Oddity Shop
This podcast examines the oddities of the world...Cryptids to Conspiracies, Cults to Curiosities, Myths to Mysteries, and so much more! Stop by the shop, where the bizarre is always on sale... Each week your curators, Kara Perakovic and Zach Palmer will be opening the shop and sharing stories with you.
Oddity Shop
Vanishing Points: Earth's Most Isolated Places
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This week, your Curator Kara is taking us on a fieldtrip to Earths Poles of Inaccessibility.
Ever wonder what it feels like to stand somewhere so far from civilization that your closest neighbors are astronauts floating above you in space? That's the reality at Point Nemo, just one of the extraordinarily isolated places we explore in this episode.
We journey to seven of the planet's most remote locations, from the frozen Antarctic wasteland where a solitary bust of Vladimir Lenin faces Moscow in silent watch, to a volcanic island where mysterious abandoned lifeboats appear with no explanation. These aren't just geographical oddities—they're places where reality feels stretched thin and strange stories echo in the emptiness.
Whether you're dreaming of escaping modern life or simply fascinated by Earth's hidden corners, join us for this journey to the edges of the map—and decide which isolated paradise might be your perfect getaway.
References:
- NASA Space Debris FAQs
- British Antarctic Survey
- Guinness World Records - Most Remote Statue
- CIA World Factbook – Bouvet Island
- Mystery Reference: “The Bouvet Island Lifeboat Mystery,” Fortean Times (2000s)
- Tristan da Cunha Government Website
- BBC Profile on Tristan da Cunha
- National Geographic on Rub’ al Khali
- U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
- NASA – Atacama Testing
- Smithsonian on Atacama Mummies
- NOAA Bloop Summary Page
- https://www.livescience.com/64913-bloop-sound.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_of_inaccessibility
Shop MI Mystical Forest on Etsy – where spirit meets craftsmanship.
For a limited time, enter code “oddball” at checkout to receive 10% off plus a free pendulum. Or simply Click Here
Each Week at the Oddity Shop, Your Curators Kara and Zach will bring you Creepy, Strange, Weird Bizarre Stories from around the globe!
The Shop's phone lines are open! Give us a call and leave a voicemail (Or two!) with your creepy personal tale/oddity, and it could be featured on a future episode!
616.320.4935
JOIN US ON PATREON: Click Here!
Join the Oddity Shop on Patreon for Day Early Access to Episodes and tons of bonus content!!!
Visit our Website to learn more!
Email Us at: oddityshoppodcast.com
www.OddityShopPodcast.com
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Affiliate programs are designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to the partner site.
I want to dance with the mothman at the ID shop, baked in the moonlight at the ID shop. Creep through the graveyard to the ID shop. The door's always open at the Oddity Shop. What's up, oddballs? Welcome back to the Oddity Shop, the podcast where we tell you creepy, odd, weird, strange, bizarre stories, bizarre. I knew one of those words came out wrong, but my brain wouldn't let me know which one it was. I'm like I'm gonna just keep going. Bizarre stories from around the globe. I liked it. Oh, this one over here who likes it is our curator, kara hi, kara, hello, and I'm your other curatorary. I said it like you do. I don't like full naming myself.
Speaker 1:I feel like I'm in trouble with myself. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. How are you? Well, I'm tired, you're tired. We already talked about that, but besides us being tired, listen.
Speaker 1:I've had four sips of caffeine. I can already feel it pumping through my veins.
Speaker 2:I'm just gaslighting myself. I'm good, though. Otherwise, what's new in your world? Oh, I'll tell you about. I might've told you, but we'll tell all the listeners about my Sunday anxiety attack that ruined my day. Saturday I went to a wedding great wedding, had so much fun.
Speaker 1:And you looked super cute doing it. Thank you.
Speaker 2:On the way out the door to go to the wedding I had grabbed a tote bag and I threw like my purse, dumped my purse out in there, put the purse that I was bringing to the wedding in there and a bunch of other crap that I thought we might need, you know, because it was hot outside, I don't know that you never need.
Speaker 2:I know, but you know I like to be prepared. I throw it all in there, whatever. I'm in the car, kind of like putting my lipstick on my boobs. So I was like, okay, so I get into Walgreens and I don't have my wallet, it's not my purse. I'm like, oh, it's probably in that tote bag, it's in that tote bag in the cart, blah, blah, blah. So I call Aaron, aaron runs in, he just pays, cool, whatever. I don't even think about it. We go to the wedding. I'm in the the wedding, but I'm at the wedding.
Speaker 1:You're doing the wedding things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and at one point my purse was sitting on the chair and it fell off the back of the chair and so some ladies like your purse fell and she picked it up and like my phone had fallen out, like my lipstick, cool, whatever. Again, totally fine, all right, cool, I don't ever need my wallet while we're there. It was an open bar and, like you don't, they don't really card you out, right, so I didn't need it. So, anyway, I'm so annoyed right now. Okay, so anyway, I go home. Fine, I wake up the next morning. It's like I'm gonna have a great productive day. Wake up at 8am and I'm like, putting everything back together out of the tote bag or whatever, can't find my wallet. I'm like, damn, I can't find my wallet. So I start panicking. Aaron's at a looking through everything on my bags, my old per, whatever. I'm like, well, I never really had it at Walgreens, so maybe I didn't break it, but I'm looking everywhere it should be, can't find it. Long story short.
