highway. And so with that wind, he saw fire coming through his air vents. Oh my God. Which is like, if you imagine if he had like the temperature and the air vents set to like hot and all of a sudden there's fire and he's like, wow, this is like a really good car. Dang, we're not joking. Holy cow. Um, and apparently in this situation, he did get away, but not before he was able to get out of the car. So he was able to get out of the car. The air vent fire. I mean, it was not just like a little flicker of flame. It was Hades blowing through and he ended up burning his hair off. That's fine. It'll come back. I fully, I thought you were going to say like, he burned his face off. His face melted. Like his hair is great. Like if this is the worst thing that's going to happen to him, he, I agree. Who's making this car? Who wants him dead? Someone is working. It seems so hard to kill him. Imagine you had plans with people, like you were driving to plans and then you show up and now you don't have hair and you're like, guess what just happened? Yeah. Yes. Or if you say like, I can't make it. My car exploded. They're going to say no again. Like, no, you've used that one already. Yeah. They'd be like, I honestly am starting to not be able to believe why you're late all the time to lunch. Yeah. I bet he lost so many friends, some of them in explosions, but like some of them just cause like they didn't believe him anymore. Well, he ends up actually, losing friends because they think he's like bad luck. Like no one wants to be near him. Oh man. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Oh, how isolating. I actually, I had that quote later, but I'll just say it now. Um, he said there came a stage when I was lucky to have any friends at all. Many stopped seeing me saying I was bad karma. And then when one of his neighbors was asked if he was bad karma, he did say, let's put it this way. If I heard Frano had booked a flight, I would cancel. I'm like, yeah, no, dude, I don't really play you. Like, yeah, yeah. That's every time you were ever going to hang out. I'd be like, let's drive separate. Yeah. Let's meet. We're going to meet somewhere. Yeah. Meet in the middle. So in, um, this is his sixth time now we're on, and this is in 1995. He's now a 66 year old man. Like give him a goddamn break. Yeah. A city bus literally hits him. Some sources say, hand him over. No. Oh my God. And again, despite minor injuries, somehow he just walked home. Do we know what city this was in? Well, no, I don't because he was born in Croatia. Then he spent time in Bosnia. It was kind of all over the place. Okay. But, um, it was, it's like, can you just imagine you're like every day at this point, you have to be like, I hope I don't almost die again. I hope I don't almost die again. It's happening far too frequently for any one person, it's not happening frequently enough that you can brace yourself for it so like he had that four years off and i wonder if every day for four years he was an absolute paranoid mess because like how many times did he drive where nothing bad happened but then like all of a sudden his you know engines catches on fire and burns all of his hair off like that's torture that's more torture than if every day someone's trying to kill you it's just happening intermittently i would love if i could interview him i would be like what the hell were you doing in your 80s because nothing happened in the 80s at all like it was like from 1974 and then he had a break until like 95 so like what were you doing differently i wonder if he was in jail the safest prison yeah honestly i do wonder like would the safest place for him be like out in the middle of like the rainforest or like in a den with a lion like i would just start wondering like is there any because i would imagine even in my own home i'm like is the house gonna catch on fire like he must have had a 24 7 therapist i mean it does it really seems like anytime he tries to take a motorized form of transportation yeah it's transportation so if he stays at home i think he's okay but the second he tries to leave he really can't leave his house because you said a mode of transportation that includes after this one he got hit by a bus walking like just walking walking yeah dude this is crazy but you know what a scooter never failed him i'll tell you that you know what scooters never except in the ankles but that's it oh and shins man there's some guy on um on the internet where his whole like i don't know if i just keeps getting the same video over and over again but it seems that his thing is that he just whacks himself in the shins with a razor scooter and i'm like you if you're not making a million dollars from this then you need to fucking stop that's when i start to feel like is there something sexual here that i don't know about am i look how strong my femur is yeah are you getting something from this that i that i didn't know about am i playing into something weird i like and i i must it's got i hope it's just one video and it just is so viral that i keep showing up i can't imagine just waking up every day going well i know what i'm going to do today oh my gosh okay this is the final near-death experience okay it's in he's 67 years old this is 1966 and again he's driving a car problem number one through the mountains he had to think that morning this could be a bad one this could this could be a bad one dude you he he can't be trusted in cars on cliffs around rivers over anything high like this no he has to take a little bit of ownership of something yes yeah yeah i feel like um i mean i just i feel so bad for this guy the paranoia must be so unreal and then i don't know what happened why he was driving a car he must have thought like like do i really have to do this can nobody else do this errand for me like i would or maybe he's just so used to he's like whatever when death gets me death gets me like i don't i don't know what his thinking was it had to be that i think at some point you just have to throw your hands up you know and just be like whelp because the other thing is it hasn't gotten him yet like he hasn't actually died yet i don't i don't want to ruin the ending of this did he die before or after the final destination movies came out because i feel like interesting question i wonder i wonder if he saw at least ads for the first one and felt triggered he you know honestly so he did at least some of those movies were already out um and he i don't know if he saw at least some of those movies were he a lot of the sources i used mentioned final destination because they're like this guy is just like skipping over like how many it's like he's a cat like he just has like um which if he made it if he made it to nine near-death experiences i feel like they would have called them a cat there'd be some reference there i'm sure for sure um so okay he's 67 he's driving in the mountains and he doesn't see that a truck is coming around the corner and there's like a big ass truck and it almost collides with him the only way to avoid the crash is for frano to swerve into the railing which like just on its own feels like a death sentence yeah and this railing is keeping his car from falling 300 feet over the cloud the cliffs so not just yeah not just swerving the railing by the way he ends up crashing through the railing through so he does go through the so he does fly the 300 feet the car is in the air and on its way down 300 feet i know like it's like so fucked up like obviously i just like you can't help yourself but you yeah i feel so bad laughing because like i this is this is a drama this is awful it just makes me think of the did you ever see the sketch tunes is the driving cat on snl years and years ago just like m and gentle listener go on youtube look up tunes is the driving cat it's just a sketch where every time their their house cat drives a car and it always ends with a car driving off a cliff and they're just like tunes is no and then the car goes off a cliff that's all i can picture and it it's making me giggle and it's inappropriate giggling but my god my god i mean with a story like this you have to expect that someone's gonna be at the very least people are going what the fuck are you serious dude yeah like at the very least if if he was telling two people like over dinner later the other two people are gonna debrief about this when he's not there they're gonna go oh for sure what the fuck is he talking about that's crazy he sounded like tunes is the driving cat was tunes is here at dinner with us so get this he the car flies out over the cliff and um at the very last moment this fucking guy who's unbuckled we do not condone he was able to either leap out of the open window or he which maybe that was his plan because he knows he could die any day he's like i gotta be ready to tuck and roll but he got out of the window at the very last moment and tarzan grabbed a tree limb no and watched below watched his watched his car fall down into the cliffs and explode when it hit the ground he george of the jungled and then watched his car explode this is insane m stop it also that's three cars that's three exploding cars can you imagine i wonder what his insurance rates were like that's like three now two two and now three of your cars have exploded at that point i think like do you even tell the people like how do you even because they have to be like oh this one's in a fiery crash and this one's in a fiery crash and that one's in a fiery crash and also two buses have ended up in the river a train's ended up in the river and a plane full of people have died yeah i don't really hope that they think you're a dirty liar i think you just hope that