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 Fortean Times 351
strange days

CONTENTS
Squirrels wreak havoc, Trump simulacra, Hadron fried stone
marten, puzzle of Planet Nine, asparagus prophetess, Tarzan
of Oz, dinosaur brain, vegetable aphrodisiacs, fairy rescue
gone wrong, table turning returns – and much more.

05 THE CONSPIRASPHERE 16 GHOSTWATCH

the world of strange phenomena 12
13
ARCHAEOLOGY
CLASSICAL CORNER
21
25
MYTHCONCEPTIONS
FAIRIES AND FOLKLORE
14 SCIENCE 26 THE UFO FILES
features
COVER STORY

30 TAMÁM SHUD: THE MYSTERY OF

AUSTRALIA’S UNKNOWN MAN
NATIONAL MUSEUMS NORTHERN IRELAND COLLECTION ULSTER

On 1 December 1948, a man’s body was found on the

beach of an Adelaide suburb. Who he was and how he died
have remained a mystery for nearly 70 years, despite a
trail of bizarre and tantalising clues. ROY BAINTON re-opens
Australia’s weirdest cold case file.
36 ANCIENT ASSASSINS?
BARRY BALDWIN sifts through the evidence at a pair of
classical crime scenes in an attempt to figure out who
done what to whom in a saga of political conspiracy and
family plots that makes Game of Thrones look like The
Waltons...
40 THE TAKING OF DOCTOR MOORE... AND HIS RETURN
Levitation and fairy abduction in 17th century Ireland 40 THE TAKING OF DR MOORE... AND HIS
RETURN
As he embarks upon a comprehensive survey of historical
claims for levitation and other forms of supernatural
transportation, BOB RICKARD will be posting occasional
bulletins on some interesting cases, such as this
fascinating fairy abduction from 17th century Ireland.

forum

55 Endangered portals of mystery by Phil Baker

CAPUCINE DESLOUIS

56 The Chascomús teleportation hoax by Dr Roberto E

GETTY IMAGES

Banchs and Richard Heiden

28 LA PHANTASMA 10 SOLITARY PURSUITS reports

Terror by night in a South Texas town Hermit wanted

28 BLASTS FROM THE PAST

No 67. La Phantasma
48 STRANGE STATESMEN
No 18. Meet the man of tomorrow
52 BUILDING A FORTEAN LIBRARY
No 19. In bed with an old hag
76 TALES FROM THE ILLUSTRATED POLICE NEWS
No 55. The Lincolnshire Yeomanry Outrage

regulars
GETTY IMAGES

02 EDITORIAL 78 READER INFO

36 ANCIENT ASSASSINS? 6 BEWARE SQUIRRELS! 59 REVIEWS 79 PHENOMENOMIX
Alexander: murderer, victim or both? Rodents on a rampage
71 LETTERS 80 STRANGE DEATHS

COVER IMAGE: HAZEL LEE SANTINO

FT351 1
www.forteantimes.com
 Fortean times

editorial
editor
dAVid SUttoN
([email protected])
foUNdiNg editorS
bob rickArd ([email protected])
pAUl SieVekiNg ([email protected])
Art director
etieNNe gilfillAN
([email protected])
book reViewS editor
VAl SteVeNSoN
([email protected])

Plus ça change...
reSideNt cArtooNiSt
HUNt emerSoN
SUbScriptioN eNqUirieS ANd bAck iSSUeS
www.subsinfo.co.uk
[email protected]

FORTEAN TIMES is produced for Dennis Publishing

WorSt nEWSPAPEr the glass at our room where our meeting was
by Wild Talents Ltd. Postal address: Fortean Times, This issue, we bid a fond farewell to our long- going on with so much anger. He then broke
PO BOX 71602, London E17 0QD. running series of ‘Strange and Sensational through the glass and started running after
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Jan Bondeson has trawled through hundreds and shouting obscenities. It was absolutely
Change your address, renew your subscription
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JAmeS mANgAN andrea_mason@
james.mangan@ dennis.co.uk invite you to sit I’ll say a prayer
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SeNior SAleS execUtiVe back and enjoy for him, not a full-
export circUlAtioN brAdleY beAVer the finest example prayer though, just
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REST OF THE WORLD £55; US $89.99 ($161.98 for 24 issues) on him. In Downey’s mind, once the dolphin was PaUL SiEVEkiNG

DEnniS PUbLiSHinG LiMitED safe from this imaginary fire, then his job as a
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Why fortean?
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ExEcUtivE DirEctor KERIN O’CONNOR
cHiEF ExEcUtivE JAMES TYE real fire, and Downey hadn’t been on acid, we
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SEE PAGE 78
Printed in the UK. ISSN: 0308 5899
© Fortean Times: FEBRUARY 2017 was just standing there, naked, staring through
2 FT351
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LISTEN
IT JUST MIGHT CHANGE YOUR LIFE

L I V E | C AT C H U P | O N D E M A N D
 a digest of the worldwide weird

strangedays
The airman vanishes... April Oliver, 21, discovered
she was expecting his child,
something the airman was not
aware of. The pair had met
via a dating website and had
The hunt for the missing Corrie McKeague continues without success been together for about five
months. Miss Oliver said she
was on holiday in America when
Fortean Times has occasionally the “Horseshoe”, McKeague went missing, but
reported mysterious behind Greggs, returned to the UK as soon as she
disappearances, some of which at 3:24am. The heard the news.
later turn out to have sinister area is closed off By the end of December, the
explanations. For example, by buildings and hunt for the airman had taken
Lucy Partington vanished on 29 the rooftops have more than 6,000 hours and
December 1973 while waiting been searched cost over £26,000. Thousands
at a bus stop in Cheltenham and analysed by of frames of CCTV footage
[FT6:3]. Twenty years later, we police. It has been had been trawled through. The
learned that the 21-year-old proven that an Find Corrie Facebook page
student, a cousin of Martin individual cannot quickly gained more than 80,000
Amis, had been picked up leave the area on followers and there was a huge
by Fred and Rosemary West, foot without being campaign on Twitter to locate
murdered and buried under seen on CCTV, him. On 6 January, a team of
their brothel-cum-abattoir in but McKeague private investigators, paid for
Gloucester. And in 1996 we was not caught on by online crowd funding, began
reported the disappearance camera again. inquiries on behalf of the family
of two teenagers, An Marchal When he didn’t to complement the Suffolk Police
and Eefje Lambrecks, after turn up to parade investigation.
attending a hypnotism show on 26 September, Later in January it emerged
in Blankenberge, Belgium RAF Honington that in 2014 McKeague had
suffolk constabulary

[FT93:10]. They later turned out reported his joined the Fab Swingers website
to be victims of the Belgian serial disappearance and had posted messages
killer Marc Dutroux [FT95:14, to police. The expressing a desire to meet
98:24]. base would both male and female couples
At 3.24am on Saturday, ordinarily report aged between 18 and 60. His
24 September 2016, a CCTV a serviceman interests included adult parties,
camera recorded airman Corrie ABOVE: corrie Mckeague has been AWOL, but McKeague’s blindfolds, dogging, role-play,
McKeague, 23, walking into missing since 24 september 2016. disappearance was completely threesomes and voyeurism. His
an alley in Bury St Edmunds, out of character. One suggestion mother, Nicola Urquhart, later
Suffolk. It was the last that headed to the Wetherspoon was that he might have been admitted that her son’s girlfriend
anyone saw of him. McKeague, Corn Exchange pub, and later in one of the bins at the April also had an account on
from Dunfermline, Fife, was to the Flex nightclub on St “Horseshoe” area, which was the website, and that they
posted to RAF Honington, Andrew’s Street, a minute’s then taken to a landfill site. On were both seeing other people.
Suffolk, in October 2013, and walk away. Here, doorman 4 October it was revealed that Whether this had any bearing
later became a gunner and Will Hook said McKeague had hours after he was last seen his on the airman’s disappearance
team medic in No 2 Sqn, RAF “consumed enough alcohol” to Microsoft Lumia 435 mobile is anyone’s guess. At the time
Regiment. On the night he was draw attention to himself and phone was tracked moving 12 of writing, police have started
last seen, he joined friends at the “amicably” agreed to leave at miles (19km) away to Barton to excavate a 26ft (8m)-deep
So Bar on Langton Place in Bury 1am. Mills, where there is a landfill landfill site at Milton just north
St Edmunds, about nine miles He bought a kebab and site. Police searched a refuse of Cambridge, which they say
(14km) from their air base. They chips from Pizza Mamma Mia, lorry after finding its route could take until the end of April.
joined in a song with musician where he seemed “happy” and matched the movements of the Since the last known location of
Nick Lowe, who said McKeague played rock, paper, scissors with device, but the weight of the McKeague’s phone was 15 miles
was “quite a regular” in all of the a stranger. He took a nap for lorry’s load was 15kg (33lb) (24km) away in Barton Mills,
local bars. He is 5ft 10ins (1.78m) about two hours in a doorway of – too light to have contained the reason for this dig is unclear.
tall, of medium build, with short electrical store Hughes on the McKeague. As a result, the lorry www.suffolk.police.uk/news/
light brown hair, and that night corner of Brentgovel Street and was released and the landfill site missing-persons/corrie-mckeague;
was wearing a light-pink Ralph St John’s Street, and at 3:08am not searched. The phone has still BBC News, 28 Dec 2016; BBC
Lauren shirt, white jeans and a forwarded a photo to a friend not been found. News, 9 Jan; D.Telegraph, 19 Jan;
pair of brown suede Timberland from his phone. He turned right Two weeks after McKeague’s Sunday Mirror, 22 Jan’ D.Mirror,
boots. At 11.30 the group into a loading bay area, known as disappearance, his girlfriend 13 Feb 2017.

4 ft351
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 solitarY some right what’s iN
pursuits cock-ups store?
The Snow Aphrodisiac Asparamancer
Guardian and vegetables reveals all plus
other hermits in and mustard more Baba Vanga
the news suppositories prophecies
page 10 page 13 page 20

The Conspirasphere Extra! Extra!

Climate change conspiracy or just environmentally friendly recycling?
Noel rooNeY surveys the latest not-so-new news swirling around the Conspirasphere...
FT’s FavouriTe headlines
FroM around The world
It appears that President trump (or his this species of recycling is all too common
very interesting press secretary and tweet in the world of conspiracy theory; it acts as
composer sean spicer) was wrong about a reinforcement for views already solidified,
the chinese having created global warming and at the same time proposes a false
so as to eviscerate the us car industry; of novelty for memes lost and forgotten in the D.Telegraph, 5 Oct 2015.
course, they were only advancing a theory endless swirl of faux-shocking revelations
of a kind. now shocking new evidence has that clutter that area of cyberspace reserved
emerged to prove (there is a certain segment for those Who know What’s really Going
of the conspirasphere that really loves that on. but it’s not unique to that world; the
word) that the un, in fact, invented the mainstream media, more often at the
global warming hoax as a sure-fire way to tabloid end, regularly promote old stories
defeat capitalism. the Executive secretary as if they are new. the latter do it because,
of the un framework convention on climate increasingly, news outlets lack the staff and
change, christiana figueres, made the resources to fact-check properly, to the point
shocking revelation at a press conference in where, arguably, ‘the news’ is a tenuous term
brussels: “this is the first time in the history in a theatre of events that does not require
of mankind that we are setting ourselves verity to engage us.
the task of intentionally, within a defined In the conspirasphere, few news outlets
period of time to change [sic] the economic have ever had either the resources, or
development model that has been reigning the compulsion, to verify the material they Sun, 1 Nov 2015.
for at least 150 years, since the industrial broadcast. It is fractal grist for a partisan mill;
revolution.” and so many of the people who read and
shocking – or not actually that shocking, disseminate this stuff describe their Internet
or that new. the excited flutter of discovery browsing as ‘research’ that the alt-media
on a broad sweep of online sources turns could be forgiven for assuming that all those Calgary Herald, 13 Nov 2015
out, on slightly closer inspection, to be a little researchers will happily do their own fact-
short on fact-checking, and caught in a bit of checking. If conspiracy theory is migrating
a time warp. I tracked the story from rense into the mainstream, it is fair to say that
to a number of news sites (‘news’ here is journalistic ideals of the tabloid variety are
used in its strictly post-truth context) before regularly making the return journey.
discovering that the hot headline was in fact some of the newer news on the alt-right
from an article originally posted in 2015. the wires is beginning to take on the appearance
woman featured in the story as the Executive of a severely welt-ridden equine corpse.
secretary of the un framework convention Pizzagate ought to have died with the
on climate change, christiana figueres, did clinton presidential campaign – but, like Independent, 15 Oct 2015.
hold that post in 2015, and did, apparently, the dish itself, this one is just too tasty to
make the statement quoted in the news walk away from. now comes a hot tip from
stories, in february 2015, and in brussels, at an anonymous fbI insider that arrests are
a news conference. imminent; we’re just waiting for Jeff sessions,
but two years have slipped by, and Mr trump’s not universally approved pick for
spicer’s chinese car saboteurs have slipped attorney General, to take office, and then Bristol Post, 6 Oct 2015.
in, and someone in the press office appears the satanic Democrats will get their just
to have slipped out for a coffee and returned desserts. unless the un gets its insidious
two years late. In the intervening time, Ms act together, and capitalism falls first.
figueres has been replaced (by Patricia www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/
Espinosa, a Mexican, and therefore either: climate/global-warming-is-about-destroying-
safely on the other side of the Wall; or quite capitalism/; www.unric.org/en/latest-un-
clearly another damn communist) and the buzz/29623-figueres-first-time-the-world-
un, despite the declared revolutionary goals, economy-is-transformed-intentionally; http://
has failed to dent the bastion of capitalism. yournewswire.com/fbi-pizzagate-arrests-
and it’s been snowing in Dubai. washington/ Irish Times, 25 Nov 2015.

ft351 5
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 strangedays

SIDELINES...
TERRORIST
MYSTICS
On 27 October, police in
BEWARE SQUIRRELS! Bad-ass rodents wreak
havoc across the world

Georgia arrested Michael • On 7 December 2016, a squirrel Stuxnet's destruction of Iranian • Delinquent grey fox squirrels
Mancil, 30, and James Dryden climbed on an overhead line uranium enrichment centrifuges attacked eight people in
Jr., 22, confiscating a massive and fried, causing almost 1,100 and disruption to Ukrainian northwest Novato, Marin County,
arsenal. Both men confessed customers in the Huntingdon area power plants being the most high California, in late 2015. One leapt
that God had told them to of Cambridgeshire to lose their profile – was tiny compared to the from a tree and onto a man’s
blow up the aurora research electricity supply for nearly two “cyber-threat” posed by animals. head as he did yard work on 13
facility (HAARP) owned by the hours. BBC News, 8 Dec 2016. Most of the animal “attacks” were November; five days later, one
University of Alaska Fairbanks The pesky rodents have an on power cables, but jellyfish entered an Elementary School
“so souls could be released”. impressive record for sabotage. In shut down a Swedish nuclear and attacked a student. On the
Conspiracy theories of mind May 1980, they gnawed through power plant in 2013 by clogging day after Thanksgiving, Richard
control have long swirled circuit wires, setting off air-raid the pipes that carry cool water to Williams, 78, was pottering
around the facility. adn.com, 2 sirens in Toronto [FT34:26]. On 1 the turbines. Eight deaths have around his garage when a squirrel
Nov 2016. August 1994, a squirrel shut down been attributed to animal attacks scampered towards him. “He
PENGUIN PUZZLE the second largest stock market on infrastructure, including six charged me and jumped, and
Officials at Calgary Zoo in in the US for 34 minutes when it caused by squirrels downing from then on, the battle started,”
Canada were perplexed chewed through power lines near power lines that then struck he said.The squirrel turned
when they found seven of the the Nasdaq computer centre at people on the ground.Thomas Williams’s head, arm and legs
zoo’s 22 Humboldt penguins Trumbull, Connecticut [FT78:20]. only collected reports compiled bloody and smashed his glasses.
drowned in the Penguin Plunge In October 1994, a squirrel cut the in English and admitted that he “He was really vicious. He was
exhibit on 8 December. Some- power to Derby City Hospital and was probably only capturing “a clawing and scratching,” he
thing might have sparked a more than 1,100 houses when it fraction” of animal-related power said. “Every time I’d get him off,
panic, preventing the birds climbed a power line and touched cuts worldwide. BBC News, he’d jump back up again.” His
from being able to surface for an 11,000-volt cable [FT84:14]. 17 Jan 2017. 83-year-old wife Norma heard
air; unfortunately, the holding Squirrel saboteurs were very busy his screams and raced to his aid,
area where the penguins were in 1996, blacking out the village swinging a broom. Still the attack
found was not monitored by
cameras. BBC News, 9 Dec
of Hollingwood in Derbyshire
in June, 1,290 houses in Stroud,
Six others continued. “And then he jumped
her,” Williams said. “I was able to
2016.
CRASH LANDING
Gloucestershire, in July, and 800
houses in West Lothian, Scotland, emerged from grab him by the tail, threw him on
the garage floor and he seemed
A man discovered in the
Ajogodo River in Sapele, Delta
in September. All three rodents
laid down their lives [FT96:14]. a hedge and stunned.”The squirrel then
raced off and a neighbour took

attacked him
State, Nigeria claimed to be a
the shocked couple to hospital.
wizard flying from Benin airport • The real threat to global critical All the attacks were in the same
to the UK. He said: “I was infrastructure is neighbourhood,
flying in with what is known in not enemy states or suggesting the same
the physical realm as ‘Plantain organisations but crazed animal was to
Leaf,’ my expensive private jet squirrels, according blame. Marin (CA)
in the coven realm. It crashed to one security Independent Journal,
me into this bridge, when the expert. Cris Thomas 2 Dec; CBS SF Bay Area,
fuel in it finished. My members has been tracking 4 Dec 2015.
will be here tonight to refuel it power cuts caused by
for me, so I can continue my animals since 2013. • A politician
journey to the UK.” naij.com, Squirrels, birds, rats who declared war
27 Oct 2016. and snakes have on squirrels was
been responsible hospitalised on 13
for more than 1,700 November 2016 after
power cuts affecting one of the creatures
nearly five million darted between the
people. Squirrels spokes of his bike's
topped the list front wheel. City of
with 879 ‘attacks’, Chicago alderman
followed by: birds Howard Brookins Jr
PeTeR MACDIARMID / GeTTy IMAGeS

(434), snakes (83), lost several teeth and

raccoons (72),
rats (36), martens LEFT: Squirrels have
(22), frogs (3). He been responsible for
concluded that the everything from common
damage done by assault to sabotage and
MARTIN ROSS

real cyber-attacks – cybercrime.

6 FT351
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 strangedays

SIDELINES...
FRUITY BUST-UP
Sarah Orange, 22, overheard
her boyfriend, Themba
Banana, 29, whispering into
his phone and accused him
of talking to another woman.
Banana then threw a plant
pot that hit Orange. Banana,
from Preston, pleaded guilty to
assault and was sentenced to
100 hours unpaid work. Sun,
16 Nov 2016.
STRAIGHT TO HELL
Fearless passengers took
Flight 666 to HeL on Friday the
13th of January 2017. Finnair
Flight Ay666 took off from Co-
penhagen heading for Helsinki,
which has the airport baggage
code of HeL. The aircraft was
believed to be 13 years old.
FACeBOOK

Hexakosioihexekontahexapho-
bia is the name for the phobia
of the number 666, while the
ABOVE: Alderman Howard Brookins Jr was thrown from his bike when a squirrel became caught in the spokes of his front wheel.
fear of Friday the 13th is called
Paraskevidekatriaphobia, from
needed surgery for a broken nose brazen rodents had also tried to and blindness. Mycobacterium the Greek paraskeví (‘Friday’),
and fractured skull after he went bite her little girl. Finley spent lepræ, found in a group of red and dekatria (‘thirteen’). mirror.
flying over the handlebars when three hours in hospital having his squirrels living on Brownsea co.uk, rt.com, 13 Jan 2017.
the squirrel struck. He wanted wounds bandaged. D.Mirror, 12 Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset,
to get the dead animal stuffed Jan; Sun, 14 Jan 2017. is closely related to the leprosy
OPERATIC LAST RITES
as a reminder of his ordeal, but that affected Europeans during A powder sprinkled into the
orchestra pit during the sec-
police had thrown it away.The • Three squirrel breeders died mediæval times. Many cases of
crash, which killed the animal from encephalitis between ond intermission in Rossini’s
leprosy in the southern United
Guillaume Tell at New york’s
outright and left it lodged in the 2011 and 2013, after a virus was States are zoonotic (transmitted
Metropolitan Opera House
wheel, happened a few weeks passed to them by the rodents. by an animal, in this case an
on 15 October triggered a
after he had called on the city to During an inquest, a new strain armadillo) in origin. However,
terror scare. Visitors feared
tackle the “aggressive” creatures. of the virus was found in the leprosy is extremely hard to an anthrax attack and Met
He told the Chicago Tribune: “I men’s brain samples and in catch, close to 95 per cent of officials had to cancel the rest
can think of no other reason for the variegated squirrel.This humans are naturally immune, of the opera. However, several
this squirrel’s actions than that suggested it had spread from the and the disease is completely audience members said a
it was like a suicide bomber, rodents, which bit or scratched treatable with antibiotics.The man had told them he was
getting revenge.” On 21 October at least two of the three men in last British case was in 1798, but there to spread the ashes of a
he had addressed a city council Germany.Variegated squirrels there were 200,000 new cases friend, his mentor in the opera.
meeting alerting the authorities are an exotic breed from South worldwide in 2015. popsci.com, D.Mail, 31 Oct 2016.
to the amount of money wasted America sometimes kept as 10 Nov; D.Mail, D.Telegraph,
by squirrels chewing their way house pets. Sun, 11 July 2015. 11 Nov 2016.
through people’s rubbish bins.
Washington Post, 22 Nov; Eve • In a paper published in Science • Black squirrels – now allegedly
Standard, 24 Nov 2016. last November, researchers poised to oust grey squirrels just
announced that they had as the latter have displaced reds
• A pack of fat squirrels is identified two strains of leprosy- – have been observed in the UK
terrorising visitors to Tehidy causing bacteria – Mycobacterium at least since 1993 [FT77:55]. In
County Park in Cornwall. Sophie lepræ and Mycobacterium January 1997, Archway in London
Renouf, 23, and her three-year- lepromatosis – in populations of was being terrorised by a mutant
old son Finley were set upon as red squirrels around the UK. It strain of squirrel, thought to be
the little boy reached out to feed is only the third animal, after grey squirrel-rat hybrids and
one, and six others emerged from humans and armadillos, known nicknamed ‘rattels’ or ‘squirrats’
a hedge and attacked him. “He to be susceptible to the disease. [FT97:8].
was screaming,” said Ms Renouf. While not life-threatening,
“There was blood pouring out of leprosy can lead to skin lesions, For more on squirrel
MARTIN ROSS

his hand.” A friend told her the nerve damage in the extremities, delinquency, see FT335:9.

FT351 7
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 strangedays

SIDELINES...
AIR FARMING
More than £500,000 worth of
Hadron fried marten
pure Australian air has been
sold to Chinese and Indian New museum exhibition explores unusual animal deaths
customers in high-pollution cit-
ies. “Mobile air farming units”
suck in air and fill pressurised
canisters which sell for about
A$9.45 each by companies
called Green & Clean and
Breathe-OZ. (Queensland)
Courier Mail, 16 Nov 2016.
GOLD IN PIANO
Shortly before Christmas, a
“substantial” hoard of gold

ROTTeRDAM NATURAL HISTORy MUSeUM

“artefacts” (mostly coins)
was found hidden inside
an old Broadwood upright
piano, when its new owners
in Shropshire had it retuned
and repaired. It was thought
the treasure was deliberately
hidden more than a century
ago. The piano was sold in
1906 to a music shop in Saf- ABOVE: This stone dead stone marten collided with the Large Hadron Collider. BELOW: The domino sabotaging sparrow.
fron Walden, essex. In 1983
it was purchased by a family The remains of a thoroughly surprising,” said Moeliker. “Just a world record attempt; a
in the area, who later moved cooked stone marten (Martes before the stone marten we seagull that died after it flew
to Shropshire. BBC News, 12 foina) are now on display at had a fish that lodged itself in into an ambulance; a mallard
Jan 2017. the Natural History Museum in the throat of a man.” The man duck known in the scientific
REGO MEETS THE Rotterdam, Netherlands, in an had deliberately swallowed the community for its documented
REAPER exhibition called “Dead Animal catfish as part of a game with history of homosexual necrophilia
In an interview last October, Tales”. On 20 November last, the friends — they had reportedly [FT178:12]; and a hedgehog
the painter Paula Rego, 81, stone marten hopped over a fence worked up from goldfish to larger, that died after it put its head
recalled the night when, just at the £5.6 billion Large Hadron more exotic species. However, he into a McDonald’s McFlurry
as she was falling asleep, Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, didn’t know it was an armoured cup and couldn’t escape. And
she heard footsteps “and touched a transformer and was catfish. When it entered his then there’s the smallest critter
the door opened and Death electrocuted by 18,000 volts. The throat, it raised spines to defend in the collection. A few years
came in. So I rushed to my LHC, which accelerates particles itself, which did not save its life ago, Moeliker started collecting
parents’ room but Death came to near the speed of light to study but did put the 28-year-old man pubic lice after two British
after me and got into bed with the fiery origins of the Universe, in hospital for a week. doctors alerted him that the
the three of us.” Asked what lost power and shut down. “It’s The Rotterdam exhibition animal might be endangered by
Death looked like, she said: “It a fine example of what the also displays the sparrow that habitat destruction associated
looked like it does: a skeleton exhibition is all about,” said Kees was shot to death after knocking with modern personal grooming
with a scythe, draped in a Moeliker, the museum director. over 23,000 dominoes in the habits. Guardian, 28 Jan; npr.org,
hood.” telegraph.co.uk, 2 Oct “It shows that animal and human Netherlands in 2005, sabotaging 1 Feb 2017.
2016. life collide more and more, with
dramatic results for both… Every
hair of this creature was burned.
MARTIN ROSS

The whiskers were burned to the

bare minimum and especially
the feet, the legs, they were
cooked. They were darker,
like roasted.”
This wasn’t the first time
ROTTeRDAM NATURAL HISTORy MUSeUM

a marten has sabotaged

the collider. In April 2016, an
animal originally thought to
be a weasel and later guessed
to be a marten, which is in the
weasel family, appeared to have
gnawed through a power cable,
closing the collider for a week.
“The things we get are so

8 FT351
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 strangedays

Omnipresent President SIDELINES...

FELINE SAVIOUR
While walking in the mountains
near Gimmelwald, Switzerland,
Trump found in mediæval minster and on the Red Planet a Hungarian hiker sprained
his ankle, became disorien-
tated and found his intended
route blocked. Fortunately, he
A GROTESQUE PRES?
encountered a local black and
A 14th century gargoyle
white cat that guided him back
(pictured at right) that’s
to safety. “She kept looking
a dead ringer for Donald
at me to follow [and] led me
Trump has been spotted straight to the path that would
at Southwell Minster in take me back down to the val-
Nottinghamshire. Strictly ley,” he said. It transpired that
speaking it’s a grotesque, the cat belonged to the owners
not a gargoyle. A grotesque of a nearby hostel. independ-
describes this type of carving ent.co.uk, 1 Sept 2016,
in general, whereas a gargoyle
specifically means something YULETIDE WIT
with a waterspout designed Jacqueline Ross, 49, stole baby
to take rainwater away from Jesus from a Nativity scene in
a roof. The grotesque was Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on 4
spotted and tweeted by the December and dropped the por-
writer and broadcaster Samira celain figurine off at a hospital
Ahmed, before the Donald with a note that read, in part:
“Child has broken right foot
was elected. It is one of 280
which is been (sic) neglected.
at the Minster, and is located
Parents Joseph and Mary Christ
at the pulpitum, a screen that
got a warning.” Police didn’t see
separates the nave from the
the joke. Ross was identified
choir. Nottingham Post, D.Mail,
SAMIRA AHMeD / TWITTeR

from surveillance video and

3 Feb 2017. jailed for theft and institutional
vandalism. [AP] 16 Dec 2016.
TRUMP ON MARS!
A less convincing simulacrum PALACE GHOSTS
appeared in a photograph Queen Silvia of Sweden,
of Mars taken by NASA’s 73, says that Drottningholm
Opportunity rover in 2010, Palace where she resides is
but was not identified with haunted. “There are small
Donald Trump until August friends... ghosts,” she said.
2016. As the Daily Mail report “They’re all very friendly but
said, “Some may just see a you sometimes feel that
jagged rock cloaked in a black you’re not completely alone.
shadow”, while “some believe It’s really exciting, but you
don’t get scared.” The palace
[Trump] could be linked to or
was built in the 1600s on
is a creature not of this world”.
Lovon Island in Stockholm,
Scott C Waring, described
and is the permanent resi-
as a “well-known Martian dence of King Carl XVI Gustaf
researcher”, wrote on his UFO and Queen Silvia. Princess
Sightings Daily blog: “The Christina, the king’s sister,
face, nose and hair looked so backs the claims of haunting.
much like Trump’s that I had [AFP] 3 Jan 2016.
to share it with you.”
Perhaps the President plans JUST A JELLY
to check it out for himself. A concerned Australian man
There has been speculation submitted a “bagged and
that he is entertaining the tagged circular object” to police
idea of a mission to the Red in Maroochydore, Queens-
Planet; in a recent meeting land, in November, under the
with Elon Musk, founder of mistaken belief it was a breast
SpaceX and product architect implant and possible evidence
of a drowning, or possibly a
for Tesla Inc., he reportedly
murder. The object turned out
discussed Mars exploration
UFO SIGHTINGS

to a blubber jellyfish that had

as well as public-private
lost its tentacles. BBC News,
partnerships. D.Mail, 1 Aug
30 Nov 2016.
2016; Daily Caller, 9 Feb 2017.

FT351 9
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strangedays

Solitary pursuits
“The trend I see is that we’re getting
permanent snow pack later, and we get to
bare ground sooner,” he said. His claims
have been labelled as biased by climate
change deniers, but he wasn’t out to prove
anything when he first started meticulously
A handful of hermits, from Austria to Australia recording data. No one can accuse him of
having a hidden agenda because he started
his project long before people began talking
australian tarzan about global warming. Recently, barr was
Since 1955, the star athlete son of a former the subject of a short film called The Snow
Georgian princess and a master at Sydney’s Guardian (www.daysedge.com/film/2016/11/
Shore School roamed alone in the wilderness the-snow-guardian) and appears in the
of northern Queensland, “testing” himself documentary The End of Snow (www.
against some of the harshest terrain in the endofsnow.com/). odditycentral.com, 9 Jan
world. In his younger days he wore no more 2016.
than a loincloth and was burnt almost black
by the tropical sun. Michael Peter Fomenko
saw himself as a modern-day Odysseus, and hermit wanted
grew obsessed with building and sailing There are no neighbours and the views
dugout canoes. In 1959, he survived a are stunning, and if you can live without
perilous 600km (373-mile) voyage in such a heating, running water, electricity and
dugout from Cooktown to Merauke, in today’s Internet then why not apply for a job as a
Indonesian province of Papua. He lived hermit? Such is the position that Saalfelden
among remote Cape York Aborigines, killed near Salzburg in Austria is seeking to fill,
wild boar and crocodiles with a machete, inhabiting alone one of central Europe’s
fought off sharks with his bare hands, last hermitages, built into a cliff above the
covered himself with ash at night to ward off town. “Since its creation 350 years ago,
mosquitoes, and vanished like a ghost at any ABOVE: Michael Peter Fomenko in full Tarzan mode. the Saalfelden hermitage was inhabited
signs of officialdom. He was known as Tarzan, FACING PAGE: Gottfried Scholenateuer, the bell every year,” said priest Alois Moser. “But
the King of the Coral Sea, or the Wild Man of ringing hermit of Saalfelden, photographed in 1955. we don’t have a successor to the last
Wujal-Wujal – and for many Australians he hermit.” According to the job description,
was a living frontier legend. Guardian. bar first came to Gothic in 1972 the successful candidate should have a
News of Fomenko first reached FT in as an environmental science student doing “connection to Christian belief” and be “at
1981 [FT36:13]. From about 1990 until quite water chemistry research. He liked the quiet peace with themselves” at 1,400m (4,600ft)
recently, he was living in bush hideouts south life so much that he never left. He began the above sea level.
of Cairns. He emerged occasionally to jog to winter of 1974 camping in a tent, not ideal Applicants should not expect complete
a nearby town for supplies, his trademark in a place where snow reaches 25ft (7.6m) seclusion, however. The hermitage gets
sugar bag over his shoulder, sparking waves a year. Luckily, the owner of an abandoned a steady stream of visitors coming to
of “Tarzan sightings” among his Internet mining shack let him move in, and it became “enjoy the view, to pray and to talk,” the
followers. In 2012 all sightings ceased, and his home for the next eight years, and advert on Saalfelden’s website cautions.
speculation grew that he must have died in the place where he started his impressive “The applicants need to know that the
the bush. Then, in September 2015, news database on snow. The only motivation for his Saalfelden hermit does not lead a lonely
came that he was living permanently at the epic journal was to fight boredom. life. Many people come and want to
Cooinda Aged Care Centre in Gympie, three When the shack burnt down, he found confide in someone. He has to be there for
hours’ drive north of Brisbane. He’s been another place to stay. He only uses them,” said Moser. The previous hermit,
there since late 2012, when he became ill measuring devices of his own invention: a former priest and psychotherapist Thomas
while ‘walking’ to Sydney to visit kinsfolk. marked pole to measure the depth of snow, Fieglmüller, returned to Vienna after just
At 85, Fomenko had taken his solitariness a snowboard to measure daily snowfall, a one season – the hermitage is only open
indoors. He doesn’t speak to other residents hanging butcher’s scale to determine the from April to November – to write. “Life in
in the home, and has refused all requests snow’s density. He notes the first arrival the hermit’s cell is spartan, but the nature
for interviews. (Queensland) Courier-Mail, 24 of animals in the spring, and when the is very beautiful. I met lots of nice people
Aug 2009; (Sydney) Sun-Herald, 3 April 2011; ground first reappears after a snowmelt. and had good conversations,” he said. “But
(Sydney) Morning Herald, 24-215 Nov 2015; In a separate journal, he has kept detailed there was also criticism from apparently
‘Bizarrism’ (199) by Chris Mikul, pp.86-87. See notes about the avalanches he observed in arch-conservative Catholics because I
also FT181:12. the valley, a record which many consider to didn’t have a cowl or a beard… Maybe
be the most comprehensive data on natural I was the wrong person.” Before him, a
avalanches in the world. Benedictine monk lived there for more than
the snow guardian a decade. In 1970 a man fired a shotgun
barr goes weeks at a time without seeing
For the past 40 years, billy barr, 65 – he
HanS EnzwiESEr / BiPS / GETTy iMaGES

another human being, and the only way to at the doors of the hermitage, sending the
insists his name be written with lower case hermit fleeing. The motive turned out to
reach the closest town is by skis. He travels
letters – has been living alone in Gothic, be jealousy – the gunman had applied for
the four miles to Crested Butte about twice
Colorado, a ghost town deserted since the the job himself. One thing to bear in mind
a month to restock supplies, but he’s not a
1920s, passing the time by recording all sorts for those applying to fill the vacancy – by
big fan of social interaction. Put together,
of data, anything he can measure. He never post only; no emails – in time for the 15
his mountains of data paint a clear picture
imagined his hobby would help scientists March deadline: the job is unpaid. [AFP]
of the radical transformation of Colorado’s
better understand climate change and earn D.Telegraph, 15 Jan 2017.
high alpine landscape in the last 40 years.
him a cool superhero name – The Snow

10 FT351
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 FT199 11
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 ARCHÆOLOGY
MATT PATTINSON

PAUL SIEVEKING digs up some amazing discoveries from the age of the dinosaurs, as well as Britain’s earliest
example of town planning and an Anglo-Saxon Christian cemetery, complete with tree trunk coffins.

vessels, collagen, and structures thought to

represent the outer layer of nerve cells, or
cortex. Typically in reptiles, the brain takes up
about half the space in the skull because it is
surrounded by a dense mass of blood vessels
and vascular chambers; but the brain tissue
appears to have been pressed directly against
the skull, suggesting that some dinosaurs
had larger brains than previously thought.
If it was as tightly packed into the skull as it
appears, this creature could have had a brain
three times larger than expected; there again,
the brain might have just collapsed against
the skull as it decayed after death. National
Geographic online, 27 Oct; D.Mail, 28 Oct
2016.

