Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always
Speaker 1: so much fortuning in This is part two to to
Speaker 1: two of our two part series on the infamous Carrington
Speaker 1: Event of eighteen fifty nine. Shout out to our super
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pagram. Shout out to our super producer, the
Speaker 1: one and only Max Williams and spoiler alert, Steve Bushemy
Speaker 1: was in armageddon. Yes, facts that we learned as was
Speaker 1: been affleck Ben, I know you listened to this story
Speaker 1: as a fellow. Bit. I'm sorry. I will do a
Speaker 1: better job of memorizing your uh what filmography. That's filmography.
Speaker 1: So let's join our ourselves already in progress. They had
Speaker 1: known that there would be regional disturbances could affect the system,
Speaker 1: but no one had ever experienced a disturbance of this magnitude,
Speaker 1: a global disruption like a lot of telegraph lines across
Speaker 1: the North American continent went out a service on the
Speaker 1: night of August as the first of these solar storms struck.
Speaker 1: And we have accounts of at least two people who
Speaker 1: saw this disaster firsthand in the telegraph office. One was E. W. Colgan.
Speaker 1: He was a telegraph manager in Pittsburgh, and he said
Speaker 1: the currents flowing through the wires were so powerful that
Speaker 1: they almost melted the platinum contacts they used, and streams
Speaker 1: of fire were coming from the circuits from the miche jeans.
Speaker 1: And one guy was actually almost electrocuted. That's right. A
Speaker 1: telegraph operator by the name of Frederick W. Royce got
Speaker 1: a nasty shock to the forehead actually because a ground
Speaker 1: wire that had been knocked loose kind of brushed against him,
Speaker 1: and some onlookers noted that it created an arc of
Speaker 1: fire that jumped from Royce's head to the telegraph equipment itself,
Speaker 1: and other telegraph stations similarly reported massive, powerful power surges
Speaker 1: that caused the telegraph paper itself to just catch fire,
Speaker 1: go up in flames and disintegrae. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: hectic day at the office already. If you if you
Speaker 1: work at I want to say telegraph factory. That's not true.
Speaker 1: These are telegraph stations. Telegraph factories would actually make the telegraphs.
Speaker 1: But I like the idea, and as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: people have thought, this has got to be the worst
Speaker 1: that could happen. Right. Stuff is literally catching fire. Good thing,
Speaker 1: we made it through. But they didn't. They were wrong,
Speaker 1: because on the morning of September two, the mayhem and
Speaker 1: chaos resulting from that second storm made even more problems
Speaker 1: for telegraph operators. The American Telegraph Company employees arrived at
Speaker 1: their office in Boston around eight am, and then they
Speaker 1: discovered that nothing was working. Was as though some gigantic
Speaker 1: invisible switch had been turned off, and the atmosphere in
Speaker 1: the area was so charged that operators discovered something astounding.
Speaker 1: If they unplugged their batteries, they could still just based
Speaker 1: on the atmosphere charge, transmit messages to Portland, Maine from Boston, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: at thirty intervals, just using the auroral current. That's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: That makes you wonder how much of that stuff is
Speaker 1: going through you right. Luckily it didn't last forever. By
Speaker 1: ten am on September two, the magnetic disturbance had quelled
Speaker 1: at least enough so that stations could reconnect their batteries,
Speaker 1: but for the rest of the morning, transmitting messages was
Speaker 1: still a dicey proposition. Oh and also, wires on poles
Speaker 1: had enough energy caught enough energy at least to light
Speaker 1: themselves on fire. The damage was pretty serious. By the
Speaker 1: time the storm was over, millions and millions of dollars
Speaker 1: in damage had been inflicted on the telegraphs. And we
Speaker 1: say millions of dollars, we mean millions of dollars in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine. So if we do a little bit
Speaker 1: of inflation calculation will get a sense of the damage.
Speaker 1: Bo Oh, well, I think her calculator is feeling a
Speaker 1: little bit melodic today. No, you know, it sounds like that,
Speaker 1: sounds like take me on a trip somewhere. Yes, that's perfect.
Speaker 1: Let's let's I hope it does that again in the future. Well,
Speaker 1: here's what that lovely little two resulted in. One million
Speaker 1: dollars in eighteen fifty nine is equivalent to over thirty
Speaker 1: two million dollars today. And remember this is multimillions dollars
Speaker 1: worth of damage in eighteen fifty nine. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: absolute chaos, very very disruptive. And we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: what this would be like today a little later, I mean, thankfully.
