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Speaker 1: School of humans.

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Speaker 2: Came from over there, due west towards those woods, following

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Speaker 2: you Slick, Tom Slick, February fourteenth, nineteen fifty eighth.

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Speaker 3: My team and I have been out here in the Himalayas.

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Speaker 2: For months, barely surviving, on an expedition that's nearly hijack

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Speaker 2: my life.

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Speaker 4: Hell, it's taken everything, but we just heard it.

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Speaker 5: The proof.

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Speaker 6: To Tract Thelitty is an expedition of life and death,

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Speaker 6: mister Slick.

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Speaker 3: It's some mystery that does not want to be sogged.

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Speaker 4: That's why I'm here.

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Speaker 2: That's second something to the explode.

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Speaker 7: Click cut the brown wire.

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Speaker 4: What if I told you I just cut the red one.

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Speaker 7: We're gonna die. Dulles and Chance arrives at at.

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Speaker 1: God but blood pressure checked after that.

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Speaker 3: Mom, you don't have to listen to this. If it's

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Speaker 3: too much.

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Speaker 4: These are my father's untold stories.

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Speaker 1: I am listening.

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Speaker 2: This is the mostly true tale of Tom Slick, the

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Speaker 2: most interesting man you've never heard of.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to chapter eight. Fact verse fiction. The director John

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Speaker 3: Ford is credited with saying, when the legend becomes fact

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Speaker 3: print the legend. This podcast follows the remarkable exploits of

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Speaker 3: a real man who lived a legendary life. In this

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Speaker 3: bonus episode, we'll separate the facts from fiction. I'm Caroline Slaughter,

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Speaker 3: the writer and director of Tom Slick Mystery Hunter. I

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Speaker 3: spoke with Tom Slick's descendants and those who were carrying

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Speaker 3: on his legacy to reveal the real Tom Slick. Thomas

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Speaker 3: Slick Junior was born in Clarion, Pennsylvania, on May sixth,

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Speaker 3: nineteen sixteen. As depicted in the podcast. His father, Tom

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Speaker 3: Slick Senior, was known as the King of the Wildcatters

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Speaker 3: due to the large fortune he made mining the fields

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Speaker 3: of Oklahoma for oil before his death in nineteen thirty

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Speaker 3: at only forty six years old. Tom inherited millions after

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Speaker 3: his father's death and used that inheritance to fund institutes

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Speaker 3: dedicated to cutting edge scientific research, some of which still

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Speaker 3: exist today. Slick also funded multiple expeditions to track down

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Speaker 3: the Eddy. We'll get into all of that and more,

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Speaker 3: but first things first. Did Tom Slick leave behind lost

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Speaker 3: tapes documenting his exploits.

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Speaker 4: There were no tapes in the archive. I found, just

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Speaker 4: wonderful letters.

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Speaker 3: This is Tom Slick Junior, historian and his niece Catherine

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Speaker 3: Nixon Cook.

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Speaker 4: I discovered in a shed in one of his scientific institutes.

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Speaker 4: All of his letters written between nineteen forty one and

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Speaker 4: nineteen sixty two, the year that he died.

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Speaker 3: These letters served as research for the two biographies Catherine

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Speaker 3: wrote about her uncle, including one titled Tom Slick Mystery Hunter.

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Speaker 3: But unlike our podcast series, her books are composed of

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Speaker 3: only facts.

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Speaker 4: These letters of Tom Slick were deep. They talked about feelings,

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Speaker 4: they talked about new ideas. They were a real treasure trove.

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Speaker 4: There were stories of breeding the Brangus cattle. There were

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Speaker 4: stories about the Yetti. There were stories about corresponding with

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Speaker 4: Albert Schweitzer about birth control. He invented a hair dryer

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Speaker 4: that we now would think of as a hooded hair dryer.

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Speaker 4: He started an Institute for peace. Just really too many.

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Speaker 3: To me, Catherine's right. Our podcast series covers only a

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Speaker 3: portion of Tom Slick's unique and ambitious pursuits, and some

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Speaker 3: of those escapades, as you'll find out in this episode,

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Speaker 3: are largely dramatized, but they are based on truth. Though

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Speaker 3: Tom Slick played many roles in his life as an explorer, inventor,

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Speaker 3: and pioneer of science, the role he revered the most

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Speaker 3: was being a father.

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Speaker 1: My brother, tom, My, sister Patty, and I would spend

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Speaker 1: the entire summer with Dad in San Antonio. Our times

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Speaker 1: with him were really fun.

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Speaker 3: That's Tom Slick Junior's youngest son, Charles urschel Slick, known

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Speaker 3: to friends and family as Chuck. In the podcast, Tom

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Speaker 3: Slick's story is told true tapes found by his supposed

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Speaker 3: descendants Live and Claire Slick. Both are fictional characters I

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Speaker 3: created for the podcast, but Chuck and his two siblings

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Speaker 3: had first hand experience with Tom's as a devoted and

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Speaker 3: engaged father.

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Speaker 1: He was a really fun person and that, along with

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Speaker 1: his interests in his enthusiasm for whatever his projects were,

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Speaker 1: the fun part brought people along with him, even people

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Speaker 1: who would have said, you know, oh my gosh, the yetie,

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Speaker 1: it's crazy, but his enthusiasm was infectious.

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Speaker 3: Chuck was four or five when his parents divorced. His

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Speaker 3: mother moved them from San Antonio to New Jersey, but

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Speaker 3: his father remained very involved in his children's lives.

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Speaker 1: He took us traveling to a lot of places. We

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Speaker 1: went to Bermuda, we went to Nassau, we went to Acapulco, Disneyland.

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Speaker 1: But we didn't always go in the normal fashion. One

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Speaker 1: time when we were driving to the Grand Canyon, he

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Speaker 1: bought Volkswagen bus from his step brother Charles Erschel, but

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Speaker 1: it didn't have air conditioning because it's nineteen fifty eight

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Speaker 1: or nine. But that didn't slow him down. He got

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Speaker 1: some of the engineers from Southwest Research Institute, one of

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Speaker 1: his institutions, to come to his house and put a

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Speaker 1: room air conditioner on the roof and pipe it into

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Speaker 1: the bus, and we were just as cool as we

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Speaker 1: could be.

