1
00:00:01,480 --> 00:00:05,000
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:14,000
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's

3
00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:17,000
Speaker 2: Chuck and it's just us today and we know from

4
00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:20,479
Speaker 2: experience that that's just fine. And this is stuff you

5
00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:24,279
Speaker 2: should know. This guy had his finger in a lot

6
00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:26,440
Speaker 2: of different pies. That stuff you should know s ten

7
00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:28,160
Speaker 2: episodes on edition.

8
00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:35,159
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean this is a interesting one because our

9
00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:42,040
Speaker 1: friend Chad, Chad did our TV show, and Chad is

10
00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:47,240
Speaker 1: doing a or has done a podcast, a highly fictionalized

11
00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:52,440
Speaker 1: scripted podcast. Yeah, for our company, for iHeart you know,

12
00:00:52,479 --> 00:00:56,520
Speaker 1: the company we own. Sure about Tom Slick. And when

13
00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:59,400
Speaker 1: he was telling me about this, Owen Wilson is voicing it,

14
00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:01,640
Speaker 1: and Sissy's is in it. I have a small part.

15
00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:03,920
Speaker 2: Uh oh really, I didn't know that.

16
00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:05,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'll get to that.

17
00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:07,679
Speaker 2: I also read that Carlton Fisk is in it.

18
00:01:08,080 --> 00:01:12,119
Speaker 1: Uh, I don't think so. The baseball player.

19
00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:14,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's Sissy's basics daughter.

20
00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:15,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, Skyler Fisk.

21
00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:19,160
Speaker 2: Skyler Fisk guy always confused with Carlton Fisk, the old

22
00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:21,960
Speaker 2: white Sox player exposu.

23
00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:24,400
Speaker 1: I have white Sox, I think, among others. Uh, okay,

24
00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:27,720
Speaker 1: but anyway, Chad was like, Dude, this guy, like he's

25
00:01:27,760 --> 00:01:31,000
Speaker 1: the most interesting man that you've never heard of. And

26
00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:34,760
Speaker 1: I found when I was online researching, like outside of

27
00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:38,880
Speaker 1: San Antonio and maybe Texas in a broader sense, like

28
00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:42,880
Speaker 1: there aren't a ton of people who don't think that

29
00:01:42,920 --> 00:01:44,800
Speaker 1: Tom Slick is just the name of a cartoon that

30
00:01:44,840 --> 00:01:46,080
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with this guy.

31
00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:49,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you ever watch Tom Slick when you were younger?

32
00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:50,800
Speaker 1: Oh? The cartoon?

33
00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:55,280
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, I never did. Yeah, I watched a lot

34
00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:57,440
Speaker 2: of Rocky and Bullwinkle, but I'd never heard of Tom

35
00:01:57,480 --> 00:01:59,440
Speaker 2: Slick until I started researching this cat.

36
00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:01,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like a Georgia of the Jungle Partner

37
00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:05,000
Speaker 1: right show. But yeah, I just I mean it was

38
00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:07,760
Speaker 1: even I mean, it wasn't hard to find information online,

39
00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:10,359
Speaker 1: but it wasn't as easy as a lot of people.

40
00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:13,560
Speaker 1: And considering all the like kind of crazy extraordinary things

41
00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:14,840
Speaker 1: he did in his life.

42
00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:18,239
Speaker 2: I ran into the exact same issue where like, there's

43
00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:20,480
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff, I don't even want to say

44
00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:23,919
Speaker 2: a lot, but there's a substantial enough amount of articles

45
00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:27,920
Speaker 2: and sources about him online, but they all contain just

46
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:31,320
Speaker 2: basically like one off anecdotes. Yeah, and it's like, wait,

47
00:02:31,919 --> 00:02:34,840
Speaker 2: I don't quite understand, like how did this incident like

48
00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:38,320
Speaker 2: help form his outlook on life, Like there's not a

49
00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:41,560
Speaker 2: complete picture of that dude. It drives me crazy, Yeah,

50
00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:45,560
Speaker 2: because I like to understand the whole thing, you know.

51
00:02:45,639 --> 00:02:47,520
Speaker 2: I love how the parts kind of make up a whole,

52
00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:50,600
Speaker 2: and I feel like with this guy, largely just have parts,

53
00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,919
Speaker 2: even though you know, if I put him together, he's

54
00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:58,160
Speaker 2: like a jigsaw with a bunch of missing places. But

55
00:02:59,160 --> 00:03:02,079
Speaker 2: I still can kind of see the picture, and it's

56
00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:04,560
Speaker 2: that he was a pretty cool and interesting dude and

57
00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:07,200
Speaker 2: seems to have been a genuinely good dude too.

58
00:03:07,480 --> 00:03:12,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. Had Nicholas Cage pulled off the film adaptation of

59
00:03:12,160 --> 00:03:14,360
Speaker 1: his life, all your prayers may have been answered, my friend.

60
00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:17,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard that that one was canceled because he

61
00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:20,679
Speaker 2: was doing it so weird. Every time Tom Slick ran

62
00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:23,960
Speaker 2: into a problem or an issue and was upset, Nicholas

63
00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:31,360
Speaker 2: Cage would just go for like five minutes and it

64
00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:33,680
Speaker 2: took up. It added like a good forty five minutes

65
00:03:33,720 --> 00:03:36,120
Speaker 2: to the film. Oh and he refused to let them

66
00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:37,080
Speaker 2: cut a second of it.

67
00:03:37,440 --> 00:03:40,320
Speaker 1: I remember one of the funniest parts of the when

68
00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:43,200
Speaker 1: Andy Sandberg was doing Nick Cage on SNL.

69
00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:44,440
Speaker 2: One of the.

70
00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:47,760
Speaker 1: Lines really got me one week was he was on

71
00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:50,400
Speaker 1: the Weekend Update and they were talking about some movie

72
00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:51,760
Speaker 1: that came out that he was in, you know, and

73
00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:54,600
Speaker 1: he's in like fifteen movies a year, and it had

74
00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:57,640
Speaker 1: all the elements of the Nick Cage movie number one

75
00:03:57,880 --> 00:03:58,640
Speaker 1: it existed.

76
00:04:00,920 --> 00:04:05,080
Speaker 2: Also, Yeah, yeah, I like that guy a lot. Samberg,

77
00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:09,400
Speaker 2: Nick Catche Yeah, and Andy Samberg is great too. And

78
00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:13,680
Speaker 2: Tom Slick, Yeah, for sure. I like Andy Samberg, but

79
00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:16,840
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen I never really watched Brooklyn nine nine.

80
00:04:17,440 --> 00:04:21,159
Speaker 2: I saw the most work he did in That's My Boy,

81
00:04:21,360 --> 00:04:24,520
Speaker 2: which I actually loved. Like, I don't think there's a

82
00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:26,800
Speaker 2: Sandler movie out there that I don't at least.

83
00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:29,680
Speaker 1: Like I did not see that, And there are many

84
00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:31,559
Speaker 1: many Adam Sandler movies that have not seen.

85
00:04:32,160 --> 00:04:32,440
Speaker 3: I know.

86
00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:34,360
Speaker 2: It's the shame of the podcast.

87
00:04:34,520 --> 00:04:36,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I did watch the first couple of seasons

88
00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:38,480
Speaker 1: of Brooklyn nine nine and it's great.

89
00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:40,840
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, Adam Sandler wasn't on that as far as

90
00:04:40,839 --> 00:04:41,960
Speaker 2: I know, so that doesn't.

91
00:04:41,720 --> 00:04:43,800
Speaker 1: Count, I don't think. So.

92
00:04:43,800 --> 00:04:45,360
Speaker 2: So let's talk about Tom Slick.