Speaker 1:I freeze all my cards. Make an appointment for the DMV because I'm obviously doing both of those two things is such an annoying process. It is way harder than it should be.
Speaker 2:No, it's not. I went into the app and froze, froze, froze. It took me five minutes. My mom's, like you, froze all three cards.
Speaker 1:I said I froze four oh god, I can never remember my login, any of that kind of shit.
Speaker 2:It takes me forever do you not log into your bank accounts on a regular?
Speaker 1:I do on my phone, but do you have pnc? So the app locks a bunch of shit out that you have to then get on a desktop log into your online banking to actually get into like anything for control. So dumb. It's so annoying.
Speaker 2:Well, anyway, that was the hard part. But then I had to go make a DMV appointment and the only day I have off is Friday. We have an event on Friday night, so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have to be there at the ass cracker dawn. Then I'm looking at all the forms that you have to bring with you if you've lost your ID and I don't know where my social security card is. I have not been able to find it in like five years, which is really bad. I should probably do something about that, but I've never really needed it. And now I'm panicking.
Speaker 1:Do you want to know how you guarantee you can find it? Order a new one.
Speaker 2:And then you'll yeah.
Speaker 1:Then you'll magically find it Right Without fail.
Speaker 2:Long story short, I'm like panicking, but I'm trying to scatter to get the rest of these documents because I'm like Friday's going to come up quicker than I need it to be and I need to get everything organized. But I'm panicking all day. It ruined my entire day. I wasn't productive at all. I didn't do one thing that I wanted to, except for sit on the couch and just like have an anxiety attack. But I'm calling Aaron and then like hey, can you check the car? And he's like I'm like, okay, it's fine, I get it. And so he, when he could, he went out there. He's like I've looked everywhere, I don't see it. Call the golf course. They didn't answer, but I left a message. They finally called me back. They're like we didn't find a wallet.
Speaker 1:There's no worse feeling.
Speaker 2:Long story short. Third time, hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. Later have it and I'm like, I'm almost on tears. I'm like, oh my God. I walk out to the car, I open the driver's side door, I lean right on over to the passenger seat, where you buckle yourself and there's my fucking wallet.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why you don't ever ask a straight man to find something.
Speaker 2:I can't you do the same thing?
Speaker 1:I would. I would be lost without Julia, who always knows where my car keys are. Maybe it should be just man. You never ask a man to find something.
Speaker 2:So that was my treacherous anxiety attack that spiraled me for hours on Sunday, making me not even be able to do anything I wanted to do for no fucking reason. At least you found it. Oh, I'm so thankful it could be worse and I ordered a new wallet, because the whole dumb part about this is is that I have a air tag and it fits into a wallet yeah, a card thing but my wallet is too thin and it won't fit in it, so I have my air tag in my fucking purse. Well, clearly, that doesn't work when the wallet gets lost or stolen, so I had to order a new wallet that will fit the air tag. There we go, so that I never have to fucking go solutions in place.
Speaker 1:Look at you. But now that you found your wallet and I'm mostly saying this here, so I remind ourselves when I go to edit this but you and I have to order hotels for the kentucky trip coming up. Yep, we need to start planning that.
Speaker 2:I also think we should get a rental car a rental car yeah, because I don't want to put any more miles on my car and you shouldn't put more anymore in yours I don't even put 10 000 on it a year.
Speaker 1:we my car. Okay, I'm not paying for a rental car.
Speaker 2:Shit. We could get a decent rental car. Whatever, if you want to drive, that's fine.
Speaker 1:We're taking my car. All you got to do is drive to me. Okay, what else do we have?
Speaker 2:Well, what do you have? You've given us nothing.
Speaker 1:I literally just gave you the reminder in the. I went to Pride this weekend. I went kayaking. Okay, been trying to be outside and not die from allergies or smoke inhalation, because the whole Midwest is just covered in California, not California, canada, wildfire smoke.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's gotten better over here, not for you.
Speaker 1:Today was the first day. It wasn't an advisory, so I just had the normal allergies on my walk. At least it's nice out, so I'm not going to complain. No, you cannot? All right? All right, let's get this door open, okay. Shop whatever this is.
Speaker 2:Imagine standing in a place so far from civilization that the closest humans are floating 250 miles above you in space.
Speaker 1:Oh, that sounds amazing.
Speaker 2:That's not fiction, it's real and it's the beginning. That sounds amazing. That's not fiction, it's real and it's the beginning. Tonight, we're taking you to the fringes of the map, places where silent stretches for miles and strange stories echo in the static.
Speaker 1:I'm going to just have like a cheat sheet up on the side for all these places I want to go to get away from humans. This will be where I do my bed rotting for those of you who watch the outtakes. If you know, you know Okay.
Speaker 2:All right. So first a little knowledge for us and a question for Zachary.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm glad I didn't give you a shit about it. I thought about it.
