WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Jim Thompson 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:21.079 Thinking Sideways stories of things you don't know the answer too. Well. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.480 Hello there, and welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:30.600 I'm Joe, joined as always by Steve and and in 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:32.760 this episode we're gonna do the usual thing and solve 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.519 a mystery. Let's se if you're all ready, let's get 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:43.320 this underway. That's right. We're so good at it, yeah, 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.200 almost an unblemished record. Okay, So we're gonna be talking 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.400 this episode about Jim Thompson. And if you've never heard 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:52.919 of Jim Thompson, well he was a dude. Yeah, he 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:57.040 was an American. He more nineteen o six, he was. 0:00:57.440 --> 0:00:59.520 He was a spy for a while in World War Two. 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:03.160 He worked for the oss UM. He spoke, what's the 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.600 oss is? The OPIC is the Office of Strategic Services, 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:12.280 which was the predecessor to the CIA. Yeah, so they 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.360 came into being world War two and did some spine 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.720 and stuff like that in covert ops. And so he 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:23.120 was Yeah, he was recruited into the USS and I 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.600 went to North Africa first to work with the Free 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:30.200 French in North Africa, and then he after After North Africa, 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:31.760 he went to Europe for a while and then he 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.800 was sent to the Far East to go into Thailand 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.840 and work with the free time movement. I'm getting ahead 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.360 of myself here, anyway, let me let me, let me 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.360 get to the quick summary. Okay. So he after after 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.280 the war, he became a businessman and he started a 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.440 very successful silk company in Bangkok, Thailand in the late 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.560 nineteen four Don't they say that he's single handedly responsible 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.520 for the silk resurgence. Yeah, for first saving that the 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:01.160 Thai silk industry. Yeah. Yeah, And but we'll get more 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.240 in that later. That's okay, I don't care. So he 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.560 disappeared without a trace in nineteen sixty seven, so that's 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:12.200 the mystery obviously. Yeah. So at the time of his disappearance, 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.080 he was one of the most famous Americans living in 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.680 Asia because of because of his company and everything, and 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.000 so it led to the most massive man hunt in 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:25.040 Malaysian history, except I suppose m H three seventy sure, 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:27.919 oh that's more of a more of a plane un yeah, 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:33.720 but well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But okay, So okay, 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:35.400 back to his background, and you know, he was recruiting 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.160 to the USS want to North Africa, Europe and then 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.120 after the surrender of German he went to to Sri 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.600 Lanka as a stepping stone to Tai to Thailand to 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.320 helpliberate Thailand from the Japanese occupation. He got to Thailand, 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.760 unfortunately for him, the Japanese has surrendered, fortunately for the 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:55.040 rest of us. But he didn't get to do any 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.840 cloak and dagger work in Thailand. But he did go 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.680 ahead and spend some time there, he said, at the U. S. 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:04.320 S Office there, and then became military Atta for the U. S. 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.720 Embassy there um. And he was still doing some spying. 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:09.520 He used his contact with the Free Tie and a 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.679 Free Loud movement or groups to gather information. So he 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.440 was spying. And he also served as an intermediary between 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.680 miscellaneous warring groups and tribes and tried to defuse conflicts. 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:22.640 So he was generally a generally a good guy, did 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.760 good stuff. Uh. He went back to the US, but 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.000 returned to Thailand, and then in he started the Thaie 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:33.440 Silk Company, and the the Thai Silk Company was you know, 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.960 as you said, he resuscitated the Thai silk industry. He 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.960 had this great business model where he women were weaving 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.360 silk for him and he let them work at home, 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:45.760 so they could just you know, there's quality control and 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.160 all that stuff. But he let them. He let them 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:49.840 work at home so they could still do their home 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.360 stuff but make money. Also, a lot of those women 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:57.640 became the bread winners families. Yeah, yeah, and he, you know, 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.760 he lifted thousands of people on a poverty and so 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.160 it was a good thing. That's great, while letting them 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:04.720 you know, stay at home with their young kids or 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.480 whatever exactly. He's also well known for his house, the 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:12.200 Jim Thompson House, which is in Bangkok and is now 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.760 a museum because he built this place. He bought he 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:20.799 bought like about half a dozen old houses and dismantled 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:22.800 them and brought him down the river to Bangkok and 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.400 then and then reassembled them but in sometimes different odd 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.719 ways and then and so it's basically almost like a 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.240 little compound rather than just a single house. And they 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.480 feel that they are they connected. Yeah, they're they're interconnected, 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:35.919 or at least most of some of them are. But 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.400 I've never actually been there. I've seen pictures of it. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.400 I'd love to go see it. But he was a 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.520 big antique collector and he filled the place up with 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.160 all kinds of exotic antiques, and so now it's now 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.640 it's a museum and a big tourist attraction in Bangkok. 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:50.479 That's the only reason that I would want to be rich, 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.000 to be able to be an antiques collector. That'd be 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.000 one reason. I also want to be rich so I 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.960 can have some Maserati's and big yacht right well, okay, 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.680 that not with standing. It's the whole antique thing that 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.240 really gets me. It'd be antique Maserati's an antique yachts, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:09.919 right yea, or at least antique inspired. Yeah, And and 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.839 the slick thing or slick The cool thing about the 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.120 way he did those houses is that he was he 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.160 studied to be an architect and he did some architectural stuff. 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.520 He wasn't actually an architect. Evidently he couldn't get through 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.040 Caculus is what I read. So he couldn't actually become 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.000 an architect, but he knew what he was doing. And 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.080 what was really cool is some of these houses he 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.320 kept them at their same elevation above the ground of 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.080 where they originally came from. So when you look at 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.279 some of the pictures, there's a house that's, let's say, 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.039 I don't know, in the air it was originally fifteen 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.000 or twenty ft above the ground, and he just elevated 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:47.880 it and that's how he put it all together. And 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.000 he took some of the exterior walls and he flipped 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.000 them because they disassembled the whole house. So yeah, put 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.360 that wall back in, but by the way, give it 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.640 a eighty degree spin. So the the exteriors now on 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.839 the end side, which it was just really interesting looking 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:04.880 when I was looking through the photos that they have 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.240 of it. You know, what, have you ever noticed that 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.520 it's it's only really interesting people who go missing. Well, 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:15.640 there's actually there's uh thousands of people go missing every year. 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.559 Nobody gives it a damn. Yeah, yeah, unless it's somebody 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.479 that's famous or interesting. So if we disappeared, you know, 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.719 there'd be a huge man hunt. Well obviously, yeah, because 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.840 we are both rich and interesting. Yeah, exactly the hit 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:36.880 podcast billions of people listening to literally billions. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:44.200 They would trigger the largest Manhattan and close in eastside Portland. Okay, 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.440 Well back to our story. In March nineteen seventy, traveled 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:49.440 to Malaysia with a friend of his whose name was 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.760 whose name was Constance mang Scal I think I'm pronounced 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.160 I think that's right. So they want to the camp 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.800 what's called the Camera in Highlands, and the Camera Highlands 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.359 are that's that's what's kind of called a hill station 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.200 or a collection of hill stations. The Brits back in 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.360 their colonial history, they they would they colonized a lot 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.680 of like really hot, sweaty tropical places, and so they 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.160 always made a point of building hill stations, like to 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.600 have a bunch of hill stations in India. They're up 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:18.760 in the mountains, so they're elevated, so during the hot 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:24.040 season they could go up there and be cool. And yeah, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.200 similar things. They built hill stations up in up in 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.559 the Cameron Highlands, so that the town of Tona Rada 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.240 was one of one of those hill stations. And there 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.880 they stayed with their friends, doctor Ling Tiangi and his 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.360 wife Helen Ling. They were he was Chinese, I believe 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.720 she was an American. And yeah, so they spent several 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.040 days hanging out and on the third day of the visit, 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.960 there was against staying in this house. He left the house, 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:51.440 presumably to go for a walk. That's what he didn't 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.920 actually say if he was going for a walk, but 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:55.760 it was about one thirty in the afternoon he said 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:59.400 to Helen Ling and and to Connie Manscal he said 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:06.040 good nights, sweethearts, and then he left and never came back. Yeah. Wait, 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.160 at like one thirty in the afternoon, in the afternoon, 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:12.239 not at night. Yeah, I mean. And the thing about 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.040 about the good night sweetheart thing is apparently they had 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.520 they had a custom in their house. The Links did 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.520 saying good night sweetheart whenever they would take a nap 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:22.160 or anything. If they're going to bed for the night 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:23.720 or if they're just going to go take a nap, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:25.840 they would say good night, sweetheart. Yeah, regardless of that 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:27.920 time of day. Yeah, so you know, you'd think he 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.920 would be going to take a nap, but apparently for 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.280 a walk, I guess, like good night. Is that like 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:39.480 a Malaysian custom of any kind? Not at all, It's 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.480 totally I remember reading something that it's got it's got 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.360 roots in something that's very British. It's just so it's 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.160 so weird. I mean, not to like harken back too much, right, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:54.160 but like when we were talking about um