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Speaker 3: It seems like he had a childlike spirit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he did. He was very interested in just all

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Speaker 1: sorts of things. His mind was kind of wide open

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Speaker 1: and very optimistic. He sort of thought, well, anything can happen.

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Speaker 1: He thought nothing was impossible.

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Speaker 3: It was this spirit that motivated his ambitious pursuits and

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Speaker 3: just one of the many truths Slick bestowed on his children.

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Speaker 1: He was big on aphorisms. Whenever we would complain about something,

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Speaker 1: which was often, he would say, you have to be adaptable,

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Speaker 1: or you'll become extinct like the dinosaurs. And when we

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Speaker 1: were scared to do something like dive off the diving board,

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Speaker 1: he would say, a coward dies a thousand deaths, A

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Speaker 1: brave man only one.

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Speaker 3: You may recognize this aphorism from episode four, when Owen

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Speaker 3: Wilson's Slick tells the character Bud about his drive to

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Speaker 3: find the Eddy. According to Chuck, it was an adage

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Speaker 3: instilled in his father and childhood.

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Speaker 1: The story was that they were out in the woods

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Speaker 1: and there was some like a log bridge that you

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Speaker 1: had to cross to get over the creek, and he

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Speaker 1: was scared to do it, and either his father or

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Speaker 1: his grandfather said that to him, a coward dies a

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Speaker 1: thousand deaths, a brave man only one. And of course

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Speaker 1: later on in his life, with all the things that

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Speaker 1: he did, including in places like Brazil and the Amazon

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Speaker 1: and the Himalayas, it certainly he took it to heart.

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Speaker 3: This was one of the many things young Tom garnered

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Speaker 3: from a pivotal figure in his life. Catherine Nixon Cook explains.

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Speaker 4: Tom Slick was greatly influenced by his dad and did

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Speaker 4: inherit that spirit of adventure and curiosity.

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Speaker 3: While in the podcast we depict Slick Junior as having

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Speaker 3: a competitive urge to escape living under the shadow of

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Speaker 3: his father, that was an embellishment I set up to

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Speaker 3: motivate him. According to Catherine, Tom respected and adored his father,

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Speaker 3: and even though that contentious dynamic is dramatized in the series,

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Speaker 3: there was a truth Slick Junior touched on in his

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Speaker 3: speech to Bud that his father's fascinations inspired his own.

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Speaker 4: Tom Slick Senior was away a lot looking for oil,

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Speaker 4: but when he was home he was very tender, and

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Speaker 4: his three children adored him. He read them stories. I

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Speaker 4: love to talk about the Man of snow Lome Denege

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Speaker 4: in the mountains, which started Tom's curiosity about the snow man,

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Speaker 4: which would become the Yeti.

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Speaker 3: So Slick Junior did, in fact, first hear about the

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Speaker 3: Yeti from his father, a cryptozoological mystery that he would

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Speaker 3: later pursue on multiple expeditions to the Himalayas. But this

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Speaker 3: was just one of the influences his father had on him.

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Speaker 3: The stories about Tom Slick Senior from episode one are

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Speaker 3: largely true. I'll fill you in on that and more

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Speaker 3: after the break.

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Speaker 2: My father used to tell me a coward dies a

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Speaker 2: thousand discs, brave man only one, and he lived by

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Speaker 2: that motto, which made him a legend.

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Speaker 3: Millie Kerr is an historian of Tom Slick Sor. She's

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Speaker 3: also his great great niece, making her Tom Slick Junior's

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Speaker 3: great niece. Millie says Tom Slick Sr. Was indeed the

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Speaker 3: first lucky Tom Slick.

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Speaker 5: What I love about Tom Slick Sr. Was that he

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Speaker 5: really did make his own luck. His brother and father

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Speaker 5: worked in the oil industry, but in sort of low

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Speaker 5: level positions, and he was just determined to make it

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Speaker 5: in this field. So he moved around a bit, and

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Speaker 5: then he moved down to Oklahoma to find the big one,

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Speaker 5: as he put it. And at that point he had

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Speaker 5: actually been very unlucky, and he had earned the nickname

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Speaker 5: dry hole Slick because everywhere he drilled it came up dry.

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Speaker 5: But then he happened to discover the Cushing oil field,

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Speaker 5: which was one of the most important and large oil

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Speaker 5: fields in the US, and he essentially became an overnight millionaire.

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Speaker 3: When Tom Slick Senior died, his estate was valued at

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Speaker 3: somewhere between seventy five and one hundred million dollars in

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Speaker 3: today's terms, that's between six hundred and fifty nine million

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Speaker 3: and one point eight billion. He was reputed to be

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Speaker 3: the wealthiest independent oil man in the world.

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Speaker 5: And he ultimately became extremely successful. After a period of

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Speaker 5: very bad luck, where a lot of people would have

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Speaker 5: just thrown in the towel and said this is not working.

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Speaker 5: But he was just determined to push on and find

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Speaker 5: that big one. So his legacy was vast, and he

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Speaker 5: really was a true wildcatter in that he was operating

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Speaker 5: on his own and looking for his own luck and

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Speaker 5: making it.

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Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Slick Senior died young, at only forty six years old.

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Speaker 3: Tom Slick Junior was just fourteen at the time. Losing

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Speaker 3: your father is hard enough, but there were other consequences

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Speaker 3: of his death on the Slick family too.

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Speaker 5: Tom Slick sor hated publicity, hated the press, only gave

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Speaker 5: one interview, I believe in his entire career, and part

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Speaker 5: of that was his concern about how his wealth and

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Speaker 5: or his children's wealth might impact the family in the future.

