0:00

So please make sure to cheer very loudly

0:03

for Wendy Zuckerman and Joel Werner.

0:12

Hi, Wendy here. So over

0:15

the past few months, supervising producer

0:17

Joel Werner and I have been travelling

0:19

around Australia performing an episode

0:22

of Science vs Live

0:24

in front of real live people

0:27

if you weren't sure what a live show

0:29

is. So just a few weeks ago, we were at

0:31

South by Southwest Sydney, which is

0:33

the first time that the South by Southwest Festival

0:36

has been held outside of Austin, Texas.

0:39

And a few months before that, we braved the

0:41

chilly Tasmanian winter

0:42

to perform the show at the Beaker Street Festival.

0:45

And that's what we're going to play for you

0:48

today. Our show is

0:50

called When Your Eyes See Lies,

0:52

and It is entirely

0:55

live. So what you're about to hear all

0:57

of the voice clips and the music,

0:59

you know, the scoring, we queued it live.

1:02

So it's not entirely perfect. There

1:05

were more than 100 samples. And

1:07

we also pointed a couple of mics at

1:09

the audience too. Also, we might do

1:11

a little shimmying, you know, if a joke

1:14

doesn't land, we might make

1:16

it land. So we

1:19

might just get you guys laughing now. Joel,

1:22

do you

1:25

have maybe a joke to sort of get them laughing

1:28

a little more?

1:28

So I've only ever made up one

1:30

joke in my life. I'm pretty proud of it. But

1:32

it's when the laser goes

1:35

to church, where does it sit?

1:38

In the pew pew pews. Very good.

1:42

Very good. I'm a dad. I'm a dad. Okay,

1:49

we have got it. This is great. We're going to have fun. Let's

1:51

get it.

1:55

Jump

2:00

in, Science vs Live

2:03

at the Biggest Street Festival in Hobart,

2:05

Tasmania starts now.

2:13

A 58 year old man was

2:15

found dead at his home with a genital

2:18

wound and part of his penis

2:20

missing. Did

2:23

you hear

2:27

that? A 88 year old

2:29

man, dead, wound

2:31

on his willy,

2:33

part of the penis.

2:36

This is how a case

2:38

report that I read years

2:39

ago began. And since

2:41

I read that report, I have not been able

2:43

to get it out of my mind. We've

2:46

never shared it on the show before and

2:48

now I

2:49

get to share it with you all.

2:52

And this guy?

2:53

I've

2:56

never seen a paper like that. It

2:58

sounds like one that would come up in a sensational

3:01

magazine or something. It's

3:01

a CSI episode waiting

3:04

to happen

3:04

for sure.

3:06

This is Professor Jeff Craig,

3:09

he's a geneticist at Deakin University in

3:11

Melbourne, Australia. And he is going to walk

3:13

us through what happened here.

3:15

What struck you as you were reading it?

3:17

I thought, first of all, I thought,

3:19

ouch, as all men would do, but

3:21

then I thought the word why

3:24

and how.

3:25

Because here's what's

3:27

weird. Apart from the dead guy with his

3:30

missing bits, there were no

3:32

other injuries to his body and no signs

3:35

of a struggle.

3:36

So what was going on here?

3:38

Had the man been killed? Perhaps

3:40

some kind of sexual play gone wrong.

3:43

Well, there was one possible clue.

3:46

The man's pet dog was in the

3:48

house. Could

3:51

the pup be responsible?

3:53

Could the pup

3:55

cock his spaniel?

3:56

Jeff,

3:58

our geneticist. wondered

4:01

the same thing.

4:02

Did the dog attack him when he was naked and then

4:04

he died or did he died and then the dog just

4:06

looked for a tasty morsel or something?

4:09

The officials on the case sure wondered

4:12

whether the dog had nibbled the dead man's

4:14

knob or as the case

4:16

report asked could the dog

4:18

have been quote responsible

4:21

for the partial emasculation

4:23

end quote.

4:28

Now we know that

4:30

if you die your pet dog aka

4:32

best friend may chow down

4:35

on your still warm remains. In fact

4:38

a review paper on the topic wrote that

4:40

quote

4:41

animal mutilations can start rapidly

4:44

after death generally within a couple of hours

4:46

and sometimes even sooner end

4:49

quote. But curiously

4:52

according to the paper which analyzed 41 human

4:55

corpses that had all been nibbled on

4:57

by their pooches mostly

4:59

the dogs weren't going for the willies. In

5:01

fact in about three quarters of the cases

5:04

they went for the face. So you

5:06

can think about that next time your fur baby

5:08

gives you a little lick on the face perhaps

5:11

they're just wetting their appetite. But

5:15

bottom line one of the going theories was

5:18

that the man had died of natural causes and

5:20

then the dog bit his willy. But

5:23

to see if this idea was on the money

5:25

the forensic scientists on the scene gave

5:28

the pooch an emetic something to

5:30

make it vomit and

5:31

voila

5:32

out came a piece of connective tissue

5:35

about the size of a

5:37

hazelnut they wrote.

5:39

This hazelnut sized chunk of

5:41

flesh it looked a lot like the missing

5:43

piece of penis but to be absolutely

5:46

sure they did some genetic detective

5:48

work. Using a trustworthy genetic

5:50

test the team compared the DNA

5:52

of the nut-sized bit of tissue found

5:54

in the dog to the dead man and

5:57

like this was going to be a

5:58

pretty short day at the office

5:59

It seemed pretty obvious what had happened

6:02

here.

6:03

Either before or after death,

6:05

this dog bit the end of the guy's todger

6:08

off.

6:08

You'd imagine that everyone

6:10

was expecting a pretty short

6:13

day, you know? This was going to be a match.

6:15

Another dog, another day. But

6:17

that is not what happened.

6:19

According to the DNA, those

6:21

tissue samples

6:23

looked like they came from two different

6:26

people.

6:29

Today on the show, nothing is

6:31

as it seems. We are bringing

6:33

you three stories live from

6:35

Beaker Street Festival in Tasmania. And

6:38

these are stories where even when you

6:41

think you know what's going on, when you think you

6:43

can see everything,

6:45

don't be so cocky. Because

6:49

your eyes can see lies. When

6:52

it comes to solving mysteries involving

6:54

dogs and their dongs, there's a lot

6:56

of opinions.

