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Resurrecting the Incredible Flower Crowns of Old Ukrainian Wedding Photos

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Crowns made for the electro-jazz band Dagadana. (Photo: Third Roosters/Треті Півні)

Back before the traditions of Eastern Europe were changed by war and Communism, as a young girl grew up in Ukraine, she would be allowed to decorate her hair, simply at first, with flowers, ribbons, and tendrils of green. In the summer, the flowers would be fresh; in the winter, they might be made of paper or cloth. Once the girl wanted to announce that she was ready for courtship, she would put on a much more elaborate headdress of flowers. When she found a man to marry, her friends would weave her a wedding wreath, which should be the most beautiful she would ever wear.

“That was the last time a maiden could wear a wreath,” says Lubow Wolynetz, the curator of folk art at New York's Ukrainian Museum. “Once she was married she could no longer decorate her hair or head.”

In the 20th century, this tradition disappeared; in Communist Ukraine, to wear traditional dress or embroidery became a symbol of protest. Pictures of these wreaths survived, though, and even some examples. But now, as Ukrainian independence and identity is again threatened, there is a revival of this tradition.

It has become trendy to wear flower wreaths—they are “sold everywhere in Kiev,” a Vogue correspondent reports—and one studio, Third Roosters, is using old photos of traditional wreaths to recreate extraordinary headdresses.

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A wedding photo from the Carpathian mountains, circa 1930s.(Photo via Third Roosters/Треті Півні

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This crown was a reproduction of the crown in the picture above. (Photo: Third Roosters/Треті Півні)

Third Rooster's aim, with this project, is recreate authentic Ukrainian looks, from the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, before the First World War. The old photo above was taken in the early 20th century, and it pictures a couple at their wedding. The design of wedding wreaths differed across regions of Ukraine; this one is from Kornych village, in the region of the Carpathian mountains, in the west of the country.

A wreath like this one would have been made in just one day, says Wolynetz, on a maiden's eve. The bride's friends would come to her home, where they would find everything they needed to prepare the wreath. They might work until dawn, but they would finish it.

Ukrainian weddings traditionally took place in the late fall, so although the wreaths look to be bursting with plant life, they might have been made with artificial flowers, made from shells, cloth or paper. Only one part had to be alive, according to Wolynetz—the winding stems and leaves of periwinkle, which never dies. It was a symbol of eternity and beauty, and it'd be included in every wreath.

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Another bride from the same area. (Photo via Third Roosters/Треті Півні)

These days, creating one of the wreaths takes much more than one day. "The process of creating each image with a wreath is very long and laborious," Third Roosters wrote, in response to questions from Atlas Obscura. Each one is modeled after wreaths that have been preserved in museums or photographs, which the studio studies to understand how the wreaths are made and from what materials. They've learned to make wreaths from wax, paper, and flowers—to make a large one, weaving the frame and flowers, by hand, out of paper, takes a month. 

Third Roosters started recreating these wreaths last year, as part of a project that supports fighters in eastern Ukraine. They dressed the wives, sisters and mothers of fighters in outfits inspired by the traditional clothes of Ukraine; the wreaths were some of the most striking pieces.

“People want to go back and delve into the past, they want to bring out the beautiful parts, the aesthetic parts into their lives,” says Wolynetz. “In Ukraine, probably because we regained our independence after so many years of being occupied, there is more of a tendency to delve back into the past and your heritage. The occupying forces didn’t always allow you to perform these old traditions.”

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Another crown inspired by the same style. (Photo: Third Roosters/Треті Півні)

For many years, clothes like these were “symbolically linked to national identity and unity,” one researcher told the New York Times in 1994, and in the Soviet era, wearing them was a way to protest the powers that tried to erase Ukrainian distinctiveness. Now, when the country is again fighting against Russia—the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russia-allied separatist that started in 2014 is still ongoing, despite an official ceasefire—these wreaths are doing the same symbolic work.


The Alarming Aesthetics of Jazz Age Perm Machines

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An Icall permanent wave machine from 1923 (left) and hair wound and ready for tubular heaters in 1934 (right). (Photos: Louis Calvete/CC BY-SA 3.0)

The perm may be the unofficial hairstyle of the '80s, but the perming process originated many decades earlier—and involved machines that resembled medieval torture devices rather than sleek salon appliances.

“Science has pronounced straight hair to be freakish,” declared a haircare ad in a 1922 issue of Harper's Bazaar. “Just think of the great improvement a permanent wave makes in appearance. Close your eyes and imagine fairy fingers transforming your lank strands into lovely, lasting curls, as natural looking as if you were born with them.”

In reality, the permanent waving process involved fewer fairies and more fallible humans, who were tasked with winding hair tightly onto rollers, painting the strands with an alkaline chemical solution, and using fearsome-looking electric contraptions to blast each rolled-up section with heat from an individual metal cylinder.

When things went well, the client walked away with a soft set of waves cascading from the face. When things went poorly, the result was frizzy curls, broken hair, or a scalp burned red-raw.

The first permanent wave machines appeared circa 1906, courtesy of inventor Charles Nessler, who also went by the name Nestlé. Nessler's device took advantage of a relatively new phenomenon—electric power—to heat up the hair. Strands were coated in a borax solution that broke the bonds of the hair, then wound onto heated cylindrical rollers. When the hair was cool, an oxidizing agent was applied to set the new wave. The whole process, which took place in a salon, lasted approximately 10 hours.

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A permanent waving device shown in a 1912 edition of Popular Electricity magazine. (Photo: Public Domain)

The science behind this process was explained to the public in various ways, ranging from the dryly procedural to the delightfully evocative. In 1912, Popular Electricity magazine explained that the bountifully curly hair of children becomes lank and straight because the "tiny pores" get “clogged by a fungus growth as the years pass.”

Permanent waving, it declared, “produces the wave or curls of any style by removing the fungus growth from the affected straight hair, cleansing it and giving to it the beautiful texture as well as other advantages of natural wavy hair.”

Regardless of the details, permanent waving had taken off by the '20s. The flapper decade brought innovations in hair-manipulating machinery, most notably the chandelier-style permanent wavers developed by Eugene Sutter and Isidoro Calvete in Europe

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Eugene Sutter in the early '20s, deploying a permanent wave machine designed by Isidoro Calvete. (Photo: Louis Calvete/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Salon clients whose chemically coated hair had been divided into sections and wound onto rollers would sit beneath a cluster of dangling cables, each of which had a metal cylinder on the end. The cylinders were secured over the rollers and the machine switched on, which delivered heat to each little tube. After four to 10 minutes of this head-cooking, clients would have their hair removed from the cylinders and washed to get rid of the chemicals.

In 1928, the first U.S. patent for a permanent wave machine was granted to Marjorie Joyner, an African-American woman who had moved to Chicago to pursue cosmetology. Frustrated by the standard approach to waving black women's hair—which involved a single curling iron and a lot of patience—Joyner came up with a more efficient method.

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Marjorie Jackson's 1928 patent for a permanent waving machine. (Images: Public Domain)

While making a pot roast one day, she stared at the rods that were holding the meat in place and heating it from the inside. Inspiration took hold. Joyner was soon hooking up 16 pot roast rods to a hooded hair dryer—her spin on the chandelier-style wavers coming out of Europe. The resulting machine, after a few design tweaks, received U.S. patent number 1,693,515.

The chandelier-style machines may have been effective, but their aesthetics were a bit much for some. In his 1936 book Keep Your Hair On: The Care of the Hair and Scalp, Oscar Levin referred to the permanent wave machine as a "terrifying apparatus." He was less critical of the protective non-conducting material used to safeguard the scalp: asbestos.

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An Icall permanent waving machine from 1934. (Photo: Louis Calvete/CC BY-SA 3.0)

At the time Levin wrote his book, however, chandelier permanent wave machines were on their way out. A newly developed cold-waving perm process, which didn't require heat, was beginning to take hold in salons. Not only that, home perming kits meant salon trips weren't even necessary anymore.

By the time World War II had ended, the strange-looking perm machines were a rarity, and women no longer had to experience the indignity of looking like anthropomorphic hedgehogs suspended, marionette-style, by strings.

Object of Intrigue is a weekly column in which we investigate the story behind a curious item. Is there an object you want to see covered? Email ella@atlasobscura.com

Found: A Family of Bears, Inside the House

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Bear! (Photo: Screenshot via Facebook)

On a recent evening, Rodney Ginn of Mammoth Lakes, Calif., came home to find that he had a trio of very frightening house guests. There was a Mama Bear, a Baby Bear and a second Baby Bear. (No Papa Bear, thanks goodness.) This was terrifying. Ginn shot this video of the bear changing up the stairs.

There’s only a quick glimpse of the bear in that video, but here’s a clearer image:

 

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Bears. (Photo: Rodney Ginn/Facebook

Now just think of all the times you’ve found a mouse in your house, or a particularly large bug and kind of freaked out. Yeah, bears are much scarier. 

The obvious question is: how did Ginn get rid of them? The answer is: he didn’t. On Facebook, he said that, after about 30 minutes, the Mama Bear opened his sliding door and got the hell out of there. 

Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 

Los Angeles Tops List of American Cities with the Rarest Pokémon

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It's all about those Kabutos. (Image: Google Maps)

As people around the world continue to try to catch them all, the fervor around Pokémon Go doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and now one travel website is claiming to have pinpointed the best cities in which to catch all the rarest Pokémon, with Los Angeles topping the charts.

According to the Stranger, which was lamenting Seattle’s place at #2 in the ranking, travel site Wanderu was able to figure out U.S. cities were most rich in rare pocket monsters. Wanderu says that they arrived at their ranked table by looking at “photos and videos from 250 cities in the U.S.” Using Twitter’s API, the site hunted down every image they could find posted by people in the process of catching rare monsters like Snorlax and Dratini. After eliminating any dubious mentions of legendary Pokémon catches (we’re looking at you Articuno), Wanderu tallied their findings up by location and arrived at a national ranking of hottest Poké-cities.

L.A. came in first with evidence of Hitmonlees, Porygons, Kabutos, and more, with Seattle trailing right behind. New York came in third with Boston, Chicago, and Orlando trailing behind. It’s not the most scientific study, but given how tight-lipped the game’s developer, Niantic, has been about the mechanics of how Pokémon are distributed, fans of the game don’t have much else to go on, other than tallying up eyewitness accounts. So until someone finds out where Mew is hiding, Los Angeles may remain the rare Pokémon champion.     

Mysterious Underwater Boom Sparks Ferry Evacuation In France

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It started out as a normal day for the Jean Nicoli, a passenger ferry in the south of France. The boat had departed from Porto Vecchio, and pulled smoothly into the dock in Marseille. Guests had disembarked, and crew members were preparing for the next trip. But then, out of nowhere, they felt an unusual sensation:

"I was in the cabin, and there was [a] noise: 'boom,'" one maintenance worker told Agence France-Presse. "We felt something moving up and down," said another.

After recent terror attacks, France is on high alert for unexpected violence. But local police also suspected the blast could be a vestige of an older conflict—World War II. The sea around the port is filled with munitions, left there after the 1944 Battle of Marseille.

So after the crew was evacuated and the ferry stalled, they sent divers down to investigate the seabed. But their findings "did not seem to support this hypothesis," one source told AFP.

As there were no immediate apparent threats, the Jean Nicoli is back in business, sent on its way to Sardinia. But the blast, for now, remains a mystery.

"There was something, for sure, but what?" said the source.

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.

8 Colorful Cities that Look Like They Were Designed by Crayola

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Why NOT paint your city like a box of crayons? (Photo: O Palsson/CC BY 2.0)

Many cities are known for their distinctive profiles and unique landmarks, but all across the globe there are regions that are landmarks in and of themselves thanks to their insane colorations. From a all-blue town in Spain that is a leftover from a Smurf marketing stunt, to a Venetian island that looks as though it was born of an intense acid trip, some of the most colorful locations in the world aren't the biggest, just the most eye-popping. Check out eight cities and towns that offer vibrantly colorful views which are just as unforgettable as any big city skyline. 

1. The Blue City of Jodhpur

Jodhpur, India

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This blue will probably make you happy. (Photo: Premaram67/CC BY-SA 4.0)

In the city of Jodhpur, a sea of boxy indigo houses stretches for more than 10 kilometers (six miles) along the walls of the historic fortified city. A blue pigment coating on a house used to indicate that a Brahmin—the priests of the Indian caste system—dwelled there, but over time the color became a badge of identity for non-Brahmins, too. [Read more]

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(Photo: fabiogrigri70/CC BY 2.0)

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(Photo: michael clarke stuff/CC BY-SA 2.0)

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(Photo: A Vahanvati/CC BY-SA 2.0)

2. Cinque Terre

Liguria, Italy

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The sea almost pales in comparison to the colorful buildings. (Photo: lucadea/CC BY-SA 2.0)

The communities of Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore were intensely isolated up until the 19th century, when railroads connected them with the rest of Italy. The advent of this newfound connectivity also meant a loss of tradition and youth population. However, a boom in tourism in the 1970s brought people back to Cinque Terre, where they were charmed by the quaint, ancient villages. [Read more]

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(Photo: Håvard/CC BY 2.0)

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(Photo: L Koen/CC BY-ND 2.0)

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(Photo: Gilbert Bochenek/CC BY-SA 3.0)

3. Júzcar, The Smurf Village of Spain

Júzcar, Spain

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Yep. Smurfs did this. (Photo: Ramón Ojeda/CC BY 2.0)

Once a traditional Spanish hillside gathering of white-painted buildings nestled in the Andalusian mountains above Marbella, this tiny village was painted blue in 2011 by Sony Pictures, as a marketing ploy to promote The Smurfs motion picture. After the contract was up, the villagers decided to keep their new hue. [Read more]

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(Photo: escapade1935/Atlas Obscura)

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(Photo: escapade1935/Atlas Obscura)

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(Photo: escapade1935/Atlas Obscura)

 

4. Nova Cidade de Kilamba

Belas, Angola

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No need for Photoshop here. (Photo: Santa Martha/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Like some of the sprawling modern ghost towns in China proper, Angola's Nova Cidade de Kilamba housing development, funded by China in exchange for oil, is a settlement sold as a socially conscious residential development, but that has been far too expensive and remote for the society to take advantage of it. [Read more]

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(Photo: Santa Martha/CC BY-SA 3.0)

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(Photo: Santa Martha/CC BY-SA 3.0)

5. Rainbow Family Village

Nantun District, Taiwan

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Thanks, Grandpa Rainbow. (Photo: Steven R. Barringer/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Three years ago an 87-year-old military veteran known as “Grandpa Rainbow” (real name Huang Yung-Fu) began painting the walls, doors, and ground of his small military dependents’ village, just outside of Taichung in Taiwan. [Read more]

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(Photo: Connie Ma/CC BY-SA 2.0)

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(Photo: Connie Ma/CC BY-SA 2.0)

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(Photo: Fcuk1203/Public Domain)

6. The Mad Colored Houses of Burano

Venice, Italy

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The canals aren't the attraction in Burano. (Photo: Oliver Clarke/CC BY 2.0)

The island of Burano sits in the Venetian lagoon and like most of Venice, it is run through by a system of canals. But what really make this small neighborhood stand out are the crazy colors each of the historic houses is painted in. [Read more]

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(Photo: WorldIslandInfo.com/CC BY 2.0)

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(Photo: Peter Visser/CC BY 2.0) 

7. Tirana's Colorful Facade

Tirana, Albania

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It's like Dr. Seuss was mayor. (Photo: Quinn Dombrowski/CC BY-SA 2.0)

All across the former communist states of eastern Europe, drab, boxy buildings dominate the landscape. In cities like Prague, the massive apartment complexes are contained in the suburbs, but Tirana was not quite so lucky. At least not until Edi Rama became the mayor, and gave Albania's capital city a vibrant makeover. [Read more]

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(Photo: Quinn Dombrowski/CC BY-SA 2.0)

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(Photo: Quinn Dombrowski/CC BY-SA 2.0)

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(Photo: Monika/CC BY-SA 2.0)

8. The Painted Houses of Caminito

Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Behold the colors of Buenos Aires. (Photo: Roger Schultz/CC BY 2.0)

"Desde que se fue triste vivo yo, caminito, amigo, yo también me voy," sang Carlos Gardel, the tango toast of Argentina. With these mournful words he made a tiny stretch of buildings in La Boca, Buenos Aires famous. The line in the song roughly translates to "Since she left I’ve lived in sadness; the alley, my friend. Now I’m also leaving" and the alley in question is Caminito, a colorful little path in Buenos Aires' La Boca neighborhood. Well, sort of. [Read more]

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(Photo: Rodrigo Amorim/CC BY 2.0)

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(Photo: fabian.kron/CC BY-ND 2.0)

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(Photo: Juanedc/CC BY 2.0)

Watch the Construction of an Olympic Pool in 30 Seconds

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The opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro takes place on Friday August 5, with the first medals awarded the following day. With days until the flame lights up the Olympic stadium, there are still unfinished venues in the athletes' village.  

The hasty construction of shiny new facilities is not confined to the host country, however. In May, an American pool company had 16 days to build two Olympic-sized swimming pools in Omaha, Nebraska, ahead of the U.S. swimming team's Olympic trials. 

USA Swimming captured the build in a lightening-quick time-lapse. First, the venue is cleared of chairs and other non-essential items. (The Century Link Center in Omaha, Nebraska is multipurpose and normally home to the Creighton Bluejays basketball team. Louis C.K. performs there this week and in September, Century Link hosts Jimmy Buffet, then the World's Toughest Rodeo.)

Several layers of different flooring then appear, as the 50-meter pool seemingly sinks into the ground. Hoses fill in the pool with water. The lanes are added to give the final touches. 

USA Swimming's two biggest superstars dived into this pool during trials: the most decorated Olympian of all-time, Michael Phelps, and the best female swimmer in the world, Katie Ledecky.  

Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.

The Strangely Perplexing Problem of Communicating Numbers Out Loud

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A phonetic number system would help with communicating numbers, particularly down a phone line. (Photo: Everett Historical/shutterstock.com)

It’s happened to everyone: You’re trying to spell something on the phone, with a lousy connection. “B,” you say, 'with a 'b'. “T?,” the other end of the phone replies. Repeat until someone guesses right.