the insurance agent is like this man is clearly lying we're just gonna pretend we didn't hear him let's just pretend he has some sort of crippling mental illness and we'll give him like a really good rate exactly you if somehow that is the hope yeah yeah and so then that happened 1996 to 2002 nothing happens somehow okay okay but 2003 he's already had his seven near-death experiences and he's i think about to turn 75 or he's having some sort of milestone birthday okay and he's like you know what fuck it i'm just gonna go buy a lottery ticket homeboy wins a million dollars shut up go to hell no way he wins a million dollars so um it's essential i mean the numbers are kind of like iffy but it's equivalent to a million dollars is this a movie and you're telling me a fictional movie as though it's a real story and then you're gonna be like psych you idiot it's a movie that would be hilarious i don't know if anyone's ever bought the rights to his life but that i mean that here's if you wanted a story to film here it is oh my gosh um he ends up buying as he should multiple homes he's on a private island which is probably the same thing he's on a private island which is probably the safest place for him to be a boat and he gets married again this is his fifth wife now he was like when in rome let's have a good year this is when as the ex-wife one of the four ex-wives you're so mad because you've made it you've been through hell with this guy and then the fifth ex-wife gets the money and like doesn't have to deal with any of the potential death she just like gets all the bonuses yes 100 she's like and also imagine she's telling all of her friends like oh my god i just got engaged you're never gonna believe this guy's story like everyone all of her girlfriends are gonna be like he's a liar dump him yeah yeah dump dump him so um he did later say that he felt like this was maybe like the universe kind of paying him back after all of the trouble he's been through literally paying him back um in one quote he said god has been watching over me all these years okay and the devil has moved on to torment someone else that's how he took it okay that's that's one way to that's frame no that's not how i took it either that's one way to frame it my guy i'd be like fucking finally like that was that's kind of would be the only statement i gave people yeah yeah yeah yeah so when press started coming out not because of anything else that ever happened to him but because he won the lottery now they're like who's this guy that is a millionaire now tell us your story he tells them the story and all the reporters are like um jackpot what the fuck are you talking about and so uh the media also heard i mean not only yeah they heard about his close calls with disaster he actually later went on to say oh i'm getting married for a fifth time and they were like oh what happened to your other marriages and he said they were also disasters which i thought was funny that's very funny um so that's how the world found out about his insane story but this this is a fun fact that i wanted to throw in here because he got so much notoriety just by his life story um doritos reached out and wanted to do a commercial with him but he would have to fly to australia and he was like i'm not touching another goddamn plane and that's so mean of doritos that's so mean you're just setting him up for failure i know they're like also like that i will say you know who would have taken him on today for a commercial would have been red bull because they like send people to the fucking moon and make them skydive and shit you know yeah they're gonna make you jump out of the moon and like something like that yeah so he uh they basically they go oh okay that's a shame how about we come film next to you we'll fly to you and so he goes great so apparently there is a commercial a doritos commercial with this guy in it from the early 2000s um and he was like okay yeah i don't have to fly that makes me so much happier he goes to the shoot he films the commercial and then he gets in his car gets in a car accident hits a deer oh my god i mean it's never he's never safe um a few years later i don't know what happens but he decided that he was going to give away his fortune he was like i don't want anything to do with this maybe he thought it was like you know dirty money from the universe or something i don't know what he thought but he was like i don't want anything to do with this also he was like he just hit 80 so i think he was like let me give it to other people i like how my first thought is it's dirty money and for him he's probably like it's just i'm giving fucking charity whatever i wonder if his wife felt good about that giving away all that she's like damn it we just got married he sold off everything he moved back to his previous town and they lived a frugal life together on his old military pension and funny i mean this blows my mind that he was in the military and nothing life-threatening worth documenting happened in the goddamn military really oh you're right i feel like for all we know he just like held a grenade and it didn't go off in his hand like it feels like he's the person that would happen that too totally or maybe yeah i feel like he's the guy where you know your buddy accidentally trips over a wire and you're the one who gets like hit with the landmine yeah is that what happens in the military that's military stuff right feels to me it is like just like a bunch of like buzzwords about action um action buzzwords he just uh kept enough money when he gave it all away mainly to friends and family but he sold off everything and he kept just enough for a hip replacement smart thinking and to build a shrine to the virgin mary because he believed that she was who was keeping him safe all these years which um and then i don't know where i don't know the point of this quote but i thought it was nice that they were asking why he didn't need all the money anymore i guess and his response was all i need at my age is my wife katarina money would not change anything when she arrived i knew that i knew then that i really did have a charmed blessed life okay that's so sweet though that's a good man that's so sweet so although these experiences are all technically possible a lot of people for obvious reasons have doubts that all this is true i like to think the people leading this march are the woman at his wife's bachelorette party who are like i'm still unsure about this guy that's that we don't trust him yeah basically um there have been a lot of inconsistencies in interviews okay and it's shocking to a lot of people including me that there are very few records of any of these disasters for example a freak train crash in 1962 where everyone died or a freak plane crash in 1963 where everyone died and the only person who survived either of those was the exact same man should have some like either journalists didn't do their job well or it didn't happen and and i'm so trusting i'm so naively trusting the only time the first time it occurred to me that he might be lying is when you said that his car went over he got out the window and grabbed like a vine and like held on that to me was a little bit more than i could believe but every other thing up until that time was like that that checks out yeah that seems right sure i also am like so i'll say trusting because i was gonna say gullible but trusting is a much better word but i um if someone told me that store that story i would be like oh my god like it wouldn't even occur to me that you're lying because it's so outrageous that it must be true yeah why would you lie about this this is this is insane and no one would believe it so you must be telling the truth yeah yeah so the best that bbc could do was they did find they were looking for the fatal train crash in 1962 they found a fatal bus crash in 1957 that was the closest they could get so wrong year wrong type of vehicle probably wrong cause probably and he was nowhere to be found um but also in some interviews about the train crash frano did say that he like his story changed up or either he was the only one who survived in other versions he was actually escorting the mother of a mayor in town and which is crazy because like would there not be public record of a mayor's mother not surviving mid-travel while being escorted like the mayor would remember you could at least go ask the mayor is your mom dead yeah find the man downtown wearing the sash that says mayor and ask him he's always around so when they're like we have no way of knowing it's like i think the mayor has might have some information yeah which is so weird that i would actually use the phrase like get me the mayor he'll know i know but it's such a cool thing to yell into a phone isn't it get me the mayor it feels like um i mean it's just adding to this cartoonish like this feels like something roger rabbit would do you know totally yes and they're like and on the other end the mayor's secretary there's a tongue coming through the receiver of the phone cause you're yelling so hard and the car the whole way there to the mayor's office is cracking jokes yeah totally um so another example of like why this may not be true or is that there's really very little evidence of a whole plane crash where someone fucking survived or a plane crash at all like there's no info that's like there's no information about the it's not easy to find any of it but like you should have a flight number you should have like a day that you were on the plane like there's no information um also in some interviews remember the flight attendant uh he said like oh yeah she also survived and we stayed lifelong friends