mh three seventy, right, 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.400 weren't the last words that were like transmitted good night 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.800 weren't they somebody go listen to the app, Yeah, somebody 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:05.040 and then emails right now? Yeah, sorry, sorry, I thought 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:07.960 I believe there was something about I believe there was 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:09.920 something about good night. I think that was the last 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.600 words I heard his last night. Words to connections are 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.000 being drawn. Remind me never say good night. I'm sorry, yeah, right, 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:19.760 never ever hear from me again. Now, you said it 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:23.040 was about one thirty in the afternoon, is when that happened. Yeah, 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:25.960 one thirty. Dr Lynne was thinking it was stree thirty 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.400 because he said he heard footsteps outside his doors. Okay, yeah, 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:30.280 that's why I was. I was asking because I remember 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.040 reading there was a little bit of dispute on the 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.400 time when he went for his walk, and there wasn't 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:40.120 like an outside gazebo or hammock or like napping spot 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:42.560 he could have been going to, as far as you know, 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.720 not that I know of. No, I've only seen like 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.000 one picture of the cottage that they were staying, and 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:49.480 that was like from the front of it and didn't 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.200 have any backyard action in the picture. So because I 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:53.840 guess that would make sense if he you know, if 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.079 that was the tradition or the custom of the house 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:58.480 was to say good night as you're going to nap 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:03.959 or something. And it's know warm, and the kind of 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:08.800 spring right marches spring, which early spring kind of you 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.560 know in Malaysia you go hang out in a hammock 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.200 and take a nap. That sounds kind of nice. But 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:20.000 I guess if they probably would have mentioned that, probably yeah, yeah, 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.199 but as far as you know, the time dispute goes 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:23.959 and and this may be true, maybe he was going 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.559 out to the hammock to take a nap and then 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:28.680 suddenly that those are rustling in the broad at the underbrush. 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.120 It's suddenly a dog dressed as a giant spider came 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:35.800 and he went running off and got lost in the 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.480 jungle and there was eaten by lions and tigers and bears. 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:45.000 Seems unlikely, doesn't it. You're at yourself of his stature. Yeah, okay, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.400 So what happened next? Anybody want to guess? Nothing? He 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.840 never came back. Good, guess that's true. Yeah, he didn't 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.520 do that. He never came back. So Dr Link called 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.120 the police that evening and they they said they sent 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.960 somebody around the next day, And sure enough, they did 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.360 send some people around the next day, and they took 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:05.600 a look at a picture of him, and then they 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.840 recruited about thirty Aborigines and started searching the jungle in 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.920 the area. Found nothing, and as a word of his 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.920 disappearance spread around the area, more than a hundred people 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:16.720 were looking for him by the end of the day. 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:19.200 And the next day they continued. They came back and 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.480 they continued sweeping the jungle. Found nothing, I mean, not 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.200 a trace, not not a little torn piece of clothing 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.000 or footprint or anything. After that, the Type Silk company 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.559 put up a ten thousand dollar reward for anybody who 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.679 found In the sixties and that yeah, so, I mean, 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:38.280 especially in the sixties in America, ten thousand bucks was 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.760 real money. You could buy a house, you know, and 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:45.360 imagine what that would be entirely for the rest of 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:47.680 your life money, Oh yeah, and that in that country, 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.760 tell ye, yeah, I mean it is today almost so yeah, 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.800 that's wow. Yeah, a lot of money. His friend Connie 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.600 Mankscal also put some money up. The police put up 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.400 some re word money and still so that obviously motivated 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.800 lots of people who are out looking for but still 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.280 it wasn't turning up, and rumors started began to start 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.760 around that he'd been kidnapped and taken out of the country, 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:12.800 and I don't I don't know what the basis of 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:17.840 those was. Yeah, well, I think I think I do 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.280 know what the basis of those are. But I think 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:21.920 that I think that we're going to get into some 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.959 of that in the theory sections. Yeah, exactly. And the 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.080 rumors might have started because I don't know how well 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:33.920 known his his association with the OSS slash CIA was. Well, 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.080 it wouldn't have had to be so well, no, I 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:42.000 mean just a couple of little murmurs that takes Yeah, 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:44.640 well we've all seen burn Notice it just takes one 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.240 guy knowing because everything I know about spies I learned 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:52.559 from Burne. I'm I'm confused as to where his plucky, 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:57.360 semi alcoholic sidekick is at helping him out in all that. 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.120 But but no, I mean, you know, it really is. 