Thinking Sideways: Jim Thompson

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thinking Sideways stories of things you don't know the answer too. Well.
Hello there, and welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways.

(00:24):
I'm Joe, joined as always by Steve and and in
this episode we're gonna do the usual thing and solve
a mystery. Let's se if you're all ready, let's get
this underway. That's right. We're so good at it, yeah,
almost an unblemished record. Okay, So we're gonna be talking

(00:47):
this episode about Jim Thompson. And if you've never heard
of Jim Thompson, well he was a dude. Yeah, he
was an American. He more nineteen o six, he was.
He was a spy for a while in World War Two.
He worked for the oss UM. He spoke, what's the
oss is? The OPIC is the Office of Strategic Services,

(01:07):
which was the predecessor to the CIA. Yeah, so they
came into being world War two and did some spine
and stuff like that in covert ops. And so he
was Yeah, he was recruited into the USS and I
went to North Africa first to work with the Free
French in North Africa, and then he after After North Africa,

(01:30):
he went to Europe for a while and then he
was sent to the Far East to go into Thailand
and work with the free time movement. I'm getting ahead
of myself here, anyway, let me let me, let me
get to the quick summary. Okay. So he after after
the war, he became a businessman and he started a
very successful silk company in Bangkok, Thailand in the late

(01:50):
nineteen four Don't they say that he's single handedly responsible
for the silk resurgence. Yeah, for first saving that the
Thai silk industry. Yeah. Yeah, And but we'll get more
in that later. That's okay, I don't care. So he
disappeared without a trace in nineteen sixty seven, so that's
the mystery obviously. Yeah. So at the time of his disappearance,

(02:12):
he was one of the most famous Americans living in
Asia because of because of his company and everything, and
so it led to the most massive man hunt in
Malaysian history, except I suppose m H three seventy sure,
oh that's more of a more of a plane un yeah,
but well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But okay, So okay,

(02:33):
back to his background, and you know, he was recruiting
to the USS want to North Africa, Europe and then
after the surrender of German he went to to Sri
Lanka as a stepping stone to Tai to Thailand to
helpliberate Thailand from the Japanese occupation. He got to Thailand,
unfortunately for him, the Japanese has surrendered, fortunately for the

(02:53):
rest of us. But he didn't get to do any
cloak and dagger work in Thailand. But he did go
ahead and spend some time there, he said, at the U. S.
S Office there, and then became military Atta for the U. S.
Embassy there um. And he was still doing some spying.
He used his contact with the Free Tie and a
Free Loud movement or groups to gather information. So he

(03:13):
was spying. And he also served as an intermediary between
miscellaneous warring groups and tribes and tried to defuse conflicts.
So he was generally a generally a good guy, did
good stuff. Uh. He went back to the US, but
returned to Thailand, and then in he started the Thaie
Silk Company, and the the Thai Silk Company was you know,
as you said, he resuscitated the Thai silk industry. He

(03:37):
had this great business model where he women were weaving
silk for him and he let them work at home,
so they could just you know, there's quality control and
all that stuff. But he let them. He let them
work at home so they could still do their home
stuff but make money. Also, a lot of those women
became the bread winners families. Yeah, yeah, and he, you know,

(03:57):
he lifted thousands of people on a poverty and so
it was a good thing. That's great, while letting them
you know, stay at home with their young kids or
whatever exactly. He's also well known for his house, the
Jim Thompson House, which is in Bangkok and is now
a museum because he built this place. He bought he
bought like about half a dozen old houses and dismantled

(04:20):
them and brought him down the river to Bangkok and
then and then reassembled them but in sometimes different odd
ways and then and so it's basically almost like a
little compound rather than just a single house. And they
feel that they are they connected. Yeah, they're they're interconnected,
or at least most of some of them are. But
I've never actually been there. I've seen pictures of it.
I'd love to go see it. But he was a
big antique collector and he filled the place up with

(04:42):
all kinds of exotic antiques, and so now it's now
it's a museum and a big tourist attraction in Bangkok.
That's the only reason that I would want to be rich,
to be able to be an antiques collector. That'd be
one reason. I also want to be rich so I
can have some Maserati's and big yacht right well, okay,
that not with standing. It's the whole antique thing that
really gets me. It'd be antique Maserati's an antique yachts,

(05:05):
right yea, or at least antique inspired. Yeah, And and
the slick thing or slick The cool thing about the
way he did those houses is that he was he
studied to be an architect and he did some architectural stuff.
He wasn't actually an architect. Evidently he couldn't get through
Caculus is what I read. So he couldn't actually become
an architect, but he knew what he was doing. And

(05:28):
what was really cool is some of these houses he
kept them at their same elevation above the ground of
where they originally came from. So when you look at
some of the pictures, there's a house that's, let's say,
I don't know, in the air it was originally fifteen
or twenty ft above the ground, and he just elevated
it and that's how he put it all together. And

(05:48):
he took some of the exterior walls and he flipped
them because they disassembled the whole house. So yeah, put
that wall back in, but by the way, give it
a eighty degree spin. So the the exteriors now on
the end side, which it was just really interesting looking
when I was looking through the photos that they have
of it. You know, what, have you ever noticed that
it's it's only really interesting people who go missing. Well,

(06:11):
there's actually there's uh thousands of people go missing every year.
Nobody gives it a damn. Yeah, yeah, unless it's somebody
that's famous or interesting. So if we disappeared, you know,
there'd be a huge man hunt. Well obviously, yeah, because
we are both rich and interesting. Yeah, exactly the hit
podcast billions of people listening to literally billions. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

(06:36):
They would trigger the largest Manhattan and close in eastside Portland. Okay,
Well back to our story. In March nineteen seventy, traveled
to Malaysia with a friend of his whose name was
whose name was Constance mang Scal I think I'm pronounced
I think that's right. So they want to the camp
what's called the Camera in Highlands, and the Camera Highlands

