Thinking Sideways: Jim Thompson

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, 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, 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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. 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 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, 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, 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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 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.

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

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 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

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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?

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 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 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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 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

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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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

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, 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 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

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

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 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 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, 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 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, 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

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, 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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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

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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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, 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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. 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 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, 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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

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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, 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. 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 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

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 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,