Martin Bell
speaker
474 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 20 Aug
Martin Bell’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So, there comes a point where we are tracking down the various trajectories of these dinosaurs, and we realize that, um... a dinosaur that Nicolas Cage is known to have purchased in California for $200,000. That skull traced back to the Prokopi dinosaurs. It was a Bataar skull and as such was likewise forfeitable because it was interstate transfer property that was stolen.
And originated in Mongolia. Originated in Mongolia, was stolen under Mongolian law. And so I reached out and contacted Nicolas Cage's attorneys. Right around this time, my wife had given birth to our first child, my daughter Zora. And I took a few weeks of paternity leave. And the event that brought me back from paternity was
was a business trip I had to take to Los Angeles in order to inspect with the agents Nicolas Cage's dinosaur skull in Nicolas Cage's storage depot. How Nicolas Cage was it? It wasn't as Nicolas Cage as one might expect it to be. There were some big and neat-looking geodes in there. I don't think he had a whole lot stored in there at the time.
So we took a look at the skeleton, which existed in three parts at the time. It's sort of like each hemisphere of the head and then sort of like the lower, you know, sort of palette, which is longer than it would be on a person.
And so we're like, all right, yep, this looks good. And that, too, was ultimately shipped east, received by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. We filed another action for that skull, so that had its own civil case.
But that one, I think the last of the pieces involved in my case, was only repatriated I think it's within the past year and a half. There was a ceremony at the Library of Congress in which Immigrations and Customs Enforcement repatriated that skull along with several other pieces. And so it's just one of those things where... No, I'm just going to stop you there.
I suppose that's right. I have my Mongolian Presidential Medal of Friendship hanging in my office on a little sort of custom frame that I got done at Michael's. I think to myself, well, there it is, exactly as I'd planned it. And I want to make a couple of things clear relatively early on rather than face the wrath of Nicolas Cage and his attorneys.
One, Mr. Cage's attorneys could not have been nicer or more professional about the whole thing. Number two, Mr. Cage did the right thing.
And I'm just grateful to have worked at a place that let me have what felt like actual adventures here and there.
Ah, I have an answer. Mongolia ultimately repurposed an old Soviet-era office building in its capital, Ulaanbaatar, and the Baatar, Baatar bit is real, and turned it into a dinosaur museum and a major tourist attraction in Mongolia, largely based just on the haul that they got from this case. And it looks like a cool museum, honestly. Like it's a couple of stories high.
They've got dramatic lighting. And it's just this thing that exists halfway across the world now, in part because of the work that I was lucky enough to be able to participate in with my agency partners and the folks who supervised me at the U.S. Attorney's Office. It's not the sort of thing that is going to get me a Times obituary or a first pitch at, you know, at Citi Field.
Although, I mean, if Hawk Tua can do it, I've arguably earned it based on my contributions to science and Mongolia.
I hope that if I do get that opportunity, if the movie is made, maybe they have the premiere in Ulaanbaatar. And as the room goes dark and the opening credits roll, I just imagine and hope that a number of the Mongolian audience will whisper to each other, I thought he was white.
It's been an honor, man. Thanks for having me.
Showing 461–474 of 474 · page 24 of 24
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