6:58

But then there's science.

7:05

Net-up monsters and mind-bending tales

7:07

are coming right up.

7:27

And an artist who can't stop

7:29

painting his ex-wife. This is

7:31

madness. This is crazy. I understand. I know.

7:34

If I present my portfolio in a mental

7:36

institution, they will welcome me. Listen

7:39

to the new season of Heavyweight on Spotify

7:42

or wherever you get your podcasts.

7:45

Unexplainable is a science show

7:47

about everything we don't know.

7:50

Like, we don't know how bikes work. Get

7:53

out. Come on. We don't know where

7:55

the moon came from. Holy cow.

7:57

You've touched the moon. This is incredible.

7:59

We don't even know what life is.

8:02

No one has been able to define life and some

8:04

people will tell you it's not possible to.

8:07

Unexplainable takes you right up to the edge of what

8:09

we know and keeps going. Follow

8:12

Unexplainable on Spotify for new episodes

8:14

every Wednesday.

8:21

Welcome back. We left you with a dead

8:23

man, part of his penis missing, and a dog with

8:26

a penis-esque lump of flesh

8:29

that

8:29

according to the DNA evidence didn't

8:31

look like it came from the dead man.

8:33

I talked to geneticist Jeff Craig

8:35

about how he'd feel if he had gotten

8:37

the call from the lab saying that the DNA

8:40

wasn't a perfect match.

8:42

And so if you were sort of the forensic

8:44

scientist on this case, what would

8:46

you have thought in that

8:47

moment? In

8:49

that moment, if I was a forensic scientist

8:52

I would have thought well that dog must

8:54

have, the dog must have eaten part of

8:56

another man. Some foul play, yeah,

8:58

some kind of weird ritual with two

9:00

men and then one of them disappeared. Oh my

9:04

god, their mind boggles in a number of ways.

9:08

The mind sure does boggle. Because

9:10

I mean just to explain this whole mystery

9:12

again, it really means that one other

9:15

person, a stranger, perhaps

9:17

a murderer, came into the house,

9:20

bit the dead guy's willy, and then the dog

9:22

chewed off some of that

9:24

guy's flesh.

9:27

Or as Jeff suggested, perhaps it

9:29

wasn't an intruder, perhaps there was just some

9:31

kind of sexual thing going on and just maybe it

9:33

went terribly wrong.

9:35

You've heard of people from emergency rooms saying you wouldn't

9:37

believe the stories I've heard of some of the men

9:40

that have come in with a bit of penis

9:42

missing or something. Things stuck

9:44

in various places. Yeah, I fell

9:47

on a vacuum cleaner, things like that. Then

9:49

when the x-ray shows that there's a Barbie doll

9:51

in there, then you know something

9:54

didn't, you didn't just fall on that in the shower.

9:57

No, you didn't just fall on that in the shower.

9:59

So what was going on here? Whose

10:02

nut-sized tissue did the dog

10:04

eat? And where was the rest of this man's

10:07

todger? Before

10:09

sounding the alarm, the officials on the case

10:11

took some fresh DNA samples. You

10:14

see, the first time around, they only swabbed

10:16

one spot on the guy, as you'd normally

10:18

do. But this time, they...

10:20

Sample cells from lots of different

10:22

places. They took samples from

10:25

his skin, blood, muscles,

10:27

spleen, bone marrow, brain, liver.

10:30

And then they reran all the genetic

10:32

testing.

10:33

And what they found is that

10:36

this guy, he had

10:39

two sets of DNA. Yeah.

10:43

We're only supposed

10:45

to have one set

10:47

of DNA, you know? That's the whole basis

10:49

of genetic testing, right? You have one

10:51

set on your hands, on your blood,

10:53

in your willy liver. It doesn't

10:56

matter where you test it. Your DNA is your DNA,

10:58

right?

10:59

Or not in this case.

11:01

The DNA samples from the knob of his

11:03

penis and cheek were different

11:05

to the DNA samples from his blood. The

11:08

DNA in his left leg

11:10

muscle

11:11

had a different profile to the muscle

11:14

in his right leg. As Jeff

11:16

says...

11:17

There's a true mixing of cells from

11:19

basically two different people.

11:22

All squished into one person.

11:25

And science has a word to

11:27

describe this man. He's a chimera.

11:30

The word comes from Greek mythology, where

11:33

the chimera was a fire-breathing monster

11:35

made of different animals. Three heads,

11:37

one of a lion,

11:38

the other of a goat. And then there's a snake

11:40

somewhere in there.

11:45

But in this case, it's just a regular guy. Someone

11:48

whose body is made of cells that are genetically

11:50

different.

11:51

So how the heck can this happen? Well,

11:54

Jeff says

11:55

that this all would have started when this

11:57

man was growing inside his...

11:59

mother's womb.

12:01

Now under normal circumstances

12:03

what's supposed to happen is that a sperm

12:06

and an egg get together and that

12:08

fertilized egg

12:09

well

12:10

it starts growing and its cells start

12:12

dividing.

12:13

Those develop into little balls

12:15

of cells,

12:17

these balls of cells multiplying

12:20

and producing lots of cells that are exactly

12:22

the same, just early early

12:24

cells.

12:25

And by the way Jess told me something super

12:28

cool about these little balls of cells

12:30

that turn into humans.

12:32

Those balls of cells have

12:35

a structure on the outside which is like an

12:37

egg shell and it hatches. When

12:39

I saw this first, I thought blow my mind I

12:41

didn't know that humans hatched from eggs as well.

12:43

No, does it really look

12:45

like that? Like a little chicken? It

12:48

does actually, I've seen it happen,

12:50

pictures under a microscope and yes there's a kind of crack

12:53

and in the hard kind of shell

12:56

and out comes this kind of soft body

12:58

inside this soft kind of ball of cell and it's

13:00

really cool. So

13:02

these soft balls of

13:04

cells which have been fertilized for

13:06

maybe a week,

13:07

normally they would attach

13:09

into a place in the uterus and grow

13:11

there into one happy baby.