okay we'll go talk to her where's her testimony she's alive and your friend she would know right but nobody's ever been able to find her and in other interviews he said that he was the only person who survived hmm uh come on and it's interesting because this is right on the cusp of when you could no longer tell lies like this like it was the first year that like a flight number existed yes yeah you know and that people could people could really start to talk to each other and look back and internet you know like it's you can't really you used to be able to go to the next town over and say you were a doctor and then people would come and let you open their heads and now you know you can't really do that anymore it is tougher it is yeah it's harder yeah there's yelp now you know so um so another example is the car explosions in some interviews he said that his wife was there and witnessed the whole thing and even smelled gas before the explosion but in other interviews he was the only one there and his wife outlived him so people could have gone and asked his wife did you smell gas were you there and yeah i didn't find an interview like that and then the last one i have is um his lottery ticket he did win a million dollars but he was telling people after he'd won he was like oh this was my first ever lottery ticket what are the odds it's like you've had enough what are the odds in your life like i have to question something and um they they went back and looked at earlier interviews when he had just won versus like a few years later and he was telling people that he was always playing the lottery and he's happy he finally won so did we did we learn about him only after the lottery win yes i think so so most interviews are in of 2003 which is when he won the lottery so it sounds like he won the lottery and was given all of this attention all of a sudden and decided to make a meal out of it is that what we're thinking i think you're about three bullets ahead of me so because i'm thinking what i would do it was like well while the cameras are on me and i need to carry this longevity exactly exactly keep my name out there um so in one interview actually he also seemed to make up a completely different story and he was like i'm completely different near-death experience involving a mule kick um but i am but we never heard about that again after that one interview. And another man came out claiming to be his son and said what you did, which is that my dad always like played the lottery. He finally won. And now that the reporters were talking to him, he like paid some people to like put out a really good story about him to keep his name in, in this in cycle in the cycle. Yeah. And so, but again, we never even verified that this guy was a son. So it could just be a guy who was jealous or didn't believe his stories. I don't know. So how mad would you be if you're this guy and some kid comes out and says you're, you know, he's your son and like, you've been lying this whole time. And so you kind of have to go along with it too, because this kid is just playing the same game that you've been playing. I literally, I was, I would imagine if it was your son, I'd be like, shut up. Like what is wrong with you? So some people do believe his entire story is real and that the only reason the stories were not consistent was because he was getting older. So there was some failing cognitive, things going on. Plus he did, whenever he was quoted about this, he did sound like he was actually resentful of the experiences because like I mentioned, although he was called Mr. Lucky, he did not feel very lucky. But that could have also been a reporter being an early PR agent saying like, make sure you like, you got to really play it up. Don't be like so proud of this. You know, it's like, it's, it's bothered you your whole life, you know, like getting character. That's a good point. This guy does seem very ahead of his time in terms of like really spinning the narrative. He wants and grabbing his time in the spotlight. And so I can absolutely see that he understood. I have to seem resentful and not. Yeah. Yes. Like this is, Oh, it's been, it's been weighing on me. It's been weighing. Yeah. He did say, I never thought I was lucky to survive all my brushes with death. I thought I was unlucky to be in them in the first place. And, and then he talked about how it was, he doesn't really have a lot of friends. So, I mean, maybe that was just good PR. I don't know. Maybe he really was like struggling and paranoid out of, his gourd and like lost all of his close people. I don't know. It's a real toss up. Regardless, he did officially cheat death seven times. I would argue there was like upwards of 10 based on some of the other things going on. He also won the lottery. It's still like this bizarre little story that people talk about. And craziest thing about the story to me, this is the craziest part of it is that in 2016, he did die at 87 and nobody wrote why or how. What? The guy who cheated death, nobody fucking mentions how he actually did not cheat death finally. So we don't actually have a cause of death. We have that fuck ass Google AI answer when you start searching things. Who says that he died this, if it's true, it's ironic. He died peacefully of natural causes. But other than that, I, there's nothing. That's crazy. That's the way I'm like, not one, to this day. I'm like, are you, how can you be a reporter? The guy who escapes death died. You don't tell me how I'm over. I'm that. I mean, I mean, that's like, that's the story that writes itself that writes itself. We, so Dennis and I interviewed our favorite UPI odd news reporter. A couple of weeks ago, his name is Ben Hooper. If you read any of UPI's odd news ever on their website, or you read an odd news story, nine times out of 10, Ben Hooper, Ben Hooper wrote it. And I feel like Ben Hooper understands the artistry involved in writing an odd news story. And the fact that this man died after almost dying a million different times, I feel like somewhere Ben Hooper is rolling over and is not grave. Cause that's just like, that is like such a, that just is handed to you. If you're an odd news writer that is handed to you. How dare you? I just don't respect your job. And there's nobody to really ask either because he's now dead. His wife has passed on. The story is, his son, the only son we know of is the one that we never even verified that it was his. And he sounded a little butthurt about all this anyway. So I don't know if he, but, but there's nobody to ask. It's just like, well, he died and like, that's it. Nope. Really? All right. All right. Fine. And like, so anyway, unfortunately that is the anti-climatic end to Frano Zilak. M. Well done. Well done. Thank you. I'm sorry. I know we were, we're dealing with some internet stuff. So I, thank you for getting through that with me, but I, I wanted to tell you that story so bad. I was like, you're the only person I think who would react exactly as I need. So thank you. That story rules. I, I, I think that man is a dirty liar and I am so impressed with like his ability. He figured out his market, which is like, we can't fact check it. Cause it's also the articles that were written probably weren't written in English. You know what? You know, that's, that's a great point. And also I, um, that's such a good point. I didn't even think about that. I was thinking like the, he in 2003, he wins the lottery and that's right. When like the internet is getting big and he's like, this is my moment to be on a platform that nobody has touched yet. Totally. That's what I think. He was like, I'm going to use the shit out of this because maybe Yahoo news will bring this up eventually. You know, I think you're right. I think that he was actually probably incredibly clever and forward thinking and like figured out, how to make a meal out of this. And he did it. I, this guy rules. Even if he's a total liar across the board, P rules for the reason of, he saw his moment and he grabbed it. Yeah, I agree. I, he, he's an opportunist, I suppose. Yeah. Good opportunist. Yes. Yeah, totally. So usually before we get into the, your side of this, um, we do what we call a yappy hours for Patreon people. And, um, it's just like 10 or 15 minutes of us, just like talking about whatever we want. So, um, is there a topic you would like to talk about? It can literally be like, we just find our way as we, as we chat. I'm trying to think if there's anything I should have prepared something. I feel like I should have. No, I will have something. Let me, I have just like notes of things that I have thought about recently. Just, you just type them on it. Huh? You know what? I just thought a thing. And that thing was, that was fun for me. Okay. I have a thing. Okay, great. As two very busy people, sometimes it's hard to care about the smaller decisions. Um, I'm, I'm traveling like crazy. Christine's a busy mom who's constantly running around and it can be really hard to go clothes shopping or find something that you already own that, that even looks good on you or that makes you feel good about yourself. But luckily we have daily look, this podcast is sponsored by daily look. It is the number one highest rated premium personal styling service for women. And with daily look, you get your own dedicated personal stylist to curate a box of clothes based on your body shape preferences and lifestyle. This is not an algorithm. It's a real personal stylist that is working with you. You get the same stylist every time. We've talked a bunch about Christine stylist, Esperanza, who is just there to hook her up. And it's like, I know what you like. I'm going to send you a