(06:58):
are that's that's what's kind of called a hill station
or a collection of hill stations. The Brits back in
their colonial history, they they would they colonized a lot
of like really hot, sweaty tropical places, and so they
always made a point of building hill stations, like to
have a bunch of hill stations in India. They're up
in the mountains, so they're elevated, so during the hot
season they could go up there and be cool. And yeah,

(07:24):
similar things. They built hill stations up in up in
the Cameron Highlands, so that the town of Tona Rada
was one of one of those hill stations. And there
they stayed with their friends, doctor Ling Tiangi and his
wife Helen Ling. They were he was Chinese, I believe
she was an American. And yeah, so they spent several
days hanging out and on the third day of the visit,

(07:45):
there was against staying in this house. He left the house,
presumably to go for a walk. That's what he didn't
actually say if he was going for a walk, but
it was about one thirty in the afternoon he said
to Helen Ling and and to Connie Manscal he said
good nights, sweethearts, and then he left and never came back. Yeah. Wait,

(08:06):
at like one thirty in the afternoon, in the afternoon,
not at night. Yeah, I mean. And the thing about
about the good night sweetheart thing is apparently they had
they had a custom in their house. The Links did
saying good night sweetheart whenever they would take a nap
or anything. If they're going to bed for the night
or if they're just going to go take a nap,
they would say good night, sweetheart. Yeah, regardless of that
time of day. Yeah, so you know, you'd think he

(08:27):
would be going to take a nap, but apparently for
a walk, I guess, like good night. Is that like
a Malaysian custom of any kind? Not at all, It's
totally I remember reading something that it's got it's got
roots in something that's very British. It's just so it's
so weird. I mean, not to like harken back too much, right,

(08:49):
but like when we were talking about um mh three seventy, right,
weren't the last words that were like transmitted good night
weren't they somebody go listen to the app, Yeah, somebody
and then emails right now? Yeah, sorry, sorry, I thought
I believe there was something about I believe there was
something about good night. I think that was the last

(09:09):
words I heard his last night. Words to connections are
being drawn. Remind me never say good night. I'm sorry, yeah, right,
never ever hear from me again. Now, you said it
was about one thirty in the afternoon, is when that happened. Yeah,
one thirty. Dr Lynne was thinking it was stree thirty
because he said he heard footsteps outside his doors. Okay, yeah,
that's why I was. I was asking because I remember

(09:30):
reading there was a little bit of dispute on the
time when he went for his walk, and there wasn't
like an outside gazebo or hammock or like napping spot
he could have been going to, as far as you know,
not that I know of. No, I've only seen like
one picture of the cottage that they were staying, and
that was like from the front of it and didn't
have any backyard action in the picture. So because I

(09:52):
guess that would make sense if he you know, if
that was the tradition or the custom of the house
was to say good night as you're going to nap
or something. And it's know warm, and the kind of
spring right marches spring, which early spring kind of you
know in Malaysia you go hang out in a hammock

(10:12):
and take a nap. That sounds kind of nice. But
I guess if they probably would have mentioned that, probably yeah, yeah,
but as far as you know, the time dispute goes
and and this may be true, maybe he was going
out to the hammock to take a nap and then
suddenly that those are rustling in the broad at the underbrush.
It's suddenly a dog dressed as a giant spider came

(10:33):
and he went running off and got lost in the
jungle and there was eaten by lions and tigers and bears.
Seems unlikely, doesn't it. You're at yourself of his stature. Yeah, okay,
So what happened next? Anybody want to guess? Nothing? He
never came back. Good, guess that's true. Yeah, he didn't
do that. He never came back. So Dr Link called

(10:55):
the police that evening and they they said they sent
somebody around the next day, And sure enough, they did
send some people around the next day, and they took
a look at a picture of him, and then they
recruited about thirty Aborigines and started searching the jungle in
the area. Found nothing, and as a word of his
disappearance spread around the area, more than a hundred people
were looking for him by the end of the day.

(11:17):
And the next day they continued. They came back and
they continued sweeping the jungle. Found nothing, I mean, not
a trace, not not a little torn piece of clothing
or footprint or anything. After that, the Type Silk company
put up a ten thousand dollar reward for anybody who
found In the sixties and that yeah, so, I mean,
especially in the sixties in America, ten thousand bucks was

(11:38):
real money. You could buy a house, you know, and
imagine what that would be entirely for the rest of
your life money, Oh yeah, and that in that country,
tell ye, yeah, I mean it is today almost so yeah,
that's wow. Yeah, a lot of money. His friend Connie
Mankscal also put some money up. The police put up
some re word money and still so that obviously motivated

(12:01):
lots of people who are out looking for but still
it wasn't turning up, and rumors started began to start
around that he'd been kidnapped and taken out of the country,
and I don't I don't know what the basis of
those was. Yeah, well, I think I think I do
know what the basis of those are. But I think
that I think that we're going to get into some

(12:21):
of that in the theory sections. Yeah, exactly. And the
rumors might have started because I don't know how well
known his his association with the OSS slash CIA was. Well,
it wouldn't have had to be so well, no, I
mean just a couple of little murmurs that takes Yeah,

(12:42):
well we've all seen burn Notice it just takes one
guy knowing because everything I know about spies I learned
from Burne. I'm I'm confused as to where his plucky,
semi alcoholic sidekick is at helping him out in all that.
But but no, I mean, you know, it really is.
It's it's just one person that you've dealt with before

(13:04):
that happens to know you, and I know. The theory
of he being you know, absconded and taken out of
the country is all that. There's talk about communist rebels
or something like that in the area, which I always
found weird because if you look at Malaysia on the map,
they're kind of ways away from what you would consider

(13:26):
the big communist stomping grounds like Cambilli and and and Yeah,
I mean it's it's a it's a good little distance,
and it would be a lot of effort to try
to actually, you know, to to get somebody out of
that area. Oh yeah, I probably would be so. And
they may well have been hanging around the area. I
don't know. I don't know, you know, I don't know
what kind of communist insurgery insurgencies we're going on in

(13:49):
Malaysia at the time. There may have been well, yeah,
we'll get back to that a little bit. And speaking
of burn notices, I don't know if you knew this,
but he actually had a burn notice put out on
him Jim Thompson, Oh did he really? Yeah? Yeah, because
he was You really want to tell people what a
burn notice is? By the way, Yeah, burn notices when
like say, a company like the CIA tell basically puts

