WEBVTT - All the Gold In Fort Knox: Meh 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.560 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.680 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:16.320 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.279 Jerry's out there somewhere, and this is Stuff you should Know. 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:27.160 Carrot plated Gold Edition gold plated didn't know what happens? 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:28.840 Like if you put a bunch of gold together, it 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.440 means more carrots, I think. So I'm afraid to doubt you, though, 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.080 because I had a movie crushers say that. I'm all 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.760 I do lately is say you're wrong? Do you What 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.680 do they mean lately? I know, I don't know. He 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:48.320 must be a newcomer to the podcast. Slightly distressing, says, 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.040 Josh's is all the time lately. Josh makes really good points, 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.000 and all Chuck does his poopa it by just saying no, 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.680 you're wrong. It's like, does that even happen once? If 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:01.840 it may, I'm sure it's happened more than once. But 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.160 if it makes you feeling better, I haven't noticed, and 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.000 that's what really counts, don't you think? Yeah, I guess, 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:10.560 although there are like a million plus people listening, so 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:15.480 I guess their opinions count as well. Oh, man, you 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.559 know it's funny, is I didn't even see that coming chuck. Yeah, 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:21.680 that was good, good stuff. And I almost just said 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.040 the s wort, that was good stuff. You're wrong, it 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:32.240 was mediocre. Let's just do this Fortes. Yeah, no, let's 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.520 do a real podcast episode. This, uh, this is interesting. 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:40.080 All I could think about was heist movies. Oh really, 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:42.280 I don't know what I thought about. I think I 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:44.199 was kind of stuck in the thirties. I just thought 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:48.640 of everything is kind of old timey and quaint because 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.760 it's kind of in a way where the story really 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.080 kicks off the story of Fort Knox. In case anybody's 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.240 listening and didn't check the title, Oh, I thought we 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:02.639 were doing an episode on the United States Bullion Depository, Buddy. 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.880 That is the same exact thing in a lot of ways. 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.240 But actually they're different too. Let's talk about this, right. So, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.720 But for anybody who is outside of the United States, 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:13.840 and I would wager that a lot of you, I'd 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.680 wager all the Golden Fort Knox that a lot of 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:20.040 you are very familiar with Fort Knox, because it does 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.280 seem to be kind of like this world famous place 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.000 where the United States hoards its gold and it's just 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:31.560 totally impenetrable, so don't even try. Um. But there's also 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:33.760 like a lot of conspiracy theories too that there's no 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:35.520 gold in there, and we'll talk about all this and 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.440 why there's golden there too, But I feel like we 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.560 should at least give like a background on Fort Knox 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.799 and the ins and outs of it, don't you. Yeah. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.919 In nineteen o three, this is where it all started. Um, 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.239 the U. S Army said, you know what, I think 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.400 we need some training ground out here in Kentucky, in 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.959 West Point, Kentucky. And everybody said, why, Yeah, I don't 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.840 know good at places any I guess, and use that 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.239 area they got, Um, they got a few counties to 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.920 kindly hand them over some land, and they use that 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:11.400 area for training and stuff. Made it a permanent training 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:16.160 camp in nineteen eighteen and then named it after Henry Knox, 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:20.760 a Revolutionary War officer, as Camp Knox. And someone very 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.919 quickly said, that doesn't sound at all tough. It sounds 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:30.440 like children belong here and people roasting smores about Fort Knox. 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.120 It sounds like all the best forts started out as camps. Yeah, 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.440 So they said Shure in Ny two, it became officially 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:43.320 Fort Canucks right, nice one. Um. So yeah, so it 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.200 started out as a legit army base. Um. But then 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.400 eventually in the thirties, which is why I've been stuck 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.120 in the thirties because so much of the story takes 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.960 place there. Um, the United States Mint said, hey, we 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.360 could use a new spot to store some gold, because 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.720 we got a lot of gold. I this isn't even 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:02.360 all of it, but we need a new spot to 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:06.880 store some gold. And they actually took possession of part 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.840 of Fort Knox um and built what's known as, like 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.920 you said, the United States bully On Depository. Um, they're 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.520 in Kentucky and it is legitimately Fort Knox is now 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.840 not just the army camp. Even more famously, it is 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:26.440 really what you officially would call the United States Bullyon Depository. Yeah. 