The Armed Forces Radio Service invites you to share in the vivid colorful stories just between US stories As Told by one of America’s Master yarn Spinners Knox Manning this is Knox Manning with a few remarks just between us about a mystery of nature a possible comeback
The princess of evil a strange hoax and a man to be proud of surging across Arctic desolation come the leming legions in their wake they leave millions of Their Own dead and a host of well gorged arctic foxes weasels and birds of prey in their two or three
Years Journey to the Sea for Mass harakiri by Drowning billions perish but a multitude reaches the ocean and as the first ranks die multitudes behind them patter into the icy water and strike out for what might be a leming Atlantis the mass suicide of the leming was until
Recently one of the major mysteries of nature one one explanation was that for years the continents were linked together and as leming populations increased in one or another area mass migrations occurred then came the sea accustomed to swimming lakes and rivers and unable to appreciate the width of the salt water barrier migrating
Millions plunged into the sea and perished the second school of thought is that nature having mistakenly rendered the leming an over prolific breeder hit on the novel idea of preserving the species from famine by planting a suicide kink in its brain these explanations are quite valous this does not explain why
Migration occurs every 12 years or why one moving horde despite Millions lost on the long journey to the Sea increases numerically while another dwindles to nothing on Route no one could explain why billions of lemmings should suddenly commit Mass harakiri when food was plentiful in their home areas or why
They should usually set off in a Westerly direction today we know one of the answers it’s summed up in the word vitamins scientists discovered that toward the end of every 12-year period the rodents usually timid became quite Fearless at the same time they produced larger families at shorter intervals
Arctic foxes wolves weasels Martins reindeer which eat the Lemmings for the lyen in their stomachs become almost as Fearless as the Lemmings themselves and during this period tens of thousands of swimming forms fight the currents and the banks are lined with Foo High piles of bodies and all the while from the
East come countless more Millions pressing on toward the day of their suicide in the Atlantic Ocean the March starts as though at a word of command the mountain Lemmings form into three columns about 2 ft apart purposefully they head for The Valleys where the Woodland Lemmings live in a day or so
The columns fan out until they cover a front of about 20 miles Millions perish in rivers as days run into weeks and months Millions die through cannibalism starvation and the inroads of carnivorous animals and birds with the winter survivors burrow into the Earth and in Spring again move on always
Toward the west litter follows litter and they increase steadily why the investigators asked should the rodents suddenly start to breed so prolifically close studies show that the Lemmings undergo an amazing change immediately prior to swarming Furthermore with a new energy goes physical Vitality that transforms a usually timid creature into
A yellow fanged fiend could the cause be a change of diet what other reason could bring about an anatomical change in the whole animal and produce Mass hysteria it was surmised that the unknown invigorator was indestructible and stored in the rodan’s body could be passed to the animals and birds that ate
Them creating Vigor and fearlessness and even of the most timid creatures what could be the answer to this remarkable substance then vitamins were discovered certain of them were found to increase animal fertility and the lyans were found to contain sex stimulating vitamins and later research Prov that a certain hormone secretion in the
Anterior pituitary gland also stimulated the animals further field study filled in the whole fascinating picture year after year the stimulant builds up in the in causing an increasing fertility and a marked Vitality until the little animals throw off the last shred of timidness and set off to see the world
And see it in a big way but what about the Lemmings that reach a Haven on their way how is it that they don’t found new colonies research Pro that the stimulant ultimately drains the animal of Vitality unless the dosage continues and few arctic areas not already inhabited by
Lemmings contain lyan rich in the necessary vitamins thus new colonies soon die off but the cycle goes on the time may come when there will no longer be any Lemmings but then who is to say for instance take the airplane propeller with the coming of the jet engine it
Seemed that the propeller was destined to become as obsolete as the dinosaur but that was not to be aeronautical Experts of both the Air Force and the Navy have become very interested in the development of supersonic propellers to be used on the highspeed aircraft of the future in conjunction with this one
Company has built a supersonic propeller spin pit the pit is a steel cylinder measuring nearly 13 ft in diameter and is over 7 ft high it’s sunk below ground level and is secured with an airtight seal to a contact base then the huge chamber is made a near vacuum by
Removing 99% of the air this reduced atmosphere permits the use of a low horsepower engine to rotate the propeller at a relatively High Revolution per minute thus by simulating supersonic speed tests are conducted to test various types of propellers and from tests already conducted it appears that rather than being put in the
Discard the propeller may continue to play an important part in the aircraft of the future well from the future let’s go back a little say about 3500 years an Egyptian princess lived then who has been credited with mysterious illnesses accident death and loss of money to people living in our
Times does that sound fantastic Perhaps it is this woman according to catalog number L 22542 of the British museum in London was Priestess of the Temple of Amen Rah her mummy was Unearthed at the turn of the 20th century and that set off a chain of events which have all been
Credited to the malevolent influence of this woman a few days after the discovery of the Mummy of this Priestess a member of the Expedition lost his arm in a mysterious gun explosion a short time later another member died unaccountably a third was shot and killed under circumstances that were