13:15

But a couple of things must have gone differently

13:18

for Al Canera. Perhaps on

13:21

that

13:21

fateful night when his mum and dad

13:23

stood, instead of one

13:26

egg getting fertilized, two

13:28

eggs were fertilized by two different

13:30

sperm and that meant you

13:33

would have two fertilized eggs growing

13:35

and dividing two balls of

13:37

cells to assess the DNA. So that's

13:40

a good. Now often when this

13:42

kind of thing happens when these balls

13:45

of cells hatch and then attached to the uterus,

13:48

they attach into different places on the uterus

13:50

giving room for the two separate

13:52

fetuses to grow. Here's Jess.

13:55

Most of the time they just grow in peace

13:58

and happily live side by side.

13:59

And ta-da, you get two babies. That's

14:02

how we get fraternal twins.

14:04

But with our deceased chimeraman,

14:08

Jeff reckons that the two balls of cells

14:10

must have implanted into the uterus

14:13

close.

14:14

Like too close.

14:16

Kind of squished right

14:18

next to each other.

14:20

So if they touch each other, if they,

14:22

if those two individuals get a bit frisky

14:24

and... Oh Jeff, no, no, that's a silly... These

14:28

two individuals say they end up, end

14:31

up sleeping back to back. They can

14:33

swap cells. That's the hypothesis. So they swap

14:35

a few cells.

14:37

Catch that? These blobby siblings

14:40

can swap a few cells. And

14:42

by the way, for the development nerds out there, we're

14:44

in the blastocyst stage. And

14:47

the thing is that when the cells

14:49

swap,

14:50

they bring their DNA with them, right? Which

14:52

could explain how someone could get different

14:54

DNA in different parts

14:57

of their body. Yeah, even if just

14:59

one of their cells swaps, then

15:01

that one cell's descendants could end

15:03

up almost anywhere.

15:05

It's even possible that after sharing

15:07

some cells, one of the blobby

15:09

siblings died. This

15:11

is a phenomena sometimes called as the vanishing

15:14

twins.

15:15

Or perhaps instead of just swapping

15:17

a few cells,

15:18

the blobby siblings completely fused

15:21

together.

15:22

Then you have, then you, the

15:24

two twins become one individual.

15:27

And one individual with one

15:29

head, two arms.

15:30

You're at the early stage where there's

15:33

no organs or anything. So it doesn't matter if

15:35

you mix cells together. It's like giving it twice as many

15:37

cells. Because early embryos

15:39

are very adaptable

15:42

and plastic. So it doesn't really matter to

15:44

them that some cells have swapped.

15:47

They just make do with what they've got. One

15:50

or two cells might go to form an

15:52

intestine. One or two more cells

15:54

might even go to form a right leg and then

15:57

a left leg.

15:58

And so that is how one person...

15:59

can end up with two sets of

16:02

DNA. And Jeff says that this

16:04

dead guy might not have even known he was a chimera.

16:06

In fact a lot of chimeras go

16:09

undetected because

16:11

you need to get a DNA test where you

16:13

test more than one bit of tissue

16:15

and often we don't do that.

16:18

There have been cases of people discovering

16:20

their chimeras later on in life sometimes

16:23

when they need to get

16:23

an organ donation. And curiously

16:28

we keep discovering more

16:30

and more ways that

16:32

you can kind of be a chimera

16:34

even if you didn't share some cells with the

16:37

twin in the womb. Like one

16:39

study of almost 60 women who

16:41

had given birth to stoners found

16:44

that almost two thirds of them had

16:46

male DNA in their brain. The

16:49

author said that the male DNA probably

16:51

wiggled its way into their brains

16:54

when the women were pregnant suggesting

16:56

that when you carry a baby the DNA of

16:58

your kid might

17:00

get into your body.

17:02

And Jeff says that this could go in the

17:04

other direction too

17:05

that cells from our mothers

17:07

could move through the placenta and

17:10

land on us.

17:12

Which brings us back

17:14

to the man found in his home

17:16

with part of his willy missing.

17:19

Well Jeff's like this was one

17:21

rather peculiar case report.

17:24

He sees something bigger here.

17:27

It's amazing look it is an amazing

17:30

story and I think it

17:32

does tell me not that particular

17:34

situation with the dog but there

17:36

may be more chimeras going round around

17:39

the world unnoticed. So it could

17:41

be much more common than we think it could be this

17:43

could happen quite a lot. We could be chimeras

17:46

we could yes yeah we could be and

17:48

I used to when I was a child

17:51

I used to have this recurrent dream that there was another

17:53

one of me lying beside me. It

17:55

is you know

17:57

now plausible that I still

18:00

started life as a twin and my co-twin

18:02

disappeared early on. And I've mentioned

18:04

this to a journalist before and it ended up as

18:06

the headline, the first line

18:09

of the story. Don't worry,

18:11

the first line of this story is going to be like man

18:13

found

18:14

without his penis. Yeah,

18:16

it's not obvious.

18:20

We've ultimately cracked the case of the

18:22

curious incident of the dog and the dead guy

18:25

with the dismembered TV. Try

18:27

and say that fast three times. The

18:29

most likely scenario here was that this man

18:32

who was a kinder, died of natural

18:34

causes

18:35

and then the dog ate his willy.

18:38

Next up, we're going to keep falling

18:41

down the rabbit hole as supervising

18:43

producer tells us a tale about

18:46

when you really can't believe your

18:48

own eyes.

18:57

This story starts in Sydney,

19:00

Australia in the early 1980s and it's

19:02

a story about a little boy

19:05

who was two years old at the time. He

19:08

was a lovely two-year-old, articulate,

19:11

very interested, very

19:13

involved in everything, a little bit

19:15

weird, but

19:18

very interesting child. This

19:20

is the boy's mum Barbara. She remembers

19:22

the little boy as having shaggy blonde

19:25

hair, running around the house wielding a

19:27

lightsaber like Luke Skywalker. He

19:29

was her only child. He just enjoyed

19:32

life, never sitting still, didn't

19:34

want to watch TV, wanted to go and explore,

19:36

wanted to look, wanted to play games and

19:39

it was a healthy

19:41

little boy and he was very

19:43

healthy.

