Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 328: The Great Santa Robbery of 1927 ft. Santell Claws

Episode Date: December 14, 2025

Santell Claws brings a visit to the boys and hears the most bonkers Santa bank robbery story you'll ever know about. CHILLUMINATI is a weekly comedy podcast hosted by Mike Martin, Jesse Cox and Alex Faciane. Hold on to your tin-foil hats and traverse the realms of the mysterious, supernatural, spooky and sometimes truly horrible - and your third eye will never be the same! Subscribe to our Patreon to support us and for extra content like full video episodes, weekly Minisodes, exclusive art, and more at http://patreon.com/CHILLUMINATIPOD Thank you to our sponsors: 1-800 Contacts Mike Martin - http://www.youtube.com/@themoleculemindset Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - https://www.youtube.com/@StarWarsOldCanonBookClub/ Editor: DeanCutty Producer: Hilde @ https://bsky.app/profile/heksen.bsky.social Show Art: Studio Melectro @ http://www.instagram.com/studio_melectro Logo Design: Shawn JPB @ https://twitter.com/JetpackBraggin

Hello, everybody and welcome back to the Chaluminati podcast, episode 328. As always, I'm one of your host, Mike Martin, joined by three of Santa's little helpers, right out of the North Pole it's Jesse and Alex obviously but welcome back to the show Michael Santel Hi everyone I'm Santa's helper who's been circumcised

Thanks for having me everybody I'll be real I bet all of the Santa's helper sitting right here have been circumcised Because we're it's just the years We were born There's nothing we can do about it Yeah We got all those pesky needed vital vaccines

That they don't give anymore It's good Yeah exactly But apparently If you were born in the Midwest, it is like one hundred, during a period of the 80s and 90s, 100% you were.

Like that's just, it happened. I don't know why it's just 100%. You didn't get a choice. And I'm pretty sure in the 80s and 90s, if you're born, you are born in the Midwest. Like it's automatic. Like, even if you were born here, you're born in the Midwest.

In the States, in 1986. Oh, for sure, not no. No, that's a new thing. Yeah, yeah. Welcome to the show, Santell. It's good to have. have you back. It's always a pleasure to have you back. What was the last time we had you on the show? Was it, we go crazy about aliens without Jesse or was it after that? It was pre-age of

disclosure, which was age of nonsense. Thank you. Thank you. If Intel is saying it, you know that movie is not good. It was like a magic school bus about it and then it lied. Yeah, but I didn't need Louis Alizando of all people to have a chalkboard to be like, and here are the six observables. Right. As he's reading off the teleprompter, like as he's like making sure that he like, gets the government's point across and that we're supposed to give all these guys fucking amnesty, even though they've, like, lied to us and done crimes right to our face. I remember talking about EG and G for sure they're part of the UFO cover up. And then I think Alex had me on to do listener stories.

Yes. He came over and we did listener stories. That's right. That was when I was over in California in L.A. Yeah, that was a Jesseless episode. He was off being an important man somewhere. Usually I tried to avoid Santel, but someone told me. Santel Claus was coming this year

and I wanted my present. He's here. Jesse is avoiding me because every time I see Jesse, the first thing I do is steal stuff from his office. I assess the situation. I said, what don't you need right now, Jesse? As then I just start picking stuff up and walking out the door. I think we all probably have at least one

thing from Jesse's office that was either given or stolen. Like, that's what that dog is like, do you want this? Yeah. I'm like, I'll take that. Can I give this to you? Yeah. I'm like a grandma. I like, please take for me oh yes my my precious my precious jewels yes you need those yes but it's never precious jewels it's like oh here's a basket of like navidia cookies you're like okay oh god uh well

i'm excited to have you back centel uh well today is not all aliens the whole time there's a dash of aliens in there um but if you want a lot of aliens you can pay money at patreon to they should call it a Patreon. Do you know what I mean? Like with a why? You get it? Yeah, there we go. Yeah, Patreon. Because if you pay Tron, then, and by the way, that's a great gift to get people as a year of Patreon because it takes you straight up like you're like sitting here. You've listened to every Chiluminati show that there is available. You want to listen to like a bunch more right now. You're a super fan. You love the show. Boom, Patreon. Boom. A million minisodes. Boom. Rod popcorn. We just talked about age of disclosure. We watched it. Boom on Patreon. Boom. So, what are you doing? Get over there. Watch it. And I swear to God, as soon as I finish editing it, I'm going to upload the live show, too. This would be all kinds of stuff over there at patreon.com. Yeah, all kinds of bony, all kind of bonies.

So many bonies. Chris, me bony. Xmas bonies. Love me bonies. Yeah. You're missing out on all the bonies. And what website is that again, Mathis? On Patreon. Hey, trion.com slash Chulamati pod. What a great website. Oh, man. You get over to also head over to Patreon or rather chluminati pod.fm. If you want to check out all the things we do. And actually, if you have a question about what is where in our show, go to cheluminati pod. FM because goddamn, that thing works. And honestly, there's also like a on the subreddit, if you go there, there's somebody who has like a full transcript search also of Chulminati that's available so there's all kinds of stuff if you want to know what day i said what dumb thing

go find it you can figure that out for uh all our sake all right boys i'm excited my christmas present to you is a few short stories true crime alien related stuff that's all christmas themed and we're going to just jump right in and open up with a really light one you may have even heard of this one uh we're actually not starting on earth itself for this christmas kind of weirdness episode but about 160 miles above it it's eight It's December 16th, 1965. We're looking at the height of the space race. Tension is really high because we're in the middle of the Gemini 6A mission.

Now, the A designation is a reminder that this mission almost actually didn't happen at all. Astronauts Wally Shira and Tom Stafford are currently in orbit at this time, having just completed a successful rendezvous maneuver with Gemini 7. NASA is basically trying to prove that we can at this point dock ships into space so we can eventually go to the moon and do all the other stuff that we want to do. So, you know, back in October, if we roll back two months on October 25th in 1965, Gemini 6 was supposed to launch and dock with an unmanned Eugenia target vehicle. The genie exploded six minutes after launch.

Mission was then scrubbed. NASA scrambled and came up with a plan B. Send up Gemini 7 on a 14-day endurance mission with astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell and then launched Gemini 6 to rendezvous with it. Just in orbit? Yeah, they're trying to like do the docking thing. 14 days in orbit in the 60s is, that's fantastic four. That's what the fantastic four happened.

And this is when, yeah, it's very true. And it would be the first time two crude spacecraft actually met in orbit. This is a maneuver that would require as one report put it, quote, the most exacting pilot and computer control of a space vehicle yet attempted at this time. This is when the most stressful song and international. Stellar starts playing, right? This is when they start doing the back and forth right next to each other. It's not. I wonder whether George Clooney really is real. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Still, piano kicks in. Very dramatic pianos. So on a Gemini 7 launched on

December 4th, 1965, foreman and level began their grueling two-week mission. And then eight days later on December 12th, Shira and Stafford were sitting in Gemini 6A on the launch pad ready for lift off, the engines ignited. This week down to the heat, like that's crazy. I know, yeah. It's like keeping it in theme right in the beginning. Then a second later, they shut down. The spacecraft shuttered on the pad and the protocol said that if the Gemini rocket

shut down after a liftoff had begun, the crew should pull the ejection handles immediately. The spacecraft would be destroyed, but they'd survive that way. The problem was, Shira couldn't tell if they'd actually lifted off or not. If they ejected while still on the pad, the ejection seats would fire them into the launch structure, likely killing them both. Because remember, the thing shuddered, so they have no idea if they've taken off. Shira basically made a split second decision. He decided that they would stay in their seats. They didn't eject.

They just waited. And it turned out, the rocket never left the pad. A dust cover had just fallen off and triggered the shutdown. If Shira had pulled the handle in that moment, they'd both be dead and the spacecraft would have been destroyed. It was, as historians would later note, an act of extraordinary coolness under pressure. Then, three days later, December 15th, they tried again. And this time, to be an astronaut, especially this early in like the lay of like the career of astronauts, you have to have, you have to be like a sociopath.

It takes me like a few seconds to empathize you. Like, fuck it, you'll die. Three days later, you're going again. We're going to strap a bomb to you. And if A happens, you're going to go to space. If B happens, we're going to call your family for you. And if you have any last word, let us know because we'll tell Barb when we're done here. How could you not know?

Like, okay, you're sitting there and you're like, are we in the sky right now? Because it's going, do, dr, d'r, there's like dust and shit falling so they can't see out the window. That's just crazy to me. That's just crazy. Probably was just maybe a minute or so, literally was a split second decision for. her or did we just launch or not or do we pull and it like then it was over in like less than a minute and they realized they hadn't launched but in that 60 seconds she had to make a decision if we had launched or not do i pull this eject because we got the giant red light that said something went wrong that's like that dude in russia who like didn't fire the nukes or whatever like that's just the crazy shit and it's sentile i quite think about it that often even down to our cars everything we do is basically little bombs going bang bang bang bang as we harness and energy to push us forward it's just dangerous Now, just to get the lay of the land, because I'm a little ignorant on this, does everyone believe that NASA went to the moon?