93
00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:48,479
Speaker 1: Huh, Yeah, I mean one of the problems with Tom

94
00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,000
Speaker 1: Slick is separating fact from fiction because he's one of

95
00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,160
Speaker 1: these guys that lives sort of an extraordinary, curious, filled

96
00:04:54,200 --> 00:04:57,960
Speaker 1: adventurous life. And right off the bat, the fact that

97
00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:00,159
Speaker 1: he was born on either May six and I'll so

98
00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:02,840
Speaker 1: I saw May ninth. It just may have been the

99
00:05:02,839 --> 00:05:05,800
Speaker 1: way things were back then. This is in nineteen sixteen,

100
00:05:06,279 --> 00:05:09,760
Speaker 1: and he was a junior to Thomas Baker Slick Senior,

101
00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:13,279
Speaker 1: who was a guy that really rubbed off on his

102
00:05:13,400 --> 00:05:16,440
Speaker 1: son because he had the same sort of adventurous spirit

103
00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:17,800
Speaker 1: as an oil man.

104
00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:21,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tom Baker Slick Senior was king of the wildcatters,

105
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:25,279
Speaker 2: and a wildcatter is somebody who goes around just drilling

106
00:05:25,360 --> 00:05:28,119
Speaker 2: oil wells in places where it's not at all clear

107
00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:32,720
Speaker 2: that there's going to be oil. They're just very hopeful prospectors, right, Yeah,

108
00:05:32,760 --> 00:05:35,359
Speaker 2: And that's how he spent like his early career and

109
00:05:35,400 --> 00:05:39,640
Speaker 2: then finally he just hit pay dirt. It was called

110
00:05:39,760 --> 00:05:43,360
Speaker 2: I think the Wheeler Won Well in Bristol, Oklahoma, and

111
00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:46,920
Speaker 2: it became one of the most productive wells in America

112
00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:50,120
Speaker 2: that was pumping out like over three hundred thousand barrels

113
00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:50,520
Speaker 2: a day.

114
00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:53,839
Speaker 1: I got another stat for you at the time, what

115
00:05:53,880 --> 00:05:57,640
Speaker 1: would become Cushing oil Field was responsible for two thirds

116
00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:01,560
Speaker 1: of the oil production in the Western Hymn sphere Man.

117
00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:05,960
Speaker 2: So, yes, I guess it goes without saying that Tom

118
00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:10,040
Speaker 2: Slick Senior made himself and his family rich beyond their

119
00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:15,039
Speaker 2: wildest dreams. And so Tom Slick Junior grew up a

120
00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:19,120
Speaker 2: rich kid, and that's a huge thing. That was a

121
00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:26,080
Speaker 2: huge like part of his formative upbringing. He was extraordinarily wealthy,

122
00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:29,840
Speaker 2: but he was a rare rich kid that took that

123
00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:32,320
Speaker 2: wealth and put it to good use and also used

124
00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:34,800
Speaker 2: it to just totally free himself from, you know, the

125
00:06:34,839 --> 00:06:37,600
Speaker 2: pursuit of making a profit or turning a dollar or whatever.

126
00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:40,120
Speaker 2: He did things because he was curious about stuff, and

127
00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:41,840
Speaker 2: because he wanted to help humanity.

128
00:06:42,279 --> 00:06:44,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, when you're working that much, obviously

129
00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:46,359
Speaker 1: you're not going to be around your family as much.

130
00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:50,360
Speaker 1: Tom had a couple of siblings, and you know, Dad

131
00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:53,920
Speaker 1: just wasn't around because they lived in Pennsylvania as a family. Obviously,

132
00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:56,440
Speaker 1: the oil is out west, so Pops was in Oklahoma

133
00:06:56,480 --> 00:06:59,560
Speaker 1: and Texas most of the time working these long hours,

134
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:02,520
Speaker 1: and those long hours did him in when he died

135
00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:06,000
Speaker 1: at only forty six years old. Of a stroke, which

136
00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:08,640
Speaker 1: was a you know, a huge loss for young Tom

137
00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:11,560
Speaker 1: because he even though Dad wasn't around that much, I

138
00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:13,400
Speaker 1: get the feeling that he kind of idolized him and

139
00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:14,400
Speaker 1: really revered him.

140
00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:17,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, he definitely followed in his footsteps too in a

141
00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:18,000
Speaker 2: lot of ways.

142
00:07:18,320 --> 00:07:20,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he was fourteen years old at the time,

143
00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:23,920
Speaker 1: and you know, it was a huge loss.

144
00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:27,320
Speaker 2: It was. I also saw that he'd become so revered

145
00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:32,760
Speaker 2: and respected in Oklahoma that when he passed away, the

146
00:07:32,760 --> 00:07:35,880
Speaker 2: oil derek's in the Oklahoma City field, which is one

147
00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:38,960
Speaker 2: of the biggest fields in the country, they went silent

148
00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:42,680
Speaker 2: for an hour. So every oil man in Oklahoma who

149
00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:45,920
Speaker 2: had a Derek in this field stopped making money for

150
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,880
Speaker 2: an hour out of respect for Tom Senior. I think

151
00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:51,880
Speaker 2: that says an enormous amount about him. Or maybe they

152
00:07:51,880 --> 00:07:55,119
Speaker 2: were just hungry, could have been I guess sure.

153
00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:58,880
Speaker 1: So after Dad dies, a mom did something that was

154
00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:01,680
Speaker 1: you know, pready common back then, or you know, not

155
00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:03,760
Speaker 1: more common than it feels like it is now, which

156
00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:10,520
Speaker 1: is marrying your dead spouse's brother or sister. Her brother

157
00:08:10,560 --> 00:08:14,920
Speaker 1: in law was Charles Erschall because he was married to

158
00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:17,960
Speaker 1: Tom's sister, Flow, who also died around the same time.

159
00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:21,679
Speaker 1: This is all just bad luck. Of course, nothing weird

160
00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:24,400
Speaker 1: went on, and they got together and got married.

161
00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:28,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had elaborate marriage, like we talked about in

162
00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:31,720
Speaker 2: the Widow's episode. So from what I can gather, Charles

163
00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:35,200
Speaker 2: Erschall was a good stepfather to Tom, and Tom was

164
00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:38,440
Speaker 2: happy to have him. I mean it was his uncle already, right,

165
00:08:38,600 --> 00:08:42,480
Speaker 2: so he was quite concerned. When he was seventeen, he

166
00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:46,160
Speaker 2: was home from Exeter, the boarding school for the summer

167
00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:49,320
Speaker 2: back at Oklahoma City. By this time, the whole family

168
00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:51,680
Speaker 2: had moved to Oklahoma City and was living in a mansion,

169
00:08:52,160 --> 00:08:55,960
Speaker 2: the slick Erschel family. And in July twenty second, nineteen

170
00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:59,720
Speaker 2: thirty three, while everybody's just kind of hanging out, machine

171
00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:02,320
Speaker 2: Gun Kelly came knocking on the door with a few

172
00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:06,840
Speaker 2: of his cronies and said, we are taking Charles Erschel

173
00:09:06,880 --> 00:09:09,440
Speaker 2: with us. Which one of you, two men is Charles

174
00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:13,599
Speaker 2: Erschael and Urschel's friend Walter Jarrett was did one of

175
00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:15,560
Speaker 2: the most stand up things a frank can do when

176
00:09:15,559 --> 00:09:16,720
Speaker 2: you're being kidnapped.

177
00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:20,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, he just stood silently and sort of nudged his

178
00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:22,040
Speaker 1: nose over towards Erschel.

179
00:09:23,640 --> 00:09:26,600
Speaker 2: His eyes are going like way left over here.

180
00:09:27,200 --> 00:09:28,880
Speaker 1: No one picked up on that, now I'm kidding. He

181
00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:30,880
Speaker 1: Neither one of them said anything. And you know, I

182
00:09:30,880 --> 00:09:33,680
Speaker 1: guess they were sort of together in this, and so

183
00:09:33,760 --> 00:09:36,240
Speaker 1: they took him both and that, you know, that's what happened.

184
00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:39,960
Speaker 1: They kidnapped both these guys. They would eventually find Jarrett's ID.

185
00:09:40,200 --> 00:09:43,680
Speaker 1: So they dumped him on the side of the road

186
00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:47,280
Speaker 1: and took Erschel to rural Texas, to a ranch and

187
00:09:47,320 --> 00:09:50,640
Speaker 1: demanded two hundred grand in ransom, which is close to

188
00:09:50,679 --> 00:09:51,880
Speaker 1: five million bucks today.

