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Speaker 1: School of Humans.

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Speaker 2: This podcast is based on the true story of explorer, inventor, visionary,

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Speaker 2: and science pioneer Tom Slick. Some of the story elements, names,

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Speaker 2: and characters have been altered for dramatic purposes. Consider using

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Speaker 2: headphones to enhance your listening experience. We've created an immersive

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Speaker 2: soundscape to tell our story.

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Speaker 3: Can't bring over there, do west towards those woods? Following

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Speaker 3: you stick, Tom Slick. February fourteenth, nineteen fifty eighth.

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Speaker 4: My team and I have been out here in the

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Speaker 4: Himalayas for months, fairly surviving on an expedition that's nearly

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Speaker 4: hijack my life, bankrupt me. Hell, it's taking everything, But we.

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Speaker 2: Just heard it, the sweet, sweet.

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Speaker 4: Sound of victory, the proof stop.

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Speaker 1: It's closer than I thought, Slick.

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Speaker 5: I'm gonna get a better look, Bud.

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Speaker 4: Turn the flashlight off.

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Speaker 1: You don't run.

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Speaker 4: If it knows we're.

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Speaker 6: Close, and if we spook it, well, who knows.

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Speaker 1: What he'll do?

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Speaker 5: All right, Oh god, we're so close. Frank stink Is

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Speaker 5: don't hunting me. But in seconds I'll be face to

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Speaker 5: face with one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of our time. Dad,

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Speaker 5: I control the world.

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Speaker 1: Yet he is real. It's real.

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Speaker 7: Come on, no, no, oh my god.

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Speaker 6: Chapter one. This is the mostly true tale of Tom

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Speaker 6: Slick mystery Hunter.

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Speaker 8: Shut it.

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Speaker 7: This is gonna fill seats. What this tape of your

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Speaker 7: granddad's nineteen fifty eight yetti hunt, it's a fake. What

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Speaker 7: are you doing, live, Blair?

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Speaker 9: No, come on, this is an event celebrating my grandfather's

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Speaker 9: legacy in science, so.

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Speaker 7: We get donations for his institute fighting to keep science

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Speaker 7: funded through the twenty first century.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, but this yetti hunt or whatever that was that

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Speaker 9: we just heard isn't science.

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Speaker 7: No, it's a hook to get pressed to the event

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Speaker 7: exposure least a funding live I know.

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Speaker 9: But even if that was my granddad on the tape

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Speaker 9: and he did spearhead some expedition to the Himalayas, this

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Speaker 9: tape makes him crazy. The yetti I believe that's why

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Speaker 9: you're not wearing a lab coat.

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Speaker 10: So where did you find this.

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Speaker 7: With the rest of your granddad's research material? Look, most

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Speaker 7: of his tapes are a snooze fest that's boring on

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Speaker 7: top of boring. But this one, that's my mom. Okay,

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Speaker 7: Well we know she's gonna eat up sometimes. So if

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Speaker 7: I could just have that tape back.

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Speaker 4: Fine, take the tape, thank you.

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Speaker 9: Don't do anything with it until we talk.

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Speaker 7: We just did you know what I mean? Live. We

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Speaker 7: don't have a lot of time to sit on this.

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Speaker 7: The event is tomorrow night.

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Speaker 2: Oh I know I still have a speech to right.

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Speaker 9: Wow, it's gonna get don't worry.

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Speaker 7: Well, you better answer that otherwise she's just go We

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Speaker 7: keep calling and calling and calling.

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Speaker 11: Live.

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Speaker 10: Mom. Are you okay? What's going on.

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Speaker 11: To the attic?

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Speaker 12: God?

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Speaker 10: You sound like you're hyperventilating up here.

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Speaker 1: Okay, it's for you.

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Speaker 7: What is it?

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Speaker 11: I don't know and I don't want to touch it?

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Speaker 13: Mom?

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Speaker 10: Mom, Mom, okay, do you do you have frozen peas

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Speaker 10: or something to ice that bruise?

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Speaker 7: Just fuck up, I'm moving.

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Speaker 11: It's the only thing left in the freezer.

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Speaker 1: Do a.

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Speaker 7: Live.

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Speaker 11: I'm telling you that bad just can't bat me.

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Speaker 1: He was mad.

