Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: This podcast is based on the true story of explorer, inventor, visionary,
Speaker 2: and science pioneer Tom Slick. Some of the story elements, names,
Speaker 2: and characters have been altered for dramatic purposes. Consider using
Speaker 2: headphones to enhance your listening experience. We've created an immersive
Speaker 2: soundscape to tell our story.
Speaker 3: Betty, yes, MISSI stick.
Speaker 1: Did the call go through? Thank you, Betty?
Speaker 4: Lucky Tom?
Speaker 1: Who are you trying to kill?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 1: Dallas?
Speaker 4: So I don't get a thank you?
Speaker 5: Well, if you're funding the Yetti hunt, then yes, you
Speaker 5: got a big thank you. Otherwise, no, that check you
Speaker 5: sent me for twenty thousand, it's just another ploy.
Speaker 4: Don't pretend you don't like blay in the.
Speaker 5: Hero I like to think I dabble running institutes advancing
Speaker 5: science and innovation.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I guess that's its own kind of hero.
Speaker 4: Oh so, now being a hero isn't enough. You have
Speaker 4: to play god?
Speaker 1: What do you want?
Speaker 4: The US has a bad case of the Kamis. There's
Speaker 4: an asset we've had our eye on that China wants
Speaker 4: to exterminate. We need to get to it before they do.
Speaker 5: Dulles, There's only one thing I'm going to trek through
Speaker 5: those Himalayas for well, what if.
Speaker 4: I said that what I'm after could help you find
Speaker 4: your Yetni?
Speaker 1: What's the mission?
Speaker 4: Operation yellow Hat?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, see that's not a good name for an operation.
Speaker 1: All right, that must have been yours? Okay, who's the asset?
Speaker 4: Are you recording this?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 8: Heyppish, Hey you?
Speaker 1: And if I don't.
Speaker 9: What the hell?
Speaker 5: Google?
Speaker 10: What is Operation yellow Hat?
Speaker 8: Google?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry I didn't quite get that.
Speaker 10: Google, Operation yellow Hat, CIA mission Himalayas.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I don't have access to classified.
Speaker 4: Information classifying information.
Speaker 7: Oh, therefore I cannot provide any further information on Operation
Speaker 7: yellow Hat?
Speaker 1: Oh shit?
Speaker 4: Would you like me.
Speaker 11: To play yellow my cold play? No?
Speaker 9: Off?
Speaker 4: Google Off?
Speaker 10: Okay, Hey Blair, you're probably asleep, so don't respond to
Speaker 10: this until you're awake and fully caffeinated.
Speaker 2: Ah, you're not gonna lave this.
Speaker 10: I just found something even stranger on these tapes than
Speaker 10: the Yettie hunt. Granddad's expedition may have been a cover
Speaker 10: for something big. I wanted to give you the heads
Speaker 10: up because if it is a cover for some government
Speaker 10: covert mission, nothing, I mean nothing, not even that tape
Speaker 10: you found can be leaked.
Speaker 3: Okay, bye, there's nothing like bubbles for breakfast a glass, mister.
Speaker 5: Slick, thank you, your highness, but I'm actually still a
Speaker 5: little buzz from my exchange with your guards at the hotel.
Speaker 1: Please call me Maharaja.
Speaker 6: It's specific.
Speaker 1: Well, if we're getting specific, why am I here?
Speaker 6: Well, your reputation precedes you, mister Slick, which is why
Speaker 6: my Tibetan guards were that aggressive. Yeah, your hunt threatens
Speaker 6: a creature. Their culture revers my roger.
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm not hunting the YETI to kill it. I'm
Speaker 1: a man of science.
Speaker 6: But those in your rank don't believe what they can see.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree, some don't, but I'm not one of them.
Speaker 5: Science is about exploring the unknown.
Speaker 6: So what do you know about the elusive Yetti.
Speaker 5: It's a large bipedal primate like creature. It walks upright
Speaker 5: like a human, but its arms hang down to its
Speaker 5: knees like an anthropoid ape. Has the face of a man,
Speaker 5: but its body is covered in long, matted hair, and
Speaker 5: its tracks are roughly twelve inches long by six inches wide.
Speaker 5: So he's a big boy, and he stinks.