189
00:09:52,640 --> 00:09:58,439
Speaker 2: Yes, this was a hugely consequential event, right, so that

190
00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:04,600
Speaker 2: Tom Slick Junior tangentially involved in because when Charles Ershall

191
00:10:04,760 --> 00:10:07,559
Speaker 2: was being held, he really kept his head about him

192
00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:10,920
Speaker 2: and depending on who you ask e there, he noted

193
00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:14,240
Speaker 2: the time of day, the times of day that a

194
00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:18,320
Speaker 2: train passed by nearby, or that planes flew overhead to

195
00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:21,200
Speaker 2: try to get an idea of where he was. He

196
00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:24,359
Speaker 2: put his fingers on everything he could to leave fingerprints,

197
00:10:25,480 --> 00:10:27,800
Speaker 2: and he also counted the steps anywhere he went when

198
00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:32,040
Speaker 2: he was blindfolded. So when he was released, and thankfully

199
00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:37,120
Speaker 2: he was released unharmed for a two hundred thousand dollars ransom,

200
00:10:37,920 --> 00:10:41,559
Speaker 2: he was able to tell the FEDS like, hey, here's

201
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:43,760
Speaker 2: everything you need to know about going and finding this

202
00:10:43,880 --> 00:10:45,600
Speaker 2: ranch where they took me, and they did. They found

203
00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:46,400
Speaker 2: it rather quickly.

204
00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:49,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was also timing how long the trains were

205
00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:53,200
Speaker 1: and if you know how many trains are passing in

206
00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:56,120
Speaker 1: a sort of general area, how big these trains are.

207
00:10:56,960 --> 00:10:59,000
Speaker 1: I think that allowed them to literally go to train

208
00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:02,680
Speaker 1: schedules in that part of Texas and figured this thing out.

209
00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:06,400
Speaker 1: So he was he was a very smart guy. And

210
00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:09,840
Speaker 1: there were you know, they arrested Machine Gun. Kelly fled,

211
00:11:09,880 --> 00:11:11,800
Speaker 1: but they arrested the other guys. They were able to

212
00:11:11,840 --> 00:11:15,800
Speaker 1: track down Kelly in Memphis and he went to Alcatraz

213
00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:16,680
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life.

214
00:11:16,880 --> 00:11:19,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, so not only did he go to Alcatraz, Machine

215
00:11:19,920 --> 00:11:22,400
Speaker 2: Gun Kelly did. But this is where we talked about

216
00:11:22,400 --> 00:11:25,319
Speaker 2: in the jaeg Or Hoover episode where G Men was

217
00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:28,240
Speaker 2: coined because they went to come get him and when

218
00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:30,600
Speaker 2: they busted in the door, he said, don't shoot g Men,

219
00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:32,880
Speaker 2: And that's where their nickname came from. Just like we

220
00:11:32,920 --> 00:11:35,960
Speaker 2: talked about in the Hoover episode, that happened from this.

221
00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:38,600
Speaker 2: So this is what I'm saying, Like Tom Slick, his

222
00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:42,680
Speaker 2: life really spreads out into a lot of different stuff

223
00:11:42,679 --> 00:11:45,600
Speaker 2: you should know episodes, and yet we'd still never ran

224
00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:48,160
Speaker 2: across him in our research, which is strange to me.

225
00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:51,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a big backer of science. That's something

226
00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:52,920
Speaker 1: that you're gonna see that kind of pops up again

227
00:11:52,920 --> 00:11:55,920
Speaker 1: and again in his life right stemming from his just

228
00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:59,080
Speaker 1: natural curiosity. And he was a very very smart dude.

229
00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:02,240
Speaker 1: He went to Yale and was into genetics and was

230
00:12:02,280 --> 00:12:05,000
Speaker 1: really and this was a time when you know, in

231
00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:09,240
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties Repolice Believe it or Not magazine and

232
00:12:09,800 --> 00:12:13,840
Speaker 1: the idea of like cross breeding animals and cryptids and

233
00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:16,120
Speaker 1: all these things were just it was sort of big news,

234
00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:18,920
Speaker 1: or if not big news, something people were kind of

235
00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:22,720
Speaker 1: into at the time. And he supposedly kept a list

236
00:12:22,720 --> 00:12:25,040
Speaker 1: of like animals that he wanted to try and cross breed.

237
00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:29,880
Speaker 1: When he read about a hog goat that was a

238
00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:33,600
Speaker 1: hote that was living in Arkansas, he drove to Arkansas

239
00:12:33,679 --> 00:12:37,000
Speaker 1: and bought whatever it was. I don't even know if

240
00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:40,080
Speaker 1: it was like poor things or what he ended up with,

241
00:12:40,160 --> 00:12:42,280
Speaker 1: but whatever he brought home, he tried to breed it

242
00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:44,600
Speaker 1: on his own farm with no luck.

243
00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:48,120
Speaker 2: It was definitely not a hog goat because it's physically

244
00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:52,000
Speaker 2: and genetically and biologically impossible for them to reproduce. So

245
00:12:52,080 --> 00:12:53,920
Speaker 2: I didn't see what it was either, just that that

246
00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,360
Speaker 2: didn't exist. But that didn't stop him from trying.

247
00:12:56,800 --> 00:12:57,880
Speaker 1: Did you really look that up?

248
00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:00,240
Speaker 2: I mean, I was like, I got to see this

249
00:13:00,280 --> 00:13:04,480
Speaker 2: thing and there was nothing. Nothing hope, hog goat, hog

250
00:13:04,520 --> 00:13:09,200
Speaker 2: goat cross breeding, I know, but I thought like, surely

251
00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:12,160
Speaker 2: there's there's something that this way. I couldn't find any

252
00:13:12,200 --> 00:13:15,199
Speaker 2: reference to it. I also saw in some places that

253
00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:19,720
Speaker 2: he basically like went to go buy it and realized

254
00:13:19,760 --> 00:13:21,960
Speaker 2: that these people didn't even exist, and certainly the hope

255
00:13:21,960 --> 00:13:24,480
Speaker 2: didn't exist, but he went and tried it anyway because

256
00:13:24,480 --> 00:13:26,599
Speaker 2: he really liked the idea of it. And this was

257
00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:29,960
Speaker 2: when genetics was really new and cutting edge, and this

258
00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:32,240
Speaker 2: guy's into it while he's still at Yale, you know.

259
00:13:33,240 --> 00:13:36,720
Speaker 1: Yeah. So one of the things he successfully does cross

260
00:13:36,720 --> 00:13:41,320
Speaker 1: breed is cattle. He looked at the Scottish angus, which

261
00:13:41,400 --> 00:13:46,360
Speaker 1: is you know, prized for its excellent quality beef. They're very,

262
00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:49,320
Speaker 1: very fertile. And then he looked at the Brahmin cattle

263
00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:51,920
Speaker 1: from India and he was like, these things are great.

264
00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:56,000
Speaker 1: They're disease resistant, they're pest resistant, they are they do

265
00:13:56,080 --> 00:13:58,680
Speaker 1: well in drought, and they're very very maternal, much more

266
00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:03,680
Speaker 1: maternal than the angus. So let's get them together. Put

267
00:14:03,679 --> 00:14:06,640
Speaker 1: three aids Brahmin with five eighths angus. And this was

268
00:14:06,679 --> 00:14:09,200
Speaker 1: one of his big noted early successes. When he was

269
00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:13,040
Speaker 1: in his early twenties. He created the Brangus cattle breed

270
00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:15,680
Speaker 1: that is still around today and like highly sought after.

271
00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:19,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I saw that that. People still love that,

272
00:14:20,160 --> 00:14:23,920
Speaker 2: and it helped introduce the angus cattle into Texas where

273
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:26,000
Speaker 2: they would not have done very well before.

274
00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:29,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. But here's the thing though, Like this sounds cool

275
00:14:29,400 --> 00:14:31,720
Speaker 1: like and you think, oh, this guy's like a cattle guy.