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Speaker 11: It almost got me, so I dove for the attic stairs.

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Speaker 13: Well, I guess it could have been a lot worse.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 7: I could have broken my hip or my neck.

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Speaker 11: Oh there's no way I would have been able to

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Speaker 11: move out of this house. Then, honey, I need you

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Speaker 11: to clean that that account for me. You know that

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Speaker 11: thing your granddad invented that lifted the roof up.

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Speaker 1: The left holes in the siding.

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Speaker 11: Now it's an open season for bar mets up there.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god.

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Speaker 10: Wait, you said there was something up there for me?

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Speaker 7: What is it?

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Speaker 11: I didn't get a good look, So I take this.

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Speaker 9: You want some bowlines to go with that vodka?

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Speaker 11: Think of this spaghetti strainer as protection. They go for

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Speaker 11: the head first.

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Speaker 1: Okay, God bless you. Gee?

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Speaker 10: Has this place ever been cleaned?

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Speaker 1: Never?

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Speaker 4: I told you.

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Speaker 11: I don't go up there anymore.

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Speaker 10: No lights either, if you want to wake them.

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Speaker 9: Sure, here's my phone.

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Speaker 11: Look to the left, it's in the corner.

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Speaker 4: I don't see anything.

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Speaker 7: This box.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a box.

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Speaker 7: Get it and go, and don't let the bat out.

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Speaker 7: I think he's back. Throw the box down, hold it off,

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Speaker 7: hold it, get.

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Speaker 4: It good, lord?

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Speaker 1: Okay, where's the box there?

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Speaker 9: So cassette tapes, they're not labeled.

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Speaker 1: He's are these?

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Speaker 9: Read the box for my grandchild?

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Speaker 1: Listen, Granddad's slick. So these tapes are yours?

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Speaker 8: All right, Tom Slick May sixth, nineteen fifty seven.

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Speaker 4: Look a day over seventy.

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Speaker 3: I'll tell you that much, all right?

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Speaker 4: All right, yeah, thank you, I'm just gonna if you

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Speaker 4: couldn't tell, it's my birthday, and the scientists around here

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Speaker 4: use any excuse for a boozy lunch. But my intoxicant

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Speaker 4: of choice is this birthday gift I'm speaking into. It's

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Speaker 4: a new prototype we created here at the Institute, a

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Speaker 4: portable cassette recorder. Now we're not the first to come

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Speaker 4: up with something like this, but this is the sleekiest

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Speaker 4: model I've ever experienced. It's about the size of an

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Speaker 4: over fed doxin and hold it under one arm, strap

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Speaker 4: it to your back, eyed it in a bag to

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Speaker 4: catch someone else's secrets, or like me, use it to

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Speaker 4: make sense of your own. Yeah, I'm at a turning point.

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Speaker 4: There's a big venture I have up ahead, and in

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Speaker 4: order to look forward, well, I'm forced to look back

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Speaker 4: at what got me here, and that story. It start

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Speaker 4: one person, my father, Tom Slick Senior. I never called

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Speaker 4: him dad. He was senior and I was junior and

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Speaker 4: Slick senior he was at the inception of an American

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Speaker 4: revolution in the early twentieth century. Oil was gold men

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Speaker 4: chase this tar black American dream to the fields of Texas.

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Speaker 4: My father was never one to follow a crowd so

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Speaker 4: in nineteen twelve he carved his own path, bowing to

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Speaker 4: strike it rich. In oaklahom He convinced a petroleum company

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Speaker 4: to back them, secured a lease to dig, set up camp,

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Speaker 4: and started a drill. But at two thy eight hundred

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Speaker 4: feet there's no sign of oil. He lost a lot

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Speaker 4: of money on that dry hole, and against everyone's wishes,

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Speaker 4: including my mother's, he kept at it. He drilled nine

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Speaker 4: holes in the Oklahoma dirt, all of them dry. In Texas,

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Speaker 4: they laughed a dry hold Tom, the dust mining wildcatter

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Speaker 4: or chased the unknown to Oklahoma and ended up dirt poor.

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Speaker 4: But my father wouldn't quit. He had no money to

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Speaker 4: lose at that point, only people he owed. But he

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Speaker 4: had a sixth sense. When it came to luck, he

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Speaker 4: saw it as an opportunity. It cleaned and he had

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Speaker 4: one more hole to dig, So dry Hold Tom, he

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Speaker 4: risked it all, his marriage, his reputation, his life to

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Speaker 4: try his hand at luck. He set up camp and Cushing, Oklahoma.

