Solo Rescue

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Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild.

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.

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 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 10- and $20 bills, there is 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 intelligent banknote neutralization system, or IBNS.

The first prototype was developed in 1982 using colored smoke rather than paint.

After a decade in development, the modern system was fully finalized and it remains in common use to this day.

But this was not the only crime deterrent that took off in the 1980s.

On the other side of 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.

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 attendants 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 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 1980s, someone developed a suitable egg replacement, a plastic sphere, about the size and shape 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 Boro, or anti-crime color balls.

In the years following their invention, they would 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 turn to the paintballs for assistance.

Their benefit, it is said, is more psychological than physical.

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 threat of getting painted.

But one thing is for sure: anti-crime color balls make a much stronger statement than raw egg.

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Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

Just ask the Capital One bank guy.

It's pretty much all he talks about.

In a good way.

He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast, too.

Oh, really?

Thanks, Capital One Bank Guy.

What's in your wallet?

Terms apply.

See capital1.com slash bank.

Capital One NA member FDIC.

Cody Clausen was starting to get scared.

It was the summer of 2001, and the 13-year-old Boy Scout had been hiking for hours.

He began the day excited to 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 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'd 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 many times he doubled back.

A few hours past 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.

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 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 find his way home.

When Cody 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 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 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 12 parsecs.

Hans Solow himself, actor Harrison Ford.

Harrison had been flying since the 1960s and often volunteered with the Teton County search and rescue team.

He'd been flying nearby when the call came over the radio asking pilots to look for lost Cody Clausen.

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 promptly vomiting inside his helicopter.

Harrison flew the star-struck Cody to a nearby search and rescue place.

After 18 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 no scout master.

In fact, I might just be a half-witted, scruffy-looking nerveherd.

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 CuriositiesPodcast.com.

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 theworldoflore.com.

And until next time, stay curious.

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