Speaker 2:What is a pole of inaccessibility?
Speaker 1:I have literally never heard the phrase before, but I'm going to say the North. I've literally never heard the phrase before, but I'm going to say the.
Speaker 2:North Pole, because I don't think you can get there. So in geography, a pole of inaccessibility is the most remote point within a given area, typically the hardest place to reach from any boundary like a coastline or edge of landmass. It's defined by specific geographical.
Speaker 1:You sounded out the first one, so good, come on, you can do it. For anyone who can't see her face, the. She had pride in her eyes when she got geographical on the first try and then immediately the face turned to fear because I even spell out my words.
Speaker 2:Uh, what is it called when you um? Phonetically phonetically, and I still cannot do it sometimes, because then I overthink the phonetics that I put in there and then I fuck it up. So it's uh criterion, perfect. So the geographical criterion, often meaning the point farthest from any coast, making it the ultimate spot of isolation, oh my God, isolation.
Speaker 1:If you're new here, hey two for three, though you did good.
Speaker 2:So, for example, on land, it's the spot farthest inland, unreachable without long overland travel. At sea, it's the point farthest from land, gotcha Okay, In technical terms it's like the center of the largest possible circle that fits within that area without touching any outer edge. Okay, but because coastlines can like be fuzzy or change over time, you know, due to tides, erosion, all that kind of stuff, poles of inaccessibility can also shift or be imprecise. Accessibility can also shift or be imprecise. That makes sense, okay. So I was thinking about us a while ago when we were talking about how we wanted to just live in the mountains and be like unbothered, isolated, like totally left alone.
Speaker 2:And then I remembered that I had been. I had heard about this place that's very secluded, and then I started thinking about all these strange secluded places in the world that are just like how do they exist? Well, do you know what I mean? Because it's like wait. What do you mean?
Speaker 1:Right right. It's just kind of unfathomable when we have everything that can be delivered in like Exactly. So I'm like how?
Speaker 2:are these places like this? So I have seven of them.
Speaker 1:Holy shit.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:All right, so the one that kind of got me down this spiral is called Point Nemo. Have you ever heard?
Speaker 1:I'm going to say maybe, because it sounds familiar. Apparently there are like tic-tacs going around about this. I think I did see a tic-tac recently. That's not how I saw it, but I heard somebody say that.
Speaker 2:All right, so this is called the spacecraft graveyard. Okay, isn't that wild when you think about a spacecraft graveyard. So location is south pacific ocean.
Speaker 1:No human lives within 1400 nautical miles in any direction is there any land within it that you could even live?
Speaker 2:no, no, but it's just crazy that.
Speaker 1:It is unfathomable to think of, but I was just wondering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well, there might be. Actually, I shouldn't even lie to you, there could be, yeah. Like a little island, so that's further than the International Space Station is above Earth Crazy. So you are closer to the International Space Station than you are to Point Nemo.
Speaker 1:That's like it gives you the same brain-breaking effect when they're like you live closer to Cleopatra than Cleopatra did to the creation of the pyramid.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's why this is like mine. It's just crazy. So since the 90s it's been used as a spacecraft cemetery Over 260 defunct, which is not new satellites, including Russia's Mir space station, isn't that they just jump? Dump them there.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, because after a while they just sort of like fall out of the sky when they stop maintaining them. Well, right.
Speaker 2:But also it's just like, ok, you could just drop them here, because nobody is around, it's not going to affect anything, which is crazy.
Speaker 1:Because we treat the entire planet like a garbage.
Speaker 2:Can I know. And if the deep isolation doesn't creep you out, consider this. In 1997, noah, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, recorded a mysterious sound, the infamous bloop oh, I okay, and it almost done an episode on that or the hum.
Speaker 2:The bloop isn't really that. It's not that big to do a whole episode, but it was not that far from Point Nemo. No, so the deep blue is the deep sea mystery. What is it? So? Noah picked up an ultra low frequency sound from the deep, sound from deep in the Pacific Ocean. It was louder than any known sea creature and it came from nowhere near any tectonic activity. So the location was roughly 50 degrees south, 100 degrees west, like a remote stretch of ocean west of the southern tip of South Africa, and the sound description is a powerful, gurgling, organic-sounding bloop that could be heard over 5,000 kilometers away by underwater microphones.
Speaker 1:Kraken burping Mystery solved.
Speaker 2:So the theories of that are a massive undiscovered sea creature. So the Kraken Icequakes, which are large icebergs cracking or moving, and that's pretty much what the current official explanation is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could see that making like a gurgling sound.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or something unnatural. The kind of frequency used in deep sea communication so kind of like aliens, is kind of what they're thinking Always. So that is Point Nemo and the mysterious loop.
Speaker 1:I love that every unexplained thing on this planet always has an alien conspiracy.
Speaker 2:And they probably all are aliens. Okay, stop number two.
Speaker 1:All right, hit me with it.
Speaker 2:In Artico's poll of inaccessibility. Lenin's watchtower.
Speaker 1:I have never heard of this one.