PAX BRITANNICA
What might be Britain’s oldest planned town
has been discovered near Winterbourne
Kingston in Dorset. Dubbed ‘Duropolis’ after
the local tribe, the Durotriges, the 20-acre
LIDA XING

(8-ha) settlement dates to around 100 BC, 70

years earlier than Silchester in Hampshire,
ABOVE: The feathered dinosaur tail trapped, along with some insects, in 99-million-year-old amber. BELOW:
The pebble found on a Sussex beach and now identified as the first fossilised dinosaur brain ever found. which in 2011 was indentified as Britain’s
first pre-Roman planned town. Duropolis
was an open settlement, one of the largest
DINOSAUR TAIL TRAPPED IN AMBER showed that the soft tissue layer around ever found in Britain, with no protective
The fluffy tail of a dinosaur has been found the bones retained traces of ferrous iron – ditches or walls, set in fertile farmland. A
entombed in 99-million-year-old amber. residue from the animal’s blood. BBC News, geophysical survey has revealed at least 200
Chinese palæontologist Lida Xing spotted the 8 Dec; [PA,CNN] newscientist.com, 9 Dec roundhouses. The discovery contradicts the
6.5g specimen, the size of a dried apricot, 2016. prevailing idea that most Iron Age Britons lived
at an amber market in Myitkyina, Kachin in hill forts because of endemic inter-tribal
state, north-eastern Myanmar (Burma), near DINOSAUR BRAIN FOSSIL warfare. D.Telegraph, D.Mirror, 17 July 2015.
the Chinese border. The amber had already A brown pebble 4in (10cm) long, picked up by
been polished for jewellery and the seller fossil hunter Jamie Hiscocks on a beach near TREE TRUNK COFFINS
had thought the trapped specimen was plant Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, in 2004, has now Coffins made of hollowed-out tree trunks
material. On closer inspection, however, been identified as the first fossilised dinosaur have been found at a previously unknown
it turned out to be the tail of a feathered brain ever found. It is thought to have come Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Great Ryburgh in
dinosaur about the size of a sparrow. Lida from the plant-eating Iguanodon, which grew Norfolk, thought to belong to a community
Xing was able to establish where it had come to 30ft (9m) and weighed four to five tons. It of early Christians, suggested by the east-
from by tracking down the amber miner died in a swamp during the early Cretaceous west alignment of the graves, with the
who had originally dug out the specimen. It period, about 133 million years ago, and its heads pointing west. It is the first time such
adds to fossil evidence that many dinosaurs brain was ‘pickled’ (or mineralised) in mud “exceptionally” well-preserved wooden coffins
sported feathers rather than scales. The at the bottom. The fossil retained distinctive dating from the seventh to ninth centuries
findings are published in the December features such as the meninges (a protective AD have been found in England. Anglo-Saxon
issue of Current Biology. Fragments of membrane surrounding the brain), blood coffins rarely survive because the wood rots,
dinosaur-era bird wings have and previous evidence has largely
been found preserved in amber consisted of staining in the ground
before, but this is the first time from decayed wood, as was the case
part of a mummified dinosaur with the Sutton Hoo ship [FT350:12];
skeleton has been discovered. but waterlogged conditions in the
Microscopic examination and Wensum river valley, combined with
CT (computed tomography) acidic sand and alkaline water, made
X-ray scans confirmed that the perfect conditions for preservation.
tail had come from a flightless Some 81 dug-out coffins were
dinosaur and not an early discovered, made from oak trees split
species of bird. It belongs to lengthways, with the body placed in
a young coelurosaurian – a one half and the other used as a lid.
theropod, the large family of There were also six that were plank-
mostly carnivorous two-legged lined, thought to be the remains of
OXFORD UNIVERSITY

beasts to which Tyrannosaurus a more sophisticated type of burial

rex belonged. The feathers involving box-like coffins with straight
suggest it was chestnut brown sides. D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 16 Nov
and white. Chemical analysis 2016.

12 FT351
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 CLASSI CAL
is a relative of carrots and parsnips. All
ranked high on the ancient Get It Up list;
cf. for Tiberius’s erective efforts R Syme’s
delightful ‘Diet on Capri,’ Athenæum 77
(1989), 261-71, also AC Andrews on carrots

CORNER
and parsnips, Classical Philology 44 (1949),
182-96; 55 (1958), 145-52 – all online.
Caligula is supposed to have fed his
senators an exclusively carrot dinner so
that he could watch them “rutting like
FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD COMPILED BY BARRY BALDWIN rabbits”. Some years ago, on Coronation
Street, Mavis surreptitiously fed Derek
parsnips to re-kindle his interest in her – for
209: SOME RIGHT COCK-UPS most men it’d take a lot more than that.
An alternative might be to imitate Curly
in Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn, who
inflamed a girl by shoving a carrot up her
twat. Galen, followed by Thomas Aquinas,
promoted foods that cause farting – It’s an
ill wind....
Not every ancient believed in these
priapic panaceas. Ovid (Art of Love, bk 2
vv415-24) scathingly dismisses a traditional
venereal list of herbs and vegetables as
“hocus-pocus”. Nettles, pepper, and other
urticants are also Ovidian no-nos. He’d have
shivered in agreement with Oribasius’s
warning (Medical Collections, b8 ch39) to
avoid mustard suppositories that burn your
bum – anus horribilis, as Queen E2 almost
lamented.
Petronius’s (Satyricon, ch138) impotent
hero Encolpius, after vainly trying all the
usual herbs and spices – more than go into
Colonel Sanders’s Kentucky Fried Chicken
– is finally cured by an old crone flogging
his genitals with nettles (worse than Bond’s
ordeal by carpet-beater in Casino Royale)
and buggering him with a peppered dildo.
This apparently successful (text becomes
fragmentary) procedure (colloquially
known as ‘pegging’) may have inspired the
climactic scene – with reverse effect – in
GoreVidal’s Myra Breckinridge.
As Al Jolson said in The Jazz Singer,
“You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet.”The Greek
medico-magic text Cyanides (bk1 ch18)
recommends wearing an amulet containing
a sliver of ostrich gizzard. A Byzantine
manual (Farm Work, bk19 ch5) swears by
a paste compounded from the ashes of a
deer’s tail mixed with wine – O Deer! Envy
the Indians (Theophrastus, On Plants,
ART ColleCTion / AlAmy SToCk PhoTo

bk19 ch18) who had an amatory plant

– not specified, dammit! – which could
inspire you to 70 erections per night, quite
eclipsing Cialis andViagra.
Greeks and Romans – poor sods –
never had the pleasure of chocolate. As a
chocoholic, I’m pinning my hopes on the
claim that the dark variety is good for
you. In the 18th century, Casanova and the
“ I wonder what happens with Love Potion the natural aphrodisiac properties of herbs, Marquis de Sade believed in its aphrodisiac
Number Ten?” – The Clovers plants, and vegetables – at least they weren’t powers. At erotic extremes, Madame de
(Referential frugality: except where flogging rhinoceros horn to Oriental hopefuls. Pompadour imbibed it to relax her frigidity,
otherwise specified, basic sources are Pliny’s Carrots, garlic (worshipped by the Egyptians as Madame du Barry – a regular nympho –
Natural History plus Hellenic herbalist a goddess), leeks, lentils, parsnips, rocket – you plied her gallants with it to help them keep
Dioscorides and the two great Greek versions name it, somebody recommended it. (it) up with her.
of Doc Martin, Hippocrates and Galen. Angus Emperor Tiberius (AD 14-37), when (as Last but definitely not least comes (in
McLaren, Impotence: A Cultural History, Univ. an early devotee of wank-magazines) not both senses) Aztec Chief Montezuma
Chicago, 2007, pp1-24, provides a rich repertoire resorting to porno – his bedroom contained the who along with consuming 100 dishes per
of remedies. And, don’t forget that one-time sex manuals of Elephantis and Parrhasius’s dinner would drink 50 cups of chocolate
classic, Norman Douglas’s Venus in the Kitchen, picture of Atalanta fellating Meleager – pinned before going off to his Milk Tray selection
1952). his hopes on skirret, imported annually in of 100 wives and 4,000 concubines.
Greeks and Romans were firm believers in bulk from Germany. Skirret (Siser in Latin) I should cocoa!

FT351 13
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 science
MATT PATTINSON

well-connected areas handle

making connecTions information processed in other

brain areas. Some researchers
believe the “rich club” is where
DaviD Hambling looks at recent developments in what may turn out to be the ultimate human consciousness resides.
Again, the methodology
long haul in science – understanding the complex workings of the human brain. is challenged, this time by a

T
recent paper, called “Could
he human brain a Neuroscientist Understand
is often called the a Microprocessor?” in the
most complex object journal PLOS One. Two
known to science, researchers applied the network
with around 100 analysis techniques used by
billion neurons, each connected neurobiologists to a simple
with up to up to 7,000 others. computer chip, the 6502. (Older
If we understood how those readers will recognise this as
connections worked, we would the processor in the venerable
know how to repair a brain, how BBC Micro.) The 6502 is infinitely

MIgUEL MEDINA / AFP / gETTy IMAgES

to replicate it, perhaps even how simpler than the human brain, but
to improve it. But do we have the the traffic analysis still failed to
right tool for the job? establish accurately the hierarchy
In earlier times, researchers of information processing.
could only poke and prod at the In particular, while the
brain, an activity that culminated analysis located some of the key
in some dubious psychosurgery. structures present in the chip,
Later they tickled the brain with but gave little idea of how they
electric currents and guessed ABOVE: A functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scan shows the effect on were working or how they related
by the patient’s response what the brain of listening to music. BELOW: A 19th century plaster phrenological bust. to each other. It also turned up
each brain area did. Since 1991 spurious connections that were
researchers – the well-funded fMRI being overstated, followed published using fMRI data coincidental or trivial. For example,
ones – have had functional by an inevitable media backlash. undoubtedly reported phantom some transistors appeared to
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Craig Bennett of the University activations as bogus as the be activated only while playing
(fMRI). This non-intrusive 3D of California won an IgNobel signal from the dead salmon. “Donkey Kong”; they were not
technique sees inside the brain Prize in 2012 for an fMRI study However, according to Nichols, related specifically to the game
and, by detecting oxygenated on a dead salmon [FT295:20]. the number of studies affected as neuroscientists might assume,
blood flow, indicates which parts As usual, the imaging process was less than 4,000, and only but only to some lower-level
are working at any given instant. involved a large number of a fraction of these were actually functions. The “Rich club” may be
Researchers can see what image cells or voxels. With the wrong. More importantly, the equally misleading.
happens in the brain when a correct processing, background methods used to analyse fMRI In a sense, this is not a
mathematician struggles with an noise and spurious signals have been corrected. surprise. Researchers have had
equation, an arachnophobe sees were cancelled out, showing no Seeing which brain areas are the complete connectome of
a spider, or an artist visualises activity. However, by selectively activated only takes us so far. a worm called Cænorhabditis
a scene. There are technical using uncorrected data, Bennett We also need to understand how elegans since 1986, which has
complexities, but in essence fMRI ‘demonstrated’ brain activation in connections between brain areas just 302 neurons. Even with this,
shows brain area activation. certain areas. work. Ultimately, the brain is they are still unravelling how the
fMRI is a remarkable advance. “The more chances you have nothing but connections. Neural worm responds to temperature,
Victorian phrenologists could to find a result, the more likely networking software, which pressure and light and how it
only guess which ‘organ’ of the you are to find one, even by mimics how a brain processes coordinates movement.
brain was responsible for which chance,” says Bennett. “We have information by changing the Understanding the human
mental function. They were accepted statistical methods strength of connections, is brain is perhaps the ultimate long
almost entirely wrong, apart from to correct for this, but not all increasingly used for tasks from haul in science. Sequencing the
the ‘faculty for words’, which was scientists use these methods in spotting cancer on X-rays to three billion base pairs of the
located close to Wernicke’s area, their neuroimaging analysis.” controlling robot fruit-pickers. To human genome took 20 years;
now known to control speech Weeding out false positives build a neural network model understanding and applying that
(somewhere behind your left ear). remains a chronic issue in fMRI that matches the brain we need knowledge to treat inherited
Now the brain is divided into over studies. In 2016 the New York to have its ‘connectome’, the conditions will take much longer.
300 areas, each with a distinct, Times suggested that 15 years connection equivalent of the Recording and deciphering
though not necessarily well- of fMRI work was invalidated human genome. This requires the connectome will make the
understood, function. by a flaw in analysis. a process known as genome look like child’s play.
How the brain is affected by Anders Eklund and network analysis. The path of scientific progress
conditions from Alzheimer’s to Thomas Nichols of We already is likely to be erratic as usual. In
SCIENCE MUSEUM, LONDON / WELLCOME IMAgES

autism, and how drug treatments Linköping University know that brain a couple of decades fMRI has
work, has become clearer thanks in Sweden had areas with many provided more insights than all
to fMRI. No documentary about published a study interconnections are the previous centuries. More and
the brain is complete without the showing the important in large- better tools are needed. However,
colourful computer-generated correction process scale brain functions. there will always be critics keen to
fMRI graphics. The simplifications for false positives A group of 12 brain seize on failures of neuroscience.
and exaggerations of popular did not work in all areas known as the After all, who want to believe their
science faced with gee-whizz circumstances. Some “rich club” is a hub of mind can be reduced to a set of
technology led to the powers of of the 40,000 studies brain activity. These numbers?

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 ghOstWatCh
MATT PATTINSON

alan MurDie welcomes the return of old-fashioned techniques to modern ghost hunting.

turning the tables

With 2017 underway, many opportunities
exist for ghost hunting, but in recent columns
I have looked askance at the addiction of
many modern ghost hunters for deploying
gadgets of no proven value on nocturnal
investigations into haunted premises.
It therefore comes as a refreshing change
to find a ghost hunting group resorting to
some old-fashioned, spiritualist-style table
turning that requires just open-minded
participants and one piece of household
furniture. This was the commendably
experimental approach taken by the group
Paranormal Friends at their vigil held in

ChrISTOPher FurlOnG / GeTTy IMAGeS

the antique Guildhall at Much Wenlock,
Shropshire, on 21 January 2017. According
to comments by organiser Christopher
Morris to the Shropshire Star of 24 January,
the results of this experiment were “mind-
blowing”.
Paranormal Friends use a variety of
techniques, arriving at the 16th century
building with a collection of equipment,
and also allowed members of the public to present, is to wait a few minutes in silence ABOVE: Much Wenkock’s 16th century Guildhall,
participate for a fee. But after hearing what and hope that something will happen – the scene of a vigil in January this year that yielded
they describe as “banging sounds”, they table move or rocks, or raps may be heard. It “mind-blowing” results.
decided to revert back to the traditional is recommended that all participants try and
approach of table turning to try and contact think of nothing, keeping their minds blank. although the question of what exactly is
the ghosts believed to haunt the former This may be difficult, and one recommended causing the motion and acoustic effects is
courthouse and council chamber. method is to “think of a blank cinema screen contested.
Table turning requires no skill and or a white sheet” (Andrew Green in Ghost On their night at the Guildhall, Paranormal
removes at a stroke the tricky business of Hunting: A Practical Guide, 1973, 2016). If Friends were swiftly rewarded by movements
monitoring readings and output from complex the group is fortunate, it will be rewarded by from their table. “We were dumbfounded –
equipment. The most popular method is dramatic movements of the table and raps it’s something we had never seen before,”
for a group of people (traditionally not 13 and creaks emanating from it. To participants said Mr Morris, who described how they
in number) to sit around a polished table witnessing these strange movements and believe they made contact with the spirit of
with their hands lying flat, face down on the gyrations, it often appears the table is moving a young girl who “wanted to play a game”. A
surface. The sitters’ fingers touch those of with a force exceeding what the sitters can ball was duly concealed within the building,
their neighbours, and each person’s thumbs physically contribute with their hands, either whereupon the table tipped in the direction it
also touch each other, to create a circle. individually or collectively. was hidden. “The table was literally running
Alternatively, sitters may present their hands The physical reactions observed with around the room to find the ball”. Table
palms uppermost, for some believe that this the table may seem to be in response to movements succeeded in locating the ball
position will both generate and receive power. questions put by the sitters, whether verbally four times, even though “the guests didn’t
Often it is felt that the lights in the room or simply formed in their minds, giving the know where the ball was hidden, only one
should be dimmed. impression that a communicating entity is of the team leaders.” Several names were
The method of establishing responsible. There can be no doubt that also obtained through séance questioning,
communication, if no known medium is tables do move in such circumstances, including one supposedly from a deceased

ABOVE: Images from a youyube video by the Paranormal Friends group show them using traditional table turning techniques in their investigations.

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local councillor who gave an age at LEFT: The Fox sisters (seated), whose
death that the group plans to follow up hydesville, new york, home became the
with historical research. birthplace of the 19th century spiritualist
I welcome this excursion by a ghost movement.
hunting group into table turning, not
least as an active acknowledgement to be possible to design a more
that if you really believe you are trying sophisticated type of table to test
to contact spirits, then you may as well and record physical contacts in
adopt a long-practised method from such experiments.
years gone by rather than use electronic Many others confronted by
devices which patently do not register personal evidence of movement
ghosts. accepted the phenomenon as
Whether one thinks that spirits are genuine, including Alfred russel
responsible or the unconscious mind Wallace (1823-1913), co-founder
of the sitters acting collectively, there is with Darwin of the theory of natural
certainly an enormous and challenging selection. On 22 July 1855 Wallace
set of observations recording table conducted experiments in table
turning effects to be found in the turning with his wife and friends in
archives of psychical research the privacy of his home and was
organisations, spiritualist bodies, rewarded with movements and
private diaries and obscure pamphlets. raps he could not explain. Wallace
Over the generations much anecdotal became a convinced spiritualist, as
evidence suggests that more than ardent as Arthur Conan Doyle at a
human muscular forces are at work, later date.
particularly when levitations of tables An example of how
occur in good light and the absence of both intellectual and banal
human contact. communications could emerge
Although claims have been made within one tightly organised
that table turning was first practised by domestic circle was illustrated by
mediæval Jews, the technique really novelist Victor hugo, who with his
came into its own with the beginnings family began experimenting with
of spiritualism at the home of the Fox table séances as an after dinner
sisters at hydesville, new york State, recreation following exile to Jersey
in 1848. Initially rapping noises and in 1858. hugo believed he had
object movements seemed like a contacted spirits of the dead and
poltergeist disturbance, but these sounds
proved responsive to questioning and were SPIRITUALISM also intellectual abstractions such as “the
Spirit of Criticism”. Séance communications
contagious, following the sisters from the reflected his complex personality and
house and into the homes of relatives and
neighbours. Soon the Fox sisters were
AND TABLE his literary output at the time; few in the
audience of the world’s longest-running stage
giving public performances and spiritualism
was born with the realisation that people
TURNING BECAME musical Les Miserables know its title was
purportedly revealed to hugo by a discarnate
could duplicate many of their effects by
invoking the spirits for themselves at home.
WILDLY POPULAR spirit. however, it is difficult to escape the
conclusion that it was the great author’s
Initially confined to raps, the repertoire of own unconscious being tapped; but events
manifestations rapidly expanded and tables going on at his home made them believe an
were used to facilitate the sounds, often with has seized the fashionable world of london objective psychic presence was at work.
a tilted table leg being used for rapping out for animating bits of wood by spiritualism hugo experimented out of curiosity and a
letters of the alphabet and numbers. and making oracles of table legs”. (In Life desire to fill in time, but in many other cases
Partly because this was such a laborious of Alexander Von Humboldt: Compiled in the driving force was personal bereavement.
method of obtaining messages, participants Commemoration of the Centenary of his even the most intellectual and ordered of
began engaging in a voluntary form of spirit Birth (1873) by Julius löwenberg, robert minds might attempt table séances when
possession by consent, typically inviting the Avé-lallemant and Alfred Dove). Another afflicted by grief. An example was Brogdan
visiting spirits to take over their bodies and famed opponent was Michael Faraday (1791- hasdeu, a romanian polymath who authored
minds in order to speak or write through 1867), the discoverer of electromagnetic the first national dictionary in the language.
them. however, one didn’t need a medium induction. he was repelled by spiritualist his involvement in spiritualism followed the
to try table turning and because spiritualism manifestations and sought to explain table death of his gifted daughter Julia, who had
never carried a ‘don’t try this at home’ movements as unconscious muscular action died tragically at the age of 18, less than
warning it became wildly popular and spread by the sitters. Of course, Faraday was no two months into her studies at Sorbonne
internationally. Many disbelievers who biologist (he even disliked the term physicist) university in Paris. hasdeu began a lengthy
witnessed the phenomenon became converts but his conjectures have been oft cited series of spiritualist experiments and
to spiritualism. Others who confronted it were and uncritically accepted by sceptics in the investigations, eventually setting up a temple
appalled, seeing such experiments as an century and half since. however, Faraday’s or ‘castle’ built with guidance from the spirits.
attack on reason or a threat to established prejudice against spiritualism may have been The tables he used are still preserved – along
religion. motivated by his own religious faith and with a chair specially designed for spirit
Many mocked from a distance without membership of the strict Sandemanian sect, beings (deemed to need a sit-down after their
trying it, such as Baron Alexander von an offshoot of Scottish Presbyterianism. But long journeys from the other side!).
humboldt (1769-1859), who admitted having the ease with which table turning could be In Britain, the Pre-raphaelite artists William
“a holy horror of pinewood spirits” and organised meant it easily survived Faraday’s and evelyn de Morgan, who spent many
referring to the “insane infatuation which denunciation. In the 21st century it ought years pursuing spiritualism after employing

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 lOnDOn STereOSCOPIC COMPAny / GeTTy IMAGeS
ABOVE LEFT: Table turning in a fashionable French salon in the 1850s. ABOVE RIGHT: Victor hugo experimented with the technique during his time in the Channel Islands.

a servant girl in 1854, known as ‘Jane’. She – may actually play an important part in unconscious mind – or a collection of minds.
acted as a medium, with table movements psychologically priming the participants and This seems to me a plausible interpretation
and rappings surrounding her. ‘Jane’ was lowering the barriers for paranormal effects at this stage of our knowledge, although
generally successful when in the company to occur. difficult areas remain, as Batcheldor admitted.
of her mistress, but her powers proved Kenneth Batcheldor, a psychologist in (See ‘Some experiments in Psychokinesis’ by
unpredictable and with most persons she england, embarked on a long-running series Kenneth Batcheldor and DW hunt in Journal of
failed altogether. After two years her abilities of experiments from the 1960s to the mid- the SPR v.43, 1966).
disappeared completely, but the de Morgans 1980s, with groups re-creating the conditions The relationship with the unconscious mind
spent many more years in their own personal of table turning practised in the 19th was also demonstrated by researchers in
spirit research. ‘Jane’ remained a serving century. his different groups succeeded in Toronto during the 1970s with the so-called
girl throughout, a counter to views that such producing dramatic phenomena in the form ‘Philip’ Group organised by the new horizons
phenomena were manufactured by conniving of rapping sounds and the violent rocking and Foundation [FT61:41, 64:61]. Members
women wanting to advance themselves. levitation of tables. Some of his films and succeeded in creating psychokinetic (PK)
not all experiences with table turning were recordings can be seen on youTube videos effects that they attributed to a fictional
positive. rudyard Kipling blamed the mental but, unfortunately, most of the film footage discarnate personality. They imagined a ghost
illness suffered by his sister Alice (or ‘Trix’) has been lost (reportedly destroyed by a with a fictional back-story and were rewarded
on her involvement in spiritualism, originally family member who disapproved). however, with unexplained raps and a moving table
begun by their mother and her sisters who notebooks and records survive and are part that performed for the camera, and even
experimented with table turning. (See ‘Table- of an ongoing research project. Batcheldor managed an appearance on a local television
turning: A Brief historical note mainly of the found there was a psychological component station (Conjuring Up Philip: An Adventure in
period 1847-1853’ by Brian nisbet in Journal to events in that instances of PK could be Psychokinesis, 1976, by Iris Owen & Margaret
of the SPR, 1973, v.47, 96-106; Victor triggered by a staged incident that sitters Sparrow).
Hugo (1956) by André Maurois; Natural and believed was genuine. Once sitters saw what Of course, sceptics will argue unconscious
Supernatural, 1977, by Brian Inglis). they thought was a genuine paranormal muscular action and the power of
Atmosphere and temperament appear incident, actual examples could follow, as autosuggestion (however that works) explain
very important to success. For the safety though a psychological block or barrier had all. yet identical effects are reported across
of the individuals concerned it is desirable, been removed. To achieve physical effects it the generations, from genteel Victorian ladies
so far as possible, to omit all persons of a seemed necessary to suspend the scepticism through to the awestruck psychic investigators
nervous disposition, those endowed with and resistance of the conscious mind to the and members of the public at Much Wenlock
vivid imaginations, and people who are occurrence of PK events (just the idea of Guildhall in January. If the movement of their
argumentative or antagonistic. Séances which a number of people found disturbing). table was the product of unconscious PK, in
arranged by religious groups usually Once this threshold was crossed, it seemed choosing the Guildhall Paranormal Friends
commence with hymn singing, and a crucifix the powers of the unconscious mind were may have found a perfect theatrical setting
sometimes prominently displayed. The released. Thus, whilst certain researchers to stimulate the unconscious mind into
significance of these precautions has been have proposed discarnate spirits as an generating psychokinetic effects. Or could it
described an “ensuring that evil entities explanation, such experimental evidence be that individuals are connecting with some
are not contacted”. But these preliminary as exists might point in the direction of the higher, transformative force as Batcheldor
rituals – often derided by cynical observers communications being the product of the began to believe in his final years?

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 strangedays

PREDICTIONS The world’s only ‘asparamancer’ casts the spears and sees weird weather,
while the prophecies of Baba Vanga point to an Islamic caliphate in Europe

ABOVE: Jemima packington and her

SPEARS OF DESTINY mystic veg. FACING PAGE: Blind
A fortune-teller who allegedly
Bulgarian prophetess Baba Vanga.
predicted Brexit has revealed
her top tips for 2017. Jemima
Packington, 61, from Bath, Gushterova – was born in 1911 in
chucks asparagus spears in the what is now Macedonia, but spent
air and makes forecasts based most of her life in the Rupite area
on how they land.The self-styled in Bulgaria’s Kozhuh mountains.
‘asparamancer’ says the US will She claimed that she lost her
become a pariah state under eyesight at the age of 12 during
Trump, several other countries a freak tornado, when she was
will withdraw from the EU, while flung into the air and dashed to
Britain’s economy will boom. the ground. She was found in a
There may be “troubling times” terrible state after a long search,
for the royal family and our her injured eyes sealed shut and
bizarre weather will worsen with encrusted with a thick layer of
summer downpours. A showbiz sand and dust.Too poor to afford
couple considered national specialist care, she was relegated
treasures will split (usefully to a life of blindness. She later
vague, that one). Ms Packington said that she had experienced her
claims to have “a very good first vision during the days she was
success rate”. Last year she said missing and believed she had been
Newsteam / swNs Group

that “the British public will instilled with the ability to heal
rebel about the Nanny State” people and predict the future.
(interpreted as the Leave vote During the 1940s she
in the EU Referendum); but she developed a cult following and
also said that Boris Johnson would was considered something of a
become leader of the Conservative national treasure [FT93:8]. It’s
Party and Jeremy Corbin would be
ousted as Labour leader. On well,
clairvoyant and herbalist Baba
(‘Grandmother’ or ‘Auntie’)Vanga, She tried other thought that she helped over a
million people in her lifetime.The
you win some, you lose some.
She was inspired to start
known as the “Nostradamus of the
Balkans” thanks to a purported vegetables, Bulgarian King Boris III visited
her in 1942, and she later served

but they don’t

“reading the spears” aged eight, 85 per cent success rate. Long as an adviser to Todor Zhikov
after seeing her grandmother revered in Russia and Europe, and other Bulgarian Communist
practise with tealeaves. Plenty she was said to have foreseen Party leaders. Leonid Brezhnev
of people use slightly offbeat
‘tools’, she says, but she came
WWII, the coming to power of the
Communists in Bulgaria in 1944,
seem to work and Mikhail Gorbachev allegedly
consulted her before making key
to use asparagus because “it’s the death of Stalin, the invasion decisions. Politicians, scientists
so accurate”. She’s tried other of Czechoslovakia in 1968, an close to her claim it is fiction. She and historians would come
vegetables, like broccoli, but earthquake in northern Bulgaria is supposed to have said: “Kursk from all over the world for a few
they don’t seem to work. She in 1985, the Chernobyl disaster in will be underwater, and the whole minutes in her company. She was
uses only English asparagus, and 1986, the Fukushima nuclear spill world will be weeping over it... it kept under surveillance by the
believes harvests from theVale of and the birth of Daesh. can happen in 1999 or in 2000. But Bulgarian secret service and her
Evesham, Worcestershire, are the Of the hundreds of predictions it would happen for sure in the home bugged.
finest: “Nothing can beat ‘Vale Vanga made over 50 years, a large month of August.” At the time the Vanga purportedly predicted
gras’.” Asparagus growing in the number alluded to natural and citizens of Kursk, safely inland, another ‘realm of being’, claiming
Vale of Evesham dates back at climate change-related disasters. had no reason to be alarmed. In that entire cultures would begin
least to 1768.There’s no call for Back in the 1950s she said: “Cold 1999Vanga’s predictions were to spread through a ‘false world’.
the intrigue of purple asparagus, regions will become warm… and broadcast on Russian television, She claimed that in 2003, any
apparently, or the nutty subtlety volcanoes will awaken. Everything again causing no particular person would be able to think
of the white variant. D.Telegraph, will melt, just like ice… A huge concern; but then the Russian in synchronicity with others,
19 Jan; Sun, 31 Dec 2016. wave will cover a big coast covered nuclear submarine Kursk sank in allowing for a form of secondary
with people and towns, and August 2000, the crew dying over existence. 2003 marked the year of
BABA VANGA’S everything will disappear beneath several days while international release of the game Second Life, in
PROPHECIES the water.”Though conveniently rescue crews tried in vain to which an account holder can make
Another fortune-teller who non-specific, this was seen as a retrieve the vessel from the depths an avatar and engage in social
features in the news every reference to the 2004 tsunami and [FT140:7]. interaction with others.
New Year (at the very least), earthquake. BabaVanga – orVangeliya In 1989Vanga seems to have
even though she died in 1996, She had a more specific hit in Pandeva Dimitrova, known predicted 9/11: “Horror, horror!
is the blind Bulgarian mystic, 1980 – though some who were after her marriage asVangeliya The American brethren (Twin

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 Mythconceptions by Mat Coward

209: HIPPOS

Towers?) will fall after being caliphate with Rome as its capital;
attacked by the steel birds the world’s economy will thrive
(hijacked planes?).The wolves under Muslim rule. 2066: America
will be howling in a bush (George will use a new climate change
Bush?) and innocent blood will weapon for the first time in a bid
gush.” At some point she said: to retake Rome and bring back
“Crimea will detach from one Christianity. 2076: Communism
shore to be attached to another”, will return to Europe and the rest
apparently foretelling Putin’s of the world. 2100: man-made
annexation of the peninsula in sun illuminates the dark side of
2014. She correctly predicted the planet. 2130: with the help

ILLustratIoNs: HuNt emersoN

that the 44th president of the of aliens, civilisations will live
United States would be African underwater. 2170: major global
American. However, she also drought. 2187: two large volcanic
stated that he would be “the last eruptions will be successfully
US president”. She said that by stopped. 2201: temperatures
2016 “Muslims” would invade drop as the Sun’s thermonuclear
Europe, which would “cease to processes slow down. 2354: an
exist” as we know it (that was accident on the artificial sun will
a dud prediction).The ensuing result in more drought. 2480: two The myth
campaign of destruction will artificial suns will collide and Despite their great bulk and unwieldy shape, hippopotamuses are
last years, she said, driving out leave the Earth in the dark. 3005: powerful and graceful swimmers.
populations and leaving the a war on Mars will change the
entire continent “almost empty” trajectory of the planet. 3010:
by 2025. a comet will hit the Moon.The The “truth”
There follows a selection of Earth will be surrounded by a
Despite being land mammals that are extremely well adapted to
BabaVanga’s prophecies. 2023: ring of rock and ash. By 3797,
spending much of their time in water, and their closest evolutionary
the Earth’s orbit will change. everything on Earth will be dead.
relatives being whales and porpoises, hippos can’t actually swim. what
2028: mankind will fly toVenus However, human civilisation will
they can do very well is hold their breath by closing their nostrils, which
in hope of finding new sources of be advanced enough to move to a means that if they want to get from one part of the river to another
energy. 2033: world water levels new star system. Pravda.ru, 5 June they simply walk along the bed, under water. their webbed feet help
will rise as the polar ice caps melt. 2014; news.com.au, 8 Dec; D.Mail, them bound or skip, just lightly pushing off from the bottom. when
2043: Europe will be an Islamic 10 Dec 2015. spending time underwater, a hippo will automatically bob up to the
surface every three to five minutes to take in air – even when it is fast
asleep. Having filled its lungs, it sinks down again, using breathing and
body position to control its buoyancy. and when it’s time to get out of
the water, hippos don’t swim for the shore – they walk to the shallows
and climb out.

Sources
BBC Wildlife Magazine, Dec 2009; http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/
animals/hippo; http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/
do-hippos-swim/; http://animals.Nationalgeographic.Com/animals/
mammals/hippopotamus/

Disclaimer
most sources insist that hippos are non-swimmers. many go further,
saying that the big buggers can’t even float. But some hedge their
bets, implying that while adult hippos can’t swim, their young can.
meanwhile, an article on the National Geographic website carries the
bald statement that hippos are “good swimmers”. we’d be glad to
read, on Ft’s letters page, the views of any passing hippologists.

Mythchaser
we’ve all heard that in elizabethan times
people of fashion would paint their teeth
black, to make them look rotten, because
this suggested that they were wealthy
enough to eat a diet rich in sugar. But that
really does taste like a myth, doesn’t it? Is
there any contemporary evidence for this
fad, or is it just a load of rot?

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 strangedays

HEAVENLY BULLETIN VAST NOTHINGNESS puSHES MILKY WAY, TIME’S ARROW

GOES BACKWARDS, pLuS THE puZZLE Of pLANET NINE...

COSMIC DEAD ZONE even using the world’s most

A new 3-D map of more than powerful telescopes.
8,000 galaxies indicates that the It comes down to the ability
Milky Way is being pushed by a of mathematics to make
vast patch of nothingness half a astronomical predictions – which
billion light years from Earth, on led, for instance to the discovery
the far side of the constellation of Neptune. William Herschel
ToMrueN, NAguAldeSigN / creATive coMMoNS

of Lacerta, the Lizard. This spotted the latter’s closer twin,

cosmic dead zone may account Uranus, in 1781, but two decades
for as much as half the force later it was clear there was a
that propels our home galaxy wobble in its orbit, implying
through the heavens at 2,000,000 there was something else out
km per hour (1,243,0000 mph). there. John Couch Adams and
It has long been evident that the Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier
Milky Way and its neighbouring used maths to pinpoint its
galaxy, Andromeda, are being location, and Johann Gottfried
pulled by the gravitational Galle used their data to observe
attraction of the most massive ABOVE: Artist’s impression of Planet Nine as an ice giant eclipsing the central Milky Neptune in 1846.
structure in the observable Way, with the Sun in the distance. Neptune’s orbit is shown as a small ellipse Calculations by Konstantin
universe – the Shapley attractor, around the Sun. Batygin and Mike Brown of
a dense ‘supercluster’ of the California Institute of
galaxies 750 million light years happening in the universe. controversial theory that there Technology predicted ‘Planet
away. Now, it seems, we are not When we look at it that way, it’s were multiple Big Bangs as part Nine’ after noticing the unusual
only being pulled, but pushed. natural to say that time begins of a wider ‘multiverse’ was first orbits of a cluster of bodies
Guardian, 31 Jan 2017. at that central point and flows proposed by Prof Andrei Linde, in the Kuiper Belt, far beyond
away in opposite directions.” now at Stanford University. Neptune. The points of closest
THE JANUS POINT Flavio Mercati from the qz.com, cnet.com, 18 Jan; approach of these objects to the
There’s nothing in the laws of Perimeter Institute for D.Telegraph, 1 June 2016. Sun, known as their perihelia,
physics that insists time must Theoretical Physics commented: almost coincide. Moreover,
move forward. In trying to “We’re on one side of the Janus PLANET NINE these perihelia all lie near the
solve the puzzle of why time point. On one side you get your Over the past two decades, ecliptic – the plane of Earth’s
seems to move in only one arrow of time and can never astronomers have detected orbit and also, approximately,
direction, many physicists have experience the other one. It’s in more than 2,000 planets that of the other planets – while
settled on entropy, the level of your past.” He believes we can orbiting stars other than our the objects’ orbits are all angled
molecular disorder in a system, never have direct experience of Sun. A year ago, researchers at 30 degrees below the ecliptic.
which continually increases the ‘mirror universe’. The theory floated the possibility of an Something is shepherding them
(Newton’s Second Law of is based on classical physics undiscovered large planet at the (and it’s not Nibiru, which,
Thermodynamics). However, two and is far from definitive; once far edge of the Solar System. according to the late Zecharia
separate groups of prominent questions of quantum physics Today, astronomers are none Sitchin, is an enormous planet
physicists have been working on are introduced, all bets are off. the wiser about what is being on an eccentric 360,000-year
models that examine the initial “Instead of having two streams called Planet Nine, or whether orbit, home to the Anunnaki who
conditions that might have emanating from a river,” said it even exists. (‘Planet Nine’ created Homo sapiens and the
created the arrow of time, and Prof Barbour, “it could be more of our Solar System used to ancient Sumerian culture).
both seem to show time moving like a fountain where you have be Pluto, but this heavenly Not all astronomers agree
in two different directions. lots of pairs of springs. Or just body was downgraded from that ‘Planet Nine’ is the solution
When the (hypothetical) Big a whole host of springs flowing planetary status in 2006.) to the puzzle; maybe a massive
Bang created our universe, these out of a fountain in different Most are sceptical, but the body previously ejected from
physicists believe it also created directions.” mathematical models used the Solar System is to blame. As
an inverse mirror universe Lord Rees, the Astronomer to predict the new planet we say at Fortean Towers: “For
where time moves in the Royal, adds another continue to suggest that there every expert there is an equal
opposite direction. (We won’t complication: “Many people is something out there five to and opposite expert”. Ironically,
go into the mathematical nitty- suspect that our Big Bang was 15 times the mass of the Earth. it was the aforementioned Dr
gritty here.) The physicists call not the only one, but there’s Efforts to spot it continue, but Brown as much as anyone who
the moment before expansion a whole archipelago of Big this is a huge challenge given was responsible for Pluto’s
the “Janus point,” after the two- Bangs,” he told the Hay Literary that it supposedly orbits 20 downgrading, for he discovered
headed Roman god. “Time is Festival in Wales last May. He times further from the Sun than Eris, an object almost as big
not something that pre-exists,” added that other universes does the gas giant Neptune. The as Pluto, in 2005. He uses the
said Julian Barbour from the may exist unconstrained by latter orbits the Sun every 165 handle ‘Pluto-killer’ on Twitter.
University of Oxford. “The the laws of Newtonian physics, years, but it takes ‘Planet Nine’ Guardian, D.Telegraph, 21 Jan;
direction and flow of time we with different atoms and about 17,000 years. This makes a Economist, 23 Jan; D.Mail, 21+25
have to deduce from what’s gravitational fields. The highly direct observation very difficult, Jan 2016; Irish Times, 12 Jan 2017.