Or is this all just CIA propaganda that they had to, like, tell us these stories to, like, justify this budget? We did the, uh, the Kubrick, uh, theory. We talked about the Kubrick theory. I don't know that I believe it. I would, I would believe that maybe the you didn't get the best footy. You know, maybe, maybe it's 1960, whatever. and whatever the fuck you took up with you to space

didn't come out so good because, you know, we can't tell whether or not we took off on the fucking landing platform. And maybe we faked it to get some good footy to beat the Russians. I could see that. The simplest evidence that tells me that we have been to the moon is that Russia and China have both released pictures of the U.S. landing zone

where the flag is. And if we didn't go there, do you think Russia and China would be like here or no, they actually were there? Fuck no. Unless it's part of a real. where they now know that we haven't been there. And so they're waiting to deploy it. Because it's an alien egg.

And they're all in on it now. And the Trump era was a perfect time. The Trump era is the perfect time to release the fact that we haven't gone if we haven't gone. Like you want to destroy us. Now's the time. I think we absolutely went. But on with what Alex said, why the fuck would we show the world what our actual rocket looks like? Why would we show them?

Oh. Like you see that. Right. Like when Kubrick like back engineered what a B-52 bomber was from like magazines, the government knocked on his door and said, who's stealing government secrets to? And he was like, no, I just figured it out. I'm just cool. Right.

So I'm a little bit of column A, a little column B, but yes, they have independently seen this. They put, I found out they put laser sensors on the moon. We can like shoot lasers at these things that like are astronauts put there. So like, okay. And we also like gave moon rocks to other countries to test as well. So like it would have to be. a quite literal like the world or it's very, very unlikely

that there's a hoax because it benefits no one. That episode where we talked about that Kubrick theory pissed off more people than almost any episode we've ever done since. Yeah, missing 411 and Kubrick. Oh God, the missing 411 made people upset. Thank you so much to 1,800 contacts for sponsoring today's episode.

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All right, so three days later, December 15th, they try again. And on December 16th, they successfully rendezvous with Gemini 7. Shearer maneuvered a spacecraft to within six inches of Borman and Lovels capsule for about five hours. The two spacecraft flew in formation, two, like, just like the image of two tiny metal cans in space that hold four lives just quietly in the silence of space, circling the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour. Holy shit, being an astronaut is scary. The mood at mission control in Houston was said to be focused. tense. These men just pulled off something that has never been done

before. When is it ever like chill, relaxed at mission control? That's an excellent question. I don't know if it's ever chill and relax in NASA. And now just before Shira and Stafford are scheduled to reenter the atmosphere to come home for Christmas, they break radio silence with a report that makes everyone

on the ground freeze. They report a UFO. Now, usually when astronauts report UFOs, the transcripts are kind of debated for a while, whether we have the transcript or not as often up for debate. But this one is actually very specific. They say they claim they are seeing a satellite in polar orbit that should not be there.

No. They describe what seems like a command module with several smaller modules flying in formation. Jesse, I'm going to have you read the quote that they said back that Wally Shira said to mission control. Command module, can you please repeat that one more time? Uh, we have an object looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in a polar orbit. Looks like he might be going to reenter soon. Stand by. You might just let me try to pick that thing, pick up that thing.

I mean, I put like radar when talking about picking it up. So at this point, mission control starts scrambling. An unauthorized satellite in polar orbit for them usually means. Soviet spy something, satellite weapon. And this is December 1965. So this is all very real paranoia. The threat is very much there. But before mission control can ask if the pilot is a Russian cosmonaut or something,

unknown to what we learn is unknown to NASA. Weeks before the launch, Shira, the astronaut, had come up with a plan. He smuggled a tiny, eight-hole, Hochner, little lady harmonica, into a space pocket suit pocket. And Stafford had smuggled a set of small sleigh bells into his pocket. And after the radio silence, they broke it and they reported they immediately practiced the song before they practiced the song two or three times before launch

and attaching dental floss and Velcro to the instrument so they could be hung on the wall of the capsule when not unused. They never told anyone about this. And as Stafford later recalled, he said, we never considered singing since they couldn't carry a tune in a bush, basket, which is why they have instruments of gels in harmonica. Immediately after reporting this UFO, the radio, the radio crackles, but not with like a static, but instead, a rendition of zero gravity jingle bells.

The astronauts aboard Gemini 7 immediately responded, we got them too, followed by chuckling laughter. And what they go on to say is that they see Santa. There was no UFO. They sent mission control into a pure. panic scramble about Soviet Cold War weaponry for a few seconds before they started pretending that the UFO

was Santa Claus going across. Fucking insane. Those guys would be in jail today. Those guys are sociopaths. They were going to put bombs on themselves and instead of like talking to their families, they were like, and to one and the two and like practicing

behind the gym for their big debut in space. To do a bit. Yeah. after they did shea called back uh saying to the capsule saying that was that was a live performance not taped by the way uh and when they everybody finally relaxed all mission control said back to them was you're too much capsule six and like closed out the communication and they meant that yeah they didn't never heard from again the historical importance of this this is arguably i couldn't find anywhere else it's like rumored but i don't it's because i don't think we have any uh transcripts of any others the first song played in space by humans like the first live musical song played in space played in face was jingle bells on this little Christmas prank in 1965. So a little palate, a little taste for your palate for a Christmas fun. That's the only Christmas prank. The next alien story we go to is an actual one.

But we're going to take a shift now into true crime. Where? But Cisco, Texas, of course. We're talking December 23rd, 1927, the dying days of the roaring 20s. Now, this point, prohibition is still the law of the land. And the Great Depression is just, around the corner waiting for everybody and in Texas just so you know at this time bank robbery wasn't just a crime it's basically like a spectator sport in the 1920s in texas in 1927 alone

texas was seeing three to four bank robberies per day yo 1927 that's like in 1927 that's like radios that's like three almost how it is i it's crazy per day not a week, dude, per day. You can, like, be at a place having breakfast with a knife and a fork and having sausage and eggs like you would today and see a bank robbery once a day. You can have sausage and eggs and then take that knife and fork and then go rob a bank. And then if it doesn't work, you can rob three more bakes on the way home. That's how you're paid for the breakfast.

You can wipe your hands as much as you want on shit and you can jizz everywhere. And nobody's going to be able to stop you, baby. It's allowed. Because there's no DNA. Evidence, Jesse. It doesn't matter. Right. It's a man's world.

You can go. I was robbing banks wrong. That's all. Having enough fun robbing them is the problem. I don't know. Basically, the bank robberies got so bad that the Texas Bankers Association came up with a solution that I can only fucking describe as overtly Texan. Surround. They announced right in from the front.

So when they walk into the vault, they just hit it and they fall backwards. What they did is they announced a $5,000 reward, adjusted for inflation. We're talking about $88,000 in around today's, like, value. For anyone who shot a bank robber dead during the crime as it was happening. This is not as insane. Not arresting them. You shoot them dead. Cue the Mandalorian sting.

Like that's what are you like, yeah, we're talking bounty hunters. Jabba the hut says someone's going to get rid of these bounty hunters. My wife's dad is from Kansas. and he was telling this story just the other day that it was pest eradication month at school and they had to bring into the left wing of a sparrow for however many points or like

a squirrel's tail forever many points or whatever because you know they're there like overpopulated it's farms and pests were overrunning the farms and stuff how is that like the same way they decided to deal with bank robbers this is all that area man

it's all that area they called it they actually just straight up called it the dead bank robber reward program And that is the actual name. Why doesn't you need to have like a corporate, like, feel good name like that? Yeah. That's the bankers association, put it together.

So this is where our main character for the story comes in, a man by the name of Marshall Ratliff. Ratliff at this point is a 24-year-old career criminal who just got paroled from prison. A few years earlier, he and his brother Lee had robbed a bank in Valera, Texas. They were caught, convicted, and sentenced to prison. And after serving just one year, Governor Miriam Ma Ferguson, who was legendarily generous with pardons, let them both go. Some folks from Cisco had even written letters asking the governor to give the boys another chance. Now, less than a year after his pardon, Ratliff is broke. It's two days before Christmas, and he needs money.

So he decides the best way to get it is what people do two or three times a day in Texas, rob a bank again. And so he decided he was going to rob the first national bank. of Cisco, Texas. Obviously, there's a problem, though. Cisco is Ratliff's hometown. He knows people there. He walks into the bank, even with a bandana over his face. He'll never be able to show his face in town again.

What would they say? Got that damn right. He's spent time there. It's a life. He needs a disguise that covers his entire self, hides his face, but allows him to walk down Main Street in broad daylight without looking suspicious. So, in December, Marshall decides he's going to rob the bank dressed as what else? Fucking Santa Claus.

Santa Claus. Yeah. So you really are here because you're Santel Claus and this is just a Santa Claus. This is just a Santa Claus based episode. Yeah. Damn right. God damn it. I love that.

