Transcript
from free energy
technology to
nazi ufos
the wizardry of
ray harryhausen
THE WiTcHOF
scrapFaggOT grEEn
insidethe
vrilsociety
essex, 1944: an english
village is at war with
the powers of darkness
mythical
monsters
intothe uncannyvalley badrobots andcreepysexdolls
dr phene’s house of mystery the secret of the chelseahermit
legends come tolife ferrets onsteroids andsewer gators
pope’s impromptu exorcism • smoking rock • whistling ghost • rubble rescues
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36 THE UNCANNY VALLEY
Robots, sex dolls and vampire babies
4 AMAZING RUBBLE RESCUES
Cases of survival against the odds
reports
55 Of Madness and Melancholy by SD Tucker
56 Harryhausen’s mythical monsters by MJ Pérez Cuervo
30 THE WITCH OF SCRAPFAGGOT
GREEN
ROBERT HALLIDAY investigates a curious wartime haunting
in an Essex village, involving poltergeist activity, missing
geese and a vengeful witch back from beyond the grave.
But were the phenomena real, imagined or invented?
36 THE UNCANNY VALLEY
From fairies and the Men in Black to Japanese robots and
hyper-real sex dolls, we are surrounded by human-like
simulacra. IAN SIMMONS explains why the science of
robotics has provided a new model of how the not-quite-
human creeps us out so much, and why that might be...
42 THE VRIL SEEKERS
How did a fctional force invented by a 19th-century
English writer inspire a body of myth that takes in Nazi
occultists, fying saucers, secret societies and free energy
– and continues to fourish online in the 21st century?
THEO PAIJMANS reveals the truth about the Vril Society.
48 DR PHENE’S HOUSE OF MYSTERY
Who was the mysterious Dr Phene and what secrets
lurked behind the shuttered windows of his House of
Mystery? JAN BONDESON tells the strange story of one of
London’s forgotten eccentrics.
28 BLASTS FROM THE PAST
No. 45. Altered state: teleporting in Michigan
76 FORTEAN TRAVELLER
No. 87. Ettal: the Grail Church of Bavaria
02 EDITORIAL
59 REVIEWS
71 LETTERS
regulars
74 IT HAPPENED TO ME
78 READER INFO
80 TALES FROM THE VAuLT
FT303 1
www.forteantimes.com
forum
COVER IMAGE: WITCH CREATED By DAVID FOxLEy / PHOTOGRAPHy By ETIENNE GILFILLAN
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strange days
Rubble rescues; Pope’s impromptu exorcism; Mao’s mango
mania; folk with four kidneys; legends come to life; the
whistling ghost; uFO disclosure and much more.
14 SCIENCE
17 ALIEN ZOO
18 GHOSTWATCH
21 CLASSICAL CORNER
23 MyTHCONCEPTIONS
24 NECROLOG
25 STRANGE DEATHS
26 THE uFO FILES
COVER STORY
56 HARRYHAUSEN’S MYTHOLOGICAL MONSTERS
The special effects pioneer who defned ancient myth for the modern age
22 CHAIRMAN MAO’S MANGO MANIA
When the Cultural Revolution went fruity
6 CRYPTIDS IN THE MUSEUM
Creatures feature in new exhibition
the world of strange phenomena
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Why fortean?
SEE PAGE 78
Everything you always wanted
to know about Fortean Times
but were too paranoid to ask!
ral sciences with Hermetic philosophy... not to
mention the ability to work non-stop and into the
night. Try as he might, Nicholson said he couldn’t
dissuade JMof his neglect of Newton, portrayed
by Blake as a man whose “single vision” lay at the
root of scientifc materialism.
John Neal’s talk emphasised the undying
triumph of ‘the great geometer’ in both harmonis-
ing many of the ancient systems of measurement
and in the unprecedented identifcation of the
primary unit of measurement upon which nearly
all ancient architecture and monuments are
based – the “English Foot”.
(“I wish it had been some-
thing more exotic,” said
Neal.) Later, a 10-minute
video on ancient metrol-
ogy – Best Foot Forward
by JonathanAdams – was
premiered.
Another video presenta-
tion was a prime example
of the creativity inspired
by JM’s work. John Mar-
tineau’s What is the Uni-
verse UpTo? begins with
the geometry employed
by crop-circle makers,
and explores Hermetic
art and science, fromthe
symbolismof the City of
Revelation to star patterns
and life forms. And to
remind us of JM’s trickster
side, the Dutch flmmaker
Michiel Brongers showed
his 10-minute clip of the
American veteran of the
underground press Bill Levy
reminiscing about his encounters with JM.
As JM, like Fort, was amused that his greatest
fans were cranks and crackpots and abhorred
any suggestion that he should become the object
of a cult, we think he would have been quietly
pleased by these offerings. Poet andTemenos
founder Kathleen Raine once described JMas
“one of the most brilliant men in England” – but
this symposiumreminded us that his message
had the brilliance of ancient wisdombehind it.
CELEBRATING JOHN MICHELL
The late John Michell was a great friend, col-
league and contributor to FT and we have watched
with interest as – since his death inApril 2009
– his legacy is assessed and celebrated. Nowhere
was this more evident than at the recent John
Michell symposiumorganised by his friend and
collaborator Christine Rhone for theTemenos
Academy and held in the quaint Art Workers’
Guild building in London’s Bloomsbury. This event
was the second of its kind (the frst took place in
2010; see FT267:56-57) and took the title ‘Dancing
with Plato &Fort: Crop Cir-
cles, Cosmology &Ancient
Metrology’.
TheTemenos Academy,
of which JMwas a Fellow,
is a teaching organisation
based upon‘the perennial
philosophy’ as exemplifed
in the works and principles
of the world’s great mysti-
cal philosophies. JMshared
with thema deep apprecia-
tion of Plato, the Platon-
ist writers and the more
modern Neo-Platonists, to
whomnumber and geom-
etry were regarded as a
divine language linking the
mundane world to the airy
Ideal. JMalso recognised
the Hermetic principle
of “as above, so below” in
Charles Fort’s idea of the
‘continuity’ which, in Fort’s
terms, connected the ‘local’
to the ‘universal’.
Christine Rhone opened
the day with a trot through JM’s writings and
philosophy, taking in sacred geometry, ancient
metrology, leys and astro-archæology, forteana,
simulacra, UFOs and the Shakespeare authorship
controversy – as well as giving a welcome account
of the world’s only crop-circle making competition
organised in 1992 by JMand Rupert Sheldrake.
Next, John Nicholson, author, pamphleteer
and one of JM’s oldest friends and colleagues,
presented a challenging viewof JMas a trickster,
visionary and fashion icon, whose views shaped
the Glastonbury music festival as much as ley-
hunting moots and fortean conventions. Apart
fromhis many books and articles, and even a
stint as a columnist for the Daily Mail, JMwas
perhaps “our last great correspondent” ( as many
in the roomcould personally attest). Nicholson
explained JM’s ‘Flying SaucerVision’ as an appre-
ciation of symbols that lead to greater spiritual
and mystical understandings, and asked a star-
tling question: “What path would John have taken
if he had followed Isaac Newton instead of Wil-
liamBlake?” It wasn’t a preposterous question,
said Nicholson, because JMshared many of the
interests and characteristics of Newton, includ-
ing mathematics, geometry and the all-important
appreciation of ancient doctrines combining natu-
EDITOR
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As above, so below
Fortean Times
2 FT303
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editorial
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"How ever did they come up with
these quaint names?"
© 2013 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.
FROM EXECUTIVE PRODUCER STEVEN SPIELBERG
STARRING NOAH WYLE
The compleTe SecoND SeaSoN
PRE-ORDER nOw On BLU-RAY
™
AnD DVD
ALsO AVAiLABLE sEAsOn 1 & 2 BOxsEt
‘GrippinG’
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Simply download the Amazon app, click on ‘search’ and then use the ‘scan it’ option to buy
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strangedays
a di ge s t of t he wor l dwi de we i r d
A woman trapped for 17 days
beneath the rubble of the
collapsed eight-storey building
on the outskirts of Dhaka in
Bangladesh was discovered alive
on the afternoon of 10 May.
Rescuers about to demolish
a concrete slab surrounding
the small air pocket where
the woman was trapped saw
a pipe moving; it was Reshma
Begum, 19, trying to attract
attention. “Save me!” they
heard her shouting. After 40
minutes she was pulled free,
given saline and biscuits, and
in the building, Rana Plaza in
Savar district, when it collapsed
on the morning of 24 April in
what is now considered the worst
disaster in the history of the
garment industry.
The rescue brought to mind
a similar scene from Haiti in
2010 when Darlene Etienne,
17, was plucked from beneath
the rubble of a collapsed house
15 days after an earthquake
struck outside Port-au-Prince.
She survived because she was
having a shower when the quake
struck and thus had access to
water [FT281:9]. A Haitian
man, who was buried in the
rubble of a market with some
food, was found 27 days after
the quake. On 30 July 1990,
Pedrito Dy was rescued from
the gym of the Hyatt Hotel in
Baguio, Philippines, which had
collapsed 14 days earlier in a
massive quake. He had survived
by drinking his urine and a few
drops of rain he caught in his
mouth [FT56:20].
A young road worker survived
40 days’ entombment in 1994
after a landslide in China’s
Sichuan province. Zeng Shua, 20,
was down to 30kg (66lb). He had
had no food and only a trickle
of water. In 1995, Park Seung-
hyung, 19, was rescued from a
collapsed department store in
Seoul, South Korea. She had
been trapped face down for 16
days under a collapsed lift shaft.
She was naked, having peeled off
her clothes to survive the heat,
and had had no food or water. “A
monk appeared in dreams from
time to time,” she told her father.
“He gave me an apple and thus
kept my hope alive” [FT84:7].
The record for survival under
rubble is probably Naqsha Bibi,
40, who was buried for 63 days in
her collapsed kitchen following
an earthquake in Kashmir
on 8 October 2005. She had
apparently survived on rainwater
and rotting food. She had lost
half her body weight, but made a
full recovery. Int. Herald Tribune,
D.Mirror, 11 May 2013.
rushed to a military hospital.
She had apparently been in the
basement in a Muslim prayer
room, which providentially had
oxygen and enough clear space
for her to stand up. She spent
408 hours buried with three
others whom she had to watch
die. She picked through their
bags to fnd biscuits and water to
survive. “There was some dried
food around me,” she said. “I ate
the dried food for 15 days. The
last two days I had nothing but
water.”
Some of those rescued had to
have limbs amputated to free
them. Moshammat Rikta, 25, was
clamped for two days between
a displaced pillar and a sewing
machine. Rescuers had to saw
off her right arm to pull her free.
Reshma’s salvation came more
than a week after the last person
found alive. All hope of fnding
any more survivors had passed
and heavy machinery had been
brought in to clear the debris
more quickly. The death toll had
already reached 1,021. More than
3,000 people were believed to be
working at fve clothing factories
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Rubble rescues
Woman survives 17 days trapped in prayer room of collapsed building
4 Ft303
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Pope Francis appears to have
performed an exorcism in St
Peter’s Square after Pentecost
Mass on 19 May. Smiling
broadly, he initially shook the
hand of a wheelchair-bound
man, but his expression changed
dramatically when Father Juan
Rivas from the Legionaries of
Christ, a deeply conservative
order, leaned in close and spoke
a few words to him. With a
more serious expression, the
Argentine pontiff placed both
hands on the man’s head for
15 seconds and seemed to be
intoning an intense prayer. The
pilgrim then convulsed briefy
and emitted a long sigh. He
body went limp and his mouth
dropped open. “Exorcists who
have seen the footage have no
doubt that this was a prayer of
liberation from evil, an actual
exorcism,” said a spokesman for
TV2000, a television channel
owned by the Italian Episcopal
Conference.
The Vatican downplayed
the incident, although it used
ambiguous language that did
not altogether deny that the
Pope had tried to rid the man
of evil. Its spokesman, Father
Federico Lombardi, said: “The
Holy Father had no intention
of performing an exorcism but
simply prayed for a suffering
person who was presented to
him.” Pope Francis has made
it clear since his election that
he believes the Devil, whom he
refers to as “the Enemy” and
“the Prince of this World”, is
a real force and needs to be
fought constantly.
Father Gabriel Amorth,
88, head of the International
Association of Exorcists – who
claims to have personally
carried out 50,000 exorcisms and
sent 160,000 demons back to Hell
– said the person in the wheelchair
was a 43-year-old married man
from Mexico called Angelo “who
was possessed by four demons”.
He added that now more than
ever there was a need for exorcists
to combat people possessed by
“sorcerers” and “Satanists”,
and claimed John Paul II had
carried out many exorcisms. He
certainly carried out one, on 27
March 1982, according to the
published memoir of Cardinal
Jacques Martin, former head of
the papal household. Benedict XVI
performed no exorcisms, instead
leaving it to bishops and priests.
The Legion of Christ is facing an
uncertain future after its Mexican
founder, Father Marcial Maciel
(1920-88), was revealed as a serial
sex abuser of youngsters, including
two of the children he fathered.
D.Telegraph, Independent, 22+23
May 2013.
Ft303 5
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Extra! Extra!
FT’s FavouriTe headlines
From around The World
Pope ousts demons?
did Pope Francis lay on hands and perform an impromptu exorcism?
D.Telegraph, 15 Dec 2012.
Hull Daily Mail, 7 Nov 2012.
Hull Daily Mail, 1 Feb 2013.
Hull Daily Mail, 1 Feb 2013.
Hull Daily Mail, 1 Feb 2013. Sunday Telegraph, 23 Dec 2012.
Canberra Times, 27 Nov 2012.
Wolverhampton Express & Star, 26 Dec 2012.
Sun, 27 Dec 2012.
seeking
disclosure
Washington
hosts Citizens’
Hearing on UFO
cover-ups
Page 28
old mother
leakey
The Whistling
Ghost versus
the Buggering
Bishop
Page 22
away from
it all
The folk who
live in crypts,
woods or holes
in the ground
Page 14
strangedays
CRYPTIDS IN THE MUSEUM
Cryptozoology isn’t often the subject for a major exhibition at
a mainstream public museum, so we’re happy to see that the
American Natural History Museum’s ‘Mythic Creatures’ is on at the
Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Running until the end
of September, it features spectacular large-scale models of Bigfoot,
Nessie and various monsters and fabulous beasts, such as dragons,
mermaids and unicorns. It explores the origins and truth behind the
legends and reports, how they have helped shape modern society,
and how they have sparked the human imagination in a multitude of
different ways. www.wdrb.com/story/22219095/new-exhibit-at-frazier-
history-museum-looks-at-mythic-creatures.
IMAGES © D FINNIN/AMNH
A griffn, a unicorn and other fabulous creatures on display
A reconstruction of Gigantopithecus,
seen by some as the ancestor of
manimals such as bigfoot
The mermaid Lasirén on a Vodou banner from Haiti
FT199 7
www.forteantimes.com
The giant Aepyornis once
lived on the island of
Madagascar. Now extinct, it
was the largest bird ever to
have lived.
A dwarf elephant skull that may have fuelled the myth of the Cyclops
A kraken with 12-foot-long tentacles appears to rise out of
the foor of the exhibition
strangedays
The Pontfadog Oak, which had
been growing in Chirk, near
Wrexham in Mid Wales, since
at least AD 802, was felled
by 55mph (88km/h) winds on
the night of 17 April. Dianne
Coakley-Williams, the landowner,
heard it fall with an “almighty
crash and bang”. Its massive,
hollow bole had crushed a metal
gate as it had fallen and the
tips of its branches, which had
been about to burst into leaf,
were resting lightly on a slate
roof. This sessile oak (Quercus
petræa) was the oldest oak
in Wales, the third largest in
Britain and one of the oldest
in Europe. No one knew quite
how old it was because it had
lost its heartwood, but Michael
Lear, a tree expert with the
National Trust, said in 1996:
“Using Forestry Commission
techniques, the youngest it can
be is 1,181 years, the oldest 1,628
years. I cannot fnd a record of
an oak tree of any of the 500
species internationally which
has a greater girth anywhere
in the world.” Last year
conservationists had compiled
an action plan to preserve it, but
the £5,700 funding could not be
found.
Prince Owain Gwynedd rallied
his army beneath its branches
in 1157, before defeating Henry
II at the battle of Crogen, a
mere two miles (3.2km) away.
Legend has it that the tree was
spared when Henry ordered the
surrounding Ceiriog Woods to
GHOST GUSTERS
Romanian lawyer Madalin
Ciculescu, 34, sued four
priests and an Orthodox bishop
for failing to exorcise fatulent
demons that he claimed were
ruining his business. “I still see
all sorts of demons in the form
of animals – usually crows,” he
said. “They make foul smells
that give me headaches.” He
was taking his claim to EU
judges after losing his case in
Pitesti, Romania. Sunday Sun,
7 April 2013.
DANGEROUS BEAUTY
Three men from the United
Arab Emirates were deported
from Saudi Arabia amid
concerns they were “too hand-
some”. Religious police ejected
the trio from the Jenadrivah
Heritage and Culture Festival in
Riyadh for being “too irresist-
ible to women”. (Sydney)
D.Telegraph, 19 April 2013.
DANGEROUS DISH
Owen Durray, 32, from Kent, on
holiday in Poland, was perusing
the menu at Bee Jays in Poznan
when he noticed “cervical
cancer with chips, served on
beetroot carpaccio”. “This
was a translation error,” said a
spokesman for the restaurant.
“It should have said crayfsh.”
Sun, 4 May 2013.
FLIES TAKE NOTE
A draft law in China stipulates
than no more than one fy per
cubic metre will be allowed
in lavatories within buildings,
while in free-standing public
loos, three fies per cubic metre
will be permitted. MX News, 25
Feb 2013.
be felled in 1165. The Williams
family archive, which goes back
fve generations, reports that a
missing bull had once spent two
days inside the hollow trunk,
which was recently found to be
42ft 5in (13m) in circumference
(although it was over 53ft/16m in
1881). Two golden chisels were
said to have been hidden in it. In
1880, six men sat around a table
inside it. It was used by sheep
both as a shelter and somewhere
to die; children used to play in it;
Victorians posed for photographs
by it; and generations carved
their initials in it.
“It was always a working
tree, pollarded or pruned for
its wood,” said Moray Simpson,
Wrexham’s tree offcer. “It was
part of the community. People
built houses from it, cooked from
it. That’s why it lived so long. It
always had a role.” It’s possible
that it might be cloned after
some of its twigs and buds were
taken to try and create a genetic
match. D.Mail, D.Telegraph, 20
April; Observer, 28 April; BBC
News, 29 April 2013.
SIDELINES...
8 FT303
www.forteantimes.com
Pontfadog Oak felled
The oldest oak in Wales fnally succumbs to high winds
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RAISING DAD
Two brothers, aged 38 and
48, dug up the coffn of their
92-year-old father in the hope
of resurrecting him. They were
arrested after police respond-
ed to a call of a van removing
a coffn from a mausoleum
at Gethsemane Cemetery in
Detroit, Michigan. MX News
(Sydney), 17 Jan 2013.
WHALE IN THAMES
A dead whale found in the
Thames Estuary on 24 March
prompted navigation warnings
and was towed to Sheerness
Docks for examination. A
passing tug saw the young
female humpback measuring
about 36ft (11m) off the Isle
of Sheppey. There were no
obvious signs as to how it died.
Adults can grow to around 60ft
(18m). A northern bottlenose
whale swam up the Thames
to central london in 2006, but
died from dehydration and kid-
ney failure. Metro, D.Telegraph,
25 Mar 2013.
SURGICAL COCK-UP
Dirk Schroeder, 77, was in
agony 24 hours after routine
prostate surgery in 2009.
An X-ray revealed 16 items
of medical equipment inside
him, including a needle, a
6in (15cm) roll of bandage, a
compress, several swabs and a
fragment of surgical mask. The
German ex-banker died in 2012
and his family are seeking
€80,000 in damages from the
Henriettenstift hospital in Han-
nover. D.Mail, 15 Jan; MX News
(Sydney), 16 Jan 2013.
Jessica Curphey, 20, a student at
Surrey’s University of Creative
Arts, developed an excruciating
pain in her right side. Her best
friend took her to St Helier
Hospital in Epsom, where she
discovered she had been born
with four kidneys. When surgeons
removed what they thought
was a 6.5in (17cm) cyst in her
right kidney, they found it was a
damaged kidney, which contained
2,000ml of infected fuid because
it was unable to drain. They also
found a fourth (healthy) kidney.
“I suppose it’s weird not
knowing what’s going on inside
your body until something
happens like with me,” said
Ms Curphey, originally from
Manchester. “On the upside, I
don’t get as bad hangovers as my
friends, which is perhaps down
to my extra kidneys.” Robyn
Webber, a consultant urological
surgeon, said: “Having three
kidneys on a single side of the
body is exceptionally rare. There
are perhaps fewer than 100
cases described in textbooks and
papers.” D.Telegraph, 18 May;
Metro, 20 May 2013.
Angel Burton suffered painful
kidney infections since birth.
She was diagnosed with bilateral
refux, which meant that the
valves to her bladder weren’t
working properly and urine was
getting into her kidneys, causing
infections. In October 2007, when
she was fve, surgeons at Sheffeld
Children’s Hospital decided they
had to give her artifcial valves;
but after cutting her open, they
found two fully formed kidneys
growing on top of her old ones.
The new organs had taken over
the role of the others – Angel, who
at the time of the news reports
was aged eight and fghting ft,
had cured herself.
Her mother Claire, 32, from
Louth, Lincolnshire, said: “When I
told Angel what they’d found she
said, ‘God gave me the healthy
kidneys and forgot to take the old
ones away’.” Consultant urologist
Prasad Godbole, who operated
on Angel, said that the duplex
kidneys (as they are called) were
totally independent each with a
separate ureter, draining urine to
the bladder. “We are stunned that
these have never been picked up
on a scan,” he said. “She’s been
having extensive scanning for fve
years and they’ve never shown
up.” Duplex kidneys occur in
approximately one per cent of the
population, but are rarely fully
formed. “Duplex kidney means a
kidney made up of two extra units
joined together,” explained the
surgeon. “It rarely comes to light.”
D.Mail, Sun, 18 May 2010.
Carl Jones was diagnosed with
Type-1 diabetes as a child, and
spent hundreds of hours on a
dialysis machine before a kidney
and pancreas transplant in 2004;
four years later, he had a second
round of transplants when the
replacements stopped working.
Each time, surgeons left all the
organs in place to help his body
cope with the trauma. Now Mr
Jones, 32, a van driver from
Carmarthen, South Wales, is living
a healthy life with four kidneys
and three pancreases. “I’ve got
enough organs for a small family,”
he said. “The only bad thing is
it makes it hard for me to lose
weight with all that in front of my
stomach.” D.Express, 22 Mar 2013.
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Recent cases of people with an embarrassment of kidneys
ABOVE: At least Jessica Curphey (left), with her best friend Steph Moorghen, doesn’t get hangovers as badly as her mates…
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UNHOLY CRISPS
Pret à Manger removed its
‘Virgin Mary’ crisps from sale
after complaints from Christian
groups. The sandwich shop
chain introduced the new
brand of spicy tomato crisps,
playing on the name of the non-
alcoholic version of a Bloody
Mary cocktail. BBC News, 4 Feb
2013.
HIS NUMBER’S UP
when Tennessee maintenance
worker walter Slonopas, 52,
saw his income tax form
stamped with the number
666, he quit his job to avoid
condemning his soul to Hell. A
spokesman for his employer,
Contech Casting llC, said the
number merely meant that the
form was the 666th mailed
out, and that the frm was
willing to send him a new tax
form, but Slonopas’s cryptic
comment was: “God is worth
more than money”. Metro, 8
Feb; D.Telegraph, 9 Feb 2013.
SLIMY INTRUDER
Millions of killer slugs that
grow up to 5in (13cm) are
poised to invade UK gardens.
The species, Arion vulgaris,
was frst identifed in East
Anglia late last year, and has
been found eating dead mice,
dog turds and each other. It
is believed to have arrived
with imports of salad leaves
from Spain. A similar species
feasts on road kill in Scandi-
navia, creating so much slime
that it has become a road
hazard. D.Mail, D.Telegraph,
10 Jan 2013.
Bratislav Jovananovic, 43, and
his friendAleksandar Dejic,
53, are the only living tenants
of a derelict cemetery in the
southern Serbian city of Nis, once
known for its intricately carved
tombstones, which have long since
vanished. “I have never stolen
anything,” said Jovananovic. “I
did not even desecrate the grave
I live in. It was already open.” He
has lived in the grave for more
than a decade. When his father
died in a fre that also destroyed
his house, Jovananovic found
himself homeless, jobless and
friendless. He has covered up the
rusty metal coffns in his freezing
crypt. “I’mnot afraid of the
dead,” he said, “I just don’t want
my every glance to shift towards
them.” Dejic has been living
here for two decades. His father,
also homeless, bought himto the
cemetery and they lived together
in a chapel-like vault built in 1929,
until his father fell ill and died.
Dejic’s worldly possessions are
a fewjars flled with a
dark liquid, scraps of
leftover food and some
old clothes. Neither man
receives welfare, as (cruelly) they
are regarded as having no fxed
abode – and cannot get identity
cards. Irish Examiner, 4 Feb 2013.
•
Christopher Knight, 47, was
arrested with a backpack full of
stolen food when he tripped a
motion-sensor alarm at PineTee
Camp, a holiday park for people
with special needs, situated near
the small town of Rome in the
far north-eastern state of Maine.
(Game warden Sergeant Terry
Hughes, who had been trying
to nab Knight for years, had set
up the surveillance alarm.) On
9 April, authorities found the
campsite where they believe
Knight, known as the North
Pond Hermit in local lore, lived
for the last 27 years. The living
quarters included a tent covered
by tarpaulins suspended between
trees, a bed, propane cooking
stoves and a battery-run radio.
Knight also had a makeshift
shower, was clean-shaven and had
his hair cut short. He said that
the last verbal contact he had
with another person was during
the 1990s. “He passed somebody
on a trail and just exchanged a
common greeting of hello and
that was the only conversation or
human contact he’s had since he
went into the woods in 1986,” said
state trooper DianeVance. He was
so well known to some summer
cottage owners that they left food
out for him so he wouldn’t break
in during the colder months –
although others believed he was
just a mythical fgure.
Since vanishing from his
Maine home for no apparent
reason and setting up camp
when he was about 19, Knight
sustained himself on food stolen
from dozens of cottages. He was
thought to have been responsible
for more than 1,000 burglaries. He
would meditate on an upturned
bucket while staring at the night
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“I did not even
desecrate the
grave I live in.
It was open”
ABOVE: Homeless Bratislav Jovanovic has lived in a derelict tomb in Serbia ever since his house burned down in a fre.
strangedays
MACABRE GIFTS
Gift-wrapped human skulls
have been found on the
streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
The frst, in cherry-red wrap-
ping, was found in a planter
near an apartment building
on 20 February. Since then,
seven others were found
near Mormon temples or
consulates, including those
for Russia, the Czech Republic
and South Africa. Security
cameras captured images of a
woman in an ankle-length skirt
leaving the skulls, which seem
old, with traces of earth. [AP] 7
Mar 2013.
DISHING THE DIRT
A Tokyo restaurant has
started serving up a unique
meal of earth, taken from
the mountains and tested.
“Soil Surprise” contains a dirt-
covered potato ball with a truf-
fe centre. MX News (Sydney),
11 Feb 2013
CINEMA VERITÉ
A video apparently made by
North Korea – which surfaced
on Chinese website Ifeng
– claims US citizens live off
snow and have eaten the
country’s entire population of
birds. It shows streets piled
with body bags and flled with
homeless drug addicts. Most
Americans are forced to live in
tents and buy guns to kill each
other, especially children.
North Koreans are shown
doling out cakes and blankets.
MX News (Sydney), 14 Mar
2013.
SALTY INVASION
Native roadside plants in the
UK are being wiped out by win-
ter gritting, and verges taken
over by Danish scurvy grass
(a white-fowered member of
the cabbage family), which is
spreading quickly due to its
high tolerance of the salt used
in road grit. It is often spread
from its coastal and marsh
habitats in the tyre treads
of cars. D.Telegraph, 26 Jan
2013.
HELLO, IS THAT ADOLF?
Hitler’s phone number – Berlin
11 6191 – appeared in Who’s
Who until 1945. D.Telegraph,
23 Mar 2013.
sky, and knew all the eagles that
nested nearby. Despite Maine’s
harsh winters, during which
temperatures sometimes struggle
to get above –12.2C (10F) for a
week at a time, Knight stayed
at his encampment and avoided
making campfres so he wouldn’t
be detected, and he used propane
he had nicked only for cooking.
To stay warm he would bundle
himself in multiple sleeping bags.
At the time of the reports,
Knight was being held at
Kennebec County Jail on $5,000
bail for burglary and theft. No
relatives had been traced. In
the days following his arrest, a
woman called the jail to offer
him a proposal of marriage,
while a stranger offered to
pay his bail. These unsolicited
approaches prompted the
authorities to increase his bond to
$250,000 amid fears he could be
exploited. Guardian, IrishTimes,
11 April; [AP] Los Angeles Times,
D.Telegraph, 12 April 2013.
•
Last year, an elderly man
was found living in a hole on
Blackheath Common in south-east
London, which had been his home
for four years. The human mole,
of Middle Eastern appearance,
had been spotted only on rare
occasions. He covered his den
with strawand a tarpaulin, so that
even people working at a nearby
tea hut sawlittle sign of him.
LewishamCouncil said he had
refused all offers of conventional
accommodation. FT wonders if he
is still there. Metro, 22 Mar 2012.
•
After Brenda Heist dropped
off her two children at school in
Lititz, Pennsylvania, in 2002, she
vanished for 11 years. She was
going through an amicable divorce
at the time, but had been turned
down for housing assistance, and
sat crying in a park when three
homeless people – two women
and a man – befriended her and
invited her to join them on a
month-long hitchhiking journey to
south Florida. Despite a thorough
investigation lasting months
by state and federal police, no
sign of the missing woman was
found. She was living under
bridges, surviving on scraps of
food discarded by restaurants
and staying off the radar by
panhandling. Her husband
collected on a life insurance
policy after declaring her legally
dead, and has remarried. Mrs
Heist, now aged 54 and with
health problems, turned herself
in to police in Florida at the
beginning of May, mistakenly
believing there was a warrant
for her arrest in another district
of the state. D.Telegraph, 3 May;
(Sydney) D.Telegraph, 4 May 2013.
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ABOVE: Brenda Heist before she walked away from her life and 11 years later
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HOWCOOL IS THAT?
The village of Oymyakon in far
eastern Russia (pop: 500)
is the coldest permanently
inhabited settlement in the
world, with an average January
temperature of –50˚C (–58˚F);
–71.2˚C (–96.2˚F) has been
recorded. Common problems
include ink freezing and
glasses freezing to faces. Peo-
ple leave their cars running all
day for fear of not being able
to restart them. To bury bod-
ies, the ground must frst be
thawed with a bonfre for up to
three days. MX News (Sydney),
23 Jan 2013.
THE HEAT OF PASSION
Henry, a male tortoise, awoke
from hibernation on 2 March
and knocked over a heater as
he pursued his mate, Alice,
setting fre to wood shav-
ings. The blaze destroyed
the conservatory of Alf and
Gayner Clayton from Thornaby,
Stockton-on-Tees, who had to
run out of the house to escape
the fames. The tortoises
were found dead afterwards.
The couple had tried to save
them, but the blaze was too
ferce. Mr Clayton said: “Henry
always was a bit of a one.”
Middlesbrough Eve. Gazette, 6
Mar 2013.
TAKING THE PISS
Herbal healers have been
swamped by demand for
tincture of distilled heifer
urine, said to cure everything
from kidney diseases to piles
and high cholesterol. “It tastes
slightly salty but is very light
and has been produced for
centuries,” said Santhosh
Kumar, who helps make the
potion in Pajeer, south India.
Metro, 26 Feb 2013.
CARDIFF MENACED
A giant, asbestos-infected
tarantula was feared to be
on the loose in Cardiff after a
team of asbestos-removal ex-
perts found its recently shed
skin in an abandoned 19th
century house in the Roath
area on 19 March. Experts
believed it could have doubled
its size to 7in (18cm), with its
exposure to asbestos making
it potentially even more dan-
gerous. Metro, 22 Mar 2013.
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STONED SMOKERS
Achunk of rock can smoke a
cigarette in fve minutes, its proud
owner claims. LuoYuanshui
found the head-shaped rock in
the mountains of southeast China
and said his frst instinct was to
place a cigarette in what looked
like a mouth. To his amazement, it
inhaled the smoke. He nowshows
the 2.2kg (4.9lb) marvel to visitors,
with an ashtray close by so it can
indulge its vice. MXNews (Sydney),
22 Feb 2013.
•
During the Indian Mutiny,
Captain FrederickWale took
command of the First Sikh
Lancers and served in the siege
and capture of Lucknow, during
which he was fatally shot at the
age of 36. Kaptan Shah Baba, as
he was known to his Sikh soldiers,
has nowbeen made a god, and
believers tend his grave in Musa
Bagh cemetery. One devotee said:
“We leave himfood and cigarettes
as tribute. The cigarettes glowlike
somebody is inhaling them. We
knowShah Baba smoked, so there
can only be one answer – he is
smoking the cigarettes.”
The claims have baffed
cemetery offcials. One said:
“It is rare for people to pray to
a foreigner, especially someone
British fromthat period in our
history, but people knowwhat they
see and they believe it. So who is to
say it’s wrong?”Sunday Express, 17
Mar 2013.
L
abyrinths confuse and
bewilder those who
wander into them. They
start simply, but their baffing
nature soon reveals itself. The
same applies to the history
of labyrinths, which has led
archæologists through a series
of sharp reversals and up blind
alleys.
Labyrinths and mazes are
common throughout Europe,
from Ireland to Greece and from
Italy to Scandinavia. A distinction
is sometimes, but not always,
made between a maze, with its
many false turns, and a labyrinth,
with only one path winding its way
through. Some are cut out of rock
or turf; others are made from
hedges, or built as underground
structures.
We know that they were used
in rituals, with dancers or players
moving along a pattern laid
out on the ground, an activity
documented by Virgil in the Æneid
in the frst century BC. It has
been suggested that the Nazca
lines in Peru were used for similar
ritual processions. Virgil calls this
the ‘Game of Troy’ in which the
participants, on horseback or
on foot, follow the convolutions
of a labyrinth. The name comes
from the legend that the city of
Troy had defences that forced
attackers down an intricately
winding route between the walls
before they could enter.
In England, turf mazes were
known as Troy Towns, and were
used for similar “games of Troy”.
At least eight ancient examples
still survive, including one on St
Agnes in the Scillies and one
near Dalby in North Yorkshire.
There are many rock and boulder
labyrinths in Scandinavia whose
names (Trojaborg, Tröborg and
others) also translate as “Troy
Town”.
There are also many rock
carvings or petroglyphs with a
labyrinth pattern, especially in
Spain. These patterns take some
care to construct, as something
like the Classical Seven Circuit
Labyrinth can only be made by
following a specifc set of steps
and by starting with the right
“seed” pattern.
1
The technique of laying out
labyrinths seems to have been
passed down through the
generations for thousands of
years, and may have had esoteric
signifcance. However, it seems
to have been used simply as a
doodle in later times.
Dating labyrinths has turned
out to be more diffcult than
expected. There is no good
way of establishing the age of
a turf maze, and the dates of
stone labyrinths have had to be
revised. The labyrinth pattern on
the Hollywood Stone in County
Wicklow was once thought to
date from 2000 BC, but is now
considered to date from AD 500
or later. The Rocky Valley carvings
in Cornwall, once thought to be
Bronze Age, turned out to be from
the 18th century. A rock tomb at
Luzzanas, on Sardinia, includes
a carving that was thought to
be one of the oldest labyrinth
patterns, but is now considered
to be a later Roman addition.
2
New techniques are now
becoming available for dating
structures carved into rock.
