503 - Live at the Eccles Theater (Salt Lake City Night 2)

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What's up, Salt Lake City?

I literally yelled at that lady to stand up and give us a standing ovation.

Okay, you may be seated.

Oh,

you didn't say city last night when we yelled Salt Lake City, right?

I don't know.

Because I did, and so this time I didn't, so we'd match, and then you yelled city.

This is how we do it.

You know the song.

Hi.

Hi.

Good to see you guys again.

Yep.

Thanks for staying overnight and staying the rest of the day and being here again.

Yeah, you guys slept in the building and we appreciate that.

It's very nice of you.

We do.

Who was here last night and heard our funny jokes?

Okay.

I was.

That's enough that we can tell the jokes again.

Yeah.

Not enough.

Yes, exactly.

We're going to do the same set.

We look like Jolly Ranchers.

We look like USS Enterprise wives.

That was a good one.

The Macarena was saying, like, a whole thing happened, right?

Yes, it did.

I remember.

I'm kind of distracted because at first I thought you were just chilling by the stage, but did your seat break?

Just no seat at all?

Got it.

Yeah.

They're having a, we're going to let them have a thing.

He's installing a seat for you.

Wow.

We'll get you a folding chair.

Don't worry.

You paid top dollar to be in the front row.

So we'll absolutely move you to the back row.

In this economy?

I went to the farmer's market today.

Oh.

I know.

What fresh produce did you buy for your hotel room?

A thing of kombucha.

That's it.

And there's so many, it was a great farmer's market.

I wish it was close to our house where we live in Los Angeles.

Yes.

There were tons of dogs and then, but I met one dog and took a photo of it, my favorite dog.

Okay.

Do you want to see it?

Yes, I do.

His name was Gentleman.

You know what?

Guess how much I lost my fucking mind

when I saw this guy?

He was so chill, there were like fucking Rottweilers walking by him and he was just like double middle fingers.

I don't know.

The Rottweiler walks by, he's like, go fuck yourself.

Deepest voice of all time.

Gentleman is his name.

And he was.

And he truly was.

He truly was.

Well,

any dog pics?

Oh, no, that's fine.

All right, that's fine.

I mean, there were so many.

You know, there was only one cat.

But yeah, farmers market cat.

That's...

They're busting out of the bookstores.

Yeah.

Getting into those farmers markets.

It's a new dawn.

It's a new day.

Do you want to hear what I did?

Yeah.

Now, this is a little bit braggy, so judge if you want, but there's nothing I could do about it.

I got my fingernails painted in my hotel room.

What?

Yes.

That's right.

Because I had to work on my story and do a bunch of other shit.

So

Hunter and Christie came from Pink Bubble Salon.

The best.

But here's why they're the best.

Because, you know, we're just chatting.

It's very uncomfortable to sit with a stranger in a hotel room and just be like

like it's very weird so I turned on the TV didn't help

Hunter was doing an incredible job Christy was just kind of sitting there like assisting and then I was simultaneously wrapping up my story on the laptop and what happened the spinning wheel of death came up and I was like two pages away from being done So I'm like trying to be cool and also, you know what I mean, like this, like trying not to make any fast moves.

But I'm like, holy fucking jit, and I'm like, I don't know what to do.

Because your computer's going to die?

Yeah.

And you're going to lose all the information.

Yes.

Okay.

So I start, I scroll back and I just start taking pictures of my story, right?

Because it's got to, I got to get it somewhere.

I'm not fucking starting from page one

at 3.45 in the afternoon.

So

I'm just like trying to, I'm like, I'm sorry I'm moving.

I just,

I'm having a problem with this document that I really need by 5 p.m.

I have to have it, whatever.

And so

he's like, no problem, don't worry about it.

And Christy's just kind of staring at me.

And then I'm like doing things.

And she watches me take the pictures and the whole thing.

Finally, I'm like, I could, I'm like texting, texting Maren.

Molly's off.

Our producer, it was her birthday weekend.

So I'm like, there's no way I can text Molly.

On her birthday weekend.

No.

Finally, Christy pipes up and she goes, I actually work in IT.

And I was like, God damn it, Christy, get over here right now and fix this problem.

And she did.

Yes.

Hunter just brings an IT person with him wherever he goes.

I love that.

Because Hunter knew what he was doing.

Pink Bubble Salon, ladies and gentlemen,

please support them in everything they do because it's not just nails.

No.

It's not.

So much.

I thought you were going to fuck your nails up immediately, which is what I always do when someone's doing my nails really carefully.

It's just kind of like hit, you know, do that immediately.

Oh, fuck, that actually hurt.

But it was a great example of what you do.

Yeah.

They needed to know it.

What else do we?

Oh, do you want to show everybody around?

Sure.

Look at this gorgeous

lime green number.

Thank you.

It's lintage.

It smells like it.

That's what you're in it for.

It feels like it.

It looks great.

Thank you.

Lime green, guys.

Let's bring it back forward.

Yeah, let's bring lime green back immediately.

And your incredible dress.

Thank you so much because it has pockets.

Yes.

Change tones.

Thank you so much.

Oh, speaking of pockets, this is my favorite murder of the post.

Thank you so much.

That's Georgia Hardstart.

That's Karen Kilgara.

We're so happy to be here with you.

Thank you.

So grateful.

So grateful in times like these that you guys bought tickets and came out.

We were so scared.

We really were.

It's been six years since we've been on the road.

And we've forgotten how to do this a little bit.

That's right.

So

none of us ever actually know how to do it.

Not really.

Right.

Here we are.

Should we sit down?

Yeah, let's sit down.

Yeah.

Okay.

Secret tissues are here.

Yes, look at that.

Yes, I don't have to put them in my undergarments anymore.

On the first night in the first show back in Denver,

really?

At one point, Georgia reached down and pulled a Kleenex out of I Do Not Know Where.

And it was so distracting, I was just like, all I wanted to do was talk to you about

where you put it, where you got it from, how it came out.

Us allergy premenopause girls, no, you just got to have tissues at the ready.

Got to.

All the time.

What are you going to do?

You have to have tissues at the ready, and you have to remember that the seat heater is not on.

It's you.

That's your, it's your ass actually heating the seat up, not the seat heating your ass up.

That's the life I've been living recently.

On the phone with my friend, furious, being like, God damn, this fucking seat heater's on.

So furious.

And then I'm just like, see the seat heater button.

It's not on.

Just like, great.

This has my lipstick from last night on it.

How do we we feel about that?

I hope it's my lipstick.

I mean.

Waiter, look.

You want a clean glass?

You wash that glass.

We put up a sign.

Your mom doesn't work here at this theater.

Janet!

She does, actually.

Do you want to tell really

so good?

So my mom came to the Boston show.

My mom and stepdad came to the Boston show because he said, ooh, it's a big deal.

We filmed it for a thing.

We filmed it.

It was very exciting.

So it was really big deal.

I wanted her to be there.

And so they came.

And the night before the show being filmed for an important thing, I meet her in the lobby, and she has a full-on tooth missing in the front of her face.

It's like a

her crown fell off.

And it was like a nub, like a gray nub.

And I didn't even know she fucking had a crown, by the way.

She kept it from you.

That's how vain she is.

And now she's exposed.

And I was like, mom, and she was like, is it noticeable?

Like, are you fucking kidding me?

And she's- Can I just say this about Janet?

Yeah.

This is from the first moment I ever saw Janet.

This is the most blown out woman.

She is absolutely.

Oh my God, do you see that fog or is it me?

Am I dying?

Are we all dying?

Yeah, I got here.

Okay.

Either way.

It's we're together.

It doesn't matter.

Yeah, she is, she is, Janet is on point in every way.

Yeah, and she's

vain.

It's fine.

Like, I got it from her.

Yeah, we all are.

Sit up straight and everything.

So she's missing a fucking tooth.

And she's like, Do you think anyone will notice?

And I was like, Mom, this is being filmed.

Do the real reenactment of how you said it.

Mom, what the fuck are you fucking kidding?

Yeah, whatever it was.

Get this fixed right now.

I was like, hey, I'll pay for it.

Go get it fixed tomorrow in Boston.

Find an emergency dentist on Saturday because I know you do not want to be on film with that.

I know you don't.

I'm doing you a favor.

And she got it fixed and looked gorgeous.

And

I was like, can I tell this story on stage?

And she was like, yes, and you can embellish it all you want.

Hell yes.

It's like, yeah.

Janet comes through when I need her.

She's good parenting.

She does.

She gives you what you need in the times that you need it.

That's right.

But not in your childhood.

She just taught me not to need anything from anyone.

Right.

Which is paid.

So I know.

Look where you are right now, friend.

And it works.

It works.

She wasn't wrong.

She was not wrong.

No.

All right, should we talk about what this is?

Oh, yeah, tell everyone.

So every time we do a live show, we know there are people in this audience who have no fucking clue what's going on right now.

We call you drag-alongs.

We are sorry and also give us a chance.

But we do feel like we need to say this, which is that this is a true crime comedy podcast.