Thank goodness, then, for a universally agreed-upon standard created after World War II to prevent confusion among international aircrews. The letter “b”, according to the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, or NATO phonetic alphabet, is always “bravo.” It is used worldwide whenever militaries, pilots or radio operators from different countries need to communicate, and internally within many countries as well.

But communicating numbers can also be a struggle over phones and walkie-talkies, and the need for clarity for both military and civilians remains great. The NATO phonetic alphabet has a solution, although it’s quite weak: their code words are the English names with slight pronunciation tweaks so three becomes “tree”, five becomes “fife”, and nine becomes “niner.” Reading numbers over the phone is still a hassle.

Why hasn’t a phonetic system for numbers caught on?

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The NATO Phonetic Alphabet. (Photo: Fouad A. Saad/shutterstock.com)

It’s not for lack of trying. Brian Kelk, a retired computer officer from Cambridge, England, catalogues phonetic alphabets, and he’s found a few historical attempts at phonetic number systems. In the early 20th century, for instance, Swedes used women’s names in alphabetical order: Anna, Beda, Cecilia, Dora, Ebba, Fina, Greta, Hedda, Ida, Julia. 

At their 1967 convention in Geneva, the International Telecommunication Union made an interesting effort by combining English numbers with prefixes adopted from the corresponding number in languages such as Spanish and Italian: Nadazero, Unaone, Bissotwo, Terrathree, Kartefour, Pantafive, Soxisix, Setteseven, Oktoeight, Novenine. 

But, still, nothing like the NATO system. Part of the reason is that the problem is so well-known. Every language has a built-in fix of sorts, says mathematician Everett Howe, author of the Nearly Anacrophonic Phonetic Alphabet.“One thing you can always do is just repeat yourself enough times,” he says. Inevitably, that’s the method that most of us currently use. 

Some foreign languages have informal aids to communicating numbers. Russian-speakers can use “collective numerals, equivalent to ‘foursome’” says Kelk. And French-speakers sometimes break long numbers into two-digit chunks instead of individual digits (think “nineteen eighty-four” instead of “one nine eight four”).

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International Alphabet Flags, Phonetic Alphabet and Semaphore Alphabet on board the SS Lane Victory. (Photo: Michael R Perry/CC BY-ND 2.0)

In a designed system, though, the first important quality is distinguishability. The creators of the NATO alphabet made sure that every code word had distinct sounds. “Dad” would be a bad choice, because it's easily mis-heard as "bad," but the NATO code word “Delta” is hard to confuse with anything else.

Admittedly, numbers are already easier to distinguish than letters. “The names of most consonants are one of the sounds the letter makes, preceded or followed by a vowel,” says Howe. “Many letter names such as ‘b’ and ‘v’ and ‘c’ only differ by the initial consonant, which is hard to hear. But ‘one’ and ‘two’ and ‘three’ sound more different from each other.” Perhaps this, on its own, is enough to explain why phonetic number systems haven’t caught on.

But numbers do have problems. Two big issues are what information theorists call “error detection”—how does the receiving party check whether she heard correctly?—and “error correction”—if the receiving party knows she missed something, how does she figure out what it was?

With words, error correction is possible using “verbal distance” between different letters, and reasonable inferences about what the speaker might have intended. Your phone’s auto-correct does this all the time: it guesses that “rhe” was meant to be “the”, because “rhe” isn’t a word and because “r” is right next to “t” on the keyboard.

Numbers, however, are hard to error-correct. If Jenny tells you her phone number is “867530[something],” there’s no reasonable way to infer what the last digit should have been.

An ideal phonetic system is easy for a listener to interpret without any previous knowledge. If someone spells out “Alfa, Tango, Lima, Alfa, Sierra” you can follow what they mean, even if you haven’t memorized the NATO system yourself. The ITU number system (“Nadazero, Unaone, Bissotwo….”) is good in this way; the early Swedish system (“Anna, Beda, Cecilia…”) is not. “Those Swedish numbers would mystify outsiders,” says Kelk.

Help, though, is on the way. The best phonetic number system might be a new one recently invented by Howe:

Zero-sum,

One-off,

Two-faced,

Three-ring,

Four-square,

Five-fingered,

Six-pack,

Seven-up,

Eight-ball,

Nine-lives.

Howe’s system uses common, set phrases that begin with a number; the code words are all highly distinctive; the suffixes are uniquely applicable to their given number; and the system is easily interpretable without previous exposure. That said, one drawback is that the system isn’t intuitive for non-native English speakers who don’t know the phrases. By contrast, the NATO alphabet was specifically designed to work for speakers of many languages.

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There is currently no established universal phonetic number system. (Photo: MyImages - Micha/shutterstock.com)

When designing the system, Howe had a number of priorities in mind. “You don’t want to say ‘Zero as in [something]’, because the words ‘as in’ take up time and bandwidth and don’t communicate a single thing. So I was trying to think of code words that actually began with the numbers themselves.” Beyond that, “you’re looking for code words that are uniquely matched with a single digit, so that if you miss the first syllable of what someone said you could figure out what they said from the second syllable.”

A final challenge, says Howe, was that no one “expects there to be code words for numbers,” so a system that didn’t explicitly include the number itself at the start of the code word might leave listeners “wondering why you started reciting avant-garde poetry when they asked you for your phone number.”

Unfortunately, Howe's odds of adoption are low; Kelk thinks that if enough radio associations to endorse it then perhaps eventually it would filter up to relevant international bodies in some way—a big 'if'. So until we can agree on a way to say numbers across the world's wobbly radio, telephone and wifi lines, expect to keep repeating yourself. 


Horrifying Nazi-Era Diaries of Himmler Found in Russia

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Heinrich Himmler, center-right, at a prisoner-of-war camp in Russia circa 1941. (Photo: Public domain)

Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the Holocaust, killed himself by breaking open a hidden cyanide capsule in his mouth after being arrested by British forces in May 1945, days after the Germans had surrendered. Directly responsible for the extermination of up to 14 million civilians—including six million Jews—Himmler was a top lieutenant of Adolf Hitler for over 15 years. 

But it was only recently that his wartime diaries were discovered, in an archive outside of Moscow, revealing horrifying new details about Himmler's daily life, according to documents uncovered by the German tabloid Bild

Himmler, for one thing, liked massages, according to the Times, which also saw some of the documents. He was also a man who seemingly lived a normal life while he oversaw mass murder, daily. He would often visit his mistress, or play cards at night, or sit outside and gaze at the stars. 

“The most interesting thing for me is this combination of doting father and cold-blooded killer,” Damian Imoehl, who helped track down the diaries for Bild, told the Times

“He was very careful about his wife and daughter, as well as his affair with his secretary. He takes care of his comrades and friends," Imoehl added. “Then there is the man of horror. One day he starts with breakfast and a massage from his personal doctor, then he rings up his wife and daughter in the south of Germany and after that he decides to have ten men killed or visits a concentration camp.”

The diaries cover 1937 and the years 1943 and 1944, and were seized by the Red Army during the war, and then apparently forgotten about for decades. According to the BBC, the full diaries will be published in a book next year. 

How a Small Group of Devotees Are Saving Neopets From Extinction

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article-imageThe 2013 update of Tyrannia, an ancient civilization listed as one of the 19 official lands in Neopia. [Photo: Screeshots from Neopets.com]

If you visit the current website of the virtual pet game, Neopets, you’ll instantly recognize the vestiges of a late 1990s internet world. Its users almost certainly shared their thoughts on Xanga or LiveJournal, and were just beginning to discover other niche online communities through a year-old company called Google.

Clicking through the Neopets world known as Neopia is like going back in an internet time machine. The bright Crayola yellow backdrop, the bubbly space font, and the cute cartoon pets are remnants of the early web—their cheerful style unfazed by time.

Neopets users have now been training and taking care of their pets for 17 years. The game has been passed between several different owners and companies, the developers sometimes beginning a project but never completing it. Today, the site still contains pieces of past quests, lands, and incomplete features that veteran Neopets owners continue to explore unbeknownst to new and returning players.

article-imageThe current map of Neopia. You can spin the globe to see all the other lands.

For those who are unfamiliar with the game, or if it has been a while since you’ve played, Neopets is a social and virtual online world dedicated to raising fantastical creatures like dragons, wolves, and bugs as pets. The game was originally developed for children in 1999 by two undergraduates at Nottingham University, Adam and Donna Powell, who are now married. 

Pet owners play mini-games to earn Neopoints to purchase clothes, food, and special items for their Neopets. It’s similar to the mid-1990s digital pet game Tamagotchi, except the pets won’t die if you forget to feed them (they'll just be disgruntled with you), and users don't carry their pets around on egg-shaped keychains. It is also sometimes compared to Pokémon, since users can train their pets and, more recently, battle with other Neopets.

Many players have forgotten or abandoned their Neopets over the years. I admit to being one of them. The estimated few thousand users who continue to raise Neopets return to the site for different reasons: the community, the nostalgia, and for the fun of leveling up and raising Neopets. 

article-imageThe golden yellow and cartoonish look to the site remains the Neopets site's trademark.

