WEBVTT - Chapter 8 | The Real Tom Slick: Fact vs. Fiction 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.920 School of humans. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:15.240 Came from over there, due west towards those woods, following 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:21.919 you Slick. Tom Slick, February fourteenth, nineteen fifty eight. My 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:23.599 team and I have been out here in the Himalayas 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:28.040 for months, rarely surviving on an expedition that's nearly hijack 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:32.800 my life. Hell, it's taken everything, but we just heard it. 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:33.800 The proof. 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.480 To track the Ltty is an expedition of life and death, 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:42.240 mister Slick. 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.159 It's some mystery that does not want to be sogged. 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:46.120 That's why I'm here. 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:50.200 That's second something to the explode. 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:52.320 Slick cut the brown wire. What if I told you 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.600 I just cut the red one. We're gonna die Dulles 0:00:55.760 --> 0:01:00.200 when chance arrives at at. 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.280 God, But blood pressure checked after that. 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:06.200 Mom, you don't have to listen to this. 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.319 If it's too much. These are my father's untold stories. 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:10.360 I am listening. 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:19.720 This is the mostly true tale of Tom Slick, the 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.760 most interesting man you've never heard of. 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:39.320 Welcome to chapter eight. Fact verse fiction. The director John 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:43.000 Ford is credited with saying, when the legend becomes fact 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:48.840 print the legend. This podcast follows the remarkable exploits of 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:53.000 a real man who lived a legendary life. In this 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:58.480 bonus episode, we'll separate the facts from fiction. I'm Caroline Slaughter, 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.000 the writer and director of Tom Slick Mystery Hunter. I 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.360 spoke with Tom Slick's descendants and those who are carrying 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:11.080 on his legacy to reveal the real Tom Slick. Thomas 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:15.000 Slick Junior was born in Clarion, Pennsylvania, on May sixth, 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.160 nineteen sixteen. As depicted in the podcast. His father, Tom 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.720 Slick Senior, was known as the King of the Wildcatters 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.640 due to the large fortune he made mining the fields 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.040 of Oklahoma for oil before his death in nineteen thirty 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.920 at only forty six years old. Tom inherited millions after 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.560 his father's death and used that inheritance to fund institutes 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:42.000 dedicated to cutting edge scientific research, some of which still 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:46.440 exist today. Slick also funded multiple expeditions to track down 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.000 the Eddy. We'll get into all of that and more, 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.960 but first things first. Did Tom Slick leave behind lost 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:54.799 tapes documenting his exploits. 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.239 There were no tapes in the archive. I found, just 0:02:58.360 --> 0:02:59.280 wonderful letters. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:04.680 This is Tom Slick Junior, historian and his niece Catherine 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:05.440 Nixon Cook. 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.480 I discovered in a shed in one of his scientific institutes. 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:14.280 All of his letters written between nineteen forty one and 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.919 nineteen sixty two, the year that he died. 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.880 These letters served as research for the two biographies Catherine 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:25.480 wrote about her uncle, including one titled Tom Slick Mystery Hunter. 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:30.120 But unlike our podcast series, her books are composed of 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:31.480 only facts. 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:36.920 These letters of Tom Slick were deep. They talked about feelings, 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.440 they talked about new ideas. They were a real treasure trove. 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.760 There were stories of breeding the Brangus cattle. There were 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.720 stories about the Yetti. There were stories about corresponding with 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.880 Albert Schweitzer about birth control. He invented a hair dryer 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.640 that we now would think of as a hooded hair dryer. 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.960 He started an Institute for peace. Just really too many. 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.480 To me, Catherine's right. Our podcast series covers only a 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:09.560 portion of Tom Slick's unique and ambitious pursuits, and some 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.440 of those escapades, as you'll find out in this episode, 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:17.080 are largely dramatized, but they are based on truth. Though 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.200 Tom Slick played many roles in his life as an explorer, inventor, 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.160 and pioneer of science, the role he revered the most 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:26.239 was being a father. