Tom Slick: Mystery HunterTom Slick lays the groundwork for his epic Yeti expedition but gets sidelined by a covert operation…
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“Tom Slick: Mystery Hunter” Stars Owen Wilson, Sissy Spacek and Schuyler Fisk
Written and Directed by Caroline Slaughter
Story Edited by Jeb Stuart
Produced and Assistant Directed by Emilia Brock
Original Score, Sound Design, Mixing and Mastering by Jesse Nighswonger
Executive Produced by Owen Wilson, Sissy Spacek, Schuyler Fisk, Jeb Stuart, Caroline Slaughter, Brian Lavin, L.C. Crowley, Brandon Barr and Virginia Prescott
Special thanks to historian Catherine Nixon Cooke whose expert advice on Tom Slick Jr. and book – “Tom Slick, Mystery Hunter!” – served as inspiration for the show.
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School of Humans.
This podcast is based on the true story of explorer, inventor, visionary, and science pioneer Tom Slick. Some of the story elements, names, and characters have been altered for dramatic purposes. Consider using headphones to enhance your listening experience. We've created an immersive soundscape to tell our story.
Betty, yes, MISSI stick.
Did the call go through? Thank you, Betty?
Lucky Tom?
Who are you trying to kill?
Now?
Dallas?
So I don't get a thank you?
Well, if you're funding the Yetti hunt, then yes, you got a big thank you. Otherwise, no, that check you sent me for twenty thousand, it's just another ploy.
Don't pretend you don't like blay in the.
Hero I like to think I dabble running institutes advancing science and innovation.
But yeah, I guess that's its own kind of hero.
Oh so, now being a hero isn't enough. You have to play god?
What do you want?
The US has a bad case of the Kamis. There's an asset we've had our eye on that China wants to exterminate. We need to get to it before they do.
Dulles, There's only one thing I'm going to trek through those Himalayas for well, what if.
I said that what I'm after could help you find your Yetni?
What's the mission?
Operation yellow Hat?
Yeah?
No, see that's not a good name for an operation. All right, that must have been yours? Okay, who's the asset?
Are you recording this?
Well?
Hey?
Heyppish, Hey you?
And if I don't.
What the hell?
Google?
What is Operation yellow Hat?
Google?
I'm sorry I didn't quite get that.
Google, Operation yellow Hat, CIA mission Himalayas.
I'm sorry.
I don't have access to classified.
Information classifying information.
Oh, therefore I cannot provide any further information on Operation yellow Hat?
Oh shit?
Would you like me.
To play yellow my cold play? No?
Off?
Google Off?
Okay, Hey Blair, you're probably asleep, so don't respond to this until you're awake and fully caffeinated.
Ah, you're not gonna lave this.
I just found something even stranger on these tapes than the Yettie hunt. Granddad's expedition may have been a cover for something big. I wanted to give you the heads up because if it is a cover for some government covert mission, nothing, I mean nothing, not even that tape you found can be leaked.
Okay, bye, there's nothing like bubbles for breakfast a glass, mister.
Slick, thank you, your highness, but I'm actually still a little buzz from my exchange with your guards at the hotel.
Please call me Maharaja.
It's specific.
Well, if we're getting specific, why am I here?
Well, your reputation precedes you, mister Slick, which is why my Tibetan guards were that aggressive. Yeah, your hunt threatens a creature. Their culture revers my roger.
Listen, I'm not hunting the YETI to kill it. I'm a man of science.
But those in your rank don't believe what they can see.
Yeah, I agree, some don't, but I'm not one of them. Science is about exploring the unknown.
So what do you know about the elusive Yetti.
It's a large bipedal primate like creature. It walks upright like a human, but its arms hang down to its knees like an anthropoid ape. Has the face of a man, but its body is covered in long, matted hair, and its tracks are roughly twelve inches long by six inches wide. So he's a big boy, and he stinks.
Announces his arrival with the stench of decay.
Descriptive. What do you want with it?
I believe the Yeti is the missing link between Homo sapiens and primates.
To track the Yeti is an expedition of life and death. Mister Slick, you need more than science to drive you. Remember that yety is not just human. It's a beast whose name means all, devouring, demon, fascinating.
Keep going.
There's been a lore of its precision in the art of the kill, its ability to hypnotize what one look phraising its victims so it can.
Strike and more.
This is great.
Keep going, and it's scream Oh ear shuttering like a tip of a carving knife piercing the ear drum.
Oh.
Ouch.
Yes, there have been footprints, tufts of hair droppings, the sacrifices of skinned animals found outside monasteries, but that's it. No one has been able to find the Yetty. It's some mystery that does not want to be solved.
Perfect.
That's why I'm here, mister Slick.
It's a parent. You won't be deterred. I know another man with the same fortitude. He's been on the Yettis trail before and survived it. Do I know him, No, But he knows.
You Chapter four. This is the mostly true tale of Tom Slick, mystery hunter.
Tom Slick, September twelfth, nineteen fifty seven. I stand here on the bank of the Holy River Ganges, among India's burning dead, the smoke carrying their souls from lifeless bodies to a god they believe will grant them another season around the sun. This infernal Shangri La is where I was told to meet the man as focused in his pursuit of the Yetti.