These include lichenometry,
measuring how lichen has grown
over a rock feature. Lichenometry
has been used to date some of
the dozens of labyrinths around
the Scandinavian coastline.
These are sometimes called
trollcirklar (troll circles) from
their traditional role as traps
for evil spirits: you walked the
labyrinth before going on a fshing
expedition, and the malevolent
forces following you were caught
in the maze while you escaped.
Others suggest that walking the
maze brought luck or calmed
the winds. In the last decade,
lichenometry showed that some
of the Scandinavian labyrinths
were not thousands of years old
as expected, but dated from the
13th to the early 20th century
– though a few of them may be
much older.
3
Another recent technique
based on historical sea levels
dates a stone labyrinth at Umba
on the Russian coast to the frst
century AD.
4
Of course the original idea of
the labyrinth comes from Greek
mythology. King Minos, ruler of
Knossos, had it constructed as a
lair for the Minotaur, a carnivorous
half-man, half-bull, which he
believed to be his son. (An
understandable mistake: Minos’s
father Zeus adopted the form
of a bull to abduct his mother
Europa). The archæological
site at Knossos is the obvious
place for a labyrinth, and early
researchers strained to ft fndings
to myth. They did at least discover
frescoes with labyrinthine designs
dating back before 1400 BC.
5
Similar frescoes have been found
at sites colonised by the Minoans.
This would appear to give the
Minoans precedence as inventors
of the labyrinth.
However, there has been a
reappraisal of some Spanish
cave petroglyphs, such as those
at Chan do Lagoa in Galicia.
An analysis of the distinctive
tools and weapons on rock art
which overlays the petroglyphs,
and which can be dated by
comparison to actual artefacts
(such as spearheads of a
particular design), has led to them
being assigned to a much earlier
date than originally thought. The
current estimate pushes the
Spanish labyrinths back to the
period of between about 2500 BC
and 1800 BC.
6
The vagueness
of this estimate shows how
approximate the dating is at this
stage, so the game is still open.
And traces of other Neolithic
labyrinths continue to be found.
We don’t know exactly why
the labyrinths were made. In
Scandinavia, walking one correctly
was supposed to attract the
favourable powers or confound
evil ones, and they were later
adopted by the Christian church
for symbolic pilgrimages.
We are at least a little closer to
fnding out when and where the
cult of labyrinths began – unless
there is another twist.
NOTES
1 http://labyrinthsociety.org/
make-a-labyrinth
2 www.labyrinthos.net/frstlabs.html
3 www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1
080/00293652.1990.9965501#.
UZ99zBVwaid
4 www.vestnik.mstu.edu.ru/v15_2_
n48/articles/349_356_kolka.pdf
5 http://journals.cambridge.org/action/
displayAbstract?fromPage=online&a
id=8785116
6 www.labyrinthos.net/news.html
We know that
labyrinths were
used in rituals,
with dancers
moving along a
pattern laid out
on the ground
mazed and confused
millennia-old petroglyphs of what Virgil called the Game of Troy have been found in
spanish caves. DAVID HAMBLING looks at the history of labyrinths since neolithic times
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THE ARGENTINIAN PET
An unnamed pensioner from
Catamarca inArgentina thought
he had bought a pair of toy
poodle pups at the La Salada
outdoor market in Buenos Aires
for a bargain price of $150
each. Later, suspecting he had
bought what Argentineans call
‘Brazilian rats’, he took the two
animals to his local veterinarian
to be vaccinated and discovered
they were actually fuffed-up
ferrets on steroids. Following
an investigation, the local press
realised that the man was not
alone; a woman had been told that
she was buying a Chihuahua, but
ended up with a ferret. Neither
victimhad fled complaints.
The ‘toy’ poodle is the smallest
of the three varieties of the dog
– the others being ‘standard’ and
‘miniature’. Typically, toy poodle
puppies cost upwards of £500
while a ferret will usually set
someone back around £50. Toy
poodles typically growto around
10in (25cm) tall and weigh around
9lb (4kg). They have been known
to live as long as 20 years. Ferrets
are around 20in (51cm) in length
– including a 5in (13cm) tail. They
weigh around 3lb (1.4kg) and have
a lifespan of seven to 10 years.
When happy, ferrets may perform
a routine known as the weasel war
dance – characterised by a series
of hops and frenzied attempts to
bump into things. This is often
accompanied by a soft clucking
posted in public buildings. Police
tried desperately to calmpublic
fears. As far as we can ascertain,
no actual gang killing triggered by
a headlight warning has ever been
reported. D.Telegraph, 18 Mar;
D.Mail, 10 April 2013.
THE NY SEWER GATORS
NewYork’s most enduring urban
legend began with a NewYork
Times story on 10 February 1935
about an event in Harlem. The
headline claimed: “Alligator
Found In Uptown Sewer”. A
group of teenagers fromEast
123rd Street, led by Salvatore
Condulucci, 16, was shovelling
fresh snowinto a manhole when
they spotted the beast and hoisted
it up with a clothesline before
bashing it to death with their
shovels. The 7ft (2m) alligator was
sickly and exhausted. The locals
at the time speculated that it had
fallen off a boat fromthe Florida
Everglades, chugging along the
nearby HarlemRiver, and had
swumup a stormconduit.
There were other similar reports
in that decade. In 1932 two boys
found a dead 3ft (90cm) croc –
later identifed as an escaped
pet – and claimed the Bronx
River was ‘swarming’ with them.
In March 1935, a 3ft gator was
caught alive in NorthYonkers,
while a 6ft (1.8m) gator was found
dead beside the Grass Sprain
reservoir. In 1937 a barge captain
on the East River captured a 4ft
(1.2m) specimen; fve days later
a commuter bagged a two-footer
at the Brooklyn Museumsubway
station. Amythical backstory
soon emerged: the gators were
originally tiny critters found in
Florida by rich Manhattanites on
holiday and brought back as pets
for their children. When they grew
inconveniently large they were
fushed down the lavatory. The
legend had legs, jumping from
children’s book to horror flm,
fromThomas Pynchon’s frst novel
V (1963) to a bronze sculpture in
a 14th Street and EighthAvenue
subway station of a happy gator
clambering out of a manhole to
chomp on a baby.
both 19, got out and pushed
the pensioner to the ground
before repeatedly kicking and
punching himuntil his face was
unrecognisable. InApril the pair
were sentenced at Croydon Crown
Court to two and a half years each
for assault. Two months earlier,
an inquest heard howDr Anthony
Owen was killed by a single punch
outside his home in Cheshire
when he tried to remonstrate
with a 16-year-old riding without
lights on his bicycle. According to
the report in the DailyTelegraph,
the attack on Mr Connan“led to
concerns that it could be a part
of a sinister newtrend among
teenage gang members. Asimilar
craze was reported recently in the
United States where gangs would
demand that newmembers drive
with their headlights out and then
attack the frst person who tried
to warn them.”
This sounds like Chinese
whispers of an urban legend frst
noted in a Memphis newspaper
inAugust 1993 (FT77:14), about
a newinitiation rite in which
prospective gang members drive
around with their headlights off.
Kindly motorists fash their high
beams to alert the drivers to put
on their lights, after which they
are followed and killed. Exit one
motorist, enter one gang member.
In the following weeks, the legend
spread right across the US.
Memos warning employees were
circulated in corporations and
noise called dooking. When
upset, ferrets make a hissing
noise. dailymail.co.uk, 7 April;
Independent, 8 April 2013.
The sale of ferrets as dogs at
La Salada market has long been
considered an urban legend in
Argentina. It’s a version of The
Mexican Pet, the title of a 1986
book of contemporary folklore
by Jan Harold Brunvand. He frst
heard the story in 1983, in Utah
and several other US states. The
supposed‘dog’, found or acquired
in Mexico and often specifcally
said to be a Chihuahua or
Mexican Hairless, turns out to a
sewer rat, sometimes with rabies.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
In October 2012, Andrew
Connan, 78, was waiting for a
bus in Bromley, Kent, at about
midnight when he sawa car
driving towards himerratically
and without headlights. The Good
Samaritan waved to alert the
motorist and the vehicle stopped
sharply. Christopher Graney and
his passenger, Samantha Fenton,
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The toy poodles
were fuffed-
up ferrets on
steroids
LEGENDS comE To LifE
ferrets on steroids sold as poodles, Good
Samaritans killed and sewer gators in NYc
The earliest published
reference to this scenario can
be found in Robert Daley’s The
World Beneath the City (1959).
Daley’s source was retired sewer
superintendent Teddy May, who
claimed that during the 1930s he
personally investigated workers’
reports of subterranean saurians
and sawa colony of themwith
his own eyes. He said he ordered
the gators exterminated and
in a fewmonths they were
all gone – or so he thought.
However, in 1938 fve gators were
caught in NewRochelle, NY,
and sightings of others in New
York City sewers were reported
in 1948 and again in 1966.
Herpetologists discount the very
idea of gators thriving in the
NewYork City sewer system.
They point out it’s cold down
there most of the time – freezing
during the winter – and gators
require a warmenvironment
to survive, let alone reproduce.
If the cold didn’t kill them, the
polluted sewer water would.
Nevertheless, wayward gators,
assumed to be escaped or
abandoned pets, continue to turn
up in the Big Apple. Municipal
offcials found a small gator in
the Kensico reservoir inAugust
1982; it was taken to the Bronx
Zoo. In June 2001 a caiman
was spotted and eventually
captured in Central Park, and
in November 2006 another
caiman, 2ft (60cm) long, was
captured outside an apartment
building in Brooklyn. Then on
22 August 2010, novelist Joyce
Hackett was driving back to her
home in Manhattan fromJFK
airport in torrential rain when
she noticed a crowd of about 30
people in Queens. They were
gathered around a 2ft gator,
which was hiding under a parked
car. Stormdrains and gutters all
over the neighbourhood were
fooded fromthe downpour. “As
we waited for pest control to
turn up,” she wrote, “everybody
seemed strangely cheered by
the appearance of a bad-ass
reptile that could bite them.”
Loren Coleman in Contemporary
Legend – AReader (Ed Gillian
Bennett &Paul Smith, Garland,
1996); Lincolnshire Echo, 12 Oct
2005; NYPost, 10 Feb, Guardian,
13 Aug 1982, 25 Aug 2010.
MIDAS MARSUPIALS
Willy Wonka had his much sought-after Golden
Tickets, but Cleland Wildlife Park in Adelaide,
South Australia, has something even rarer –
golden wombats! The southern hairy-nosed
wombat Lasiorhinus latifrons normally has black,
brown, or grey fur, but Icy and Polar both sport an
astonishingly beautiful, bright golden pelage, as if
touched by King Midas.
These two bear-like but herbivorous marsupials
are three years old, arriving at the park after being
found in the wild six months apart and raised
in a rescue centre. Their golden coloration, a
phenomenon known as favism, is the result of a
mutant gene, but although æsthetically exquisite,
it makes such wombats very visible in the wild
and therefore highly vulnerable to predators.
Consequently, very few specimens ever survive,
and there is only one other golden wombat in
captivity. So Icy and Polar (though surely Goldie and
Sunny might be more apt names?) are extremely
special and highly prized by the park personnel,
who hope that they will breed when older (despite
their shared golden hue, they are not related to one
another). dailymail.co.uk, 2 May 2013.
ANY NEWS OF THE NIGHT JAGUAR?
A very obscure but fascinating (and reputedly
extremely formidable) mystery cat that I have only
recently learnt about (in Chad Arment’s BioFortean
Review series) is the Mexican renegrón, also
dubbed the carraguar or night jaguar. Allegedly
native to Colima, it is said to resemble a very
large all-black jaguar but with coarser fur, and is
exceptionally ferocious and fearless. I am only
aware of two reports, both over a century old one
extremely brief, the other more extensive. Is this
cryptic Mexican cat still being reported today? Any
FT reader with information is invited to send in
details.
A NEWWINGED CAT?
It’s been quite a while since I heard of any new
winged cats, so I was glad to receive the following
message on 5 May from my Facebook friend Mike
Covell in Hull (Thanks Mike!): “Noticed recently on
our school run that there is a cat with huge tufts of
hair behind its neck that look like the stubs of little
wings. Will try and get a photo of it, it’s very tame.” If
he succeeds, I’ll publish the photograph in a future
Alien Zoo column.
INSURED FOR NESSIE KNOCKS
What would happen if you were in a boat on Loch
Ness and collided with Nessie? No use contacting
your insurance company to pay for the damage
to your vessel, right? Wrong! In a remarkable frst
for such claims, Inverness-based insurance frm
Towergate Moray Firth has recently provided cover
for collisions with the Loch Ness monster as part of
a wider insurance package to Jacobite Cruises. This
tourist cruise company owns a feet of three vessels
that provide daily trips on the loch, transporting
over 10,000 would-be Nessie observers each year.
Inverness Courier, 24 April 2013.
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KARl SHuKER presents
his regular round-up
from the crypto-
zoological garden
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oldmotherleakey’s ghost
Towards the end of April, I fancied sampling
some of the delights of traditional English May
Day revels, and headed off to the seaside
resort of Minehead in Somerset. Here, May
Day has been celebrated for centuries by the
ceremonial parade of an ancient Hobby Horse.
The Minehead Hobby Horse, or ‘Sailor’s
Horse’ as it is known locally, makes its frst
appearance outside a quayside pub on the
evening of 30 April. Then at 5am on May Day
it sets off from the harbour and is carried
through the streets, accompanied
by eager followers, folk musicians,
and an unceasing drumbeat. Its
perambulations continue for the next
three days, with a detour one evening
to nearby Dunster Castle.
The precise origins of the custom
are uncertain. An older generation of
folklorists would have classed it as a
primitive survival of pagan rituals, but
others suggest the custom arose from
an attempt by 18
th
century sailors to
raise money (the Horse’s followers
now collect for local charities). But at
least one local tradition recorded in
1855 avers that it commemorates
a phantom ship that once entered
Minehead harbour, or alternatively
an abandoned vessel like the Mary
Celeste.
For seekers after ghosts, Minehead
is best known for the strange story of
the phantom of a 17
th
century woman
– ‘Old Mrs Leakey’, or ‘Old Mother
Leakey’. The story is nearly 400 years
old, but only in recent decades has
it been openly re-connected with one
of the greatest British ecclesiastical
scandals of the 17
th
century.
In life, Old Mother Leakey was Mrs
Susannah Leakey who lived with her
merchant son Alexander and his family in a
house by Minehead harbour. The house is still
there, and was extended later to incorporate
a fsherman’s cottage. Although Mrs Leakey
was considered a kindly and charitable soul,
following her death on 5 November 1634, she
took an exceedingly vicious and malevolent
turn, returning as an evil spirit, intent on
wreaking harm and being the centre of
attention.
Dressed in a black gown, she haunted not
only her son’s house but also the town and
the felds at large. Her troublesome spectre
became notorious for kicking a local doctor
who was crossing a stile, but far worse was
to come. Notably, she haunted ships and
boats owned by Alexander that were bound
for Ireland. She appeared on top of masts and
rigging and blew a whistle. Storms would be
raised and the vessels sunk, and although no
lives were lost, her son suffered. Her ghost
also manifested at her old home to the terror
of Alexander’s family, though the only person
– with one exception – who could actually
see her was Alexander’s wife, Elizabeth.
The exception was Old Mrs Leakey’s little
granddaughter, aged fve or six, who cried out
one night that her grandmother was attacking
her. Before any of the family could intervene,
the wicked spirit snuffed out the life of the
poor child, strangling her in her cot.
Only after the murder does anyone seem to
have asked Old Mrs Leakey why she caused
so much mayhem. Elizabeth questioned the
ghost when it manifested as an image in a
mirror and in reply was instructed to go over
to Ireland to convey a message to Joan, Old
Mrs Leakey’s eldest daughter. (Why the spirit
did not pass on the message directly is a
mystery). Joan was the wife of John Atherton,
the Bishop of Waterford, who was originally
from Somerset.
The message that Elizabeth was to take
for Joan was that her clerical husband must
repent of his sins or he would hang. Elizabeth
commented that the Bishop was an important
man and hardly likely to pay attention to her
(particularly if she revealed the message
came from a child-killing ghost). Elizabeth also
raised the obvious objection that Mrs Leakey’s
penchant for sinking ships would prevent her
from ever getting there. However, Mrs Leakey
promised to cease sinking ships for 30 days,
allowing Elizabeth to travel to Waterford, where
she duly delivered the message to Bishop
Atherton. Elizabeth was received very coolly,
the Bishop remarking that if he was to hang
at least he wouldn’t drown. He then sent her
packing.
On returning to Minehead, Elizabeth
was met by local magistrates alerted
to her strange behaviour and intent
on interrogating her. She steadfastly
declined to pass on the message
imparted to Bishop Atherton, declaring
that it could only be revealed to
the King. Finding that their threats
and inducements drew a blank, the
justices called for support.
If Elizabeth’s story of the ghost was
a tactic to attract attention, it certainly
succeeded. The peculiar affair
sparked interest at national level,
from the Privy Council and the highest
ranks of the Church. In February 1637
the Bishop of Bath and Wells presided
over a Commission to inquire into
the child-killing ghost and Elizabeth’s
actions. The Commission was not
convinced by the witnesses, including
Elizabeth herself. The report, endorsed
by Archbishop Laud, concluded: “Wee
doe believe that there was never any
such apparition at all”. However, this
verdict may have been a convenient
tactic, covering up Bishop Atherton’s
scandalous behaviour, and did nothing
to quell suspicions. Certainly, despite
the Commission coming down frmly
against manifestations of Old Mrs
Leakey’s post-mortem return, belief in the
phantom remained frm in Minehead, passing
into local legend, and ultimately into print.
Sir Walter Scott indirectly helped promote
her legend with a line in his poem Rokeby:
‘How whistle rash bids tempests roar’. This
obscure reference might have been missed,
had not Scott provided a lengthy footnote
explaining that: “The most formidable whistler
that I remember to have met with was the
apparition of a certain Mrs Leakey…” An
earlier poetic reference might be Samuel
Taylor Coleridge’s female “Nightmare Life-in-
Death” female who “thicks men’s blood with
cold” and who “whistles thrice” in his Rime of
the Ancient Mariner. Coleridge resided close to
Minehead in the village of Selworthy (and was
famously interrupted in his dream-inspired
composition of Kubla Khan by a person from
Porlock).
the bishopwas
acquittedof
embezzlement
but convictedof
sodomywitha
male servant
ABOVE: Bishop Atherton’s “shameful end”.
OPPOSITE: The Whistling Ghost remembered.
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ghostwatch
alan murdie heads for the seaside and is haunted by the Whistling Ghost of Minehead
Walter Scott later provided a full version of
the Mrs Leakey legend (though with names
spelt differently) for readers of his Letters On
Witchcraft And Demonology (1830), probably
re-enforcing lingering local traditions in
Somerset.
After many re-tellings, it is perhaps
understandable that the ghost story had
diverged widely from its historical basis. The
story was still circulating in the 1920s; on All
Soul’s Day 1927, the Morning Post stated:
“When the wild November winds are whirling
round the cliffs of North Hill and sailing craft
are straining at moorings in Minehead’s little
harbour, children keep indoors at night for fear
of meeting Old Mother Leakey”.
Versions of the story have appeared since,
for instance in Elliot O’Donnell’s Haunted
Britain (1948) and Peter Underwood’s
Gazetteer of British Ghosts (1971) – where
I frst read it, although Underwood decided
to omit it from his later Ghosts of Somerset.
However, the full story of the facts which lay
behind Mrs Leakey’s ghost with its mysterious
message has been omitted from popular
re-tellings, with many authors either being
unaware of the ultimate fate of Bishop
Atherton, or tactfully avoiding it; for Atherton
did indeed hang as predicted by the ghost,
in December 1640, following a trial flled with
scandalous revelations.
The facts were also known to many later
generations of religious writers and scholars,
but many also elected to suppress the
precise details either through distaste or
to protect the sensibilities of their readers.
Others, more forgiving, chose to concentrate
on the confession and penitence that Bishop
Atherton showed in prison awaiting execution.
For although acquitted of embezzlement,
the Bishop was convicted of sodomy with a
male servant, a capital offence until the 19
th
century (the servant was also executed).
The repentance of the Bishop on the eve of
execution became a classic of penitential
literature, a tool to bring sinners back to the
faith. The Bishop traced his sins back to the
collapse of his moral character occasioned by
his “Reading of bad Books, viewing immodest
pictures, frequently Plays, Drunkenness etc.,”
which “enticed him to his acts”.
It appears that the popular mind wiped
from folkloric memory the matter of the
homosexuality – or bisexuality – of the Bishop
and replaced it with another sinful act and
crime, in which the living Old Mrs Leakey
was complicit. This was that the Bishop had
fathered an illegitimate child in Barnstaple
with the knowledge of Old Mrs Leakey. After
the Bishop had duly baptised the infant
Mrs Leakey then killed it, and the body was
burned on charcoal. Whilst ghost story writers
recalled this crime, they did not mention acts
of buggery.
It was not until the 20
th
century that an
attempt was made to re-unite the fragments,
with the a study published by folklorist
Theo Brown in a chapter in The Folklore of
Ghosts (1981), following an examination
of documents in the Public Records Offce.
Brown made clear that her principal interest
was folklore, not the Bishop’s misdeeds.
Since then, the changing cultural ideas
concerning ghosts, possible conspiracy
theories and the eruption of the Atherton
scandal amid the social and religious turmoil
of the 17
th
century have all proved attractive to
professional historians. Thus the whole story
has been the subject of an excellent study
under the sceptical eye of Professor Peter
Marshall in Mother Leakey and The Bishop – A
Ghost Story (Oxford University Press 2007),
which suggests that at its heart was a family
blackmail plot that went wrong.
As well as examining facts derived from the
surviving historical documents, Prof Marshall
scrutinises the continuing legendary life of
Mrs Leakey’s ghost, taking up the issues
identifed by Theo Brown and their local
impact. His study shows how, in the popular
mind, the ghostly Old Mrs Leakey took on an
existence independently of the respectable
religious interpretations of the sinful Bishop
and his repentance before execution. He
shows how later generations made both
religious and political propaganda from the
story while playing down or ignoring the
ghostly aspects.
In the process of writing his book, Prof
Marshall visited the Leakey family’s old home
on the quayside, which had been turned into
a sweetshop – ‘Old Mother Leakey’s Parlour’
– in the 20
th
century, but which he now found
had been turned into tearooms. However, he
stopped his historical and cultural pilgrimage
at the very threshold, neglecting to actually
venture within. Had he done so, he might
have discovered that contemporary beliefs in
Old Mother Leakey’s ghost are still alive, with
claims that she is still actively haunting the
teashop.
On my visit to Minehead I found the building
concerned, operating as the stylish Quayside
Tearooms, though still acknowledging its
earlier status as Old Mother Leakey’s Parlour.
Over an excellent cheese ploughman’s lunch,
I was told by the couple who run it that ever
since they moved in six years ago there
have been strange noises in the building.
These have included footsteps crossing an
upstairs room as well as repeated bangs
and thumps. As with many hauntings, the
worst was endured when they frst moved in,
but they recur periodically, along with object
movements, most recently the throwing about
of Coca Cola cans. The disturbances are
attributed to Mrs Leakey at work in her old
home. They have their own ideas about the
villains of the piece and own a copy of Prof
Marshall’s book. Thus we may not have heard
the last of Old Mrs Leakey.
Perhaps in the fnal analysis, the phantom
provides an example of the continuing divide
between popular and offcial or establishment
culture, regarding attitudes towards the
supernatural or paranormal. Over the
generations, ‘respectable’ opinion treated
ghosts with disdain, whilst romantic and
popular culture embraced them. (See Roger
Clarke, ‘Ghost Mobs’, FT296:42-45 and the
same author’s 2012 book A Natural History of
Ghosts for further examination of this historic
division on ghosts in Britain).
The authorities found notions of Old
Mrs Leakey’s child-killing, whistling ghost
distasteful, sensationalising an already
scandalous case that brought disgrace
and capital punishment down upon an
establishment fgure. Equally, the popular
audience eager for retellings of the ghost
story did not want to know the details of
the sex life and practices of a Protestant
bishop. Indeed, Theo Brown admitted, “I am
fascinated by Old Mrs Leakey”, but expressed
her distaste in having to detail “her deplorable
family and Atherton”, and for “digging up
ancient scandals better forgotten”.
Or perhaps, as M R James put it in 1931,
the one thing that you have to keep out of
a good ghost story is sex because of its
tendency “to spoil the whole business”.
Sources: ‘The Ghost of Old Mrs Leakey’ by
Theo Brown in The Folklore of Ghosts (1981),
edited by Hilda Ellis Davidson and WMS
Russell; ‘Ghosts – Treat Them Gently!’ by M
R James, Evening News, 17 April 1931; pers.
comm. at Minehead, 2 April 2013.
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ARRIVING DOWN UNDER
In 1944, the uninhabited Wessel Islands
off Australia’s northern coast were a
strategic position to help protect the
mainland, two years after Darwin was
bombed by the Japanese. Australian
soldier Maurie Isenberg manned a radar
station there and spent his spare time
fshing on the idyllic beaches. One day he
found fve copper coins in the sand, which
he later placed in a tin. Coming upon them
again in 1979, he sent them to a museum
for identifcation, and learned that they
were 1,000 years old. He marked an old
colleague’s map with an “X” to remember
where he had found them.
The discovery was apparently forgotten
again until a few months ago, when
Australian scientist Ian McIntosh, currently
Professor of Anthropology at Indiana
University in the US, took an interest. The
fve coins date from the 10
th
to the 14
th
centuries, and were minted by the former
Kilwa sultanate, now a World Heritage ruin
on an island off Tanzania. How on Earth
had they ended up in such a remote
place?
Kilwa was once a fourishing trade port
with links to India in the 13th to 16th
century. The trade in gold, silver, pearls,
perfumes, Arabian stoneware,
Persian ceramics and Chinese
porcelain made the city one
of the most important in
East Africa. The copper
coins were the frst coins
ever produced in sub-
Saharan Africa and have
only twice been found
outside Africa: in Oman in the
early 20
th
century and in 1944
on the Wessel Island beach.
When Isenberg discovered the African
coins he also found four from the Dutch
East India Company, one dated 1690.
Were the two fnds connected? Maybe the
coins washed ashore from a shipwreck.
On the other hand, archæologists have
long suspected that there were
maritime trading routes linking
East Africa, Arabia, India and
the Spice Islands back in the
11
th
century or even earlier.
We already know that
Captain Cook in 1770 wasn’t
the frst white seafarer to
step on Australia’s shores. In
1606 Dutch explorer Willem
Janszoon reached the Cape
York peninsula in Queensland,
closely followed a few years
late by another Dutch seafarer,
Dirk Hartog. And the Spaniard
Luiz Vaez de Torres discovered
the strait between Papua
New Guinea and Australia,
later named Torres Strait in
his honour. However, none of
them recognised that they had
discovered the famed southern
continent, the “terra australis
incognita”, depicted as a counterweight to
the known land masses of the northern
hemisphere on many world maps of the day.
Prof McIntosh plans an expedition to the
Wessel Islands this July. Besides revisiting
the beach marked with an “X” on Isenberg’s
map, he will also be looking for a hidden
cave nearby mentioned in Aboriginal legends
and allegedly flled with doubloons and
ancient weaponry. [AAP] news.com.au, 18
May; Independent, 21 May 2013.
Another coin fnd shows the extent of
maritime trade across the Indian Ocean 600
years ago. A recent scientifc expedition to
the island of Manda off the northern coast
of Kenya unearthed a Chinese coin from
the reign of Emperor Yongle (1403-25), the
Ming ruler who sent Admiral Zheng
He (aka Chengo Ho) to explore
the lands west of the Celestial
Kingdom. (Researcher Gavin
Menzies believes Zhen He
circumnavigated the globe
a century before Magellan,
exploring the coastlines of
both America and Australia –
see FT160:6). Manda was home
to an advanced civilisation from
about AD 200 to 1430, when it was
permanently abandoned. Science Daily, 13
Mar 2013.
Recently, a crude 6in (15cm) lead weight
was found in a swamp on North Stradbroke
Island on the east coast of Australia. It was
under 6.3in (16cm) of sand in an isolated
and undisturbed area; based on sand
deposition rates of 2-3cm over 50 years,
archæologist Greg Jeffreys reckoned the
weight was dropped there in the early 17
th
century. Independent lead isotope analysis
has matched it to two old British mines, one
of which was active in Elizabethan times.
Jeffries said there was “no other way” the
weight could have ended up there other
than by ship. “Something like that wouldn’t
just wash up there in the current,” he said.
“It would have been a European ship, or
a couple, that ended up wrecked on the
Queensland coast, and the survivors tried
to get home but never did.” The weight was
found 300m (328 yards) from a previously
publicised Elizabethan coin dated 1593. A
sailor’s dirk, typical of 16
th
century sailors,
was also found nearby in 1934. Together
these fnds support Jeffreys’s belief
that Europeans made landfall here 150
years before Captain Cook. Mainstream
LEFT: Two of the Kilwa coins found on the
uninhabited Wessel Islands off northern Australia,.
BELOW: The Chinese coin unearthed at Manda.
ABOVE: Professor Ian Mackintosh of Indiana University points to
the Wessel Islands, where he plans to take an expedition this
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Confirmed numismatist PAUL SIEVEKING goes through his archæological spare change and finds stories of
coins washing up a long way from home and redrawing our maps of ancient trade in the process
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academics beg to differ. (Queensland)
Sunday Mail, 3 June 2012.
In 1991, a lead fshing weight,
made in France or Spain between
1235 and 1400, was found in
sediment on Fraser Island off the
coast of Queensland. It was said
to be the oldest European artefact
ever found in Australia (FT62:42). In
1996, a 16
th
century Portuguese silver
coin from the 1520s (or possibly a
Spanish counterfeit from about 1580)
was unearthed on the Mornington
Peninsula near Melbourne on
Australia’s south-east coast (FT97:20).
Homo sapiens is thought to have
settled in Australia about 40,000
years ago, and until now the orthodox
opinion was that these ancestors
of modern Aborigines remained
isolated from other populations until
the Europeans arrived. However, a
genetic analysis of more than 300
Aborigines, Indians, Papuans, and
people from other islands of Southeast
Asia has found a “signifcant gene
fow” from India to Australia about
4,230 years, or 141 generations,
ago. The Aboriginal DNA samples had
more than 10 per cent Indian genetic
markers, suggesting there had been
substantial interbreeding. The study’s
lead researcher, Irina Pugach from the
Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary
Anthropology in Leipzig, said the arrival
of these people coincided with many
changes in Australia’s archæological
record.
“[There was] a sudden change
in plant processing and stone tool
technologies, with microliths appearing
for the frst time, and the frst
appearance of the dingo in the fossil
record,” said Dr Pugach. She thought
it was possible that Indian ancestry
came to Australia indirectly, through
Southeast Asian populations that had
trade links with northern Australia and
Indonesia; but the analysis found no
evidence of this in the genes of the
Southeast Asian populations.
The study also found a common
origin for Aboriginal Australians,
New Guinea populations and the
Mamanwa, a Negrito group from
the Philippines. These groups are
estimated to have diverged about
36,000 years ago. The report,
published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, shows
how little scientists know about
Australia’s human legacy. (Sydney)
Morning Herald, 16 Jan 2013.
“The Queen, My Lord, is dead.
“She should have died hereafter.” –
Macbeth 5. 5., v16-7
Not really. But, when Mrs
Mountbatten gets a tummy bug,
the nation trembles. Aglance at the
fates of some ancient royals should
induce much counting of blessings.
For painful instance,
Byzantine emperor Constantine
IX(1042-55, at right). His
biographer Michael Psellus
(bk6 chs130-1) describes his
sufferings thus: “Paralysis
followed paralysis in rapid
succession. He could not
lie on his bed for a proper
rest; every position hurt. His
servants would support his
aching body until after much
trying they found a posture
that gave some relief. But this was not all.
Even his tongue hurt him, and the slightest
movement of his eyes set the pains in motion.”
Constantine got over this, only to catch a
chill while bathing (shades of Alexander the
Great) and expire. Compared to our next case
histories, he got off lightly.
‘Wicked’ King Herod got his comeuppance
with a (divine?) vengeance. According to
Josephus (The JewishWar, bk1 ch661), “He had
a fever, intolerable itching all over his body,
constant pain in the bowels, infammation of
the abdomen, and gangrene in the genitals that
produced worms.” For good measure, asthma,
convulsions, and (like Hitler) miasmic breath.
Desperate remedies, including plunges into a
tub of hot oil, didn’t work. Dr Jan Hirschmann
of the University of Washington identifed 10
possible causes, including (apropos the balls-
ache) Fournier’s Gangrene.
Given the slaughter wrought on wives and
children, our sympathies may be limited.
Likewise with the Roman dictator Sulla,
whose sanguinary career ended in similar
fashion (Plutarch’s biography, ch36 paras1-3):
“Ulcerated bowels corrupted his entire body,
converting it into worms. Although people
worked day and night to remove them, they
could not keep pace with the increase. His
clothes, his bath, his hand-basin, his
food, all were infected with this
never-ending fux. He soaked
himself many times a day to
try and keep clean, but the
swarmof vermin defed all
purifcation.”
Extreme phthiriasis or
pediculosis have been suggested.
Even this pales before the fate of
emperor Galerius (305-11, at bottom
of page), inevitably seen as God’s
vengeance on his persecution
of the Christians. Lactantius
(On the Deaths of the Persecutors,
ch33) and Eusebius (Ecclesiastic
History, bk8 ch16) showlittle sign
of forgiving one’s enemies.
Here is the Eusebian gloating:
“Without warning, suppurative
infammation broke out in his
genitals, followed by a deep-
seated fstular ulcer. These
gnawed their way incurably
into the deepest recesses of
his bowels. Fromthemcame a
teeming indescribable mass
of worms, and a sickening
smell with them, because the
whole of his hulking body,
thanks to his overeating, had
previously been transformed into a huge
lump of fabby fat which then decomposed
and presented those who came near with a
revolting and horrifying sight. Of the doctors,
some were unable to stand the overpowering
and extraordinary stench [Lactantius adds that
it flled not just the palace but the entire city]
and were executed on the spot; others, unable
to do anything nowthat the entire mass had
deteriorated beyond hope, were put to death
without mercy.”
Executing medics who failed to cure, or who
botched their treatments, was a tradition going
back to the Babylon of Hammurabi’s LawCode.
Its revival might do wonders for standards of
patient care in the NHS.
There have been other bizarre but kindlier
royal demises. Often, à la Galerius, over-eating,
fromAntonius Pius (138) gobbling down too
muchAlpine Cheese (Historia Augusta, ch12
para4) to Henry I’s (1135) famous ‘surfeit of
lampreys’.
FT readers who permit themselves a smile
or more over these lurid reports may share
the kinder destinies of Martin I of Aragon
(1410) and Burmese King Nanda Bayin (1599),
both of who died laughing, the former at one
of his court jester’s sallies (John Doran, A
History of Court Fools, 1858, pp377-8), the
latter on being told by an Italian
visitor that Venice was a free state
without a king. There’s not been
much to laugh about in Burma
since the 1962 military coup
(wasn’t much in Orwell’s Burmese
Days, either).
“One’s impression is that
inhalations of germs may be
healthy” – Fort, Books, p934
FT303 21
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165. RIGHT ROYAL PAINS
CLASSI CAL
CORNER
FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD COMPILED BY BARRY BALDWIN
strangedays
22 FT303
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MANGO MANIA
PAUL SIEVEKING puts aside his Little Red Book to ponder the brief
period of the Cultural Revolution when mango became metaphor
An exhibition at the Rietberg
Museum in Zurich, Switzerland,
recalls an odd episode in 20th
century history, when millions of
Chinese worshipped the mango.
It was a sort of socialist version
of Holland’s 17th century tulip
mania – though the comparison
isn’t really helpful in fathoming
either. It began on 4 August 1968
when Pakistan’s foreign minister,
visiting Beijing, presented Mao
Zedong with a case containing
about 40 of the fruit. A day later,
the Great Pork Swordsman (sorry,
Helmsman) ordered that they
be distributed among workers
occupying Beijing’s Qinghua
University campus in order to
bring militant Red Guards under
control.