Speaker 1: Announces his arrival with the stench of decay.
Speaker 6: Descriptive. What do you want with it?
Speaker 5: I believe the Yeti is the missing link between Homo
Speaker 5: sapiens and primates.
Speaker 6: To track the Yeti is an expedition of life and death.
Speaker 6: Mister Slick, you need more than science to drive you.
Speaker 6: Remember that yety is not just human. It's a beast
Speaker 6: whose name means all, devouring, demon, fascinating.
Speaker 5: Keep going.
Speaker 6: There's been a lore of its precision in the art
Speaker 6: of the kill, its ability to hypnotize what one look
Speaker 6: phraising its victims so it can.
Speaker 2: Strike and more.
Speaker 1: This is great.
Speaker 6: Keep going, and it's scream Oh ear shuttering like a
Speaker 6: tip of a carving knife piercing the ear drum.
Speaker 9: Oh.
Speaker 12: Ouch.
Speaker 6: Yes, there have been footprints, tufts of hair droppings, the
Speaker 6: sacrifices of skinned animals found outside monasteries, but that's it.
Speaker 6: No one has been able to find the Yetty. It's
Speaker 6: some mystery that does not want to be solved.
Speaker 12: Perfect.
Speaker 5: That's why I'm here, mister Slick.
Speaker 6: It's a parent. You won't be deterred. I know another
Speaker 6: man with the same fortitude. He's been on the Yettis
Speaker 6: trail before and survived it. Do I know him, No,
Speaker 6: But he knows.
Speaker 11: You Chapter four. This is the mostly true tale of
Speaker 11: Tom Slick, mystery hunter.
Speaker 5: Tom Slick, September twelfth, nineteen fifty seven. I stand here
Speaker 5: on the bank of the Holy River Ganges, among India's
Speaker 5: burning dead, the smoke carrying their souls from lifeless bodies
Speaker 5: to a god they believe will grant them another season
Speaker 5: around the sun. This infernal Shangri La is where I
Speaker 5: was told to meet the man as focused in his
Speaker 5: pursuit of the Yetti.
Speaker 1: As I am. That's your cue, Go ahead, introduce yourself.
Speaker 9: I don't trust that thing.
Speaker 1: I'll be using it throughout the expedition.
Speaker 9: So it'll know me as Bud. But just Bud.
Speaker 1: Fine, we will know you as just Bud. What theatrics
Speaker 1: for a burial?
Speaker 5: The suffocating smoke, the strings of blood, orange marigolds, the
Speaker 5: stench of burning flesh, and at my feet the charred
Speaker 5: carcass of Bud's last trekking companion.
Speaker 9: His name was Sing. It meant lion, and like an
Speaker 9: ironic shit sandwich, he was maimed by one.
Speaker 1: That is grim.
Speaker 9: I dragged his corpse down the mountains so his soul
Speaker 9: could meet his maker on.
Speaker 1: Holy lamb A goodbye sing.
Speaker 9: I've hunted beasts all over the world and come face
Speaker 9: to face with some who could spit my scull into
Speaker 9: with the flick of their pinky. Used to thrill me
Speaker 9: those moments where I could smell death's breath.
Speaker 5: And if I'm understanding you correctly, the thrill is gone.
Speaker 9: Now it's the animal no one has caught, and very
Speaker 9: few of scenes seduces me.
Speaker 1: Oh, I get it.
Speaker 5: I share the same obsession I know.
Speaker 9: Tenzing Norgay told.
Speaker 1: Me, oh yeah, the sherpa who summoned.
Speaker 9: Everest indeed Edmund Hillary's right hand man. They have their
Speaker 9: sights set on a Yeti hunt, but they've told me
Speaker 9: the billionaire Texan might get to it first.
Speaker 4: Me. Well, yeah, if.
Speaker 9: I there, really, the Yetty is more to me than
Speaker 9: a trophy. Its mythical story carried me through the bloody
Speaker 9: bowels of war, the perilous carnage of hunts, and other
Speaker 9: lethal expeditions where I nearly died.
Speaker 5: I picked up on there that didn't.
Speaker 9: You can't die when you haven't found what you're living for.
Speaker 1: Now you can say that again. You know your obsession
Speaker 1: actually might run deeper than mine.