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Speaker 5: But when he died, he couldn't control the fact that

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Speaker 5: his death was widely reported in the papers, and a

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Speaker 5: lot of those articles referenced his net worth. And then

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Speaker 5: several years later, when his widow, Bernice, married Charles Erschel,

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Speaker 5: they tried to keep their wedding completely private, but it

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Speaker 5: got picked up in the press and so the public

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Speaker 5: and criminals like machine Gun Kelly discovered the immense wealth

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Speaker 5: of this family, and that made the surviving family members

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Speaker 5: really vulnerable because at the time, kidnapping became sort of

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Speaker 5: the new trend in criminal activity. After the end of Prohibition.

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Speaker 5: Criminals who had been bootlegging were trying to figure out

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Speaker 5: new ways to make money, and so they began kidnapping

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Speaker 5: wealthy individuals for ransom, and Machine Gun Kelly and his

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Speaker 5: wife Catherine decided to kidnap a family member.

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Speaker 3: That's right, machine Gun Kelly, not the rapper, but the

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Speaker 3: infamous bank robber, really did kidnaps like junior stepfather Charles Erschel.

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Speaker 3: According to Millie, that target was originally supposed to be

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Speaker 3: Tom's sister Betty.

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Speaker 5: Apparently they thought for quite a while about kidnapping my grandmother,

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Speaker 5: who I believe was about fifteen at the time, But

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Speaker 5: in the end, when machine Gun Kelly and his accomplice

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Speaker 5: came to the family home in Oklahoma City, they took

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Speaker 5: my step great grandfather Charles Erschel, and this ended up

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Speaker 5: being one of the most highly publicized notable kidnappings in

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Speaker 5: American history.

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Speaker 3: In episode two, Tom Slick Junior figures out from a

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Speaker 3: ransom note where Charles Erschel is being held hostage, but

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Speaker 3: that didn't really happen. First of all, at the times,

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Speaker 3: like Junior was in boarding school at Exeter, so he

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Speaker 3: didn't face off with machine Gun Kelly as I depicted

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Speaker 3: in the podcast. And second of all, my.

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Speaker 5: Great grandmother Bernice paid the ransom, and at that time

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Speaker 5: it was the highest kidnapping ransom that had ever been paid,

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Speaker 5: and because of that, Charles Erschel was released by the crimine.

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Speaker 3: But there is a really remarkable element of this story

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Speaker 3: that is true. While kidnapped, Charles Erschuel did keep track

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Speaker 3: of the plane routes, and after he was released, Ursul

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Speaker 3: provided that and other information to authorities in order to

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Speaker 3: help track down Machine Gun Kelly's location.

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Speaker 5: While he was held hostage, he noted everything he could,

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Speaker 5: including the times of the day when planes would fly overhead.

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Speaker 5: He just used his bodyclock to estimate what time that was.

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Speaker 5: He also worked out where approximately the kidnappers had taken him,

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Speaker 5: just based on things like sounds and smells and how

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Speaker 5: long they'd been on one road before they turned and

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Speaker 5: he essentially gave this investigation over to j Edgar Hoover

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Speaker 5: on a silver platter.

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Speaker 3: In the podcast, this occurs in the late thirties, not

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Speaker 3: long before World War Two, but Charles Ersul's kidnapping actually

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Speaker 3: happened earlier, in nineteen thirty three. After the Lindberg ab

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Speaker 3: kidnapping in nineteen thirty two, which was a case the

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Speaker 3: FBI flubbed, President Herbert Hoover needed a win, so he

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Speaker 3: was determined to drag down Machine Gun Kelly and his accomplices, which,

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Speaker 3: with Charles Urschel's help, he did so. It was Ursul,

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Speaker 3: not Tom Slick, who was by their side when the

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Speaker 3: FBI rated Machine Gun Kelly's farm.

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Speaker 4: Don't super game, it don't tooo.

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Speaker 3: And after a highly publicized trial, Kelly was imprisoned in Alcatraz.

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Speaker 3: For the show, we moved the kidnapping back a couple

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Speaker 3: of years so that our hero Tom Slick would be

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Speaker 3: old enough to assist the FBI in tracking down his stepfather.

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Speaker 3: This also works so that his Road to Damascus moment

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Speaker 3: would land right before World War Two, when Alan Dulles,

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Speaker 3: who at the time was an OSS secret agent, could

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Speaker 3: theoretically recruit Slick for a more substantial mission.

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Speaker 8: But in real life, Allan dllis is an interesting character

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Speaker 8: to place in the podcast, but the relationship is fictional

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Speaker 8: he was old enough to be Tom's father, and he

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Speaker 8: went to Princeton.

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Speaker 3: Tom Slick went to Yale, which, as Catherine points out.

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Speaker 4: Yale was a big recruiting ground, first for the OSS

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Speaker 4: and then for the CIA. So that connection, that link,

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Speaker 4: that possibility is in the true Tom Slick story.

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Speaker 3: So most of you probably know about Yale's notorious secret

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Speaker 3: society Skull and Bones, which was prime recruitment for the OSS,

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Speaker 3: which became the CIA, and there is an air of

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Speaker 3: mystery about Tom Slick's potential involvement with the society when

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Speaker 3: he went to school there. So while we don't know

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Speaker 3: that Dulles and Tom Slick ever knew each other, the

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Speaker 3: idea that our hero might have cross paths with the

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Speaker 3: longest serving director of the CIA could have happened later.

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Speaker 3: As the threat of World War II loomed. In nineteen

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Speaker 3: forty one, Tom Slick did volunteer for naval duty, but

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Speaker 3: was disqualified due to poor eyesight. So, as was depicted

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Speaker 3: in the podcast, Tom Slick was sent to Santiago, Chili

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Speaker 3: by the War Production Board.

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Speaker 4: When Tom Slick was working as a dollar a year

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Speaker 4: man at the beginning of World War Two, he was

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Speaker 4: mysteriously posted to South America.

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Speaker 3: At the time, a Nazi spir ring was operating in Chile,

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Speaker 3: and there was in fact a German mission to bomb

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Speaker 3: the Panama Canal called Operation Pelican. When I found out

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Speaker 3: that Tom Slick was in Chile at the same time

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Speaker 3: that this operation was underway, I connected the two.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I just pulled up declassified files released in twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 5: They're all about a Nazi spirring headquartered in.

