Fallen London is a browser game that features a unique mirror called “M.A”., which is lined with a thin crack and can only be obtained by spending FATE. This item has no recorded uses or actions, and it is only available during Exceptional Stories or Fate Stories. The Shuttered Palace is known for its unusual mirrors, and players can find one in a forgotten hallway.
The mirror is lined with a thin crack and is only available by spending FATE. It is a lush and stinking amber place with trees, eyed vines, and orchids twining round mirror-frames. The Mirror-Marches category contains cards or storylets that are available for this item.
The author examines the tulip’s journey from its origins in Persia and Turkey to its cultivation and transformation in Europe. There is a wealth of information about garden history and heirlooms from email gazette and past catalogs. In 2012, Andrea Rubini launched Fundamental, a compelling perfume that used beeswax.
The artistic schools’ biggest use is in Shaping a Masterpiece for the Empress after getting kicked out, where there is one work of art for each school. Flowers, or Flora Symbolic, are original and selected flowers.
In summary, Fallen London is a browser game that features unique mirrors and items, such as the “M.A”. mirror, which can be obtained through FATE. The game also offers a variety of tulips, including the “Floral Poety” category, which includes original and selected flowers.
📹 The Mystery of the Isdal Woman
This video is #sponsored by Sheath. Love content? Check out Simon’s other YouTube Channels: SideProjects: …
📹 The Four Seasons of the Jewelry Garden
Among the flowers that nature offers us each season, some have strongly influenced jewelry creation. Although these flowers die …
32:04 Simon says “the mystery woman claimed to be from Belgium, but all of the hotel admin was filled out in German.” As a Belgian: Belgium has 3 official languages: Dutch, French and German. The German dialect spoken in Belgium is different from Hochdeutsch (the standard German spoken in Germany), so that could very well account for the different grammatical usage and spelling.
I am very surprised that people are so obsessed wirh missing tags while she clearly had egzema… Also I read somewhere that if a spy was to remove tags they would do it in a way not to leave any indication a tag was there. I personally believe she was hiding from someone. She wasn’t mentally ill, she was in real danger. She is organized but her goal isn’t to blend in. Her goal is to be so different from who she really is.
i know you’ve covered the isdal woman on biographics before but i just love how much you and your writers dig into these sort of historic mysteries on this website. it’s not just feeding you information it’s really turning the wheels in your brain. just wanted to say i appreciate it and this is why decoding the unknown and the casual criminalist are my favorite websites in the whistle-verse!
She described herself as art dealer or antics dealer right? Maybe not a spy, but maybe art thief, or a conwoman? Corporate espionage also fits I guess. I’d probably rule out mental illness, especially the paranoia, since if she was paranoid, it was for a damn good reason, seeing she ended up murdered.
As an American, encountering people without much of an accent whose first language wasn’t English is so common. Where I grew up, I knew so many people whose first language was Arabic or Spanish (primarily those two), but spoke perfect English. Some of these people hadn’t come to the States until they were like 10, but little kids pick things up so quickly. I woll also never cease to find it impressive when someone’s parent doesn’t know a word of English and the kid is the translator. I can barely speak Spanish in the present tense, yet this 6 year old at the store is switching from perfect Spanish with his mom to perfect English with me like it’s nothing.
I have fallen forward into fire exactly once. I was 5 and trying to put some sweet wrappers into the flames and I tripped on the carpet. My dad and granddad grabbed me out incredibly quickly thankfully. A quick run under the cold tap and some crying later and I was back to happily perusal Ferngully with the guard in place covering the fire.
A perfect case for this website would be the death of Mikas Alps. I live in guernsey and, as it’s a very small island, everyone knows everything about everyone else. The main narrative around his death, which was said by authorities to possibly have been murder, is that it was orchestrated by the Russian government due to his links to anti Russian groups. Additionally, there were rumours of a pair of Russian men entering and leaving the island on the same day of the death. Either way, it’s certainly an ‘unknown’ that’s yet to be decoded, and it would be really interesting to see you guys take a crack at a case from my home island!
Not sure about the rest of the world but in the US in 1970, we did not have to offer any ID at any hotel or motel; nor did we have to show ID to purchase tickets or get onto an airline flight. Not any screenings at all. It was, needless to say, a much more lax time. Hence, DB Cooper. He gave his name simply to pick up the ticket at the counter then walked on board. Seriously and thus why he could not be identified.
Age can be such a tricky thing to judge, depending on not just a person’s physical appearance but also their demeanor, sense of style, and even where the guesser is from. I’ve had clients at my job be appalled and even loudly outraged upon first meeting me in a professional setting, because they think I’m 17-19 and thus far too young to be working in something as serious as refugee resettlement. One person even refused to get in a car I was driving because “I’m not sure you’ve even reached the driving age yet, you’re a damn child”. I know she was mad but it was complimentary in its own way 😬 I do understand why they think this (I’m a bit baby faced, I don’t have to wear a suit or other bits of business attire, I tend to be more informal and less stiff than social workers are expected to be, etc) but the shock when I show them on my ID that I’m actually almost 30 is truly quite the show.
I got asked what high school I went to when I was in my 40s and got carded for a pg 13 movie when I was in my late 20s. My aunt who is several years younger than my mom, was asked how old her daughters were…pointing at my mom, my sister, and me. Some people do just look a lot younger than they are. Also, with excema it makes sense she would cut out any potential itchy stuff that could irritate her skin.
