World's Greatest Con

Princess Caraboo becomes Mary Baker once again.

Behind the exotic language, the pirate kidnapping, and the faraway island was a poor young woman with a far more painful story.

As the truth of Mary’s life comes into focus, her famous deception begins to look less like a clever prank and more like a desperate attempt to escape the world she was born into.

One massive question remains: how will her once loyal patron Mrs. Worrall punish her humiliating deception?
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We return to the Mac Lab one final time as Brian is joined by Mike Edwards and Banachek live on stage to discuss Project Alpha at CSICon 2026 in Buffalo, NY.

Part two of Princess Caraboo is coming soon!
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A mysterious woman walks into a small English village speaking a language nobody understands.

She says her name is Princess Caraboo: royalty from a faraway island, kidnapped by pirates and shipwrecked near Bristol.

Soon, doctors, newspapers, and wealthy hosts are all drawn into her story.

But the bigger the legend grows, the harder it becomes to know who is fooling whom.
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In 1915, San Diego is on the brink of becoming a major American city, if it doesn’t die of thirst first.

Enter Charles Hatfield. He claims a secret chemical process can summon rain, end the drought, and sustain the city as it prepares to welcome the world for a critical international exhibition.

And he’s right.

It rains.

The problem is, it doesn’t stop.

Floods tear through the region. Dozens are dead. Millions of dollars in damage follow. Entire neighborhoods are washed away.
In the aftermath, everything hinges on one impossible question: did he truly believe he was making the rain or was it all a con?
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Charles Ponzi conducted a financial fraud so audacious he became the biggest brand name in crime. Yet most people don’t know what he actually did and those who do are often hard-pressed to explain why it was special.

So why, more than 100 years later, do we call so many financial scams a Ponzi scheme?

Brian tells the story of a poor boy from Italy whose name is still on the lips of everyone worried they’re about to be made a sucker.

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