Doomed to Fail - Ep 206: Our new departure time is in 18 years - Mehran Karimi Nasseri

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Let's talk about the true story behind the movie 'The Terminal' it's not nearly as romantic IRL! Mehran Karimi Nasseri was trying to get to the UK from Iran when some paperwork needed to be filled out in France... and he just, didn't do it. For 18 years. If you're like anyone else in the world, you hate being at the airport overnight - so this is actually a tragedy of mental illness and less of a bureaucratic nightmare.  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A. 019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Happy Father's Day, for one, not for you, but whatever, everybody has good Father's Day, hopefully. Yeah, he's doing good. I bought him a new ember. You know, those cups that stay hot. Oh, yeah.

Um, he had one, he had for a long time and it was getting kind of holds up on a new one and I made him breakfast, though. Would you make? Oh, good. Um, I make this really good German pancake. Like, you put it in the oven and then it like like puffs up really big and it's just like a delicious like pie, like a breakfast. Actually, I didn't know there was a special pancake for Germans. It's wonderful. I'll send you a photo of it.

It sounds great. It's really good. Awesome. Yeah. So he had a good father's day. Yeah. Very fun. And like I just told Taylor, I am.

chock full of fried chicken from our Father's Day lunch, which was great and very filling and exhausting to digest. So this is the speed I'm going to be at today. I like it. I feel like, I don't know, people like when podcasters talk really slow and intentional. So we could, we could always do that. Hello. I'm Ira Glass. And today on This American Life. We're going to get sued by Iraglass. Hi. Actually, welcome to addued to fail. We bring you history as most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week. I'm Taylor, joined by Fars. Yes, I'm here, and I believe I'm going to be telling us a story first today. Um, sure. Unless you don't want. Um, no, no, sorry. I'm here. You good? Yeah. Okay.

All right. We'll, we'll do whatever. Wait, I have a funny story to tell you. Tell me. Um, yesterday. We went to. a event, someone is running for Congress, and I ran into someone that you and I know, who ran for Congress in my district. I know exactly who that is. And he was like, asked me a question. He was like, oh, I was like, oh, I can't remember his name. Who is that, like, that person we used to work with, that, like, handsome Iranian guy?

And I go, I don't know. And Juan goes, Fars. And I was like, oh, yes, Fars. And it was so funny. And Juan was like, were you thrown off by the word handsome? And I was like, I guess. I was just like, doesn't ring a bell. I'm like, oh, you mean, my best friend that I talk to every single freaking day.

Yes, Fars. Thank you, Juan. And this person, who we both know. We laughed really hard. I was like, oh, yeah, Fires. Is he running again? No, but someone new is. Got it.

So he's supporting. Yeah. Hasn on the baton to someone else. Fun. Well, sir, I know your name, but I'm not going to say it here. Thank you for the compliment. So, cool. Well, I'll go.

ahead and dive in. I'm going to have a relatively quick one, which matches my general tone and tenor and demeanor for the day, my iron glass vibe. Please don't too. I have nothing to give. So I'm going to cover the true story behind the inspiration of a

Steven Spielberg movie from 2004 that included Tom Hanks. Do you know what movie that could be? Dunkirk. You're right. It's Dunkirk. That 2004 hit Dunkirk I don't know

you're going to tell me and I'm going to be like oh I know it is a lighthearted rom-com kind of a thing called the terminal oh yeah there you go so real quick is a little bit of a background thing because it's also pertinent of the fact

of like nothing about that movie was actually real despite the fact they bought the rights for it the story yeah like pretty much nothing is accurate in terms of like what actually happened which I can get into here in a moment So in that movie Tom Hanks is a character He is traveling from his fictional home country of Krakosia

Not a real country to New York And while in the air his government is overthrown in a coup That's also not the reason behind what ended up happening here The U.S. no longer recognized his papers And there was no home country to flying back to So he just stayed in limbo at JFK airport That's the story The crux is the story

Later on he ends up making friends with airport workers he builds this like makeshift home for himself he established a relationship with katham zeta jones which definitely did not happen here um and all that kind of turns out to be this like lighthearted thing because his father just passed and he was a huge fan of jazz and he wanted to get the last signature of his 57 jazz musician collection for his father and that was the entire thing was a very heartwarming thing and all that like it was it was a great it was a really good movie it was really good like you'd enjoy it if you watch it again but the real story is not so heartwarming.