(14:09):
out a notice to everybody that none of them are
to have anything to do with this guy anymore, don't
talk to him. It's basically they blacklist him, right, pretty much. Yeah,
you're you're you're you're done, you're burned. You've got no contact.
Any contact that knows you will say they don't know you,
they won't interact with you. Yeah. So, yeah, he had
a burn notice put on him after he was appearance

(14:31):
or before. I think it was about nineteen sixty two,
right around their early sixties. Um, yeah, he was. He
was actually opposed to US policy in Southeast and Southeast Asia.
He felt that he felt that really we we should
be working with guys like ho che Man and stuff
like that. He felt like we should be not starting wars.
And he also felt that the CIA was was getting

(14:53):
too militarized. He felt like they were just too much
like an army and not enough just just being a
spy and intelligent gathering it from agency. Sounds like a
man before his time. Yeah, he was. So he was
openly critical of US policy and that's probably the reason
he got black or burned, burned, and so yeah, I
didn't know that. That's really interesting. Yeah, well of course

(15:15):
made that joke. Yeah no, no, it's true. Well, I
actually shouldn't say it's true. It's something I read in
the internet. So obviously we don't know that it's true. Yeah,
well let's get back to the manhead for a second here.
So of course, as there were the rumors, Okay, enough
of that. And on April one, another search was begun.

(15:36):
Uh Edwin Black was a general in the U. S.
Army and he had known Thompson since World War Two.
He came there with a couple of guys, one of
the one of whom was like a scout, and I
forget what the other guy was, he was just a civilian.
And they were These were guys who knew the jungle,
knew that area well, and they knew all about the jungle.
So they head out to search, and they got together

(15:59):
with two other men from the police force and they
calmed the area again on even further out into the
jungle for about about two days and found absolutely no trace. Eventually,
after eleven days of searching, it started winding down. On April,
a Britain named Richard Noon arrived. This is another guy
who knew the jungle well, and he went out with
a couple of guys in search and he searched beyond

(16:21):
where the other searchers had been had reported reportedly gone,
and they saw some Aborigines who hadn't seen it, has
not seen a trace of Thompson. And eventually they gave
up the search and came back and he talked to
reporters and he said that he was sure Thompson was
not in the jungle. No. I read this in a

(16:42):
lot of the documentation, and I know you've said it
a couple of times, and I just want to clarify
to make sure I understand this. When you say Aboriginal,
that's just I mean, that's that's local basically, Is that correct.
That's that's not that's somebody who is from the area
that isn't you know, westernized and living in this city.
It's more of they live out in the jungle and

(17:02):
they do what they do is kind of a subsistence space. Yeah,
like the original tribesman. So if you look at it,
if you look at a place like Malaysia, besides besides
Brits and Americans coming and living there, there's a uh,
you know, Chinese and Japanese and all kinds of other
people who have also come in. But these are the
original local inhabitants of the area. And I just wanted

(17:25):
to clarify that because I know initially what I heard
when I read that term. Whenever I hear and this
is just because of the popular things that we hears.
I hear aboriginine and I think you think Australia. I
think Australia. That doesn't make any sense. Well, I don't know.
I mean, these may have been Australian Aborigines who call it.
I don't know. First description was accurate, not the same,

(17:47):
probably probably if you know what they everybody else calls
what we call Native Americans. Yes, those are also Aborigines. Yeah,
better term. Yeah. Next Next in our drama, a psychic
named Peter Hurkos arrived. He was an American and he
apparently nobody invited him. He just sort of showed up,

(18:09):
just knew something was wrong. Yeah, he's a psychic. Yeah, yeah,
he might have read something in the newspaper too. If
he was so psychic, why didn't you show up before
he disappeared? You know? In his favor, I got to say,
it's just because your psychic doesn't mean you can see
the future. So by way, our psychic went to the
cottage where Thompson had been staying and put on a

(18:31):
little a little dramatic dog and pony. Can you describe
it for me? Can I describe it? Yeah? Well, he
kind of went into a trance and then said and
did a lot of stream of consciousness. I don't want
to actually quote his entire thing because it really goes
on for quite a while and it's a little racist. Yeah,
I found it racist reading it. You found it well
than it was. Do you want to read it? No?

(18:53):
I don't. But he spits out I mean, the whole
thing is long, but he spits out these garbleygook were
words which when I read them phonetically, I could see
how they sounded like something from an Asian language, Like
he didn't know what he was doing. He was just
trying to spit out words. It maybe sounded like something

(19:13):
in a local dialect, hoping he would land upon something.
So that's why I said it sounded a little racist.
Well yeah, so he um he Finally, when this was
all done and he comes out of his trance, he
said that Thompson had been kidnapped and taken to another country,
just like the rumors. And he also said that Thompson

(19:36):
was not being held for ransom, So that means apparently,
I guess he was being taken to be interrogated or
some kind of political prisoner. Yeah, yeah, maybe, you know,
I mean, if if he if it was suspected that
he still had contacts in the CIA, which of course,
of course he probably didn't. Not everybody maybe do that.
Maybe somebody thought that they could interrogate him and torture
enough to get some useful information out of him. Yeah,

(19:59):
I don't know. I mean, yeah, well, yeah, I mean
we've learned a lot about what some people will do.
I mean, you know, it's not always like yeah, hey,
by the way, we have this person and we're gonna
release them if you give us a million dollars. You know.
Sometimes it's well, we're probably going to need to negotiate
with something at some point, so let's just keep this

(20:19):
person on the back burner and eventually we'll use them.
And eventually they just like procrastinated a little too long,
and they were all old and you know, and they
felt bad and they become friends and yeah, or they're
movement fell apart and they all got hauled away, and
knows about ability, they forgot that they had a prisoner

