WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: The Disappearance of Alfred Loewenstein 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.440 Hey everybody, this is Joe. I've got a new podcast 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:06.480 project for you that I'm doing with my friend Vincent Alas. 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:10.000 There's no Steve, no Devin, so this is not Thinking Sideways. 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.960 It's a new podcast called The Shocking Details. Check out 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.759 our website at dub dub dub the Shocking Details dot com, 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.319 and of course we're on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.640 everywhere else. But I wanted to say this. We were 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.560 messing around with some different audio gear for this one 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.880 and the sound quality isn't quite the best, but rest 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.600 assured in the future episodes will sound a lot better. 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:56.160 So enjoy from Thinking Sideways podcast. I'm yes, that is correct, Joe. 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:57.920 I'm here on the banks the fugeit sound where a 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.280 mystery is unfolding tonight after numer Agency each Side landing 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.560 software air presario and Microsoft co founder Bill Gates has 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:09.000 been reported missing, and things only get stranger from there. Apparently, 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.280 Mr Gates was aboard his lear Jet returning from a 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.760 conference in British Columbia, surrounded by business associates, when he 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.959 excused himself to use the plane's restaurant. A few minutes later, 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.559 his personal assistant went to check on him and found 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:22.440 that he was not in the washroom at the back 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.280 of the airplane, nor was he anywhere aboard the craft. 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.000 A massive search is underway at this time, but as 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.480 speculations and rumors swirl, authorities admit they are no closer 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.320 to locating the billionaires whereabouts. So imagine that one day 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:37.160 you pick up the paper and it tells you that 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.280 somebody really rich and famous has just disappeared, say Bill Gates. 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:43.920 And by the way, Bill Gates didn't just disappear while 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:45.399 he was on his way to the quickie marter for 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.160 a pack of smokes like most people do now. He 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:50.880 actually vanished, as you heard, from his corporate lear jet 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.480 in mid flight, and nobody else in the plane even 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.760 saw it or heard it happened. I mean, that sounds impossible, 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.920 it sure does, But something like this actually did happen. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.160 Somebody vanished from his corporate jet about ninety years ago. 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:07.000 Alfred Lowenstein was one of the richest guys in the 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.440 world at this time, and he had to relieve himself. 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:13.640 And this is he rises from his seat and he 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:15.400 walked back to the back of the plane where the 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:20.680 restroom was housed, and he passes his business associate Arthur Hodges. 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:23.360 He saw him lumber towards the back to the rear 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.440 of the craft the English Channel, shooting by underneath him. 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.919 His secretaries and his loyal valet back, Fred Baxter, they 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.400 all see him, they all see him go. But just 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:39.560 like that, Alfred Lowenstein, financier, innovader, philanthropist and one very 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:45.280 rich fellow, was gone, just like that bombast And this 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.919 was on a warm July night over the English Channel. Well, 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.080 he didn't return. After ten or fifteen minutes, Mr Baxter, 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.200 the valet, wants to check on his employer, Mr Lowenstein. 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.120 He found that the head was empty. There was quite 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.200 literally not any sign of Lowenstein aboard this plane, which 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.760 was a focused seven tri motor, not a very huge plane. Frankly, 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:09.440 Baxter made his way to the cockpit and handed a 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.840 note to the pilot telling him that Mr Lowenstein had disappeared. 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.160 That's the impossible had happened. He had vanished somehow off 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:21.800 of a plane. So let's back up, who vanished? Who 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.760 was Alfred Lollenstein? What in his biography could have left 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.520 so many theories in the wake of his vanishing. Well. 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.240 Mr Lowenstein was born in Brussels, in eighteen seventy seven, 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:36.160 but nineteen fourteen he established a successful bank and made 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.640 extensive investments in electric power and artificial silk, which were 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.440 two new and very growing industries at that time. In 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:48.920 nineteen six he founded International Holdings and Investments Limited, which 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.520 was kind of almost a venture capital company. Raised large 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.040 amounts of money from investors who wanted to climb on 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.920 board the Lowenstein money making train, so at the time 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.160 of his death, lonstein And was one of the richest 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:05.160 men in the world. In nineteen eight he married Madeline 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:10.720 the Zone was from a prominent Belgian family. She was beautiful, elegant, sophisticated, 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:15.400 but reportedly not very warm. We're emotional. The marriage wasn't passionate, 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.120 but Alfred and Madeleine made the most of their arrangement. 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:21.760 For Alfred a trophy wife and a male heir, and 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.840 for Madeline stability and you know, more money than she 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.479 could have never dreamed. Lots and lots of money doesn't hurt. 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.000 May not have been the stuff of romance novels, but 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.080 I don't think either had much to complain about. Reportedly 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.400 actually got along quite well. But back to our plane 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.240 ride when Mr Baxter, the valet looked in the head. 