I bring joy in gifts and bake robbers wherever I go. It makes sense to me. I love that. Yeah, yeah. That's what I always know. When I'm going to see Santel, I notice just maybe give it five minutes to let the robbers get away first and then we go hang out. I'm like, I just started my sausage and eggs.

First thing I say is I go, hands up, everybody. This is a stick up. Give me your sticks, everybody. That's what you did. And Alex's wedding. You walked in and just whipped out a gun and stuck us all up for some money. And everyone said that Santel. And then we all laughed.

Yeah, exactly. He walked around. He took my mom's watch that I had on. Don't ask why I had my mom's watch on. My favorite watch, Jesse. I have a really important day coming up. And I need to borrow your watch. And then Santel was like, you know, watch.

And I was like, it's my mom's. And he said, Now it's mine. I thought you were going to re-gift it to Kelly or something as a wedding gift. No, he's wears it to this day. No, I love it. It's my favorite watch. I wear it, but not in a place where you can see it, but I am wearing it right now.

That's my mom's, dude. I wear it like a garter belt so I can check the time on my thighs. He's got those string bean legs. This is why. Oh, man. Okay, I got to keep going. The Santa Claus bank robbery is actually one of the more infestineated. crimes out here from the time era, as well as one of the most disastrous crimes in Texas

history, which is why we're going to talk about it today. It kind of, the ineptitude involved feels nonsensical, almost cartoonish as we do this. So Ratliff basically gathers a crew, and the original plan was to do this with his brother Lee, but Lee got arrested again for burglary before the job could happen. So he was out, he couldn't be part of this. I'm going to rob a bank real quick. They'll be like, no, we're supposed to plan how we're going to rob them. bank today, dude, come back.

So, Radliff pulls in two. Hold on. When you talk about how people were robbing a bank, like almost every day, you're seeing some, do you think it was just, you know, when they talk about how America has the most guns per capita, but when they do the research, it's like 20 dudes have way too many guns. Do you think in this case, it was like, you know, some guy was just every day doing it. They're like, it happens all the time. For sure, there is a bank robber who went on a generational run that we do not know his name, but is sung in the hills of Texas to this day for as many bank crimes as he got away with. Absolutely.

So Ratliff decides to pull in two men he knew from prison, actually, two friends from prison. Henry Helms, who's 31 and Robert Hill, who's 21, both obviously ex-cons and both are fine with doing another armed robbery. Fuck it, who gives a shit. What they don't have is a safe cracker. The first guy they recruit actually comes down to be their safe cracker because 1920s comes down with the flu right before the job and can't do it. So on the last minute, he's just like, I'm like sneezing. I don't want to do. I don't want to be all up in the bank.

Dude, 1920s flu is way danger more dangerous. Like, right? When was the flu epidemic? Wasn't it right around that time? In 1980, 1980. The way you said before. Because I remember, that's like in that time, if you didn't, our mask. So he's like, I can't do the highest guys. I got COVID. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can't do a crime.

You've got COVID, dude. If they see him, they're going to arrest. Honor among thieves. Yeah, a time that we still yearn for. Uh, so they pull on a different individual last minute. Louis Davis, a 22 year old relative of Helms. Davis is a family man with no criminal record who's just at this point desperate for money because again, the depression is right around the corner. So he agrees to participate under one condition no guns will be fired he'll do it just i don't want anybody to die so everyone promises him this is going to be a nice clean job no problem no blood no shooting in and out quick as uh quick as i was going to say pie but that makes no sense anyways pie quick as pie yeah makes that a thing davis believes though oh it's a thing if this was davis are davis would he

believe them as well is he a naive boy you think he's naive in some ways but i'll tell you one thing he is the most skeptical man there it's fair enough he'll be like is this possible in reality for a skeptical man he sure says the chaos magic at me a lot yeah well disrespect to be honest yeah no it's definitely

disrespectful yeah he's actively trying to chaos magic you yeah but if it works does that mean he's a practicing he's still doing disrespectfully yeah all right fair enough okay he's doing chaos magic but it's like shadow the hedgehog he's always yelling chaos magic and you're like I know what you're doing

bro, I can see you do it. I'm still good at Destiny, but I don't like the meta. Like, yeah. So when they say clean job, Davis believes them, obviously this would end up being a mistake. The cruel holes up in a boarding house in Wichita Falls run by a woman named Josephine Heron. Ratliff borrows a Santa Claus suit that Heron had sewn for her husband, a cheap red velvet suit with a fake beard and just kind of a floppy mask. And on the morning of December 23rd, they steal a dark blue. Buick in Wichita Falls and drive the 200 miles it would be to Cisco where they were going

to rob the bank. Do you think he got dressed before or after? These guys are a before kind of dresser to me. Like they would go on that long drive in a Buick extremely sussy looking without thinking about changing after they got there. I hope at the time of their lives. Like I feel like it could be fun to be seen as Santa. So far this is a good time.

Everybody robs a bank. Everybody's fucking doing it. I hope they watched that suit because that sounded like that dude's kick. His wife was working on his Santa suit. You know what they were doing. Salt, salt rings Santa. Why is his suit so sweaty all of ladies? Why is he crunching in the elbows?

The plan for this robbery was supposed to be very simple. They drop Ratliff off a few blocks from the bank. He'll walk down the street, dressed as Santa, attracting ideally positive attention. With his arms up like this. Yes, with some swagger and ho-ho-ho in his way there. And then he'd enter the bank first. The other three men will follow behind with pistols and shotguns, secure the lobby, and clear out the teller's drawers. But no guns, no guns, no guns, guys.

No shooting guns, no shooting guns. But just bring to them just in case. Just bring a shotgun and just in case you had to pretend like you're going to shoot someone at close range or you're going to pretend. You got to make them feel like they're going to get shot, you know, if they're going to do it. So they're going to clear out the tellers drawers while Santa fills his sack with the money. They'll exit through a side door into an alley where the Buick is waiting. You think they put on voices? for sure.

Oh, this is a stick-off. Yeah, do you think it was like, come on, my elves? Said I want you to get on the ground for Christmas. Now, all of you better put all this money in these bags. These monies need a new home. I just, I feel like only Sandsa got into character, the other three were not aware that he was going to be in character the whole time.

And he just kept doing it. At 12 p.m., right at, At the lunch rush, they dropped Santa off. This is where the plan first hits a snag. The lunch rush? A man with zero foresight did not anticipate. What? The lunch rush?

Right at the lunch rush 12 p.m. Lunch break for everybody. Oh, okay. You're just like, there's a bit of milling about at lunchtime. Yeah, people are out doing their little errands during like 30 minutes they have. So when you dress, so here's the issue. When you dress the Santa Claus two days before Christmas in a small Texas town, you actually don't blend in.

you actually become an enormous magnet to people who are walking the streets as he's walking down mainstream hold hold now you two hold still let me get my bit's going to take 15 minutes to put this bulb in for this picture of santa claus everyone hold still don't move don't move so as he's walking down main street toward the bank he's just immediately mobbed children scream at santa claus they run out of local shops they grab his red pant legs one little boy tugs on his coat and tells Santa he wants a football for Christmas

like he gets mom this is movie level stupid already so Ratliff just stops like patch the kids on the head promises and promises them whatever it is that I'll get them go away he'll give them that football whatever and

enough so that Ratliff is now walking toward a felony surrounded by a literal parade of children they won't leave alone he's trying to get to the fucking bank he has to he keeps trying to stop and like make them like yes, hello little girl, hello little boy and like trying to make them all, all while

he's concealing a 45 caliber pistol under his coat. I mean, if one of the kids reached up, grabs it, pulls the fucking trigger and just blows his brains off. To be fair, I always assume Santa Claus has a gun on him. I know we like to think that Santa Claus is progressive. We don't know his politics.

He's been here a long time. I think he's got several guns. We don't know what he thinks. What he's capable of. So, particularly a six-year-old Francis Blasengame is on the other side of the street with her mother when she sees Santa and immediately starts tugging on her mother's hand and begging her to let's go talk of Santa, please, mom. So her mother tries to distract her, but Francis is insistent, so they cross the street. And by the time Ratliff reaches the first national bank, he is an entourage of kids. He opens the door and the children follow him inside the bank.

Francis Blasengam drags her mother in for, quote, one last wish for Christmas before Christmas. And they think Santa's there to make a deposit or maybe spread some Christmas cheer, you know, walking in and giving things away. Meanwhile, 12-year-old Laverne Comer and 10-year-old Emma May Robertson walk into the bank as well. Laverne wants to take money out from her account to buy Christmas presents. And the bank lobby now is 16 people in it, including multiple. children. Ratliff walks up to the cashier's window. The teller smiles saying like,

hello, Santa, what can I do for you today? Playing into it because there's kids around him. And Ratliff doesn't answer. He just reaches under the red coat, pulls out a gun and points it at the teller's face and screams, this is a hold up as the kids are mobbing him at this particular point. At the very same moment, Helms Hill and Davis burst through the door, waving shotgun Guns and pistols in the air. Can I be honest with you? Yeah. When I was imagining Santa crimes, right?

