Dark Matters: Twisted But True (2011) s02e13 Episode Script

Noble: This is your one and only warning.
Your screen will soon be filled with dramatized stories of scientific research that some people may find controversial or disturbing.
Viewer discretion is advised.
Ask yourself, does progress always come at a price? Are some experiments too risky or just wrong? A little curiosity can't hurt anyone Can it? I'll tell you the tale of the missing link and the scientists who studied him.
Which ones are the fools? Who's the liar? And the unfortunate carrier of a deadly disease.
Is she a victim or a killer? But first, meet some California rocket scientists who use sexual magic to achieve liftoff.
We all know the difference between science and magic, right? Science is rational.
Magic is the product of mere belief and imagination.
Magic could never, for example, take humans into outer space.
Could it? A group of friends are trying to make history.
Hey! Jack! You ready?! Ready! Noble: Jack Parsons is a budding chemist playing with comic book technology -- rockets.
Come on! It's lit! Come on! Noble: Ed Foreman, Parsons' childhood friend.
Okay.
oh, come on, fellas! Aren't you gonna count down? Why down? You have to count down to liftoff.
They do it in the Fritz Lang movies.
All: Five, four, three, two, one.
Zero! Noble: The amateurs call themselves the Rocket Research Group.
Maybe we should give it another 10.
[ Whistling .]
Aah! Aah! Everyone else calls them the Suicide Squad.
The Chinese invented gunpowder, and with it, the possibility of rockets.
There are ancient Chinese woodcuts showing Chinese warriors with a barrel of arrows that are then fired at the enemy.
However, gunpowder is a powder.
It burns unevenly.
As a consequence, the path of these rockets could not be predicted.
Often, they would come right back and hit you in the butt.
Four, three, two, one, zero! [ Laughter .]
See? All it needs is a little faith! It's my secret weapon.
Guard yourself to cross the last abyss.
Now choose to step across it.
Noble: Rockets are not Parsons' only obsession.
You think it's working because you prayed? Not praying, exactly.
It's an ode.
An ode to Pan! That's the secret of a successful launch.
The occult.
Lederer: Through the centuries, there has been a consistent tension and inter-relationship between science and magic.
And particularly in alchemy, the search for a means to manipulate nature.
That's part of the quest of science, in many respects.
And it -- it retains an air of magic.
Do what thou wilt.
That shall be the whole of the Lord.
All: Under will.
Noble: Parsons' occult interests lead him to the Church of Thelemas.
It's amazing.
Along with his wife.
All: Love under will.
Love is the law.
Love under will.
I, priest and king, take thee, virgin, pure without spot.
Thelema was a religion founded by Aleister Crowley, an English occultist from the late Victorian period.
Crowley was a Hinduist, a Buddhist, a Satanist, a Pantheist, and he combined all these different beliefs into the religion of Thelema.
Thelema's main creed was, "do what thou wilt.
" That shall be the whole of the law.
It was a religion of total self-expression.
Noble: Parsons' occult beliefs don't damage his rocketry career.
The California Institute of Technology gives the Suicide Squad lab space and funding.
Then the U.
S.
Army Air Corps comes looking for help to launch heavy aircraft from short runways.
Parsons' group, the Suicide Squad, invented J.
A.
T.
O.
, jet-assisted takeoff.
Essentially, what it meant was strapping a bundle of rockets to the back of a plane, igniting them, and watching the plane shoot into the air.
The military was so impressed with this that they gave Parsons' group its own research institute, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Now, listen up! Now, just remember, when you talk to the brass, never say "rocket.
" They'll think it's a Buck Rogers job.
We call it jet propulsion.
Okay? Right.
The last thing we want to do is come across like a bunch of kooks.
Thrill with lissome, lust of the light.
Oh, man, my man, come careening out of the night of Pan! I guess Pan's just having an off day today.
Silbey: Making a rocket reliable wasn't easy.
The challenge was to find a fuel that burned consistently, and from one end to another, like a cigarette burning down.
Because the fuel is a powder, it's unstable.
If you store it in a rocket, cracks and gaps can appear, leading to uneven combustion, and even uncontrolled explosions.
Noble: To keep uneven gaps from forming in the powder, Parsons is forced to load the rockets with fuel just before takeoff.