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:44.080 As I said, lon Stein wasn't there, which was strange. 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.159 There's nowhere else he could have been. The plane is 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:52.720 essentially divided into four sections, a cockpit, passenger compartment, the head, 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.240 which is also where the entrance to the plane is 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.560 the entry door, and beyond that the cargo area, which 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.240 cannot be accessed from inside the plane. So there was 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.560 literally nowhere he could have gone. And so when Baxter 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.240 found the empty head, he went forward, as I said, 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.920 and handed a note to the pilot, Donald Drew, saying 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.240 he had disappeared. Now at this point, the aircraft is 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.760 still over the English Channel, about five miles north of Dunkirk, France. 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.279 There remains speculation as to exactly why Drew chose to 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:24.840 land the plane on a beach versus putting it down 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.479 at the nearest airfield. If he explained himself when it happened, 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.039 that explanation has been lost to time now. The beach 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.400 at this time was under the control of the French military, 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.120 and they, of course, when they noticed a strange airplane 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:39.960 sitting down on their beach, they went out there with 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.799 some questions. The when they were apprized of what had happened. 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.279 They instructed the crew too fly to the nearest airfield 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.560 and phoned the police. Uh And when they did this, 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:54.359 they offered a fairly simple explanation for what they thought 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.800 had happened. The pilot and the co pilot both sold 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.200 the police that the exit door of the air plan 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.640 open fairly easily, and that they believed that perhaps Alfred 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.839 Lowenstein had bumped against the door. The door flew open 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.840 and loen Stein fell out of the plane. They eventually 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.760 recovered the body after about three weeks, and it only 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.080 led to more questions than answers, and it was an 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:19.800 unrecognizable corpse, badly decomposed. Fisherman found it, and when they 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:26.320 found him, he was wearing Lonstein's watch, lowen Stein's gets 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.279 me to his silk underwear, his socks and his shoes 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:31.720 and the rest of his clothes he was wearing were 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:37.200 never found. Lowenstein was wearing shoes, but then somehow his 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.080 pants came off. That's an odd one. I don't quite 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.200 get that one. And maybe the fisherman took the pants. 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.560 I don't know. But a private autopsy was done at 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.880 the request of Lonstein's wife, Madeline. He was found to 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.440 have a crack skull and several broken bones, which is 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.480 not a consistent with a long four thousand foot fall 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.120 into the English Channel from an airplane. Doctors concluded that 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.640 he had died from the fall and nowise. They found 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.440 nothing abnormal. There was no poison in his system, he 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.120 had no big medical issues, there was no indication of 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:09.720 foul play, no defensive wounds Madeleine had Alfred buried in 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.280 her family's cemetery in an unmarked grave. She also declined 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.160 to attend his funeral, but the case it wound down 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:20.400 eventually in the press. Eventually, curiosity about his death was 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.480 minimal from officials to say the least part of which 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.120 being that he died outside of any official jurisdiction. That's right, 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.520 he was over the English Channel and with that he 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:40.120 was gone again. So another mystery for us to solve. 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.920 But we have. There's various series. Could have been suicide, 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.080 could have been an accidental death, as a pilot and 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.800 co pilot thought, and some people even thought perhaps murder, 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.360 And there was even some discussion of perhaps an or 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.880 express sort of murder scenario where everybody on the plane 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:58.640 took part in the killing. I like the theory that 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:00.960 maybe he tried to disappear. It could be that, And 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.120 maybe he faked his own debt. It's that so he 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.320 could skip town. Yeah, that's that's a viable theory. Onso, 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.320 But go back to the beginning here. Let's go bring 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:15.080 him out a few more details here. July four, Lowenstein 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.240 and his entourage left the Croydon Airfield in the south 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.400 of London. It was apparently the number one aerodrome in 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.240 England at the time. Yeah, So they take off about 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.440 six pm and the plane was to The plan was 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.520 to fly to Brussels, about two hundred miles east on 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:34.400 Lowenstein's private airplane. As you informed us, that's a Belgian 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:40.080 made Folker seven trimotor. Yeah, a fun little plane. It 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.839 was capable of cruising out of breath ticking one six 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:44.959 miles an hour. So they should have been about a 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:47.560 two hour flight, assuming the headwinds or anything like that. 