S9, Chapter 2: The Fifth Floor

0:00 Well, my next guest is an American doctor and travel blogger who did a similar tour of North Korea several years before mister Womba. He stayed in the same hotel and broke the strict rules governing tourists behavior to explore the hotel's secret fifth floor. Or Calvin soun joined me. Now tell us more about this hotel and this secretive fifth floor. Because you did venture there, what did you find? Tapes from the Dark Side contains descriptions of violence and sexuality. Listener discretion is advised. The fifth floor of the Yengacteau Hotel the subject of much rumor speculation. If you're in a guest elevator, you won't see it on a list of floor, but yet it undoubtedly exists. In two eleven, four years before Otto Warmbier's trip to North Korea was even a thought, a travel blogger named Calvin's son and a handful of members of his tour group snuck onto the forbidden fifth floor of the Angato hotel and they videotaped their experience.

1:30 Calvin's group was there for five nights, and just like Otto, he was also traveling with the Young Pioneer's tour group. They were busy during their days with the scheduled supervised sightseeing, but one night, their last night after a particularly long day of touring, the group was hanging out on the open rooftop of the forty seven story building. As the story goes, they made their way down to the revolving restaurant one floor below, and then hopped on an elevator. Calvin says that was when he realized the number five was conspicuously missing from the floor number list, and then someone said, quote, we should check out the fifth floor and see if they skip it because they're superstitious, or if it really exists. In his blog, Calvin notes quote, in twenty eleven, no Taurus had ever been detained in the DPRK. The weight of what we were doing didn't occur to us obviously. Now on the Young Pioneers Tour website they make it abundantly clear that the fifth floor is strictly off limits for taurusts. But that warning didn't exist in two and eleven, and it didn't exist when Otto later made his visit in twenty sixteen. We were not brief to stay away from the fifth floor at any stage by the guides. It just wasn't mentioned, says Calvin. One of their fellow travelers in that group us some interesting logic to try and persuade the group member is that what they were about to do was safe. He said, the fifth

3:04 floor technically doesn't exist, so we can't get in trouble for being there, and that was that. Convinced by some half baked logic, but also motivated by an adventurer spirit, Calvin and his fellow group members made their minds up to take the forbidden journey to the fifth floor. The elevator let them out on the fourth floor, because as we said before, there is no fifth floor button, and then they found their way to a stairway at the back of the hotel that one of the members heard rumors would take them to the secret floor, nestled between four and six. Calvin said that while the mood was outwardly jovial, they were all on edge and then quote one of the guys who was walking ahead in the corridor ran back and said, no, not this way, I heard screaming. Callvin says he didn't hear the screaming, but and his group were unnerved. They decided to change directions and head to the sixth floor and take a different stairwell and walk down to the fifth floor from that floor. In just a few short moments later, they were face to face with the entryway to the fifth floor. Someone tugged on the door handled to see if it was locked, and to their surprise, they found it wasn't. This was the moment, it was now or never.

4:27 Those who had their cameras took them out and they stepped inside. Calvin says that the first thing that you noticed right away was the low ceilings. He says they were half of that of other floors. This truly felt like a non existent floor built in the crawl space between two actual floors. The taller members of the group had to buckle their knees to give the necessary head room, and then the excited but also anxious groups spread out just a little bit and began to explore. In the footage from Calvin's camera, you can hear his footsteps and his hand shakily holding the camera. The picture is mostly out of focus. It's dark, fluorescent light overhead and the almost deafening sound of the ringing of some kind of transformer or generator. Calvin cautiously walks the length of the dimly lit concrete hall. The layout doesn't appear to be much different from your normal hotel corridor. Doors branch off on either side of the hallway to other rooms. Most appear locked, but one is open. There's a

5:57 pair of shoes outside, but when the peaks inside, there's no one there. Again from Calvin, there was one room that had lights coming from inside, and we saw security cameras, TV screens that seemed to show the inside of bedrooms, and what looked like surveillance equipment. I now began to think that this floor was where the hotel staff reportedly kept equipment to survey guests. While the layout might have been similar to the hotel corridors on other floors, the decorations and the lighting are starkly different. As I said before, there's only one fluorescent light overhead, long shadows cast on the outskirts of the walls. The same walls that are covered top to bottom with bright, seemingly hand painted anti American and anti Japanese propaganda images and phrases. All are written in Korean. One caption translated reads, this bomb is the product of the Americans.