But when military brass shows up for a demonstration, Parsons doesn't tell them this inconvenient truth.
Parsons! Sir.
Is she ready? Sure.
Let's see 'er fly.
Fire her up! [ Cheering .]
All right! Parsons, you got a deal.
Noble: After years of unpaid work, the Suicide Squad is in business.
They form the Aerojet Engineering Corporation to supply J.
A.
T.
O.
rockets to the U.
S.
government.
All: Love is the law.
Love under will.
Noble: For Parsons, science and magic are completely intertwined.
Man: Love under will.
All: Love under will.
Love under will.
Noble: But he's working for the military now.
All: Love is the law.
Sexual magic is not on their list of approved pursuits.
Noble: Pioneering rocket engineer Jack Parsons rises to the rank of priest in his occult religion, Thelema.
Do what thou wilt.
That shall be the whole of the law.
All: Love is the law.
Noble: With charm, energy, and a little personal magic, Parsons recruits over 40 new members, including fellow rocket scientist and old friend Ed Foreman.
Do what thou wilt.
I, priest and king, take thee, virgin.
Pure without spot.
All: Love is the law.
Love under will.
Love is the law.
Noble: Jack Parsons' sister-in-law, Betty, has also joined, and their magic is powerful.
Pendle: Thelema was a religion in which you could do whatever you wanted.
You could sleep with whoever you wanted, free from the restrictions of marriage.
Now, this is easier done in theory than in practice, and it backfired for Parsons when he ended up sleeping with his wife's sister, and forever estranging his wife.
All: Love is the law.
Noble: At work, Parsons is struggling to make The Pentagon doesn't know that the units they have ordered can only be stored for one day before changing from rockets into bombs.
We'll change when we get to work.
Parsons finds a solution, as if by magic.
Parsons: Do what thou wilt.
That shall be the whole of the law.
I have seen the Greek fire.
What? The Greek fire was one of the most devastating weapons of the ancient world.
It was a flammable liquid fired out of bronze cannons by the Byzantine army.
The secret of Greek fire was passed down from emperor to emperor, but some time in the middle ages, it was eventually lost.
Asphalt had been one of the ingredients proposed, and Parsons suddenly had this epiphany.
He wondered whether asphalt could be used to replace black powder in his rockets.
Both: Ad astra per aspera.
Ad astra per aspera.
Ad astra per aspera.
[ Laughter .]
Noble: Parsons fuels his rockets with a mixture of mundane roofing asphalt -- You see? And an oxidizer, potassium perchlorate.
His magic potion works like a charm.
Kaku: The fundamental reason why asphalt works as a solid fuel for rocketry is that, it's a liquid.
It can be poured into the hull of a rocket.
It fills up the hull evenly with no air pockets, no cracks, no imperfections, and then it sets perfectly.
With Thelema as my goal, and the stars my destination, I have set my eyes on high.
Be careful.
You know how it is with these rockets.
No matter how high they're flying, you can never tell if they're gonna come down in flames.
Ed, the only way is up.
Noble: As his military importance grows, people begin to take more interest in Parsons' connections to the occult.
People like the FBI.
The Pentagon doesn't trust amateurs with crazy ideas.
for being as far as that.
Aerojet Corporation can keep its military contract on one condition -- Parsons and Foreman must go.
Don't think of this as the end.
Think of it as a new beginning.
We can concentrate all our efforts on magic.
Isn't that great news? Sure thing, Jack.
Parsons simply isn't suited for a professional, industrialized military.
Silbey: Before the second World War, science had been an internationalist and sometimes amateur effort.
But the vast, industrial effort required to win the war made the government realize that it needed to channel and control science in the U.
S.
The result was that the military became, by far, the largest funder of scientific research, and a culture of secrecy descended over scientists throughout the United States.
Noble: Parsons' Gods abandoned him.
His new business ventures all collapse, and his lover, Betty, moves on to one of best friends -- L.
Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology.
She'll be back.
No.
She won't.
In some way, I have offended the dark powers.
This is my punishment.
But rocket magician Jack Parsons has a lasting impact on the new world order.
Parsons' invention fundamentally altered the Cold War.