Speaker 1: You know. This was what he was referred to by historians,
Speaker 1: sort of tongue in cheeckenly as the Victorian Internet. Right,
Speaker 1: this network a very rudimentary technology, but it really did
Speaker 1: kind of tie the world together and in many many
Speaker 1: ways in terms of being able because you know, it's
Speaker 1: important how quickly you can transmit news that as people
Speaker 1: the advantage in many situations, it's very important. Think of
Speaker 1: how many movies the plots and the twist wouldn't have
Speaker 1: even gone anywhere. People could only just pick up the
Speaker 1: phone and make a call. That used to be the world.
Speaker 1: You know, I used to not be able to let
Speaker 1: anybody know about anything any quicker than like sending a
Speaker 1: letter or like you said, Ben, a carrier pigeon would
Speaker 1: have been the quickest route. Oh yeah, yeah. Like for
Speaker 1: a more modern example, one of my favorite things is
Speaker 1: the cell phone problem of Seinfeld. It's a great show.
Speaker 1: They're very lucky they wrote it when they did, because
Speaker 1: most of the most of the plot complications in episodes
Speaker 1: of Seinfeld would have been easily solved had someone had
Speaker 1: a cell phone. Yeah, and there's probably lots of other
Speaker 1: examples of that in pop culture. And so, as we said,
Speaker 1: this disturbance was catastrophic but temporary. The telegraph system was
Speaker 1: not extinct, was just damaged. It did eventually come back online,
Speaker 1: and so you think maybe things would calm down, but nol.
Speaker 1: It feels like it turned out that the telegraph system
Speaker 1: actually made people more panicked when it started to work again. Oh,
Speaker 1: no doubt, because, like we said, the speed at which
Speaker 1: this news was traveling contributed to the panic itself, because
Speaker 1: they were filled with these very elaborate descriptions of this
Speaker 1: light show that was going on in the sky, all
Speaker 1: of the chaos that people were witnessing in terms of
Speaker 1: the sparks and the arcs and all of that. Let's
Speaker 1: not forget that the telegraph network was what fed news reporting.
Speaker 1: So once it went back online, you started getting these
Speaker 1: headlines popping up in newspapers across the world, from literally
Speaker 1: like Europe to Australia, and there were all of these
Speaker 1: descriptions that were now starting to kind of get into
Speaker 1: the public imagination. You had one report from the Charleston
Speaker 1: Mercury on South Carolina from a woman on Sullivan's Island
Speaker 1: who said the eastern sky appeared of a blood red color.
Speaker 1: It seemed brightest exactly in the east, as though the
Speaker 1: full moon rather the sun were about to rise. It
Speaker 1: extended almost to the zenith. People really spoke well back then,
Speaker 1: didn't They've been the whole island was illuminated. The sea
Speaker 1: reflected the phenomenon, and no one could look at it
Speaker 1: without thinking of the passage in the Bible which says
Speaker 1: the sea was turned to blood. The shells on the
Speaker 1: beach reflecting light resembled coals of fire. Yeah, yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: here's what happened. Basically, everybody was panicking, and the panic
Speaker 1: was exacerbated as they heard stories from other parts of
Speaker 1: the world via the telegraph system. People in the southern
Speaker 1: part of the US were incredibly disturbed by the northern
Speaker 1: lights because they went so close to the equator that
Speaker 1: you could see them in Cuba and Jamaica. This is
Speaker 1: not normal, by the way, Elsewhere, there appeared to be
Speaker 1: like some genuine confusion. We talked about people getting up
Speaker 1: thinking it was morning right in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: In South Carolina, in a town called Abbeyville, brick Mason's
Speaker 1: awoke and they went to their job site and they
Speaker 1: started working until they realized, holy smokes, we're in the
Speaker 1: wee hours of the day. Let's go back to bed.
Speaker 1: And it happened again in Belton, Virginia with larks. They
Speaker 1: woke up at one am and started two warble. Unfortunate
Speaker 1: note for those larks, there was a conductor at the
Speaker 1: nearby Orange and Alexandria Railroad who also woke up, and
Speaker 1: he shot three of them. He just didn't deal with
Speaker 1: stress very well, I think, which is surprising for a
Speaker 1: railroad conductor that always seemed a very stressful occupation to
Speaker 1: be yes, stress the occupation, but also requiring a cool
Speaker 1: head to prevail to keep trains running on time. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't really think of a railroad conductor as someone
Speaker 1: that's like super on edge all the time and freaking
Speaker 1: out because they got to keep their their stuff together.
