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The Atlas Obscura Podcast

The Wizard of Wamego

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Places & Travel, Society & Culture

4.61.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The story of how a former nuclear missile silo in Wamego, Kansas became the site of the largest LSD bust in US history (allegedly). Fore more information, check out author Dennis McDougal’s website and Rolling Stone’s interview with Leonard Pickard.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:17.0

Let us face without panic the reality of our times the fact that atom bombs may someday be dropped on our cities. In the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, the United States military built a missile silo on the outskirts of Wamigo, Kansas,

0:27.3

this sleepy little town with a population at the time of around 2,000 people. And inside of these enormous silos would be gigantic rockets

0:39.3

with a nuclear warhead strapped to them. They were there in case of an all-out war with the Soviet Union.

0:47.1

Nuclear, chemical, whatever.

0:49.1

And let us prepare for survival, understanding the weapon that threatens us.

0:58.6

But this episode, well it's not really about that.

1:02.4

This episode is what happened to that missile silo later.

1:07.0

Because after it was decommissioned, that one Migo silo was purchased by a man who is much more interested in a different kind of chemical warfare.

1:17.0

He was a purveyor of Lysuric Acid Diathlonide, or as common parlance has it, Lesti.

1:27.0

In the 1990s, that old missile silo became an enormous underground multi-story LSD trip pad and not some

1:37.2

dingy one either it had marble counters installed it had hot tubs it had an

1:42.2

enormous sound system. It had a petting zoo, not to mention

1:47.4

suitcases full of cash. And then it became the site of the biggest LSD bust in US history.

1:57.0

I'm Dylan Thuris and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

2:05.0

Today, we're off to see the Wizard of Wamigo, Kansas.

2:10.0

After this. Wamigo, Kansas is known in Kansas as being the home of the Wizard of Oz.

2:36.0

They have an Oz museum there and Oz pharmaceuticals.

2:41.0

This is Dennis McDougal. He's a journalist and the author of the book Operation White Rabbit,

2:47.0

LSD, the DEA, and the fate of the Acid King.

2:51.0

They have Oz Dogs next door, if you want to grab something to eat

2:55.6

before you see the tin man. Wamego of course was also home to this giant

3:00.9

missile silo that in the year 2000 was the site of this major

...

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