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Speaker 4: Chile, Nazi spiring headquartered in Chili, and Dad was there, yep.

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Speaker 3: But as far as we know, Tom Slick had no

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Speaker 3: involvement in sabotaging the Nazis diabolical plan. That said, government

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Speaker 3: files about Nazi activity in South America during World War

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Speaker 3: II are now being to classify, so who knows what

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Speaker 3: might turn up about Tom Slick Junior.

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Speaker 4: There were rumors within the family and with close friends

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Speaker 4: who knew him, that perhaps Tom Slick was involved in

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Speaker 4: espionage during the war.

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Speaker 3: In the podcast in Awestruck, Claire played by Sissy Spask,

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Speaker 3: finally remembers her father laughing off these accusations.

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Speaker 8: I was always rumored that he was some sort of

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Speaker 8: secret agent, but he just.

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Speaker 4: Laugh at off. Well, now you know, and indeed his

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Speaker 4: reaction was to just laugh it off, and none of

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Speaker 4: us ever really knew the truth.

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Speaker 3: Along with this fact, there is another one I wove

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Speaker 3: into episode two in.

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Speaker 4: The Panama Canal Caper, Tom says, when chance arrives act.

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Speaker 4: That's a very Tom Slick saying something his father taught

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Speaker 4: him when he was a little boy, and certainly he

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Speaker 4: would have said it over and over again to whomever

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Speaker 4: he was working with in South America.

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Speaker 7: Dallas Champs arrived at.

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Speaker 3: Tom Slick's fortitude is what led me to connect him

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Speaker 3: to another clandestine mission. His assistance in helping the mysterious

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Speaker 3: and mystical Lama X escape Tibet.

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Speaker 4: We all could guess that Lama X is loosely based

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Speaker 4: on the Dali Lama. There are very interesting stories about

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Speaker 4: how the Dalai Lama was rescued from Tibet. When the

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Speaker 4: Chinese were moving in in nineteen I want to say

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Speaker 4: nineteen fifty seven, might have been nineteen fifty eight. It

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Speaker 4: was the same time that Tom Slick was on expedition in.

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Speaker 3: Nepal, one of his Yetti Hunt expeditions.

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Speaker 4: So there were always very remote rumors that perhaps he

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Speaker 4: and Peter Burn helped with that.

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Speaker 3: Remember in episode six when Jimmy Stewart's character meets Bud

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Speaker 3: at the airport and almost calls him Peter. That's because

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Speaker 3: even though Bud is completely made up, I was inspired

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Speaker 3: by the real man Peter Byrne, who is one of

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Speaker 3: Tom Slick's lead guides on his yetty expeditions. The Bud

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Speaker 3: character is a composite of a handful of Slick's expedition

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Speaker 3: team members, but Burne's tenacity and experience with big game

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Speaker 3: hunting was a significant influence on Bud's character. Additionally, the

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Speaker 3: Chilean spy Dominique pure fiction, but who doesn't love writing

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Speaker 3: a fearless and savvy female operative.

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Speaker 5: Yes, that's how I get my secrets.

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Speaker 3: Catherine is all in for that.

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Speaker 4: She did not exist that I know of, But every

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Speaker 4: story needs romance.

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Speaker 3: So Tom Slick's involvement and the Dalai Lama's escape from

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Speaker 3: Debet is rumored. There's no solid proof, but it's not

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Speaker 3: all made up. Tom Slick did really meet the Dali Lama,

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Speaker 3: and there's one scene in the podcast about that interaction

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Speaker 3: that's true. Katherine Nixon Cook explains.

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Speaker 4: In the podcast, Tom Slick asks the if he can

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Speaker 4: have a crash course in enlightenment, and in fact, he

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Speaker 4: really did ask the Dali Lama that very question. When

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Speaker 4: he met the Dali Lama in nineteen fifty seven, Tom

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Speaker 4: was very interested in cosmic consciousness, something that would later

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Speaker 4: translate to his institute, the Mind Science Foundation. He asked

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Speaker 4: his holiness if he could attain cosmic consciousness. The Dali

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Speaker 4: Lama replied, well, yes, that's possible. How long do you have?

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Speaker 4: Tom Slick replied, I've got one week.

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Speaker 3: Tom Slick might have had limited time due to an

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Speaker 3: expedition that, unlike the CIA missions, was quite true. His

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Speaker 3: hunt for the yetty Slick launched multiple Yetti expeditions in

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Speaker 3: the Himalayas throughout the nineteen fifties. His fascination with cryptozoology,

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Speaker 3: which is known as the science of hidden animals, is

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Speaker 3: well documented and started as early as his college years,

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Speaker 3: when he per just a hote, allegedly a cross between

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Speaker 3: a hog and a goat. He didn't crossbreed the animal himself,

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Speaker 3: but tracked it down after reading about it and Ripley's

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Speaker 3: Believe It or Not and Believe It or Not. He

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Speaker 3: did actually name it Sweet William. This was followed by

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Speaker 3: his real hunt for the Lognus monster in nineteen thirty seven,

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Speaker 3: an adventure he embarked on with his fraternity brothers during

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Speaker 3: a summer break from Yale. According to Catherine Nixon Cook,

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Speaker 3: unlike what we depicted in the podcast, Slick took this

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Speaker 3: expedition very seriously, and though he didn't find NeSSI on

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Speaker 3: this trip, he did discover that science and fun can coexist.

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Speaker 3: In fact, if you visit Tomslick Park in San Antonio, Texas,

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Speaker 3: there's a metal sculpture of NeSSI submerged in the park's lake,

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Speaker 3: another thrilling adventure that adds to the legend of Tom

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Speaker 3: Slick Junior. My first fling with crypto's zoology.

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Speaker 8: I didn't even get to first base.

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Speaker 3: Look, it's important to note that at the time, cryptozoology

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Speaker 3: was thought of very differently than it is today. Chuck

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Speaker 3: Slick explains.