(20:41):
locked up to that. For Jim, Yeah, I just took off. No,
I don't think so. But so one last strange occurrence. Uh,
And nobody knows if this is related or not. But
five months after he disappeared, his sister was murdered. That's weird.
She was blunting, wasn't she like a crowbar, like a
brutal then. Sure, they didn't recover the weapon, but they

(21:01):
thought it was either like a crowbar or something like that.
It was blood. There's blood splattered all around. Yeah, you say,
the police report said there was literally blood on every
wall of her bedroom. Yeah, and they don't And it
was an unsolved murder. Yeah, it was that the police.
The police said that it was not related. But how
the hell would they know that? I mean, it might
have been. I mean I can't. I can't say one

(21:22):
way or the other. And she was not like a
public figure in her own right. She was also a
good bit older than he was. She was like nine
years older than him because he because he was born
in n six, he was like in his he was sixty,
I believe, and she was. That's not that's not totally

(21:47):
unusual though, No, but but she's a fair bit older.
There's a bit of a generational gap there. You know,
if I was going to run in certain circles and
do something, and my brothers through who's around the same age,
would likely be involved in those same things. But when
you get ten, twelve, fifteen years apart, there's less chance

(22:10):
of that. But there's also like an even less chance
of you being kidnapped and your sister being blunted to death.
It does seem to you, right, Yeah, so it's yeah,
it is one of those weird things that maybe maybe
it adds something, maybe it doesn't. Yeah, there might be
there might be an angle here that nobody, nobody really

(22:31):
knows about. There might be somebody who had a grudge
against the family and they kidnapped him and murdered him
and then murdered her five months later. It's possible, but nobody,
you know, nobody knows. There's no evidence that these things
are related, but it kind of seems like maybe they
would be. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's that whole again.
We've talked about this before, the whole kind of grasping

(22:51):
at straws. There's not a whole lot of information, So
there really isn't If there's two weird occurrences connected to
one thing, it's hard. It's hard to not connect them. Yeah,
so yeah, but it could be I'll add that to
my list of theories, is that he actually wanted to
murderous sister so he disappeared and then yeah, and then
if they ever arrested, you can say, hey, I was

(23:12):
I was disappeared at the time I was disappeared, dude.
The reason Joe suddenly turned a ninety ree corner on that,
ladies and gentlemens, because I gave him the are you
kidding me a look? Yeah, so crap, you guys, Joe
is gonna go missing, goes missing, and I'm moving me

(23:33):
too immediately. So you guys ready to talk about some series?
And there lots of series out there, they really are,
and some of them are some of them are pretty
outland is do you want to start with the more
mundane ones? You let's just take him in order as
you got him on here. Yeah. I slapped him down
kind of randomly. That's perfect. Yeah. Okay, So first the
one you got lost in the jungle and E actually

(23:55):
just died some you know, I mean from whatever, fell
down and fell down a ravine or over a cliff, um,
so that that seems so unlikely to me. I mean,
I guess. Yeah, Okay, the jungle is dangerous, but if
he had the life that you described prior, it seems
like he would have like known how to traverse the
jungle and been pretty hardened. And yeah, he well he

(24:18):
apparently according to people who knew him, he apparently had
had jungle survival training and all that stuff. And so
he actually just the day before, he and his friend
dr Ling had been out at a walk in the
jungle and they got lost just the day before and
they found their way out. Um, so that is one though,
But but there are I mean, the jungle does have

(24:39):
dangerous stuff going on going on in it, and well,
and the thing about the jungle is okay, so there's
like several hundred people at a time combing the jungle
for you, but it's still the jungle. And by that
I mean lots of vegetation that's dense. And if I
get hurt, you know, I falled down own or something

(25:01):
bites me and takes a chunk out of me, and
I'm not doing so well, and I crawled up against
the edge of a tree to try and hide against
it and hide behind some leaves and then I die there.
You know, somebody could walk two ft next to it
and never know that the body was Okay, it happens
all the time. So I'm I'm gonna like duel side

(25:21):
this for a minute here, So I'm willing to say
that it's possible. But given the credentials of the people
who were looking for him, they would have seen something.
They wouldn't know. I mean, they would have It's not
even like I would think, so I'm like they would
have seen something. If he was bleeding and crawled any

(25:42):
amount of distance, they would have seen something, whether it
was a massive flies going to that spot or the
actual blood stain, or there should be physical wild disturbance
where he because he would have fought right, I mean,
it wouldn't have been like a just random like oh,
one bite and then you're dead. And if it was well,

(26:05):
and they do one bite and they poison you and
they take off right, but then you would fall down
and you would disturb I'm just saying I understand that
there should be physical side. On the other hand, if
you are a trained spy, trained and espionage trade and
how to move through the jungle without leaving a trace,
you just naturally fall into that. I can tell you

(26:26):
from personal experience that you fall into. That thing about
it is though, is that if you're lost, and like
saying the jungle or wherever, you're gonna want to leave
marks for your for your own reference point, because if
you wind up going in circles, you want to know this,
and so you need to like so you gotta break
branches deliver. So then the assumption would be that he
didn't know he was lost. That's at a certain point
he must have known he was lost, right, But I think,

(26:47):
you know, the assumption is right that like he didn't
know he was lost and he got like bit by
a snake and just fell down dead. Okay, well, but
then I still maintain that like a snake isn't gonna
eat the whole, you know, so there would have been
signs the like well, I mean, and then yeah, some
remains would have been found. I mean, obviously scavengers would
have come along and shooting and yeah, yeah, and so

(27:11):
so it's kind of mean. I think it's possible still
if he got lost and somehow just died by accident.
I found a quote from the Internet regarding this. I
know the person said basically and I cleaned up the
cleaned up the grammar just a little bit. But his
quote is quote people in the Malaysian jungle like people
climbing up mountains covered with snow. Many get lost, many

(27:31):
van as Jim Thompson is one of them. So that's
what this guy said on the internet. Uh, here's another
quote with somebody in the Malaysian jungle. To walk away
from a group or walk away from your house in
the evening is a high risk. There's a high risk
thing even today, not to talk about forty years ago.
But it wasn't. And I've never been in the Malaysian jungle.
I've been in other jungles, have never been in the
Malayian Gungal, but it sounds like, you know, it's very

