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Filler Episode - Jetpacks!
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M's off being a practicing philosopher or something, so here's a quick story of the dangers of building your own jetpack. The dangers include not just flying into the sky and exploding, but more crimes and conspiracies than you might expect.
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Transcript
Introduction from Auckland
00:00:07
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Edison and Ian Denteth.
Filler Episode Announcement
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello, it's the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy in Auckland, New Zealand. I am Josh Addison. Dr. M Denteth is also in Auckland, New Zealand. i saw them for drinks just today. But um as we mentioned last episode, M is off off to some Austro-Asian philosophical conference of some sort and does not have time to sit down and record a full episode. So I'm just going to put in another little filler episode for now.
00:00:53
Speaker
And we'll be back to recording regular episodes as soon as Em's schedule allows.
Jetpacks: A Pop Culture Phenomenon
00:00:58
Speaker
So this episode is going to be about a story. It's a good story. It's an interesting story, which is why it's been covered in in various other places in the past.
00:01:07
Speaker
You may have heard of it already. ah If you have, ah good didn then indeed this won't be a surprise. But it has. There has been a movie that we'll mention. There have been books, numerous podcast episodes. in In researching this thing, I keep coming across people saying, oh, the dollop did an episode on this. You should go listen to the dollop. And and frankly, if if if you like the dollop so much, why don't you just just marry the dollop? go Go listen to them. See if I care.
00:01:35
Speaker
They don't love you like I love you.
Historical Attempts at Jetpacks
00:01:37
Speaker
Anyway, jetpacks. We're going to talk about jetpacks. I'm gonna play a chime. We're going to talk about jetpacks.
00:01:47
Speaker
Yes, jetpacks, that staple of science fiction. it was it was It was always when they talk about what things are going to be like in the future, it's always robot butlers and jetpacks. Getting a little bit closer with the robot butlers.
00:01:59
Speaker
a little bit closer with the jetpacks, I suppose, but not very close. People have been working on on actual jetpacks that a single human being can wear and fly around with since around the 1950s, maybe even earlier than that. there are There are cases of people sort of filing patents or coming up with designs for for single-person rocket propulsion type things that were never actually made or tested. But definitely starting in the 1950s, the military, the U.S. military at least, and probably other ones around the world,
00:02:28
Speaker
Looked into them, ah and and by the 1960s had pretty much decided they weren't going to be much use. They had ideas, I think, of you know getting getting troops quickly onto the battlefield into particular areas, but the problem jetpacks is the same problem with with rocketry, really. um You've got to carry your own fuel. Now, when you're a rocket launching a payload into space, you can have a You know, you you've seen these rockets, they're the size of a skyscraper, and it's all just fuel tanks to to propel all of the fuel, if that makes sense, required to launch a tiny payload. But when you're talking about something that's being worn on a person's back... To be small enough and light enough for one person to wear, you can only really fit enough fuel for about 20 seconds worth of flight, which really just wasn't was it wasn't good enough for any practical use.
Jetpacks in Entertainment
00:03:22
Speaker
And also, of course, it's tricky to make sure that the wearer isn't going to catch fire or explode while they're wearing it. um I believe more recently that there have been new sort of designs. There was that one I've seen seen just recently that's sort of kind of modeled on Iron Man where have a rocket of some sort on your back plus one strapped to each wrist that you can sort of these are sort extra little thrusters that you can use to direct yourself. So modern ones can stay in the air for around 10 minutes apparently. And in terms of practical applications, as far as they go, they seem to be pitched at sort of emergency service search and rescue style things of sort of ah as a way to get over a difficult terrain in a hurry if you needed to get to someone or something like that.
00:04:12
Speaker
um But that aside, and and certainly in the case of the older ones, the only real application was for entertainment. If you've seen the 1965 James Bond film, Thunderball, James Bond gets in a jetpack for briefly in that...
00:04:28
Speaker
the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. There was a guy in a jet pack in the opening ceremonies there, which apparently blew everyone's minds when they saw this dude actually flying, flying through the air in his jet pack. Did a similar thing at the 96 Olympics in Atlanta. And um various TV shows have had, have have sort of brought in jet packs for a bit of fun and and, and then just plenty of live events. so It's just a,
00:04:50
Speaker
When you've got some big public event on, it could be ah could be a fun, crowd-pleasing thing to do to just get some guy to show up, zip around on a jetpack for 20 seconds and then fly off.