Before Parsons, with liquid-fueled rockets, you were vulnerable to an enemy surprise attack because it took hours, if not days, to fuel your rocket and get it ready to launch.
With solid fuel, you could leave the rocket ready to go and launch on the push of a button before the enemy's attack reached you.
Solid fuel led to 50 years of nuclear stalemate -- the so-called mutual assured destruction.
Noble: By 1952, Parsons is making ends meet doing explosive effects in Hollywood.
[ Gasps .]
Perhaps the explosion that kills him is just one risk too many.
Or who knows? Perhaps he finds the supernatural secret of flight beyond the physical world.
Ad astra per aspera.
Do what thou wilt.
That shall be the whole of the law.
Noble: The discovery of a prehistoric ape man is big news.
But the clouds of scientific doubt begin to gather.
Is the ape man science's missing link or is there a link missing? On the tree of life, there are apes, and there is man.
There must be some link between the two.
But for half a century after Darwin, that link was still missing.
How fortunate when that crucial, most sought-after piece of scientific evidence -- the half-ape, half-human -- appeared in the English countryside? Oh, My Lord.
Arthur.
Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, a leading paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London.
Did you finish piecing together those skull segments that we found here? Charles Dawson, experienced archaeologist and honorary collector for the museum.
Woodward: Have you found another piece? Look at the staining.
Identical.
They're clearly from the same age.
Ancient.
Could they belong together? Sure you haven't had too much sun, old chap? What you have here is an ape's jaw.
This fellow is human.
Then where is his jaw and this fellow's skull? These are the only humanoid remains we've discovered here.
That can't be coincidence.
Yes.
It's a very good match.
Oh, my God.
Could this be it? Human skull, ape-like jaw.
This is the missing link.
Darwin was right.
Paleontologists have been hunting for evidence to support Darwin's radical 50-year-old theory that humans and apes descended from a common ancestor.
Here was something which seemed to meet that expectation.
It had features of apes and of humans, a sort of real missing link.
Noble: The find is an international sensation.
In a moment, smile, please.
The newspapers call it "Piltdown man," after the quarry where it was found.
Scientists name it eoanthropus dawsoni after the man who discovered it.
All I'm asking for is what's rightfully mine.
I gave you my answer months ago.
I am not going to change my mind.
And that will be all, Hinton.
[ Scoffs .]
You'll regret this.
Do sit down, Charles.
Sorry about that.
Trouble with the natives.
[ Laughs .]
Noble: Piltdown man has been a huge boost to Woodward's reputation, but there are persistent rumors among scientists that the jaw and skull do not come from the same creature, that Piltdown man is not the missing link.
If we had more teeth.
We have two molars.
People are saying, quite reasonably, that molars are too similar between apes and humans.
Now, if we had a canine tooth, that would silence everyone.
We need to keep digging.
Arthur! Look at this.
How does that look? It's a canine.
And the right coloring.
Isn't it enough? Absolutely! Apes' canines are much larger.
It prevents them moving their mouth from side to side.
But not this fellow.
He eats like us.
He may have the jaw shape of an ape, but this proves he's well on the way to being human! [ Laughs .]
Piltdown man is finally accepted as Darwin's missing link.
And wait till the people from the Natural History Museum It puts Britain at the epicenter of human evolution.
Milner: The Piltdown man was a really big deal.
This would be very important for England because the French already had their early man.
They had their Neanderthals.
Germany had their Neanderthals.
The French had caves full of amazing paintings of Paleolithic animals.
But where was the earliest englishman? There wasn't any until now.
Noble: In 1916, Dawson dies of septicemia.
Woodward spends a further 14 years searching the Piltdown quarry for more fossils.
He finds nothing.
Elsewhere, other early human fossils are turning up.
Their features are completely different to Piltdown man's.
Yes, of course, I read it.
It's ridiculous.
It's nothing more than an ancient ape.
People were unclear about what came first in human evolution.
Did we evolve a human jaw and teeth form, or did we evolve a large brain first? Piltdown man seemed to support the view that a larger brain evolved early in human evolution.
But what was interesting was, in the 1920s and 1930s, finds from elsewhere in the world showed exactly the opposite thing.
Noble: Woodward dies in 1944 with the debate still raging.