6:53 Every product of the Americans. Is our enemy, get revenge a thousand hundred times against them? And then a moment that surely sent a shock through the hearts of everyone present on that floor, A strange man appeared almost out of nowhere. He was Korean in appearance, and he quickly approached the group. Lost he calmly asked in English. Someone in the group nods sheepishly, and the man nods back and points them to the stairs. Most surprising of all might be the man's demeanor. Calvin said that he didn't appear angry or really even agitated. The group members did return to their respective bedrooms to reflect on what they had seen to process the adrenaline rush. The consensus seemed to be that they didn't feel threatened or even put off by the encounter with the hotel staff, and in a baffling move, handful of group members decided to venture again back to the forbidden floor the same night. According to the blog, it's not entirely clear whether Calvin was one of these, but we do have a few details from whoever did decide to venture back to the fifth floor.

8:16 One group member says that during the second exploration, they opened a door to find nothing but a brick wall behind it, and another found a hidden door with stairs to another floor that also appeared like a secret floor quote there was a floor within a floor. The more the group members explored the mysteries of the fifth floor, the more entrapped by its secrets they became. We have video of yet another wall mural. It's of a bloody sword, a chain, prison bars, and again in Korean, the quote prepare to thoroughly destroy the invader, and then a list of those things that the Japanese quote took from the Koreans during their occupation, which allegedly included quote two hundred thousand sex slaves and the lives of one million Koreans. Another painting that we see is less violent and admittedly a bit random. It's an early nineteen eighties model computer and a phrase heralding the twenty first century as the age of technology.

9:22 And then yet again, a different hotel official approached the group members and once again politely asked them to return to the rooms, which they did. If the second time wasn't pressing faith, they surely were on their third visit to the fifth floor. That's right, some of the group members returned yet again, and again It's unclear whether Calvin was in this group, but whoever did visit, they were even more blase during this third round. On Calvin's blog, we read that two of the members wandered off during this excursion for a makeout session, and then yet again a guard appeared in pointing them back to their rooms. Calvin says, quote, we were all in our twenties.

10:09 We were foolish, We were very naive. The experience seemed exciting and innocent, and everything that's happened since then, knowing what I know now, I would not have done it. Calvin Sun made an extremely brief appearance on the BBC to discuss his exploration of the fifth floor of the Angacto Hotel. This was in twenty eighteen, and it's clear that this segment was a larger part of their coverage on Auto Warm Beer, and they only devoted a few brief minutes to interview in Calvin, which is a shame because the segment ends before it ever really begins. But I'd like for you to hear it. So here it is live from New York. Calvin, welcome to you, Thanks very much for being with us here on BBC World News tell Us more about this hotel and the secretive fifth floor, because you did venture that, what did you find the hotel? Thank you, first of all, thank you for having me. The hotel in itself was pretty much informed to us as a free ground to explore as long as we didn't leave the island of the hotel was situated in. It's kind of think of like a Roosevelt Island in New York City, where it was an island off in the river and Pyongyang, and we had to cross a bridge to get to our hotel, and it's the only hotel that all tourists stay at at the time, And as long as we didn't leave the island, there was no rules and where we could and could not explore. And the hotel itself was built as a five star hotel, and generally, I think it's relative to the other options in the area, if you will. For us, it was five stars of

11:43 Pyongyang, maybe three to four stars for a relative to any other hotel that we've been to. It was functional and otherwise a normal hotel with very high ceiling floors until we stumbled upon inadvertently the floor than we are going to be talking about. To tell us more about this fifth floor. Then why did you go there? Why was it a secret, and what did you find? It was something that a lot of travelers before me had stumbled upon in the past. It was become had become somewhat of an urban legend that I wasn't aware of when I went for the first time. It was talked about a few times, mentioned here and there during the trip by my fellow travelers who had done their research for me. Didn't really think much of it until our last night there, and it was just brought up as a suggestion to see if it really does exists by one of my co travelers, and then we decided to want to the hotel first. The rest of the hotel that we didn't had time to explore during the trip, and that included the basement.