It is based on the true story of a guy named Mehraan Nassari who lived at Charles de Gaul airport for 18 years. That doesn't even make sense. It doesn't even make sense. We're going to get into what happened. Now, I'm going to start by saying that mostly what I concluded is that this was either an incredibly stubborn asshole or a severely mentally ill man or both. So first things first, he was an Iranian.

He was an Iranian national. in the year 1977. In 1977, Iran was on the cusp of a religious revolution. The monarch back then

was a guy named Raysapalavi and he was more of like a Western-style leader. Like if you look up pictures of pre-revolution Iran, like people look like they could be in Europe

or the U.S. Which is like a further validation of why it is awesome that they're being bombed into oblivion right now. As a resident Iranian spokesperson here. so yeah anyways this king the shah he was focused on expanding economic opportunities women's rights

modernizing the country and turning into like a regional western line power and people hated him for it mainly crazy asshole religious people hated him for it and but i mean i will say like it wasn't all gravy there like the shot was also pretty uh out there when it came to oppressing people that spoke out in favor of like the revolution essentially so this is where we'll start Marron's story because in

1977 he claims that he was being forced out of Iran by the secret police due to his anti-Shaw protesting it isn't explicitly stated but given what would come next in the revolution it can kind of be assumed that he was a religious cellet who preferred the rise of Khomeini which

is who we can thank for what's going on in Iran right now so like His argument is I got to get out of this country. I'm being oppressed. The shot's going to kill me. But also, like, if that's happening, it's because you were supporting this other regime, which is bad. So when he was 28 years old, he had studied in the UK in West Yorkshire. So in 1977, when this threat of expulsion presented itself, he decided to seek refugee status in Europe, specifically between the countries of UK and France.

So he would freely travel between those two. countries under his refugee visas. During one of those trips between the countries, while he was on his way to Britain, he claims his documents have been lost or stolen. We don't know for sure what happens. Some people think that he deliberately lost his documents. Right. So when he arrived in London, he was without paperwork. And, you know, this wasn't some crazy insurmountable situation that a normal person couldn't easily overcome. Like, people lose their passports all the time. Like, it's not like the craziest ordeal. Totally. I don't really. I know. know, like someone at my last job one time had to include New York and lost her ID and then, like,

God, I don't know, plane home. Like, there's ways to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's probably a lot easier today since everything is digital anyways. Back then, it was quite a little bit harder, but it wasn't insurmountable. It was 18 years insurmountable. Nothing is 18 years insurmountable.

So he's in Britain. And Britain's like, you don't have documentation here. The last place you have documentation for is France. And you even lost that stuff. So what we're going to do is we're going to distribute you to France to your France's problem. that I would do. Yeah, and France is like, what do we do with this guy? He doesn't have legal documentation to enter our country,

but we can't just ping pong him between countries endlessly. So a French human rights lawyer decided to advocate on his behalf, and through support and cooperation from the United Nations High Commission on refugees, they were able to get the approval of Belgium from Marron to get legal residency in their country. All he had to do was board a flight, go to Belgium, talk to some immigration official, and agree to some supervision by a Belgian social worker. Like also a really short flight.

Yeah. And he wouldn't even agree to doing that. He would claim that he wants to be in Britain and even started referring to himself as Sir Alfred and demanded others referred to him as such. That's why I'm like, I think he's like sick in the head. Yeah, that's really weird. But also I, there's also a phenomenon where like when your country,

like, I can see him trying to distance himself from. his like identity in a way because at that point he thinks that iran's like nuts and so funny it's like because then it turned nuts and he's like whatever doesn't right like he what he wanted to happen happened i know i know like um so he stayed in france at terminal one in charles de gall building kind of like makeshift makehift cubicle for himself using chairs in his luggage he'd walk around smoke, his pipe, have meals given to him by strangers. You would read writing his journal and just kind of meander around the terminal.

He was just like permanent resident there, essentially. And 18 years later, in 2006, he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the airport hospital and was there for a while under the care of like this French sect of the Catholic church. Like I guess like this, I don't know how all this works. Like some Catholic diocese or something that's set up like, I don't know, a headquarters or something near the hospital, and they were going to, like, take it indigence of people that, like, needed help. And he was basically taken away from that situation.