Nine years later, geologist Kenneth Oakley is performing the most important test of his career on the Natural History Museum's most prized possession.
The Piltdown fossil is estimated to be roughly 400,000 years old.
A new technique, fluorine dating, will provide a more precise figure.
When a bone is buried, it will gradually take up fluorine from the ground water.
So a young fossil won't have much fluorine.
An old fossil will have a lot of fluorine.
Let me get this straight.
This fossil -- the fossil -- that confirms Darwin's theory of evolution in humans is not More like 400.
Here, the cranium and the jaw, they're from completely different periods.
They don't belong together.
But they're a perfect fit.
Physically, sure.
But, the jaw and the teeth, they're not even as old as the skull.
They're modern.
Modern? Probably less.
Go through the results again.
I -- I already did.
Three times.
The museum, all of us, we're going to look like utter fools.
We'll be a laughingstock.
Noble: At best, the Piltdown man is a mistake.
At worst, it's a fraud.
Noble: New tests on Piltdown man reveal there's a whiff of monkey business.
It is not the missing link in human evolution.
What am I trying to see? You see those straight marks? Mm-hmm.
Those teeth have been filed.
I really wanted to believe this was a mistake, but it's a deliberate hoax, isn't it? Yes, I'm afraid so.
It turns out, the jaw belonged to an orangutan, not a very old one, either.
Who would do this to a paleontologist? Stringer: Charles Dawson is the most obvious suspect.
He was present when all the main finds were made.
What? After he died, nothing else significant was found at Piltdown, and we know that he was a bit of a shady character.
He was involved in other suspicious activities.
Noble: Dawson was known to enjoy fakery.
He annoyed colleagues by staining lumps of starch that could be passed off as flint implements.
Planting the evidence would have been child's play for Dawson.
Who else could have pulled off this audacious fraud? All I'm asking for is what's rightfully mine.
Some have accused Martin Hinton.
When Piltdown man was found, he was working in the Natural History Museum as a paleontologist.
I gave you my answer months ago.
I am not going to change my mind.
He and Woodward fell out badly over money.
You'll regret this.
If we had more teeth -- Stringer: Martin Hinton had an animosity toward Woodward, so the suggestion is that he, having access to the material in the museum collections of orangutans and the human material and animal fossils, could have put together the whole forgery as a way of getting back at Smith Woodward.
Noble: Experts had pointed to similar staining on the cranium and jawbone as evidence that they are both from the same person.
The museum's lab takes a closer look.
Any progress? That staining everyone bought into, well, it's deep in the cranium bone, but it's just on the surface in the jaw.
Looks the same, but it's totally different.
Quite deliberate.
But by who? I'm afraid the tests don't tell me that.
There is one last suspect in the Piltdown man mystery.
Arthur Conan Doyle, author of "Sherlock Holmes.
" He was also a member of the Sussex Archaeological Society.
Conan Doyle lived just seven miles from Piltdown.
He was a doctor with the contacts to acquire bones and the knowledge to work with them.
He published a book, "The Lost World," in the year Piltdown man was discovered.
The plot had striking references to scientific fraud.
And there are other eerie similarities.
In "The Lost World," the ape man lives on a plateau which is roughly the same size as Sussex, England, where the quarry is located.
Also in the book, there are many references to certain types of trees that are found near that quarry.
And Conan Doyle had a long-standing animosity toward scientists because he was more spiritualistic in his thinking.
It's definitely possible that he wanted to prove that scientists could be taken in by a hoax or a fraud just as easily as anyone else.
Noble: 25 years after the fake is revealed, a trunk is found in the attic of the Natural History Museum.
Inside are discolored bones stained using exactly the same chemical process as Piltdown man.
Blimey.
They have even been cut to see how far the stain penetrates.
The trunk belonged to Martin Hinton.
Stringer: For some people, this is conclusive evidence that Hinton produced all the material.
I mean, you can argue that Hinton might have been involved at the margins.
Perhaps he was actually trying to see how the hoax was done.
To my mind, Charles Dawson is still the prime suspect.
Smile, please.
Noble: We may never know the identity of the hoaxer.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Let's go.
Noble: Piltdown man retains a unique place in human evolution's twisted history.
A warning that when something looks too good to be true, it probably is.