And when we first started it, you know, there were people who really did not like that combination.

So we like to say, you know, that George and I, we don't think murder is funny.

We think we're funny.

And

we also grew up with lots of trauma, like everybody else probably in this room.

And we learned to cope with it through humor.

And so that's why this podcast is the way it is.

And if you don't like it, you can get the fuck out.

See,

I, as my mother's daughter, would have said please at the end of that, which doesn't hit as hard, you know?

I'm my mother's daughter, so I'm just offering options that you can have.

And with a weird smile on my face that's very threatening.

That's how Pat did it.

Hell yeah.

And we also don't know each other's stories.

We're very careful about that.

I kind of lose my mind over it.

And everyone who works with us hates us for that.

But it's more fun because it's like, I'm the audience.

We all know the same when Georgia tells her story and you all know the same with Georgia when I tell my story.

That's what's fun.

That's right.

And I'm first tonight.

You are first.

Okay.

We're doing it.

Thank you.

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Goodbye.

A few years ago, Karen, oh,

we're starting.

We're just starting.

I didn't realize you were talking to me.

We're just a few months into lockdown, when COVID lockdown, horrible time for everyone.

Everyone's starting to go a little stir crazy.

Like the bang on the pots thing has stopped.

You know, that hope thing is

away.

I remember hope.

And

right then, in that moment, in the beginning, a mystery appeared that had the internet a buzz.

TikTok probably too.

Out in the desolate expanse of Utah's red rock wilderness, a gleaming metallic structure appeared

as if conjured from thin air.

No warning, no explanations.

Only questions, Karen.

Yep.

Was it a prankster or an artist or was it a fucking alien?

Tonight we're going to try to unravel the mystery that refuses to be explained.

This is the story of the Utah monolith.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I love this.

Great.

Great.

The main sources for the story are articles from the New York Times and the St.

George News.

And I'm going to try to say everything correctly.

but Moab Desert is that

it's it is spelled like it said, and that's great.

That helps me.

So, November 18th, 2020, remember?

Pilot Brett Hutchings of the Utah Department of Public Safety takes a small group of biologists from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources on a flight over a remote part of the desert in San Juan County to survey the area's bighorn sheep population.

Nerds.

No, I'm kidding.

That sounds like

sorry, because you're, as you turned away, I couldn't hear, and I was like, what did she just say?

Big, big, what, what?

Bighorn sheep.

I got it now.

Thank you.

Everything is bighorn sheep as usual until one of the biologists catches sight of something glistening in the red rocks below.

And he says, quote, whoa, whoa, whoa, turn around.

We got to go check this thing thing out, end quote.

Brett follows the biologist's suggestion and lands the helicopter near the site of the object.

And they're situated in the center of a slot canyon, which is a deep, narrow canyon with steep walls, usually made of sandstone or other soft rock that's been eroded over time.

Oxford English Dictionary defines slot canyon as.

You guys know there's a rock doctor here, probably, right?

Or scientist, as you like to be called.

Sure.

There actually probably is, right?

I think that woman's screaming bloody murderous, probably.

Or is it just a big one?

There's a spider.

There's a spider in the balcony.

Sorry.

It's a ghost.

Spider.

Okay, so they see it, and they see a prism-shaped, chrome-colored metal obelisk jutting upright out of the ground.

It looks like something out of a 2001 A Space Odyssey.

It is

the monolith.

Yes.

It looks like an ATM machine that never got finished.

Right?

They left that there.

It's from the beginning of Barbie.

Remember?

2001, I am.

There it is, everyone.

Pretty amazing looking.

That's yours, your monolith.

You did that.

Okay.

It stands about 9.8 feet tall and is about 23 inches wide.

Picture it.

Two feet?

I don't know.

Yeah.

Which in today's feet,

the material used to make it are familiar, meaning it's probably not from aliens.

They'd use better materials, I guess, or like better at materials than we are.

Aliens love aluminum foil, turns out.

Turns out.

It's sheet metal riveted together around some kind of frame, sturdy enough to plant into the ground and keep it standing.

So that takes some effort.

They didn't just throw it out there, leave it.

But it's situated in an incredibly random and remote location that's not easy to get to at all, especially with a massive, heavy object like that.

It's on public land, but there are no parking lots, bathrooms, trailheads, so no glamping.

So we'll never go there, essentially.

I'd love it if someone planted one of those things right in the middle of a glamping circle.

Less mysterious.

Yeah.

Right?

So there, or any other public markers designating this as a place of interest for visitors or whoever wanted to put down a thing.

So a representative from the Utah Department of Public Safety says, quote, says somebody took the time to use some type of concrete cutting tool or something to really dig down almost in the exact shape shape of the object and embed it really well.

It's odd.

There are roads close by, but to haul the materials to cut into the rock and haul the metal, which is taller than 12 feet in sections, do all of that in the remote spot is definitely interesting.

Yes.

That's what art students want you to say about them.

And you know this guy said this on a Zoom in his pajama pants and a button-up shirt.

And he's like, remember that?

Remember when I still do that?

No?

There's been some Zoom calls where the

ugliness factor has been just through the roof on my part, where I'm just like, well, I know all these people.

There's nothing, this is not a show.

No, I give up.

I've given up.

We've all given up.

And they know.

So there are no clues at all pointing to who could have made it.

It's almost as if it appeared out of nowhere and

it's eerie and supernatural.

And Brett, the pilot from before, said, quote, we were kind of joking around that if one of us suddenly disappears, then the rest of us make a run for it.

It won't work.

Yeah.

Running won't work.

Grab the person who knows how to fly the helicopter and make a run for it.

Don't just make a run for it.

Keep those helicopter keys in your pocket.

Do helicopters have keys, don't they?

Yeah.

I mean, it must, right?

Hey, what are monoliths, you ask?

Monoliths are typically made from one solid piece of stone, and they can either occur naturally as geological features or as man-made objects in architecture or art.

In nature, they can form through erosion.

Water wears away softer stone over time, leaving behind a column of hard rock,

like lava-cooled rock.

You know, I mean, yeah, picture it.

We get it, right?

Like, everyone gets it.

I remember.

You guys aren't stupid.

Okay.

I love that Allie just is like, George's gotten have no idea what these are.

I'm gonna have to explain.

Like, this is for me, not for you guys, for sure.

Just now you know, but then you can read it in a lightly sarcastic voice, and it sounds like you've always known.

That's like

blaming voice.

Yeah, sure.

Is that it?

Okay.

So

it's odd to find this.

That's my point.

Yes.

On November 20th, 2020, two days after the discovery, the Utah Department of Public Safety posts photos of this on their Instagram.

It's too mysterious for them not to share, but they're careful not to reveal its exact location since the monolith, it's not in an easy to access area.

They don't want people,

so many fucking stupid people, you guys.

They don't want them getting lost or hurt while fucking trekking out to find it.

Here's another picture of it with people.

You see how tall it is?

Yeah.

And like, it is, it's not like in the, you know, it's with rocks.

Like, if the person wanted it to be found, whoever put it there, I think it's aliens,

they would have put it out in the middle of the desert, not like behind rocks and stuff.

Except.

But if it was for ceremonial purposes, like they're trying to make it seem like it's for something, then it being in this little pocket, you know, would get all the smart people thinking, hey, this might be real.

So you're thinking Satanists.

Always.

Always think Satanists.

Every day and night.

That's me.

Don't tell my dad, or he'll get really upset.

But the Utah Department of Public Safety, or DPS,

understands everyone's curiosity and understands, or sorry, underestimates everyone being really smart on the internet.

Like your best friend, when you're like, I'm going on a date with this guy, and

they find so much about him that you cancel the date.

Have you ever done that?

You have that one friend.

Yeah.

He's so good at that.

They're like, hey, listen, this guy's father paid his taxes late about 12 years ago.

Don't get involved.

Or he used

this throwaway account once and it was for this.

And it's just some fucking dark.

Yes, that's happened.

Yes, I mean, this seems like a real thing.

It's a real thing.

He had a rash, and he asked Reddit about it.

And my friend found it.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

It was mine.

It wasn't contagious.

Oh, my God.

Allie, Allie Ward.

You can tell her who you're going on a date with, and she's like, give me five minutes.

And she's like, da-da-da-da-da.

It's crazy.

It's great.

There was nothing on Vince, by the way.

She looked.

That's right.

That's right.

Green flag.

He's a very smart man.

He would never put that in the internet.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So basically, of course, people...

are able to figure out where it is just based on you know that kind of photo.

One Utah resident, a woman named Monica Holyoke from Moab, is a big outdoor enthusiast and and experienced hiker.

She is determined to track down the location of the monolith and see it for herself.

She's probably so bored and locked down because she can't, you know, you couldn't even go hiking back then.

Well, that's why I didn't go hiking.

Yeah.

That's what it was.

Remember?

Yeah.

How I just enjoyed hiking.

So she's familiar enough with Utah's landscape that she bets she can narrow down the site by studying the photos from the DPS's Instagram post and comparing them to Google Maps topographic images.

