10 Crazy Plans That Actually Worked!

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hello I'm Simon Whistler you're watching top 10s in essen in the video today we're looking at the top 10 crazy plans that actually worked it's a staple of cheesy action movies in TV shows a harebrained solution that it's so outlandish that the protagonists just might pull it off it's crazy enough to work they'll always say how are the plans that seem wildly implausible that somehow managed to succeed don't only exist in the world of fiction in the video today 10 real-life crazy schemes plans and ideas that were just wacky enough to actually work number 10 sweeping up the cash a group of French thieves found an enterprising way to clean out a chain of French supermarkets literally due to the nature of their business supermarkets tend to have a significant amount of cash on hand and grocery store security protocols tend to be less stringent than other cash heavy facilities like for example banks however the largest supermarkets those with a lot of money sitting around still aren't easy targets for thieves generally these stores employ some sort of vaults to safeguard their cash until it can be picked up and taken to the bank and for most thieves breaking into a vault or safe quickly is a very difficult task and here enters the vacuum gang a group of French thieves so you figured out a novel way to rob cash from mono pre grocery stores on more than a dozen occasions in total if they walked away with hundreds of thousands of euros rather than breaking into the vaults the thieves targeted the pneumatic tube system that delivered envelopes of money from cashiers to the stores vault by drilling a hole in the tube and then using a powerful vacuum the thieves were able to sweep up the cash before it ever reached the vault bands then they walked away never be in court or identified number 9 disguising embassy personnel as a film crew to sneak them out of hostile territory the next plan is so crazy that it sounds like the plot of a movie and in fact that movie would be Argo and is based on the true story of how the CIA aided tremendously by the Canadian government snuck six American consular officials out of Iran after the US Embassy in Tehran was stormed on November the 4th 1979 the US Embassy in Tehran was overrun by militant protesters what more than 50 Americans working at the Embassy were captured and held for more than a year during infamous Iranian hostage crisis five Americans working at the Embassy and one working as a nearby attache were able to escape without being detected after a few days of moving from house to house the group turns to the Canadian Embassy for help the Canadians gave them shelter at the Embassy and at the ambassador's personal residence while the CIA developed a plan to try and get the six out of Iran there were a lot of reasons to doubt that a safe exit from Iran would be possible for the Americans the Iranians were employing carpet Weaver's to reconstruct files that contained photos of embassy staff members so that they might discover that some personnel were missing from their group of hostages at the time plausible cover stories for the group for example that they were English teachers that they were working for an NGO although they were agricultural inspectors we're unworkable English language schools had been shuttered - the Iranian government's carefully monitored foreign NGO personnel and crop inspections wouldn't occur during winter so the CIA specifically Tony Mendez who was the authentication chief of the CIA's graphics and authentication division hatched an audacious plan to convince the Iranians the group was a Canadian film crew scouting locations for Argo a sci-fi movie set in outer space the plan required the CIA to set up a movie production office in LA which they did even taking meetings on other potential future projects generate publicity around the film's production Hollywood Reporter and Variety published articles around the plans for the film and obtained Canadian passports that backed up their supposed plan Canadian law forbids falsification of identification documents that the Canadian Parliament met in secret to approve the first exception since World War two in addition to procuring passports the Canadians got copies of visa documents established patterns of transit through the airport in Tehran bought airline tickets and coach debris bin how to sound Canadian amazingly this convoluted plan totally worked the Iranian Airport officials were fooled the six Americans boarded the Swiss airplane that would take them out of danger and once the plane was out of Iranian airspace they celebrated with bloody marys number eight figuring out how to beat press your luck many folks have dreamed of winning big on a game show Michael Larson was one of them however unlike most people Larson developed and executed a strategy that allowed him to rack up more than a hundred $10,000 in winnings on a single episode of press your luck which at the time in 1984 was the largest haul by any daytime game show contestant in history so how did Larson beat press your luck well to understand his victory you need to understand a little about how the game works contestants answered questions and were awarded spins around the board of illuminated squares that offered cash prizes and additional spins as well as whammies lands on a whammy which were placed on one-sixth of the rotating squares and he would lose all your accumulated cash and prizes and end your turn the team that built the board believed that the speed and random nature of the board would prevent any contestant from accruing more than $25,000 with most winners leaving with about $14,000 however Larson who had long been drawn to get rich quick schemes had a lot of time on his hands do you analyze episodes of press your luck after months of viewing the show during the winter he was an ice-cream man who didn't work in the offseason Larson that figured out the game's secret flaw the squares weren't actually randomized instead there were five looping patterns which with the help of a VCR and practice with his remote he memorized Larson then spent the last of his savings on a ticket to LA where he successfully auditioned for the show during the first half of the show Larson didn't do well perhaps on purpose but during the second half he found his footing Larson's bum 45 times in a row without hitting a whammy passing his remaining spins when he feared he was losing focus what I'll show executives panicked about his improbable winning streak they were helpless to stop it even after the show they determined that he was