This American Life

A bank robber on an undercover mission. A teenage girl with the powers of a tiger. A vigilante seeking vengeance in Ciudad Juárez. All have secret identities — but not all of them chose those identities for themselves.

Start a Life Partners free trial to watch our new video, A Night of Stories and Improv.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Ira attempts to solve perhaps the most unsolvable mystery at the Trees of Mystery in California: Who is the voice of Paul Bunyan? (7 minutes)

(00:07:25) Act One: If you ever think about assuming a secret identity, you may want to take a little time to consider the possible consequences. Jon Ronson tells the tale of a bank robber who absolutely does not take that advice. (22 minutes)

(00:31:39) Act Two: Elna Baker shares a story about her teenage cousin, Navey Baker, who maintains a secret identity while being a public figure: she's the school mascot, a tiger, at her high school. (11 minutes)

(00:42:33) Act Three: While we were putting together this week's show, we heard about a real-life Avenger with a secret identity in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Writer Yuri Herrera lived on the border for several years and spent a lot of time in Juarez. He went back there to see what effect this secret Avenger has had on the city. (13 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

We asked listeners to send us their best coincidence stories, and we got more than 1,300 submissions! There were so many good ones that we decided to make a whole show about them. From a chance encounter at a bus station to a romantic dollar bill to a baffling apparition in a college shower stall. 

Start a Life Partners free trial to watch our new video, A Night of Stories and Improv.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Hannah Jacoby tells the story of when she and her best friend Lindsey bonded over those toy soldiers with the parachutes, called (really) Poopatroopers — and how the little jumpers perfectly bookended their high-school years. And guest host Sarah Koenig explains the very interesting trends we discovered in our listeners' coincidences. (9 minutes)

(00:09:23) Act One: A surprising number of coincidences involve grandmothers. One grandma has so many coincidences happen to her that it drives her granddaughter, 16-year-old Juliana Bontrager, to try to beat her at her own coincidence game. We also hear from Blake Oliver about a very strange appearance his grandma once made. (9 minutes)

(00:19:31) Act Two: When it comes to love, coincidences tend to loom extra-large. Stephen Lee tells about the time his parents first met his fiance’s parents, and his future mother-in-law dropped a coincidence bomb. And we hear how a dollar bill ended up clinching a marriage, after floating around Chicago for years. (10 minutes)

(00:28:22) Act Three: Ryan Rozar told us about a confounding coincidence that was visited on him in college. We didn’t think it was a coincidence at all, so we set out to prove him wrong. (8 minutes)

(00:37:39) Act Four: More stories of dazzling coincidences: an old boyfriend is conjured in Morocco, a jazz singer seems to rise from the dead, and three boys believe they’ve seen a corpse. Plus stories of errant fathers, lost and found. (13 minutes)

(00:49:57) Act Five: Kerry Weeks tells about the time he lost a pocketknife and turned to the galaxy for help. (7 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

We discover what we believe might be the original recipe for Coca-Cola…and share it with you! When this episode first aired in 2011, it made international headlines. This, and another story about telling copies from originals.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

(00:00:00) Act One: The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world. So we were surprised to find a 1979 newspaper article that might contain Coke's original recipe. We were even more surprised to find reasons to believe the recipe is real. (26 minutes)

(00:26:23) Act Two: Jake Halpern tells this story about document expert John Reznikoff, who came into possession of some materials which — if authentic — would change history. Then, things got complicated (32 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Sayre Quevedo’s invented a way to do a podcast that feels completely new. He’s been recording nearly all his conversations for years, and the result is something that captures a person’s life in a raw and complicated way that’s rarely heard. His new show Reaching Out also documents his mutually judge-y relationship with his twin brother as they set out to find their long-lost birth father.

Want to watch our live show this Friday? Use free trial code LIVESTREAM when you sign up as a Life Partner.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Ira Glass introduces Reaching Out, a podcast that feels like it invented something completely new — an ambitious way of capturing a life in a way we'd never heard before. (1 minute)

(00:02:39) Part One: Sayre Quevedo and his brother start the search for their birth father, and they discover that this whole time he’s been a few minutes away from where Sayre lives. (20 minutes)

(00:21:49) Part Two: The twins try reaching out in a variety of ways before taking more direct action. Sayre tries to continue life as normal. (12 minutes)

(00:34:50) Part Three: Sayre and Connor go in person to face their dad. (24 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Nikole Hannah-Jones made an argument 10 years ago in The New York Times Magazine that became famous. She wrote about choosing a public school for her daughter, Najya, in one of the most racially and economically segregated school systems in the country: New York City. Nikole chose a regular public school, one that most wealthy and middle-class parents wouldn’t consider, and she challenged other parents to do the same. 

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Chana talks with Nikole about what they both remember from being young parents just starting to think about schools for their children. (9 minutes)

(00:10:41) Act One: Nikole talks with Chana about Najya’s elementary school and the problems her family navigated there. (15 minutes)

(00:25:57) Act Two: Chana talks with Najya about her memories of elementary and middle school and how she felt about her mom’s choices. (9 minutes)

(00:31:40) Act Three: Nikole and Najya talk about what changed when Najya pushed back against her mom’s choices for elementary and middle school and got to choose her own high school. (10 minutes)

(00:42:08) Act Four: Nikole and Najya talk with each other about the different choices they made and the questions they still have for each other. (9 minutes)

(00:51:06) Act Five: Nikole fact-checks her memory against her old emails with Najya’s elementary school and has a painful revelation. (7 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

People braving the true final frontier — the gap between people born at slightly different times.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Last fall, some NPR podcasts started getting mysterious comments on Spotify. They made no sense to the staff reading them – until someone from a younger generation cracked the code. (11 minutes)