So So this is the greatest friend to have, for sure.

After a few days of research, she finally narrows her search down to the Lockhart Basin, your favorite basin.

No one.

Nobody.

No one lives there.

It's a smaller section of the Bears Ears National Monument.

Sure, they show up for Bears Ears.

Bears Ears is about a two and a half hour drive southwest from Monica's home in Moab and encompasses over 1.3 acres of land, Helie wrote, or more than 2,100 square miles.

Like, I'm going to know how big either of those fucking things are.

Don't worry about the and or alley.

I need neither.

And so Lockheart Basin is much smaller, though, somewhere between 30 to 60 miles long.

And so she and a friend, they venture out to the basin.

They hike until they find the slot canyon.

And then just as she suspected, she finds the monolith standing.

I mean,

that's the most excitement she's had in months, probably, right?

She drops to her knees and begins to worship the obelisk.

She describes finding the monolith as being like finding a needle, like finding a needle in a haystack, yet somehow, to her surprise, she's not the only one there.

Oh,

such a bummer.

You know, and you're like, I listened to that band first.

I found that monolith first.

No, you didn't.

A whole network of people wanting to find the monolith for themselves were working at tracking it down, just like Monica, because none of us had jobs at the time.

Tim Slane, a Reddit user, had tracked the DPS's helicopter's flight path.

That's where he went.

That's so crazy, right?

It's amazing.

He definitely had to hack someone's...

You'd hope he had to hack a computer system to figure that out, and it wasn't just public knowledge, but.

I think they do public knowledge stuff like that.

Okay.

Well, fine.

If you don't like it, take it to the statehouse.

I want.

I have to stop interjecting.

I'm so sorry.

No, you must.

You must.

The obelisk demands that you interject.

Just like in 2025 with everything going on, George is like, we need to take these flight path websites down.

It's the first thing we need to take care of in America.

That is my plight.

Now, this is what I'm fighting for.

Okay, so Tim Slane, he, who's of course a Reddit user,

tracks down, no hate, tracks down the flight path and then runs it through Google Earth as well.

I think Google Earth put it up there to get more traffic.

I just fucking figured it out.

There it is.

She just fucking figured it out.

She solved it, ladies and gentlemen.

How many, yeah.

It's okay.

Thank you.

A Dutch journalist used publicly available satellite images to find the monolith's location and then narrowed down the timeline from when it must have been installed.

You know, like looked at the old Google Maps picture and the current Google Maps.

The mailman was going by in that slot cannon, nothing was there.

Then the next time.

My god, you could see my grandpa playing fetch with me one last time.

I know I love those.

This is so sad.

So sad.

My dog.

My dog from 2006.

My dog standing at the end of the driveway.

Waiting for me.

Oh no.

Okay.

We just bummed ourselves out at our own show.

Why would we do that?

I'm on a lot of things right now.

Nothing illegal.

Yet.

After party.

That's right.

Everyone knows Utah's got the purest

ketamine.

Ketamine.

It's all falling a K-hole together, goddamn it.

This could be a K-hole in this whole 10 years.

Okay, so stop it.

Stop it.

He narrows down when, this Dutch journalist narrows down that it had to be there sometime, have gotten there between July 7th, 2016, and October 21st, 2016, four years before it was discovered.

Holy shit.

So it was just sitting there biting its fucking time.

Come on, I'm so interesting.

Do, do, do.

Where is everybody?

Yeah.

But still, no one can track down who might have built the monolith or why.

At first, the San Juan County Sheriff's Department doesn't take the appearance of the monolith seriously.

They kind of poke fun at it by making a Facebook post with mugshots of nine supposed suspects.

Let's take a look at it.

Come on.

Someone in social media at the San Juan County Sheriff's Department.

Caught my Joe, thank you.

What?

Still don't.

That's still a no.

So that's how seriously they took it.

When I first turned,

I saw E.T.

and then a bunch of other ET-like shapes and I was like, this is kind of like the faces of meth of E.T.

Why would he get addicted?

I lost me to meth.

So they did that, and they're like, you know, making fun of it.

I mean, it was quarantine.

Yeah.

They had nothing else to do.

What did you, yeah, exactly.

But with the secret of the Utah monolith's location out, more and more people are attracted to

land that up to this point have been virtually untouched by humans.

So that's not cool.

The risk of visitors getting into danger in the wilderness with virtually no resources skyrockets.

They're talking about me.

Oh.

Environmentalists also become increasingly concerned.

Just remember that during the pandemic, like Vince and I tried to go hiking and we got lost.

And we were next to a frisbee golf course and we got lost.

And we had to follow the frisbee golf sailing through the air.

You had to follow the sound of the bros in the distance.

Like, I was just kidding about that, but it's fucking true.

Like, we had a walk through a stream, and I stepped into the stream.

It was a whole thing.

Just stay home.

Yeah, and so we have.

So, obviously, people are going to get hurt, and environmentalists also become increasingly concerned for the well-being of the land.

There's also concern about damaging or disturbing nearby Native American sites.

So it's not cool, guys.

The Utah Department of Heritage and Arts releases a statement saying, quote, while curiosity is understandable, we discourage visiting the monolith.

Along with safety concerns, increased crowds threaten the

archaeological.

Yeah, you nailed it.

Third times a charge.

The drag-alongs are like, what the fuck?

What is this show?

Okay, finally, while the monolith has craftsmanship, better craftsmanship than graffiti, still vandalism, it irreversibly altered the natural environment on public lands.

So they're not stoked on it.

End quote.

Nope, that's, end quote, before I said they're not stoked on it.

That's not them, that's me.

I was bad living.

What geologists said they're not stoked on it?

I didn't tell you I'm a geologist.

That was my quote.

Oh, cool.

So with so much at risk, the San Juan County Sheriff's Department switches gears and teams up with the Bureau of Land Management to try and find out who built this monolith and why, assuming they can find them.

I don't know.

But before their search can yield any useful results, the monolith disappears.

Yes.

Boop.

That's what it said.

I don't know.

Boop, I'm out.

Yeah.

On November 28th, a mere 10 days after it's found, Utah officials report on their social media channels that the monolith has disappeared and that no official agency has taken it down.

Like, they're like, not us.

You know, why are you laughing?

Some drunk high schoolers are like, we're gonna fucking get that monolith and we're gonna put it in the quad.

Senior prank.

Oh, wait, we don't go to school anymore.

I think that's right.

We go to school on Zoom.

Yeah.

The Department of Public Safety writes on their Instagram, quote, it's gone, all caps.

Almost as quickly as it appeared, it has now disappeared.

I can only only speculate that the aliens took it back.

End quote.

That's, I swear, end quote.

The quote ends there.

Yeah.

So little by little, a story begins to trickle out about how the monolith was taken down.

Spoiler, not aliens.

On Friday, November 27th, 2020, one day before the disappearance is reported, a photographer named Ross Bernard ventures out to the site with three friends so they can take artsy, fartsy photos, I'm assuming.

I don't know, I'm not judging.

Obviously, I am.

They bring a light-up drone for added effect.

It takes six hours for them to drive to the spot.

That's like, yeah, San Francisco to LA.

I mean, yikes.

And like no, no lunchables on the way or no anything.

No in and out.

No.

They bring, I already said that.

Six hours.

And then they arrived at the makeshift trailhead.

It's not a sanctioned hiking area about 7 p.m.

that night.

There are tons of cars present, but by the time they hike out to the monolith, they are the last group there, and they have the site to themselves.

And for about an hour and a half, they take all the photos they can.

But then at about 8.40 p.m., another group of four dudes shows up.

Trouble.

Two of them walk up to the monolith and give it a couple of pushes.

Then they look at Ross and his bros and say, you better have gotten your pictures.

And then with that, they give the monolith one more big shove, knocking it down.

Fucking monolith bullies.

Another guy in the group says, This is why you don't leave trash in the desert.

For a second, Ross' photographer is like, I'm gonna take, I have a camera, I'm gonna take photos of them.

But he's a little intimidated, he doesn't want to piss these like bullies, monolith bullies off.

Yeah.

So instead, one of his friends who's with him, Michael James Newlands, snaps some sly photos with his phone.

In just eight minutes, the whole structure is dismantled and removed.

As the four guys cart the wreckage away, they leave Ross and his friends with one last line, leave no trace.

Oh,

defenders of the land.

Yes, it's important.

Like these guys start out bullies.

In an Instagram post recounting the experience that night, Ross says, quote, if you're asking why we didn't stop them,

well, they were right to take it out.

We stayed the night and the next day hiked to a hilltop overlooking the area where we saw at least

70 different cars and a plane in and out.

Cars parking everywhere in the delicate desert landscape.

I mean, they probably drove a car there too, right?

Yeah.

Glass houses.

Yeah.

Nobody followed a path or each other.

We could literally see people trying to approach it from every direction to try and reach it, permanently altering the untouched landscape.

Mother Nature is an artist, best to leave the art in the wild to her.

Oh, he's a poet, too.