Bell Aerospace and Rocket Belt
00:05:00
Speaker
Now, in all of these cases, the ones in the eighty s and in Thunderball, the ones in the 80s and 90s, if you've seen any of them in ah in a movie, on a TV show, in a live event or whatever, it was probably the Bell Rocket Belt, which was made by Bell Aerospace in the fifty s So I assume these were the guys who were actually working with the um with the military. they From the 50s to the 60s, they developed this this Bell Rocket Belt.
00:05:23
Speaker
which rather than sort of igniting fuel like a rocket might, they use a chemical reaction. You have tanks of hydrogen peroxide and nitrogen, which get mixed together and then a chemical reaction causes a stream of superheated steam and oxygen to come shooting out. And that's what actually propels the propels the wearer.
00:05:41
Speaker
ah The wearer has to wear special insulating clothing because this this stuff is shooting out at something like 700 degrees. So you need to wear special gear to protect yourself from the temperature. But they they worked again for about 20 seconds.
00:05:55
Speaker
Now, we're not actually talking about the Bell Rocket Belt today. We're talking about its unofficial fan fiction sequel, the RB2000 Rocket Belt, also known as the Pretty Bird, and all of the wackiness that followed it. Now, I need to say right at the start, there are multiple accounts of how everything went down, and they don't all agree with one another.
00:06:16
Speaker
it certainly doesn't help that sort of the people and several of the people involved are now dead. But we'll see there are there are yeah very much differing accounts because there's a lot of um a lot of conflict, as we'll see, and the different parties all seem to describe things in different
RB2000 Development
00:06:32
Speaker
ways. But one thing that's for sure, the RB2000 was made in the 1990s by American Rocket Belt Corporation, which is a joint venture of Brad Barker, Thomas Larry Stanley, and Joe Wright.
00:06:48
Speaker
So we'll start with Brad Barker. Brad Barker was a lot of things. Former insurance salesman seems to come up. When you read articles about this, it's it's this guy, this former insurance salesman. But it seems like he did a bunch more than that. However, everyone seems to agree that whatever else he may have been, Brad Barker was kind of a dangerous maniac. He was known for being quick to anger over... over just minor little things and fairly happy to let his fists do the talking, especially if there what his fists were saying were, I'm holding a large blunt object and I'm going to hit you with it. Now, in fairness to Mr Barker, it does seem that pretty much everyone involved in the story was a maniac of some kind.
00:07:29
Speaker
um Most of the stuff I've read paint Brad Barker as the most deranged individual, though one of the articles I read was an old an old story on cracked.com from back when, before that site, turned to turn to rubbish.
00:07:44
Speaker
And this article is based on a book called The Rocket Belt Caper, a True Tale of Invention, Obsession and Murder, spoilers, by Paul Brown. Now, I haven't read the book, but...
00:07:54
Speaker
If the article based on the book is accurate, that really seems to lean on Larry Stanley as being the real nutjob. We'll just see. ah But back to back to Brad Barker. In the early 90s, he wasn't being an insurance salesman. He was working for his friend, a stuntman called Kinney Gibson. That's Kinney, K-I-N-N-I-E. That's not my accent butchering the name Kinney.
00:08:19
Speaker
Now, Mr. Gibson owned one of the few rocket belts, one of the few Bell rocket belts in existence. they were you know they They only made a few. They were all essentially prototypes. And the few that were there sort of changed hands from one, generally from one one owner, one one one pilot to another. And these pilots were stunt stunt people who um would make money by flying them at public shows. Kenny Gibson, as well as appearing in in all sorts of, you know, fairs and events and so on, he was actually on ah on tour with Michael Jackson for one point, and one of Michael Jackson's shows in the early 90s. He had Gibson flying out on a jetpack.
00:08:56
Speaker
as part of part of the performance. A bit later on, apparently, he would be the stunt double for Chuck Norris on Walker, Texas Ranger. Not important, but still. e ah Now, Kenny Gibson had previously worked with Larry Stanley, one of the other American Rocket Belt Corporation people, on a hot air ballooning business. Mr. Gibson apparently you know liked liked being up in the sky, basically. If it wasn't on ah it wasn't in a jetpack, it was in a hot air balloon. Now, Larry Stanley himself was an engineer by trade. His family owned a small oil field, which I got some money from.
00:09:32
Speaker
And from the Sound Things, he was a real aeronautics buff. He just liked even more than Kenny Gibson from the Sound of Things. He liked the idea of being up in the sky.