Speaker 2:So this isn't the South Pole. It's colder, lonelier and nearly impossible to reach. The point on the continent furthest from the ocean Left behind by Soviet explorers in the 1950s is a bust of Vladimir Lenin, who was a Russian revolutionary politician and political theorist, and he was the first head of government of the Soviet of Soviet Russia in 1917 until his death in 1924. So they just brought a bust of him and just put him there. It's still there.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, dictators love nothing more than busts, I know right.
Speaker 2:There's no building left, just the frozen remains of the mission and a silent statue facing Moscow, as if waiting for the orders.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine if you were like, if there was like a tribe of people out there or something and you've lived alone. The whole time and you just stumble across that. Then all of a sudden he becomes your new god. I'd be really scared.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that probably would be your new god. In 1958, the Soviet Union established a short-lived research station at this remote spot during the third soviet antarctic expedition. The base perched in kempland at the staggering evolution of elevation there you go of 3 724 meters, and it lies 878 kilometers from the South Pole and about 600 kilometers from the I can't, oh, I didn't Svatskia station.
Speaker 1:Perfect.
Speaker 2:And it's considered to have the coldest year around. Average temperature on Earth negative 58.2 Celsius, which is negative 72.8 Fahrenheit.
Speaker 1:Okay, so far we're two for two that I don't want to move to. One's too wet, one's too cold, okay, 72.2.
Speaker 2:Celsius, which is negative 72.8 Fahrenheit.
Speaker 1:Okay, so far we're two for two that I don't want to move to One's too wet, one's too cold, okay, so number three then.
Speaker 2:Okay, and this might be the Goldilocks, bouvet Island, the Phantom Lifeboat.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm intrigued Location.
Speaker 2:South Atlantic. It's a peak of volcanic rock covered in glaciers glaciers owned by Norway. Bouve Island is the most remote island in the world, 1,700 kilometers north of Antarctica, 2,520 kilometers southwest of South Africa, and it is surrounded by over 90% glacier coverage.
Speaker 2:Oh so it's cold again. Yeah, top topped with an ice-filled volcanic crater at its center. Despite being in the north atlantic circle, bouvet is, uh, often mistaken for a part of antarctica, but it sits around the antarctic treaty system, making it a rare geopolitical outlier which is also just wild to think of, like how many places do you have ice on a volcano?
Speaker 1:I know like I'm sure that probably happens more than I know, but it also just doesn't. Yeah, it takes my brain a second.
Speaker 2:I would say it doesn't make your brain feel good no, no, warm and fuzzies in my brain, uh in 1864, a british research team found something chilling an abandoned lifeboat. No people, no wreckage, no explanation. The boat was gone when they returned later and no one has ever claimed it did they obviously not the answer.
Speaker 1:I was saying like did it say what ship it was from or anything?
Speaker 2:that is kind of mysterious they have absolutely no idea yikes and in such a secluded area that nobody is so isolated. How?
Speaker 1:did it get there? Yeah, it had to have just floated there Like over time.
Speaker 2:So weird, though. Okay, we are moving on to number four.
Speaker 1:Looking for my perfect spot.
Speaker 2:Tristan da Cunha. The island time forgot, oh. Location South Atlantic Ocean. 1700 miles from the nearest continent. South Atlantic Ocean. 1,700 miles from the nearest continent. Tristan da Cunha is often called the most isolated settlement on earth. This rugged volcanic island lies 2,400 kilometers from the nearest mainland, south Africa, and 3,360, oh my God, 3,360 kilometers from South Africa, 3,360 kilometers from South Africa, america, I mean, I just said South Africa. This island is a volcanic peak rising from the ocean, with steep forbidding cliffs and just one flat area.
Speaker 1:Is there a Jimmy John's? No, I don't know if this one's it either. All right.
Speaker 2:You have like one flat spot that you could just chill on. I mean, that like.
Speaker 1:I obviously haven't seen it, but based on what you just described, it sounds like a perfect place for a castle, for boating cliffs and all volcanic, because it's literally coming out of the water and it's just like, yeah, it'd be cool.
Speaker 2:OK, OK, I'm almost sold. Yeah, OK. So number five is the empty quarter, which is Rubelkali. Lost Cities. Location Arabian Peninsula, also known as Atlantis of the Sands.
Speaker 2:This is the largest sand desert in the world 250,000 square miles of burning silence. Legends claim that Rubelkali hides ancient civilizations swallowed by the dunes Atlantis of the sands, they call it. Most famous is the mythical city of Ubar, said to be a wealthy desert trading hub of the frankincense route. Cursed by a god and buried for its descendants were its descendants Described in the Quran as Iram of the pillars. In the early 1990s, nasa's satellite image revealed underground ruins and ancient caravan routes in the region.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think I have heard of this one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, archaeologists believe they may have located Ubar's remains near. Entering the empty quarters is dangerous. If the heat doesn't get you, the shifting sands might.
Speaker 1:Okay, I have a question, though going backwards for a minute what exactly does burning silence mean?
Speaker 2:Like the silence is so silent it's burning you. I think it's just the hot sand it could be. But you know like when it's so silent it's just like everything is, like you're so aware of it that it's like fucked up I want to try.
