Episode 264: Engine Trouble

I'm a kid, so am I gonna surprise you with a poster board I need for the science fair tomorrow?

Probably.

But can you get up to 40% off back to school essentials on Uber Eats?

Definitely.

So order on Uber Eats and get up to 40% off.

Exclusions may apply.

Check app for availability.

Not all group chats are the same.

Just like not all Adams are the same.

Adam Brody, for instance, uses WhatsApp to pin messages, send events, and settle debates using polls with his friends, all in one group chat.

Makes our guys' night easier.

But Adam Scott group messages with an app that isn't WhatsApp, which means he still can't find that text from his friends about where to meet.

Hang on, still scrolling.

No, the address is here somewhere.

It's time for WhatsApp.

Message privately with everyone.

People are people, as they say, and there are some things that are universally simple, no matter where or when we live.

If you need proof, look no further than this classic story of a teenager arguing with his dad about borrowing the car.

Familiar territory, right?

Now, when I say classic, I really mean classical, because this myth happens to be from ancient Greece, and well, the car wasn't a car exactly, but a chariot.

As the tale goes, young Phaeton paid a visit to his father, Helios, and begged to borrow the chariot, which, if we know anything from Ferris Bueller's day off, was an uphill battle from the start.

To make his chances worse, though, this was no ordinary chariot.

No, Helios' ride happened to be responsible for dragging the sun across the sky every morning.

It was a delicate task, to say the least.

If it flew too high, the earth would freeze.

If it flew too low, the earth would burst into flames.

Serious stakes, I know.

So it's no surprise that Helios was more than a tad bit hesitant to hand off the literal reins.

Phaeton wouldn't give up, though, and eventually his dad relented, which might not have been a great call, because as soon as Phaeton climbed into that chariot, he lost control.

Completely.

The horses freaked out, the chariot flew too low, and Africa was scorched, which, according to the myth, is apparently what caused the Sahara Desert.

Zeus, seeing this absolute disaster from on high, threw a thunderbolt at poor Phaeton, who plummeted to his death far below.

Phaeton's fated chariot ride is synonymous with vehicular disaster, which makes it all the more ironic that everything from 19th century carriages to 20th century automobiles have been named after it, as a Phaeton came to refer to open-bodied carriages or touring cars.

Heck, in 2002, Volkswagen even decided to release a luxury car called the Volkswagen Phaeton.

It's clear that ever since humans invented the wheel, we've lived our lives in tandem with vehicles, and sometimes those vehicles drive us to terrifying places that we were never meant to go.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore.

There really is a demon for everything.

In Japan, they have the Oboragurima, a transparent oxcart with a giant grotesque face.

In Jewish mythology, there is the Agrat Batmalat, who floats in an airborne chariot and dances on rooftops.

And yes, even in Phaeton's own culture, there was a transportation-based demon, the ancient Greek Pteraxipus.

It may sound like an adorable tarantula-octopus hybrid out out of a sci-fi original movie, but the Taraxapus, which translates to horse disturber, was actually a kind of ghost.

Believed to be the spirits of those killed by or connected to horses, they were known to haunt racetracks, where they would lie in wait to reach out and terrify racehorses.

As a result, the animals would rear up and cause their rickety two-wheeled chariots to crash, killing the charioteers.

And nowhere in Greece was more plagued by the Taraxapus than Greece's premier racing arena, the Hippodrome at Olympia.

Some believe the Ptaxapus haunting the Hippodrome was the spirit of a dead giant.

Others claim that it was the ghost of Hercules' friend Daemon, who was buried on that same land beside his own beloved horse.

One legendary race within the Hippodrome was said to have produced multiple Pteraxipoi.

A king named Onomaeus had a beautiful daughter named Hippodamia, who had no shortage of suitors.

Skeptical of this oggling gaggle of men, Onomaeus challenged the suitors to, you guessed it, a chariot race.