Speaker 1: All our railroad conductors are hired primarily on the basis
Speaker 1: of their emotional instability. These guys are unhinged at Orange
Speaker 1: and Alexandria and people love it. People love it. And
Speaker 1: the effect of this was was so astonishing and so
Speaker 1: let's fire in the sky kind of quality that some
Speaker 1: folks actually believe that cities nearby are other locations that were,
Speaker 1: you know, within a stone's throw, were actually on fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they and obviously they weren't happy about it. People
Speaker 1: were legitimately scared, and they had reason to be scared.
Speaker 1: They had reason to be panicked and alarmed and confused.
Speaker 1: And here's the kicker, if we have a little bit
Speaker 1: of an epilogue for this. It's been about a century
Speaker 1: and a half since Richard Carrington made his observation, and
Speaker 1: in the time since, solar scientists following Carrington's path have
Speaker 1: studied what is now known as the Carrington Event, and
Speaker 1: what they found was that so far, all the other
Speaker 1: evidence of similar storms hitting Earth that they could find
Speaker 1: is in the storms were much less powerful than the
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine storm. In fact, the Carrington Event is
Speaker 1: believed to have been twice as big as any other
Speaker 1: solar storm in the last five hundred years, at least
Speaker 1: the ones that hit Earth. So, Ben, does that mean
Speaker 1: we're like, do for one of these things? Hey, it's
Speaker 1: a casino baby, roll the dice? Do we have to?
Speaker 1: And we don't really have a choice. Right here we are, UM,
Speaker 1: and here we are in this world that relies so
Speaker 1: heavily on technology and things way more advanced and interconnected
Speaker 1: than this UM. You know, kind of almost like cup
Speaker 1: and and string approach, that is the telegraph system. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's more than that. I'm simplifying it to the extreme,
Speaker 1: but I mean, think about how much people freak out
Speaker 1: is when like Twitter goes down for five minutes, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean really they're like, I can't even I am unconnected, untethered, adrift,
Speaker 1: not to mention things like e trade or like the
Speaker 1: stock market, like like literally these massive institutions that we
Speaker 1: depend on that run on the Internet and require these
Speaker 1: systems to function in order for us to go about
Speaker 1: our daily lives. I always think of it's a terrible movie.
Speaker 1: But Escape from l a the sequel to Escape from
Speaker 1: New York, you know, a Snake plisk In and like
Speaker 1: a you know, post apocalyptic Los Angeles spoiler alert for
Speaker 1: a very bad movie. First of all, there's a scene
Speaker 1: where Snake Pliskin is surfing and shooting a machine gun
Speaker 1: or something that is very clearly on a green screen
Speaker 1: and it's like they just didn't even try and clean
Speaker 1: it up and looks so bad. But it ends with
Speaker 1: him doing some kind of E m P type situation
Speaker 1: or it's some kind of satellite. It's like death ray
Speaker 1: satellite that kills all electricity on Earth, including batteries. I
Speaker 1: remember that detail is that it was also gonna kill batteries.
Speaker 1: I don't know how that scientifically works, but you know,
Speaker 1: essentially plunging the planet into the dark ages. This wouldn't
Speaker 1: do that. Obviously, there's systems in place that would you know,
Speaker 1: back up and all of that, but it would absolutely
Speaker 1: cause mass panic and chaos if this happened to us today.
Speaker 1: Oh no, kidding, We almost got close in If you
Speaker 1: are up on your dystopian disaster news, then you might
Speaker 1: have heard of this solar flare. It missed earth sorbit
Speaker 1: by only nine days. And no, you are absolutely right
Speaker 1: in a way, the Victorian era was better prepared for
Speaker 1: this eventuality than the modern era. Max, could we get
Speaker 1: some dystopian music? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly the kind
Speaker 1: that's like, um, the little known third film in the
Speaker 1: Escape franchise, Escape from Atlanta, which is entirely about snake
Speaker 1: trying to make a left turn on Peach Tree. It's
Speaker 1: three hours long, but I love that regional that was
Speaker 1: pa reuely worth it. Um. But no, man, I mean,
Speaker 1: it really is something that we need to you know,
Speaker 1: kind of not like live in fear of. I mean,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about on stuff that I want you
Speaker 1: to know is that's really no way to live. And again,
Speaker 1: I mean you know, scientists are aware of this phenomenon.