I thought that you were going to say like a guy, like a bunch of people dressed up like Santa and got wasted and fell in a hole. No. This is like. You know I'm going to go to the true crime era. We are somewhere so far beyond anything that I ever thought ever happened in reality at this point that it's insane. I'm so happy to hear that.

A Christmas surprise for you. you, Alex. Oh, I love that term, hold up. Whatever's going on in your day, hold up. You got to stop. No one, nothing's happened until my request is going to be met. This is an obstacle. Deal with that shit.

Things get more chaotic, though, because as they break in and start shouting with their pistols and shotguns, the lobby immediately erupts. People scream. The children start crying. And Francis bursts into tears wailing loudly. They're going to. shoot Santa Claus. They're going to shoot Santa.

He must have a reason. He must have a reason why he's been driven this far. Shoot him. All of those kids are crying. One of those little boys was like, I want that gun for Christmas. That one right there. Yeah, no, they think that the other three people bursting in robbing with him are there to shoot Santa Claus, not that Santa.

Oh. They think his accomplices busted in and the kids think they're there to shoot Santa. Oh, so Santa has no weapons. He's just the. front man. No, he pulled out a gun and it's holding up the teller. The kids just don't see that. Because as soon as he pulled on the gun, the other three burst through the front door, kids

start crying and think they're going to shoot Santa. Santa's yelling, it's a holdup. I don't know if they know what that means. And the lobby is erupting into fucking chaos. Do you think Santa was like, don't worry, kids, Santa has a piece. Yeah. Oh, shit, it's a holdup. Watch out how kids get behind Santa.

Four white doves fly behind Santa for some reason. Santa has like a fucking long cigario that he throws to the side and it like goes to motion. He turns around from fucking piece in the teller and he didn't have one in the moment ago, but he's got one in his mouth. So as the rob, so as chaos is erupting,

the robbers start trying to herd everyone toward the back of the bank. Ratliff starts shoving money into the Kloss Santa sack. He grabs about $12,400 in cash, which included bags of silver coins because it's 1927 and Those are very, very common. Bags of silver coins and around $150,000 in non-negotiable bonds and securities. This is what they fucking grab. I love that 1927 money is just ducktails, like Scrooge McDuck, like level of money in bearerbonds and big coins with like a George Washington duck on. Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, 27's got to be so, like, that era is so weird because it's like the remnants of the Wild West that's mingling with like the booming industrial complex that's happening.

all around the country. It's such a mash of two separate worlds. But while Santa's robbing the till at that point, the mom of Francis Mrs. Blasengen game realizes that Santa is distracted. So she grabs six-year-old Francis and bolts out the side door. One of the bandits yells,

come back here, lady, but she doesn't stop. She sprints across to a vacant lot to fucking city hall. Right there, right across the lot from the bank. She runs straight to the police station, but she also does something very Texan. She starts screaming, the bank is being robbed first national

as she passes everyone on the street because let's say the citizens have become proactive. There's a $5,000 bounty on a dead bank robber happening as a reminder at this time. She didn't have a gun, but she knows other Texans do. This is about to become smoking aces right now.

So when the call went out that the bank was being robbed, the local police chief, police chief, G.E. Bit Bedford grabbed his gun. Yep, yep. G.E. Bit Bedford. All the names. Yeah, yeah. Grabbed his gun and ran to the bank along with officers George Carmichael and RT Reddy's. They, but they weren't alone. So obviously as G.E. Bit Bedford car, George Carmichael and R.T. Reddies is going to be alone because the call just went out. from the woman. So shopkeepers grabbed rifles from behind their counters. Customers in the hardware

store were literally pulling guns off of the racks and out of display cases. And farmers grabbed their fucking shotguns out of their trucks. One witness later recalled that people were still grabbing weapons and piling into cars forming impromptu possees, even as the first shots had already been fired. That's how like, do you, you better tell me that bank robberies ended today this is how the people of Texas still think like think this is going to happen today. Every time

that I've heard anyone defend their gun, which is fine, have your gun. I don't give a shit, have your gun. But they always think like at any moment, at any point, they are about to be grabbed at knife point and pulled into a corner and murdered. Someone's going to kick their door down and take everything to love and shoot their cat in the head for no reason. Like that is

the world they live in out here. And now you know, I see why. It's just this mindset hasn't really gone away. fully yet. Within roughly three miles of the first National Bank of Cisco, a town of about 7,000 to 8,000 people, it was surrounded by, it wasn't just police, by the way, it was also surrounded by an armed militia of up to 100 angry, heavily armed citizens, all of whom are acutely aware of that $5,000 dead bank robber bounty. Now, back inside the bank, Ratliff and his crew are finishing up. They think they've gotten away with it. They heard the remaining hostages

toward the back exit, planning to walk out to their Buick and drive away. But instead, Chief Bedford and officers kick open the door and just immediately open fire. No, no bargaining back and forth. Are the kids like there? Like, in Rousandos are in the back? Yes, they're awful. The hostages are in the back. Jesse, that would have been nice for them to say that.

No, bullets just started going past their tears into the walls. They burst down the door and they went, take a look at this, kid. the robbers immediately return fire it becomes absolute mayhem and bullets shatter teller windows ripping through wooden counters and blowing out the glass of the front doors like it is a cartoonish level of like we're fucking killing them by the time it's all over there will be over 200 bullet holes in the building Jesus fucking Christ

Right? There's like two bullets of a shotgun six bullets in the other one This is this is This is

This is It's got to be like 50 people Right Yeah Everyone just opened fire Chief Bedford Is hit in the chest

And goes down He will die from his wounds Several hours later Oh my God Carmichael is also hit and critically wounded

He'll hang on Until about January 7th 1928 before succumbing to his injuries Inside the bank the safe cracker who has no criminal pass, Louis Davis, the family man who was promised

there would be no shooting is hit by a shotgun blast and collapses bleeding heavily. Ratliff realizes their pin down. There are literally dozens of people outside shooting at the bank from fucking every angle. The getaway car is parked in the alley

but they can't get to without being turned into fucking Swiss cheese. So Evil Santa makes a decision. He grabs two hostages. is to use his human shields. And he doesn't grab the bank manager or like adult customers. What he does is he grabs two little girls, 12-year-old Laverne Comer and 10-year-old M.A. Robertson.

Oh, no. The robbers force the girls in front of them and march out the door into the alley. The shooting stops instantly. The crowd sees Santa holding a gun to two children. And Ratliff, Helms, and Hill drag the bleeding, barely conscious Louis Davis and shove him into the back of the seat of the Blue Buick.

They forced Leverin to the first. front seat and MMA into the back with Davis. They throw the money bags with heavy silver coins into the car, and they pile in. As they start to pull away, the postmaster fires one last shot that blows out a rear tire. The car screeches away from the bank on three good tires, while one is flat with trailing sparks, and the citizens of Cisco aren't letting them go. As a Buick pulls away, the shooting just resumes. the car is getting peppered with buckshot what about the girls bro the mob mentality is just dominating

here exactly why there shouldn't be like the ability to just have guns everywhere it's like immediately that stopped and like look we can be responsible and then the car is getting away they're like shoot it like if the money is not as important as the two children in the fucking car but whatever taking the guns to the town square is like the craziest thing that I've ever. It's nuts. I realized that it was the 20s, which is like steps closer to the old west, but that's just insane to me.

So as the car is getting peppered with Bucshod and rifle fire, the flat tire is causing the Buick now to heavily yaw, and it keeps, but it keeps moving. In a desperate attempt to slow down the pursuit, the robbers start throwing roofing nails out of the window, trying to puncture the posse's tires that had gotten their cars to chase them. And it does actually briefly work. A few chase vehicles pull over with flats because they ran over the nails. But there are way too many people chasing them. Mario card.

That it basically barely matters. Again, cartoon. Like Acme style. Everything kind of sucks because it's like a long time ago. So like even though it's a car, like it's not as like, it's not like a Honda Civic would just like drive over these nails. But this fucking shit is like fucking them up. Like, I don't know. This is insane.

They managed to break. through the perimeter and speed out of town. You know what is realized? Hold on. Time period wise. As this chase is happening, when we're talking cars, we're talking like, Oruca.