Yes, very true.

So it's the Joshua Tree's, I mean, what's called a burning man's fine, though.

Man, if I had gotten that first, so.

Don't worry about the playa.

Yeah, don't worry about the playa.

Go do your drugs there.

Ride your weird steampunk bicycle all over the place.

There you go.

Nerds.

After a few news reports come out about the removal of the monolith, two men come forward claiming to be part of the group that removed them.

Their names are Andy Lewis and Sylvan Christensen.

Andy is a high-altitude, this is her future husband.

Andy is a high-altitude slackline performer from Moab.

Noah.

Who has even done stunts alongside Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl halftime?

Remember when fucking slacklining, everyone was like, what was that, Madonna?

Remember?

This sounds very pink-coated.

This is a, if it's anyone's husband, it's Pink's husband.

She loves a bugging to be up on a high wire.

No one got my reference.

The only reason I remember this is because there was a really funny Saturday Night Live sketch about slack lining that just was

Annie Samberger.

I'm sorry to say I don't know what slack lining is.

Well, you it's like, I'm gonna be wrong.

You have a line and it's kind of slack and you like tie it between two trees.

Hear me out.

And then you like jump on it and do like twirls and whirls.

And

it's like a tightrope, but with slack.

No.

Right?

Thank you.

I'll show you now.

Oh my god, what if I had learned slack lining just before?

The rope drops from the ceiling, the music starts.

I think you'd laugh at it if you saw it.

Okay.

I'm pretty sure.

But, you know.

I'm definitely confused by it right now.

It's a sport.

I don't know.

So Sylvan said they wanted to protect the land from the influx of newcomers coming to see the monolith because, you know, they're from Moab, they're like, This is

bullshit.

Yes, exactly.

He tells the New York Times: This land wasn't physically prepared for the population shift, end quote.

Being nature enthusiasts, both Sylvan and Andy don't like seeing people come into natural spaces with no knowledge of how to respect it, which is fair enough.

That's like me and Sephora.

I swear to God, I'm just like, get your fucking fingers out of that.

Yeah.

Or being

on a subway, like public transportation, you hold the pole and step away you don't put your arm around the pole.

It's not you

I actually the last time we were at

I think it was Denver airport where we had to take like the tram I was standing on one side of that pole and like the pole is pretty close to the wall and so I was kind of holding the pole and near the wall and of course there was the rest of the train car on the other side and this woman fucking slides behind me where I was just like there is no room to like it was one of the wildest things.

I think she just wanted to get off really bad, but it was totally crazy.

There was like maybe that much room to get.

There's a lot of drinking at the airport.

Oh, that's true.

I've heard.

Fucking TGI Fridays, baby.

Up top.

Okay,

I'll do it.

Fine, I'll do it.

So if Andy and Sullivan's claims are true, then we know who took the monolith down, but the question still remains who built it in the first place.

Obviously, the least serious theory is that the monolith was genuinely placed here

by aliens, but the materials, as I said, are unremarkable, and you've got to assume that they've got some, if they're here, they've got better tools and shit.

They were like the shy aliens of the group that are here, where they're like, we want to show them something, but I don't know.

Just like put it over there.

We'll see.

We'll see if four years later somebody stumbles over.

I don't know.

I don't know.

It's kind of plain.

The monolith is also hollow, save for an inner frame made of plywood to help keep its shape.

And then the outside is just made of aluminum sheet metal held together by rivets.

I don't know,

I feel like a bike messenger for some reason would do this.

Yeah.

Is that weird?

Yeah, just kind of a weldie guy.

Yeah, you know?

A weldie handy prankster, a bike messenger.

There's a million of them out there.

That's right.

At the same time, and it was the...

the pandemic, so like they had no

way to express themselves.

At the same time, some people believe that Andy and Sylvan didn't take down the monolith at all.

They believe an artist built it and then took it down themselves, like a Banksy-style artist who wanted to do their art anonymously without getting credit on the internet for it in today's

economy.

Who among us?

You didn't want attention and praise?

What?

Then why would you do it?

We were followers?

This is the reason right this moment.

They want us to ask these questions of ourselves.

Yeah, it's fair.

So this leads to the question of who the artist could be.

An art dealer from New York named David Zwerner thought it might be the work of an artist named John McCracken.

McCracken, don't laugh.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

It's just usually artists have names like David Zwerner and shit like that.

So McCracken comes along.

It's like, what are you all about?

McCracken is known for building polished metal pieces similar to the Utah monolith.

He passed away in 2011, though.

So even though the monolith was placed in the desert in 2016, McCracken could have theoretically made the sculpture before 2011, his death.

No, it's just, that's too hard.

No.

Nobody's doing stuff like that.

And someone else could have placed it in the desert afterwards.

Like after he died, he was just like, I still want to keep fucking rolling.

You know?

No.

You want to get it while you're alive.

Is that your.

I just don't know.

That sounds insane.

Since his passing, Zwerner has managed McCracken's estate, so he knows his work very well.

And after taking a closer look at pictures of the monolith, he actually backtracks and says he is 100% sure who, he isn't 100% sure who made it.

Told you.

Sorry, we're fighting in front of you.

If it wasn't John McCracken, but what I meant to say was, if it was John McCracken, he never said anything about it to his art dealer or to his family.

It reminds me of the Toy and Bee tiles.

Yes.

You guys know what I'm talking about?

Where there's just like random tiles in the middle of the street that say out, like spell out weird stuff, messages all around the world.

The only thing is that John McCracken was a famous known artist.

So it's a little bit like,

what's the, if he, if that was the plan, like, okay, so listen, I'm going to make this monolith.

Yeah.

And I'm just, it'll just be in my, in my studio for, I don't know, five years.

Yeah.

I will pass, as we all must.

And then,

you know, four years later, go stick it in a very remote location.

And the person went through with it, even though, like, McCracken's not going to know if it didn't happen.

Like, that would be me, the assistant being like, I'm not doing that.

I want to tell a story right now so Baba, it's going to take forever.

I'm not going to do it.

No, no, no, it won't be worth it.

It's one of my boring ones.

And TikTok didn't exist yet, so how could have McCracken known how famous he would have gotten?

That sounded like a hurt.

It hurts so bad.

It sounded really famous.

So bad.

He played it off really well.

Oh my God.

Oxygen.

You guys don't have oxygen.

I mean for real.

Okay.

Stop it.

Just focus.

But McCracken's son, Patrick, who is as baffled as everyone else, says something interesting.

He recalls a night when he was with his father in New Mexico and his pops said, quote, we were, no, sorry, and he said, the son said, quote, quote, we were standing outside looking at the stars and he said something to the effect of that he would like to leave his artwork in remote places to be discovered later.

What?

Like, hello, confession.

They were in Moab Desert?

No, they were in New Mexico.

But close, close enough?

We don't know.

Nobody knows.

I just like that that guy's name's Pat McCracken.

Pat McCracken.

Okay, so even though the Utah monolith's creator has yet to be named, the spectacle inspires copycats around the world.

In December of 2020, another metallic prism-shaped monolith appears on a hillside in Romania, three feet taller than the one found in Utah.

Of course.

You guys, challenge, but otherwise it looks exactly the same.

And it's not the only one.

Between December 2020 and February 2021, more monoliths appear all over India, Iran, the Congo, Austria, all your favorite places, Bolivia,

just all over the place.

Bolivia, your favorite.

All European places, Bolivia.

Most people believe it can't just be one person doing all of this, but there are billionaires who are bored.

Yes, that's true.

As we have learned from this podcast.

In some cases, the originators of these copycats are known, but most of the time, each artist who installs their respective monolith tries to stay anonymous to keep the mystery alive, which is cool.

And that is the story of the Utah monolith.

Amazing.

Good one.

Yeah, that's good.

I love that you did that because when that happened, I was like, this is fascinating.

I want to know what this is.

And then, of course, I just kind of never thought about it again.

Right.

But I really did want to know.

That's what this podcast is for.

Hey, hey, what's up?

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Go by

all right,

now I'm gonna go.

This is this is not a monolith story,

but it is monolithic.

What?

That's improv.

Tonight I'm going to tell you the story of one of Utah's most legendary native sons.

To do that, we're going to go back to the late 1800s when the desperados of the Old West made a living robbing trains and banks.

This man was a desperado and a criminal through and through, but unlike the other legendary outlaws of his day, Jesse James or Billy the Kid, this man's remembered a bit differently.

He was called the gentleman bandit because of his reputation for keeping his robberies restrained and avoiding needless bloodshed.

He's been described as witty, polite, and oddly charming.

And now, 100 years later, his legendary status lives on because of the way he lived his life and because of the enduring mystery surrounding his death.

This is the story of Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch.

Yes!

That's your guy?

That's their guy.

Yes.

Oh my God.

So the main sources used in the story today are Charles Learson's 2020 book from the monolith era of Butch Cassidy, the true story of an American outlaw, and a 2014 PBS documentary called American Experience.

One of the great shows.

Fucking amazing.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Okay.

Save PBS, please.