Speaker 1:Okay, total side note real quick. Sorry, but those rooms that are like so silent, apparently you can hear your own blood moving and like people go crazy in there that would be burning silence I want to try it just to see, because I know I wouldn't last long what are those called um?
Speaker 1:like deprivation chambers deprivation but it's like, yeah, they have this one room where it's like there's so much padding on it that like you can hear your blood pumping like through your own body and like people do not last long in there and I'm like I feel like I could do an hour.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you just go to jail and you can get put in the, or is it prison?
Speaker 1:The drunk tank. The padded cells, I think those are asylums boo-boo Padded cells.
Speaker 2:Asylum? Oh no, I think you can be. If you're that bad of an inmate, you get locked in like the isolation. I think you have padded cells. We'll just put you in one of those. It's like the same thing.
Speaker 1:As long as I can bounce around If they don't put you upper legs. Okay, okay, okay, sorry, back to it upper legs.
Speaker 2:It's being sick's favorite all right. Number six north america's pole of inaccessibility forgotten plains location.
Speaker 2:Near kyle, south dakota, far from any ocean, in the middle of the great plains lies a spot with nothing but wind dry gap, dry grass only when I visit you are farther from the sea here than anywhere else on the continent 1650 kilometers from the nearest coast, which is gulf of mexico, pacific or Hudson Bay, and 1,000 miles from saltwater in every direction. The site sits in the ancestral territory of the Ogalla Lakota Nation and some Lakota elders say spirits move through these plains, unsettled by the silence. It's not marked, not monumented, just empty.
Speaker 1:That I will believe with the little bits that I've been through south dakota. Oh yeah, also, when I was there they took me to their like biggest lake at least the biggest lake in their area because I work in south dakota for those who don't know and their big lake compared to michigan, like even our inland lakes have this thing beat. Okay, like we would be like, oh, that's like a small, like I can just kayak around that and yeah, but that's like their big lake yeah, you just have.
Speaker 1:There's no water there, I don't think that's sad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, okay. So the atacama desert is earth's closest to mars like the closest, like in makeup to mars.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, I'm thinking like, wait, is somebody closer to earth's close?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's like yeah, so location chile. Uh, nasa calls it the best mars analog on earth. Uh, the desert stretches over 1 000000 kilometers. Is that kilometers or kilometers? Kilometers? I've been saying kilometers, haven't I? Um, I have. Why would you not correct me?
Speaker 1:Because you've been on a roll, you've been doing really good with your words. We'll let a couple slide.
Speaker 2:Kilometers. I kept saying it and I'm like that's not, that doesn't sound right.
Speaker 1:I think it's like potato potato.
Speaker 2:No, I think it's kilometers, and it has to just be that. Whatever Doesn't matter, thank you. Along with the Pacific coast, uh, flanked by the Andes mountains to the east and the coastal range to the west, which blocks nearly all moisture from both sides, so it's dry, uh. Some weather stations, uh, here, have never recorded rainfall. Oh my god, mummified remains from 7 000 years ago still lie in the open untouched, uh, and some say the desert never gave up its ghosts, only buried them in salt and time which they're probably all still there, like I.
Speaker 1:I went down a rabbit hole on modern-ish mummies and how like it can happen, in your house people get mummified. If they just die in their house and they don't have enough like humidity, like in like arizona and stuff, people will just start to mummify yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So it's also known as like the home of mysteries. So the Atacama humanoid, a six inch long mummified skeleton found in 2003, sparked wild claims of alien origin. Dna tests later identified it as a human fetus with rare mutations. But the debate still steers up some conspiracies.
Speaker 1:Like a full skeleton at six inches. Yeah it's weird. I just don't know how that would be. That's an alien. Yeah, I can't see that being a fetus because, like you, wouldn't at six inches. This is. I know very little about pregnancy, but I feel like you wouldn't have a full blown skeleton.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know either, but somebody else can tell us UFO sightings. So the desert's crystal clear skies make it a hotspot for alien-like observations and speculation. Geoglyphs, so giant ancient carvings. It is geoglyphs, right? Yes, giant ancient carvings, like the Atacama Giants, which still puzzles archaeologists. So what is it? It's etched into the side of the Chilean Hill and it's a giant, massive geoglyph, a figure created by rearranging stones and earth to reveal a large scale image, only fully visible from above or afar.
Speaker 1:I have seen a picture of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think stuff like that is so cool because when you're up close you're like, oh whatever, it looks like rocks. And then you're far away or above, you're like, oh my God, how did they even create that and how did they know they got it right? That's what I don't understand. It's crazy. So the towering human humanoid figure looms silently over the desert, arms outstretched, head adorned with strange antenna-like protrusions.
Speaker 1:Aliens, for sure.
Speaker 2:All right, so we did all seven. Now we're going to play a game. Okay, inhabited or not.
Speaker 1:Ooh.
Speaker 2:So here's where you get to guess if these secluded places are inhabited or not.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, what's the prize you win? How many do I have to get right Like a majority? Oh my God.