Simon would completely freak out living in the US. Until I moved several years ago, I was so remote that I had zero cell service at home. When wifi calling became a thing, I could use that unless the internet was out, but I had to drive about a mile and a half down the road to get an actual cell signal.
cutting tags out of clothing is actually really really common. its done for many underlying reasons but basically lots of people have medical conditions that give them sensitive skin so they cut the tags out so they dont get irritated by them. Very common in any clothing that touches skin, dresses, blouses, t-shirts etc.
I don’t get why someone would go to the trouble of cutting tags out of clothing, removing lenses from glasses, etc. To hide their victim’s identity instead of just getting rid of the stuff. She also seems to have gone out of her way to make herself memorable; people, like the shoe salesman, remembered her clearly weeks after. I’m thinking she intended for something to happen to her and wanted her things found but not identified. Why, though?
Im surprised that I had never heard of this case before. Ive been studying crime mysteries for 40+ years now and this one eluded me. Thing is now we have this marvelous thing which actually does all your research for you and makes it good fun at the same time. Its called Simon Whistler and The Casual Criminalist! Thanking you much very.
@28:10 I dunno….in 1968 my Dad tried to sneak a .38 Webley Mark III police revolver in my diaper bag my Mom was carrying, along with a disassembled Kimball double-barrelled shotgun in the check-in luggage. Both were found and confiscated. My Mom was allowed to continue back to the States with me, and my Dad had to stay and “answer a few questions.” It was mostly above board; the purchases were legitimate, his method of transport was not. Mom said she stayed pissed at Dad for years after that. She said she felt like a Kray brothers moll when they pulled the pistol out with seemingly the whole world perusal. And get this, sometime in 1986, we got a package in the mail. In it were both guns, with a letter of explanation from customs. True story.
There are usually 2 tags inside clothing. There’s the brand tag and the washing instructions. Usually, the washing instructions are around the bottom and sown into the side stitching. The brand tag is up near the collar. The size is most likely going to be onnone of these tags. The tag around the collar is more likely to be removed since it touches the sensitive skin of the lower neck. If you remove both tags, I’d find that iffy. Having been an elementary teacher for almost a decade, many of my students have the tag around the collar removed but the one toward the bottom doesn’t seem to bother them as much. Probably because that tag usually sits where the top of the pants are. Not saying some of them didn’t cut off both tags, only that it’s rare.
Simon on every other decoding episode – “I need proof, not circumstantial but real undeniable proof!” Simon in this episode – “She’s a Russian spy nothing else can be possible not even a spy working for someone or a lady on the run for some reason.” cos Simon has such intimate knowledge of who is or isn’t a spy. Like what they look like. Apparently generic which doesn’t have to be true what about those used in honey traps etc. I especially love how he knows more about it than real people involved in the spy industry, man!
I was leaning towards A Beautiful Mind type of situation. The school they think she attended made me think she was a mentally unwell lady that thought she was involved with a spy ring, but she caught the attention of people involved with real espionage and they took her out thinking she was a foreign asset. I like the art theft theory too though.
I have to say, I was feeling very torn up about their announcement, and shocked. My 6-year-old son was also upset. But this makes me feel so so much better. I am glad that they were able to come up with a conpromise. Thank you Ryan, Shane, and Steven. I wish you guys the best, and a quick recovery from this intense backlash.
I have seen a young Asian woman sitting in a field with a soda bottle in her hand. She then started pouring it on herself and the next thing she is alight. Several people nearby rushed to her aide. One had a fire extinguisher. They put her out and got her to a hospital 1/4 mile away. She was so burnt she passed away the next day. Never heard why she may have done it.
It’s insane to me to have rarely been out of cell phone range. I can drive a little over an hour from where I am in the middle of a city and be out of cell service. We generally camp with no or extremely spotty cell service off of logging and pipeline roads. Canada is pretty empty in the middle and the north.
Technically, Italian and German were my first two languages. My parents spoke them to me until we moved to France when I was almost 3. Then I was taught French. Then we moved to the U.S. when I was almost 14, in ’83. So, English is, I guess, my fourth language. I speak it better than all of the others combined.
People tend to think that being a spy is about blending in as much as possible, avoid being memorable. Which yeah, is true. But another option is to * control * what about you is memorable. People are likely to remember obvious features, like dark hair or an accent. Given that the woman had supplies for disguises, its likely that if she was a spy, she would know this and would cover her natural hair colour when needed, or when she wouldn’t want her hair colour to be a memorable trait.
Regarding her looking young for her age, my grandfather was an absolute mutant when it came to looking his age. In a WW2 photo he’s the oldest guy in his unit, but he looks 14. In his 40’s he was mistaken for his wife’s son (she was younger than him), and in his 70’s he looked like his 40yo son’s brother
Around the 47 minute mark, Simon and I were on the exact same wavelength. Every time I’ve heard the ‘too many identity’ argument I’ve always thought that a few of them were likely just to obscure movements, and not fully fleshed-out identities. Same thing with the ‘cipher’. There’s no reason why a complex cipher would be needed for what amounts to a personal itinerary. It’s not like this was a coded message being sent.
At summer camp when I was around 10 one of the camp counselors fell backwards into a giant bonfire and was really badly burned. Several counselors were performing a skit for the campers, with the fire burning behind them. The girl wasn’t paying attention and tripped backwards into the fire. It had a cinderblock ring around it so her legs went up over her head and she couldn’t just roll out or stand straight up. She just struggled on her back in the fire screaming until another male counselor stepped into the fire to grab her and pulled her up and out. He got burned pretty bad too but nothing like the girl. Hair was gone, and you couldn’t tell what was burnt clothing and what was burnt skin on her back, butt and legs. Never heard anyone scream like that. Everyone was screaming, but not like her. She was just a teenager. No clue what even happened to her. She got rushed off and we all kinda went about our night like it didn’t happen…traumatized AF…but it was the 90’s so…yeah. Who wants smores?