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NECROLOG This month, we survey the profoundly fortean life of a romantic catastrophist and
‘hamacologist’ who came back from the dead to live as a modern shaman...

HAN KLOOSTERMAN collecting literature and

Han Kloosterman’s geological geological samples of the Usselo
career commenced with his layer both from Arizona and
dissertation Le Volcanisme de la 12 sites in northwest Europe
région d’Agde, Hérault, France and studying the direction
(Utrecht, 1959) and thrived of tektite falls. His research
with his alluvial prospecting received a boost in 2005,
– cassiterite, diamonds and when the American scientists
gold – for mining companies Firestone and West integrated
in West Africa and Brazil. In the Usselo horizon into their
this period, he published in model of a cometary impact
professional journals and over North America – a potent
adopted a catastrophist hypothesis that remains the
perspective, supporting the view focus of intense research and
that Earth history is punctuated debate. From 2003 onwards,
by violent discontinuities. His Kloosterman also compiled
first foray into catastrophism a database on catastrophist
was a “revelation” he had during mythology, which – apart from
a trip down the Jamanxim River deluges and fires – focused on
in 1973, when he discovered collapse of the sky and the axis
the contours of a giant caldera. mundi, overturning of the Earth,
He founded, edited and pole shift and inversion of the
published the ephemeral journal Sun’s movement. In this set of
Catastrophist Geology (1975- motifs he saw evidence for the
1978). late Peter Warlow’s theory that
He was arrested in the the Earth has repeatedly toppled
Netherlands in 1961 for evasion over in the fashion of a tippe
of military service and interned top, modified by Stig Flodmark’s
in an army base. He went wherever he could, notably in his in 1998, when someone demonstration that only the
absent without leave, crossing own home. presented him with a copy of crust and mantle will turn over,
the border into Germany, Arguably the pivotal event Walter Alvarez’s book T. rex and leaving the core in its original
boarding a train to Switzerland in Kloosterman’s life was the Crater of Doom (1997). place. One such inversion
and flying thence to Dakar. At his miraculous ‘return from According to Alvarez, a carbon- arguably occurred around
the risk of being traced, he the dead’. In 1993, he was rich layer found in 1985 by the same time as the Allerød
flew on to Rio de Janeiro with diagnosed with terminal throat Wendy Wolbach at the boundary conflagration. Kloosterman
money borrowed from the Dutch cancer and, having disposed between the Cretaceous and the perceived a growing schism
consulate and remained in exile of all his books and papers, Tertiary periods demonstrated between a new orthodoxy of
for 12 years, without a passport, he travelled back to Rio de that a global conflagration catastrophists who will only
until his offence had expired. Janeiro in order to die there in – caused by an asteroid accept impact scenarios and
When geological work dried up the company of his ex-wife and impact – had contributed to more extreme ones who also
in 1983, Kloosterman returned three children. Four months on, the demise of the dinosaurs. consider Earth inversions.
to the Netherlands, where he he had lost 77lb (35kg), but the This reminded Kloosterman of With this work and his
took courses on parapsychology, disease had gone into remission the Usselo horizon, a similar Catastrophist Manifesto (2007),
hypnosis and Mesmerism. and to the astonishment of his sooty, charcoal-rich layer in Kloosterman ranked as the only
As the world’s sole living doctors he was soon tumour- the late-glacial Allerød stage professional Dutch scientist
‘hamacologist’, he argued that free. He soon recognised of northwest Europe, which he promoting secular catastrophism
the use of native American psychosomatic origins of the had interpreted – as early as – secular indeed, as he
hammocks never leads to cancer in his unemployment, 1977 – in terms of a Weltbrand despised Christianity: in dating,
pressure ulcers – because the divorce and self-censorship, but associated with the extinction he preferred the abbreviations
weight of the body is distributed this was of little practical help, of the Pleistocene megafauna. ‘BC’ (before censorship) and
over a much larger surface as the destruction of his official Finding that neither Alvarez ‘AD’ (anno diaboli). With dignity,
than on a mattress – and that documents prior to his ‘death’ nor Wolbach had heard of he resigned himself to his
their design cannot have been prevented him from leaving Brazil Usselo, the insight prompted inexorable banishment to what
a chance discovery, as it was until 1999. Kloosterman to fly to Holland he often called the ‘lunatic
based on the ellipsoid. He Kloosterman spent three the next year to start a new fringe’ of science.
defended this position at an months convalescing among geological project – the Two early losses inspired
exhibition in the Netherlands a coastal group of Guaraní, catastrophic end of the last longstanding interests. A Jewish
on the cultural history of the surviving on an exceedingly glacial period. girl called Froukje van Leeuwen
hammock which he organised in meager Brazilian state pension. Until his death, Kloosterman had been one of his classmates
1992. He slept on a hammock His life took a dramatic turn busied himself networking, in primary school in Utrecht.

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The discovery that her sudden a Cessna aircraft, which crashed

disappearance had been due to into the Amazonian rainforest due
her deportation to Sobibor waxed to engine failure. Forced to walk
into indomitable philosemitism, back to civilisation, he felt that the
a trait which frequently caused disease had suddenly lifted when
Kloosterman to fall out with others. the magical interplay of sunlight
Similarly, when Kloosterman with the river communicated such
learned that Mary Saydee, a to him spiritually. Back in rainy
winsome Kru girl he had dated in Holland, he practised solar yoga for
Liberia, had been kidnapped by six years, gazing directly at the Sun
a secret society to be sacrificed for one or two hours.
to the sea god, the result was a Third, he preferred to live a
scholarly fascination with human simple life, close to the wilderness,
sacrifice, including anthropophagy. as a primitive outside observer
ANDREW COLLINS

Kloosterman became a of the Western world. While his

passionate vegetarian during a survival of the Dutch hunger winter
trip to India in the late 1970s. (1944-1945) as a child had trained
This happened quite impulsively; him to live on little food, his many
he discovered his motivation only years prospecting and his sojourn
a year afterwards – as a protest saw the apparent return of animal among the Guaraní had taught him
against the gods which allow us speech, such as in chimpanzees, to sleep rough in a hammock or
to be born on a cruel planet with dolphins and parrots, and the sleeping bag without the benefit of
food-chains. Mastering seven or arrival of animal painting; that the a tent. Upon his return to Europe,
eight European languages, he higher self or alter ego of each of Kloosterman prided himself on
qualified as a polyglot. Tragically, us determines the plot of our lives; being a professional vagabond,
chemotherapy cost him all his and that a scientifically advanced hitchhiking across 10 European
teeth and he developed a speech civilisation had existed during the countries for three months and
impediment as a result. He was an Ice Age. Far out though some of refraining from personal hygiene.
avid compiler of research notes, these contentions may seem, Fourth, he was the recipient of a
which he filed in shoeboxes, a Kloosterman remained a lifelong range of spontaneous paranormal
bibliophile and a voracious reader. critical thinker who would refuse to experiences: the chloroform
He encouraged the free selfless offer advice on anything and always used in a tonsillectomy at the
sharing of bibliographic references recommended a healthy dose of age of six induced an out-of-body
and ideas. Among his friends was scepticism. experience, of which he had many
Simon Vinkenoog, Poet Laureate Kloosterman made no secret of more in middle age. In 1962, he
of the Netherlands (2004), while his belief that he was destined to experienced X-ray vision, seeing
he enjoyed personal meetings with become a latter-day shaman, failing people’s skulls through their heads
Arthur Koestler, Jacques Vallée, Guy late 20th century had its own witch- which he was at least a prophet. and their entire lifelines, from birth
Lyon Playfair and other ‘alternative’ hunt in women’s false accusations This conviction serves as an to death. During his three-month
thinkers. With some delight he of sexual abuse by their fathers underlying template binding many tour of Europe, he sensed the
noted that his ideas regarding obtained under hypnosis; that strands of his life together. guidance of a personal ‘dæmon’,
the Earth’s overturnings were too it was under collective hypnosis First, he would compare the who would communicate a positive
extreme even for Andrew Collins that the Germans could commit remarkable ‘resurrection’ following answer to any raised question
and Robert Schoch. their atrocities during the Nazi many months on his ‘deathbed’ to by an involuntary shaking of his
Among the myriad unorthodox regime; that anti-Zionism is simply the symbolic calling and initiation shoulders, not unlike the ‘sign’ of
opinions he championed – some a disguised reincarnation of anti- of many a shaman. During the Socrates. And following a dream in
untenable, some frivolous, some Semitism; that Christianity and depression that immediately which a she-bear had saved his life,
original – were the suggestions Islam are not religions, but control preceded the disease, his body he came to view the bear as a sort
that the boomerang was a divine systems; that life evolves through had felt like an aggregate of seven of shamanic ‘familiar’ and erected
invention; that the Wise Old Goat ‘psycho-Lamarckism’ instead of separate fragments instead of a home altar to pay homage to it.
is seen perusing the Internet in Darwinian evolution, meaning a single whole – a description Fifth, he cultivated a deep,
a comic strip of Rupert Bear from adaptations supervised by spiritual reminiscent of the classic shamanic active interest in the spiritual
the 1920s; that tapeworms, not entities; that the academic system rite de passage of dismemberment. world, fostering his animistic
humans, top the food chain; that of peer review is tantamount to The cancer was only one in a long outlook on life. He frequently
the Indo-European language is the censorship of the erstwhile series of serious ailments, including experimented with psychotropic
fictitious (a view he later retracted), Index Librorum Prohibitorum, while 28 cases of malaria, six bouts of and especially hallucinogenic
unlike many of his own free- the anonymity preserved in it was amœbic dysentery, leishmaniasis substances, including ayahuasca,
style etymological connections based on the hooded judges of and bilharzia. Kloosterman would marijuana and fly agaric (Amanita
between global languages; that the Inquisition, an invitation to often flippantly remark that he had muscaria). On an intellectual level,
the persecution of witches and corruption; that the academies of ‘already died’. he embarked on the psychological
werewolves only gained traction science need the equivalent of a Second, he claimed to draw studies mentioned above with a
after the Middle Ages because Freedom of Information Act for the energy from heavenly bodies. When special emphasis on the notions
at that time not enough Jews benefit of science historians; that stricken with malaria in 1969, he of a ‘guardian angel’ or ‘higher
remained west of Warsaw; that the the second half of the 20th century was flown to a nearby hospital in self’, reincarnation, and the

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consciousness and conscience

of animals other than humans.
He developed the theory that a
,
‘materialist coup’ had occurred in
1860, which purged the sciences
of all catastrophist elements,
banished the Romantic movement
to the margins of society and
stripped Mesmerism of all spiritual
and paranormal elements, which it
had hitherto embraced, including
the full range of altered states of
consciousness.
Sixth, Kloosterman’s prophetic
efforts are perhaps best gleaned
in the many Persian quatrains he
composed since the 1990s in
no less than six languages – of
which he claimed the Italian ones

fairies, folkloreand forteana

to have been directly dictated by a
muse, as he did not speak Italian;
this would happen after an hour
of Venus-gazing in the evening or
during a hypnopompic state in the
Simon Young FiLES A nEW REPoRT FRom THE inTERFACE oF STRAngE PHEnomEnA AnD FoLK BELiEF
morning, when he would see the
verse inscribed in fat black letters
on a large whiteboard. Entirely son asked his father to be rescued from the
in the style of Omar Khayyám’s a failed fairy rescue fairies on midnight on 24 June at the cross
Rubaiyat, the verses convey the It is my favourite true fairy story. An Irishman at Glendalough: he also gave instructions
cynical message that immoral, is stolen by the fairies, who leave a fake body to bring friends, whisky and a black-hafted
manipulative gods designed life in his place. His family are oblivious, believing knife. The father, understandably, distraught,
on this ‘science-fiction planet’ of that he has died. After the body is buried, the but believing in the power of the fairies to
food-chains in the fashion of a father has a dream. The son appears in his spirit away humans, gathered his neighbours
concentration camp, a farm or sleep and explains that he has, in fact, been together: a dead body was often claimed to
a school. Fort’s words “we are kidnapped by the Sidhe (the be a fairy substitute corpse.
property” found a sympathetic ear Irish fairies). To rescue him the Some 1,200 locals assembled at
with our poet. Even Kloosterman’s
disinclination to put pen to paper,
father must come to the cross
of Glendalough (Tipperary, not
the father the cross as darkness fell on 24
June 1837 to restore the boy to
other than for poetry, can be seen
in the light of mystics such as
County Wicklow) at midnight
on Midsummer Night’s Eve
must come to his family. The hosting of the
Sidhe did not show, though, and
Pythagoras and Parmenides, who with some whisky, a black- the cross with the inconvenient fact of the
were loath to write. hafted knife and a number triple-murderer was revealed in
People close to Kloosterman of trusted companions. He some whiskey a subsequent dream.
often described him as a ‘man is to wait till he sees his son 1,200 locals! It is a useful
of coincidences’. I myself was mounted on a passing fairy and a black- reminder that fairy beliefs
introduced to him by two people horse. Then, the father and his were not just fireside chatter in
in different countries who did not friends must surround the son’s hafted knife Ireland two centuries ago. Many
know each other. Weeks after my horse and cut off the enchanted Irish men and women were
first meeting with Kloosterman, creature’s right ear: only then prepared to act on these beliefs.
my wife and I bumped into him will the father be able to This was not paganism, in that
in the Louvre, although we had at rescue his flesh and blood from an eternity in it elided perfectly into rural Catholicism.
no point discussed each other’s fairyland. But nor was it ‘merely’ a rag-tag of mild
travel plans. It seems only fitting, The father and companions gather, but superstitions hung out to dry on the line of
then, that Kloosterman gave up the spell does not work: one of the father’s Christian belief. What should we call these
the ghost on the day of the closest companions had, unbeknownst to the father, beliefs? Evans-Wentz wrote, in 1911, of ‘the
supermoon since 1948, while a murdered three men. This cursed individual fairy faith’. It is an expression that irritates
double rainbow was photographed prevents the rescue party from seeing the many Irish historians, some of whom are
over the funeral building just before fairies as they pass, and the son is lost for ever. ignorant of or indifferent to stories like the
his final dispatch. I call this story ‘true’ because the events one above. But weren’t the Keatings and their
Johan Bert Kloosterman, described, at least those we can test neighbours partaking in a faith of sorts at
geologist and mineralogist, born historically, did actually take place. In 1837, a midnight on 24 June 1837 as the Sidhe, they
Nijmegen 9 July 1931; died young man named Keating, from Newcastle in believed, rode by?
Amsterdam 14 Nov 2016, aged 85. Tipperary, died. He was buried, but his father Simon Young writes on folklore and history
Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs subsequently had a dream. In that dream the and runs www.fairyist.com

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 the UFO files
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.
To contact The UFO Files, email: [email protected]

FLYINGSAUCERY PETER BROOKESMITH PRESENTS HIS REGULAR

SURVEY OF THE LATEST FADS AND FLAPS FROM THE
WORLD OF UFOLOGY

ALIENS HAVE FEELINGS

TOO, YOU KNOW
THEY WERE caused them distress. It was important that I
get this message to the people who mattered.
It wasn’t clear if this phrase meant the powers
Long years ago, having given forth
disbelievingly on alien abductions at an FT
CERTAINLY NOT that be on Earth (few of whom, surely, pay
much attention to abduction lore, or even
UnConvention, a commentator whose name I
forget identified the cause of my scepticism: I GREY-SKINNED ufology in general, although many currently
seem obsessed by the thought that President

DWARVES
was in denial. The implication being that I was Trump is alien to civilisation as we know it;
an abductee myself, but could not face the see FT350:55). It may have meant the myth-
Truth and the Facts. And of course to deny one makers. Or maybe the people at large, the
is in denial merely compounds the diagnosis, ones who ultimately matter the most.
doesn’t it? Today, however, I can reveal that I “Thank you for trying so hard,” I said politely, “You will come again.” This wasn’t a
have indeed been abducted (although that is “but it’s not quite the right era.” I’m not sure question or an invitation, if not quite an
not quite the right word) by aliens, no less than what the ‘right era’ would be for me, although instruction. More a blunt statement.
three times and, at their own special request, I am very fond of Georgian interiors, but the “That’s very German,” I said, laughing. (Vee
will reveal the truth about them here. Better crassest of Seventies fluorescence never did haff arr veys, etc.) They didn’t get the joke.
yet, I have a witness to all the events I shall appeal. High Table in a particularly puritanical And then I was back in my bed, probably still
describe. Eat your heart out, Linda Cortile. Cambridge college would have been a more snoring.
This is how it all fell out. I was abed and relaxing place to be. My hosts betrayed no The next night I found myself back with them
asleep and a-snoring. Lying at my side, my wife disappointment, but went on to explain why I again. This time in a mediæval or Renaissance
was awake and became aware of presences was there at all. banqueting hall, sitting in a heavy chair at a
in the room. She heard a chirruping voice like This was something I had to write about and table groaning with all manner of delicious-
a chipmunk’s: “Has she been blocked?” She publish, so that “the people who mattered” looking comestibles. On my left sat a row of
found she was powerless, unable to move or would know the truth. They were concerned females dressed in gowns and wearing those
speak. Somehow they took my consciousness because the notion of aliens, as generally strange headdresses (wimples?) that had
out of my body and, even more somehow, understood, was a mass of untruths that two tall pointy bits and some diaphanous
allowed hers to observe but not participate in was being exploited by the unscrupulous material floating between and down. On my
what was happening to me throughout. She and the gullible (no names were mentioned, right was the old professor, and at his side
described this as “being there but not there, sadly), and they wanted to set the record a row of wazirs or eminences of that nature.
as if I were on a Big Wheel and you were on straight. They didn’t abduct people and poke The hall was packed with people; there was
another ride in the fairground below.” One of them in naughty places, or otherwise abuse a huge roaring log fire. Those at table would
the curiosities of the episodes was that neither them, and they didn’t need any help with chew baked meats off the bone, and toss the
of us could make out much about the physical their reproductive processes, thank you: their bones to dogs lurking beneath the board, as
appearance of the entities: we had to make own were perfectly effective and efficient. seen in all the best ‘historical’ B movies. All
do with the tone of their voices, intuition, and If they had visitors from Earth, they asked of which was rather more congenial than the
some corner-of-the-eye impressions. And so I them first if they would like to come with them eye-blitzing Seventies horror of the previous
found myself in a room on what one supposes to learn about them or verify what they did evening, and I made no remark about the
was their spacecraft. And what a room it was: know – although I don’t recall being invited, setting (or was it set?). Still wary of the fare,
the carpet was what we used to call ‘cinema I have to say. Perhaps the card fell off the I said I wasn’t inclined to eat or drink. “But all
quality’, a mass of swirls in orange and purple, chimneypiece. And, they insisted, they most this was for you! We hope we’ve got it right.”
with flecks of green. The lampshades were just certainly were not skinny robotic emotionless Reassured, I set to, with a trencherman’s relish
as gross, in red and lime green; the wallpaper grey-skinned dwarves with bulbous black that in actuality I haven’t felt in over a decade.
was brown and ochre block print. My hosts eyes, or praying mantis-like creatures. “That’s To be sorely disappointed. Food and drink
were very pleased with the décor, which they all a myth.” I chuckled sympathetically. After were insubstantial and absolutely tasteless:
had hoped would make me feel comfortable the event, though, I have wondered why they like eating or drinking air. School dinners were
and relaxed and would give me no qualms didn’t make their actual appearance clearer. more flavoursome, even if their flavours were
about asking to be shown the rest of the I was then offered a drink, which I declined; sometimes repulsive. Tastelessness, readers
establishment: “Just say what you need.” So it seems the wife was worried lest I accept. will no doubt recall, is also characteristic of
explained their spokesman, who was elderly, Maybe both of us had a subconscious fairy food. Once more my hosts iterated their
silver-haired, and soft- memory of fairy-fare message: that they were entirely harmless and
spoken. He was dressed and its dangerously were not the abusers of abductionist legend. I
in a sparkly white enchanting properties. said I understood. And that was the end of that
robe, somewhat like a Perhaps the wise elder episode.
cassock, and (thought sensed our concern too, But not the end of my adventures. The next
the wife) had the air of a for he responded that night I was among them again. This time I was
wise, retired professor, they never intentionally met by an entity with a military air, soft-spoken
perhaps of history. harmed humans or but always precise and to the point. He told

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ABOVE: The fairy feast or banquet finds its modern analogue in a number of abduction accounts, which also sometimes feature the detail of food that has no taste.

me they had no malice toward us, and nothing (not for the first time) why aliens seem to take satire, she never quite makes it clear if she
to hide. I was here to take a tour of the whole contemporary Western decadence as the global believes this is a series of genuine events,
‘ship’, and was free to go anywhere I chose. I norm. I was also shown what one took to be or simply takes pleasure in twitting me with
noticed, this time, a sense of weightlessness, lecture halls, a museum full of “prior modes of the thought that she does. I tend not to recall
although objects didn’t float about as they do, transport” (which I am now unable to describe, whole dreams, but only scenes that have no
if allowed, in the ISS or on lunar missions. One unfortunately), and a “library of thoughts” which, obvious significance – such as driving a pickup
port of call, naturally, was the pilot’s cabin. I said, impressed, was very ingenious. truck with excessively dim headlights and, once
Everything in it was white and dazzlingly lit. There was a small farewell committee: I’ve got out, the vehicle has become a bus,
I thought my photophobia was well known, the wise old professor and his spouse (who leaking oil. (Go, Freudians, go go go!)
but not to them – another odd gap in their had supervised the children), the military There was a sequel, some time later.
knowledge. The lights dimmed by themselves, personage, and a very curvy female who made Again in a dream, she had a message from
and one could make out seats (unoccupied) me smile. “We’ve discussed all we need, and the aliens (“But I don’t think they were really
and something like desks. The ceiling, like communicated, eaten and shared together,” I aliens,” she says cryptically) expressing
the rest of the place, was vast, and entirely was told, “and you are always welcome here. some disappointment that I hadn’t written
transparent and non-reflective. All one could You are The Ambassador. Life is short. Live well this up and told their story to the world. Well,
see above were stars. There were no visible and be happy. No one knows what will happen now I have, and you may address me as Your
controls – no dials, knobs or levers, and no tomorrow.” I shook hands with the professor; Excellency. Alert readers will have noted the
digital displays, buttons or keyboards. Somehow the military man bowed, and the curvaceous holes in the story, which aren’t that different
one intuited that the ‘ship’ was controlled by person presented me with a commemorative in kind from the holes in other abduction
telepathy, or something like it. gift. So ended the third encounter. accounts, such as where they came from,
With no particular logic, I remarked that so Titter as you may, this is all faithfully reported. what they were doing here, and how come
far I’d seen only adults: I presumed there were Of course there is a catch or two. I have no they seemed to know so much and yet so little
no children here. “In your world, children are memory whatever of these events, and cannot about us. And why were they so concerned
seen but not heard,” said the military entity. produce the gift I was given, to shock and with their amour propre? Such logical nit-
I chuckled. “Wrong era again I’m afraid,” I awe sceptics and believers alike. The whole picking is probably out of place in such cases.
said – reminded of the mannerless, tyrannical story was told me by the wife, who has a truly It reminded me of nothing so much as Susan
little fiends one has to negotiate in street remarkable recall of her sometimes immensely Clancy’s account of trying to find ‘genuine’ alien
and supermarket today. And so one found convoluted dreams and whose consciousness, abductees for her research, and discovering
oneself in a place of happy alien weenies, as noted, was present throughout as a kind how many would-be volunteers just knew they’d
in the charge of a soothing old lady. “We too of recording angel. She dreamed these three been abducted, or had simply dreamed they
have marriages, but take them much more episodes over three consecutive nights, a little were. At least I was saved the trouble of having
seriously than you do.” In retrospect, I wonder under three years ago. Blessed with a talent for to dream it all myself.

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 Blasts from the Past
fo rT e a n T I M eS b r I n g S yo u T h e n e w S T h aT T I M e fo rg oT

67 La PhanTaSMa
Theo Paijmans looks back at the nocturnal apparitions that terrified a Mexican community in South Texas

At the intersection of two dusty

Texan Highways is nestled the
quiet little town of Falfurrias.
Hardly 5,000 souls live there and
nobody knows how the town got
its name or what it means. Every
year, hundreds of Mexicans trek
to Falfurrias.They go there to
honour Don Pedro Jaramillo,
the Mexican curandero, or faith
healer, who died 110 years ago.
Don Pedro is buried just outside
the little town and his shrine is
a place of devout pilgrimage.
A little further upstate, but
still in southern Texas, is the
bustling city of San Antonio.
Many strange tales linger there.
San Antonio is a place of ghosts
and of even darker things.
Generations of its children have
heard about the Donkey Lady,
a horribly disfigured woman
living somewhere in a shack in
northwest San Antonio at the
end of a curved road. She can’t
speak, but she will scream. Her
story was already old in the
1950s, its origin lost in time. 1
One night many years ago an
even more frightening thing
tried to claw its way into the

CAPUCINE DESLOUIS
homes of the Mexican residents
of the West Side neighbourhood
in San Antonio. Its coming,
it was said at the time, was
predicted by Don Pedro in a
letter he wrote to warn the several sections of the West
community. And when it was Her face was hidden, her head wrapped Side that night. An excited
foiled, the apparition tried Mexican woman told how she
again the next year. in the folds of a black mantilla and “two had observed La Phantasma
The night of Wednesday, 3 drifting away when it beheld a
May 1905 was an ill-fated one sweet, tired children accompanied her” white cross upon approaching
for the Mexican quarter of San a gateway.That not everybody
Antonio.There was not a door had seen La Phantasma, the
without a hastily painted sign the entire Mexican section of “without substance”. Below Mexicans argued, was because
of the cross on it.The Mexican the city.The cross was designed the waistline it was nothing she was invisible to the people
residents of the West Side were in ashes and lime on the walks more than vapour. From the who did not have a protective
in a state of fearful anticipation. that led to the door from the waist up, she was a woman in cross on their doors. 3
The Phantasma was heading streets. It was formed in some black. Her face was hidden, A reporter tracked down the
their way. It would visit all the places of the holy palms that her head tightly wrapped in possible origin of the story:
Mexican families that same were reverently carried home the folds of a black mantilla. It “It was difficult to find out
night.The unclean spirit had a from the churches on the Holy was said that “two sweet, tired how the theory of the ghost-
terrible fate in store for them Palm Sunday.” 2 children” accompanied her. woman became prevalent in
once it had entered their homes. La Phantasma – the Her approach was stealthy and the Mexican district, but at last
The first crosses appeared Apparition – as it was simply without warning. La Phantasma one old Mexican woman on
before dark. “The cross was called, was a terrible sight to brought death and ill fortune. Concho Street was induced to
painted and chalked up on the behold.The spectral figure Some claimed that they had tell how she had heard of the
doors and fences and gates in was partly formless cloud, actually seen the ghost in coming visitation. Some man
over farther west in the city suffering of his fellow men.” 5 is generally known, Señor, many different shapes and
had received a letter from Don We hear no more of the many bad things are met with forms. Two men discovered this
Pedro – the Mexican healer – terror of La Phantasma, but the by night in the streets of the one night on their way to their
who used to be in San Antonio, scare left a deep impression. City; but this Wailing Woman, favourite saloon when they
and who has been regarded with In January the following La Llorona, is the very worst of noticed that “a very attractive
superstitious awe ever since he year the Mexican section of them all… Seeing her walking woman was walking just ahead
was here. Don Pedro is known San Antonio was again in quietly along the quiet street of them. They decided to follow
by the Mexicans as ‘Pedrito’; it “excitement and distress” – at the times when she is not her. The two followed for a long
is a term of endearment. Pedrito over a second visitation of the running, and shrieking for time, but couldn’t catch up with
had written a letter to some wraith. “The ‘Phantasma’ is her lost children – she seems her. When it seemed that they
Mexican ‘away over there’ – and a woman in black. None but a respectable person, only were coming up even with the
the direction is indicated by a the Mexican residents across odd-looking because of her woman, she suddenly seemed
graceful wave of the hand.The the San Pedro have seen her; white petticoat and the white to get about half a block ahead
letter said that the Phantasma but they have, and they say reboso with which her head is of them. Finally, my brother
would be in San Antonio last her existence is real. Most of covered, and anybody might and his friend decided to turn
night – two days before El Cinco their houses have crosses in speak to her. But whoever back, but as a parting gesture
de Mayo – and that the ghost many places, and the gates are does speak to her, in that they said, ‘Good-by, my dear!’
woman scattered death in her almost all adorned with crosses very same moment, dies!” 7 At the same time that the two
path.The tidings came from marked rudely in chalk. For Collecting stories about her in said, ‘Good-by my dear!’ the
a friend of the Mexicans, and the ‘Phantasma’ is a horrible Mexico City, early researcher attractive woman whom they
from one in whom they had thing to have enter the house. Thomas Janvier noted over a had followed turned around.
faith.” Her coming brings death unless century ago that stories of la She had the face of a horse,
As another Mexican woman she be placated by presents. Llorona have been told since her fingernails were shiny
explained: “Was it not said in Last spring the ‘Phantasma’ the 16th century. Around 1585 and tin-like, and she gave a
the letter from Pedrito that the visited the Mexican settlement Fray Bernardino de Sahagun long and piercing cry. It was
Woman In Black would be here of San Antonio. Notice of her admonished Mexican converts La Llorona.”12 Aside from
tonight? And has the Pedrito coming reached the town a few to Christianity: “Your ancestors descriptions of a woman with
not always told the truth? The days before she arrived. On the also erred in the adoration of a a horse’s head, others hold
Phantasma is coming.The appointed date the woman, demon whom they represented that “she is a woman dressed
Woman In Black will this night accompanied by a child, stopped as a woman, and whom they in black, having long hair,
pass the street.” 4 in front of a Mexican home gave the name Cioacoatl. She shiny tin-like fingernails and a
Whether or not Don Pedro in Laredo Street.There was a appeared clad as a lady of skeleton’s face. A few believe
had actually communicated cross on the door. She passed the palace [dressed in white]. that she is a vampire that sucks
a warning in a letter is not to the next house and entered, She terrified, she frightened, its victim’s blood. The majority
known, but he was a spiritual asking for supper.The request and cried aloud at night.” 8 insist that she is a woman
beacon and a source of relief was denied and the next day the And before that, in 1550, the dressed in white, with long
for the Mexican communities. sick child in the house died. So Weeping Woman was first heard black hair, long fingernails, and
He died in 1907, two years confident are the Mexicans who in Mexico City, especially on the face of a bat.” 13
after La Phantasma’s reign of have seen the woman in black moonlit nights, where a wailing In this pantheon where
terror.Today he is still known that such an apparition has figure dressed in white would ancient Aztec gods have
and revered as the faith healer appeared that the city police vanish in a lake. 9 transformed into modern
of Los Olmos and many flock department has accepted their As to her origin, Janvier monstrosities, La Phantasma
to his shrine every year. Don story as true. But the police are was convinced that La Llorona claims her rightful and unique
Pedro discovered his miraculous not superstitious, and they are was “a direct survival from place. Between stories of
healing powers one day when he now looking for the woman in primitive times… a stray from horribly disfigured donkey
tried to treat his nose, broken in black – whom they think is not a Aztec mythology; an ancient ladies living in cul-de-sacs,
an accident. On the third day of phantom at all, but a designing powerful goddess living on – her of horse-headed wraiths
his self-administered treatment person who works upon the power for evil lessened, but still accosting drunken stalkers
a disembodied voice told him credulity of the ignorant potent – into modern times.” 10 and of wailing women in white
that God had granted him the Mexicans.” 6 Folklorist Betty Leddy too sees or black running through the
power to heal. “Pedro Jaramillo Reading the descriptions this connection with the ancient night shrieking and lamenting
believed in himself; he believed of La Phantasma, who kept Aztec pantheon. Undoubtedly and always in search of little
that God had selected him for a company with one or two there was an early, pre-Conquest ones, La Phantasma occupies a
work, had bestowed a vocation children, invites comparison body of feminine spirits that contrasting niche. She does not
on him. Surely he never wavered with another wraithlike “could have facilitated the weep or wail, and she does not
in that belief, or he could not entity with similar traits. It is growth of La Llorona legend search for children although
have dedicated himself so ‘La Llorona’, or the Weeping and that may actually be part of she will bring them certain
completely to the work at which Woman, known for centuries it”, she states. 11 death. Instead, she threads
he laboured for a full 25 years throughout California,Texas, The majority of the tales her way silently through
after coming to Texas from Arizona, Mexico and other feature La Llorona as a woman the endless night with what
Mexico… All who knew him are parts of Latin America. La in white, but there are quite a La Llorona is perpetually,
agreed that he was a good man, Llorona is forever searching few intriguing accounts from frantically searching for but
honest and sincere, one who did for her two children, which around the Austin, Texas, area will never get: the company of a
all that he could to relieve the she herself had drowned. “As where La Llorona appears in few lost little souls.

Notes Phantasma’, San Antonio In Black’, Evening News, 5 Jan 1907; Thomas A ‘Die Weisse Frau’ – The 9 Betty Leddy, ‘La
1 Marcy Meffert, Express, San Antonio, San Jose, CA, 1 Feb Janvier, Legends of the White lady – which Llorona in Southern
‘Donkey lady Prowls TX, 4 May 1905. 1906. City of Mexico, 1910, reproduces many of the Arizona’, Western
Helotes’, San Antonio 3 Ibid. 7 ‘Weird Mexican Legend pp134-135. features consistently Folklore, Vol. 7, No. 3
Light, San Antonio, TX, of Wailing Woman’, Salt 8 Janvier, pp162-163. recurring in the more (July 1948), p273.
4 Ibid. developed versions of ‘la
31 Mar 1977; ‘Donkey Lake Telegram, Salt Lake Bacil F Kirtley notes 10 Janvier, p163.
Story Leads Scribe To 5 Wilson M Hudson, ed., City, UT, 15 Nov 1906; that “since the same Llorona’ was recorded
The Healer of Los Olmos in Germany.” See: ‘La 11 Leddy, p273.
Stone Bull’, San Antonio ‘The Wailing Woman, A decade that La Llorona
Light, San Antonio, TX, and Other Mexican Lore, Queer Old Legend of the was first mentioned in Llorona and Related 12 Hudson, p76.
14 Apr 1977. 1951, p69. city of Mexico’, Aberdeen Mexico, a story, already Themes’, Western 13 Ibid, pp73-74.
6 ‘Startled By Woman American, Aberdeen, SD, seemingly quite old, of Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 3
2 ‘West Side In Terror Of (July 1960), p157.
 TAMÁMSHUD
THE MYSTERY OF AUSTRALIA’S
UNKNOWN MAN
On 1 December 1948, a man’s body was found on the beach of an
Adelaide suburb. Who he was and how he died have remained
a mystery for nearly 70 years, despite a trail of bizarre and
tantalising clues. ROY BAINTON re-opens Australia’s weirdest
cold case file. Illustration by HAZEL LEE SANTINO.

I
remember walking through Somerton a 7d (seven pence) bus ticket outside the
Park, a suburb of Adelaide in South station for a bus going to Somerton, but he
Australia, back in the early 1960s.The got off somewhere along the route. Some
mainly residential seaside suburb is researchers suggest that he alighted at
home to Somerton Park Beach, and Glenelg, close to the St Leonard’s Hotel.
whilst enjoying a cold beer there that hot Between 7pm and 8pm that night several
day, I had no idea that this was the location witnesses claimed to have seen the man.
of what remains the most perplexing mystery He stopped somewhere to buy a pasty.This
in Australia’s criminal cold case files: the much is known: now the mystery kicks in.
enduring enigma of the ‘Somerton Man’, In southern Australia, 1 December is
or as they refer to him down under, the regarded as the first day of Summer. It
‘Unknown Man’. was warm on the evening of Tuesday 30
In an age of high-tech CSI, DNA and November when a couple decided to take
advanced forensic science, we like to think a stroll along Somerton Beach. John Bain
we’re pretty clever when it comes to solving Lyons was a local jeweller, and as he and his
murder cases.There’s wife ambled along the sands
usually a clear motive, and in the direction of Glenelg at
a list of potential suspects 7pm, they spotted a smartly
soon builds up. Was it the dressed man reclining on
wife/husband? Was there the sand, his head propped
a girlfriend/boyfriend? A up against the sea wall. He
mugger? A robber? The was about 20 yards away
starting point is usually when they first noticed him.
the identification of the He seemed quite relaxed,
victim.Yet what happens with his legs outstretched
when absolutely no one and crossed. Mr Lyons had
knows whose body it is? The the impression that the
‘Somerton Man’ case is a man might be drunk, as the
mystery laden with curious reclining figure lifted up
clues, hints and false leads, none of which his right arm, which then fell back down. It
provide an explanation or a conclusion, even seemed as if he might have been attempting
after all this time. to light a cigarette but abandoned the idea.
Half an hour later, a young couple were out
THE BIG SLEEP for a walk along the Esplanade, and they had
Perhaps no one noticed the smartly dressed a view of the beach from above.The reclining
middle-aged man who stepped from the figure was still there, with his left arm laid
Melbourne train at Adelaide station at out across the sand. His shoes were clean and
8.30am on the morning of 30 November 1948. well polished, his suit looked immaculate
It had been a long journey. He bought a one- – yet it seemed an odd sartorial choice for
way ticket for the 10.50am train to Henley beachwear. He appeared to be sleeping,
Beach, but the ticket was never used. He but with a swarm of mosquitos around his
was carrying a small brown suitcase, which
he deposited in the station’s left luggage ABOVE: The left luggage ticket for the Somerton
room at around 11am. At 11.15am he bought Man’s suitcase, dated 30 November 1948.