The date – 5 August –
represented the second
anniversary of the slogan
‘Bombard the Headquarters’
which had launched the
Cultural Revolution in 1966,
when students were given
the mandate to create a new
society by overthrowing Mao’s
opponents in the Communist
Party’s highest ranks. As
rampaging Red Guards, they
later split into irreconcilable
factions, plunging the country
into chaos. In late July 1968, as
ideological confict erupted into
open battle at Qinghua, Mao
sought the assistance of some
30,000 workers from ‘Worker-
Peasant Propaganda Teams’
directly affliated to him. His
mango gift was intended to send
the message that power was
shifting from the Red Guards
to the working class. When the
People’s Daily announced the gift
three days later, wider political
implications were clearly in
the offng. Mao’s personality
cult, engineered by Lin Biao,
then in charge of the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA), had
reached its zenith. In the ensuing
months, the mango, perceived
as a ‘tribute’ from an ally and
a sign of Mao’s benevolence,
was transformed from fruit to
metaphor.
Astonished by the miraculous
gift, the
workers
occupying
the
university
sent one
mango to each
of Beijing’s most
important factories.
The mangos were seen as a
symbol of the Chairman’s love for
the workers and quickly became
holy relics. A poem in the People’s
Daily ran: “Seeing that golden
mango/Was as if seeing the great
leader Chairman Mao…Again
and again touching that golden
mango/the golden mango was
so warm”. (It has probably lost
something in translation).
At the Beijing Textile Factory,
“the workers held a huge
ceremony… then sealed [the
mango] in wax hoping to
preserve it for posterity,”
recorded Li Zhisui, Mao’s
personal doctor. “The wax-
covered fruit was placed on an
altar and workers lined up to
fle past it, solemnly bowing
as they walked by.”When the
mango began to rot, it was
delicately peeled and then
boiled in a huge vat of water.
“Another ceremony was held,
equally solemn… Each worker
drank a spoonful of the water
in which the sacred mango had
been boiled,” wrote Dr Li.
On 31 August, the Pakistan
government, impressed by the
fruits’ enthusiastic reception,
sent a further 100 varieties and a
100 mango seedlings to Beijing.
The Number One Machine
Tool Factory decided to send
its mango to its sister factory
in Shanghai. “They specially
chartered an aeroplane just for
the mango,” said Alfreda Murck,
a scholar at Beijing’s
Palace Museum
and author of
Mao’s Golden
Mangoes and
the Cultural
Revolution,
whose work
forms the
basis of
the Zurich
exhibition.
Wang Xiaoping,
70, a worker at the
factory, recalled the
fascination. “What is a ‘mango’?
Nobody knew. Few had even
heard the word, let alone seen
one. Knowledgeable people said
it was a fruit of extreme rarity,
like Mushrooms of Immortality.
It must be very delicious. Its
appearance nobody could
describe. To receive such a rare
and exotic thing flled people
with a surge of excitement.
That day was indeed a festive
one for the factory. People were
wild with joy… everyone held
their wax model of the sacred
fruit solemnly and reverently.
Someone was even admonished
by senior workers for not holding
the fruit securely.”
Plastic, wax and papier mâché
mango facsimiles were sent out
on special lorries to tour the
provinces; some were placed in
glass vitrines emblazoned with
appropriately ‘correct’ political
slogans. They were received in
solemn processions with much
pomp; preceded by a statue of
Mao, followed by his portraits,
LEFT: Parading the fruity symbol of
Mao’s love for the people. BELOW:
Mugs and badges were emblazoned
with images of the thousand-year fruit.
The myth
National Service reduced crime.
The “truth”
You can see the logic: if most crime is committed by young men, surely
removing large numbers of them from civilian life for a period, and
placing them under military discipline, will automatically reduce the crime
rate. But it didn’t happen. Crime rocketed in Britain during the 1940s.
For instance, the number of violent crimes recorded in 1938 was 8,026.
In 1948, it was 17,026, and 31,250 in 1958. National Service in Britain
started in 1947, and the last national servicemen were discharged in
1963. All healthy males of military age were required to serve in the
armed forces for 18 months (later increased to two years). The story told
by the statistics could not be more straightforward: after a small drop
in the early 1950s, the number of recorded crimes increased massively
during the National Service era. In 1946, there were 472,517 recorded
crimes; 479,710 in 1956 – and 978,076 in 1963.
Sources
(All figures quoted here are Home Office figures for England and Wales;
crime recording is separate for other parts of the UK). www.homeoffice.
gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-
research/crime-stats-1898-2002; www.nam.ac.uk/exhibitions/online-
exhibitions/national-service/enlistment-training; http://www.mirror.co.uk/
news/real-life-stories/50-years-since-the-end-of-national-service-856384
Disclaimer
Comparisons of crime figures in different years are always muddied by the
fact that some offences are added to the book over time, while others are
removed – and that’s before you get into discussions about population
levels or recording protocols. But, given all that, can anyone disprove the
central thesis that crime rates increased during National Service?
The Undead
“Hitler was a vegan”, according to journalist Giles
Coren (I’ve Never Seen Star Wars, BBCRadio 4, 9
Nov 2011). Is this variation supplanting the more
traditional “Hitler was a vegetarian” myth? (See
FT114:24, 260:17).
H
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Mythconceptions
by Mat Coward
165. GET SOME IN!
OUT 28 JUNE ONLINE AND IN ALL GOOD BOOKSHOPS
DON’T MISS MYTHCONCEPTIONS THE BOOK
FT303 23
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4
conceptions
BYMATT COWARD& HUNT EMERSON
FORTEANTIMES PRESENTS
WAS
HITLER
REALLY A
VEGETARIAN?
DO OSTRICHES
REALLY BURY
THEIR HANDS IN
THE SAND?
ARE BALD MEN
REALLY BETTER
LOVERS?
CAN COKE
REALLY
DISSOLVE
YOUR TEETH?
IS IT REALLY
IMPOSSIBLE TO
DROWN IN THE
DEAD SEA?
WERE PEOPLE
REALLY SMALLER
IN THE OLD DAYS?
banners and fags, often to the
accompaniment of clashing
gongs. Remote places with no
replicas relied on black and
white photographs of the real
thing. There were frequent
skirmishes between competing
parties over the right to own
the symbol in whatever form.
One dentist in a small village,
who dared to compare a touring
mango to a sweet potato, was put
on trial for malicious slander
and executed.
The mango, known as mang
guo, was invested with newly
minted myth. The traditional
peach, nearest to it in shape and
form and associated with the
legendary Queen Mother of the
West, was known as a changshou
guo, or shou tao, ‘longevity
fruit’; so the mang guo was said
to fruit ‘once every century’ or
even ‘every thousand years’,
transforming it into a qiannian
guo, ‘thousand-year fruit’ rightly
used to confer wishes for Mao’s
longevity. Mango-favoured
confectionery soon catered to
those with a sweet tooth.
Millions of aluminium mango
badges were produced and worn
to show unswerving loyalty to
the Chairman. White enamel
mugs, washbasins, plates and
quilts were decorated with
mangoes. Fake mangoes in
glass cases were handed out to
thousands of workers to display
in their homes. Huge baskets
of mangoes graced the central
foats in the great political
parades of the following months:
National Day (1 October 1968),
Labour Day (1 May 1969),
Founding of the Communist
Party Day (1 July 1969) and
People’s Liberation Army Day (1
August 1969).
Mango madness lasted only
18 months, while the Cultural
Revolution itself sputtered to a
halt in 1971 with the death of
Lin Biao in a mysterious plane
crash, allegedly while escaping
to the Soviet Union.
In 1974, Imelda Marcos
visited Beijing and presented
an ailing Mao with a case of
mangoes; but the gift went
virtually unremarked; clearly,
the mango was on the way
out. Only one mango product
seems to have thrived. In 1968,
the state tobacco industry
marketed Mang Guo cigarettes
manufactured in Henan, and it
rapidly outperformed all other
brands. It was manufactured
until at least 1983, and was
seen as late as 2003. A recent
upmarket version has surfaced:
Jin Mang guo, ‘Golden Mango’
menthol flter cigarettes,
perhaps the last legacy of the
mango phenomenon.
The exhibition “Mao’s Golden
Mangoes and the Cultural
Revolution” runs in Switzerland
until 16 June before going to
Germany – and may transfer to
Britain after that. Asian Art, 26
Feb; D.Telegraph, 8 Mar 2013.
strangedays
raY HarrYHaUSEn
“I think you’ve got to develop
courage enough to pursue your
own interests in life, regardless of
whether people think you’re a loony
or not.”
So said Ray Harryhausen, a
man who so many of us somehow
assumed, or at least hoped, would
– by life somehow imitating art –
prove as immortal as his creations.
Tragically, for those of us who fell
in love with both the monsters
and the man as children – and
discovered to our delight that his
unique œuvre also possessed
the magical power to inspire adult
sensibilities with its handcrafted
sense of wonder – Ray died on 7
May in a London hospital following
a short illness.
The widespread grieving
throughout fantasy flm fandom,
would, I’m sure, have not only
been deeply appreciated by Ray,
but also understood, as he was an
early example of one of the most
important manifestations of the
genre – the fan/professional.
Born in Los Angeles on
29 June 1920, to Fred and
Martha, descendants of German
immigrants, Ray’s formative years
were spent in an environment
unrecognisable to many of
us today. Without the beneft
of online fan-bases, science
fction conventions or monster
magazines, his already vivid
imagination was nurtured instead
by artists like Michelangelo, Rodin,
John Martin (one of his greatest
infuences) and Charles R Knight,
the legendary palæo-artist whose
delineations of prehistoric life had
inspired and informed not only Ray,
but the individual who infuenced
Ray most directly – special effects
and stop-motion animation pioneer
Willis O’Brien.
The 13-year-old Harryhausen
was “stunned and haunted”
by his frst experience of O’
Brien’s creations in King Kong
(1933), in the company of his
mother and aunt at Grauman’s
Chinese Theatre (his aunt was
Sid Grauman’s nurse, and had
received complimentary tickets).
The flm’s primæval grandeur and
its Mesozoic landscape, populated
not only by Kong himself but a
spectacular menagerie of beasts
140 million years dead, were
realised by O’ Brien and a host of
artisans, themselves inspired by
Charles Knight, and the engravings
of Gustave Doré (who Ray also
greatly admired).
To emulate Kong, and make
his own fantasies come to life,
became Harryhausen’s hobby
and obsession; with jointed steel
skeletons crafted by his machinist
father (who would continue to build
armatures for Ray’s professional
flms until his death in 1963) and
tiny costumes and sculptures
made by his mother, Ray created
his own animations in his garage
through the late 1930s. He
corresponded with and befriended
O’ Brien, who responded to Ray’s
work with enthusiasm.
During that period, Ray met
fedgling author Ray Bradbury and
fan-collector Forrest Ackerman,
with whom he would forge life-
long friendships. On attending
meetings at the science fction
club in Clifton’s Cafeteria, Ray
said: “We were a small group of
people interested in the unusual in
flms and fction, but you try telling
that to the average person – they
thought we were a bunch of nuts!”
His professional career began
in 1940, working on George Pal’s
Puppetoons animated shorts.
In 1942, he was drafted into
the Signal Corps, producing
educational and orientation flms
for the Frank Capra unit. After the
war, he made a series of fairy tale
flms, using outdated Kodachrome
flm stock he retrieved from an
army garbage can, distributed to
schools by Bailey Films.
In 1947, Willis O’ Brien
requested Ray’s help on Mighty
Joe Young (1949). Working for
his mentor was a pivotal moment
for Ray – his frst chance to
demonstrate his skills for the
cinema, but also convincing him
that O’ Brien’s effects process,
utilising layers of glass paintings
interspersed with miniature
scenery, would be prohibitively
expensive for a new generation
of low-budget producers. Ray’s
innovative technique, combining
rear-projection and split-screens to
incorporate his creatures into real
settings, was economically viable,
and after proving its worth on his
frst solo flm, Warner’s The Beast
From 20,000 Fathoms (1953),
Ray began a long association
with Columbia Pictures’ ‘B’ movie
producer Charles H Schneer, going
on to flm 12 of his 16 features
with him. It was Schneer who
coined the name ‘Dynamation’ for
Ray’s process in 1957.
The themes explored by Ray in
his flms were a compendium of
forteana: cryptozoological wonders
and super-normal animals resulting
from variant nature or distorted
science in Mighty Joe Young
and Mysterious Island (1961);
prehistoric survivors answering
the foghorns of lighthouses and
destroying Coney Island roller
coasters; dinosaurs discovered
by the explorers of lost lands in
The Valley of Gwangi (1969), or in
a time-warp with Raquel Welch in
One Million Years B.C. (1966); the
architecture of authentic ancient
civilisations transformed into
dreamworlds of mythology in Jason
and the Argonauts (1963) and the
Sinbad trilogy.
While researching Earth vs
the Flying Saucers (1955), Ray
consulted George Adamski,
putative recipient of Venusian (and
later, Jovian) visitors, and for both
Beast and It Came From Beneath
the Sea (1954) Ray examined ‘real’
sightings of sea serpents and the
Norwegian Kraken.
Harryhausen’s brilliance
practically established a new
creative paradigm. Fan clubs and
appreciation societies confrmed
him as the frst superstar movie
technician in flm history. In the
1960s, his dinosaur designs were
the most advanced in the world,
his swift, bird-like carnivores pre-
empting Jurassic Park (1993) by
three decades. Many contemporary
palæontologists credit his flms as
their vocational inspiration.
Ray was seemingly
indistinguishable from his work.
His London home was furnished
with bronzes, paintings, art and
antiques, from various world
cultures (one of his proudest
possessions was the Joseph
Michael Gandy painting Jupiter
Pluvius, which dominated his living
room). His study was the ultimate
cabinet of curiosities – glass cases
packed with hydras, skeletons,
dinosaurs, homunculi and the
distilled imagination of 40 years
of flmmaking. He had lived there
since 1971 with his wonderful
wife Diana, with whom he would
embark upon archæological trips
around the world, frequently
scouting flm locations.
I was privileged and honoured
to have known Ray as a friend,
and the work I carried out for him
will remain the most outstanding
professional achievement of my
life. Perhaps his greatest gift to
us all is that he not only created
worlds that he believed in, but that
he made the rest of us believe in
them too. (See pp56-57 for more
on Harryhausen’s mythological
monsters).
Raymond Frederick Harryhausen,
special effects wizard, born Los
Angeles 29 June 1920; died
London 7 May 2013, aged 92.
Alan Friswell
This month, a much-loved pioneer of cinematic special effects stops motion, a Bigfoot
collector bequeaths his files and a human computer shuts down for the last time
G
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strangedays
norman woodland
Woodland was a graduate student
of the Drexel Institute of Technology,
Philadelphia, when in 1948 he
learned that a local grocery wanted
a way to encode product data in
order to automate the checkout
process. He came up with the idea
for the bar code while sitting on the
beach: “I poked my four fngers into
the sand… pulled my hand towards
me and drew four lines,” he said.
He realised that the lines could be
turned into a code by varying the
widths. With fellow student Bernard
Silver, he developed a ‘bullseye’
bar code in which the lines appear
as concentric rings, and in 1952
gained a patent. However, the idea
failed to catch on, so they sold their
patent for $15,000. In the early
1970s, the big US grocery chains
agreed a standard symbol known as
the Universal Product Code (UPC).
Although many experts favoured the
‘bullseye’, the chains opted for the
cheaper vertical bar system created
by George Laurer of IBM.
Norman Joseph Woodland, bar
code inventor, born Atlantic City (NJ)
6 Sept 1921; died Edgewater (NJ) 9
Dec 2012, aged 91.
SHaKUnTala dEVI
Devi, the daughter of a circus
performer who lacked any formal
education, exhibited numerical
prowess from the age of three, and
became famous after beating one
of the world’s fastest computers
by 10 seconds in a complicated
calculation. She once calculated the
23rd root of a 201-digit number in
her head in less than a minute, and
in June 1980, at Imperial College,
London, multiplied two numbers
picked at random by the computer
department: 7,686,369,774,870
and 2,465,099,745,779. After 28
seconds she correctly answered
18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,
730, earning a place in the Guinness
Book of Records.
At Stanford University, California,
in 1988, Prof Arthur Jensen tried to
unlock the secret of her abilities.
He set her two problems: the cube
root of 61,629,875; and the seventh
root of 170,859,375. She gave
the answers (395 and 15) even
before Jensen’s wife could start the
stopwatch.
Shakuntala Devi, “the human
computer”, born Bangalore 4 Nov
1929; died 20 April 2013, aged 83.
FT303 25
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Strange deathS
UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL
A traveller was shot dead by a rebel
group in Tiringoulou, Central African
Republic, after being accused
of stealing penises with a magic
handshake. The man bought tea from
a Sudanese market stall, and then
grabbed the vendor’s hand. According to
Louisa Lombard, a Californian anthropologist
resident in the town, the tea seller said he felt
an “electric tingling” and immediately sensed his
penis had shrunk to “smaller than that of a baby”.
She said: “His yells drew a crowd. Somehow
in the fray a second man fell victim. Witnesses
confrmed the genitals did indeed shrink
dramatically”. Penis-theft and penis-shrinking
panics, known as koro, erupt regularly in West
Africa, Malaysia, and elsewhere [FT56:33, 82:30,
87:45, 93:10, 99:12, 103:12, 105:20, 126:66,
148:23, 156:10, 211:16-17, 238:16, 273:11.] MX
News (Sydney), 18 Mar; Sun, 27 Mar 2013.
Zebiya Ngendakumana, 30, a mystic in Burundi,
claims to have visions of the Virgin Mary on
the 12
th
day of each month. Over the last few
months, her sect has developed a following
across the country and in neighbouring
Democratic Republic of Congo, and has a tense
relationship with the Burundi government. Last
year, police destroyed a sanctuary of the sect
in Kayanza, its stronghold, and its followers
retaliated by breaking up a Sunday service at
a local Catholic church. On 12 March 2013,
as the Blessed Virgin was due for her monthly
appearance, police attempted to prevent sect
members from meeting on a hilltop in Kayanza.
Hundreds, armed with clubs and stones, resisted;
at least six were killed and 35 wounded, and four
policemen were seriously hurt. BBC News, 13 Mar
2013.
Antje Crapnik, 47, dubbed the Nymphomaniac
of Munich by the German press, made men
desperate with her insatiable appetite [see
FT293:10]. In April 2012, she picked up DJ Dieter
Schultz, 43, in a bar. After eight bouts of sex he
had had enough and tried to escape, but she
barred the door. When she fnally fell asleep, he
rang the police and got them to rescue him. A
month later, she struck again, keeping her victim
on the go for 36 hours. Police found the 31-year-
old African man weeping on the street outside
her apartment. He too had escaped when she
fell asleep. “Oh God, it was hell,” he said. “I can’t
walk. Please help me.” On both occasions, she
was taken to hospital for psychiatric observation.
Her mother said Antje was bipolar, but
her problems really started when her
ex-husband ditched her for not being
young enough. She became obsessed
with proving her attractiveness and as
her nymphomania increased her work
suffered. She was made bankrupt and
ended up on benefts in the grimy fat where
she held her victims captive. “My daughter only
went on the pull when she had a manic phase,”
said her mother.
On 29 November 2012, she bumped into a
neighbour – Christian, 31, a heating engineer
– with whom she had been having an on-off
affair. They downed a bottle of vodka and several
bottles of wine at her fat, and Antje snorted
a white powder before they had sex several
times. When Christian awoke the next morning,
he found her dead in bed next to him. He said:
“I knew something was wrong because usually
she wanted it frst thing in the morning.” Sunday
People, 9 Dec 2012.
James Campbell, 68, died after a pet boxer dog
ran him over. His wife Iris Forter was preparing to
back into the drive of their house in Florida. As
Mr Campbell left the van to open his drive gates,
he released the dog, which jumped into the van
and hit the accelerator pedal, backing the van
over Mr Campbell. Ms Fortner tried in vain to
stop the van from backing up. Mr Campbell was
trapped under the vehicle and was pronounced
dead at the scene. (Queensland) Sunday Mail, 20
Jan 2013.
Peter McGuire, 51, a bank manager from
Middleton, Lancashire, was kicked to death by his
daughter’s horse as the family drove to a show
jumping event. He was forced to pull over with the
horsebox in tow in an attempt to calm the 10-year-
old chestnut. His wife heard him say “Calm down”
before she heard two loud noises. A vet had to
sedate the horse so Mr McGuire could receive
treatment, but he had suffered a horrifc head
injury and was pronounced dead at the scene.
D.Mail, 24 Jan 2013.
THE FORTEAN TIMES
BOOK OF STRANGE
DEATHS VOL 2
ON SALE NOWFROM
WH SMITH AND AMAZON.CO.UK
TO ORDER DIRECT CALL 0844 844 0053
PROJECT BLUE BOOK
WHISTLEBLOWER
Project Blue Book, the US Air Force’s UFO
project, has often been slated as being
an early debunking exercise, despite the
many unexplained incidents in its files. At
the CHD, someone claiming to be “one
of the authors”, Lt Col Richard French,
told the Disclosure panel that in 1952
he was despatched by his superiors to
Newfoundland where two UFOs had been
seen entering coastal waters. When
French – now 83 years old – arrived at
the wharf near St John’s, he found over
100 people, including local policemen,
staring into the water, where two circular
craft could be observed floating beneath
the surface, just yards from the shore.
Two 2-3ft (60-90cm) tall ‘beings’ could
be seen nearby. They were grey, very
thin, with long arms and either two or
three fingers. He claimed: “They looked the
way [aliens] have been depicted in motion
pictures.” Presumably repaired, the two UFOs
accelerated out of the water before vanishing.
They returned 20 minutes later, when the
process of submersion and apparent repair
was repeated. French claims that although he
believed he had seen genuine, alien-piloted
UFOs, his position in Blue Book precluded
him from saying so officially. A fascinating
tale – and one which plays into the hands of
those who believe the 1950s were awash with
aliens and government cover ups. But even
in times when people didn’t carry cameras,
surely, even in a small town, there would be
someone keen to break this world-shattering
excusive? Unfortunately, there is no factual
evidence linking French to Blue Book and
Bob Sheaffer claims his stories are “entirely
fabricated”. Even UFO proponent Antonio
Huneeus told the Huffington Post he had
reservations about Lt Col French’s credibility,
“because of his age, his memory isn’t as good
as it used to be [and] it’s clear to me that he’s
fairly well read on the subject of UFOs.” Given
these problems, why was he invited to give
evidence at a mock congressional hearing? In
this instance French was superficially plausible
to those selling the disclosure ticket to a
credulous audience because he told them
what they wanted to hear. www.huffingtonpost.
com/2013/05/13/alien-beings-repaired-
und_n_3240437.html
29 April to 3 May as the “first-ever convening
of the hands-down, nuttiest US congressmen
who ever lived”. The Paradigm Research
UFO advocacy group then charged viewers
for access to hours of footage on a live web
stream that included seasoned performers like
Stan Friedman and Nick Pope giving “evidence”
alongside a dwindling number of genuine UFO
witnesses. Unlike in a real-life congressional
hearing, none of the CHD evidence was
challenged or subjected to critical scrutiny by
sceptical voices. Most is already in the public
domain and has failed to convince anyone
other than those who already believe in aliens
and conspiracies. The New York Daily News
mocked the organisers by publishing photos
of what it called “space cadets” wearing tinfoil
hats. The whole carnival was excoriated by
Parapolitical, who revealed that the source
of Bassett’s largesse was a mysterious
Canadian, Tom Clearwater, whose Twitter feed
links to 9/11 conspiracy theories. The blog’s
analysis suggests the public is losing interest
in what UFO sceptic Bob Sheaffer described
as Bassett’s “dog and pony show”. A search
of Google trends revealed that interest in UFOs
actually dropped off during the CHD and just a
handful of media sources covered it.
New York Daily News, 29 April: www.
nydailynews.com/news/national/ufo-buffs-
beam-well-paid-ex-pols-article-1.1330724;
www.parapolitical.com/2013/05/results-are-in-
ufo-carnival-a-failure/
UFO CLOSE SHAVE
The latest in a long series of near-misses
with unidentified objects reported by
civilian aircrew was revealed in a report
published by the Civil Aviation Authority’s
Airprox Board in March. An Airbus A320
had a close shave with a UFO as it made
its final approach in broad daylight to
Glasgow airport on 2 December last
year. The board heard the aircraft was at
3,500ft (1,070m) above the city in clear
conditions when the pilot and co-pilot saw
an object “loom ahead” just 330ft (100m)
away. Before they could react, the object
passed 300ft (90m) beneath them, but
not before they caught a fleeting glimpse
of it. They said it was blue and yellow
or silver in colour with a small frontal
area “bigger than a balloon.” Air traffic
control saw nothing on radar, but radar at
Prestwick did spot an “unidentified track
history” 1.3 nautical miles to the east
of airbus’s position, 28 seconds earlier.
Anecdotal evidence suggests aircrew have
been reluctant to file air-miss reports, but in
this case the pilot did because he believed the
risk of a collision was high. This was fortunate
because, in the absence of any MoD interest in
UFO reports, the CAA’s Airprox Board is the only
remaining official body in the UK with a remit
to conduct detailed investigations of puzzling
incidents like this one, albeit purely with a
safety remit. They checked and eliminated
all the likely candidates for the identity of the
“untraced aircraft”, including small fixed-wing
aircraft, hot-air balloons and gliders or para-
motors. These, and meteorological balloons,
were all ruled out as unlikely due to the lack of
a radar signature, leaving the board unable to
reach any firm conclusion as to the cause.
BBC News West Scotland, 1 May; Airprox report
2012166/UKAB meeting 20 Mar 2013.
CITIZENHEARING
The UFO disclosure industry appears to be
running out of steam as its latest publicity
stunt failed to make any impact on decision
makers. In April, Stephen Bassett, who
describes himself as a lobbyist for disclosure
on ETs, paid $20,000 (£13,000) to former US
senator Mike Gravel – plugged as “a former
presidential candidate” – and five other US
politicians to stage mock congressional
hearings at the Washington, DC, National Press
Club. The Parapolitical blog dissed the Citizen
Hearing on Disclosure (CHD) that ran between
LEFT: Lt Col Richard French at the CHD.
ANDY ROBERTS & DR DAVID CLARKE PRESENT
THEIR REGULAR SURVEY OF THE LATEST FADS AND
FLAPS FROM THE WORLD OF UFOLOGY
FLYINGSAUCERY
26 FT303
www.forteantimes.com
FORTEAN TIMES presents our monthly section featuring regular sighting
reports, reviews of classic cases, entries on major ufological topics and
hands-on advice for UFO investigators. The UFO Files will benefit from your
input, so don’t hesitate to submit your suggestions and questions.
the UFO files
To contact The UFO Files, email:
[email protected]
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UP AND AWAY
I was eight when I first had one of my ‘turns’.
Someone was teaching me to swim. They
failed miserably. A weird sensation had swept
over me that I could not comprehend.
This began with a sense of feeling lightheaded,
as if I were rising into the air. A strange buzzing
noise filled my ears and my head was an egg
timer with sand piling up inside it. Then I lost
consciousness, to ‘awaken’ inexplicably on
the far side of the pool with the swimming
instructor ashen faced and muttering
something to my mum.
Only recently was I medically diagnosed,
after a more serious attack. VVS – Vasovagal
syncope – is a condition that can be triggered
by a chemical imbalance, or even just by stress
or tiredness. It might get dismissed as a ‘panic
attack’ and can happen to drivers late at night
on a lonely road, causing accidents. You are
more at risk from such dangerous situations
than the syncope itself, where a sudden fall in
blood pressure gets transmitted via the vagus
nerve. In extreme cases, pacemakers have
been fitted to minimise recurrence, but most
sufferers just have mild attacks with long gaps
across a lifetime so have no idea that they
even have a problem.
Whilst I have experienced seven or eight VVS
attacks over 50 years, many apparent cases
have been reported to me by people who
understandably interpret them in supernatural
terms. None of them had even heard of VVS,
let alone been told that they had it. But 20
per cent of astronauts who are put through
body tilt tests during training, a method now
used by doctors to diagnose VVS, report an
attack, suggesting that a similar proportion of
the population might be susceptible and may
experience symptoms whilst unaware of their
origin.
After my latest episode, four years ago, I
promised in this column to conduct research
and gather case histories. This has been
illuminating.
Johnny Caesar is an entertainer who started
on the club circuit and now has a stint in TV
soap Emmerdale on his varied CV. In interview,
he told me how on 28 February 1970 at a hotel
in Aviemore, Scotland, whilst playing for skiers,
his electric guitar erupted into flames. As it fell
to the floor, Johnny crashed down with it, and
the audience roared with laughter assuming
it to be part of the act. But Caesar lay on the
stage, in real danger.
He explained: “I could not breathe… But
my mind was alert. I was able to think about
everything clearly… I’m dying, but it’s not
instantaneous. Somebody will realise what is
wrong and save me.”
Luckily, there was a doctor in the audience
who ran to start chest compressions. Johnny
says he had gone ‘out of the body’ and – in a
state of extreme lucidity – observed events:
“There was no hurt involved… I felt myself ‘go
out’. I just sort of drifted up… It was really nice
and peaceful…There I was just above myself,
looking down, and I could actually see myself
down there. See my body being worked on.”
Eventually, he made a conscious decision
to return, snapping back into his body with a
shock of pain. Johnny’s heart had stopped for
two minutes and he required weeks of care
in hospital. This, of course, was not simply a
VVS episode – but I recognise the features.
During my worst attacks, my mind was sharply
focused and reality somehow enhanced, not
dulled. Indeed in one of my earlier episodes
I floated ‘out of the body’ and experienced
the ability to see events from above before
‘snapping back’ as Caesar describes.
But what has all of this got to do with UFOs,
you might ask? The deeper that I have looked
into the connections between VVS, near death
experiences (NDEs), out-of-body experiences
(OOBEs) and alien contacts (CE4s) the more it
seems that they are interconnected.
For instance, in a study of OOBEs by
Gabbard and Twemlow, by far the most
consistent aspect of being ‘out of the body’
is how lucid the experience seems. It was
reported by 94 per cent of their witnesses,
compared with 30 per cent describing seeing
a bright light. Moreover, the percentage of
people who describe some kind of OOBE/NDE
experience is similar to the percentage of
people susceptible to VVS. Plus, those attacks
can occur when driving tired at night, exactly
when a disproportionate number of UFO CE4s
are reported.
Another of the most common things
described during a VVS attack is the belief
that you are dying, even though that is very
rarely true. A typical account from an American
VVS sufferer says: “You can feel the life being
sucked out of your body. The first time it
happened I thought I was a goner”.
I had that feeling, too; which leads to
interesting questions about why NDEs occur
not only when someone is actually near death
(after a heart attack, for example) but when
they are never physically at risk. This suggests
that it is fear of imminent death that is the
real trigger for an NDE to occur, and this same
fear is being created by the combination of
plunging pressure and flow of blood to the
brain during a VVS attack.
My research implies that stress can trigger
a VVS attack with a range of physiological
consequences. In extreme cases this induces
an out-of-body sensation. OOBEs then appear
to be a kind of stage two of this physical
process. But there is also a deeper stage
three, where the NDE occurs. Here a person
not only feels as if they are leaving their body
and are dying but that they have died – and go
on to see lights, tunnels and strange beings
who communicate mystical information.
Stage three is fascinating because NDEs
and CE4 cases might possibly be the same
phenomenon interpreted differently – with the
CE4 the Space Age version of the age-old NDE.
That option has to be contemplated when you
consider a case submitted to me by a woman
from Coventry.
Mrs W was in a highly stressed state after a
family row that saw her sleeping on the settee.
Suddenly, she awoke. Everything around her
felt very “lucid” and above her a white, oval
light was pulsating. “All of a sudden I was
pulled towards the light and merged with it,”
she said. “Then I became aware that I was as
light as a feather.” At this point, she started to
float up and away – searching for her husband.
This simplified version of Mrs W’s story
could easily be a stage one VVS attack that
merged into a stage 2 OOBE, but has elements
that could be interpreted as a stage three NDE
(going into the light) or a CE4 (being sucked
into a hovering oval). Mrs W did not suggest
either – to her it was just a strange experience.
But it poses questions about the boundary
between supposedly discrete phenomena.
For now I am simply introducing my project
and hope to publish a longer article in FT in
the future. Any observations and experiences
from readers would be welcome via email at:
[email protected].
20 per cent of
astronauts in
tilt tests report
a VVS attack
JENNY RANDLES HAS ONE OF HER ‘TURNS’, AND
FINDS IT’S A BIT LIKE A CLOSE ENCOUNTER UFO CASEBOOK
FT303 27
www.forteantimes.com
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ver a century ago,
two Michigan girls of
roughly the same age
claimed to have had
some very unusual experiences.
One girl said she was abducted
and taken to a cemetery by a
black ghost. The 10-mile (16km)
trip to the cemetery occurred
in such a short time that Fort’s
expression‘teleportation’
springs to mind. The other girl
went into regular trance states
and visited heaven, where she
encountered wingless angels
and heard prophecies.
In December 1903, Mary
AKidder, a 14-year-old girl
fromKalamazoo, startled her
friends and relatives with her
claims of visiting the heavens
and bringing back messages
fromthe dead and predictions
of the future. Kidder fell into
a trance three times a day,
during which she claimed to
be in heaven“where angels
fock about her and reveal to
her the past and the future…
Miss Kidder foretells the
details of her own death and
that of her father and mother.
She tells of conversations with
angelic beings and describes
graphically her vision of heaven.
She says: ‘I can’t tell just what
the sensation is like: I can’t tell
when the trance is coming. It
just strikes me suddenly. I lose
control of my body and seem
to be carried up – up – up to an
almost unimaginable height.
The air seems soft and fans in
my face. I fy through the clouds
and then suddenly I knowI am
in heaven. About me stretches
a great city, but there are no
houses nor streets. Beautiful
white-robed angels are singing
and talking and sailing through
the air. I amfashed through two
immense, white, pearly gates
and then the whole beauty of
the place is before me. Colours
of every hue and description
and the most beautiful music
I ever heard are on every side.
I seemto knowall the people
there and they come to me and
talk. It all seems so strange to
me. The angels tell me their
names and when I come back
here and repeat themand
describe what I have seen I
fnd the living relatives of the
angels right here and they look
at me and wonder…I cannot
understand howthe angels pass
through the air. They have no
wings, nor do they walk. They
just seemto be taken through
the air in any direction they
wish to go’.”
1
The newspapers
2
added
testimonies of a number of
persons claiming “to have been
told remarkable things”, and all
accurate. Apossible cause for
Mary’s trance states, according
to a Dr Frederick Shillito, was
that she had been suffering
froma spinal condition.
When a curvature of the spine
developed, she was encased
in a plaster cast. After several
months, the cast was removed
and“an hour later the girl’s
body became rigid, her eyes
dilated and the most strenuous
efforts failed to arouse her.”
Shillito described her condition
as catalepsy, adding that “the
girl is known to have always
been of a very religious turn
of mind, and her visions of
heaven and the angels may be
accounted for in this way…
While she suffers with catalepsy
her hands remain stretched
rigid and straight toward
heaven.” He could offer no
theo paijmans looks at two cases of ‘astral travel’ and trance states in early 20th century Michigan
“About me stretches a great city... I am
flashed through two immense, white,
pearly gates and then the whole beauty
of the place is before me.”
Blasts from the Past
fortean tI Mes brI ngs you the news that tI Me forgot
45
altered state: teleportIng In MIchIgan
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Notes
1 ‘Girl Has Talk With The
angels. past and Future
events are described.
Remarkable Revelations
Which tell of departed
people Who are
unknown to Her’, Daily
Leader, davenport,
iowa, 9 dec 1903.