Please.

Won't.

Do this.

Save PBS.

We've got to save our national parks.

Yeah.

All the things.

And we've got to save each other.

That's the most important one.

We got to.

We got to.

But the good news is there's more of us than there are of them, ladies and gentlemen.

Don't forget it.

Don't forget it.

As you doom scroll, don't forget it.

Okay.

Please focus.

I'm sorry,

your piece political.

Like, I'm good, but I'm definitely going to turn this on here.

I'm going to get all that in mind.

Okay.

This begins in April of 1866 when a baby named Robert Leroy Parker is born 200 miles south of here in Beaver, Utah, your favorite city.

I don't know why, but the phrase a baby name, like a baby named This was born.

It's like we knew he was a baby.

Like this guy was born.

Came out with the name akin to his.

It was a grown man.

That's gross, no.

Came out holding a little ID.

It's me, Robert Leroy Parker.

So

it was actually long ago enough that Utah was not yet a state.

So technically, we're in the Utah Territory when this takes place.

Robert's family has lived in the Utah Territory since the 1850s when both sets of his grandparents immigrated from Great Britain after converting to Mormonism.

So he was, Robert was born into a very, yeah, cheer, you can cheer for Mormonism.

Absolutely.

You get to.

Or yeah, express yourself however you want about Mormonism.

Why not have a, let's have a moment of just making noises about Mormonism.

And you know the person sitting next to you believes something completely different than you.

That's important.

That's right.

Now rub elbows with that person.

It'll be fun.

And tell them why they're wrong.

It ends tonight, ladies and gentlemen.

It ends tonight.

Okay.

So

obviously...

Baby Robert is born into a very religious LDS family, and he is the oldest of 13-year-old children.

Sorry, of 13 children.

That's a lot of 13-year-olds.

So irritating when you look up from the page and you're like, I'm really going and telling the story now.

It's like, no, you're not.

You're not.

So around 1880, when Robert's 13 years old, his family moves on to a small homestead in Circleville, Utah.

Right?

So circular.

His dad is away for months at a time looking for you know, good paying work.

So by the time he is in his early teens, Robert is essentially the man of the house.

And like his father, he works incredibly hard to provide for his family, mostly by handling horses and cattle as a ranch hand nearby.

And it all comes very naturally to him.

He's often described as an animal lover, and he's particularly fond of horses.

And when he does that work, he's taken under the wing of a cowboy named Mike Cassidy.

And Cassidy teaches Robert how to handle cattle, ride horses, shoot guns, and skim livestock from big herds without anyone noticing.

That's right.

Yoink.

That's easy.

Yeah,

a little cattle shoplifting.

Just take these three home.

No big deal.

This is called cattle rustling, and it is illegal.

But Robert idolizes Mike, who couldn't be more different than the straight-laced, very religious family that Robert's grown up in.

By the time Robert is 18 years old, his mentor, Mike Cassidy, has skipped town, probably because he's gotten into some kind of trouble with the cows that he keeps stealing.

And it doesn't seem like the two ever cross paths again, but it's clear that Mike Cassidy has made a huge impression on his young protege.

So when he turns 18, which is in the mid-1880s, Robert leaves his family in Utah and he sets his sights.

What?

He sets his sights

on Tell You Ride, Colorado.

They're lukewarm about it.

Yeah, and they don't really care.

They're trying to be supportive.

At the time, it's a booming mining town with tons of money-making opportunities.

And Robert soon gets a job hauling ore down mountainsides.

It is brutal work,

but he's able to find that work-life

balance in Telluride's many saloons, brothels, and

with dancing girls.

You know what I mean?

You work hard all day long, and then you just

get fucked up.

Karamin.

So for a young man raised in a very religious household, living in this town must have been so exciting.

Just like he's hauling a hundred pounds on his back, and he's like, can't wait to get to the brothel tonight.

No one can stop me.

So one thing seems undisputed about Robert.

He is roundly remembered as charming and funny with a warm personality.

The people of Telluride remember him playing the harmonica, horsing around with little kids, and going to the Friday night dances to chat up all the young women who are drawn in by his good looks and his sense of humor.

Oh, can we see that first picture of him?

Oh!

Oh, well, hello.

Uh-huh.

It's a pretty solid kerchief there.

He's going to take care of it.

don't worry about it yeah he's got it he's got it he's got this isn't going anywhere no not on his watch do they have watches not on his timepiece

um author charles leerson reports that robert was quote square jawed and sandy haired good looking yet not so beautiful as to incite ridicule or jealousy

god like we think these standards today are rough

Yep.

You had to be just under beautiful.

Because the other cowboys would be jealous of you.

He always seemed to possess from birth a set of standards below which he believed a gentleman should never sink.

Served a meal of jackrabbit at a backcountry inn one evening, he quietly rose from the table, rode a short way off, and shot a cow so that everyone in the place could have steak.

He's just like, mm-hmm, I'll take care of this.

I got it.

I got it.

And the cook is like, you just brought me an entire cow.

Like, do you fucking understand?

I made you jackrabbit, you son of a bitch.

Okay.

Oh, we're still in the quote.

Generosity was his strong suit, end quote.

All that's to say, Robert is the kind of guy who makes friends very easily.

On a trip to Colorado, he meets two cattle rustlers named Matt Warner and Tom McCarthy.

They all become friends right away, and Robert is still a pretty innocent guy at this point, so it must have been a surprise when his two new besties casually decide that they're going to rob a bank.

Oh.

So it's June of 1889, and 23-year-old Robert walks through the front doors of Telluride's San Miguel Valley Bank with Matt at his side and Tom keeping watch outside.

Matt holds a gun on the teller while Robert collects the loot.

In what will later become a hallmark of his holdups, no one is injured in this event.

Now, Robert is more than okay using guns during these jobs, mostly just to intimidate people into giving him what he wants, but he does not like flashy gunplay or needless bloodshed.

Still, even as he does his best to keep everyone at the bank calm by assuring them that they are not in danger, shotgun, shotgun, shotgun.

Don't, what?

Stop it.

You're fine.

People start screaming and rushing out of the bank.

Yeah, they'll do that, right?

So, local deputies and even a few minors rush to respond.

None of them are trained to handle a fast-moving armed robbery, though.

So, before anyone can stop them, the trio of men make off with about $20,000,

which in today's money, this is 1889.

I hate this.

I'm going to be wrong.

It's going to be disappointing.

Are you ready?

We're just working it out.

It's fine to be wrong.

$22,000.

$20,000 in 1889 in today's money would be

$326,000.

$700,000.

See, like not even close.

I won't stop making her do it.

It's so mean.

So when Robert and Matt rush out of the bank with the loot, they reunite with Tom, they mount their horses, and they ride away as fast as they can out of town into the unforgiving, rugged western landscape.

Robert is emerging as the clear leader of this trio now, with Matt later saying, quote, he had the brains of a man twice his age.

You could get lost in the mountains and he would always know the way or he would always know the way or find a clever way out of a tight spot.

Hot.

Right?

Yeah.

And it also says here, and his kerchief was tied so tight around his neck, just up real high and tight.

One example of the brains at work is Robert's idea that will become one of his signature moves when they do these robberies, Stashing a new team of horses at a designated spot along the getaway trail.

That way, they swap out their original horses who were exhausted in the initial getaway and these fresh horses make it okay, make it Robert and his accomplices able to get away, make finding them nearly impossible.

It's like a relay for horses.

That's right.

Got it.

And also the people, oh, that's right, the rest of the paragraph is down here.

To catch.

Because if any telly ride lawmen are on their tail, their horses would be exhausted at that point, but they don't have any replacements.

That's fucking smart, right?

Yeah.

It is hot.

So Robert, Matt, and Tom fly down the trail toward a rugged, remote valley called Browns Park, and that's at the intersection of Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado.

I knew that.

Right?

You've been to that intersection many a time.

It's a very remote stretch of land that the PBS series describes as, quote, nothing but sagebrush, wild horses, and rattlesnakes.

Cool.

Right?

Yeah.

Your three favorites.

Fortunately, Robert is such a good writer that he's able to easily and confidently lead the others through this treacherous terrain.

And at this point, they've completely evaded the law.

So in Browns Park, they split up and go their separate ways, each with a fat stack of cash in their pockets.

And this ingenious plan becomes the habit for Robert after these holdups, making it even harder for the authorities to track them down.

So they always get to a spot, split the cash, and it's like, by everybody.

So now Robert has one big robbery under his belt, and compared to the backbreaking, low-paying labor that he's been having to do in Telluride, the high-risk, high-reward lifestyle of a bank robber really is appealing to him.

But he isn't totally sold on the outlaw lifestyle.

Maybe it's his ingrained Mormonism, but for the rest of his life, that wasn't sarcastic.

I was trying to...

Like he has, I'm saying he has an ethical structure.

An ethical bank robber?

Yes.

That's why he's so cute.

He's bad and good.

But for the rest of his life, he will bounce back and forth between the criminal world and legitimacy.