Players can explore and visit the 19 "lands" officially accessible on the Neopia globe. Each have their own geography, history, and landmarks. However, additional lands and unlisted site components, like parts of past story plots for instance, that were thought to have been long forgotten are still tended by the tight-knit community of Neopets super fans who return to visit around several-dozen still-active links. 

“To newer players, these hidden locations are probably unknown to them," writes Wolf, a current Neopets player who returned to the game nine years ago, and only wants to be identified by his username. "Older players, on the other hand, depending on when they joined/rejoined will know some, but not all of them."

Longtime players speculate that the shifts and changes with the site and company caused the numerous forgotten features. “I’m assuming that the developers were planning to take [the lands and features] down, but somehow forgot about it,” Wolf explains.

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Meet MrSoySauce! My new Neopet. 

I tried reaching out to the Neopets Team developers and the game's current company, JumpStart, to learn more about the forgotten features, but received no response. So I turned to Neopets community forums, and was able to chat with fans who knew some details about these lands and their significance.

To re-explore the world of Neopia and find the secret online features, I created a new Neopet, a yellow Shoyru flying dragon named MrSoySauce. From the tips I received from longtime users, I tracked down features in the Lost Desert, Tyrannia's abandoned Volcano, Jelly World, Lutari Island, and traces of the Neoschools project. 

While you can’t find them on the current Neopia globe map, fans have kept tabs on some of the links that remain active. Below is a closer look at some of the secret lands and features.

Lost Desert Calculator

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This useful calculator was easy to find in 2001 in the Lost Desert, but has since been removed from the map. However, you can still get to it if you have the link.

Wolf believes the Lost Desert Calculator, a ‘cool [calculator] to help you do your math homework,’ “was removed from the map because it no longer fit when the maps were overhauled.”   

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The 2001 original layout of the Lost Desert shows the calculator in the center of map. [Photo: Screenshot from Jellyneo.net's Book of Ages]

The Volcano

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The links to the games in the Volcano still work, but others will come up with an error message.

You can also visit the Volcano, part of a temporary story event plot players could follow in the ancient land of Tyrannia. Inside a fiery tunnel of the Volcano, there were once an assortment of games and shops, including Tyran Far's weapon shop, but they were moved to other areas of Tyrannia. The Volcano was removed, but some links are still active and it remains the backdrop for the Volcano Run games. 

Jelly World

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This secret world the developers made is now an inside-joke among seasoned players.

Developers always meant to keep the land of Jelly World a secret. The land isn't anywhere on the Neopia map. When you ask seasoned players about this entire land made out of orange jelly, they’ll pretend like it doesn’t exist.

“It’s meant to be a joke world, the joke being that it exists, yet it’s treated like it doesn’t,” explains another player, whose username is Sir Thundagza. There are a couple characters in Neopets that give hints about Jelly World, but their rambles appear to be nonsense, which encourages most players to ignore, or distrust, what they are saying.

The land contains a shop where you can buy foods made of jelly, a mini-game, free jelly to feed your pet, and some other random features.  

Lutari Island

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Lutari Island, "a mysterious island floats around the oceans of Neopia." Too bad it could only be accessed on the Neopets Mobile, which was discontinued.

Lutari Island is actually listed on the Neopian map as an official land, however the link leads you to a foggy island that you’re told has experienced a terrible storm and you can’t interact with any of the features.

The island used to be accessible through the Neopets Mobile game. When the mobile game was discontinued, users could no longer visit Lutari Island. No one knows what the Neopets developers plan to do with land—if they are planning anything at all.

Mystery Neoschools

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Mr. Noakes is one of several teachers that would have been featured in Neoschools if the project hadn't been abandoned. 

The Neopets site has an official list of classes and professors, but strangely there are no schools for them to educate the pets. Developers were going to make Neoschools for pets to increase their intelligence and for users to purchase school supplies at another shop, but it was announced that the project had been abandoned.

How the Neopets Empire Became a Ghost Town

article-imageThe current map of the Lost Desert. The calculator is no where to be found.

Although parts of the game may seem like a virtual ghost town now, when Neopets launched, it was an immediate success. The site and its many self-contained worlds quickly evolved. The Neopian lore became more complex, with occasional story plots that allowed players to explore new lands and features. 

Soon, there were more lands, a Neopian alphabet, and a weekly Neopets newspaper called the Neopian Times, where users could write fiction, articles, poetry, and create artwork. But, even as the world grew the core of the game remained the same: raise and take care of your pet.

During its peak years in the early 2000s, the Neopets site was raking in 2.2 billion page views per month and had 25 million members worldwide, according to a 2005 Wired article. Viacom Network purchased Neopets in 2005 and grew the franchise, creating plush dolls, action figures, and trading cards. In 2001, users were spending an average of 117 minutes a week raising their pet, and it was deemed the stickiest children's entertainment site on the internet. 

article-imageA trading card of Werelupe and Kacheek, a fun loving species and one of the most popular Neopets. [Photo: GavinLi/CC BY-ND 2.0

As years passed and users grew older, site traffic began to dwindle. There’s no official count, but fans on the Neopets subreddit estimated last year that numbers probably average around the thousands (some spotted around 3,000 on the old counter that used to be featured on the Neopets site).

Neopets got a new parent company in 2014, JumpStart, which hopes to reinvigorate the game experience. However, the switch to the JumpStart server caused some issues.

“After the acquisition of Neopets by Jumpstart, we took some time to analyze and decide the best course of action for modernizing the technology behind the site,” JumpStart CEO David Lord toldMotherboard last year. “Once we made the decision to upgrade the technology, the effort was a bit bumpy at times.”

article-imageKrawk Island is a pirate shanty town. This map has an island with a sign that reads "Keep Out." Players are still unsure if the Neopets Team had any plans for the odd island. Some believe, like Lutari Island, it could have been a part of Neopets Mobile.

One Neopets blog has documented the developments that had been made to the site each year. In 2014, when Neopets was bought by JumpStart, the blog wrote: “While everyone's data made it across okay, at the time of writing TNT [the Neopets Team] are still ironing out a lot of persistent bugs. Hang in there!”

Then in early 2015, a large number of former Neopets Team members were let go, leaving the development and gameplay uncertain.

“Neopets has had its ups and downs throughout the years, and you’ll hear right now Neopets is on a bit of a downswing,” says Sir Thundagza, who has been playing Neopets for 15 years.  

article-imageTerror Mountain is an official land in Neopia that is a permanent winter-themed holiday.  

But despite these bugs and issues, Neopets users like Sir Thundagza, remain passionate about the game. Sir Thundagza stays active in the community by publishing articles in the Neopian Times, and continues to make friends with pets and users alike.

“It’s one of my places I can temporarily escape from the problems and frustrations of the real world and explore a world of fantasy,” Sir Thundagza wrote to me. “Despite the cartoony art style and the bright colors, I would say the site has an ageless feel to it… I would say it’s a close knit community who grew up playing a site that grew with us.”

Wolf concurs: “The only reason I can think of about going to locations that are no longer available on the maps is probably for the nostalgia," he says. 

80 Shackled Skeletons Found in Greek Grave After Ancient Mass Execution

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Centuries ago, in ancient Greece, at least 80 people—all of whom likely ranked higher than a commoner or slave—were executed. 

Why they were executed, when they were executed and who they were remains a mystery, but, recently, archaeologists discovered their carefully buried remains in a massive ancient necropolis in Athens, according to Reuters. Each had their hands shackled in iron, the apparent victims of a mass execution. 

And while the exact nature of that execution is murky, a leading theory suggests that the victims might have been behind a failed seventh century coup led by Cylon, a nobleman. Cylon managed to escape, but many of his supporters did not and were killed. 

Archaeologists are performing DNA tests on the skeletons in the hopes of finding out more. 

“They are all tied at the hands with handcuffs and most of them are very, very young and in a very good state of health when they were executed," Stella Chryssoulaki, who is leading the excavations, told Reuters.

Ancient Greece, in other words, could be a rough place. 

18th Century Britain's Great Culinary Breakthrough: Mushroom Ketchup

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Mushrooms in Britain. (Photo: Andrew/CC BY 2.0)

Halfway through the process of making traditional mushroom ketchup, the dark and leaking fungi looked like a rotting puddle of chunky bog. Chopped, salted generously, left to sit for 24 hours, the pile of portobellos had given up their juice. After the first hour, the mushroom chunks were sitting in a shallow pool of brown liquid. Now they were bathing in it.

It seemed unlikely that this marshy mixture would lead to anything tasty. It was even harder to believe that this was the forebear of today’s sweet, sharp and gloopy tomato ketchup.

The rest of the process was simple enough: Add spices, and boil down. None of this improved the look of the stuff. Boiling, it bubbled up into a dirty foam, like chemicals on the surface of a polluted river. It left a brown ring of mushroom detritus on the sides of the pot. But because of the spices, it had started to smell a bit like mulled wine.

The final product was a deep brown, almost black. I dipped my finger in for a taste. It did not taste bad, or at all like mushrooms. It was salty—very salty—but had a meaty, umami essence. More than anything else, it tasted like soy sauce.  

Which, in a way, was not surprising at all.

