April 3, 2025 • 8 mins
Two stories, two countries, but one very common thread: curiosity.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Crime does not pay.
(00:38):
It's a saying that almost everyone knows. We teach it
to our children to remind them not to take shortcuts,
because in the end, your actions have consequences, and your
choices will catch up with you. Stealing something is still
stealing something. Of course, this sort of moralizing has not
prevented crime from happening. Thievery is a profession as old
as the very concept of ownership. And since we no
(00:59):
longer hang thieves for taking things, and most petty theft
happens too fast to notify police, merchants have found themselves
in need of alternate ways to deter criminals. United States banks,
for example, are armed with a dummy wad of cash
that conceals a trap for potential robbers. Inside this innocuous
looking wad of tens and twenty dollars bills, there is
(01:21):
a small explosive triggered by radio to detonate when brought
out of the doors of the bank. This explosion releases
tear gas and sometimes a colored paint that marks the
bank robber and more importantly, the stolen money. Any cash
marked in this way would be unusable to the criminal
in question. This bank robber deterrent is known as an
(01:41):
intelligent banknote neutralization system or IBNS. The first prototype was
developed in nineteen eighty two, using colored smoke rather than paint.
After a decade in development, the modern system was fully
finalized and her remains in common use to this day.
But this was not the only crime deterrent that took
on in the nineteen eighties. On the other side of
(02:02):
the globe, the country of Japan was facing an interesting crisis.
They were running low on eggs. This wasn't because people
were stealing eggs at increased rates. It was because people
were refusing to pay at toll booths.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yes, you heard that right. You see, at this time,
Japan was facing a small epidemic of people who wouldn't
pay tolls on public highways. They would just drive past
the attendance and keep going down the highway to avoid
any payment. Toll workers responded to this behavior by throwing
raw eggs at the vehicles that did it. This was
an imperfect system, of course, more useful in letting out
(02:36):
the frustration of a toll worker than inflicting any real
consequences on the drivers. But this practice gave someone the
bright idea of replacing the eggs with something more permanent,
because egg can be washed off fairly easily, after all.
Sometime in the early nineteen eighties, someone developed a suitable
egg replacement, a plastic sphere about the size and shape
(02:56):
of a baseball, filled with bright orange paint. Toll workers,
who presumably had plenty of practice with eggs, could use
them to tag a fleeing vehicle, providing a more useful
mark for policemen to find the perpetrator. These plastic paintballs
eventually became known as bohan yokara buru or anti crime
color balls. In the years following their invention, they would
(03:19):
expand from toll booths to banks and even convenience stores.
Even today, when you step into a convenience store in Japan,
you're likely to see a small pile of these orange
balls waiting by the cash register. Of course, they're rarely used.
In fact, studies have shown that even in cases of
store robbery, the owners rarely turned to the paintballs for assistance.
Their benefit, it is said, is more psychological than physical.
(03:43):
If someone enters a store and sees these innocuous plastic oranges,
they will think twice about shoplifting. It's impossible to say
how many potential crimes were deterred with the mere threats
of getting painted, but one thing is for sure, anti
crime color balls make a much stronger statement than raw egg.
(04:16):
Cody Klausen was starting to get scared. It was the
summer of two thousand and one, and the thirteen year
old boy scout had been hiking for hours. He began
the day excited to be venturing into Yellowstone National Park,
one of the most beautiful natural areas in the country.
As part of his scout training, he had spent hours
navigating with a map, hiking through brush, and orienting himself
(04:37):
with the stars. He even had the badges to prove it,
so he felt comfortable as he set out for a
short walk down the trails. That morning, he had wandered
for a bit, hoping to see some wildlife, and then
he would be home in time for lunch. But he
must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. For some reason,
the trails didn't seem to match the trail that he
thought he was following. Nothing looked familiar no matter how
(04:58):
many times he doubled. A few hours passed his scheduled return,
Cody was shivering as he struggled through the brush. He
figured if he picked a direction and headed towards where
he thought the trailhead was, he would stumble upon a
marker or another hiker soon enough. But as the hours
racked up and no savior materialized, he began to really worry.