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face, inspiring the young man to comment: mixed with the remains of a pasty in the hinted that the mystery man might have been
“He must be dead to the world not to notice man’s stomach. Further examination revealed a ballet dancer.The cadaver was preserved
them.” the dead man had unusually small pupils, his with formalin and a cast was made of his
But the man on the beach was in the liver was distended with congested blood, bust for future examination.The corpse’s
deepest sleep of all – he was dead. and his spleen was three times normal size. fingerprints were taken and circulated
The following morning, John Lyons With these results, suspicions of poisoning around the world, but with no result.
emerged from the sea after a cooling swim arose.Yet no cause of death was found, and Christmas 1948 came and went with the
and was joined by two men and a horse as expert chemical analysis on the man’s organs Unknown Man still resting in the morgue.
they gathered around the dead man, still in revealed nothing. Then, in January 1949, the suitcase he had left
the same position that Lyons had seen him the So who was this dead man? At the at the railway station was discovered. When
night before, legs crossed and outstretched. subsequent Coroner’s inquest, the evidence police opened it, the mystery deepened.There
There was an unsmoked cigarette behind of one expert, who had inspected the man’s was a reel of orange thread.There were a few
his ear, and a half smoked stub resting on his legs and feet, suggested his well-developed items of clothing, from which the nametags
collar.There were no signs of violence. calf muscles and oddly shaped, pointed feet had been removed, but on three the names
Three hours later, the body was taken to ‘Kean’ and ‘Keane’ remained.There was a
the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where Dr John stencil kit, the kind of thing used to stencil
Barkley Bennett estimated the man had died, names on packing crates, a coat, stitched with
possibly from heart failure, at around 2am. a peculiar feather stitching, a table knife with
There was a dramatic twist when the doctor the shaft cut down, and six pence. Although
announced that he suspected the man had the names ‘Kean’ and ‘Keane’ looked like
been poisoned.The dead man’s pockets were good leads, the police could trace no one, and
emptied but did not reveal much. For starters, the local press suggested that the labels were
he had no cash or wallet. What was found left deliberately as red herrings. Once again
were two combs, a box of matches, a pack of the investigation was stalled.
chewing gum, a pack of Army Club cigarettes But the strangest evidence – the evidence
and seven Kensitas cigarettes. But there was that would give this case its mysterious
another puzzle. Any maker’s name labels or name – came when the Emeritus Professor
tags in his clothing had been carefully cut of Pathology at the University of Adelaide,
away, and one of his trouser pockets had been John Cleland, was brought in during April
stitched with orange thread. 1949 to examine the corpse. Sewn into the
The police had no leads as to the corpse’s waistband of the trousers was what has been
identity.The local press reported that referred to as ‘a secret pocket’. It contained
the man found on the beach was one ‘EC a small, tightly rolled, piece of paper bearing
Johnson’, but Johnson turned up alive and the printed words ‘Tamám Shud’. A reporter
well on 31 December. 1 A full autopsy and for the Adelaide Advertiser, Frank Kennedy,
post mortem were carried out. John Dwyer, recognised the words as Persian.They were
the pathologist, found a quantity of blood from a work of poetry written in the 12th

TOP: A close-up photograph of the unknown man. “He was clean-shaven, with fair hair slightly grey over the temples”. ABOVE: A television documentary later mounted a
reconstruction of the discovery of the mysterious body on Somerton Park Beach. INSET: A contemporary newspaper clipping describing the incident.

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ABOVE LEFT: Detectives Dave Bartlett, Lionel Leane, and Len Brown search the suitcase found at Adelaide railway station. ABOVE RIGHT: Some of the contents of the suit-
case, including a reel of Barbour orange sewing thread, a knife and a pair of scissors. BELOW: The plastercast of the dead man’s head and shoulders.

THE CORONER
century, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, interviewed her she gave a false surname, and
and come at the very end of the English it turns out that she wasn’t actually married
translation by Edward Fitzgerald, after the at the time.The police agreed to protect her
final verse.They mean literally: ‘It is ended’.
The slip of paper appeared to have been torn WAS TOLD THAT identity, and the media referred to her as
‘Jestyn’. When shown the plaster cast of the

AVERY RARE
from a book, and the seemingly hopeless deceased man’s head, she thought that it
hunt for the original copy began.The police might be someone she knew called Alf Boxall,
began to suggest that this might point to a but said she wasn’t certain. She claimed she
straightforward suicide. But there was much
more yet to come. POISON COULD had given a copy of The Rubáiyát to Boxall at
the Clifton Gardens Hotel in Sydney in 1945
when he was serving as a lieutenant in the
CODES AND POISONS
In June 1949 the body was buried in a plot HAVE BEEN USED Water Transport Section of the Australian
Army. Apparently she behaved very oddly
of dry ground and sealed under concrete, when questioned, and almost fainted.2 She
a precaution in case it needed future need not have worried, because Boxall turned
exhumation. On 23 July a man from the up, very much alive, and he brought his copy of
Glenelg area visited the Adelaide police The Rubáiyát, a 1924 Sydney edition, with him.
station and presented a very rare first edition He knew nothing of the dead man and had no
of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The connection to him.
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám published in 1859 The extensive international publicity 3
by Whitcombe and Tombs in New Zealand. rolled on as detectives around the globe
The odd story he told was that the book had investigated; but the man remained
been tossed into the back seat of his car by unidentified. As the Cold War developed,
persons unknown.The torn extract matched attention focused on the possibility of
the ripped space in the book.The identity of poisoning, a favourite weapon in espionage
the man who found the book was kept secret, circles, and the strange ‘codes’ written in the
and has remained so. In the back of the book, back of The Rubáiyát. The Adelaide Coroner,
police found five lines of letters written in Thomas Cleland, was informed by the eminent
pencil, and a telephone number.The number Professor Sir Cedric Stanton Hicks 4 that it
was that of a 27-year-old nurse who had was possible that a very rare poison had been
trained in Sydney’s North Shore Hospital used which would have decomposed “very
and now lived not far from where the body early after death”. When Hicks appeared at
had been discovered. Soon local media began the court hearing, he stated that the poisons
to refer to the mysterious lines of letters as he had in mind were so deadly and secret that
‘code’. Was the dead man a spy? he would not speak their names out loud;
Attention now focused on the new lead, so he jotted them down on a slip of paper
the nurse. She appears to be as mysterious and passed them to the Coroner.They were
as everything else in the case, as her real digitalis and strophanthin. Hicks suggested
name was not revealed until 2013: Jessica the latter as the culprit. It originates from
Ellen “Jo”Thomson, née Harkness (see ‘The ouabain, a poisonous cardiac glycoside also
Jestyn Mystery’, p34). In 1949, when police named g-strophanthin. Somali tribesmen

FT351 33
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 THE ‘JESTYN’ MYSTERY
The real identity of the woman known as
‘Jestyn’ – whose telephone number was
found in the copy of the Rubáiyát from
which the words ‘Tamám Shud’ had have long used extracts containing ouabain Alf Boxall. It seems that Boxall’s army career
been torn – was only revealed in 2013. to poison arrows used in both hunting and might also have involved military intelligence.
In November that year, the Australian warfare.5 ‘Jestyn’ died in 2007 and some believe that
current affairs programme 60 Minutes So, who was the Unknown Man – and was her real name was kept under wraps as it (or
added a new twist to the Somerton he a spy? At Woomera, they were testing perhaps even her nickname) might have been
Man case, interviewing surviving missiles and gathering intelligence. Our a key to the decryption of the ‘code’. Also,
relatives of ‘Jestyn’, who had died in man died in Adelaide, which is the closest according to a 1978 TV documentary,6 when
2007. Her daughter, Kate Thomson, Australian city to Woomera. Many have seen she gave Boxall her copy of The Rubáiyát she
claimed that her mother, Jessica Ellen this as a feasible connection. It is also possible had written out verse 70:
“Jo” Thomson, née Harkness, was the that he boarded his train at Port Augusta,
woman interviewed by the police all which is much closer to Woomera.Then there Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
those years ago. She went on to claim is the bizarre pencilled ‘code’ in the back of I swore – but was I sober when I swore?
that Jessica had in fact known the The Rubáiyát. What does it mean? And then and then came Spring, and Rose-
identity of the Somerton Man, but had in-hand
lied to detectives: “She did know and WRGOABABD My thread-bare Penitence a-pieces tore.
she told me that it is a mystery that MLIAOI
was only known to a level higher than WTBIMPANETP Was this just a romantic gesture – or
the police force.” Kate also said that MLIABOAIAQC something more cryptic?
she strongly suspected her mother had ITTMTSAMSTGAB In 1947, the year before the mystery man
been a Russian spy – she apparently alighted in Adelaide, the United States
spoke Russian and was interested Code specialists around the world, Army’s Signal Intelligence Service was
in Communism – and that she had including some of the best intelligence carrying out OperationVenona, during which
quite possibly murdered or at least experts, and even astrologers, have been they discovered that the Soviet Embassy
been responsible for the death of the wrestling with these random characters for in Canberra had been in receipt of top-
Somerton Man. decades – so far without success. secret information leaked from Australia’s
There was more. In 1947, while Department of External Affairs. In 1948,
unmarried, Jessica Thomson had given MORE MYSTERIES the US banned the transfer of all classified
birth to a son named Robin, Kate’s older There is still an aura of mystery surrounding information to Australia. Spies would have
brother. Robin’s widow and daughter, the nurse ‘Jestyn’ and her relationship with had to work much harder that year.
Roma and Rachel Egan, also appeared
in the 60 Minutes documentary, pointing
out compelling anatomical similarities
that suggested the Somerton Man had
been Robin’s father. They lodged an
application with the Attorney General
of South Australia to have the body
exhumed for DNA testing, but this was
turned down. Derek Abbot, Rachel’s
husband, continued to pursue his
own investigation using DNA from the
Somerton Man’s hair samples and
from presumed relative Rachel. In
2016, American forensic genealogist
Colleen Fitzpatrick presented evidence
to a conference in the US that this
DNA virtually confirmed Somerton
Man was from the east coast of the
US. Her research revealed links to
a large group of relatives in Virginia,
indications of Native American ancestry
and genes linked to the family of
American Founding Father Thomas
Jefferson. Sunday Mail (SA), 23 Nov
2013; Advertiser (Adelaide), 1 Oct 2016;
phys.org/news/2015-06-years-forensic-
somerton-identity-mystery_1.html.
TOP: The scrap of paper torn from a rare edition of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and bearing the words
“Tamám Shud”. ABOVE: Writing found in the back of a copy of the Rubáiyát matching the torn fragment.

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 The more you dig into the murky
undergrowth of the Tamám Shud case, the
denser the tangled roots become. For example,
in 1945, three years prior to the death of the
‘Unknown Man’, the body of Joseph (George)
Saul Haim Marshall, a 34-year-old man
from Singapore, was found in Ashton Park,
Mosman, Sydney, with an open copy of the
The Rubáiyát (reported as a seventh edition
by publishers Methuen) laid on his chest. It
was recorded that he’d committed suicide by
poison. However, Methuen only issued five
editions of The Rubáiyát, so either this was a
reporting error or a copy of the New Zealand
Whitcombe and Tombs edition. It might be just
a coincidence, or some kind of synchronicity,
but a quick look on Google Earth reveals that
Sydney’s Ashton Park is a short walk from
Clifton Gardens. It was in Clifton Gardens,
just two months after the dead Marshall was
found with The Rubáiyát on his chest, that
Jestyn gave Alfred Boxall a copy of the book. ABOVE: Verse 70 of the Rubáiyát inscribed by ‘Jestyn’ in the copy she gave to Alf Boxall at the Clifton Gardens
And who was Joseph (George) Saul Haim Hotel, Sydney, in 1945. BELOW: The grave of the Unknown Man in Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery.
Marshall? It transpires that his brother was
the famous barrister and Chief Minister NOTES
of Singapore, David Saul Marshall. Joseph 1 By early February 1949, there had been eight
Marshall’s inquest was held on 15 August 1945. different ‘positive’ identifications of the body. Some
A woman testified at the inquest. She was thought it was a missing stable-hand; two men from
called Gwenneth Dorothy Graham. Within a Darwin thought the corpse was that of a friend of
fortnight of testifying, she was found naked theirs; and others suggested he was a sailor or a
Swedish man. Police from Victoria suggested the man
and dead, face down in a bath with her wrists was from their state, as his the laundry marks were
slit. Omar Khayyám seems to have had a lot to similar to those of dry-cleaning firms in Melbourne.
answer for. Following publication of the man’s photograph in
In 1949, as the Adelaide police were still Victoria, 28 people claimed they knew his identity.
scratching their heads over the Unknown Man, 2 Retired detective Gerald Feltus interviewed Jestyn in
at Largs North, just 12 miles (20km) along 2002 and found her to be either “evasive” or “just did
the beach from Somerton, another bizarre not wish to talk about it”. He agreed not to disclose her
identity or anything that might reveal it. Feltus believed
case unfolded. On 6 June, a two-year-old boy medical attention. that Jestyn knew the Somerton man’s identity.
named Clive Mangnoson was found dead, his South Australia’s Major Crime Task Force
3 http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?l-
body in a sack. It was established that the child still regard the Somerton Man as an open publictag=Taman+Shud. This site offers a selection of
had been dead for 24 hours. Keith Waldemar case.The South Australian Police Historical press coverage on the case.
Mangnoson, his unconscious father, was lying Society holds the Unknown Man’s bust, which 4 Often mis-named as ‘Stanford Hicks’, Sir Cedric
alongside him.The man was taken to hospital contains strands of his hair. Unfortunately, Stanton Hicks came to Adelaide in 1926 after an
suffering from exposure and ended up in a the chemicals used in embalming may have outstanding student career at the University of Otago in
mental institution. Father and son had been destroyed much of the DNA. In any case, New Zealand, war service and a research studentship
missing for four days. It gets weirder: the two at Cambridge. He was appointed Professor of Human
a recent request to exhume the body was
Physiology and Pharmacology in 1927, a position
were discovered by a man named Neil McRae, refused. Witness statements appear to have he retained until 1958 when he became Emeritus
who said he had established their location disappeared from police files, and the suitcase Professor. He was knighted in 1936 for his services to
in a dream the previous night. As with the found at Adelaide Station and its contents medical science.
Unknown Man, the coroner did not believe the were destroyed in 1986.There have been 5 A sufficiently concentrated ouabain dart can fell a
boy had died from natural causes. approaches from people in Eastern Europe Hippopotamus, causing respiratory and/or cardiac
Then came the revelation by the boy’s who believe the Somerton Man might be one arrest. Only one creature is immune to its effects – the
mother, Roma Mangnoson, that she’d been Galapagos Tortoise.
of many missing persons from the area during
threatened by a masked man who almost ran the Cold War. But it looks as if we may never 6 Inside Story, presented by Stuart Littlemore, ABC
TV, 1978.
her down outside her house in Largs North’s know who he was and how he came to die on
Cheapside Street.The man was driving a that stretch of Australian beach. So let’s leave
battered, cream-coloured car. According the last word to our 12th century Persian poet, AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
to Mrs Mangnoson, “the car stopped and Omar Khayyám:
a man with a khaki handkerchief over his ‘They change and perish all – but He ROY BAINTON spent
face told me to ‘keep away from the police remains…’ Tamám Shud: ‘It is ended’. FT seven years in the
or else’.” She believed this to be connected Merchant Navy and has
with the fact that her husband had previously FURTHER READING worked in journalism,
been to identify the Unknown Man at Gerald Michael Feltus, The Unknown Man, radio and TV. He is the
Somerton, whom he believed to be someone Klemzig, South Australia, 2010. author of numerous
he had worked with in 1939 named Carl Kerry Greenwood, Tamam Shud: The Somerton
books, including The
Thompsen. Local dignitaries, including the Man Mystery, University of New South Wales Long Patrol: the British
mayor of Port Adelaide, AH Curtis, and JM Publishing, 2013 . in Germany 1945-1989
Gower, the Secretary of the Largs North (Mainstream, 2004), A Brief History of 1917:
Stephen King frequently refers to this case
Progress Association, received some strange, Russia’s Year of Revolution (Constable &
in his novel The Colorado Kid, which in turn
anonymous phone calls, threatening an Robinson, 2005), The Mammoth Book of
inspired the series Haven.
“accident” should they “stick their nose into Strange Phenomena (Constable & Robinson,
the Magnonson affair”.The distraught Mrs As this is an Internet cause célèbre, a simple 2013) and The Mammoth Book of Superstition
Magnonson was so affected by her meetings Google of Tamam Shud will bring up dozens of (Constable & Robinson, 2016). He was born in
with the police that she required subsequent links. Hull and now lives in Nottinghamshire.

FT351 35
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 ANCIENT
ASSASSINS?
BARRY BALDWIN sifts through the evidence at a pair of classical crime scenes
in an attempt to figure out who done what to whom in a saga of political conspiracy
and family plots that makes Game of Thrones look like The Waltons...

A
LEFT: Pausanias sticks it to King
t sunrise, one day
Philip of Macedon in June 336 BC;
in June 336 BC, but was someone else behind the
watched by a huge assassination?
crowd on the theatre
of the old capital city
of Aegæ, Philip II, before he could betray his
King of Macedon, marched into paymaster? If so, who was he or
the arena behind a ceremonial (remembering the Manchurian
parade of statues of the 12 Candidate) she?
Olympian gods, plus an unlucky
13th, an image of himself. THE PAUSANIAS PLOT
His bodyguard followed No mystery about the killer.
at a distance: Philip wished He was Pausanias, himself of
to demonstrate that he was aristocratic if not royal blood,
protected by universal goodwill famous for his good looks.
and needed no weapons. Attracted by these, Philip
Arrayed in a white ceremonial had earlier made this youth
robe, he walked between two his lover before switching his
young Alexanders, his 21-year- fickle affections to another.
old son, the future ‘Great One’, The jilted Pausanias made a
and the King of Epirus, his new huge scene, crudely insulting
son-in-law. his replacement, who, however,
These festivities were part soon proved his manhood and
of the ritual attending the devotion by sacrificing his own
dynastically arranged and just- life in battle to save Philip’s.
concluded nuptials between his Another tangle of relationships
daughter Cleopatra (Alexander is darkly relevant: this gallant
the Great’s sister) and catamite was a ‘good friend’ of
Alexander of Epirus, brother Attalus, one of Philip’s crack
of Philip’s currently estranged generals, and whose niece,
wife Olympias, and one-time Cleopatra, just happened to be
lover of Philip himself: in one of the king’s five wives.
effect, the bride was also her To teach Pausanias a lesson,
bridegroom’s niece – compare Attalus invited him to dinner,
the marital tangles of ex-Stone got him drunk (never difficult
Bill Wyman – and the marriage with Macedonians), then
incestuous. along with other guests took
As Philip paused by the it in turns to rape him while
arena entrance, a young onlookers cheered and jeered,
member of his Bodyguard rushed forward Theatre. A gaggle of Macedonian noblemen and then handed him over to his stable-boys
and stabbed the King with his sword – who had begun a pursuit caught up, but for more of the same. When able to walk
shades of Indira Ghandi.The 46-year-old instead of seizing him for arrest, they (Lee again, Pausanias sought audience with
monarch lay dead in the dust.The assassin Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby leap to mind) the King and laid charges against Attalus.
attempted to flee – there was a horse butchered him with their weapons. Though not unsympathetic to his ex-lover,
waiting at the city gate – but tripped and An impulsive act of revenge? Or the Philip could not afford to lose his general’s
fell, rather like John Wilkes Booth breaking calculated finale to a conspiracy? Did military services, whilst his other ear was
his leg after shooting Lincoln in the Ford someone want to shut a hired sword’s mouth commandeered by wife Cleopatra on her

36 F T351
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 uncle’s behalf. So, first he temporised, then
affected to treat the incident as a prank,
dismissing the charges out of hand.
Motive enough here, you’d think, for
Pausanias. Indeed, Aristotle agrees, a single
sentence in his Politics 1 flatly stating that
Pausanias did what he did because of what
Attalus had done to him.This remark, often
overlooked by modern writers, might seem
to undermine their more lurid scenarios.
But, as we’ll see, Aristotle may himself have
been accomplice to another Macedonian
regicide, hence could be thought to have his
own agenda.
Wouldn’t Attalus have been a more logical
target than Philip? Well, reason does not
always rule a person’s actions, and Attalus
was not then available to be killed, being
away from Macedonia.There’s also a crucial

PENN PROVENANCE PROJECT

question of timing. A couple of ancient
sources place the rape eight years before
the murder, making Pausanias’s revenge a
very cold dish – it’s hardly likely he’d had no
previous opportunity. Other writers, though,
including Plutarch in his Life of Alexander 2,
imply the outrage was a recent one, thus

OFFICIAL
explaining the choice of victim and occasion ABOVE: A mediæval woodcut showing Olympias
of his death. and the deaths of Pausanias and Cleopatra.
BELOW: Olympias on a third century Roman medal-
Philip’s body had hardly been removed
when his senior general Antipater presented
Alexander to the Macedonian army to PROPAGANDA lion honouring Emperor Caracalla.

DESCRIBED THE
be duly hailed and installed as their new Not a woman to cross. But Philip had
king. A wave of executions followed. By no done so repeatedly, both by marrying at
coincidence, the victims were inconvenient least four other women and by largely
royal relatives, real or imagined threats
to Alexander’s position – as Gibbon MURDER AS A giving up sleeping with her. By 336, they
were effectively separated, maritally and

FOREIGN PLOT
unimprovably said of the pogrom of princes geographically: she was back in Epirus.
after Constantine the Great’s death, “a Her outsider status also damaged
precautionary massacre”. Alexander’s prospects. Not regarded as a true
Official propaganda strove to explain his full-blooded Macedonian, he stood to lose
father’s murder as a foreign plot, involving Whatever the truth, there is one his position as first in line to the throne if his
the new King of Persia who wanted to force a indisputable and highly material fact: the father’s then-pregnant wife Cleopatra should
postponement if not cancellation of Philip’s three noblemen who had silenced Pausanias produce a son: in the event it was a girl, but
much-trumpeted impending attack upon before he could betray anything or anyone that’s immaterial to the present story.
his empire.There might be something in were all close friends of Alexander. At the Philip-Cleopatra wedding banquet,
this. But it was not enough for Macedonian Both Olympias and Alexander had ample when everyone was in their cups (normal
rumour or Plutarch3 who asserts: “When cause to wish Philip permanently out of their at any macho Macedonian party), Attalus
Pausanias slew Philip, most of the blame way. (now the King’s relative) rose to propose a
devolved upon Olympias who had added toast: “To a legitimate heir to the throne.”
her exhortations to the young man’s anger KISS OF THE ALBANIAN An ambiguous insult, referring either to
and incited him to do the deed, although a SPIDER WOMAN Alexander’s half-foreign origin or to gossip
certain amount of accusation attached itself Olympias (FT302:27) was not Macedonian that said Philip was not his actual father.
also to Alexander.” but from Epirus, that savage ancient Whatever its meaning and intent, Alexander
Beyond appending that Alexander land which is now the equally ferocious jumped up, threw his goblet into Attalus’s
had turned as deaf an ear as Philip to Albania – its 1985 Communist National face shouting: “Do you dare call me a
Pausanias’s demand for Attalus’s Encyclopaedia’s (Fjalori Enciklopedik bastard?” A well-soused Philip struggled to
punishment – although he Shqiptar, p773) admiring notice his feet, furious with Alexander, and tried
did quote a verse from credits her with complicity. to attack him with drawn sword, only to trip
WALTERS ART MUSEUM

Euripides’s Medea (“The Thus she was resented and fall flat on his face. Alexander was sober
giver of the bride, the at court as a barbarian enough to toss off an appropriate sarcasm:
groom, the bride”) outsider. Plutarch’s “Look at the man who plans to cross from
which could have been “a jealous and sullen Europe to Asia – he can’t even get from
taken to suggest a triple woman” is one of the great couch to couch!” All this was delightfully
murder of Attalus, understatements of all rendered in the 1955 film with an (ironically)
Philip, and Cleopatra, time. Apart from ordering pre-alcoholic Richard Burton (Fredric
Plutarch does not pursue over 100 political executions, March played Philip, Stanley Baker Attalus,
the guilt of either party. He Olympias herself committed Danielle Darieux Olympias).
and other biographers (Arrian at least five murders, including Leaving the banquet, Alexander ensured
and Quintus Curtius Rufus) were roasting a royal baby and its mother Olympias was safe with her brother the King
writing centuries after the event, 4 hence at alive whilst enjoying their agony – compare of Epirus before going north to campaign
the mercy of their own sources, albeit they Albanian stories that make Nexhmije Hoxha against some barbarian tribes. Father and
had enough independence of judgement to even more cruel than dictator-husband son subsequently patched things up, though
contradict the authority of Aristotle. Enver. everyone knew it was an uneasy truce, and

FT351 37
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 one excluding Olympias. And without being might be thought the driving force, though hurrying?”
Freudian about it, Alexander was distinctly a we shouldn’t assume this: her flamboyant Apart from being drink-ravaged,
mother’s boy. emotionalism would cover her son’s more Alexander was also enfeebled by several
Olympias swiftly placed a gold crown on covert ruthlessness. Contrariwise, Alexander serious wounds incurred over years of
the head of Pausanias’s body, which had could have become aware of his mother’s fighting. He was also in emotional agony:
been nailed to a gibbet. Later, she had the plotting and simply kept quiet.That way, if his closest confidant and lover, the young
corpse removed, cremated over Philip’s it came off, he would profit; if not, his back Hephæstion, himself a heavy drinker, had
ashes, and buried in a nearby grave where was covered.This would suit Plutarch’s claim5 recently died. Among many tokens of grief,
annually she would toast the murder. She also that Olympias was deemed the prime mover, Alexander ordered the execution of the
procured his lethal sword and dedicated it to with Alexander guilty more by association deceased’s physician.
Apollo. None of this proves she organised the than actual deed. Five years later – a suggestive lapse of
assassination, only that she rejoiced in it. One time, but suggestive of what? – rumours of
ancient source, however, emphasises that she CHOOSE YOUR POISON poison suddenly started up, soon hardening
had arranged Pausanias’s getaway horse. It Another June day, 13 years later. On the into accusations and belated reprisals.
requires no great stretch of imagination that 10th, early morning, Alexander died, in his Olympias returns to centre stage, which
she had likewise managed that Alexander’s bed – not on his feet as individuals from the may encourage or discourage belief. She
three intimates should be positioned close Roman emperorVespasian to John Wayne had many executed for complicity, pointing
to where Philip was to die, ideally placed (cf. have insisted is proper for a ‘man’ – far away the finger directly at Alexander’s chief
the similar double-cross of Bulgarian hit- from home in Babylon. He was around 32 or wine steward, Iollas.This proves nothing.
men in Casino Royale) to spring the trap on 33, an age not thought so young then as now, Olympias was yet again returning from exile
Pausanias. but still not old. in Epirus and was both paying off old scores
Antiquity never discovered the truth, At the time, no suspicion of foul play. and purging the court of political enemies
nor shall we. No surprise – think JFK’s Indeed, there may have been none. in her usual extravagant way.The allegation
assassination only 50 years ago. Given Alexander had fallen ill with a high fever, that her royal son had been murdered by
Pausanias’s mass rape and what Aristotle possibly malarial, exacerbated by taking a poison – something the ancients regarded as
says, it remains possible that he acted alone cold river plunge which invited pneumonia peculiarly odious: the Romans had a special
and that Olympias and Alexander simply and pleurisy and also by his long-time and standing court to deal with such crimes –
capitalised on their good luck. But unless now maniacal drinking – in the words of made a handily respectable excuse for her
they acted rashly (think Thomas à Becket Brendan Behan, he imbibed on only two sanguinary actions.
and the knights) – and, if so, why were they occasions: when he was thirsty and when he Arrian, Curtius Rufus, and Plutarch
not punished? – the liquidation of Pausanias was not. themselves did not believe the poisoning
by the three friends does most to point One source has him in his last days story. But a few moderns have been tempted.
the finger elsewhere, since Alexander (if repeatedly toasting his company’s health by The late great Ernst Badian nicely pointed
not Olympias) would surely have wished draining his special 12-pint mug. A modern up the conundrum: “The poisoning charge, if
(however hypocritically) to inflict a condign biographer with medical credentials, true, was bound to be denied or ignored, and
fate upon him to gratify the claims of filial John Maxwell O’Brien,6 concludes that if false, bound to be asserted.” 7
piety and the army’s desire for revenge. long-term alcoholic poisoning did (as with The alleged organisers of the plot were the
Both mother and son had ample motive Amy Winehouse) Alexander in – as Robert senior general Antipater (currently back in
to want Philip dead, and opportunities Benchley (answering the question “Don’t you Macedonia), his son Cassander (destined to
could be created, if not found. Olympias know alcohol is a slow poison?”) said, “Who’s play a prominent role in the post-Alexander
civil wars) and – Aristotle (“a bugger for the
bottle” – Monty Python).Yes, the ‘divine’
Aristotle, revered by mediæval churchmen
(as Galileo would find to his cost), one of the
few pagans exempted from hell-fire. In years
gone by, he’d been appointed tutor to the
young Alexander by Philip. But teachers have
been known to hate some of their pupils,
while all FT readers can monthly attest to the
existence of one poisonous professor.
Antipater and Aristotle were close friends.
Both had reason to fear and hate the king.
Alexander had been purging his generals
with Stalinesque enthusiasm – who knew
when Antipater might be next? Aristotle
was disgusted by his former pupil’s rampant
megalomania and blasphemous demands
to be recognised as a living god. Both were
horrified by his respect for, and favouring
of, Orientals and their customs. So was
Cassander, who got into serious trouble
over this. When he first saw courtiers
prostrating themselves Persian-style before
their monarch, he burst out laughing.This
WELLCOME COLLECTION

so enraged Alexander that he banged

Cassander’s head against a wall.
A letter from Aristotle to Antipater may
drop a broad hint that (to borrow from Mary
Renault) The King Must Die: “Alexander may
ABOVE: Alexander the Great demonstrating his trust in his physician Philip of Acarnania by drinking a medicinal
be proud to rule over many peoples, but those
draught prepared by him despite allegations that it was a poison. Oil painting by Benjamin West, ca. 1771. who hold true views of the gods have no less
reason to be so.”

38 FT351
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 own crime.
From the moment of his death, Alexander’s
generals would engage in a bloodthirsty
power struggle over the next 25 years, thus
justifying his prediction: “After my death
there will be some great funeral games.”
Whatever the truth of these speculations
about Krateros, it is suggestive that when
the king died he had led the veteran troops
no further than Cilicia. Clearly, Krateros was
waiting – but for what?
Alexander’s empire pretty well died with
him.The mystery of his death is very much
alive. After some 50 years of lecturing and
writing on Greek history, I still haver. As
said, it is perfectly possible that Alexander’s
death was a natural one: the sources’ refusal
to credit the poisoning gives (or should give)
pause. On the other hand, there were any
number of Macedonians (plus Aristotle) who
had good cause to fear the drunken, paranoid
megalomaniac that their king had become
and who were quite capable of the only final
ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

solution: get rid of him. Motive was amply

supported by means and opportunity.
Quasi-fortean finale: a contemporary clay
tablet 11 records that on this day, “The King
died. Clouds...” – portending what? FT
ABOVE: Alexander on his deathbed, as played by Richard Burton in the 1955 film Alexander the Great.

NOTES
Aristotle was a doctor’s son, the most ancients to be the sign of a hardened tippler. 1 Politics, para1311a22c = bk5 ch10 in (e.g.) TJ
renowned botanist of the day, thoroughly Theophrastus recommends that strychnine be Saunders’s Penguin tr.
conversant with the best root poisons. One administered in undiluted wine to mitigate 2 Alexander, ch10 para6.
modern biographer makes a plausible its bitter taste, albeit Alexander on quaffing 3 Alexander, ch10 paras6-7.
case for strychnine8. In his History of his ‘Mickey Finn’ is reported to have felt a 4 Arrian (writing in Greek, 2nd century AD)
Plants,Theophrastus (Aristotle’s Lyceum sharp pain. combined military and gubernatorial experience with
colleague and successor) describes how Peter Green10 believes Hephæstion was philosophical enthusiasms. Curtius Rufus (Latin) is
this drug is a beneficial stimulant in small also poisoned. No ancient evidence, though a shadowy figure, possibly holding high military and
doses, fatal in large ones (cp. Warfarin). Its he was unpopular with the Macedonian political office in the 1st century AD; cf. the Penguin tr.
by J. Yardley and W. Heckel.
symptoms include lassitude and very high generals, above all Krateros, thus raising
body temperature: both were exhibited by another possibility. Krateros had stood high 5 Alexander, ch10 para7.
Alexander in his last days. Strychnine is easily in Alexander’s favour, being set to replace 6 Alexander the Great: The Invisible Enemy (1992).
extracted from its common base root, and can Antipater asViceroy, effectively Alexander’s Other suggestions include bowel perforation, malaria,
pancreatitis, typhoid fever, and West NIle Virus; cf.
be kept in effective condition for a long time deputy. Another good reason for Antipater, DW Oldach/RE Richard/EN Borza/RM Benitez (NOT
– long enough for a dose to be conveyed from if he had wind of this, to start discussing Raffa!), ‘A Mysterious Death,’ New England Journal of
Greece to Babylon. poisons with Aristotle. But the finger might Medicine 338 (1998), 1764-89.
One qualification, glossed over by Milns, point the other way. When Alexander was 7 ‘Harpalus’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 81 (1961),
may be needed. Plutarch’s main reason asked on his deathbed to whom he intended p36; cf. AB Bosworth, ‘The Death of Alexander the
for disbelief is that Alexander’s corpse lay leaving his empire, he replied: “To the Great: Rumour and Propaganda,’ Classical Quarterly
unattended for many days but never showed strongest.” In Greek, krateros means strong, 21 (1971), pp112-26.
any physical corruption – it was common so was this a barely-veiled designation of 8 RD Milns, Alexander the Great (1968), pp256-8.
ancient belief that the bodies of poison Krateros as the successor? Despite Milns’s 9 E.g. Curtius Rufus, bk10 ch17; Pliny, Natural
victims swell and blacken. My own doctor says assertion that “Krateros was a natural second- History, bk30 ch53 para149.
there is nothing to this, but adds that rictus in-command, not likely to let his ambitions 10 Alexander of Macedon (1974), p477.
and rigidity may briefly persist post-mortem. raise him above his station,” it could be that 11 Abraham Sacks & Hermann Hunger, Astronomical
Some Roman writers9 get around Plutarch by he wanted to expedite his succession by Diaries and Related Texts from Babylon (1988), vol.
saying what killed Alexander was a dose of bumping off Alexander before the fickle king 1, p207.
toxic water drawn from the infamous Styx in should change his mind, and/or immeasurably
Arcadia. enhance his chances in a pitched struggle AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
These sources show one exotic detail against Antipater.
worthy of Ian Fleming: whatever the poison, it Olympias returns to brief play. Antipater’s BARRY BALDWIN
was conveyed in a mule’s hoof, this being the supporters – the old general had by now is a Fellow of the
only container resistant to its corrosive power. died a natural death, about the only one Royal Society of
Once arrived, the fateful draught was served who did – were among the chief victims of Canada and Emeritus
to Alexander by Iollas, who just happened to her aforementioned court purges, until she Professor of Classics
be the son of Antipater and younger brother herself was finally done in by Cassander. at the University of
of Cassander – the ideal agent. Also in on Despite the absence of ancient rumour, much Calgary. Best known in
the plot was allegedly Alexander’s courtier less evidence, it is tempting to think she his academic field for
Medius, who hosted one of the king’s last might have conspired with Krateros to get his work on early Greek
booze-ups, and who was infatuated with rid of Alexander to strengthen this general’s humorists and satirists,
Iollas. At this particular party, Alexander hand for his clash with her enemy Antipater he has been a regular columnist for Fortean
was drinking pure wine, considered by the and subsequently accusing the latter of her Times for many years.

FT351 39
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THETAKING OFDR MO

As he embarks upon a comprehensive survey of historical claims for levitation and other forms
of supernatural transportation, bob rICKard will be posting occasional bulletins in FT on some
ting oc
interesting cases, such as this fairy from 17th century
airy abduction fr Ireland.
ury Ir

T
his first instalment concerns a account indeed. Not only does it have places – including an ‘ancient ruin’ – where
narrative, published towards intrinsic value as an historical document, 1 it there is feasting, dancing and music. At the
the end of 1678, relating the contains many elements that are central to time of this story, the witch persecutions
abduction of Dr Moore by my current research, including: had been under way throughout Europe for
fairies in County Wicklow, several centuries, including in Ireland. The
Ireland. Today, garbled and • A levitation that develops into a significance of the lack of association here
abbreviated versions of this teleportation witnessed by at least two other with the Sabbat visits and feasts of witches
amazing story can be found on the Internet, people and at close quarters. elsewhere enhances this narrative’s purity.
and if a source is given at all it is usually
inadequate. It certainly deserves a better • An Irish version of the ‘Wild Ride’ as Dr • The abductee has a history of such
treatment because it is a very special Moore is ‘taken’ by a ‘fairy host’ to remote ‘disappearances’ since childhood.