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:28.760 And the camp is still there, and some say it 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:34.000 is Um there is sort of a means of maybe 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.719 intimidation maybe back up, like hey, there's an army camp 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.960 right next door. But they you know, also asked to 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.760 borrow that name because it sounded tougher than the Bullion Depository, 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:47.479 and they said, sure, you can go ahead and just 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:51.000 call that building Fort Knox as well, and that's where 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.240 we moved um, well, not all of it, but we 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:55.640 had a lot of gold at the time, as you 0:04:55.640 --> 0:05:01.160 were saying, and it was, um it was a little unnerving, 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.320 I think, to have most of the gold and the 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.560 country stored in Philadelphia, the ment there and in New 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.520 York because it was so close to the coast, and 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:14.360 if some warring nation wanted to invade us and grab 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.400 our gold, then they wouldn't have far to go to 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.400 get it onto a boat. Yeah, truly, which is you know, 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.720 pretty sensible, really, and I never really thought about that. 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.200 But New York is not very far from water, and 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.760 neither as Philly, so why not. So they decided to 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.200 move um as much as they could. And there was 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.680 silver moved too. There's a lot of stockpiles of silver 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:36.960 that we're not even gonna bother within this story because 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.920 silver we're talking gold here, and they moved a lot 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.600 of it to Denver, and they very quickly said, well, 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.520 the Denver met's a great place because it's protected from 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:49.000 the from the Pacific Ocean by the rocky mountains, which 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.120 would make that makes it much more difficult for an 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.120 invading army. To come in from the Pacific and steal it. 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:57.880 But we're we've run out of space and we need 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.680 some some more space for all the spillover gold. And 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.040 that's when they decided to build a Fort Knox, which 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.520 in Kentucky is protected from the Atlantic Ocean by the 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.280 Appalachian Mountains. So it's pretty pretty clever. Why they why 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.080 they chose Fort Knox. Yeah. So the Treasury, like you said, 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.520 took control of that land in thirty six and then 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.000 in thirty seven, and they, I mean they started building 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.760 you know there. You know, they couldn't just keep it 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.719 intense even though those intimidating Appalachian Mountains were right there. 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.039 They're like, we need a building here. So they built 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.120 a building over um just a few months. Cost about 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.320 it impressive, Yeah, UM cost about a half a million bucks. 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.360 In the nine seven they said we're open for business, Um, 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.960 bring that gold from New York City. They did, and 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.279 they they did it the way, exactly the way that 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.440 you would think they would do it. They had um 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.360 a lot of um. They had a secret location where 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:53.599 they were loading it. They sent a bunch of trains 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:58.440 out um that were decoys, UM. And it didn't all 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.599 happen at once. It wasn't one ship mint that made 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.680 its way from New York and Philadelphia over to U Kentucky. 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:09.080 It would have been in the movie, I think exactly. Yeah, 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.680 But um it happened like actually in in many shipments 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.560 over several years. But supposedly they did it like sometimes 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.920 darkness of nights and there was decoys, um. And they 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:23.200 were always protected by a number of groups from the 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.920 post Office um uh, inspectors that are licensed to carry guns. 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.640 Which would I hate to say it, everybody, but that's 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:33.400 the one that you would try to hijack if you 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:39.440 were going to hijack like yeah right, um yes, chuck 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.440 all the way to the army, you know, which I 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.080 would I would probably not try to hijack that one. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:47.720 If I were going to hijack one, which I wouldn't do, 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.560 it would probably be the postal inspector one. Yeah. And 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.600 you know, I'm sure that they've someone has written a 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.960 movie treatment at some point for a nine seven try 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.120 on the Way to Fort Knox heist type of thing, right, 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:07.200 and they surely would have cast those poor post office 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:13.960 gun slingers. Is the the likely train that's poor guys? 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.239 Um So we've got the gold shown up at Fort Knox. 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.200 And the thing is is like this was like people 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:23.400 knew about this. It wasn't done in secret, Like this 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.720 was this is known about UM And I think I 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:28.560 get the impression that the reason that it was talked 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.120 about and discussed, and they were like little tidbits here 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.960 there in the in the um, in the popular media, 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.600 um to give this idea like Okay, yes we're moving 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:41.200 this gold, but like, don't even try it, Like here's 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.800 just enough that you need to know to not even 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.240 come anywhere near this place. And over the years, little 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:49.679 tidbits have kind of been released here there that give 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.840 a pretty complete picture of what you would be dealing 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.840 with if you did, in fact try to uh impregnate 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:04.000 for Knox. Oh pretty sexy. So uh, first of all, 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.079 you can't just take a tour. I mean you can 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:10.840 tour almost anything in this country except for Fort Knox. 