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Speaker 1: If you think about it in the nineteen fifties, in

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Speaker 1: a sort of pre GPS and Google Earth world, that

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Speaker 1: it might perfectly been reasonable that some creature like the

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Speaker 1: Yeti could exist in a place like the Himalayas, which

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Speaker 1: was almost completely undiscovered by Western scientists and geographers, and

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Speaker 1: there was sort of the theory that it was possible

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Speaker 1: that the Yeti was some sort of a missing link

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Speaker 1: in the evolutionary chain between apes and men, and that

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Speaker 1: would have been quite a scientific find.

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Speaker 3: So, as we make clear in the podcast, Slick's interest

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Speaker 3: in the Yetti was grounded in science and because of

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Speaker 3: a handful of cryptozoological discoveries made in the early twentieth century.

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Speaker 3: Slick wasn't the only one to mount to hunt in

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Speaker 3: the Himalayas. Sir Edmund Hillary, most widely known as the

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Speaker 3: first Western explorer to climb Everest, led an expedition in

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Speaker 3: search of the Yeti with SRPA mountaineer tin Zang Norgay

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Speaker 3: around nineteen sixty one, but Slick pioneered the quest for

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Speaker 3: the legendary creature.

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Speaker 4: Before that, Tom Slick went on three different Yetti hunts

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Speaker 4: in the nineteen fifties.

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Speaker 3: Catherine Nixon Cook covers the specifics of each of these

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Speaker 3: expeditions in her book In Search of Tom Slick, and

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Speaker 3: it's thanks to Catherine's research that I slipped another fact

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Speaker 3: into the podcast. Tom Slick did meet the Maharaja of

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Speaker 3: Baroda before heading out on his first expedition.

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Speaker 8: My Roger listen, I'm not hunting the Yeti to kill it.

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Speaker 8: I'm a man of science.

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Speaker 7: But those in your rent don't believe what they can see.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, I agree, some don't, but I'm not one of them.

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Speaker 6: Science is about exploring the unknown.

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Speaker 3: And though Slick did in real life tell the Maharaja

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Speaker 3: about his quote snowman hunt, the Maharazon never warned him

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Speaker 3: about tracking down the Yetti, so Slick dove in full force.

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Speaker 4: With true adventuresome spirit. He lined up all kinds of

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Speaker 4: things to help the hunt, including tracking dogs, which did

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Speaker 4: not work. They wore special boots in the snow. He

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Speaker 4: had the idea of a plane that would hover and

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Speaker 4: look for a Yetti in the hills. He added all

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Speaker 4: sorts of scientific components to these hunts. He took along

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Speaker 4: the Burn brothers, Peter Burn being one of those who

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Speaker 4: were known for their hunting and tracking abilities, and was

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Speaker 4: sure that he had found evidence of the Yeti several times.

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Speaker 3: Those Slick never found the Yetti. There were two discoveries

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Speaker 3: he made on these tracks.

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Speaker 4: There's the story of the Yeti footprint, which came back

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Speaker 4: to Texas as a plaster cast and sat on his

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Speaker 4: dining room table. When I was a little.

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Speaker 3: Girl, Catherine's biography of Slick traces his discovery of the

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Speaker 3: footprint in the snow at about ten thousand feet in

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Speaker 3: a mountain range bordering the Rune Valley in the Himalayas.

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Speaker 3: It was approximately thirteen inches long and was similar to

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Speaker 3: tracks Peter Byrne found at eight thousand feet, which were

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Speaker 3: the five toed footprints of a bipedal creature, one that

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Speaker 3: walks on two legs, not four, of considerable weight.

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Speaker 2: Holy Holy, how is this? This footprint must be around

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Speaker 2: thirteen inches long five inches wide.

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Speaker 5: Yes.

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Speaker 3: We posted some of the photos from the expeditions, including

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Speaker 3: the footprint and other historical documents, on the School of

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Speaker 3: Humans Instagram page, so go check it out. Chuck Slick

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Speaker 3: was a very young boy when his father embarked on

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Speaker 3: his Yetty expeditions, but he did get a kick out

436
00:26:57,560 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 3: of these initial discoveries.

437
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:04,440
Speaker 1: Oh did give him plaster casts of Yetty footprints, which

438
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: was a great thing to talk about at cocktail parties. Somewhere.

439
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 1: It's just disappeared over the years.

440
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:13,439
Speaker 3: Slick's next discovery will not be a new one to listeners,

441
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 3: even if it could have been ripped from a movie script.

442
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 4: The Jimmy Stewart smuggling story in the podcast is mostly

443
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:26,120
Speaker 4: true and it sounds totally made up. Tom Slick did

444
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 4: meet during his life all sorts of fascinating people, some

445
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:32,680
Speaker 4: of them movie stars like Jimmy Stewart.

446
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,679
Speaker 3: According to Catherine and a handful of sources, Jimmy Stewart

447
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 3: did in fact smuggle a Yetti appendage from Calcutta to

448
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 3: London in nineteen fifty eight. Catherine shares details there.

449
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 4: Were rumors that a Yetti hand was in a monastery

450
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 4: high in the mountains of Nepal. If this was true,

451
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 4: it could help prove the existence of the Yetti. Tom

452
00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 4: Slick asked one of his expedition members but ud in

453
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 4: the podcast, Peter Byrne in real life, to go to

454
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 4: the monastery and acquire just the thumb of the hand.

455
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 4: That is what was needed for the scientific study, since

456
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 4: it would be an opposable thumb if indeed it was

457
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 4: a primate. Peter Burn did a very delicate operation of

458
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 4: removing the thumb and sewing in its place a human

459
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 4: thumb that he had brought with him on the expedition.

460
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 4: It was not a paw but a thumb, and instead

461
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,439
Speaker 4: of going through Glorias Stewart's Lingerie.

462
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 5: After fondling your unmentionable as I do hope the creature's

463
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 5: fingers are still intact.