276
00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:33,440
Speaker 1: Now he's a rich kid looking to make more money

277
00:14:33,440 --> 00:14:36,480
Speaker 1: on this cattle deal. He was doing it because he

278
00:14:36,560 --> 00:14:39,840
Speaker 1: wanted to introduce a breed of cattle that did better

279
00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:43,320
Speaker 1: in places where there was drought and there were pests

280
00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:46,320
Speaker 1: and disease. So one of his business partners was like,

281
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:48,240
Speaker 1: he didn't care about making money on this. He just

282
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:50,240
Speaker 1: he hoped it would help people in hot countries.

283
00:14:50,560 --> 00:14:53,080
Speaker 2: Not just he didn't care. He didn't give quote hoot

284
00:14:53,120 --> 00:14:55,520
Speaker 2: and hell about making money on brangus.

285
00:14:55,880 --> 00:14:56,880
Speaker 1: Well, I wasn't gonna say it.

286
00:14:57,720 --> 00:14:59,560
Speaker 2: I say, we take a break and come back, and

287
00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:02,080
Speaker 2: you meant and he's into cryptids. Let's talk about that

288
00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:02,640
Speaker 2: in a second.

289
00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:04,440
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, we'll be right back.

290
00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:28,560
Speaker 2: So I don't know if we said or not, but

291
00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:32,680
Speaker 2: Tom Slick got he developed a love of cryptids, with

292
00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:35,080
Speaker 2: that he shared with his father. His father passed on

293
00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:38,760
Speaker 2: like a love of stories about Locknus Monster, the Abominable Snowman,

294
00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:42,480
Speaker 2: all sorts of adventurous stuff like that, and like you said,

295
00:15:42,480 --> 00:15:45,640
Speaker 2: it really rubbed off on Tom Junior, and so at

296
00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:47,680
Speaker 2: a pretty early age I think. Yeah, he was still

297
00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:50,880
Speaker 2: at Yale and with some of his buddies, he packed

298
00:15:50,920 --> 00:15:55,280
Speaker 2: his red Buick onto a steamership and went to Europe

299
00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:58,560
Speaker 2: for a summer where they drove around Europe and one

300
00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:00,520
Speaker 2: of the top things on his list was to go

301
00:16:00,560 --> 00:16:03,440
Speaker 2: look for the Lochness Monster. And one of the things

302
00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:06,800
Speaker 2: you'll kind of notice about Tom Slick is that when

303
00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:09,880
Speaker 2: he's doing these things that today in retrospect seemed very

304
00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:13,720
Speaker 2: weird and flaky, at the time there was like a

305
00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:19,280
Speaker 2: lot of evidence that these things existed. This was nineteen

306
00:16:19,360 --> 00:16:22,960
Speaker 2: thirty seven. The next year, the Celacanth would be rediscovered.

307
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:25,040
Speaker 2: Like it was just kind of in the air that

308
00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:28,200
Speaker 2: there were things out there that Sidnce hadn't identified yet,

309
00:16:28,200 --> 00:16:30,480
Speaker 2: and perhaps the Lockness monster was one of them.

310
00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:34,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the very very famous picture of supposed NeSSI

311
00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:37,520
Speaker 1: was just three years prior to that, so it was

312
00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:42,200
Speaker 1: all the rage at the time. Personally, he got married

313
00:16:42,240 --> 00:16:47,160
Speaker 1: pretty quickly after Yale and got divorced even quicker to

314
00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:49,160
Speaker 1: his first wife, Betty. I guess long enough to have

315
00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:52,040
Speaker 1: a son named William, but really took after his dad

316
00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:55,480
Speaker 1: more ways than one because he was a very busy guy.

317
00:16:55,760 --> 00:16:59,480
Speaker 1: He was a workaholic. He did spend more time around

318
00:16:59,520 --> 00:17:02,520
Speaker 1: his family get the idea that his father did. But

319
00:17:02,800 --> 00:17:06,320
Speaker 1: if you know, the YETI came calling, he would go

320
00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:09,439
Speaker 1: find the yetti or try to find the yetti, or

321
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:12,560
Speaker 1: if he wanted to open up a new scientific research center,

322
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:16,200
Speaker 1: of which he opened geez, how many like five of

323
00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:19,840
Speaker 1: him while he was alive. Yes, then he would spend

324
00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:21,800
Speaker 1: his time doing that because it was he thought it

325
00:17:21,840 --> 00:17:23,119
Speaker 1: was very worthwhile and it.

326
00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:25,800
Speaker 2: Was the call of the Yetti. By the way, is er.

327
00:17:29,240 --> 00:17:32,520
Speaker 1: Nicolas Cage he played the Yetti and dump slick and

328
00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:35,919
Speaker 1: the singer right Yeah, it would have been like adaptation.

329
00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:40,960
Speaker 2: Yep, exactly. So you said that he was a little

330
00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:43,080
Speaker 2: closer with his kids than his father. I think one

331
00:17:43,119 --> 00:17:45,000
Speaker 2: of the ways he did that was on a lot

332
00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:47,560
Speaker 2: of his adventures, he'd bring his kids along with him,

333
00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:52,879
Speaker 2: and I know, at least his son Charles Chuck, even

334
00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:57,119
Speaker 2: Chuck like has very fond memories of going on adventures

335
00:17:57,119 --> 00:18:01,000
Speaker 2: with his dad. So yeah, he was definitely closer to

336
00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:03,760
Speaker 2: his kids, at least experience wise, than he was with

337
00:18:03,840 --> 00:18:04,359
Speaker 2: his father.

338
00:18:05,160 --> 00:18:08,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. So one big foray into the scientific side of

339
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:14,680
Speaker 1: his life was Science City. It was this dream project

340
00:18:14,680 --> 00:18:16,320
Speaker 1: that he had had for a long time. It's very

341
00:18:16,359 --> 00:18:20,480
Speaker 1: sort ofeen mid nineteen thirty's name, I guess. So he

342
00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:25,000
Speaker 1: opens up Science City, gets the ball rolling. By nineteen forty,

343
00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:28,520
Speaker 1: they had moved to San Antonio, which is where you'll

344
00:18:28,760 --> 00:18:32,720
Speaker 1: find Tom Slick Park and Tom Slick Everything basically, which

345
00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:34,760
Speaker 1: includes a little NeSSI statue which is kind of cool.

346
00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:36,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you can totally tell it's fake.

347
00:18:37,560 --> 00:18:40,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, not the real thing. So he bought sixteen

348
00:18:40,840 --> 00:18:43,640
Speaker 1: hundred and two acres about eight miles west of San

349
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:47,960
Speaker 1: Antonio that would eventually grow to about four thousand acres

350
00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:53,680
Speaker 1: for the S. Eessar Ranch, which is just a long

351
00:18:53,760 --> 00:18:57,000
Speaker 1: way of saying SR for scientific research. And he was

352
00:18:57,040 --> 00:18:59,199
Speaker 1: twenty four years old, and this is where all that

353
00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:00,000
Speaker 1: brang is stuff happen.

354
00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:03,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you said that he founded five research facilities

355
00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:06,960
Speaker 2: in his twenties. Three of them are still around. One

356
00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:09,919
Speaker 2: of the first ones he established was the Foundation for

357
00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:15,600
Speaker 2: Applied Research far Faar or Fayre, depending on how you

358
00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:19,480
Speaker 2: say it, and that is still around. That's now the

359
00:19:19,760 --> 00:19:24,560
Speaker 2: Texas Biomedical Research Institute. And as we'll see, these things

360
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:29,000
Speaker 2: have had like significant contributions to science in the world

361
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:30,719
Speaker 2: since they've been around.

362
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:34,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And we're all those in his twenties.

363
00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:36,720
Speaker 2: From what I understand, this is all over like a

364
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:38,000
Speaker 2: few year period.

365
00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:42,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, jeez, that's incredible. He tried to enlist in the

366
00:19:42,040 --> 00:19:45,280
Speaker 1: Navy after Pearl Harbor in nineteen forty one, but he

367
00:19:45,320 --> 00:19:47,480
Speaker 1: didn't have good eyesight, so they said, you are not

368
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:51,919
Speaker 1: fit for wartime duty. So they commissioned him in nineteen

369
00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:56,240
Speaker 1: forty two as a lieutenant and right away said, all right,

370
00:19:56,480 --> 00:19:59,600
Speaker 1: you know what you're good at is running big operations.