Easiest explanation – She was a sex worker, just as today where sex workers travel around various states and countries (now days advertised via Only Fans or Twitter). Guys were buying her stuff as part of payment for her services. She had wigs, various outfits, and potentially knew a variety of languages (all to meet the fantasies and needs of her clients). Also, this would explain why she was seen with a variety of men but none of those men ever came forward to say how they knew her.
5:14 in the US, that is definitely a 911 call. I’ve called the non-emergency police number to report a dead pet dog that I found on the side of the road (it had a collar on it) and they patched me through to 911 for that, so I think a burned person would definitely be a 911 call. 911 is directly to the dispatcher, they’re the ones who have the ability to dispatch all the correct and necessary things, if you call the non-emergency police number you get beat cop at the desk who doesn’t have the ability to dispatch police officers and such, and so he’s just going to patch you through to 911.
I am born and raised in Bergen, and have spent most of my life here. For me, the biggest issue I have in regards to the suicide theory, boils down to the geography of Bergen. I am an avid hiker, and, as a matter of fact, just two days ago I hiked in the Isdalen area. Here is the thing: The Isdal woman checked out of her hotel at 10:30 am and then took a taxi to the train station. This would be, depending on traffic, about a 7-10 minute drive. We also know that witnesses reported seeing smoke from the Isdalen area around noon. Furthermore, the partially melted wristwatch found next to her body, had frozen at the time 12 : 32. We can therefore assume that time of death probably was some time between noon and 12:30 pm. This leaves between 75-90 minutes for the Isdal woman to get from the train station to the isolated forest patch where she was found, In order to make it from the train station to this part of Isdalen in this time frame you would have to walk extremely fast. Basically you would have to run for 75-90 minutes straight with no breaks. Even for an active hiker like me, it would be difficult. However, considering all the stuff that was found at the crime scene, this would be, I would argue, pretty much an impossible feat, considering everything she would have to carry. If we,in addition, assume that she had swallowed dozens of sleeping pills before she arrived at the spot where she died,, it would be even more unlikely. It is possible, in theory, that she could have taken another taxi, or a bus, for part of the stretch, but even if you get off at the closest current bus stop to Isdalen, you would still need to hike at a brisk pace for 45 – 50 minutes to get to the forest patch where the body was ultimately found.
I have a big objection. The ML – MM annotation is not the last entry. It is actually in the bottom left corner of the page, not in line with the Nov entries. It is this: “10 M ML23 N MM” It appears to refer to 10 March (it is located beneath the March – early May column). At the top of the March column was an entry for 10 March, but with no location or end date. The ML – MM entry appears to have been supplementary info for 10 March, dropped in later several inches under that column. If the entry reflects the standard format, it means “10 March — traveled from ML23, through N, to MM”. At another point she had N678 T N8 TOS, which meant Nov 6-8 Trondheim, then traveling later on Nov 8 from Trondheim, through Oslo, to Stavanger. In case you’re wondering, in the first column she wrote dates as day-month (“10 M” for 10 March), then in the rest changed it to month-day (“A23” meaning 23 April). Apparently she learned that letter-number-letter (month – day -city) was a clearer annotation than number-letter-letter (day-month-city), especially when you might occasionally have to use two or more letters to designate a place or a route or a month (she later uses “JJ” for July).
You know, especially back then, much of the work of the security services were to run down individuals suspected of being foreign intelligence assets or associated with such. If they were all any good at their jobs, that in itself would suggests quite a lot of suspects looked into turned out not to be associated with foreign intelligence (security services need to cast a wide net, otherwise you’re gonna miss and overlook a whole bunch of real threats that do a good surface job). Given the state of such affairs here in Norway back in the 70s, just the details of the initial police and media reports would be plenty of reason for the services to look into this case. And if they did so with a heavy hand, even if they didn’t find anything, that heavy handed intrusion could have been reason enough to kill the police investigation. To minimize the risk of who and how intervened ending up in official police reports or court documents further down the line.
So like… The neurotypical idea that only spies cut the tags out of their clothes is a pretty limited world view. As a neurospicy person, I frequently cut the tag out of my shirts and pants, sometimes even pulling the tag out from under the stitching. The material that tags are made out of is usually stiffer and scratchier than the fabric of the clothing, especially back when I was younger. Cutting tags out of clothing can just be for comfort. Also, she doesn’t have to be a spy to have multiple identities: she could be running from a bad-natured ex. The ex could just generally be a jerk, or involved in organized crime. Violence towards women was certainly a lot more common back then, so it’s entirely possible that this woman was just trying to enjoy life, take a wild whirlwind of a vacation, or even just doing her best to escape her ex based on some pulp spy novels she’d read. Not to say that any of this is true, but I’ve noticed that, in a lot of cases like this, the majority of opinions tend to be from a masculine and neurotypical point of view. That’s it! Keep up the great articles, though, Fact Boy.
Some people are highly sensitive to the scratchiness of most labels and routinely cut them out of their clothes. Also, the fact that she spoke German doesn’t say anything about whether she came from Belgium or not. I just checked, and according to Wikipedia that official languages of Belgium are French, Dutch, and — yes — German.