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.040 It's it's just one person that you've dealt with before 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.839 that happens to know you, and I know. The theory 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.920 of he being you know, absconded and taken out of 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.400 the country is all that. There's talk about communist rebels 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.520 or something like that in the area, which I always 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.840 found weird because if you look at Malaysia on the map, 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.400 they're kind of ways away from what you would consider 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:31.880 the big communist stomping grounds like Cambilli and and and Yeah, 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.200 I mean it's it's a it's a good little distance, 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.520 and it would be a lot of effort to try 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.120 to actually, you know, to to get somebody out of 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:42.240 that area. Oh yeah, I probably would be so. And 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:44.760 they may well have been hanging around the area. I 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:46.320 don't know. I don't know, you know, I don't know 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.480 what kind of communist insurgery insurgencies we're going on in 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.280 Malaysia at the time. There may have been well, yeah, 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.000 we'll get back to that a little bit. And speaking 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:55.720 of burn notices, I don't know if you knew this, 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:57.520 but he actually had a burn notice put out on 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:01.120 him Jim Thompson, Oh did he really? Yeah? Yeah, because 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:03.040 he was You really want to tell people what a 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.120 burn notice is? By the way, Yeah, burn notices when 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.600 like say, a company like the CIA tell basically puts 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:12.000 out a notice to everybody that none of them are 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:14.280 to have anything to do with this guy anymore, don't 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:18.520 talk to him. It's basically they blacklist him, right, pretty much. Yeah, 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.600 you're you're you're you're done, you're burned. You've got no contact. 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.480 Any contact that knows you will say they don't know you, 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.480 they won't interact with you. Yeah. So, yeah, he had 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.239 a burn notice put on him after he was appearance 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.640 or before. I think it was about nineteen sixty two, 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.320 right around their early sixties. Um, yeah, he was. He 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.200 was actually opposed to US policy in Southeast and Southeast Asia. 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.160 He felt that he felt that really we we should 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:46.840 be working with guys like ho che Man and stuff 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.200 like that. He felt like we should be not starting wars. 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.000 And he also felt that the CIA was was getting 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.680 too militarized. He felt like they were just too much 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.000 like an army and not enough just just being a 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:02.320 spy and intelligent gathering it from agency. Sounds like a 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.960 man before his time. Yeah, he was. So he was 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:09.400 openly critical of US policy and that's probably the reason 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.840 he got black or burned, burned, and so yeah, I 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.680 didn't know that. That's really interesting. Yeah, well of course 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.360 made that joke. Yeah no, no, it's true. Well, I 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.240 actually shouldn't say it's true. It's something I read in 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:28.480 the internet. So obviously we don't know that it's true. Yeah, 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.400 well let's get back to the manhead for a second here. 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.320 So of course, as there were the rumors, Okay, enough 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.240 of that. And on April one, another search was begun. 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.920 Uh Edwin Black was a general in the U. S. 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.440 Army and he had known Thompson since World War Two. 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:44.400 He came there with a couple of guys, one of 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.360 the one of whom was like a scout, and I 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:49.400 forget what the other guy was, he was just a civilian. 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.560 And they were These were guys who knew the jungle, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.480 knew that area well, and they knew all about the jungle. 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.120 So they head out to search, and they got together 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.160 with two other men from the police force and they 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.560 calmed the area again on even further out into the 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:09.480 jungle for about about two days and found absolutely no trace. Eventually, 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:13.640 after eleven days of searching, it started winding down. On April, 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.920 a Britain named Richard Noon arrived. This is another guy 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:18.600 who knew the jungle well, and he went out with 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.000 a couple of guys in search and he searched beyond 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.280 where the other searchers had been had reported reportedly gone, 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.440 and they saw some Aborigines who hadn't seen it, has 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.640 not seen a trace of Thompson. And eventually they gave 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:34.960 up the search and came back and he talked to 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.480 reporters and he said that he was sure Thompson was 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:42.360 not in the jungle. No. I read this in a 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.600 lot of the documentation, and I know you've said it 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:47.800 a couple of times, and I just want to clarify 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:50.480 to make sure I understand this. When you say Aboriginal, 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.000 that's just I mean, that's that's local basically, Is that correct. 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.160 That's that's not that's somebody who is from the area 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.280 that isn't you know, westernized and living in this city. 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:02.400 It's more of they live out in the jungle and 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:06.640 they do what they do is kind of a subsistence space. Yeah, 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.159 like the original tribesman. So if you look at it, 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.760 if you look at a place like Malaysia, besides besides 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.359 Brits and Americans coming and living there, there's a uh, 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:18.600 you know, Chinese and Japanese and all kinds of other 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.159 people who have also come in. But these are the 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.000 original local inhabitants of the area. And I just wanted 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.720 to clarify that because I know initially what I heard 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.400 when I read that term. Whenever I hear and this 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.000 is just because of the popular things that we hears. 