40 Ft351
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ORE...AND HIS RETURN

• A ‘Wise Woman’ who uses a form of the broadsheet any evidence that Halliwell might have
glendalough scene: david noton PhotograPhy / alamy stock Photo

‘clairvoyance’ or ‘remote viewing’ to locate My first encounter with Dr Moore’s fairy obtained his own copy. Sometime later, I
Dr Moore, a form of ‘telekinetic action’ to abduction was in 1976, when John Michell found a copy in the Australian National
protect him, and predicts his ‘return’. and I were researching our Phenomena: Library. It is listed in the Short-Title
A Book of Wonders (1977). John, who Catalogue of Books Printed in England,
• An association of the fairies with was a Shakespearean scholar, had noted Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British
disease as a punishment for offences that this story had been mentioned America and of the English Books Printed
against them. by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps in Other Countries, 1641-1700, compiled by
(1820–1889), an antiquarian and collector the Yale librarian Donald Wing between
• The abductee returns and verifies the of Shakespearean works and related 1945 and 1951 and now incorporated into
Wise Woman’s account. documents, in his Illustrations of the Fairy the British Library’s huge English Short
Mythology (1845). 2 Unfortunately for Title Catalogue (ESTC). Here is how this
• Although other examples of these us, Halliwell shed no helpful light on the ‘short’ title appears in the ESTC:
phenomena are to be found among Irish original broadsheet, which he claimed to Strange and Wonderful News from the
folktales, this narrative asserts that it have read in the British Library (BL). County of Wicklow in Ireland, or a Full and
happened to real people in a contemporary Initially, my search for the broadsheet True Relation of what Happened to one Dr
landscape. in the BL was frustrated; nor could I find Moore, (Late Schoolmaster in London.) How
ABOVE: an 1813 map of ireland showing county Wicklow. assuming dr moore’s ‘flight’ route began at Baltinglass (lower left) his terminus was at seven churches
(centre). BELOW: the frontispiece to the original broadsheet of 1678. FACING PAGE: Fairy castle on two rock mountain; a cairn above a passage tomb.

he was taken Invisibly from his Friends, what

happened to him in his Absence, and how, And
by what means he was found, and brought
AS A CHILD, given the circumstances and period records.
As the party was sitting together – perhaps
in the inn’s parlour after a meal – Dr Moore
back to the same place. With Allowance.3
FAIRIES USED began telling the others some of his family
history and connection to this region of

FREQUENTLYTO
doCtor Who? County Wicklow, including, it is recorded, “a
The story begins sometime in mid-October discourse of several things that happened
1678 4 with a small party of friends – Dr to him in his childhood near that place”.
Moore, Richard Uniack, and Laughlin Moore
– travelling along rough roads skirting
the Wicklow Mountains. We are not told
CARRY HIM AWAY He had been away for “about 34 years” but
he remembered his mother often telling
him that, as a child, “Spirits which they
Dr Moore’s full name, only that he was called Fairies” used “frequently to carry
returning from a stint as a schoolmaster him away, and continue him with them for
in London and that his family home was some time, without doing him the least
in County Wicklow. It is also reasonable to prejudice”.
presume, given the nature of the Doctor’s These abductions were well known in
visit, that Laughlin Moore was a relative, his family and were confirmed to him by
but this is not stated either. some of his other relations. His mother, Dr
Dr Moore intended to visit a property he Moore tells his friends, was so frightened
had recently purchased in the county, and, by his sudden disappearances and worried
as evening approached, they decided to for his safety – presumably spiritual as
lodge in a small place called Dromgreagh, well as physical – that “as often as he was
not far from Baltinglass.5 The account is missing” she would send for “a certain
vague about these locations. Baltinglass Old Woman” who lived close by enough to
is a sizeable town at the south-western be called a neighbour, 7 who “by repeating
corner of County Wicklow, but of some Spells or Exorcisms, would suddenly
Dromgreagh there is no trace, even on cause his return”. If Laughlin Moore
the earliest maps.6 There is no hint that was indeed a relative of the Doctor’s,
the party intended to travel beyond he kept quiet, but for Richard Uniack
Baltinglass – either towards County these declarations about supernatural
Kildare half a mile to the east, or towards abductions, fairies and mediations by
County Carlow two miles to the south – so mysterious Wise Women went beyond
we might suppose that Dromgreagh lay what educated men could expect from
between Baltinglass and the Wicklow Hills, each other. Uniack, it is recorded, “used
and might even have been their actual several Arguments to dissuade the Doctor
destination. from the belief of so idle and improbable
Regarding what happened that evening a Story”. Despite that, Dr Moore held
in the Dromgreagh inn, the description his ground and “did positively affirm the
is as clear and as full as can be expected truth thereof”.

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the doCtor VaNIshes described or accounted for. Would any of us Dr Moore neither eats nor drinks with his
Perhaps the dispute with a friend unsettled have reacted any differently? abductors. 11 With that, she “struck down
the Doctor. Perhaps being back in the her hand,” as if snatching at something.
landscape of his childhood and reminiscing eNter the WIse WoMaN Next, she begins a chant in Irish, which the
about being ‘taken’ put into him some Finding themselves suddenly alone, Uniack company takes to be “a Spell or Charm”. 12
kind of reverie; after all, traditional tales and Loughlin Moore, are stunned by what We are told the substance of this pishogue:
of those taken by fairies often say that an has just happened. The narrative describes “First she runs his Pedigree back four
experience of the Otherworld (whatever them (almost in modern phrasing) as “Being generations, and calls his Ancestors by their
it may be) never really leaves a person. A greatly surprised at the strangeness of the several Names; 13 then summons him from
noticeable change came over the Doctor; he accident”. They don’t know what else to do the East, the West, the North, and the South,
stood up and announced to the others that except call for the innkeeper and explain from Troops and Regiments, especially from
“he must leave their Company, for he was as best they can the strange fate of their the Govenour mounted on the Sorrel Horse,
called away.” 8 Richard Uniack noticed that companion. etc.” 14
Dr Moore was actually rising upwards off the To their additional astonishment, the After repeating ‘the Charm’ several times,
ground. Reaching forwards, Uniack “catches innkeeper “seems not to be much terrified the Old Woman proceeded to predict that
fast hold of his arm with one hand, and thereat, as if such disasters were common the Doctor would be carried to several other
intwined his arm within the Doctor’s arm, thereabouts”. He tells them that “within a places that night. From the Wood (a mile
and with his other hand grasped the Doctor’s quarter of a mile” lives a woman “who by the distant from the Inn), he would be taken
shoulder.” On the other side of the Doctor, Neighbourhood was called a Wise-woman” about seven miles to “a Danes Fort” 15 where
Laughlin Moore quickly held onto the figure who “did usually give Intelligence of things he would be surrounded by “great Revelling
in the air; but, says the broadsheet, “the that had been lost, and of Cattle that were and Dancing, together with variety of Meats
Doctor maugre [despite] their strength was gone astray” (see the ‘Fairy Doctor’ panel and Liquors”. That said, the Old Woman
lifted off the ground”. Laughlin’s fear got over the page), adding that he had no doubt repeated her promise to protect him.
the better of him, causing him to let go; but that “if the Woman were sent for, she could Next, the Doctor was to be transported
“Uniack continued his hold, and was carried resolve them where their Friend was, and “twenty miles farther”, where again the
above a yard from the ground.” Then, “by by what means conveyed away”. Concerned Host would stop for “great Merriment”. The
some extraordinary unperceived force”, he for the safety of Dr Moore, they immediately final destination of his ‘Wild Ride’ was to be
too was compelled to let go. sent someone to bring her. Seven Churches, some 16 miles east-north-
In this narrative we find the account of the On the Wise Woman’s arrival, Uniack east of Baltinglass, a religious community in
witnesses and, later, what Dr Moore himself seeks an assurance from her whether, the heart of the Wicklow Hills, also known as
experienced. All the two witnesses could indeed, she can “give them any account” of Glendalough. 16 Finally, the Old Woman said
understand was that “the Doctor was hurried the gentleman “that had been Spirited out that “towards Day-break” the Doctor would
immediately out of the Room, but whether of their Company about an hour before”. be reunited with his friends, returned safely
conveyed through the window, or out at the Without fuss, recourse to ritual or preamble, without any harm done to him. With that she
door, they being so affrighted none of them the Old Woman reassures them. Dr Moore, said no more and departed from the Inn.
could declare.” As quickly as it began, the she says, is at this moment “in a Wood about It is important to remember that the Old
phenomenon was over. a mile distant, preparing to take Horse; that Woman is relaying all this at a time between
Viewed dispassionately, the testimony in one hand he had a Glass of Wine, in the one and two hours after the Doctor’s
is too circumstantial to serve as evidence other a piece of Bread; that he was very much disappearance. Dawn is a long way off, and
that the Doctor actually levitated and was courted to eat and drink”. If he succumbed therefore she is giving a prediction. As we, at
teleported to distant spots; only that so it to temptation, she warns, the Doctor would this remove, have no idea where the old ‘Fort’
was believed and attributed to the fairies. never be “free from a Consumption”,9 and and other places mentioned are in relation to
It seems understandable that, given the will “pine away to death”. Richard Uniack Baltinglass, we can only deduce that, if it was
sudden onset of an event that defies our gives the Old Woman “a Cobb” 10 and urges a linear procession with no double-backing,
normal expectations of everyday reality, her to protect him somehow. the round trip to Glendalough and back
what happened next could not be adequately She answers that she will see to it that would be in the region of 30 miles. 17

Joe king / creative commons

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 THE FAIRY DOCTORS OF IRELAND
irish folklore contains accounts of men and women who mediated between the common folk and the
supernatural fairy realm – but were they wily charlatans or descendents of ancient celtic shamans?

those the fairies love are always

carried off – they may merely grow
silent and strange, and take to lonely
wanderings in the ‘gentle’ places.
such will,” he adds, “in after-times,
be great poets or musicians, or
fairy doctors.” Probably the most
famous Fairy doctor in modern times
was Biddy early (c.1798-1874) who
“was away seven years. she didn’t
tell me about it but she spoke of it to
others”.9
given the history of our dr moore –
‘taken’ many times since childhood,
and again as soon as he returns to
his homeland – we might presume
that he was a latent Fairy doctor
himself, retaining his sensitivity to the
sheoguey world throughout his life.

NOTES
1 engraving by edmund Fitzpatrick for
the Illustrated London News (31 dec
1859).
2 re. “a noted sheogue doctor
called ‘Paddy the dash’”, rev. John
this rare illustration of a consultation hidden in the body of so many of “is gone to for advice, and is never o’hanlon, Irish folklore: traditions
with a Fairy doctor 1 paints a fairly these collections of tales are hints of worse than mischievous”. and superstitions of the country, with
disparaging portrait of the peasant this – perhaps more truly sheoguey4– modern scholars – such as eva humorous tales (1870), p51.
healers of rural ireland. they were type of Fairy doctor. Pócs, gustav henningsen, Wolfgang 3 undoubtedly many were tricksters,
men – or women – who made a living lady Wilde (1821-1896), for Behringer, carlo ginsburg and emma always with an eye open for an
treating both mental and physical example, found that “fairy doctors Wilby – have drawn special attention advantageous opportunity. on 19th
century Fairy doctors see simon
illnesses (with herbs and spells), are generally females” yet describes to these inherently shamanistic young, ‘Fairy impostors in county
healing sick animals, finding lost a “fairy-man” from innis sark: “he figures and the role they have played longford in the great Famine’, https://
items, lifting curses, recovering never touched beer, spirits or meat in rural communities throughout www.academia.edu/7570741/
‘changelings’ and so on. the general in all his life but has lived entirely european history. Pócs defines young_Fairy_imposters_in_the_
great_Famine .
view among the early folklorists on bread, fruit and vegetables… he them as “charismatic healers who
and academicians – from the irish stands quite apart from life and by maintained a ritual connection 4 Sheoguey – this evocative gaelic
adjective, which we might translate
antiquarian thomas crofton croker this means hold his power over the with the supernatural fairy world”.7 as ‘to do with all things fairy’, deriving
(1798-1854) in his Fairy Legends and mysteries.” 5 yeats cites from croker as mediators between the living from sheogue meaning fairy, appears
Traditions of the South of Ireland, an interview with the Fairy doctor and the fairy world, they pre-date in many of the collected irish tales but
(1825) to the archæologist Wg Wood- tom Bourke, telling how Bourke got the witchcraft notions of both the not in modern dictionaries (not even in
the oxford english dictionary).
martin (1847-1917) in his Traces his ‘gift’ of association with the good european ecclesiastical ‘elite’ and
of the Elder Faiths of Ireland (1902) Folk and the terrible cost of it: three the peasantry, yet were inevitably 5 lady Francesca speranza Wilde,
Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and
– was that they were wily rogues, of Bourke’s children died young, a caught up in the terrible anti-witch Superstitions of Ireland (1887).
exploiting the ignorance of common fate which faced his fourth, until by pogroms. Whether they are the
6 WB yeats, Fairy and Folktales of Ireland
folk by claiming to have a special acknowledging the ‘gift’ he saved descendants of some prehistoric (1888). my citations come from yeats’s
relationship with the otherworldly and the boy’s life. Bourke also told of european shamanism is currently main notes on Fairy doctors that fall within
unpredictable ‘good neighbours’, warring groups among the Fairies, in debate. admittedly, theirs was a pages 133-177, but they feature in many
and whose bogus rituals – called and allegiances between Fairy socially peripheral practice where stories throughout this volume.
by rev. John o’hanlon “mysterious factions and human families over asian shamanism proper originates 7 eva Pócs, Between the Living and the
quackery” 2 – were full of dubious generations. 6 in a cult that is central to a society. Dead (1999), pp14f.
gaelic and cod latin, and fuelled by yeats himself made a few as a folk motif, the ‘abduction’ 8 see ‘the supernatural lapse of time
in Fairyland’, chapter vii of The Science
frequent, generous swigs of poteen. 3 interesting notes upon the Fairy itself is a variation upon shamanistic
of Fairy Tales by edwin sidney hartland
it was only a later generation doctors that he had heard of or come initiation, and a lengthy absence, (1891).
of scholars – typified by WB yeats across during his own researches, while frequently mentioned in British 9 some said Biddy got the knowledge
(1865-1939) – who saw in these saying that their “temperament” was and irish fairylore, is often attributed from her son, who was once ‘taken’. “after
often solitary and dirt-poor hermits born with them and distinguished to the differential passage of time in his death always lamenting for him she
more than mere mendacity. their them from witches. their power the Fairy realm equating to the ‘blink was, till he came back, and gave her the
gift of curing.” see the narratives collected
playful brogue and colourful language came directly from the fairies, he of an eye’ in the human world (or
by lady augusta gregory, ‘seers and
were firmly in the gaelic oral tradition, wrote, unlike witches who received vice versa).8 yeats concluded that healers’ in her Visions and Beliefs in the
promulgating, in their own untutored theirs from “evil spirits and [their] “the most celebrated Fairy doctors West of Ireland (1920).
way, the mysticism and lore of own malignant will”; and also, while are sometimes people the fairies
ancient but fading celtic traditions. witches are “feared”, the Fairy doctor loved and carried away… not that

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 the retUrN oF dr Moore most sumptuous Banquet, and the Governour hoodwink a member of one of the senior law
As predicted, at about six o’ clock the next took him by the hand and desired him to eat; benches in the land? From the circumstances
morning, Dr Moore was found knocking at which he several times attempted, but was and fantastic nature of this account that
the door. Once inside, he asked for food and prevented by something that still struck the seems to me unlikely, and the risk they took
drink “for he was both hungry and thirsty, Meat out of his hand: And so gives an account in the telling of it may well be a mark of their
having been hurried from place to place all how from thence he was carried to the several sincerity.
that Night”. Once refreshed and composed he places the Old Woman had mentioned the In just under two months from the
satisfied the clamour for an account of what Night before; and that about break of day he original abduction in Wicklow, the story
happened to him: found himself alone within sight of the Inn.” reached London.The final paragraph of the
“That it seemed to him there came into Shortly afterwards, Richard Uniack rode broadsheet identifies a secondary narrator –
the Room about 20 men, some mounted on with the Doctor and saw for himself the Danes John Cother, in London – who declares that
Horseback, others on foot, and laid hold on Fort. Here, they found “the Grass so trodden he is printing this broadsheet on behalf of
him; That he was sensible of Mr Uniack’s and down, and the Ground beaten, as 500 men a friend “T.R.”. Cother says that the story
Mr Moore’s endeavours to have kept him, had been there”.They then pushed onward, was being “much spoken of” in Dublin “as
and of the force they used; but it was all to tracing the path the Doctor had travelled the True News” and the account was sent to him
no purpose, for had there been 40 more they night before “so exactly, that if his Horse went (Cother) from Dublin “by a person whom
would have signified nothing.” but a yard out of the track, he would presently I credit” and comes “recommended” in a
“That from the House he was carried to turn him into it again”.The narrative of Dr letter bearing date 23 November 1678 – i.e.
a Wood, about a mile distant, where was a Moore ends there. just five days after Uniack told Stephen
fine Horse prepared, and as he was about to Ludlow. However, this ‘reliable’ person is not
mount, a Glass of Wine was given him, and a a toUCh oF aUtheNtICItY? identified. 19
crust of Bread ; but when he offered to eat and About a month later – on 18 November 1678 A final, important point needs to be
drink, they were both struck out of his hand.” – we find Richard Uniack, in the presence considered when judging the value of this
“That from thence he went in the same of Dr Moore himself, relating the adventure narrative.The great Gaelic scholar and poet
Company that had taken him away, to a Danes to a Dr Murphey and (more importantly) to Douglas Hyde (1938-1945) told the American
Fort about seven miles from the Wood; That Stephen Ludlow. 18 This meeting, I presume, anthropologist Walter Evans-Wentz (1878-
he imagined himself to be mounted on a was in Dublin where Ludlow worked as one of 1965) that, when listening to rural folktales,
white Horse, whose motion was exceeding the Six Clerks of the High Court of Chancery. there was a significant difference between
swift, and when they came to the Fort, their If Ludlow asked any questions afterwards, or those that were ‘raw’ and based on personal
Company multiplied to about 300 large and sought any verification, we are not told. belief or experience and those that were
well-proportioned Men and Women: He who No doubt, so-called ‘practical’ and the product of a storyteller’s art, the latter
seemed to be Chief, was mounted on a sorrel ‘scientific’ men would have us believe that being more intricate and structured.20 While
Horse; that they all dismounted and fell to anyone retailing a fairy story is either mad, endless retelling over time can massage
dancing, and that it came to the Doctor’s turn drunk or perpetrating a fraud, but if our the former into the latter, this did not have
to lead a Dance, which he did remember the principal participant and his chief witness sufficient time to have happened here. We
Tune he danced unto.” were fabricating the story for some reason, can still distinguish the signatures of the
“That after the dancing, there appeared a would they really be so foolish as to try to two primary voices (those of Dr Moore and
national museums northern ireland collection ulster museum

ABOVE: this painting by Joseph Peacock (1783-1837), called The Patron, or The Festival of St Kevin at the Seven Churches, Glendalough (1813), hints at the extraordinary
tradition of non-religious gatherings held there, called ‘patterns’ or ‘patrons’. these ancient annual fairs were all about dancing, drinking and trading and perhaps just the
sort of revelry that the fairy hosts both instituted and enjoyed wherever they stopped at ancient sites, raths and ruins of old forts. little wonder, then, that dr moore’s
abductors were heading there from Baltinglass by the aerial route over the intervening mountains.

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Richard Uniack). With the narrative of Dr rationalists, I would not dismiss it completely. stephen ludlow; to Peter costello for advice and
Moore’s adventure we have a tale that seems That said, several scholars have noted the and to simon young for many instances of advice
to have the elements of both categories and similarity of Dr Moore’s adventure to the and information (the mistakes are down to me).
yet what little we hear from Dr Moore himself levitations of a butler in the employ of Lord
seems authentically ‘raw’ when compared to Orrery, also in the 17th century. As this took aUthor bIoGraPhY
the structured ‘whole’ (or latter part) which place in the presence of a larger number of
could be a product of Uniack’s retelling. witnesses I would like to compare the two BOB RICKARD started Fortean
Should we accept this as evidence of actual cases in my next article. FT Times in 1973 and was its
teleportation and levitation? The narrative co-editor for 30 years. he is
seems consistent with the way an authentic aCKNoWLedGeMeNts the author of numerous books
and baffling personal experience would and articles on forteana and
be explained within a belief in fairies. So, my sincerest thanks to the late John michell for the a founder of the charles Fort
while its context may be unacceptable to original impetus; to mike dash for the genealogy of institute. ought in his ‘First

NOTES date back 5,000 years. 9 consumption – there it. By reciting the doctor’s beautiful district within the
1 as Ft’s resident scholar a more famous ‘flyer’ in was a common belief that genealogy “back four Wicklow hills, also known as
of fairylore, dr simon young, this region was lady alice anyone wasting away from generations” we might glendalough (valley of the
expressed to me: “the [fairy kyteler (c.1263-c.1325), tuberculosis was being assume she already knew two lochs), founded in the
beliefs of ireland and Britain] the subject of ireland’s first compelled to dance or play the doctor’s family. it is sixth century as a christian
began to be written down witch trial in kilkenny (barely a fiddle nonstop through the often said of Fairy doctors monastic settlement by st
just as they were dying in 50 miles south-west of night, being ejected from that they just ‘know’ things. kevin. many of the buildings
the 19th century. anything Baltinglass), who fled ireland the fairy ring at daybreak. Perhaps dr moore’s family standing today date from
prior to the 19th century is during the proceedings in consumption was similarly were well known (at least to the 10th to 12th centuries
rare. anything prior to the 1324. it was widely believed interpreted as the distinctive the Fairy doctors) in those despite the best efforts of
18th century is gold dust. that “on more than one sickliness of a ‘changeling’; parts? or, stranger still, the vikings, normans and
this source offers so many occasion she anointed a see the 1895 case of could this be the same the english.
firsts.” Pers. comm, 11 July coulter [obsolete english: Bridget cleary (angela Wise Woman to whom 17 the distance given that
2013. the blade of a ploughshare] Bourke The Burning of the doctor’s mother had dr moore travelled from the
and performed long aerial Bridget Cleary: A True Story, recourse when he was inn was: one mile to a wood,
2 in fact, halliwell reprinted journeys on it”. see, Wood- 2006, pp32-3). relative to ‘taken’ as a child… even
the full text of this narrative then seven miles to a ‘fort’,
martin Traces of the Elder the story of dr moore, simon though that was 34 or more another distance of 20
twice. Firstly, it appears Faiths, p174. young told me: “the idea years earlier?
in The Archæologist and miles, then seven miles to
6 dromgreagh, an that the fairies can cause 14 the irish fairies – seven churches; and back
Journal of Antiquarian consumption is something
Science, vol 4 (1842), uncertain translation from especially their ‘troops’ again. We have no way of
gaelic – droim-gráig – simply i can’t source before about or ‘hosts’ (sluagh) – are knowing whether this was in
pp170-174, of which he 1850… and yet here it is in
was the editor, with the refers to a farmstead on traditionally described in a straight line.
a ridge or small hill. such the late 17th century.” Pers military terms. she also
comment: “the following comm, 11 July 2013. 18 stephen ludlow was
curious relation is printed places were many and few ‘sees’ their leader and a member of Parliament,
entire from a copy of the survived the centuries. We 10 ‘cobbs’, generally, were his distinctive horse. the elected to sit in the irish
pamphlet in the British don’t know on which side primitive coins made of ‘trooping Fairies’ were said house of commons
museum. it is a very of Baltinglass this country roughly cut discs, often to be more like humans for Boyle and later for
interesting document in the inn might have been, and missing much of the in size, whereas the more newtownlimavardy. he was
history of Fairy mythology.” so we can’t deduce the lettering and design of die- spiteful ‘solitary Fairies’ one of the six clerks in the
it must have appealed to direction in which our party struck coins. were quite small. see WB high court of chancery
his curiosity because he was travelling. the narrative 11 the prohibition against yeats, ‘classification of in ireland, in dublin,
repeated it, in full, in his speaks of dr moore “going consuming food and drink irish Fairies’, in Fairy and serving until his death in
Illustrations Of The Fairy down to view his concerns in the otherworld, especially Folktales of Ireland (1888), 1721. his paternal uncle
Mythology Of A Midsummer there”, so we might suppose if it is offered, appears pp383-387. i am using the was edmund ludlow, a
Night’s Dream (1845) they were coming ‘down’ in folktales of different colin smythe 1973 edition, famous cavalry general
pp292-296, under the from dublin, approximately cultures, often warning of a with an introduction by and parliamentarian in
heading ‘the irish Fairies’. 50 miles to the north-east; severe or fatal penalty for kathleen raine for my yeats cromwell’s commonwealth,
or perhaps ‘down’ simply doing so. given the close citations. and one of the regicides
3 english short title implied a general transition
catalogue – Wing c6380 – correlation between the 15 ‘danes Forts’, ‘raths’, of charles i. his grandson
from town to country. fairies and the dead there ‘lisses’ and ‘forths’ are Peter ludlow was created
Wing 2 s5869a - http://estc.
bl.uk/r20925 7 ‘neighbour’ – the original is no easy way for those widely assumed to be a Baron in 1755, and earl
text uses a capital ‘n’, who were thus suborned ancient ruins, but can also ludlow 1760. Peerage of
4 i arrive at this moment very likely as a traditional to return. they are doomed refer to solitary mounds ireland and Parliamentary
working back from the date deference to the fairies. to stay in fairyland and or small hills reputed Memoirs of Fermanagh and
of the meeting between dr given her profession, which suffer wasting sicknesses to contain a ‘door’ into Tyrone, from 1613 to 1885,
moore and stephen ludlow, was undoubtedly that of a or die from a rapid onset fairyland or a place where by earl of Belmore, dublin
a high-ranking lawyer (see ‘Fairy doctor’, it is possible of old age if they return to the fairies hold their revels. (1887), pp244-245.
note 19) on 18 nov 1678, that local folk considered human lands. see simon see ‘Forths and sheoguey
at which the account was 19 a better identification
her to be a kind of fairy young, ‘irish Fairies and irish Places’ in lady augusta of the people and places
given, but not as an official herself. see the panel on Food’ (winsham.blogspot. gregory, Visions and Beliefs
deposition. the narrator, mentioned is part of my
‘Fairy doctors’. it/2015/12/irishfairies-and- in the West of Ireland ongoing research into
begins “about three weeks irish-food-mary.html). (1920), pp255-273. For
since…” which places the 8 “called away” (my this fascinating story of
emphasis) – time and again 12 Pishogue – spoken ‘sheoguey’ see note 23. teleportation and levitation.
event in the latter half of an ancient belief holds that
october 1678. we hear, in stories from spells or charms were any further help welcomed.
many different cultures, the stock in trade of Fairy the green mounds became
5 today’s Baltinglass the refuge of the people of 20 see hyde’s introduction
about the local fairies ability doctors. this could be one to section 1, chapter 2,
(anciently given as Baltinglas to “call” to certain sensitive of the earliest descriptions the goddess danu (Tuatha
or Ballinglas) is situated on de Danann) after they were ‘the taking of evidence’
people. sometimes the of the ‘formula’ of a (p.23) in Wy evans-Wentz,
the river slaney and from it prelude to this compulsion pishogue. defeated by the milesians
the n81 heads northwards (the first human settlers), The Fairy-Faith in Celtic
to join them is hearing a 13 this is a significant Countries (1911).
to dublin. its now-ruined distinctive ‘tinkling’ sound, thereby becoming the Sidhe,
abbey was founded in 1148, moment. it is not said the original fairies.
eerie laughter or singing, or whether the Wise Woman
and Bronze age burials and ‘fairy music’. 16 seven churches is
megaliths in the vicinity asked for this information,
was told it, or simply knew an old name for an eerily

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 STRANGE STATESMEN #18

MEET THE MAN

OF TOMORROW
SD TUCKER explores the strange world of the next President of the United States,
Andrew D Basiago, a man whose upcoming election really is a dead-cert –
it has to be, as it has already happened…

HE IS THE EGG-MAN LEFT: Andrew D Basiago: likes eggs, hates Word

The poor, it is said, are always with 2007 and is familiar with Sasquatch.
us – but one far-sighted man disagrees:
namely Andrew D Basiago, an paperclip so much? Policy pledge 28,
independent candidate1 who ran for US meanwhile, made Andrew D Basiago
President against both Donald Trump sound more like General Jack D Ripper
and Hillary Clinton last year upon a from Dr Strangelove – he wanted to
radical new platform of solving global ban fluoride from the US water-supply
poverty by making foreigners eat eggs. on the twin grounds that “The Nazis
Basiago produced a comprehensive used it to sedate prisoners in the
manifesto for his recent tilt at the concentration-camps” and because “its
White House, hatching a 100-point effects include calcifying the pineal
plan for the American nation; point gland, thereby blocking the ‘third eye’,
SPUTNIK / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

99 was to promise to spend much of which is believed to be the source of

his time in office “promoting [global] human intuition”. Basiago doubtless
egg-consumption as a development used his own non-calcified powers of
tool”. “The goal,” Basiago has written, intuition to create pledge 16, in which
“should be one egg per person, per he promised to place Sasquatch and
day.” Eating eggs, claims Basiago, Bigfoot on the endangered species list.
somehow transforms people into better Because “I am the first US Presidential
readers, and better readers become candidate since Theodore Roosevelt to
more educated, thus opening the way declare publicly that I have encountered
towards such admirable eggheads Sasquatch”,3 Basiago knows for sure
gaining better jobs. According to that the mysterious beasts exist. He saw
Basiago, “National literacy rates are a young one and his hairy brown dad
directly correlated with national rates whilst camping in the Adirondacks as
of daily per capita egg-consumption” a small child in August 1966, he says,
– something which may well be true, and claims to have worked out that
but does suggest that, no matter how high
Basiago’s own reading-age, he has yet to
“THE GOAL,” their matrilineal DNA is human and their
patrilineal DNA derived from some utterly
come across the statement ‘correlation does
not necessarily imply causation’ written
WRITES BASIAGO, unknown primate. Maybe this unknown
sperm-donor was actually an alien? Basiago
down anywhere. Given that (see pledge 27),
Basiago also promises to end all foreign aid “SHOULD BE ONE doesn’t specifically say so, but he himself
claims to have spotted several strange
handouts on the (not entirely unconvincing)
grounds that “foreign aid is a scam in which EGG PER PERSON, hominids living on Mars, so this would seem
to be a reasonable possibility. In a long 2015
poor people in rich countries give money to
rich people in poor countries”, the teeming PER DAY” radio interview, Basiago christened these
Martian cryptids Homo martis sasquatchis,
masses of the developing world would and talked about having examined a NASA
quickly find they had no other option than Rover photo of one sitting down on a
to go to work on an egg in the brave new the US Government to finding out “why Martian hillside.4
world of President Basiago.2 Microsoft, after perfecting Word in its 2003 If you are surprised by the news that
version, substituted it with a far inferior Bigfoot is present on Mars, then this is
BROKEN WORD version in Word 2007”. Could a conspiracy because the US Government have been
If you have a 100-point manifesto, then have been afoot? “Is there a plot to make covering up their secret knowledge about
you are bound to end up with a fair bit computer use in the US slower, less the true nature of the Universe for decades
of filler-material. Rarely, however, can a functional, more cumbersome, less efficient, now, something which led Basiago to make
Presidential candidate’s B-list of policy- more time-consuming, less productive, and his 15th pledge, that of “resolving basic
proposals have been quite so desperate as more aggravating? That is what we have cosmological mysteries”. As soon as he
those of Mr Basiago. The prime example seen!” Who would have thought anyone achieves power, Basiago proposes declaring
was his policy pledge 92, which committed would end up missing Clippy the talking a new International Geophysical Year 5 to

48 FT351
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 MEET THE MAN OF TOMORROW

NASA
crack, once and for all, such conundrums
as: “whether the Earth is round or flat;
whether the Earth is solid or hollow;
whether NASA landed men on the moon or
hoaxed the lunar landings; and whether the
cosmos is natural and organic or artificial
and holographic”. If the wonks on Capitol
Hill think that the American public made
a left-field choice in President Trump, they
should consider just how non-mainstream
a leader they’re going to end up with next
time around. Basiago has already begun his
campaign for Election 2020 – it is exactly
the same as his campaign for Election 2016,
seeing as he deals only in eternal truths –
and, being a self-confessed time-traveller
with knowledge of future events, he seems
confident of winning. BELOW: Image PIA10214, a panoramic photo of the Martian surface taken by NASA’s Spirit rover.
BELOW: The Bigfoot simulacrum that went viral online; Basiago identified it as being a statue possibly honouring
the Martian dead or an actual dead Martian who had been caught up in an “apocalyptic event”.
ONE SMALL STEP FOR BIGFOOT
Basiago is an educated man, a lawyer
with five degrees, including a Masters had been blown up and cropped drastically, Paint on his “HP Pavilion Entertainment
from Cambridge, and a background in with ‘Smallfoot’ being really no more than Laptop Personal Computer”, before cutting-
environmental law, journalism and planning; 6cm tall. Worse, the way Spirit’s camera and-copying small sections of the panorama,
who can ever know how many eggs he worked meant that it took three broad 180° which he then pasted into Microsoft Word
has had to eat to get where he is today? panoramic scans of the Martian landscape, 2003 (NOT the 2007 edition!!!). These
Certainly, he was an “avid” reader of that each using a different colour-filter, and snippets were then enlarged at 500 per
well-known printed form of brain-food, then spliced all three together later to cent resolution and stretched out to fit the
National Geographic magazine, to whose produce the full-colour image released to text-margins onscreen. The end result was a
then-President John Fahey he wrote an the public. If this really was some kind of blurry mess which could have showed just
intriguing letter in 2008, which first brought living creature, then it must have stayed about anything – but which, to Basiago’s
him to public attention. “Dear Mr Fahey,” perfectly still, as if frozen in time, between eyes, provided evidence of an entire Martian
his missive read, “I am writing to inform the camera’s separate fly-pasts.7 Naturally menagerie, an alien zoo full of hybrid freaks
the National Geographic Society that I have when Andrew D Basiago, having five degrees to shock even Dr Moreau. Amongst other
discovered life on Mars and to invite your and an IQ of 168, saw the ‘Bigfoot’ image for bizarre fauna, Basiago describes living,
great organisation to publish my findings.” himself, he did not fall into the foolish trap semi-transparent totem-poles with multiple
These findings were included in an attached of claiming that this was a living creature; “asymmetric” arms and “a childish grin” on
41-page White Paper, The Discovery of Life on instead, he identified it as being a small their faces, a species of “glassine mantises”,
Mars, whose prefatory abstract contained a statue of some kind, probably showing a scorpion-men and caterpillar-women,
chilling declaration that it contained some robed female alien, and possibly honouring penguins, bulbous-headed, meditating
“frightening content”.6 It certainly did … the Martian dead from some past planet- humanoids adopting the Lotus-position, an
The story began in January 2008, when wide catastrophe like those mentioned in elephant sitting at a table, cows, horses, an
a detail from a panoramic photograph the books of Graham Hancock. Alternatively, octopus with the face of a lion, a toddler
taken by NASA’s Spirit rover of the Martian maybe the figure was a real Martian, but with the lower body of a lizard, and even
landscape went viral due to the presence she had been caught up in an “apocalyptic “an astronaut buried in the sands of Mars
of a small rock that happened to look a lot event” like a giant mudslide, and been that time forgot”. Some other animals were
like a humanoid figure. The remarkable fossilised mid-stride. given tentative taxonomic names, such as
thing was that the simulacrum’s appearance ‘The Woofy’ (a tumbleweed with the head of
and pose were (as FT reported at the time: CREATURES OF THE STONE AGE a dog), ‘The Gumby Lizard’ (a breed of flat
see FT233:5) “strangely reminiscent of the Further examination of Image PIA10214 as reptile), ‘The Spying Giraffe’ (with “red lips,
notorious Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot freeze- a whole revealed a series of other figures a patch of blue beneath its bulging eyes, and
frame”, leading some to dub the thing on Mars, which Basiago admitted “look a crest atop its head like some dinosaurs”),
‘Bigfoot on Mars’. However, subsequent like rocks”, presumably because they are. ‘Triangle-Face the Rock-Animal’ (whose
analysis of the image, given the official However, he had downloaded the photo in morphology is surely self-explanatory), and
reference PIA10214 by NASA, showed that it question and imported it into Microsoft ‘The Wrench-Bird’ (which “has the look of

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 STRANGE STATESMEN #18

maybe not, as one of the Martians appears

to be wearing “a white shirt and blue
pants”, suggesting some level of individual
consciousness. Perhaps instead they are
“thousands of corpses fructifying in a sticky
paste”, covered by some “immobilising
substance” sprayed out onto them by
reptilian predators? Or maybe they are just
some pebbles? Until Basiago comes to power
and (see pledge 11) reveals the suppressed
truth about the secrets of Mars, we shall
never know.
Especially intriguing are Basiago’s
speculations about the numerous plesiosaurs
which he says roam Mars. Some of
EXOPOLITICS.ORG

PIA10214’s rocks, when viewed in blurry

enlarged form, appear to have long necks
which resemble profile shots of Nessie
peeping her head out over the waves of her
Loch, as in the famous ‘Surgeon’s Photo’ of
ABOVE: Past and future US Presidents, sent to the Red Planet by the CIA. BELOW: One of the ‘plesiosaurs’ that
1934, or former FT-columnist Doc Shiels’s
Basiago claims roam the surface of Mars... along with the ‘woofy’, the ‘gumby lizard’ and a giant Mr Potato Head.
equally striking image of 1977. Basiago’s
conclusion is that on Mars plesiosaurs have

HE HAS SPOTTED
a wrench that has been left too long in the evolved to have large shells like turtles,
rain”). Some of these things may even have some of which mimic stones, for purposes of
been “spiritual beings” which had only camouflage. However, as well as possessing
agreed to appear on camera “because of the
inter-dimensional significance” of NASA’s
TWO VAST shells, these creatures are land-based and
must have (concealed?) legs rather than
photo.
Perhaps anticipating the objection that
OBJECTS WHICH flippers if they are to move, so one has
to question in what sense they are really
the images were time-stretched composites,
Basiago’s paper is full of uncertainty over
HE THINKS plesiosaurs. Again, Basiago anticipates this
objection by speculating that “some of the
whether the ‘animals’ he has discovered
are really living creatures at all, or merely LOOK LIKE MR plesiosaurs might not be reptiles at all, but
rather a species of fowl with round, grey
artificial constructs. For example, one
category of “exophenotype” (alien creature) POTATO-HEAD bodies that make them look like boulders
and that have earned for them the name
identified by the future leader of the Free ‘Rock Roosters’.” Like a typical politician,
World was, he said, “for want of a better he has an answer for everything …
description, all head.” “Imagine the head of
a clown in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade TOMORROW’S WORLD
that has broken loose from its body,” says When Basiago later began claiming to
Basiago, and you will have some idea of have physically travelled to Mars in the
what these beings look like. However, due to presence of a young Barack Obama8 and
their colossal size, he admits that they might been chased by alien plesiosaurs himself,
actually be giant head-shaped buildings, people naturally asked why he hadn’t
not living things at all. For example, he has thought to mention any of this in his 2008
spotted two vast objects which he thinks
look like Mr Potato-Head and the bald pate
of the Dr Evil character from the Austin
Powers films, both of which life-forms he
deems unlikely to have evolved on other
planets, especially as disembodied cephalic
giants. Another “mirthful egg-shaped face
surrounded by tubules”, meanwhile, he
identifies as being a potential Humpty-
Dumpty-like roller-coaster ride of some
sort, though this is only one of “a universe
of possibilities.” Basiago has christened
another region of Mars that is full of such
possibilities ‘The Debris Field’, which he
says is full of thousands of dead humanoid
Martians, although he admits to the
untrained eye it may simply resemble “a
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

vast, light-brown, pebbled moraine”. Did

these Martians die in a giant flood? Were
they killed by snakes? Or are they not
dead bodies at all, but “fungal primates”,
which grow in the ground “like mushrooms
do on Earth”? Possibly they are all part of
one gigantic underground animal, which ABOVE: The young Basiago (centre) sent back in time to 1863 to witness Lincoln’s historic Gettysburg Address.
possesses a “unitary mind”? Or, then again, He lost his shoes during the time-jump, but was given some new, if rather large, ones by a friendly cobbler.