19:45

But then something happened

19:47

to that otherwise healthy little boy, something

19:50

that no one could explain. It

19:52

was the start of a mystery that would follow

19:54

the family for years to come.

19:58

And it all began. one

20:00

day when Barbara, her mum and

20:02

the little boy were out doing the weekly

20:05

grocery shop. And it was winter.

20:07

I remember because he had a little overcoat

20:09

on and he was walking along.

20:12

Mum and I were talking and he was in the middle

20:14

of us. After the shop, the three of

20:16

them would always go and get something to eat.

20:18

As we were walking to have some lunch, my

20:21

son

20:21

was in between us and he held

20:23

his hand up and he said,

20:25

my hand's small. Now at

20:27

first Barbara didn't think twice about this. Kids

20:30

say weird stuff all the time, right? You

20:32

know, I said,

20:33

yeah, I put mine beside him and said,

20:35

yes, it's much

20:35

littler, it's little. He said, no,

20:38

no, no, really little.

20:44

And then I looked at my mum and

20:46

then she took over and she said, what do you mean

20:48

really little? He said, like, really

20:51

little, like a doll's hand.

20:54

As far as they could

20:54

tell, the boy was seeing

20:57

his hand as if it was completely

20:59

shrunk in size, miniaturised.

21:02

Neither Barbara or her mum had

21:04

ever encountered anything like this before.

21:07

Then we looked at each other and I

21:09

panicked straight away and I looked up into

21:12

my mother's eyes and she's giving me a calming

21:14

look. But even I could see in her

21:16

face, this isn't right.

21:19

And he was worried. That was

21:21

the part that scared me

21:23

the most. He was worried. By

21:26

now, Barbara is freaking out and

21:28

her mind raises to worst case scenarios.

21:31

What could be causing this? A brain tumour?

21:33

Some kind of psychotic episode? It's a little

21:35

boy hallucinating.

21:37

If anything was wrong at any stage with

21:39

my son, I was totally off

21:41

the planet. I couldn't cope. And

21:44

you imagine if they fall over and scrape

21:46

his knee, I'll panic. But if he's standing

21:49

there with his hand there telling me it's the size

21:51

of a doll, I'm absolutely

21:54

out of my mind. I

21:56

was really, really worried. I

21:59

thought there was something wrong. really badly

22:01

going on with him. So the next

22:03

day, Barbara takes her son to see

22:05

the family optometrist and it's

22:07

the 1980s, right? So you can totally get

22:09

a next day appointment. And

22:12

he was thoroughly checked, all behind

22:15

the eyes, everything was checked. The

22:17

optometrist said his eyes are perfect.

22:20

And yet these episodes keep happening

22:22

again and again. Every few weeks

22:24

or so, Barbara's son's whole

22:27

world starts shrinking.

22:29

And it would not only be the hand, it

22:31

would be the feet. He would look at his

22:33

feet and he would say, my feet are

22:35

little, it's happening again, it's

22:37

happening again, it's happening again. And

22:40

he wouldn't say anything else just

22:42

is happening again and we'd know.

22:44

Now what's really weird is

22:47

it turns out that this isn't just

22:49

happening to Barbara's son.

22:51

Kids all over the world have been

22:53

experiencing really similar bizarre

22:56

symptoms. And so I wanted to find

22:58

out what on earth was going on

23:01

with all of these kids.

23:02

So let's leave Barbara quietly freaking out

23:05

in the 1980s and we'll catch up with

23:07

a doctor who's ended up obsessing about

23:09

this almost as much as me. All

23:11

right, very good. I'm Osman Farouk.

23:14

I'm a pediatric neurologist

23:17

and I'm here at the University of Buffalo

23:19

in Buffalo, New York. For Osman,

23:22

this started one day when he was sitting in

23:24

his office clearing out his inbox and

23:26

he came across an email from one of his mentors.

23:30

His mentor had sent Osman a book chapter

23:32

that he'd been working on and asked the young

23:34

neurologist to give his opinion. And

23:36

I thought, oh, come on, you know, he gave me a,

23:39

sent me a book chapter. How am I supposed to go through

23:41

that? I don't know, told me to even finish the things I need

23:43

to do. But I have

23:45

a huge amount of respect and admiration

23:47

for him. So I thought, okay, let me just open it and

23:50

I'll read the first paragraph and I'll

23:52

send him a comment saying, you know,

23:54

great job. Politely blowing him

23:56

off. We've all been

23:59

there. So that didn't happen.

24:01

So Uzman pulled out the chapter and

24:04

he started to read. And I ended up

24:06

reading the entire book chapter

24:08

in one sitting, which I've never done before.

24:11

I was just awestruck at this

24:13

topic.

24:14

And the topic that made Uzman so

24:16

awestruck? It's a little known,

24:19

somewhat bizarre syndrome with

24:21

a very curious name.

24:23

The syndrome is called Alice in

24:26

Wonderland Syndrome.

24:29

Alice in Wonderland

24:31

Syndrome. This chapter, which

24:33

had consumed Ozman, describes

24:36

a bizarre condition which was first identified

24:38

in the 1950s where people, often

24:41

kids, see things either bigger

24:43

than they are, which is called macropseia,

24:45

or smaller, called micropsia.

24:48

This is what the little boy in Sydney had. And

24:51

the name obviously comes from the Lewis

24:53

carbox where Alice grows and shrinks

24:55

as she eats and drinks on her adventures

24:58

in the psychedelic wonderland. So it's

25:00

really interesting because people experience

25:03

that exact thing where they feel like they're

25:05

growing in size or shrinking

25:07

in size. And it's not just

25:10

growing and shrinking. Kids with Alice in Wonderland

25:12

Syndrome experience a whole bunch

25:15

of bizarre symptoms. So things

25:17

like seeing wrinkled surfaces as

25:19

if they're smooth, which is sometimes called aragopsia.

25:23

In some cases they experience chloropsia,

25:26

which is described as green

25:28

vision. Some kids sense

25:31

everything as moving in slow motion.

25:34

So as Uzman's sitting in his office

25:36

reading the book chapter, he suddenly

25:38

realizes.