I’ve always been fascinated by this case and I’m glad Simon has covered it. It’s not a regular sort of killing, not even a regular sort of assassination as we’ve come to think of them. and I believe Simon was correct when he suggested that the investigation team was being leaned on by higher-ups. It might not have started out this way, but by the end I think she was on the run. Maybe she was recruited young, possibly from that school, yet wanted to leave that chapter of her life behind? However, unknown persons were not prepared to allow that. Perhaps she was given the choice to take her own exit and they then helped things along… If she had simply wanted to defect, many western countries would have been more than happy to facilitate such. That wasn’t what was happening here.
7:32 Off the top of my head, I can name 2 celebrities who have fallen into fires. -Michael Skupin, Survivor season 2. The hot air and ash collapsed his lungs, and he fell in face first and had to be airlifted to a hospital. -Comedian Christopher Titus. “I finally stopped drinking when I hit 17 years old… I stopped drinking because it’s really not good for your health and I fell into a bonfire. Yeah, you don’t need AA after that. Falling into a bonfire is a 1-step program.”
Still think this is a honour killing. When a family decides that one should die to protect the honour of the family; it is often seen the victim gets some things to lessen the pain of the death (sleepingpills). Unlike a spouse/man/date that murders a woman. Saying goodbye in rituals is also common (jewelry places next to her) and making the victim undentifiable too. (most common is hair cutting, I do not think the name-tags got cut out, they probably just annoyed her skin and did that herself). If she has been seen alone, used different names, she might knew what was coming (she might have been running away from a arranged marriage for example) but she is probably found due to trusting a female member in the family. Family’s where a honour death occurs never give the person up as missing, or speak out when they see the victim as found on TV.
Yes, the SOS option can be used for reporting a body or anything that might need 911 (or whatever your local emergency number is). 🙂 Living in northern Alberta, there are a LOT of these areas around. Some due to rolling hills and very scattered towers, some due to large iron/metal deposits in the ground. There’s one campground where you can see the tower one kilometer away, but there’s no service due to whatever is in the ground. Even radios don’t work there.
Hey, I don’t know if it is fixed yet, but I am currently binging the podcast on Spotify. The volume of the voicetrack is very quiet, so I have to crank it high just to then be absolutely screamed at by the inbuilt Spotify ads. Sometimes even by the background music. Please, if not already done, take a look at your audio balancing in relation to the Spotify ads so my ears can stop bleeding every time an ad comes up. Thank you!
From what I’ve heard of the case I think it comes down to this: The Isdal woman gets involved with the communist party when she was a girl, probably acting as a runner for the resistance during WW2. Over time she worked her way up. Remember, there are a lot of different spies who have a lot of different jobs. They are not all ‘James Bond’ types. Eventually she reaches the point where they trust her with large amounts of cash. And this is where she goes wrong in their eyes. It is not uncommon for those entrusted with large amounts of money to decide to spend some of it on things they are not allowed too. She neglected to do her spying while she lived the high life on the Soviet dime. Inevitably they discovered it and made an example out of her. As for where she came from I’m guessing Belgium, but that is just a guess.
I also sometimes cut the tags out of my clothes because I have Lupus that affects my skin, and during a flare up they can be really irritating. But even certain clothes will irritate my skin during flare ups much less the rough tags. I imagine tags irritating the skin would be the same for anyone with skin problems, so cutting the tags from her clothes isn’t strange at all as she most likely had eczema as she was found with eczema cream.
Here’s a good DTU topic: The story of the Exodus occurred in history however all of the details were deliberately reversed in the Holy Bible, in one of the first religious propaganda spin stories, in order to make the monotheists look like the victims and the Egyptians look like the aggressors. In reality, it was the monotheists who were the aggressors and the Egyptians were the victims. In the 13th dynasty of Egypt people known by modern historians as the Hyksos, AKA the “shepherd kings” or “Israelite pharaohs”, conquered northern Egypt taking control of its throne for their own purposes. This foreign occupation lasted for about 300 years until a pharaoh descended of those original conquerors named Amenhetep the 4th tried to force monotheism on the Egyptian population; taking as his new name, one of several aliases, Akhenaten. For the native Egyptians, who had suffered the machinations of their foreign rulers, this was the last straw. Five Egyptian generals funded by the southern treasury of Egypt launched a military coup and exiled Amenhetep along with his Levitical priesthood. It was after his expulsion that, realizing he couldn’t work openly anymore, Amenhetep took his last alias – “Moses”; a name truncation derived from one of his relatives named Thutmoses. From that point, the propaganda of the Holy Bible was written.
She fled Nuremberg so that suggests she wasn’t friendly with the Nazi’s, makes sense she could have formed allegiance with the Soviets post war. The two men being southern European could very well have been Mossad taking her out. Unfortunately a lot of Soviet records we can assume were lost after the USSR fell. We can also assume they’d be looking at orphanages too of people that fled the Nazis and are willing to actively work against them. She may have never gone there or spoken Russian but at that time when she was recruited they were also the good guys and the ones who got to Berlin first. Mossad (Israel) was close with the US, Cold War was escalating and you can bet the US was asking for help from its allied spy agencies. The name from the orphanage I doubt was her but almost certainly she went through there and took the name from less fortunate acquaintance. My vote is a European spying for the Soviets (in the broader sense as Simon said, could have been a courier). Smuggling documents or art could have been part of that. The Nazis did love stealing art. The tags as others have said could have been due to skin irritation or over stimulation (a lot of people with ADHD for example cut them out too).