50 F T351
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 MEET THE MAN OF TOMORROW

White Paper. His answer was simply that he “planetary-level whistleblower” spreading to replace cars and trains and thus reducing
had forgotten all about it at the time, as the news about life on Mars brought him into greenhouse-gas emissions by some 60 per
CIA had used a special machine to suppress contact with other fringe-theorists at cent, but he also wants to pardon his fellow
his memories. Basiago’s story at this point weird-sounding conferences like Hawaii’s whistleblower Edward Snowden, disclose the
becomes extremely convoluted and has been ‘Dolphins and Teleportation Symposium real truth about 9/11, end chemtrail-spraying,
partially covered in FT before (FT286:21), 2011’, he began to retrieve previously close down the Shadow Government’s secret
so this is just a summary. Basically (so he blocked memories about his past. Slowly, concentration-camp network, ban GM foods
says), his dad worked for an engineering he remembered that all future Presidents to ensure that the small creatures, “part-
firm which successfully developed time- were briefed about their future time in micro-organism and part-robot”, which
travel for the US military, and the young office by secret agents, and that there was they contain stop invading citizens’ bodies
Basiago was chosen to become the first- a clandestine ‘Jump Room’ programme and making them ill, prevent Nestlé from
ever child time-traveller because the CIA, in existence, of which both he and the stealing public drinking-water, protect Earth
having used the technology to see into the young Obama had been a part, in which from various fictional apocalypses, and
future, had direct evidence that he would the US were secretly teleporting people to promote the use of cold-fusion technology.
one day become President: at some time Mars, hoping to establish a colony there; He also wants to discover the truth about
between 2016 and 2028, to be exact. Part of 97,000 beamed up thus far, only 7,000 the mysterious forces which, according to
of his historic future role would be to had survived. Some tame Martians one-time Bigfoot-hunter David Paulides, have
reveal to the world the hitherto- had been down here in their turn, recently been making people “melt directly
secret fact that America had time- too, but seeing as they were simply into their pants” and then disappear within
travel and teleportation facilities, bald humanoids, whenever anyone America’s National Parks.10
thus ushering in a new era of saw them in the street they would Slightly less controversially, he also
clean-energy transport, and so the just “think it’s Telly Savalas”, thus pledges to end mass immigration and look
authorities thought they had better maintaining their cover. The task into ways of managing the forthcoming rise
introduce him to this technology of Obama and Basiago on the Red in unemployment when robots begin to steal
early on in life. Planet was “simply put, to be seen and people’s jobs. He also pledges never to go on
The future leader had a great chance not eaten” by either the plesiosaurs or a dire TV chat-shows and play the “Comedian-
to brush up on his speechifying skills by separate race of Nosferatu-like humanoids in-Chief” as Clinton and Obama did, which
being sent back to 1863 to witness Abraham who enjoyed holding Earthling-barbeques, would indeed be most welcome; Mr Basiago
Lincoln give his celebrated Gettysburg thus acclimatising the natives to mankind’s is able to make people laugh through other
Address, and claims to be visible in a colonial presence and giving the US a legal means in any case. But let us be fair to the
photo of the event, wearing overly-large basis for claiming territorial property-rights man. He appears genuinely to believe in
shoes donated to him by a friendly cobbler on Mars, based upon the argument of visible what he is saying, and to keep on pushing
after his own had gone missing during the prior occupancy.9 it in the face of massive public ridicule and
time-travel process. (In this Basiago got In terms of his actual political indifference, committed as he is towards
off lightly; during one early teleportation programme, this all translates into Basiago telling what he thinks is the truth. That is
experiment, another child accidentally making a pitch for the vote of every actually a rather admirable quality in a
“arrived a few seconds before his legs”, conspiracy-nut going, whilst simultaneously prospective president, one that many recent
leaving him “writhing in pain with just courting the Green ballot. Naturally, he Washington politicians have singularly failed
stumps”.) wishes to unveil America’s teleportation and to possess. I suppose that must be why he
As time went by, and Basiago’s work as a time-travel capabilities, using teleporters ends up winning the next election. FT

NOTES bauman.htm has Roosevelt’s actual of scientific experiment based and for quotes: www.curezone.
1 Though he does seem to text) In a 2016 Vice interview (see around the various Earth-sciences org/forums/fm.asp?i=2238265;
have tried to gain the Democrat next note), Basiago cited most and investigating outer-space; the www.curezone.org/forums/
nomination – harvesting, for citizens’ lack of knowledge about last one was in 1957/58. fm.asp?i=2239911; www.curezone.
example, one vote in the San Roosevelt’s non-existent Bigfoot 6 Letter to National Geographic org/forums/fm.asp?i=2239914;
Diego County primaries in July encounter as a lamentable sign of online at www.scribd.com/ https://theeyelessowl.wordpress.
2016. (http://timesofsandiego.com/ contemporary Americans’ ignorance document/14985658/Mars-Andrew- com; www.wired.com/2012/01/
politics/2016/07/07/time-travelling- of their own history! d-Basiago-Letter-to-the-Ngs-12-12-08; obama-mars/; www.huffingtonpost.
truth-candidiate-for-president-wins-1- 4 www.curezone.org/forums/ Basiago’s White Paper online com/2012/04/28/andrew-
vote-locally/) fm.asp?i=2239911. Oddly, in at www.projectmars.net/docs/ basiago-seattle-attorney-time-
this interview Basiago neglects to research_papers/2008-12-12_ travels_n_1438216.html; http://
2 All campaign-pledges throughout www.bibliotecapleyades.net/marte/
taken from http://andy2020.net/ mention his own 1966 Sasquatch- MARS_Andrew_D_Basiago_The_
sighting down here on Earth, in spite Discovery_of_Life_on_Mars.pdf marte_vida02.htm; http://exopolitics.
proposals/ blogs.com/exopolitics/2011/12/
of claiming to have talked to various (All relevant quotations taken from
3 Roosevelt did not claim to have witnesses from Washington State this text) Basiago admits the “keen discovery-of-life-on-mars-by-andrew-
seen Bigfoot. Instead, in his 1889 and Idaho. Sasquatch, he says observer” has to “cast himself in d-basiago-chosen-1-ufo-story-
book The Wilderness Hunter, Teddy “are very capable creatures” and “I the role of the aboriginal shaman” of-2008.html; www.inverse.com/
tells the story of a “weather-beaten wouldn’t want to run into one in the to properly view these simulacra, article/14577-confessed-time-
old mountain-hunter” named woods”. But … he did run into one which, like Magic Eye pictures of old, traveler-andrew-basiago-is-running-
Bauman, whose campsite was (indeed, two) in the woods, didn’t may not be visible to all … for-president-knows-he-ll-win; http://
supposedly once attacked by a he? By April 2016, he was certainly www.joanocean.com/SYMP011/;
bipedal bear-like animal of some 7 www.planetary.org/blogs/emily- see also Alfred Lambremont Webre,
telling Vice.com that he had (see lakdawalla/2008/1305.html; the
kind, which snapped the neck of http://motherboard.vice.com/read/ The Omniverse: Transdimensional
Bauman’s hunting companion. The original, non-cropped NASA image Intelligence, Time-Travel, the Afterlife
even-the-presidential-candidiate-who- downloaded and then enlarged
word ‘Bigfoot’ didn’t even exist in believes-in-sasquatch-thinks-trump- and the Secret Colony on Mars,
Roosevelt’s day, and he calls it by Basiago is available at http:// Inner Traditions, 2015, Ch3.
is-crazy-election-campaign-time-travel- photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/
simply “some great goblin-beast”, andrew-basiago). In an attempt 10 www.lasvegasnow.com/news/
whilst presenting the event more PIA10214
to get down with Vice’s young, iteam-strange-circumstances-
as a ripping yarn (or “goblin-story”) hipster-style audience, Basiago 8 Then operating under the cunning surround-park-disappearances;
than anything else. The animal was described putting Sasquatch on the alias of ‘Barry’, rather than ‘Barack’. again, the various pledges
only identified as Sasquatch by later Endangered Species List as being 9 Basiago’s claims are all over mentioned are all at http://
readers. (https://exemplore.com/ “probably my most funky proposal.” the Internet. I have used the andy2020.net/proposals/
cryptids/Teddy-Roosevelt-Bigfoot; following as general sources,
www.bigfootencounters.com/stories/ 5 A collaborative global programme

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 cbUilDinG ac THE HIEROPHANT’S APPRENTICE PRESENTS

fortean library
18. IN BED WITH AN OLD HAG
it (hypnopompic). A critical difference
There is a certain class of classical music devotee who considers an interest in rock between an Old Hag hallucination and
music and its relations irrational – it’s obviously all ephemeral trash, undeserving of the others arising on the thresholds of sleep
attention of the world’s finer minds (as, in their eyes, is Classic FM – France 3, Radio 3 and waking is that the latter present
and perhaps Lyric FM is where they live). One has some sympathy for this view, given themselves as rather like a slideshow,
the appalling crap that has infested the charts and the airwaves over the last couple a series of stills.The Old Hag presents
of decades. At the same time one wonders just how much attention they’ve ever paid continuous imagery and other effects, as
to the most original exponents of the popular musical arts, whose harmonies can be as does a movie. So, you are fully aware of
disconcertingly ambiguous as any of Beethoven’s, with lyrics as rich as any of Cafavy’s your surroundings, but unnervingly are
or Lorca’s or Blake’s. It’s only fair to say that on the other side of these tracks are people unable to move or speak. Generally, you’re
who think the only bearable item in the ‘classical’ repertoire is the 1812 Overture and lying on your back, and your chest feels
that Brian May is a genius. The parallel with the snooty ‘scientific establishment’ view of as if a mighty weight is crushing it, so that
forteana, anomalistics and paranormal phenomena isn’t hard to spot. Enter, now, a young you can scarcely breathe.You’re aware
anthropologist named David Hufford… too of a presence in the room – and it’s
evil: a shrouded, seemingly human figure,
sometimes actually sitting on you.The face
In the 1970s, David Hufford observed often has few or no features except the
something like this division when he eyes, which may be mere ghoulish black
researched attitudes to the night terror holes, or glowing red, or dark, distinct
called the Old Hag, as it was (and is) known and piercing, among other things.The
in Newfoundland. As a student he had apparition may exude foul breath, or
had the experience himself (see www. just stink of itself.There may be weird
sleepparalysisworld.com/david-j-hufford/) noises: some report hearing footsteps
and been baffled and frightened by it, so before seeing it enter the room, or the
his personal interest was piqued when he ‘thing’ makes what one witness called a
found the Old Hag alive, well, and part of “snurfling” sound.The bed may rock, or
the Newfoundland community.There, if not you may feel yourself sinking into it.You
exactly blasé about it, people were generally may get tingling sensations.The only way, it
aware of the phenomenon, had a popular seems, to break out of this state and make
rationale for it and, crucially, a name for it; the thing disappear is, somehow, to force
and consequently accepted it as a known oneself to move. Not surprisingly, most find
experience. Elsewhere, where there was no the experience terrifying.
supportive explanatory tradition, people Within this general pattern, and
who were visited by the Old Hag found even in Newfoundland, there are large
themselves confused, alarmed, and (like variations in individual experiences.There
Hufford) with no recourse to any form of is (in Newfoundland) also an interesting
reassurance. Psychologists who took any variety of time-honoured explanations for
interest in the matter tended to dismiss whatever one’s undergone. One of these
its individual experiential character – in fallbacks isn’t an explanation as such at
other words, it was irrational, a byproduct all, in that it doesn’t account for content,
of a vague mélange (for which there was or offer a physical or metaphysical source
rather little evidence) of popular lore. Otherwise one was dealing with a singular, of the Hag itself or its appearance or
They preferred to conflate – more precisely, actual experience.The result of Hufford’s behaviour: which is to say that someone has
confuse – the Old Hag with other sleep- investigations was The Terror that Comes in called it up and, literally, saddled you with
related horrors – such as the succubus and the Night, published in 1982. it, on account of some perceived slight or
incubus or just plain old bad dreams – so Old Hag visitations follow a general attack, or a rivalry in affections, or the like.
depriving it of its particularity. pattern, but may differ in detail. Hufford In other words, you’ve been cursed.Thus
Hufford, suitably intrigued, set out to shies away from offering a broad outline, the Hag is assimilated into much broader
discover whether the Old Hag was indeed probably because he considered his traditional ideas of witchcraft – or perhaps
the product of tradition and folklore, or case studies were strongly indicative vice-versa – as it has (as we’ll see) been
a unique event in its own right.The test rather than comprehensive, and that his dragooned into other paranormalities. But
was whether, in different contexts, the research on the phenomenon was but there are more mundane and perhaps more
experience remained essentially the preliminary. Nonetheless, we can say that reassuring accountings. Indigestion may be
same – or not. A marked difference (or the hallucination of the Old Hag comes responsible (a bit like blaming nightmares
several differences) would indicate the to you when you’re on the edge of going on eating cheese too near bedtime), a
predominance of cultural influences. to sleep (hypnagogic) or emerging from diagnosis that goes back at least as far as

52 FT351
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Galen of Pergamon (AD 129– LEFT: a case of the night terrors in an
c.216). Or it may occur because engraving by JP Simon, 1810.
of ‘stagnation of the blood’, a
condition that allegedly occurs experience in its own terms has
if you sleep in one position for implications for the treatment
too long and slow the circulation of many another bizarre
to deleterious effect.These experience. And so it fell to
still don’t explain why the Old Hufford to nail the definition(s)
Hag in particular manifests down and to do the necessary
itself the way it does, which research. For this alone his book
may be why a supernatural is a classic.
element is not necessarily The Old Hag experience,
excluded from people’s general he found, has been easily

Wellcome library, london

acceptance of the experience – assimilated into other streams
for where regarded as normal, of weird experience. Most
the supernatural requires no obvious is the version of this
explanation, just being one of form of sleep paralysis and
the sometimes irrational, or hallucination in which the
rather a-rational, ways things incubus or succubus creeps
are. Shit happens, as the upon, or beneath, the chaste
bumper sticker has it. and unwary in their sleep, and cause them
The psychologists of the early 20th
century, anxious to establish themselves
“a Great booK to have (and worse, oops, enjoy) naughty
erotic adventures. Mormons, he found, have
as scientists, and therefore supremely SHoUlD leaVe incorporated the Hag into their traditions
rational, found this curious set of claimed of Satanic temptation and assault. Some
experience and ‘superstition’ supremely yoU WitH Many of his case histories show how the Hag
irritating, and set about inflicting their has been integrated into sometimes
own species of rationality upon it.The eXPerienCeS, quite complex reports of hauntings. Out-
Freudian Ernest Jones, who applied his of-body experiences feature in some
Master’s baseless, self-referring system anD SliGHtly accounts. Hufford didn’t come across an
of obsessions to the Old Hag experience, alien abduction, but recognises by way of
pronounced it to be: “a form of Angst [fear] eXHaUSteD at John Keel and JacquesVallée how alien
attack, that… is essentially due to an ‘bedroom visitors’ with all the attributes of
intense mental conflict centering around tHe enD.yoU the Hag have become part of contactee and
[sic] a repressed component of the psycho-
sexual instinct, essentially concerned liVe SeVeral UFO lore. Without a tradition such as that
found in Newfoundland, the experience is
with incest.” Some readers may feel the
need for a small break here for a nice cup
liVeS WHile latched onto the nearest available (or most
appealing) context. And it is remarkably
of tea, or medicinal brandy and cheroot,
or treatment for a stitch. But hold on, for
reaDinG it.” consistent.
Apart from the wealth of other insights,
Jones gets better. Apparently the Hag this is Hufford’s key finding and the answer
visits the supine because that’s commonly William Styron to the question that triggered his research.
how women find themselves during sexual He posed the problem thus: “The cultural
intercourse, hence too the weight on the source hypothesis predicts that… no
chest. (So, we wonder, does it follow that including, as it happens, that Harvard complete, recognisable Old Hag attacks will
men suffering a visitation are repressed professor of psychiatry John Mack. At one be reported by people who have not had
transgenderites?) The paralysis comes from Hulsey Cason’s conflations of different contact with the tradition.The experiential
the conflict between incestuous desire meanings of the word ‘nightmare’, Hufford source hypothesis predicts that some such
and the conscious need to reject it.Yes becomes quite animated: “All of Cason’s attacks will be reported… The substantial
dear. Of course we’re all in denial about findings represent an average for at least difference in predictions centres on
secretly dying to roger our mothers, fathers, three different kinds of events, each of whether substantial numbers of attacks are
and maybe the family goldfish. If this which occur and are accurately reported reported in the absence of prior knowledge
stuff is not as mad as a parcel of paranoid at very different rates. His [statistical] about the experience….” As it turned out,
polecats, what is? Hufford, who is clearly results place him in the position of a man not only was the Old Hag a widespread
underwhelmed, presents it with heroic who is told that the camels in the zoo have phenomenon, as research in the US showed,
self-control, remarking coolly that perhaps humps; he then goes to the zoo and states: but had been met with by an unexpectedly
Jones’s conclusions were “arrived at more ‘I shall define camels, or elephants as they large proportion of the population.
on theoretical than empirical grounds.” are sometimes called, as any animal found Having set this hare running, Hufford
Jones, for all his faults (Hufford at the zoo, some of which are said to have had a distinguished academic career,
details a fair few more), at least had humps.’ He would find, of course, that but never revisited the subject at book
the wherewithal to look into the history some camels have humps, and some have length, which is mildly surprising given
and etymology of the term ‘nightmare’, trunks, as claimed by those who call them the potential he had exposed.This is
restoring it in his discussion to its original elephants, but most have neither.” It all perhaps a minor mystery when put beside
and specific meaning: ‘night crusher’.The fits with Hufford’s observation of what he the fact that it’s now known that the Old
Old Hag, which Jones doesn’t mention per calls “the psychological dis-interpretation” Hag is found (by many another name) all
se, is the local contemporary term, then, of the Old Hag, in that “the occasional over the world, and no one knows why this
for the earliest meaning of ‘nightmare’, firsthand Old Hag account has been experience is so consistent, regardless of
but he missed, in particular, the aspect accounted for in a great variety of ways context. Nice one, eh? FT
of wakefulness (real or imagined) that by a long series of authors.The effect has
characterises a Hag encounter.This been to explain the phenomenon away David J Hufford, The Terror that Comes in
imprecision about different species of while discouraging the development of the Night: An Experience-based Study of
nightmare infested later commentators a full description of it.” And as he points Supernatural Assault Traditions, University
on nightmares and sleep paralysis too, out, a closer examination of this bizarre of Pennsylvania Press 1982.

FT351 53
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Endangered portals of mystery

PHIL BAKER mourns the recent passing of an extraordinary Parisian bookshop and its gentle proprietor

Jacques Noel. Monsieur shop in Highgate, where one

PHIL BAKER is the author Noel was one of those day the antediluvian owner
of acclaimed books about
shopkeepers who is really invited me to go through a
Dennis Wheatley and Austin
Osman Spare and co-editor of a curator. He had all discreet door into a massive,
Lord of Strange Deaths: The the obvious things – the cavernous, half-lit shop
Fiendish World of Sax Rohmer. Situationists, William space behind the usual one,
Burroughs, Robert Crumb completely dwarfing it, like

O
– but his taste also went somewhere a secret society
ne evening some years ago I down darker alleys into might gather in a horror film.
was walking down a narrow less visited regions of I often dream of second-
street in Paris when I saw an outsider art, manga, and hand bookshops, and
extraordinary shop window. the occasionally queasy I’ve always liked the way
It was across the road from the former further fringes of bandes small shops feature as
Beat Hotel and it was completely dessinées and the French BD portals of mystery, menace
crammed, like a packed stamp album, underground: I believe the and transformation in
with a combination of the most lurid and shop had old links to the supernatural fiction, but for
recherché books.Thomas De Quincey’s post-punk comics collective me the most magical of them,
The Last Days of Immanuel Kant was Bazooka, originally gathered in the here and now, was Un
next to something called Dripping Kiki, around the newspaper Regard Moderne.
and a book of George Grosz was perched Libération. He seemed to Jacques Noel presided over
above a guide to collecting vintage ray have “everything”, or at his emporium with a kindly,
guns.There were the American “pop least everything marginal, slightly melancholy air, and
surreal” or “lowbrow” artists Tod Schorr deviant and resistant to censorship, all 1. I wait in he had endless patience with browsers.
and Robert Williams, and a mysterious miraculously gathered into his cavern. trepidation to He never seemed to be in any hurry to
Japanese book entitled Familial Rapture, Over the two decades I visited he went be put right on sell anything, but was really more like an
with a cover photo of a bride and groom. from relatively normal shelving to dense this, by someone uncle quietly encouraging you to admire
pointing out that
There was a copy of Latin est Artificiel by stacking (but he knew where things the carnivorous plants in his greenhouse.
in fact he could
the eccentric theorist of language Jean- were, and he was handy with a ladder) speak perfect His tacit, unassertive manner was
Pierre Briset (who, I later discovered, and then to great piled heaps. Finally it English and simply compounded by the fact that as far as
also thought human beings were was like a Kurt Schwitters merzbild, and chose not to with I could tell he didn’t speak very much
descended from frogs) together with the M Noel appeared to be spending more tourists like me, English. 1
erotic photography of Gilles Berquet, time outside his grotto on a pavement but I’m inclined Un Regard Moderne was a wonderful
to think he didn’t
and a cruder, less glossy sprinkling of chair, perhaps because there was no because of his
place not just to buy things but to
fanzines and comic books.The French space left inside. Like the arcades, the generally friendly discover them. The last time I was there,
have an expression for window shopping, cafés and the tribal art dealers, this manner, and the I bought a hand-made book of collage
leche vitrine, window licking, and this was bookshop, Un Regard Moderne on rue way that he would by an artist called Marie Noel Doby,
a window you could lick for a long time. Git-le-Coeur (“Here-Lies-the-Heart”), write prices on and with a gesture along the lines of “If
a piece of paper
The door, totally opaque with stuck- was one of the wonders of Paris, but a to make himself
you like that, you might like this”, he
on ephemera rather than merchandise, couple of weeks ago a friend in the Latin understood. almost shyly brought my attention to a
was even more of an artwork than the Quarter called with end-of-an-era news: special number of an illustrated journal,
window. Old invitations for shows of Jacques Noel had suddenly died. devoted to her work. I did like it, and it
cartoons by Roland Topor and punky It is hardly news that the small is only reading it now, since his death,
woodcuts by Sophie Dutertre, with a bookshop is increasingly a thing of the that I discover she was his wife.
host of other flyers and cards, were all past. I can account for at least 20 shops A night-time crowd gathered outside
densely tiled together above a disturbing I’ve outlived even in London, including the shop after the bad news broke, as
graphic, partly obscured, of a man in a a sort of shed in Paddington where if keeping a vigil. Some people brought
black hood holding up a child, captioned the owner could only take cash; the flowers and stuck them to the door,
“Mange ton Bonbongle”. Higher up was Oriental bookseller Hosains, which had reminiscent of the impromptu shrines
an entity by the artist Jephan deVilliers, an exquisite display but could never be we see in London where cyclists have
on a card from the Galerie Oeuf Sauvage, found open; a now demolished basement been killed. Of course, they were for
looking like some kind of primitive in Upper Tachbrook Street, where the Jacques Noel, but they were also for
fetish. owner urbanely presented a friend of his creation, the shop. I’ve never seen a
On venturing through the door, you mine with an ashtray, saying “Madam, bookshop mourned with flowers before,
encountered a grey-haired, modestly smoking is encouraged in this shop”; but if I’d been in town I’d have put some
smiling man of indeterminate age, and a normally mundane and disobliging there myself. FT

FT351 55
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forum ufological hoaxes

The Chascomús Teleportation Hoax

Dr roberTo e banchs re-assesses one of the most influential cases of UFO-related ‘teleportation’ of a car and
passengers. Translated and with background material added by richarD W heiDen.

Dr rOberTO e banchs Dr Vidal’s employer said that the beLOW LeFT: A in Flying Saucer Review – admitted
is a psychologist and lives in case had been made up to explain newspaper ad for that it was impossible to find the
Buenos Aires. Although not Mrs Vidal’s absence from home the satirical 1968 alleged protagonists. 6 However, these
currently active in the UFO field, Argentine film Che
he consults for various bodies,
for psychiatric reasons.” 3 In 1970, Ovni.
dismissals did not appear in any
among them the Comisión de Flying Saucer Review – citing a letter English-language books until 1990,
Fenómenos Aeroespaciales of written to a European ufologist “by beLOW rIGhT: when Jacques Vallée asserted, in his
the Argentine Air Force. RichaRd Director Aníbal Uset
a member of the family” – reported with the stars of the book Confrontations: “There are no
W heiden is an accountant and
was assistant editor of the APRO
that early the previous year, Señora picture. Vidals.” 7
Bulletin from 1978 until its end in Vidal had died of leukemia. 4 Even so, the case continued to
bOTTOM rIGhT: Dr
1987, and lives in Milwaukee. It took a few more years before Roberto Branchs be reported as though it were true;
Argentine ufologists began to (left) with Jacques for example, the Uruguayan UFO

T
acknowledge that the case was a Vallée. promoter and actor Fabio Zerpa, who
he original incident is said to hoax. The September 1972 issue of lived in Argentina for many years,
have happened in May 1968, the Spanish UFO magazine Stendek included it in his pro-UFO magazine
in Chascomús, a regional quoted Omar Pagani as saying that Cuarta Dimensión in 1976, and
hub approximately 100km “it was a mystification, a hoax.” again in 1985. 8 Another influential
5
(62 miles) south of Buenos Aires, In 1973, Oscar Galíndez – again endorsement came when Brad Steiger
Argentina. Briefly, Dr Gerardo Vidal and Sherry Hansen Steiger devoted
and his wife were driving home one three full pages to it in their UFO

Their watches
night from Chascomús to Maipú when, Odyssey (1999).9
just outside Chascomús, their car was ON 4 June 1968, the day after the
enveloped in a thick fog. The next thing original report in La Razón, a Reuters
they knew they were driving on a road
near Mexico City in broad daylight
had stopped dispatch from Mexico City carried
a denial of the Vidals’ story by the
– 7,250km (4,505 miles) to the north-
west and on the other side of the South and two days Argentine embassy in Mexico City.
This crucial datum – calling the story
American continent. Their watches had
stopped, and they found two days had
passed. They went to the Argentine
had passed “absurd” – was repeated in at least
three Buenos Aires newspapers the

embassy in Mexico City, from where

Dr Vidal called a relative in Maipú to
report that they were well.
The ‘Vidal teleportation’ – as it came
to be known – was first reported in the
Argentine press on 3 June 1968, in an
article in the Buenos Aires evening
daily La Razón, and it quickly spread
abroad via the wire services and
foreign correspondents. Since then, it
has been included in numerous UFO
magazines and books. Some of the early
accounts included details that seemed
to support the case and the existence
of the witnesses; for example, when
Oscar A Galíndez reported it in a 1968
issue of the UK Flying Saucer Review, he
referred to “personal communications”,
presumably from relatives of the Vidal
family. 1
The Tucson, Arizona, based APRO
Bulletin stated that APRO knew the
Vidals’ real names and that a field
investigator was trying to learn
more.2 Peter Rogerson wrote, years
later, that: “In 1969 or 1970, I was
at a UFO group meeting at which a
British businessman who had worked
in Argentina and who claimed to know

56 FT351
www.forteantimes.com
 ufological hoaxes
forum
following day (Clarín, Crónica, and LeFT: George K Cherrie. Europe,” he admitted. When I asked
La Nación). However, many UFO him how the idea arose, he said that
researchers seem to be unaware of it originated when he took a trip to
this refutation by Reuters – or at least Colonia, in Uruguay, during which a
distrustful of it – for it was never cited reporter agreed to help him. Together
in any UFO books, at least not those they invented the whole story. Uset
in English.10 As far as those ufologists gratefully accepted the publicity
were concerned, the evidence against stunt, which he said had exceeded all
the case had been based purely on expectations. He also explained that
the inability to locate the supposed the name ‘Vidal’ was inspired by the
witnesses or, indeed, any sort of Argentine town of Coronel Vidal.Vidal’s
corroboration. wife, Dolores, was named after another
The first ufologist to suspect the town in the area, although as far as we
actual origin of the teleportation story know her first name never actually
was Alejandro Chionetti, an Argentine appeared in print.13
ufologist now living in the United At our next meeting – also in
States, who had connections to the October 1998, this time with a tape
film industry and who deserves credit recorder present – Uset was more
for helping expose the case, which he restrained, varying his account to
investigated between 1981 and 1984.11 protect some names, saying only
As a student of cinema, Chionetti that the idea had arisen with an
realised the possible connection acquaintance of his, the director of a
between the story and the Argentine Uruguayan radio station whose name
movie director Aníbal Uset. In 1982, he he did not remember and who had
even travelled to Maipú to locate the now passed away. Nor did he identify
Vidals and their supposed relatives, but the reporter whom, he said, had
failed. accompanied him to Uruguay.
Now, after almost 50 years, I can He also doubted whether Nicolás
finally report a confession, which I Mancera – the director of Sábados
obtained while doing research for Circulares – could remember or
an Argentine biographical UFO the paradigmatic and well-known abOVe: Argentine recognise the background of the
directory.12 Aníbal Uset had been ‘Vidal case’. The movie’s poster (which movie producer and case. Some months later, I spoke with
responsible for the satirical movie Che was also used in newspaper ads) director Aníbal Uset. Mancera at length by telephone and,
OVNI, the first Argentine film to exploit even shows a UFO carrying off an as Uset predicted, Mancera said he
the theme of UFOs or extraterrestrials. automobile beneath it – a Peugeot could not remember the story. This is
This bizarre, surrealistic comedy 403, just like the Vidals were said to highly curious given the repercussions
premiered in Buenos Aires on have driven. the episode has had within ufology
Wednesday, 7 August 1968, just three During my first contact with Uset, and its retention in the collective
months after the alleged teleportation. he told me plainly: “I believe in memory.
In two interviews, during October extraterrestrials, but not that they One could wish for more loose
1998, Uset clearly stated that, along visit us. I invented the protagonists – ends to be tied up, or for statements
with “reporters and others”, he had Vidal and Señora Vidal – on the TV from others involved with the film.
invented the Chascomús teleportation magazine Sábados Circulares (‘Circular Uset died on 16 August 2015, but his
as a publicity stunt, but he never Saturdays’). The following Saturday a testimony remains significant and he
explained the nature of the help person came forward who said what struck me as completely sincere. He
he received from those unnamed he saw, and so on. Every Saturday had nothing to gain by admitting to
reporters. The idea, he said, was to another ‘witness’ came on.” Then the Chascomús teleportation hoax,
spread a fantastic story based on the the details followed. “The flying and everything to lose in confessing to
plot of the film, and this turned into saucer was a means for us to get to having been behind it. FT

noTes 4 Flying Saucer Review 16:5 co-author (RWH), “In vol. 3 of in fact, at the back there is a eventually published as Guía
(Sept-Oct 1970) p11. my Forbidden Science (entry full-page ad for the paperback Biográfica de la Ufología
1 Flying Saucer Review 14:5
5 Stendek (CEI, Barcelona, for 20 April 1980) I mention a edition of Confrontations. Of Argentina/ Los Primeros
(Sept-Oct 1968) pp3-4.
Spain) 10 (Sept 1972) p31n. discussion in Mar del Plata on course, this does not mean Veinticinco Años (1947-1972),
2 APRO Bulletin (Sept-Oct that day with Fabio Zerpa who that the Steigers had read or (Cefai Ediciones, Buenos
1968), p7. 6 Flying Saucer Review 19:3 laughed when I asked him even seen the book. Aires, 2000). The entry for
(May-June 1973) p6. about the Vidal case and said Uset is on p53.
3 Peter Rogerson, “Recovering 10 The case had been
the Forgotten Record: Notes 7 Jacques Vallée, he had found a lot of people mentioned in Fortean Times: 13 Another version of Uset’s
Towards a Revisionist History Confrontations: A Scientist’s who said they knew the Vidals see fT:192:56, 194:72. confession – substantially
of Abductions – Part 4”, Search for Alien Contact but he could never meet the the same but with some
(Ballantine, 1990) p96. Vidals.” 11 Chionetti also shared his
Magonia 50 (Sept 1994). See differences – was published in
suspicions about the case
note 9. (The article is online 8 Cuarta Dimensión 30 (Apr 9 Brad Steiger and Sherry the December 1997 issue of
and the movie with others,
at http://magoniamagazine. or May 1976) pp20-24; 124 Hansen Steiger, UFO Odyssey the magazine La Cosa, a copy
but they did not give him due
blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/ (Jan 1985) p21. After Jacques (Ballantine, 1999) pp41- of which Uset himself loaned
credit.
notes-towards-revisionist- Vallée read an advance copy 44. This is from the same me to make a photocopy.
history-of.html#more) of this article, he wrote to the publisher as the Vallée book; 12 The directory was

FT351 57
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FORTEAN TIMES, PO BOX 2409, LONDON NW5 4NP, UK.