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.880 My brother, tom, My, sister Patty, and I would spend 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:34.200 the entire summer with Dad in San Antonio. Our times 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:35.960 with him were really fun. 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:41.120 That's Tom Slick Junior's youngest son, Charles urschel Slick, known 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.799 to friends and family as Chuck. In the podcast, Tom 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:48.640 Slick's story is told true tapes found by his supposed 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:53.400 descendants Live and Claire Slick. Both are fictional characters I 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.520 created for the podcast, but Chuck and his two siblings 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.800 had first hand experience with Tom's as a devoted and 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:03.000 engaged father. 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:08.280 He was a really fun person and that, along with 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:12.200 his interests in his enthusiasm for whatever his projects were, 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.320 the fun part brought people along with him, even people 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:19.279 who would have said, you know, oh my gosh, the yetie, 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:23.200 it's crazy, but his enthusiasm was infectious. 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.560 Chuck was four or five when his parents divorced. His 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.640 mother moved them from San Antonio to New Jersey, but 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.120 his father remained very involved in his children's lives. 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.479 He took us traveling to a lot of places. We 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.960 went to Bermuda, we went to Nassau, we went to Acapulco, Disneyland. 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:45.000 But we didn't always go in the normal fashion. One 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.880 time when we were driving to the Grand Canyon, he 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:52.440 bought Volkswagen bus from his step brother Charles Erschel, but 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:54.960 it didn't have air conditioning because it's nineteen fifty eight 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.920 or nine. But that didn't slow him down. He got 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.359 some of the engineers from Southwest Research Institute, one of 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.960 his institutions, to come to his house and put a 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.719 room air conditioner on the roof and pipe it into 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.200 the bus, and we were just as cool as we 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:12.560 could be. 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.040 It seems like he had a childlike spirit. 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.120 Yeah, he did. He was very interested in just all 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.679 sorts of things. His mind was kind of wide open 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:24.400 and very optimistic. He sort of thought, well, anything can happen. 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:26.839 He thought nothing was impossible. 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:31.440 It was this spirit that motivated his ambitious pursuits and 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.800 just one of the many truths Slick bestowed on his children. 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:40.040 He was big on aphorisms. Whenever we would complain about something, 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:44.279 which was often, he would say, you have to be adaptable, 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.800 or you'll become extinct like the dinosaurs. And when we 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.599 were scared to do something like dive off the diving board, 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:53.960 he would say, a coward dies a thousand deaths, A 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:55.240 brave man only one. 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.240 You may recognize this aphorism from episode four, when Owen 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.840 Wilson's Slick tells the character Bud about his drive to 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.239 find the Eddy. According to Chuck, it was an adage 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:08.240 instilled in his father and childhood. 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:12.480 The story was that they were out in the woods 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.320 and there was some like a log bridge that you 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.720 had to cross to get over the creek, and he 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:19.960 was scared to do it, and either his father or 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.800 his grandfather said that to him, a coward dies a 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.120 thousand deaths, a brave man only one. And of course 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.080 later on in his life, with all the things that 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.320 he did, including in places like Brazil and the Amazon 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:35.280 and the Himalayas, it certainly he took it to heart. 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.720 This was one of the many things young Tom garnered 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.600 from a pivotal figure in his life. Catherine Nixon Cook explains. 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.120 Tom Slick was greatly influenced by his dad and did 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:51.080 inherit that spirit of adventure and curiosity. 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:55.000 While in the podcast we depict Slick Junior as having 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.680 a competitive urge to escape living under the shadow of 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.960 his father, that was an embellishment I set up to 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:07.440 motivate him. According to Catherine, Tom respected and adored his father, 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:12.120 and even though that contentious dynamic is dramatized in the series, 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.440 there was a truth Slick Junior touched on in his 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:20.560 speech to Bud that his father's fascinations inspired his own. 