I’m 35 and often get mistaken as someone under 21 and even a teenager a few times. My son is 16 and when I tell people, they think he’s adopted or my stepson. Nope, I gave birth to him 😅. I was married at 18 and gave birth to him at 19. Had 2 kids by 21 but my daughter passed just under 3 months. My mother’s family comes from Southern Germany. So I wonder if they just have good genes 😅
Today my youtube recs took me from Decoding the Unknown’s article on Bella in the Wych Elm, to Dtu’s article on Jennifer Fergate, then to this article on the Isdal Woman. It’s a stark reminder of how disposable young women are, that even these three women – who’ve garnered massive amounts of attention and curiosity over the years – remain unidentified in 2024.
The speculation that she was killed because of the missing gas can really kicked off a bunch of questionable logic leaps. The easiest explanation is that she went out in the woods to do drugs and fell in the fire, the other person was also on drugs and didn’t want to get put in jail for murder even though it was an accident. Also sometimes big tags tickling your neck can be annoying. It’s kind of like If you flip a coin 20 times and they all come up heads, the 21st time you flip the coin it’s still a 50/50 chance to come up heads. We like to assume everything has to conform to our ideas like “the chances of getting heads again are lower” or “a humans death must be related to a career” but humans tend to just… do things. We force connections on things that don’t need to be connected. Spy, art dealer, business insider, sex worker, all of these were suggested due to her death. She could have just been independently wealthy and traveling, those older distinguished gentlemen might have been dinner dates who knew her real age. The only one who seemed actually important was the naval officer but an officer might just decide to talk with random civilians to show off his public weapons display due to being proud of it.
I’m not sure I buy “too noticeable to be a spy”. As long as the noticeable traits are fake I think that could be useful. I am a British person with long hair, if I hide my long hair beneath a hat or cap and affect a German accent – occasionally using the German I know – then they’d be looking for a short haired man with a German accent while I stroll off into the sunset Kaiser Soze style.
I have always been mistaken for much younger than my actual age. Even doctors have been confused when first meeting me. When I was in my 40’s, people thought I was in my early 20’s. Part of the reason is an issue with my skin. While it’s nice to appear younger, the same condition makes my skin very sensitive. I always cut the tags off of my clothes and have to use medicated creams. So that all seems rather normal to me with this woman. That said, I like the courier explanation. Not sure why the mirror, unless it had to do with something she would be taking back to whomever she worked for.
I’ve come across at least 2 women who look wildly younger than they are, one of whom was mid 50’s but could’ve passed for late 20’s. These were in the workplace and I spent a lot of time around them. I myself often get mistaken for being around 10 years younger than I am, and people are often shocked when they find out how old I am (again in workplace, so spending much time around these people).
I agree with “Espionage”, the moving around is interesting so probably courier more than actual operative… but I do have two questions that weren’t answered and probably never will be: 1) She got burnt… literally… this would indicate she failed, knew too much, or depending who she was working for was no longer of value. I find this interesting, what could possibly have happened for her to get burnt? 2) Jewelry and a Watch were placed next to her body, why? That is a really weird detail to just not question. Why wasn’t she wearing it? Why did the people that killed her leave them there? It was probably a new watch… it’s like some mad ritual offering for her to take with her to the afterlife… it’s all very bizarre.
Just a note about why someone might remove tags, since I’ve heard it commented multiple times that it’s “weird”. As a kid, I was hypersensitive to tactile sensations, and tags on clothing drove me utterly nuts. I don’t recall if it was my parents who started doing it for me, but I do recall that my grandmother cut off all the tags on her clothes, “because it makes them feel nicer against your skin.” I don’t know if she had the same hypersensitivity as me (we’re not related genetically; I was adopted), or if she had some reason to be particularly adverse to tags, but she had a lot of “odd” traits that would end up making sense as soon as you realised that she lived through the Depression. Of course, I can’t think of any at the moment, but they often times had to do with conserving what you have by reusing what you can (her Tupperware was “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter” containers outside of her prized, brand name set she bought in the 60s or 70s), or maybe the case with tags was to minimise the overall weight of everything you owned, because if you had to up and move someday, every ounce of what you didn’t need to bring with you mattered when either loading up a vehicle or especially paying to have things shipped or professionally moved. Heck, even driving yourself, Depression-era mentality would still likely consider the amount of weight you’re carrying versus your gas mileage, or the amount of horses you’d need.
So Simon there are a few reasons why people can fall into fires. First its possible that someone who is incredibly drunk could fall in and not be capable of getting themselves out of the fire. Secondly a person who is trying to get a fire going, particularly if the fire is lit, but not burning well and very smoky. They could try and blow on it to get it burning better then breathe in getting lungs full of smoke instead of air which can cause them to become light headed and pass out falling forward into a fire.
Hi Simon Factboi. I think Jack the Ripper deserves a DTU episode. I know you did a biographics and a casual criminalist on him but this is a good way to recycle content. Also you could explore what linked the victims like that conspiracy about the prince and what not. I always enjoy your shows with the accompanying tangents and rants so keep em coming. Thanks!