This month’s books, films and games

reviews
A fabulous cameraderie…
The father of the autocratic Scientology leader describes his how his asthmatic
young son rose through the ranks to head an abusive (and rather small?) church

years’ service. “I had gotten so

much out of Scientology and had “They followed me… Where would they go, and how
would they survive? “If they left,
seen David helping others with it,
so I thought it would be a terrific
They photographed they would literally be out on the
street.”
career for him,” Ron Miscavige
writes, with no apparent irony.
me wherever I Eventually Ron Miscavige and
his second wife escaped from
“He was bright and I thought he went… They rifled Gold base and left the Church
would be successful.” – and his son then placed him
Ruthless The teenage Miscavige joined through my trash” under full-time surveillance by
Scientology, My Son David the Commodore’s Messenger private investigators. “During
Miscavige and Me Organisation, working directly the year and a half they followed
Ron Miscavige with Dan Koon for Hubbard. What could have the Church would be confined me… they sat behind me in
been just messenger-boys and there for months at a time, restaurants to overhear my
Silvertail Books 2016
245pp, £12.99, ISBN 9781909269453
-girls became a powerful group, sleeping on the floor under desks; conversations.” If he was using a
effectively Hubbard Youth, they would be allowed out for computer at the local library they
with the power to issue orders an hour a day, to be marched to “peeked over my shoulder to take
What must it be like to know and impose punishments on his another building for a shower. screenshots that showed whom I
you’ve raised a monster? behalf; “they even had authority They would write “page after was emailing. They followed me
In his youth Ron Miscavige over longtime Scientologists, page of their transgressions day wherever I drove. They put a GPS
was introduced to the Church many of whom had been in after day”, or stand in front of on my car… They photographed
of Scientology and found it Scientology for decades and each other “confessing their me wherever I went… They even
helpful. When he joined in had reached its highest levels,” misdeeds or evil intentions”. If rifled through my trash.”
1970, he writes, “A fabulous the author writes. By the time someone failed to confess, “the But Miscavige’s empire is
camaraderie existed among the Hubbard died in 1986, Miscavige, person was screamed at and often crumbling around him. First his
people there. We shared a feeling at only 25, had manoeuvred slapped, pushed and punched by niece Jenna, and now his father,
that Scientology was something himself into an extraordinarily other persons held there”. The have written pain-filled books
that was going to help everyone: powerful position as chairman of Church denies that any of this denouncing not the religious
the world, oneself, one’s family, the board (CoB, as he is usually takes place. practices of Scientology, but the
everybody.” He became convinced known inside the Church) of the Relations between Miscavige corrupt organisation under its
that Scientology worked when Religious Technology Centre, and his father grew increasingly dictatorial leader. Over the last
his nine-year-old son David was which has control of all of strained. “All these restrictions few years, many in very senior
cured of his asthma attacks by a Hubbard’s writings; as all the – you have to have your mail positions have left. The Church
Scientology process. This was the courses and all the Tech[nology] checked, you cannot go on liberty, of Scientology still gives the
boy who would grow up to become of the Church of Scientology you can’t go to a store, and many impression that it’s a significant
the autocratic leader of the depend on Hubbard’s words, more – each is another little bar religious movement with millions
Church of Scientology, successor Miscavige was de facto head of for your jail cell. You build your of members, but observers believe
to founder L Ron Hubbard. To the Church. He swiftly got rid of own prison and you live in it.” So that active members now number
avoid confusion, ‘Miscavige’ on its older, well-respected and formerly why don’t people simply leave? fewer than 25,000 worldwide.
own in this review refers to David powerful people who had worked Apart from the fact that there There may now be more
Miscavige, the author’s son. closely with Hubbard and had are wire fences around the base, Scientologists outside the Church
The entire family joined been his lieutenants. Miscavige and guards at the entrances, of Scientology than within it;
the movement, taking courses deals harshly with anyone who “many people … have been in known as the Freezone, they see
to improve themselves and to displeases him. At Scientology’s Scientology for 20, 30, 40 years or themselves as a sort of Protestant
move up the Bridge, the long Gold base near Hemet, California, even longer, and they have zero Reformation, still following the
path of advancement through a pair of trailer offices have been savings. They live from week to teachings but turning their back
training. At 16, with his father’s turned into a prison known as week on their $50 allowance. They on the Church.
support, Miscavige dropped the Hole. “At one point, iron bars don’t have a car. They have next to David V Barrett
out of school and joined the were placed over the windows, no Social Security...” Beyond this,
Sea Org[anisation], the elite of and a guard stood outside the they have no marketable skills Fortean Times Verdict
dedicated Scientologists who
pledge themselves for a billion
only exit 24 hours a day,” the
author writes. Senior people in
in the outside world, and many
have no family or friends outside.
A veRy peRSonAl StoRy of A
RuthleSS ReligiouS leADeR 8
FT351 59
www.forteantimes.com
reviews BooKS

Web designers A Magician psychic ability. As members

of the Magic Circle, Price and
Amongst the Dingwall were able to recognise
Spirits techniques of sleight-of-hand,
The humble spider’s silk appears in dresses, Harry Houdini misdirection and other conjuring
tricks employed by mediums.
musical instruments… and caps of death
Cambridge University Press 2011
Pb, xix, 294pp, illus, ind, £26.99, ISBN 9781108027489 How much better equipped,
then, was Houdini, a magician of
The introduction international renown.
silk, often poorly understood to this facsimile A Magician Amongst the Spirits
by Westerners. The Wellcome of Houdini’s 1924 is composed of two elements;
Collection holds a ‘smothering sceptical masterwork, firstly, a sceptical overview of the
hood’ of spider silk, allegedly used in which he sought to Spiritualist movement from its
to suffocate widows in Vanuatu. expose mediums and inception in 1848 with the Fox
Other museums have similar psychics as frauds and charlatans, sisters, through to the Davenport
items described as night caps, explains the great magician’s brothers, Daniel Dunglass Home
smoking caps and a ‘cap of death’, motivation: at the beginning of (Browning’s ‘Mr Sludge’), Eusapia
all of which are part of the regalia his career, he put on fake séances Palladino and others, all of
for male initiation ceremonies as an entertainment, not realising whom are dismissed as fakes,
gossamer Days in the island in which spider the degree to which such deceit on the basis of the evidence
Spiders, humans and their threads webs play an important part – toyed with the sentiments of his of contemporary witnesses’
Eleanor Morgan Morgan includes a resonantly audience. statements taken from his vast
Strange Attractor Press 2016
spooky photo of an initiate clad When Houdini suffered a library. The second part deals with
Pb, pp167, illus, plates, bib, £14.99, ISBN 9781907222351 head to foot in webs. Elsewhere bereavement, he declared that those mediums whom Houdini
they have become vital parts of he would have given the greater encountered in person.
This study of the human use musical instruments, including part of his wealth in exchange But even those he did not
of spider silk is infused with the extraordinary nyastaranga for just one word from his much investigate personally – stars of
a creative sensibility. Only from northern India – horns loved departed mother. Only then Spiritualism before his time such
an artist would approach the pressed against the throat and did he understand the visitors’ as the celebrated Dr William
relationship between spiders activated by humming that need to repeatedly attend séances Slade of ‘spirit slate writing’
and sound through a tale of use spider silk as a resonating and to pay for private readings fame – he still subjected to close
spiders attracted to the singing membrane. Morgan has gone to with mediums. Such desperation analysis, by virtue of his extensive
of 19th century schoolgirls; only considerable lengths to find these is reminiscent of fellow sceptic knowledge of the equipment
an artist would follow this by uses for spider silk; they have not Eric Dingwall (mentioned several employed by stage magicians.
creating a spider silk necklace to been well documented and their times) who, despite having Indeed, an entire chapter is
which she attached a web while sources are obscure and often exposed numerous mediums as devoted to the devices with which
she hummed, to experience and confused. She has a fine eye for fakes during his investigative writing upon a slate by an unseen
observe the response. character, excavating a gallery career with the Society for hand could be simulated.
Eleanor Morgan has a deep of eccentrics and innovators as Psychical Research, tried The book’s mood of unrelenting
and intuitive relationship with obsessed with the silk as she is. repeatedly and unsuccessfully suspicion concerning human
spiders, beginning with her Morgan has a naturalist’s eye to make contact with his wife nature – the cynicism of those
attempts to collect and use spider for spiders’ identification and Margaret following her sudden who gull their audiences and the
silk in her artworks. From this behaviour, and her writing is death in 1976. gullibility of those audiences –
a life-long obsession developed, among the best nature writing Houdini’s tours of Europe in is leavened by the apparently
and Gossamer Days illustrates you will find anywhere. She has the early 1920s showed him how genuine friendship between
just how far she has taken this. delved into the biology of silk the “medium craze” had swept Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan
Beautifully illustrated with her (spiders produce seven different the continent in the aftermath of Doyle. Whilst completely at
own drawings, it begins with kinds) and the web construction the First World War; he regarded odds over the veracity of the
Morgan’s experiments to collect of different species, and seems Spiritualism as a world menace Spiritualist movement, Houdini
useable spider silk and expands to have retuned her senses to that threatened those possessed writes of Doyle as his friend, and
to consider how others have tried immerse herself in a world filled of a highly-strung psychological as a man whose sincere belief in
to do the same. There have been with spiders, closing the book with character who had suffered a the psychic world he respects.
many failed attempts to produce a description of the seven species bereavement. (Houdini is too diplomatic to
it commercially, leading to she can see on her urban balcony, Like his friend Harry Price, suggest that Conan Doyle’s
innovative niche uses, in gunsights where she sits, entirely at home Houdini had accumulated a huge interest in mediumship was not
and astronomical instruments with her arachnid neighbours. library of books dealing with an objective scientific inquiry,
for example, where spider silk This is a delightful book to hold all aspects of the supernatural: but motivated by the loss of his
is perfect for creating precise and to read, an excellent addition Spiritualism, witchcraft, brother and son, and a desire to
cross-hairs and imaginative to the library of anyone interested demonology, ghosts and all make contact with them. A similar
one-offs. One of the plates shows in the stranger corners of biology manner of psychic phenomena. motivation may be ascribed to
a magnificent and laboriously or human culture. But unlike the equally well- Sir Oliver Lodge, that other man
produced spider silk dress created Ian Simmons read Price, Houdini stated that of letters who championed the
for the Victoria and Albert throughout over 30 years of Spiritualist movement and whose
Museum. Fortean Times Verdict investigation, he had not once son Raymond fell in the Great
Other cultures have also
found important uses for spider
An inSpiRing WeB of unuSuAl
ARAchnoiD inSpiRAtion 9 come across a medium whom, he
felt, had demonstrated genuine
War.) One of the most compelling
and moving chapters of the

60 FT351
www.forteantimes.com
 BooKS
reviews

Weird world
book deals with a séance held dispersal of this secret knowledge
by Conan Doyle, his wife, and by looking at some more familiar
Houdini, at which Lady Doyle territory such as the Merovingian
claimed to be the conduit for a bloodline, the activities of such
letter addressed to Houdini from
his dead mother. “I was willing to
personages as Prince Henry
Sinclair, the political wrangling
Fifty-one peculiar places to add to the
believe, even wanted to believe,” between vying European political discerning fortean taveller’s bucket list
the great illusionist writes. dynasties and monastic orders
Houdini’s respect for Conan from the mediæval period
Doyle’s sincerity is contrasted by onwards, and Masonic history. At
anger and outrage at what he saw the heart of his research is Mann
as the cynicism and immorality himself; he claims descent from
exhibited by fake mediums. More both Sinclair and Native American

Model of Auroville layout

than once, he writes of their ‘evil’ bloodlines.
or their ‘vice,’ their ‘crimes’ and Less familiar to the reader
‘moral perversion’ at fooling a may well be the premise upon
needy public. which Mann bases his quest
Whilst by no means an for the Templar secrets. Using
objective examination of two key works by the artists Atlas of
the Spiritualist movement,
this unashamedly passionate
Nicolas Poussin (‘The Shepherds
of Arcadia’) and David Teniers
improbable places (You do have Google Earth, right?
Essential for any fortean. Even
condemnation of psychical fakery (‘St Anthony and St Paul Fed by A Journey to the World’s Most the Pro version is free now.)
unusual corners
is a useful historical account Ravens’), he applies techniques Of course, with only 51 places
of mediumship during the late of speculative cartography and Travis Elborough & Alan Horsfield selected, there are bound to be
19th century and the beginnings forensic navigational histories to Aurum Press 2016 omissions, and everyone will
of the 20th. It’s also a historical ascertain the whereabouts of the Hb, 224 pp, illus, £20.00, ISBN 9781781315123 have their own list. I would have
document, a time capsule that hidden North American Templar Anyone who likes the Fortean included the village of Gibellina
testifies to an era when psychic sanctuaries. Interwoven into the Traveller feature in FT is going in Sicily, abandoned in 1968 and
investigation was taken seriously body of his journey are cultural, to love this book. It consists of turned into what must be one the
– with scientists, psychologists historical and philosophical 51 short essays on strange or largest sculptures on the planet,
and major literary figures surveys that take in the Classical wonderful places, most being and probably the most bizarre
participating in its research – world to the contemporary, four pages long, one page being place I have ever visited myself.
rather than being pushed to the ostensibly in support of his the map, the rest well-written The weakest part of the book
Channel Four fringes of popular historical claim. and informative text, and one is the photographs. I can live with
culture as it is today. For my part I found the book photograph. The maps, in Alan the fact that they are all a rather
Christopher Josiffe rather confusing, as knowledge Horsfield’s cartography, are blurry monochrome, but they
of the author’s previous works is stylish and very attractive. often give a poor idea of what
Fortean Times Verdict assumed, and the reader is never The book is arranged into the places actually look like. The
A pASSionAte DenunciAtion of
pSychicAl fAKeRy 8 given a clear idea as to the nature
of the Templar secrets and why
six chapters: ‘Dream creations’,
‘Deserted destinations’,
photo of Auroville, for instance,
shows only a single building,
they may be of any importance. ‘Architectural oddities’, ‘Floating where what one would like is a
templar The condensed history is, at times, worlds’, ‘Otherworldy spaces’ and panorama. Cue Google Earth for
Sanctuaries in stodgy and the archæological and ‘Subterranean realms’. Some of lots more pictures and a virtual
cartographical material somewhat the places chosen are well-known exploration. The picture selection
north America obtuse. and fairly predictable, such as is the only thing that has me
Sacred Bloodlines and Secret This is a book for a reader who Mt Roraima, the inspiration for deducting a point from the overall
treasures has worked through other Grail Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost score, and I suspect it reflects
William Mann, foreword by Scott F Wolter myth and bloodline exposés and World. But, for instance, I had what was available to the authors.
Destiny Books 2016 now wishes to engage with more never heard of Auroville before; I doubt if they actually journeyed
BIB DEETS 416p (illustrated), ISBN: 9781620555279 recognisable scholarship and a utopian settlement in SE India. to all the places featured.
genealogical research. And while I knew of the existence I spotted a couple of slips. It
Following his Templar Sanctuaries may well of Wrangel Island off the coast of would be remarkable indeed if
previous monographs appear to readers familiar with Siberia, I never knew its curious the deserted Presidio Modelo
The Knights Templar the broad strokes of the subjects history. prison in Cuba featured four
in the New World discussed as a rather wordy and It won’t take long to get 60-storey towers; they are six
(2004) and The demanding introduction to what is through this book; it’s the sort storeys high. And while I know
Templar Meridians still an ongoing source of mystery of thing where you read one it gets very hot in Southern
(2005), William Mann rigorously and intrigue for many. essay, and then say, “Well, I’ll California, I doubt if it reaches
documents his research into However, Mann’s enthusiasm for just read one more” – and then 120°C. But the overall message is:
the claim that the secrets of his subject and his position within one more, and so on. But part buy this book. It will grace any
the Templars found residency it is evident and commendable. of the interest of this book is fortean’s coffee table.
within the ritual practices of Chris Hill its potential as a starting point Roger Musson
the Anishinabe and Algonquin for more exploration. Latitude
peoples of North America. Fortean Times Verdict and longitude of each place are Fortean Times Verdict
Mann endeavours to look
at the issues surrounding the
enthuSiAStic But confuSing
StuDy of AMeRicAn teMplARS 4 given, so it’s fun to put these into
Google Earth and look around.
A WonDeRful Selection of
veRy StRAnge plAceS 9
FT351 61
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reviews BooKS

Riding Saint george?

the Death and
Resurrection of
elvis presley
A lively guide to five centuries of English slang and profanity is Ted Harrison
Reaktion Books 2016
a necessary counterblast to PC’s suppression of language Hb, 258pp, notes, ind, illus, £16.00,
ISBN 9781780236377

industry – as the wellspring of these deadpan ranks rose Eric Peter Guralnick’s
his subject, Décharné’s discourse Partridge, “arguably the greatest exhaustive, two-volume
is rich with regional variations. slang lexicographer of the biography of Elvis
He traces the origins of Rap to twentieth century”. Presley is a huge
Richard Blakeborough’s 1898 The many kinks in the course accomplishment, but
Wit, Character Folklore & Customs of cant are acknowledged by the it can leave the reader
of the North Riding of Yorkshire author, whose previous foray into feeling that its subject’s life was,
(Rap, n, A friendly chat Ex. —Cu’ the field, 2000’s Straight From for long stretches, startlingly
thi waays, an’ lets ’ev a pipe the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of devoid of meaningful incident. No
an’ a bit o’ rap.) and takes a Hipster Slang now shares shelf- such worries with Ted Harrison’s
vulgar tongues Cockney walkabout with Ronnie
Barker, Reggie Kray, Robin Cook,
space with the dreaded Hipster
Handbook, Robert Lanham’s 2002
fascinating, and considerably
more concise, examination of the
An Alternative history of english
Frank Norman and Keith Moon, guide to geekery that would King’s post mortem career, which
Slang
all of whom have made their spawn the Shoreditch Tosser. offers plenty in the way of drama,
Max Décharné
contributions to the cataloguing “Sometimes the hip word of today controversy and flat-out weirdness.
Serpent’s Tail 2016 of Rhyming Slang. will turn unexpectedly into the It’s a definitive overview of
Hb, 400pp, £14.99, ISBN 9781846685613
The entertainment to be found embarrassingly square world how, ever since Elvis left the
within this etymology is legion, of tomorrow,” he says, helpfully building, we’ve witnessed the
Hear the word ‘superfly’ and but Décharné also has serious providing the origins of the word simultaneous growth of a business
what image comes to mind? Ron points to make about the creeping ‘geek’ as a performer from the empire whose aim is to both
O’Neal in a white fedora, double- suppression of language through American freakshow whose job it police and monetise the singer’s
breasted Bri-Nylon suit and political correctness. was to bite the heads off chickens. iconic image and a worldwide
long shoes, standing beside his This is a timely reminder of It is the computer geeks of subculture in which fans “were
customised Cadillac Eldorado? Orwell’s warning, via the ever- today whom the author fears liberated by Elvis’s physical death
His extravagant attire, the calling decreasing Newspeak Dictionary will fulfill Orwell’s prophecy. In to reinvent him for themselves”;
card of his profession, is a clue to in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which closing, he summons his spirit the two camps haven’t always
the epithet’s origins in the 18th aims to boil language down to one guide, Captain Francis Grose, seen eye to eye, of course, when
century, when it was first applied single word that: “might bring whose 1785 Classical Dictionary it comes to preserving Presley’s
to anyone who was knowing or joy to the heart of any would-be of The Vulgar Tongue catalogued considerable pop-cultural legacy.
streetwise – a dandy highwayman, dictator” but “attack the very all the words Dr Johnson’s With a keen understanding of
a member of the Hellfire Club impulse which gives rise to slang; contemporaneous Dictionary of how modern myths take shape
or, perhaps, Jack Harris ‘Pimp a type of speech which revels in the English Language did not, and a sympathetic eye for his
General of all England’, whose multiple layers of meaning and thus evoking: “the realities of subject, Harrison surveys the
landmark publication List alternative readings of familiar that time far more honestly than contemporary landscape of
of Covent Garden Ladies was words.” the corporate-speak and PC Elvis impersonators, academic
published yearly from 1757 to Luckily for us, Décharné is euphemisms of today could ever interpreters and followers and
1795 as a guide for the buck- a master of the manifold, who reflect our own”. He imagines finds something very akin to a
about-town to the attractions of wields a light touch over a heavy this Admiral of the Narrow Seas new religion taking shape: it’s a
the many ‘vaulting houses’ of the amount of research. His parallel posting drunken boasts of Riding story complete with holy relics,
locale. careers as a musician and expert St George and being lynched annual pilgrimages, apostolic
Such is the detailed delight in on noir film and fiction make by Twitter users before the succession, theological schisms,
which Max Décharné charts the him particularly good on the jazz monitoring secret services can messianic imagery and perhaps
progress of profanity through origins of so much jive. His list of silence him. the possibility of transcendence.
this tome, from Elizabethan singles from 1921 to 1945 presents Can we keep our sayings Like another, somewhat better
origins in Thomas Harman’s the terms ‘rock ’n’ roll’, ‘reefer’, schtum now that Big Brother established, worldwide faith, this
1567 A Caveat or Warening for ‘cat’ and ‘groovy’ long before they is watching us all? Décharné’s new quasi-religion also dwells on
Common Cursetors Vulgarely came into common usage, many work ably demonstrates that the the idea of physical resurrection,
Called Vagabones through the of them the legacy of band leader creation of slang is something and the book offers a useful
criminal justice system, theatre, Cab Calloway, who produced his hardwired in us, the need to mock summation of the current state
showground and music hall, own Hepster’s Dictionary in 1938 suppression being the mother of play concerning claims both
military dormitory and cottage that rapidly infused the pages of of its invention – one brilliant of Elvis’s continued survival
chatter of lizzies and queens crime fiction with “the wisdom of argument for never keeping a and those claiming to be his
to the Roger’s Profanisaurus of illicit possibilities”. But Décharné civil tongue. unrecognised offspring.
today. As well as identifying is just as good marshalling the Cathi Unsworth David Sutton
these groups – and their military: the chapter on how
interconnecting Venn diagrams soldiers, sailors and airmen used Fortean Times Verdict Fortean Times Verdict
of popular music, pulp fiction,
recreational libations and the sex
slang as their shield is as moving
as it is amusing. After all, from
A toWeRing MonuMent to the
MotheR tongue 9 the King iS DeAD. long live the
King… 8
62 FT351
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 BookS
reviews

ALSo RECEIVED We leaf through a small selection of the dozens of books that
have arrived at Fortean Towers in recent months...

Monsters Among Us demic apparatus. all manner of forteans as they the ritual dismemberment of her
An Exploration of otherworldly The book moves from the ear- debate time travel, alchemy, lon- husband and his subsequent
Bigfoots, Wolfmen, Portals, Phan- liest surviving records on the topic, gevity among yogis, reports of rein- resurrection. It was once thought
toms, and odd Phenomena through the Classic ages of Elysian carnation following wars, the death this might be related to the cult
Linda S Godfrey Fields, Tartarus and the River Styx, of Houdini, Conan Doyle’s interest of Attis but, according to Morgan
Tarcher Pedigree 2016 and into the very complex era influ- in investigation of crimes with it has more in common with Isis,
Pb, 352pp, notes, £14.99, ISBN 9780399176241 enced by the main monotheistic clairvoyance, Abraham Lincoln’s patron of magic, and the fate
religions. Professor Almond writes interest in the Afterlife, seemingly of Osiris. He even presents the
For 23 years of her writ- compassionately about the very alternative realities, the earliest script of a Hindu drama from the
ing career, Linda Godfrey human concerns of people from all experiments in human flight, both modern stronghold of Pattini wor-
has collected extraordi- walks of life (eg. those about to be Mark Twain’s and Mary Shelley’s ship (in Sri Lanka) in which the
nary tales of encounters eaten by cannibals, or those who interest in the supernatural, death and rebirth are enacted,
with impossible crea- have lost limbs and wonder if they immortality and how spiritualism showing point for point that it is a
tures and presents them here with will be whole in the Hereafter), copes with the problem of suicide. “lost version” of a “passion play”
good writing and a fairly balanced and the many citations and refer- Some of the authors will be about Isis and her murdered hus-
assessment of their value. ences do not disturb his concise familiar to FT readers, including band.
What makes this collection story-telling. The chapters divide Frank Joseph, David Childress, and To add to the weirdness of this
more than usually interesting is the subject into seven topics: the Robert M Schoch (who contributes ancient temple, he describes
that many of the accounts had destiny of the dead; the geography interesting discussions of telepa- members of various different
to be prised out of the witnesses of the Underworld; the nature thy, psychokinesis, and ‘Religion cults turning up there around the
who had only confided in their clos- of souls; Purgatory and Limbo; and the Paranormal’). Bharani festival, the rites of one
est friends and therefore will be sleep and death; salvation and Nothing world-shattering here, ending in 12 hours of “misrule”,
new to most readers. damnation; and the rich variety of but an enjoyable read all the and another of Kali devotees who
Godfrey has written several heavens and hells. same. dance to exhaustion with sickle-
books on such modern encoun- Although the main focus is tipped swords and utter oracles
ters, one of which focused on on the Mosaic religions, there Isis in trances. There is also a legend
‘wolfmen’ (her chief interest). Here are comparisons with Buddhism, Goddess of Egypt & India of a secret temple below the
her stories are divided into those Hinduism and others in passing. Kerala building.
Chris Morgan
that describe alternative realities; Almond sums up his rational Mandrake of Oxford 2016
A fascinating story well told.
those about humanoid ‘beasts’ approach thus: “I expect death is Pb, 255pp, illus, notes, ind, £14.99, ISBN 9781906958718
(including Bigfoot); entities that one event that I shall not live to Conjuring Science
invade bedrooms, follow or perse- regret, even though I live in hope Linking Isis, the mother A History of Scientific
cute; others associated with mists that I might be pleasantly, and not goddess of Egypt who Entertainment and Stage
and shadows; and still others unpleasantly, surprised.” was sister and wife to Magic in Modern France
seemingly related to UFOs of differ- Recommended to all. Osiris, to India is quite Sophie Lachapelle
ent kinds, and ‘portals’. a provocative idea, Palgrave Macmillan 2015
The book will certainly interest Lost Powers but Chris Morgan makes a well- Hb, 201pp, illus, notes, bib, ind, $95.00, ISBN
9781137497680
entity researchers. Reclaiming our Inner Connection researched and interesting case
for how the pan-Mediterranean Sophie Lachapelle is a
J Douglas Kenyon, ed.
Afterlife Atlantis Rising 2016
cult of Isis came to the Malabar history professor at the
A History of Life after Death Pb, 247pp, illus, $16.95, ISBN 9780990690436 Coast of Kerala State, in southern University of Guelph,
India. Two thousand or more miles Canada, and this is an
Philip C Almond
IB Taurus 2016
This anthology of southwest of Egypt, across the academic treatment of
Pb, 236pp, notes, bib, ind, £25.00, ISBN 9781784534967 32 articles from the Arabian Sea, is an ancient Hindu the social environment in 19th
pages of Atlantis Rising temple in what was the ancient century France in which scientific
Not so much another magazine, selected by trading port of Mueiris; today it performance and demonstra-
study of tales of Near- its editor JD Kenyon, is dedicated to Shiva and Kali tion merged significantly with
Death Experiences covers a very wide range of sub- but, asserts Morgan, there was a stage magic. She deconstructs
(NDEs) as a compre- jects, divided into five sections, succession of dedications going accounts of the major scientists
hensive account of the dealing generally with ‘Restoring back in time. Around the time of and magicians of the day and
nature of the Afterlife as imagined the Body’, ‘Beyond the Senses’, Christ there was a Græco-Roman their presentations showing how
within different cultures through ‘Super Powers’, ‘Life after Death’, merchant colony there, providing each borrowed from the other
history. Nor is this a slight or and ‘Meta-Dimensions’. A few of one strand of plausibility that Isis and, in the process, imagina-
New Age-y treatment, but a solid, the papers seem like typical New worship reached Indian shores. tively dissolved the boundaries
detailed, survey by an emeritus Age waffle – such as ‘Mysteries One of the earliest resident dei- between wonder and education
professor of religion at the Univer- of Body Wisdom’ and another ties was Pattini, revered by Bud- imaginatively using misdirec-
sity of Queensland’s Institute for discussing whether the human dhists, Jains and Hindus, whose tion and illusion. Excellent and
Advanced Studies in the Humani- aura is “real or imaginary”. But the gifts were fertility and health. The instructive, but an eye-watering
ties, and it comes with a full aca- majority of the topics will interest major legend of Pattini concerns price.

FT351 63
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reviews FILM & DVD
SEND REVIEW COPIES OF DVDS, BLU-RAYS AND GAMES TO:
FORTEAN TIMES, PO BOX 71602, LONDON E17 0QD.

The Love Witch

Dir Anna Biller, US 2016
On UK release from 10 March

Following the death of her hus-

band, the police are paying young
witch Elaine (Samantha Robin-
son) more attention than she cares
for, so she ups sticks, relocates
and is soon on the lookout for new
love. Sustaining herself by making
love potions and other amorous
magical paraphernalia, she meets
the handsome Wayne (Jeffrey
Vincent Parise), who is immedi-
ately bewitched by her magnetic
charms. However, after Elaine has
used her magic to seduce him,
Wayne starts experiencing some
odd side effects, becoming highly
emotional. Turned off by her
lover’s personality change, Elaine
leaves Wayne in bed; but when she
checks on him the following morn-
ing, he is dead. Struck by panic,
she gets rid of his body and turns
to magic for protection. Every-
thing seems fine at first, but soon
the police are onto Elaine, and her
Elle older, his first French language cesses the ordeal in a relentlessly witchcraft is tested to the utmost
Dir Paul Verhoeven, France/Germany/Belgium 2016 film is beautifully executed and determined manner, which mirrors when the charismatic detective
On UK release from 10 March immensely enjoyable. Having her general approach to life; she Griff (Gian Keys) comes calling.
taken French lessons prior to film- not only remains true to herself, The Love Witch pays impressive
Paul Verhoeven has never been ing to better communicate with but is anything but helpless when homage to the colourful exploita-
one for tiptoeing around violence the French cast and crew,Verho- dealing with the aftermath of the tion films of the early 1970s, while
in his movies, and Elle is no excep- even shows his dedication in every assault. What’s fascinating is the humorously riffing on the poten-
tion. The film opens with its main scene, not only in the directorial way this very determination to stay tially problematic nature of those
character, successful business- polish of the whole but also in true to herself leads Michèle into films with regard to feminism.
woman Michèle Leblanc (Isabelle his grasp of the often overworked a highly taboo perversion. While Newcomer Samantha Robinson
Huppert), being raped in her home tropes of French cinema. And the I will not reveal how that perver- perfectly captures the quintessen-
by a masked intruder. Once the tropes in Elle are many; Michèle sion develops and plays out, I will tial Russ Meyer girl, looking and
rapist has left, she draws herself a is a brusque businesswoman; she say that it is masterfully handled acting every bit the part of a purr-
bath and discards her clothes. As is sleeping with her best friend’s and should be recognised for the ing sex kitten.
she sits silently in the tub, blood husband; she cannot stand her uncompromisingly artful piece of The visuals are also gorgeous,
emerges through the foam of the obnoxious daughter-in-law; and storytelling that it is. not least because the film was
bubble bath, and she nonchalantly her oversexed mother is driving It may sound paradoxical that shot on 35mm, but also because
rearranges the bubbles to hide her mad with her young gigolo of a a thriller about a woman look- every element of the set deco-
the evidence of the ordeal she has boyfriend – and that’s just the tip ing to avenge her sexual assault ration and costumes perfectly
just endured. Taking no time to of the iceberg. At several points in is at the same time a satire on captures the æsthetic of the time.
recover, Michèle carries on with the film, these tropes are taken to French cinema, but this is typi- This is all due to the The Love
her life as usual; however, she is the extreme, giving the film Ver- cal Verhoeven. His satire might Witch’s creator, one-woman pow-
determined to fight back against hoeven’s trademark tinge of satire, have become less blatant over the erhouse Anna Biller, who has worn
her attacker. She not only fanta- and the result is delightful in all years, but it’s still there, and its pretty much every single hat on
sises about how the attack could its absurdity. The acting is also subtle yet consistent presence in this production: writer, director,
have played out differently, she exceptional, with Isabelle Hup- Elle is what elevates the film from producer, composer, production
also buys various items for self- pert’s portrayal of Michèle being a well-crafted thriller to a truly designer, art director, set decora-
defence, and even commissions mesmerisingly nuanced. memorable movie. By balancing tor, costume designer and editor.
an employee to do some snooping Whenever a film deals with darkly humorous moments with It is evident from the result that
for her. Thus the game of cat and rape there’s justifiable concern an intense story of perversion and Biller is a force to be reckoned
mouse begins, and soon develops as to whether the subject will be taboo,Verhoeven delivers a film with and that her film is a genu-
from obsession to perversion. handled with sensationalism or that is as bold as it is entertaining. ine labour of love, and the expert
This being the first film Verho- respect. While chilling, the rape Leyla Mikkelsen staging of the story leaves us in no
even has made since the acclaimed sequence here is handled in a doubt that she completely under-
Black Book a decade ago, Elle has manner that translates as unpleas- stands the genre and era she is
a lot of expectations riding on it. antly realistic without becoming Fortean Times Verdict paying tribute to.
With his focus seemingly narrow-
ing and intensifying as he gets
distastefully exploitative. Addi-
tionally, the main character pro-
VerhoeVen returns wIth a
DarkLy satIrIcaL thrILLer 9 Unfortunately, this level of pas-
sionate involvement in a project

64 FT351
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 FILM & DVD
reviews
can also lead to a film maker

The Reverend’s Review

failing to scrutinise her own work
with any degree of objectivity.
While The Love Witch is a visu-
ally stunning piece of cinema, it’s
obvious that Biller the director FT’s resident man of the cloth reVerenD Peter Laws dons
has found it very difficult to act his dog collar and faces the flicks that Church forgot!
as editor of her own work. With
(www.theflicksthatchurchforgot.com; @revpeterlaws)
a duration of two hours, the film
runs a good 30 minutes too long
and is in dire need of cutting. GhoSTS oF MArS sand pit and doing whatever
After about an hour, the picture Dir John Carpenter, US 2001 the heck he thinks would look
grinds to a halt, its second half Powerhouse Films, £14.99 (Dual format) cool; but this means you get
often dragging along at a pace Ice Cube, Jason Statham and
where the narrative becomes VAMPIrES Natasha Henstridge spitting out
unclear. Scenes that do nothing to Dir John Carpenter, US 1998 ridiculously macho lines on a
further the plot are left to mean- Powerhouse Films, £14.99 (Dual format) matriarchal Mars that is infested
der on without a clear sense of with ancient Martian spirits who
direction, and this unfortunately I’d better ’fess up straight away: possess humans and make
manages to disconnect the audi- I’m a John Carpenter fanboy. them rip Pam Grier’s head clean
ence from the film and negate I love his stuff to the point of off and shove it on a spike. And
much of the effort that has been creepy obsession. Last October, Carpenter swaps his usual synth
made to transport us back to a I even got to see him play live soundtrack for head-pounding
different cinematic world. in London at the Troxy. I was 10 Anthrax guitars. Is it one of
It may be stylistically impres- feet away as he pounded out Carpenter’s best? Ha ha! No.
sive, but while The Love Witch the themes to Christine and But it is an amphetamine-fuelled
successfully recreates the visuals The Fog. I listened to my iPhone mash-up of Assault on Precinct
of vintage Russ Meyer, its obvious video clips of it and I can hear 13, The Thing and Prince of
references to Romero’s Season of myself whooping out “hell yeahs” Darkness relocated to the Red
the Witch serve only to show that like a quivering Price is Right Planet. What’s not to like? Watch vampire hunters working along-
Biller’s film never quite attains contestant. It was embarrassing, out for the very final moment side the clergy to track down
the intriguing power of that Sev- but impossible to control. You too. It’s one of the only times the undead menace, and it’s
enties gem. need to know this fact for bal- I’ve ever seen Carpenter break filled with dusty, sunset shots
Leyla Mikkelsen ance, as it means I can be over- the fourth wall. The grown-up in that often look a lot like Mars.
ly generous to some of his less me thought this was cheesy, and Considering these two films fol-
Fortean Times Verdict celebrated works. Like Ghosts of that it affected the internal logic lowed each other, they definitely
retro PassIon ProJect Is
stunnIng but oVerLong 7 Mars, for example.
Most critics think it’s a turd,
and integrity of the movie… but
the seven-year-old boy inside of
count as Carpenter’s ‘red peri-
od’. Some might prefer to call it
a bona fide piece of crud. The me thought it was amazeballs. his dead period, suggesting that
The Chamber New York Times described it
as “a zombie picture directed
Also released on Blu-ray is
Vampires, which I like a little
he’d lost his directorial mojo by
this point. It’s true, I much prefer
Dir Ben Parker, UK 2016
by one of the undead”, and less, even though it’s the more his earlier works, but there’s still
On UK release from 10 March
Mr Showbiz opined that it was accomplished of the two films. something wild and delicious
“so wretched that it practically Here, James Woods treks across about the films Carpenter makes
A research vessel in North Korean defies description”. I, however, the desert, wiping out nests of – even the so-called turkeys.
waters gets boarded by American think it’s a bit of a hoot. Yes, leather-clad vampires, including
Special Ops who requisition the it’s pretty brainless, and makes Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks,
vessel’s small submersible for a you feel as if you’re looking into whose bite on the thigh makes Fortean Times Verdict
secret mission. Said submarine is
a bit temperamental, so the team
the mind of a seven-year-old boy
playing with action figures in a
her gurn at the camera a lot.
There’s a nice thread about the
two Less-ceLebrateD works
FroM carPenter’s reD PerIoD 7
(Charlotte Salt, James McArdle
and Elliot Levey) also take its
regular pilot (Johannes Kuhnke)
along with them. As they begin
their descent into the abyss of the
Yellow Sea, the disgruntled pilot
tries to learn what the trio are up
to, but their lips remain sealed.
As tensions rise and things come
to a head, the four find them-
selves trapped at the bottom
of the ocean, and soon military
protocol and personal differences
must be put aside if they want to
survive.
For a British film with such
a small budget (it was shot in

FT351 65
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reviews FILM & DVD

Wales, not North Korea) and such

a static setting, The Chamber
house; city versus country; fashion-
able versus scuzzy; and, ultimately, ShorTS
achieves quite a lot in spite of its clothed versus naked. All of this is
limitations. The cinematography bundled together in a package that bruce Lee: the Master coLLectIon
effectively establishes the claus- is itself a clash between two film Mediumrare, £34.99 (Blu-ray)
trophobic atmosphere of the con- genres: glossy thriller and gothic At last we have a done-in-one, six-disc Blu-ray set
fined space, and the performances horror. These contrasts are pulled collecting all of the Little Dragon’s beloved feature
are for the most part engaging. together with skill, and the oppo- films (including Enter the Dragon, excluded from
Johannes Kuhnke and Charlotte sites meld into each other rather the otherwise comprehensive Hong Kong Legends
Salt play their parts particularly than jarring. 30th Anniversary Commemorative Edition of 2003
well, despite the fact that they have An intriguing æsthetic then, and but licensed from Warner Bros for this release).
been given very little to work with, in service to an equally intriguing First up, we get Lee’s rough-and-ready debut in
both in terms of setting and script. structure; however, the film has The Big Boss (1971), then the fully-fledged masterpiece that is
The plot provides only the most some serious flaws which conspire Fist of Fury (1972). Both films look magnificent in eye-popping
basic of frameworks, and while it to render it a failure. Foremost new 4K transfers that bring these mash-ups of nationalist senti-
is commendable that momentum is among these is Kristen Stewart’s ment, broad comedy and martial arts to fresh life. Lee’s directo-
maintained throughout the film, the performance as Maureen. Stewart rial debut, Way of the Dragon (1972), another new master, is
script is ultimately devoid of any has undeniable star quality, but at perhaps less of an upgrade from the previous version, but still
real depth or substance. this stage of her career she simply astonishes with some of the best fight sequences ever commit-
ted to celluloid, including the climactic confrontation with Chuck
As a survival thriller, the prem- does not have the acting chops to
Norris in Rome’s Colosseum. Lee’s final completed work was his
ise and narrative structure of The carry a film, particularly one as
international break-out Enter the Dragon (1973), which remains
Chamber work well enough, but in intense as this, without heavyweight
an odd but irresistable mixture of Hong Kong and Western styles
the end the film is no more than a support to help her out. Maureen is
with some fantastic set pieces. Finally, we get a 4K master of the
disposable bit of entertainment. at best a rootless character, at worst unfinished Game of Death (1978), a desperate bit of cinematic
Leyla Mikkelsen someone who is losing her mind, grave-robbing that stitched together the small amount of footage
but Stewart plays it all with the Lee had completed with sequences featuring various look (not
Fortean Times Verdict same collection of shrugs, stammers very) alikes and even newsreel of Lee’s funeral! This set ports
and furrowed brows. For a film that
eFFectIVe IF unexcePtIonaL
surVIVaL thrILLer 6 rarely has her off screen, it’s a fatal
over all the extras from the old HKL releases, providing hour upon
hour of documentaries, interviews, extra footage and commen-
flaw. The dialogue is often banal taries, and offers options for English, Mandarin and Cantonese
and on occasion risible; describing audio. An essential celebration of a brilliant and tragically brief
Personal Shopper her encounter with a malign female
apparition, Maureen says: “She
career. Ds 9/10
Dir Olivier Assayas, France/Germany 2016
vomited some ectoplasm and left.”
On UK release from 17 March
There is a lengthy, crucial section of war on eVeryone
Icon Entertainment, £12.99 (Blu-ray), £10.99 (DVD)
Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is per- the film where Maureen is plagued
sonal shopper for demanding, mega- by text messages, which may or may This black comedy about two corrupt cops (Alexan-
famous, trend-setting celebrity Kyra not be coming from the beyond. der Skarsgård and Michael Peña) leaving a trail of
(Nora van Waldstatten). Dashing Technology means that sequences mayhem across New Mexico inexplicably garnered
around Paris and London, choosing like this are perforce creeping into a string of good reviews. Despite the talent in front
and collecting clothes and accesso- cinema, but sending and receiving of the cameras, even the normally wonderful Peña
ries, Maureen is the de facto stand- texts is hardly cinematic stuff. can’t do much with this glib, nasty and nihilistic material, cour-
in for her client, employed because There are moments when tesy of Brit writer/director John Michael McDonagh, whose script
she knows Kira’s taste and how to Assayas’s skill as a technician comes across like a long-forgotten cast-off found at the back of
make her look good. But Maureen shines through: such as when Mau- Quentin Tarantino’s sock drawer. The results are unfunny, boorish
is dissatisfied, not just with her job reen’s inbox fills with messages, and painfully flat. Ds 4/10
but with her life; she is mourning each of which indicates her stalker
the death of her twin brother who is getting closer and closer, and stIgMata
passed away some weeks before a remarkable glide out of a hotel Eureka Entertainment, £14.99 (Dual Format)
from a heart condition. Like him, elevator, through the lobby and Holy Moly! A hedonistic hairdresser gets the
Maureen reckons herself to be a out into the street. Both sequences religious ‘gift’ of bleeding over everybody while
medium, a spiritualist in touch with recall Hitchcock at his best, and her priest lover uncovers a Catholic conspiracy to
a world beyond our own. Holding to I imagine he would have had a bury the true words of Christ! Released in 1999,
a pact made with her brother, Mau- field day with this material. Sadly, Stigmata was perfectly timed to explore the jumpy
reen is waiting for a sign from him such moments are too infrequent spiritual atmosphere of the millennium. Sadly, it means it’s also
to prove there is life after death. to rescue the film; the idea might very much a product of the 1990s: it looks like an over-stylised
Director Olivier Assayas presents have been to set up an opposition music promo, with more religious iconography and slow-motion
for our consideration a series of between 21st century thriller and doves than a Madonna video. Some people love this kind of stuff,
dualities: haves and have-nots, on 19th century Gothic chiller, but this of course, and the film has its hardcore fans. Me though? Not so
the most basic level; personal and offers little of either. much. It’s still an interesting pre-Da-Vinci Code dip into all those
public; sophistication and naiveté; Daniel King conspiracy theories that the established church might be hiding
body and soul; and the biggie – life the source of true spirituality, but as an anti-Church horror movie,
and death. They are presented Fortean Times Verdict it ironically ends up being a bit too sanctimonious and preachy.
PL 5/10
6
through visual oppositions: swanky More LIke ratners than
penthouse flat versus old dark cartIer unFortunateLy

