Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Crime does not pay.
Speaker 2: It's a saying that almost everyone knows. We teach it
Speaker 2: to our children to remind them not to take shortcuts,
Speaker 2: because in the end, your actions have consequences, and your
Speaker 2: choices will catch up with you. Stealing something is still
Speaker 2: stealing something. Of course, this sort of moralizing has not
Speaker 2: prevented crime from happening. Thievery is a profession as old
Speaker 2: as the very concept of ownership. And since we no
Speaker 2: longer hang thieves for taking things, and most petty theft
Speaker 2: happens too fast to notify police, merchants have found themselves
Speaker 2: in need of alternate ways to deter criminals. United States banks,
Speaker 2: for example, are armed with a dummy wad of cash
Speaker 2: that conceals a trap for potential robbers. Inside this innocuous
Speaker 2: looking wad of tens and twenty dollars bills, there is
Speaker 2: a small explosive triggered by radio to detonate when brought
Speaker 2: out of the doors of the bank. This explosion releases
Speaker 2: tear gas and sometimes a colored paint that marks the
Speaker 2: bank robber and more importantly, the stolen money. Any cash
Speaker 2: marked in this way would be unusable to the criminal
Speaker 2: in question. This bank robber deterrent is known as an
Speaker 2: intelligent banknote neutralization system or IBNS. The first prototype was
Speaker 2: developed in nineteen eighty two, using colored smoke rather than paint.
Speaker 2: After a decade in development, the modern system was fully
Speaker 2: finalized and her remains in common use to this day.
Speaker 2: But this was not the only crime deterrent that took
Speaker 2: on in the nineteen eighties. On the other side of
Speaker 2: the globe, the country of Japan was facing an interesting crisis.
Speaker 2: They were running low on eggs. This wasn't because people
Speaker 2: were stealing eggs at increased rates. It was because people
Speaker 2: were refusing to pay at toll booths.
Speaker 1: Yes, you heard that right. You see, at this time,
Speaker 1: Japan was facing a small epidemic of people who wouldn't
Speaker 1: pay tolls on public highways. They would just drive past
Speaker 1: the attendance and keep going down the highway to avoid
Speaker 1: any payment. Toll workers responded to this behavior by throwing
Speaker 1: raw eggs at the vehicles that did it. This was
Speaker 1: an imperfect system, of course, more useful in letting out
Speaker 1: the frustration of a toll worker than inflicting any real
Speaker 1: consequences on the drivers. But this practice gave someone the
Speaker 1: bright idea of replacing the eggs with something more permanent,
Speaker 1: because egg can be washed off fairly easily, after all.
Speaker 1: Sometime in the early nineteen eighties, someone developed a suitable
Speaker 1: egg replacement, a plastic sphere about the size and shape
Speaker 1: of a baseball, filled with bright orange paint. Toll workers,
Speaker 1: who presumably had plenty of practice with eggs, could use
Speaker 1: them to tag a fleeing vehicle, providing a more useful
Speaker 1: mark for policemen to find the perpetrator. These plastic paintballs
Speaker 1: eventually became known as bohan yokara buru or anti crime
Speaker 1: color balls. In the years following their invention, they would
Speaker 1: expand from toll booths to banks and even convenience stores.
Speaker 1: Even today, when you step into a convenience store in Japan,
Speaker 1: you're likely to see a small pile of these orange
Speaker 1: balls waiting by the cash register. Of course, they're rarely used.
Speaker 1: In fact, studies have shown that even in cases of
Speaker 1: store robbery, the owners rarely turned to the paintballs for assistance.
Speaker 1: Their benefit, it is said, is more psychological than physical.
Speaker 1: If someone enters a store and sees these innocuous plastic oranges,
Speaker 1: they will think twice about shoplifting. It's impossible to say
Speaker 1: how many potential crimes were deterred with the mere threats
Speaker 1: of getting painted, but one thing is for sure, anti
Speaker 1: crime color balls make a much stronger statement than raw egg.
Speaker 1: Cody Klausen was starting to get scared. It was the
Speaker 1: summer of two thousand and one, and the thirteen year
Speaker 1: old boy scout had been hiking for hours. He began
Speaker 1: the day excited to be venturing into Yellowstone National Park,
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful natural areas in the country.