(27:52):
very easy to get lost in those jungles. Well, I guess,
depending on the account. Either way, though, I don't think
that in March three thirty or one thirty, respectively, are
the evening. Necessarily you have a reference and even if
it is cover you know, again, I just go back
to his training and the credentials of people who were
who were looking for him. I find it hard to

(28:15):
believe that if he had simply been lost and died
in the jungle that he would have never been found. Yeah,
either you know, either he wouldn't have been lost, or
he would have left Mars, or somebody would have found him. Yeah,
and they would have like say, say, if you've gotten
lost and died and then animals eating on him, they
would have drug his stuff, you know, his clothes would

(28:35):
have been spread all around and stuff like that. And
so especially if it was like an actual predator like
a tiger or something, they would have pulled him up
into a tree. There would have been a fight, a
struggle the tiger. I don't know if there would have
been that much of a fight. There would have been
a little bit of a struggle. I'm sure. I mean
they're not it would yeah, but they're not like secret killers, right,

(28:59):
I mean they leave behind a bit of a fuss
and maybe a little bit of a mess. Yeah. Blood
and the tigers in Militia there are okay. Yeah, I
was wondering if you're just making up an example of
a big cat or not. You guys are really serious
about the tea now. Actually that that is another one
the theories is that he was eaten by a tiger
or something, you know, And and so that is one

(29:21):
of the theories. Of course, the tiger is not going
to go to the trouble to hide the remains, and
so they probably would have stumble across the remain. But
some big and I don't know what big cats are
in that area, and maybe you guys have a better
idea than I do. I didn't think to look into that,
but some big cats are a lot of them are
known to drag whatever they kill up a tree. Yeah,

(29:42):
but then you see the drag mar potentially maybe you're
you're you're searching, and you're standing under the tree, just
sort of like standing there looking around, and suddenly you
feel this drip drip, like predator on the top of
your head. Yeah. No, I mean, you know, I think
I'm standing by my my assertion that if you're if
you're not seeing the actual remains, you're seeing the scavengers

(30:05):
that are coming after. I'm not discreening with you at all.
You know, it happens for a long time. Yeah, So well, also,
you know, I mean that the man hunt went on
for days, and so obviously the tiger had it, had
himself a pretty decent meal, and then and then and
then uh, there's still there's from the tiger's point of view,
there's all these people out there. It's good eats, you know,

(30:27):
why didn't he eat somebody else? So I don't know
if there are tigers are there? Um, did the Aborigines
do like tiger pits or absolutely that just that's another
one of the theories is that apparently that they did
use tiger pits to catch tigers. And one of the
theories is that he was wandering through the generally he
fell into a tiger pit. And I don't know what

(30:48):
the protocol is for a tiger pit. I mean, in theory,
they're they're still camouflaged. I mean, obviously a tiger is
not just gonna walk into an open hole yet to
cover them up with stuff. So he gets all the
way out and mostly onto this thing, and then it
collapses and he falls into the hole and he's impaled
on spikes, you know, all this stuff. And so when
you've done something like that, you obviously don't want your

(31:08):
friends and neighbors walking into this pit. So wouldn't you
put some sort of sign or signal. I mean, you
can put a sign up it says danger tiger pit,
and the tiger is not gonna be able to read
a sign. So I don't know what the protocol is
or was back in those days or something like that,
but anyway, that is the theory is that he fell
into a tiger pit. The Aborigines come back and they
see that they've just killed a killed a white guy,

(31:30):
and you know, back in those days, it probably could
bring some some bad mojo down in your hand. Yeah yeah,
and so seeing this, they just said, well, let's just
fill in the hole. Dudes, what do you think? What
do you say? So that's that's possible. I guess that's
also you know, it's not depending on how like mooring
the tribes are. It's probably not a huge concern if
like some Dumbo from the neighboring tribe wanders into your

(31:52):
pit and kills himself because he's in your territory. And yeah,
well yeah, you know so, but this was this would
have been very close to a to a hill station,
which is basically a town. Yeah yeah, I mean out
in the deep jungle maybe, but close to a town
like that, you're gonna have all kinds of people walking
around out there. Okay, next there he got whacked yeah yeah, yeah,

(32:16):
not by the mob necessarily, but there's as possible that
he was there was a block, there was a hit
by a business or political enemies, a business competitor could
have had him killed. I have heard that that happens
in Thailand. I mean, and we were talking about he
was on the blacklist. So it's not inconceivable that you know,
his big ex business associates whacked him. Well, yeah, they're

(32:41):
you know, I don't think that. I'm sure they wouldn't
have whacked him just for basically criticizing US and c
I a policy. But they at this time they had
you heard of the secret War in Laos and all
that stuff, are America and all that stuff. I do
co host a podcast called Unsolf Mystery. Yeah, you have

(33:03):
heard of that. I have that was that bad movie
with was it Robert That was not a really a
good movie. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, it
was kind of amusing in parts. But so they were
ramping up their sequel were in Laos, and since of
course obviously he wasn't in the loop on that, but

(33:23):
at the same time he had a lot of contacts
in Thailand Laos, so he quite possibly got wind of
that and maybe was talking about maybe threatening to go
public with the story. Yeah, so that would give them
a little motivation to haven'm whacked and again, bekase he
could have been whacked just by some political or excuse me,
by some business competitor, could have been that of course you.

(33:47):
At the same time, they didn't do a very good
job of it because the High Silk Company continued on.
So it would have made more sense to whack him
and also burned the company down, didn't do you correct
me if I'm wrong. I swear in the reading the
Tie Silk Company. Once he disappeared, they started using his
face and all their advertising and basically changed their name

(34:09):
to the Jim Thompson Silk Company. Yeah, like they just
embraced and use that. Yeah, they kind of milk the
whole thing, which is wild. Yeah, if you go out
to the web page, just like Jim Thompson dot com
or something like that. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go
visit those guys if I ever get to, maybe maybe
somebody in the company, you know, knowing that they went

(34:31):
that round, I can wonder if maybe somebody in the
company is going, you know, we're doing all right, but
things are kind of flagging and we really really need
to drum up some public support and sympathy for the company. Uh,
you know, Jim has kind of been a jerk for
the last five years and had enough of his crap.
It could have been an internal we keep talking about.