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.400 The weather was good. Sunset at Dunkirk was about nine 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.199 oh seven pm, so it was a daylight flight. So 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:58.480 it's also talking about who's on there. Yeah, the suspects that, yeah, 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.000 our possible murder suspect, witnesses or what there are some 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.439 people on the plane. There was Donald Drew who was 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.680 the pilot, Robert Little who was a co pilot, and mechanic, 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.920 Fred Baxter that was Lowenstein's valet, Arthur Hodgson who was 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:17.200 a secretary and business associate, Eileen Clark who was a stenographer, 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.960 and Paula Biddellon who was also a stenographer. Correct. Yeah, 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.480 Also he actually Lowenstein liked to travel with a couple 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.520 of stenographers because he was a very very energetic, busy guy, 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.400 and he was constantly dictating memos and letters, and so 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:35.080 having two stenographers there to bounce back and forth between 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.360 apparently was his just standard way of doing business. Yeah, 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.160 it's one of the reasons he got so rich. It's 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.080 the guy was just so energetic. But it should be 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:44.840 noted that by this point in his life he had 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.200 developed a few health problems. He was a workaholic and 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.720 a stressful job. He had apparently a very high blood 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.200 pressure and yes, it had some recent lapses which may 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:57.559 have been related to the stress and perhaps the high 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.080 blood pressure. He had some absent mindedness, which included one 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.559 incident where he nearly walked into the propeller of his plane. 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.840 That's that would be the Fockers seven trimotor nearly walked 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.400 into it. So I mean that would maybe lead to 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.680 the theoretical explanation that it could be an accident that 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:16.400 he just sort of missr mcgout out the back of 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:18.480 the plane. Yeah, he could have like mistaken the door 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:20.600 of the head for the for the door of the 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:22.480 exit door of the plane. And it would have been 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.520 dark at this time. No, it would have been light still, 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.520 but I don't know how light it was inside that airplane, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.560 of course, And that has been that has been proposed 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:32.960 as a as a theorious that perhaps he mistook one 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.520 door for the other. But I have a problem with that, 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.600 which is this um the way it worked is is 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.240 to say, wait, they didn't have a separate door. There 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.680 was a door between the passenger compartment and the little 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.360 compartment of the back that had the entry fourier and 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.960 that had the head, and there was a door between 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.520 that and that door doubled as the door to the head. 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.120 So when that door was on, that door was open, 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.120 that the head was closed. And when that door and 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.199 now and people are boarding and deboarding the plane and 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.120 in flight, if you needed to use the head, then 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:11.400 you just went back and shut that door. Between the 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:16.240 main cabin and that little fourier and use the head. 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.319 The head at that point has no door on it. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.720 It's open. So if you walk back into that little 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:25.200 foyer and close the door between it and the main 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.400 passenger cabin, then then there was no chance of mistaking 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:33.040 the head door for the exit door, because the head 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.040 would have no door on it. He could look in 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.720 there and see a toilet. Yeah. Well, and then also 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.880 the police attempted to open the door mid flight on 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.800 a similar aircraft. Well, yeah, this is doing. Yeah. They 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.440 tried at cruising speed, which I said was about a 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.439 hundred and six miles an hour, and they tried to 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:50.720 force the door open and they found that well, it 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.280 didn't want to open. I mean, just try opening your 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.520 car door. It's on the freeway sixty miles an hour 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.079 and see what you know, it's not easy, right, makes 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.920 sense and its perfectly imagine that really double the speed. 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:04.480 So so the whole idea that he fell out of 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.560 the plane seems a little silly to me. Refresh my memory. 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.480 When the plane landed, did they find this door open 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.959 or closed? Closed? It was closed? Yeah, shut, Yeah, it's 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.920 nothing nothing seriously wrong. There There was one theory that 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.960 one person put out is that is that perhaps the 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.600 pilot and the co pilot that inspired to murder Lewinstein, 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.040 and they placed the door that was faulty, that didn't 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:32.120 latch correctly on the in the entry to the plane 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:34.440 landed on the beach, so that one of them could 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.120 hop hop out of the plane and pull that door 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:39.400 off the plane and the swap it with the door 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.040 to the luggage compartment, which was an identical sized door 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.959 which worked correctly. And that's one ding I find that 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.280 a little hard to believe because even if the door 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.480 didn't latch correctly, it still would not have come open easily. Okay, 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.360 So now we're getting into murder. If these guys wanted 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:56.400 to kill him, what why would they do that? Why 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.199 would the pilot kill him? Well, I know, and well 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.080 for one thing for it of course, you know, being 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.880 a highly successful millionaire, he's obviously screwed some people in 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:07.679 the past, and so he had a few enemies in 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.520 that respect. It could have been a hit as somebody 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.000 paid the pilot in the co pilot to murder him 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:17.520 as a possibility, and uh, and and the possibilities of 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.760 suicide and murder kind of mixed together here because in 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:25.280 spring and summer an anonymous document was being circulated financial 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:29.000 circles in Europe which accused Lowenstein of quite a few 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.160 financial crimes in the course of building his little empire. 