Speaker 1: As part of his scout training, he had spent hours
Speaker 1: navigating with a map, hiking through brush, and orienting himself
Speaker 1: with the stars. He even had the badges to prove it,
Speaker 1: so he felt comfortable as he set out for a
Speaker 1: short walk down the trails. That morning, he had wandered
Speaker 1: for a bit, hoping to see some wildlife, and then
Speaker 1: he would be home in time for lunch. But he
Speaker 1: must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. For some reason,
Speaker 1: the trails didn't seem to match the trail that he
Speaker 1: thought he was following. Nothing looked familiar no matter how
Speaker 1: many times he doubled. A few hours passed his scheduled return,
Speaker 1: Cody was shivering as he struggled through the brush. He
Speaker 1: figured if he picked a direction and headed towards where
Speaker 1: he thought the trailhead was, he would stumble upon a
Speaker 1: marker or another hiker soon enough. But as the hours
Speaker 1: racked up and no savior materialized, he began to really worry.
Speaker 1: Cody was woefully unprepared for his long hike. He was
Speaker 1: wearing sandals, shorts, and a thin T shirt, which was
Speaker 1: doing nothing to cut the cold. As the sun dipped
Speaker 1: below the horizon, any snacks or water that he'd brought
Speaker 1: with him were long gone by then. He needed to
Speaker 1: find his way back soon or he would really be
Speaker 1: in trouble. A rumble sounded from overhead, and Cody looked
Speaker 1: up to see his problems had just gotten worse. It
Speaker 1: was starting to rain as he continued walking, soaked to
Speaker 1: the skin, the rain turned colder in the night, air,
Speaker 1: freezing into sleet that stuck to his skin. Cody looked
Speaker 1: for cover and managed to find a cave nearby. He
Speaker 1: spent a long night shivering in the cold, wondering how
Speaker 1: on earth he would fight his way home. When Cody
Speaker 1: woke up, it was to the sound of helicopter blades
Speaker 1: beating the air above the forest. Still cold and groggy,
Speaker 1: he struggled to his feet with just one thought on
Speaker 1: his mind, rescue. But when he emerged from the cave,
Speaker 1: he saw that there was a problem. The trees were
Speaker 1: so thick the helicopter, flying back and forth overhead couldn't
Speaker 1: see him through the canopy. He had to think fast
Speaker 1: before it moved on to the next area. That's when
Speaker 1: he remembered his belt and its shiny metal buckle. Cody
Speaker 1: whipped the belt off and used it to catch the sunshine.
Speaker 1: He reflected a beam of light back at the helicopter,
Speaker 1: hoping the pilot would see him, and miraculously it worked.
Speaker 1: The pilot set the chopper down in a clearing close
Speaker 1: to the caves. Cody ran to the pilot as he
Speaker 1: stepped out of the chopper, but froze when the man
Speaker 1: pulled his helmet off, his desperate joy turned to star
Speaker 1: struck wonder because the man standing in front of him
Speaker 1: wasn't just any pilot. It was the one who had
Speaker 1: made the kessel run in less than twelve parsecs Han
Speaker 1: Solo himself, Actor Harrison Ford. Harrison had been flying since
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties and often volunteered with the Teton County
Speaker 1: Search and Rescue Team. He'd been flying nearby when the
Speaker 1: call came over the radio asking pilots to look for
Speaker 1: lost Cody Clawson. He'd heeded the call and quickly found
Speaker 1: the missing scout. Surprisingly, this wasn't even Harrison's first rescue
Speaker 1: mission in the area. Just a year before, he had
Speaker 1: rescued another lost hiker, Sarah George, who thanked him by
Speaker 1: promptly vomiting inside his helicopter. Harrison flew the starstruck Cody
Speaker 1: to a nearby search and rescue place after eighteen hours
Speaker 1: in the wilderness, he thankfully wasn't worse for wear. Before
Speaker 1: flying off, Cody reported that the actor knelt down to
Speaker 1: tell him one last thing that after all he had
Speaker 1: been through, he certainly deserved a merit badge. Now I'm
Speaker 1: no scout master. In fact, I might just be a
Speaker 1: half witted, scruffy looking nerve herder. But if Han Solo
Speaker 1: says you've earned a badge, he probably has a point.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.