Speaker 2:OK, so I need to know the rules before I play Point Nemo.
Speaker 1:This is just in the middle of the water, so it's uninhabited.
Speaker 2:Inhabited? No, so the recap is it's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, completely uninhabitable, just water in every direction for over 1400 nautical miles.
Speaker 1:I feel like Kara's making this not so much to see if it's inhabited or uninhabited, it's to see how much I paid attention and now I'm very glad I had.
Speaker 2:I like it OK so the nearest humans, like we said, usually astronauts aboard the International Space Station OK, antarctica's pole of inaccessibility.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's literally called inaccessibility. But this is okay, give me one. This was the stalin one, yes or no?
Speaker 2:I'm not giving you nothing um no, not inhabited correct. So it's not inhabited, but not permanently, so the recap is extremely difficult to reach. So no permanent um stations or residents, but soviet explorers once set upon temporary camp there so you kind of could live there-ish if you wanted to.
Speaker 1:You could live there, but it's not inhabited. So I'm still taking the point.
Speaker 2:That's fine, okay, bouvet Island.
Speaker 1:All right, this one I don't know. It was close until I figured out it was ice on a volcano. If I'm correct, I'm going to go with not inhabited you are correct.
Speaker 2:So it's uninhabited volcanic island owned by the, nor by norway I'm doing good I know, covered in glaciers and, uh, difficult to land on, sometimes visited by like scientific expeditions, but no permanent residence. Okay, okay, all right, tristan, right, tristan da Cunha.
Speaker 1:Ooh, this is my castle, fortress place right. This is the spikes coming out and then the flat area I'm going to go, inhabited.
Speaker 2:So you are correct. So the recap is around 260 people live there. Oh shit, it's the most remote island on the island, or? Oh my God.
Speaker 1:The most remote island on the island. It's the most remote inhabited island on the island or, um, oh my god, the most remote island on the island.
Speaker 2:It's the most remote inhabited island on earth, no airport, only reachable by boat from south africa. It's also so remote that locals have their own like last names and dialect of english uh, you won't hear anywhere else. Okay, if the apocalypse happens, they are not going to know about it.
Speaker 1:And that's a decent amount of people to help me build a castle. Yes, Okay, I'm thinking that might be the spot.
Speaker 2:So the empty quarter Rubel Kali.
Speaker 1:Hold on, do I even remember what this one was? This wasn't where, like the Ubar place, is hidden, right? No, this is yes, okay, no, no, no I'm I'm gonna say because this one sounded like like it was in the quran and a couple other things I'm gonna go with inhabited inhabited?
Speaker 2:mostly no, so there's no cities or towns inside the core of the desert. Some bedoan tribes travel the outskirts of it seasonally, but the interior is extremely harsh and largely uninhabited I'm still taking the point for that one, because you said mostly no, it wasn't just no. Well, because it's just the outskirts that they visit. So, no, okay, north American pole of inaccessibility.
Speaker 1:Yes, inhabited, because somehow people do actually live in the state of South Dakota. Sorry if any of my co-workers are listening, love you, but also I don't know how do you do it.
Speaker 2:So inhabited sparsely. So, like you just said, it's in South Dakota. This area has some small towns and farms, but it's incredibly rural and sparsely populated, no large cities. And then our last one is the Atacama Desert.
Speaker 1:I just feel like I have to say inhibited, inhibited, not inhibited, inhibited, not inhibited, inhabited. And because, like I can't imagine that an entire desert in South America has nobody living in it, I'm going to go inhabited.
Speaker 2:You would be correct, very sparsely. So some towns and mining outposts exist on the fringes of San Pedro de Acatama. The core areas, the driest parts, are uninhabited due to that extreme, you know, lackliness of water. First of all, I'm giving myself two points for each of those I am going to give yourself, because if I were you, I would never remember any of that and I would have got everyone wrong.
Speaker 1:I remember every single one of them, and I got it all right. So I need, I need a good prize. No you're not getting one. I need a prize. Well, maybe one of our listeners will give you a prize?
Speaker 2:OK, listeners, give me a prize. So these places obviously exist on the same planet as the cities that we know and the roads that we drive, but when you stand in them, the earth feels a little alien and if you listen closely, maybe you'll hear something calling from beyond the map. I'm just being dramatic. When aren't you? Uh, so what location are you picking to live at?
Speaker 1:I think it's gotta be the um, and now I'm not gonna be able to remember the name of it, but it's my volcanic island with the flat spot for the castle and 260 people waiting to start putting it up. Rock Tristan de Cunha Rock.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Ooh, and I'll franchise a Jersey Mike's out there, so I have something to eat.
Speaker 2:So no, you can't do that, my brain just glitched. No, you cannot get a Jersey Mike's out there.
Speaker 1:No, I'm going to franchise it out there, I'm going to build it.
Speaker 2:Oh well, no, that just ruins it. If you're going to be isolated and alone, then you got to make your own farm. You got to make your, your, your alone.
Speaker 1:OK, but my farm is going to have everything that would be on a submarine sandwich.
Speaker 2:That's fine, ok, perfect.