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That brown stuff is mushroom ketchup—it's a lot like soy sauce. (Photo: Tummy Rumble/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Ketchup came to England as an idea, rather than a recipe or a product. There’s little agreement on the exact origin of the word ketchup or on the first sauce to have that name. But, according to Andrew F. Smith’s Pure Ketchup, it is clear that British people learned about ketchup from colonial forces and traders that had returned from southeast Asia—they thought of it as a “high East-India sauce,” Smith writes.

It’s not exactly clear what sauce those British travelers were thinking of, though. It might have been a variation of a fish sauce or a soy sauce; one early English-language recipe for ketchup used nutmeg, cloves and peppers as spices but, with beans as the base, it would have been more of a paste than a thin sauce.

The British cooks who first recorded recipes for ketchup didn’t seem much concerned with authenticity, anyway. They were using the name, ketchup, and spices from the east to give a certain excitement and exoticism to an idea they knew well: a mushroom pickle.

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Mushroom ketchup in progress is pretty unappetizing. (Photo: Rex Roof/CC BY 2.0)

Early mushroom ketchup recipes, Smith reports, were not that different from the recipes for mushroom pickles that came before them—mushroom ketchup was merely a new twist on the idea that the juice extracted from pickled mushroom could be a sauce in its own right. Some variations included anchovies, creating a fish sauce. One variation, Worcestershire sauce, has its origins in this same tradition of thin, fermented sauces borrowed from Asia.

These pungent, umami sauces were popular from early in the 18th century through Victorian times, and were used on fish, meat, and chicken. (I tried mine on a bite of steak, and it did give it a little extra oomph in flavor.) Today there's only one commercial brand left, Geo Watkins Mushroom Ketchup, manufactured in Kent by a major British food corporation.

In the past decade or so, mushroom ketchup has had a shade of revitalization among revered British chefs as a throwback ingredient: Heston Blumenthal and Nigel Slater both have published popular recipes for it. Some versions, it must be noted, produce a more paste-like result, less like soy sauce and more like wet cat food.

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To be fair sometimes the finished product is, too. (Photo: Rex Roof/CC BY 2.0)

How, though, did the idea of a thin soy or fish sauce evolve into pure-blooded American ketchup? In the 18th and 19th century, Americans were still making recipes that had been imported from Britain, including mushroom and walnut ketchups. Tomatoes, a new world ingredient, were becoming increasingly popular to eat, and it seems the word "ketchup" was a catch-all term that inventive cooks felt they could apply to their experiments with tomato sauces.

The sauces that were categorized as ketchup rather than plain old sauce did share some important qualities with the ketchups of yore, mushroom or otherwise. They were meant to keep a little longer, so they had higher concentrations of vinegar, salt and other preservative ingredients. And they had that key flavor, umami—the original Heinz ketchup recipe used tomato solids to increase the sauce’s umami burst.

Then came the real American innovation. Commercial tomato ketchup recipes added sugar. Lots of it. It probably also helped that tomato ketchup didn’t look like a pile of swamp mud halfway through the process of making it. But soon enough, mushroom ketchup was a faint memory, and tomatoes ruled the condiment aisle.

Gravity Falls' Final Mystery Has Been Solved

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After months of dechiphering, the final mystery of Gravity Falls has been solved. And those fools let a baby shake the villain Bill Cipher's hand.

The popular Disney Channel cartoon ended earlier this year, but creator Alex Hirsch seeded one last mystery to solve. With little more than an image of a statue of the multiversal villain Bill Cipher, Hirsch started a months-long scavenger hunt among fans to try and solve the final mystery.

And early Wednesday morning, a number of devoted puzzlers finally located the Cipher statue in an undisclosed wooded area. Actor Jason Ritter, who voiced the character Dipper Pines on the show, tweeted the news:

Buried at the foot of the statue was a treasure chest full of plastic jewels and coins, as well as a quickly appropriated sash labeled "Mayor of Gravity Falls." In addition, there was a note from Hirsch himself—which could only be read under blacklight—thanking the fans who found the chest, as well as a framed sketch. There was also a USB drive, but its contents remain a mystery.

Much bigger than it seems in images, the puzzlers let everyone, children included, shake hands with the arcane statue. Which means, likely, that, one day, Bill Cipher will rise again.

The Incredible Swimming Pools of Vintage Las Vegas

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(All Photos: UNLV Special Collections)

With summer temperatures in Las Vegas averaging over 100 degrees, swimming pools are integral to the history of the city as much as neon lights and showgirls. So for this past month, Su Kim Chung, the head of the University of Nevada Las Vegas Special Collections, took this as an opportunity to showcase some of the collection's best pools on their Instagram account.“Let’s face it, July is a hot month, and swimming pools seemed a way to evoke virtual refreshment in the face of heat and humidity,” Chung explains over email. 

Along with her assistant, Nancy Hardy, one of Chung’s key roles is outreach. The UNLV Special Collections Instagram account is full of Vegas curiosities, from 1960s pulp fiction to trains in the desert. “Each post is designed to highlight a different aspect of our collections—oral histories, manuscripts, rare books, periodicals, a specific collecting area or one of our digital collections,” she notes.

It’s also part of the group of libraries and archives that together form the hashtag #librariesofinstagram, who support and challenge each other to post images around a theme. “Recent challenges have included #hatsinthelibrary, #libraryfeast, #bicyclesinthelibrary and #trainsinthelibrary. As the group was discussing potential July challenges, I suggested swimming pools because we have so many unique images of hotel swimming pools created to promote Las Vegas hotels/casinos.”

Much of the photographic materials are donated. “We spend a lot of time working in the community making individuals, groups, organizations, and businesses aware of our mission to document Las Vegas, Southern Nevada, and gaming,” says Chung. “For instance, right now we are in the middle of a collecting initiative focusing on builders and developers in Las Vegas and we’re gathering both manuscript materials and oral histories. Other recent initiatives have focused on the African-American and Jewish communities in Las Vegas.” 

 As befits the city known as the “entertainment capital of the world”, several collections are devoted to the razzle-dazzle of Las Vegas nightlife and form some of Chung’s favorites. “The papers of show producers, individual performers, hotel entertainment departments, entertainment magazines, collections of show programs, oral histories of dancers and showgirls - all of these are part of our rich entertainment history legacy.”

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When it comes to sharing their images, Chung and Hardy work together to highlight Vegas histories or celebrations, and collaborate with their #librariesofinstagram group. “We were recently honored to be a part of the “#libraryloveisloveislove,” a challenge which honored Pride Month by highlighting publishers bindings in our collections that matched the rainbow flag. Nancy is very talented at finding whimsical items to post that showcase lesser-known areas of our collections.”

Of the swimming pool prompt— found via #librarypoolparty, a hashtag created by fellow library instagrammer Rutgers University Special Collecions– Chung says it was successful. This month challenge looks like it will be related to books – but for now, dive into this selection of vintage Vegas pools from the deep archives of UNLV Special Collections.

You can follow the UNLV Special Collections on instagram @unlvspeccoll 

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A group of men suited up for a swim at the Las Vegas Ranch, c. 1916. Notes Chung "Swimmers could rent bathing suits at the resort - not necessarily an appealing selling point by today’s standards!" (Jacob Von Tobel Collection, PH: 0204-0005)

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Men swimming at the “Big Spring” sometime between 1905-1910, with their "ride" waiting nearby. (Elbert Edwards Photo Collection, PH: 0214-0160)

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Five young bathers at the swimming hole at Ladd’s Resort Las Vegas, c. 1920s. (E. W. Cragin Photo Collection, PH: 0017-0022)

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A color film transparency of the patio area and swimming pool at Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn Las Vegas, c. 1950s. Chung points out that this "shows the pre-highrise look of hotels on the mid-century Las Vegas Strip." (Manis Collection) 

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Photograph of a showgirl posed at the swimming pool of Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino, May 22, 1955. Says Chung, "The Moulin Rouge was the first integrated hotel/casino in Las Vegas and had its own line of black dancers and showgirls." (Don T. Walker Collection)

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The Hotel Frontier swimming pool and courtyard area, 1967. Chung pointed out what's behind the hotel: "Visible in the background are the Silver Slipper neon sign (now part of the Neon Museum collection) and the Landmark Hotel Tower whose demolition was filmed in 1995 and used in the film Mars Attacks! the following year." (Frontier Hotel Collection)

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An evening shot of the Showboat Hotel/Casino on Boulder Highway in the 1950s (Manis Collection).

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"Bouffant hairdos are the centerpiece in this photograph of guests relaxing at the swimming pool at the Mint Las Vegas", says Chung, of this image from the late 1960s. (Mint Hotel Collection).

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Wilbur Clark of Desert Inn fame had a spectacular pool at his own home on the Desert Inn golf course, as shown here. (Wilbur & Toni Clark Collection)

Found: A Giant Clock Washed Away in a Once-in-a-Millennium Flood

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The clock in its pre-underwater days. (Photo: Mr.TinDC/CC BY-ND 2.0)

After a once-in-a-lifetime storm passed through, a kayaker on the Patapsco River, which flows through central Maryland into the Chesapeake Bay, was looking to rescue people, if they needed it. But while he didn’t find anyone in danger, he was able to perform a rescue mission. He found and rescued a giant clock.