25:46

Oh my goodness, these symptoms are

25:49

what I had experienced as a kid. And it didn't

25:51

hit me right away. As I got

25:53

about one or two pages

25:55

into the chapter, I thought, oh my goodness,

25:58

I finally... I understand

26:01

what had happened to me as a kid. I would

26:03

experience my hands and

26:05

my fingers kind of swelling up

26:07

like sausages. I would feel like

26:10

my arms are growing in length. And

26:12

when I would move my hands and fingers,

26:15

it would seem like they're moving in slow motion.

26:18

When I first started to experience these, it was

26:20

quite terrifying. Usman

26:22

is so weirded out that he had

26:25

this syndrome too. She finishes

26:27

reading the chapter and walks into his colleague's

26:29

office. And I think I had

26:32

this look on my face kind of

26:34

like in the movie Ten

26:36

Commandments when Moses gets the revelation.

26:39

He looks like a changed person and my nurse

26:41

looks at me. She's like, what's going on with you? And

26:44

as I'm explaining to her, she says, this

26:46

happened to me when I was a kid.

26:49

Usman starts researching everything

26:51

he can about Alice in Wonderland syndrome. And

26:53

he finds out that one of the most common

26:56

reasons that kids get these kids like Barbara's

26:58

little boy is when they get

27:00

an illness that and often

27:03

an illness that is associated with a fever. So

27:06

things like influenza or Epstein-Barr

27:08

virus, they could be to blame. For

27:10

Usman himself, this was a clear trigger.

27:13

As a kid, he got sick a lot. And

27:15

each time I would get sick, I

27:17

would have these sensations

27:20

where things are either moving

27:22

in slow motion or

27:24

my own body parts were

27:27

unusually large. It

27:29

would happen consistently

27:32

every time I would be ill and

27:34

so much so that I would actually fear getting

27:37

sick because I knew that I

27:39

was going to have these sensations.

27:42

According to Usman, one idea about how

27:44

infections might cause Alice in Wonderland

27:47

syndrome is that

27:49

when you get a fever, it can change the way that

27:51

blood flows in your brain. And

27:54

if that area of the brain affects

27:57

vision or is linked to perception, then maybe...

28:00

that's what triggers the wonky vision.

28:03

Curiously, Barbara did tell me that

28:05

while her little boy was generally healthy, he

28:07

did have a string of fevers in the weeks

28:10

leading up to his world shrinking. So

28:12

maybe those fevers had somehow

28:15

affected his brain? One

28:17

clue as to what brain areas might be involved

28:20

comes from a patient of his mind, a 15

28:22

year old girl who started experiencing

28:24

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome and even

28:27

had an episode right in front of him. She

28:29

felt that her fingers were elongating

28:33

so that she could switch off the light switch

28:35

on the wall. And we saw her

28:37

kind of moving her hands up and down and we said,

28:39

well, you know, what are you doing? And she says,

28:41

oh, I'm trying to turn the light switch on. She

28:43

didn't realize that it was on the other side of the

28:46

room. She felt that her finger was right there.

28:48

Now, in this particular case, the girl had epilepsy

28:52

and her epilepsy was associated with a part

28:54

of the brain that processes visual information

28:56

called the occipital lobe. And so

28:58

we thought that it was giving kind of false

29:01

information to the vision

29:03

centers of her brain.

29:04

But Usman says there's unlikely

29:07

to be just one Alice in Wonderland

29:09

Syndrome spot in your brain. It's not

29:11

like that. All of the research that I've come

29:13

across at least has identified

29:16

multiple different areas of the brain. Sometimes

29:18

it's the temporal lobe, sometimes occipital lobe.

29:21

In fact, there's a lot that we're still figuring

29:23

out here. Like why do some kids get

29:25

fevers and have these, it's happening again

29:28

moments, but most don't.

29:30

You could say we're a bit tweedle

29:32

dumb about the science. We'll

29:35

edit in that other laugh from before.

29:41

Just quickly, this syndrome can happen

29:43

in adults too, and it's mostly linked

29:45

to migraines, which also affects

29:47

blood flow to the brain. Interestingly,

29:50

Lewis Carroll suffered from migraines.

29:52

So some people have speculated that maybe

29:55

he had these bizarre symptoms and

29:57

that's what inspired Alice's adventures in Wonderland.

29:59

land.

30:00

The good news is as far as we know

30:02

the syndrome isn't dangerous for most kids

30:05

they just grow out of it and they're totally fine. Which

30:08

brings us back to Barbara.

30:10

Over time she just got heaps less

30:12

anxious about her son's mysterious

30:14

condition.

30:15

I calmed down and actually I became blase

30:17

you know

30:19

it's happening again yeah whatever go and play.

30:23

And eventually when the little boy

30:25

was about six years old it's

30:27

happening again

30:29

just stopped happening.

30:30

There were many times you said it's

30:32

happening again it's not just one or two

30:35

times my son.

30:42

Now I don't usually coach people when

30:44

we're interviewing for the show but my mum

30:46

just kept giving away the ending. Like

30:49

when was the last time that it happened do you remember

30:52

it happening? I remember you coming home

30:54

from school in kindy. I remember

30:56

him coming home from school. I remember him coming home from

30:58

school in kindy in the

31:00

car. That's right the little boy

31:03

is me. A tragic tale

31:05

of a cute kid turned science journalist.

31:08

Like got a terrible ending.

31:16

I told mum about everything that I'd

31:18

learned reporting the story. So I looked into

31:21

this and it's actually a thing with a name.

31:23

So it's called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.

31:26

Really? Really?

31:27

I'm absolutely stunned

31:29

and I can't believe

31:32

because

31:32

I'm a Google maniac I can't believe

31:34

that I just googled it. I'm really

31:36

peeved that you did. Just

31:38

tell me that it's damaged you okay.

31:41

Just don't tell me I didn't look into

31:43

it enough and you're damaged.

31:47

After I convinced mum that there were

31:49

no lasting effects and that any damage to my

31:52

brain has been purely self-inflicted

31:54

she was just excited that this decades

31:56

old mystery had finally been solved and

31:59

I promised to never I'll never interview her for

32:01

a story ever again. Yeah, lovely.

32:03

That's great. Thank you so much. Lovely chatting

32:05

to you. I love you.