A string of terrible deaths with one thing in common -- a woman who says she's done nothing wrong.
Oh, she's innocent, all right.
But would you let her in your house? Perhaps the most frightening word in the English language -- epidemic.
Imagine, for a moment, people all around you are dying of a horrible disease.
You're healthy.
But then, scientists blame you for the trail of death.
To save a city, they're going to lock you up and throw away the key.
Civil engineer Dr.
George Soper, an expert in the new sciences of sewage [ Flush .]
sanitation, and disease.
I have a house in Oyster Bay.
I rent it out, or at least I try to.
Go on.
The daughter of the last family, she became ill with typhoid.
Vitkun: Typhoid is caused by a bacteria called salmonella typhi.
If you ingest this bacteria, it multiplies within your stomach, gets into your lymphatic system, and ultimately into the blood where it can cause an infection called blood poisoning.
It also causes bleeding within your stomach.
Untreated, 10% to 20% of patients with typhoid fever can die.
Noble: Soper is interested in the spread of infectious diseases, and typhoid, in particular.
Five more of the household were struck down.
By luck, none died, but now, everyone fears my property is infected.
I am ruined.
Unless, Dr.
Soper, you can find the cause.
Puthucheary: Typhoid is associated with poverty, with unclean circumstances.
And science has postulated that, perhaps, it was rising up from the sewers.
So it was puzzling that such an affluent family would be affected.
[ Flush .]
Noble: Soper searches high and low for the invisible germs that cause typhoid.
Vitkun: In the latter 19th century, a new science develops called bacteriology.
This science allows scientists to isolate the microscopic bacteria that cause disease and even trace them back to their source.
This is a revolutionary advance.
Noble: But Soper's search for the typhoid bacteria is unsuccessful.
[ Sighs .]
[ Knock at door .]
Come! Mr.
Thompson.
Dr.
Soper.
Well, I have been up to my shoulders in your sewers, and your sewers are perfectly fine, sir.
And your water.
The local food, also.
Nothing.
Do you have the list of your clients and staff that I requested? Soper searches for any change in the household that could have brought in the typhoid.
Aside from the family, were any of these people new to the house at the time of the outbreak? Well, I believe the cookMary.
Mary Mallon.
Operator, get me Long Island 371.
With little else to go on, Soper tracks down the cook's previous employers.
And it was definitely typhoid that killed her? Yes.
I am most sorry to hear that.
Might I inquire who your cook was at that time? A lady called -- Mary something.
Um.
Um Mary Mallon.
Mary Mallon.
Tough Irish constitution, we all said.
Helped us nurse the sick.
Never a thought for herself.
She helped to nurse my daughter.
We gave her a bonus for that, you know.
You are the eighth household I've spoken to where she worked.
Seven of them suffered typhoid outbreaks while she was working there.
But she was never ill.
But she was never ill.
Thank you.
You've been most helpful.
[ Coughs .]
Noble: while Irish immigrant Mary Mallon cooked for them.
Soper begins to suspect this is more than just bad luck -- that Mary carries the disease.
But he cannot track her down until months later When there is a typhoid outbreak a few blocks from Soper's New York home.
Mary? Mary Mallon? It is you, isn't it? Dr.
George Soper, investigating the typhoid outbreak in Oyster Bay.
There have been a number of cases in houses where you have worked, I believe.
There have.
Though, God's mercy, I've never caught it myself.
Luck of the Irish, as they say.
I'm afraid you may, indeed, have had it.
But perhaps so mild, that you did not recognize it.
No, no, I've never been -- Are you suggesting I made them people sick? I'd never work as a cook again.
I came from Ireland to escape the poorhouse, and that's where you'd be sending me! I have done a scientific analysis.
The pattern of infection, it all points to you, Mary.
I will need some samples to confirm it.
Blood, feces, urine.
Get out! Get out now, you devil! Puthucheary: Mary's reaction was understandable.
When people carry a disease, they expect to have fallen ill from it beforehand, especially something as virulent as typhoid.
The idea that someone could carry a disease and not have any symptoms was revolutionary, even to the medical profession.
Noble: Soper contacts the New York City Health Department with his evidence.
They assign Dr.
Sara Josephine Baker to obtain samples.