464
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 4: Although I love that story. It was actually in a

465
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 4: film canister in the days when we carried little canisters

466
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 4: for our film, and it got to London where it

467
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 4: mysteriously disappeared from the lab a few years later.

468
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 3: So that whole daring museum heist when Slick steals the

469
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 3: Yetti Paul before it's exposed to the masses. Well, I

470
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 3: wish I could say that it's the reason the Yeddi

471
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 3: appendage vanished in real life. But that caper was pure fiction.

472
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 3: That said, the Yeti thumb did disappear, so maybe the

473
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 3: truth is stranger than fiction.

474
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 4: It's another unsolved Tom Slick mystery.

475
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 3: Tom Slick took his Yeti expeditions very seriously, as was

476
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 3: noted in an editorial in the San Antonio Express in

477
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty six, which is featured in Catherine Nixon Cooke's

478
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 3: biography In Search of Tom Slick. In the article, he

479
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 3: told a friend about his belief in the Yetti. When

480
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 3: his friend expressed doubt, Slick said he would donate one

481
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 3: thousand dollars to his friend's favorite charity if the Yetti

482
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 3: was not found before the end of nineteen fifty eight.

483
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 3: Then followed that up in the article by saying, quote,

484
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 3: before any mistaken conclusions are drawn, let me emphasize that

485
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,719
Speaker 3: this does not signifying that I take the matter lightly

486
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 3: far from it. Indeed, it indicates how nearly positive I

487
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 3: am in my own mind that the Yeti exists as

488
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 3: a humanoid creature. The search for it is surely a

489
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 3: scientific project of major importance, which could add immeasurably to

490
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 3: our knowledge of mankind.

491
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 4: As a man of science, I will not hunt down

492
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 4: some fantasy, but.

493
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 2: I will expose one of the greatest mysteries of our time.

494
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 3: Those Slick's dedication to this cryptozoological pursuit was real. Chuck

495
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 3: Slick wants to make one thing very clear.

496
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: He was never obsessed with the Yeti. It was just

497
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: one more thing, was the next challenge that he was

498
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: looking into. I'm sure he spent plenty of money on it.

499
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: I know he did, but it never would come anywhere

500
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 1: near depleting his assets. He never almost bankrupted him like

501
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 1: in the Podcas.

502
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 3: But it sure makes for higher stakes in the show.

503
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 3: While his YETI expeditions might be Slick's most entertaining pursuit,

504
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 3: they can't compare to the real story of Slick's impact

505
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 3: on science, innovation, and the world. We'll hear all about

506
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 3: Tom Slick's legacy after the break in the nineteen forties,

507
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 3: when Tom Slick was a young man, he used his

508
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 3: inheritance to establish scientific research institutes, and they're some of

509
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 3: his most enduring and impactful accomplishments.

510
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 2: We were instrumental in bringing the Pfizer vaccine to the

511
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 2: FDA for clinical trials.

512
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 3: This is Larry Schlessinger, President and CEO of Texas Biomedical

513
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 3: Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. He's speaking about the

514
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 3: COVID nineteen vaccine, which we're all familiar with. Texas BioMed

515
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 3: was on the front lines of bringing the vaccine to

516
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 3: the masses.

517
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 2: Estimated to have saved over twenty million lives as a

518
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,320
Speaker 2: result of having those vaccines come so quickly.

519
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 3: Texas BioMed was established in nineteen forty one, when Tom

520
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 3: was only twenty five years old. It is one of

521
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 3: the five institutes Tom Slick Junior founded and one of

522
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 3: the three that are still thriving today.

523
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 2: Texas biomgal Research Institute has a mission, and that's protecting you,

524
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 2: your families, and the global community from the threat of

525
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 2: infectious diseases. You know, we say that cancer affects one

526
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 2: in three people, which is an astounding number, but I

527
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 2: like to say infection affects one in one. No one

528
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 2: escapes and infection in their lifetime.

529
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 3: Texas BioMed has been at the forefront of combating infectious diseases, which,

530
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 3: along with advancing the first COVID nineteen vaccine, also resulted

531
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 3: in the first bullet treatment, the first hepatitis C therapy,

532
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 3: and extensive research around HIVAS, along with many more developments,

533
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 3: most notably the high frequency neonatal ventilator, which provides breathing

534
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 3: support for infants and children who are too ill or

535
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 3: premature to breathe on their own. And as we depict

536
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 3: in the podcast, Tom Slick did believe that non human

537
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 3: primates could serve as a prime model of human health.

538
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 3: That vision led to pioneering advancements for humanity in both

539
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 3: science and medicine. Since then, Texas BioMed has enhanced their

540
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 3: National Primate Center, which was originated by Tom Slick. As

541
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 3: committed as the institute is to fighting infectious diseases that

542
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 3: afflict us today. They also have an eye on the

543
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 3: future and are training the next generation by providing STEM education,

544
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 3: which in the past year around ten thousand youth have

545
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 3: engaged in.

546
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 2: Tom had a guiding principle in his life, and that

547
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 2: god in principle was that the welfare of humankind is

548
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 2: advanced through scientific research. He wasn't a scientist himself, but

549
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,360
Speaker 2: he definitely had this spirit of one and as a

550
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 2: result of what he created in the nineteen forties, he

551
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 2: left an enduring legacy.

552
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 3: Schlessinger explains where that legacy originated.

553
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 2: Tom Slick Junior was a twenty five year old young

554
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,839
Speaker 2: man who had a vision, and that vision was that

555
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 2: the advance of a human health would occur through biomedical

556
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 2: research and in vision San Antonio as a city of science.

557
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 3: And this in and of itself was both innovative and risky.