entitled to his winnings because he had not broken any of the show's rules just exploited a glitch in the board that no one else had noticed immediately after the episode the board was retooled in contestant winnings were capped at $75,000 stopping many other players from taking the luck out of press your luck number 7 dazzling the enemy it sounds like the exact opposite of how he should camouflage a military ship by covering with striking geometric patterns in bold contrasting colors but this dazzle camouflage was used by the British and then by the US to protect their ships primarily during World War one the idea behind dazzle painting proposed by British artist Norman Wilkinson was to confuse German u-boat Gunners by you the patterns to make it hard to quickly determine the ship's size speed or direction because stop Eidos were slow and expensive a gunner generally only had one shot to hit his target and an optical illusion the maiden even slightly less precise could offer significant advantages to the target ship during World War 1 more than 4,000 British ships and 1,200 American ships were dazzles the jury though it's still out on where the dazzle painting was effective at sorting enemy attacks academic studies at the time suggested that the designs could distort course estimates enough in order to elude torpedo attacks and there is even some evidence suggesting the dazzled boats may have been struck more often but less effectively by the enemy during the war insurance companies believed it worked lowering premiums for merchant vessels that had been dazzled the British Admiralty concluded the dazzling probably didn't hurt or helped but noted the improvement on morale on dazzled ships versus non dazzled ships was reason enough to keep the painting those ships were mostly painted over in more traditional gray when the war ended number 6 using a non-existent currency to bring inflation under control in Brazil from the 1950s onwards the Brazilian economy went through an inflationary period that caused turmoil within the country by 1993 inflation had reached an incredible 2,000 percent a year Brazilians would frantically rush to fill their fridges with food and their cars with gas as soon as they were paid because prices would invariably be higher the next day and the day after that successive governments had failed to get inflation under control and the Brazilian people lost faith not only in their government but also in their currency finally a new finance minister decided to call an economist for advice on how to rein in inflation The Economist atma Barca and three of his longtime buddies from grad school proposed a plan that initially sounded crazy in addition to reining in government spending they also wanted to introduce a fake currency which they called the u RV unit of real value the old currency would still exist but all wages and prices would be listed in you RVs the only thing that would fluctuate is how many of the old currency au RV was worth even though there were no physical you RVs over the next few months Brazilians they came to trust that you are V prices would remain at that point the virtual currency became an actual currency known as the real inflation fell dramatically in Brazil's economy became much more stable as one economist to put it Brazilians suddenly became capable of making plans for the future instead of having to live in the here and now number five pretending to be mythical vampires to quell rebellion from 1942 to 1954 the Kabbalah hop rebellion in which former soldiers rose up against the Philippine government raged throughout the country the CIA brought in Air Force colonel Edward Lansdale to help assist the Philippine defense minister in subduing the rebels Colonel Lansdale led a campaign focused on psychological warfare including a plane that broadcast warnings from the voice of God one of Lansdale's more inventive strategies involved exploiting local superstitions around the ass-wang a terrifying mythical vampire that has been a staple of Filipino folklore for centuries when a hook rebel camp proved difficult to dislodge through conventional means Lansdale's combat psychological operations squad was brought in it began by spreading rumors amongst local villagers of an Aswang sighting then as Lansdale recounts in his book the fire war squad set up an ambush along the trail used by the hooks when a hook patrol came along the trail the ambushes silently snatched the last man of the Patrol their move unseen in the dark night they punctured his neck with two holes vampire fashion held the body up by the heels drained of blood and put the corpse back on the trail when the Hux returned to look for the missing man and found their bloodless comrade every member of the Patrol believed that the owl swang had got him and that one of them would be next if they remained on that hill when daylight came the whole hog squadron moved out of the vicinity while this is the only reported instance of American operatives impersonating vampires local superstitions were also used during the Vietnam War when the US broadcast a recording called the wailing soul one in which spooky music overlaid a purported conversation between the wandering soul of a dead Vietnamese soldier Brenda's daughter number four escaping from prison in a helicopter Joel David Kaplan a businessman from a wealthy New York family found himself in a precarious position despite substantially irregularities in the evidence he was convicted of killing his business partner and sentenced to 28 years in a Mexican prison after his appeals were denied Kaplan who maintained his innocence knew that his only chance of getting out was to escape several unsuccessful escape plans were attempted trying to escape enroute to the hospital after feigning illness having a tunnel dug to provide a route out of the prison sneaking out in a disguise and hiding inside one of the truck compartments that were manufactured on-site at the prison in the end the escape plan that got Kaplan out of prison seems like the most far-fetched scheme of all Kaplan along with another prisoner escaped by helicopter while most of the prisoners and guards were occupied watching a movie the chopper touched down in the prison yard and Kaplan and his fellow prisoner just ran out grabbed on and flew away without even triggering an alarm the helicopter took them to a nearby plane on which Kaplan and his pilot flew across the border into Texas and presented themselves to u.s. customs officials the best part of the plan is that since escaping from jail is not a crime in Mexico and the two men were honest with US Customs about their identities