As I am. That's your cue, Go ahead, introduce yourself.
I don't trust that thing.
I'll be using it throughout the expedition.
So it'll know me as Bud. But just Bud.
Fine, we will know you as just Bud. What theatrics for a burial?
The suffocating smoke, the strings of blood, orange marigolds, the stench of burning flesh, and at my feet the charred carcass of Bud's last trekking companion.
His name was Sing. It meant lion, and like an ironic shit sandwich, he was maimed by one.
That is grim.
I dragged his corpse down the mountains so his soul could meet his maker on.
Holy lamb A goodbye sing.
I've hunted beasts all over the world and come face to face with some who could spit my scull into with the flick of their pinky. Used to thrill me those moments where I could smell death's breath.
And if I'm understanding you correctly, the thrill is gone.
Now it's the animal no one has caught, and very few of scenes seduces me.
Oh, I get it.
I share the same obsession I know.
Tenzing Norgay told.
Me, oh yeah, the sherpa who summoned.
Everest indeed Edmund Hillary's right hand man. They have their sights set on a Yeti hunt, but they've told me the billionaire Texan might get to it first.
Me. Well, yeah, if.
I there, really, the Yetty is more to me than a trophy. Its mythical story carried me through the bloody bowels of war, the perilous carnage of hunts, and other lethal expeditions where I nearly died.
I picked up on there that didn't.
You can't die when you haven't found what you're living for.
Now you can say that again. You know your obsession actually might run deeper than mine.
Bud, not when you see what I've got.
Sorry.
I tried to be quiet, but you don't know how coffee. I prefer a nitro colbrew ivy.
But sure, Halle, did you stay up?
I fell asleep during one of the tapes. I think it's the one where Granddad meets this guy Bud, who I think ended up leading the expedition in the Himalayas with him YETI hat. Well, yeah, but now it looks like the yetti was actually a cover up for some covert CIA mission called Operation Yellow Hat.
I think I need at least a pot of coffee before we unpack any of that.
I'm right there with you here, I'll stick another tape.
Inn.
It's just a.
Photograph, Bud, it's proof. No let me see it.
Don't touch it or I'll or you what.
You'll cut me with a butter knife. Come on, don't worry, I won't smudget.
Now.
Is that a gnarled hand in the photo? Or it's a yetti paw?
Well, I mean it could technically be a hairy hand. Okay, we haven't deducted the percentage of Homo sapien and the Yeties makeup yet.
Blah blah. Whatever it is, it's proof.
Blah blah, you, okay, where did you find it?
Encased in glass in the sanctuary of the Pangbochet monastery. Where's that the entrails of the Himalayas. The monks in the monastery believe this Paul brings luck, so I wasn't allowed to touch it, But they were so confused by my camera, calling the flash a sign from God that I stole a shot before they hid it from me.
And here it is, and here we are.
You ready to hunt this thing down and turn our fantasy into a reality?
Why am i?
My father used to tell me a coward dies a thousand deaths, brave man only one, and he lived by that motto, which made him a legend. His legend kind of haunts me just as much as the man of the snow who roams the roof of the world.
You know, my father told me about the Yetti.
He was mesmerized by it. Like the Maharaja. He thought it was a mystery that could never be solved. So no, as a man of science, I will not hunt down some fantasy, but I will expose one of the greatest mysteries of our time.
Does that mean you want to do this?
Yes?
You didn't get that Yeah, long winded, slick. No, I'm articulate, I'm vivid. Yeah, there's a difference. Come in.
The society and drumkissistic?
What do you want stuff calling?
Did you tell him I'm not here?
He seems to know that's not true. Well, I'll leave you to it, Slick, I got the goods team, permits, maps, if you got.
The cash, let's do this.
Yeah, I'll be here tomorrow to start planning. Five am shop. I expect breakfast and a real knife, noted.
Bitty.
Is he still on the line.
No, he left a message this time.
What do you say?
All he said was are you feeling lucky?
And I said yes, I'm always lucky.
Ah, are you feeling lucky?
The code from Dulles? This is the Operation Yellow Hat thing.
I was telling you about.
You know, when he was alive, Dad never talked about the Yetti hunt.
Well, maybe it's because ultimately it became some cover for the government. Maybe, But it doesn't sound like buds in on. It sounds like he believes the Yetti stuff.
So you still think it's fake? Yeah?
Do you?
I mean, who knows what to believe anymore?
Who you believe in the YEDDI.
I don't know, liv I want to believe why.
Because they add it. Tom Slick February fourth, nineteen fifty eight. Our hunt for the elusive Yetti begins.
Still don't get why we needed the dogs.
Oh he's catching a cent Bud.
That mongrel better get after it. He ate my damn breakfast this morning. I almost shot him, but I'm saving this bullet for when you pissed me off.
You know you got a funny sense of humor, Bud, who said I had a.
Sense of humor.
I'm gonna go up ahead with the hound to see if he's a waste of money.