2 Her account was also
published as: ‘Visions
of paradise’, The
Deming Headlight, new
Mexico, 21 nov 1903;
‘Girl. after sinking into
Trance. Tells of people
long since dead’,
The Newark Advocate,
ohio, 26 nov 1903;
‘in Heaven during
Trances’, Hutchinson
News, Kansas, 27 nov
1903; ‘Girl in Trance
describes Heaven’, Fort
Wayne Journal-Gazette,
indiana, 29 nov 1903;
‘Goes To Heaven in Her
Trances’, The Evening
World, new York, 3 dec
1903; ‘a picture of
Heaven’, Daily News,
Marshall, Michigan,
‘The Joys of Heaven’, 4
dec 1903; The Hartford
Republican, Kentucky,
4 dec 1903; The
Waukesha Freeman,
Wisconsin, 10 dec
1903; ‘in heaven
during Trance’, Marshall
Expounder, Michigan,
11 dec 1903.
3 Daily Leader,
davenport, iowa, 9 dec
1903.
4 ‘stolen By a Black
Ghost’, The Daily Inter
Ocean, Chicago, illinois,
22 dec 1891; ‘a Black
Ghost stole Her’, The
Daily Picayune, new
orleans, louisiana,
28 dec 1891. These
accounts erroneously
spell her frst name as
‘lillie’.
5 My thanks go out
to the Reference
department of the alice
and Jack Wirt public
library in Bay City,
Michigan, for having
located and sent a
scan of the original
account.
6 ‘ugh! a Black Ghost.
The latest sensation
in The spirit line. Tillie
Jaster’s story of Her
Quick Flight to the
unionville Cemetery.’
Bay City Times Press,
Michigan, 20 dec
1891.
7 ‘Girl in Trance sees
Missing Grandfather.
disappeared From
Montour County long
Before Her Birth’, The
Lock Haven Express,
pennsylvania, 20 apr
1909.
8 data retrieved
through www.ancestry.
com.
9 one can do
so through www.
fndagrave.com.
explanation for the seemingly
accurate messages the girl
brought back fromher altered
state.
3
Thirteen-year-oldTillie Jaster,
living in Bay City, had a very
different story to tell. Also in
December, but 12 years before
Mary Kidder’s astral travels, she
too was taken on a very unusual
ride. That month in 1891 several
newspapers published her
unlikely story. “Stolen By a
Black Ghost”, the headlines
shouted. “AGirl Almost
InstantaneouslyTransported
to a Lonely GraveYardTen
Miles Away.”
4
The reports
told of howTillie had said
that on 10 December “a ghost
came to the door of the house
where she is staying and took
possession of her, remaining in
that neighbourhood until Friday
evening when he forced her
to fy with him10 miles to the
Unionville cemetery, where he
released his powerful hold upon
her. She says the trip was made
in 15 minutes…”
These accounts are
intriguing, but frustratingly
brief. Luckily, I was able to
obtain the original account
in the Bay CityTimes Press,
a newspaper currently not
digitised.
5
So what happened toTillie
Jaster? Fortunately, the account
in the Bay City newspaper
featured an interviewwith
Tillie. Instead of summarising,
the favour of light-hearted
puzzlement is best kept intact
by repeating the account as it
was published:
Tillie Jaster is only 13 years of
age, but she has been the cause
of a genuine sensation in the
neighbourhood around about
the corner of Hampton and 11th
streets. She has seen a real black
ghost.
Tillie is big enough to be 16 and
her red, round face has a chronic
smile that ought to be enough to
knock any ordinary ghost galley
west.
But Tillie has given the
neighbourhood a shock from
which it cannot well recover
in many weeks for there are
in that part of the city women
and children who would believe
almost anything you tell
them, providing it teems with
something supernatural or
anything beyond the power of
nature. Nature cannot handle
ghosts and when you tell them
that a ghost has been hanging
around the neighbourhood, they
believe it. But when you tell
themthat a black ghost – just
think of it, a black ghost! – has
been working his charms over
an unsuspecting maiden, then
no wonder that the women and
children refuse to remain in
the house after nightfall unless
protected by the strong armof
man.
The SundayTimes reporter
heard of the black ghost and
Friday evening just after dusk
sought to fnd its headquarters
and what it had done.
The reporter went to the corner
of 11th and Hampton streets and
meeting two small girls asked
themif they knewnothing about
a ghost.
“It’s over to Mrs Wilhelm’s,”
was the speedy reply.
“And where does Mrs Wilhelm
live?”
“Over yonder,” said one of the
girls, pointing to a one-story house
on Hampton Street near where
10th street would strike were it
cut through.
“There, she lives in there.”
The reporter followed the
direction and rapped at a storm
door on the south side which
was answered presently by Mrs
Wilhelmwho said, in reply to
a question, that that was the
place where the ghost had been.
She invited the reporter into
the parlour which was nicely
furnished.
Tillie, speaking for the frst
time, “and me go with him. He
came about half past six o’clock
and went to the cemetery in
Unionville.”
“Oh horror! To the cemetery
in Unionville,” remarked the
astonished scribe. “Howdid you
get there?”
“That’s what she don’t know,”
put in Mrs Wilhelm. “You see she
doesn’t knowanything about how
she got there, whether she walked
or few, but she got there and it
only took her ffteen minutes.
Wasn’t that it Tillie?”
“Yes, I got back here at quarter
to seven.”
“You really missedTillie?”
“Oh, yes, she was gone all
night.”
“She didn’t stay in the
Unionville cemetery all night
with the ghost?”
“Oh no. After she got there she
buried himand then she came
back. She stayed with her sister
Bertha that night. And she nearly
scared her sister to death telling
her about the ghost.”
“Who and where is her sister?”
“Bertha Jaster. She works on
Eight Street.”
“But I understandTillie was
gone until Sunday afternoon?”
“Yes, she came back Saturday
afternoon and went away again
and came back Sunday.”
“Did the ghost take her away
that time?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs
Wilhelm.
“He didn’t, did he, Tillie, that
time?”
“No, I was by my sister that
time.”
“That’s a very strange story,”
volunteered the reporter. “What
kind of a looking ghost was it. A
white ghost?”
“No. A black ghost”
“A black ghost.”
“Yes. I sawa white ghost
before.”
“Did Mrs Wilhelmsee the
white ghost?”
“No. She can’t see any ghost.
If it runs against her she can’t
see it.”
“You are not afraid of the ghost
the way the neighbours are, are
you?” asked the reporter directing
his remarks to both the ghost seer
and Mrs Wilhelm.
“No, Tillie isn’t. I s’pose he
wouldn’t hurt her so long as she
does what he says.”
“Tillie, what kind of a looking
ghost was the black one?”
“I can’t remember any more.”
“What was his name?”
“I can’t remember that
anymore. He was a Free Mason
and had killed his wife and two
children. That’s what he told me.
He said he killed his wife because
she wouldn’t become a free mason.
Then he killed his children.”
“Do you suppose he came
around to go to the masonic fair?”
“No. He didn’t go anywhere
but here. He was right round this
house all the time. He stayed here
fromThursday until Friday and
then he went away.”
Remarking about the
strangeness of the story, the
reporter asked what effect it had
upon the neigbourhood. Mrs
Wilhelmsaid that the women
and children were afraid to stay
alone at night. She further said
that Tillie was in Bay City for
the purpose of attending school
and that her parents reside in
Sebewaing. When the reporter
rose to leave, Tillie wanted to
knowwhat he wanted to fnd
out about the ghost for. She was
satisfed and the conversation
drifted to the canary in its cage
and a moment later the reporter
was wending his way out of the
premises to 11th street.
6
We hear no more of Tillie
Jaster. I found a bit more
about Mary Kidder. In 1909,
a newspaper recounted how
she had accurately predicted
the whereabouts of her
grandfather Jacob Rishel,
who had disappeared 30 years
previously.
7
Mary Kidder was born on
8 May 1889. She gave birth to
one child on 14 February 1920
that sadly died the same day.
Mary AKidder Bowers lived to
a ripe old age of 80 years and
died on 27 January 1970. She
rests at the Riverside cemetery
in Kalamazoo.
8
I left a virtual
bouquet of Forget Me Nots at
her grave.
9
G
reat Leighs, in Essex (population
1,643 in the 2001 census), has
acquired a reputation as a
haunted village. This is due to
ghost stories told about the St
Anne’s Castle, a local pub, and theWitch
of Scrapfaggot Green, whose spirit
was alleged to have terrorised the area
duringWorldWar II.
The St Anne’s Castle stands
prominently on Main Road, the
village’s principal street, en route from
Chelmsford to Braintree. Philip Morant’s
History of Essex (1768) says the building
was once a mediæval hermitage (if so,
it was probably attached to Leez Priory,
a nearby monastery) and became an
alehouse in the Elizabethan era. A
tradition that this is England’s oldest
pub is doubtful: while it incorporates
Tudor fabric, some sections only date
fromthe early 19th century. Abelief that
it appeared in Domesday Book is patently
incorrect.
1
Nevertheless, it displays
some historic features, which were once
enhanced by a four-poster bed in an
upstairs room.
On 10 April 1939 the St Anne’s
Castle was featured as a haunted pub
on InTownTonight, a Saturday evening
BBCradio programme.
2
No recording
survives, but the event was reported
in the local press, when customers and
staff vouched for the pub’s sinister
reputation and the strange goings-on
there. LandlordArthur Sykes had
heard dragging noises on the floor,
THEWITCHOF
SCRAPFAGGOT
GREEN
ABOVE: The St Anne’s Castle in the Essex
village of Great Leighs as it appears today.
ROBERT HALLIDAY investigates a curious wartime haunting in an Essex village,
involving poltergeist activity, missing geese and a vengeful witch back frombeyond
the grave. But were the multiple phenomena real, imagined or invented?
Main image: Witch model created by DAVID FOXLEY. Photo/illustration by ETIENNE GILFILLAN.
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HADHEARD
STRANGENOISES
while two visiting members of the American
Psychic Circle had sensed something strange.
Joyce, Arthur’s eight-year-old daughter, was
sleeping in the four-poster bed when she saw
“a lightish figure” which vanished when she
screamed: she was found white-faced and
shaking. Of course, it could have been a bad
dreamor sleep paralysis, but it nonetheless
affected the family.
3
While the outbreak of WorldWar II later
that year might have diverted attention
fromthe St Anne’s Castle ghosts, the conflict
directly impacted on the area between May
1943 and March 1944, when an airbase for
the USAAF (United States Army Air Force)
was built at Boreham, six miles (10km) south
of Great Leighs. This was used for significant
operations until July 1944, followed by
intermittent minor operations until 1945.
4
THEGHOSTSOFGREATLEIGHS
The ghosts of Great Leighs returned to
prominence in October 1944 when the Sunday
Pictorial, a sister newspaper to the Daily
Mirror, ran an article with the headline “The
witch walks at Scrapfaggot Green”. Arthur
Sykes, who was nowanARPWarden, said:
“Every day I hear of newmischief”. Three
geese had disappeared froma pen in his back
garden. Ahaystack had collapsed. Alfred
Quilter, a local shepherd, found his sheep had
moved fromtheir field to another paddock,
yet the surrounding hedges and fences were
all undamaged. Charlie Dickson, a builder,
said heavy scaffolding poles were “scattered
in his yard like matchsticks.”The clock on
the church tower had been running two hours
late, and striking at midnight, despite being
fitted with devices to prevent it chiming at
night. There were strange happenings too at
the Dog and Gun, a pub on the BorehamRoad,
2½miles (4km) south of the St Anne’s Castle.
Paint pots and brushes vanished fromoutside
and were found neatly lined up under a bed
in an attic. When some regulars were leaving
one night, they nearly fell over a boulder that
had seemingly materialised less than five feet
(1.5m) fromthe door of the pub.
Arthur Sykes said that 200 years previously
a witch had been burnt at the stake at a
crossroads near the Dog and Gun and her
remains buried beneath a stone. Ever since,
the spot had been known as Scrapfaggot
Green. When Borehamairbase was built, the
stone had been moved, thus releasing the
witch’s spirit. Now, she was terrorising the
area, even moving her stone to the Dog and
Gun! The News Chronicle reported that some
villagers had mounted night-time patrols to
catch the culprit. Were they ghost-hunting,
or did they think people were responsible?
Meanwhile the Sunday Pictorial contacted
the celebrated psychic researcher Harry
Price (see FT229:28-34, 299:44-49), whose
best-known (some might say notorious)
investigation at Borley Rectory had resulted
in his 1940 book The Most Haunted House
in England. Price, Arthur Sykes and the
Sunday Pictorial reporters decided to lay
the witch’s spirit to rest by returning the
stone fromthe Dog and Gun to her grave
at Scrapfaggot Green. Before they could
do so, another farmer found rabbits in his
chicken coop. Aphotograph showed four
villagers manoeuvring the stone into position,
supervised by Arthur Sykes, watched by a
woman holding a baby.
5
The US magazine Time reported the story,
saying that the morning after the stone was
replaced it had been moved again, with a
message on it saying ‘non in sum’, Latin for
‘not here’ or ‘nobody home’. Two weeks later,
the Evening News said that flowers had been
placed on the stone.
6
Harry Price described his visit to Great
Leighs in his 1945 book Poltergeist Over
England (see panel). Shortly before his arrival,
30 sheep and two horses died. He thought that
while paranormal activity might have been at
work, mass hysteria and practical jokers had
also played a role. He claimed credit for the
idea of replacing the stone, as a cathartic act
to put people’s minds at rest as much as to lay
any spirit.
7
CHIMESATMIDNIGHT?
In 1965 one Albert Morrish fromChelmsford
described his enquiries about the Great
Leighs ghosts in The East Anglian Magazine. A
local man told him: “They tried ter make out
as ‘er rang the church bells at midnight but my
cottage is only just down the road and I never
‘eard nuthin.”
Morrish wrote that a London businessman
brought three local cottages to convert into
a country home: one had an unpleasant
atmosphere, and a dog ran fromit in terror.
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ABOVE: In October 1944 the Sunday Pictorial newspaper ran a story on the Witch of Scrapfaggot Green.
ABOVE: Harry Price supervises the restoration of
the ‘Witch Stone’ to its original site.
AWITCHHAD
BEENBURNTAT
THESTAKEATTHE
CROSSROADS
O
n October 6, 1944, the Sunday
Pictorial rang me up and told me
that their representative was at
Great Leighs, where the most
extraordinary things were happening all
over the village.
He reported the following incidents:
The tenor bell in the church tower tolled
in the early hours of the morning, and
the bell ropes played reversed chimes on
Sundays; the church clock struck midnight
at 2.30am, and lost an hour each day;
a farmer’s haystacks had been found
pushed over in the night; corn stooks were
found in adjoining meadows; cows in calf
gave birth prematurely; the hens stopped
laying; chickens – which no one had lost –
were found drowned in water-butts; others
had escaped from locked fowl-houses;
sheep strayed through unbroken hedges;
three geese, belonging to Mr Arthur J
Sykes, landlord of the St Anne’s Castle
Inn (said to be the oldest in England: it
dates from 1170), disappeared from his
garden, though there was no break in the
enclosure; a builder complained that a
pile of scaffold-poles had been scattered
about his yard, like matchsticks; a dozen
paint pots, many brushes and other
paraphernalia, neatly stacked over night,
had been found by a decorator under the
beds in a cottage where his men had been
working, and so on. Nearly every person
in the village had some story to relate, of
strange happenings or displacement of
objects.
With a friend I spent a day at Great
Leighs on October 11, 1944, and we
interviewed several of the victims, all
of whom confirmed the reports I had
received. A few hours before our arrival,
30 sheep and two horses had been found
dead in a field. It was said they had been
poisoned. During the same night, chickens
in a yard and rabbits in hutches had
mysteriously changed places, though the
fasteners were undisturbed. Mr William
Reynolds, the licensee of the Dog and
Gun Inn, showed me a large boulder,
weighing some 200 pounds [90kg], that
had been deposited outside his front door
– just where one was likely to fall over it. I
examined the stone carefully. It was of
irregular shape, much worn, with no signs
of moss or moisture on it. No one had lost
such a stone, and its origin has not been
traced.
Perhaps what interested me most
was a certain bedroom in the St Anne’s
Castle Inn, which cannot be slept in –
peacefully. Mr Sykes asked me what I
thought of it. I told him that the contents
of the room appeared to have been
shaken out of a pepper-pot. He said: ‘It
is always like this. Nothing will “stay put”.
Over and over again we have straightened
up the place, only to find next morning
that everything was higgledy-piggledy. We
now use it as a lumber room, but boxes
and furniture are scattered about night
after night. No other part of the house
is affected.’ It was from this inn that the
BBC broadcast (April 15, 1939) a ‘haunted
house’ programme.
The villagers declare that their
misfortunes dated from the day when
American bulldozers widened the road
at Scrapfaggot Green, the centre of the
village, thus displacing a two-ton stone
that marked the remains of a seventeenth-
century witch who had been buried (with a
stake through her chest) at the crossroads
there. They asked me what they had
better do about it. I told them that if they
believed the witch to be responsible
for their troubles, the logical thing to
do was to restore her tombstone to its
original site. This they did, ceremonially,
at midnight on October 11-12, placing
the stone east and west in the traditional
manner. The phenomena ceased. The
result of my visit was that I came to the
conclusion that the Scrapfaggot Green
manifestations were partly genuine, partly
the work of a practical joker, and partly due
to mass-hysteria.
Harry Price, Poltergeist Over England,
pp301-302.
HARRY PRICE INVESTIGATES
Asecret roomwas found in it containing a
mummified black cat and a witch’s pointed
hat. He implies that this was the witch’s
house, but unfortunately provides no
information as to the secret room’s size.
8
Between 1564 and 1645 there were about
100 executions for witchcraft in Essex,
culminating in the campaign instigated
by MatthewHopkins, the infamous ‘Witch
Finder General’, leading to 19 deaths
(see FT198:30-36). This was followed by
increased scepticismon the subject until
the anti-witchcraft laws were repealed in
1736.
9
Two Great Leighs residents were
tried for witchcraft: Elizabeth Brooke and
Ann Hewghes (or Hughes) in 1584 and
1626, but their fate is uncertain.
10
Richard
Deacon’s biography MatthewHopkins: Witch
Finder General (1976) claimed that the Civil
War witch-hunts were a front for espionage
work, and that the Scrapfaggot Green
Witch was a royalist spy who was killed by
Parliamentarians. He cited his source as the
manuscript Tendring Witchcraft Revelations.
However, he provided no photographs of
this manuscript, and it has not since been
located. Richard Deacon was a pseudonym
for George Donald King MacCormick, better
known as Donald MacCormick, a prolific
author of books about crime and espionage
which relied on similarly unknown
manuscripts, most notably The Identity of
JackThe Ripper (1959) which has repeatedly
been exposed by ‘Ripperologists’.
11
Leaving aside Deacon’s book, there
appears to be no record of the legend of
the witch of Scrapfaggot Green before it
was related by Arthur Sykes in 1944. Harry
Price believed‘Scrapfaggot’ to be “probably
a corruption of the Suffolk word‘scratch-
fagot’, an opprobrious termfor an old hag
or witch”. Yet Ernest Gepp’s Essex Dialect
Dictionary (1929) includes ‘Scrapfaggot’,
not as a name for a witch but for sticks used
to tie faggots (or bundles of wood).
12
The
belief that witches were burnt at the stake
in England is fallacious: there is only one
attested case of this (at Ipswich in 1647).
13
All other executions were by hanging. Sykes
also dated the witch’s death to a century
after the last witchcraft execution in Essex.
Many of the supposed poltergeist
phenomena are dubious and amenable
to non-supernatural explanation. It was
said that the witch’s spirit was roused
by the construction of BorehamAirbase,
yet activity was only reported six months
after the base’s completion. Arthur Sykes’s
geese were probably stolen (and eaten).
The scaffolding poles and haystack which
collapsed may have been badly stored.
Painting equipment was moved under a bed,
but in most reported poltergeist activity
objects are thrown or scattered around:
perhaps somebody simply tidied it away. The
sheep could have jumped over the hedge
or fence, and it would not be difficult for
rabbits to enter a chicken coop (which might
have contained grain). The church clock may
have been set or wound badly (and one local
person denied that it ever malfunctioned).
Apart fromsome animal deaths,
which may have been due to disease,
contaminated food, or a disturbed practical
joker, the episode probably provided some
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local amusement and took people’s minds off
the war. I have searched local newspapers for
mentions of the story without success, which
lends support to the idea that it was promoted
to boost the local pub trade when Boreham
airbase ceased to be staffed and to increase
the Sunday Pictorial’s circulation.
It is doubtful that the witch stone had in
fact attracted any previous folklore. Time
quoted a Dr MacSweeney who said that
roadworkers had regularly moved it over
the past 20 years without suffering any ill
effects. The ReverendWilliamSmith, a vicar
of Boreham, was later investigating local
witchcraft traditions and was told that Arthur
Sykes had placed the stone outside the St
Anne’s Castle to entertain US servicemen. Its
movements in 1944 – to the Dog and Gun, for
example – were probably arranged by local
pub landlords. It has since been returned to
the road outside the St Anne’s Castle.
14
FOLKLOREORFICTION?
Yet the episode rapidly became accepted
as authentic folklore. In 1948, a children’s
book called The Witch of Scrapfaggot Green
was published by theViking Press of New
York. The author was Patricia Gordon – in
fact a pen name for a husband and wife team,
René and Patricia Prud’Hommeaux, who also
wrote under the name of Joan Howard. The
story closely follows the newspaper reports,
although the village where the action takes
place is not named. In this case, the witch is
clearly shown to rise from her grave to create
mischief, although never harming anybody.
Local twins Sam and Daisy Bassett are the
only people who can see or communicate
with the witch. The villagers ask psychic
researcher Michael Sedgwick (loosely based
on Harry Price) for advice, but the witch
eventually realises that she must fulfil a
simple wish she never achieved in her life:
having done this she returns to her grave
of her own free will. Strangely, the book
was never marketed or sold in the UK. The
authors probably worked from press reports,
as I can find no record that they ever visited
Great Leighs.
15
James Herbert Brennan, a prolific author
on paranormal, occult and NewAge subjects,
has written an account of the affair, which
is read by the actor Richard O’Brien, with
appropriate illustrations, on YouTube.
16
Essex
folk singer Andy LeFevre wrote a song called
Scrapfaggot Green which appears on his CD
Raindance.
17
In 1977 ‘Bob’ Blake produced
a Dungeons and Dragons fantasy game with
the title Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green;
although the roles in this had no connection
with the events of 1944, it is impossible to
imagine that Blake took the name from
anything else.
Landlords have continued to tell ghost
stories about the St Anne’s Castle: the
ABOVE LEFT: The Dog and Gun public house, to where the Witch Stone was said to have moved. ABOVE RIGHT: the author points to the Witch Stone in its current location.
BELOW: Great Leighs church, whose whose clock that is said to have given the wrong time and struck at midnight. BOTTOM: The author at Scrapfaggot Green.
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NOTES
1 Philip Morant, The History and
Antiquities of Essex, two volumes, T
Osborne, 1768, vol 2: p98; William
White, History, Gazetteer and
Directory of the County of Essex,
1848, 351; http://en.wikipedia. org/
wiki/Great_Leighs; Domesday Book,
A Complete Translation, ed Ann
Williams and GH Martin, Penguin,
2002, pp1007-1013. The only study
of Essex historic buildings that
includes the St Anne’s Castle is the
Unlocking Essex’s Past website:
http://unlockingessex.essexcc.gov.uk.
2 Paul Donovan, The Radio
Companion, Grafton, 1992, pp133-4.
3 Essex Chronicle, 10 Feb; 21 Apr
1939.
4 Roger A Freeman, UK Airfields of
the Ninth: Then and Now, After the
Battle Press, 1994, pp30-31.
5 Sunday Pictorial, 8 + 15 Oct; News
Chronicle, 10 Oct 1944.
6 Time, 23 Oct; Evening News, 6
Nov 1944.
7 Harry Price, Poltergeist Over
England, Country Life Books, 1945,
pp300-303.
8 Albert Morrish, “The witch of
Scrapfaggot Green”, East Anglian
Magazine, Feb 1965, pp143-
4; untitled letter, East Anglian
Magazine, Octr 1965, p455.
9 Cecil Henry L’Estrange Ewen, Witch
Hunting And Witch Trials, Kegan
Paul, Trench and Tubner, 1929, and
Alan MacFarlane: Witchcraft In Tudor
And Stuart England, Routledge,
Kegan Paul, 1970, contain detailed
statistical analyses of English
witchcraft cases from contemporary
legal records, with an emphasis on
Essex sources.
10 Ewen, op. cit., p151, 212;
MacFarlane, op.cit., p259, 266.
11 Richard Deacon, Matthew
Hopkins: Witch Finder General,
Frederick Muller, 1976, pp180-2,
211. There is an amusing study of
Donald MacCormick’s literary output
in Beachcombing’s Bizarre History
Blog: www.strangehistory.net/tag/
donald-mccormick
12 Ernest Gepp, An Essex Dialect
Dictionary, Routledge, 1923, p96.
13 Cecil Henry L’Estrange Ewen,
Witchcraft And Demonianism, Heath
Cranton, 1933, pp302-3.
14 William JT Smith, The Boreham
Witch, Fact Or Fiction?, privately
published, 1995, pp18-19.
15 I first found this book via a literary
blog about juvenile ghost stories,
‘Jenny’s Wonderland of Books’:
http://wonderlandofbooks.blogspot.
co.uk/2009/05/thinking-about-
ghosts.html. I can find comparatively
little about the authors, whose
works were mostly published in the
USA. Strangely, the book was never
marketed or sold in the UK, and I
believe I may be the only person
in England to own a copy.
16 www.youtube.com/
watch?v=3VuBazqZA_o
17 www.myspace.com/andylefevre
18 Jack Hallam, The Haunted Inns
of England, Wolfe Publishing, 1972,
pp63-5; Marc Alexander, Haunted
Pubs In Britain And Ireland, Sphere
Books, 1984, pp61-3.
room which contained the four-poster bed
contains an unpleasant atmosphere. People
have heard a child’s footsteps in it, and have
even felt as if they were being strangled.
There is a presence by the fireplace in
the public bar and sometimes a person is
thought to be seen sitting there. Unpleasant
things are seen and heard in the cellar, and
many deliverymen from the brewery refuse
to enter it.
18
In 2002, I visited the St Anne’s
Castle when the then landlady told me
these stories herself. Since then, the pub has
changed hands. The present management
may not be so keen to promote its reputation
as a haunted building.
In March 2012 I visited Great Leighs to
meet the village historian, Pat Watkinson,
who took me on a local tour during which I
visited Scrapfaggot Green for the first time.
This, in fact, stands in Little Waltham, at
the end of a country road called Domsey
Lane.(Anybody seeking this unaided should
bring an Ordnance Survey Map of the
area, and look for the OS grid referenceTL
726130.) Pat told me that the cottages in
which the mummified cat and the witch’s
hat were found stood here, but have since
been demolished. Although she only moved
into the village in the 1960s, she met some
of the participants in the affair, including
Alfred Quilter, who said that Arthur Sykes
had invented the story in 1944, and that he
and several other people had been invited
to a photo-shoot in the pub when they were
asked to smoke long ‘churchwarden’ style
pipes.
Perhaps the story of the witch of
Scrapfaggot Green tapped into the local
folklore that Essex is a witch-infested
county: it may have been a somewhat
unsophisticated invention, but it has
continued to bamboozle and intrigue ghost-
hunters and folklorists ever since.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
ROBERT HALLIDAY has
worked for various
heritage organisations,
including the Churches
Conservation Trust. His
publications include
Cambridge Ghosts,
co-authored with Alan
Murdie, Cambriddgeshire Strange But
True and Suffolk Strange But True. He has
recently taken up horse riding.
ABOVE: Illustrations from the chidlren’s book The Witch of Scrapfaggot Green, showing the witch appearing to Sam and Daisy Bassett, the arrival of US troops observed
from a church tower clearly based on that of Great Leighs, and Sam and Daisy warning a US serviceman about to move the stone that it covers a witch’s grave!
FT
B
ack in September
1961, WD Clendenon,
a correspondent of the
famous UFO contactee
George Adamski, was
visited by an individual
who claimed to be carrying out a
political survey. The man’s departure was
immediately followed by an encounter
with “a brilliant white ball of light”.
Clendenon described his visitor as
follows: “His skin was smooth, as though
he had never shaved in his life. His skin
reminded me of a baby’s skin. When he
smiled, his teeth were prefect and very
white… his hair was dark and trimmed in
a business-like manner. He looked almost
too perfect and it bothered me.”
1
In 1985, Dan Seldin awoke in Cleveland
Ohio to find three black-clad people in
his room, one of whom was a woman with
dark eyes and black hair, who had sex with
him. Later, when hypnotised by abduction
researcher Budd Hopkins, Seldin said:
“She looks evil, but she looks pretty, too.”
2
In 1990, an Irish farmer named
McCleary had four crop circles appear
in the oats growing on his Tipperary
farm. After visiting the last one, he was
interrogated about the circles by a thin
man dressed completely in black who
suddenly stepped out from behind a shed
and started talking to him. McCleary said
the man was wearing clothes that looked
50 years old, and that he had something
“dead” about him.
3
All three of the above witnesses
had experienced classic ‘Men in Black’
(MIB) encounters, and all three found
aspects of the individuals they met
unsettling and weird. But MIBs are not
the only kind of entities that possess such
strange characteristics. Take Antonio
Villas-Boas, who was abducted by aliens
in 1957 and had sex with a beautiful
blonde extraterrestrial; he was somewhat
perturbed when she “growled like a dog”
throughout.
4
Then there are fairies.
Emma Wilby in her book Cunning Folk
and Familiar Spirits describes them as
“possessing a human-like appearance and
living an uncanny simulacrum of human
life”.
5
Wilby, in her summary of fairy nature,
gets to the crux of all these encounters,
and indeed, pretty much every fortean
encounter with such human-like entities.
THE
UNCANNY
VALLEY
LEFT: “an uncanny simulacrum” – one of Bean
shanine’s hyper-real vampire baby dolls.
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Fromfairies and the Men in Black to Japanese robots, hyper-real sex dolls and CGI versions
of famous actors, we are surrounded by all sorts of human-like simulacra.
IAN SIMMONS explains why the science of robotics has helped provide a newmodel
of why the not-quite-human creeps us out so much, and just why that might be...
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Experiencers like those described above
were not just coming face-to-face with weird
beings or strange “simulacra of human life”,
they were also staring deep into what has
become known as the ‘UncannyValley’.
HUMAN SIMULACRA
The term was coined in a 1970 essay by
Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori as Bukimi
no Tani – ‘TheValley of Eeriness’ – but it only
reached wider currency when, in 1995, it was
translated by Karl McDorman, who gave the
phenomenon its now more familiar name.
6
McDorman expected it to be of interest only
to a few fellow roboticists, but it rapidly went
viral and became something of a pop culture
meme.
7
So what exactly is the Uncanny
Valley? It is perhaps best demonstrated by a
graph mapping people’s emotional responses
to various human-like and not so human
entities (pictured above).
Essentially, the graph shows that as non-
human objects become more and more
human, our sense of empathy and comfort
with them also rises – that is, until an object
comes to resemble a human very closely; then
our feelings of empathy and comfort take
an immense nose-dive, to be replaced with
unease and a sense that the object or entity
is somehow wrong and even malign. And
while this discomfort is marked enough with
stationary objects, it absolutely rockets once
the object is moving.
This concept was originally very much
tied in with robotics, and is the reason that
humanoid robots like Honda’s Asimo do not
have realistic faces but either highly stylised
ones, or, as in Asimo’s case, none at all – just
a blank visor.
8
Watch the Asimo video, then
compare it to a video of the hyper-realistic
Philip K Dick android created by Hanson
Robotics.
9
Which are you more comfortable
with?
That’s the UncannyValley. Essentially, it’s
the feeling of dissonance that you get when
encountering something that on one level is
giving out signals that it is a human being,
but on another is also signalling that it is not.
Hence the MIB experiencers’ feelings that
their strange interlocutors “looked almost
too perfect and it bothered me”, or were
in some way “dead” or “evil”. Something
has to be very, very close to human indeed
before we get over such feelings and our
levels of empathy and comfort return. One of
the reasons the idea of the UncannyValley
gained swift currency was that the translation
of Mori’s paper occurred not long before
Hollywood made its first attempts at creating
hyper-realistic CGI characters, with films such
as Polar Express – and, by popular verdict,
failed. Audiences found Polar Express’s
multiple digital Tom Hanks’ even more
disturbing and unsettling than the real one –
dead-eyed and nightmarish, these simulacra
pulled viewers deep into the UncannyValley.
Pixar had already worked this out in 1988,
having found that the realistic baby in their
short Tin Toy generated widespread revulsion,
which led to their policy of avoiding human
leads in any of their subsequent films;
hence the talking cars, cute monsters and
animated toys that have predominated ever
since.
10
Video games have the same problem,
particularly those that use recognisable
people in digitised form. Speaking of a 2004
game based on the TV series Alias, Clive
Thompson, writing in Slate, said: “Whenever
the camera zooms in on her face, you’re
staring at a Jennifer Garner death mask.
I nearly shrieked out loud at one point...
It’s as if [she] has been shot up with some
ungodly amount of Botox and [is] no longer
able to make Earthlike expressions.”
11
Over
the last 10 years or so, CGI has improved its
modelling of lifelike humans considerably
– such that the almost-human Na’vi in James
Cameron’s Avatar seem to have avoided the
UncannyValley, as does the Ray Winstone
character in Beowulf (though not Angelina
Jolie as Grendel’s mother) and most of the
characters in Tintin (though, again, not Tintin
himself). It has reached the point where the
digitally resurrected Audrey Hepburn in a
recent Galaxy chocolate ad creates barely a
whisper of the effect, although she still seems
curiously empty, and no one would mistake
her for the living Audrey.
12
VALLEY OF THE SEX DOLLS
Research by Thalia Wheatley, from
Dartmouth College in the US, has shown
that the UncannyValley effect works with
everyone from her students to a remote tribe
in Cambodia, but only when they were shown
human faces that were familiar to their own
ethnic group. Using morphing software, she
showed test subjects doll-like and human
faces, finding that people said a face was
more human than doll only if it had at least
65 per cent of a human face. They could even
judge an artificial figure’s human appearance
based on a single eye.
It is also clear, though, that responses to
the UncannyValley vary between individuals.
Some people clearly find appealing entities
that others would very definitely place in
theValley – and nowhere is this clearer than
in the world of sex dolls, where a premium
is set upon their ability to appear as human
as possible. For many people, these things
38 Ft303
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TOP: A graph mapping people’s emotional responses
to various human-like entities.
ABOVE: when cgi goes bad: the Tin Toy baby and the
Polar Express tom Hanks just gave people the creeps.
THERE’SASENSE
THATTHEENTITY
ISWRONGAND
EVENMALIGN
Ft303 39
www.forteantimes.com
TOP: a reporter interviews an android version of sci-f writer Philip K dick
developed by Hanson Robotics. RIGHT: Japan’s Honda Motor President,
Hiroyuki yoshino and the company’s humanoid robot asiMO in 2000.
ABOVE: an ‘actroid’ developed by Osaka University and manufactured by
Kokoro company Ltd, unveiled at the 2003 international Robot exhibition
in tokyo, Japan.
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40 Ft303
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are definitely deep in theValley, but clearly
for the people who buy Realdolls,
13
the
US life-size ultra-Barbie version, or any of
the numerous, and even more unsettling,
Japanese models
14
(known as ‘Dollers’) this
is not a problem.
Furthermore, there are a number of active
projects to turn dolls like this into fully
functional sex robots, which by rights ought
to sit at the very bottom of the Uncanny
Valley, and for most people probably do.
Probably the highest profile of these is
‘Roxxxy’, built by Douglas Hines, a former
artificial intelligence researcher at Bell
Labs. Looking at him interacting with
Roxxxy, he clearly thinks she’s marvellous,
but I am not sure many will share that
opinion, although he is marketing versions at
$9,000 a go.