Yeah. Wood wheels and shit. This is goofy as hell. It's ridiculous. Because at this time, my great grandmother, who passed last year at 100 years old, was at the time of this crime,

15 it's fucking it's so weird to wrap your head around she was one of those little girls these these cars look like mad max vehicles and i guarantee you people are like like drop like blowing gas lane into the engine to go a little bit faster like in the country in texas you're not rolling with the newest automobile off the lot you are you got you have 10 20 year old like vehicles that are barely vehicles like we put an engine on this wagon crank it yeah culture is also similar enough to today though that you can just like walk up to santa on the street with your kid and santa's ready to talk to your kid like it's just it's just crazy it's crazy stuff it's that it's that it's that like transformation period into what we now know is the modern day is it warhammer was and 50s where

the goblins like just have to believe yes yeah yeah we're going from like old time you Western problems to the problems of not knowing how to keep factory sanitary and people living really close together. The jungle hasn't here yet. Yeah, exactly. So they managed to break through the perimeter, speed out of town under the dirt roads, heading south on Avenue D

towards the countryside. The police and the angry mob, dozens of armed men and cars, some estimates put it up at 100 people are jumping into their own vehicles and giving chase. Like a literal village of people is chasing them. It's a high speed in that time. How much information?

could they possibly have as a group at this point of none yeah none there's five thousand dollars all we got to do is kill those guys and it's a santa in a blue buick on avenue d going to the countryside that's all they have and i imagine none of them even look for the santa they just found a blue buick and started shooting the last 25% of the people are like i don't know what's going on but i want to beat a car chase let's go like you know they don't know anything it's going on thousand dollars for killing a man i'm gonna go get me with my shotgun jimmy yeah like that is the mentality for those like glass 25 percent you're absolutely correct just like total chaos like when somebody tweets that there's somewhere and like a thousand people show up yeah yeah yep uh this this like this high speed pursuit is a evil santa two terrified girls a dying man bags of money are militia and this is where i would say the incompetence kind of reaches the head uh as they're speeding down the road with sirens and engines closing in behind them. Because remember, they still have

a flat tire this whole fucking time. They're not able to go as quickly as they'd like. Henry Helms looks at the dashboard of the stolen Buick. He realizes something even more scary. They didn't fill the gas tank before they left. Come on, bro. Oh, my God, dude. They're almost out of gas. Ratliff immediately freaks out and starts screaming at them. They had stolen the car earlier that morning in Wichita Falls and driven it 200 miles to Cisco, but with their nervousness, nobody thought or forgot or remember to actually fill it after they got to Cisco. They just drove 200 miles and then forgot. And also, there's no telling if the gas tank might have actually been punctured by bullets during the shootout as well. Nobody can be sure. Either way, car is running on fumes. The engine begins

to sputter and die just a few miles outside of town. They can literally hear the sirens. They can see like comedically i imagine like the dust clouds of the posse closing it as a like the dust cloud is coming in on them so they start to panic they know they need a new car immediately and miraculously they see a brand new oldsmobile driving toward them on the road it's being driven by a 14 year old old woodrow wilson harris who's behind the wheel with his father in the passenger seat and his mother and grandmother in the back. The family has been in town doing some last minute Christmas shopping. A brand new car driven by a 14 year old boy, it rolls directly into their path.

Yep. A couple too many highballs while shopping. You take the wheel 14 year old boy. Yeah. I looked up at 20s era Oldsmobile. Yeah. And they are exactly what you're thinking. Absolutely.

They have that like the exact look of like they definitely have the putter and the like Arruga horn. And yeah, the wheels are like glibly. glorified bike wheels everything about it is exactly what you're thinking and if you're worried about this 14 year old child driving they're going like 15 miles an hour yeah different world uh so yeah imagine being this kid driving you're 14 you're with your whole your family in the fucking car and suddenly a santa claus covered in blood and dirt is standing in the middle of the road pointing a gun just at you so let us

So Radliff is just screaming, get out, get out of the car. Make it darn quick. Mr. and Mrs. Harris and the grandmother. It's a 1920s change. Make it darn quick. The camera zooms in that 14 year old's face like when E.T. saw the guns. Like, what is going on? You see that thing where it like moves while it's focusing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, the grandmother immediately jump out and run toward a nearby house. But the 14 year old doesn't get out immediately. He stays in the driver's seat for just. a moment, which is long enough to turn off the ignition and slip the keys into his pocket, he jumps out and run. And the robbers didn't fucking notice. They're way too panicked, too focused on like trying to get the hell out of there.

So they drag the dying Louis, Lewis Davis from one car, shove him into the Oldsmobile. They drag Laverne and MMA into the new car. They throw the bags of money, uh, he sets of coin into it. Those guys. That kid just. And they jump into the front seat of the new Oldsmobile. obviously this all takes time and the posse is getting closer as they're doing this and they can see the vehicles in the distance at this point you know maybe a couple blocks

out men have are close enough where they have begun firing at them again so bullets are just hitting the dirt around them they're just hearing like the as the dirt is kicking up insane so ratlift jumps into the driver's seat of the oldsmobile hill and helms pile in and ratlift jams his foot on the starter nothing happens he tries again the engine doesn't turn over and Ratliff looks around to the steering column only to notice that as he checked the ignition, the young boy, it was smarter than the entire fucking gang combined because there's no key in the ignition. The car is off and he slipped it into his fucking pocket and left.

So the car, they just moved everything into the Oldsmobile and the Oldsmobile could not move whatsoever. Woodrow Wilson Harris is a hero. He saved the day. He ran away. This is a drunk. This has to be a drunk history. The robbers are now standing on.

on the side of the road with a dying Buick that's out of gas, a brand new Oldsmobile that won't start, a dying accomplice who's been shot in the stomach, two child hostages, sacks of money and bonds and a posse of around 100 armed angry men, and about 60 seconds away from basically

killing them all. So they have to make a fucking choice. They realize they can't carry the money and the wounded man and the hostages and still run and live through this. So in a move of utter desperation, Ratliff makes another call. They're going to leave the money, all of it. They leave the 12,400 in cash. They leave the 150,000 in non-negotiable

securities. They leave the dying Louis Davis in the backseat of the Oldsmobile where he will be discovered by the posse and hopefully driven to a hospital by one of them. Ratliff Helms in Hill grab Laverne and MMA and start running to the woods, keeping the kids as a security just in case. Santa Claus now sprinting through the briar patches and scrublins of West Texas while dragging all that along with him starts running for his life and the manhunt lasts for days and the level of incompetence somehow remains consistent

even as the situation gets worse. Time out really quickly. I can understand the level of incompetence only because it is a man in a big red outfit running through the woods. How do you miss that? But it's for days. It's for days.

Look, I understand. I'm just saying he's big and red and he's going to shed there's going to be clues there is incompetence 100% at play yeah absolutely so as they're in there in the woods wounded bleeding exhausted and that's when something unfortunate for a texan hits a blue norther which is a sudden cold front that texans are know pretty well i've been hit by a couple of those now in here it just brings a blue norther is it because it comes from the north and it's blue yeah exactly uh brings and icy winds and sleet, the temperature drops dramatically, and obviously, because they didn't

plan on living in the woods, they have no food. They have nothing. They're wearing clothes that are now torn and blood soaked, and they're just being hunted by dozens, possibly still hundreds of armed men, along now with the Texas Rangers, bloodhounds, and at least one airplane flying search patterns overhead. We're in that era of like little like planes can still do that. The trio eventually realized that dragging two young girls through the wilderness while being hunted by an armed posse is kind of a tactical liability. So they're going to eat the little, they're going to eat the little girls. Yeah, they shoot the girls and deserve their parts. Uh, no, this is, they release them both unharmed. And the girls are free to walk out of the woods and are eventually found and

picked up by search parties who are looking for them in the first place. What a wild run. Arguably, they were not, they were harmed. Unharmed. What do you mean? They just went through the worst day of their lives. They're never going to see Santa Claus again without being triggered. It's the worst day of their lives. This day they learned Santa's not real, unfortunately. Yeah. I disagree. Santa very real. He was realer than anybody even knew. Physically, though, remarkably, like with a shootout, car chase, human shields, all that shit, they were actually physically okay. Uh, and they were picked up by search parties. And now the criminals who were unburdened by having two kids with them, which I imagine is annoying to try and drag through the woods for multiple days.

They finally managed to steal yet another car, this time of Ford, the next morning. But because the entire state of Texas is fucking looking for them, they cannot use any roads. They try to drive the Ford across rough terrain and through a riverbed, again in 1920s car. The Ford gets stuck in the mud, and they have to abandon that car too. They then carjack a Dodge, taking the driver, 22-year-old Carl Wiley hostage. They force Wiley to drive them around for 24 hours. And at one point, Wiley's father, seeing the car and trying to shoot the fleeing bandits on his own from the side of the road, accidentally shoots his own son in the arm.

Stop. Dude. I'm sorry. It kills me every time I read that. How does it drop us into act three of like us? Like driving me like help, like mouthing help. Like help me. Help me.