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Speaker 4: That drill went down three thousand feet into the chalky soil,

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Speaker 4: and the only thing that came back up was black soot.

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Speaker 4: His men begged him to stop. At that point they

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Speaker 4: were exhausted and broke, working for nothing but the promise

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Speaker 4: of a dream. It said one of them put a

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Speaker 4: pistol to my dad's head, thinking that would be the

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Speaker 4: only way.

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Speaker 1: To end it.

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Speaker 4: Then a spurt, then another, then.

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Speaker 1: A gusher.

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Speaker 4: That oil went one hundred and fifty feet in the air,

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Speaker 4: took nine days to cap and seven men to restrain,

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Speaker 4: but only one man was laughing. Now that's the day

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Speaker 4: my father earned a nickname that stuck Lucky Tom. That

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Speaker 4: was the first well in an oil field that produced

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Speaker 4: three hundred and thirty thousand barrels every day for thirty

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Speaker 4: five years, making my father the king of the Wildcatters

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Speaker 4: and one of the richest men in the world. With

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Speaker 4: that dream realized, another took its place, and it was

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Speaker 4: just as seductive. My father left us for pretty long

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Speaker 4: stretches at a time to explore parts of the globe

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Speaker 4: many Americans had never heard of. He'd come home with

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Speaker 4: epic tales of the mysteries of the world, mummified Egyptian

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Speaker 4: kings preserved in coffins of gold stone walls with no entry,

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Speaker 4: mysteriously surfacing in Jordan, and one that still haunts me,

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Speaker 4: The King of the snow who roams the roof of

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Speaker 4: the world. The Yetti my white whale to me. My

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Speaker 4: father was a legend. But when you live your life

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Speaker 4: like a god, you still die like a man. The

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Speaker 4: doctor said it was a thyroid disease that killed my father,

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Speaker 4: but mother said he lived too hard. His body just

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Speaker 4: couldn't keep up with his spirit. When he died, I

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Speaker 4: was fourteen, forced to be the senior when all I

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Speaker 4: knew was how to be his junior. My father taught

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Speaker 4: me about luck, but when he died, leaving a seventy

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Speaker 4: five million dollar estate, I didn't need it. Who needs

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Speaker 4: luck when you have money?

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Speaker 2: What his father left him?

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Speaker 10: How much?

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Speaker 11: I think it was close to one point five billion today?

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Speaker 4: Where is that money?

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Speaker 10: Now?

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Speaker 4: My name?

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Speaker 11: I'm afraid those tapes of the gold your grandfather left behind?

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Speaker 6: What do you mean you never knew him?

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Speaker 7: I barely did.

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Speaker 11: But from what I know about these tapes he made,

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Speaker 11: there probably is a wealth of secrets buried on them,

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Speaker 11: and he wanted you to find them.

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Speaker 4: What have preferred the real gold?

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Speaker 7: Okay?

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Speaker 13: The money my father left me, well, it gave me

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Speaker 13: influence at Yale. It secured my seat and skull and

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Speaker 13: bones and chased off loneliness by landing me a date

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Speaker 13: and more.

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Speaker 8: Any night of the week.

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Speaker 13: Ooh ugh, and it gave me access to the cryptozoological mysteries.

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Speaker 7: My father teased me with.

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Speaker 4: Oh God, here we go with the Yedi.

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Speaker 11: The Yetti was Dad's true love, but he had a

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Speaker 11: couple of flames before.

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Speaker 4: In the spring of nineteen thirty seven, I was seduced

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Speaker 4: by NeSSI, the prehistoric lizard of Lockness. So I lured

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Speaker 4: two of my brothers from scull and Bones and Dulles. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: he went to Princeton but was always looking for a

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Speaker 4: free ride. Dulles's first name was Allen, but to attract

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Speaker 4: the fair Sex, he went by Dulles thought it made

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Speaker 4: him sound more authoritative. It definitely got him into bed

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Speaker 4: with the government. He's now the director of the CIA.

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Speaker 4: So I lured the boys and Dulles to the highlands

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Speaker 4: of Scotland and hooked them on NeSSI, the Lockness Monster.