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.720 Tom Slick Senior was away a lot looking for oil, 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.600 but when he was home he was very tender, and 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.439 his three children adored him. He read them stories. I 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.359 love to talk about the Man of snow Lome Denege 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:41.400 in the mountains, which started Tom's curiosity about the snow man, 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:43.280 which would become the Yeti. 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.599 So Slick Junior did, in fact, first hear about the 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.800 Yeti from his father, a cryptozoological mystery that he would 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:55.240 later pursue on multiple expeditions to the Himalayas. But this 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.600 was just one of the influences his father had on him. 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.960 The stories about Tom Slick Senior from episode one are 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.640 largely true. I'll fill you in on that and more 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:08.920 after the break. 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.280 My father used to tell me a coward dies a 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:29.000 thousand discs, brave man only one, and he lived by 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.000 that motto, which made him a legend. 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:39.160 Millie Kerr is an historian of Tom Slick Sor. She's 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.880 also his great great niece, making her Tom Slick Junior's 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:47.400 great niece. Millie says Tom Slick Sr. Was indeed the 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:49.120 first lucky Tom Slick. 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.280 What I love about Tom Slick Sr. Was that he 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.800 really did make his own luck. His brother and father 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.079 worked in the oil industry, but in sort of low 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.920 level positions, and he was just determined to make it 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.400 in this field. So he moved around a bit, and 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.720 then he moved down to Oklahoma to find the big one, 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.480 as he put it. And at that point he had 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.280 actually been very unlucky, and he had earned the nickname 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.240 dry hole Slick because everywhere he drilled it came up dry. 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.840 But then he happened to discover the Cushing oil field, 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.960 which was one of the most important and large oil 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:30.359 fields in the US, and he essentially became an overnight millionaire. 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.400 When Tom Slick Senior died, his estate was valued at 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.360 somewhere between seventy five and one hundred million dollars in 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:42.160 today's terms, that's between six hundred and fifty nine million 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.320 and one point eight billion. He was reputed to be 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.840 the wealthiest independent oil man in the world. 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:54.360 And he ultimately became extremely successful. After a period of 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.240 very bad luck, where a lot of people would have 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.199 just thrown in the towel and said this is not working. 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.319 But he was just determined to push on and find 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.200 that big one. So his legacy was vast, and he 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.880 really was a true wildcatter in that he was operating 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.360 on his own and looking for his own luck and 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:12.920 making it. 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:18.520 Unfortunately, Slick Senior died young, at only forty six years old. 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:23.520 Tom Slick Junior was just fourteen at the time. Losing 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.679 your father is hard enough, but there were other consequences 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:29.480 of his death on the Slick family too. 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.760 Tom Slick sor hated publicity, hated the press, only gave 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.640 one interview, I believe in his entire career, and part 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:44.800 of that was his concern about how his wealth and 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.640 or his children's wealth might impact the family in the future. 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.360 But when he died, he couldn't control the fact that 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.520 his death was widely reported in the papers, and a 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.920 lot of those articles referenced his net worth. And then 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:04.760 several years later, when his widow, Bernice, married Charles Erschel, 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.800 they tried to keep their wedding completely private, but it 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.400 got picked up in the press and so the public 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.800 and criminals like machine Gun Kelly discovered the immense wealth 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:21.240 of this family, and that made the surviving family members 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:26.360 really vulnerable because at the time, kidnapping became sort of 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:30.439 the new trend in criminal activity. After the end of Prohibition. 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.680 Criminals who had been bootlegging were trying to figure out 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.960 new ways to make money, and so they began kidnapping 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.240 wealthy individuals for ransom, and Machine Gun Kelly and his 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.439 wife Catherine decided to kidnap a family member. 