The storm that passed through Ellicott City, an affluent area to the west of Baltimore, was historic. Six-and-half inches of rain fell in just two hours; the Patapsco River rose 14 feet. The water swept cars down hills and left sinkholes in its wake. Two people died. According to the Baltimore Sun, weather records from the area show that a storm this intense should only happen one in 1,000 years.

Bobby Barker went out in his kayak to try to help, the Sun reports. He was familiar with the river, and as he “came around the corner behind the flour mill,” he went to inspect some cars that had been pulled into river. Behind a sandbank, he found the clock.

This particular clock was massive. It had been erected in 2000, by the B&O Railroad Museum, and had stood 15 feet tall. He was able to pull the clock’s face out of the water and intends to go back for the rest of it.

“It’s a symbol for the city,” he told the Sun.

Update: The clock face is back in its proper position, though it still needs some work to get it back to its former condition.

Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 


Watch a Scuba Diver Swim Through a Swarm of Tiny Red Crabs

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Lately, the sands of some of the beaches in California have turned an unusual shade of salmon pink. Small tuna crabs, also known as pelagic red crabs, that are commonly found in shallow waters near Baja, California and Mexico are invading coasts as far north as Monterey Bay.

In the video recorded in October 2015, a diver shoots a peaceful, brilliant orange sunset, the camera bobbing with the gentle ebb and flow of the current. But, (as the music intensifies) it’s soon revealed that the diver is swimming over a massive boon of red crabs. At the 1:17-mark, one red crab is even seen clinging to the diver’s head.

These baby lobster look-alikes are no bigger than three inches in length. But, unlike lobsters, you wouldn’t want to eat them—their primary diet consists of phytoplankton, which can be toxic.

The crustacean, its species name Pleuroncodes planipes translating to “bulgy-sided crab with flat feet,” is agile in the water. The footage captures the red crabs jetting off backwards and upwards by flexing their powerful abdomens and tail fans. When they reach the water’s surface you can see them stop and stretch out their legs, turning their bodies into parachutes to slowly drift downwards and catch any phytoplankton in their mouthparts.

Marine scientists believe that the current abundance of pelagic red crabs in California is due to the flow of warm ocean currents from the El Niño, reports CBS Bay Area News. Waters in Monterey are 10 degrees warmer than normal, causing native species to shift farther north. These conditions are harsh on the red crabs, which aren’t getting enough food, oxygen, or the cooler temperatures they need to survive.

As a result, beaches have become a bloodbath of red crabs. A visitor on Del Monte Beach in Monterey told CBS Bay Area News in May that the scene looked like a “battlefield of crabs.” In early October, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was carpeted in thousands of red crab bodies. Most of the crabs that have been washing up from Mexico are already dead and decaying, and those that are alive struggle to get back into the tide.

Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.

America's Largest Outdoor Theatre Event Features 700 Lip Syncing Mormons

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Opening night of the 2016 Hill Cumorah Pageant. (Photo: Courtesy Hill Cumorah Pageant)

“It’s better than Disney World,” said Kelsey Trainor, standing in a field in upstate New York, surrounded by 700 costumed Mormons. 

All around were throngs of missionaries and tourists. People took photos in front of a seven-tiered stage, and families staked out seats among rows of green plastic chairs. Children walked around in the grass, dressed as the sinners of an ancient Mesoamerican civilization. Out on the highway, protestors shouted into bullhorns.

Kelsey and her four friends had driven up from Virginia in a chartered bus. It was the middle of July, and the bus did not have air-conditioning. Nevertheless, the young women were in good spirits. They had met some of their favorite prophets. Also, they had just taken a photo with Joseph Smith. 

“It’s a little bit overwhelming,” says Teresa Weigeshoff, one of Trainor’s buddies.

Each summer, some 900 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gather in rural New York. There, on a sacred hillside, they reenact key scenes from the Book of Mormon.

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The projection has 1200 roles; actors are usually double-cast. (Photo: Courtesy Hill Cumorah Pageant)

The Hill Cumorah Pageant is an elaborate production—possibly the largest annual outdoor theatrical production in the United States—yet most of the world has no idea that it exists. It has taken place since 1937. The current version, with a script by science fiction novelist Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game), debuted in 1988. The exact number of participants changes annually, and this year’s pageant included 744 actors, 150 crew members, and nine directors. The show involves water cannons and jets of fire. A spotlight representing the Star of Bethlehem is so powerful that its use requires annual approval from the FAA.

According to the Church, this part of New York was the site of a civilization-ending battle around 400 C.E. That was just a few centuries after Mormons believe that Jesus visited the Americas, and 800 years after an Israelite prophet named Lehi left Jerusalem and sailed to the New World. 

Mormons believe that this is also the spot where a 21 year-old farmer named Joseph Smith dug up a set of inscribed golden plates in 1827. Using a sacred stone in a hat, he translated the inscriptions into English and published them as the Book of Mormon.

If you’re a believer, the Book of Mormon is scripture, on par with the Old and New Testaments. If you’re a skeptic, the Book of Mormon is a kind of extraordinary Biblical fan-fiction—a book that takes figures and themes from the Christian Bible, inflects them with an American vibe (Mormon prophets talk a lot about freedom and “the voice of the people”), and then sets the whole story in the familiar Promised Land of the Americas.

For many, then, this corner of New York has a certain magnetism. Most American Mormons now live in the West, but thousands volunteer each year to take part in the Pageant—not everyone gets a slot—and thousands more travel to the town of Palmyra to see the show, along with plenty of non-Mormons. 

For such an extravagant production, the casting is pretty casual. You don’t need any acting experience to appear in the Hill Cumorah Pageant. You won’t get paid. You do need to be a Mormon, and if you’re employed, you do need to take three weeks off from work. Roles are reassigned each year, even for returning actors. When the cast arrives in Palmyra a week before opening night, the directors line them up in the amphitheater and quickly start handing out parts. Within a few hours, they have filled the show’s 1,200 roles (most actors are double-cast).

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The 2016 Hill Cumorah Pageant. (Photo: Courtesy Hill Cumorah Pageant)

Because the whole pageant is sound-tracked—the actors are lip-syncing—and because it’s hard to read facial expressions from so far—the stage is huge—the job mostly involves hitting your mark, gesturing impressively, and trying not to accidentally whack anyone with a fake spear.

Backstage, the vibe feels like a summer camp. Entire families appear in the show together. At the foot of the hill where Smith found the Golden Plates, cast members park RVs, hook up outdoor refrigerators, and set up grills. “You know, the little ones, they like to pile on. They just sleep on the floor, they do whatever. We make it work,” says Joshua Boswell, who plays the prophet Alma, about the RV in which he’s staying with his wife and nine of their eleven children.

A Pageant volunteeer, Heather Williams, gave me a backstage tour. In one of the seven dressing rooms, we walked past racks of tunics and plastic tubs full of bangles. In a shed, the prop master showed us a large vase—he and his daughter found it at Pier 1 Imports—that had been repackaged as exotic booty from an ancient battle.

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At the Hill Cumorah Pageant, a depiction of Nephi's vision of Lehi's dream. (Photo: Eustress/CC BY-SA 3.0)

As we left the building where they keep the fake beards (and some of the nicer wigs), Williams steered the conversation in a more solemn direction. “We truly believe that angels and prophets walked this ground,” she says. Williams is a local. Raised in the Church, she decided to commit fully to Mormon life as a teenager, after praying in a nearby grove sacred to the Church. She felt an enormous sense of peace, she remembers—a sense that has recurred throughout her life. 

The Pageant stage is an enormous scaffolded affair, clad in vacu-formed plastic to look like a Mesoamerican temple. Williams waited on a lower tier while I climbed a metal ladder to the stage’s highest point. Later, a 20 year-old first-time actor, cast in the role of the Jesus, would appear on this spot, his white robes incandescent in the spotlights. For now, the amphitheater was empty, and everything was hot. The thousands of green chairs in the grass below looked tiny. I tried to imagine what it would be like to climb up here and impersonate Jesus.

“Where you’re standing is where I found out that I was pregnant with my seventh child,” Williams says suddenly. She had a moment of dizziness and sudden nausea years before, there are the top of the stage.

Several months later, a child was born.

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A scene from the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York. (Photo: Krishna Kumar/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Tensions lurk around the edges of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Protestors—generally Christians who believe that Mormons are heretics—regularly visit, re-enacting the kind of theological throwdown that originally drove early Mormons out of the hills of upstate New York. Security around the stage is tight. A local business owner told me that, over the years, he’d heard shouting matches between Mormons and protestors in the streets.

There are also questions of race and appropriation. The Pageant’s cast is almost entirely white; the people they depict are almost uniformly not. It can be uncomfortable to see white men in faux-Mesoamerican headdresses. When I brought this issue up with Brent Hansen, the Pageant’s head director, he argues that I was thinking too much like a non-Mormon. “We back off to a large extent in this production from that whole concept of Native Americans,” he says. “Native Americans came after these people. These people who moved out Jerusalem, they built a culture here, and so it's simpler, in a lot of ways, because we dodge a lot of issues that aren't issues in the story that we're trying to tell.”