So while he is a wanted man in Colorado, he decides to seek out honest work in Wyoming.

I think we, do do we have,

oh, Wyoming's in the house?

Insane.

I thought, I truly thought no one lived there.

For real.

Thank you for coming.

That's nice.

There's nothing else going on, right?

Just like,

let's go over there.

But to do this, honest work in Wyoming.

But to do this, he'll have to assume a a new identity.

And this is when Robert Leroy Parker borrows Cassidy from his old mentor, Mike Cassidy.

And according to the lore, after a short stint working in a Wyoming butcher shop, he picks up the nickname Butch.

Therefore,

Butch Cassidy is born.

Wow.

So, I mean,

did he nickname himself?

He's like, call me Butch.

And everyone else in the butcher shop's like, no, no.

You just started working here.

Okay, so from this point on, Butch is doing what Butch does best, which is working with horses while charming and befriending everyone he meets.

And this includes a 20-year-old ranch hand named LZ Lay.

He's only a few years younger than Butch, and the two will remain close friends.

At this point, Butch is still trying to live this straight and narrow life, but before long, he goes back to stealing livestock.

Once you get a taste of stealing a cow, it is fucking impossible not to do it again.

They're so dumb.

Then, in 1894, when he's in his late 20s, he's caught and handed two years hard labor in a Wyoming prison.

Here's the mugshot.

Oh.

All right.

Let's see.

Just a little couple units on the forehead would raise those brows up a little, you know what I'm saying?

Raise it up.

This is where I'd raise it up.

And then if you put a little in those, you could just soften those, that jawline because it's a serious TMJ issue.

We get a little Botox right there.

A little talks right there, a couple units.

I think he kind of looks like, and this is not supposed to be an insult, a lost Kelsey brother, doesn't he?

A little bit of a bad one?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's the younger one that can't hold a job down ever.

Yeah.

He's the one.

Yeah, he's like not going to be in the wedding.

Yeah.

You know?

He's like, you'll be in the audience, but we're.

You're invited, Rusty.

You're invited.

It's just, we're going to put you at table 38.

Yeah, nobody give him a microphone.

I remember when these two started dating.

No, no, no, no, no.

That'd be a funny podcast of people reenacting the worst speeches they've heard at weddings.

Trademarked, trademarked.

That's our idea.

Coming in, coming.

Don't you dare.

Coming to exactly right.

Poor man's podcast trademark right there.

Okay, so because he is Butch Cassidy, he's paroled six months early for being a model prisoner.

The world loves this man.

And then he heads back to Browns Park.

He reconnects with his old buddy Elzey.

And when he gets there, he sees that this remote area has now become a refuge for drifters, outlaws, and desperados.

And of course, Butch befriends all of them.

Guys like

Ben Tall Texan Kilpatrick, no relation.

George flat-nose Curry.

No.

Harvey Kidd Curry Logan, not to be mistaken for George Flatnose Curry.

And of course, the outlaw sisters Anne and Josie Bassett.

Cool.

Right?

I call those guys for a future story.

Don't you dare.

I won't.

Josie would later describe Butch as, quote, the most dashing and handsome man I have ever seen.

Butch becomes the epicenter of this loose network of a dozen or so thieves who drift in and out of Browns Park and other notorious hideaways like Wyoming's Hole in the Wall.

That's right.

The manager of Hole in the Wall is here tonight.

Thank you so much.

Don't steer.

He called in sick today.

Don't give him away.

Shit.

We'll edit that part out, don't worry.

You got you covered.

Remember the chick who went to the Taylor Swift concert with a blanket over her head because she called in sick to go and they interviewed her and

she didn't want her coworkers and boss finding out.

Remember that couple that was cheating on their husbands and wives at the Pokeplay concert?

They should have put a fucking blanket on their goddamn hood.

They just needed a blanket for their makeout.

So this group of people isn't a formal gang.

There's no rules.

Most of them don't share Butch's code of nonviolence.

In particular, Kid Curry is notoriously brutal.

He is known to go out of his way to shoot people during holdups, particularly lawmen.

So this is a very, what we'll call fluid group.

That was Marin's word.

Very fluid group.

With people constantly coming and going.

But every so often, when they find themselves in Butch's orbit, they team up with him for a job or two.

They see Butch as a smart, fair, and intentional leader who organizes clean jobs.

So Butch and this rotating cast of accomplices soon become known as Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch.

And, oh wait, sorry, it's too early for the picture.

Don't give it away.

I fucking truly do love a Steve Harvey like, and here it is.

I love a throw to let's take a look.

Let's take a look.

Let's see what this feels like.

It's very powerful feeling.

Yeah.

It is.

So the Wild Bunch's first big,

we can't talk now.

I'm trying to tell this fucking story.

It's been out here for two hours.

The Wild Bunch's first big headline-making robbery comes in April of 1897 in Castlegate, Utah,

which is now a ghost town.

Sorry about that.

You're lying, unless you're a ghost.

Yes, we have to have you do a hometown.

So back then, Castlegate was a thriving mining town, or it had a thriving mine, and Butch knows that payroll gets delivered every two weeks by wagon in big bags by deliverymen on set schedules.

And the story goes that Butch and Elze confront the mine's paymaster, it's the guy in charge of paying everyone.

They stick the barrel of a gun into his belly and they make off with the mine's entire payroll in broad daylight.

And historians disagree on how much is taken, but it's reported to be as much as $8,000, which in today's money would be worth more than

$127,000.

$250,000.

We were both wrong.

I heard you.

We were wrong.

This isn't prices right.

No help from the.

It's really, but it's hard not to guess because you're just like, I can do this crazy backwards math.

Yeah, I've been doing it for 10 fucking years and I've gotten it right once.

Yeah.

No.

Okay, so as the duo rushes out with the loot, Elze's getaway horse breaks loose and dashes off into a crowd of miners who have already gathered to collect their pay.

So they've just stolen it.

Now they're trying to get away, and the guys whose money it is are like, hold on a second, what's going on here?

Yeah.

So according to writer Charles Learson, Butch then,

so basically Elze's getaway horse is gone.

So he, so Butch jumps off his own horse so that Elze can get on his horse and he then runs

and basically

Learson says, quote, what happened next resembled an equestrian stunt that you might see in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

Butch, in an all-out sprint, swung deftly abroad the running horse.

Then, as four or five riflemen fired at them from a roof of the mud, from the roof of the mine, the roof of the mine, that's the ground, right?

I'm no expert.

I will not try to contradict Charles Learson, who is literally an expert on this topic.

Still in the quote, the two amigos disappeared into a cloud of dust.

So kind of like what you were just, what was that kind of rope stuff you were talking about earlier?

Slacklining.

I think he slacklined up onto this horse and got away.

Definitely.

Right?

And from then on, it was the truth.

Next,

they swap their horses out for a fresh team that has been placed along the getaway trail.

They take off for their chosen hideaway, which is Robbers Roost.

Which, let's call it something else.

I know.

It's like kind of a giveaway.

We're going to go hide in all the dishonest guys are over here.

Where'd Robert's Roost go?

Because I had that.

Here it is.

Robbers Roost here in Utah.

Sorry, I just wanted to be.

You guys wanted to see a live podcast.

Yeah.

So you're seeing a live podcast.

This is everything that gets edited for the regular show.

Yeah.

Okay.

There it is.

I got it.

When they arrive, they split up, they go their separate ways until the heat from this robbery dies down.

And this is another thing that differentiates Bushkast.

Why?

Bushkens

kid.

My favorite robber.

Number one robber.

Bushkest.

Thank you.

I thank you.

I thank you, and drunk Karen thanks you too.

Wherever she may be.

So Butch doesn't basically, he doesn't pull off robberies very often.

Instead, he puts together a job and

then he'll do it and then go back to like a year of normal work and just living legitimately before getting the gang back together and then doing another robbery.

And his robberies should make him a rich man, especially in the old west, where living is probably relatively cheap.

But again, Charles Learson writes that Butch probably had a pretty bad gambling habit because it's hard to imagine any other way he could lose thousands of dollars over the course of several months.

Shit.

Yeah.

All right.

And he's not very good at card games, too.

He's like, maybe I'll get good this time.

$1,000.

So in 1899, which is two years after the mine heist, Butch's dear friend Elzi is involved involved in a bloody, botched train robbery that ends in his arrest in Folsom, New Mexico.

So with Butch's right hand, really, so

with Butch's right-hand man now in prison, a spot opens up for a new outlaw to take his place, and that's exactly what happens when Butch meets Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, aka the Sundance kid.

He was also nicknamed just Sundance, and it was because he served a prison stint in Sundance, Wyoming.

That's what he's named after.

So how many people are named that then?

Just him?

Just him.

He was the best one there.

He just kicked ass at being in prison in Wyoming.

He was literally the only one there.

So Harry's in his early 30s, about the same age as Butch, and he's known to be calm under pressure, a very patient sharpshooter, and someone whose steady nerves balance out Butch's quick mind.

So with Butch still acting as the ringleader and Sundance now at his side, the Wild Bunch carry out a string of robberies across Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho.