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.360 And this actually caused a big hit on his holding 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.520 company's stock. It did plummet, and so on paper at 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.560 least his fortune did did actually go down quite a bit, 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.760 and people involved in business dealings with Lowenstein began to 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.920 see him as a liability. Papers reported he'd been turned 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.880 down for a million dollar loan, so apparently it was 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.120 maybe a little hard up for for walking around cash 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.920 and uh and so is it possible that his financial 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.360 part was about to fall apart and the pressure got 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:04.400 to be too mus just would explain the suicide thing. 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.760 But also he had business partners and is holding company. 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.959 This is where murder comes in. If they saw him 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:12.960 as more of a liability than an asset at this 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.080 point in time, then perhaps they thought they should just 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:16.880 get him out of the way, and then they could 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.840 just say, well, he's gone, no harm, no foul, let's 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.000 go back to business as usual. I mean, I think 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.760 from part of the bad puneet that that looks good, 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.080 But Yeah, when you really start thinking about it, I don't. 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:33.240 I don't know that that holds up murder. If it's suicide, 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:35.200 how's he get out of the plane? Which I had 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.520 to open the door and couldn't do it, that's it. Yeah, 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:39.640 he was in his fifties. I'm not sure what kind 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:41.280 of shape he was in, but it would have been 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:44.160 pretty difficult to force the door open far enough to 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.680 to get out of the plane. I mean maybe he 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.560 could have somehow forced it and squeezed through it. And 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.160 I don't know, maybe maybe. And then in terms of murder, 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.960 there has to be I mean, Joe, there has to 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.280 be an easier way to kill a guy then, you know, 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.560 I mean, tiny space with six witnesses, are four other 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.320 witnesses whoever was involved. Yeah, well there's got to be 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.200 I mean I would think there's poisoning or maybe run 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.080 him over with the car. I mean, there's all kinds 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.600 of ways to kill somebody, and it looked like a 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.120 random mugging on the streets of London. Yeah, and it's 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:20.560 just not a very elegant way to go to that murder. Oh, 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:22.800 I know, I know. And but there's a there's one 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.560 guy who was actually probably more than anybody else researched 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:31.400 this case. And that the guy's name is William Norris, 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:33.560 and he wrote a book called The Man Who Felt 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.040 from the Sky, which was published in seven and he 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.480 is the foremost proponent of the murder theory. He believes 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.320 that Pilot Drew and Copilot Little were hired by Lowenstein's 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:48.360 business partners to kill him. Uh. Some other possible suspects 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.760 might include his wife or some of his enemies. As 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.520 I said, I don't think that his wife really is 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.600 a viable suspect personally. So why his partners wanted to 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.000 kill him? As I already mentioned, there was that anonymous 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:03.040 document that was the rounds, So they wanted to They 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.640 wanted to perhaps avoid being drug under by him if 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.480 he did wind up going down for a bunch of 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:11.000 financial crimes, which seems like a reasonable mode of Again, 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.840 it would be there's easier ways to do this. Yeah, 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.040 and and and of course you know, in a sense, 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:18.920 the other problem I have with this theory is that 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.200 when he when the word came that Lowes Stein had disappeared, 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.160 when I hit the news, stocks and his company dropped 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.000 quite a bit. So these guys, actually, these guys actually 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.440 lost money, his partners lost money when he disappeared. And 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.120 then when you know, if you were if you were 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.920 to kill Ellen Musk, yeah, what happens to SpaceX? Yeah, 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.400 stock would probably follow great money making friends indubably would fall. 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:47.440 Did I just say indubitably? Oh my god? Yeah. I 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.239 think they really would have done more damage to themselves 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.720 by killing him. But again, I don't know how strong 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:57.160 the case for financial malfeasance was against Lonstein. Either you 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:01.000 have any idea who distributed this document, this anonymous document. 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:03.640 I think the name eventually did come out, and I 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.439 think I was. I think I messed up and didn't 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:11.439 note it in my notes share damn it. But it 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:13.639 doesn't matter, doesn't I think we know who it was, 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:19.120 and it was maybe considered a suspect um. I don't 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.199 think so. I mean I don't. I don't think so. 