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Speaker 4: Before starting any scientific investigation, you need intel. At the time,

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Speaker 4: I was an amateur and nineteen so I found what

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Speaker 4: I was looking for at a pub. The locals I

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Speaker 4: interviewed said Essie was spotted for the first time in

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Speaker 4: nineteen thirty three, when the A eighty two Highway was

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Speaker 4: reconstructed in the Highlands. They said the dynamite that blasted

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Speaker 4: open the rock walls woke something from its depths, a

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Speaker 4: creature they believed had inhabited the lock for centuries. The

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Speaker 4: locals warned us not to go out on the still

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Speaker 4: water at night. That's when NeSSI prays, So obviously we

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Speaker 4: went in the inky darkness. Nothing was visible. I had

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Speaker 4: to trust my instincts. But againness kept flowing, and when

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Speaker 4: dawn broke we woke up passed out on the shore.

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Speaker 4: Our boat was gone, and so was any hope of

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Speaker 4: finding NeSSI my first fling with cryptozoology, and I didn't

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Speaker 4: even get to first base. So just stroked my bruised ego.

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Speaker 4: I went back to the States and performed a cryptozoological miracle.

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Speaker 4: I frankenstein my own monster by breeding a hog and

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Speaker 4: a goat. That's right, a hog and a goat. The

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Speaker 4: offspring idious. He had the swine face of his father

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Speaker 4: and the hairy rear of his mother, never a great combo,

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Speaker 4: and his hoofs well, I'll never forget what those horns

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Speaker 4: felt like when he first jumped on my lap Oh.

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Speaker 4: Some people say crossbreeding is playing God, but only a

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Speaker 4: human would willingly create the devil's doppelganger and name him

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Speaker 4: Sweet William. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. I

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Speaker 4: was abusing my money, squandering it because I could. My

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Speaker 4: father wasn't around to give me validation, so I let

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Speaker 4: his money do it. But all of that changed summer

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Speaker 4: day in nineteen thirty eight when I saw a gun

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Speaker 4: press to my mother's temple. I remember that day being

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Speaker 4: just unbearably hot, the air stiff with humidity. Mother had

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Speaker 4: all the windows open in the drawing room, where my

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Speaker 4: sister Betty was playing the piano, which was being recorded

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Speaker 4: on their new Western Electric That's why you can hear

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Speaker 4: pieces of this horrific scene play out.

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Speaker 14: Stop that screaming or up blow your head off, lady.

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Speaker 4: I had made the trip home to Oklahoma City that

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Speaker 4: summer to tell my stepfather, Charles Erschall, I was planning

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Speaker 4: to enlist in the Office of Naval Intelligence to assist

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Speaker 4: Europe in what would become World War Two. My stepfather

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Speaker 4: called me a hero. But when that hellion walked in

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Speaker 4: the front door that afternoon, grabbed my mother by her

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Speaker 4: hair and pressed the mouth of his machine gun to

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Speaker 4: her temple.

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Speaker 1: Up.

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Speaker 4: I knew my stepfather was wrong. I was no hero.

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Speaker 4: I wasn't even in the room. Please don't hurt her,

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Speaker 4: but I heard everything.

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Speaker 7: Look, we'll give you whatever you want.

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Speaker 4: My stepfather was pistol whipped, took him out with one blow.

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Speaker 4: I didn't know it then, but this man holding my

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Speaker 4: family hostage was the notorious machine gun Kelly, the bank

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Speaker 4: robber is infamous as he was deadly.

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Speaker 2: How are you doing this?

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Speaker 1: Why us?

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Speaker 14: You made headline news with those millions you got.

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Speaker 4: The week my father died, news of the seventy five

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Speaker 4: million dollars stead he left us was posted all over

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Speaker 4: the papers. Little did I know it had marked us

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Speaker 4: as fresh meat for vultures like Kelly to feed on later.

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Speaker 2: Okay, just take me. Don't touch my children, this real

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Speaker 2: little thing.

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Speaker 7: Stop it, Betty, go on, Darling, play something for me.

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Speaker 2: Please, please don't hurt her.

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Speaker 1: I can't.

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Speaker 14: She's why I'm here.

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Speaker 4: You her sleep, Junior.