Whoever beat him could marry his daughter.

But if they lost, well, their head would end up on a post.

Many suitors tried, and many suitors failed.

One of these men was said to transform into a Taraxapus after he was executed.

But little did Onimaeus know not everyone was playing fair.

One suitor, a guy named Pelops, bribed Onimaeus' charioteer, Myrtilos, to switch the metal linchpins on the king's wheels for flimsy wax ones, ultimately killing Onimaeus right there on the racetrack.

After that, Myrtelos earned a new nickname for his act of equine sabotage.

He became known as the Taraxapus.

Of course, transportation has come a long way since the ancient Greeks, and as technology evolved, so did the hauntings.

Chariots gave way to horse-drawn carriages, and a new sweep of superstitions arrived.

Take the story of Lady Howard of Tavistock, a wealthy woman from Devon, England, accused of murdering not one, but four husbands.

In Lady Howard's defense, this almost certainly wasn't true, but hey, folklore doesn't care about the facts, does it?

And so, after Lady Howard retired to her childhood home, Fitzhouse, and shortly after passed away, those rumors only grew.

Legend has it, people have seen the gates of Fitzhouse burst open, revealing a giant black dog with red, glowing eyes.

The dog emerges, followed by a horse-drawn carriage made entirely out of the dead husband's bones.

A headless coachman holds the reins while the phantom Lady Howard rides in back and then the ghastly procession performs a mysterious ceremony.

The carriage makes its way all the way from Fitzhouse to Oakhampton Castle and when it arrives the dog steps forward and picks a single blade of grass.

Then the procession returns home.

This is Lady Howard's punishment.

You see, it said that she will not be permitted to rest until the final blade of grass is gone.

After the carriage came the railroad and suddenly phantom trains were chugging across America.

One fan favorite is the legend of Abraham Lincoln's phantom funeral train.

Witnesses have seen a ghostly locomotive draped in black cloth moving silently along the tracks on the very same route a train once carried the fallen president's body.

And then there's the terrifying silver arrow in Stockholm.

In 1965, the Stockholm Metro added eight unpainted aluminum train cars to their fleet.

Usually the cars would have been painted green, but in an attempt to cut costs they left these ones an eerie moon-like silver.

Soon, stories began to spread.

It was said that anyone who boarded one of these rare silver cars would never be seen again.

Other reports claimed that the silver train only stopped once a year after midnight and that the passengers seen through the windows wore vacant expressions and appeared to be halfway between living and dead.

And although these stories may have been more powerful than a locomotive, the trains remained in service until the mid-1990s.

Now, sure, chariots, carriages, and trains all feel like old machines from a bygone age, exactly the sort of places we would expect to be haunted.

But then again, in the 20th century, a hot new invention would bring the horror right to the present world.

Welcome to the ghost car.

When Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow first met in January of 1930, they were just kids.

Bonnie was 19, Clyde was 20, but it was love at first sight, and in four years, they would both be dead.

Famed criminals, Bonnie and Clyde, are American legends today, but they were once real young people dealing with the real economic collapse of the Great Depression.

Now, I can't exactly condone how they handled that, but it did cement their names in history.

In 1932, Bonnie and Clyde embarked on a two-year crime spree, spanning Texas and parts of the Midwest.

While today they're mostly known as bank robbers, in reality the Barrow Gang, as the duo and their comrades were called, mostly stole cars and robbed small gas stations and grocery stores.

Sometimes they barely made off with more than $5 or $10 per holdup.

And yet, just because the money was small didn't mean the crimes were.

In the midst of their two-year crime run, the Barrow gang murdered at least 12 people, including a number of police officers.

And so when law enforcement finally cornered their car along Highway 154 in Louisiana, they didn't go easy on them.

Before Bonnie and Clyde even had a chance to raise their guns, the police had fired more than 100 rounds into their car, leaving them riddled with over 50 bullets each.

It was official.