The show itself taps into the peculiar thrill evoked by Broadway musicals, marching bands, and perhaps even North Korean martial exercises—that feeling of watching the well-synced motion of human beings and music. The tides of cast members ebb and flow across the stage. They fight. They run. At times, they dramatically perish. Prophets get up on platforms to lip-sync their speeches.

The real show is before the show, when the audience mingles with the cast. Gregory Thornton—a hedge fund manager from Fort Collins, Colorado, cast in the role of Joseph Smith—talks about the affection he receives when he’s roaming around in costume. “Since I'm representing Joseph, you get to see their love and appreciation for Joseph,” he says. “I’m just playing a role—like Mickey Mouse, right?—but it’s fun to see how excited [they get].”

Wandering around the American-Biblical-Renaissance Fair, you feel how thin the lines are between theater and ritual, play and worship, the mythic and the kitsch.

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Preparing for the dress rehearsal. (Photo: Courtesy Hill Cumorah Pageant)

It was somewhere in these borderlands between Disney and Jerusalem that I found Kelsey Trainor and her friends, who were trying to process the experience of seeing scripture come to life. 

“I definitely did not picture Nephi to look like that,” says Trainor, referring to a key Mormon prophet and his descendants. “I thought every Nephite would be like AWRAOHRR,” she adds, making a series of guttural, manly noises.

 “Well they were, like, 14 year-old boys!” protests Emily Gingerich.

Soon there were screams. In my notes and audio recording at this point, the cross-talk becomes almost indecipherable.

“I think that’s him.”

“That’s Noah.”

“KING NOAH!”

“Wait, how do you know that’s King Noah?” I ask.

“Because someone—”

“—we asked someone—”

“—and a Nephite told us.”
“And described his outfit.”

“We just go and ask, like, ‘What does Nephi look like?’ And then we go find him.”

“KING NOAH!” screams Kelsey.

“He’s too far away. He’s talking to people.”

A minute later, duly summoned, King Noah walks over. He is a young man wearing a spiky red and blue headdress and a fake goatee that reached to his collarbones. If you imagine how a 1950s film director might depict the Aztec emperor Montezuma, you will have a good sense of the overall aesthetic.

“Are you King Noah?” someone asks.

“I am King Noah,” says King Noah.

“Holy crap, he’s huge!” says Teresa Weigeshoff, who is 4’11”.

The actor playing King Noah gives his height as 6'4" or 6'5".

Weigeshoff went up to stand with him. Behind them was the stage and the steep tilt of Hill Cumorah. On the top the hill stands a golden statue of the angel Moroni, not far from an enormous American flag.

Down on the grass, Weigeshoff and the king posed for a photo. The show, on and off stage, kept going on.

A Jewish Commodore Saved Monticello, And His Family Got Hell for It

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Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. (Photo: Martin Falbisoner/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Fifty years after Thomas Jefferson died in debt, vines choked the bricks of his 700-acre Virginia farm Monticello. Its famous oaks had been felled, and relic hunters chipped away at his grave.

But Uriah P. Levy really wanted the farm anyway. The first Jewish Commodore in the Navy, he had handled anti-Semitism, and he liked the way Jefferson wrote about American religious tolerance. He had even commissioned a statue of Jefferson in 1834 that lives in the Capitol today.

Levy's own death in 1858, however, did not secure the future of one of America's most famous homes. Levy left a complicated will, which imagined Monticello used as a farm school for Navy warrant officers' orphans. During the Civil War, the Confederacy seized Monticello but after the war, it reverted to the Levy heirs, who disputed its ownership the next 14 years.

What happened next was a now-forgotten decades-long national controversy, adorned with no small measure of anti-Semitism. Jews have been a part of American life in the South since the country's founding, but have rarely been as visible as the Levys. 

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Uriah Phillips Levy, commodore of the US Navy. (Photo: US Navy/Public Domain)

By 1879, Monticello was a mess again. When Jefferson Levy—Uriah's great-nephew—bought Monticello from his relatives, tourists had chiseled off bits of ornamental friezes, cows had lived in the basement, and pigs had dug up the lawns. Levy was a New York lawyer, real estate speculator, and congressman. He added some details, like a brace of stone lions guarding the west portico. He used Monticello as a second home, and hosted grand parties there. His nieces remembered seeing Theodore Roosevelt in the great drawing room.

Also a guest was Maud Littleton, the wife of another New York congressman. "Thomas Jefferson was uppermost in my mind," she wrote of her night at Monticello. "I could think of no one else. Somehow I had never connected Mr. Levy with Mr. Jefferson and Monticello. He had not entered my dreams." 

Not being in Littleton's dreams was evidently incendiary, because she decided Levy should not own Monticello. "By what right must the people of the world ask Mr. Levy for permission to visit the grave and home of Thomas Jefferson?" she wrote. "Surely he does not want a whole nation forever crawling at his feet for permission to worship at this shrine of our independence." Littleton launched a campaign. She circulated petitions, gave speeches, and wrote a pamphlet called "One Wish."

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The statue of Thomas Jefferson that was presented by Uriah Phillips Levy to the Congress in 1834. (Photo: US Capitol/Public Domain)

People took up Levy's side, too. One was Flora Wilson, who was the daughter of the Secretary of Agriculture. She and Littleton were both suffragists, so Wilson was happy to see Littleton standing up for her cause, even though they disagreed. But when Littleton cried in front of Congress, Wilson shuddered. "Can we ever achieve our purposes employing as does a spoiled child the last resort to get his own way?" she wrote. "I cannot find any evidence of tears dampening Catherine de Medici's poison potions."

And Levy spoke up for himself. "Every stone and brick in the home of Jefferson, every tree, every nook and corner, every foot of Monticello is dear to me," he said. "Mrs. Littleton is a woman," he said, "and consequently I am not offended, but only hurt, at the criticisms. " By 1912, Littleton had 10,000 petitions going around. In November of 1912, Levy said, "I spend yearly $10,000 for its upkeep. Visitors are welcome. I see no reason for an organization trying to take from me the home of my forefathers."

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A drawing of the gardens, orchards and grove at Monticello, Albemarle County, Virginia, by Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to J. H. Freeman. (Photo: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University/Public Domain)

"Forefathers nothing!" Littleton told one reporter who came to her house at 113 East 57th Street in New York, and found her in the midst of piles of maps, pamphlets and records, with eight secretaries working at her dining room table. "Mr. Levy is no relation to Thomas Jefferson. He objected to my mentioning everywhere that he is not the grandson of Jefferson on the ground that it had nothing to do with the case." This despite the fact that Levy hadn't ever claimed to be Jefferson's blood relative; his parents named him Jefferson to honor the family hero.

That was the kind of thing that indicated a more sinister presence at work. As Marc Leepson writes in Saving Monticello, much of the anti-Levy campaign "contained more than a whiff of anti-Semitism." Littleton referred to Jefferson Levy as an Oriental potentate, and wrote that Jefferson's grave was tainted by Levy's "ruthless commercialism." In 1914, popular advice columnist and Littleton partisan Dorothy Dix wrote an article in Good Housekeeping in which she wrote that Monticello was in "alien hands," after "Captain Levy refused to part with his bargain."

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A stereograph of Monticello. (Photo: Boston Public Library/Public Domain)

Levy responded over the course of Littleton's drive in ways that ranged from the plaintive—"The property is mine—to the courtly—"This campaign has been attended by numberless and wholly unnecessary misstatements about Monticello, and about my uncle, Commodore Levy—those about myself, I suppose, I must overlook. . .I have said that I do not expect gratitude, but I think every American will feel that I am entitled to fair play."

Congress agreed. Despite Littleton's efforts, no one wrested Monticello from Levy. A bill that would have explored the idea of buying Monticello was defeated in 1912. 

But by 1914, Levy, worn down by the financial burden of maintenance and the constant pressure to give in, was willing to consider relinquishing Monticello; secretary of state William Jennings Bryan supported a plan to make it a presidential retreat that he liked. Congressional hearings in 1915 about Monticello's future demonstrated some softening on both sides. Littleton acknowledged that Levy had done "probably as well as such an exacting public task could be done by an individual." Monticello never became a retreat, but did end up in public hands. Levy died in 1924, one year after a fund raised by national subscriptions paid him for his property.

There's Another Guy Who Says He's Caught All of the Pokémon

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At long last, it seems one Pokégoer has finally caught them all. According to local news reports, David Quintana of Elche, Spain has nabbed all 145 of the currently available sought-after critters, filling up his Pokédex and inciting the envy of players worldwide.

The 21-year-old computer science student "spent the last 22 days (and nights) criss-crossing Elche on his bicycle chasing the virtual monsters," barely sleeping and enlisting occasional help from his girlfriend, the Local reports. "He walked and cycled more than 100 km [62 miles] in pursuit."

Although there are supposedly 151 Pokémon, six have thus far never been seen in the game, including Mew, Mewtwo, Ditto, and the three legendary birds.

Quintana has someone coming for him—literally. Two weeks ago, American Nick Johnson made headlines after allegedly catching all 142 Pokémon available in North America. (Johnson, too, pins his success on a whole lot of walking, though he did flag down an Uber to catch a rare Porygon.) Thanks to a sponsorship deal with Marriott, he is now heading to Europe, Japan, and Australia "to finish his collection."