And we have a picture of the Wild Bunch.

So

here they are.

Oh, that's cute.

So left to right, sitting, we've got, that's the Sundance kid on the left with the mustache that looks like Vince Averill.

And then the tall Texan is in the middle, and then that's Butch Cassidy.

Okay.

On the right,

seated, sorry.

And then standing back there, we've got Will Carver and that's the vicious, it's not Harry Shearer from Spinal Tap, that's the vicious kid Curry back there.

What a fine bunch.

Look at them.

They're like, you know what?

Let's stop robbing people and take a gorgeous photo of ourselves.

Let's get chairs from all eras and put them in the photo.

and sit on them.

Do you have anything clawfoot?

No, we have Rattan.

Oh, wait, we do have a clawfoot.

Hold on.

Thank you, the Utah State Historical Society, whose all rights are reserved on this.

Incredible history.

Where am I now?

Okay.

So their most famous robbery comes in June of 1899 when they target a Union Pacific train as it passes through Wilcox, Wyoming, which is not far from their hole-in-the-wall hideout.

Butch carefully plots out this stick-up, studying train schedules and cargo loads to figure out just when the next payroll shipment will be.

He targets the Union Pacific's Overland Flyer, a passenger train also carrying mail and express shipments, including Wells Fargo strong boxes full of cash and valuables.

So in the middle of the night, It's around 2.15 a.m.

on June 2nd, 1899, the Wild Bunch flags down this train by waving a red lantern, which is the sign to an engineer that there's trouble ahead.

When the train grinds to a halt, the train crew are ambushed and ordered off the train at gunpoint, and Butch and his gang climb aboard.

Frightened passengers offer up any

valuables that they have on them, but according to legend, Butch Cassidy refuses to take anything from these people.

He just wants the bank's money.

Sure.

So good.

From here, they detach the express car where the safe is kept and they move it up the tracks away from the passenger car.

Is it the whole train car?

Yep.

They're like, this is where all the money is, but no one can carry this safe, so let's just get it over here.

So basically they do that so that no brave passengers will try to interfere and maybe to keep them safe because then the gang ignites dynamite to blow the safe open.

But the explosion turns out to be so powerful that it not only destroys most of the train car, it blows the safe open and money flies everywhere.

Oh, man.

And we do have a still of the train car.

Oh, shit.

Boom.

Yeah, someone got a little happy with whatever dynamite is made out of.

That's right.

They're like, we just put one.

Yeah, put two in just in case.

Put two in.

But what I love is that was

one of the early versions.

of the money grab machine.

Oh, yeah.

Right?

If you were on that train and you're like, look at all these crazy bills.

Okay, anyway,

the gang gets away with somewhere between, sorry, $30,000 and $50,000, which

is $1.1

to $2 million today is a huge amount of money.

So as you know, we always search the Gmail in case somebody, Marty Reno, has any kind of a connection to a story like this.

Are you here tonight?

Or

that's that mouse that keeps running through this.

Say your name.

Vicki!

Vicki?

Nikki.

Nikki.

Nikki, Vicki, or Mickey?

Great.

You know what?

Vicki, Mickey, Mickey, this one's on me.

I should have never started it.

Here's the email we found.

It says, it's a little long, but it's worth it.

It says, hi, everyone.

I never thought that I would have a good story to share with you.

That was until just recently when my mom decided to spill the tea on some family secrets.

To preface, I was born and raised in Utah as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And then in parentheses, it says the Mormon Church.

Thanks so much.

And my family history is the very stereotypical Utah Mormon saga, where our ancestors, after having left Europe, also had to flee from New York to the West because they were persecuted for their beliefs, and definitely not because they were polygamists who were trying to marry everyone's daughters.

Thank you for clarifying.

Okay.

Anyways, if that wasn't already some crazy family history, that was only true for three quarters of my great-grandparents grandparents because my paternal great-grandfather is half-Native American from the Shoshone tribe.

As it turns out, his father was one of the OG Mormon colonizers who apparently was real tight with Joseph Smith and was also a polygamist.

At some point during the colonization of Utah,

my great-great-grandfather And then it says in quotes, found two Native children, a boy and a girl, abandoned on the side of the road, rescued them, again in quotes, too many quotes, and naturally decided to take the girl as one of his wives.

This was the story I was told.

However, now that I'm older, it seems like there are some parts that were sugarcoated to cover up what really happened between colonizers and Native American tribes.

Anyways, this is when my mom decided to tell me that there's a little more to this story.

Because I guess if you were already living your life on the outside of the law, you might as well go 100% and be a safe house for Butch Cassidy and his gang.

Oh, shit.

That's right.

Apparently, my great-great-grandfather was one of Butch Cassidy's alliances in Utah and would provide him a safe hideaway whenever he was in town.

I mean, if you already know that the law is not on your side from all the polygamy stuff, why not take a hefty payout of stolen gold bars from one of the most notorious bank robbers of the wild, wild west and hide them in your household whenever they decide to rob the next town over?

So this, this her great-great-grandfather stashed the loot for them.

We really don't talk about grandpa's history in our family.

I always thought that it was because a lot of people in Utah would not be receptive to a biracial, illegal marriage, but no, it's because I have a family history that someone could make a movie about.

In fact, they did.

It's called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Stay sexy, and if you ever decide to rob a bank via old-fashioned steam engine, know that the Mormons got your back.

Sincerely, Mikaela.

Wow.

Right?

So good.

So good.

Okay.

So after this train robbery, of course, both Union Pacific and Wells Fargo are irate.

They dispatch countless lawmen and private detectives like the Pinkertons throughout the West to hunt down Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch.

And we've got a wanted poster here.

Okay.

That's Sundance up on top.

Okay.

And it says Camilla Hanks underneath this picture.

Can't be right.

That's Tom Hanks'

aunt, his great aunt, twice removed.

Not an effective wanted poster, I would think.

Nope, too tiny.

The writing's too tiny.

Right up there with your weird little glasses, your old West glasses.

Your monocle.

Just the one for your one eye.

Gang members like the sadistic kid Curry are soon caught, but Butch and Sundance use their charm and manners to evade authorities.

They're clean-shaven, well-dressed, and exceedingly polite, and they wear this like ability as their armor.

Butch and Sundance roll into towns where wanted posters with their faces on them are plastered on walls and windows, yet they are not captured.

Sometimes locals even feed and house the duo or even help them evade the law by misleading officers.

Everyone's in on this with them.

He went that away.

He went that away.

After a while, it's clear that if they stay in the States,

they'll be on the run forever.

So Butch and Sundance decide it's time to head south.

In 1901, when they're both in their mid-30s, they set sail to South America, eventually landing in southern Argentina.

Sundance has a girlfriend named Etta Place who comes with them.

The three of them move onto a ranch under fake names and they raise cattle and horses.

And by all accounts, they live a very quiet life and they're well liked by their neighbors everywhere they go.

They live together for a few years as Butch once again tries to earn his living by honest means.

Then around 1905, it all changes.

We don't know exactly what happens with Etta or where she winds up, but we do know that Butch and Sundance sell the ranch and return once again to their outlaw ways.

One last job.

They rob banks and trains in Argentina and Chile, and when they draw too much heat, they head to Bolivia.

Oh, what?

What?

That's weird.

Ding, ding, ding, ding.

Because there were a bunch of places I didn't name in that list, and I just hit Bolivia just for the hell of it.

That's fucking weird.

Remember Bolivia for later.

We don't know why either.

In November of 1908, Butch and Suntan hold up a courier transporting payroll to a mine in San Vincente, Bolivia.

Sorry.

A few days later, Bolivian soldiers and police surround the two men in a small house, and a gunfight breaks out that lasts for hours.

Then around 2 a.m., witnesses say that the shooting stops and a final burst of gunfire comes as two rogue shots are heard inside the house.

Two men said to be Butch and Sundance are found shot to death inside.

They are both around 40 years old.

The official Bolivian report suggests that Sundance was so badly wounded in this shootout that Butch shot him in a mercy killing and then turned the gun on himself.

But

the thing is, the two men killed in Bolivia that day have never been conclusively identified, not in photos, fingerprints, or by family members identifying them.

And that's kept historians debating for a century whether or not these men truly were Butch and Sundance.

Their bodies are said to be buried together, those bodies are said to be buried together in an unmarked grave.

But

several descendants of Butch Cassidy have claimed that years after this shootout, Butch came back to Utah and or Wyoming and lived discreetly under aliases.

Stories say that Butch even visited relatives in the 1920s and 30s telling tales of South America, never

fully admitting his past crimes.

Some claim that he died in Washington state in the late 30s or early 40s, but none of these rumors also have ever been confirmed.

As for Sundance,

some say he died in South America much later than 1908, but his records are even sketchier.

Some suspect that his girlfriend Edda left for the U.S.

that year and then later reunited with him after his presumed death.

And I swear to God, this is almost done.