(34:52):
It could have been somebody external who came after him.
It could have been a company internal, you know, somebody
else in the situation. Yeah, somehow he doesn't strike me
as a jerk either. But you know, there's there's all
kinds of things that you don't hear about. I mean,
it's there's all kinds of details that always get lost
in the shuffle. But yeah, I think that if it

(35:14):
was somebody, somebody in the business, even for that matter
of business competitor, That's why I don't buy I don't
buy the whole theoria you got wiped by a business competitor,
because it would have made a lot more sense to
just stab him to death or shoot him in some
alley in Bangkok. Didn't leave his body there, Yeah, because
because Bangkok I think it's probably a more a more

(35:35):
dangerous place with a lot more yeah. Yeah, yeah, And
you know, so it would really make a lot more
sense that just you know, shoot him and take his wallet,
his watch and that and so with that, and plus,
if you follow somebody all the way to Malaysia and

(35:56):
he's catching multiple flights to get there and everything, and
you're following him all the way there, you're gonna leave
a lot of fingerprints. You're catching flights and stuff like that. Yeah,
there's a there's a paper trail. So that's why I
don't think. Yeah, I don't think it was that. It
could have been the CIA, but again I think they
would have just whacked him in Bangkok too. Again, Yeah,
the number four or five, I don't know. But he

(36:17):
was accidentally run over, so he was he was just
walking down a road because there were people. Actually a
couple of witnesses saw him on roads. One person said
she swears she saw saw him and she recognized about
about four four o'clock PM on a road she came down.
He walked down the road and stopped in their garden
and looked around and then eventually left. That would make sense,

(36:39):
I mean, it would make sense for somebody who knew
that the jungle was dangerous. But when it take a
lot a walk, Yeah, I go down the road. Yeah, Yeah,
there's no Yeah, I mean he went for a walk
he didn't necessarily go into the jungle. But but here's
the one thing that with the and I know that
we haven't gone into this, but the thing that I
have a problem with about he took a long walk

(37:01):
is if he was gonna go for a walk, he
left a lot of things behind, Like he didn't take
a jacket, but one of the things that he didn't
take with him was his cigarettes because he was evidently
a notorious heavy, heavy smoker. And if you anybody who
knows the smoker, if they're going to be gone for
more than half an hour, they take their cigarettes with them. Yeah,

(37:23):
well but he left him behind unless they're taking a nap. Yeah,
but tak nap? And why did he go stare at
this person's garden a half hour to two and a
half hours later? That was yeah, that was two and
a half hours later. Yeah, so he was. But but
the thing about it is is they they found a
pack of smokes that were there, But that doesn't mean

(37:44):
to let the smokes behind him might have had more
than one pack, but it doesn't say that this open
pack of cigarettes. That's very true. And also we all
know smokers that you know have like five pack going
and yeah, this one, I'll just take the full pack
with yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, so you didn't necessarily leave
without a smokes. I mean that that is a relevant
I remember reading that his lighter wasn't with him, he

(38:06):
was there still in his room and stuff, which happened.
If he has actually a good five star smoker, he's
going to have more than one lighter. Two. I mean, alright, alright,
you shot me down. Yeah it doesn't. Yeah, it might have.
It might have been. It almost sounds like he was

(38:28):
going to go take a nap. But yeah, I mean
that whole sign off, right, I mean, like that's the
traditional like, hey, I'm gonna go sleep sign off like
gold they have been there have been a tiger waiting
for him by the hammock. Yes, and again I'm I'm
gonna god, I'm playing Devil's advocate here today. But you know,
I know, the whole good night sweetheart thing, I didn't

(38:51):
read that as just for when I'm going to go
lay down and take a nap. I read it more
as whenever you're gonna leave for a while, so I'm
going to go take a hike, Like let's say he
and his he and his friend, the day before we
had gone on a hike. So theoretically, the way I
interpreted it, they would have said to the ladies good night, sweetheart,

(39:13):
and left and they come back eventually from their walk,
whereas you two have both kind of interpreted that as
it's only a sleep sign off. I read it as
always whenever you were leaving Mike. My I guess might
come back to that would be if he was this
kind of survivalist that he you know, I was trained
and all that stuff. You tell somebody where you're going

(39:36):
you're going for a walk, especially if you're going for
walking the jungle, But if you're going for a walk,
you don't say like, oh goodbye, sweetheart, nothing, you're going
for a walk, good night, sweetheart. Yeah, I'm not I'm
not disagreeing with that, that makes sense. I just there's
just something missing in this a little bit. Yeah, maybe
he wanted to be alone. You would think you would
say something on the order of going for a walk,

(39:58):
anybody want to come with? Well, even if he wanted
to be alone, you know, I think he might have
wanted pretty reasonable to just say like, I'm going for
a walk by Yeah, and he didn't say that. We've
all done that when we were out like camping or whatever,
and you just need to get away from the group. Yeah, yeah,
I don't know. So maybe he was run over most mysterious. Yeah,

(40:18):
my theory is that he was his his lighter stopped working,
and so he decided to go down to the Quickie
mark if by himself a new lighter and plus an
extra pack of smokes while he was down there, and yeah,
you got run over on the way. Anyway, let's get
back to thes here. So he was actually only run over,
so he was walking around on the roads. And I

(40:39):
have heard and I've never been to Malaysia. I really
wanted to go. Actually, I've got friends living over there.
I hope before they come back to the States, I
have time and money to get over. Yeah, it'll be
like the field assignment. Yeah, if you guys want to
come with, we can do it, like you know, we
can do our podcast edition. Yeah. But yeah, they live
in they live in Kuala On Poor and it would

(41:00):
be really a major fun to go over there. But
I diverge here. The Malaysian driving, I understand, is kind
of dangerous, you know what I mean, It's that way
in much of the world word. So if again, it's
like a tiger pit thing if you run over, if
you're all over this guy, you recognize him as not
just being a guy, but a white guy and a
famous white guy or famous rich white guy who's kind