15
There is also a market for hyper-real baby
dolls, precisely the size and appearance of
actual babies, which are either amazingly
cute or supremely unsettling, depending on
your point of view.
16
Artist Bean Shanine has
capitalised on this, selling modified vampire
and zombie versions.
17
At the other end of
the scale, there are people who experience
Capgras Syndrome, a psychological disorder
that results in them believing that their
friends and relatives have been replaced
with duplicates (sometimes overtly identified
as robots) that are identical in every way
with the original, but which they nonetheless
know are doppelgänger, even if no-one
else can tell. This could be viewed as a
displacement of the UncannyValley effect so
that it is applied to actual humans, not just
human simulacra.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
Mori’s paper, while identifying the Uncanny
Valley phenomenon, does not attempt to
explain it. Although it has clearly struck a
universal chord culturally, until recently very
little work has been done into why theValley
exists. In fact, there is some dispute as to
whether it is even a single phenomenon or a
combination of several, particularly because
despite its near-universal occurrence – it
has even been demonstrated in primates
– there are clearly huge variances in what
individuals place in it, as evinced by the
behaviour of the ‘Dollers’.
18
A number of hypotheses have been put
forward to account for the UncannyValley.
It has been suggested that it is the result
of conflicting perceptual cues – many
of the cues a hyper-realistic humanoid
construct gives off strongly suggest it is a
living being, but simultaneously it gives off
others that signal that it is not, distorting
our established perceptual boundaries. This
results in us feeling uncomfortable because
we are no longer sure what the entity is.
Essentially, this hypothesis proposes that
when something like a robot elicits an
UncannyValley response, it is no longer
being judged by the standards of a robot
doing a passable job at pretending to be
human, but is instead being judged by the
standards of a human doing a terrible job at
acting like a normal person.
It has also been suggested that the effect
is a result of the human fear of death –
something that human-like but inanimate
objects invoke by having an appearance
too close to that of a corpse for comfort.
When they move, they double the horror by
violating the convention that corpses are
immobile, as they still don’t have enough life-
like characteristics to pass as living humans.
This may well have something to do with the
fact that human faces are constantly mobile,
with micro-expressions passing across them
even when essentially still, giving them
subliminal animation that we recognise as
the sign of a living thing, and which even an
animated artificial human will lack.
Linked to this is the idea that the Uncanny
Valley is linked to pathogen avoidance
– the subtly unnatural nature of the
almost-humans reminds us too much of the
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FORMANYPEOPLE,
SEXDOLLSARE
DEEPINTHE
UNCANNYVALLEY
ABOVE LEFT: Former ai researcher douglas Hines with his creation, the “fully functional” sex robot Roxxxy. ABOVE RIGHT: Bean shanine and one of her eerily lifelike babies.
ABOVE: an uncanny valley, to be sure – one of the Us
Realdolls displays her terrifying twin peaks.
Ft303 41
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FT
appearance of someone who is ill, and we
are genetically conditioned to flinch from
disease for fear of catching it. On a less
extreme level, it has been suggested that
it is due to our mate selection responses,
that we avoid mates who appear to have
poor fitness, and the not-quite-human
appearance of things in theValley triggers
this. Capgras Syndrome, it has been
suggested, results from those experiencing
it having an intact system for overtly
recognising things, so that they can identify
a person or an object, but a damaged
capacity for emotionally recognising things.
This means that when they see something,
they can tell what it is, but even if it is
something they know very well, it still
seems different and new to them, creating
UncannyValley-style cognitive dissonance.
This suggests that an interplay between
these two modes of recognition is also at
work in the rest of us when we experience
the discomfort of coming face to face with a
‘spooky’ entity.
We are just beginning to develop an
understanding of this peculiar emotional
response. In time, research into the
UncannyValley could throw much light on
how we respond to the bizarre beings in
the fortean realm, and even help us discern
whether an apparently fortean encounter is
merely something entirely normal that has
triggered an UncannyValley response in the
percipient, or a genuine meeting with the
inexplicable.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
IAN SIMMONS has been a
clippings sorter and regular
contributor to Fortean Times
for many years. He works in
science communication and
is based in Newcastle- Upon-
tyne.
NOTES
1 Jim Keith Casebook
on the Men in Black,
adventures Unlimited Press,
Kempton, illinois, 2011,
pp64-65.
2 Budd Hopkins, Intruders:
The Incredible Visitations
at Copley Woods, sphere,
1988.
3 Keith, op cit, pp97-98.
4 Nigel watson, ‘Loving the
alien’, FT121:34, april 1999.
5 emma wilby, Cunning
Folk and Familiar Spirits:
Shamanistic Visionary
Traditions in Early Modern
British Witchcraft and
Magic, sussex academic
Press, 2005, p18.
6 Masahiro Mori, 1970,
“the Uncanny valley”,
Energy, 7(4), pp33-
35; translated as “the
valley of Familiarity”
in Keith Macdorman,
2005, “androids as an
experimental apparatus:
why is there an uncanny
valley and how can we
exploit it?”, CogSci-2005
Workshop: Toward Social
Mechanisms of Android
Science, July 25–26, 2005,
pp4-8
7 Joe Kloc, “too close for
comfort”, New Scientist, 12
January 2013, pp35-37.
8 www.youtube.com/
watch?v=eU93vmFyZbg
9 www.youtube.com/
watch?v=t9MUg6uk5lg
10 Jeremy Hsu, “why
‘Uncanny valley’ Human
Look-alikes Put Us on
edge”, Scientific American,
3 april 2012.
11 clive thompson, “the
Undead Zone”, Slate, 9
June 2004.
12 www.youtube.com/
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watch?v=sFw8NjZF-Qk
13 www.realdoll.com
14 an obsessive and
presumably very well-
funded collector of these,
known as ta-bo, maintains
a comprehensive and
extremely bizarre (and
NsFw) website featuring
virtually every version www.
dolldataroom.org
15 thanks are due to my
friend Helen Keen, who
alerted me to Roxxxy. Helen
features Roxxxy in her show
Robot women of the Future.
there’s a video of Hines and
Roxxxy at: www.youtube.com/
watch?v=2MeQci77dtQ.
apparently, when she
debuted at the adult
entertainment expo in 2010
Roxxxy garnered over 4,000
pre-orders, but it isn’t clear
whether any have yet been
met.
16 www.reborn-baby.com
17 www.thetwisted
beanstalknursery.com
18 www.wired.co.uk/
news/archive/2011-07/19/
uncanny-valley-tested
watch?v=sFw8NjZF-Qk
ABOVE: a visitor interacts with female humanoid robot “Minami” at the takashimaya department store in Osaka, Japan. “Minami” is programmed to use various phrases
such as “do you come alone today” or “Let’s take a picture together” when speaking with shoppers.
A
liens fromAldebaran
channelling blueprints
for flying saucers to
female mediums;
secret meetings with
obscure esoteric orders;
the construction of a
machine to travel to the hereafter; the
Black Sun; the power ofVril – this is
the current incarnation of a mythos
that started a mere 15 years after the
end of WorldWar II. At its heart lies a
black lodge of wizards and magicians,
hovering over the cradle of National
Socialism– theVril Society.
In the spring of 1930, two slim
pamphlets appeared on the streets of
Berlin, one a mere 60 pages, the other
approximately half that length. Only
one pamphlet named its author, under
the penname of Johannes Taufer – or
‘John Baptist’. Two German occult
publishers distributed the pamphlets,
perhaps to a fairly wide readership
amongst the esoterically inclined. A
Berlin address was printed in both of
them. Having studied the pamphlets,
anyone wishing to knowmore could
obtain further information at this
address.
The 60-page booklet by ‘Johannes
Taufer’ appeared under the imprint of the
‘AstrologischeVerlagWilhelmBecker’
1
of Berlin. It bore the appropriate title
Vril. Die Kosmische Urkraft. Wiedergeburt
von Atlantis (Vril –The Cosmic Primal
Force – Rebirth of Atlantis). The publisher
was, in fact, an organisation that called
itself ‘Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Das
Kommende Deutschland’ (Imperial
Working SocietyThe Coming Germany,
abbreviated to ‘RAG’), whose headquarters
were also located in Berlin, at Pallasstrasse
7-1. The second booklet, published
by OttoWilhelmBarthVerlag, was
issued by the same organisation and
entitled Weltdynamismus. Streifzüge
durch technisches Neuland an Hand von
biologischen Symbolen (World
Dynamism– Forays through
technological NewLands Using
biological Symbols).
The Berlin group concerned
itself with a new energy force
calledVril, which it saw as one
of the technical properties of
Atlantis, and a new form of
spiritual technology. This would
eventually change mankind into
a higher species and reform
society as we know it into a
new utopia. The RAG compared
the Earth with an apple sliced
vertically in two halves – the
North Pole was the anode, or
positive, and the South Pole the
magnetic axis, the cathode, or
negative. From this, the RAG
drew certain technical and
physical conclusions for the
use of Vril energy, which it also
called “the all force of the forces
of nature”. Certain devices, described
as “ball- shaped power generators”
would channel “the constant flow of free
radiant energy between outer space
and the Earth” and would enable “the
specific use of this energy”.
2
Readers
were invited to enquire for further
information at the Berlin address given
in the pamphlets.
LEFT: Invitation by the RAG for a
lecture by Johannes Taufer on the
theme of Vril, the cosmic primal
power, its rediscovery and use and
the rebirth of Atlantis.
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Howdid a fictional force invented by a 19th-century English writer inspire a body of myth
that takes in Nazi occultists, flying saucers, secret societies and free energy – and continues
to flourish online in the 21st century? At long last, THEO PAIJMANS can reveal
the truth about the fabled Vril Society…
42 FT303
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THE BIRTHOF VRIL
The idea ofVril was much older. It was born
in an 1871 novel called The Coming Race
by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (see FT292:63).
Bulwer-Lytton was a mixture of occultist and
post-gothic novelist who had enjoyed fame
with titles such as Rienzi and The Last Days
of Pompeii and offered glimpses of his occult
interests in Zanoni. The Coming Race was to be
the last book of his prolific writing career.
One can read The Coming Race as a science
fiction story – somewhat archaic, yet still
captivating because of its potent ingredients:
a race of beings, vastly superior to man, living
inside the Earth, and a fantastic technology
somewhere between a fairy tale and such
post-JulesVerne conceptions as flying wings.
The termVril is introduced for the first time to
denote an all-pervading, immensely powerful
source or energy, which can heal or destroy
and which is employed by the superior race,
known as theVril-Ya. The women of this
humanoid race are taller and more powerful
than their male counterparts. TheVril-Ya
knowof our existence – and with an unsettling
indifference they also knowthat one day
they will surface and put an end to the vastly
inferior species of Homo sapiens. Bulwer-
Lytton’s novel ends with a warning that we
must become aware, and realise that, one day,
theVril-Ya will rise.
“What isVril?” the unnamed protagonist
in Bulwer-Lytton’s novel asks himself in
astonishment. “There is no word in any
language I knowwhich is an exact synonym
forVril. I should call it electricity, except that
it comprehends in its manifold branches other
forces of nature, to which, in our scientific
nomenclature, differing names are assigned,
such as magnetism, galvanism, &c…inVril
they have arrived at the unity in natural
energic agencies, which has been conjectured
by many philosophers above ground…by
one operation ofVril, which Faraday would
perhaps call ‘atmospheric magnetism’, they
can influence the variation of temperature
– in plain words, the weather; that by
other operations, akin to those ascribed
to mesmerism, electro-biology, odic force,
etc., but applied scientifically throughVril
conductors, they can influence over minds,
and bodies animal and vegetable, to an extent
not surpassed in the romance of our mystics.
To all such agencies they give the common
nameVril.”
3
The influence of The Coming Race upon the
occult underground was considerable. Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky (see FT302:32-37), the
co-founder of theTheosophical Movement,
considered Bulwer-Lytton as one of her most
important sources of inspiration. Reading one
of his novels when living in Saint Petersburg
practically started her occult career. In her Isis
Unveiled, Blavatsky exclaimed that Bulwer-
Lytton“allowed his readers to take it as a
fiction” and she sawthe similarity ofVril with
Baron von Reichenbach’s Od, Levi’s Astral
Light andAkasha. “Absurd and unscientific as
may appear our comparison of a fictitiousVril
invented by the great novelist, and the primal
force of the equally great experimentalist,
with the kabalistic astral light, it is
nevertheless the true definition of this force,”
she wrote.
4
Later, when she penned The Secret
Doctrine, she entitled a chapter “The Coming
Force”. Here, Blavatsky comparedVril with
the sidereal force of the Atlanteans, called
Mash-Mak, and concluded that “It is theVril of
Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race”.
5
Through
Blavatsky, the concept ofVril spread far and
wide in theosophy, anthroposophy and other
occult milieux.
PSEUDOSCIENCE INNAZILAND
The Berlin group was completely forgotten
and The Coming Race remembered, if at all,
as a literary curiosity when in 1960 Le Matin
des Magiciens (“The Dawn of Magic”) by
Francois Pauwels and Jacques Bergier was
published in France. In this best-selling book,
FT303 43
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ABOVE LEFT: German edition of Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race. ABOVE CENTRE: Portrait of the author as a young man. ABOVE RIGHT: A tall, powerful female Vril-Ya.
BELOW: A letter from Johannes Janik on RAG stationary and a letter from Otto Wilhelm Barth, who published the second of the RAG pamphlets, both from the RAG Archive.
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the authors offered a newlook at the 19th and
20th centuries. It was in two parts, the second
of which brought the authors’ perspective to
the causes of WorldWar II: the occult roots of
National Socialism.
National Socialism, as embodied in Hitler
and the Nazis, was brought into existence and
nurtured by obscure occultists and esoteric
orders. The most mysterious and foreboding of
themall – according to Pauwels and Bergier –
was a secret society in Berlin. They first heard
of this mysterious order through a German
scientist, Dr Willy Ley, who immigrated to
America in 1933. This Berlin society was called
The Luminous Lodge, or theVril Society.
Pauwels and Bergier further claimed that
the Luminous Lodge had friends among the
Theosophists and the Rosicrucians. Karl
Haushofer,
6
a German professor of geopolitics
and friend of high-placed Nazi Rudolf Hess,
was a member of the Lodge.
7
TheVril
Society did not operate in a vacuum; it had
connections with the GermanThule Society
and the British esoteric order The Golden
Dawn, Pauwels and Bergier claimed.
8
After Le Matin des Magiciens the floodgates
opened and many writers on the theme of
occultismand Nazismexpounded on theVril
Society with enough enthusiasmto disguise
the fact that, as a rule, their claims were not
backed up by any evidence.
Today, what has grown over the years to
become what we might call the ‘Vril Mythos’
is grown stronger – and more wide-ranging –
than ever, especially on the Internet. Now, the
Vril Society is a secret organisation involved
in the construction of flying saucers with
the help fromaliens fromAldebaran, who
astrally transmitted the blueprints to two
female mediums in the 1920s. This original
story, introduced in 1992, has already given
rise to numerous variants: the mythos is still
evolving.
9
But – going back to earlier sources – what
didWilly Ley actually have to say concerning
theVril Society? His nine-page article titled
“Pseudoscience in Naziland” was published in
anAmerican pup science fiction magazine in
1947.
10
In it, he described some of the German
irrationalist theories and movements, such
as Ariosophy, pendulumresearch, the Hollow
Earth theory and the doctrine of eternal
ice evolved by Austrian Hans Horbiger. On
the topic of theVril Society, Ley, without
even referring to it by this name, provided
precious fewlines – only 33, to be precise:
“The next group was literally founded upon
a novel. That group which I think called itself
Wahrheitsgesellschaft – Society for Truth – and
which was more or less localised in Berlin,
devoted its spare time looking forVril.Yes,
their convictions were founded upon Bulwer-
Lytton’s The Coming Race. They knewthat
the book was fiction, Bulwer-Lytton had used
that device in order to be able to tell the truth
about this ‘power’. The subterranean humanity
was nonsense,Vril was not. Possibly it had
enabled the British, who kept it as a state
secret, to amass their colonial empire. Surely
the Romans had had it, enclosed in small
metal balls, which guarded their homes and
were referred to as lares. For reasons which
I failed to penetrate, the secret ofVril could
be found by contemplating the structure of
an apple, sliced in halves. No, I amnot joking,
that is what I was told with great solemnity
and secrecy. Such a group actually existed,
they even got out the first issue of a magazine
which was to proclaimtheir credo. (I wish
I had kept some of these things, but I had
enough books to smuggle out as it was.)”
11
These sparse descriptions enabled German
author Peter Bahn, in the 1990s, to identify
44 FT303
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TOP: Following the publication of Pauwels and Bergier’s book, the Vril mythos took off; Nazi flying saucers anyone?
ABOVE LEFT: Willy Ley, seen at right, with Wernher Von Braun (centre) and Dr Heinz Haber; Ley’s brief recollections formed the basis of the later Vril mythos.
ABOVE RIGHT: This 1928 pamphlet by Franz Wetzel and L Gföllner introduced Schappeller’s ideas on his method of creating free energy.
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THENAZISWERE
NURTUREDBY
OCCULTISTSAND
ESOTERICORDERS
the RAGas the model for theVril Society.
12
This in turn led to a further identification
of what technology the RAGwas actually
talking about. We can find what the RAG
stated in 1930 on the subject of “primal
force”, the “primal machine” and“ball-
shaped aggregates”, in other previously
published pamphlets. One, published in
1928 in Munich, laid out the ‘Raumkraft’
or ‘spaceforce’ theory by Austrian inventor
Karl Schappeller. The booklet was written by
Franz Wetzel and L Gföllner, and was entitled
Raumkraft, Ihre Erschliesung und Auswertung
durch Karl Schappeller
13
. Ayear later, in
1929, another pamphlet on Schappeller’s
spaceforce theory was published.
14
THE KINGOF KARL’S CASTLE
Karl Schappeller (1875-1947) is certainly
one of the least known yet most important
persons of the 20th century free energy
scene. Biographical data are extremely hard
to obtain, yet we have collected enough to
paint a preliminary picture of the man and
his doings.
It is alleged that his work on his particular
philosophy of free energy began in the 1890s.
In the 1920s, Schappeller stayed inVienna,
where he collected around hima coterie,
many of whomwere young engineers.
Schappeller developed newideas on the
supply of free energy and found financial
backers, even in industrial and clerical
circles. In 1925, he bought an
old castle in his hometown of
Aurolzmünster, where he led
a luxurious lifestyle, which
brought himfinancial
difficulties. This led
outwardly to a negative
image, but his labours
inside the castle were of
a different order. There
he had earlier mentioned
Franz Wetzel, one of the leading
dowsers of his time, amongst his
co-workers. Schappeller was looked upon
favourably by industrial companies, such
as that of the Siegerland industrialist
Fritz Klein, whose book Logos und Bios was
advertised in the brochures of the Berlin
RAGgroup. Klein had visited Schappeller
inAurolzmünster. By all accounts, he is an
interesting figure; he had travelled in China,
India, Java and Japan duringWorldWar I,
and after the war wrote two books in which
he set out his ideas about obtaining a higher,
multidimensional formof consciousness.
15
Schappeller even obtained funding
fromthe exiled German Kaiser, who was
living in the Netherlands. An English
shipping company was interested in
Schappeller’s aggregates, and at one
time entered serious negotiations about
a ship’s engine that was to be derived
fromhis ‘Raumkraft’ machines. When
Schappeller died, his research papers
and documents disappeared,
although it is also alleged
that he never really wrote
much down, leaving
that to others. It is
claimed, however,
that Schappeller or
FT303 45
www.forteantimes.com
LEFT: Karl Schappeller (1875-1947) developed new ideas on the supply of free energy
and found financial backers, even in industrial, clerical and royal circles. TOP: The
castle in Aurolzmünster bought by Schappeller in 1925. ABOVE: The only known
sketch made by Schappeller on a napkin, picturing his ‘space force’ system.
ABOVE LEFT: Logo of the New Power Trust, a firm founded in the 1930s to
promote the use of Schappeller engines in ships of the British Navy.
one of his co-workers did build at least
some prototypes.
Schappeller considered the primal
force as “that which holds the Earth
in its inner together”. He also stated
that “in the whole of nature, there
is no nothing. No useless space.
Where there is no matter, there is
energy; therefore a so-called empty
space is a space filled with force…
energy is space controlling, matter
is space filling. Because the cosmos
is a closed vacuum, it is an immense
space of energy.”
16
Schappeller’s aim
was to create a “constant discharge”
between the cosmos and Earth,
which he considered to be a reservoir
of force. Since the word‘plasma’
was still unknown at the time that
he conducted his experiments and
formulated his theories, he called
a similar phenomenon“electrical
vapour”, “luminous magnetism” or
“luminous ether”. The use of the dynamic
principles of the ether led to the construction
of a ball-shaped device in which the luminous
magnetismcould be created and stored
permanently, to be used as the conductor
between the Earth and the cosmos.
Schappeller’s device resembled a
miniature Earth and was built fromtwo
precisely calculated half globes with the hulls
consisting of magnetic parts and with an
inner roombuilt of a nonmagnetic diaphragm.
Inside this globe were two magnetic poles of
“a certain mass”. Allegedly, a globe of only 6in
(15cm) diameter delivered an astoundingly
high number of kilowatts. The luminous ether
regenerated itself and only dissolved when
the globe was opened.
17
ANINVENTEDSOCIETY
AVril Society such as Pauwels, Bergier and
a host of other writers constructed over the
years never existed. In the end, even the
mythos that has sprung up isn’t a clear-cut,
unchangeable affair. It is interesting to note
for instance that theVril Society was initially
seen – right up to the 1980s – as a shadowy,
magical group steeped in occult rituals of
the most unsavoury kind that, behind the
scenes, helped manipulate Hitler into power.
Only in the late 1980s and early 1990s did a
small group fromVienna calling themselves
Tempelhof Gesellschaft launch a fresh variant
by abandoning these old fashioned ritual-
magic underpinnings and shifting the focus to
technology received froman extraterrestrial
race. This version introduced female
mediums and astral contacts with aliens from
Aldebaran and concocted an entire bogus
history of a secret flying saucer construction
programme.
In reality, Willy Ley – 17 years after the
event – briefly remembered an odd group
in 1930s Berlin, and it was this scanty
recollection that formed the basis for Pauwels
and Bergier’s creation of the ‘Vril Society’,
three years after Ley had devoted a few
brief lines to the subject in a science fiction
magazine. Fromthese beginnings, the whole
thing took off.
Returning to the source – the RAG– it
was impossible to make any further progress
since their two pamphlets were published
anonymously. Who was behind this group
remained a mystery. That is, until a Swiss
researcher contacted me a fewyears ago. By
an incredible stroke of luck he had acquired
a large archive, which had been
destined for the rubbish heap.
The archive proved to be a treasure
trove – and enabled me to see behind
theVril Society. Original documents
fromthe 1930s divulged everything
in regards to the RAG: membership
lists, internal correspondence, and
the much sought after but elusive
identity behind Johannes Taufer,
the writer of the Vril. Die Kosmische
Urkraft. Wiedergeburt von Atlantis
pamphlet. His name was Johannes
Janik. Janik was born on 27 July
1892 in Nikolsburg, a city in the
Czech Republic. He died in 1966 in
Augsburg. The irony is that he was
still alive when Le Matin des Magiciens
was published and even when the
German translation entitled Aufbruch ins
dritte Jahrtausend appeared in 1962. Since
Janik was involved in all kinds of esoteric
endeavours till his death, one wonders
whether he read the book and if he would
have recognised in its tall tale his doings of
some 32 years earlier.
The factual history of the RAG, though, is
far more interesting. It concerns a small group
that was not affiliated to upcoming National
Socialism, although it did inspire Heinrich
Himmler in later years. The RAGwas part
of a vibrant, pre-WorldWar II underground
in which unknown energies and paradigm-
shifting technologies were debated. Its history
also uncovers the fascinating trail by which
a fictional force invented by a 19
th
century
Englishman made its way through various
occult milieux and became a topic of research
and philosophising in Germany before the
Nazis took power. Howthis developed, and
what became of the RAG, is a fascinating
theme and subject of my forthcoming book –
and, ultimately, this is the source fromwhich
the wholeVril Society mythos sprang.
AUTHORBIOGRAPHY
THEO PAIJMANS is an editor by
day and a fortean researcher by
night. A regular contributor to FT,
his latest book is Behind the Vril
Society, to be published by Kroll
Editions in August.
FT
LEFT: Johannes Taufer (1892-1966), writer of
the Vril. Die Kosmische Urkraft pamphlet.
46 FT303
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ABOGUSHISTORY
OFASECRET
FLYINGSAUCER
PROGRAMME
NOTES
1 German publisher Wilhelm
Becker belonged to the leading
German astrological scene long
before World War I. Becker stayed
in London for several years as
a student of Alan Leo (1860 –
1917), one of the most important
astrologists of late Victorian
England. Initiated and prepared
by Leo, Becker set up a flourishing
astrologer’s shop in Berlin in 1910.
In: Peter Bahn & Reiner Gehring,
Der Vril Mythos, Omega Verlag,
1997, page 92. Cites as source
Ellic Howe’s Urania’s Children.
2 In Weltdynamismus. Streifzuge
durch technisches Neuland and
Hand von Biologischen Symbolen,
Otto Wilhelm Barth Verlag, 1930, as
well as in Johannes Taufer, Vril. Die
Kosmische Urkraft. Wiedergeburt
von Atlantis, Astrologische Verlag
Wilhelm Becker, 1930.
3 Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race,
Blackwood & Sons, 1871, pp46-48
4 HP Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, J.W.
Bouton, 1877, pp125-126.
5 HP Blavatsky, The Secret
Doctrine, TPS, 1888, vol.1., p555.
6 According to Pauwels and
Bergier, this information is to be
found in Jack Spielding, The Seven
Men of Spandau, which they refer
to as a ‘curious book’ In Spielding’s
book, there is no such information.
See Joscelyn Godwin, Arktos the
Polar Myth, Phanes Press, 1993,
pp53-54.
7 Ibid, p181.
8 Ibid, p283.
9 I followed this evolution in my
Free Energy Pioneer: John Worrell
Keely, Illuminet Press, 1998
and subsequently in my paper
‘La société du Vril, apocryphe et
ténèbreuse’, La Gazette Fortéenne,
Vol 2, 2003.
10 Willy Ley, “Pseudoscience in
Naziland”, Astounding Science
Fiction, vol. 39, May 1947.
11 Ibid. pp92-93.
12 See: Peter Bahn and Reiner
Gehring, Der Vril Mythos, Omega
Verlag, 1997.
13 Franz Wetzel and L Gföllner,
Raumkraft, Ihre Erschliessung und
Auswertung durch Karl Schappeller,
Herold Verlag, München, 1928.
14 This was Schappellers
Raumkraft: Enthullungen
der Geheimnisse im Schloss
Aurolzmünster. Tatsachen von
X.X., Winkler Verlag, 1929. The
pamphlet was equally small in size;
it numbers only 40 pages.
15 Fritz Klein (1877-1958). His
first book was published in 1924
and was titled An der Schwelle des
vierdimensionalen Zeitalters (on the
threshold of the four-dimensional
era). His second book Logos und
Bios. Die Zweiwertigkeit der Welt
als Einheit und Fundament einer
noetischen Weltanschauung,
was published in 1929. With
‘Noetischen’, the word used in
the title of his second book, Klein
referred to a little known term
‘Nous’, that stands for a higher
consciousness as opposed to the
animalistic soul, “especially in the
Rosicrucian doctrines” according
to Bahn. On Klein see: Bahn and
Gehring, pp125-127.
16 Wetzel and Gföllner, pp8-9.
17 L. Gföllner, “Die Erschliessung
der Dynamischen Technik durch
Karl Schappeller”, Zeitschrift für
Geistes- und Wissenschaftsreform,
5. Jahrgang, 1930, Doppelheft
9/10, pp206-208.
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R
ecently, I bought yet another
postcard for my London
collection, for the less than
princely sumof £1.99. Its subject
was reminiscent of the title of an
old-fashioned Hammer horror
film: ‘Dr Phene’s House of Mystery’. This
house – a most extraordinary building – once
stood at the crossing of Oakley Street and
Upper Cheyne Row, Chelsea. Its frontage on
Upper Cheyne Rowwas full of statues and
other embellishments: dragons, mermaids,
cupids and imps. But nobody lived in this
strange house, apart froman aged domestic
who never left her rooms in the basement,
since she was fearful of ghosts. The windows
were all shuttered and the doors boarded up.
One story said that Dr Phene, also known as
the Chelsea Hermit, had never allowed any
person to see his House of Mystery and that
all the rooms were empty apart fromone
that had been arranged as a mausoleumfor
cats. Another version was that Dr Phene had
once been engaged to marry, but that his
fiancée had died just before the intended
wedding: the grieving Doctor had let the
house he had built for themfall into decay.
Clearly, the time had come to find out more
about this mysterious Dr Phene.
It turned out that John Samuel Phene
was born in London, in or around 1825, and
educated at King’s Lynn Grammar School.
He travelled abroad extensively as a young
man, taking a strong interest in antiquarian
pursuits and attending the excavations at
DOCTOR
PHENE’S HOUSE
OMYSTERY
Who was the mysterious Dr Phene? Why was he known as the Chelsea Hermit? And what secrets
lurked behind the shuttered windows of his House of Mystery? JAN BONDESONtakes us on a tour
of vanished Chelsea and tells the strange story of one of London’s forgotten eccentrics – a housing
developer, alternative historian, collector of antiquities and expert on serpent worship.
48 fT303
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TOP: Dr John Samuel Phene of Oakley Street, Chelsea.
ABOVE: The House of Mystery, still covered with scaffolding before its completion in 1905.
Troy and Mycenæ. When he returned to
Britain in the 1840s, he claimed to possess a
doctorate of lawfromsome foreign university.
In 1847, he married Margaretta Forsyth
in South Shields, and took her with himto
London, where he owned valuable land in
Chelsea. The 1851 Census has the 26-year-old
Dr Phene, the 24-year-old Margaretta and
their servant living at No 98 Sloane Street. A
shrewd businessman, Dr Phene made plans to
develop this land, constructing Oakley Street,
Phene Street and MargarettaTerrace. But
although he had named a London street after
her, Margaretta left himnot long after and
returned to South Shields, where she died in
1854.
Dr Phene built quality houses: long,
imposing terraces that today remain much
as he planned them, a tribute to the robust
building techniques used. The Doctor had an
idea that trees in cities served to purify the
air and prevent epidemics, and he planted
trees along both sides of Oakley Street in
1851. Prince Albert was impressed with
this idea and had trees planted in front of
the South Kensington Museum. Dr Phene
also built a pub for his tenants to use, the
Phene Arms, which is still in business today,
called simplyThe Phene, and catering to
the wealthy residents of Chelsea. George
Best used to be a regular before he went to
the Great Football Pitch in the Sky. When
there was a proposal to convert the Phene
Arms into flats, it was opposed by the local
residents and the old pub was saved. During
the hiatus when it was closed, a memorial to
Dr Phene inside it, and a photograph of his
House of Mystery, appear to have been lost.
Dr Phene was still building away in 1864,
when he appeared in a lawsuit against a
timber merchant who had maliciously
damaged one of his fences. Interestingly,
when before theWestminster magistrates, he
described himself as plain Mr John Samuel
Phene, landed proprietor. After the faithless
Margaretta had deserted him, the Doctor
never again took any interest in women.
For many years, the ‘Chelsea Hermit’ lived
contentedly at No 32 Oakley Street, with
his little dog and two female domestics, in
a five-story terraced house that still stands.
Due to the very considerable income from
his houses, he would never have to perform
a day’s worth of paid work in his life. The
Doctor occasionally went on archæological
expeditions to Ireland and Scotland, and was
a Fellowof the Society of Antiquaries, of the
Royal Historical Society, and of the Geological
Society. He occasionally published papers
in the transactions of these learned bodies.
An authority on serpent worship among the
ancients, he published a short monograph on
this esoteric subject in 1875.
Dr Phene was fond of speaking at various
antiquarian conferences, but his opinions
often went against those of everybody else. A
short, dapper, white-bearded man, he rewrote
history with cheerful abandon, imagining
various classical civilisations upping sticks
and settling in unexpected locations, leaving
interesting archæological specimens behind
– the significance of which nobody but he
could appreciate. Asneering obituary writer
commented that Dr Phene “had a very strong
idea that he had made discoveries of profound
importance”. His work was not taken
seriously in his lifetime, and this dismissal
has continued until the present day. It is sad
but true that theWeb of Science database
does not contain a single reference to Phene’s
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50 fT303
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ABOVE LEFT: Dr Phene outside his house at 32 Oakley Street, where he lived with his little dog and two female servants (one of whom, presumably, is also visible).
ABOVE RIGHT: A postcard of ‘Dr Phene’s House of Mystery, Chelsea’ showing its frontage on upper Cheyne Row. BELOW: Dr Phene’s monograph on serpent worship.
THEREWERE
MANY RUMOURS
ABOUTDRPHENE
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TOP: Oakley Street, Chelsea, showing some of the terraces built by Dr Phene and which still stand today.
ABOVE: The rear garden of the House of Mystery, home to some of the larger pieces from Phene’s collection.
antiquarian papers and monographs.
When Dr Phene planned Oakley Street,
he had a large square building constructed
at the corner with Upper Cheyne Row. It was
there at the time of the 1871 Ordnance Survey,
when Dr Phene was still actively building in
the neighbourhood. It is not immediately clear
what he wanted to do with this large building,
except to fill its storage rooms and capacious
garden with the statues and archæological
specimens he had collected. The building itself
was gradually allowed to fall into decay.
As the years went by, the Doctor’s ideas
became increasingly grandiose. He imagined
that his family was extremely ancient, and that
he had been able to prove his descent from
certain notable ancient Phœnicians. In 1897, he
published a long poementitled‘Victoria, Queen
of Albion: An Idyll of theWorld’s Advance in her
Life and Reign’. Two years later, he published
an account of the rise, progress and decay of
painting in Greece, with illustrations by his own
hand.
At a relatively late stage, the Doctor had
the idea of turning the corner house at Upper
Cheyne Rowinto a celebration of his own life
and descent. His own house at No 32 Oakley
Street was already adorned with armorials and
flags, but with the large house at the corner,
he thought he could do even better. From1901
until 1905, a large teamof builders was hard
at work on the premises, reconstructing the
facade and redecorating the rooms. When
the scaffolding was taken down in 1905, the
public had a viewof what was undoubtedly the
most astonishing house front in London. The
text above the front door read‘Renaissance
du Chateau de Savenay’. The Doctor claimed
that his distinguished family had once owned
this chateau, situated on the Loire, until it was
destroyed by theVendéans; he had resolved to
create and build its counterpart in London. The
fantastic figures and statues were painted red,
yellowand gold. There were Greek andTrojan
warriors, pagan gods and goddesses, armorial
bearings and heraldic beasts, and busts of the
Royal Family. When a journalist requested to
have a guided tour of the interior of the House
of Mystery, Dr Phene replied that nobody
had ever been admitted to see it. When Mark
Twain visited London in 1907, he also wanted
to see the House of Mystery, but the Doctor
refused to showit to him, because the grandly
decorated rooms, left without any cleaning or
maintenance, were already looking dirty and
shabby. But whenTwain was photographed
with some of his London friends in front of the
House of Commons, Dr Phene was one of the
party.
There were of course many rumours
among Londoners about Dr Phene and his
extraordinary house. One version was that
Dr Phene had once been engaged to marry
a beautiful young lady, but she had died on
the morning of the day fixed for the wedding.
The grieving Doctor had resolved that nobody
would ever inhabit the house he had built for
them. This story is obviously untrue, since Dr
Phene did not complete the house until 1905,
when he was 82 years old. There were also
rumours that the Doctor was a black magician
and that the lewdest rituals were enacted
inside ‘Gingerbread Castle’, as the House of
Mystery was called by the locals. But in spite
52 fT303
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of his interest in serpent worship among the
ancients, there is nothing to suggest that Dr
Phene ever dabbled in the black arts.