Partnership Breakdown and Accusations
00:09:41
Speaker
Now, Gibson and Stanley eventually had a falling out, which resulted in Gibson getting his friend Brad Barker and a few other people to go and and and take a bunch of stuff off and off so off Larry Stanley and possibly give him a bit of a kicking at the time.
00:09:58
Speaker
and Now, apparently Stanley wasn't there when they arrived at his oil field, and they ended up beating up another guy who was there to to find out where is Larry Stanley. Now, This is one of the big places where accounts differ.
00:10:11
Speaker
According to some things I'm read, Kitty Gibson had invested money in Larry Stanley's oil field and hadn't got paid out the way he thought he would, and so had sent Barker and his friends to confiscate some of this this equipment on the oil field, presumably equipment that had been bought with Gibson's money.
00:10:30
Speaker
In other accounts, Stanley had broken into Gibson's place and stolen some rocket belt stuff. and And so Gibson had sent Barker around to get his own property back. It's it's all a little bit weird.
00:10:42
Speaker
And indeed, the guy who ended up getting getting a beating from Barker and his friends is described... In some cases, as a guy who just just a worker on the oil field who happened to be unlucky enough to be working there when these guys came up saying, where's Larry Stanley? other Other sources in particular that, again, that cracked article makes it sound like he was, this guy was some sort of a heavy who Stanley had hired for protection.
00:11:06
Speaker
from Brad Barker or something. it's all it's It's all a little bit murky. But in any case, after all of this happened, Brad Barker eventually convinced to Larry Stanley that Kenny Gibson was to blame for all of this and suggested that actually to get back at Gibson, why don't you and i go into business, into the rocket belt business to sort of get back at him?
00:11:29
Speaker
Not only had had Stanley had a falling out with Gibson, Barker had also had a falling out with Gibson. but Basically, everyone falls out with everyone all the time in this story.
Success and Collaboration
00:11:39
Speaker
But what Barker had been doing when he was working for Gibson, he'd been helping to maintain and fuel Gibson's rocket belt. And over time, he had believed he'd got enough information together that he'd be able to make one of his own. So part of the stuff he'd been doing was when parts on the rocket belt needed to be repaired or replaced, he'd take the either these parts or plans for these parts and get them repaired and or manufactured as required. I've also read some claims that Gibson had actually caught him and possibly Larry Stanley with a video camera making footage of the rocket belt.
00:12:14
Speaker
But at any rate, he believed he he'd he'd sort of, through through slightly surreptitious and dubious means, he had the information, he believed, to actually build a rocket belt of his own, which then he and Larry Stanley could make money from themselves.
00:12:31
Speaker
Now, then they brought in the third man I mentioned above, Joe Wright. he He was just the money. Stanley was putting up some money as well, but Joe Wright was brought in purely purely for the money. He was a man... In the early 90s, he owned a car audio company, and he'd installed an audio system and in Brad Barker's car, and the two had become friends, having met this way.
00:12:52
Speaker
And so having the three of them got together and they set up shop. Barker was sort of making the rocket pack. Stanley was providing the money. and and I'm not sure. I mean, he he was an engineer and he loved he loved aeronautics and rocket packs. So i don't know if he was. he He may have been involved in the designing of it as well. And Joe Wright um was letting them use one of the vehicle bays in his his um car audio business as a workshop.
00:13:14
Speaker
And rather than charging them rent, he was just he was letting them use it for free in exchange for a share of the future profits. Now, took a little bit of extra help. Barker ended up having to get in a guy called Doug Malawicki and another guy called Bill Suter, who had who had previously owned a rocket belt and had been a rocket belt pilot. He needed he needed to bring the two of them in for their expertise, but eventually, by late 1994...
00:13:40
Speaker
They had a working prototype that could fly for about 30 seconds, 10 seconds longer than the original Bell rocket belt, apparently. There was things like they could use sort of aluminum and titanium and carbon fiber and stuff to make it lighter, and they'd managed to get better performance out of it.
00:13:57
Speaker
Now Bill Suter's going to show up again in a minute. Doug Malawicki doesn't really seem to be as involved in the company and certainly wasn't involved in any of the hijinks that followed, so we'll we'll leave him out of it for now, except to say that as well as being the man who helped Brad Barker build his rocket belt, Doug Malawicki was the creator of Robosaurus.