371
00:20:00,440 --> 00:20:02,359
Speaker 1: Why don't you go work for the War Production Board

372
00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:05,680
Speaker 1: and kind of help this idea that we have of

373
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:08,960
Speaker 1: changing over factories for making whatever they're making to helping

374
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,760
Speaker 1: out with wartime production. From there, he went to DC

375
00:20:13,800 --> 00:20:17,600
Speaker 1: working for the Board of Economic Warfare, which was actually

376
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:21,639
Speaker 1: in Santiago, Chile. And this is where things get a

377
00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:26,480
Speaker 1: little like who knows what happened because his letters and

378
00:20:26,520 --> 00:20:31,000
Speaker 1: diaries weren't around. The records from what he did in

379
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:35,560
Speaker 1: Chile were destroyed, and we'll never know if or not

380
00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:38,919
Speaker 1: he was like a spy in South America, which a

381
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:41,360
Speaker 1: lot of his family and other people said they thought

382
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:41,720
Speaker 1: he was.

383
00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:44,240
Speaker 2: I think we know one hundred percent that he was

384
00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:48,560
Speaker 2: a spy in Chile at the time. Oh really, just

385
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:50,160
Speaker 2: from the circumstantial evidence.

386
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:53,720
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, I thought you meant you found something

387
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:54,440
Speaker 1: better a man.

388
00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:57,240
Speaker 2: You could write a book if you found that. But yes,

389
00:20:57,320 --> 00:20:59,560
Speaker 2: the family lore is that he was working in South

390
00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:05,320
Speaker 2: America as basically a Nazi catcher, helping local governments and

391
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:10,320
Speaker 2: the US catch Nazis who'd escaped, which happened there. Yes,

392
00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:13,560
Speaker 2: that's the thing. It happened while he was there. That's

393
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:16,840
Speaker 2: one of the operations that was going on in South America.

394
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:20,560
Speaker 2: And he was just an American businessman, but he was

395
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:24,000
Speaker 2: also in the Navy, and no one knows why he

396
00:21:24,119 --> 00:21:26,800
Speaker 2: was stationed there. He never talked about it or told anybody.

397
00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:31,119
Speaker 2: I would say that that's pretty much certain, because if

398
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:34,159
Speaker 2: you combine that with another thing that he may have

399
00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:38,320
Speaker 2: been operative for or at least related to some operatives,

400
00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:41,040
Speaker 2: I think that it's pretty certain he was. That's my

401
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:42,320
Speaker 2: two cents at least.

402
00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:46,840
Speaker 1: All right, So he got married again, this time in

403
00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:50,359
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven to a woman twelve years younger. She

404
00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:52,800
Speaker 1: was eighteen at the time, and they had three kids.

405
00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:57,119
Speaker 1: They also got divorced. You know, again, he's not around

406
00:21:57,160 --> 00:22:00,479
Speaker 1: a lot and probably not the most attentive husband when

407
00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: he has all these things going on, and he had

408
00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:05,879
Speaker 1: he you know, he's somebody I'd look up to in

409
00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:07,600
Speaker 1: a lot of ways after sort of finding out how

410
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:11,320
Speaker 1: he worked, certainly not as a husband, but how he

411
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:15,440
Speaker 1: worked as a curious person. He seems like the kind

412
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:18,240
Speaker 1: of guy that he would read and read and read

413
00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:20,520
Speaker 1: just about everything that he could and just soak up

414
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:23,120
Speaker 1: as much knowledge as he could. And when he came

415
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:26,760
Speaker 1: across something that piqued his interest in a particular way

416
00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 1: or that he couldn't figure out, he had the resources

417
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 1: and the money and the time to you know, if

418
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:34,679
Speaker 1: not solve it, try to solve it by just saying like,

419
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 1: all right, pick up the phone, let me call whoever

420
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:40,280
Speaker 1: I know, or write a letter to whoever I know

421
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:42,280
Speaker 1: who might be able to help out with this. And

422
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:44,719
Speaker 1: then depending on what they say, I might hire some

423
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:46,359
Speaker 1: people to go to work and try and figure this

424
00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:49,639
Speaker 1: stuff out. I might work on it myself and whatever

425
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:52,879
Speaker 1: the outcome. He was just about trying. He wasn't afraid

426
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 1: of failing. He was just trying to find out stuff

427
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 1: and made his best efforts to even if it didn't

428
00:22:58,280 --> 00:22:58,640
Speaker 1: work out.

429
00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:01,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, just finding out that no one seemed to know

430
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,159
Speaker 2: the answer that was enough for him. You know, of

431
00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 2: course he wanted to find the answer to the question

432
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 2: he was looking for. But yeah, he said, I don't

433
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:10,320
Speaker 2: believe in failure, only outcome, like he said, And that's

434
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:12,800
Speaker 2: just what a great motto, you know. I mean that

435
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:15,840
Speaker 2: just ye completely transforms your outlook on life.

436
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's to be clear, it is a

437
00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:21,560
Speaker 1: motto that you can afford when you have that kind

438
00:23:21,560 --> 00:23:24,560
Speaker 1: of privilege, when you can just be like, hey, I'll fail,

439
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 1: Like what's the big rub? Sure, and he had that privilege,

440
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:30,199
Speaker 1: but he you know, in his favor. He didn't use

441
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 1: that privilege to sit around on a beach and drink

442
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 1: coconut drinks like he was trying to better humankind.

443
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean, like, yes, that's a great point,

444
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 2: but I also think that you can apply it to

445
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 2: all sorts of different things in life, you know, not

446
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 2: necessarily just your success or your wealth or anything like that.

447
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:48,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.

448
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:52,240
Speaker 2: So there were a lot of things that he used

449
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:56,160
Speaker 2: this technique for that came to fruition. Some things may

450
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 2: or may not exist, We're not one hundred percent sure.

451
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 2: But one thing that he definitely did in coinvent that

452
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 2: did have some consequence to it was what's called a

453
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 2: lift slab method of basically creating a concrete roof. Those

454
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 2: are very expensive to make. That's very difficult to create

455
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:16,120
Speaker 2: them in place on the roof, and he basically figured

456
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 2: out a technique to make it on the ground and

457
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 2: then lift it into place. Sounds kind of basic and

458
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 2: low hanging, but apparently it saves a lot of cost

459
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 2: and it works. So that's a pretty good example of

460
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:29,119
Speaker 2: him just kind of putting his mind to figuring a

461
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 2: better way out. It's boring, but it's still a good example.

462
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that wasn't just for roofs. It was

463
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:38,720
Speaker 1: I mean feeble to ten story building. He would build

464
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: all ten floors on the ground and then hydraulic those

465
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: suckers up there.

466
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 2: That's man, what can't you do with hydraulics?

467
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: And we should also mention the lift slab. It was

468
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: simultaneously developed by another guy named Philip Utes. Tom Slick

469
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:57,879
Speaker 1: got the patent and you know, gets all the glory

470
00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: for that, but a lot of people still call it

471
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 1: the Ute's Slick method.

472
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 2: Beautiful.

473
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 1: He developed a breed of mice. This was early in

474
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: chemotherapy treatments that were very useful in testing. We mentioned

475
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:16,440
Speaker 1: that Brangus. I think my favorite is that he had

476
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: a thing against cowls in your hair, so he invented

477
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: a hair tonic that could supposedly reverse those calys.

478
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, in particular Brangus Cowlyx give me her cal stinkless skunks. Apparently.

479
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:30,760
Speaker 2: Did you see anything about this? I couldn't really find

480
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 2: anything on that.

481
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:32,959
Speaker 1: I found nothing on that.

482
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 2: I don't know if it just went beyond the idea stage.

483
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 2: One thing that definitely happened was one of his institutes.

484
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:41,480
Speaker 2: It might have been the Southwest Research Institute or the

485
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 2: Texas Biomedical Institute, had a huge role in producing some

486
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 2: of the first oral contraceptives. That's fairly world altering, sure.