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.439 I hear aboriginine and I think you think Australia. I 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.840 think Australia. That doesn't make any sense. Well, I don't know. 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.359 I mean, these may have been Australian Aborigines who call it. 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:47.440 I don't know. First description was accurate, not the same, 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.359 probably probably if you know what they everybody else calls 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:57.119 what we call Native Americans. Yes, those are also Aborigines. Yeah, 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.200 better term. Yeah. Next Next in our drama, a psychic 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.960 named Peter Hurkos arrived. He was an American and he 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.479 apparently nobody invited him. He just sort of showed up, 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:14.000 just knew something was wrong. Yeah, he's a psychic. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.240 he might have read something in the newspaper too. If 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.080 he was so psychic, why didn't you show up before 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.920 he disappeared? You know? In his favor, I got to say, 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:23.600 it's just because your psychic doesn't mean you can see 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:28.679 the future. So by way, our psychic went to the 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.639 cottage where Thompson had been staying and put on a 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.240 little a little dramatic dog and pony. Can you describe 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.320 it for me? Can I describe it? Yeah? Well, he 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.640 kind of went into a trance and then said and 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:40.760 did a lot of stream of consciousness. I don't want 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:42.840 to actually quote his entire thing because it really goes 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:47.600 on for quite a while and it's a little racist. Yeah, 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:51.360 I found it racist reading it. You found it well 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.640 than it was. Do you want to read it? No? 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.080 I don't. But he spits out I mean, the whole 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.920 thing is long, but he spits out these garbleygook were 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:04.400 words which when I read them phonetically, I could see 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:09.560 how they sounded like something from an Asian language, Like 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:11.399 he didn't know what he was doing. He was just 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:13.879 trying to spit out words. It maybe sounded like something 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:17.840 in a local dialect, hoping he would land upon something. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.320 So that's why I said it sounded a little racist. 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:26.199 Well yeah, so he um he Finally, when this was 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:28.800 all done and he comes out of his trance, he 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.000 said that Thompson had been kidnapped and taken to another country, 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.040 just like the rumors. And he also said that Thompson 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.400 was not being held for ransom, So that means apparently, 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.840 I guess he was being taken to be interrogated or 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.040 some kind of political prisoner. Yeah, yeah, maybe, you know, 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.800 I mean, if if he if it was suspected that 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.240 he still had contacts in the CIA, which of course, 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:51.880 of course he probably didn't. Not everybody maybe do that. 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.399 Maybe somebody thought that they could interrogate him and torture 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.440 enough to get some useful information out of him. Yeah, 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.440 I don't know. I mean, yeah, well, yeah, I mean 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:06.120 we've learned a lot about what some people will do. 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.840 I mean, you know, it's not always like yeah, hey, 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:11.840 by the way, we have this person and we're gonna 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.000 release them if you give us a million dollars. You know. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.919 Sometimes it's well, we're probably going to need to negotiate 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:19.919 with something at some point, so let's just keep this 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:23.240 person on the back burner and eventually we'll use them. 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:25.680 And eventually they just like procrastinated a little too long, 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:27.800 and they were all old and you know, and they 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:32.800 felt bad and they become friends and yeah, or they're 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:37.680 movement fell apart and they all got hauled away, and 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:41.040 knows about ability, they forgot that they had a prisoner 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.240 locked up to that. For Jim, Yeah, I just took off. No, 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:48.080 I don't think so. But so one last strange occurrence. Uh, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.679 And nobody knows if this is related or not. But 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.080 five months after he disappeared, his sister was murdered. That's weird. 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.520 She was blunting, wasn't she like a crowbar, like a 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.520 brutal then. Sure, they didn't recover the weapon, but they 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.040 thought it was either like a crowbar or something like that. 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.640 It was blood. There's blood splattered all around. Yeah, you say, 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.359 the police report said there was literally blood on every 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.000 wall of her bedroom. Yeah, and they don't And it 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:15.760 was an unsolved murder. Yeah, it was that the police. 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:17.639 The police said that it was not related. But how 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.080 the hell would they know that? I mean, it might 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:22.359 have been. I mean I can't. I can't say one 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.800 way or the other. And she was not like a 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:30.160 public figure in her own right. She was also a 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.720 good bit older than he was. She was like nine 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.959