(05:19):
Cody was woefully unprepared for his long hike. He was
wearing sandals, shorts, and a thin T shirt, which was
doing nothing to cut the cold. As the sun dipped
below the horizon, any snacks or water that he'd brought
with him were long gone by then. He needed to
find his way back soon or he would really be
in trouble. A rumble sounded from overhead, and Cody looked
(05:40):
up to see his problems had just gotten worse. It
was starting to rain as he continued walking, soaked to
the skin, the rain turned colder in the night, air,
freezing into sleet that stuck to his skin. Cody looked
for cover and managed to find a cave nearby. He
spent a long night shivering in the cold, wondering how
on earth he would fight his way home. When Cody
(06:02):
woke up, it was to the sound of helicopter blades
beating the air above the forest. Still cold and groggy,
he struggled to his feet with just one thought on
his mind, rescue. But when he emerged from the cave,
he saw that there was a problem. The trees were
so thick the helicopter, flying back and forth overhead couldn't
see him through the canopy. He had to think fast
(06:22):
before it moved on to the next area. That's when
he remembered his belt and its shiny metal buckle. Cody
whipped the belt off and used it to catch the sunshine.
He reflected a beam of light back at the helicopter,
hoping the pilot would see him, and miraculously it worked.
The pilot set the chopper down in a clearing close
to the caves. Cody ran to the pilot as he
(06:43):
stepped out of the chopper, but froze when the man
pulled his helmet off, his desperate joy turned to star
struck wonder because the man standing in front of him
wasn't just any pilot. It was the one who had
made the kessel run in less than twelve parsecs Han
Solo himself, Actor Harrison Ford. Harrison had been flying since
the nineteen sixties and often volunteered with the Teton County
(07:06):
Search and Rescue Team. He'd been flying nearby when the
call came over the radio asking pilots to look for
lost Cody Clawson. He'd heeded the call and quickly found
the missing scout. Surprisingly, this wasn't even Harrison's first rescue
mission in the area. Just a year before, he had
rescued another lost hiker, Sarah George, who thanked him by
(07:27):
promptly vomiting inside his helicopter. Harrison flew the starstruck Cody
to a nearby search and rescue place after eighteen hours
in the wilderness, he thankfully wasn't worse for wear. Before
flying off, Cody reported that the actor knelt down to
tell him one last thing that after all he had
been through, he certainly deserved a merit badge. Now I'm
(07:48):
no scout master. In fact, I might just be a
half witted, scruffy looking nerve herder. But if Han Solo
says you've earned a badge, he probably has a point.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
(08:11):
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Crime does not pay.
(00:38):
It's a saying that almost everyone knows. We teach it
to our children to remind them not to take shortcuts,
because in the end, your actions have consequences, and your
choices will catch up with you. Stealing something is still
stealing something. Of course, this sort of moralizing has not
prevented crime from happening. Thievery is a profession as old
as the very concept of ownership. And since we no
(00:59):
longer hang thieves for taking things, and most petty theft
happens too fast to notify police, merchants have found themselves
in need of alternate ways to deter criminals. United States banks,
for example, are armed with a dummy wad of cash
that conceals a trap for potential robbers. Inside this innocuous
looking wad of tens and twenty dollars bills, there is
(01:21):
a small explosive triggered by radio to detonate when brought
out of the doors of the bank. This explosion releases
tear gas and sometimes a colored paint that marks the
bank robber and more importantly, the stolen money. Any cash
marked in this way would be unusable to the criminal
in question. This bank robber deterrent is known as an
(01:41):
intelligent banknote neutralization system or IBNS. The first prototype was
developed in nineteen eighty two, using colored smoke rather than paint.
After a decade in development, the modern system was fully
finalized and her remains in common use to this day.
But this was not the only crime deterrent that took
on in the nineteen eighties. On the other side of
(02:02):
the globe, the country of Japan was facing an interesting crisis.
They were running low on eggs. This wasn't because people
were stealing eggs at increased rates. It was because people
were refusing to pay at toll booths.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yes, you heard that right. You see, at this time,
Japan was facing a small epidemic of people who wouldn't
pay tolls on public highways. They would just drive past
the attendance and keep going down the highway to avoid
any payment. Toll workers responded to this behavior by throwing
raw eggs at the vehicles that did it. This was
an imperfect system, of course, more useful in letting out
(02:36):
the frustration of a toll worker than inflicting any real
consequences on the drivers. But this practice gave someone the
bright idea of replacing the eggs with something more permanent,
because egg can be washed off fairly easily, after all.
