Vanished Family. Classified Doodle. Silent Explosion.
What do a family that vanished into the Siberian wilderness, a doodle on hotel stationery, a colony of bacteria, and an explosion missing its own explosion have in common? All four of these stories are true. Only one of them has an ending. In this episode of Gotta Be Kidding Me, host Tammy Coron follows four stories where the obvious answer turns out to be wrong, missing, or classified for 78 years.
We cover the Lykov family, Russian Old Believers who fled 250 kilometers into the taiga in 1936 and stayed hidden so long that World War II, the Cold War and the moon landing all happened without them; the Eastern Airlines pilot who sketched a wingless, window-lined object on hotel stationery in 1948, a drawing that stayed buried in Air Force files until this month's fourth PURSUE UAP release; the Baylor researchers who found that genetically identical bacteria split into donors and recipients under antibiotic pressure, passing survival proteins between cells in what amounts to a microscopic mutual aid network; and the deep-space explosion spotted by China's Einstein Probe that matched every signature of a gamma-ray burst except the gamma rays.
History, microbiology, astrophysics, declassified government files, all delivered in about five minutes with no jargon and zero apologies.
🎙️ New episodes drop about every two weeks. Subscribe so you never miss a story, and visit us at gottabekidding.me for the full articles behind every episode. While you're there, sign up for our free newsletter for even more "wait, what?" moments delivered straight to your inbox. You can also find us on X and Bluesky at @shockandscroll.
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