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strange days

Hunting for Sasquatch by balloon; D-Day pigeon mystery; curse of the Bounty; talking animals; when camel spiders attack; phantom monks; Stonehenge secrets revealed; CONTENTS pathology bake-off; Japanese witch executed; car stop cases; the Curridge Creature – and much more. the world of strange phenomena 15 2012 WATCH 24 ARCHÆOLOGY 16 SCIENCE 25 CLASSICAL CORNER 18 GHOSTWATCH 26 NECROLOG 21 MYTHCONCEPTIONS 27 STRANGE DEATHS 22 MEDICAL BAG 28 THE UFO FILES 23 ALIEN ZOO features

COVER STORY 30 50 SHADES OF GREY PETER BROOKESMITH looks back at the hidden history of jolly – and not so jolly – rogers with the alien sex pirates. Plus, unusual activities among the hybrids and hypnotists ENSSON SV 38 CROWLEY’S ART FROM THE ABBEY

RICHARD JACK SARGEANT reports on a new exhibition that puts the 53 DREAMING OF A GRIM CHRISTMAS When Sweden’s churchyards are stalked by a flesh-devouring pig-monster Great Beast’s Sicilian paintings in the spotlight and fills in the ga p s in our knowledge of his magical career 42 GHOST MOBS ROGER CLARKE considers the Victorian phenomenon of ghost-hunting flashmobs. What do these public expressions of supernatural interest tell us about the relationship between ghosts and the British class system? 46 ROBERT E HOWARD: THE LOST CELT The first ever Conan story was published 80 years ago, IMAAGES ORIENTIS in December 1932, and the mighty barbarian hero has

GETTY maintained his hold on the popular imagination ever / TEMPLI since. ANGELINE B ADAMS AND REMCO VAN STRATEN AFP / ORDO explore his creator’s Texan background and reveal how a changing world of frontier medicine, oil booms and tall E-HWAN JA tales ga v e birth to the genre of Sword and Sorcery. COPYRIGHT KIM 38 ART FROM CROWLEY’S ABBEY 10 TRUNK CALLS The Great Beast’s Sicilian paintings Koshik the talking elephant and others reports

76 STORIES FROM THE ILLUSTRATED POLICE NEWS No. 18. The Fighting Ghost of Tondu by Dr Jan Bondeson forum .UK 55 Pigging out at Christmas by Ka r l Shuker

regulars

02 EDITORIAL 78 READER INFO 54 SUBSCRIPTIONS 79 PHENOMENOMIX WWW.DAVINCISLASTCOMMISSION.CO 46 THE MAN WHO CREATED CONAN 12 THE JESUS AND MARY CLAIMS 71 LETTERS 80 TALES FROM THE VAULT The frontier life of Robert E Howard Lost Leonardo and takeaway Christ