box. And what if you, for some reason you don't like anything I picked, send it back. How it works is simple. You fill out a style quiz. You know, we love a quiz and including your price and your lifestyle. Preferences and you get up to 12 hand selected items delivered to your home. And yeah, if you don't love it, you send it back. Everything you do love, you keep and daily look offers free shipping both ways. So that's even more wonderful. And one of the things that I love the most about it is that it's more size inclusive. They have extra small to three X or zero to 24. And it's time that you get your own personal stylist with daily look head to daily look.com to take your style quiz and use code drink for 50% off your first order. Again, that's daily. Look.com for 50% off and make sure you use our promo code drink so that they know that we sent you one last time. That's daily. Look.com and use promo code drink. All right, everybody we're back with we just did a yappy hour. Bethany really handled it. I did not expect you to be the one leading the path, but you really did it. So thank you for that. And if you would like to hear about our awkward intros into trying to make friends or how to make small talk at a party or how to talk to celebrities that have happened a few times, go check out Patrion. And now Bethany, you are going to regale us with some true crime story. All I asked of you was, can you fill in? I need someone who can do true crime. I trust you with all my might. I know you've got it. What'd you bring? I got you. All right. So I wanted to, so I don't know how much you love maritime mysteries, but you know what? I love them. You know what, Bethany, you know what, Bethany Watson also actually, you told me for the first time in our friendship to start calling you BB literally like moments before we started recording. You can call me anything. You can totally call. It's not like I'm offended if you don't call me BB. Call me whatever. Yeah. I saw BB and I went, Oh, I was like, do you want to switch? I thought like, Oh, should I tell her she should switch it to Bethany? And you're like, you can call me BB. And I went, we've been friends for like a decade. What do you fucking mean? You can call me anything you want. It's like, it's, it's all new for us. So it's so funny that you mentioned maritime mysteries. You're like, I've never once thought about them in my life. And this is the third time this week that somebody has brought them up. So I'm taking the sign universe. So please tell me, what am I missing out on? First of all, maritime mysteries are the best because they are like locked room mysteries because you're stuck on a boat, right? Like they're, they're amazing. So this is a little bit different because it is not, It doesn't take place automatically. on the boat, it takes place. It's, it's from the perspective of everyone off the boat. Okay. Oh, okay. Yes. So this is a story that happened in 1968. It is the mysterious disappearance of El Fausto. Have you heard of El Fausto? I know nothing. Okay. So in October of 1968, a fishing boat called Fausto, uh, was discovered drifting in the Atlantic ocean off of the Canary islands. Okay. And I am going to, uh, speak now to the listener who is like me, who is not good at geography. Okay. That is nearly all of us. So thank you so much. So I got you. Um, so if you need a refresher, the Canary islands sit off the Northwestern coast of Africa. So picture Africa and then Northwest, and you got like a sprinkle of islands. And so right off, um, right off of the, uh, right off of the Canary islands, there was a boat and inside was a mummified corpse. And while this was obviously alarming, uh, something that made it even more mysterious was that originally the boat had contained four men. And now there was one and he was mummified. Oh, so three, technically two are now missing is what you're saying. Three are missing and they found one. Oh, oh, I see. I thought you meant there was one left, one mummified, two missing, but you're saying three are missing and only one is in existence in a mummified form. You're correct. Yeah. That's horrifying. Okay. Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah. How do I know about this? Okay. It's, it's, it's crazy. So, all right, let's start at the beginning. So the Fausto was just this average fishing boat. It was about 46 feet long, which I guess is a good average fishing boat length. Um, it had like a solid motor. It could reach about eight miles an hour, which was good, solid boat speed. It was just like a, it was a good boat. Um, and just trust me, it was a good boat. Um, so I like, I have no reason to doubt you, but like the way you're like harping on it, I'm like, maybe this wasn't a good boat. It was a good, and it was a good boat. I don't know why you're thinking it wasn't a good boat. All right. So the owner was a man named Rafael Acosta and he used it to fish, but he also realized that it was, you know, big enough that he could also make money, um, carrying things around the Island, transporting goods and moving things throughout the Islands for people. And he had four men who crewed with him. So it was two brothers named Ramon and Eliberto Hernandez, and then cousins, Miguel and Viterbo Acosta. So all five of these men, they're like family and all of them are in their forties. They are like the boat. They are good. These are like, they're solid. They're family men. They're like, just, these are the guys that you want to help you move. You know, like if you need someone to help you lift boxes, like these guys, they won't steal your stuff and they're good. They're coming to help you fix your tire on the side of the road. Exactly. And you're happy to see them. Cause you're like, Oh, these guys know what they're doing. Okay. Perfect. Okay. So on July 20th, 1968, so three guys had been on the Fausto. So it was the brothers, Ramon and Eliberto. And then it was Miguel. So three of the four, um, Viterbo had a previous engagement. He promised that he was going to help with like this festival that was going on back home. So he wasn't working that day and they were like, that's fine. We can handle it. So they had sailed from La Palma. To El Hierro. And so if you, okay, now picture the Canary Islands, they're just a spray of islands. The furthest two to the left, to the West, you have La Palma on the top, you have El Hierro on the bottom and they are one above the other. Okay. Okay. Perfect. And the distance, if you're just looking is about 60 miles straight up or straight down. It is just super easy. Thank you for this. Wow. That's like, you're welcome. Could have always used geography, classes like this. Thank you. I cannot picture geography. I don't know anything about it. And I'm just like, you know what? Let's not even pretend we're just going to go through it. I appreciate it. So, um, so the boat had carried like some explosives that sounds crazy, but it was just to help. It was like farming equipment. So like to move land and help like irrigation and stuff. They had traveled from the North to the South to deliver this. And then they were getting ready to pack up some fruit. And then they were like, Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And head back home to La Palma. Okay. And as they're packing up, uh, a man rushes up to them. He's 27. He's in a panic and his name is Julio Garcia. He says that he just got a call from his wife. She lives back on La Palma. And she said that their daughter who was only, I think a month and a half old was ill and needed medicine. Okay. And Julio desperately needed to get back to La that would travel between the islands and drop people off, but it had just left. And depending on what source you read, the next one wouldn't come between two to three days later. Okay. So Julio needed to get home ASAP. So he, this was the only boat he could find. He was like, can you guys take me back? I will pay you now. What are these guys? These are solid guys. They're good guys. They're good guys. So they were like, absolutely. We don't want your money. Help us load the fruit. We'll take you back. Great. Everything's great. Everyone's great. Okay. The next morning, 2 30 AM, they're getting ready to go out. The weather's great. They're happy. Everything is good. They get on the boat. It should take them between seven and 10 hours to get back to La Palma because the weather is great. They never show up. Hmm. Hmm. So it's about 10. They're expected around 10. Okay. 11, 12. No one's come. Shit. Okay. Yeah. So Rafael Acosta, the man who, who owns the boat, he sends out another boat to try and intercept them. It's an easy route. So like if this boat, you know, travels in the exact opposite direction, they should run into each other. He thought it was maybe a motor issue. Okay. All the way to the other side and calls radios and says, I, there's no L L sorry. L L Fausto is not out here. Okay. The boat's gone missing. So that evening the Spanish Navy and the air force launched a search operation. Planes and ships were sent out to try to find the Fausto because there's no reason for it to have gone missing. It's such a, like, these men knew this route. Yeah. It's such a, it's like, it's like driving to the store for them. Totally. It's like, it's like getting lost and disappearing on the way to the grocery store. There's just, there's no reason. Four days go by. Oh my God. And their family and friends are freaking out because these men were not loaded up for a four day journey. They had enough water and fruit to like get them, you know, a couple hours. Yeah. Okay. And also like, so, and the, there would be, there's no, not even like, like the boat hasn't wrecked or anything. Like, can