487
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 2: And then another one that did not come to fruition

488
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:56,679
Speaker 2: was called We're artificial pecans pecans however you want to

489
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:59,919
Speaker 2: say it. He decided that the trees were way too

490
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 2: water intensive, especially from the perspective of Texas, and so

491
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:06,719
Speaker 2: he wanted to find a way to create pecans that

492
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 2: did not need to grow on trees. And like I said,

493
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 2: it didn't get anywhere. I cannot, for the life and

494
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 2: me find what the heck he made the artificial pecans

495
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 2: out of. But he definitely gave it a try.

496
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:21,400
Speaker 1: So we've talked a lot about his, you know, work

497
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: as a funder of science and a believer in science

498
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:28,679
Speaker 1: kind of maybe not weirdly, but he was also a

499
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 1: guy that really loved the unexplained and the mystical and

500
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: was not although he believed in science, he wasn't he

501
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:42,120
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily think that those walls couldn't be explored beyond,

502
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: you know. So he went to India, as a lot

503
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: of people did in those days who were seeking enlightenment

504
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 1: in the fifties, saw people walking on hot coals, supposedly

505
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: saw Lamas and Tibetan monks levitating off the ground. This

506
00:26:58,840 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: is one of his claims.

507
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 2: He basically went to a Tony Robbins convention.

508
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: Does he levitate lamas?

509
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 2: He does all sorts of stuff like this that, yes,

510
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 2: he does pseudo scientific things like.

511
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: This, or maybe a David Blaine performance.

512
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

513
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I tried to learn that method, but I did

514
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: it okay for a little while, but it wasn't great.

515
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: What levitating, well, the illusion that you're levitating, which is

516
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: what David Blaine did. It's a trick obviously, isn't it.

517
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,920
Speaker 2: Essentially you're basically standing on your toes.

518
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: You're standing on one toe. You have people at a

519
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:37,399
Speaker 1: certain angle where when you're raising all of your body

520
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: weight up on the one toe, you're blocking it in

521
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: with your other foot and like pant leg and so

522
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:45,919
Speaker 1: it's all about the angle at which you see it.

523
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 1: So you can't see that that one toe is on

524
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: the ground, but it looks great if you can, if

525
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: you can do it well.

526
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 2: So I don't understand why you call it levitating. I

527
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 2: think you could just get as much awe out of

528
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 2: people as saying like, I'm standing on one toe right now. Everybody,

529
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:02,439
Speaker 2: how nuts is that?

530
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a a tow bodybuilder. I've got the strongest

531
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:07,640
Speaker 1: tow right.

532
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 2: So this is a really consequential time in Central Asia,

533
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 2: East Asia. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama had been oh,

534
00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 2: I don't know the word, but basically found and identified

535
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 2: just several years before. This is the Dalai Lama as

536
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 2: we know him today. And around this time, he was

537
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 2: about twenty one, and China had invaded Tibet, and all

538
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:35,479
Speaker 2: of a sudden, the Dali Lama found himself is like

539
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 2: the head of the Tibetan government. Everybody said, you're the guy,

540
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 2: what are you going to do about this? And there

541
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 2: was almost nothing he could do. There were Tibetan freedom fighters,

542
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 2: Tibetan resistance rebels, and they were just getting crushed left

543
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 2: and right by China. And Tibet was a place where

544
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:57,479
Speaker 2: China had invaded. And so now anytime you saw an

545
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 2: American you can pretty much guess that if they were CIA,

546
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 2: they were backed by the CIA. They were giving information

547
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 2: to the CIA. The CIA had like a twenty year

548
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 2: program in Tibet, and one of the things they did

549
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 2: was help get the Dali Lama out when it became

550
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 2: clear that the Dalai Lama needed to get the heck

551
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 2: out and create a government for Tibet in exile, which

552
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 2: he still runs today. The CIA helped that happen, and

553
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 2: so did in some way, shape or form, Tom Slick

554
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 2: had some sort of hand in it.

555
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: All right, maybe we should take a break and sounds

556
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 1: like a good little cliffhanger and come back and talk

557
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: about why he may have been over there in the

558
00:29:35,400 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: first place. Right after this, all right, So where we

559
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: left off was a little tease about Tom Sluck potentially

560
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 1: maybe helping to get the Dali Lama out of Tibet.

561
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: Why was he there? He had met him already, so

562
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: that was a you know, before the break, we were

563
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: talking about a trip that he took over there. Tossed

564
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: that one aside. He goes home, starts living his life,

565
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 1: feels a little bit more enlightened, he can meditate a

566
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: little bit. Sure, worthwhile trip, but he, just like his father,

567
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: was fascinated by the idea of the Yeti, the Abominable Snowman,

568
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: and the Himalayas, And like you mentioned earlier, like this

569
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: was a time when you know, it's kind of right

570
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: in the middle of all these yetti sidings, there were

571
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: new species being discovered. And so he was like, hey, listen,

572
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: I'm not some some wacko who just you know, believes

573
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: in these weird cryptis he cryptids? He said, I think

574
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: there's something out there that maybe like the link between

575
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 1: man and animal. And I think there are at least

576
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: two species. There are the big, tall eight footers with

577
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: black hair. There were smaller red haired guys. And I

578
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: think it's like a pre human man that's been basically

579
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 1: hidden for thousands of years in the Himalayas.

580
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean Westerners have been trying to climb

581
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 2: the Himalayas for decades by this time, and as they

582
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:19,719
Speaker 2: came back, they would bring stories from the locals about

583
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 2: the YETI, the abominable snowman, and so, like you said,

584
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 2: like it wasn't just totally like off the charts or

585
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 2: super fringe to mount an expedition for this, and he did,

586
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 2: and like he was looking for a missing link, remember

587
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 2: his fascination with hybridization. He felt like that that's what

588
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 2: those things were. They were a missing link out there.

589
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 2: They weren't some undiscovered animal. They were some human relative

590
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 2: that had somehow survived in the wilds of the Pacific

591
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 2: Northwest or the wilds of the Himalayas, and he wanted

592
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 2: to find one. I don't know if he wanted to

593
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 2: kill and stuff it because he was a hunter, but

594
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 2: he definitely wanted to at least or meet one, shake

595
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 2: his hand, buy him a steak dinner. I'm not sure,

596
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:05,360
Speaker 2: buy him a Brangus steak dinner.

597
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 1: Pretty good. He actually did change the way that those

598
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: expeditions went down, because most of those had been kill

599
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: and catch or catch and kill expeditions for kind of

600
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: anything like that, and he changed it to more research

601
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 1: base and hey, let's see if we can get something alive.

602
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 2: Good. I'm glad so he did. He mounted three different

603
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 2: expeditions I think the first one was in the winter

604
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 2: of nineteen fifty six, which you're gonna go to the

605
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 2: Himalayas in the winter seems like poor planning to me.

606
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 2: And while he was there, he found a footprint thirteen

607
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 2: inch long, bare footprint, and he made a plaster cast

608
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 2: of it and became one of his prize possessions. He

609
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 2: actually kept it on his dining room table and like

610
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 2: if somebody wouldn't bring it up when they were a

611
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 2: guest at his house. He would just kind of quietly

612
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 2: nudge it over toward them until it was like in

613
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 2: their face, on their plate even sometimes, and they'd be like, oh, okay,

614
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 2: what is this? If I may ask, and he'd say, oh, well,

615
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 2: funny you should ask. Let me tell you about this

616
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 2: abominable snowman footprint.

617
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, he actually got a few footprints, and a couple

618
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 1: of them were very noteworthy. I mean, they weren't yetty,

619
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 1: but they were noteworthy, and that every other footprint had

620
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: been snowfootprints, and he got a couple out of the mud,

621
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: which was I guess sort of a bigger deal, and

622
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: also supposedly brought back some hair samples. Again not a

623
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: yetty because there's no YETI but he didn't know that

624
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: at the time. No, give the guy break. He's trying

625
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 1: to find what's true and what's not true, just like us.

626
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 2: So two years after the first one he launched a

627
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 2: second expedition. This one was like fully kitted out. He

628
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 2: and a friend spent plunk down thirty grand in I

629
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 2: guess nineteen fifty eight money to fund this expedition. There

630
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 2: was a photographer, a documentary filmmaker. There were professional trackers.