32:17

Thanks, Joel. After the break,

32:20

a story you'll wish your eyes

32:22

could unsee.

32:32

Welcome

32:37

back. Today on the show,

32:39

we're talking about when our eyes feel

32:41

eyes. And now a tale

32:43

about how when we want to believe something,

32:46

we can so easily be deceived.

32:49

And this tale involves a creature

32:51

who has a tale. It's a story about

32:54

lemmings that science vs. superfans

32:57

might remember a version of from the

32:59

very early days of the show. Okay,

33:02

so to start us off, let's find out what

33:04

New Yorkers know

33:05

about these little critters. Producer

33:08

Austin Mitchell, who's now at the New York Times,

33:10

hit the mean streets of Manhattan with

33:12

a simple question.

33:15

Do you know what a lemming is?

33:17

Like somewhere between a beaver and

33:19

a cat. Like the face of a beaver, but

33:22

slenderness, gracefulness that a cat may

33:24

have.

33:25

Kind of like a Fleming, but it's a lemming.

33:27

What's a Fleming?

33:30

Oh, like a flamingo. I'm

33:34

thinking like a little bird or something like that, but it can't

33:37

be a bird because then they'd be able to fly. So it must be

33:39

like a little rodent or something.

33:42

Yes,

33:42

lemmings are rodents. And

33:45

this is the sound of an actual lemming.

33:48

They hang out in the grassy tundra

33:50

of the Arctic, a harsh landscape that's

33:52

covered in snow for much of the year. And

33:54

lemmings hide in burrows where they can stay

33:56

warm and away from predators,

33:58

like the Arctic fox.

33:59

Now we owl and the peregrine falcon.

34:02

And one more thing that you have to know about lemmings.

34:05

They

34:05

are the most fantastic animal in the world.

34:08

This is Dorothy Eric at the

34:10

Arctic University

34:11

of Norway. Lemmings are really cute,

34:14

honestly. So. They've

34:17

got the cute, the cute tushy. They got the cute

34:19

little bottom. Yeah. They're,

34:22

you know, they're like, they're like miniature

34:25

bears. They're quite fluffy. And

34:27

they're a little bit clumsy when they run

34:29

around their short legs, so.

34:33

A quick Google image search will

34:36

turn up pages of these little puffballs

34:38

scouring around on the snow, chilling

34:40

in patches of grass. Austin Mitchell

34:43

showed some photos to people on the street.

34:46

Oh my gosh, it's super

34:48

cute. That's an adorable

34:51

little creature. Yeah,

34:54

I would pet that.

34:58

But their cute looks isn't the

35:01

thing that lemmings are famous for.

35:03

There's of course something else.

35:06

What do you think of when you think of lemmings?

35:09

Animals running off cliffs. Suicide,

35:12

right? They can fall asleep together

35:14

in packs. Isn't that like the animal that

35:16

runs off a cliff or something like that? Like

35:19

a huge number of them. And

35:21

it's about some sense of group

35:23

mentality or crowd mentality.

35:26

And this is our idea about lemmings. Silly

35:28

little animals marching blindly off

35:31

to their silly little deaths. And

35:33

it's so ingrained in our culture that lemmings,

35:35

the word, has become synonymous with

35:37

people blindly following something, often

35:40

to their destruction. Jim Cramer,

35:42

host of Mad Money, describes investors

35:45

on Wall Street as lemmings. Could

35:48

this be National

35:50

Lemming Day? There's lemmings all

35:53

over the place. Earlier

35:55

this year, Republicans called young Democratic

35:58

voters

35:58

lemmings.

35:59

The whole batting performance, Aussie cricketers

36:02

were recently compared to Lemmings. And

36:04

who could forget that video game?

36:06

The Lemmings.

36:08

The whole point of the game was

36:10

to build bridges fast enough so that Lemmings

36:13

wouldn't fall off cliffs to their

36:15

death. Which is really dark when you

36:17

think about it.

36:21

And it turns out there's a few different species

36:24

of Lemmings, but the one that probably

36:26

inspired all of this, the very idea

36:28

that mindless Lemmings just follow each

36:31

other to their death, are the Lemmings found

36:33

in Norway, which have been creatively

36:35

named by scientists,

36:37

Lemus Lemus.

36:39

Now these Lemmings do something that

36:41

has bemused and befuddled

36:43

people for centuries.

36:45

The Norwegian Lemming population explodes

36:48

every

36:48

four years or so.

36:49

Dorothy, our Lemming expert, she's actually

36:51

seen this. There's so many

36:53

you just see them everywhere. If

36:56

you drive along the road, you will see them crossing

36:58

the road. I mean, possible to

37:01

catch them with your hands.

37:03

Dorothy says it's not like this is a carpet

37:05

of Lemmings, but there are a lot around. In 1975,

37:09

it was estimated that during this boom

37:12

period, per hectare, the number

37:14

of Norwegian Lemmings grew more

37:16

than a thousand times. That's

37:18

like a rural town transforming into

37:21

New York City once every four years or so.

37:24

And all these Lemmings, they become this furry

37:26

little buffet for all the cool

37:28

Arctic predators to have a field day

37:31

on.

37:31

So all the Arctic fox stands have a lot

37:33

of pups. Snowy owls are breeding

37:36

with many chicks. The whole tongue guy is in a way

37:38

in such a super rich state.

37:40

So, Lemmings all over. But,

37:44

as quickly as the Lemmings appear, soon, they're

37:47

going to be

37:48

there. And

37:49

by the next few or so, their numbers

37:52

drop to the point where scientists even

37:54

have trouble finding them. In

37:56

a low year, how would

37:58

it be different? you don't see

38:01

lemmings.

38:01

They're just completely absent.

38:04

So what we have is puffballs

38:07

everywhere and then puffballs practically

38:09

nowhere.

38:14

So mysterious are these learning

38:16

eruptions that the centuries

38:18

scholars have tried to explain them.

38:21

In the 1500s one scholar

38:23

said that they fell from the sky during

38:25

booms.

38:28

Well 200

38:28

years ago

38:30

Sir Arthur Decapel Brooke, one

38:32

of the first fellows of the Royal Geographical

38:35

Society,

38:36

was told that thousands of lemmings

38:38

had quote been carried

38:40

away by the currents and

38:42

drowned end quote.