Dr Phene died on 9 March 1912, aged 89.
For unexplained reasons, this mystery man
was not given a grand funeral in Chelsea, but
was buried at Kensworth near Luton. The
coffin passed through the streets bare and
uncovered; a single bouquet of flowers, given
by the Countess of Seafield, was placed inside.
Dr Phene’s obituary in the Evening Standard
was entitled‘Chelsea Hermit’s Death:
Vagaries of a Strange Career’. His will proved
to be in excess of £31,000, and he left legacies
to many charitable bodies, including the
French Protestant Hospital,Victoria Park. He
left £100 and the use of his private archives,
to John Murray Publishers, for themto make
sure that a proper biography of the Doctor was
written. But since the publishers did not take
himup on this offer, his papers went to the
library of the Chelsea Polytechnic in Manresa
Road, where they were destroyed by enemy
action during the Blitz.
In November 1912, the contents of Dr
Phene’s House of Mystery were sold by
auction. Ajournalist who was allowed to
inspect the house was appalled at the state
of the furniture, and the extensive damage
done by birds invading the property. The
ornate ceiling of a downstairs roomillustrated
Dr Phene’s ideas of the extensive travels of
the ancient Phœnicians in Europe andAsia.
Another ceiling had a vivid description of
Hades. Although the Doctor had often been
annoyed by rude street urchins making fun
of him, many of the rooms were decorated
with smiling children’s faces in plaster. In the
garden, a colossal 12-ft (3.6m) statue of Queen
Victoria had‘Lot 177’ chalked on the royal
elbow; it was sold for just 12 shillings. Ten life-
sized statues of kings and queens fetched 42
shillings for the lot.
Dr Phene had also owned old Cheyne
House itself, which he had used as a repository
for his collections of archæological specimens.
In June 1914, both the Mystery House and
Cheyne House were put up for auction, on the
order of the Doctor’s executors. They are likely
to have been purchased by speculators who
were after the valuable land the houses stood
on. The House of Mystery was still standing at
the time of the 1921 Ordnance Survey, but it is
stated to have been demolished in September
1924. Several houses were built on the site,
which can easily be recognised today. Cheyne
House was also pulled down, since it had
become derelict. An artist’s studio built in the
garden of Cheyne House turned was found
to be haunted by the ghost of a horse; this
animal was so spooky, and appeared with such
regularity, that both the artist and his servants
were driven fromthe building. It turned out
that this ill-fated studio had been built on
the very spot where Dr Phene had buried a
favourite horse of his, a valuable animal that
had once saved his life. There are, however,
no reports of the Doctor himself haunting the
site of his House of Mystery.
SOURCES
Morning Leader, 29 Sept 1905; Times of India, 9 Dec
1912; Evening Standard, 12 Mar 1912; Daily Express,
27 June 1914; Daily Mirror, 13 April 1922, 18 Sept
1924; also Notes and Queries 11s. 9 [1914], p407,
pp457-8.
FT would like to thank Dave Walker of Kensington
Central Library for his assistance in locating unseen
photos of Dr Phene and his house.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
JAN BONDESON is a senior
lecturer and consultant
rheumatologist at Cardiff
university, a regular FT
contributor and the author
of many books, including
Queen Victoria’s Stalker
(Amberley, 2010), Amazing
Dogs: A Cabinet of Canine Curiosities (Amberley,
2011) and Those Amazing Newfoundland Dogs
(CfZ Press, 2012).
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ABOVE: Dr Phene photographed in the garden of the Chelsea Mystery House, surrounded by various examples of his extensive collection of statuary.
sdsdsvdsvs
SEND FORUM SUBMISSIONS TO: THE EDITOR,
FORTEAN TIMES, PO BOX 71602, LONDON E17 0QD, UK,
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amidst the stinking rawsewage.
7
Are any of these stories actually
true? Possibly not, but they are all
contained within the 1,000-plus pages
of one of the most signifcant texts
of the Renaissance, Robert Burton’s
magnifcent Anatomy of Melancholy.
First published in 1621, the book is
ostensibly a medical treatise dealing
with the topic of ‘melancholy’ – roughly
speaking, what we might nowcall
‘depression’ or ‘madness’. In practice,
however, it is a book about every
conceivable topic under the Sun, from
magic rings with the ability to make
emperors fall in love with corpses,
8
to a digression about the activities of
poltergeist-like entities called foliots,
who apparently banged doors, threw
stones, and shaved people’s beards off
during the night.
9
Burton is able to do this, he asserts,
because the variety of ways in which
melancholy can manifest itself are
essentially infnite: “TheTower of
Babel,” he says, “never yielded such
confusion of tongues, as the chaos of
melancholy doth variety of symptoms.”
10
As such, Egyptians worshipping onions
or Jews drowning in toilets count as
examples of religious melancholy,
whilst stories of Sapphic palm-trees
P
almtrees, you may not realise,
can fall in love; there were
once two such plants (lesbians,
apparently) which, such was
their shared affection, bent towards each
other deliberately so that their boughs
could embrace and kiss, giving sadly
unspecifed“manifest signs of mutual
love” as they did so.
1
You may also be
unaware that there was once a dolphin
which was so enamoured of a youth
named Hermias that, when the boy
died, the creature deliberately tossed
itself out of the water onto dry land and
committed suicide as it could not bear
to live another day without him.
2
Men
who have been bitten by rabid dogs,
meanwhile, sometimes pass urine which
contains microscopic puppies – or “little
things like whelps” – inside it.
3
It is an
acknowledged truth, furthermore, that
the proper formof the human soul is
spherical, as that is obviously “the most
perfect form” for it to adopt.
4
Given
this, perhaps it is not so absurd that the
ancient Egyptians used to engage in
open acts of onion-worship – after all,
those particular vegetables are fairly
round in shape.
5
I have further tales to impart; such
as that, for example, of a young maid
named Katherine Gualter who, whilst
possessed by devils in 1571, underwent
strange convulsions and vomited
forth pigeon dung, stones with written
inscriptions upon them, and even a live
eel, 1.5ft (46cm) long, which later simply
vanished.
6
Just as bizarre was the case
of a German JewfromMagdeburg who,
in 1270, fell into a toilet and couldn’t
get out. As it was a Saturday, the Jewish
Sabbath, none of his fellowJews were
allowed to rescue himuntil the next day.
Seeing as this was a Sunday, however, the
town’s Catholic bishop forbade himto
be pulled out then, either, with the end
result that the poor man died gasping
and suicidal dolphins are illustrative
of the follies of love melancholy. Many
of his examples, it seems, are chosen to
entertain as much as instruct; his case-
studies of insanity, such as that of the
baker fromFerrara who thought he was
made of butter and so would not go out in
the Sun in case he melted,
11
or of the man
who feared that if he had a piss he would
drown the whole town (doctors fooled
himinto thinking that the place was on
fre so that he could use his penis as a
giant fre-hose, thereby effecting a cure),
12
are surely included by Burton more
because they are funny than because
they are reliable.
Or, then again, perhaps not. Burton’s
book is essentially a compendiumof
quotes, a patchwork quilt of the other
authors he had within his own library
(Burton owned around 2,000 volumes,
which he left in his will to the Bodleian
Library and Brasenose College, with
which he was associated). The respect
an educated person would have had for
written biblical and classical sources
during the 1600s was high indeed, and
even some quite absurd things could
be given credence simply for having
been mentioned by an ancient Greek
or Roman. For instance, when Burton
frst sawhis mother using a live spider
trapped in a nutshell as an amulet for
medical purposes, he thought the idea
“most absurd and ridiculous”. When
he later read of the same cure in three
obscure classical authors, however, he
changed his mind completely.
13
Either way, the marvellous variety
of the book – comprising, as it does,
accounts of the pagan and the Christian,
the quasi-scientifc and the purely
folkloric – lends it the quality of one of
the old‘cabinets of curiosity’ in which
genuine natural wonders vied for space
with faked holy relics and unicorn-
horns, and all given equal credence.
Such an outlook is a welcome rebuke
to the modern mind-set of increasing
specialisation and the professional
narrowing of academic interests. In fact,
it could well be said that the nearest
thing we have to Burton’s writings today
is ForteanTimes.
I have used the 2001 New York Review of Books
edition for quotes, and followed Burton’s unusual
method of structuring his work in my references;
the frst number given equates to the ‘Part’ of
the book, the second the ‘Section’, the third
the ‘Member’, the fourth the ‘Subsection’, and
fnally the page-number in that Subsection (page
numbers in the whole not being consecutive).
Of madness andmelancholy
SD TUCKER re-examines Robert Burton’s Renaissance classic The Anatomy
of Melancholy, and finds a prototypical Fortean Times contributor at work
FT303 55
www.forteantimes.com
SD TUCKER is a Merseyside-
based writer and regular
contributor to FT. His latest
book, Paranormal Merseyside,
is available now from Amberley
Publishing.
forum
HAVE YOUR SAY
NOTES
1 3.2.1.1, p.43
2 3.2.1.1, p.45
3 1.1.1.4, p.143
4 1.2.1.2, p.182
5 3.4.1.3, p.353
6 1.2.1.2, p.201
7 3.4.1.5, p.375
8 3.2.2.5, p.131
9 1.2.1.2, p.193
10 1.3.1.3, p.397
11 1.3.1.4, p.403
12 2.2.6.3, p.114-
115
13 2.5.1.5, p.250
FT
forum
face. The artist said he tried to instill
a sense of sympathy into his creation
– and this comes across
particularly strongly when
the monster is blinded.
But despite the Cyclops
being the most fondly
remembered creature of the
whole flm, Harryhausen’s
own favourite was the
serpent woman conjured
up by magician Sokurah
(inspired by Jaffar, the
character played by
ConradVeidt inAlexander
Korda’s 1940 flmThe
Thief of Bagdad) in front
of the Sultan’s court.
With her writhing limbs
and serpentine tail, her
undulating, strangely
sensual dance nearly ends
in self-suffocation – she
is saved by Sokurah, who
returns her to her human form.
Although there are no snake women
in the Sinbad tales, the inspiration
for the character was probably the
mythsandmovies
a
s Alan Friswell relates in his
obituary of the great special
effects artist, it was seeing
King Kong (1933) for the frst
time at the age of 13 that inspired Ray
Harryhausen to breathe life into one
of his own passions: dinosaurs. After
building his own articulated creatures
with the help of his parents, he put
together a clip of an apatosaurus fghting
an allosaurus – a showreel that would
eventually open the doors of the big
studios for him. Throughout his career,
Harryhausen revisited dinosaurs on
many occasions (The Beast From20,000
Fathoms, One MillionYears B.C.), as well
as giving life to giant apes, underwater
monsters and aliens in fying saucers.
But it was with his work on Jason and
the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans and
the Sinbad cycle that he fundamentally
shaped the perception of mythical
creatures in modern popular culture.
Harryhausen’s frst mythological
feature flmwas The SeventhVoyage
of Sinbad (1958), inspired by the tales
about the sailor traditionally told by
Scheherazade in the Thousand and
One Nights. Arguably the most popular
character in the flmwas the Cyclops, a
heavy-footed, stone-throwing giant.
The one-eyed giant appears in the tale
‘The SecondVoyage of Sinbad’, “a black
monster as tall as a palmtree”, with an
eye in the middle of his forehead, long
sharp teeth, the ears of an elephant
and an underlip that “hung down upon
his breast”. In the story, the Cyclops
examines Sinbad and his fellowsailors in
turn, lifting themup and throwing them
on the ground with disdain, judging each
of themto offer too measly a portion. He
fnally kills and roasts the captain, the
fattest of themall, and devours him.
Harryhausen’s Cyclops doesn’t ft the
traditional description of the monster.
His is not a black giant, but a greenish,
one-horned, cloven-hoofed beast, almost
reminiscent of the Greek god Pan, with a
furiously brutish yet expressively human
djinn, the supernatural shape-shifting
creatures of Arabian lore (see FT138:17,
147:30-33, 268:8, 281:40-44, 291:16-17,
302:42-45) who often showa preference
for adopting the formof a snake. There
is, however, a long tradition of mythical
serpent women, fromthe Egyptian
Wadjet to the Greek Echidna and
the Hindu nagin. With her ophidian
appearance and blue-green complexion,
this creature seems a clear, though
admittedly more benign-looking,
antecedent to the terrifying Medusa
fromClash of the Titans: their creator,
always working within tight budgets,
would later transformthe snake woman
into the Gorgon.
Jason and the Argonauts (1963) was
Harryhausen’s frst incursion into Greek
myth, and was initially conceived by
himas a mythological mash-up to be
called Sinbad in the Age of Muses, with
Sinbad joining Jason and his heroes
to seek the Golden Fleece. The flm
is inspired by Apollonius Rhodius’s
Argonautica, and contains some of the
most memorable creatures Harryhausen
ever created. The frst of these is the
metal giant Talos. In the Argonautica,
Talos is a bronze colossus that protects
the coast of Crete by throwing rocks at
pirates and invaders. In the
flm, the muscular, towering
statue awakens after the
foolish Hercules decides to
steal part of the treasure
it guards. The titan lurches
towards the Argos with a
spine-chilling metallic creak
that accompanies Bernard
Herrmann’s suitably martial
score. It is Jason who fnally
defeats Talos by removing
a peg fromhis heel, which
– like that of Achilles – is
Talos’s most vulnerable spot.
The Argonautica describes
how“beneath the sinew
by his ankle was a blood-
red vein”; Apollodorus, in
his Library, describes how
Hephæstus had constructed
Talos with“a single vein
extending fromhis neck to his ankle,
and a bronze nail was rammed home at
the end of the vein”. But, whereas in the
Argonautica Talos grazes his ankle on a
56 FT303
www.forteantimes.com
He shapedthe
perceptionof
mythinmodern
popular culture
Harryhausen’s mythological monsters
maria J Pérez Cuervo looks back at howspecial effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen’s unforgettable animated
versions of creatures fromancient myth and legend brought ancient texts to life on the modern screen
Maria J Pérez Cuervo is a
Bristol-based Spanish journalist
whose interests include history,
popular culture, Victoriana, rock
and roll and doppelgängers. She
tweets from @mjpcuervo.
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ABOVE: ray
harryhausen
with the serpent
woman from The
Seventh Voyage
of Sinbad, his frst
mythological flm.
BELOW: The
wonderfully
expressive cyclops
from the same
movie.
forum
than the Nereids. In the flm, Ketos is
transformed into the Kraken, a colossal
four-armed humanoid creature covered
in scales. Krakens, the sea monsters
of Icelandic or Norwegian lore, are
generally depicted as cephalopods in
popular culture, probably after the
description, based on oral tradition,
of Carl Linnæus in his 1735 Systema
Naturæ.
Although the battle with the kraken
is the climax of the flm, the best-
remembered creature is undoubtedly
Medusa. Her fearsome, luminescent
green stare turns men to stone, but
Perseus is able to defeat her by
studying her movements through the
refection in his shield. Slithering by
the crackling freplace of a dimly lit
temple, the approach of the Gorgon is
mesmerising. Her uncanny movements
and perverse appearance are
enhanced by the effect of fickering
light, proof of the effects artist’s
virtuosity.
Clash of the Titans was remade
in 2010, a decision that surprised
Harryhausen, who declared: “I
thought we’d made the defnitive
version”. The CGI, which the genius
considered a tool, rather than a
method of entertainment, didn’t
achieve the spine-chilling effect of
the most terrifying moment of the
1981 version – the killing of Medusa.
Harryhausen knew precisely why:
“There’s something that happens in
stop-motion that gives a different
effect, like a dream world, and that’s
what fantasy is about”.
jagged rock, in the Library it’s Medea
the sorceress who draws out the nail
fromthe titan’s heel – exactly the job
done by Jason in the flmadaptation.
The Argonauts encounter the
harpies later in the flm. In Greek
mythology, harpies were winged
spirits, sent by Zeus to torment king
Phineas of Thrace as a punishment for
revealing the secrets of the gods. In
his Theogony, Hesiod describes them
as winged maidens with“lovely hair”,
whose fight is faster than that of the
winds and birds. Despite this poetic
description, Harryhausen’s harpies
seemto be heir to another tradition
that probably started with Æschylus’s
Eumenides and that presents themas
demonic creatures, closer to the furies,
the chthonic deities of vengeance. In
the flm, the harpies’ wings are dark
and cartilaginous, like those of a
pterodactyl, and they have dark, petrol-
blue skin and short, coarse hair.
Hydra, the offspring of Echidna,
the mother of all monsters, and giant
Typhon, lived in the fetid swamps of
Lerna and was killed by Hercules as
one of his 12 labours. The Greek hero
defeated it with the help of his nephew
Iolaus, who cauterised the wounds to
prevent the regrowth of its multiple
heads until there was only one left –
which Hercules crushed and buried
under a boulder. Hydra had the body
of a serpent and, usually, nine heads,
though in different interpretations they
could reach up to 100. Harryhausen’s
creature has seven, a number that was
clearly his lucky charm(The Seventh
Voyage of Sinbad was named after
his suggestion of using the mystical
number), and is killed by Jason.
But the highlight of the flmis
the battle with the skeleton army.
Harryhausen had had the idea of
animating skeletons for a long time:
there’s already a skeletal warrior
brought to life by Sokurah in the frst
Sinbad. The episode of the Spartoi,
the Earth-born warriors who confront
Jason in Colchis, seemed perfect for
Harryhausen’s vision. According to
Apollodorus, the Spartoi were formed
fromthe teeth of a Drakon, sowed by
Jason after king Æetes’s command.
These otherwordly armed warriors
were the ghosts of the ancestors of the
Thebans, also summoned by the blind
prophet Tiresias. Harryhausen knew
that he couldn’t depict the Spartoi
as rotting corpses if he was aiming
for a certifcate suitable for younger
viewers, so he decided to use skeletons
instead. The scene is possibly the most
memorable he ever shot, and took
over four and a half months’ of work.
mythsandmovies
Despite what classical tradition tells
us, Harryhausen’s skeletons weren’t
crushed by large stones. Instead, he
had Jason jump off the cliff into the
sea, where the army of the undead
couldn’t survive.
After Jason and the Argonauts,
Harryhausen worked again on two
further Sinbad adaptations – The
GoldenVoyage of Sinbad (1974)
and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
(1977). In these he included mythical
creatures such as the centaur and the
griffn and gave life to the Minotaur-
inspired Minoton. But the most
unforgettable is Kali, the six-sword-
wielding, head-sliding Hindu goddess
of destruction. Her traditional
garland, made with the heads of
dead children, is replaced here by a
belt ornamented with skulls. She is
destroyed when she is pushed froma
ledge and shattered to pieces.
Harryhausen returned to Greek
mythology in Clash of the Titans
(1981), based on the myth of
Perseus andAndromeda, but with a
modifed storyline that allowed for
the inclusion of more creatures. The
fnal battle presents Perseus riding
Pegasus, the winged horse that sprang
fromthe neck of Medusa after she
was beheaded by the hero. Perseus’s
aimis to save Andromeda from
being sacrifced to a sea monster. In
Apollodorus’s Library, the monster
was Cetus, sent by Poseidon to
punish Queen Kassiopeia’s hubris,
after she boasted that her daughter
Andromeda was more beautiful
FT303 57
www.forteantimes.com
ABOVE: Jason
battles a skeletal
army in Jason and
the Argonauts.
BELOW: The model
of the metal giant
Talos on display in
a 2010 exhibition.
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The Natural History
of Ghosts
500 Years of Hunting for Proof
Roger Clarke
Particular Books 2012
Hb, 384pp, bib, notes, ind, £20.00, ISBN 9781846143335
Bernard Shaw remarked, “If you
have a skeleton in the cupboard,
at least make it dance”. Britain
has over 500-years’ worth of ghost
stories in its cupboard and in The
Natural History of Ghosts, Roger
Clarke makes them waltz.
Each generation has been
scared and attracted by the idea
of the dead returning to haunt
the living. Trying to make sense
of half a millennium of ghost
reports, stories and beliefs is a
huge undertaking. This book is
neither a scientifc treatise nor
a feld guide for ghost hunters,
but a wide-ranging study of a
universal cultural phenomenon.
As Clarke recognises, psychical
researchers have no actual
ghosts to study. Beyond broad-
brush theories and speculative
categories, there is no settled
taxonomy; but a wealth of
historical and documentary
evidence reveals how the living
have responded personally
and collectively to the idea of
apparitions and haunted houses.
Many classic British ghost
stories date back centuries: the
Demon Drummer of Tedworth
(1662), the Epworth Rectory
poltergeist (1716), the Cock Lane
reviews
This month’s books, flms and games
SEND REVIEW COPIES OF BOOKS TO: BOOK REVIEWS,
FORTEAN TIMES, PO BOX 71602, LONDON E17 9PG, UK.
Five centuries of hauntings
A wide-ranging study of ghosts fromthe Demon Drummer of Tedworth to the Enfeld
polt raises the question: why are the respectable middle classes so sceptical?
“Working-class
people invaded
cemeteries, hoping
for a glimpse of the
supernatural”
FT303 59
www.forteantimes.com
Raynham Hall photographed
in 1936, the Roman soldiers
of York seen in 1953 and the
Enfeld poltergeist of 1977.
Writers and researchers have
endlessly anthologised these
and many minor hauntings in
mundane settings. Dramatised
versions and have thrilled and
terrifed millions. Shakespeare,
Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens,
MR James and Arthur Conan
Doyle all famously wrote of
ghosts, and there are the Irish-
infuenced contributions of Bram
Stoker, Oscar Wilde, WBYeats
and Sheridan Le Fanu. Many
of Clarke’s re-tellings will be
familiar, but he spots recurring
themes, patterns and striking
coincidences within them, and
his search for original sources
has fascinating results, which he
develops in the extensive and
diverting footnotes. Particularly
revealing is his study of the noisy
18th century haunting of Hinton
Ampner, which he suggests was an
inspiration for Henry James’s Turn
of the Screw (1898).
Wherever there have been
ghosts, there have also been ghost
hunters of varying degrees of
probity and plausibility. Clarke
shows how various celebrated
mediums and investigators
have become role models for
those pursuing ghosts today. A
journalistic eye for human vices
and folly ensures his study is
FORTEANTIMESBOOKSHOPPRICE£16.00
Ghost (1765) and the ghostly
foating tube at the Tower of
London (1817) are still being
re-told and discussed. Victorian
writers such as Mrs Catherine
Crowe in The Night Side of
Nature (1848), John Ingrams’s
Haunted Homes and Family
Traditions (1886) and Charles
Harper’s Haunted Houses (1907)
permanently fxed ghosts in
castles, royal palaces and stately
homes such as Hampton Court,
Glamis Castle, Windsor Castle and
Blickling Hall, with screaming
skulls at Bettiscombe Manor and
Burton Agnes Hall. Foreign ghosts
that have also been absorbed
into the canon include the Bell
Witch of Tennessee, the 1901
Versailles time-slip and – from
World War I – the haunted U-Boat
65 and the Angels of Mons. The
last was willingly seized upon
by the public and exploited for
propaganda purposes, despite
having no foundation beyond
exaggerated rumours. The public
wish to believe in life after
death was also expressed in the
enthusiasm for spiritualism which
thrived after its importation from
America in the 1850s until World
War II.
New‘genuine’ ghost reports
spring up in every era; they are
eagerly received and debated,
and sometimes stimulate
controversies that rage for
decades. Novel sceptical theories
also continually emerge, and
Clarke provides examples of
‘explanations’ ranging from solar
fares to hallucinations triggered
by mouldy antique book bindings;
however, no sceptical theory has
vanquished belief in ghosts.
To the canon of ‘true ghosts’
have been added famous 20th
century cases including Borley
Rectory, the Brown Lady of
never dull. Clarke also highlights
how class dictates the way ghosts
are presented and received: the
aristocracy – including several
monarchs – and the working
class embraced belief, but
the middle classes were more
sceptical. This is most noticeable
with the periodic ghost panics
that occurred during the 19th
century, when working class
people invaded cemeteries or
congregated outside haunted
houses, hoping for a glimpse of
the supernatural. Respectable
society deplored the vulgarity
of such ghost-hunting ‘fash
mobs’. However, the mass appeal
of ghosts has survived, despite
the efforts of sceptical doctors,
reformers, scientists, psychologists
and conjurors to quash them, with
television audiences substituting
for theVictorian crowd.
Whilst successfully covering
the social history of ghosts, this is
also a very personal book. Clarke
grew up in two haunted houses
and passionately believed in
ghosts in childhood, though he
never saw any. One of the sanest
of British ghost hunters, Andrew
Green (1927–2004), was an early
infuence, and Clarke’s ideas
crystallised before shows like Most
Haunted distorted the topic with
re-heated spiritualist dogma. He
understands on a personal level
the allure of a phenomenon which
never manifests to order. Amid
his scholarship, Roger Clarke’s
own serious wish to believe makes
The Natural History of Ghosts the
most original and readable book
exploring our ghost-rich culture to
appear for years.
Alan Murdie
Fortean Times Verdict
MAKES HAlF A MIllENNIuMOF
GHOST STORIES dANCE 9
reviews
BOOKS
with a sickle-like knife, is plainly
Perseus, not Hercules; there is
defnitely no mention of Chinese
‘dragon bones’ in the I Ching.
To be fair, Kaplan is marginally
better when it comes to more
recent monsters such as vampires,
although this is already well-
worked territory. But there are
no references, only a general
bibliography; and when specifc
authorities are mentioned by
name, they frequently don’t
appear in the bibliography
anyway. As if all this wasn’t bad
enough, Kaplan’s rambling and
frequently irrelevant writing is
unbearably smug, with ‘smart’
asides and footnotes to aspects
of mythic stories that he can’t
explain such as “go fgure”
and “don’t ask.” Perfect fuel
for testing the science of Ray
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
Steve Moore
Making Sense of
Near-death
Experiences
A Handbook for Clinicians
Eds: Mahendra Perera, Karuppiah
Jagadheesan and Anthony Peake
Jessica Kingsley 2012
Pb, 176pp, refs, inds, £18.99 / $29.95. ISBN 9781849051491
The slenderness of this
anthology belies its
importance and value. It
contains the condensed
wisdom of 15 thinkers,
physicians and psychologists
at the leading edge of research
into Near-Death Experiences
(NDEs). Subtitled “a handbook
for clinicians”, it was conceived as
a practical summary for medical
and welfare staff – including
nurses, doctors, palliative
care workers, psychologists,
psychiatrists and pastoral workers
– who may fnd themselves
having to understand or counsel
patients or others puzzling out
an experience of this kind. Care
is take to distinguish between
a ‘near-death episode’ (which
might be “any close brush with
death”) and an NDE, a subjective
experience reported by perhaps
a quarter of those who recover
from being close to death or even
The Science of
Monsters
Matt Kaplan
Constable 2013
Pb, 256pp, illus, bib, ind, £12.99, ISBN 9781472101150
A survey of monsters,
legendary and fctional,
old and new, and the
‘science’ that explains
how they came to be
and what makes them frightening,
Kaplan’s book ranges over beasts
like the chimera, Leviathan,
dragons, vampires, Frankenstein’s
monster, resurrected dinosaurs
and aliens (entirely fctional/
cinematic, not UFO-related). I
put ‘science’ in quotes, because
frankly the book is entirely
made up of speculation such
as Adrienne Mayor’s notorious
‘explanation’ of the griffn: that it
may have been based on fossils of
the beaked and frilled dinosaur
Protoceratops. Even if the
ancients knew such fossils, there’s
no evidence that the griffn was
actually based on them; such
‘explanations’ are simply made
up stories that sound vaguely
plausible to modern ears.
All the faults for which
‘unscientifc’ writers like von
Daniken are excoriated are here
in full measure. The writing
in questions (“Is it possible
that…?”), the speculations that
reappear shortly after as if they
had been shown to be actually
the case, even the classic “though
there is no evidence for this, that
doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” In
a chapter on giant animals, we’re
told that the Nemean lion wasn’t,
in fact, gigantic, which makes
one wonder why it’s included
at all; after which we’re treated
to pages of speculation about it
being based on memories of the
large Eurasian cave lion, despite
the fact that this became extinct
a mere 10,000 years before
Hercules was supposed to have
wrestled with his Nemean foe.
Following this ‘explanation’, we
have constant references to the
‘giant’ Nemean lion. Such sloppy
research and outright errors
are alarmingly frequent: we’re
told there’s no evidence of the
Nemean lion’s gender, despite a
vase painting that plainly shows
it with a mane; a painting of a
man fghting a sea monster, armed
The Otherworld
Music & Song from Irish Tradition
Ríonach uí Ógáin & Tom Sherlock
Four Courts Press 2013
Pb, 160pp, illus, 2 discs, €25.00, ISBN 9780956562838
Traditional music is rife with
supernatural stories. Fairies are
ubiquitous in Anglo-Celtic songs
and tunes: a dozen Child ballads
mention them; and a number of
pipe airs and fddle pieces are
said to have been learned from
fairyfolk. In the engaging The
Otherworld – a paperback with
two discs of feld recordings –
the interaction of music and the
supernatural in Irish rural life
gets thrilling exposure.
I have long harboured an
interest in folk music and the elfn
tradition, which I wrote about in
my book on modern legends of
fantastic places, Hidden Realms
(2010). Anyone who knows the
literature will be struck by how
many fairy narratives purport to
be from frst-hand experience and
are related by apparently sane
and sincere persons.
Explaining why this is so can
be a vexing enterprise. Lizanne
Henderson and Edward J Cowan,
authors of the excellent Scottish
Folk Belief (2001), put it best: “It
should be possible to believe one’s
informants without believing
their explanations.” I coined the
term“experience anomalies”
to characterise such liminal
phenomena: vivid perceptions
of extraordinary entities
encountered in some indefnable
realm between the imagined and
the ‘real’, preserved in memory
and testimony but nowhere else.
The Otherworld contains some
colourful examples. The Donegal
fddler Néillidh Boyle (1889–
1961), a friend of the celebrated
piper and folksong collector
Séamus Ennis, matter-of-factly
asserted that he had learned
fairy music after being taken to a
fairy wedding. “They played such
wonderful embellishments,” he
recalled. “They said it was the
enchanted music of Ireland that
was long ago buried [..] since the
days of the old bards, and the
days of the old pipers...” Boyle
appeared entirely serious.
Larger questions about the
cause of supernatural experience
aside, the two discs, compiled
from recordings made by the
Irish Folklore Commission (with
many of the singers and players
still alive), transcend solely
ethnomusicological interest. These
are sparkling performances which
afford considerable pleasure and
sometimes surprise. The opening
cut on the frst disc, which
amounts to a sequel to the more
famous ‘Down by the Greenwood
Sidey-o’ (aka ‘The Cruel Mother’),
was new to me. It is sung
brilliantly by Mickey Connors,
who was recorded at a Travellers’
camp in County Carlow in 1972.
The book boasts an endlessly
informative text and many
resonant photographs of singers,
musicians, collectors, and – most
of all – landscape features. The
last of these record Ireland’s
unsettling countryside, home to
fairies, banshees, and ghosts, and
serve to set already evocative
songs and tunes in places that
are both of this world and the
otherworld. If there is another
compilation like this one, I have
never heard of it, and I doubt
that it could be as stimulating as
this one, a unique and (almost
literally) haunting excursion into
mystery and melody.
Jerome Clark
Enchanting
FORTEANTIMESBOOKSHOPPRICE£22.50
FORTEANTIMESBOOKSHOPPRICE£11.69
Pace the Devil, the fairies seemto have
the best tunes – and happily share them
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Fortean Times Verdict
FANTASTIC ANTHOlOGY ANd
RECORdING OF FAIRY MuSIC 9
Fortean Times Verdict
A MONSTROSITY OF A BOOK –
SMuG, SPECulATIvE ANd SlOPPY 2
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BOOKS
A taxonomy of aliens
A good starting point for folklorists and others who can’t tell
their blonde Nordics fromtheir inter-dimensional beings
FT303 61
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To order any of these titles – or any other book in print – contact the
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Address: Fortean Times Bookshop, PO Box 60, Helston TR13 0TP.
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Fortean Times Verdict
dECENT ATTEMPT AT ACOHERENT
ClASSIFICATIONOF AlIENS 7
Fortean Times Verdict
CASTRATING BITCH OR vICTIMOF
THE PATRIARCHY? 9
end, an enigmatic medium and
Nazi sympathiser, Maria Orsic,
claimed to have channelled
messages from aliens on a planet
in the Aldebaran star system
on how to construct anti-gravity
discoid aircraft.
According to the authors, a
number of UFO researchers
have faced intimidation and
repression from the government
and unknown sources. These
episodes account for some of
the mysterious Men-in-Black
visitations that are a staple in
UFO lore. To make their case, the
authors cite the suspicious deaths
of several key UFO investigators
including, James E McDonald,
MK Jessup, and Phil Schneider.
For their part, the authors are
frm believers in aliens, but
concede that they are uncertain
of their true origins. Do they
come from distant planets? Or
are they remnants of a terrestrial
race that burrowed beneath
the surface of the Earth many
years ago? Perhaps they reside
in different dimensions and
occasionally establish contact
with humans, either physically or
only mentally.
Some of the contact and
abduction accounts presented
will be taken seriously only by the
most credulous; nevertheless, the
volume provides a good reference
source for those interested
in a broad taxonomy of alien
beings, either from a scientifc or
folkloric point of view.
George Michael
Real Aliens, Space
Beings, and
Creatures from
Other Worlds
Brad Steiger and Sherry Hansen Steiger
Visible Ink Press 2011
Pb, 350pp, $19.950/£16.99, ISBN 9781578593330
As NASA discovers more and more
exoplanets (planets outside our
Solar System), hope continues
to grow that some day we might
make contact with some form of
extraterrestrial intelligence. Many
so-called ufologists, however,
maintain that extraterrestrial
aliens have already visited Earth
on numerous occasions.
In a comprehensive overview
entitled Real Aliens, Space
Beings, and Creatures from Other
Worlds, two long-time UFO
researchers – Brad Steiger and
his wife, Sherry Hansen Steiger
– explore numerous accounts
of alleged encounters with
alien beings. Virtually every
variant of aliens comes under
their scrutiny, including “little
green men,” “blonde Nordics,”
“greys,” “insectoids,” “reptilians,”
androids, hairy dwarves, Bigfoot
creatures and inter-dimensional
beings. Among the frst-person
accounts contained in this
volume are frightening abduction
episodes. In some instances,
for example, the case of the
Brazilian farmer AntonioVillas
Boas, humans claim to have had
intimate relations with their
alien abductors, suggesting
some sort of hybrid breeding
programme involving humans and
extraterrestrials.
Not long after the contemporary
FORTEANTIMESBOOKSHOPPRICE£15.29
UFO era commenced on 24
June 1947, when pilot Kenneth
Arnold reported seeing nine shiny
objects fying past Mount Rainer
Plateau in Washington State, the
US government began to take a
keen interest in the topic. The
Steigers examine its numerous
efforts to get to the bottom of
the UFO phenomenon, including
the US Air Force’s Project
Bluebook, the CIA’s Roberson
Panel, and Operation Majestic-12
– a purported top secret mission
established in 1947 by President
Harry S Truman to conceal the
truth about the alleged crash of
an alien craft at Roswell, New
Mexico, that same year.
To the authors, Ronald
Reagan’s occasional comments on
the prospect of extraterrestrial
aliens – including a 1987 speech
before the United Nations
General Assembly in which
he opined that an alien threat
would make the various peoples
of the world recognise “the
common bond that unites all
humanity” – suggest that he knew
the “truth” about UFOs, but
failed to disclose it to the public.
Moreover, the authors assert that
representatives from both the
US and Soviet space programmes
have made numerous observations
of alien craft.
In an interesting chapter, they
explore the legends surrounding
the Third Reich’s involvement
in the occult, including
efforts to make contact with
extraterrestrial aliens who would
provide knowledge on advanced
technology that could be
harnessed to further Germany’s
geopolitical ambitions. To that
having been declared ‘clinically
dead’. It is unusual for books on
this topic to win awards, but this
one was ‘Highly Commended’ in
the psychiatry category at the
2012 British Medical Association
Book Awards.