And he was basically given the services that, like, a homeless person would receive. And we don't know much about his activities during this time. I mean, it's a pretty substantial period of time. It ends up being somewhere around 14 years from his heart attack until he surfaces again. The church that was caring for him was, like, pretty secretive about it, which also makes me think that he had mental health problems that they identify. and didn't want him to be out in front of everyone. And generally speaking, they would talk about how frail he was and that he was basically

suffering constantly from mental exhaustion. He also, like, he had not been outside for 18 years? Like, he didn't leave at all. He couldn't leave. Right. So. Yeah, he was outside. That's kind of, that's not good for you.

Yeah. Vitamin D pills. Like, he didn't go to a doctor, obviously. Like, he didn't, like, I mean, I've, I've, feel like something is is is wrong because being at an airport in the middle of the night is the worst place in the entire is the worst place to be so vacuum cleaners go off and everything closes and you're like what am I going to do yeah and also if you look at pictures of him like he doesn't look like he's all there so like yeah probably was severely mentally ill um it's worth noting that

during this time or like shortly before this time is when stephen speleberg through his company dream works paid him somewhere around $300,000 for the rights to his story. So he wasn't like actually, yeah, so he wasn't like actually destitute. He just like lived the life of somebody that was actually super destitute. I mean, realistically, he probably gave

all that money to the church, for all I know. He would return to the airport in 2020 on his own volition and continue to live in the terminal for a few months. Went in November 2020, he died of a heart attack in the terminal at Charles de Gaul.

God. But, like, we're not counting that towards 18 years. Like, the 18 years, like, continuous that he lived there was, like, one solid stretch of 18 years of living there. And then how long was he, and then he wasn't there for how long? He wasn't there for around 15 years, you per take, 15, 60s? We don't really know where. We don't really know where.

Yeah. He kind of went into obscurity. The assumptions were that the church kind of put him up in places and just had people do a meals on wheels kind of a situation for him and take him food. Like, it sounds like he couldn't take care of himself. yeah so and then the movie comes out and according to like some things i read like he he probably didn't see it because he didn't have the means to be able to see it right um and also they didn't reference him at all so i don't know why they spent all this money on his story because

even even in the in the movie i think he lived at the airport for like six out of months before he's like released and like Stanley tucci's like this evil immigration guy who like keeps him there and like it's like a whole it's a whole deal there's like a love story and it's like do you look at like nobody's yeah he definitely didn't fall in love he didn't fall in love with Captain Zeta Jones that's for sure so and actually he's not even the longest

person to have spent that much time inside of an airport there's two other stories that I didn't get a chance to dig further into which I might do as a quick follow up to the story mostly because they weren't that well publicized and also it had to do with like people in between countries that like their names you wouldn't recognize today like yeah there was things that went on that

were probably like super nuanced in detail and probably not very legal like some some it just basically had to do with people just being shitty to people um but yeah there's two other stories of people who spent even more time in airports living in them than this guy did um which yeah might be a fun little bonus episode so that is wild I my dad had like a girlfriend a while ago that was like from a part of the former Soviet Union and she had problems because like by the time she went to like renew her papers her country was gone so it was like similar you know like it wasn't like it was like there's no way to get anything because there's no country yeah yeah it's again it's not insane for stuff like that to happen

it's insane for it to happen and then for you to refuse every version of help that it's thrown your way. Yeah. That's what made this feel different. Because, yeah, he could have gone to Belgium. He could have actually gotten citizenship in France. And he was like, one reason they said that he refused to sign his paperwork is that, because they wouldn't refer to him as Sir Alfred.

Like, we're not going to put this fake name on here. You know, there's not the paperwork you're signing anyway. Yeah. You know? So, so, yeah, I think this guy, I want to chalk him up is like mentally ill, mostly. Yeah, that makes sense. But that's a quick one, quick one, but fits the mood for the kind of day it is. Yeah.

Interesting. Interesting. I could not have been more wrong about Dunkirk. It was made in 2017 by Christopher Nolan. Yeah. You know what's funny is when you said Dunkirk and I was going to make fun of you for saying Dunkirk. I was going to call him Ed Nolan and then I'm so glad I didn't.

That is also a great movie for what it's worth. I don't think I've seen it. I did watch. Oh, go ahead. No, I said I saw that Cinerama was so fun. One of the guys from Scrubs, the main guy, the one, I forgot what, I don't know what their names are. He was, he was singing like one over for me. It was really fun.

It was really fun. Yeah. Cool. Very L.A. Yes, it was a L.A. experience. I watched the first half of Final Destination last night. It was great. The new one?