If you are looking for an obscure story that I don’t think has ever been covered Lindley House in Connecticut might be interesting. I don’t know how much info is available but it was reported about at the time of the event in the Connecticut Post which unlike the New York Post is a reputable newspaper (allegedly)
Some interesting facts. First, linked from the References section on the Wikipedia article on the Isdal Woman, is a translation of a Norwegian document showing that her visits in Norway coincided with 3 occasions when the 25th Missile Boat Squadron was exercising with the Penguin missiles — Norwegian Defense Research Establishment people were also supposedly in those locations at those dates. 24Mar — Bergen 29Oct — Stavanger 9Nov — Stavanger again She was in these places on these dates. Second, she had pink sleeping pills, which supposedly were only marketed in Britain at that time. Her itinerary (photos can be found online) showed her in City “L” on two occasions, the latest in July, shortly before her diary breaks off for a few months. “L” = London? Further, one shoe-store bag found in her luggage was from Rome. She was in City “R” at least 3 times. The last time started on July 18, and has no end-date listed. Next comes the gap in her itinerary. She is next in Paris (annotated as City “P”, but verified as Paris by the police), on 22-28 Oct, after the gap in notations. Then she’s in Stavanger on 29Oct, the second of three location/dates coinciding with Penguin tests. The third was 9Nov, when she was back in Stavanger, having in the meantime visited Trondheim and Oslo. And shortly afterward she was found dead. Conclusion: Given her evident wide scope of travel, how likely is it she just happened to visit Norway, in these specific cities, on the dates Penguins would’ve been testing?
@36:29 – “Some people just look young”. A prime example is George Chakiris from the original West Side Story. The man is in his 90s and looked like a youtuber I know who is in his 30s. Likewise, when I was 13, I had a big mountain man beard down to my mid-chest and dark circles under my eyes, which fooled a few teachers into thinking I was a fellow teacher. My guess is that she was a mentally disturbed woman who might’ve ended up doing some espionage.
Ok hear me out. My grandfather works at a food bank. He can recount dozens of stories of women escaping countries like Saudi Arabia or India from families who wanted to marry them off without their consent. He says that a lot of women end up having to rent a locker just to hide their passports from their families when they visit because they can and will take the passport and other IDs to stop them escaping again. I think this might’ve been one of these cases, only her family decided to go after her themselves instead of waiting for her to visit, and then decided they preferred to do an “honour killing”, which is something people from… Certain countries that are unkind to women (to say the least) will do if they feel a woman or girl has “dishonoured” them instead of trying to drag her back to the unconsentual marriage… Saying something to that man who saw her could have saved her life, I’m so sad… (Edit): In France, people do learn German commonly in school. You can pick between German or Spanish usually, some schools have Russian or even Breton in Brittany as well, but I’m pretty sure it’s mandatory to learn English, and then another language again usually Spanish or German as the options. Also not sure if this is relevant but my grandfather’s stories on women escaping forced marriage are also from France…
I know 2 cases of people falling into a fire. One was off his head after smoking an unknown drug and fell asleep on a campfire only to wake up several hours later with 3rd degree burns all down one side. The other the guy was putting wood on a fireplace and was a little tipsy, tripped and… well he got the log into the fire… unfortunately he was still holding it, burnt the knuckles on both hands down to the bone
It a bit looks like she wanted to be memorable, like, when she was choosing mirror, having a lot of questions and then buying the cheapest one. If someone found her after all this disguise, she might have contacted this person herself. Maybe she was hiding from rich and powerful ex lover. But also she might have blackmailed him to get money to start a new life.
If she were a spy, she would have worn Chanel No.5 because it was the most popular fragrance at the time. It was elegant, but wouldn’t have stood out. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. My gut reaction was that she was hiding from a dangerous ex lover and he finally caught up to her. She may have been his mistress, which could account for no husband or boyfriend inquiring about her being missing. If this man was violent, this would explain the need for wigs and prescriptionless eyeglasses to hide from him and his ilk. Her ex was someone powerful, possibly a military officer or high-ranking politician, and she was meeting those other men for intel on his whereabouts or looking for protection. The man she was with when buying the mirror could have been someone trying to help her and they were using the store as a meeting place. He may have been frustrated with her terrible attempts to remain under the radar, and that’s why he was arguing with her. Her death was brutal, sadistic, and intimate, suggesting it was someone she knew. The men following her in the forest could have been cronies for her ex lover carrying out his dirty work. She was walking to her death, which is what the man saw on her face when he passed her in the woods. She now has money, nice clothes, and was of a healthy weight her whole life which makes you age much more gracefully. But she had bad teeth in her past, suggesting she grew up in less than ideal conditions without enough nutritious food. This also accounts for her small stature.
CSI is the perfect example of a show so chock full of lies that it is literally impossible to make an international version. CSI London would have all brit viewer up in arms because there have been so many factual shows that the suspension of reality requirements would be too high. It’s easier to say to yourself that it is possible in America but isn’t possible yet in Europe.
The one thing that makes me think she was not a professional spy is the fact that we are all still talking about her now. She was very memorable and seemed to stand out very much which I really doubt would be the tactic of a good spy. And surely the cover up would have been better. The information we have about her would have been suppressed by the intelligence agency she was working for or Norwegian authorities.
So I’m surprised that it didn’t come up, but a lighting strike or electrical fire explains her burns pretty well. The watch displaying 10:10 could be explained by it receiving a large electrical shock. When I was a kid I zapped the heck out of my favorite watch in a science museum and after a while of displaying nonsense and making loud noises the display reset to 10:10 and the watch resumed normal operations. People noted that she was wearing some kind of spice/perfume which could have been flammable, and so the source of the fire. Why she was out in the woods is still a mystery though, but the fact that there is a disjointed amount of items (no id etc.) at the site of her death leads me to conclude that she was with companions who took things like her ID with them. So what if the group she was with were out there setting up a radio or satellite transmitter. The generator or antenna causes an electrical fire and the woman is the only one of the group to catch fire because of her perfume. She dies and the others (possible injured) grab what they can carry and quickly evacuate, abandoning her. It doesn’t explain the sleeping pills but the rest of the puzzle seems to fit pretty well.