00:14:16
Speaker
which you must have seen. there was I remember there was an episode of The Simpsons where they go to like a monster truck thing and there's truck-a-saurus or something and with this there's this giant mechanical dinosaur that's eating cars. and That was based on a real thing. This guy made this 40-foot tall, car-crushing, fire-breathing dinosaur, which was a popular fixture at monster truck rallies.
00:14:36
Speaker
so So good on him, quite frankly, and good on him for not being involved in anything else that happens with this rocket belt. The the the rocket built rocket belt was referred to as the RB2000. Apparently it was given the name The Pretty Bird by Bill Souter, according to one of the things I've read. sort of One of his conditions for helping Barker get this thing working was I i get to name it. And Barker said, OK, he said, I want to name it The Pretty Bird, which they all thought was kind of a dumb name. But but a deal's a deal.
00:15:03
Speaker
Now, even though 1994 they actually had this working prototype, things were already starting to go downhill between Barker and Stanley and Wright. By late 1994, Stanley had come to believe that Barker was cheating him. Barker was apparently terrible at sort of coming up with receipts to to to prove the expenses that he'd been getting money from Stanley for.
00:15:27
Speaker
And Stanley, having having spoken to other people, now believed that what Barker had been doing was basically charging... Stanley twice as much as things actually cost. He'd say, oh, I need this new part. It's going to cost $1,000 when in fact it only cost $500 and he'd just pocket the extra $500.
00:15:43
Speaker
So they they they argued about this and eventually came to blows in what was either an awkward, embarrassing scuffle or a Titanic fight scene not unlike the the alley fight scene from They Live between ah Keith David and david and Rowdy Rowdy Piper.
00:16:00
Speaker
Now, i've I've read some articles that give Stanley's point of view. According to him, he was on the phone talking to Joe Wright, saying, hey, Brad Barker's been cheating us. he he's He's been taking all this money from us and and lying to us about how much stuff has been costing. And he's just been he's been keeping this money and fleecing us. And he's a he's a total dirtbag.
00:16:22
Speaker
And while he was on the phone, badmouthing, badmouthing Brad Barker, Brad Barker happened to walk in and overheard everything he'd been saying, and that's what caused them to argue and then fight.
Rocket Belt Legal Battles
00:16:34
Speaker
According to the book, ah quote or at least according to that cracked article which was based on the book, there was a confrontation an initial confrontation which escalated into a fistfight, which ended in Barker going off to hospital and then coming back from hospital still with one arm in a sling and carrying on the fight.
00:16:53
Speaker
Now, i really I have to assume that this book used Brad Barker as the main source, because every dust-up that I've read the book's account of turns into this titanic struggle, whereas in other things they all sound a bit dumb and pathetic. I mean, the earlier one...
00:17:10
Speaker
I've read about when they went and and beat up this worker on Stanley's oil field. I've read it described as they basically jump out and and hit this guy with a baseball bat and that's it. Whereas the version from the book makes points out that this this worker was an ex-Navy SEAL and one of the guys that had come with Barker was it was some sort of karate master and it was this sort of seal Navy SEAL versus versus karate guy. but but Basically...
00:17:37
Speaker
If the books are to believe, these fights were were very interesting and and frankly, a little more interesting than I think any any real life scuffle scuffle actually is.
00:17:48
Speaker
Nevertheless, regardless of exactly how it shook down, everyone agrees that at some point, either immediately, according to Stanley, or later when he came back, according to Barker, Barker had grabbed a mallet from the workshop, a sort of a metal mallet coated in rubber, and had smacked Stanley a few times with it before somebody else stepped in and separated them. The police were called. They both ended up in hospital and then both ended up in court.
00:18:15
Speaker
Stanley's charges were dropped, but Barker got six months probation, presumably because he was the one carrying a weapon. And Joe Wright, obviously, having having heard about all this, whether or not he was on the phone when Stanley was actually attacked or whether he heard about it afterwards, had had heard the claims from Stanley that Barker was cheating them,
00:18:33
Speaker
that that everything seemed to be going wrong. And so he immediately placed a lien on the rocket belt saying it's mine and started charging and charged Stanley a bunch of back rent. And Stanley was like, well, no, no, we had this agreement that you weren't charging us rent and you were going to going to get the the money later. And so he was very much against. In fact, he implied that right ah Wright had had placed this lien and started charging the rent to Stanley at Barker's request, that Barker had was was we sort of gone to hoots with him to try and screw Stanley.