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.679 Even if you're sitting congress person, the chances are you're 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.800 probably not going to get a tour. Yeah, I mean, 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.160 if ed is correct here who helped us put this together, 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.400 there have only been three official tours, Is that right? Yeah, 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.640 that's what I saw. So there's there was one from 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.960 FDR himself, which is pretty understandable. UM. There was one 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.080 in the seventies, which we'll talk about, UM, which made sense, 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.120 but it was a congressional delegation. And then I think 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:44.160 in two thousands seventeen, Stephen Minusian and a delegation toured it. 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.760 So there's at least three, but those are the three 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:49.840 that we know about. There may have been more, but 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.280 I would think they would kind of publicize that because 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.400 the whole point of being a delegate to tour Fort 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.599 Knox is to basically reassure the public there's there's a 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.520 lot of golden there. Don't even more about it. Yes, 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.240 the gold's there. That's pretty much the reason why anybody 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.720 gets a tour of Fort Knox. I wonder if they 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.160 let FDR in just to say, hey, you might as 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.400 well just urinate on this golden person, because that's what 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:17.520 you're about to do with policy. That's that's probably what happened. 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.160 We'll get to that later with the gold standard. Uh. 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.720 And of course you didn't urinate on it. Even with policy, 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.520 you don't know. You can't ever tell what that FDR. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.720 So here's a bunch of things, and this this next 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.080 bit is going to be just sort of a lot 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.000 of the facts and figures that we know and we've 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.880 gleaned over the years. Some comes from official releases, some 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.839 comes from an old nineteen thirties issue of Popular Mechanics, 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.679 which is kind of cool. Uh, but should we take 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.200 a break first? Oh? Sure, man, Yeah, I think that's 0:10:50.200 --> 0:11:22.959 a great cliffhanger. All right, great, we'll be right back. Alrighty, 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.720 So we promised you stats and figures about Fort Knox 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:32.120 and issues of Popular Mechanics. I know, how's this for you? 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.000 The vault requires, of course, multiple people to open it up, 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:40.080 and each person nobody knows the entire combination. Each person 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.360 it knows only a part of it. And even if 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.480 you got it open, there's a one d hour time 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.679 delay locks, so you gotta wait. If you have them 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.080 at gunpoint and you all force and you force them 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:53.920 all to open it, you gotta sit around and wait 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:56.679 for four days, no matter what. That's my favorite one. 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.240 It's pretty great. Mm hmm. That in the fact that 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.360 it's really just artificial intelligence from the future is the 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.280 only one that has the entire combination in its possession. 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:11.200 What else, Um, well, let's see, they're the the vault 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.280 itself is actually inside a building. So you remember in 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.480 our Alcatraz episode where the cell Blox where buildings inside 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.719 of the larger prison building. That's exactly the same thing, 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.760 and not coincidentally they're built around the same time. UM, 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.080 So I think there was that kind of you know, 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.719 impenetrable building within an impenetrable building in the Zeitgeist kind 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.920 of thing going on. Um. And the only way, the 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.560 only place the vault and that building are connected is 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.040 on the floor. But don't even think of coming up 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.480 from under the floor because, um, the flooring is two 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.280 ft thick of granite um, which you are not going 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.040 to get through even if you successfully dug under. And 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.280 I'll just go ahead and tell you why you would 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:55.440 not be able to successfully dig under the building from 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.840 the outside is because you have barrier after barrier after 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.400 fence after razor I are separating you from the building. 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.280 There's a huge blank field around the building, so it's 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.680 not very easy to kind of walk up to it. 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:14.280 And they apparently have said that the field around the 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.160 building is a mine field, which means that they apparently 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:24.000 studied cartoons to design Fort Knock, which I love. You're 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:28.240 like what would while e coyote do exactly? Um, yeah, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.840 it is, I mean it's it's it's definitely worth googling 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.720 a uh like an aerial image of this building. It's 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.520 it's pretty interesting. I mean it it does. It sits 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.520 out in the middle of nothing, uh, in this big 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:44.800 flat area, and there's like a circular driveway around it. 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.360 And you know, it's made of what you think it's 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:52.760 made of, which is granite and concrete and steel. They 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.280 said that the walls are also two feet in thickness, 0:13:56.320 --> 0:14:00.559 and inside those walls are fabricated steel hills that are 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:04.120 so closely smushed together that they say a human hand 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.959 can't even get between them. Right. Uh, So you need 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.040 a baby or a child. You need a baby hand. 