This man’s house could apparently play the radio. The problem was, it didn't have one.
Gus Saur was a longtime druggist in Wichita, Kansas. His house had no receiver, no antenna, nothing. But music and radio programs could supposedly be heard clearly inside, with no static, and only when every door and window was closed.
Great Falls Tribune, Aug 23, 1926
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His neighbors tested their own radios and found they were receiving completely different stations. Saur's dog even seemed to hear the broadcasts several minutes before the people in the house could. The story ran as a wire piece out of Wichita in early August and kept circulating through the month, and even into 1927 and 1928.
Radio experts came from around the country. Nobody could explain it. One specialist put it plainly: "I don't know what's causing all this, but if I did I could cash in for a million dollars."
Months later, a local radio manager, C.A. Crabtree, announced he'd solved the mystery. His explanation was that there was a radio in each neighboring house (specifics of which I don’t understand are in the article), and one was grounded to a water pipe running directly to Saur's home. He believed the two sets were interacting, and the pipe was carrying the sound into the house.
Wichita Eagle, Dec 19, 1926
So, mystery solved? Not exactly. The house didn't make a sound on the night Crabtree investigated it himself. His theory never fully accounted for everything the earlier reports described.
So what do you think: had Gus's house accidentally become a crude receiver, was sound traveling through the plumbing, or was Gus getting publicity for his pharmacy?