Sometime in the early nineteen eighties, someone developed a suitable
egg replacement, a plastic sphere about the size and shape
(02:56):
of a baseball, filled with bright orange paint. Toll workers,
who presumably had plenty of practice with eggs, could use
them to tag a fleeing vehicle, providing a more useful
mark for policemen to find the perpetrator. These plastic paintballs
eventually became known as bohan yokara buru or anti crime
color balls. In the years following their invention, they would
(03:19):
expand from toll booths to banks and even convenience stores.
Even today, when you step into a convenience store in Japan,
you're likely to see a small pile of these orange
balls waiting by the cash register. Of course, they're rarely used.
In fact, studies have shown that even in cases of
store robbery, the owners rarely turned to the paintballs for assistance.
Their benefit, it is said, is more psychological than physical.
(03:43):
If someone enters a store and sees these innocuous plastic oranges,
they will think twice about shoplifting. It's impossible to say
how many potential crimes were deterred with the mere threats
of getting painted, but one thing is for sure, anti
crime color balls make a much stronger statement than raw egg.
(04:16):
Cody Klausen was starting to get scared. It was the
summer of two thousand and one, and the thirteen year
old boy scout had been hiking for hours. He began
the day excited to be venturing into Yellowstone National Park,
one of the most beautiful natural areas in the country.
As part of his scout training, he had spent hours
navigating with a map, hiking through brush, and orienting himself
(04:37):
with the stars. He even had the badges to prove it,
so he felt comfortable as he set out for a
short walk down the trails. That morning, he had wandered
for a bit, hoping to see some wildlife, and then
he would be home in time for lunch. But he
must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. For some reason,
the trails didn't seem to match the trail that he
thought he was following. Nothing looked familiar no matter how
(04:58):
many times he doubled. A few hours passed his scheduled return,
Cody was shivering as he struggled through the brush. He
figured if he picked a direction and headed towards where
he thought the trailhead was, he would stumble upon a
marker or another hiker soon enough. But as the hours
racked up and no savior materialized, he began to really worry.
(05:19):
Cody was woefully unprepared for his long hike. He was
wearing sandals, shorts, and a thin T shirt, which was
doing nothing to cut the cold. As the sun dipped
below the horizon, any snacks or water that he'd brought
with him were long gone by then. He needed to
find his way back soon or he would really be
in trouble. A rumble sounded from overhead, and Cody looked
(05:40):
up to see his problems had just gotten worse. It
was starting to rain as he continued walking, soaked to
the skin, the rain turned colder in the night, air,
freezing into sleet that stuck to his skin. Cody looked
for cover and managed to find a cave nearby. He
spent a long night shivering in the cold, wondering how
on earth he would fight his way home. When Cody
(06:02):
woke up, it was to the sound of helicopter blades
beating the air above the forest. Still cold and groggy,
he struggled to his feet with just one thought on
his mind, rescue. But when he emerged from the cave,
he saw that there was a problem. The trees were
so thick the helicopter, flying back and forth overhead couldn't
see him through the canopy. He had to think fast
(06:22):
before it moved on to the next area. That's when
he remembered his belt and its shiny metal buckle. Cody
whipped the belt off and used it to catch the sunshine.
He reflected a beam of light back at the helicopter,
hoping the pilot would see him, and miraculously it worked.
The pilot set the chopper down in a clearing close
to the caves. Cody ran to the pilot as he
(06:43):
stepped out of the chopper, but froze when the man
pulled his helmet off, his desperate joy turned to star
struck wonder because the man standing in front of him
wasn't just any pilot. It was the one who had
made the kessel run in less than twelve parsecs Han
Solo himself, Actor Harrison Ford. Harrison had been flying since
the nineteen sixties and often volunteered with the Teton County
(07:06):
Search and Rescue Team. He'd been flying nearby when the
call came over the radio asking pilots to look for
lost Cody Clawson. He'd heeded the call and quickly found
the missing scout. Surprisingly, this wasn't even Harrison's first rescue
mission in the area. Just a year before, he had
rescued another lost hiker, Sarah George, who thanked him by
(07:27):
promptly vomiting inside his helicopter. Harrison flew the starstruck Cody
to a nearby search and rescue place after eighteen hours
in the wilderness, he thankfully wasn't worse for wear. Before
flying off, Cody reported that the actor knelt down to
tell him one last thing that after all he had
been through, he certainly deserved a merit badge. Now I'm
(07:48):
no scout master. In fact, I might just be a
half witted, scruffy looking nerve herder. But if Han Solo
says you've earned a badge, he probably has a point.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
(08:11):
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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