Speaker 1: We know that to quote Babs, I believe from BBS
Speaker 1: and but how to America, the sun sucks, but it
Speaker 1: also is like the source of all life on the
Speaker 1: planet Earth. But it is a very powerful thing that
Speaker 1: we have no control over whatsoever. And Max, thank you
Speaker 1: for keeping that movie music going. Here's what happens. According
Speaker 1: to expert estimates, a Carrington Class CME today would cost
Speaker 1: between point six and two point six trillion dollars worth
Speaker 1: of damage in the US alone and could possibly wipe
Speaker 1: out We would definitely wipe out huge swaths of the
Speaker 1: global electric grid, but it could plunge the entire world
Speaker 1: into darkness. New England in the US is especially vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Like you said, no electronic payment systems at grocery stores,
Speaker 1: gas stations, de'll crash post pandemic. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are operating cash less, so you wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: access the things you use for your daily life. A
Speaker 1: t M S wouldn't work. Television signals would be disrupted,
Speaker 1: satellites would be disrupted, Planes flying over the ocean would
Speaker 1: have communication blackouts. They would all the sudden be flying blind.
Speaker 1: Astronauts you might think would be especially vulnerable, but it
Speaker 1: turns out they have planned ahead. They have radiation hardened
Speaker 1: little uh almost like solar panic rooms at the International
Speaker 1: Space Station, and if they had enough time, enough of
Speaker 1: the lead up, they could also just enter their individual vehicles,
Speaker 1: leave the I S S and come home. But like
Speaker 1: you said, ma'am, we can't really live in fear of this.
Speaker 1: We just have to know that it's always in the cards,
Speaker 1: like a gamma ray blast, which is not going to
Speaker 1: turn us into planet full of holts. That would just
Speaker 1: that would end us very quickly totally. But Ben really
Speaker 1: just to throw this up. I mean, we're pretty much there.
Speaker 1: But the magnetosphere, right, we talked about that at the
Speaker 1: very top of the show. That is the naturally occurring
Speaker 1: guess you know, most of the protections on planet Earth
Speaker 1: are and all the things we're talking about today are
Speaker 1: barrier around the planet that shields us from radiation like
Speaker 1: from the Sun. And yet these mass ejections are able
Speaker 1: to kind of just cut right through it like a
Speaker 1: hot knife through butter What why is that? Uh? And
Speaker 1: and and and is there is something that we should
Speaker 1: be more concerned about about the depletion of of the
Speaker 1: you know, this magnetosphere. Yeah, so the magneto sphere is
Speaker 1: incredibly important to life on Earth. It does protect us
Speaker 1: from radiation, It protect excess from a lot of the
Speaker 1: plasma emitted by the Sun, which is you know, for
Speaker 1: convenience sake, one au away from us. You can see
Speaker 1: simulations of how the solar events affect the magnetosphere on
Speaker 1: places like NASA, Space dot gov. So here's what happens.