12:50 It has his own casino, ironically, has a bowling alley, a bar which we went to every night because our guides took us there, a revolving rooftop restaurant, multiple banquet halls. And then once that was done and we explored Florida floorid floor, we found that there was an open door where the fifth floor is supposed to be, so in the elevator's skip the fifth floor. On the buttons, it goes from four to six, and so we decided to wander there, and when saw the door was open, we decided to walk on in, and over the course of the evening we explored more and more of it, even when there were staff there that found us and merely politely directed us back to our rooms, thinking that we were lost.

13:37 Calvin, I just want to win Thrup chicks. We haven't got much time left, I'm sure. I just want to get in a quick question before we went out of time. As you left the hotel and the rest of your tour, worst stop because one of you actually did take something from the hotel, didn't you what you've learned now about what happened to Otto Warmba, He took something from that hotel and tragically he lost his life because of it, didn't he? Do you think now looking back to your experiences at the hotel and what could have happened? Well, back in twenty eleven, nothing had happened to any tourist in North Korea. The statistics of getting hit by a car back home was higher because tourists were free to go in. I'm so sorry we are out of time. I must leave it that hopefully we will get more from you another time. Stay with us here on BBC.

14:24 It's clear now that Calvin and his group did not meet the same fat as Otto Warrenbier, but that doesn't mean they'd be getting out of this situation without a confrontation with the North Korean government that nearly ended in its own tragedy. According to Calvin, the last night, after playing chicken with the fifth Floor until five am, they finally called it quits and returned to their rooms. The bus taking them to the airport was arriving in only two short hours at seven am. They hurriedly packed their belongings, rested their eyes for no more than a few moments, and then groggily boarded the bus to Pyongyang Internet National Airport. As the members of the group were settling in for the bus ride, perhaps angling a pillow against the window to attempt a few minutes of shut eye, they had no idea that in a few short moments, their freedom and indeed their very lives, would hang in the balance. Tapes from the Dark Side is able to exist because of the generosity of people like you.

15:26 You can support the show for around the cost of one coffee a month. It takes less than a minute to sign up, and it feels good to support the things you love. Join us today on patreon dot com slash tapes from the Dark Side. Suddenly, employees from the hotel boarded the bus and demanded everyone stand and exit the vehicle. A cold shill ran down the backs of those who had repeatedly ventured onto the fifth floor. Was this karma had their luck finally and dry? One of the employees announced that they knew of what one member the group had done, and it would be most prudent to confess their crime. Immediately, the group was silent. A North Korean guard spoke up. She said that the embroidered towels from one of the private rooms of the Angacto Hotel had been stolen, and if the group members wanted to return to their respective home safely and without incident, these would need to be returned. Still, no one said a word. The Young Pioneers tour guide approached the Korean officials and they spoke in hushed whispers. Calvin and his peers were not sure if this was a bad day dream or reality, but as luck would have it, the Young Pioneers tour guides had struck a deal with the Korean officials, and this time the officials announced loudly their instructions.

16:55 They said they would turn their backs, which would allow the offender to anonymously return the towels, thus resolving the situation. Now, in his recounting of the tail, Calvin doesn't identify who stole the towels, only that as soon as the guards turned back around to face the group, the towels have been placed neatly at their feet. A stroke of grace and the incident was peacefully resolved. The group members boarded the bus and made their way to the airport. Their passports were all stamped, and the very next day, Calvin Soun was in class. It was the first day of his second year of med school, and until the Auto Warmbier story broke, Calvin barely gave a second thought to his excursion on the fifth floor the Angata Hotel. I want to give credit for most of that story to Mega Mohan of the BBC. You can follow her on Twitter at megham Ohan. That's m eg h am oh a n I'll put her Twitter link in the show notes as well, and also of course to Calvin's Sun and his blog Monsoon Diaries dot com. Now we all know that Otto Warrenbier would not be so lucky. On the morning of January two, twenty sixteen, his trip was coming to an end, and just like Calvin, Otto and his group awoke early to catch the bus to the Pyongyang International Airport. There was no incident on the bus ride in Auto's trip, but when they arrived at the airport and as they were standing