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:13.640 So you got to bring a baby. You have to 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.439 bring diapers and food to last the baby four days 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.280 until the time lock. Yeah. Of course, don't forget a 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.520 gun to hold people off with. Ye and probably some 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:24.600 people you don't like to send through the minefield the 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:26.480 clear path for you. Yeah, and you've got to get 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:28.520 one of those diaper genies to put the diaper in, 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.200 otherwise it's gonna smell in there. Oh man, it would 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.280 smell so bad in that little building. Uh here's another 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.280 cool thing. Well, the whole the whole building isn't huge. 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.440 I mean it's it's not small. It's ten thousand square feet, 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.640 but it's not I don't know. You think of Fort 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.680 Knox and you think of, um, something the size of 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:50.080 like a maximum security prison or something like that. Um, 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:54.560 it's not huge. But um the building inside the building, 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:58.840 so the vault inside has an eighteen inch space clear 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.160 on every side and have all these mirrors everywhere. And 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.040 of course now they have real cameras. I guess this 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:09.520 was from the popular mechanics pre camera. You just use 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.520 mirrors to make sure that you could see every square 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.640 inch of this thing. Yeah. So if you did somehow 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.520 manage to get inside the vault, the people who whose 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.520 job it is is to watch the vault would see 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:26.120 you immediately and they post yeah yeah. They would just start, 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.200 you know, lobbying dead letter office packages at you until 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:33.640 you got annoyed and left. And of course there's heavy artillery. 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:39.600 There are um four corner machine gun turrets essentially on 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:44.000 the outer building. Looking so, I'm sorry, I was confused. 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.280 Is that on the outer building or is that part 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:51.400 of the vault. I think that's outside. Okay, I don't know. 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.760 I couldn't quite tell. I didn't and I didn't see 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.360 it outside. Did you see him outside? Well, I mean 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:58.840 I saw, I mean I didn't see any really close ups. 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.480 Everything was kind of an area all and I did 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:05.760 see what looked like corner turrets, but maybe they are inside. Okay. 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:07.640 I don't know if I'd be shooting up machine guns 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.400 inside a granite room. Yeah, that's actually probably a pretty 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.400 bad idea. I I mean, I've seen wildly condy too. 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.000 Those bullets bounced all over the place, that's right. Um, 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.240 So you've also got a door to contend with. So 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.840 so so far, you've got two ft thick everything to 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.440 get through. Um, which means that your best bet is 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.480 to go through the door because rather than twenty four inches, 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.040 it's only twenty one inches thick. But you should probably 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.600 be dissuaded by the fact that it's blast, drill and 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.800 torch proof, said the US Mint director from back in 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.560 two thousand and sixteen, Philip Deal. Yeah, and again this 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.720 is all under the banner of don't even think about it, buddy. Right, Um, 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.480 between the uh, there's a corridor that encircles the vault 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:53.400 and then the outer wall of the building. They do 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.920 have some offices. I guess that's where Dottie the secretary 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:01.479 has been since nineteen fifties something, or Danny or Danny, 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.080 that's true. I don't think they gave jobs like that 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.919 to Danny in the nineteen fifties. Okay, maybe not in 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:08.919 the fifties. That's fine. But I got called out for 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.720 letting that Stooges comment pass, and I'm not gonna I'm 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:13.960 not going on the grill again for you, pal what 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:18.120 that ladies don't like the Three Stooges. We got not one, 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.359 not two, but thrice emails about that, and most of 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.480 them were not happy. Well, actually two of the three 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.000 were very fun about it and said that they love 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.840 the Three Stooges. But yes, but they weren't happy. One 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:32.680 I couldn't tell. And I even wrote her back and 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.280 I was like, I can't tell if you're really mad. Well, 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:39.520 and I said, but I said, I was just if 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.800 you google women don't like Three Stooges. It's a it's 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.000 a trope. I mean, it's a familiar trope. I wasn't 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.439 like inventing some sexist thing. I was just kind of 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.760 funding around with it. Yeah, it's like everybody not liking 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.720 Detroit or Kentucky like Google that right, or Google women 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.560 don't like Rush the band. Hey, hey, hey, let's just 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.359 let's bail out of this while we still have our limb. No, 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:05.399 people can likelyly like. But trust me, have been to 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:07.879 a Rush concert and there was there was a lot 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.119 of masculinity in that room. What year was that, because 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.240 I'll bet I was at the same concert depending I 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.840 went to it must have been eight or eighty nine. No, No, 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.760 I wasn't not that one. This would have been It 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:28.240 would be like, m we just missed each other. Yeah, 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:30.000 just by a few years. Had I just hung out 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:31.960 at the Omni for three or four more years or 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.159 had you, we would have passed each But you're right, women, 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.200 like all sorts of things have been like all sorts 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.040 of things, that's right. And Danny and Dottie can both 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.360 be secretary, that's right. And we don't even call him 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.640 secretaries anymore, Chuck, we should just stop podcasting all together. 