Speaker 1:But I can live with that.
Speaker 2:All right. So I'm glad you picked a place, but before we leave, as a PSA for you and also everyone else that's listening, here are some reasons why you don't actually want to live in a secluded area in the form of Reddit stories.
Speaker 1:Is not getting Jersey Mike's listed. I bet it is.
Speaker 2:What I will say is I could not find any Reddit stories about any of these particular locations, except for somebody did live on one of the islands, but there really was no story about it other than they just lived on the island I feel like, though, that kind of helps further prove your point that they are isolated as fuck yeah they were asking about.
Speaker 2:They were on one of like a reddit forums asking about like a gaming thing because they can't get internet, like a certain internet, and the providers don't come in for until like every couple months. It was wild like I was reading it and I was like, oh my god, I don't know if I could, but they like grew up on the island I think it was where you want to move actually so they do grow, they grew up on it, so it's like all they really know and they like loved it. But like they don't get major things like normal, like it's like all scheduled though. Like if you're getting an internet provider, it's like it's like all scheduled though. Like if you're getting an Internet provider, it's like it's they're coming for everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they're not going to come back. Often it's not like they're going door to door. Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 2:OK, so anyway, these are just some Reddit stories that I found about people living in kind of secluded, isolated areas, and they're creepy, so you know. I figure I'd end us off on why you don't want to be so secluded, Zachary.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't last a day. I'll be honest. Well, I could do I've done some solo camping. I would last two to three days, okay, max.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you would. I live in a remote Inuit community of only 500. It is Inuit, right, yes, inuit. Okay, the only way to go is by plane. In June, we had a member of our community who just lost control and started to stab some family members at 8 am on a Saturday. Imagine fearing for your life but not being able to escape since there is no road.
Speaker 1:How are you stabbing people on the morning of the best day of the week? Saturday is the only day where I wake up and feel like thrilled with life.
Speaker 2:The whole drama took away three lives, plus the life of the killer, who was finally shot by our police. I was sure I was about to die. There was blood everywhere and you could hear the victims screaming until they passed away. Worst thing is, we had no doctors in town and only four nurses to help six victims. We had to bring the victims to nursing on a four-wheeler and random cars, since we have no official ambulance. The whole thing was a nightmare. Yikes, could you imagine?
Speaker 1:Not one doctor. No, I feel like if you're going to populate an uninhabited area, the first thing you need to do is make a list of the top 10 professions you want there, and a doctor should be at the top of that list, but you have to have more than one doctor.
Speaker 2:You can't just have one doctor, because what if the doctor is the one that gets stabbed?
Speaker 1:it's better than zero doctor all right?
Speaker 2:well, I'm just telling you, don't live in a secluded place with only 500 people. Make sure you have. Who do you need?
Speaker 1:okay, we would need a doctor some jersey mics oh my god uh, at least okay, a doctor, a sandwich maker, a, you can make your own sandwiches.
Speaker 2:Professions.
Speaker 1:You said we need an internet provider, an internet network engineer okay, doctor, network engineer um sandwich maker. Uh, we're at three. Um what else do you need?
Speaker 2:what professions do you think we would actually really need? Oh I I would need a um captain okay, and we also need, like a mechanic, if we do have cars and we need a builder. What's a builder? Um?
Speaker 1:a contractor? Thank you, yeah, and like a mechanic, honestly, just some sort of like highly skilled engineer who could do a lot of the a lot of things, yeah, yeah. Um. I think that might be all we need A farmer a firefighter a firefighter, a farmer a farmer that could technically be the sandwich maker. We'll replace that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1:Um.
Speaker 2:I think that's good. A doctor, nurses, a firefighter, a contractor, or, like a mechanic, a farmer, a mail person what do we need fucking mail for?
Speaker 1:Well, if you don't have internet or phone or any of those other things, like I'd want to be able to communicate with people off the island somehow. Okay, next I grew up in the middle. Oh my god, we need some form of entertainment. Why can't you be the entertainment? You just said what jobs do we need? I could be one of those jobs.
Speaker 2:Oh, I was going to say what are you going to freaking do?
Speaker 1:Play video games and dance.
Speaker 2:I grew up in the middle of the woods in Louisiana. Our closest neighbor was 20 miles away. Our house was on the hill and at the bottom of the creek. They went through that, went through the woods for miles and miles. My grandfather would always tell us there were people living in the woods, crazy inbred folks on some the hills have I shit. But I always assumed he was just trying to creep us out. So one night, when I was like eight years old, I sat in the living room watching Pearl Harbor starring Ben Affleck hey, I don't know why that's in here. My father comes into the living room and tells me not to move, that he heard footsteps and the back door slammed shut on his way to the bathroom. He thinks someone is in the house and that he scared them off when he walked down the hallway to the bathroom. So he leaves the house, leaving me, leaving the front door wide open, which scared the shit out of me. I paused the movie and I just listened to silence for a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1:And I thought the damn door.
Speaker 2:I know, and of course the guy is still inside. I'm staring out the doorway to the living room and see the top of a head peek around the corner, a head with a white sheet over it, cut and tied at the neck. Can you fucking imagine?