(41:23):
of a national hero for Thailand. Yeah, yeah, exactly, And
they'd be thinking, oh man, my life is over. But
what if I had the body, And so they shoved
the body and some bushes and then after dark to
come back with a shovel and just and just bury him.
So I think that's what is actually a credible theory.
Do you guys have any thoughts on that theory at all?
I can see it happening. Yeah, so far it's a

(41:47):
good contender. Another theory is that he ran away from home,
and there are people that are actually positive this theory
that he, uh he was tired of his life and
wanted to just make a new start. And I don't
believe it because, uh, number one, he doesn't need to
go to a camera highlands to disappear and do that.
You can, you know, you can put his affairs in
order back in Bangkok. Also, he's a super rich, super

(42:09):
famous kind of national hero white dude, and so you
want to just like disappear, become like kind of homeless
and then be like, you know, dirt poor, and you know,
and and all this stuff. Why would it Why would
he do that? That makes utterly no sense. Alright. Our
next theory is suicide. People have claimed that he, you know,
committed suicide. I don't buy this one because nobody reported

(42:30):
him being depressed or anything like that. It's also hard
to commit suicide and not leave a body behind. I
was about to say, Okay, this this we could, we
could dive into this, but I think we've kind of
beaten the crap out of what would happen when we
were talking about the tiger bit is that there'd be
the body and there's all the signs and all the things.
It's more credible to me though, like if there were

(42:52):
a ravine or river, I don't know what the like
topography of that area is. But you know, he's trained
to not leave a trace, which we talked about, right,
So he's like he's deciding, I'm not going to leave
a trace, and I'm gonna throw myself into this ravine
and my body will float down the river out to
the sea. Yeah, but it's it's not likely too. It's

(43:15):
what's gonna happen, is it's gonna float down the river
and it's gonna get caught up in some logs and
snags and stuff. You'll be found. But there's a way
you can do it. Will you do it? Is you
get yourself, get yourself a carabineer, some heavy chain, and
a couple of a couple of large weights like you know,
use from weights, carry them into the exactly, you carry
them miles out of the jungle until you find a

(43:36):
deep pool and you basically chain the weights to your
neck and then and then lock them with the carabineer
and then just dive head first into the pool. That
seems really likely. Yeah, I know exactly. There wasn't a
lot of issues with Yeah. I mean, I think there
are ways to commit suicide and and conceal the body,
but they're not they're not easy, and so it's a
lot that's an obscene amount of planning. Yeah, No, so

(44:00):
suicide I think is kind of not so much for suicide.
Another theory is that he was abducted by communist guerrillas,
and apparently there were some communist guerrillas in the area,
and that's that's what we talked about briefly at the beginning. Yeah,
exactly what exactly I mean, if they if they abducted him.
I suppose they could have just abducted him and killed him.
But here's the thing is that people being abducted by

(44:24):
communist guerrillas in the area didn't seem to be a
really common thing. Yeah, there's not a lot of stories
of that happening. Yeah, the communist guerrillas would very likely
have not had even any clue that he was there.
It would have been a totally random thing that they
stumbled upon him. And again, I'm not even convinced that
he was wandering around the jungle where the communists would

(44:44):
have been hiding. So I think we can dismiss this one,
not entirely, but kind of. So let's be fair. It's
not so far from Vietnam. Yeah, it's not. Well, it's
also not super clear, and it could have been it
could have been some like some Vietcong like field trip.
Maybe maybe they want a vacation. They could have been

(45:05):
left over and not known that the war was over.
The war was actually not over by that time. The
war had started, but it was it hadn't according I
think at that point, according to the U. S. Military,
it hadn't okay, well, accord, because everyone what the U. S.
Military says, when things do due, what's the next theory,

(45:25):
what's the next thing? Okay, kidnapped for ransom? Yeah, I
think we could listens this one out of hands. Okay,
we ever got a ransom note so and last of all, nope,
yea disappeared so we could get a sex change. And
the the reasoning behind this is that he wanted to
become like like an ascended master in silk and apparently

(45:47):
to learn to learn all the highest secrets of silk
and silk making and all this stuff. You have to
be a woman. I'm not saying I buy this, but
I've actually heard this, I've actually seen this. This is
a serious theory, I don't I've seen it out there.
I don't know if these people were serious. I can't
believe anybody would take this seriously now, personally, I don't
think so. I be honest, I thought you made this up.

(46:09):
I did too. I did not make it. This is
like a typical Joe print. I saw this on the
interwebs world. Wait, so recap, what would the reason be
for this to happen because he wants to become an
ascended master of silk making, and order in order apparently
to learn all the highest secrets of silk making, you

(46:31):
have to be a woman is forbidden to teach him
to a man. But he wasn't making this silk. He
was interesting. There was interested in the silk thing, I mean, obviously,
and I don't I think that most likely whoever put
this seria out there was just having fun too. I
don't think. I don't think anybody seriously could buy this.
I agree because and and also by the way he leaves,

(46:52):
becomes a woman, learns everything you can about kind of
about silk, but well, never puts it to use. Yeah, yeah,
I can't put it to use because so obviously it's
it's ridiculous, but it's kind of funny, and so I
thought i'd share it with our listening. Okay, Yeah, that's
that's way out in left field. So to wind up
our mystery, some bones were found in a few miles

(47:15):
down the road and another one of them hill station towns. Yeah,
then from where he was last seen, you know, the tribesmen.
He found the bones. They were buried in a shallow grave,
and they found the bones and gave them to the police,
and the police apparently apparently with some human bones no head,
and they gave them to the police, and the police

(47:36):
apparently have never bothered to do any sort of DNA
analysis on those. And I don't know how easy that
would be. I guess you had to dig up his
sister and see if you can salvage a little DNA
from her. Well, I think you can like kind of
map the basic genome, right, you can at least tell
like what race that person to the DNA level, there's