00:19:03
Speaker
Now, the problem with Wright saying, i'm placing Aline on the rocket belt, I think it's my property, was that the rocket belt was gone. After this fight, Barker had had taken it and its fueling trailer and dr off drove off with it and and was no longer was refusing to contact Stanley and Wright.
00:19:21
Speaker
So nobody knew where the rocket belt had gone. Now, Stanley has searched for Barker and especially the rocket belt for months. And this is the story, especially the story painted by that book, is that Stanley is just 100% obsessed, entirely consumed with the idea of this rocket belt and will do anything to get back. Apparently, there's also...
00:19:45
Speaker
One of the things mentioned that supposedly, know, once they'd made this thing, Stanley said he wanted to be the one to fly it. And um Barker said, well, and said to be blunt, dude, you're too fat. You weigh too much and you can't use it. And he said, well, I'm going no i'm i'm going to get in shape and lose weight. But sort of that that side of the story makes it sound like, you know, Stanley has this dream to fly a rocket belt and and he'll stop at nothing to to to achieve his dream, but he wasn't having a lot of luck. So this this is the late 94. He spent months looking for Barker and the Rocket Belt and not finding him. He brought a lawsuit against Barker and Wright for both the Rocket Belt and a whole bunch of money.
00:20:25
Speaker
which he believed he was owed. But it wasn't until June of 1995 that he actually saw a televised event with the jet plaque where what he believed was his jetpack, ah was being flown. Bill Souter had been brought in to pilot it, that the the former pilot from before. and So this was in Houston after the Houston Rockets beat the Orlando Magic in the NBA finals. They had a big sort of victory celebration and hired hyde Barker,
00:20:52
Speaker
and his rocket belt and and Bill Souter to fly it to appear in this event. So after this event in June of 1995, Barker packed up the suit, took it away, and that is the last time anyone ever saw it.
00:21:06
Speaker
Now fast forward to January of 1998.
00:21:10
Speaker
Although Joe Wright had been living the high life in the early 90s, by the late 90s things were not looking good for him. His business had gone bankrupt because once auto manufacturers started putting high-end stereo systems into their cars as standard, there wasn't much demand for people for for people getting audio systems installed.
00:21:30
Speaker
So he he he he was kind of broke, and on top of that, he was still being sued for a ton of money by Larry Stanley. Though Stanley sort of brought this lawsuit in 1995, the legal system being what it was, the trial date wasn't until late 1998.
00:21:46
Speaker
So being in straightened financial circumstances, he eventually threw in with Stanley. It kind of seemed like he had sided with Barker for a while, but then eventually he he sort of switched sides, came to Larry Stanley's side, in and Stanley said he would drop right from his lawsuit completely if he helped him find Barker and the rocket belt, especially the rocket belt.
00:22:09
Speaker
Now, Joe Wright said, OK, yep, sure, fine, i'll ill I'll help you find him. But then, from the sounds of things, didn't do much of anything to actually help out at all. He didn't provide much help to Stanley, and indeed appeared to be avoiding him whenever Stanley tried to get in touch with him.
00:22:23
Speaker
So in July of 1998, just a ah week or two before the trial date for their lawsuit, Stanley managed to get in touch with Wright, I believe by telephone, after Wright ditched him at his in-person meeting they'd scheduled, and demanded, look, you need to track down Brad Barker, and you need to do it right now, or I'm i'm going to carry on suing you and him as well.
00:22:45
Speaker
Joe Wright, in July of 1998, said, OK, yes, I will go and find Brad Barker. And four days later, he was dead. That is the murder referred to in the title of the book before. Joe Wright was found beaten past the point of recognition in his own home with no sign of forced entry.
00:23:05
Speaker
Now, Barker, the known known maniac with a beef against him, was the main suspect, and I but think the only suspect at the time. The police, who were much better at finding people than Larry Stanley and Joe Wright, picked him up.
00:23:20
Speaker
But he said, no, you denied it completely. he said, I was out of state at the time. He said he had phone records that could prove... He wasn't he he was out of state when when Joe Wright was murdered. He wasn't able to prove his alibi, apparently, but there was the police were able to find no actual evidence against him at all. So, that you know, that they had a possible motive, but that was literally all they had. So with no actual evidence against him.
00:23:46
Speaker
the police let him go and Joe Wright's murder remains unsolved to this day.