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.560 And I think that if you if you really want 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:25.159 to murder him, if you got that big of a 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.720 grudge against him, maybe this is just me in my mindset, 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:29.800 I would I would be thinking I wouldn't telegraph my 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.160 motive to everybody by by you know, panning this anonymous 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.880 letter and then killing him when by the way, when 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.000 when eventually your name is going to be linked to 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:40.800 the letter and he'll be a prime suspect. Maybe the 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.359 idea was to knock him out of his position of 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.879 power with the letter, and when that failed, date crafted 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.360 that could have been. That could have been, I suppose so. 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.520 Or maybe the idea was to just like black in 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.280 his name enough so that when he disappeared, people instead 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.280 of being shocked and just made it just be kind 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.000 of relieved. Maybe that was the idea. I don't know. 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:06.000 All these plans are yeah there then it is rather elaborate. 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.080 But but William Norris, the author did some extensive research. 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:11.439 As I said, he did find that both Drew the 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.080 pilot and Little the co pilot, after that flight lived 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.600 well beyond their means for quite a long time. And 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.640 as for the valet, the secretary of the stenographer as well, 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:23.840 if they didn't participate in the murder, they must have 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:25.960 been at least paid off in under this theory, or 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:30.400 maybe made to disappear. And actually Arthur Hodged and the 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:34.520 secretary and the Tustonographers actually do vanish from history after 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:39.160 this point, so maybe they were murdered, done away with Baxter. 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.440 But Mr Baxter The Valet, on the other hand, did 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.840 not vanished. He was hired by lowen Stein's son, Bobby Lowenstein, 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:51.360 but he did die several years later, about four years later, 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:56.280 I think, from an apparently self inflicted gunshot wound well 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:00.119 made with Bobby Lowenstein's revolver. By the way, all the 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.159 sketchy this is so, it's so weird, how like there's 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:09.280 there's people disappearing and suicides. Once it seems like there's 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.199 some there's something to it, there's something sketchy about this. 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.520 Somebody vanishes and the suicide. Of course, suppose years later. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:17.200 One of the theories that I have, and I'm maybe 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:19.639 jumping ahead of myself here, is that if you're thinking 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:22.440 that perhaps backs through the Valet was murdered and made 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.680 to look like a suicide, maybe he found out something 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.040 he wasn't supposed to know. Maybe he found out that 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.840 Lowenstein had disappeared, was living somewhere else under a different name, 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:35.760 and once that, once that, once he found that out, 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.040 he had to be gotten rid of. Yeah, I don't know. 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:41.840 I mean, so, if we're gonna get onto that theory, 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:47.040 I favor in general, much more pedestrian explanations of things 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.679 like this, Yeah, I mean to you. But in this case, 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:51.760 the thing that kind of makes the sense, in most sense, 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.679 is that he pays off the people on the airplane, 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.439 lands the airplane in France, as you would say, beats 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:00.760 feet out of there. Yeah. The least comment they said, 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.920 we lost him. Yeah, and he fell out of the plane. Yeah, 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.359 he's like he's in a car headed for Belgium, headed 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.359 for Russia, heading for wherever he wants to go. He 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.280 could have even actually he could have even not told 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.000 most of the people on the plane. He could have 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.520 just told the pilot say here's what i'm gonna do, 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:17.919 and I'm gonna pay, or maybe he told both pilot 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.440 and co pilot and paid them off handsomely and said, look, 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.800 you know, I'm going to go into back and and well, 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:28.080 actually thinking about it, let me think here. So I 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.600 have had this thought that perhaps he hadn't had that 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.440 plane that long, perhaps he bought it for a reason, 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:36.679 and that and that is that from the from the 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.840 head or or from the four eight compartment, perhaps he 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:46.359 could have installed a hidden door. So if he wants 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:50.280 to fake his own disappearance and death, so he's got 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:52.320 his plan all prepped and everything he goes back. He's 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.639 already he's already cleared the pilot, and he said landing 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.199 on the speech, and and so then he goes to 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:59.800 the head, but goes and heights with the luggage instead. 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.440 And as soon as he touches down the beach, then 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:08.040 he gets out the luggist compartment door and lace flat 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:10.960 and the pilot of course under instructions. You know, mosy's 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:13.600 down the beach. Aways taxis down the beach, and then 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.560 lon Stein picks himself up and walks across the beach. 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:19.440 At this point, he's far enough in the rear view 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.120 mirror he just looks like some random dude walking down 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:25.080 the beach. So he walks across the beach and there's 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:27.560 a road right there off the beach where he's got 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.600 perhaps hypothetically somebody weighing in a car to pick him up. 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:34.640 I think, what's I think. What's challenging about the disappearance, 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.879 all the disappearance theories for me, is that we don't 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.800 know enough about lon Stein's finances. We don't you know, 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:43.439 did he have some money scrolled away? Did you have 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:45.760