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:49.200 That's right, machine Gun Kelly, not the rapper, but the 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:54.760 infamous bank robber, really did kidnaps like junior stepfather Charles Erschel. 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.240 According to Millie, that target was originally supposed to be 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.000 Tom's sister Betty. 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:04.319 Apparently they thought for quite a while about kidnapping my grandmother, 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.120 who I believe was about fifteen at the time, But 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.679 in the end, when machine Gun Kelly and his accomplice 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.559 came to the family home in Oklahoma City, they took 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:20.640 my step great grandfather Charles Erschel, and this ended up 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:25.680 being one of the most highly publicized notable kidnappings in 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:26.760 American history. 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:31.320 In episode two, Tom Slick Junior figures out from a 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:35.560 ransom note where Charles Erschel is being held hostage, but 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.320 that didn't really happen. First of all, at the times, 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.240 like Junior was in boarding school at Exeter, so he 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.240 didn't face off with machine Gun Kelly as I depicted 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.480 in the podcast. And second of all, my. 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:52.440 Great grandmother Bernice paid the ransom, and at that time 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.480 it was the highest kidnapping ransom that had ever been paid, 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:00.000 and because of that, Charles Erschel was released by the crimine. 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.480 But there is a really remarkable element of this story 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:09.280 that is true. While kidnapped, Charles Erschuel did keep track 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.240 of the plane routes, and after he was released, Ursul 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:16.040 provided that and other information to authorities in order to 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.400 help track down Machine Gun Kelly's location. 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:23.200 While he was held hostage, he noted everything he could, 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:27.520 including the times of the day when planes would fly overhead. 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.800 He just used his bodyclock to estimate what time that was. 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:35.600 He also worked out where approximately the kidnappers had taken him, 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.560 just based on things like sounds and smells and how 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.600 long they'd been on one road before they turned and 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.120 he essentially gave this investigation over to j Edgar Hoover 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:47.440 on a silver platter. 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.920 In the podcast, this occurs in the late thirties, not 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:55.400 long before World War Two, but Charles Ersul's kidnapping actually 0:14:55.480 --> 0:15:00.240 happened earlier, in nineteen thirty three. After the Lindberg ab 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.400 kidnapping in nineteen thirty two, which was a case the 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:08.000 FBI flubbed, President Herbert Hoover needed a win, so he 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:12.600 was determined to track down Machine Gun Kelly and his accomplices, which, 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:14.760 with Charles Urschel's help, he did. 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:15.720 So. 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.960 It was Ursul, not Tom Slick, who was by their 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:23.360 side when the FBI rated Machine Gun Kelly's farm Don't 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:29.040 You gam It, Don't You, and after a highly publicized trial, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:33.680 Kelly was imprisoned in Alcatraz. For the show, we moved 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.000 the kidnapping back a couple of years so that our 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.640 hero Tom Slick would be old enough to assist the 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.400 FBI in tracking down his stepfather. This also works so 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:45.520 that his Road to Damascus moment would land right before 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.840 World War Two, when Alan Dulles, who at the time 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.880 was an OSS secret agent, could theoretically recruit Slick for 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:54.680 a more substantial mission. 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:59.000 But in real life, Allan dllis is an interesting character 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.640 to place in the podcast, but the relationship is fictional. 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.080 He was old enough to be Tom's father, and he 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:05.880 went to Princeton. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.520 Tom Slick went to Yale, which, as Catherine points out. 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:14.560 Yale was a big recruiting ground, first for the OSS 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:18.920 and then for the CIA. So that connection, that link, 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:23.320 that possibility is in the true Tom Slick story. 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.000 So most of you probably know about Yale's notorious secret 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:31.640 society Skull and Bones, which was prime recruitment for the OSS, 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.240 which became the CIA, and there is an air of 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.720 mystery about Tom Slick's potential involvement with the society when 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.240 he went to school there. So while we don't know 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.320 that Dulles and Tom Slick ever knew each other, the 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.120 idea that our hero might have cross paths with the 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:52.120 longest serving director of the CIA could have happened later. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.840 As the threat of World War II loomed. In nineteen 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:59.000 forty one, Tom Slick did volunteer for naval duty, but 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.800 was disqualified due to poor eyesight. So, as was depicted 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.439 in the podcast, Tom Slick was sent to Santiago, Chili 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:07.919 by the War Production Board. 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:10.960 When Tom Slick was working as a dollar a year 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.159 man at the beginning of World War Two, he was 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.480 mysteriously posted to South America. 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.680 At the time, a Nazi spirring was operating in Chile, 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.200 and there was in fact a German mission to bomb 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:29.280 the Panama Canal called Operation Pelican. When I found out 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.640 that Tom Slick was in Chile at the same time 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.800 that this operation was underway, I connected the two. 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.200 Yeah, I just pulled up declassified files released in twenty seventeen. 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.480 They're all about a Nazi spiring headquartered in Chile. Nazi 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.679 spiring headquartered in Chili, and Dad was there, yep. 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.159 But as far as we know, Tom Slick had no 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:54.640 involvement in sabotaging the Nazis diabolical plan. That said, government 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.080 files about Nazi activity in South America during World War 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:02.240 II are now being to classify, so who knows what 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.640 might turn up about Tom Slick Junior. 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.760 There were rumors within the family and with close friends 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.800 who knew him, that perhaps Tom Slick was involved in 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.000 espionage during the war. 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:18.600 In the podcast in Awestruck, Claire played by Sissy Spask, 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.800 finally remembers her father laughing off these accusations. 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:25.920 I was always a rumored that he was some sort 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.360 of secret agent, but he just laugh at all. 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:30.680 Well, now you know. 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.399 And indeed his reaction was to just laugh it off, 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.000 and none of us ever really knew the truth. 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.320 Along with this fact, there is another one I wove 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.160 into episode two in. 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:48.520 The Panama Canal Caper, Tom says, when chance arrives act 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.880 that's a very Tom Slick saying something his father taught 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.600 him when he was a little boy, and certainly he 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.840 would have said it over and over again to whomever 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.280 he was working with in South America Dallas. 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:04.600 Chance arrived at. 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.440 Tom Slick's fortitude is what led me to connect him 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:14.320 to another clandestine mission. His assistance in helping the mysterious 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.440 and mystical Lama X escape Tibet. 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:22.800 We all could guess that Lama X is loosely based 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.200 on the Dali Lama. There are very interesting stories about 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.919 how the Dalai Lama was rescued from Tibet. When the 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.440 Chinese were moving in in nineteen I want to say 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.080 nineteen fifty seven, might have been nineteen fifty eight. It 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:39.200 was the same time that Tom Slick was on expedition in. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.560 Nepal, one of his Yetti Hunt expeditions. 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.040 So there were always very remote rumors that perhaps he 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.160 and Peter Burn helped with that. 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.679 Remember in episode six when Jimmy Stewart's character meets Bud 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.440 at the airport and almost calls him Peter. That's because 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.440 even though Bud is completely made up, I was inspired 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.080 by the real man Peter Byrne, who is one of 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.919 Tom Slick's lead guides on his yetty expeditions. The Bud 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:11.040 character is a composite of a handful of Slick's expedition 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.280 team members, but Burne's tenacity and experience with big game 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:19.840 hunting was a significant influence on Bud's character. Additionally, the 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:24.840 Chilean spy Dominique pure fiction, but who doesn't love writing 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.040 a fearless and savvy female operative. 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:29.720 Yes, that's how I get my secrets. 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:32.040 Catherine is all in for that. 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.560 She did not exist that I know of, But every 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:36.760 story needs romance. 