The Mad Scientist
True Weird Stuff
Now! Media
4.9 • 655 Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2024
⏱️ 91 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Mad Scientist
Jack Parsons was one of the fathers of the American space age who helped put man on the moon. He invented solid rocket fuel, co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and he was also an occultist. He was written out of a lot of NASA's history because of his antics: he was the leader of a black-magic sex mansion, ate menstrual cakes, and was frenemies with L. Ron Hubbard. Jack Parsons was the definition of a mad scientist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, true weirdos, at the end of this episode, stick around if you want for a little bonus content and conversation. |
| 0:09.5 | The moon doesn't show us her whole face. The dark side or far side of the moon is always turned away from Earth. |
| 0:17.2 | We can't see how battered and pockmarked it is from eons of debris slamming into its dusty surface. |
| 0:25.3 | The scars left behind from that pummeling are called impact craters. One of those is named for the |
| 0:31.2 | person who invented the very thing that made early space exploration possible, one of the daddies of the American |
| 0:40.4 | space age. The crater itself is nothing special at all, and it's hidden forever from our view, |
| 0:47.7 | which is a little bit sad given how much we owe its namesake. It feels disrespectful. |
| 0:59.5 | What could be the reason for such an obscure tribute? |
| 1:01.3 | Could it be? |
| 1:05.2 | Because the rocket scientist who gave that crater its name was a blood-drinking, orgy-hosting high priest of magical occult sex rituals? |
| 1:13.6 | And they got a small beam of light against the mirror. |
| 1:16.6 | True. True weird stuff. |
| 1:36.1 | It wasn't from page news back in |
| 1:39.1 | 1952. |
| 1:40.8 | The Sacramento Bee ran it on page 10. |
| 1:43.7 | A tragic accident is what they called it. |
| 1:46.3 | And then a grieving mother driven to suicide. |
| 1:50.3 | The deceased was identified as John Whiteside Parsons, age 37, chemist and rocket expert. |
| 1:58.1 | It was an explosion in his garage, a terrible accident that occurred as |
| 2:02.1 | Parsons was packing up a box full of chemicals. The blast ripped through the walls of Parsons' |
| 2:07.8 | home laboratory, tore through the floor and ceiling. It's a wonder no one else in the apartment |
| 2:13.6 | building was injured. Army ordinance experts from nearby Fort Murray were called in to |
... |
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