He's like pulled out of pistols like, blam, blam. just shoots him right in the arm. I love you, boy. Bamb, which is for you. It's so fucking good. So he shoots some in the arm. Eventually, the robbers let Wiley go

and then steal yet another vehicle. They're cold now, wet, starving. Some of them are still bleeding. Ratliff is still wearing pieces of a Santa suit. It's one of the largest manhunts in Texas history. The story makes national headlines. Everyone in the state now knows their face. There's nowhere for.

them to go. On December 27th, 1927, four days after the robbery, Texas Rangers Cy Bradford and Sheriff W.J. Foster of Young County corner them near the Brazos River at South Bend. Bradford is exactly the kind of lawman like you would imagine you don't want tracking you. This dude was a legendary shot with a reputation for bringing in his man. Like he, if he was going to get you, this dude was, there was almost no chance he wasn't going to find you. A shootout erupts in an open Field. Ratliff has hit multiple times, wounded badly enough that he finally fucking surrenders. Helms and Hill, however, managed to escape into the brush, but they're in terrible shape. They're wounded and delirious now from blood loss and exposure and begin to wander the woods

aimlessly. Then on December 30th, 1927, a full week after the robbery, Helms and Hill stagger into the town of Graham, Texas, and just surrender. Because they can't live in the woods anymore. They're tired of this. Yeah. They can't do it. So, this is usually where the story ends. Bad guys are caught, you know, jail, justice, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But this is still, this is the infamous robbery for a fucking reason and nothing about it is normal. Even the aftermath is just as bizarre and maybe even more violent than the heist itself. They didn't, they didn't just kill that dude in the car, right?

No, no, no, no. All three men are brought back to stand trial. The town of Cisco in the entire region is out for blood. Police chief GE Bit Bedford died from his wounds on cruise. Christmas Day, 1927. He bit the dust. That's not good. Officer George Carmichael hung on for two more weeks before he died, like I said earlier, January 7th.

The townspeople blamed Santa Claus and his accomplices for ruining Christmas and killing their lawmen. Robert Hill has tried first. The 21-year-old pleads guilty to armed robbery. His lawyer paints him as, quote, the boy who never stood a chance. He'd been orphaned at age eight, raised in the Gatesville State School for boys, and had essentially aged out of the foster system as a teenager before getting arrested for petty theft and ending up in Huntsville prison.

Yeah. Where he met Ratliff and that's how it all. Yeah, exactly. An Associated Press reporter covering the trial calls him, quote, the Jean Valjean of the Santa Claus robbery. Yeah. Yep. Look down. Look down. Sutter Claus.

Luckily, the jury doesn't believe any of it and gives him 99 years in prison. Hill promises the judge and jury that he will make a good prisoner. He doesn't keep that promise immediately, though. He escapes from prison at least twice. But eventually, something changes. He reforms.

And years later, possibly due to the need for laborers during World War II and possibly due to genuine rehabilitation, Hill is paroled in the mid-1940s after serving about 15 years of his sentence. He gets a job, seems to become a model citizen, gets married, and lives a very quiet life. Governor John Connolly eventually grants him a full part in 1964. And by the time he'll dies in 1996, he has been a productive member of society for 50 years. He is the only member of the gang who gets a second chance and actually is able to live a life. Do you think he ever dressed as Santa again? That's not Ratliff.

That's Ratliff, not this guy. Ratliff is different. Henry Helms is not so lucky. Helms is identified as the shooter who killed both Chief Bedford and Officer Carmichael. he's convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Like many condemned men before him, Helms tries to fake insanity to avoid the electric chair. It doesn't work. His act was not convincing enough.

And on September 6th, 1929, Henry Helms, age 32, is executed in the electric chair, Huntsville. His family doesn't claim his body. And the state buries him in the prison cemetery that convicts derisively called Peckerwood Hill. That's where they bury the criminals. which leaves the Santa Claus man himself, Marshal Ratliff. Ratliff is first convicted of armed robbery on January 27th, 1928, and sentenced to 99 years. Then, on March 30th, 1928,

he's tried for the murders of Bedford and Carmichael in two separate trials. Despite the fact that no one can definitively testify that they saw Ratliff fire a gun during the robbery. Remember, multiple people were shooting. It was fucking chaos. The jury still finds him guilty. The Abilene jury gives him the death sentence. The Anson jury gives him a second life sentence for good measure. Ratliff is sent to death row in Hudsville to await his execution.

His lawyer then files for appeal. And while he sits in his cell waiting for appeals to process the grind to grind forward, other prisoners start telling him about a loophole. If he acts insane, they say they can't execute him. They have to evaluate his sanity first and that takes time. Maybe he can delay the execution. Maybe he can even avoid it entirely. Ratliff, ever the performer, decided his best to play.

But Ratliff doesn't just act a little strange. Like Helms seemingly did. This man commits to the bit. He goes method actor. He starts acting crazy. He stops talking coherently. He stares at walls. For hours, he refuses to eat.

His mother, Rilla Carter, comes to visit him in prison, and he pretends not to know who she is. He feigns paralysis, claiming his legs don't work. So the jailers have to carry him around in a stretcher. He drools. He makes nonsensical noises. He plays the role. of the invalid lunatic as perfectly as he deems it is supposed to be. While Ratliff is on death row, his mother gives him a wind-up phonograph and a stack

of gospel records. As other condemned men pass a cell on their way to the electric chair, Ratliff plays when the role is called up yonder, when the role is called up yonder, which is a funeral him for them. Anytime somebody was going to be killed, he fucking played that on the phonograph like an asshole. But a dick, man. Right.

Seven men would hear that song as they walk to their deaths. But on September 6th, 1929, when Henry Helms walks past his cell toward the electric chair, Ratliff doesn't play it out of respect to his cohort. His homie? Yeah, his homie. The day Helms is executed, Ratliff begins, is when he begins acting in his insane insanity in earnest and his mother files for a lunacy hearing in Huntsville. And it works.

The execution is stayed while psychiatrists evaluate. way to sanity. The people of Eastland County are fucking furious. They feel like the man who ruined Christmas killed their police chief and terrorized their town and is gaming the system. The county is already angry that Ratliff's execution has been delayed for so long and now they're watching him put on a performance to avoid justice. A judge in Eastland County tired of waiting for the appeals process and the sanity hearings writes a bench warrant for armed robbery specifically for stealing Harris family's Oldsmobile during the escape. It's a technicality. but it works. Ratliff is extradited to Huntsville back to the Eastland County Jail on October 24th,

1929. His pro, his insanity ploy is more convincing than the attempts made by Helms and others. The jailers, Tom Jones and Pack Kilbourne, actually believe that Ratliff is really is insane and has become a harmless invalid. They feed him, they bathe him, they tend to him like nurses are tending for a sick patient and he just keeps rolling with it. They leave his sin. This is how comfortable they get. They leave his cell door unlocked because they don't think he's dangerous anymore. And on the night of November 18th, 1929, the two jailers enter Ratliff's cell to feed him and tend to him.

Ratliff, who has been pretending to be paralyzed for weeks, suddenly leaps off off of his cot with the agility of what they claim of an athlete, he rushes out the open cell and runs down the stairs to the sheriff's office. He grabs a loaded 38 revolver from the desk drawer. jailer Jones, jailer Tom Jones rushes him trying to stop him. Stop him. But Ratliff shoots Jones three times at point blank range. Dude.

Pat Kilbourne, the other jailer jumps on Ratliff. A brutal fight begins. Both men are battered and bloodied and Ratliff is trying to get to the outer doors of the jail, but they're locked. Kilbourne fights like a madman, knowing that if Ratlis escapes, he'll be blamed. So eventually Kilbourne manages to wrestle. the gun away from Ratliff and beat him into unconsciousness with

the hilt of the gun. Ratliff is dragged back to his cell. Tom Jones is dying and the wounds are fatal. But the town has had enough. Word spreads through Eastland overnight. And by the morning of November 19th, 1929, a crowd begins

to gather outside the jail. All day, the crowd grows. Hard-eyed, like oil field workers show up, ranch hands, families. And by nightfall, the crowd has swelled to an estimate one to 2,000 people filling the streets around the jail. Dahoo, Dori, Dahoo, do they're trying to make his heartgrown three sizes, dude. I think he's going to work. I don't think so either.

The county sheriff is out of town delivering a prisoner to Huntsville. Pat Kilbourne, still battered from the fight, knows he's on his own. And as darkness falls, the mood of the mob grows ugly. Tom Jones is not going to survive much longer, and everyone in that crowd knows it. At around 9 p.m., about 15 to 20 men break away from the crowd. They storm the jail. Pat Kilbourne tries to stop them, but he's swept aside. He's too hurt, too exhausted from biting the guy.

And the men take his keys, run up the stairs to the second floor, and grab Ratliff to drag him from his cell. He is stripped naked, a grim call back to the Santa suit. He kind of wore until he was naked back in the woods. And they drag him a block away to a vacant lot behind the Majestic Theater to the corner of mulberry and white streets, where a rope has been thrown over a guy wire between two utility poles. They place the noose around his neck and slowly drag him off of his feet. The first rope breaks. Ratliff crashes to the ground. alive. There's a moment of chaos. Someone runs to get a stronger rope and the mob waits.

Ratliff naked and barely conscious is still lying on the ground. The second rope eventually arrives and they string him up again. The second rope holds. Marshall Ratliff, the man who robbed a bank dressed as Santa Claus, hangs from the utility pole for about 30 minutes until the justice of the peace arrives and declares him dead. It is estimated that about 1,500 people watch. Watch the lynching. Word of ratless death is promptly sent to the hospital where Tom Jones, one thousand five hundred people. That's so many.