they see the boat? Like there's just no boat. It just vanished. No boat. It disappeared. No boat. It's gone. Okay. So on July 25th, so four days later in the middle of the night, there is a British refrigerated ship called the Duchess and the Duchess is, is moving along on route from South America to the Netherlands. And as they're sailing along, they spot a light blinking. And then they realized that this light was coming from something that was bobbing in the sea off in the distance. Oh shit. Intentionally. It wasn't like a light that was being moved in and out of the waves or anything. It was like an intentional, like Morse code kind of SOS. Oh my gosh. So they get closer and closer. And finally they realized that it was the El Fausto. Oh my God. And someone had been signaling to the Duchess. Oh my God. And they realized that it was the El Fausto. Oh my God. And they realized that it was the Duchess with the flashlight, which means that someone was alive. Oh, that's so eerie. Oh, oh my God. Now 109 miles West of La Palma. They are so far away from home. This is, this is an insane, they're just in the middle of the ocean. So the Duchess pulls up all four men in El Fausto are fine. They're alive. They're, they're awake. They're in good spirits. They're sunburned and dehydrated and hungry. And like, they're not thrilled, but they're alive. Okay. And like, typically when you find castaways and I don't know how often you've found castaways. I've only been a castaway. Okay. You're usually, you're usually pretty stressed out and like not happy, right? You're not great. These guys were fine. So luckily there were a couple of sailors on the Duchess who spoke Spanish. And so they're like, Hey, you're not happy. You're not happy. You're not happy. You're not okay. You seem very lost. Why don't we tow you back and we will get you back home. And the four men on the Fausto were like, no, we're good. What? Which is crazy. So what this reminds me of is when you're on an elevator with a bunch of other people and you accidentally get off on the wrong floor and then you have to pretend that that's what you meant. Yes, yes, yes. You commit. You're like, oh, I wonder where the office is on this floor until the door closes. And then you're like, oh my God, I have to redo that. It's so embarrassing. I once got off on like a half floor and I hid. I tried to hide like around the side so no one would see me. I just told you in our yappy hour that I like to explore hotels in the middle of the night. And one time I accidentally got off in like the like the clearly the employee in the basement laundry room. Yeah. And and I was like and there was a camera and I freaked out. I was like, I have to act like I was meant to be here. So I just walked in confidently to the laundry room and like checked things. Yeah. But the whole time I was like, whoever's looking at this camera knows what's happened because I'm in PJs. I'm not like in like an electrical construction outfit, you know, they know what's going on. They're flannel. They got reindeer on them. That's amazing. It's good. You know what? Confidence and a clipboard or a high vis vest anywhere. Yeah. OK, so the sailors talked to the four men on the Fausto and the men were just like, we're good. Can you just give us some water and food and fuel? And then we'll be on our way. And this the sailors were like, let's come on board. Like, come on. Let's figure out what's going on. We're worried about you. And the guys were insistent. We're good. We just want fuel, food and water. And so the British soldiers or sailors gave him some cigarettes, too. And then the British sailors watched as the Fausto sailed back east toward La Palma. OK, what? They saw them go and they radioed to the La Palma where the port was and said, hey, we found your boys and they're on their way and they should be back. I think around 7 p.m. is what they said. OK. OK, great. So now you're these guys families. You're so relieved they're alive. They're at the port. Seven o'clock comes. They're like they're going to be here any minute. Eight o'clock comes. Oh, my God. Nine o'clock comes. And then the dread sits in again. A second again. Midnight comes this. So I know that Christine has covered this before. The story of I think it was Brian Las Pisa. Yes. Was driving and then like kept being found by that truck driver and kept being alive and then just disappeared. Mm hmm. This feels a lot like that. Yeah. And do we know? I mean, it was 1968. So it's not like we had like I mean, do we know for sure it was in fact those four people or could it be four people who like pirated the ship and were pretending to be them or something like that? That is you're you're ahead, but like. Maybe. OK, well, but we don't I mean, I'll just say we don't know, but that's a real. So we'll put a pin in that because that's yes, that's got it really good. So, OK, so the men never came back. So the next morning an even larger search was launched because these guys had literally been here like they're alive. We know they're alive. So this now becomes the largest search and rescue in in the Canary Islands because they had military and civilian boats that went out. And what they decided to do was go to the point in the ocean where the they're like, OK, this is our ground zero. This is our home base. And then we're going to start searching in increasing distances ranges to try and figure out. Yep. And they did that. And there was nothing. Hmm. And they searched for 13 days. Holy shit. Nothing. At that point, I get at that point, either they're dead or they don't want to be found. That would be my thought. Yes. That's the thing, because it's like, OK, so they knew that they had enough now food, fuel and water to get through a week or so. And they're like, OK, so they're like, OK, so they're like, OK, so they know. But, you know, you're pushing your luck after, I think, 13 days after two weeks. Yeah. It's like, oh, yeah. OK, we're hurting or we found land and we're starting life all over again. Yeah. We're we're starting a fresh starting a fresh civilization here. Yeah. So on August 7th, they called the search off and obviously everyone's just devastated. So now we fast forward to October 9th, which is two months later. And it's like, oh, my God, we're starting a fresh civilization here. And it's like, oh, my God, we're starting a which is like T.E. 21268. There's no question this is this is El Fausto. So they look out. There's no one on the dock. There's no sign of life. There's no one waving. There's no there's no damage to the ship. There's no sign of violence. Everything is where it should be. So the first mate and a deck sailor board the Fausto and they didn't find any sort of log book that they could use. And they could have written down, you know, bad weather on this fortnight. We will hunker down and pray for bread. I don't like that. Nothing is written. So then the first mate opens up the hatch that leads down into the engine room. And by the way, OK, well, you finish your sentence first. Sorry. Now we're back to where we began. He found one man mummified in the engine room. OK, I was going to say that. But like if you're already on an abandoned ship that everyone's been looking for and now you're going to open the hatch and go down by yourself, I would assume there's a serial killer or a dead body. And what do you know? Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever see that picture on the internet? And mummified to boot. Did you ever see that picture on the Internet of like the guy who was his job was to just make sure that this boat, a huge like container shipping container boat had no one in it. And he like took a picture and then he lit the picture up later in Photoshop and saw a man leaning out from behind a wall with an ax. Have you seen that one? Shut the fuck up. What are you talking about? Hey, I actually have a new fear. What are you? What? I've never heard of that. It was one of the first things to ever scare me on the Internet. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll send it. It's just like it was a man who's whenever this boat came into port, his job was to just go through it and make sure that everything was literally ship shape. And like he was going through the basement and he took a picture without a flash and then he took it with a flash. And when he took it with the flash, you can see a man like leaning out the side with an ax. It is so scary, especially because like if you did it with a flash that he knew you were there for sure. He knew. Yeah. Oh, for sure. He knew you were there. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Like the chills are out. It's like those pictures that I always what every now and then. Yeah. I was like, what? What else is there that you could possibly say to me? Like there's these pictures online that are it's always like, eerie pictures like five minutes before a famous tragedy happened. It's like those really get me to where it's like everyone's happy. Like there was a picture I saw of someone smiling with the Twin Towers behind them and you can see the plane that's like it was seconds before seconds before like it's just shit like that where I'm like, just eerie knowing what is going to happen or could happen. Oh, my God. Yeah. Get me every time. Yep. And like, dude, this show, your show has a Queen Mary maritime nonsense. Like it's this stuff. It's like it's this it's this stuff. It's so OK. So the first mate opens the hatch, sees a mummy and not like a mummy. You know, he sees a man who's like very dead and has been partially preserved. And he says to the other sailor with him, go back onto our ship and like radio that we found the Fausto. And I just imagine that the other sailor ran so fast back. So there was like a puff of smoke. In the shape of his body that like he just like like he was breathing like I just had some crystal light. He was. Yes. You know, I and I wonder, too, if like I wonder that we were just talking and yappy are about like the tone of how we say things is like I wonder if the tone said like this is not good. Like you need and this needs because also if I found I'm not a mummy expert. I know. But like if I found a mummified body when I'm looking for four live non mummified bodies, I don't I wouldn't even. think it was one of the four people i would think oh they were transferring a mummy like someone put new cargo on this boat because i don't know doesn't mummifying take like hundreds of years or some shit am i stupid i don't know no no you're not stupid at all so i mean i think that i think that what it was because like mummifying is taking out all of the moisture right and like preserving with salt and wrapping and making sure that bacteria is like isn't able to eat anything within the body that is warm or wet so i think it's that where this so spoiler alert um the the man who was in the boat ended up being julio the 27 year old guy who was trying to get back to his daughter so god awful so so what they think happened is that the salty air that was getting into the boat basically preserved him and so like there wasn't the wrapping portion of the mummy but his skin was very dry right right right right right right right right right right right so like there was a little bit of the boat and so like there was a mummy but the mummy but the mummy but his skin was very dry and out and not as like it's not like they were doing a science experiment on him and right right right like it was just natural by being yeah in the ocean okay yeah yeah it's so much more sense yeah yeah so so as the other you know sailor is like radioing and saying hey we found the fausto the first mate god bless him he's like balls of steel he's going through the engine room and looking around and he sees that 27 year old julio garcia was lying next to a radio so he was clearly attempting to make contact or something he also had a book with him and the book had um the first few pages had some like quick numerical calculations some words in spanish like it looks kind of like scratch paper is what it sounded like and then 28 pages had been torn out of the notebook and they were just gone 27 year old julio garcia was lying next to a radio so he was clearly attempting to make contact or something he also had some like quick numerical calculations some words in spanish like it looks kind of like scratch paper is what it sounded like and then 28 pages had been torn out of the notebook and they were just gone I do wonder. i'd be like what dad what the fuck's wrong with you yeah yeah what do you think happened and part of me wonders like i don't know i i mean my my my hunch which means nothing is that like i feel like maybe he really was just sick and or maybe he was allergic to something that they were eating to stay safe i don't know there's something i feel like either they someone came on board and held the other three hostage but because that guy happened to be down in the hatch they didn't know there was a fourth guy and so he ended up not being maybe kidnapped and he was just stuck on the boat by himself or something and maybe he didn't know how to operate a boat so he just floated around till he died i have no idea it is so so this is so interesting because it never occurred to me that that he may have been in the engine room because he was being kept away and now i think okay well what was his daughter sick with is it possible that he had something and they were trying to they realized too late and they were trying to quarantine him yeah i also wonder i mean maybe they thought he was just like a fucking creep like maybe he asked questions about like the layout of the boat you know and like and so like maybe they were like just stay in the hatch till we get there and then why are you blinking yeah and so um that's from our patreon folks um that's from the yappy hour but like i i feel like maybe something gave them a bad vibe i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know for some reason he was separated from them or like maybe they didn't know him and so at night maybe they were like we don't know you like you're gonna sleep in the hatch we're all gonna sleep here we'll get you in the morning and then something happened to them and he was just locked down there or oh man something something happened where i feel like he was separate on purpose or like why is he down there like who's hanging out in the hatch i don't know what a hatch is by the way maybe that's where the living room is i don't know anything about a boat i mean i mean yeah i i don't know i mean my thought is like i always assumed that if the you know it's like you know you it's like a trap door in the floor you go down and if it closes over you i i assume you can push it back open again but maybe you couldn't right because it's got the spinny thing right yeah right right or or like or just i think or handle i think depending on if you're going underwater or not yeah depending on how nice your boat is yeah i don't know in my mind i mean maybe he could have always gone up i but i feel like if he was down there i don't know i don't know and literally writing like worried about his life insurance and doing some sort of numbers which for me is like how much food do i have left or how many how much longer till i'm dead or something because i think you're right because i i it doesn't seem i always assumed he was in the hatch because that's where the radio was but that doesn't make sense why do you keep your radio in the engine room you'd keep your radio two people who know nothing about boats are talking about boats we're trying really hard to be like the captains of the ship and i don't know like a fucking thing besides what below deck on bravo reality has taught me yeah yeah yeah but i feel like there's got to be something i mean unless maybe like the crazy thing would be like he killed all of them and threw them overboard and then like yeah it would and then he just like what lie down like and i mean that doesn't make any more sense than like maybe two tragedies happened at once something happened to the guys up top while he was down there yeah and my he got so so there are theories okay um so he's like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know here's some theories there's there's wild so this is the first one i talked about like someone was in the boat with them and said hey get rid of the british ship um but that's four guys against one guy or two guys like and i also feel like that maybe they would have been able to sort of give a sign to the british soldier the british sailors like hey you should go away you should definitely call yeah and get us some help like i mean that was my first thought when i heard them being like no we're fine we're fine i assumed they like if they could have done like the hand gesture back then yes what is it the thumb and then close thumb and close over yeah they were giving some sort of sign of like get like please like don't we look obviously suspicious please do something with that information totally totally so yeah i just yeah it's probably probably not that one so a lot of people think that they were trying to escape poverty they were trying to get to venezuela to start a better life and there's more to this that involves a lot of information about the spanish civil war here's here's what i'm not going to make you do go into the history of the spanish civil war thank you what i will say is that the spanish civil war was from 1936 to 1939 and then after that francisco franco came to power and was in power until his death in 1975 so that was about 40 years where spain was under some would say a fascist ruler some would say a dictatorship some would say just a patriotic guy but it wasn't great for the regular citizens and the economy was devastated so a lot of people believed that people on the canary islands were trying to escape to venezuela because everything was they were everyone was so poor at this time but this falls apart a little bit because the economy actually started to bounce back in the 40s and then was getting better in the 50s and 60s so the economy had improved enough that people probably wouldn't be risking their life taking boats across the ocean to go to venezuela if if it wasn't like extreme poverty back home and plus these guys had families like they would have brought their families with them or they would have at least brought more food and water if they were thinking we're gonna take a boat for a month you know i feel like they would have at the very least had enough goods to to yeah get them further or because i could see them coming trying to come back with whatever they were able to scrap up over there but like people would have known about that like i don't think they would have just let's all make a really spontaneous decision and not tell our families where we went like that's totally and like if and if you're not gonna go back to la palma i i don't think they would have said yes to julio i don't think they would have brought him with them right i think they like they absolutely had i think one specific unless they were gonna now take him as a hostage but like you said they're good guys so yeah they're good they're solid they're solid so i feel like that i believe that theory less than something they were held hostage and trying to make it clear to the i mean let's not forget they