The ballad of Bonnie and Clyde was over.

But the story of the Ford V8 automobile where they died, well that tale had only just begun.

First, the public swarmed the ruined car.

Bonnie and Clyde's corpses still inside, mind you.

The crowd tried to tear off pieces of their hair and their clothing, trying to snag a macabre souvenir.

Whatever happened to magnets and shot glasses, right?

Once the scene had been tidied up, a federal judge returned the stolen car to its owner, who then turned around and sold it to an anti-crime lecturer named Charles Stanley.

Well, anti-crime lecturer and sideshow barker, that that is.

Stanley, you see, dragged the death car, as he called it, from fairground to fairground all across America as a sideshow attraction.

But not alone.

No, he brought Bonnie and Clyde's grieving mothers along for the ride.

Today, the car is on display in the town of Prim, Nevada, at Whiskey Pete's Hotel and Casino.

Go ahead, pay it a visit.

You can even see Clyde's bloody, bullet-torn shirt while you're there.

But be warned, people have reported an eerie feeling of uneasiness in the car's presence.

And honestly, who can blame them?

Of course, we can't talk about car deaths without mentioning the most famous of all, the assassination of JFK.

There is plenty of debate around exactly who shot the president, but one thing is for certain, the identity of the car he died in.

It was a 1961 Lincoln 74A convertible with a code name SSX100, and it had been tricked out specifically for use as a presidential vehicle.

There were added radio telephones, a fire extinguisher, a siren, retractable standing platforms for the Secret Service, and more.

But despite all its bells and whistles when that fateful shot rang out, the Lincoln's fine leather seats found themselves drenched in blood and brain matter.

Now, this clearly wasn't the kind of car they could just replace on a dime.

In fact, it was so elaborate, it would have taken four years to design and build a new one.

Meanwhile, the new president, Lyndon B.

Johnson, was going to need a set of wheels.

And so the White House simply decided to keep using the JFK death car.

That's right.

In a project dubbed the Quick Fix, the White House had the car stripped, scrubbed clean, and popped right back on the road.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I was LBJ, I'd be a little squeamish about climbing in for a joyride.

But shockingly, he did.

Not only that, the car remained in service for another eight years, finally ending up at the Henry Ford Museum, where it's still on display to this day.

And I think it's a surprise to no one that the car is said to be haunted.

According to museum staff, a figure dressed in gray manifests beside the Lincoln.

Apparently, it only appears in November, the very month of JFK's death.

But it's not just the man in gray who is seen.

No, some say they have seen the president himself sitting in the front passenger seat, taking one final eternal ride.

Now, JFK's death may have been the most famous, but there's one execution on wheels that rattled the world more than any other before or since, and that is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

You probably know all too well what happened after 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip shot the Archduke and his wife Sophie on June 28th of 1914.

That is, that it started World War I.

But what you may not know is what became of the car in which he died.

And to be honest, with all the rumors that emerged, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.

In the years following the war, countless horror stories emerged.

In some, it was said that the car stayed in commission, but was forever cursed.

These urban legends claim that a whopping 13 people died in the car in the years after the assassination, including a doctor, a farmer, a race car driver, and an entire wedding party, just to name a few.

A story insisted that the governor of Yugoslavia himself bought the car and an accident shortly thereafter ripped off his right arm.

Strangest of all, though, may have been the car's license plate.

According to the stories, the plate read A 111118.

And if that sounds familiar, it's because November 11th of 1918 was the day that World War I ended.

Armistice 11-11-18.

The trouble is though that Yugoslavia didn't even have a governor back then.

It turns out that as exciting as the cursed car sounds, none of these stories were actually true.

Well, none of them.

except for one.

You see, the thing about the license plate?

That part is 100% real.

Oh and by the way, the model of that car just happened to be a 1910 made by a company called Graf and Stiff.

The model name?

The double Phaeton.

It was a beautiful September day.