Bob Rickard
Medusa
In the Mirror of Time
David Leeming
Reaktion Books 2013
Hb, 128pp, illus, bib, ind, £16.00, ISBN 9781780230955
Medusa was a
descendant of Gaia,
the only mortal of the
Gorgon triplets, sister
to the Graiae, and as
beautiful as Athene until the
goddess replaced her hair with
snakes and made her petrifying.
She lost her head to Perseus,
brother of Athene.
Medusa was familiar to the
Greeks long before Homer
immortalised her, and David
Leeming, an American academic,
points out that her head was
an apotropaic emblem, rather
in the way gargoyles drive out
evil by their evil appearance.
Anthropologist Jane Harrison
notes that Medusa was basically
a terrifying mask to which a
body was later appended. This
short but dense book suggests
the Egyptian god Bes and the
Mesopotamian demon Humbaba
as Medusa’s forerunners, but
similar fgures with a similar
function of protecting through
terror appear in other cultures.
By the Middle Ages, the old
girl had become more of a femme
fatale; she appears in Roman de la
Rose as a symbol of the dangerous
sexuality of all women. Freud
said that she signifed castration
(to misquote Mandy Rice Davies,
he would, wouldn’t he?), but
feminists reclaimed her as a
victim of patriarchal oppression
and postmodernists as a symbol
of the Other.
It’s all fabulous stuff.
William Darragh
Fortean Times Verdict
SlENdER BuT MEATY lOOK AT
CuTTING-EdGE N.d.E. RESEARCH 9
FORTEANTIMESBOOKSHOPPRICE£14.00
reviews
BOOKS
hairy equations, the second one
even given a by-pass for those of a
nervous disposition.
This refects Brian Clegg’s
writing style in Dice World. He
relies on words and anecdotes to
bring the sometimes extremely
abstract concepts into a very
tangible reality. We can, with
the aid of the book, demonstrate
quantum effects in our living
room. We also learn how to
increase our chances of winning
apparently random games.
There is some thought required
in going through Dice World; to
get the most out of the concepts
it is worth trying to turn off your
common sense. It is thought that
Einstein commented: “Common
sense is the collection of
prejudices acquired by age 18.”
This pretty much sums up why we
might not always be on the right
track and also why it is so diffcult
to change our opinion.
Clegg lines up the usual
suspects of physics in a Who’s Who
of “I can be more abstract than
you!” He then tells us through
Feynman quotations that we are
not going to understand it, no one
does, but we should be able to
enjoy and appreciate the boldness
of nature.
Essentially, the conclusion
is that there is no fundamental
driver: it is random. Creating
true random is an essentially
impossible oxymoron but what
is both exciting and useful is the
revelation that if we can relax
for a minute and take a step
back, we can use the outcome of
randomness to our beneft in all
sorts of ways that Clegg describes
eloquently.
So if you are median, perhaps
average (you’re not average, are
you?) then Dice World will give
you the keys to differentiating
correlation from causality, random
from pattern and phenomenal
from mundane and a lot more
besides in an excellent review
of this topic. If I understand
correctly, there is a two in three
chance of my lottery ticket being
behind that door, as long as the
cat, whose status is uncertain, has
done nothing to it.
Paul Little
dice World
Science and life in a Random
universe
Brian Clegg
Icon Books 2013
Pb, 274pp, fgs, ind, £12.99, ISBN 9781848315167
There can be nothing
more fortean than
trying to understand
the underlying
weirdness of the world
around us and trying
to untangle what is unusual from
what is abnormal. In his delightful
approach to visualising the
complexity of randomness, Brian
Clegg takes us on a well organised
non-mathematical tour of the
subject.
Brian Clegg is a science author
who despairs at the dull and
uninspiring approach to teaching
his favourite topics. He runs
popularscience.co.uk and www.
brianclegg.net, where you can
fnd information about his other
published works. His biography
tells of appearances at the
Royal Institution in London and
multiple lectures given at the very
best and brightest universities. He
is also a columnist and contributor
to popular media, radio and
television programmes, and is a
Fellow of the Royal Society of
Arts.
So who could be better to try
and take us on a journey into the
heart of the Universe? In Dice
World, Brian Clegg attempts to
tell us why we humans were so
wrong to think that the Universe
is a massive, ordered, non-random
machine. “It proved impossible to
predict exactly how three planets
orbiting each other would move.
Meteorologists discovered that
the weather was truly chaotic… it
could never be predicted for more
than a few days out. And the fnal
nail in the coffn was quantum
theory.”
So we are told to forget
Newton’s clockwork Universe
and embrace the reality of
randomness and probability.
As I had done some statistics
many years ago, the title of
this book triggered a gut refex
concern that we were going into
a labyrinth of mathematics from
which my mind would never
escape. Luckily, this was not case
and I counted only a couple of
Para-News
UFOs, Ghosts, Conspiracy, Cryptids
and More
Richard Thomas
Bretwalda Books 2012
Pb, 252pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781907791727
When I frst read about the
paranormal in the 1970s,
credulity was the order of the day.
Books were flled with reports
of tantalisingly mysterious
phenomena, coupled with
optimistic speculations about
interstellar travel, superpowers
and survival after death. All that
has changed. Wide-eyed optimism
has been replaced by narrow-eyed
cynicism. Plenty of people still
believe in the extraterrestrial
origin of UFOs, but the chances
are they also believe there is a
vast government conspiracy to
cover up the truth. Much the same
goes for belief in cryptids like
Bigfoot, or in powers of the mind
like telepathy or precognition. It’s
now commonplace for paranormal
beliefs to go hand-in-hand with
conspiracy theories.
The modern world of
parapolitics can be daunting
for the fortean traditionalist. Its
natural home is the Internet,
where much of the “primary
source” material comes across
as badly articulated paranoid
ravings. This new book from
Richard Thomas provides a
welcome overview for those of us
with a nostalgic hankering after
grammatical English and logically
structured arguments.
Thomas is only in his mid-
twenties. He has already made
a name for himself as a blogger,
and much of the book’s content
has appeared online. However,
The SF legacy
Fiction often preceeds conspiracy
theories, suggests a stimulating guide
62FT303
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FORTEANTIMESBOOKCluBPRICE£10.99
Fortean Times Verdict
REFRESHINGlY SANE
INTROduCTION TO WEB PARANOIA 8
the way the material has been
organised by subject means that
you generally aren’t aware that
you’re reading anything other
than a traditionally produced
paperback.
Most of the book is interviews
between Richard and some of
the key players in the worlds of
parapolitics and the paranormal.
There are conspiracy theorists
like Jim Marrs, Richard Dolan and
Timothy Good, traditional writers
like Rupert Matthews, Richard
Holland and Neil Arnold, and
in-betweeners like Nick Redfern
and FT’s own Mark Pilkington.
The interview format is a perfect
way to communicate a broad
range of conficting views, and
Richard’s sympathetic style
brings out the best in his subjects.
The whole book is astonishingly
good-tempered, with none of the
bitchiness or name-calling so
often found in such discussions.
Perhaps the most surprising of
the interviewees is Dean Haglund
– the actor who portrayed the
stereotypical conspiracy theorist
Langly in the 1990s TV show The
X-Files. It turns out Haglund has
become something of a conspiracy
theorist himself these days! The
blurring of fction and reality
– with fction often preceding
reality – is one of the major
subtexts of the book. Among
many other topics, it explores how
certain ideas espoused by modern
conspiracy theorists appear to be
foreshadowed in earlier science
fction works, such as the novels of
Philip K Dick and the British TV
series Blake’s 7. It’s all thought-
provoking stuff.
While not quite the “ebook
sensation now in paperback” that
its cover proclaims, Para-News
is a great read, offering a fresh
take on what is now a rather old
subject.
Andrew May
Fortean Times Verdict
EMBRACE RANdOMNESS ANd
PROBABIlITY NOW! 8
reviews
BookS
local background to his recent FT
article on the area’s Little People
(FT299:26–32) and much more,
including poltergeists, UFOs, haunt-
ings and ghastly foating heads. A
big plus is the detailed history of
a great many odd and interesting
locations within and surrounding
the city. This is a great one-stop
book told with humour and an obvi-
ous love of the anomalous.
Mysteries of the Past
Ed: Glenn Kreisberg
Bear & Co 2012
Pb, 310pp, illus, notes, ind, £15.00, ISBN 9781431558
Kreisberg is a veteran of the New
England Antiquities Research
Association and one of the editors
of the Offcial Graham Hancock
website, and has the expertise
to assemble this anthology
of articles, commissioned by
Hancock for discussion on that
website. Offering “not an unbridled
speculation” but “careful study,
analysis and contemplation” of
the latest fndings in “alternative
science, history, archæology and
consciousness research”. Lead-
ing authors (including Joscelyn
Godwin and Anthony Peake) relish
such topics as the resurgence
of elemental shamanism; the
mystery of higher consciousness;
some secrets of Vedic literature;
the builders of megaliths and
old cities; was our Solar system
engineered for us?; Mithras and
Jesus; the Serapeum at Saqqara;
future economies; what modern
scientists are learning from the
‘Wisdom of the Ancients’ and
much more. Informative, easy to
read and, above all, hopeful.
UFos, ETs and Alien
Abductions
Don Donderi
Hampton Roads 2013
Pb, 228pp, index, notes, $22.95. ISBN 9781571746955
A retired professor of psychology,
faculty dean at McGill University
and a UFO writer--investigator with
60 years’ experience, Donderi
focuses on the politics –
governmental and scientifc – that
dominate and shape debates
and opinions about UFOs and
aliens. He is convinced that extra-
terrestrials – advanced, secretive
and sinister – are behind it all
and argues that the US and other
governments have poisoned the
discussion and obstructed practi-
cal investigations. His conclusion:
full public disclosure; open discus-
sion; and the development of a
proper space defence system.
Infnite Energy
Technologies
Ed: Finley Eversole
Inner Traditions 2013
Pb, 416pp, notes, resources, ind, £15.99. ISBN
9781594773808
The topic of ‘infnite energy tech-
nologies’ is vast and complicated
enough for ordinary mortals to
need a reliable guide, and this
anthology fts the bill until (as
Fort would say) something better
comes along. It begins with an
essay by Paul Hawken on con-
temporary environmental and
‘Occupy’ movements, which he
calls “the largest social movement
in history”. Modern audiences
do not want to be depressed by
frightening predictions for the plan-
etary future; hence the emphasis
here is the hope of green energy
offered by unorthodox technolo-
gies. Thomas Bearden – an early
FT contributor – is quoted as
claiming that there have been at
least 70 “successfully working
free-energy technologies” that
could have replaced fossil and
nuclear fuels. Each, says Eversole,
has been suppressed by vested
interests. While some chapters
focus on specifc technologies
(eg. water, zero-point, cold fusion
and even anti-gravity), others deal
with many lesser-known devices,
generators and processes; and
one section concentrates on the
visionaries, like Tesla and Keely.
The writers (including our own
Theo Paijmans) all sound sane,
reasonable, informed and inspir-
ing, and show how the energy
supplies of our future could be
shaped by you actively
expressing your concerns.
Paranormal Merseyside
SD Tucker
Amberley 2013
Pb, 256pp, refs, illus, £12.99. ISBN 9781848687295
In 2008, Liverpool was celebrated
as a European Capital of Cul-
ture; this festival focused upon
the city’s heritage in the arts,
literature and music, its theatres,
concert halls and art galleries;
however, little attention was drawn
to its paranormal and fortean
history. FT regular SD Tucker
(an ex-teacher) provides a royal
remedy in this fat volume in the
excellent Amberley series of local
histories. Almost every category
of phenomena is represented
here, and Tucker is an affable
and knowledgeable companion
as he guides you through streets
and country lanes. Here is the
ALSo RECEIVED
We leaf through a small selection of the dozens of books that
have arrived at Fortean Towers in recent months...
FT303 63
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FoRTEAN FICTIoN
Vurt
Jeff Noon
Tor 2013
Hb, 376pp, £16.99, ISBN 9780230768802
It’s nearly 20 years since I was chairing the Arthur C Clarke Award
for the best SF novel of the previous year, and British astronaut
Helen Sharman OBE presented the award to Vurt, a frst novel by
Jeff Noon. It became the fagship novel from the sadly long-gone
independent publisher Ringpull, created by ex-Waterstone’s staff in
Manchester, which specialised in quirky and often excellent books.
Vurt is a drug, except it’s a coloured feather you put in your
mouth, which takes you into a virtual reality of shared dreams, or
sometimes nightmares. Scribble is a young man on an Orpheus-
like quest for his kid sister (and lover) who went into a Vurt world
with him and never came back. He roams the backstreets of a
near-future Manchester with a gang of friends, searching for a
dealer to supply him with a Curious Yellow feather so he can go
back into that world and fnd her.
The real world of Manchester’s underbelly is gritty and danger-
ous, and usually raining. In Bottletown, a housing estate with
unemptied bottle banks, “When the banks were full, and overfow-
ing, still they came, breaking bottles on the pavements and the
stairs and the landings. This is how the world flls up. Shard by
shard, jag by jag, until the whole place is some kind of glitter
palace, sharp and painful to the touch.” That’s how Vurt reads,
jagged, glittering, sharp, often painful: broken glass. “Such is
beauty, in the midst of the city of tears. In Bottletown even our
tears ficker like jewels.”
The Vurtual worlds are appealing, terrifying, mystical, murderous.
Vurt is a psychedelic romp, but it’s also a hard-edged acid trip. In
my original review of it I described it as “too harsh for hippies, too
beautiful for bikers”, and I’m pleased to see the quote on this 20th
Anniversary edition, which contains three new powerful, poetic,
poignant short stories set in the same world.
Noon has gone on to write other weird and wonderful novels,
including the delightful Automated Alice, but it’s the sharp, jagged,
risky Vurt that launched his career. When it won the Clarke Award
I wrote in the Independent that it was “refreshing, disturbing and
original”. It still is.
David V Barrett
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reviews
FILM & DVD
Fringe: Season 5
Dir various, US 2013
Warner Home Video, £24.99 (DVD), £29.99 (Blu-ray)
There’s a bitter-sweet feeling about
the final season in a popularTV
show. The story you’ve been follow-
ing for the last fewyears is brought
to a satisfying end, but it’s the last
time you’ll share in the adventures
of a group of people you’ve come to
knowand love. Eccentric scientist
Walter Bishop (John Noble), his son
Peter (Joshua Jackson), FBI special
agent Olivia Dunham(AnnaTorv)
and the team’s technical assistant
Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole)
investigated“fringe”scientific
phenomena: telepathy, horrendous
biochemical attacks and the con-
cept that became the heart of the
first four seasons: the destructive
friction between two closely paral-
lel worlds.
Fromits beginning Fringe has
taken risks. We had the main char-
acters crossing into alternate worlds
and meeting – and impersonating
– different versions of themselves
(nicknamedWalternate and Faux-
livia); much of season 3 was set in
the alternate world. Season 4 began
with a remade our-world, which
Peter had never been a part of, and
in which the other main characters
didn’t knowhimand had developed
differently.
Near the end of season 4, one
episode was set in a dystopian near
future, with newlead characters.
In season 5 we’re in that future,
2036, but nowthe newcharacters
are joined by the foursome fromthe
previous seasons.
Walter, Peter, Olivia andAstrid
had sealed themselves in amber in
2015, when Earth was invaded from
the future by the Observers, the
hat-and-suit-wearing, cold, expres-
sionless, genetically-modified suc-
cessors to mankind; in the confusion
of the invasion they lost their young
daughter, Henrietta. Nowin 2036
they’re released fromthe amber
by the now-adult Etta, who is in the
forefront of the resistance move-
ment against the totalitarian rule of
the Observers.
Before he ambered himself,
Walter had left details of a plan to
defeat the Observers on a series of
videotapes preserved in amber in
their lab at Harvard University in
Boston. Much of the plot, more of a
continuous story than in earlier sea-
sons, concerns the team’s attempts
to retrieve items to work out Wal-
ter’s plan which (in trueWalter fash-
ion) he nowcan’t remember.
This season is much darker than
previous ones, and the tone is set
fromthe opening title sequence. In
most seasons this included words
and phrases such asTeleportation,
Psychokenesis, Precognition, Hyp-
nosis andTime Paradox – typically
Fringe concepts. In this season the
terms include Individuality, Com-
munity, Joy, Imagination, Private
Thought and FreeWill, ending up
with the word Freedomtrapped
within razorwire. It’s bleak. For
their increased intelligence and
other abilities, including being able
to teleport and to read people’s
thoughts, the Observers traded
their emotions, and effectively
their humanity. It’s clearly symbolic
that in scenes in NewYork we see
that the Statue of Liberty is largely
destroyed.
There’s also a high body count:
Olivia and Peter shoot dozens of
Observers and human Loyalist sol-
diers during the season. And shock-
ingly it’s not only the bad guys who
die; Fringe takes risks. Unlike many
other shows, its main characters
aren’t set in stone; this season puts
all of themthrough the wringer, and
sees themall tested and developing
as people, and in their relationships
with each other.
It’s not all dark. Fringe has a
tradition of a quirky 19th episode
each season. This time it’s the 9th
episode. Walter takes LSD, sees fair-
ies dancing in front of him, holds
conversations with his long-dead
former assistant and sees a wonder-
ful Monty Python-like animated
sequence which gives hima vital
piece of information. Most shows
couldn’t get away with it; Fringe
does.
It’s disappointing that this season
is only 13 episodes instead of the 20
or more in each of the previous ones,
but at least, unlike all too many
AmericanTVSFseries, they were
given the opportunity to drawthe
story to a close, bringing in ideas,
and several characters, fromprevi-
ous seasons. There may be a few
plot holes and time paradoxes, but
they’re inevitable in a story about
parallel worlds and time travel.
The extras include an interest-
ing 20-minute documentary on
the making of Fringe, with creator
JJAbrams and showrunner JH
Wyman, and a lively filmof the
main cast on a panel at Comic-Con
2012, after the filming but before
the showing of season 5. The actors
clearly loved working together and
are emotional not just about the
showending but about individual
scenes involving each other – and it
was delightful to see that the clear
favourite of both the cast and the
fans was Jasika Nicole’s Astrid (not
just me then!).
David V Barrett
Blackfish
Dir Gabriela Cowperthwaite, US 2013
On UK release from 26 July
Blackfish is the powerful story of
Tilikum, a performing“killer”
whale who actually is one, as told by
director-producer Gabriela Cowp-
erthwaite. It’s billed as a psychologi-
cal thriller, but I would argue that
it’s much more important than that.
Tilikumis an orca whale captured
off Iceland when just two years old
and introduced to the Sealand seal-
ife park in British Columbia in 1983.
He’s punishment-trained, with food
being withdrawn fromhimand his
already trained female companions
when he fails to perform. The fellow
whales turn on him, raking himwith
their teeth.
The three are kept in a container
that’s only 20ft by 30ft for up to 17
hours a day, in total darkness, with
no roomto move. As they grow, they
become more reluctant to go in and
can only be coaxed inside by keep-
ing food fromthemuntil they relent.
Unsurprisingly, Tilikumbecomes
disturbed, possibly psychotic, and
kills a trainer. As one of the talking
heads in a montage of news foot-
age says: “If you’re in a bathtub for
20 years would you not get a little
aggravated?”
Tilikumis moved to SeaWorld
and its better facilities (although it’s
all relative). The staff haven’t been
warned of his volatile nature, and
he goes on to kill at least one, and
probably two more people.
64 FT303
www.forteantimes.com
satIsFyIng enD to a quIrky
FrInge scIence show
9
ForteanTimes Verdict
reviews
FILM & DVD
We’re guided through the film
chronologically as the stories of
Tilikum, other captive whales,
and those who lost their lives are
slowly revealed. Heart-rending
images of young whales being
separated fromtheir mothers are
hard to watch with a dry eye, and
difficult and often tragic encoun-
ters between the whales and their
trainers are shown alongside beau-
tifully shot footage of the orcas in
the wild, interwoven with inter-
views with former trainers (Sea-
World itself reportedly declined to
take part).
Revealing shots of theme park
employees telling people that the
whales live longer in captivity
(completely untrue) and informa-
tion on the research into the intel-
ligence and abilities of these mar-
vellous creatures is shown to back
up Cowperthwaite’s argument
that we will be looking back at this
state of affairs and considering
it completely barbarous 50 years
fromnow.
It’s a well-told story, and a sad-
dening reminder of the cruelty
of humans in pursuit of money
and the ability we have to delude
ourselves. It should be compulsory
viewing for anyone considering
visiting SeaWorld or its ilk.
Julie McNamee
The Seasoning House
Dir Paul Hyett, UK 2013
On UK release from 28 June
Others have loved this grubby,
squalid film, but I see little to
recommend it. Set during the
Balkans conflict, the Seasoning
House of the title is a filthy brothel
where abducted girls are forcibly
addicted to heroin to make them
more compliant to any soldier’s
whim. This unsurprisingly usually
runs to violent rape, often result-
ing in death. Angel (Rosie Day) is
deaf and mute, which guarantees
her survival as the perfect worker
in this hellish environment; her
chores mainly run to shooting the
girls up with their daily smack allo-
cation and mopping up the (copi-
ous) blood. Her wasted, skeletal
frame allows her to move freely in
the crawlspaces between the walls,
and it’s fromhere she plans her
escape and revenge. This unrelent-
The Reverend’s Review
FT303 65
www.forteantimes.com
THE BROOD
Dir David Cronenberg, Canada 1979
SecondSight, £14.99(DVD), £19.99(Blu-ray)
DEADLY BLESSINg
Dir Wes Craven, US 1991
Arrow Films, £12.99 (DVD), £15.99 (Blu-ray)
When David Cronenberg found
himself in a custody battle
for his daughter he didn’t
climb Toronto’s monuments
dressed as a superhero.
Instead he grabbed his
typewriter, channelled his
anguish and rattled out a
psycho-horror classic. It’s the
story of a desperate father,
Frank Carveth (Art Hindle),
who tries to save his daughter
from her maladjusted mother
Nola and the therapeutic
‘cult’ she’s joined. Nola is into
‘Psychoplasmics’: where the
stress and anxiety of a patient
can be externalised as physical
deformity (usually yonic rather
than phallic in nature – yes,
this is Cronenberg). And
when corpses start showing
up, Carveth realises his
ex-wife’s fury is becoming near-
omnipresent.
The Brood is a veritable
tick-list of sociological themes:
the monstrous feminine; the
metaphysical potential of
psychology; the brainwashing
tactics of New Age cults; the
changing role of fathers; the
wrench of divorce (Cronenberg
said this was his version of
Kramer vs Kramer) not to
mention the miracle – or is
that nightmare? – of birth.
Where so much horror barely
has even a single thematic
heart (beyond teenagers being
trapped and tortured) The Brood
is a reminder of what scary
films do at their gory, thoughtful
best: provide metaphors for
the frightening world we find
ourselves in.
Pretty much everything
works. The plot is tight and
well-paced, the effects are
suitably nauseating and (mostly)
effective, Howard Shore’s score
is bracing and aggressive, the
characters are believable and
the acting is great. Particularly
powerful is Samantha Eggar
as Nola Carveth, who does
her deranged and volatile glare
to unsettling perfection. And
Oliver Reed is excellent too as
the Pyschoplasmic Guru Dr Hal
Raglan. With that solemn bass
delivery, he was an actor who
could make even a shopping list
sound vital.
At the time of its release,
the late Roger Ebert called
The Brood boring, unscary
and disgusting, even asking
the question: “Are there really
people who want to see
reprehensible trash like this?”
Well I guess there are, and
I’m one of them. Because The
Brood is one of Cronenberg’s
purest and most satisfying
films, disturbing themes and all.
Nice picture quality and extras
too on this new Blu-Ray release.
Also out in HD is Wes
Craven’s largely forgotten Deadly
Blessing, about repression and
murder in an American Hutterite
community. It’s an intriguing
but mostly tedious affair, which
would have worked better as a
TV Movie. Sharon Stone makes
an early appearance and isn’t
particularly good. Still, there’s
a rather creepy Omen-inspired
choral score by James Horner
which does add a few chills and
some effective cinematography.
Oh, and one extra point for
having Howie from The Fall Guy
in it.
heartbreakIng taLe oF the
MakIng oF a ‘kILLer’ whaLe
8
ForteanTimes Verdict
FT’s resident man of the cloth reVerenD peter Laws dons
his dog collar and faces the flicks that Church forgot!
(www.theflicksthatchurchforgot.com)
cronenberg at hIs best,
anD craVen saDLy not 5
ForteanTimes Verdict
9/
reviews
66 FT303
www.forteantimes.com
ing take on human suffering and
misery requires a strong stomach
to watch. In its favour, its London
location makes the rounding up and
massacring of civilians more shock-
ing for its very ordinariness. Sean
Pertwee adds yet another soldier to
his CV, playing a vicious warlord, a
role he approaches with his custom-
ary relish.
Tim Weinberg
Doctor Who and the
Daleks / Daleks’
Invasion Earth 2150AD
Dir Gordon Flemyng, UK 1965, 1966
Studiocanal £15.99 each (DVD), £19.99 each (Blu-Ray)
Very different fromtheTVseries
that spawned them, the two 1960s
Dalek movies have been given the
HDtreatment for this pair of Blu-
Ray releases (also available as plain
DVDs). In the mid-1960s Doctor Who
was black and white and watched
on rather small, fuzzy screens, and
while the Daleks were the breakout
monsters in playgrounds the breadth
of the nation, these dynamic movies
offered over-excited kids the chance
to see the metal meanies in full
colour on the big screen.
Peter Cushing played the Doctor
as an avuncular Earth scientist,
rather different fromWilliamHart-
nell’s irascible and mysterious small
screen version. He embodied the
part with a kind of absent-minded
charm, and was accompanied by
active young co-stars – such as Roy
Castle and Bernard Cribbins – who
took on the action roles and pro-
vided some comic relief.
The star attractions were the
Daleks, depicted in a wild array of
colours as they battle theThals on
Skaro (in Doctor Who and the Daleks)
or invade Earth with a crazy plan
to bomb the planet’s core and fly it
around the galaxy (Daleks’ Invasion
Earth 2150AD). The stories may
be rather juvenile (although well
adapted fromthe long-windedTV
serials), but they can’t help but be
enjoyable in a rather silly and senti-
mental way, whether you remember
themfromfirst time around or not.
Extras include a couple of technical
pieces on the movie restorations,
some background information on the
making of the films and, on Doctor
Who and the Daleks, an hour-long
documentary on the 1960s’ Dalek
craze entitled Dalekmania!
Brian J Robb
Hidden Face
Dir Andrés Baiz, Spain 2011
Metrodome, £15.99 (DVD)
While low-budget British horror
tends to fanny around with Cock-
neys/hookers/vampires/werewolves*
(*delete as applicable) and its US
cousin is still hung up on, you know,
girls and, um, howto slaughter them,
here is a highly original effort from
Spain (though set partly in Colom-
bia) that succeeds in being utterly
terrifying without even a drop of the
old claret in sight.
Adrian (QuimGutiérrez), an
immensely talented conductor,
comes home to find his girlfriend
gone and deals with his grief by
immediately starting a torrid affair
with Fabiana (Martina Garcia), a
pretty cocktail waitress. He proceeds
to say nothing, in a very gnostic,
Adrien Brody-esque way, for the
film’s duration. But is it a straight-
forward missing-persons story, a
murder investigation (replete with
greasy cops), a tale of haunting, or
something much more contempo-
rary and terrifying? Slow-moving
and sinister, it milks mileage out of
good ol’ fashioned tropes, such as
a big empty house during a storm,
and approaches genre clichés with a
gusto all horror directors should take
note of.
With nods (psychologically) to
Rebecca (howmuch of a person’s past
do we really know?) and (visually)
to What Lies Beneath? (plus other
classics, but we’d be pushing close to
spoiler territory), this is inventive,
scary as hell and shows the value of
good writing. And the moral(s) of the
story? Don’t test your lover, or buy
old houses fromNazis on the run.
Probably the most voyeuristic film
ever made.You’ll really have to see it
to understand why. Superb.
Tim Weinberg
DIe nIbeLungen
Eureka!, £12.99 (DVD), £15.99 (Blu-ray)
A beautiful restoration and blu-ray release for Fritz
Lang’s early two-part epic will certainly appeal to
cinephiles and students of German mythology,
although those who think they know the story from
Wagner may end up scratching their heads as the
film goes off in all sorts of unfamiliar directions.
Wagner, of course, took what he needed from myth and turned
it into a story all his own, while Thea von Harbou’s script follows
the mediæval Nibelungenlied more closely. Lang and his team
supply stunning visuals, from expressionistic sets and lighting to
opulent costumes and great battle sequences, while the newly
recorded original score by Gottfried Huppertz means the films
sound as good as they look. Be warned, though: at five hours
long, Die Nibelungen can seem a somewhat ponderous classic
of silent cinema at times. David Sutton 8/10
the taLL Man
Image Entertainment, £12.99 (DVD), £15.99 (Blu-ray)
Of interest to FT readers for its reading of the Spring-
heeled Jack legend, as well as fears around other
more contemporary abduction-type scenarios, this
US/ Canadian/French hybrid has tough women at its
centre, around whomhover worthless men. The town
of Cold Rock has been in massive decline since the
mine closed. To further add to its misery, a sinister figure known
as The Tall Man has been linked to the disappearance of several of
the town’s children and only a mute goth on a bicycle holds the key
to solving the mystery…Before you start thinking this runs like the
tagline to some rubbish Stephen King mini-series, please let me
assure you it’s a lot better than that. A tour-de-force for Jessica Biel
as the town nurse, suddenly at the centre of the community after
the sudden death of her much-loved doctor husband, the filmuses
constrictions of budget to get mileage out of clichéd settings like a
deserted factory or lonely forest at night. With a twist revealed about
half-way through, this could have been better paced, but is other-
wise superb. Recommended, if harrowing, viewing. TW 8/10
curanDero: Dawn oF the DeMon
Lion’s Gate Home Entertainment, £12.99 (DVD)
In Central America, a curandero is an indigenous
healer/shaman who provides cures for both spiritual
and physical problems. The titular curandero of
Eduardo Rodriguez’s 2005 film(written and produced
by brother Robert) is forced into the role of exorcist too
as he comes up against demonic powers in modern
day Mexico City. Carlos is himself the son of a celebrated healer,
but downplays the supernatural in favour of a psychological inter-
pretation of what he does. Teamed up (in an X-Files inversion) with a
female cop who’s a believer, Carlos has to use his powers to bring
Castaneda, the head of a Satanic-blood-drinking-drug-trafficking
cult, to justice. When he starts having the kind of visions that would
have left Don Juan crying for his mum, the filmgoes all hallucina-
tory; but this can’t quite dispel the feeling of watching a series of
discrete set pieces that never quite add up to a satisfying narrative.
It’s enjoyable and interesting for its Mexican colour, but hardly scary,
even with demons and disembowellings galore; perhaps the prob-
lemis that the supposedly demonic villain Castaneda just looks so
much like Uncle Fester. DS 5/10
gAmES
FILM & DVD
pretty unpLeasant stuFF by
any stanDarDs 5
ForteanTimes Verdict
non-canonIcaL (?) but
coLourFuL anD Lots oF Fun
8
ForteanTimes Verdict
pant-pooIngLy scary, both
oLD-FashIoneD anD orIgInaL
9
ForteanTimes Verdict
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Glasgow Polt
My obituary of Professor Archie
Roy [FT301:24] contains an inad-
vertent error. I noted that “Roy
also investigated haunted houses
and poltergeist cases, notably
a poltergeist at Maxwell Park,
Glasgow, in 1974-5…”The Maxwell
Park case is described in his book
A Sense of Something Strange:
Investigations into the Paranormal
(Glasgow: Dog and Bone, 1990,
pp.210-21.) He had collaborated
with Rev Max Magee, and stated
that apart fromhis and Magee’s,
the names of those concerned had
been changed. He did not, how-
ever, say that ‘Maxwell Park’ was a
pseudonym. As recently as 2008, in
an interviewhe gave to researcher
Michael Tymn, he still referred to
“the Maxwell Park case” (though
incorrectly dating it to 1972).
(www.aspsi.org/feat/life_after/
a073mt-a-Prof_Archie_E_Roy_in-
terview.php).
Archie had indeed altered the
location: it was not at Maxwell
Park, on the south side of Glasgow,
but in Northgate Quadrant,
Balornock, on the opposite side
of the city. Geoff Holder covers
the case in his recent Poltergeist
over Scotland (Stroud: The History
Press, 2013, pp.158-66 – reviewed
FT262:60.) He supplies the real
location and the participants’
names, and provides a number
of references for those wishing
to pursue this fascinating case in
further detail.
Tom Ruffles
By email
Weird protests
Afriend recently told me that
he regularly sends his toenail
clippings to theVietnamese Em-
bassy to protest against the black
market in rhino horn‘medicine’.
Moreover, many others do this
and he believes the Embassy
receives hundreds of envelopes of
toenail clippings every month. This
reminded me of PETAfounder
Ingrid Newman’s will, in which
she requested that her eyeball be
mounted and sent to the US Envi-
ronmental ProtectionAgency, her
pointing fnger be sent to a circus
company still using animal acts,
etc. Do any readers or their friends
performweird protests – not
necessarily limited to the posting
of body parts?
Heather Robbins
Bognor Regis, West Sussex
Bearded lady
I read with interest your report
on the fate of the much-abused
“bearded lady”, Julia Pastrana
[FT300:4]. I amsure I amnot the
only reader to have noticed the
coincidence with the name of the
Mexican artist who campaigned
for the interment of the corpse,
Laura Anderson Barbata. Barba-
tus/barbata is Latin for bearded.
Fortuna Barbata was the aspect
of the goddess Fortuna to whom
boys offered the frst cuttings of
their newbeards as they became
men, and she represented a deity
who watched over and blessed
the transition fromchildhood to
adulthood. Barbata also has the
meaning of “adulthood” or “sign
of being an adult”, and a beard
was symbolically a mark of adult-
hood.
Fortuna’s blessing on your con-
tinued fortean endeavours!
Simon Ramshaw
Addlestone, Surrey
The Grunch
Further to Alan Murdie’s piece
on‘Bele Sheephead’, the half-
human, half-sheep said to haunt
Broughton Moor road in Cumbria
[FT299:15], there is an interesting
transatlantic parallel. He notes
that the story is a variant of the
urban legend‘the hook’, exam-
ined by Jan Harold Brunvand in
The Vanishing Hitchhiker: Urban
Legends and their Meanings (1981).
It is actually a variant of ‘The
Boyfriend’s Death’, though this is
an easy mix-up as both involve cars
and encounters with threatening,
violent fgures on lonely country
roads.
In any case, the really tantalis-
ing thing that Murdie’s article
points to is this: there is a were-
sheep urban legend parallel
with the Cumbrian tale fromas
far away as Louisiana. Brunvand
notes: “In a NewOrleans ver-
sion, ‘The Boyfriend’s Death’ is
absorbed into a local teenage
tradition about ‘The Grunch’ – a
half-sheep, half-human monster
that haunts specifc local sites.”
(p21). Murdie also notes that Bele
Sheephead“was last encountered
in 1972”, while Brunvand’s source
for ‘The Grunch’ was printed in
1971 (p26). So either this is a case
of tale polygenesis or were-sheep
were somehowpopular in folk-
imagination during the 1970s.
•
Also on the subject of modern
folklore, I enjoyed David Ham-
bling’s article on theVanishing
Hitchhiker [FT298:14]; but though
“inattentional amnesia” may go
some way towards exploring the
phenomenon, I’mnot sure it can
fully explain it. Brunvand noted
antecedents of the tales fromthe
days of horse and buggy riding in
the 19th century (p35), and even a
Chinese version where the vanish-
ing girl walks behind a young man
who meets her on the road (p36).
