Do Nice Guys Really Finish Last. I'm Tim Harford, host of the Cautionary Tales

podcast and I'm exploring that very question. Join me for my new miniseries on the art of fairness. From New York to Tahiti will examine

villains undone by their villainy, monstrous self-devouring egos and accounts of the extraordinary

power of decency.

Listen on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and

Grim and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Space is infinite. There is so much we don't know about the countless

stars and galaxies that surround our tiny rock of a planet and yet we continue to explore. We send rockets and satellites and

other technologies out into the unknown, hoping for a little insight into the

endless void around us.

But in 1958, a Soviet scientist noticed something peculiar on one specific rock,

one we've been looking at for millennia, and his alleged discovery, if proven true, was on track

to change the course of history forever.

His name was Nikolai Koserov, an astrophysicist who made a name for himself in the 1930s as one of the co-founders of theoretical

astrophysics.

And it was early November of 1958 when Nikolai observed the surface of the moon, and that's when he spotted a red cloud of gas

pluming from the middle of the crater Alphonse.

He believed what he had witnessed was

...