In the 1990s, researchers exhumed the graves where the men are buried in San Vicente to try to conclusively link DNA samples with Butch and Sundance's known descendants, but the DNA does not match.

Really?

Yep, leading some historians to believe that the Bolivian authorities misidentified the men shot and killed that day, and that once again, Butch and Sundance escaped and lived out the rest of their lives under new names.

Holy shit.

Right?

Fun, right?

So fun.

To this day, Butch Cassidy's reputation as the gentleman bandit has turned him into an American folk hero, as has the lingering mystery around his and Sundance's death.

And that reputation has only been strengthened by the 1969 film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

You know what's so nice?

It's really nice the idea that Paul Newman and Robert Redford are together again, isn't it?

As sad as it is,

they're so drunk in heaven right now or

wherever their chosen place might be.

I'm Pappy Van Winkle, just fucking

fucking it up.

When

they shot Towering Inferno, I'm talking.

When they shot Towering Inferno in San Francisco, my Uncle Mike, who's a fireman, had to go down to the set.

And he said that Paul Newman was sitting in a director's chair, and he had a case of Budweiser next to him.

And my Uncle Mike was like, he's my favorite actor now.

We're a Budweiser family.

Okay, Butch and Sundance are portrayed in that movie as incredibly handsome and cunning rebels, but while the film has a conclusive ending with Butch and Sundance dying in that shootout in Bolivia, this is one of those stories where the truth is stranger than fiction.

We'll almost certainly never know what really happened to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in real life, which is perfectly fitting for men so steeped in Old West legend and lore.

And that is the story of Utah native Butch Cassidy.

Wow.

Great job.

Thank you.

That was a good one.

Yeah, you nailed that one.

Thank you.

That was fun.

That was fun times.

Yeah.

Do we have time for

hometown?

Yeah.

Okay.

Oh, here's Vince with the microphone.

Look at him.

Hey, husband, Vince, everyone.

Hi, guys.

How we doing?

How are we doing?

Good.

Real good.

Don't forget the hot dog.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I don't know.

I went to that fan convention today.

Oh, how was it?

Real cool, positive vibes over there.

A lot of costumes.

They even had their own little cosplay repair station with some sewing machines and people.

Oh, no.

That's so supportive.

It was a good vibe.

I will be right over there.

Okay, thank you.

On our drive over here, I saw two, if not three, poison ivies walking down the street together.

I've spotted a couple Beetlejuices

this trip.

I saw one person in

a full-body leotard with just a big cardboard TV on their head.

And I was like, yeah,

you've kind of summed it all up right there.

She's like, I'm entertainment, that's me.

That's true.

Um,

tell them what, tell them about what this is.

You guys know the rules, but this is the hometown part where we want somebody to come up and tell us their hometown.

And since we're here in Salt Lake City, it'd be great if it was local somewhere nearby, definitely in the state of Utah.

If you come up here talking about Florida, bad things are gonna happen to you, like they happened to Katie on night one in Denver.

It was very ugly.

The shouting and the screaming were insane.

So just do your best.

If you're going to put your hand up, make sure that's what's happening.

You can't be so drunk that you can't tell your own story.

Please make sure it has a beginning, middle, and end.

You do not have to be funny.

We just want to hear your hometown.

And with that, Georgia is randomly going to pick a person from the audience right now.

Okay, let me see.

Don't point at someone you don't know because I'm going to blame you if the story sucks.

Yeah, yeah, right there.

Stand

with the white.

Yes, yeah, yeah, the two.

yeah.

They're like, I don't have one.

I don't know how to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Her.

Yes.

Come on up.

Look that way.

I'm going to, my spanks are writing, right?

Okay.

Hi.

Were you serious you have one?

Yes.

I'm not going to be weird about it.

She said I'm not going to be weird about it.

What's your name?

What's your name?

My name is Megan.

Megan.

Megan, get your own mic.

Guys, say hi to Megan.

Megan!

Hi.

Hold it, chair.

Huh?

Yeah.

Where are you from?

I don't want to say because you said the Florida thing.

God damn you, Megan.

You damn me.

You can be from anywhere.

Okay, good.

Then I'm from Portland, Oregon.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

And I've lived here in Leighton, Utah for about 14 years.

Oh, great.

So it's hometown.

You're fine.

That's great.

You're fine.

Yes.

Now,

So the hometown.

So the hometown is,

so

I was called on a mission for my church.

And I said.

What church?

You're never going to go.

Yeah.

Nobody knows about it.

It's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Mormon Church.

I love your commercials.

Yeah.

We are family.

So

I served on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.

And I got called when I was in, at the University of Oregon.

Anyway, as a missionary, oh my gosh, my brain is blaming.

That's how it is up here.

It's terrifying.

You're all looking and you can't see it.

I'm feeling it.

You're crazy.

Okay, so.

So.

As a missionary on Temple Square, you teach people about the buildings and the history of Salt Lake and the pioneers.

As such, we meet lots of people and one of the people that I met was a man named Felix and Felix he had some probably mental health issues but he chose favorites of the Temple Square missionaries and then he whittled favorites down and I became a favorite and he would

He found out where we lived and he followed us home one night and waited.

So that's part one.

Part two, I swear this all comes together.

Okay.

This is the middle.

We trust you after the beginning.

I don't trust me, so thank you.

Okay.

So,

in the middle, where were we, Felix?

Yes, in the middle,

there was an actual crime that happened.

A woman named Lori Hacking went missing.

And I think you guys talked about this one time in your podcast.

Thank you.

I listened to you guys going to sleep at night.

I'm not lying.

My husband thinks I'm psycho.

Anyway,

breathe.

Okay, so Lori hacking disappears, and she disappeared from a park.

Well, her husband said that she was running in a park where we used to run every morning.

So

lots of precautions were taken, extra security.

We weren't allowed to run in that park anymore for a while.

So

while

this was all going on and we didn't know what had happened to Lori,

one night we got a knock at the door

and my companion, my missionary companion, was from Finland.

She went to answer the door.

Sorry.

And there was a security guard.

Do you not like Finland?

No, I love it.

I just, it seemed like

it seemed like you're lying for a second.

Sorry.

I wish I was.

I'm not.

So, Sister Mustanen from Finland answered the door at 3 a.m.

And it was a security guard.

And he was letting us know that there was a broken window in our apartment basement and so he needed to come in and check out to make sure everything was fine.

Yes, yes.

My murderino brain was saying don't let him in but I was upstairs and still asleep but she let him in and

she's from Finland.

She didn't know.

There's not crime there, I think.

Anyway, so she let him in and he, spoiler, was not security, but he did have a phone cord, like an old school curly phone cord taped to his ear, and he kept talking to his microphone that was really just a bracelet made out of tinfoil.

Okay.

But he had a trench coat on.

And so

we called security, I mean, the real ones with the sirens.

Oh, yeah, police.

Police ones.

Not the Inspector Gadget ones that people from Finland don't know aren't real.

I really wish wish he would have had the fedora too.

He did not.

Anyway, so they,

Temple Square Security, had actually seen him on cameras before, and they knew him.

There were posters of him all over.

So they were able to come and apprehend him.

But because of this, I was moved to a different apartment pretty quickly.

And as part of this new assignment, I swear this is the end.

It's wrapping together.

As part of this new assignment,

we were invited to sing as a group for for a special memorial service that is held every December 6th in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

There's a,

someone loves that cemetery,

there is

a Christmas box angel statue there.

And people,

oh my gosh, the vigil is for parents who've lost children.

So we sang at that vigil, and at the vigil, the guest speaker that at that time was Lori Hacking's parents, because at that time, they had found her.

We learned what had happened to her,

and it was devastating, but very

they spoke so eloquently about the process of grief, and it was beautiful.

And then, fast forward many, many years later, we now have a Christmas box angel in the same cemetery where my three babies are buried, and it's very special for us.

So, true crime, full circle, the end.

Wow, amazing, amazing.

Megan, everyone.

Megan.

Wait, Megan.

Megan.

Oh, Megan.

You won the stress hot dog.

We should have given it to her beforehand, probably.

We really should have.

Thank you.

Amazing for me.

Thank you.

Oh, my God, that was a perfect hometown.

A perfect hometown.

Yeah.

Well,

Utah.

We've done it.

This is it.

Thank you guys for being so supportive for so long.

We are in awe of the way you guys like us.

I don't know.

It's weird, but we appreciate it.

And we just appreciate you've given us very beautiful lives.

And maybe you don't know that, but it is true.

And we're so eternally grateful for the insanity of this podcast and the specificity of this podcast and the way that you guys have built a community for yourselves.

And we will need that community going forward in these fucked up times.

Please love each other.

Please help each other and stay sexy.

Thank you, Sonic City.

Elvis, do you want a cookie?

This has been an exactly right production.

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Wally Smith.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Liana Scolaci.

Our researchers are Maren McLashen and Allie Elkin.

Email your hometowns to myfavorite murder at gmail.com.

Follow the show on Instagram at myfavorite murder.

Listen to MyFavorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page.

While you're there, please like and subscribe.

Goodbye.

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