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.440 So Tom Slick's involvement and the Dalai Lama's escape from 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.679 Debet is rumored. There's no solid proof, but it's not 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:49.479 all made up. Tom Slick did really meet the Dali Lama, 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:52.960 and there's one scene in the podcast about that interaction 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:57.280 that's true. Katherine Nixon Cook explains. 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.040 In the podcast, Tom Slick asks the if he can 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:05.199 have a crash course in enlightenment, and in fact, he 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:09.240 really did ask the Dali Lama that very question. When 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.680 he met the Dali Lama in nineteen fifty seven, Tom 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.960 was very interested in cosmic consciousness, something that would later 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:21.560 translate to his institute, the Mind Science Foundation. He asked 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:27.000 his Holiness if he could attain cosmic consciousness. The Dali 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.680 Lama replied, well, yes, that's possible. How long do you have? 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:33.760 Tom Slick replied, I've got one week. 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.679 Tom Slick might have had limited time due to an 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:42.880 expedition that, unlike the CIA missions, was quite true. His 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:47.320 hunt for the yetty Slick launched multiple Yetti expeditions in 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:52.399 the Himalayas throughout the nineteen fifties. His fascination with cryptozoology, 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:55.520 which is known as the science of hidden animals, is 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:59.399 well documented and started as early as his college years, 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:04.040 when he per just a hote, allegedly a cross between 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.000 a hog and a goat. He didn't crossbreed the animal himself, 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:11.080 but tracked it down after reading about it and Ripley's 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.080 Believe It or Not and Believe It or Not. He 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:20.200 did actually name it Sweet William. This was followed by 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:23.919 his real hunt for the Lognus monster in nineteen thirty seven, 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.480 an adventure he embarked on with his fraternity brothers during 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.200 a summer break from Yale. According to Catherine Nixon Cook, 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:34.280 unlike what we depicted in the podcast, Slick took this 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:38.800 expedition very seriously, and though he didn't find NeSSI on 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:43.840 this trip, he did discover that science and fun can coexist. 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:48.160 In fact, if you visit Tomslick Park in San Antonio, Texas, 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.120 there's a metal sculpture of NeSSI submerged in the park's lake, 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:56.560 another thrilling adventure that adds to the legend of Tom 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:57.399 Slick Junior. 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:02.080 My first fling with crypto's zoology. I didn't even get 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:02.960 to first base. 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.119 Look, it's important to note that at the time, cryptozoology 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:10.359 was thought of very differently than it is today. Chuck 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:12.359 Slick explains. 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:14.240 If you think about it in the nineteen fifties, in 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:17.880 a sort of pre GPS and Google Earth world, that 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:21.840 it might perfectly been reasonable that some creature like the 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:25.000 Yeti could exist in a place like the Himalayas, which 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:30.639 was almost completely undiscovered by Western scientists and geographers, and 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:33.400 there was sort of the theory that it was possible 0:23:34.080 --> 0:23:36.639 that the Yeti was some sort of a missing link 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:40.800 in the evolutionary chain between apes and men, and that 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.040 would have been quite a scientific find. 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:47.160 So, as we make clear in the podcast, Slick's interest 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:50.480 in the Yetti was grounded in science and because of 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.800 a handful of cryptozoological discoveries made in the early twentieth century. 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:57.560 Slick wasn't the only one to mount to hunt in 0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:01.560 the Himalayas. Sir Edmund Hillary, most widely known as the 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:05.560 first Western explorer to climb Everest, led an expedition in 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:09.120 search of the Yeti with Sherpa mountaineer tin Zang Norgay 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:13.760 around nineteen sixty one, but Slick pioneered the quest for 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:15.160 the legendary creature. 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:19.920 Before that, Tom Slick went on three different Yetti hunts 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:21.240 in the nineteen fifties. 0:24:21.760 --> 0:24:25.400 Catherine Nixon Cook covers the specifics of each of these 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:29.600 expeditions in her book In Search of Tom Slick, and 0:24:29.720 --> 0:24:33.480 it's thanks to Catherine's research that I slipped another fact 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:37.320 into the podcast. Tom Slick did meet the Maharaja of 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:40.240 Baroda before heading out on his first expedition. 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:44.560 My Roger listen, I'm not hunting the Yeti to kill it. 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:46.240 I'm a man of science. 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:48.680