My Dark Path

If you trace the dark path back through Wright’s life and work, there is a very good reason why he changed his design philosophy so radically. When Frank Lloyd Wright built the home he thought represented his ultimate dream, it became the site of a nightmare he could never escape . Listen to Learn More about: The Murderer that killed a family and entire staff in Frank Lloyd Wright's home.  Th...

How could an entire international competition involving dozens of nations and hundreds of elite athletes be stricken from the official history of the Olympic Games? Listen To Learn More About:  The founding of the IOC and Pierre de Coubertin The “unofficial” Olympic games of 1906 The  gold medalist who was borne with Polio and other amateur Olympians  Athens’ fight to permanently host the Olympics...

At the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, anyone who showed up on the day of competition would have an opportunity to compete . And as for what events they would compete in? The classical Olympics were more than sporting events: they included poetry readings, debates, art, theatre, diplomatic meetings between sworn enemies. And Pierre de Coubertin wanted all of this in the modern Games. This...

So where did the idea of using an artificial electrical impulse to control the heartbeat begin? Well, as with most scientific progress, there’s a long chain of contributors, but I want to talk today about a transformational role played by an inquisitive man from Minneapolis, Minnesota named Earl Bakken; and the inspiration he got from a movie he saw when he was just a little boy. Listen To find ou...

It’s one of the darkest stories we’ve told here – the story of a man who became famous for saying he saw a UFO, and who became a terrorist because his own government invited him to. The UFO wasn’t real, but the bombings, terror, and death that followed – they’re as real as it gets. Listen to learn  more about:  1. Cult psychology  2. Aladino Felix's UFO Sighting  3. The  former Brazilian gove...

As well-documented as things are, there’s so much left that’s unknown. And the speculation about just what the Nazis could be capable of didn’t start in the aftermath as historians and scientists worked to put together a record of it all. It had an impact on the battlefield at the peak of the fighting. Maybe the best way to capture this dark path of imagination where I found myself on this dark an...

The Museum of Automatons is packed with automatons... mechanical figures that move and speak.  Imagine what Walt Disney would have designed in the 18th century - automatons were attempts to mimic human figures in remarkable ways.  Really, just the first glimpse at the future of robotics...or at least robots that would mimic humans and other animals.  But automatons weren’t just gifts wealthy Europ...

Air travel to Hawaii is actually an amazing story of innovation, imagination, and tremendous courage as well as a great deal of tragedy.  Like most opportunities we have in our lives, it’s easy to take for granted the sacrifices that made them possible.  So, it’s a dark path that eventually opens up into the sunny skies to the land of Aloha, and involves an event you may never have heard of, but w...

In Singapore, there’s a park known as the Haw Par Villa, an expansive theme park filled with over 1,000 statues, and hundreds of detailed three-dimensional dioramas. Of course, lots of parks have statues and memorials of people from history. But these dioramas set Haw Par Villa apart; and make it a much wilder, much stranger place.  At the epicenter of the park is the Ten Courts of Hell. It’s a se...

Once upon a time, I was in Shanghai, and I needed a birthday present for a friend.  Shanghai is a captivating city; one I love to visit. I always enjoy my time there. It’s vibrantly alive with culture, history, and commerce. For many years it was called “The Paris of the East,” due to its cosmopolitanism, and its sophistication. I love it so much that my next novel, Like Clockwork , is based in th...

Luis Ribeiro was dumped on the side of a road, his body filled with bullets. John Tillman’s high-flying, globe-trotting adventure ended with him dying alone after years in a prison cell. Leonardo Notarbartolo barely had a moment to celebrate his success before his diamond district apartment was traded for a cold, dark cage. Their heists practically stand as works of art in themselves – the product...

John Glenn. Alan Shepard. Scott Carpenter. Gordon Cooper. Gus Grissom. Deke Slayton. Wally Schirra. These are the names of the members of the Mercury Seven— America’s first astronauts, charged with the task of being the human faces of a massive collective effort to beat the Soviet Union in a race to space. And, of course, charged with the task of actually manning the rockets that could take them h...

Amid the astonishing destruction of World War II in Europe and Asia, the mainland of the United States had been spared from the ravages of this global conflict.  While several isolated attacks took place on the coasts, the dictators in Berlin & Tokyo sought super weapons to use against the US.  For Japan, one of these super weapons came in the form of the Fu-go balloon project that involved la...

The desire to know if Unidentified Flying Objects are real continues to grow in the USA and world-wide, especially with recent releases of previously classified video from the Department of Defense. One encounter yet to be explained was that of Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson, whose UFO sighting left his patrol car damaged and his memory blank.  The Fort LTD still sits in a museum today in northern Min...

How does someone’s corpse get so exploited and degraded that, decades later, everyone mistakes him for a prop? After Elmer McCurdy’s death, his embalmed body was exploited as a sideshow attraction, a movie prop, and ultimately a decoration in an amusement park’s haunted house. Listen to learn more about Elmer McCurdy—a train robber who was killed in 1911 after attempting to steal $400,000 from a t...

How did a luxury international hotel brand in Taipei earn the reputation as one of the most haunted hotels in the world? Listen to learn more about  Key moments in the history of Taiwan, including its founding by Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-Kuo. How the Hyatt hotel brand was founded. The history of ghost stories. MF Thomas’ personal experience at the Taipei Hyatt.  The full show notes...

Today Peenemünde is a small German town that borders the Baltic Sea. It sits amid a beautiful patchwork of farmland and national parks but the peaceful environment belies its role in the Nazi government’s development of V1 flying bomb and V2 rocket. Listen to learn more about The early visionaries of rocketry, including Hermann Oberth, Herman Potočnik, & Wernher Von Braun. The impact of the V1...

Airships became one of the most visible and popular methods of travel in the early 20th Century before the Hindenburg accident and competition from airplanes made airships almost an afterthought.  Listen to learn more about The early inventors who created the first hot air balloons and those who applied balloon technology to create airship. Count Von Zeppelin, the father of the modern airship. Lea...