Murder Mystery in the Rocket Belt Saga
00:23:51
Speaker
Now it is worth noting that Joe Wright by the late 1990s had quite a serious meth addiction and what with being bankrupt owed a bunch of money to some shady customers, some loan sharks and drug dealers.
00:24:07
Speaker
So there are some plausible scenarios where Barker didn't actually murder him. It's entirely possible some other part of his unfortunate downward spiral caught up with him, and it's just a coincidence that it happened when it did.
00:24:19
Speaker
And indeed, and later on, Jo Wright's sister has said she thinks Larry Stanley murdered him just to set Brad Barker up, presumably to frame Brad Barker for his murder so then there'd be a manhunt for him and the police would... would catch him and then he could then then he could find out where the rocket belt was. I don't know. That doesn't that seems quite extreme.
00:24:42
Speaker
a quite extreme sort of thing to do for Larry Stanley. Barker's been the more violent one, although obviously the two of them did get into a a fairly fairly serious fight before. it doesn't sound like something Stanley would do, or does it?
00:24:56
Speaker
Because despite the fact that things have now culminated in a murder, this is not where the story ends. Brad Barker never showed up for Stanley's lawsuit, and eventually in 1999, judge ruled in Stanley's favour, said Barker had to pay Stanley $10 million, dollars which apparently was more than Stanley had actually asked for, but the judge was so fed up with Barker for refusing to show in this lawsuit that he ended up awarding much more and of course he said that Barker had to cough up the rocket pack now Brad Barker refused to pay and refused to say where the rocket pack was or or to say whether he even actually knew where it was anymore there are various various comments from him sometimes sometimes he would sound a bit coy about knowing where it is people would say you know du do you have the rocket pack do do you not and it's like in you maybe I do maybe I don't
00:25:49
Speaker
But then other times he'd insist, no, I don't have it in hell. if If I still had it, I'd destroy the damn thing for all the trouble it's cost me. So who knows? What we do know is that in November of 1999, Stanley ten escalated things.
Kidnapping and Court Convictions
00:26:05
Speaker
He arranged for some people to lure Brad Barker to Los Angeles with the promise of a job in the movies. When Barker showed up to the meeting that had been arranged, four men kidnapped him, handcuffed him, stuffed him in a wooden box, and held him captive for eight days, only ever letting him out of the box to interrogate him on the RB2000's whereabouts.
00:26:27
Speaker
It's not clear whether Stanley was actually one of these four men, or if they were people he had hired. Like, some of the stories make it sound like he was there, he was there in the background, like the cigarette-smoking man from the X-Files or something.
00:26:40
Speaker
Other times it's not quite clear if he was if he was actually hands-on with this. But apparently near the end of the eight days, they they they held a gun to his head and forced him to sign a document giving the rights to the rocket belt to um Larry Stanley. one of One of the versions said they had a notary there to actually notarize the whole thing, which...
00:27:02
Speaker
Seems a little bit off that this person wouldn't see a problem with them dragging ah a bloodied and disheveled man in handcuffs out of a box and forcing him to sign with a gun and a gun at his head. But I don't know. So he he signed the piece of paper, but he never actually said...
00:27:17
Speaker
where the rocket belt was or if he knew. he Later he would say he believed that if he had told them where to find the belt, they would have killed him then and there and just gone off and retrieved it. Apparently they had been drilling holes in the side of this box and suggesting that they were going to throw it into the ocean to drown.
00:27:36
Speaker
um But on the eighth day of his captivity, he managed to get out of the box, get out of his handcuffs, and escape through a window. he called his brother, got his brother to call the FBI. The FBI came and picked him up, finding him 23 pounds, that's 10 kilograms lighter, because again, that didn't sound like they'd been feeding him for the eight days they'd held him.
00:27:58
Speaker
Abels apparently had very serious cuts on his wrists from the handcuffs. But once the FBI had him, he said, Larry Stanley and his guys kidnapped me. So Stanley, ah I guess, obviously Barker didn't know who the other people were. So maybe the, although it sounds like there were at least four people involved, only Stanley and one of his accomplices were actually arrested and convicted of the kidnapping.
00:28:21
Speaker
So Stanley, Larry Stanley was given, initially given a life sentence plus 10 years in prison. An article from the l LA Times at the time, where they were reporting on his sentencing, had this to say.