Speaker 1:That's just giving the strangers. Can you imagine?
Speaker 2:Is that the movie I'm trying to think of? I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine, though, just like it's dark. You look down the hallway and that's what you fucking see in your home.
Speaker 1:Nope, I'm done. Fight or flight is kicking in, and I hope to God it's flight, because I ain't winning that battle.
Speaker 2:Well, this person paralyzed, I'm paralyzed and even if I wanted to run there's, there'd be nowhere to go but towards this creepy ass dude. He just stares at me for what feels like forever, but he leaves towards the back of the house. The back door slams again. I just sit there and start crying until my father comes back. My dad tells me that he had rounded the corner to the back of the house. He caught the guy leaving out the back door. The guy sees my dad and books it down the hill. Then there's a gunshot. According to my father and grandfather, my grandfather had been sitting on the porch next door and saw the guy walking towards our house, so he grabbed his gun, got back outside in time to see the guy running down the hill and shot the dude in the leg.
Speaker 1:That's hilarious actually.
Speaker 2:The guy fell.
Speaker 1:Grandpa for the win.
Speaker 2:I know, then got back up and, before my grandfather could take another shot, disappeared into the woods. By the time the cops showed up he was gone. They searched but couldn't find the guy. They did find a run-down sort of shack a mile or so into the woods and it was filled with nothing but pots and pans. So that was weird.
Speaker 1:Are we sure this isn't one of those? Um, oh, one of the Christmas dudes of lore, wasn't there?
Speaker 2:pot swiper oh, or something pot liquor?
Speaker 1:yes, how do you forget pot liquor I? Because there's like 12 of them. Yeah, that's so funny, pot liquor do you want to know?
Speaker 2:this is like a synchronicity, so I was listening to believing the bizarre today and I don't. I don't know why, why this? Uh, they did a gnomes episode. I was actually going to send it to your mom and I forgot. Denise, I'll send it to you, but anyway, they started talking about potlicker today and they're like wouldn't it be funny if potlicker literally just has, like Dawn, dish soap and a scrub on its tongue? And it's just like Dawn dish soap in the pots and I was like that's so disgusting, that's so random, anyway.
Speaker 1:So that's a little bit of a different episode, but I thought it was fun because it was like weird, creepy, isolated areas and a couple of weird stories. Back to the last story, though. I totally believe that because last year when I went to West Virginia and, like you know, every time I go somewhere I'm like, oh, I'm moving here for sure, looking through like the best places and worst places to live they're talking about, like in a lot of those hollows, like you don't go there because there's some crazy inbred, just backwater, like it's. There's some wild shit that happens in the south.
Speaker 2:It's really freaky okay.
Speaker 1:So if I the biggest takeaway that I've learned from this is that I need to find somewhere isolated but also can get door dash, yeah, and if you go to the that island you can't, but I don't know, I think.
Speaker 2:I think we could go to the island and be very happy maybe we start with a up you would just be so relaxed. I mean, what we could do is just go live on mackinac island for a summer what?
Speaker 1:what was the weather like on this castle island? Nice, okay, I could deal with nice as long as it's not negative. 58 or whatever.
Speaker 2:The other one was no I mean it's a volcanic island.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's got to be great. Oh, the rocks would be sick too. Uh-huh, oh man OK.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, no, for sure, that's the one. I honestly figured you'd pick that one.
Speaker 1:Well, listeners, you have seven options. We want to know which of the most crazy isolated places on the planet you would choose to live, or if you have stories about being in isolated places, maybe not as isolated as this. We want to hear about those. So write those in. But other than that, nice job, kara.
Speaker 2:Thanks, I was trying to, you know, do something a little bit different. I like it.
Speaker 1:It got me thinking and I won your game, so I'm even more happy with this episode.
Speaker 2:I'm very impressed. I really am, because I would have lost. I really would have, because I listened to you.
Speaker 1:but like I can't comprehend shit enough, you would have at least gotten a couple points, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:So I'm very proud of you for listening to everything and knowing the details.
Speaker 1:I'm sure. So I'm very proud of you for listening to everything and knowing the details. Thank you, thank you, and I know we mentioned earlier just a brief bit about the behind the scenes or the outtakes clips. If you want to see those, join us on Patreon with a bunch of other stuff that we have going on over there all the time. And what else do these lovely people need to do before we close the shop up for the day?
Speaker 2:I think that's about it. Other than, please give us some write-ins of your stories. They don't have to be of your secluded weird stuff, just anything Literally. You could just email us about your dog?
Speaker 1:We would read that on the air. We do love dogs around here, so that's that.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening, thanks for participating If you're on social media and you uh comment all the things that we ask, so thanks for that. I appreciate you, uh, keep being you and keep doing you and uh creep it real. But the most important important thing is, why did I say creep it real? I don't know the most important thing that you could do for us is to creep it.
Speaker 1:Really, little oddballs goodbye, oddballs, goodbye, bye. Oh, at the Irish shop. Locked in the shadows At the Irish shop and home with the oddballs At the Irish shop. The door's always open At the Irish shop.