I’m 40, and nobody believes me until I show them my ID. When clean shaven, I look like an early 20-something guy. Even facial hair only makes me appear to be in my late 20’s. I live in a major college town, and regularly get hit on by university students, who then proceed to lose their minds when they learn that I’m old enough to be their dad.😂 My wife teases me about the fact that I get such a kick out of rattling the crap out of those poor kids. Her favorite thing to tease me about is the time a VERY young gay guy, maybe 18 or 19, hit on me, and I told him my age. He was momentarily shocked, then looked me in the eyes and said “Mmm, daddy.”😂 I haven’t run that fast since I moved out of Chicago’s South Side.
Umm, well I met a woman like this. She cut the labels out of her clothes and kept trying to invent multiple identities behind which she could hide. As I later found out, she was occasionally something to do with a security service, but strictly on a mission-by-mission basis. But that wasn’t the point with M, she felt that she could derive power and influence by adopting multiple personas – and wield power via her sexuality – over mere mortal (heterosexual) men.
About the language thing, even native speakers make mistakes in every language. English is my 1st language & I have a friend who constantly makes grammatical mistakes etc. When I went to a Japanese class a few years ago the teacher was a native speaker who moved to the UK and even they made mistakes in the native language and had to think about it then correct it when she realised
7:58 People actually fall into and also roll into fires while sleeping more than you’d think. A kid a couple years below me in school got slap drunk with some buddies while camping and they so woke up to him screaming bloody murder. He had rolled too close to the fire and legs got 3rd degree burns. Had to do skin graft surgery and all that. He’s all good now just horrible scars from that fateful night.
As far as the tags being cut out of all her clothes, a lot of people do that, because they can be annoying, I know a lot of people who do that, especially with tops, also this reminds me of the Somerton Man in Australia, who also cut the tags out of all his clothing, and people also thought that meant he was a AGAIN a Russian spy, but it was recently discovered he wasn’t anything of the sort, I mean he was actually Australian even. So that for sure doesn’t mean she was a spy. Also she may have been a woman who was running from a lover or husband who abused her, since she had some nice clothes and some money, she may have been running from a wealthy husband, so she kept changing her hotels, her name, trying to keep him from finding her. IF she was really seen with all these men, one may have been her husband, the other a friend or hentchmen of her husbands, with him to help get rid of her! Maybe she stole some money from him to get away from him and he wanted it back or maybe she stole something much more valuable to him even, like jewels! But as I said IF she was really seen with any men or by those who later claimed to have seen her, like how do we know all those who claimed to have seen her and also claimed to have told the police at the time, who supposedly ignored what they reported, were actually telling the truth? I mean with the theory floating around being that she was a spy, a lot of people later may have read about her and then when it came out that people like the BBC were investigating her death, they might have thought they could make some money or get their name in the papers or at least on some documentary or news report done by the BBC.
You asked a couple questions that I actually have answers to… How does somebody just fall into a fire? There are documented cases of people who accidentally get a big lungful of smoke/soot and passed out, falling forward, right into the fire. It’s more common than you might realize. — Who the f*** chooses to just jump into a fire? Well, a guy once did that at the Burning Man event. He just came running out of the crowd and sprinted straight into the fire. Nobody really knows why.
Moving furniture around when in a hotel or other preplanned and laid out spaces is an anti sniper measure. By moving the furniture around it puts the person in the room at in unexpected location in case someone takes a shot at where the person should be regardless of sight lines lsuch as sitting on the couch where every couch in every room in the hotel is also placed
“Death Valley’ in the U. S. is so named for the combination of high heat and little to no water. Name initiated to use during pre-machinery (automobile or train) ‘Westward Expansion’ era. According to Wiki, “John Doe” or “Jane Doe” (soon cries of sexist?) are used in the U. K. as the U. S. However, Wiki mentions “John Bloggs” as a common variant, but does not specify where. (Ehh?) Just a wild thought: Cutting of the tags may have been done by a muderer who saw that is a spy movie and thought it a good idea.
The overkill . The stuff laid out. (I’m assuming gifts meant to rub salt in the wound to the dead or be a reminder) The location . This all screams overkill and setup. Either somebody thought she was going to talk about an affair or she took somebody out there to tell them she thought she was pregnant and they went psycho because they were married or some other reason similar. I mean honestly nothing else even makes a little bit of sense with just the one victim found in this state. If there was at least two or three others maybe you could say serial killer or serial killer but this all just screams overkill, personal betrayal killing… *And even if she was a spy or maybe involved in organized crime she just wouldn’t have been found or it would have been a simple double tap . I still say the Overkill implies she was killed by somebody who knew her and either hated her or felt betrayed by her. Spies have coworkers . Lastly, regarding her age . Statistically we know eye witness testimony can be almost useless. People may have just assumed her age or frankly they might have just seen somebody else or they might not have seen anybody at all and just want some attention. Think about how many crackpots call tip lines everyday
Simon: “I hate when the authorities railroad their theory and ignore evidence.” Also Simon: “I’m going railroad my theory and ignore evidence or experts.” I get Simon isn’t an authority figure, but it’s still hypocritical. One article Simon treats the victims like humans, another episode he treats them like entertainment. He’s mentioned that isn’t what this website is about, so where is this coming from?