631
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 2: They brought in a recons since plane. They had tranquilizer guns,

632
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 2: which supports your idea that this was not a catch

633
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 2: and kill. And then also he brought three blue tickhounds

634
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 2: tick bloodhounds, which are really well known as tracker dogs,

635
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 2: and he even put little snow boots on them to

636
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 2: help them through the snow, which I thought was very conscientious.

637
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: Totally, he didn't go on this one. He just you know,

638
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: helped fund it because he had bailed on a bus

639
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,879
Speaker 1: on the previous expedition that had lost its breaks and

640
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 1: pretty much tore up his knees permanently from that point.

641
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,040
Speaker 1: So there are some great pictures of him with his

642
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,359
Speaker 1: knees all bandaged up, but he's still, you know, smiling away,

643
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: looking like he stepped out of a Banana Republic ad.

644
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 2: Is he giving the thumbs up?

645
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 1: There was no thumb when he had a cane in

646
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 1: his hand.

647
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that second expedition was there for nine months,

648
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 2: came home empty handed, obviously, or else we would all

649
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:58,560
Speaker 2: know that there was such a thing as the Yetti.

650
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 2: And the third and last expedition, this is where the

651
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 2: CIA business kind of comes in. He funded two brothers,

652
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 2: Peter Burn and Brian Burn, and Peter was a well

653
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 2: known outdoorsman hunter and he'd been searching for the Yetti

654
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:18,359
Speaker 2: for a couple of decades by this time. So Tom

655
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 2: Slick financed a third expedition with these two brothers. And

656
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 2: here we come to yet another stuff you should know

657
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: episode I guess, the one on the Yetti or the

658
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 2: Abominable Snowman, where we talked about this story where a

659
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:37,320
Speaker 2: Yeti thumb that was being on being displayed at Pangbosh Temple,

660
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 2: the Buddhist monk temple, was stolen, and it turns out

661
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 2: it was Peter and Brian Byrn who stole it on

662
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 2: behalf of Tom Slick, who asked them to steal it

663
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 2: on behalf of doctor Osmond Hill, a primatologist from the UK.

664
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is this is probably the most famous

665
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 1: story about Tom Slick because of a certain coken sp

666
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 1: here that we're going to introduce. But he it was

667
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:09,240
Speaker 1: actually a finger and a thumb. They gave these guys,

668
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:13,280
Speaker 1: these brothers, like another finger to trade, or not trade,

669
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:15,439
Speaker 1: but to swap out and hope no one would notice.

670
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: I guess and said here's you know, here's a thumb.

671
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: Take it over there, see if you can swap them out. Supposedly,

672
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: the Burn brothers talked about giving a big donation to

673
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: the temple. No one knows exactly what went down, but

674
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: they left with that yetti thumb and finger and what

675
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:36,240
Speaker 1: they were told was a YETI scalp was another piece

676
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: of piece of YETI. I guess that they got. So.

677
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:43,359
Speaker 1: I've seen this a couple of ways and stories. I've

678
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 1: seen that a certain Hollywood actor was in on this

679
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 1: from the beginning and it was all part of the plan.

680
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,319
Speaker 1: And then I've also seen that after this happened, the

681
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: Burn brothers went to Calcutta and just had dinner with

682
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart and his wife at the Grand Hotel and

683
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 1: were it from there got on board and just said,

684
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: and my best Jimmy Stewart, if you need help getting

685
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: the thumb across the border, I can. I can put

686
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:11,480
Speaker 1: it in my wife's underwear bag.

687
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 2: That was great. I was really hoping you're gonna do

688
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:15,439
Speaker 2: something like that.

689
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: It's okay. I used to do a decent one, but

690
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: it's been a while.

691
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 2: It's good, especially for being rusty. I think the way

692
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,319
Speaker 2: we told it was that he happened to be there

693
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 2: and offered I don't remember knowing that he was supposedly

694
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 2: part of the whole thing.

695
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:31,800
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter, honestly.

696
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 2: No, he definitely smuggled what was thought to be a

697
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 2: Yetti thumb across the border out right out of India

698
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 2: and his wife's lingerie case back to the UK, where

699
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 2: he gave it to doctor Hill, and doctor Hill promptly

700
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,399
Speaker 2: just stopped talking about it. I guess he probably did

701
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 2: some sort of examination and was like, yeah, this is

702
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 2: not a Yetti thumb and filed it away in the

703
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 2: archives of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, where

704
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 2: it was lost until I leave the twenty first century.

705
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 2: And then finally in twenty eleven, Edinburgh Zoo researchers did

706
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 2: a DNA test on it and they said this is

707
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:11,880
Speaker 2: a human finger and thumb, and they made the little

708
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 2: finger gun for the photo that was published all over

709
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 2: the world.

710
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 1: Why do I get the feeling at the time if

711
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 1: they would have found that thing and thumb in the

712
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: wear bag at the airport, that she could have just

713
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: been like, stay out of that, that's my thumb, that's

714
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 1: my finger. Stay out of my underwear. They would have

715
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: just been like, oh my god, I'm so sorry, and

716
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: like just giving it back to her.

717
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 2: I can't remember where I read it. It was years

718
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 2: and years ago. We may have talked about it. But

719
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 2: when there's when there's a personal massager found in luggage

720
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 2: that's being searched in front of the person, like, I

721
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 2: think the TSA is instructed to just pretend it doesn't exist,

722
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 2: like they didn't see it.

723
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:58,239
Speaker 1: I can't remember where we are, surely I definitely remember

724
00:38:58,320 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: us talking about that.

725
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 2: That was a while ago, so yeah, I think back

726
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 2: in the late fifties you could have done the same

727
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:07,399
Speaker 2: thing with a yetti finger, considering it was in her

728
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:08,280
Speaker 2: underwork case.

729
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. The other thing that they brought back was that

730
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:14,920
Speaker 1: YETI scalp. Obviously not a YETI scalp. It was a

731
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 1: type of Himalayan goat. So they struck out on all fronts.

732
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: Too bad, But perhaps perhaps and I saw definite confirmation

733
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:30,719
Speaker 1: that Peter Burn at the very least was helping the

734
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 1: CIA get people in and out of Tibet. There was

735
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 1: a guy named George Patterson that was doing work like

736
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 1: undercover work, and he helped get him in and out.

737
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: So the idea is that sort of kind of closing

738
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 1: the loop on the Dali Lama. Is that because of

739
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 1: Peter Burn's work with the CIA getting people in and

740
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 1: out that the New York Times even wrote a story

741
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 1: in April of fifty seven called Soviet Cy's espionage in

742
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 1: US snowman hunt this YETI I don't know if it

743
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: was a complete front. I think the are also looking

744
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:02,399
Speaker 1: for the Yetti, but they were like, well, since they're

745
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: over here, we'll do a little bit the CIA work

746
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 1: for the guys right exactly?

747
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 2: And I guess it's not definite. But I did see

748
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:12,880
Speaker 2: in at least one source that Peter Burn had a

749
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 2: real hand in getting the Dolly lam out.

750
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 1: I love that maybe he offered him his literal hand.

751
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 2: He offered him a YETI thumb, come with me, big guy.

752
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:27,840
Speaker 1: So YETI eventually became a bigfoot as far as Tom

753
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 1: Slick's passions went, because a little closer to home he

754
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:32,840
Speaker 1: could take take the kids on that trip, didn't have

755
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 1: to go to the Himalayas. So he became a serious

756
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 1: bigfoot hunter, including like hooking up with people who are

757
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:45,720
Speaker 1: until very recently, we're still big and noteworthy big foot hunters.

758
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of them was Peter Burn. Peter Burn went

759
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 2: on to be one of the big well known big

760
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 2: foot hunters. When he went with Tom Slick, that's kind

761
00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:58,839
Speaker 2: of where he got the taste for it. And he's like, hey, Tom,

762
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 2: you go back home. I'm gonna to stay here. And

763
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 2: he even wrote a book called The Search for Bigfoot

764
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 2: Monster myth or Man. So I think that's a great

765
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six in particular title for a book on bigfoot.