Speaker 9: Bud, not when you see what I've got.
Speaker 5: Sorry.
Speaker 10: I tried to be quiet, but you don't know how coffee.
Speaker 10: I prefer a nitro colbrew ivy.
Speaker 1: But sure, Halle, did you stay up?
Speaker 10: I fell asleep during one of the tapes. I think
Speaker 10: it's the one where Granddad meets this guy Bud, who
Speaker 10: I think ended up leading the expedition in the Himalayas
Speaker 10: with him YETI hat. Well, yeah, but now it looks
Speaker 10: like the yetti was actually a cover up for some
Speaker 10: covert CIA mission called Operation Yellow Hat.
Speaker 7: I think I need at least a pot of coffee
Speaker 7: before we unpack any of that.
Speaker 10: I'm right there with you here, I'll stick another tape.
Speaker 12: Inn.
Speaker 10: It's just a.
Speaker 1: Photograph, Bud, it's proof. No let me see it.
Speaker 9: Don't touch it or I'll or you what.
Speaker 1: You'll cut me with a butter knife. Come on, don't worry,
Speaker 1: I won't smudget.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: Is that a gnarled hand in the photo? Or it's
Speaker 1: a yetti paw?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean it could technically be a hairy hand. Okay,
Speaker 5: we haven't deducted the percentage of Homo sapien and the
Speaker 5: Yeties makeup yet.
Speaker 9: Blah blah. Whatever it is, it's proof.
Speaker 5: Blah blah, you, okay, where did you find it?
Speaker 9: Encased in glass in the sanctuary of the Pangbochet monastery.
Speaker 9: Where's that the entrails of the Himalayas. The monks in
Speaker 9: the monastery believe this Paul brings luck, so I wasn't
Speaker 9: allowed to touch it, But they were so confused by my camera,
Speaker 9: calling the flash a sign from God that I stole
Speaker 9: a shot before they hid it from me.
Speaker 5: And here it is, and here we are.
Speaker 9: You ready to hunt this thing down and turn our
Speaker 9: fantasy into a reality?
Speaker 4: Why am i?
Speaker 5: My father used to tell me a coward dies a
Speaker 5: thousand deaths, brave man only one, and he lived by
Speaker 5: that motto, which made him a legend. His legend kind
Speaker 5: of haunts me just as much as the man of
Speaker 5: the snow who roams the roof of the world.
Speaker 1: You know, my father told me about the Yetti.
Speaker 5: He was mesmerized by it. Like the Maharaja. He thought
Speaker 5: it was a mystery that could never be solved. So no,
Speaker 5: as a man of science, I will not hunt down
Speaker 5: some fantasy, but I will expose one of the greatest
Speaker 5: mysteries of our time.
Speaker 9: Does that mean you want to do this?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: You didn't get that Yeah, long winded, slick. No, I'm articulate,
Speaker 1: I'm vivid. Yeah, there's a difference. Come in.
Speaker 11: The society and drumkissistic?
Speaker 6: What do you want stuff calling?
Speaker 1: Did you tell him I'm not here?
Speaker 9: He seems to know that's not true. Well, I'll leave
Speaker 9: you to it, Slick, I got the goods team, permits, maps,
Speaker 9: if you got.
Speaker 1: The cash, let's do this.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'll be here tomorrow to start planning. Five am shop.
Speaker 9: I expect breakfast and a real knife, noted.
Speaker 4: Bitty.
Speaker 1: Is he still on the line.
Speaker 4: No, he left a message this time.
Speaker 1: What do you say?
Speaker 9: All he said was are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 4: And I said yes, I'm always lucky.
Speaker 7: Ah, are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 1: The code from Dulles? This is the Operation Yellow Hat thing.
Speaker 2: I was telling you about.
Speaker 7: You know, when he was alive, Dad never talked about
Speaker 7: the Yetti hunt.
Speaker 10: Well, maybe it's because ultimately it became some cover for
Speaker 10: the government. Maybe, But it doesn't sound like buds in on.
Speaker 10: It sounds like he believes the Yetti stuff.
Speaker 1: So you still think it's fake? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Do you?
Speaker 7: I mean, who knows what to believe anymore?
Speaker 10: Who you believe in the YEDDI.