Those are easy to find in California, of course.

On this particular day, the air was a balmy 83 degrees and the skies were fair.

And as the two men drove north, they were in good spirits.

So good, in fact, that they even stopped midway through for a slice of apple pie at Tip's diner in Santa Clarita Valley.

They'd been driving for a while and had a while more to go.

But only a glance out that diner window reminded them that it was all worth it.

Because there she was, that gleaming silver Porsche 550 spider, so new that the engine wasn't even broken in yet.

It must have glinted like a diamond in that SoCal sunlight.

And once the car made it to Salinas for the epic road race being held the next day, well, there would be nothing better.

Yes, this was going to be a good day.

An hour later, the men were back on the road.

They drove more cautiously than they had earlier in the afternoon.

After all, they'd been stopped for going 65 in a 55 zone a couple of hours back and weren't eager to repeat the affair.

But as it turned out, none of that caution would matter.

As the Porsche passed through an intersection where Highway 46 met Highway 41, another car whipped around the corner.

The two vehicles collided head-on, and in a terrible kaleidoscope of shattered glass and crumpled metal, the tiny Porsche spun into the air.

It landed with a sickening crunch, although whether that came from the car itself or the driver's snapping neck is hard to say.

One thing though is certain.

In that single fateful moment, history changed forever.

A beloved young actor named James Dean was dead.

James Byron Dean was born on February 8th of 1931.

And although he's remembered as one of the most legendary actors in history, he actually grew up as a regular Indiana kid.

Even so, he was talented from the start, and not just in acting.

James played the violin, he tap-danced, sculpted, pole-vaulted, and more.

And while his love for theater would ultimately push him toward a Hollywood life, it was another passion entirely that would lead to his death.

James Dean, you see, loved to race.

It started with motorcycles, back when he was still in high school, and then cars.

And after moving to California to start his acting career, James finally received his first film check from his big break role starring in East of Eden.

And what do you think that he used that cash for?

That's right, a race car, a red convertible, and also a motorcycle.

And that was that.

From 1955 onward, he began competing in road races.

East of Eden was quickly followed up by Rebel Without a Cause that same year, and then Giant a year later in 1956.

And audiences loved him.

In a few short months, this Indiana boy had gone from being a complete unknown to a movie star.

Yet, at the time, he never stopped racing.

Which, let's just say now, the studios weren't too crazy about that.

After all, racing was a dangerous sport, and to make a movie, you kind of need your lead actor to be, well, alive.

So during Giant, the studio contractually banned him from racing.

Now, it may have slowed him down, but nothing would stop James Dean from getting behind the wheel of a fast car.

As soon as he wrapped up his scenes for Giant, he traded the red convertible for that Porsche 550 Spyder, one of the fastest cars in the world.

He nicknamed it the Little Bastard.

It would be the last car that he would ever drive.

I can only imagine his excitement as he drove the little bastard out of the lot that first day.

The car was bright and sleek, almost extraterrestrial in its metallic glow.

It was a pretty little thing and it was so low to the ground that you could swing a baseball bat at it and not hit it.

And the timing couldn't be better.

In only 10 days, the Salinas road race would commence and James Dean had every intention of being there.

Not everyone was as giddy about the purchase though.

The sports car looked sinister to me, wrote actor actor Alec Guinness, or as you may know him, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I heard myself saying in a voice I could hardly recognize as my own, please never get in it.

If you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week.

Dean laughed it off, of course.

Little did he know his friend's prophecy would come true.

And well, you know the rest.

The long drive toward the race joined by his mechanic Rolf Witherich, the collision, the Portia flying through the air, that haunting crunch.

Witherich and the other drivers survived, but for the young rebel James Dean, that tragic moment froze him at 24 forever.

Now, Dean's life may have ended there, but that doesn't mean the story did.

Far from it, because in the years to come, the little bastard would become much more than just a car.

Soon, it would become a myth.