were literally doing like sos signals or morse code signals to alert yes a boat like yes clearly something was going on and then they got there to help them and they went never mind we're good yeah something was happening unless they unless they just wanted to alert them to get more food and water and sure like maybe and can you give us stuff and if the venezuela theory is right then maybe that was their plan all along we'll just morse code it out and hope that people find us along the way which is really risky man that's like quite a gamble yeah um i don't know i believe the first one more so far what about drugs what about drugs so some people think that they were trafficking drugs or guns or other illegal things and that they were attempting to avoid any maritime law enforcement and then they and by doing that they got turned around basically and got lost oh interesting like they were saying like instead of like meet me on the corner we'll do the exchange it was like meet me in international waters and no one will ever get us arrested um i i mean it sounds like they're good guys so guys but i don't know i also know a lot of solid good guys who were drug dealers but um in high school not like these days but um i don't know i did they find any residue of a single like any gunpowder or drugs at all on the boat because it sounds like not not that anyone has said that i read no not at all and also these guys reportedly none of them were in debt they all like they weren't rich but they had solid blue collar lives they just it doesn't seem like they were desperate enough to do something incredibly dangerous like you know float around in the ocean especially while they have like a new cast member on set you know what i mean yeah yeah if it was just like the buddies that all know each other and they were like oh let's go here and try this thing or let's go a different route and then they got mixed up but i don't i can't imagine them really getting mixed up either if like their whole job is boats like i feel like i kind of know what they're doing you know so yeah i don't know i really i really think something was threatening to them i really i don't know why that's mine but some they were scared of something they wanted help at some point and then refused it and they had to know that when they were saying no we're good they had to know if they were a proper crew that a sailor was then going to report back they had to know that they were missing they had to know that this boat was excited to see them and was like are you guys okay we've been looking for you when they turned them away after giving them like a signal to come find them and they had to know that the sailors were gonna be like we found like that's there's something there yeah yeah yeah yeah no you're yeah a hundred percent yeah so okay so then maybe honestly maybe that guy maybe the julio guy was trying to rob them and they were freaked out because for a second that guy did have like some sort of power over them or was able to like threaten them or something was going on and then they got him in the hatch and trapped him down there dude i i'm so thrilled that you brought up the point of the hat like it just never occurred to me why is he down there except they put it's just like why is he down there and nobody else is on the boat period and i'm like well if he got if all of them were buddies and they all got trapped in the hatch together then we would have four or five mummified people yeah but it's like he is he was by himself and obviously sick they they knew he was sick he wrote out his fucking life insurance and but it's also possible that he did that as he realized that no one was coming like so he may have been starving shit and as he's starving about that yeah he's like okay so this is it for me you're totally right so they probably never even saw that he was writing it so then i feel like maybe they he had the upper hand at some point and they got him in the hatch and then they escaped or something i don't fucking know i have no it's so weird okay so here's another thought okay some people think that they saw something they shouldn't have so this was smack dab in the middle of the cold war if so the cold war i forgot the cold war went until 1991 like the really that long yes 1947 to 1991 um so so some people have wondered if oh it's it's crazy how long it was they wondered if the fausto got caught in the midst of a submarine attack between the united states and the soviet union so earlier that year um in 1968 one of the people who was caught in the of the u.s's nuclear submarines the uss scorpion had gone missing and was finally found in october reportedly near where the fausto went missing so like some people were wondering if it got in the crossfire of some submarine warfare or something something something question mark submarine cold war question mark sure okay i'm with that like but it that wouldn't explain why they didn't accept help from the u.s. nuclear submarines the u.s. scorpion had gone missing and was finally found in the duchess from the british guys um and also it doesn't sound like the ship had any damage to it um when it was found either time so probably not that so then there's one more theory that has sort of surprisingly been popular okay and that is that it was nazis you know and that's always my first thought always nazis so after world war ii the nazis scattered like cockroaches all over the world and you know the hunt began to find the nazis and as wild as this idea sounds it was apparently pretty popular at the time that a nazi fugitive had been hiding somewhere on el hierro learned that nazis were being hunted needed to escape to south america and kidnapped the fausto oh shit so it it's become kind of an urban legend it just feels so specific and so different than the rest that it um even if it's right it feels like it stands out way too much that feels random as shit yeah yeah but this was like a pet theory and it is i think it still is a pet theory among some people because i think because it is so out of left field that sometimes sometimes it is that really bizarre thing that ended up being the case um and i just think because of everything that's going on at the time and all of the upheaval after world war ii but like world war i don't know man world war ii had ended over a decade before at least but also i mean i literally just told you about that that guy who like cheated death seven times and won the lottery like i mean like maybe it is the crazy goddamn thing no yes it's true there's some case and i i cannot remember i know someone listening knows what i'm talking about there was some bizarre true crime case where the the victim profile matched the next door neighbor's type of victim like they happen to live next door to a guy who loved to kidnap this type of child and this type of child had gone missing and it wasn't the guy even though the guy who lived across the street or next door or whatever like they found the kid's coat in his front lawn and like he loved doing specifically something specific that was also part of the missing child case but it actually was not him it was just like a bunch of really crazy coincidences oh my god and every once in a while i think of that i have to figure out it's like really it's it's dark and sad so i'm sort of skirting over a bunch of stuff but like it is something with a ton of coincidences that just are coincidences which is really frustrating okay here's what like the most accepted theory of what happened actually is okay people believe that it was four men who made a series of tiny little mistakes over the course of a day two days four days that kept compounding on themselves that ultimately created a situation that these men could not get out of um especially when you have run out of food and water so when the duchess found them they were alive but they were dead and they were dead and they were dead and they were dead and definitely dehydrated and they were um hungry and some people have pointed out the fact that they seemed fine may have been a symptom of them not being fine right right you know like a little bit out of their minds so so it's possible that as time went on they turned more and more irrational and they got scared and they got agitated and more mistakes kept being made um but it's it's not clear what those mistakes were it's never been cleared up where what the 28 pages were some people think that it was um julio had written down what was happening and then when he realized he was going to die he did not want his family to know like oh was it was it cannibals like was it do you you you become desperate and you do what you have to do to survive so was there like cannibalism involved or was there just it was like heartbreaking and he didn't want his family to have to think about it you know it's even crazier if it was if it was cannibals which feels as crazy to me as like nazis because i just never you never think about cannibals being an option um what if they didn't lock him away what if he locked himself in oh my god to stay away from whatever they were up to oh my gosh but then he would have absolutely journaled like in case you find me this is what the fuck was going on yeah but uh maybe he but like what if he what if he didn't want their families to know well that's awfully nice for a stranger i would be like your fucking dad did this i know i'm dying but here's the tea in 2026 i'd be if i had tiktok access i'd be like um if you know a guy who has a ship out here he's fucking nuts right now up there he's losing it he's hot but nuts um some people have also thought that they may have resorted to eating the paper um or use using