Speaker 7: I don't know, liv I want to believe why.
Speaker 1: Because they add it. Tom Slick February fourth, nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 1: Our hunt for the elusive Yetti begins.
Speaker 9: Still don't get why we needed the dogs.
Speaker 1: Oh he's catching a cent Bud.
Speaker 9: That mongrel better get after it. He ate my damn
Speaker 9: breakfast this morning. I almost shot him, but I'm saving
Speaker 9: this bullet for when you pissed me off.
Speaker 5: You know you got a funny sense of humor, Bud,
Speaker 5: who said I had a.
Speaker 1: Sense of humor.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna go up ahead with the hound to see
Speaker 9: if he's a waste of money.
Speaker 5: My money. So I brought in the new year here
Speaker 5: in the snowy bosom of the Himalayas, known to my
Speaker 5: team of Sherpas as the Mother of the world, who,
Speaker 5: from her great height, keeps an eye on all. We're
Speaker 5: almost five weeks in on an expedition that took over
Speaker 5: three months to assemble. They're twenty eight of us, but
Speaker 5: we've been split into teams, all hitting various coordinates of
Speaker 5: the mountain where there have been sightings. This trail is
Speaker 5: known as the Yetties Stomping Ground. The Sherpists say it's
Speaker 5: a sacred path where mysticism blooms. I don't know what
Speaker 5: that means, but I want to find.
Speaker 12: Out, mister tom I said, the coordinates left a marker
Speaker 12: and reported back to mister Dulles.
Speaker 1: So the walk he's working out here?
Speaker 12: Oh, yes, we are not alone, Dawa.
Speaker 5: I know you're working for Dallas, but this is not
Speaker 5: just his mission, mister Tom.
Speaker 12: I grew up with the law of the Yeti, and
Speaker 12: I know how you seek it. The world needs to
Speaker 12: bear witness to the Yeti's magic to understand their own
Speaker 12: eternal connection to our earth and everything in it.
Speaker 4: Do I get it?
Speaker 1: The Yeti? It's holy to you and it's the missing
Speaker 1: link to me. But I do believe both those things
Speaker 1: will inform humanity more about itself.
Speaker 5: Over, dang it, He's only supposed to communicate with you, Dawa,
Speaker 5: so the rest of the team won't catch on.
Speaker 12: You want me to tell him you're not here? You
Speaker 12: aren't that lucky, Tommy, I know you're there.
Speaker 1: Over, How does he always know?
Speaker 5: Tom Dulles, you told me it only communicate with Dawa. Now, look,
Speaker 5: if others know about your operation, both missions suffer, Tommy.
Speaker 4: The reds are moving in it three weeks.
Speaker 11: They could have hands on our target.
Speaker 7: The escape party is crime the coordinate your setting will
Speaker 7: be their only way out.
Speaker 1: Donald, what is that?
Speaker 2: What are we hearing?
Speaker 12: Tonnie?
Speaker 4: I didn't finish what I was saying. I didn't get
Speaker 4: to say.
Speaker 1: Over over, copy dullas, gotta.
Speaker 5: Go over Tommy, Tom Slick February fourth continued.
Speaker 1: The team's up ahead.
Speaker 5: Sounds like they found something. We don't have trap set
Speaker 5: and the tranquilizer guns with the other team, so if
Speaker 5: they have eyes on the yetti, we're gonna have to
Speaker 5: wing it.
Speaker 1: My god, look at that spot. What's going on?
Speaker 9: You don't smell that?
Speaker 4: Ah?
Speaker 11: Oh to your lord?
Speaker 9: What an animal pushed out a glorious morning shit when
Speaker 9: I've been stopped up for the past four days.
Speaker 5: Let me take off my pack and get a better look.
Speaker 5: How do we know this is YETI scap.
Speaker 9: You don't see the hoft digested rat in that?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: That yet?
Speaker 5: You must have been constantly hammy gloves and sample bags.
Speaker 5: They're in the front pocket of my pack.
Speaker 9: I've hunted big game hole over the world and I've
Speaker 9: never seen.
Speaker 1: Anything like that.
Speaker 5: The smell, it's dang definitely a carnivore.
Speaker 1: Looks like some parasitic eggsack. Dawa opened the bag for me.