18:29 in line for the border patrol, Auto's roommate Danny Gratton describes how things took a dramatic turn for the worse at the airport's wean also with the last two through the security and he has simply had a tap on the shoulder. Two gods took him away and I sort of laughingly said to him, well, that's the last we'll ever see of you. And because we got on so well also say drowns and just chuckles at me. Danny says that Auto didn't resist, he didn't look scared. He just sort of half smiled and followed the guards who led him through a wooden door beside the check in area. No one knew it at the time, but from this moment Otto's fate was sealed when Otto's parents, Cindy and Fred Warrenbier, didn't hear from their son.

19:22 They began to worry, and when they got in touch with the Young Pioneers tour group, they learned that their worst fears had become a reality. Otto was being detained in North Korea for unexplained reasons, and then the waiting game. Otto's family, as well as the rest of the country, waited with bated breath for some kind of explanation for why Auto had been detained. North Korea has a state run news agency. It's called the Korean Central News Agency or casey NA. It's much different than say and in the USA, which is not state run but rather receives a small portion of its funding from the government. In the case NA, all reports are specifically crafted by the government themselves. It's not so much news but an extreme form of propaganda.

20:17 On January twenty third, about three weeks after Auto had been detained, the case NA announced that Auto Warrenbier was being detained for quote a hostile act against the state. That's all they said. They didn't specify what the hostile act was, and for nearly another month Auto's parents would continue to wait. The only news during that time was that a young Pioneer spokesperson had talked with the Reuters newsgroup and advised that there had been some kind of incident in the Angato hotel during Auto's visit. And then, suddenly, on a seemingly random Monday morning, February twenty nine, sixteen, in fact a leap year day, Otto Warrembier made his first public appearance since his capture. In this video, you'll hear Auto confess to attempting to steal a propaganda poster. The North Korean government will claim to have a video of him on the fifth floor removing the poster from the wall. We'll review that video later in detail, but just know that it's so grainy that he can't make out the face of the person in the video, and so there's really no way to tell if it's Auto.

21:33 You'll also hear Auto claim that he was recruited for this mission by the CIA, who was operating in a confidential partnership with both a small Methodist church in Otto's hometown of Wyoming, Ohio, and with the z Society at the University of Virginia, where Auto attended college. We'll also examine the validity of these claims, or rather the lack thereof, But for now, let's watch this confession and together. It's about thirty minutes in length and all interrupt only when necessary to provide contexts or clarity. The video begins with a wide shot of what looks like a well dressed hotel style conference room with a long wooden desk and microphone placed at the front. The room is packed with maybe a hundred or so well dressed Korean people in suits. Most of them are seated, except for a handful of videographers and photographers. They sit in a U shaped wooden desk that tracks around the edge of the outside of the room, and watch as Auto is led into the room by two guards. His head is down. He wears a gray suit and shuffles his legs and a solemn walk. He's not handcuffed, but grasps a stack of papers in his hand.

22:49 We will learn these are the words of his written confession, many of them written for him. He takes his seat at the elevated desk at the front of the room, where in moments he will speak to the crowd above him. Hanging two portraits the father and son of the Korean fascist state, Kim Il's Song and Kim Jong Ill. Before Auto's confession officially begins, a Korean official sitting next to him briefly sets the scene. I'll provide a spoken translation since the video that I found does not have one. I'm gonna getting to put in. We now begin an interview at the request of Otto Frederick Warren Beier, students at the University of Virginia. Was always want there who was arrested for committing anti DPRK hostile acts. Always know Warren Beer will speak.

23:56 At this point, Auto stands facing the crowd and takes a deep bow. He then sits again. First, I would like to thank everyone for coming to the press confidence that I'm eagerly requested to have here. Otto warm Beer's entire confession on the next episode of Tapes from the Dark Side. I'm tz Borden and I've been your host today. If you like what we do on this show, this kind of raw, in depth, investigative style of true crime, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. Every dollar you give makes a huge difference. Our newest five dollars members are Jade Drazz, Katie Ruprek and Janine Potts are incredible producers who support us at fifteen dollars a month.

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