My superiors have told me I must obtain the samples by any means necessary.
The police? If I must.
Are you certain about this? You say she's healthy.
There have been scientific reports from Europe of infectious people without symptoms.
But this is the first outbreak traced to one person.
It is very exciting.
Typhoid is not exciting, Dr.
Soper.
Both my father and my brother died of it.
I'm sorry for that.
But now you are in a position to prevent other such deaths.
You have the legal power to prevent her infecting others.
Are you not? Noble: Mary is a bacteriological time bomb, right in the middle of New York, one of the most crowded cities on the planet.
Typhoid fever tended not to be a major problem in the countryside where its spread was limited, and it claimed only a few lives.
But with hundreds of thousands of people jammed into cities like New York, it represented much more of a threat.
The disease spread rapidly.
It could claim hundreds, if not thousands, of lives, and it was a major source of terror for city dwellers.
Where is she? Could she have got past your men? She has to be here, then.
Get away from me! Don't touch me! Now, Mary, calm down.
You can't take me! I'm afraid we can.
Under public health laws, we may lock you up for as long as we consider you a threat.
I'm sorry, Mary, but we have to know.
Noble: Mary Mallon has committed no crime.
I'll claw your eyes out! Yet, according to science, she threatens the lives of thousands.
Noble: Mary Mallon is sent to a quarantine camp in the middle of the East River.
It's for people with infectious diseases.
Inmates who survive are released once they recover.
Mary, you have a visitor.
But Mary can't recover.
She isn't sick.
She's the only healthy inmate the island has ever seen.
Hello, Mary.
But she remains deadly to others.
I'm afraid that, as I suspected, we did find typhoid bacilli in your stool sample.
Those sick people, that dead child -- it was you, Mary.
An asymptomatic carrier is someone who has the disease that doesn't have the symptoms of it.
Often, they've had a mild version of it.
But rather than the body killing the disease, it's learned to adapt and to live with said disease.
In the case of typhoid, it lives in a very unusual place.
It lives in the film surrounding gallstones and kidney stones.
And you can continue to infect people for the rest of your life.
I've never been ill for a day in my life.
Never killed anyone.
Go to hell, Dr.
Soper.
Goodbye, Mary.
Noble: Mary does not believe Dr.
Soper and his science.
She is, after all, not sick.
The idea that you can carry a disease but not have it defies common sense.
Mallon: "I beg for you to help release me from this terrible place.
" "I desperately want to get off this island.
"It can't be right that I am shut away here "for the rest of my life, can it? Yours, Mary Mallon.
" If she is released, all of science says she will kill again.
Mark my words.
She is deadly.
I know my duty, Dr.
Soper.
But I went into medicine to help people, not lock them up and throw away the key.
Noble: News of Mary's incarceration reaches the press.
She is nicknamed "Typhoid Mary.
" Public sentiment sides with an innocent woman locked away by an uncaring government.
Mary, mother of God.
Noble: Following public outcry, she is released on just one condition.
She must never work as a cook again.
Typhoid Mary becomes yesterday's news.
She disappears.
Five years pass.
A New York hospital calls on Dr.
Soper to investigate another typhoid outbreak.
They have tried repeatedly to eradicate the disease, but one member of staff continues to test positive.
What is this woman's name? Mary Brown.
The staff member shows no symptom of typhoid.
She is a cook.
What is it? You look as if you've seen a ghost.
Did she write this? Yes.
It's the same handwriting.
You see? The same! I'm gonna need to use your telephone.
Operator? Department of Health, Dr.
Baker, please.
Dr.
Baker? Typhoid Mary is back.
This time, the public has no sympathy for Mary Mallon.
She lied using an assumed name to hide her identity.
Typhoid Mary has thrown away the second chance she was offered.
Rosner: Mary Mallon was everything the city feared at that moment.
Not only did she carry a germ that no one could see, and that only professionals could diagnose, but she was a woman who was poor, immigrant, catholic, Irish.
All the social stigmas that were terrifying to New Yorkers at that point.
I came to America to seek a living.
That's all I ever wanted, I swear to God.
Mary, I am so sorry.
But you can kill.
It's no fault of yours, but there are and you're just one person.
We have to protect them.