But Johnson was missing Mr. Mime, Farfetch'd, and Kangaskhan, all Pokémon exclusive to other regions. Although rumors are flying that all three of these rare dudes can be hatched from eggs in the US, Johnson doesn't buy it: "I’ve talked to dozens and dozens of people who have hatched 100's of eggs, and no one can hatch or catch them (in North America) as far as I know," he told USA Today.

Quintana got all the region-specific Pokémon by hatching eggs in Spain. In an interview with Diario Información, he revealed that his last two catches were Alakazam and Charizard. When asked whether he would now, finally, rest, Quintana demurred. "I'm still a level 20 of a total of 40," he said. "Less than half." The quest to be the very best never ends.

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.

For Decades, The Ultimate Midwestern Summer Job Was Headhunting Fireflies

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An official pin for proud members of the Sigma Firefly Scientists Club. (The tail glows in the dark.) (Photo: Theresa Huether)

Kids these days have some decent summer options. There are camps for everything. Internships abound. And you can always still flip burgers or cut grass.

But the latest generation has missed out in at least one way. No longer are children paid to run around at dusk, armed with a chemical company's branded net, tasked with catching fireflies for a penny per head.

From 1960 through the mid 1990s, the Missouri-based Sigma Firefly Scientists Club brought in tens of millions of fireflies—caught by kids and overzealous adults across 25 states, shipped in special company containers, and ground up into dust for various bioindustrial purposes. Club members fought for prizes, formed cutthroat business alliances, and wore glow-in-the-dark buttons. It was, in many ways, the ultimate American summer job. 

Suspended in the sky on a twilit evening, a firefly's yellow glow looks a lot like magic.At a cellular level, though, it's actually a straightforward chemical response. Each bug's lantern is brimming with an enzyme called luciferase, which, under the right conditions, emits a bioluminescent gleam. In order to light up, the enzyme needs ATP—a kind of cellular energy packet found in all living things. If a firefly's lantern were an oil lamp, ATP would be the fuel, and luciferase the match that lights it.

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A solo firefly, showing off his valuable enzymes. (Photo: terry priest/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Scientists discovered this mechanism in the late 1940s, and soon after, biochemists began figuring out how to put it to use. An up-and-coming St. Louis chemical company called Sigma quickly realized that the enzyme could detect bacteria in supposedly sterile environments, literally lighting up around living things, and developed a suite of chemicals to take advantage of this."It was basically a life-detecting kit," explains Sara Lewis, a firefly expert at Tufts University, and the author of Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies. "That was big business for them." To make it, they needed luciferase—lots and lots of it. And at that point, the only source was firefly butts.

Enter the world's least likely supply chain: Midwestern children. "The only way to get a lot of those fireflies easily was to have a whole bunch of kids catching them," says Theresa Huether. Huether, now a retired math professor, spent a couple of college summers working in Sigma's firefly labs, in 1975 and '76. If the best way to catch fireflies was with children, she says, the best way to catch children was with cool stuff—T-shirts, nets, and buttons branded with a club-house worthy title, and cold, hard, penny candy money.

Thus was born the Sigma Firefly Scientists Club. In the summer of 1960, ads and articles began popping up in local papers across the Midwest. "CATCH LIGHTNING BUGS!" shouted one classified in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, nestled among boring ads about appliances and mattresses. "Hey Kids! Join the Sigma Firefly Scientists Club," read another, in Illinois's Alton Evening Telegraph. "It's fun. It's profitable and an opportunity to make a valuable contribution to science."

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An early ad for the club, from the June 2nd, 1960 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The article goes on to detail the stakes of the operation ("Sigma is appealing to youngsters throughout the St. Louis area… every single firefly is important to the work"), and the bounty involved ("30 cents in cash for each 100 bugs, or one dollar in ride tickets at Forest Park Highlands, Holiday Hill or Chain of Rocks Fun Park.") Plus, they write, it's easy—just put the bugs in a jar with a few holes poked in it, and stick it in the refrigerator until dropoff day.

It's not hard to imagine how thrilling this proposition would have seemed to the average kid—their unique skills, recognized and rewarded at last! And they'd get to put bugs in the fridge to boot! Before long, the Sigma Firefly Scientists Club hardly had to advertise. Kids wrote into Boy's Life, tipping off fellow kids about this "interesting way to earn money." Adults, too, found it wholesome: "Club members have fun and get exercise while earning money for themselves or their projects," beamed one St. Louis paper.

Sigma kept their youthful suppliers apprised of the fruits of their labor—which also, somehow, covered kid-approved topics. Sure, luciferase was used to study cancer and heart disease, but it was also repurposed as a shark repellant, and to test for bacteria in Coca-Cola. Kits even went to Mars with the Viking expedition, where they were used to hunt for extraterrestrial life. "Scientists mixed the chemicals with some Martian dust," summed up UPI, doubtlessly inspiring hours of summer daydreams.

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A model of a luciferase enzyme. (Image: ynse/CC BY 2.0)

Soon the club had thousands of members, scattered over 25 states. Though comprehensive data isn't available, in its heyday, the club brought in over three million fireflies per year. Such a large operation required slightly more structure. By the mid-1970s, in return for a small deposit, club members received a firefly-hunting kit: an explanatory pamphlet, shipping canisters lined with desiccant, and a net silkscreened with the club's official insignia—a bow-tied, white-gloved bug. (They also got buttons, whose dapper fireflies boasted glow-in-the-dark tails.)

Thus armed, the children roved around towns at night, snagging their prey. Once they had filled their canisters, they'd ship them off, dead or alive, to Sigma. "There was a little form, and the kids told us how many bugs there were," says Huether. "We didn't count them—we trusted them." They sent back checks made out in the kids' names, with the club logo stamped on them.

Most club members were hobbyist firefly hunters, too small-time to even bother with equipment. ("There were a lot of kids in St. Louis that sent us bugs, and some of them were in Ziploc bags," says Huether.) But there were mavens, too.

Under Sigma's sliding scale system, a bigger haul meant a proportionately higher payout—you started at 50 cents for every hundred flies, but once you reached 20,000, you were up to one cent per bug. Towns and clubs pooled their resources to make this mark. The Allison Firefly Club, in Iowa, brought in a million insects over five years, and used their take to build a community pool.

The true firefly mafia, though, was in Vinton, Iowa, an agricultural town that spawned at least two unlikely dons. "There was this one kid, a 10 or 11-year-old boy," says Huether. "He rented a whole bunch of firefly nets, and hired a bunch of kids." Rather than sending their catches straight to Sigma, the kids worked for him at a lower rate. He took care of the logistics, and made a tidy profit: "He got well over the 20,000 mark, so he was making a penny apiece." Not bad for a preteen.

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Fireflies in full force, out in a field. (Photo: Matt MacGillivray/CC BY 2.0)

Vinton was also home to Judy Wood, aka the "Lightningbug Lady." Wood spent the school year as a teacher's aide, and leveraged her free summers and massive kid network into a sprawling bug enterprise. Over 400 kids brought their catches to her nightly, from as far as 45 miles away. She also trawled for fireflies herself, driving a pickup truck specially outfitted with a mesh net. Combined, the two strategies brought in staggering numbers. "The average is about 35,000 that I bus to St. Louis every other day," Wood told the Chicago Tribune in 1987.

Wood did this every summer for over 25 years, and used her fly money to put her kids through college. For basically everyone else, it was a brief exercise in summer capitalism. "It was kind of a win for kids, because they got some money for doing something they thought was fun," says Huether. "And clearly it was a win for Sigma." (Huether and her coworkers enjoyed it, too—"it was a really, really fun job," she says.)

The only constituency that lost out was, well, the fireflies. Lewis, the firefly expert at Tufts, calculates the Sigma Firefly Scientists Club pulled in about 100 million wild-caught fireflies during its tenure, if we use the three million number as an annual average. "The commercial harvesting of fireflies seems like something that should be banned," she notes.

Firefly population data is slim, and there are certainly larger threats facing the critters—habitat loss, light pollution, pesticide use. But 100 million isn't nothing. More than that, Lewis says, it's the principal of the thing: "Here's something that's a shared natural resource—it's a source of wonder for everybody," she says. "It doesn't make sense to me that some people should be allowed to go out and harvest vast numbers."

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A jar of whole fireflies from Sigma. (Photo: Sara Lewis)

And they don't anymore—at least not for the Sigma Firefly Scientists Club. For as-yet undisclosed reasons—the changing ecological mood, child wage inflation, the expiration of AMGEN's patent on synthetic luciferase—Sigma quietly shuttered the club sometime in the late 1990s.

A recent profile of the company, now called Sigma-Aldrich and valued at $17 billion, brought up this ancient history with current employees, some of whom were former members. All laughed: "What kind of company would do that anymore?" the reporter asked. That particular age—of innocence, or ignorance, or both—has passed.

Some remnants, though, have stuck around, with a kind of macabre afterglow. You can still buy a jar of whole fireflies from Sigma, pulled from the vast overstock provided by the club. Or you could head out and watch them flitting around, the bounty now off their heads, lighting up for their own lives.

Naturecultures is a weekly column that explores the changing relationships between humanity and wilder things. Have something you want covered (or uncovered)? Send tips to cara@atlasobscura.com.

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