Now, the tales are varied.

Some carry seeds of truth.

Others seem spun from the American imagination alone, a land of ghosts and dust devils and lonely stretches of highway.

But no matter the origin, all the stories share the same claim.

The little bastard, they say, is cursed.

In one legend of the little bastard's life after death, one of Dean's racing buddies, a guy named William Esrich, hunted the wrecked car down in a scrapyard in Burbank.

Then, like a cross between Speed Racer and Dr.

Frankenstein, he raided the little bastard for parts.

The engine, he placed into his own Lotus 9 race car.

The transmission and suspension parts went to his friend Troy Lee McHenry.

And less than a year later, both Esrich and McHenry drove their souped-up cars in the 1956 Pomona road races, and both of them crashed.

Esrich was injured, McHenry was killed.

Then there's the tales of auto customizer George Barris, the same guy who designed the original Adam West Batmobile, by the way.

Barris claimed to have bought the car from Dean's family, a purchase, it seems, that he would live to regret.

First, thieves broke into Barris' shop and tried to steal parts, but were horribly injured in the process.

Then, Barris lent the car to the California Highway Patrol to take on a road safety lecture tour.

While Highway Patrol was storing it in Fresno, it spontaneously burst into flames, yet emerged mysteriously unscathed.

Later, at a display at a Sacramento high school, it was said to have fallen and broken a student's hip, but the disaster didn't stop there.

At one point, a truck carrying the car lost control.

The driver fell out, and the Porsche fell off the back, crushing the driver to death.

Yes, according to the tales, tragedy followed the spider wherever it went.

But this story doesn't end in exorcism or scrapyards.

No, when the tour was done, the car simply vanished.

In fact, it apparently disappeared out of a sealed box car with no signs of a break-in.

The little bastard was never seen again.

In our modern world, cars are our companions.

They carry us through life.

They join us on adventures and explorations.

You could say it's like the bond shared between a cowboy and his favorite horse.

Except, well, blood and bone has given way to oil, steel, and of course, speed.

And all those additions, they have proven to be deadly.

According to a report released by the Washington Post, in the years between 2000 and 2017, more Americans died in car accidents than were killed in both world wars combined.

And if we know anything about folklore, it's that wherever there is senseless death, people become desperate for a story, an explanation, anything to give meaning and reason.

behind a horror devoid of both.

It's hard to say how many of the little bastards' legends are true.

The facts cannot be easily separated from the stories.

For example, Troy Lee McHenry did indeed die at the races that day, but was that because of a curse or merely a tragic accident in an all-too-dangerous sport?

And the thing that makes James Dean's death all the more tragic is that it wasn't actually his love for racing that killed him.

No, he wasn't even on the track.

He wasn't being reckless.

He was merely driving down the road like any civilian.

It was the other driver, a man with the unfortunate name of Donald Turnipseed, who was at fault.

And I can't help but wonder if Dean knew that this would be his end, not on the racetrack, but on the road, cut down by a careless driver.

You see, just one month before his death, James Dean did a promotional interview for his final film, Giant.

The interviewer, knowing Dean's penchant for cars, plied him with questions about speed and road safety.

And although the interview is casual, Dean's replies are hauntingly foreshadowing.

I'll take my chances any day on the track than on the highway, he said, noting that unlike casual drivers, everyone on the track was a trained professional.

And then finally, just before parting ways, the interviewer asked, Do you have any special advice for the young people who drive?

And as it turns out, James Dean did.

Take it easy, driving, he said with a smirk.

The life you save might be mine.

Chariots and wagons, trains and cars.

The stories of our beloved vehicles have entertained us for a very long time.

But while earthly ghost vehicles are one thing, I have one last story that takes all that horror to the skies.

Stick around through this brief sponsored break to hear all about it.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

What scares you?

Go ahead and conjure an answer to that in your head, whether it's a big fear or a small one.