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.080 We have aged out of it. So to me, the 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:56.160 only way in would be, uh, the escape tunnel, yes, 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.360 which they thought of that they realized that they actually 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.520 put a tunnel underground that you could use to get 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:07.760 into the UM, the depository, the actual vault UM, which 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.720 they installed in case somebody got locked in there, which 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:14.719 I'm really surprised they even installed that um or design 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:16.399 that in there. I would think like, if you have 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.800 people guarding it as closely as it's being guarded all 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:22.239 the time, that if you got locked in there, they 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:24.879 could let you out and just give you food or 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:29.080 something through those those slots that for the four days, yeah, 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.840 or just in the Yeah, that's an even better idea. Actually, 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.119 now that now that you mentioned it, but now they 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.159 didn't do that. They actually put an escape tunnel in 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.080 so that you can crawl out. It's not like a 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.000 pleasant walk or anything. You crawl like through this tunnel 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.960 and then out into the minefield basically. But the door 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.800 that you reach that lets you outside UM only opens 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.520 from the inside. It's impossible to open from the outside, 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.320 which I take to mean it doesn't have a door 0:19:56.400 --> 0:20:00.520 knob on the outside, and then UM that's it guarded 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.960 by people who are ready to just shoot you up. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.160 If you try to approach this door with your own 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.400 door knob that you brought to open it from the outside, right, 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.199 because you're not gonna come in here with a presumably 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.800 a freight train to steal all this gold. Where are 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.520 you gonna put the tracks? You can't do it. Are 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.000 you gonna get that gold out of there? I just 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.480 love the fact that we're trying to you know, we're 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:29.560 doing a podcast in explaining in dissuading people from trying 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.880 to get into Fort Knox. I mean, it's just so 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.840 like seventies to me, your thirties or you know. The 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.600 other cool thing is is that it can go off grid, 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:44.080 has its own water and power. So if you you know, 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.560 in the movie version, of course, once again, I would 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.320 think you would try and knock it off the line somehow, 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:52.880 get those cameras down, but they say, no, no, no, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.400 we have those generators. We can live off grid. There's 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:58.800 a gun range in the basement, so if you want 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:00.480 to brush up on your machine gun down there, you 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.240 can do that. No, that's kind of like a little 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.119 little lan yacht to the whole thing. Like, by the way, 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.679 these guys are training um with guns downstairs in the 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.080 basement for fun because they've got nothing else to do. 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:15.800 They're just waiting for you to come who is guarding 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.800 it though, Um, from what I understand, their treasury agents 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.639 right and the army um can be called in if needed, 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.720 because again it's like right there, Yeah, the U S. 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:29.160 Met Police Force, Yeah, which I imagine is a it's 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.720 probably a pretty cool gig to have. I don't know 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:34.760 where they would have come up, but I swear we've 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:38.560 mentioned that they exist before. It seems familiar to me. 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:41.320 Have we done this all before? No, we haven't done 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.480 this one, but we have talked about money and currency before, um, 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.080 And I feel like that's where that's where we're at. 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.480 Don't you like that that maybe we should talk about 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.760 the goal itself, because I mean, yes, it's cool that 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.080 there's a twenty one in blast door and there's a 0:21:56.119 --> 0:22:00.520 door that only opens from the inside and these ape tunnel. 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:02.880 But I think what everybody's really fascinated with as much 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.240 as anything is the fact that there is a lot 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:09.359 of gold inside of four knocks. Yeah. And this will 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:11.880 um kind of hit home too. If you've ever seen 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:14.159 movies where you're bringing gold out of a place in 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:18.400 a duffel bag, those gold bars weigh almost twenty eight 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.200 pounds apiece, just one, yeah, just one of those things. 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:24.800 So if you see people throwing them around in a 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:28.560 movie or putting ten of them fifteen of them in 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:31.119 a duffel bag and slinging it over their shoulder, that 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.320 is not realistic at all. They're seven inches long, three 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:37.359 and five eights inches wide, one in three quarters inches thick. 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:41.240 And wait, twenty seven point five pounds each, yeah, or 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:44.280 four hundred troy ounces. If you know what that means. 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.000 I have no idea. Um, and I think it's what 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:51.560 about ten twelve kilos a piece for those of you 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.560