Speaker 12: Mister Tumman, did you see this?
Speaker 9: It was onto your pack?
Speaker 1: Oh my God, Holy holy, I'll.
Speaker 12: Never missed this.
Speaker 5: This footprint must be around thirteen inches long five inches wide.
Speaker 1: Yes, I knew it.
Speaker 11: It's a bipedal.
Speaker 1: What a what walks on two feet not four like
Speaker 1: a human?
Speaker 9: No claw marks either.
Speaker 2: We gotta get a cast.
Speaker 5: To this team set up camp down the hill, but
Speaker 5: DAWA will secure this as a research site. What was
Speaker 5: that what?
Speaker 1: I didn't hear anything, tom Tom You didn't hear that?
Speaker 9: No, Tom, Tommy over, you're groin it's talking.
Speaker 4: H What are you up to?
Speaker 6: Sick?
Speaker 1: Can't say, Tommy, I know you're there.
Speaker 4: Over.
Speaker 1: I don't do bullshit.
Speaker 9: If you're not gonna be truthful with me, I don't
Speaker 9: want any parts of this hunt.
Speaker 3: If you do not pick up now, I will consider
Speaker 3: that a violation against Operation Yellow Hack, which has been
Speaker 3: facilitated by the US government.
Speaker 1: This holds the penalty of a decade behind.
Speaker 5: Harve me right, answer.
Speaker 1: It possibly a life.
Speaker 5: Come on, pick up and I'll wipe out all your
Speaker 5: any trace of your legacy. Slick here over.
Speaker 12: Finally, Lah, mister Tom, he has a gun.
Speaker 1: Whoa, But it's me Slick, And if.
Speaker 9: You don't stop telling me what's going on, I'll pull trigger.
Speaker 1: Okay, easy, Easy, I told you I don't.
Speaker 9: Have a sense of humor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know ours.
Speaker 6: We're gonna need a move.
Speaker 1: Flick now over what target I told you?
Speaker 5: I can't say, mister Tom tell him now when I
Speaker 5: tell you this, but you're gonna need to forget it immediately.
Speaker 5: Believe me when I tell you I have more inconspicuous
Speaker 5: ways than a bullet to kill you.
Speaker 9: Well that woke me up.
Speaker 1: Oh God, how did the tape just cut out? There
Speaker 1: better be more to this one.
Speaker 7: There has to be, you know there there are only
Speaker 7: four more tapes in here.
Speaker 10: Let me get this Blair, What did you do?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 4: I found more tapes?
Speaker 11: Yay, Tom Slick. Mystery Hunter is a production of School
Speaker 11: of Humans and iHeart pod Casts, starring Owen Wilson as
Speaker 11: Tom Slick, Sissy Spasick as Claire Slick, Skyler Fiske as Livslick.
Speaker 11: Written and directed by Caroline Slaughter, story editor Jeb Stewart,
Speaker 11: Executive produced by Owen Wilson, Sissy Spasic, Skyler Fiske, Jeb Stewart,
Speaker 11: Caroline Slaughter, Brian Lavin, l C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, and
Speaker 11: Virginia Prescott. Produced and assistant directed by Amelia Brock. Original score,
Speaker 11: sound design, mixing and mastering by Jesse Niswanger, Casting by
Speaker 11: Daisy Church and Caroline Slaughter, sag coordination by Daisy Church
Speaker 11: and Julia Christgau. Promo and trailers by Carl Catel. Special
Speaker 11: thanks to Catherine Nixon Cook. Recording engineers are Tyler Klang
Speaker 11: and Casey Pegram. For iHeartMedia.
Speaker 8: Episode four, cast Ian Shaw as Bud, Dave Willis as
Speaker 8: Alan Dulles, Cameron Shaikh as the Maharaja, Vince Canless as Dawa,
Speaker 8: Neil Reddy as Biddy, Julia Chris Gal as the Google
Speaker 8: Voice Assistant, Mike Shotts as the Voice of God, and
Speaker 8: the introductory voiceover with additional roles voiced by David Devrees,
Speaker 8: Michael Mao and Phil Clark. Executive producer for iHeartMedia is
Speaker 8: Maya Howard.
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Speaker 2: your most thrilling adventure stories,