My money. So I brought in the new year here in the snowy bosom of the Himalayas, known to my team of Sherpas as the Mother of the world, who, from her great height, keeps an eye on all. We're almost five weeks in on an expedition that took over three months to assemble. They're twenty eight of us, but we've been split into teams, all hitting various coordinates of the mountain where there have been sightings. This trail is known as the Yetties Stomping Ground. The Sherpists say it's a sacred path where mysticism blooms. I don't know what that means, but I want to find.
Out, mister tom I said, the coordinates left a marker and reported back to mister Dulles.
So the walk he's working out here?
Oh, yes, we are not alone, Dawa.
I know you're working for Dallas, but this is not just his mission, mister Tom.
I grew up with the law of the Yeti, and I know how you seek it. The world needs to bear witness to the Yeti's magic to understand their own eternal connection to our earth and everything in it.
Do I get it?
The Yeti? It's holy to you and it's the missing link to me. But I do believe both those things will inform humanity more about itself.
Over, dang it, He's only supposed to communicate with you, Dawa, so the rest of the team won't catch on.
You want me to tell him you're not here? You aren't that lucky, Tommy, I know you're there.
Over, How does he always know?
Tom Dulles, you told me it only communicate with Dawa. Now, look, if others know about your operation, both missions suffer, Tommy.
The reds are moving in it three weeks.
They could have hands on our target.
The escape party is crime the coordinate your setting will be their only way out.
Donald, what is that?
What are we hearing?
Tonnie?
I didn't finish what I was saying. I didn't get to say.
Over over, copy dullas, gotta.
Go over Tommy, Tom Slick February fourth continued.
The team's up ahead.
Sounds like they found something. We don't have trap set and the tranquilizer guns with the other team, so if they have eyes on the yetti, we're gonna have to wing it.
My god, look at that spot. What's going on?
You don't smell that?
Ah?
Oh to your lord?
What an animal pushed out a glorious morning shit when I've been stopped up for the past four days.
Let me take off my pack and get a better look. How do we know this is YETI scap.
You don't see the hoft digested rat in that?
Oh?
That yet?
You must have been constantly hammy gloves and sample bags. They're in the front pocket of my pack.
I've hunted big game hole over the world and I've never seen.
Anything like that.
The smell, it's dang definitely a carnivore.
Looks like some parasitic eggsack. Dawa opened the bag for me.
Mister Tumman, did you see this?
It was onto your pack?
Oh my God, Holy holy, I'll.
Never missed this.
This footprint must be around thirteen inches long five inches wide.
Yes, I knew it.
It's a bipedal.
What a what walks on two feet not four like a human?
No claw marks either.
We gotta get a cast.
To this team set up camp down the hill, but DAWA will secure this as a research site. What was that what?
I didn't hear anything, tom Tom You didn't hear that?
No, Tom, Tommy over, you're groin it's talking.
H What are you up to?
Sick?
Can't say, Tommy, I know you're there.
Over.
I don't do bullshit.
If you're not gonna be truthful with me, I don't want any parts of this hunt.
If you do not pick up now, I will consider that a violation against Operation Yellow Hack, which has been facilitated by the US government.
This holds the penalty of a decade behind.
Harve me right, answer.
It possibly a life.
Come on, pick up and I'll wipe out all your any trace of your legacy. Slick here over.
Finally, Lah, mister Tom, he has a gun.
Whoa, But it's me Slick, And if.
You don't stop telling me what's going on, I'll pull trigger.
Okay, easy, Easy, I told you I don't.
Have a sense of humor.
Yeah, I know ours.
We're gonna need a move.
Flick now over what target I told you?
I can't say, mister Tom tell him now when I tell you this, but you're gonna need to forget it immediately. Believe me when I tell you I have more inconspicuous ways than a bullet to kill you.
Well that woke me up.
Oh God, how did the tape just cut out? There better be more to this one.
There has to be, you know there there are only four more tapes in here.
Let me get this Blair, What did you do?
Now?
I found more tapes?
Yay, Tom Slick. Mystery Hunter is a production of School of Humans and iHeart pod Casts, starring Owen Wilson as Tom Slick, Sissy Spasick as Claire Slick, Skyler Fiske as Livslick. Written and directed by Caroline Slaughter, story editor Jeb Stewart, Executive produced by Owen Wilson, Sissy Spasic, Skyler Fiske, Jeb Stewart, Caroline Slaughter, Brian Lavin, l C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, and Virginia Prescott. Produced and assistant directed by Amelia Brock. Original score, sound design, mixing and mastering by Jesse Niswanger, Casting by Daisy Church and Caroline Slaughter, sag coordination by Daisy Church and Julia Christgau. Promo and trailers by Carl Catel. Special thanks to Catherine Nixon Cook. Recording engineers are Tyler Klang and Casey Pegram. For iHeartMedia.
Episode four, cast Ian Shaw as Bud, Dave Willis as Alan Dulles, Cameron Shaikh as the Maharaja, Vince Canless as Dawa, Neil Reddy as Biddy, Julia Chris Gal as the Google Voice Assistant, Mike Shotts as the Voice of God, and the introductory voiceover with additional roles voiced by David Devrees, Michael Mao and Phil Clark. Executive producer for iHeartMedia is Maya Howard.
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