Rowan Ellis, Katie Steckles and Bill Sunderland (‘Escape This Podcast’) face a question about a confuddled community in California.
LATERAL is a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit https://www.lateralcast.com
GUESTS:
Rowan Ellis: @HeyRowanEllis, https://twitter.com/HeyRowanEllis
Katie Steckles: @KatieSteckles, https://twitter.com/stecks
Bill Sunderland: @consumethismedia, https://twitter.com/EscThisPodcast
HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
RECORDED AT: The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
EDITED BY: Julie Hassett.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm (‘Private Detective’/’Agrumes’, courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
© Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2023.
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Milky way…
You can see the milky way with the naked eye? You must be joking. I thought you just see more stars.
I guessed it was the Milky Way during a blackout after hearing the question for the second time and cringed really hard until they finally guessed it 🥲.
Edit: iirc, it also happened once in New York City? I might be wrong about that though 🤔.
Oh my god, people mistook the night sky for a glowing cloud worthy of worry? Dang.
I thought ut would've been related to smog, the other LA weather phenomenon
I heard about this before, but I could've sworn it was NYC not LA 🤷♀️
That whole episode I thought the answer was Earthquake Light, which is light that appears in the sky around tectonic events. It's well document, but not yet understood.
And that's what happens when the half of the population is poor and uneducated and the other half is shallow and vane
I remember hearing about this years ago, and it still pops into my head sometimes.
Space is, to me, the most beautiful thing
0:10 I Know this One🔭🌌
How dumb do people have to be to not know what STARS are.
… Especially in LA, they got lotsof stars there…
Damn it! I didn't get this until the very end, but I knew this from ages ago! 😖😅
I knew this one prior, first time i knew the answer instantly
This one session was so meme-y
I don't what is a worse indictment of LA residents, that they thought the Milky Way was a cloud, or that they actually called 911 about it.
I like the idea that this is how stories get made up and passed down in generations. And that's how greek mythology started
I lived in LA for 6 months and the only time there was a cloud in the sky was when there was a wildlife.
Based on the ambiguous wording of the question, I was completely convinced that this happened in the middle of the day. My initial thought was "why would anyone call 911 about a cloud?" Even scary cumulonimbus clouds don't generally elicit emergency phone calls. So my working theory was that the cloud either looked like a tornado or a column of smoke, because people would be terrified of a tornado and worried about a fire. I couldn't figure out how an earthquake would start a tornado (and dispatchers would definitely not dismiss a tornado), so I guessed that the earthquake started a small fire (perhaps a gas line rupture or something) that the authorities quickly got under control, but the column of black smoke worried people.
How wrong I was.
gasp birds are a cloud
My uninformed guess is the earthquake kind of puffed LA’s usual smog up into the sky and it didn’t settle back down for a few hours
I just figured out Bill has a wall of wardrobes with mirrored sliding doors 🤦🏻♂️
That answer. Daaaaaaaaaaaang…
Please tell Katie that Americans don't understand America, she certainly can't be expected to.
I'm guessing it was at night and a lot of city was without power, so there was no light pollution and they were seeing the Milky Way in the sky for the first time.
Initial thoughts: Earthquake -> power went out -> they saw the night sky for the first time -> probably referring to the Milky Way (or if dumber, the moon).
Gotta call BS on this one. I was in that earthquake, and the power was not out in the entire city of LA, which is massive. The lights that were still on would have caused light pollution. And it's not like people don't know what the Milky Way looks like, there are millions of photos of it.
That's… honestly really sad. Imagine never having seen the Milky Way.
That said I've only seen it a few times myself! I wish that wasn't the case.
I just learned today that 80% of North America's population can't see the Milky Way due to light pollution. Even though I have lived my whole life in rural areas, except for my college years, and haven't seen it, this could have taken place almost anywhere in North America, with any natural disaster capable of knocking out power.
Me immediately after the question was asked: "The earthquake knocked out the power and they were seeing the milky way- wait how would they call 911 if it was a blackout? It must be something else"
Tom at the end: "No, it was that."
Me: "Well that's me told I guess."
An event like that would be the genesis of a whole string of conspiracy theories if that happened in 2023. The emergency operators would be accused of being part of the government orchestrated cover up.
The second of the Christchurch earthquakes was magnitude 6.3 and centred almost right under the city. It felt very strong. There was a big, heavy CRT monitor on my desk, and it was bouncing around like crazy. I had to put my hand out to stop it from jumping off.
Spoiler mode…. ON!
Speaking of being freaked out by space related things, the LA residents actually saw a bunch of aliens driving cars.
Specifically, the cast of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, rushing home in the pre-cellphone era to check on their families.
Actor Armin Shimerman (who played Quark) said people seeing him in his full Ferengi makeup scared the crap out of them.
Astronomers Aparna Venkatesan and John C. Barentine have recently coined the term "noctalgia" to describe the sadness of collectively losing our night skies.
I was there and not a moron. This can’t have been more than a handful of calls right ?
5:20 bills imagination never gets old
NOPE…?
The answer gives off “no mother, that’s just the Northern Lights” kinda vibes