38:48

Thousands of lemmings

38:49

drowned

38:51

but how was it? Could

38:54

it really be mass

38:56

suicide?

38:58

Were these rodents blindly

39:00

following each other to their

39:02

death?

39:10

In the 20th century this seemed

39:12

certain. A 1924 paper

39:13

described cute

39:17

the spectacle of processions of lemmings

39:19

ecstatically throwing themselves

39:22

over the ends of railway bridges

39:25

and falling to an apparently useless

39:27

death below. This is a direct

39:29

quote from a paper. It continues quote,

39:33

the sea strewn with dead lemmings

39:35

like leaves on the ground after a storm.

39:41

And just like that newspapers wrote

39:43

about the mass suicide as if it was a fact.

39:46

But

39:46

one thing was still missing.

39:49

No one had ever recorded the event

39:53

until.

39:54

of

40:00

this tiny animal that commits mass

40:02

suicide by rushing into the sea and

40:04

droves.

40:06

This is from White Wilderness, a

40:09

documentary about Arctic wildlife released

40:11

by Walt Disney Productions in 1958. Film

40:15

crews braved the unforgiving Arctic

40:17

to film walruses, polar bears,

40:19

seals,

40:19

and yes, lemmings in

40:22

their natural habitat. They

40:24

filmed lemmings getting lost while searching

40:26

for

40:26

food. They filmed lemmings in their

40:28

burrows with their young. And

40:31

then we

40:32

see something remarkable. Droves

40:36

of lemmings

40:36

start scurrying across the

40:38

tundra. They're

40:40

running towards one clear

40:44

final destination. Once in motion, none

40:46

stops to ask why. And

40:49

carried along by an unreasoning hysteria.

40:52

The hordes of lemmings, the things scurrying

40:54

into a cliff.

40:58

Each pause understand for

40:59

a mark that will take them to a strange destination.

41:03

We see a sheer rock face overlooking

41:05

the massive water below. I

41:07

can't emphasize how big this cliff

41:10

is. It's terrifying.

41:14

They reach the final precipice.

41:17

This is the last chance

41:18

to turn back. Over

41:25

they go. Helping themselves bodily

41:27

out of the space. Over they go. Scores

41:29

of lemmings plunging off the cliff edge

41:32

and flying

41:32

helplessly through the air, end

41:35

over end, until they finally smash

41:38

into the water.

41:42

And soon the Arctic Sea is

41:43

dated with any bad activity. Little

41:46

dead puffballs floating on the surface. And

41:49

so is acted out the legend of mere

41:51

suicide. A destruction of

41:53

a species.

41:55

And for their remarkable efforts,

41:57

the filmmakers were awarded the 1950s. Academy

42:00

Award for Best Documentary

42:02

Film. The

42:04

footage is unbelievable, I mean really

42:06

unbelievable.

42:08

The only problem is... you

42:11

couldn't believe it.

42:14

Bill Carrott, a Canadian

42:16

cameraman who worked on White Wilderness,

42:19

admitted that the Lemming scene was

42:21

kind of...

42:23

great.

42:24

Here he is in a TV

42:26

documentary about animal cruelty in filmmaking

42:29

called Cruel Camera, which was made by the

42:31

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

42:32

in 1982. It was

42:34

a recreated thing called in Canmore

42:37

in Alberta. If

42:38

you didn't catch that he said it was a recreated

42:41

thing.

42:41

It's a recreated thing.

42:43

Well, they did a set. It looked

42:45

like the Arctic. And had

42:47

a nice painted sky for a back home.

42:50

Yeah, they didn't even bother going

42:52

to the Arctic. It was filmed in Alberta,

42:54

Canada. Just a cheeky, you

42:56

know, 7,000 kilometres

42:59

from Norway, give or take. And

43:01

the Lemmings were purchased from kids who ran

43:03

around and collected the little puffballs for

43:05

a quarter each. But then,

43:09

what of that great moment? You

43:11

know, the final precipice.

43:14

If this was a recreated thing, well then how did

43:16

they get the footage of the Lemmings diving

43:18

off the cliff?

43:21

Well, it's probably the worst thing you're imagining

43:23

right now.

43:25

The Disney film crew heaved

43:28

the critters off a cliff.

43:32

They literally forced the

43:34

puffballs off a cliff

43:36

and into a nearby

43:38

river.

43:50

We told our New Yorkers about it.

43:59

That's not.

44:00

Oh my God.

44:03

Jesus. Wow.

44:06

Wow.

44:08

Poor little puffballs.

44:10

It's a shame that that that

44:13

sort of thing has to happen.

44:15

Here's Roy Disney, Walt's nephew, talking

44:17

about the film years later in that CBC

44:19

documentary Cruel Camera. As

44:22

I recall, they did stage some

44:25

of that.

44:26

As Roy admitted that the footage was faked,

44:28

he still tried to justify it.

44:31

We've lost a few lemmings, OK? You

44:33

know, the lemmings probably would have gotten lost

44:35

anyway. Actually,

44:39

Roy, the lemmings wouldn't have

44:41

gotten lost anyway, because

44:44

it's not just that Disney faked

44:46

the moment of them all jumping off a cliff.

44:49

It's that these moments don't actually happen.

44:52

That's right. The one thing that, you know, a lot

44:54

of people think about lemmings, this mass

44:56

suicide, that they don't jump off cliffs

44:58

and hordes at once. It's not true

45:00

either. In other words, here's

45:03

Dorothy,

45:04

our lemming expert again.

45:05

No, they don't commit suicide.

45:09

We've all been lied to about these

45:11

little critters, which

45:13

does leave us with one big mystery.

45:16

Remember how the whole idea of this started,

45:18

because lemming populations have these mysterious

45:21

swings. You

45:23

know, from

45:23

boom to bust and then back again. And

45:25

people couldn't explain it. So they were kind of like,

45:28

mass suicide? But

45:31

if mass suicide isn't responsible,

45:33

then

45:34

I asked Dorothy,

45:38

what exactly is going on here? This

45:40

is actually a quite interesting question.