there were no crimes committed in the eyes of the US government's US authorities showed little interest in extradite in Kaplan who was rumored to have been working with the CIA on the basis of his dubious murder conviction so after his crazy escape Kaplan he was free to go Kaplan's helicopter assisted jailbreak was the first of its kind but many other attempts have followed with mixed success number three using lunar gravity duct tape and a sock to get astronauts back to earth alive Houston we've had a problem those iconic words spoken by astronaut Jim Lovell aboard the Apollo 13 moon mission marked the beginning of a frantic effort to get the three-man crew aboard the shuttle back to earth safely after one of the ship's oxygen tanks exploded and two of the spacecraft's three fuel cells were lost the crew quickly moved to the tiny lunar module to preserve electrical energy while NASA personnel on the ground devised plans to keep the three men alive four days in a lunar module that had been designed to sport two men for two days the most pressing problem was developing a way to remove carbon dioxide from the module square canisters of lithium hydroxide could clean the air but they wouldn't fit into the rounds openings on the lunar module Mission Control devised a workaround so you get the canisters to fit using materials on board the module including an instruction book a piece of plastic garment bag a tube sock and duct tape the other key problem was getting the spacecraft back to earth with the fuel that remains Mission Control directed the astronauts on a precise firing of the spacecraft's engines in order to use lunar gravity to slingshot the craft around the moon and getting a return trajectory on April the 17th 1970 the crew safely returned to Earth and a jubilant nation celebrated the ingenuity and tenacity that allowed the astronauts to make it home in one piece number two holding back for C it sounds like a recipe for disaster having one of the world's most densely populated countries situated largely on a low-lying floodplain right next to the ocean oh and also add to that the fact that the land is criss-crossed by rivers however despite serious floods in its history the Netherlands has largely succeeded in using an elaborate system of canals dikes and reservoirs to hold back the sea early Dutch settlers relied on dikes to protect them from the sea and rivers and then win wills were constructed to power drainage ditches and canals to make the land suitable for agriculture and safe for habitation today Dutch flood management has become much more sophisticated incorporating storm surge barriers such as the mace land carrying a giant set of floating doors in the waterway that connects the North Sea to the port city of Rotterdam if a storm surge of more than 3 metres is anticipated the doors automatically shut to protect Rotterdam Harbor and the surrounding towns the national government has also worked to reclaim fields and canals in order to serve as reservoirs in the event of a flood and as usable public space during other times as Rotterdam's climate chief explains for the Dutch finding strategies to deal with the water that surrounds the country has long been a top priority he says it's not just a bunch of dikes and dams but it's a way of life number one facilitating Kidney swaps donating an organ to someone who needs it to survive is quite literally giving the gift of life and it's a gift many are waiting for as of 2016 in the United States more than 120 thousand people were on the wait list for an organ transplant with more than 100 thousand of them waiting for a kidney transplant unfortunately there just aren't enough kidneys for all of those who need them in 2014 only about 17,000 donor kidneys about 11,500 from deceased donors were available in the US and more than 8,000 people who were waiting for a kidney never died or became too sick for a transplant while they waited many patients suffering her friends or family members who are willing to donate a kidney to them and in the u.s. about one-third of transplanted kidneys come from living donors but sometimes about one of the time the willing friend or family member isn't a match this used to stop the process the recipients would have to continue waiting for a kidney from a deceased donor which isn't ideal both because of the delay is inherent in the wait list as well as the fact that kidneys from living donors lasts almost twice as long after transplant in 1991 South Korean doctors began solving this problem through a strategy that sounds a little off the wall at first they were facilitating kidney swaps it goes like this patient days loved one who was not a match with patient day but was a match with patient B would donate their kidney to patient beat and patient B's loved one who matched patient a but not patient B would donate to patient a while this was a big step forward it still left some people out as a match was needed on both sides a computer matching program was created in order to make Domino chains of kidney donations and even more audacious undertaking an altruistic donor unrelated to any recipient kicks off the chain by donating a kidney and a series of matched donations from loved ones to unrelated recipients in Sue's ending with a final recipient who lacks a willing living donor in 2012 a chain involving sixty surgeries over five months resulted in 30 kidney transplants across the United States in 2015 and even larger chain resulted in 34 successful kidney transplants setting a new record by allowing living donors to trade their kidneys to secure one for a loved one the domino effect allows more lives to be saved both by increasing the number of living donors who are able to help a loved one in need and by reducing the pool of people on the wait list for a kidney from a deceased donor so I really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe for more videos just like this every day of the week there's a button below me as well as on the screen now also over there a couple of other videos that you might enjoy if you enjoyed this one and thank you for watching you

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Channel: TopTenz

Views: 1,778,070

Rating: 4.8275185 out of 5

Keywords: top 10, toptenz, top10, top ten, top 10 list, crazy plans that worked, crazy plans, crazy ideas, insane ideas, strange ideas that worked, life hacks, mind blowing ideas, how does it work?, insane plans that worked

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Length: 17min 21sec (1041 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2017

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