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Speaker 14: You're all worked around twenty five thousand dollars ahead. You

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Speaker 14: can't expect me to turn that kind of money down, nap,

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Speaker 14: can you? The savior has reasen Take me stay on

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Speaker 14: the ground or all blast your sculling. And now before

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Speaker 14: I shoot her.

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Speaker 2: They don't have the money you're after.

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Speaker 14: You expect me to believe that. Look at this house,

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Speaker 14: that baby grand these earrings she's wearing.

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Speaker 6: When I'm married Bernice, I took control over their estates.

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Speaker 7: So all that money, it's mine.

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Speaker 1: Women.

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Speaker 7: You don't get to keep nothing, do you.

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Speaker 8: Well?

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Speaker 7: Looks like this is goodbye, sweetheart.

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Speaker 14: The gentleman has one. I got my gun right here

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Speaker 14: at your back.

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Speaker 1: You feel it? Yeah.

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Speaker 4: It was then as they were leaving that I heard

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Speaker 4: my father's voice in my hand. I'm urging me to

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Speaker 4: be a man of the family. How do you on

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Speaker 4: this money as a form of luck? Now I was

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Speaker 4: time to try my hand at the real thing. So

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Speaker 4: I left my hiding spot and quietly approached Kelly as

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Speaker 4: he dragged my stepfather out of the room. When he

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Speaker 4: turned to face me, I treated him like I would

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Speaker 4: any formidable creature. I met his eyes first, trying to

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Speaker 4: form a connection.

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Speaker 7: But in that moment, what your kid?

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Speaker 4: I froze. I couldn't speak, move, breathe. Kelly rolled his eyes,

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Speaker 4: then spit a watt of tobacco in my face, or

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Speaker 4: at least I think he did. All I remember is

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Speaker 4: how my stepfather, who had called me a hero just

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Speaker 4: seconds before, couldn't meet my eye as he was viciously

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Speaker 4: dragged out the front door. That was one of the

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Speaker 4: lowest moments of my life. It's also when everything changed now,

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Speaker 4: when danger taunts me, I don't freeze, I chase it

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Speaker 4: and machine gun Kelly. Well, he didn't see me coming.

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Speaker 7: Wait, that's it.

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Speaker 6: There's a whole box of tapes there.

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Speaker 10: But you know what happens, right.

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Speaker 11: I know what side of the story Mom told me,

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Speaker 11: but I never heard it from Daddy, So.

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Speaker 7: Got's let him tell us then.

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Speaker 6: Tom Slick Mystery Hunter is a production of School of

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Speaker 6: Humans and iHeart Podcasts, starring Owen Wilson as Tom Slick,

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Speaker 6: Cissy Spasick as Claire Slick, Skyler Fiske as Livslick. Written

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Speaker 6: and directed by Caroline Slaughter, story editor Jeb Stewart. Executive

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Speaker 6: produced by Owen Wilson, Sissy Spasic, Skyler Fiske, Jeb Stewart,

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Speaker 6: Caroline Slaughter, Brian Lavin, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, and

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Speaker 6: Virginia Prescott. Produced and assistant directed by Amelia Brock. Original score,

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Speaker 6: sound design, mixing and mastering by Jesse Niswanger, Casting by

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Speaker 6: Daisy Church and Caroline Slaughter sag coordination by Daisy Church

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Speaker 6: and Julia christ Gaw, Promo and trailers by Carl Catel.

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Speaker 6: Special thanks to Catherine Nixon Cook. Recording engineers are Tyler

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Speaker 6: Klang and Casey Pegram.

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Speaker 12: For iHeartMedia Episode one, cast Ian Shaw as bud Ava,

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Speaker 12: Davis as Blair, Jackson Beals as Machine Gun Kelly, Tiffany

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Speaker 12: Morgan as Bernice Fratis, Lowry Brown as Charles Ursul, Mike

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Speaker 12: Shotts as the Voice of God in the introductory voiceover,

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Speaker 12: with additional roles voiced by David Devrees, Michael Mao, and

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Speaker 12: Phil Clark.

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Speaker 2: If you're enjoying the show, share it with everyone you know,

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Speaker 2: and don't forget to rate and review in your favorite

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Speaker 2: podcast app. Tune in again next week wherever you get

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Speaker 2: your most thrilling adventure stories