I doubt whether these situations
could produce sensory deprivation
leading to “highway hypnosis”. I’m
agnostic when it comes to the para-
normal, but perhaps we are deal-
ing with what is just a good tale.
Lewis JW Hurst
Edinburgh
Dear FT…
letters
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Simulacra Corner
stefanie Theodorou saw this tree face while cycling through a wood
in Cuffley, Hertfordshire.
We are always glad to receive pictures of spontaneous forms and
fgures, or any curious images. Send them to the PO box above (with
a stamped addressed envelope or international reply coupon) or to
[email protected] – and please tell us your postal address.
Simulacra corner
letters
72 FT303
www.forteantimes.com
Tale Realised
Whilst reading Nick Beer’s
account “Carrying the weight”
[FT299:70], I was immediately
struck by its overwhelming simi-
larity to MRJames’s classic ghost
story “AWarning to the Curious”.
So much so in fact that – this
being the April issue – I looked
for clues indicating anApril Fool
prank! I’msure I won’t be the
only reader who spotted this.
Thankfully, despite waiting three
years before returning the object,
it seems that Mr Beer has avoided
the fate of poor Paxton!
Graham Mullins
Chislehurst, Kent
Lack of Cushions
Regarding your obituary of
WilliamRoll [FT:286:26]: I knew
Bill in the late 1970s in North
Carolina, when he was spear-
heading the Psychical Research
Foundation. His life was fraught
with problems at the time. The
Zen meditation centre he was
running had insuffcient funds
to buy “zafu” cushions, the little
round blobs that prop you up
during sitting meditation, and so
all the meditators leaned to one
side. Bill was involved in a pain-
fully hopeless romance and asked
a visitingTibetan Rimpoche
what to do “if you loved someone
who did not love you in return”.
His compassion motivated me
to study meditation, Zen, and
Taoism.
One of Bill’s graduate stu-
dents was studying “practical
paranormal abilities”, looking at
individuals who took danger-
ous chances like pulling out
into traffc without looking but
were never hit – a fascinating
concept. At the time, Bill noted
that “many poltergeist activities
seemed to be centred around
teen girls suffering froma condi-
tion called‘borderline personal-
ity disorder.’”This made such an
impression on me that I spent a
good part of my life investigating
and writing about this curious
disorder. Thanks, Bill.
Wes Burgess, M.D., Ph.D.
Venice, California
Editor’s note: Dr Burgess is
a psychiatrist who taught at
Stanford, UCLA Medical Schools
and the University of Califor-
nia, Davis, and is the author
of numerous books and over
100 scholarly articles on the
brain, behaviour, mental illness,
human consciousness, and
meditation. See his Wikipedia
entry.
Defying Gravity
I amgrateful to David Barrett
for his reviewof Defying Gravity
[FT300:66]. I think it’s a given
that good science fction doesn’t
read as “science-fction”. Wher-
ever you place your characters
– space, underwater, shopping
mall etc – the drama has to arise
fromtheir reactions to each other
and to their environment. Frank
Herbert achieved this in Dune
by making no concessions to the
reader – we had to accept his
world and run with it. In space or
anywhere, “people are people”,
and once the technology of get-
ting theminto space has been
achieved, they have little else to
do than be people.
Defying Gravity was indeed
very good to look at, and much
thought had obviously gone into
it, with high production values
and excellent effects. I stuck with
it for the entire run; but, as with
BBC’s Outcasts, I wasn’t surprised
to fnd that it had been cancelled.
The graveyard slot didn’t help,
but was probably inevitable.
Both promised much, but
ended up painfully boring, with
far too much time given over to
the development of dull charac-
ters. The selection of an extreme
environment as a background
assumes some human interaction
with it. All I seemto remember
is lots of talking heads and fash-
backs to Earth-based training. In
short, I was waiting for something
to happen that would justify the
space setting and take me out of
myself for a while. Admittedly,
the subplot involving the weird
blobs had potential, but it felt
like a bolt-on sop to escapist
space fans, rather than a plot-
driver. Typically, things started
to get going at the end of the last
episode, if I remember correctly,
but by then, for both Defying
Gravity and Outcasts, it was too
late. I enjoyed Dune, where the
environment is as much a charac-
ter as the people in it, if not the
principal one. Perhaps that was
the trouble with Defying Gravity:
there was a major character,
Space, doing nothing.
Trevor Sproston
By email
Coca Corrosa
The sad saga of Natasha Harris
who reportedly died froma
Coca-Cola overdose [FT300:27]
contains the deathless sentence:
“Several of her teeth rotted and
had to be removed, and at least
one of her children was born
without tooth enamel”.
Allowing for the fact that teeth
may rot without being exposed
to Coca-Cola, and ignoring the
Mythconception column debunk-
ing the belief that teeth will dis-
solve overnight in a glass of the
brown stuff [FT166:28], we are
left with the interesting possibil-
ity that good ol’ Lamarck may
have been vindicated at last…or
is there a metabolic pathway that
allows acid fromthe Coke to pass
up the umbilical cord and attack
the enamel of the unborn child’s
teeth, which are normally safely
hidden within the gums? We
await further revelations.
Nils Erik Grande
Oslo, Norway
ART – or design?
Guy Lyon Playfair may be a
brilliant fortean researcher; but
on the strength of his article [FT
299:51] he should keep well away
fromart criticism.
The Lascaux paintings are
not “cave daubings”– they are
highly fnished works of art. I
know; I have seen them. As is now
recognised, art does not “evolve”
as technology does. Ice Age hu-
man beings possessed as much
aesthetic sense and knowledge
as Leonardo or any modern artist
and could create equally fnished
works. If Leonardo shows any su-
periority, it is probably because
The Power of Pluto
Reading the letter of Jim Wyatt-
Lees [FT298:68], I recalled that
“The Power of Pluto” appeared
in Red Fire on the Lost Planet,
(1959) one of the “Lost Planet”
series of children’s science
fction by Angus
McVicar, starting
in 1953. His
stories were
serialised in
“Children’s Hour”
radio broadcasts,
and reprinted in
the 1960s, both
in hardback and
paperback. As far
as I remember,
the story was
set on the “Lost
Planet” itself,
but like most
tales in the series it began with
the preparation on Earth for an
expedition there. The back-
ground reasons may well have
included disturbances of the
sort Mr Wyatt-Lees mentions.
Of course, McVicar could have
come across an earlier refer-
ence to “The Power of Pluto”
and borrowed the term for his
own writing, but I suspect that it
was purely his invention.
IM Arundel
By email
I wonder if Jim Wyatt-Lees is
remembering
something about
this 1966 comic
(left). At the
time, (February
1967) Marvel
was experiment-
ing with market-
ing British-style
weekly multi-sto-
ry comics in the
UK rather than
just importing or
reprinting Ameri-
can single-story
monthly titles.
They were called Fantastic! and
Terrifc! and may have had their
own letters pages. They cer-
tainly had editorial pages and
reprinted (in black and white)
The Mighty Thor.
Stephen Wilson
By email
letters
FT303 73
www.forteantimes.com
he had access to technologically
superior materials, not because he
was necessarily a better artist: just
as IronAge carving improves on
Stone Age carving because you get
a better result carving stone with
metal than with stone, not because
IronAge people were æsthetically
more advanced.
I would personally question
whether crop circles fall into the
realmof art or of design (recognis-
ing that the boundary between
the two is fuzzy). Arguably, “art”
is a one-off, whereas “design” is
intended for reproduction. Thus,
a Rossetti painting is art, aWil-
liamMorris wallpaper is design.
Moreover, crop circles seem(for
the most part) to consist of shapes,
often repeated, rather than being
representational, which again
tends to place themtowards the
“design” end of the spectrum. If
they are generated by a computer
programme they are (in theory)
endlessly reproducible and so
should probably be viewed as
design.
So perhaps we should adopt Mr
Playfair’s suggestion of a crop cir-
cle gallery: not in theTate, but in
theVictoria andAlbert Museum.
Martin Jenkins
London
I enjoyed Guy Playfair’s interest-
ing article on crop circles, but I feel
I must quibble with his assertion
that Art “evolves”. Technology yes,
but not Art – witness the simple,
sublime sophistication of the
Neo-Palæolithic paintings in such
caves as Lascaux and Chauvet in
France, and the Altamira caves in
Spain. Picasso famously said of
them, “After Altamira everything
is decadence”.
Merrily Harpur
By email
Giants Will Reappear
I was interested in an article
about giants in Ireland [FT272:16
– maybe]. My hobby is looking for
the 12 lost tribes of Israel. They are
not lost – hidden maybe, but not
lost. Moses was ordered to destroy
seven tribes, all of themgiants.
God’s chosen people were chosen
so that “the meek would inherit
the earth” – meek meaning small.
Descendants of Abrahamand
Sarah. They came out of Egypt to
become a threat to the giants and
slaughter them. This went on for
years, right up to the time of David.
The Book of Judges explains
that although the Israelites settled
in the land, they did not get rid of
the giants (Canaanites) altogether.
King David for example was a man
carrying the giant gene and father-
ing giants. He despaired for his
progeny. Bathsheba was married
to a giant and avoided children.
However the priests realised that
she (BB) and David (BA) could
produce a man kind child with the
giant gene outbreed.Very often gi-
ants appear only in the frst born.
The second one would be man
kind. See Mendel’s theory of ge-
netics. So David’s frst born‘died’
and the next one, Solomon, lived.
Since Europeans are descended
fromthe Israelites, as time goes
on, giants will reappear. By slaugh-
tering their own people, they
reduced the tribe of Benjamin to
13 men, and had they not done it,
by nowBenjamin (Ireland north
and south) would be overrun with
giants. In 1928 British Israel Truth
was published and the government
of the day destroyed every copy
they could get. I tried to write a
book about giants. My computer
got sabotaged three times. So I say
no more.
Violet Horton (Mrs)
Balby, South Yorkshire
Radio hacking
You reported a tactic used by the
Nazis in the early years of World
War II: their radio transmitters
would interrupt BBCbroadcasts
with messages designed to alarm
or persuade British audiences to
end the war [FT296:21]. The article
asked if such‘radio hacking’ had
happened elsewhere.Yes it did –
just a fewmonths later, by Britain’s
own Political Warfare Executive
(PWE).
From1942 to 1945, Sefton
Delmer, previously a foreign cor-
respondent for the Daily Express,
was given the task of spreading
black propaganda using radio
broadcasts. While he initiated a
number of original and effective
broadcasts on shortwave, these
infuenced only a small audience;
but in 1943 he was authorised to
transmit on mediumwave (or the
mediumfrequency AMbroadcast
band) using a powerful newtrans-
mitter code-named‘Aspidistra’.
Purpose-built by the Radio Cor-
poration of America and named
after the popular song by Gracie
Fields (“It’s the biggest aspidistra
in the world”), this consisted of the
main transmitter: a 600-kilowatt
amplitude modulated monster
sited“somewhere on the south
coast” and a 500-watt unmodulat-
ed transmitter usually positioned
50 miles (80km) away, which would
mislead any German direction
fnding. 600 kilowatts would allow
strong reception over most of West-
ern Europe and perhaps beyond.
At frst, Aspidistra transmitted
Soldatensender Calais, which the
casual listener might assume was a
station provided for the entertain-
ment of German armed forces.
As well as speeches by Hitler and
Goebbels, popular music and news
fromGerman regions (all recorded
fromlegitimate German broad-
casters), the station transmitted
the latest American music ‘from
discs captured by our brave U-boat
crews’, the results of football
matches between army units (from
information provided by resist-
ance fghters) and news with more
information of Allied victories
than offcial German channels
might provide.
Stories about Nazi offcials
culled fromlocal German newspa-
pers subscribed to fromSweden
were worked up as malicious
gossip using the well-known skills
of British tabloid journalisminto
“see howthe fat cats at home
behave while we are on the front
line” tales. German prisoners-of-
war who had defected to become
announcers supplied current
armed forces slang and jokes and
genuine regional accents. All this
gave Delmer’s team
practice at imitat-
ing offcial German
broadcasters, because
Aspidistra had one
more trick.
In volume two of his
autobiography Black
Boomerang (1962),
Delmer states that
Aspidistra “had been
specially designed…
to make lightning
changes of frequency”
which for conventional
broadcasters could
take hours or even days. Unlike
the BBC, Germany used separate
frequencies for each regional
broadcaster, but as Allied air raids
proceeded overhead, individual
radio stations would go off the air
so as not to provide a navigational
beacon for enemy aircraft.
Knowing the route of air raids,
Aspidistra would be waiting “in
ambush on the frequency of the
German station” (p16ff) playing
the same record, or giving the
same speech in synchronisation.
Aspidistra would“take over the
German target frequency within
one two-hundredth of a second
of the German station closing
down”, leaving Delmer’s teamfree
to insert apparently genuine new
and offcial commands designed to
lower morale and respect for the
authorities and cause panic, such
as orders froma local Gauleiter
to evacuate, thus blocking roads,
or forVolksturmunits to set up
roadblocks or occupy buildings
or otherwise make a nuisance of
themselves.
Although the ColdWar should
have presented numerous op-
portunities, this very effective
technique does not seemto have
been used anywhere else, to my
knowledge. Aspidistra was used
for conventional BBCbroadcasts
into Europe until it was retired in
1982. Modern sound broadcasting
technologies such as FMand DAB
exhibit the ‘capture effect’, where
a more powerful transmitter can
capture a receiver, so they could
be used this way. Digital television
also exhibits the capture effect,
so the possibility is there, yet it
seems never to have been used.
Does anyone knowof an instance?
John Alexander Faulkner
Sydney, Australia
T
O
n
y
H
U
s
B
A
n
d
it happened to me…
First-handaccounts fromFT readers andbrowsers of www.forteantimes.com
The Watford Girl
During the Easter holidays this
year, my niece Lauren and her
parents visited the ‘Harry Potter’
sets in Watford, as my niece is an
avid Potter fan. She took photos of
everything with her digital camera,
shooting in a standard mode. On
returning home, Lauren and her
father decided to store all the
photos on the home computer, and
discovered that one had an image
of a young, possibly teenage, girl
[below]. You can see that part of
her head is missing at the back,
the top of her head is transparent
while her face seems to be solid.
Lauren doesn’t remember seeing
the girl and told me the railing was
only about waist-high for an adult. I
can assure you the image has not
been altered in any way. If anyone
knows the identity of the girl or has
a logical explanation for the image,
we would be grateful to know.
Libby Bytyqi
Portland, Dorset
Bald Man Mystery
In my mid-20s I worked in the
maintenance department of a factory
and we had an electric clock system
operated from one central clock
in the reception area. One day all
new psychic reality show. Sigh. A
prophet in her own country and all.
Julia Morgan-Scott
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Beetle Message
I have written to you about seeing
a trail of several hundred Devil’s
coachhorse beetles (Ocypus
olens) when I was aged about 10
[FT291:71]. The beetles are not
social creatures, and the event
is still unexplained although I
have consulted an expert. Well,
I am glad to say that there is a
conclusion of sorts. It is said that
Jung was analysing a client who
was relating a dream about a
beetle when a beetle few into the
room – a cockchafer if I remember,
a large and impressive insect.
Jung’s theory of synchronicity is
said to have been infuenced by
this event. Anyway, I was recently
at my kitchen table reading FT and
came across an article about Jung.
I just happened to get up and go
to the sink by the window and
discovered a Devil’s coachhorse
beetle on one of the taps. All I can
say is ‘thank you Carl Jung’ (and
FT).
Simon van Someren
London
that the Pope would be chosen
that day, although, once again, my
husband said bah, humbug.
I came home from work just
in time to see CNN announce
that the new Pope had indeed
been chosen, and had picked the
name Francis I, after St Francis
of Assisi. I went to Facebook to
track back on the convenient yet
annoying Facebook Timeline to 1
October and re-read the original
posting, trying to remember what
we’d said about the number 13,
and only then realised I had totally
forgotten that the book in question
was about St Francis of Assisi.
It had been tucked away amidst
our vast pile, and anyway it was
my husband’s book and went
into his vast pile. My husband
was slightly impressed at this,
although I haven’t heard from any
television producers yet about my
Papal Clues
On 1 October 2012, my husband
and I were watching Warehouse
13 – a TV fantasy series that
incorporates a lot of fortean
themes – when the postman
delivered a package from the
History Book Club. I tore it open
immediately, being a regular
book fend, and was somewhat
disappointed to see it was one
my husband had ordered: The
Emperor and the Saint, about
Frederick II and St Francis of
Assisi. I opened it at random to
chapter 13, page 317, and saw a
photo of Steinerne Bruke, a bridge
in Ratisbon, a town in Germany
I had never heard of. At that
precise moment a character on
screen said: “Bruke means bridge
in German”.
Well, this caught my attention.
I promptly went on Facebook and
posted it as my “Synchronicity
of the Day”, since I collect them
like odd souvenirs. My sceptical
friends suggested it was all
merely coincidence, of course,
while others suggested helpful
connections for the number 13
which I hadn’t thought of. All good
fun.
Then it occurred to me that the
word bridge suggests “pontiff”
(from pontifex, derived from Latin
pons, bridge). The then-Pope was
German. So the “German Bridge”
would be Pope Benedict. Hmmm. I
went to Wikipedia to check out the
bridge location and was surprised
to learn that it was very near the
birthplace of Benedict, that the
Pope had taught at the university
there, and owned a residence less
than a kilometre away. So I posted
a comment on Facebook that
since I had noticed synchronicities
often seemed meaningful, I was
going out on a limb and predicting
news about the Pope in the near
future. This got big laughs from
my sceptical friends!
In February 2013 when
Pope Benedict announced his
resignation, I mentioned the
synchronicity to my husband and
said perhaps this was the news
I’d “predicted”. He was all bah,
humbug and said it had been
almost four months, and that was
too long to matter. So I forgot
about it again, until 13 March,
when I remembered the “13”
connection, and had an intuition
“They decided to
put the photos on
the computer and
discovered that
one had an image
of a teenage girl”
74 FT303
www.forteantimes.com
FT303 75
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Have you had strange experiences that you cannot explain?
We are always interested in reading of odd events and occurrences.
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down to a muscle spasm – although
I never had these spasms outside
the fat. I’m fairly sensible, and I
would not believe the fat was haunt-
ed without some evidence beyond
‘feelings’. I put the nightmares and
the knocking noises and the struggle
to wake up down to hypnagogia. And
as for the rest – I read and enjoyed
ghost stories, and that was bound
to infuence my imagination. As far
as I was concerned, it was all in my
head. The entire experience, I said
to myself, was a quirk of my person-
ality and mind.
But then I moved. And after I
had settled down in my new fat, I
realised the nightmares had gone:
no knocking in the night, no muscle
spasms that felt like someone
touching me, no more feeling I was
being watched. Everything that had
made me uncomfortable in the old
fat had gone. That was when I real-
ised it hadn’t been in my head after
all; it hadn’t been my imagination. I
really had been haunted.
Michelle Birkby
Hampton, London
Fire Foretold
My husband and I were enjoying a
quiet cup of coffee early one Friday
evening. Suddenly I thought I could
smell smoke. I rushed out to the
kitchen and it seemed to be full of
smoke. I could no longer smell it and
the ‘smoke’ vanished very quickly.
When I told my husband he didn’t
believe me.
The following day was my son’s
birthday and we were taking him
to Blackpool to see the lights as a
treat. Just before we left the house
I noticed a smell of burning. When
I went out to the kitchen the chip
pan was smoking. If I hadn’t noticed
the smell there would have been a
fre whilst we were out. Somebody
or something was warning me the
previous day. Whoever/whatever it
was, I thank them/it.
Pamela Nowell
Upton, Wirral
the fat, I would reach round for the
light switch, unwilling to walk in until
there was some light – and every
time, I was convinced something
was waiting to grab my hand.
Sleep was the most affected part
of my life. I had a lot of nightmares.
I would often wake up, thinking I
heard knocking, or the doorbell
ringing – which was strange, as the
doorbell didn’t work. For a while, I
would wake up at exactly the same
time every night, after hearing
three knocks. If I fell asleep during
the day, in the living room, I would
always dream that I couldn’t wake
up again, that I was struggling to
open my eyes and couldn’t. At night,
I would try not to get up, as I hated
walking past the living room. I felt
there was something in there at
night that resented me disturbing it.
I never saw anything though. I had
a feeling there was a girl in white in
the living room, but I never saw her.
Sometimes I would feel some-
thing touch me, but I always put it
the room staring at her. Within sec-
onds he disappeared. I reassured
her it was probably caused by the
shock of the burn. I stayed with her
that night, but I didn’t dare mention
to her that the man who gave me
the lift was overweight, bald, and
middle-aged. Of course, it could
have been sheer coincidence that
the descriptions matched, but what
I couldn’t explain was that, other
than asking if I wanted a lift, there
was no conversation between us
during the journey. Then I realised
that I hadn’t even told him where to
drop me off. He already knew.
Mark Braybrook
Hampshire
My Haunted
Decade
I’m beginning to realise that I may
have been haunted for 10 years,
and not known it. A decade ago I
moved into a fat. It was dingy and
dirty, and I was never comfortable
there. I didn’t like to be alone there;
I always had to have the television
or radio on. If I was off work, I would
spend the day in a coffee shop or
pub rather than alone in the fat. I
often felt as if I was being watched,
or that someone was in the other
room. I didn’t like to have any of
the doors closed, as I always felt
there was someone behind the
door. I would even try and wash my
hair with my eyes open, because
I was so nervous that someone
was watching me. It was worse in
the dark. Every time I came into
the clocks in the factory stopped
at 12.10pm. My supervisor tried
in vain to restart the main clock.
At this point – and I really can’t
explain this – I knew I had to see
my girlfriend. She lived in a small
village a good 10 miles (16km)
away from the factory and I couldn’t
drive back then. Somehow, I man-
aged to convince my boss that I
had to leave work straight away, but
assured him I would make the time
up the following day. I walked to the
outskirts of town and then took a
country road leading to where my
girlfriend lived.
A short distance along the road,
a car pulled over and the driver
asked if I needed a lift. Perhaps he
knew the buses weren’t very regu-
lar at this time of day, or maybe he
was just a Good Samaritan. The
journey didn’t take very long and
he soon dropped me at the fat my
girlfriend was renting. I knocked
on her front door several times
and when she fnally opened it
she seemed confused, and had a
nasty red burn on her left forearm.
I asked if she was OK, but she just
stumbled back into the living room
and collapsed on the sofa.
After a short while, she’d recov-
ered suffciently to tell me that
she’d been ironing in the living room
when she had an eerie sensation
that someone was in the fat with
her. At that point, she accidentally
caught her arm with the iron and
fell back in shock. That’s when she
saw an overweight, bald, middle-
aged man, sitting in the corner of
NOW ON SALE!
IT HAPPENED TO ME!
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VOLUME 5
Ordinarypeople’s
extraordinary
true storiesfrom
thepagesof
Many have sought the Holy Grail, in
fable and even in reality: few, if any,
have actually found it. But in the 19th
century distinguished German scholars
believed they had located the temple
in which the Grail – or at least a version
of it – resided. It was to be found in the
very south of the country, in Bavaria.
And it is still there.
The Grail Temple has a long
tradition in German literature.
According to mediæval poets, it stood
on the mountain of Munt Salvasch,
at the heart of the land of Salvaterre.
Within theTemple, at its central
point, hovered the Grail itself. This
mysterious sacred object was served by
an elect community of men and women,
and preeminently by the divinely
appointed dynasty of Grail Kings.
By far the most detailed account of
theTemple appears in a work called
Jüngere Titurel (“Titurel theYounger”),
composed between 1260 and 1275
by a man known only as Albrecht.
According to Albrecht, theTemple
was a tremendously complex circular
structure, built almost entirely of
gold and precious stones: sapphires,
emeralds, amethysts, rubies, and gems
unknown to us. Around theTemple
were placed 72 choirs (or individual
chapels).
This immense, 72-sided, shining
and sparkling polygon
was built byTiturel, the
frst of the Grail Kings,
to instructions provided
by the Grail itself. Albrecht
clearly meant it to be a symbolic
structure, unrealisable beyond the
pages of a book. And yet, 180 years
or so ago, German art historians
and antiquarians began to make the
extraordinary claimthat, not long after
Albrecht had fnished his poem, the
Temple had actually been built.
The monastery church at Ettal is
some 45 miles (70km) southwest of
Munich, close to Oberammergau. It
was, the antiquarians agreed, directly
inspired by Albrecht’s Temple. Ettal
even housed a kind of Grail, which
transformed the BavarianAlps into the
enchanted land of Salvaterre.
Nestled in the foothills of the Alps,
Ettal had been founded in 1330 by
Ludwig IVof Bavaria (1282-1347). We
can be certain that Ludwig knewthe
Grail Temple of German literature:
Albrecht had dedicated his poem
to Ludwig’s father. The church is a
12-sided rotunda; nowthoroughly
(and disappointingly) Baroque, in its
original Gothic appearance it would
probably have looked somewhat
like the chapter houses of British
cathedrals such as Lincoln, York or
Wells.
Ettal, then, would have resembled a
reduced and much less ornate version
of the Grail Temple.
On the face of it, it must be admitted
that such observations are too fimsy
a foundation on which to build
elaborate theories. But there are other
76 FT303
www.forteantimes.com
SIMON WILSON sets off on his own quest for the Holy Grail – and fnds an
unlikely Grail Temple nestled in the mountains of southern Germany
87. Ettal: The Grail Church of Bavaria
FORTEAN
TRAVELLER
BELOW LEFT:
Kloster Ettal today.
BELOW RIGHT:
Ludwig IV of
Bavaria, founder of
the monastery.
connections between the Grail and Ettal,
stranger and deeper ones which suggest
that Ludwig may have intended Ettal to
be the centre, at least symbolically, of an
ideal Grail kingdom, a sort of Salvaterre,
independent of existing imperial and
ecclesiastical power structures.
This possibility was frst hinted at by
the antiquarian Hyacinth Holland in a
pamphlet of 1860. Holland posed the
obvious questions. If Ettal was based on
the Grail Temple, where was the Grail?
And just why did Ludwig need a Grail
Temple any way?
Answering the frst question,
Holland proposed that a statuette of
the Madonna and Child played the role
of the Grail at Ettal. Nowhoused in its
own chapel in the easternmost part
of the church, the statuette probably
once stood on an altar at its very centre,
making it, like the Grail inAlbrecht’s
Temple, the focal point of the whole
building. The carving was donated
to Ettal by Ludwig himself, and was
always intended to be the hub of the
community. Astory which goes back at
least to the middle of the 14
th
century
– and possibly to the very foundation
of Ettal – has it that Ludwig was given
the carving by a mysterious monk, who
instructed himto build a church to hold
it. It seemed to himthat the monk was
an angel sent by God. After giving him
the statue, the monk, indeed, vanished
before his astonished eyes.
Like the Grail, then, the carving was
heaven-sent. And likeTiturel, Ludwig
received divine instructions to build a
church/temple to house it.
Holland relates that the sacred statue
was reputed to have Grail-like powers
to heal the bodies and souls of all who
came under its enchantment. Primarily,
it was intended to heal the builder of
Ettal, and Holland imagines Ludwig as
the Fisher King, “gaining newstrength
by looking at the Ettal Grail and...
forgetting all his political pains.”
1
This remark seems at frst sight to be
a somewhat sentimental fantasy. Yet it
actually goes straight to the heart of the
reason Ludwig built Ettal: it offered a
kind of mystical solution to his political
and spiritual troubles. The Grail and its
Temple were, indeed, almost the only
solution possible, given the extent of his
problems.
Albrecht had written his story
of the Grail and the Grail Temple
against the background of the Great
Interregnum, a chaotic period in which
the Holy Roman Empire was effectively
without leadership following the
excommunication of the Emperor by the
Pope. At the heart of the confict was the
fundamental question of who should be
regarded as the head of Christendom
– its royal or its ecclesiastical
representative. Germany, at the centre
of the Empire, was plunged into anarchy.
Albrecht’s poemwas an intervention
into this chaos. His solution to the
troubles of his age was divine kingship
(in the formof the Grail Kings) and a
challenges to his position from
powerful rivals, culminating in his
excommunication by Pope John XXII
in 1323.
Ludwig sawthe chaos of the Great
Interregnumreturning. Eventually,
he decided to re-establish order by
what amounted to founding the Holy
Roman Empire anew: he had himself
crowned Emperor in Rome in 1328 and
appointed an anti-pope to serve under
him. His plans however came to nothing
as he began to run out of money and
support. Humiliatingly, he was forced
to fee Italy, his alternative Empire in
ruins.
It was on his return journey
to Germany that he received the
miraculous statuette and was
inspired to found the monastery at
Ettal. Essentially he was resorting to
Albrecht’s solution: he would establish
order by mystical means.
Ludwig himself laid the foundation
stone for Ettal, and chose its peculiar
dedication: “unser Frawen etal.”The
name means something like “The
Valley Pledged to Our Lady” and
evokes a newmarriage of Heaven and
Earth. Ettal was the centre of a new
religion, in the word’s literal meaning:
a binding back or reconnecting to
spiritual realities.
Ettal, then, does indeed have the
characteristics of a Grail centre,
as portrayed by Albrecht. As in the
Jüngere Titurel, the church was built
according to divine instructions, by
a king who had been, in his own eyes
at least, directly appointed by God.
It seamlessly connected Heaven and
Earth.
For Ludwig, founding Ettal was a
symbolic act, intended to establish
a newkind of order in Germany in
the face of the implosion of the Holy
Roman Empire. It was an enchantment
based around a magical object
endowed with divine powers and it
existed independently of the church
hierarchies and rival princes, all vying
for wealth and infuence. Bavaria
and Germany symbolically replaced
Prester John’s kingdomas the home
of the Grail, and Ludwig was both
Titurel, builder of the Grail Temple,
and Prester John himself, ruling over a
perfectly ordered realm.
Unfortunately, the Grail
enchantment proved incapable of
easing Ludwig’s political pains for long.
Power-hungry popes and kings went on
eating away at his authority. He died in
1347, on the eve of what he had hoped
would be a decisive battle against his
rivals.
Ludwig’s foundation of Ettal,
however, was not in vain. On the
contrary: whilst the Holy Roman
Empire is long gone, Ettal continues
to hold sway over the imagination,
reconciling, for the mystically minded,
heaven and earth.
You too can pay it a visit, if you so
wish.
society transformed by the Grail (as
represented by the enchanted land of
Salvaterre, and the lords and ladies
serving the Grail). Signifcantly, both
the royal dynasty and theTemple
community exist independently
of the Church: they do not rely on
ecclesiastical authority for their
legitimation, but on God himself,
through the mediumof the Grail.
Albrecht also makes it plain that this
ideal realmhas no place in the Europe
of the 13
th
century: as he relates, the
Grail, theTemple and its community
have been forced to leave Salvaterre for
the mythical kingdomof Prester John
in the East.
Ludwig IV, the founder of Ettal,
faced the same problems as those which
had beset the Germany of the Great
Interregnum: rival rulers and bitterly
antagonistic popes. He was elected
King of Germany in 1314, and with
that became King of the Romans, a
title customarily adopted by the Holy
Roman Emperor prior to his imperial
coronation. Fromthe beginning of his
reign, however, he faced debilitating
FT303 77
www.forteantimes.com
NOTES
1. Hyacinth
Holland: Kaiser
Ludwig der
Bayer und sein
Stift zu Ettal,
Munich, 1860,
p31.
FuRThER
REAdING
SR Wilson:
“The Grail
Utopia in
Southern
Germany,”
in Temenos
Academy
Review 14
(2011), pp138-
158.
The statue
was reputed to
have Grail-like
healing powers
dETAILS
Kaiser-Ludwig-
Platz 1
82488 Ettal,
Germany
08822 74-0
http://abtei.
kloster-ettal.de/
ABOVE: A
painting in the
monastery
shows Ludwig’s
ancounter with
the mysterious
monk who
instructed him
to build the
church at Ettal.
FT FT
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ortean Times is a monthly
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reader
info
JULY 1973
Most UK papers this month followed the farce
that was the rediscovery of Atlantis by the Ancient
Mediterranean Research Association (AMRA),
sponsored by Pepperdine University, Los Angeles.
Led by AMRA founder Maxine Asher, who taught
at Pepperdine, the expedition – which included 70
members who had ‘donated’ around £1,000 each for
the privilege, and her AMRA co-founder Dr Julian Nava,
a history professor from California State University
(later appointed Ambassador to Mexico by Jimmy
Carter in 1980) – intended to scuba dive down the
Spanish coast from Cadiz.
On leaving New York for Cadiz on the 6
th
, Asher
announced to the press: “I simply know we will fnd
Atlantis because I am psychic. O God, how strong
the vibrations are these days!” She also said most of
her ‘students’ were psychic too and would be getting
six credits each as part of their studies. Two weeks
later, Asher announced their discovery of long-lost
Atlantis; there was “evidence of roads and columns
in the exact place described by the Greek philosopher
Plato.” These subterranean ruins, including walls,
were “95ft [29m] down and 14-16 miles [23-26km]
out” and vanished 14,000 years ago. Dr Nava was
more cautious when questioned, saying simply that
more details would be given when the photographs
had been studied.
Suddenly, the Spanish police stepped in, halting
further exploration and saying the requisite permits
were “incorrectly applied for”. They also told the
press that it was “impossible” that AMRA had found
anything new as the area was “well known” to be full
of Roman ruins. Dr Egerton Sykes (then one of the
foremost UK Atlantologists) turned up, saying this
need not have anything to do with Atlantis but, he
believed, Asher’s fnd could be of a city or town more
than 8,000 years old from a time before the last
change in sea level.
Now the story gets more bizarre. Mrs Asher
couldn’t be found and (said Newsweek) Dr Nava
had resigned from AMRA. Newsweek labelled her “a
part-time mystic” whose mission in life came during
an earth tremor in 1971 when “a book on Atlantis
tumbled from her bookshelf”. Her ‘students’ are
described as “two dozen mid-fortyish divorcees and
widows”. An archæologist assigned to AMRA by the
Spanish Ministry of Education claimed to have seen
a PR statement about the discovery “two days before
the alleged fnd was made” – and there were doubts
that any dives were made at all in the area. No
wonder Asher fed (abandoning her students) and Dr
Nava abandoned ship! When Newsweek tracked her
down, Asher was in Dublin, preparing to search off
the Irish coast with a new group of Irish students.
Jason Colavito, who blogs as a “skeptical
xenoarchæologist”, has an interesting archive of the
US State Department’s telegrams concerning the
AMRA expedition (jasoncolavito.com/atlantis-discovery-
telegrams.html), which led to a genuine “international
incident” requiring intervention by Kissinger and Nixon
(to whom Asher appealed for aid). She had asked
the State Department to secure permissions for
the team to enter Spain. This was refused by Spain
on 3
rd
July, but she went ahead anyway. It seems
that Franco’s fascist government believed the AMRA
team to be spies because of the US government’s
advocacy. Colavito writes that Asher continues to
maintain that she and her group were persecuted “to
hide their discovery of Atlantis, with support from ‘the
Jews’ and Catholics.” The Wiki page on her says she
claims “that there were murder attempts, and that
at one point she was forced to jump from a moving
car to evade kidnappers.” All due, no doubt, to the
machinations of the evil Atlanteans. FT1:13
JULY 1993
A newspaper in Tadzhikistan drew attention to
the coal fres that have been burning under Ravat
Mountain for over 3,000 years. Clouds of black ash
and super-heated gasses are seen rising from cracks
in the side of the mountain. The subterranean fre
was noted by Pliny the Elder in AD 50. FT73:23
JULY 2003
A 73-year-old Taiwanese woman complained that she
had suffered pain for the last 53 years whenever she
had sex. Finally, Dr Chen Yi Jen of the Tri-Services
Hospital conducted a CT scan. He found and removed
a rusty sewing needle lodged in her vagina. It seems
the unnamed woman had given birth in 1949 by
cæsarian during which the midwife lost the needle
used to stitch up the incision. “She looked for it but
didn’t fnd it and later forgot about it,” said Dr Chen.
FT178:10
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