45:42

There has been a lot of controversy about what

45:45

causes the lemming cycles. One

45:47

recent review paper said that despite

45:49

scientists trying to work this out for about

45:52

a century, it is still an

45:54

enigma. But Dorothy told

45:56

me on a basic level, here's

45:59

probably what's happening.

45:59

The boom part of the cycle

46:02

kicks off when conditions are just right. Pasty

46:04

food is all about

46:05

and happy lemmings start living their best lives.

46:09

They go bumping like mad and oh boy

46:11

can lemmis lemmis get laid.

46:12

On average one

46:14

female lemming can pop out around seven

46:17

pr- and she can do this every month

46:19

or

46:19

so. So lemmis lemmis can turn

46:21

into lemmis lemmis lemmis lemmis. We can turn into

46:24

lemmis lemmis lemmis lemmis lemmis lemmis

46:27

lemmis lemmis. You

46:30

get the point, the fabulous and exfirm. Oh

46:33

wow, so in a peak year

46:36

you could really grow bananas. Yeah,

46:38

yeah, yeah. So

46:40

their population can grow really fast. At

46:43

some point there are just too many

46:45

lemmings. It becomes easier for predators

46:47

to pick them out. It can get stressful

46:49

for the lemmings. One researcher told us that they

46:52

can get territorial and perhaps start turning

46:54

on each other. He told us that this can take

46:56

a toll, it can be really stressful, and

46:58

ultimately the lemmings don't

47:00

breed like they used to.

47:02

While we're not entirely sure exactly

47:05

how the lemming apocalypse starts

47:06

to go down, things

47:09

go bad for the little puffballs.

47:11

But still,

47:12

the few that survive

47:14

eventually start making babies again and then those

47:16

babies make babies

47:19

and so the cycle goes on. But

47:22

while lemmings aren't dying from mass suicide

47:24

in parts of the Arctic, like around Norway,

47:27

their

47:27

numbers are dropping

47:29

for the same reason that's threatening a lot of animals,

47:32

including human

47:32

animals.

47:34

Climate change.

47:35

Lemmings are already suffering because

47:38

the lemmings live under the snow.

47:40

Lemmings build nests and dig burrows

47:42

in the soft, crumbly snow where

47:44

they can hide from predators. But warming

47:46

weather means that at certain times in the year,

47:48

that lovely soft snow melts

47:51

and then re-freezes in a way that makes

47:53

it hard and icy. So the lemmings

47:55

can't get to their food

47:57

and they can die on the snow.

47:59

Which Dorothy says is sad.

48:03

Well, of course it's sad when you see them dead

48:05

on the snow. Climate change is sad,

48:08

especially for people who love the Arctic.

48:11

I'm sorry we couldn't have a Disney ending for

48:13

you.

48:16

And so after all this, how

48:18

do we feel about lemmings? I

48:20

love lemmings now. Don't you like calling

48:23

people lemmings? Ever again.

48:25

They're not mindless animals just walking

48:27

off of a cliff. Someone

48:29

gave them a bad name. Maybe

48:32

they're just

48:32

like, would love to turn around and

48:34

go into the world and enjoy

48:36

it like everyone else.

48:41

That's all I got.

49:01

Hey, Wendy. Hey,

49:02

Joel. How you doing? I'm all right.

49:05

I'm recovering from life on the road. How are you?

49:08

Yes. Yeah, I feel like

49:10

the Rolling Stones, basically, you know. So,

49:15

Joel, how many citations are in this week's

49:17

episode?

49:18

We had 89 citations this week.

49:21

And if people want to see them learn

49:23

more about lemmings or Alice in Wonderland

49:25

Syndrome or kind of errors, where should they go?

49:27

They should check the show notes for

49:30

the episode that they're listening to. And

49:32

in the show notes, we have a link that takes them

49:34

to a transcript, and our transcripts are

49:36

fully annotated with lots of wonderful,

49:38

additional information.

49:40

Yes. And one thing that I really

49:42

want to get from the

49:44

audience, from you guys listening, is when we

49:46

did this show live, a couple of

49:48

people came up to us after and said, oh,

49:51

my God, as a kid, I had Alice in Wonderland

49:54

Syndrome. They said they

49:56

didn't know. For one person, it seemed

49:58

like this was quite a bit of a long time. Quite

50:01

life-changing, right? It

50:02

was super cool to hear other

50:05

people's experiences. I feel like we need a

50:07

support group or something. Like,

50:10

to hang out and chat. But yeah,

50:12

if anyone else experienced these

50:14

kind of bizarre symptoms and have

50:16

had them unexplained for decades,

50:18

please get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.

50:20

Yeah, let us know. So you can either just

50:22

come to Instagram, size underscore VS,

50:25

or my TikTok, which is at Wendy's

50:27

Okerman, and we'll have little

50:30

things up about Alison Wonderland Sidra. So

50:32

tell us if this was you.

50:35

Thanks so much, girls.

50:37

Thanks, Wendy. This

50:43

episode was produced by me, Wendy Zuckerman, Stell

50:45

Werner and Austin Mitchell, with help from

50:47

Rose Rimmler, Michelle Dang and Nicola Stell

50:50

Rose. Our original version of The

50:52

Lemming Story was helped into the world by Caitlin

50:54

Story, Ben Kiebrick, Heather Rogers

50:56

and Trudgera Vindren. Editing

50:58

by Blythe Terrell and Annie Rose Strasser.

51:00

Fact-checking by Carmen Dral. Mixed

51:03

and

51:03

sound design by Bobby Lord and Bumi Hidaka.

51:06

Scoring by Bobby Lord, Peter Leonard, Bumi

51:08

Hidaka and Emma Munger. Thanks to

51:10

all of the researchers that we spoke to for this episode,

51:13

including Dr. Malpe Anderson, Dr.

51:16

Anders Andurbjorn, Dr. Rolfe Anker-Imms,

51:19

Dr. Charles Krebs and others. A

51:21

big thanks to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

51:24

for the use of cruel camera, and a special

51:26

thanks to Barbara and Paul Werner, Tegan

51:28

Taylor, Joseph Lavelle Wilson and the Zuckerman

51:30

family. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Bop

51:33

in the pan.