766
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 1: Oh totally. So back to his private life, you know,

767
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,279
Speaker 1: he got divorced that second time, and after that he

768
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: was like, you know what marriage is not for me,

769
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: but what is for me is being a millionaire playboy

770
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:30,360
Speaker 1: and you know everything I saw said that he was

771
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: very upfront with the women that he coborted with and

772
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: was like, hey, I'm out to have a good time.

773
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 1: This is not going to get serious. It's kind of

774
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:42,880
Speaker 1: a sort of a touchy way of saying. He had

775
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: a lot of girlfriends. At the same time, his niece

776
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: wrote a book about him and knew a lot about him,

777
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 1: and she said that at one point I found a

778
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: Christmas list from nineteen fifty eight and he would get

779
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 1: these lists together, like, hey, get these gifts for these

780
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: very specific women, send it to Nikit Neman Marcus and

781
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:04,960
Speaker 1: like take care of him. So on the fifty eight

782
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:09,320
Speaker 1: list he had Annette, Kathy, Cheryl, Cynthia, Irene, Jane, Jerry, Mary,

783
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: Nancy Nell, Sandra, Silvia, Tony, Topsy, and three Hellens, So

784
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:18,839
Speaker 1: seventeen women scattered all over planet Earth. He was, you know,

785
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:20,759
Speaker 1: he was having a good time.

786
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 2: It sounds like it sounded just now like you were

787
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 2: halfway through a shell Silverstein poem, especially when Topsy makes

788
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 2: an appearance.

789
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:29,920
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, who's Topsy.

790
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 2: There's one other thing we need to mention about him

791
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 2: is that he wrote not one, but two books arguing

792
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 2: and laying out plans for world peace, which you know,

793
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:43,879
Speaker 2: not everybody's got those under their belt. So I read

794
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:47,840
Speaker 2: at least one review of it from the fifties and

795
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:49,439
Speaker 2: they were like, this is actually pretty good.

796
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:54,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean again doing like the good work. Sadly,

797
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:57,920
Speaker 1: that good work in that life was cut very short

798
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: in a tragic way when a night teen sixty two,

799
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 1: he was coming back in a little plane after a

800
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: peasant hunting in Calgary with some friends and their plane

801
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 1: basically disintegrated in mid air and bad weather over Montana.

802
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: And he died at the same age as his father,

803
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:19,399
Speaker 1: at just forty six years old, and is buried at

804
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: Mission Burial Park there in San Antonio.

805
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like we said, those science foundations that he

806
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:30,360
Speaker 2: created went on to do some pretty amazing things. In

807
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 2: addition to oral contraceptives, vaccines for hepatitis A through c HIV, AIDS,

808
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,440
Speaker 2: ebola virus. They had a big role in the COVID vaccine.

809
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:47,240
Speaker 2: And they also another one develops things for NASA electric cars,

810
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 2: the oil and gas industry. They're the kind who, like

811
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 2: they don't make the stuff, they help other people make

812
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:55,400
Speaker 2: this stuff through their research.

813
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:56,720
Speaker 1: They make this stuff better.

814
00:43:56,920 --> 00:43:59,880
Speaker 2: What company is that, BASF. That's exactly what it is,

815
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 2: thinking you.

816
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also again as another coda, he was a great

817
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: patron of the arts, one of the great art collections

818
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: of a private American citizen, most of which is at

819
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 1: the McNay Art Museum. And like we said, that movie

820
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 1: with Nick Cage didn't happen, But the podcast Tom Slick

821
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: colon Mystery Hunter is out now with Owen Wilson, Yeah,

822
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 1: playing Tom Slick and Skyler Fisk and Skyler Fisk and

823
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: her mom says he's basic, and Chad sent me a list.

824
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just sort of a murderer's row of

825
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: great actors. And this was literally yesterday, and I was like, huh,

826
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: I would have loved to have done a voice. So he, yesterday,

827
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: like an hour after that, said he felt bad, and

828
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, I mean, don't feel bad.

829
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:51,880
Speaker 1: I was just kidding, but I always want to do

830
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: dumb voices. And he about an hour later he said,

831
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:57,759
Speaker 1: I got something for you. I was like, really. He

832
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: was like, can you do it today? He said you're

833
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:02,719
Speaker 1: opposite Sissy Spacek and I was like, are we going

834
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: to zoom together? And he no, you just record your

835
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 1: lines and we marry them to hers. But technically I'll

836
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:13,799
Speaker 1: be in a scene with Sissy Spacek playing seventy year

837
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:18,720
Speaker 1: old former governor of Texas, Governor Nielsen, not a real person.

838
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: A lot of this is highly fictionalized. It's a you know,

839
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,840
Speaker 1: it's a fun podcast. It's not like they stick to

840
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:28,280
Speaker 1: the facts when they can, but it's it's an entertaining

841
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 1: kind of thing. So if you've never listened to a

842
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: scripted fictional show, give it a shot, because I listened

843
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: to a couple of episodes, and it's super cool. And

844
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: you can hear me doing my best kind of old

845
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: old school levon helm accent.

846
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 2: Can we hear it?

847
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:45,919
Speaker 1: Yeah? I guess we could play a clip. Yeah, let's

848
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: do that, all right, here's a little clip of me,

849
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: you guys, finally, Governor Chlier. It's so lovely of you

850
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 1: to come to this little she big for dad.

851
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 3: Little I heard there might be some reveals about the

852
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 3: mysterious Tom Slick. As a kid, I always thought your

853
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 3: father lived a double life. Oh yeah, Claire, remember when

854
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 3: we had those sleepovers at your house, Sure and your dad.

855
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 3: He'd tell us these wild tales about mysteries the world

856
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 3: and never known holy men who could levitate a tunnel

857
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:25,360
Speaker 3: on the Amazon line with diamonds, the abominable snowman that

858
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 3: he said roam the.

859
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 1: Roof of the world.

860
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 3: He told those tales like he lived them, So I

861
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 3: guess I thought he always.

862
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 2: Had way to go.

863
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: Chuck, Thank you. He was an old Texas guy like that.

864
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:45,879
Speaker 2: Get off my claim, you varmit awesome? So where where

865
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:47,799
Speaker 2: can you find this, Chuck? Where can you find this

866
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:49,120
Speaker 2: podcast that you're starting in?

867
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: I mean, anywhere you can get your podcast.

868
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:54,919
Speaker 2: I guess that's right, isn't that what they say? That's right,

869
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:59,719
Speaker 2: it's called Tom Slick mystery Hunter. Right, yeah, awesome, Well

870
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:02,840
Speaker 2: Duck I said, yeah, I was just mentioning a podcast

871
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:06,919
Speaker 2: that he started in and we've fallen backwards into listener mail.

872
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 3: All right.

873
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this random fact because that's what Adam

874
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: called it when he wrote in in the subject line,

875
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,520
Speaker 1: Hey guys on your Luddites episode, you mentioned some places

876
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: like Lancaster. Sure, that's the origin of the term sheriff.

877
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:25,600
Speaker 2: I love this or this email?

878
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:28,840
Speaker 1: Sure or Shire, I guess, just like in Lord of

879
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: the Rings County Reeve. So the county sheriff was originally

880
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: the shire reeve and was shortened to shere reef or sheriff.

881
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,440
Speaker 1: All this info was bestowed upon me by a professor

882
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: of criminal justice at Atulmuss University in the early two thousands.

883
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:46,799
Speaker 1: Go Rebels, I've been listening for several years. Look forward

884
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 1: every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Keep it cool, guys. That's

885
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:50,240
Speaker 1: from Adam.

886
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 2: All right, thanks a lot, Adam. That's a great one.

887
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 2: I'd never heard that before in my life, and now

888
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:57,920
Speaker 2: I know. And if you want to be like Adam

889
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 2: and let us know something we never knew before in

890
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,279
Speaker 2: our lives but would be happy to know. Please send

891
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:06,919
Speaker 2: it to us via email. It's stuff podcast at iHeartRadio

892
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:10,760
Speaker 2: dot com.

893
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

894
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

895
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,120
Speaker 3: The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

896
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 3: your favorite shows.