00:28:34
Speaker
Mr Barker was not harmed in any way, said Stanley, who fired his lawyer after the trial and was representing himself in the penalty phase. I don't understand how this is a life sentence. He told the judge, Your Honour, I never imagined that I ever did anything wrong. i was just trying to be persuasive.
00:28:49
Speaker
He nearly broke down crying as he told the court that his 10-year pursuit of the Rocket Belt 2000 has cost him more than half a million dollars and left his family destitute and on food stamps. Moments earlier, his co-defendant, 55-year-old Christopher James Wenzel, escaped a similar sentence when he entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors. He was sentenced to seven years in state prison.
00:29:10
Speaker
Stanley's sentence would eventually be be reduced to eight years in prison, and he apparently died 2022.
The Legacy of the RB2000
00:29:18
Speaker
And that's kind of it of the three of them. Joe Wright died. Stanley went to prison, later died. I don't actually know what Brad Barker is is up to anymore. And if he knows where the RB2000 is, he's still not telling because the rp two thousand has never been found.
00:29:35
Speaker
So yeah, that's what happens when you when you try to build your own rocket pack. Quite frankly, let this be a lesson to all of you. Like I say, it's it's such a good and and and scarcely believable story that it has been it's been talked about and anywhere where people like to talk about weird stories such as this podcast, as long as they're a bit conspiratorial. And this one involved four people planning to kidnap a guy and and put a gun to his head. So that's's that's quite conspiratorial enough, I think.
00:30:03
Speaker
see There's even actually a movie. There's a movie released in 2008, a black comedy called Pretty Bird, named after the rocket pack. It's based on the case, but it's it's not actually like the the the characters' names are all changed. And they you know they they it seems seems like they've got the gist of the story, but they've actually you know they've fictionalized it Interestingly, i haven't seen the movie. You haven't seen the movie. No one's seen the movie. It came out in 2008. I literally, i looked on YouTube just to like find a trailer. I could find just typing in Pretty Bird 2008. I could find one clip of it and a trailer in Spanish. And that was all I could see initially.
00:30:42
Speaker
But the the description of it on IMDb says, a sweet-natured guy enlists his best friend and an engineer who lost his job and has an attitude problem to help him create and market his idea for a rocket-powered belt. So that's interesting.
00:30:57
Speaker
We've got one sweet-natured guy and one engineer with an attitude problem. The engineer with an attitude problem is played by Paul Giamatti. So it's not it's not clear if he his character is based on Brad Barker or Larry Stanley or possibly a combination of the two. It's quite strange. But it's interesting that in this case, they turn the story very much into a nice idealistic guy who just wants to build a rocket belt.
00:31:21
Speaker
versus crazy maniac engineer without a job. and it really has been interesting reading all the stuff, seeing um the different events. I've read a couple of articles from the LA Times reporting it on it at the time. i read um another one another one from a Houston newspaper, which was quite interesting because it was written after Joe Wright's death, but before...
00:31:44
Speaker
Brad Barker's kidnapping. And so in that story, it's very much Brad Barker is a maniac who probably killed Joe Wright, but we can't prove it. And then yet, not long afterwards, Larry larry Stanley proves himself to be obsessive enough to to to kidnap a man, hold him without food and water for more than a week and stick a gun in his face.
00:32:04
Speaker
So it it really does, you know, obviously this reflects poorly on absolutely everyone involved. There are no good guys at all. But it's still interesting to see how, depending on what you read, certain people come out of it looking better or more or less unhinged than the others.
Episode Wrap-up and Future Plans
00:32:22
Speaker
Ah, but so that is the story I have for you to- today, gentle listener. Again, we'll be in the next week down in Hamilton, New Zealand at this Australasian Philosophers Conference.
00:32:33
Speaker
If we're lucky, they might record an interview or something with some of their contemporaries down there. But otherwise, once once that's all done and they're back in China... I imagine we'll have another regular episode to record for you.
00:32:45
Speaker
But until then, i think I think I've talked enough about jetpacks and and and the wackiness that consumes them. So I'm just going to say goodbye.
00:33:02
Speaker
The podcaster's guide to the conspiracy features Josh Addison and associate professor M.R. Extentis. Our producers are a mysterious cabal of conspirators known as Tom, Philip, and another who was so mysterious that they remain anonymous.
00:33:16
Speaker
You can contact us electronically via podcastconspiracy at gmail.com or join our Patreon and get access to our Discord server. Or don't, I'm not your mum.
00:33:42
Speaker
And remember, groove is in the heart.