It's a relevant question to ask considering how we're quickly sliding into the Halloween season.

Of course, Halloween lets us have fun with the things that frighten us.

But what about the fears that don't involve vampires and ghosts?

Well, thankfully, therapy is a great tool for facing our fears and finding new ways to overcome them.

I know how important and helpful therapy can be when it comes to processing fears and struggles.

It's not just for those who have experienced major trauma.

It can actually empower you to be the best version of yourself.

If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule.

Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge.

Overcome your fears with BetterHelp.

Visit betterhelp.com/slash lore today to get 10% off your first month.

That's betterhelp, h-e-l-p.com/slash/lore.

This episode was also sponsored by Acorns.

Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing for you, your kids, and your retirement.

You don't need a lot of money or expertise to invest with Acorns.

In fact, you can get started with just your spare change.

Acorns recommends an expert-built portfolio that fits you and your money goals, then automatically invests your money for you.

And now Acorns is putting their money into your future.

Open an Acorns Later IRA and get up to 3% match on new contributions.

That's extra money for your retirement.

I know how confusing and intimidating the investment world can be, but I also know it's important for my future, which is why I love how easy Acorns makes it to jump in and get started.

It didn't require me to become an expert or learn a bunch of lingo.

It's really that simple.

Head to acorns.com slash lore or go down the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today.

Paid client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns.

Investing involves risk.

Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor.

View important disclosures at acorns.com slash lore.

And finally, this episode was made possible by Mint Mobile.

You know when you discover a new binge-worthy show or a song that you bump on repeat and have to share with your friends so they can experience just how awesome it is?

That's kind of what it feels like when you discover that Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for $15 a month when you purchase a three-month plan.

It's such an awesome deal, there's no way you can keep it to yourself.

One of our senior producers over here at Grim and Mild set up her Mint Mobile Mobile account all by herself, and by skipping all of that in-store stuff, she was able to take advantage of a much better price compared to other wireless providers.

All of their plans come with unlimited talk and text, plus high-speed data delivered on the nation's largest 5G network.

And you can even use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts.

To get this new customer offer and your new three-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash lore.

That's mintmobile.com/slash lore.

Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/slash lore.

$45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 per month.

New customers on first three-month plan only.

Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan.

Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply.

See Mint Mobile for details.

It's considered bad form to read another person's diary.

The rules might change, though, when the diary is in the pocket of a corpse.

Sunday, April 4, 1943, the journal read.

Things pretty well mixed up, got lost returning, out of gas, jumped.

Monday, April 5.

Started walking.

A few rations, half canteen of water, one cap full per day.

Thursday, April 8th, everybody now very weak.

Lamotte eyes are gone.

Friday, 9.

All want to die.

Very little water.

Sunday, 11.

Still waiting.

Eyes bad.

Could make it if we had water.

Just enough left to put our tongue to.

Have hope for help very soon.

And finally, one last brief entry.

Monday, 11.

No help yet.

Cold night.

These chilling excerpts come from an actual actual diary found deep in the Libyan desert.

It was found on the body of World War II co-pilot Robert Toner.

His remains, along with four of his fellow crew members, were found over 100 miles from the newly discovered crash sites of a B-24D World War II bomber plane.

And with that, one of the war's greatest mysteries was solved.

The disappearance of the Lady Be Good.

On April 4th of 1943, two waves of bombers took off from the AAF base in Soluk, Libya, heading for for an attack against Axis facilities in Italy.

25 planes left, 24 returned.

But that final plane, it wasn't shot down by enemy fire or captured by the Axis powers.

No, the Lady Be Good and her nine-man crew simply vanished.

No wreckage, no bodies, just gone.

Eventually, the war ended.

Soldiers returned home to their families.

The world began to heal and move on.

But still, no matter how many rescue teams were sent and how many theories posited, the Lady Be Good was still missing.

The truth would emerge 15 years later.

On November 9th of 1958, a group of oilmen working for BP came across a haunting discovery.