Yeah. Is it out? No, again, I just, I appreciate. cured it through memes but i um you saw already right yes um the opening a scene was so good losing my mind we did go to we went to the Tokyo tower when we were in Tokyo and like it's like one of those things that there's like a restaurant you're up in it um and i had a panic attack away to leave so it i mean yeah it's kind of freaky it's kind of like there's a lot of those places Seattle Seattle has one Dallas has one uh Toronto like I definitely went on the

I used to go on, like, the roller coaster on top of the one in Las Vegas, and I'm like, absolutely not what's wrong with me. Yeah, I mean, now you're older, you know better. I'm not going to risk my life over nothing. That opening scene was incredibly elaborate, and where did you stop? They had just gone to, like, talk to the mom. Okay. And the mom left her house for the first time.

So you got to that scene or no? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That was fun, too. That one freaked me out, actually. Out of all the scenes, that was one that freaked me out the most because it was, like, so in your face.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's like in, did you see the, oh, you saw the monkey too, right? Oh my God. It's like similar.

People are just like tripping over and dying. I might have watched it again tonight. That was a great movie. Um, did you ever see, um, Tucker and Dale versus evil?

No. It's so good. And it has like a similar thing where people like, keep dying in really stupid ways. And you're like, what's happening? I don't know if that'd be a whole theme of, of movies,

but yeah, keep watching because. Oh, yeah, I'm going to finish it tonight. There's one death scene that is just like so gnarly. They're going to save it to the end. But yeah, it's great.

Awesome. So wait, do we have anything that we want to read out? Yes. I asked my friend Teddy, who is the only person I know who fences if he could win in a sword fight. And he said he had asked this question a lot, which I'm sure he does, which is hilarious. and he said probably yes and he has an advantage because he like has like experience like using like the sword but it's different because fencing you have you can only go forward and backwards so in a sword fight you can obviously move around so i kind of feel like his answer is actually probably no yeah i think i'm gonna stick with my i think the person who wins is the one who can remain calm yeah it's funny i watch a lot of like um one of my weird guilty pleasures is watching like normal people who don't know any better trying to get into fights with like professional UFC fighters and like you know you see someone you're like oh my god they're so like just being their chest and like scary and like

running off on people and then they always just get flatlined because the other guys like attitude is just like oh i do this like 15 hours a week yeah this isn't my job yeah this isn't scare me so they just like place their punches and just like immediately demolish the other side and so that's why i'm like i think being calm is the most important factor i think that makes sense and that makes sense. We also just finished the third Star Wars movie the one where Darth Vader. Have you committed? I mean, we're watching with the kids and it takes forever because we have to

like, we watch it like all eating dinner, so it's like 20 minutes at a time, you know? But we, and then we started the fourth one, which is the first one, and it's a breath of fresh air because you're like, oh my God, this is finally doesn't look stupid. But I like cannot get over how Darth Vader gets injured. because like him and obiwank nobby are sword fighting on lava while they're surfing through lava on a piece of wood which was absolutely no sense and zero people catch on fire until like the very very end when they grab that pop off his legs and then the guy just on fire I just can't and they put him into like a dollar store Darth Vader casting him like he's fine which one is that one the last one the Sith I don't know the Sith ones I know suck it's terrible oh my god it's just like really really funny it just happened so fast and you're like this is so stupid i don't know what to do the adam driver one i thought was really good i forgot which one that counts as is like the chronology but that one was revenge of the sith the one that i

just watched so yeah i think the one i'm saying is like the last jedi maybe hating christians and you poor man yeah it kind of ruined his I was like a good friend Natalie Portman for still having a career after that because she was terrible and I don't I think it was like not her fault she was already famous she didn't she you know when you're already up there you can have

a few bombs yeah yeah but no really bad anyway that's all no more coconut talk or I do but I have to save some of the other one all right right right I can't just like give you all of my news in this episode please no let's save some nuggets for

later on Um, cool. Well, this has been Ira Glass. Um, I mean, I have to edit that, don't I? I don't know. No, no one who, Air Glass isn't listening. I don't think anyone's going to tell on us. Who cares? All right. Fine. Watch. We're going to get a hate mail. Um, okay. Cool. Well, we'll go ahead and cut off there. Um, thank you, Taylor. Thank you far as. Oh, uh, doomed to fell pot at Gmail.com and do we fill a pod on social media. Boom. Thank you. Bye. You know,