(00:12:00) Act One: When Courtney Maum was eighteen, her mother married a guy she despised. At their wedding, Courtney read a poem she wrote – a pretty dark poem! – which made her mother furious. More than 30 years later, they finally talk about it. (27 minutes)

(00:41:53) Act Two: When Ike Sriskandarajah was a teenager in Madison, Wisconsin, he thought he had the greatest job. He worked at the movie theater, wore a cummerbund, and snuck friends in through the back door! It was magical. That was more than 20 years ago. Is it still as great as he remembers? Ike goes back to find out. (8 minutes)

(00:50:27) Act Three: Every morning, Myra Flynn finds herself in a standoff with her daughter over her hair. Recently, to understand why these hair sessions are so fraught, Myra started recording them. What she heard sent her on a quest to get answers from her own mother. (11 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Cryptic messages on a cell phone and a teeter-totter at a construction site: these are clues people found, trying to make sense of a death.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks to a guy about a crazy experiment he devised when he was a kid. It almost killed him. (5 minutes)

(00:06:45) Act One: We begin with a woman whose sister has died. She has questions. Her name is Nadia Bowers, and she wrote this to someone she thinks might be of help. (17 minutes)

(00:29:53) Act Two: There’s a problem with having a Facebook account after you’re dead that you’ve never, ever, ever thought about. Producer Stephanie Foo tells this story, about Dave Maher. (14 minutes)

(00:45:49) Act Three: A guy goes to a funeral for someone he doesn’t know at all, and has to piece together everything about him. Producer Dana Chivvis reports. (16 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

As the new school year begins, we have stories from all over the country about people lurching their way through their middle school years – the years when you're figuring out so much. We go to school dances, classrooms, and down to the Mexican border. 

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Host Ira Glass interviews a 14-year-old named Annie, who emailed us asking if we would do a show about middle school. She explains why exactly the middle school years can be so daunting. (4 minutes)

(00:05:42) Act One: In an effort to understand the physical and emotional changes middle school kids experience, Ira speaks with reporter Linda Perlstein, who wrote a book called Not Much Just Chillin' about a year she spent following five middle schoolers. Then we hear from producer Alex Blumberg, who was a middle school teacher in Chicago for four years before getting into radio. Alex's takeaway? We shouldn't even try teaching kids at this age. Marion Strok, principal of a successful Chicago school, disagrees. (6 minutes)

(00:11:59) Act Two: We sent correspondents straight to the epicenters of middle school awkwardness: school dances. We spoke with kids across the country during the nervous moments leading up to the dances, and even ventured inside, to the dance itself. (9 minutes)

(00:21:51) Act Three: When Domingo Martinez was growing up in a Mexican-American family in Texas, Domingo's two middle school-aged sisters found a unique way of coping with feelings of inferiority. (11 minutes)

(00:33:40) Act Four: We realized that there are already reporters on the ground, embedded inside middle schools: the kids who report the daily announcements. Producer Jonathan Menjivar wondered what would happen if instead of announcing sports scores and the daily cafeteria menu, the kids reported what's really on their minds. Students at Parkville Middle School outside Baltimore, along with their journalism teacher Ms. Davis, agreed to try out this experiment. (7 minutes)

(00:40:01) Act Five: Producer Sarah Koenig reports on a kid we'll call Leo, whose family moved away from Rochester, NY, leaving behind all of Leo's friends and

(00:50:41) Act Six: Ira speaks with Shannon Grande, a teacher at Rise Academy in Newark, about a seventh grader who had all sorts of problems with behavior, hygiene, and schoolwork. To help turn him around, Grande had to harness the power of peer pressure for good. (7 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Moments when it seems obvious what to do for someone else, so of course you jump in and try to help — and what happens after that. 

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Devon Taylor tells host Ira Glass about a time she confronted people who stole $100 from her. (12 minutes)

(00:12:01) Act One: We get to an age when we find ourselves taking care of our parents, whether they want us to or not. Writer Kristen Roupenian wrote this piece of fiction based on something real that happened to a family she knows. (20 minutes)

(00:33:37) Act Two: Two chatbots, stuck in a loop, each trying to help the other. Will they ever break free? (20 minutes)

(00:55:48) Act Three: In Utah, some communities have been fighting measles outbreaks for 14 months. These are some of the longest-running outbreaks in the country. But one of our producers, Miki Meek, heard about how school nurses in a town called Vernal helped end its outbreak in just six weeks. Miki finds out how they did it. (9 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been in the news thanks to an extra-long deployment that's taken a toll on its crew. What's life on an aircraft carrier at war really like? Back in 2002, we spent a few days on the USS John C. Stennis, which was sending bombing missions into Afghanistan.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

(00:00:00) Prologue: Alex Blumberg talks with sailor Crevon Scott, who stocks vending machines on the Stennis.

(00:04:52) Act One: Aboard the USS Stennis, Ira Glass and Wendy Dorr talk with sailors about life on board. Off duty, people play video games, work out, or practice in one of the ship's many garage bands. Ira and Wendy also talk with sailors about how rumors travel on the ship — conversations that get back to the top brass, who give the producers heat for chasing salacious stories. Ira interviews the captain, James McDonell, and learns the ship is facing a fresh water shortage.

(00:32:30) Act Two: As pilots head to their planes for a mission, they explain how hard it is to land on an aircraft carrier. Wendy talks with sailors Cynthia and David, waiting for the 8PM movie to start, and she and Alex talk with sailors in the mess hall.

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org / This American Life privacy policy. / Learn more about sponsor message choices.