558
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 2: In nineteen forty one, in the wild west of Texas,

559
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 2: where there was no graduate education, no medical school, he

560
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 2: thought about building these nonprofit research institutes that would focus

561
00:34:56,440 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 2: on science, and so with inheritance he he purchased sixteen

562
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 2: hundred acres of a cattle ranch in San Antonio, Texas,

563
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:09,320
Speaker 2: and he started to build a science infrastructure on that campus,

564
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 2: and he titled the portion of the land that he

565
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 2: purchased through inheritance the SR ranch EESSAR, which is phonetic

566
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:22,440
Speaker 2: for S and R for scientific Research. And in the

567
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties he developed what is our current site of

568
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 2: Texas Biomedical Research Institute. What is fascinating about this is

569
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 2: that in his twenties, Tom Slip Junior traveled the world

570
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 2: and he had this notion about innovation and science. He's

571
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 2: been called a true visionary, But really what compels me,

572
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 2: since I meet a lot of so called visionaries in

573
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 2: my career, is that he actually executed on that vision,

574
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 2: forming these biomedical research institutes.

575
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 3: Tom Slick's dream was to establish a city of science

576
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 3: in San Antonio, and he did it mid twenties when

577
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 3: most of us are still figuring out what we want

578
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 3: to do with our lives. The names of the institutes

579
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 3: may have changed over the years, but Slick's intention has

580
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:15,879
Speaker 3: endured to implement the machinery of science towards the advancement

581
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 3: of humanity.

582
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 7: Well, at any given day, we typically have about four

583
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 7: thousand active research projects.

584
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 3: That's Adam Hamilton, the President and CEO of Southwest Research Institute, which,

585
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 3: as I'm sure you've guessed, is another one of Tom

586
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 3: Slick's prosperous scientific research institutes.

587
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 7: We're also able to focus our research on topics that

588
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 7: range from anything deep sea to deep space and practically

589
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 7: everywhere in between. Selfist Research Institute itself is one of

590
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 7: the largest applied R and D organizations that's independent and

591
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 7: nonprofit in the country and also in the world.

592
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 3: Hamilton ran down an extensive list of what the institute

593
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 3: is working on.

594
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 5: Now.

595
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 3: There's the Lucy Mission, which, on an expedition to the

596
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 3: Trojan asteroids in Jupiter's orbit, made the accidental discovery of

597
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 3: an asteroid that had its own moon. They're also working

598
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 3: on a multimillion dollar project with the Department of Energy

599
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 3: on modifying traditional combustion engines so that they run on

600
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 3: one hundred percent hydrogen. Not a small feed, but I

601
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 3: don't think Tom Slick would expect anything less from one

602
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 3: of his institutes. Tom Slick Junior was serious about his

603
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:36,879
Speaker 3: scientific pursuits, but as Chuck mentioned earlier, he also knew

604
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 3: how to have fun, and, as Hamilton notes, the Southwest

605
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 3: Research Institute mixes that element of playfulness into their culture.

606
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 7: So we have a Yeti in our newsletter that's hidden

607
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 7: every month, and staff members have the opportunity to win

608
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 7: a prize if they're the first one to find the Yeti.

609
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 7: And we also have large yettis that we hide at

610
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 7: various places on our fifteen hundred campus. But we also

611
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:06,800
Speaker 7: then celebrate excellence. We have Yety awards here on campus

612
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 7: for safety and for other things like that. It's a

613
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 7: part of our culture that I hope represents Tom Slick

614
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:15,439
Speaker 7: in a very positive light.

615
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 3: Slicks Institutes are keeping his spirit alive in more ways

616
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:20,439
Speaker 3: than one.

617
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,800
Speaker 4: I've called him a pioneer of the possible.

618
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 3: In addition to being his biographer, Catherine Nixon Cook served

619
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 3: as the president of Tom Slick's Mind Science Foundation.

620
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 4: When he was in the Himalayas, he met lamas who

621
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 4: seemed to defy Western science. He saw monks levitate, and

622
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 4: by that it's not the levitating you see in movies.

623
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:48,839
Speaker 4: It was more of a jumping just a few feet up,

624
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:52,480
Speaker 4: but nonetheless quite humanly impossible for you or me to do.

625
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 4: He saw them raise and lower body temperature at will

626
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 4: or simply through meditation. Saw feats of psychokinesis where things

627
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 4: seemed to move without explanation, and came back and started

628
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 4: his last institute, the Mind Science Foundation, to study these phenomena,

629
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 4: wanting to study them though from a scientific.

630
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 3: Point of view. Though Tom Slick did study these mystical,

631
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 3: unexplained occurrences. That is Mind Science Foundation Today. It's primary

632
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:29,280
Speaker 3: focus is on neuroscience research, using the technology and tools

633
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:32,400
Speaker 3: available to us in the twenty first century to explore

634
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 3: the vast potential of the human mind.

635
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 4: Although the Mind Science Foundation focuses now on the neurosciences,

636
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 4: not long ago it still studied a few of these

637
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 4: mysteries that fascinated Tom Slick. Back in the nineteen nineties,

638
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 4: we took a trip to Indonesia to study a keygong

639
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 4: healer named Dynamo Jack. I personally saw him light a

640
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 4: fire with his hands and pass a chopstick through a

641
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 4: solid wooden table. We took the wooden table back to

642
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 4: another of Tom's institute's, Southwest Research Institute to see if

643
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 4: the table had been tampered with. It had not. The

644
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 4: scientists there said, we simply don't understand energy.

645
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 3: Catherine told me the story when I was writing the

646
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 3: scripts and the enigma surrounding Dynamo Jack and his mystifying

647
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 3: capabilities informed the character of Lama as.

648
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 1: Lightning.

649
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:33,840
Speaker 2: Wow, this is unbelievable lighting when there's nothing around.

650
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:39,280
Speaker 3: But from what I've learned about Tom Slick, examining phenomenas

651
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 3: like Dynamo Jack was less about exploring the mystery for

652
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 3: him and more about a search for scientific understanding.

653
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:52,800
Speaker 4: He saw these as examples of human potential. Tom Slick

654
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:57,320
Speaker 4: believed that the human mind is the greatest unexplored frontier

655
00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 4: of all.