It was a plane, and it seemed to have been frozen in time.

Although broken into two pieces, the rest of it was pristine.

The machine guns and the radio still worked.

There was food and water on board and even a drinkable thermos of tea.

And yet, one thing was frighteningly absent.

that is, the crew.

Later, a further search of the area revealed an old path headed northwest, and along that path, pieces of equipment were strewn like breadcrumbs from a terrible fairy tale.

Canteens, parachute straps, flashlights, and flight jackets, until at last, the trail led searchers to a grisly scene.

Five long dead bodies clustered together and another two 20 miles ahead, seemingly journeying for help.

And then of course, there was the journal.

Piece by piece, the grisly story came together.

How all but one of the men had survived the crash and walked out into the desert in search of rescue.

How slowly they ran out of water, grew weak in the searing heat, lost their strength, their vision, and at last their will to live, until finally the men had perished, having never found their way out.

On March 7th of 1960, Life magazine published an article about the Lady Be Good and her crew.

And at last, America learned what had become of their missing men.

The wreckage was hauled back to civilization, and the parts were salvaged to be reused in other aircraft, which, if we've learned anything from the little bastard, might not have been a great idea.

Three planes were constructed using parts from the Lady Be Good.

All of them met with disaster.

The luckiest survived the curse, but only after an emergency landing.

Then the C-47 plane that had adopted the Lady Be Good's radio receiver had to be abandoned in a crash over the Mediterranean.

And lastly, there was the U.S.

Army Otter plane and its 10-person crew, which, not unlike the ghostly wreck itself, vanished without a trace over the sea.

Neither the ship nor its men were ever seen again.

One of the only scraps to be recovered was an armrest, an armrest that had once belonged to the Lady Be Good.

Today, the remaining parts of the Lady Be Good are scattered across the globe.

Some remain in Libya.

Others are on display at the Army Quartermaster Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia.

And like that first discovered crash site, all the gear is in eerily good condition.

One of the crew's wristwatches, they say, still keeps the time.

And time isn't the only thing this equipment has held onto.

If the legends are to be believed, the remains have also held tight to the crew members' ghosts.

Reports of phantom airmen have been reported at the museum.

Objects have moved without being touched.

Folks have heard disembodied voices, and one janitor even claimed that a ghost actually punched him.

It seems like in the afterlife, the lady be good turned out to be a little bit bad.

This episode of lore was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, and was written by Jenna Rose Nethercott with research by Alexandra Steed and music by Chad Lawson.

Don't like hearing the ads?

I have a solution for you.

There is a paid version of lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free.

Plus, subscribers get weekly mini-episodes called Lore Bites.

It's a bargain for all of that ad-free storytelling and a great way to support the show and the team behind it.

Learn more about your ad-free options over at lorepodcast.com slash support.

Of course, lore is much more than just a podcast.

There's the book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television adaptation on Amazon Prime.

Information about all of that and more is available at lorepodcast.com.

And you can also follow this show on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and YouTube.

Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and click that follow button.

And when you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi.

And as always, thanks for listening.

It's that time of year again, back to school season.

And Instacart knows that the only thing harder than getting back into the swing of things is getting all the back-to-school supplies, snacks, and essentials you need.

So here's your reminder to make your life a little easier this season.

Shop favorites from Staples, Best Buy, and Costco all delivered through Instacart so that you can get some time back and do whatever it is that you need to get your life back on track.

Instacart, we're here.

Today, we'll attempt a feat once thought impossible: overcoming high-interest credit card debt.

It requires merely one thing: a SoFi personal loan.

With it, you could save big on interest charges by consolidating into one low-fixed-rate monthly payment.

Defy high-interest debt with a SoFi personal loan.

Visit sofi.com/slash stunt to learn more.

Loans originated by SoFi Bank and A, member FDIC.

Terms and conditions apply.

NMLS 696891.