66 FT351
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letters
Mysterious skin Saucer-shaped
Stu Ferrol’s Forum piece “Stran- Jenny Randles makes the interest-
ger, darker things” [FT347:58-59] ing point that the word ‘saucer’,
touched on American conspiracies used commonly to describe the
of children abducted for psychic appearance of UFOs, started out
experiments by the military. as a term to describe their move-
He linked them with Operation ment [FT349:27].This naturally
Yewtree in the UK, which has been implies that if the appearance
investigating child abuse cover- of UFOs as ‘saucer-like’ followed
ups in establishment institutions. from this, then there was a sense
Could these rumours, or memories of our seeing or saying we had
of UFO abductions generally, be seen something that came about
linked to repressed trauma of as a mistake or misinterpretation
sexual assault? Readers interested of what was ‘really there’. Did the
in this story might enjoy Gregg common idea of a UFO stem from
Araki’s film Mysterious Skin (2004), Aerial imposter a mistake? An unusual problem
a coming-of-age story about child- that begs further thought.
This photo was taken by my colleague Mo Ali Tighsazzadeh on his
hood sexual assault and aliens. It’s Whilst this is a natural and
iPhone 6. He didn’t notice anything odd in the sky at the time…
an exceptional film, harrowing at arguable conclusion, there are
Kris Hall, School Principal By email
times, but very watchable – and other interpretations that deserve
will be thought provocative for Editor’s note: most readers will recognise this as the reflection consideration. Firstly that it is pos-
ufologists. of an interior electric light fitting. Still, it makes a classic ‘flying sible that by coincidence UFOs do
Emily Monaghan saucer’, doesn’t it? look like saucers, which is why the
London word acquired its longevity; and
secondly, perhaps the movement
of Henry Cow. Appealing as that ally tea or coffee, both of which of the original crescent-shaped
Catholic ghosts scenario is, the cause was probably contain caffeine, an addictive craft that were described as sau-
Regarding foreign ghosts distant industrial noise distorted drug. I would suggest that either cers requires craft to be saucer-
[FT347:74]: it’s always been my by a temperature inversion. the imbiber is mistaking the shaped too.This is a case of which
take that there are far fewer ghost comfort of withdrawal symptoms came first, the chicken or the
stories in Catholic countries than • Simon Young’s column on disappearing for the comfort of egg? Did the word ‘saucer’ inform
in Protestant ones, angels or de- the gnomes of Wollaton Park a more reasonable temperature; our perceptions or are we seeing
mons being the preferred explana- [FT348:23] reminded me of an- or, much more likely, the standard something that is really saucer-
tion – but it’s clearly a grey area... other sighting involving primary explanation is an alternative to shaped? I suspect we are seeing
One of my punk poems back in the school age children, the Little conversations like this. Child: both chicken and egg.
1980s ended: “The past flies out Blue Man of Studham.This case, I “Daddy, why are you drinking
of the marble / wherever you hap- believe, can be attributed to blue a hot drink when it is so hot?” • Alice Hepple is concerned that a
pen to strike it / but there are no ball lightning, as Theo Paijmans Father: “Because daddy is a drug dream she had was both trying to
ghosts in Italy / and that’s the way [FT339:56-57] presents ample addict and needs his withdrawal kill her and rescue her [FT347:77].
they like it”. I was prompted by a evidence of unusual atmospheric headache to go away”. The dream occurring whilst she
friend’s observation, while living conditions.The glowing entity, David Staveley has a severe asthma attack repre-
near Rome, that she had heard of with its long split beard, has more Eastbourne, East Sussex sents one side of her attempting to
an abandoned country villa with a in common with a garden gnome keep her asleep whilst the other
reputation for being haunted, and than an extraterrestrial: did side wakes her up. Fortunately,
how very unusual that was. familiarity with these ornaments
Cold-blooded the truth is much more likely to be
Janet Wilson influence the childrens’ hallucina- According to a Sideline healthier than that. What she felt
Bristol tion (for want of a better word)? [FT349:11], a missing tortoise with regard to feeling restrained
Richard George called Zuma was found using a by the dream is I suspect sleep
St Albans, Hertfordshire thermal imaging camera.This re- paralysis: whenever we sleep the
Aerial music minds me of the ‘Komodo capers’ body goes into a state of mild pa-
Further to audio phenomena in [FT178:9] where we were told ralysis so as not to act out thoughts
Canada [FT349:10]: in 2012 strange
Caffeine about Lebanese forces hunting that we might dream.This is to
sounds were recorded in the vicin- dependence a Komodo dragon with infrared enable it to rest and is why it was
ity of North Battleford, Saskatch- goggles. In both cases, reptiles, so difficult to wake up despite
ewan, and later featured on BBC Regarding the idea that a hot being cold-blooded, would have being aware of the need to do so.
2’s Nature’s Weirdest Events.They drink will cool you down on a hot the same temperature as the sur- Ms Hepple’s dreams only had one
resembled avant-garde electric day [Mythconceptions, FT350:23]: roundings and would not show up moral side: the one that urged her
guitar, as though Jimi Hendrix I always had an alternative in infrared. to awaken.
were making a comeback with the explanation for the phenomenon. Nils Erik Grande Simon van Someren
Neil Young of Arc and Fred Frith The hot drink in question is usu- Oslo, Norway London

FT351 71
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letters
More on Montague Mythical sandwich
Summers I was much bemused by the epi-
I enjoyed Brian Regal’s feature on sode with Gavrilo Princip having a
the Reverend Montague Summers sandwich before being interrupt-
[FT349:42-46], with its use of ed, causing World War I [Myth-
unpublished letters to publishers. chaser, FT349:23]. I have written a
But the overall angle – that Sum- book on the outbreak of that war
mers had no real dabbling with (published in Sweden in 2014) and
the occult, and the only ‘occult’ faintly remember coming across
(punning on hidden, or supposedly that sandwich every now and then;
lesser known) aspect of his life though I have never given much
was his career as a writer – is not thought to it, and happily didn’t
entirely satisfying. Firstly, if there include it in the book.
was anything hidden about Sum- Because yes, it is a myth. In a
mers’s career as a hard-working 2011 article <www.smithsonian-
scholarly and hack writer then mag.com/history/gavrilo-princips-
it was hidden in very full view Mewstone cloned sandwich-79480741/> Mike Dash
indeed, with some 25 books and [erstwhile Gang of Fort member]
booklets including such major I took this photo on 12 November 2016 at the coast in Wembury in debunks it as well as one could
works as The History of Witchcraft Devon. I was snapping a few shots of the sun going down over the sea wish, showing that not only is it
and Demonology, The Vampire in and the Mewstone (the big rock in the sea) when I noticed the Sun and not true, but also not very likely,
Europe, The Gothic Quest, and A the hole in the cloud had created a second, glowing Mewstone (sadly, as sandwiches weren’t common
Gothic Bibliography, along with a quite burned out in my shot here, but the best I got). Very pretty, and street food in Sarajevo in 1914.
couple of hundred contributions quite odd and unexpected. Dash traces its origin to Twelve
to periodicals. Lorna Stroup Nilsson, Princetown, Devon Fingers, a 2001 novel in Portu-
Furthermore, Summers’s guese, and shows how it became
knowledge of the Black Mass widespread and, most interest-
seems to have been more than Very nice to see a picture of murkiness of his life. I’ll give two ingly, why it became widespread.
scholarly. “Real” Black Masses Montague Summers’s gravestone examples. First, the question of The idea that had he not taken
are like friend-of-a-friend stories, [FT349:46], which I was involved Summers’s orders in the Catholic that sandwich, WWI & WWII
and the more they are examined in erecting many years ago with Church is extremely obscure and would never have happened isn’t
(rumoured in Paris… rumoured in my colleague Edwin Pouncey. opens fascinating byways among true, with or without a sandwich.
Belgium…) the more they evapo- Montie didn’t write a Life of the episcopi vagantes (independ- That he managed to kill Franz
rate. AE Waite’s sensationally Dryden, though he did edit an edi- ent bishops) and Anglo-Catholic Ferdinand was actually quite un-
titled investigation Devil Worship tion of his plays. As to his involve- underworld of the early 20th cen- likely: he was a bad shot, and a sin-
in France (1896) expended over ment in the occult, his bibliogra- tury. Second, when Summers was gle bullet certainly doesn’t have to
300 careful pages in finding that pher Timothy d’Arch Smith met involved in the 1908 pederasty be lethal even when it hits home.
actually there wasn’t any, which an old actor using the stage name scandal, why was the clergyman And even with the Archduke alive,
may have disappointed some Anatole James, who gave details accused with him sent to prison, the political situation was such
readers. As for Britain, the first of a Black Mass Montie conducted while Summers seems to have that war would have broken out in
true Black Mass for which there at which he and a Catholic youth escaped prosecution? There was 1915, 1916 or perhaps even later;
is any real evidence took place called Sullivan were present, a lot more going on in Summers’s it was just waiting to happen.
later than you might imagine, on along with Montie’s pet dog. life than Regal suggests. Discussing the debunked myth
Boxing Day 1918 (in Eton Road, James also recalled how he and Bob Emery of Princip’s sandwich, a friend
Hampstead); and the depraved Summers, who was “made up to Albany, NY pointed out an older similar
clergyman conducting it was none the eyes and reeking of scent” micromyth: Princip’s coffee. “The
Editor’s note: An informed source
other than – Montague Summers. (d’Arch Smith, p.44) went out driver stopped and backed labori-
tells us that the clergyman
The details can be found in in search of companions, young ously on to the quay, close to the
accused with Summers was
Timothy d’Arch Smith’s The Books Catholic lads being Summers’s café in which sat Gavrilo Princip,
Austin Pemberton Nelson, whom
of the Beast (Mandrake, 1991). prey.Tim was convinced by this he probably met at Lichfield sipping his coffee. He heard the
Smith’s thesis is that the later fire- testimony and so am I. If you ex- Theological College. He was born grinding of gears. He looked up to
and-brimstone condemnations amine Summers’s book of poems, in 1876 and ordained in 1905. At see the Archduke in his car which
of witchcraft and Satanism for Antinous, it is very much decadent Taunton Assizes in 1910 he was had come to a halt not more than
which Summers is remembered and Satanist in nature and sentenced to 18 months’ hard six feet away.” (Rupert Furneaux,
had their origin in Summers’s completely at odds with his later labour for “a grave offence” on Great Dramatic Stories of the Twen-
horrified revulsion at his earlier work. Ambivalent? Enigmatic 18 October 1909, with a youth, tieth Century, Odhams 1966, p.46.)
career. As Tim splendidly puts it, certainly. Gay definitely. Septimus Bailey (14), son of I don’t think this one ever took off.
he suffered “some sort of psychic Sandy Robertson Samuel Bailey, lamplighter. He was The idea of the would-be assassin
kick-back”, and “discovered (not By email sent to Shepton Mallet prison. scrambling out from the café is
a moment too soon) that the god Septimus may have been hard to swallow; the sandwich
he worshipped and the god who Brian Regal’s article a fishmonger’s errand boy permits him to stand on the street
warred against that god were usefully discusses Sum- (he certainly was in 1911). outside, where all agree he stood
professionals.” mers’s trials as a work- Perhaps Summers found him when shooting the Archduke.
Phil Baker ing author, but fails to a little too high-smelling for Peter Olausson
London convey the extreme dalliance. Gothenburg, Sweden

72 FT351
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 letters
Fall from the Wall ing upright again, with my bal- though married with children, he view of Catholic theology, this was
ance regained, although nothing mixed with such raffish characters a scandal. Masses were said for
Theo Paijmans’s article about or no one was near me… I couldn’t as Oscar Wilde and the notorious the forgiveness of the purchaser’s
spontaneous human levitation fathom what just had happened, pæderast Oscar Browning, from sins, or for those of a dead rela-
[FT349:28] made me recall a and I became frightened – far whom he might well have learned tive. By not saying them, Saunière
Swedish case of a badly frightened more frightened than I have ever the ins and outs of refined sexual was placing souls in jeopardy. It
child momentarily levitating – or become, either before or after practices: the year 1916 does not was for this reason that he was
whatever he did.The child was that day. imply innocence of such matters. finally charged with simony.
Frans Gunnar Bengtsson (1894- “I clearly remember what I did As to Martial’s Philænis (also the Saunière effectively defied his
1954) who grew up to become a afterwards. I climbed down from name of the author of an ancient condemnation for simony and
popular essayist and author of the wall to the ground as fast as sex manual), yes, she might have returned to Rennes where, on 5
the epicViking novel Röde Orm I could and went home; I went used a dildo. On the other hand, January 1917, he signed the order
(published by Harper as The Long straight up to our attic, locked the various websites claim enor- for public works totalling eight
Ships). In chapter six of his 1953 door behind me and went over to mously enlarged clitorises – at million francs (the equivalent of
memoir Den lustgård som jag minns a corner where mattresses and least one is on display at YouTube. two billion francs at the end of
(The Paradise Which I Remember), old clothes and rubbish had been Regarding Suillius Cæsoninus, I the 20th century). It was not clear
Bengtsson writes: “Once, and only stored. I lay down and just stayed see nothing specific in Tacitus’s whether he signed contracts or
once in my life, have I experienced there, shivering and chattering Latin to indicate that he had a merely approved quotations; but
something which for me is impossi- my teeth, overwhelmed by sheer sexual encounter with Messalina. in any case he died on 22 January.
ble to explain. When it happened I horror. It wasn’t the horror of just There were other men present at He had previously carried out
could only have been between five having avoided falling and break- her orgy, any one of whom could various works in the village; but
and six years old. All our memories ing my neck, or even some sort of have buggered him. he had always placed these in the
are unreliable and I am perfectly religious horror. It was worse than Barry Baldwin name of his housekeeper, who was
willing to admit that the memories that: the horror of experiencing Calgary, Alberta also his heir. She lived the rest of
of a five-year-old are not to be the totally inexplicable.” her life in poverty, unable even to
trusted at all. I only tell this story Johan Theorin keep up the gardens that Saunière
because I am myself absolutely Stockholm, Sweden
Saunière’s wealth had commissioned.This suggests
convinced that it happened...” I think that I can clarify some of to me that Saunière was never as
Bengtsson goes on to describe the points raised in Geoff Clifton’s rich as he claimed to be; that the
the country estate Rössjöholm
Classical strumpets letter [FT348:69], using informa- funding for his previous works
in southern Sweden, where he Thanks to Richard George for tion provided by Luc Farin-Gélis in had been hand-to-mouth; and
grew up as the only child of the his kind compliment and well- his 2011 book Le trésor du diable de that he knew that, in the event
foreman, and a new brick wall that thought-out remarks [FT349:69]. Rennes-le-Château. of default on the funding, his
had been built between the sta- Herewith, a few addenda to my Firstly, Saunière did not come housekeeper, not himself, would
bles and a dairy there. It was a 3m Strumpeting: I deliberately left from “a very impoverished be legally liable. Far from being a
(10ft) high wall that he managed out Sthenelais and many other background”. His father was multi-millionaire, when he signed
to climb one summer day, alone at ladies from the Greek Anthology, the manager of a factory and a in January 1917 he did not have
the farm apart from two bricklay- wishing to give space to real-life landowner, and some of Saunière’s the money to pay for his grandiose
ers who were working over at the ones; these others are usually income was from a family vine- schemes.
stables and paying no attention thought to be poetic fictions.The yard. Among his other sources of There is little doubt that
to him. On top of the wall, little Greek verb Paton translates at income were grants from the mu- Saunière was a con artist. His
Frans stood up and did an ill- the end of verse two does indeed nicipality, funding from far-flung most successful con may have
advised victory jig to celebrate mean ‘breathing out’. However, in royalist sources, the sale of (very been that after his death he con-
his climbing feat, ignoring what the authoritative modern edition expensive) postcards, and – yes – vinced a number of researchers
have must have been quite a large of Hermann Beckby, there is a the sale of Masses. that he was many times wealthier
height for a child. He writes: different textual reading. Instead Secondly, the sale of Masses than he actually was.
“Suddenly I lost my balance of ereugomenen (Paton), Becky was not forbidden by the Church, Martin Jenkins
and fell backwards. I couldn’t re- has ameregomenen meaning “to but recognised as a legitimate London
gain my footing by taking a quick squeeze out”.This eliminates the source of income for
step somewhere, because the wall issue of gold and its smell, and poorer priests. How-
was narrow and behind me there much better suits the poem as a ever, the maximum
was only air… During a long and whole. Its point is that whoever permitted was three
horrible moment I knew that I was wrote it (yes, could be Macedo- Masses per day.
going to fall and hit the stones far nius, though Marcus Argentarius Anything above that
below. But I didn’t fall. I had only and Rufinus – my own preference was supposed to be
time to begin the fall, with my – have been canvassed – plenty passed on for other
arms waving helplessly in the air of other Anthology erotocists are priests to say. What
and my feet more or less still con- just as possible) is boasting that Saunière appears
nected to the top of the wall – but the girl grants him her favours for to have done is to
an accident never happened. nothing, whereas others who want have sold Masses
“Something stopped my fall, her have to pay; she squeezes out by mail order on an
something caught me. I felt this gold from these clients. industrial scale and
TONy HuSBAND

clearly. It wasn’t like a hand, it William Roger Paton is some- then not have said
was something large and soft thing of a mystery. Biographical them or to have had
that pressed against my shoulder details are available in his Diction- them said.
blades. And suddenly I was stand- ary of British Classicists entry. Al- From the point of “Notice anything strange about that chap?”

FT351 73
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letters
SIMULACRA CORNER
We are always glad to receive pictures of spontaneous forms and figures, or any curious images.
Send them (with your postal address) to Fortean Times, PO Box 2409, London NW5 4NP or to [email protected].

This visage greeted Steve Scanlon from a crumpled blanket on his couch Sheena Phillips noticed an apprehensive face as she was about to pick
as he walked out of his studio. up a towel from the floor.

Richard McQuillan photographed this surf-weathered beach rock at La Jolla Cove in When John Webb discarded his dressing gown on the bath-
California. He saw it as a reposing alien. “Note the right arm,” he writes, “including room floor, he noticed that its folds and creases had formed
the hand clenched into a fist.” into a face.

74 FT351
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 Have you had strange experiences that you cannot explain?

it happened to me…
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First-hand accounts from FT readers and browsers of www.forteantimes.com

only looked beautiful but smelled my mum or my brother had seen

tales from the classroom… lovely too. After much searching, him, but they didn’t have the same
they were about to give up when flabbergasted expression as I did.
Neil Powney, an English teacher at De La Salle Roman Catholic my mum felt a cold chill and a tap We boarded the train with no further
School in Basildon, Essex, often uses bits of Fortean Times in his on her shoulder. She turned round sighting of the ‘man’.
class. In particular, his pupils love Sidelines. His Year 8 class, aged expecting to find someone behind Isabel Russell (12)
12 and 13, said they would like to have a go at writing some “It hap- her, but instead found a rose bush
pened to me” letters, relating strange experiences. Out of 31 entries that she hadn’t seen before. It In 2014 my cousin and I were both
we chose the following seven. was just the type of rose they were 10 and I was staying round at her
The Gang of Fort would like to encourage FT-reading school looking for. My mum said she felt house. At 3am we were in her
teachers to get their classes writing their own accounts of strange her granddad was with her at that room playing with her tablet when
phenomena that had happened either to them or to someone in their moment. we heard kitchen cupboards open-
family – an enjoyable way of practising English composition. Lauren Churcher (12) ing and banging shut. Everyone in
the house was upstairs asleep so
One cold evening in the winter of we rushed down to the kitchen to
In November 2015 my nan died nobody was there. Then he found 2012, I was waiting with my mum see what was going on. No one
of cervical cancer and my family a bloody hammer lying on the floor and my brother for an overground was there. The kitchen cupboards
decided to cremate her and keep in the front room. In his drunk state train at West Ham Station in were closed and looked untouched.
the ashes in our house. In Febru- he opened the window and threw London. We were returning from However, as we walked out, the
ary my father and I were talking it out. my great aunt’s flat in Shoreditch. kettle switch flicked (although
about my nan in the kitchen when About 20 years later he returned I heard heavy panting coming from it was unplugged) and a chair
the door opened and then about to upminster on a day out with the the stairwell and thought it must be screeched across the floor. We
three seconds later closed again family. They took a short cut to a commuter in a hurry. The panting sprinted upstairs to my cousin’s
as if somebody had walked in. avoid a big crowd of people. The stopped and I turned round to see room, where we hid and didn’t get
We thought nothing of it until it family ventured through a dark alley a ‘man’ glide silently past me. I any sleep whatsoever. In the after-
happened again some time later, where he found a bloody hammer was in complete shock and tried to noon we walked to the shop. As we
but this time in my bedroom, the lying behind a bin! My granddad was persuade myself that my imagina- turned back we spotted something
day before the anniversary of my so creeped out that he said nothing tion was playing tricks on me. Then that seemed like a breath on the
nan’s death. I was on my bed when about it till now. I heard the rumbling of the train window, but no one was in the
I could have sworn I heard my Harry Pace (13) coming into the station and stood kitchen.
name being called from downstairs, up ready to board, when the ‘man’ Lauren Stevens (12)
where my nan’s ashes are. I asked When my mum’s granddad died, appeared in front of me. I could
my mum and dad if they had called her nan asked her to choose a see the train through him and his A friend of my mother’s got mar-
me, but both said no. Nobody else rose bush with her in remembrance transparent organs alongside the ried in 1992, aged about 32. Her
was in the house. of him. At the garden centre they see-through West Ham top and skin- husband just turned 40 when he
My dad then told me about what looked for a special rose that not ny jeans. I turned to see whether was diagnosed with leukæmia, and
happened to my great grandmother he died two years later. A week
when her husband died. My great after that was his widow’s birthday,
granddad fought in World War II and when she had a get-together with
when he returned to his home in her family and took a few photos.
Billericay, Essex, he was afraid of When these were developed, one
the dark and slept with the lights showed her late husband beside
on. For 17 years this was how my her. He didn’t look real – he was
great granddad and his wife slept almost completely transparent.
until he died, and like my dad, she Katie Finch (12)
kept his ashes at home. In the mid-
dle of the night before the anniver- In 2010, when I was six, there
sary of my great granddad’s death, were many strange occurrences in
my great grandmother, two great our house. The previous owners
aunts and my nan woke up to find had passed away in the house,
all the lights on in the bedroom, and we had only been living there
hallway and bathroom. Nobody else for three months. One cold and
was in the house. There seemed stormy night there was banging on
only one explanation – my great the window, which kept me awake,
granddad did it. but eventually I fell asleep. I awoke
Ruby Shayler (13) in the middle of the night to see a
strange figure standing over me. I
One evening in about 1950 my turned over and tried not to think
granddad went out with friends to about it. Soon after there was
a local pub in upminster [a suburb breathing on my neck, so I got
in east London]. He became up and switched on the light. As I
extremely drunk and decided to turned round my door slammed.
leave his car and walk back to his There was nothing there. It still
flat. He found the front door wide scares me to this day.
open. He cautiously walked in but Jess Palmer (12)
FT351 75
www.forteantimes.com
 STRANGE AND SENSAT

JAN BONDESON presents more sensational stories and startling Victorian images from the "worst
newspaper in England" – the Illustrated Police News.

55. THE LICHFIELD Staffordshire Yeomanry, and the Marquis of

Stafford, Sir CM Wolseley, and other members
headlong flight.
In the meantime, troops of soldiers
YEOMANRY OUTRAGES of the aristocracy and gentry served as from the Staffordshire Yeomanry made
officers. The problem was that these officers their presence felt in Lichfield, drinking
had little authority over the men, some of and carousing. Several public houses
The Queen’s Own Royal Staffordshire whom were irresponsible youngsters of a had extended their opening hours to
Yeomanry was one of several volunteer giddy and mischief-loving disposition. accommodate the soldiery, and the unwisdom
regiments raised in 1794 to repel foreign There was instant dislike between the of this soon became apparent. Fights broke
invasion. As we know, Napoleon never carried Lichfield townsmen and the Yeomanry.The out, and one soldier leapt onto a cart, pulled
out a full-scale invasion of Britain, but the soldiers were rude and insulting, and the the driver’s hat down over his eyes, and
Staffordshire Yeomanry remained for many local police had no authority over them. shoved him off the box.The soldiers then
decades to come: a volunteer cavalry regiment Discipline was non-existent, and the troops cut one of the horses loose, and one of them
run according to archaic and feudal standards were up to all kinds of mischief in town. When rode off on it. Another soldier, who had been
by the local nobility and gentry. a party of officers attended a performance of knocked down by one of the enraged locals,
In June 1884, the Staffordshire Yeomanry Gilbert & Sullivan’s Queen Ida by Mr d’Oiley was arrested by a party of police constables,
went to Lichfield for its summer meeting, Carte’s theatrical ensemble, they behaved but the other troopers charged the police
led by their Colonel, the wealthy magnate very obnoxiously, shouting and yahooing, and and liberated their comrade in arms. Several
William Bromley-Davenport, MP. He was 63 ‘improving’ the play with various coarse jokes. constables were knocked down, and had their
years old and had never seen active military When the theatrical manager objected to trousers pulled off.The young officers who
service in his life, but was still popular and this outrage, two of the officers frog-marched had just put an end to the performance of
respected, and known as the ‘Father of the him to an upstairs room and locked him in. Queen Ida had an even better idea, however:
Regiment’ for his long service.The Marquis of The officers then charged the stage, putting would it not be capital fun to deface the
Anglesey was the Lieutenant-Colonel of the ‘Queen Ida’ and her fellow thespians to statue of Lichfield’s most famous son, Dr

ABOVE: The yeomanry officers assault Dr Johnson’s statue in Lichfield, and other incidents from the riots, from the Illustrated Police News, 28 June 1884.
TIONAL STORIES FROM

Samuel Johnson? LEFT: Dr Johnson’s statue in Lichfield,

The statue of the great a postcard stamped and posted in
lexicographer at Market Square 1907; the blacking had clearly been
in Lichfield had been erected in cleaned off the lexicographer’s face
1838, on a tall plinth with railings by this time.
to protect it from vandals. But the
officers got hold of a long ladder for the entire regiment to be
and a large bottle of ‘Nubian disbanded, and claimed that
Black’, which they made use of the Marquess of Anglesey, who
to blacken Dr Johnson’s face. had taken command after the
Major Graves had alerted Colonel untimely death of his superior
Bromley-Davenport to his officers officer, had deliberately misled
and soldiers running riot in town, the journalists about the extent of
and the elderly officer came up to the rioting.
plead with the soldiers to return But in the end, the officers
to their makeshift barracks.They and men of the Staffordshire
did not obey him, however, and Yeomanry appear to have got
the major shortly after saw the off more or less scot-free.This
hapless colonel lurch off towards lenience did not have the desired
Yeomanry House; on his way effect: when the regiment met
there, he dropped dead in the in Lichfield in June 1885, there
street. were again fights with the police:
There was consternation among windows were broken, and Dr
both the military and civilian Johnson’s face daubed with
inhabitants of Lichfield at Colonel blacking a second time! But
Bromley-Davenport’s unexpected just as the great man’s face was
demise. At first, it was thought eventually cleaned up by the
that one of the enraged locals had locals, the equally black stain on
murdered him, but Major Graves the reputation of the Staffordshire
had seen no other person nearby, Yeomanry was removed by the
and the colonel had been unwell regiment’s valiant wartime
with heart disease for some conduct.The Staffordshire
time. At the inquest, a verdict Yeomanry did well in both World
of death from natural causes Wars, equipped with horses in the
was returned.The verdict of the first and tanks in the second.The
press on the Lichfield Yeomanry regiment was amalgamated with
Outrages was a more severe constables had himself had his were these coarse brutes, and another yeomanry unit in 1992,
one, however. In spite of acrid face daubed with blacking, and what about the officers who and no longer exists. In contrast,
soaps and bristly brushes being several others had been assaulted had actually led the assault on Dr Johnson’s statue still stands
applied to Dr Johnson’s face, the and debagged. Windows had been Dr Johnson? They ought to be in Lichfield, proving that in the
application of ‘Nubian Black’ was broken, and innocent townsmen drummed out of the regiment! end, the pen is mightier than the
still obvious. One of the police beaten up. What kind of soldiers Other newspaper editors called sword.

Strange Victoriana Reincarnated Cats, and scantily dressed Female

This is the 55th and final instalment of Strange Somnambulists tumble from the roofs. From the
and Sensational Stories from the Illustrated spectral world, we have the Haunted Murder
Police News after nearly six years, but you will House near Chard, the Ghost of Berkeley Square,
find much more to read in Jan Bondeson's book the Jumping Spectre of Peckham and the Fighting
Strange Victoriana (Amberley Publishing, Stroud Ghost of Tondu. The White Gorilla takes a swig from
2016), which collects both the stories that have its tankard of beer, eagles come swooping from the
appeared in FT and an equal number of previously sky to carry off little children, heroic Newfoundland
unpublished tales from "the worst newspaper in dogs plunge into the waves to rescue drowning
the world". Dog-Faced Men are exhibited on stage, mariners, and the Rat-Killing Monkey of Manchester
doctors congregate around the bed of the Sleeping goes on a rampage in the rat-pit, swinging a
Frenchman of Soho, Miss Vint demonstrates her hammer...
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78 FT351
www.forteantimes.com
COMING
NEXT Strange
UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL
deathS
MONTH A desperate driver called 999 with his
car stuck in cruise control at 110mph
(177km/h), and minutes later died as
he slammed into a lorry. Causal Gandhi,
32, began accelerating out of control
on the M40 through Buckinghamshire in
catalogues at the Airport Service Station
at Sellindge, near Ashford, on 18 October
2016. A post-mortem exam found the
man’s death was due to “traumatic
compressive asphyxia”. D.Telegraph, 6
Jan 2017.
his white Skoda Octavia at around 3am on
2 February. His eight-minute emergency call A woman died after she fell into a tank of
ended as he hit the 18-ton flatbed truck parked molten chocolate at the Russian confectionary
in a lay-by near Junction 1 at Denham, reaching factory where he worked. Svetlana Roslina, 24,
a speed of 119mph (192km/h) just before dropped her mobile phone into the vat and fell
impact, which was so great he was decapitated. in trying to retrieve it. “She was minced, only
The truck driver, who was asleep in a bunk, was her legs were left,” said a worker at the Sergiev-
thrown forward but survived. Posad plant in Fedortsovo, near Moscow.
The faults described by Mr Gandhi, of Harrow, Another claimed she was dragged in while
north-west London, meant that the Skoda must emptying a sack of ingredients into the mix. The
have suffered a simultaneous electronic and victim and husband Vladimir had two children
mechanical failure, but data analysis from the aged under five. Metro, 15 Dec 2016.
airbag systems failed to provide evidence of this.

the place of skulls “There is no indication that there was any error
or problem with any of the electronic systems
An eight-year-old boy died in Lynn, Arkansas, on
10 December while attending a birthday party at
searching for the real site in the five seconds leading up to the collision,” a church. He was playing in a cemetery behind
said a vehicle data examiner for Skoda maker the church when a large tombstone, dated 1906
of the crucixion Volkswagen. However, the coroner at the inquest and shaped like a tree stump, fell on him. He
in Beaconsfield ruled out any suggestion that was taken to hospital where he was pronounced
Mr Gandhi, the director of Rehncy Shaheen dead. Region 8 News, 11 Dec 2016.
Chartered Accountants in Greenford, west
London, had committed suicide. A work colleague A middle-aged dog walker was killed on 14
and family friend had told police: “He was on January at Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast
top of the world and had everything to live for.” when a 40ft (12m) cliff that had been weakened
Metro, D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 25 Nov 2016. by recent storms fell on top of him. More than
60 people joined a rescue operation, all to no
A 60-year-old British man died on 18 November avail. Sunday Telegraph, 15 Jan 2017.
while scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef in
Australia two days after two French tourists died On 16 January, a utility worker in Key Largo,
within minutes of each other while snorkelling, Florida, noticed that a section of a paved
prompting speculation that the fatalities were street was not settling properly. He removed
caused by Irukandji jellyfish, a transparent type a manhole cover and descended into the 15ft

fairies & unicorn meat of box jellyfish less than half an inch (13mm)
in diameter found off northern Australia. Most
(4.6m)-deep drainage hole to investigate. When
he fell silent, a fellow utility worker sensed he
pranks, hoaxes and fortean victims are unaware of being stung and can go was trapped and climbed down to rescue him.
into cardiac arrest within half an hour. When he too stopped responding, a third worker
april foolery The unnamed Briton had been diving off a climbed down. All three men died, overcome

+
boat during a holiday with his wife and was by poisonous fumes. They were identified as
found on the seabed 49ft (15m) down, with Elway Gray, 34, Louis O’Keefe, 49, and Robert
his regulator out of his mouth. He could not Wilson, 24. They were responding to neighbours’
be revived. The incident occurred at Agincourt complaints of sewage backup in the area.
Reef off Port Douglas, Queensland, about Firefighter Leonardo Moreno, who attempted to
jammeh the nut, 100 miles (160km) north of Michaelmas Cay, save them, also became unconscious within
funeral museum, where Jacques Goron, 76, and Danielle Franck, seconds and was flown to hospital where he
74, died on 16 November. Both had medical was in critical condition the next day. The hole,
premature geniuses, conditions, but Dr Ross Walker, a cardiologist, just wide enough to fit a body, was filled with
anD muCh mOre… said he thought they had been killed by Irukandji hydrogen sulphide and methane created from
jellyfish. “It’s highly unlikely two people are years of rotting vegetation. None of the four
going to die within minutes of each other men wore masks or carried air tanks. Moreno

fortean
just because they’re got underlying medical descended without his air tank because he
conditions,” he said. Peter Fenner, an expert on couldn’t fit through the hole with it; luckily, a
jellyfish, agreed the French couple might have colleague was able to wear his gear and pull

TIMES
been stung. In 2002, British tourist Richard Moreno out. Washington Post, 18 Jan 2017.
Jordan, 58, from Driffield, East Yorkshire, is
believed to have been the first person to die A traffic warden issued a parking ticket for
from an irukandji sting. D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 19 a lorry illegally parked outside Farm Foods in

352
Nov 2016. Bolton, Greater Manchester, failing to notice
that Nicholas Allcock, 52, lay dead at the wheel.
A truck driver opened his trailer in Kent to Contractor NSL issued the ticket in March
find a dead stowaway crushed by Christmas 2016 on behalf of Bolton Council. FT has often
catalogues, despite French authorities having noted parking tickets being issued to vehicles
searched the vehicle and given it the all-clear, containing dead drivers [e.g. FT48:23, 59:13,
The unidentified Afro-Caribbean man, possibly 71:14, 176:28], but this is the first we’ve heard
in his late 30s, was discovered with his legs about for some time. Sun, 3 Aug 2016.
protruding beneath the piles of overturned
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