She might have been trying to escape from a violent husband or lover/stalker and been on the run. That would explain the many different identities. If she also stole a lot of money from that man (perhaps crimeboss/Mob?) that would explain how she was able to afford staying in those hotels. And if he and an accomplice finally found her and escorted her to the valley she died that would explain the hopelessness that the witness saw in her eyes.
“delusions aren’t a typical symptom of epilepsy” i can promise you that is incorrect. An Aura is something that happens before a seizure, and it can be something like seeing the future or something like deja vu. After a seizure i was half naked and barefoot walking down the street during winter. I didn’t realize what was going on until someone asked me if i was ok and needed a ride.
Codes or stuff that look like code were also used by salesmen to obscure sales from competition. So having codes on you is not that spy like. Also if she was from Belgium her first language could have been German, Belgium has 3 official languages just like Switzerland. In case of Belgium its Dutch/Flemish, French and German.
8:45 I cut all of the tags out of my clothes straight after buying them and I know a lot of ppl who do that as well. if you’re highly sensitive to tactile sensation it’s not that uncommon. basically there’s just a lot of ppl who simply hate the fking tiny itch that those damned tags cause. just I dunno fyi xD it’s not that weird.
German is my first language but I speak American English better. My family lived in Germany and was multilingual. Moved to the US in my pre teens and pretty much almost never spoke German at all. So it’s practically lost. Even though my first words were in German and I lived most of my early childhood speaking it as my primary language.
What the spy guy said makes sense. If you are doing less than legal things in a foreign country being boring and uninteresting is probably best. Also having anything without a at least reasonable explanation about yourself is a standout feature. It’s better to be so mundane that an average citizens life seems like an insanely wild and crazy life in comparison.
The discussion of the woman’s age is interesting. A lifetime of fitness has left me, for example, looking decades younger than I am. I’m 70, but except for my white hair I could pass for 50 or even younger. I don’t think women working out was much of a thing in 1970 but I wouldn’t rule it out. Especially for a spy.
In Belgium, there are three languages: french, flemish and german. So, even if the woman was speaking german, she could still have been Belgian from the region of Belgium where german is spoken. About the woman and who she was, did anyone check to see if there were any men staying in the same hotels at the same time she was? or at least some of them. Perhaps she was the mistress of an ‘important’ politician and was blackmailing him? that would make her look like a spy – changing hotels so he and his people cannot find her while she is making her demands? maybe she was stalking the ‘important’ politician? it’s a weak plot, but has anyone considered it?
One thing puzzling me is why her body was left where it could be discovered. I live in the mountains and if that valley is anything like the area where I live, hiding the body would have been easy. If the killer or killers had time to lug some gasoline to the site, they could have taken a small shovel. They also could have buried the body beneath leaves, branches or stones. Nature would have done the rest.
Everyone thought the Sommerton man was a spy too and he turned out to be just a random guy that died on a beach. Our imaginations run wild in these types of cases, but the simplest explanation is probably the correct one… she was just some random lady on vacation that was a victim of a robbery gone wrong or something along those lines.
33:43 Language is interesting, I have to tell people English isn’t my first language. And even then I tell them for laughs, or just to flex on em. It’s very easy to portray or reach fluency if you absorb enough culture and study. enough, especially from youth. She also moved around a lot as a kid, so it’s pretty likely she was just sick with it when it came to language
As a thruhiker (loooong distance backpacker,) I just want to point out that if the murder site was really up a steep ass scree slope (loose rock) with presumably a crap tonne of other extremely rugged dangerous terrain around it then there’s no way in hell that she would have been able to hike up that slooe while under the influence of the sleeping pills. Traversing terrain like that requires full brain power – being that full of sleeping pills? She could not have managed the assent, so she would have had to have been completely lucid for the entire journey up to the murder site, THEN drugged.
Re: Border Checks: even creepier. When you return to the US (on a US passport), you walk up to the guy at the booth and he say “Hello so and so!” and says your name to you before you hand him anything. Its all facial recognition or chips in the passport or knowing who is on what plane, or all of the above. Freaky.
Being so “notable” and yet unidentified leans heavily towards spy seeing as she is known for nothing that was able to identify her which is a very spy thing. I could see theif or smuggler as well. Its also possible that she was a scientist working on the missle trials leading to higher ups wanted her death covered up quickly due to the nature of her work, though thats unlikely now as it would have been released by now
“an unknown dead person shows up! omg we HAVE to know who, how, and why!” me: if its not been a murder then i’m unconcerned. i dont know anyone who’s disappeared suddenly. suppose i should feel compassion for the deceased’s family, if there is any, but i wont know anything about them either so that is difficult. just because its a mystery isnt nearly enough for me, but go you… i guess.
If you had information on stolen treasures from WW2 that no one else had you might act like this woman did when you were trying to hunt them down. Various identities to move around and shake off anyone who might be following you. Remove the labels on your clothes and getting rid of anything that might indicate where you were from if anyone came by looking for you. Being able to smuggle the items would require money and identities. I can’t think of anything that couldn’t be explained by this.
She sounds like a woman trying to get away from an abusive partner much more than she sounds like a spy, actually P.S.: My main issue with the spy theory is that it doesn’t hold water unless you think real life espionage works like in the Bond films. If you wanna spy on another country you use local assets, you don’t send in a lone officer that sticks out like a sore thumb.