it to you know clean um some people have thought that it may have been taken by the italian um sailor who found it and maybe he again like for whatever reason didn't want the families to know or for another reason he tore those pages out um they've never been found no one knows this so this is known as the ship that went missing and was discovered three times because it went missing and was discovered three times that's fucking crazy it's absolutely bonkers and i have to give like major credit to um there's a gentleman who did a full like rundown of this story um because the majority of the sources were in spanish like primary sources were in spanish and so someone on reddit named hello lurker here did like a full rundown so i'm i went and did obviously my own research and then like verified things but his his or their her whoever their outline was like a huge framework and like a really wonderful body of work that they did um to kind of help clear up some things i wasn't quite sure about in terms of translations but this story they don't know what has happened no one's been able to come up with a solid idea of anything in over forever and it is absolutely fascinating and that is the story of the fausto that's incredible that's incredible and also like the worst part about it i like i love a mystery christina's covered quite a lot of um we don't know what happened and they get me every goddamn time because i truly believe i'm going to be the one to crack the case wide open and i can never do it um but like so much time eventually passes that there's like there's no evidence it's just gonna be until we have a time machine we'll just never know yeah that's crazy it's and it's so frustrating because it's like if you don't hank green always says this right like if you don't know if something seems mysterious and you don't know it it's not because it's impossible it just means you're missing like one piece of information and yeah it's just like what don't we know is it is it purposefully being hidden by someone who saw something and didn't tell or is it like that finally the italian first mate forgot to tell us that there was a broom handle through the handle of the patch door and the man was locked down there right like there's just like we don't know what we don't know and it's so frustrating i there's there's i there's got to be a tv show or a movie about this no i feel like this is like prime setup for a script that is you know what because like you could think you could also do even if you're making it up because there is no guarantee there's no correct theory so far like you could do i've always wanted to see a show where every episode is a different person's person or perspective and i'm sure there's something like that out there like there's like roots and shit but like um this is a great one where it's like you you see a mystery and then you think oh that's the end of the season but then the next season is the exact opposite perspective that's that's all that's awesome um this the ai overview is telling me so many things that i don't know if they're right or not standard if someone knows how to turn that thing on off can you please write in the comments because i'm sick of her apparently apparently there was like some documentaries there was a 2000 oh this is such a 2001 movie name there was a 2001 spanish thriller called fausto 5.0 i mean come on you remember do you remember dracula 2000 no i do not but can i can i tell you something that i i thought about covering for you this um the reason i reached out to morgan of creeps and crime i was like please give me a topic i kept hitting dead ends i originally i wrote three other sets of notes for you not christine bethany i'm so sorry i wrote three no i mean i'm so sorry that i i'm breaking the news to you now that i i did so many other sets of notes for you and every single one of them i felt like was a dead end and one of them i was really excited about which you know maybe we discuss uh at some other point but like have you ever heard of i was trying to find something local to you and i know you're a new yorker new yorker cropsy yes oh my gosh so i tried to cover i was gonna originally cover that maybe maybe i'll i'll do that on a separate episode but there's um i i watched burning the burning for you because apparently have you watched that i it feels like something you and dennis you and dennis would eat that shit up it was um it was based on cropsy and so i was trying to get all my ducks in a row and try to know as much as i could and i was going to give you a full report on how that movie went and i watched the movie and i was like this is not that good but some people really love like the horrible cheesy 1980s horror movies like the slasher yeah and that's what it was so if you need something to watch tonight have fun with that as is the burning and then there was another one called madman which was also about cropsy and apparently there's some drama that i'm sure dennis would know about where like the two of them were being filmed at the exact same time and only found out halfway through production that both of them were being cropsy slasher movies oh my gosh anyway just know that if you're a new yorker and uh i i was gonna do cropsy maybe one day i'll do it again but i just felt like i was it was not getting the x factor i wanted so so you were talking about how our time uh mysteries dennis and i were talking about cropsy yesterday shut up okay well then maybe maybe you come back sometime for uh around two and i'll i'll actually do cropsy i would love that because he's been to the cropsy hospital like the abandoned hospital oh the willow brook right yes yeah yeah he's been there he said he'll never go back he said it was just awful like the sad and like he he said it was just like he's spooky he'll never go and he loves abandoned stuff you know he's but yeah that one okay heavy heavy heavy well good to know i would like your your take and his take on all this because um it's for those who don't know it's an urban legend in new york but it's also like very there's some layers of crime there which yeah i don't usually cover either but i was trying to find something spooky and hometowny for you but um i i ended up going with the thing that i thought would bring more of a huh vibe dude so i'm gonna be you know i'm gonna be going down a rabbit hole of that guy what's that guy's name get please give me the guy's name again frano zelak frano zelak it's f-r-a-n-o frank with an o frano okay and then s-e-l-a-k select a-k damn that guy he's a dirty liar but man he's awesome you know i have to believe he's a dirty liar i don't want it to be true and i've never hoped that someone has fallen out of a fucking plane but like i really want it to be true for his sake i hope you fell out of a plane for for my sake so i can be accurate in my storytelling next time i'm at the bar um yeah thank you so much for coming on i really appreciate it i've been like we've recently had another friend of mine steven on and uh it's so nice to like have you know all these friends on and you know just see what all of your interests are and i know you've um i did not expect a maritime mystery from you but i don't know why because mystery is like your whole vibe so i love it i love a maritime mystery it was awesome thank you so much um and where can people find you if please plug yourself yeah please um first of all thank you for thank you for having me on this was such a joy and and thank you you know to the listeners for being so generous and like opening up your ear holes for this new person um my instagram is at ms bethany watson so ms watson um i do a podcast with my partner dennis it is free but it's on patreon but it's free it's called the check-in um and then if you like horror if you like small town mysteries we produced and released a television show last year called the trouble with tessa and it is now uh on 2b you can watch it for free now and i think all six episodes total are a little over two hours they're like 20 minute episodes um we're super proud of it and uh yeah so the trouble with tessa now on 2b i have watched it many times uh and it it's wonderful i'm so proud of you guys i can't believe i i know someone who has made a movie and not only that but a power couple because the two of you made it together it was i yeah i'm just so blown away um it's it's wonderful and dennis is wonderful you're wonderful um i love you both very much if you ever are interested everybody and following two new spooky people i like to and bethany as um like dracula and mrs dracula um they they're just they're they're perfectly meant to be um it's very spooky and you know i that's one of the reasons why i asked you to be here because i was like well thank you i know that you'll handle it so um thank you and you are you are loved in our home by the way and you are you are beloved um by both of us we we think the world of you oh your your dreams your dreams uh okay well we'll see everybody um next week and that's why we drink that's why we drink endless summer escapes start here travel the worlds of netflix irl inspired by fan favorites like stranger things and squid game brave the upside down face off with the front man play leveled up arcade games shop exclusive merch and enjoy themed food and drinks beat the heat play eat and shop with the front man on repeat at netflix house at galleria dallas bring your crew and save get your tickets today at netflix.com slash house hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30 i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save join for just 20 at bjs.com slash 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