Again, true crime has always been wildly popular. We just haven't had TikTok and computers and people had nothing to do. He said to run up and down the street. This is what, like, this is what people and this is what entertained people back then. Are you not so detained, he says. Yeah. Obviously, the word of his death promptly sent, were sent to the hospital. where Tom Jones is dying, Jones receives the news and dies within hours of receiving the

news, outliving the man who would be his death. Marshall Ratless body is displayed the next day in a furniture store in Eastland. Thousands of people file past to get a look at the window. Literally, I'm funny. Merry Christmas everywhere. And to say that I saw it on Marbury Street. Good for business, dude. Good for business.

A lot of people probably came to that furniture store that day. You know what I want to do now? I want to buy a chair. Right. Yeah. This dead body reminds me, we need an Ottoman. Let's go look at the back. Yeah, he was displayed in the furniture store in Eastland.

Thousands of people would file past that day to look at him. And a judge eventually orders the corpse to be hidden from view. A grand jury is formed to investigate the illegal lynching. No one is ever indicted. No one has ever tried. And no one is ever punished. Ratliff's lynching is considered the last mob lynching. in Texas history.

Today, a granite marker stands at the corner of Mulberry and White Streets in Eastland marking the spot where Marshall Ratliff was hanged. In the Eastland County Law Enforcement Museum, how is in the old jail where Ratliff was held. The actual rope used to lynch him is displayed in a glass case. The entire saga from the happy children greeting him on Main Street to his body hanging from a pole in a vacant lot, the cascade of incompetence and errors, Hubert, violence all that six people died as a direct result of the robbery eight others were wounded it's

and uh and all that all that happened in the course of about two weeks they have no idea how many people died from this there's nails all over the highway for no one's picking any of this shit up right like this is what a what a horrific scar to live in this town and to know that this is the this is how this community deals with problems. They're like, this is beautiful. Let's build a granite landmark. Yeah. Yeah. It's wild. It's wild.

The last, we're going to skip. I have two other ones in here. We're going to skip those. We're going to do the last one is a shorter one. The cleanse us and put us in more of a less true crime mood out of here. What a fucking story. That's why I dude. We landed in like the last 40 minutes of like. like a lost Quentin Tarantino movie that was like it really does sound like a movie it was like red dead redemption but like the Christmas DLC was turned on like that and it's wild that the

first part of it sounded like Keystone cops or something like that like bumbling and then all of a sudden nope now we're in gritty yeah now we're in uh what do you call it what's uh what's the weird movie with the banjo but i'm bum bing bing bing bing deliverance all of a sudden they're deliverance in the woods and then we go and then all of a sudden it's wonderful flew over as a cuckoo's nest. I'm not going to say reservoir dogs, but like deliverance, yeah. It's the way, the way it opens, it just seems like such like a, like cliche Santa Claus bank robbery about to happen. And I'm just, yeah, by the end, it's the fucking revenue.

All right. So we're going to end on UFOs because San Tel is here. And I can't do a UFO episode. And I, you know, I, of course, want to. Now, we've already talked about probably the biggest Christmas themed UFO incident. Rendlesham Forest. We have done multiple. done Rendelsor's force on this show already.

So instead of doing the Reynolds tree, look, I never get to appreciate this live, but when Mathis says a thing and he kind of hints at a thing and then Santel immediately knows that thing, it's charming in a way that's like a little crazy, but like charming. Did you report on the second UFO at the event? And did you report on what's his name's DNA getting tested? I got that the actual disappearing records with the copies of the records being shown. up in other government aspects of the UK agency, the weird people that. Yeah, everything. We cover multiple parts. If you want to refresh yourself, you can go listen. One of my favorite UFO stories

of all time. So instead of doing that, we're actually going to do a UFO sighting from New Zealand. One that's a little smaller. It's called the Kaikorua Lights. And I think that's how you say. And I probably should have Googled pronunciation. But just for your own sake, I'm supposed to that's what it's called. Give it to us, the experts. guys we will be yeah Cali Carua light so that's what it was okay there's no there's no L in there I mean I'll just tell you what I see

All right well subject The day is December 21st 1978 the beginning of the summer For those weirdos out there Around 3.30 a.m. pilots Captain Vern Powell and his co-pilot in Pierre Piri are flying a safe Air LTD Cargo plane, which is an Armstrong Whitworth, AW660 Argosy, Argosy, is how you say.

Argosy. What was that last man leaned in. He was like the Argusy. Yeah. If you want to look up what the plane looks like, there's the actual model for you gentlemen. He just means like ship, you guys. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay.

Across the Cook straight from Blenheim to Christchurch. Apparently, this is like a very routine freight run. The plane is loaded with newspapers that are headed for. the South Island, boring, uneventful, typical flight. Suddenly, they noticed strange lights in the sky, not just a light in the distance, but intense, bright lights, some described as the size of a house that seem to be tracking or following the aircraft in some way. They said the lights would appear, disappear, and reappear in different positions.

Some of them just pulsed. Some glow, some would glow steady orange or red, and some flash a bow. brilliant white light. Powell and Piri contact Wellington air traffic control and report what they're seeing. Now, usually in these situations, air traffic control says something like, you know, we see nothing on radar, you're probably seeing Venus or a weather balloon, you're clear to fly. But not this time. Wellington ATC replies, quote, yeah, we have them on radar. We're tracking five unknown objects matching your visual sighting. So right there, we have visual confirmation from two experienced commercial pilots and independent radar confirmation from air traffic

the controllers on the ground. The objects track the Argosy aircraft for several minutes, performing maneuvers that no known aircraft in 1978 or arguably even today could really perform. They stop instantly. They accelerate instantly. They change direction without banking or turning in the conventional sense. And that's the one time I can ever say.

I've seen something like I've seen something that does that weird kind of maneuvering. But the real story happens nine days after this. Now, December 30th, 1978, New Year's Eve, an Australian news crew from Channel Zero, now Network 10, in Melbourne, hears about the pilot sightings on December 21st. A producer named Leonard Lee tracks down reporter Quinton Fogarty, who happens to be on holiday with his family in Christchurch, staying at a friend's house. Lee convinces Fogarty to investigate the story while he's there. So, Fogarty and his crew, a cameraman by the name of David Crockett and sound recordist

I know, I know, I know. I'm going to keep moving. And sound recordus, Garay, Gare Crockett, decide to charter a safe air cargo plane and fly the exact same route where the sightings occurred. The plan was simple, filmed some background footage, interview the pilots and air traffic controllers, and put together a new segment about UFO reports. So they boarded an Argosy cargo plane piloted by Captain Bill's startup, yes, that is his real name, and co-pilot Robert Gward. The plane departs from Wellington at around 11,000.

30 p.m. on December 30th, heading to Christchurch. And the UFOs show up for the camera crew. It's just after midnight, technically New Year's Eve now, December 31st, 1978. As the plane approaches the Clarence River in Kikora Mountain ranges, Wellington Air Traffic Control radios the crew with a warning, saying, quote, we have an unidentified target on radar. It's approximately one mile behind you, matching speed. Moments later, bright lights appear outside the craft, not just one, but multiple lights. They, and then they multiply, move, pulse. Alex, I'm going to have you read the description of what they saw from reporter Quentin

Fogarty recorded live as it was happening. It was a massive glowing orb. It had what looked like a brightly lit bottom half and a transparent clear dome on top. It's pulsing like a heartbeat. It followed us for almost 15 minutes. At one point, it came so close, I thought it was going to hit us. The cameraman, David Crockett, starts filming. This, and like, this, like, 16 millimeter color film shot by an experienced news cameraman on professional equipment.

The film shows bright, pulsing lights, maneuvering around the plane. The object glows, orange, white, and red. And at the same time, the pilots are in constant communication with Christchurch air traffic control. Isn't there in the footage really good? We'll get to it. Okay. The radar operator confirmed, you can look it up too. Go ahead and Google it.

There's some news. You can see some news footage from the 70s as well talking about it. this stuff um the radar operator confirms in real time quote target is approximately one mile behind you uh same speed now it's moving accelerating then the objects do something what they the pilots describe as kind of scary they don't fought like they don't like simply follow a plane anymore they seemingly what they describe as play with it the objects loop around the craft dive below the craft come around and climb above the craft dolphin they paste the plane at the exact same speeds maintaining a distance of about 20 miles and when captain startup uh adjust the plane's course

slightly to move toward one of the lights the object adjusts its course as well maintaining that seeming 20 mile distance at all times um jesse here's a quote from captain bill startup that was also recording to uh during this that was also recorded during this just a couple like a one sentence but the captain it's rolling it's actually rolling can you give me a new zealand accent can you give me a new zealand accent jesse i'm sorry i should have been asking you want to make sure I got you yeah no I'm known for my New Zealand

it's roiling it's actually roiling something like that something like that great it's rolling it's actually rolling around it's actually his age it's absolutely

it's just saying it who we can keep me here like that yeah just like it to Kensie and youth yeah it's very Christmas you Jesse it worked good you are like a little chibi version of just

Jack the Ripper just now. I can't see that. That's what I got. You came out of a gotcha pan machine, but you're Jack the Ripper. Yeah. You're like a Victorian child who like went to New Zealand once and just got back.