MAIN COVER IMAGE: GÉRARD GOFFAUX FT296 1 www.forteantimes.com 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]) RESIDENT CARTOONIST HUNT EMERSON SUBSCRIPTION ENQUIRIES AND BACK ISSUES www.subsinfo.co.uk [email protected] Gift ideas for the end of the world Barbarians, reptilians and spooks FORTEAN TIMES is produced for Dennis Publishing by Wild Talents Ltd. Postal address: Fortean Times, T h i s is our last issue of 2012, and as w e go to Still, e v e n if this does prove to be our last issue, PO BOX 71602, London E17 0QD. press, two dates loom in the FT calendar. One, there’s plenty in it to help make y o u r final days Y o u can manage your existing subscription through of course, is Christmas – the day on which y o u happy ones. Remco v a n Straten and Angeline B http://www.subsinfo.co.uk/ – this should be your first port will be presenting loved ones, friends and family Adams celebrate the 80th anniversary of Conan of call if you have any queries about your subscription. with copies of the latest volume in our ongoing It the Barbarian’s first appearance in print with a Change your address, renew your subscription or report problems Happened to Me! book series (see p58 f o r details profile of his creator, Robert E Howard, which UK subscriptions: 0844 844 0049 of how to get y o u r mitts on this most fortean of explores the w a y in which the mighty-thewed USA & Canada subscriptions: (+1) 888-428-6676 gifts). FT’s resident car- Cimmerian w a s very m u c h a Fax (+1) 757-428-6253 email [email protected] Other overseas subscriptions: +44 (0)1795 592 909 toonist, the great Hunt product of a rapidly-chang- Fax: +44 (0)1795 414 555 Emerson, also has some ing and sometimes violent ideas on how to fill this rural Texas. Roger Clarke, LICENSING & SYNDICATION FORTEAN TIMES IS AVAILABLE FOR year’s Christmas stock- meanwhile, takes a look INTERNATIONAL LICENSING AND SYNDICATION – CONTACT: ings. His long-awaited at ghosts from the unusual Syndication Senior Manager ANJ DOSAJ-HALAI TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6132 adaptation, with Kevin angle of the class distinc- [email protected] Jackson, of Dante’s Inferno tions that underlay their Licensing Manager CARLOTTA SERANTONI TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6550 is now available.You can perception inVictorian Brit- [email protected] purchase what Hunt (with ain, paying particular atten- Licensing & Syndication Assistant NICOLE ADAMS TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6134 no hyperbole whatsoever) tion to the phenomenon of [email protected] describes as “my best what might be termed ghost YOU CAN REACH FT ON THE INTERNET book to date!” over at flashmobs. J a c k Sargeant www.forteantimes.com http://largecow.com, along previews a new Australian with all sorts of other exhibition highlighting goodies. the Sicilian paintings of Y e s , the Season of Good Aleister Crowley, and asks PUBLISHED BY DENNIS PUBLISHING, W i l l has been underway what they can tell us about 30 Cleveland Street f o r some weeks now and his magical career.And, in London W1T 4JD, UK T e l : 020 7907 6000 GROUP PUBLISHER w e have already witnessed this month’s cover feature, PAUL RAYNER: 020 7907 6663 its first Father Christmas Peter Brookesmith looks [email protected] calamity. Shoppers in back at accounts of sex CIRCULATION MANAGER [email protected] Reading’s Broad Street tourists from outer space, EXPORT CIRCULATION MANAGER Mall w e r e treated to revealing a bizarre history [email protected] SENIOR PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE the sight of an abseiling of extremely close encoun- EBONY BESAGNI: 020 7907 6060 Santa being left dangling ters with aliens that run the [email protected] PRODUCTION ASSISTANT 20 feet above the crowd gamut from well-endowed SOPHIE VALENTINE: 020 7907 6057 after his long white beard reptilians to extraterrestrial [email protected] became tangled in the ropes. After hanging S&M. Not f o r the fainthearted! around mid-air f o r some 40 minutes, Santa (aka Steve Chessel) w a s finally rescued b y one of Reader survey – win stuff! his colleagues from the 11th Battalion Royal It’s been f o u r y e a r s since w e last r a n an FT PRINTED BY BENHAM GOODHEAD PRINT LTD Engineers. His ordeal over, the unfortunate Mr reader survey, so w e thought w e ’ d ask f o r y o u r DISTRIBUTION Chessel w a s praised f o r not breaking character: help once again. Please spare 10 minutes to Distributed in UK, Ireland and worldwide “He could have just taken his beard off and let answer the questions – and you’ll be entered by Seymour Distribution Ltd. 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT himself down but he w a s such a professional and into a draw to win an Amazon Kindle F i r e ! W e T e l : 020 7429 4000 / Fax: 020 7429 4001 he didn't w a n t to let the children down,” said don’t really know what that is, but it sounds Queries on overseas availability should be emailed to the shopping centre’s marketing manager (Daily good, doesn’t it? Turn to p17 f o r full details. [email protected] Speciality store distribution by Worldwide Magazine Mail, 20 Nov 2012). Finally, w e ’ d like to thank all of our readers, Distribution Ltd, T e l : 0121 788 3112 Fax: 0121 7881272 It’s not the first (and probably not the last) subscribers and contributors f o r their support STANDARD SUBSCRIPTION RATES time that Santa’s attempts to move with the times throughout 2012 – a happy, fortean Christmas to 12 issues: UK £39.98; EU £47.50; REST OF THE WORLD £55; US $79.99 ($143.98 for 24 issues) have ended in disaster and m u c h hilarity. Last one and all! y e a r , a similar incident took place in a Florida mall, where once again the combination of beard plus abseiling ended in a very public humiliation. (digitaljournal.com/article/315399) Of course, if the New Age doomsayers are right, all these consumerist activities will prove to be mere vanity, as they believe the world-as-we-