Unexplained then when the owner of the Mummy the man who financed the Expedition returned to England he found that he’d been robbed of his entire Fortune you would think that would be that as far as curious happenings to people connected with the mummy but that
Was not to be upon its arrival in London The Mummy was sent to a photographer a few hours later this gentleman arrived at the owner’s house in a state bordering collapse it seemed he’d photographed The Mummy developed the plates and made the prints no other person had touched the equipment or had
Been in the studio at the time yet the fin finished photograph showed not the shriveled features of a mummy but instead the face of a living person one with shining evil eyes a few weeks later the photographer died of an illness which defied diagnosis the owner was
Terrified he decided to get rid of this fearful thing so he presented it to the British museum the man who delivered it died the following week rumors about the mummy began to spread more and more people CL clim that they’d been injured after merely looking at it Premier asth
Who was devoid of superstition became curious about this phenomenon he expressed a desire to see it but his colleagues didn’t share his interest well by this time the museum attendants were terrified they demanded that the mummy be removed the management hid the princess and substituted a clever imitation but this deception was
Discovered by an American scientist he offered to take the mummy to America and his offer was immediately accepted a few days Days Later The crated Mummy was placed aboard a ship Bound for the United States a few days at Sea and the evil packed career of the 3500 year old
Princess ended at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean carrying with it passengers and crew oh the name of the ship the Titanic well since we were talking of London a few minutes ago let me tell you one of the strangest hoaxes in history which was perpetrated in London it had
Its in reception at a gay Christmas party in the year 1748 the pompous Duke of Portland having IM bibed rather freely contended that the average person will believe anything his skeptical friend the Earl of Chesterfield didn’t agree so the Duke offered to wager £1,000 to prove it said the Duke let a
Man advertise the most impossible thing in the world and there’ll be fools enough in London to fill a playhouse and pay handsomely for the privilege of being there well said the Earl surely if the man said that he would jump into a Court bottle nobody believe it oh yes
They would said the Duke and so the BET was made early in January 1749 this curious advertisement appeared in a London newspaper at the new theater in the Hay Market Monday next the 16th instance a person presents you with a common wine bottle which is placed on a
Table in the middle of the stage the person goes into it and sings in it during his stay in the bottle any person may handle it and see plainly that it does not exceed the common Tavern bottle well London’s response was amazing it seems that everybody wanted
To see a grown man enter a bottle on the appointed night the theater was mobbed people fought for seats Standing Room sold at a premium The Spectators were literally hanging from the rafters when the time arrived nothing happened the impatient audience hissed cat called and what have you still the curtain did not
Go up at last a man appeared on the stage amid cheers and Applause but the cheers and Applause died down when the man announced that the performance would be called off in as much as the person had not appeared there was a sudden hush and then bedum broke loose when the
Audience frustrated in its desire to see a man perform the impossible lost its Collective temper and ripped up the carpets the benches the railings and anything else they could get their hands on the next day the newspapers ran the story of the performance which didn’t
Come off and the riot which did one of the newspapers went so far as to try to explain why the man did not make his appearance they reported that he’d given a private performance for a certain gentleman who had simply cked the bottle on him thus the article continued being
Confined in a bottle and in a gentleman’s pocket well he couldn’t very well be in another place well maybe Barnum was right you know in my mail recently I received a copy of an article which one of my listeners thought should be passed on to others it’s about a man and there
Are many still living who remember him well and this is the story they tell of him he was a manly kind of man he could ride hard and shoot straight and he could handle trouble though he never looked for it when he laughed he laughed
All over and when he got mad he was mad all over but he was never mad at the good people who tended peacefully to their business in life doing the best they could sharing the work and the fun he was a tender kind of man he was a
Friend of the weak for he’d been a frail boy he was a brother to The Afflicted for he had known Affliction but he knew that there was no handicap a man could not overcome if he tried and he made us know it too and he made us
Try he was shall we say a firstname kind of man so we let Kings and rulers of the world stand in awe of him to us he was a neighbor who lived in the White House and we were proud to have him there where all could see what an American was
Like but when he laughed the world saw that we are a happy people when he clasped the hands of the peaceful and upright they knew that we are a friendly people and when the steel came into his eyes and he stormed against the wrongdoers the world understood that we
Can be a firm people when we need to be he was a dreaming sort of man too we felt that he imagined nobly for his countryman that he was proud of what we were and prouder still of what we could be and what he dreamed we became he was
A brave man a kindly man a jolly man a Stern man a downto earth man yes there was a man who made it feel good to be an American there was a man named Teddy Roosevelt just between us that’s it for today you’ve been listening to KNX Manning in another of his informal
Programs of Storytelling each story or bit of information is just between us so be at your radio the next time Mr Manning calls your way this is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service the voice of information and education La La