656
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 3: For most of Tom Slick's life, the world was his

657
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 3: frontier and science was his compass. And even after everything

658
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:09,280
Speaker 3: we've covered in this episode, there's still more we only

659
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 3: touched on, like how he developed a new breed of

660
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 3: cattle by crossbreeding the heat and insect resistant Indian Brama

661
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 3: with the tastier Scottish Angus. Obviously, he named it the

662
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 3: Brangus cattle. Or the construction method he innovated called the

663
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 3: Lifts Lab, which was utilized to build Trinity University in

664
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 3: San Antonio, a college he had a significant role in establishing.

665
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 3: Tom Slick also had a great interest in understanding women's

666
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 3: reproductive medicine and did pioneering research toward the creation of

667
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 3: birth control and IVF, and in the nineteen fifties he

668
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 3: launched an expedition to find a diamond pipeline in the

669
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 3: Amazon and studied alternative medicine in the use of medicinal

670
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:56,399
Speaker 3: plants with shamanic healers oh An. Slick also had an

671
00:41:56,400 --> 00:42:01,480
Speaker 3: extensive art collection which included Picasso, Joe O'Keefe and other

672
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 3: prolific modern artists, which was an art form ahead of

673
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 3: its time. Like the collector Tom Slick himself and we

674
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 3: can't forget Slicks hunt for Bigfoot. He partnered on this

675
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 3: expedition with his Yeti Hunt collaborator Peter burn and journeyed

676
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:20,320
Speaker 3: out west and through British Columbia. Burne pursued this mystery

677
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:24,400
Speaker 3: until his death in twenty twenty three. But Tom Slick's

678
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 3: last big pursuit was so extraordinary it's hard to imagine.

679
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:31,280
Speaker 3: Here's Chuck Slick again.

680
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:35,720
Speaker 1: He became very interested in what was probably the biggest

681
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: challenge he could ever take on world peace in the

682
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: time of the Cold War. He wrote two books about it.

683
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:47,359
Speaker 1: One was called The Last Great Hope and the other

684
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 1: one was called Permanent Peace, and he spent a lot

685
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: of time and money creating these peace conferences. They would

686
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 1: have these experts in foreign affairs and diplomats and so

687
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 1: on would come together and talk about how we could

688
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:07,439
Speaker 1: achieve world peace. And when he died, he left most

689
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: of his estate to the foundations, but there was a

690
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:14,320
Speaker 1: proviso in his will that said some of his assets

691
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 1: were supposed to be used quote to achieve world peace.

692
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 3: Tom Slick Junior died on October sixth, nineteen sixty two,

693
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,760
Speaker 3: on his way back from a pheasant hunt in Calgary, Canada.

694
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 3: He was a passenger and a Beachcraft Bananza thirty five

695
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 3: that crashed in the mountains of Montana. Catherine Nixon Cook's

696
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:38,319
Speaker 3: book explains that the plane appeared to have gone to

697
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 3: pieces in flight, possibly as a result of an explosion

698
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 3: or lightning. Wreckage was strewn over a three quarter mile area,

699
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 3: and Slick's body was found nearly a mile from the

700
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:54,280
Speaker 3: center of the crash site. Like his father, Tom Slick

701
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:58,319
Speaker 3: was only forty six when he died, but even death

702
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 3: couldn't stop the great Tom Slick Junior.

703
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 6: Catherine, you help me come up with this idea of

704
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 6: Slick living on another plane and being able to communicate

705
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 6: with his granddaughter live in the podcast, who is a

706
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 6: fictional character. But would the real Slick have believed this

707
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 6: was possible working from the other side.

708
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 4: He did say often to people that he thought he

709
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,800
Speaker 4: might find a way to work from the other side

710
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 4: those very words. But remember he was a man who

711
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 4: believed in science and the scientific method. So in the podcast,

712
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 4: Tom Slick says to his granddaughter, does believing in something

713
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 4: make it real?

714
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 3: I think it does.

715
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 4: Do you live in real life? Tom Slick did not

716
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 4: think so. He was an optimist. He was a possibilist.

717
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 4: He believed in possibilities and potential, but he had to

718
00:44:56,880 --> 00:45:00,359
Speaker 4: see the scientific proof to know something was real.

719
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 3: Though Slick valued science and fact over a blind belief,

720
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 3: he still pursued the unknown, hunting down answers to unexplainable mysteries,

721
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 3: and even after everything we now know about Tom Slick,

722
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 3: he still remains a bit of a mystery himself.

723
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 4: When the bio containment lab opened at Texas BioMed more

724
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 4: than a decade ago, there was silence as his sister,

725
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:31,440
Speaker 4: who was still alive, cut the red ribbon to the

726
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 4: door of the bio containment lab. All of a sudden

727
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 4: in the silence as the audience sat there, you heard

728
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 4: a low hum of an airplane. Everyone looked up in

729
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 4: the sky and there, flying low and slow was a

730
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 4: vintage Beechcraft Bonanza, Tom Slick's type of plane, and I

731
00:45:56,600 --> 00:46:01,280
Speaker 4: personally thought he was there celebrating the legacy of science

732
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 4: that he saw living on.

733
00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:12,359
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to Tom Slick Mystery Hunter, a

734
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 3: podcast about the most interesting man you've now heard of,

735
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:20,800
Speaker 3: A real man who lived a legendary life.

736
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: I don't know if it really happened, but that's what

737
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 1: they say. What a tale, that's right.

738
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:35,040
Speaker 3: This final episode of Tom Slick Mystery Hunter fact Verse

739
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 3: Fiction was written and hosted by Me Caroline Slaughter, with

740
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 3: production assistance from Amelia Brock, audio and score assembly by

741
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:48,760
Speaker 3: Noah Kamer. Were grateful to our guests for their perspectives,

742
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 3: Charles Chuck, Slick, Catherine Nixon, Cook, Billy Kerr, Larry Schlessinger,

743
00:46:56,160 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 3: and Adam Hamilton. Executive producers for the series include Owen Wilson,

744
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:08,760
Speaker 3: Sissy Spasic, Skuyler Fisk, Jeb Stewart, Brian Lavin, Elsie Crowley,

745
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:19,880
Speaker 3: Brandon Barr, Virginia Prescott, and Me Caroline slaughter,