Speaker 1: When the same is moving towards Earth, right and it
Speaker 1: reaches it, There's this shock wave of traveling mass because
Speaker 1: remember this is tons of stuff, and this disrupts Earth's
Speaker 1: magnetosphere by compressing it on what we can call the
Speaker 1: day side and then extending it on the night side,
Speaker 1: extending its magnetic tail. And then when the magnetosphere reconnects,
Speaker 1: it releases power on this terra watt scale and that
Speaker 1: is directed back towards Earth's upper atmosphere. So that's what
Speaker 1: he's doing. It's pushing the magnetosphere. I got it. So
Speaker 1: definitely not you know, obviously the ozone is its own thing,
Speaker 1: but we're probably relatively safe overall from the Sun's radio activity, right, well,
Speaker 1: as safe as we can be. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: The Sun is also my ancient nemesis, so I never
Speaker 1: trusted it. But you know, it's done good work. It
Speaker 1: has done good work. That's inarguable, and if anything, this
Speaker 1: lets us appreciate how fortunate we are in so many
Speaker 1: of our our day to day lives. Right now as
Speaker 1: we speak, a lot of scientists spend a great deal
Speaker 1: of time trying to better predict the possibility of the
Speaker 1: solar events and also to figure out ways to better
Speaker 1: protect humans and all our human toys from an angry,
Speaker 1: tantrum prone son. Yeah, and it's one of these things where,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd like to believe in the past, you
Speaker 1: know that science has kind of been the voice of
Speaker 1: reason and in the room with this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and that people in charge listen to scientists. But unfortunately
Speaker 1: we've spent a long time in a society and in
Speaker 1: a period where scientists have kind of been shoved aside,
Speaker 1: right and maybe not listened to as they should. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we're moving away from that a little bit, but this
Speaker 1: stuff matters, right, Yeah. Absolutely. We are currently on solar
Speaker 1: cycle twenty five, or the sun spots cycle, is believed
Speaker 1: to be about eleven years long. Cycle twenty four, the
Speaker 1: one that just ended, was kind of weak. It had
Speaker 1: fewer sun spots than usual, and this has led experts
Speaker 1: to believe that CYCLED twenty five may uh Cycled twenty
Speaker 1: five maybe the big one. It may actually be the
Speaker 1: strongest on record. And these again or experts, these aren't
Speaker 1: quacks who are saying this. One of the biggest predictions
Speaker 1: is that things could be especially dicey as we reached
Speaker 1: the solar maximum in so we've got some time to plan. No,
Speaker 1: we've got some time to plan our action movie characters.
Speaker 1: I want an ipatch? What about you? Um? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: could be the snake plisken to my Steve Bushmy, he
Speaker 1: does have an ipatch? Got about that? Yeah? Was Steve Mishammy?
Speaker 1: Who else was in? Who? Wh who's the crew in Armageddon?
Speaker 1: There's definitely Bruce Willis? Yeah? Was there Steve Bushemy? And?
Speaker 1: Why am I losing my mind here? All the second
Speaker 1: Armageddon cast? I don't want to miss a thing? Ben Affleck,
Speaker 1: Ben Affleck, he's a good looking one, Thorn. He's also
Speaker 1: pretty good looking. Admittedly, we've got live Tyler, isn't it?
Speaker 1: But I sweart of got there was some kind of
Speaker 1: there was a ragtag band of these of these dudes.
Speaker 1: Let's see, we've got Billy, Bob, ben Affleck Lift, Tyler,
Speaker 1: will Pest, Steve but Shemmy as Rockhound. Yes, so I
Speaker 1: will be. I'll be the rockhound to your snake Plisken.
Speaker 1: And there we have it. We'd love to hear what
Speaker 1: your plans are for what action movie character you would
Speaker 1: be in this dystopian but hopefully temporary scenario. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I said the S word, nol. We've got to wrap
Speaker 1: it up. Thanks to everybody so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1: Shout out to our superproducers Casey Pegram and Max Williams.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks to Alex Williams the uh uh, the Owen
Speaker 1: Wilson to Max as Luke or vice versa, whichever. I
Speaker 1: don't know. We'll have to let them decide. Um who
Speaker 1: composed our theme Alex did in fact hughes thanks to
Speaker 1: Christopher hasciotes here in spirit, Eves, Jeff Coats, Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: the Notorious Quister who shall be returning very soon. Though
Speaker 1: it really has nothing to do with anything that we
Speaker 1: want or don't want. He's kind of just something that
Speaker 1: happens to people, you know, like as cme and of
Speaker 1: course thanks to our own angry son, Gabe Bluesier. No,
Speaker 1: this was a good one. And you know, I'm glad
Speaker 1: we took the time to make this a two parter
Speaker 1: because we're literally talking about the end of the world
Speaker 1: as we know it. I'm just glad it took the
Speaker 1: time to make it an acceptable and reasonable two parter.
Speaker 1: So now we don't have to do another episode. We
Speaker 1: always want to do another episode, and why not do
Speaker 1: some more about the end of the world. Let us
Speaker 1: know your favorite end of the world stories ridiculous at
Speaker 1: i heeart media dot com. Swear to god it works
Speaker 1: this time, y'all. We've tested it and double tested it,
Speaker 1: and it in fact does transmit information to both Ben
Speaker 1: and I and Max. In fact, and speaking of end
Speaker 1: of the world scenarios, a little tease for our next episode.
Speaker 1: It involves something kind of resembling a plague of locusts. Um,
Speaker 1: let's leave it at that. We'll see you next time.
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