(47:59):
a lot of things. You can look at it and
you figure out isn't a man or a woman? Yeah, okay,
can we infer, as Devin said, the race, and then
if it is a white guy, then it would be
worth try to get the money to maybe, but also
maybe not if the Jungle of the Dangerous says they've
been saying, like there's a ton of stupid white dudes

(48:22):
out there on top of like the other like millions
of tribes people who have somehow And that's that's the thing,
is that you know it could be him, but there's
probably lots and lots of people who died and were
buried in shallow graves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'd be interesting
to find out. But apparently nobody's ticking the trouble to
do so so far. So that's it. So I'm gonna
go oh totally, Now I'm gonna go for. But the

(48:44):
theory I'm gonna go for a vote for is that
somebody who ran him down and just hit the body.
What do you guys think? You know what? Honestly, that
one appeals to my common sense the most, knowing what
I know about him, knowing what I know about the
people who looked for him. He doesn't seem like the
kind of guy to just be the bomber just gonna
wander into the jungle by myself telling anybody. Yeah, and

(49:05):
again he was lost the previous day and he found
that he found his way out, Yeah he did. He
seems like the kind of guy who would have been
able to get out of the jungle and he'd been
stuck there, he you know, would have left a trace
if he had been attacked walking down the road. Is
the logical, especially after getting lost maybe the night before. Right,
you know, if you get lost the night before going

(49:26):
in the jungle, you're not going to be like I'll
just go back into twice. Yeah, used the roads and
you know, accidentally getting hit. Yeah, for whatever reason. I
agree with Joe tonight, and I see a lot of
credence in that. But there's this, this whole disappearance is
just so out of the blue for me that I

(49:51):
kind of I kind of either Lee, I kind of
leaned towards somebody taking him. I'm not saying who took
game or for what reason, but it's just it's so
out of character for so many reasons that we said,
it's the only thing that I could see that would
make sense for why he would just vanish into the

(50:12):
You know what's interesting is that we've now we've done
two mysterious disappearances in a row right at this point,
and neither of them brought up alien abduction, Like, which
is weird, right though, because like these are both like weird.
Especially this one is just like he just disappeared into

(50:33):
thin air and nobody's like, yeah, it was probably aliens,
Like that isn't even on the list, and like there's
so many other things that made it onto the list
that are crazy. There were there were no jungle crop circles,
there was no decimated cows, like there was nothing to
indicate that the aliens were there enough you would think

(50:54):
that they were going to be anywhere. They'd be in
the camera in highlands there. It's pretty here. Yeah, So
you don't know, but we're gonna we're gonna lay money,
I think on getting run over, because I still think
that if you're going to do something like kidnap him
or or just or kidnapping or just take him, kill

(51:16):
him and so his body in the river or something
like that, you would do it in Bangkok because that's
where he's at. He didn't, you know, I don't know
how many people he informed of his plans to go
to Malaysia. Probably not that many people knew, And so
it would just seem a lot simpler to do it
in Bangkok, where he is nine of the time. And
so that's why that's why I'm leaning towards that somebody

(51:37):
ran him over a kind of theory. And you know,
the thing about it is is when somebody gets run over,
you can go look for a car that's like got
damage to the grill. But that's the third world, where
every car is already beat up. So what are you
gonna do? Yeah, yeah. Okay, well I guess that's it.
I guess we saw that mystery. So yeah, time to

(51:58):
time to like tell you if you find facts like
you know, well, first of all, find us on Facebook
and like us, like the hell out of us, Like
us multiple times if possibly can. Oh yeah, of course
you can find us on iTunes and you probably know
this because that's probably where you found us already. But
if you don't know this, yeah, find us on iTunes.

(52:18):
You can download our episodes, leave a comment, leave a rating.
We would really appreciate that, especially a good rating. And
also you can find us on Stitcher if you don't
have time for the whole download thing, you just want
us on stitcher and stream us. Also, you can find
our episodes on our website, which is Thinking Sideways podcast
dot com. All right, and also we would love it.
We would love to hear from you if you have

(52:39):
any thoughts. Uh. We like positive stuff like Joe is
really wonderful and see Oh yeah, so far we have
gotten tons of those, uh, so please send us emails
and obviously criticals too. We've actually received some critical emails
in the past and we appreciate those two because hey,
you know, feedback is good even you know, sometimes negative

(53:00):
feedback can be more useful than positive. Yeah, there's things
we do wrong and correct absolutely, so by all means
be critical. And last of all, we have a little
bit of listener email to read to you. So this
email is from Mike. Uh. Mike says, I'm so glad
I came across your podcast. It's shot up to my
favorites quickly. I've always been highly interested in the Wow signal. Thanks,

(53:24):
and that's how I found your show. It's right up
my alley. It's done perfectly. Please never quit. I've binge
listened all week and dread the depression that I'll hit
once I catch up. I have a few topics that
you guys can look into, and it gives us a
couple of things, one of which we're we're about to do.
He don't don't give it away. There's like five suggestions here.

(53:45):
He doesn't know Okay, okay, yeah, so we're going to
do one of those. Don't worry. Uh. And then it
says I only really know famous unsolved mysteries. I wish
I had a not so known one for you. I
really just wanted to say how much I've been enjoying
your podcast. I love that the three of you take
the bull crap like ghosts and magic and stuff completely
out of the equation in a mat and look at

(54:06):
the matter in a realistic way. Thanks for reading. Oh,
thank you, Mike. I love I love this like you
like getting Yeah, I do well. I mean, as we've
talked about, like I like the negative ones too, in
that it gives us something to improve on because we're
human and we are not perfect, and we don't know

(54:27):
what we're doing wrong. Sometimes I really just think we
don't know what we're doing because we don't we have
no idea what we're doing. We're just three people sitting
in a room talking microphones and then putting it out
and people are liking it. It's pretty random. Yeah, but thanks, thanks,
I really appreciate it. Actually, the email and uh, that's

(54:48):
about it for this week. Tune in next week when
we're going to solve a really exciting mystery. It's the
mystery of I'm just kidding. I'm not going to tell
you it's gonna by guys. Uh,