Incredible. You're the puppet from puppet master that's got like crazy like scissors on his head or something like that. Now, so I'll give you a translation of what he said. It's rolling. It's actually rolling around its own access. It's huge.

It's absolutely. massive. It's just sitting there off the wingtip now. Co-pilot Robert Gward, who was initially skeptical about UFOs, later admitted that he had never seen anything like it before or since this flight. The objects followed the plane all the way to Christchurch. Multiple radar operators on the ground confirmed targets. Multiple people in the aircraft see the lights with their own eyes. The camera captures it all on film. When the plane lands at Christchurch, cameraman David Crockett boards another flight back to Melbourne with the film. By the time he arrives, It's New Year's Day, 1979, and the story is already making headlines.

The footage is broadcasts worldwide within days. The BBC picks it up, CBS picks it up. It's a headline news across a globe saying UFO film by TV crew over New Zealand. The New Zealand Air Force, the RNZAF, is forced to investigate. So they put a Skyhawk fighter jet on standby to intercept any future sightings. But by the time the jets could scramble to the area, the lights were always gone. The official explanation,

the New Zealand Ministry of Defense released a report attributing the sightings to a combination of natural and mundane causes. They suggested the lights were reflections from squid fishing boats in the oceans bouncing off clouds. Alternatively, they proposed that the lights were the planet Venus, the classic UFO kind of debunking go-to.

Unburnt meteors, which I don't usually do. Unburnt meteors? Yeah. or even lights from trains and cars on the ground. They're like, look right here, please. Yeah, but the pilots, Vern Powell, Bill Startup, Robert Gward, all basically laughed at all this shit. They pointed out several glaring problems.

One, squid boats don't fly at 15,000 feet in the air. Squid boat lights don't show up on military-grade air traffic control radar as solid objects. They just said, fuck you a squid boat. Yeah, they said they also don't show up a military-grade air traffic control radar as solid objects moving around 300 plus knots alongside them. They said also squid boat lights don't pace an aircraft for 15 minutes and then accelerate away at incredible speed. Venus doesn't appear on radar. Venus doesn't move. Venus doesn't pulse and change brightness. The radar logs showed the objects actively maneuvered. They paste, quote, paste the aircraft,

adjusted course, accelerated, decellerated. Reflections don't do that. Furthermore, a, Dr. Bruce McAbee, a physicist who specialized in optical analysis, studied the 16 millimeter film footage extensively. His analysis published in 1979, concluded that the objects were moving at speeds exceeding 3,000 miles per hour at certain points and displayed flight characteristics that could not be replicated by any known aircraft technology in 1978. Is that why I know his name? Probably Bruce McAbee. Maybe. Maybe that might be why. I recognize the name from somewhere, and I feel like I should know it. But, yeah, huh.

The event had, the event had lasting effects on those involved, too. Quentin Fogarty, the reporter, became known as the UFO reporter, quote, unquote, by the press, a label that stuck in damage to his career, very similar to George Knapp, though Knapp has downed success in other avenues. Arguably damaged Knapp's career, yeah. Yeah, it did for a while. I would say it definitely did for a while, but I don't know if it does any more. It stuck him on local news, and he was breaking guns. government secrets. Yeah, it affected his career.

Yeah, affected his injured Depp's career early for a long time. He suffered from what he described as nervous exhaustion and was hospitalized for a couple weeks due to the stress and skepticism that he was facing. Nobody believed his stories. Nobody was believing what he was saying. He later said, quote, the level of initial skepticism both surprised and at times overwhelmed me. I certainly did not expect to be accused of hoaxing the whole thing. That cut deep and it still does.

Yeah, I don't like, yes, absolutely. Some UFO stuff are hoaxes. We've seen and covered many of them on this show. But some of them, like, some don't make any fucking sense. Like, what was he supposed to get out of this? Like, there was nothing that he got out of this. David and, uh, David and his wife, their marriage fell apart in the aftermath. The obsessive, David became obsessed with his own personal quest for answers.

And the public scrutiny was taking a toll on their lives as well. And this is something we also seen. People who have encounters usually ruins your relationship. It destroys your life. Because you become obsessed with trying to figure out what the fuck you just saw. And everybody trying to give you an explanation seems to ignore the very obvious facts like the air traffic control system and radars and like makes these people lose it. And usually the people who they're married to who didn't encounter this stuff or did don't want anything to do with it. Remember the Andreessen affair where her dad was like, I don't want to fucking talk about this ever.

I will not go on camera and talk about it. I'll sign a little paper that says I was there. Like these people, most of the time it ruins their lives in many, many ways. And it ruined their marriage. It fell apart because of this. And Captain Bill's startup suffered a stroke a few years after the incident and had to retire from flying. He wrote a book in 1979 called the Kikora UFOs to clear up the misinformation that circulated about the event. Despite the personal toll, he always insisted that what they saw was real, something unknown and unexplainable.

To this day, the Kikora lights remain one of the only UFO cases in history where we actually have multiple credible eyewitnesses, pilot eyewitnesses, independent radar confirmation, professional 16mm film footage, recorded audio of them seeing it, and multiple ground witnesses of these things over time that culminate into these like two airplane sightings. And it all happened just over the course of three days of the Christmas and New Year holiday in 1978. So as we wrap up, that's where the story ends. And as like the kids open their great gifts and whatnot and are getting all excited in New Zealand, maybe just maybe, there's some UFOs zipping around up there to gift us technology. Wow. Look at that. He brought it back.

He brought it back. He landed it. Did you just get ready for your own applause right there? Is that what that was? Yeah. Yeah. We can give, we can do the applause. We can give you the applause.

He put his hands up like he was going to applaud. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just letting it's classic, it's a classic high strangeness tale. It's all, it's all the hallmarks. It does not explain what the phenomenon is. Whatever that was, you know, it's that weird trickster part. It doesn't sound like a UFO craft. It sounds like it's playing with them or some, some sort of being or something. And to the pilot's credit, they never go out there and say, it's definitely aliens. They just say, I don't know what I saw, but I'll tell you what it wasn't, this shit that they keep trying to tell you it is. because this you know that and i that's that's the part that's always like so it leaves us in a place of lingering and unknowing and who knows but uh that's it today boys merry santel christmas santel claus came to town i'm so glad you were here here santel for all this and uh this is your first true crime episode yeah this is the first time you've done any true crime with us i am my mouth

is a gape i can't believe it's the more i learn about our history the more i believe we live in the strangest timeline. The fact that that story sounds something like out of feudal Japan, it doesn't sound like the same world that we live in. And it technically isn't. But to know that that was less than a hundred years ago, it makes me wonder where we will be in a hundred more years. And will we just be at all the things that we thought was normal today? God, I fucking hope so. I I hope so.

Before we wrap it up, while we're honoring our dear sweet Santel Claus, I just want to say for the record, it looks like, for those of you who don't have Patreon, I can't see the episode, it looks like I am broadcasting from a warehouse, Alex is broadcasting from a workshop, Mathis is broadcasting from a 19 year old's apartment, and Santel literally has like a Christmas tree in the background. He's perfectly centered right in like with the lights. How dare you? You have like a loving home with like...

I knew that this was going to be the Christmas episode. So I made sure wherever I set it up that it was very Christmassy for the... And if you want to see him this dope-ass setup, head on over to the Patreon.com slash the Chaluminati. It's the best $5 you can spend everybody. I don't understand why you're not paying for it right now. We don't either. we don't either I don't even like it

if we want more people want more of you where can we find more Santel on this glorious thing we call the internet Find me over at the story time podcast you can hear us do lots of silly tales We're doing the Iliad into the Odyssey Get you ready for the next summer

Lots of fun men on men sweaty action The gods jumping around the battlefield Like DBZ characters Like giving buffs to one person and then being like, no, they can die now. If you're in the greater Los Angeles area on the first or third Wednesday, head out over to the Pack Theater, 8 p.m. come see New Pope and Dimes. I'm performing in that show.

And I don't know, the new year, new me. Who knows we're all pop up next in 20, 26. 1926. 1926. You were at the Santa Bank robbery. Yeah, I was listening. We'll be over at patreon.com slash Illumina. I pod to do a minisode immediately.

after this, so head on over there. We appreciate you. We'll love you. We'll see you next week. Goodbye. Bye. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night enjoying ourselves. I needed to go to the bathroom, so I stepped back inside, and after a few moments, I hear my wife go, holy shit, get out here. So I quickly dashed back outside. She's looking up in the sky and on. I look up too, and there's a perfect line of dozen lights traveling across the sky. Thank you. I'm going to be able to be.