DENNIS PUBLISHING LIMITED know-it is set to end on 21 December. In our final GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR IAN LEGGETT 2012 W a t c h column,Ted Harrison looks back at FINANCE DIRECTOR BRETT REYNOLDS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR KERIN O’CONNOR how previous millenarians have chosen to spend Why fortean? CHIEF EXECUTIVE JAMES TYE their last hours. Assuming w e are back in 2013, CHAIRMAN FELIX DENNIS we’ll be taking a look at how the much-vaunted Everything y o u always wanted Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Mayan Apocalypse turned out, and how its t o know about Fortean Times Circulation 17,024 (Jan-Dec 2011) but were too paranoid t o ask! Printed in the UK. ISSN: 0308 5899 numerous proponents have dealt with this latest © Fortean Times: DECEMBER 2012 ‘Great Disappointment’. SEE PAGE 7 8

A DIGEST OFTHE WORLDWIDE WEIRD strangedays Stories o f the Sasquatch

Berry-pickers and hikers have outdoor encounters while a professor plans t o hunt Bigfoot b y blimp

Late in the afternoon of Saturday, 29 September, a r a i n y and windy day, Maggie Cruikshank Qingalik and a cousin w e n t out from Akulivik in Nunavik to pick berries. Nunavik comprises the northern third of the province of Quebec in Canada, a v a s t area of 171,308 sq miles (443,685km²) with about 12,000 inhabitants, •T w o hikers in Utah’s Provo 90 per cent of whom are Inuit. Canyon thought they w e r e filming Akulivik is located on a peninsula a bear in the woods on 29 October, that juts into Hudson Bay across until it stood up and looked in from Smith Island. “We moved their direction.The fleeting image around a lot because w e w e r e (above) of the broad-shouldered, looking f o r big berries,” said hairy biped is quite compelling, Cruikshank, 46, a language compared with a lot of purported teacher with the Kativik School bigfootage.They bolted with Board. “My cousin noticed the camera still running. “We something – she thought it w a s r a n straight to the car after that, a hunter… Then she started to leaving our tent and everything be scared. I got up and looked behind. It’s probably all still up to where she pointed. It w a s a there,” states Beard Card, the very large animal, a Bigfoot.” It YouTube user who posted the w a s covered in long, dark hair. video. “I don’t know if Bigfoot She said it w a s making its w a y exists or not, but that w a s a huge along the side of a hill. “It walks animal.” Grind TV.com, 4 Nov 2012. like us but not standing straight like us; it can jump and crawl,” • Jeffrey Meldrum, an anatomy

EBOOK she said. She reckoned it w a s and anthropology professor at

FAC about 10ft (3m) tall. Both women Idaho State University and author w e r e certain it wasn’t a bear or results in the small community”. have seen that thing before,” said of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, a m u s k o x , the two animals they She said other people in Akulivik Cruikshank. “Like 10 or 20 or 60 is trying to raise over $300,000 immediately thought of as being had also seen the creature. A y e a r s ago, they saw it, they just to build a remote-controlled big and hairy. group of walrus hunters who had never reported it.” dirigible equipped with a thermal- Their pictures posted on just returned with their catch In the past few years, she imaging camera to search f o r Facebook (above) show the w e r e preparing to hide their meat said, residents had sighted little the elusive biped from the air. creature’s alleged footprints, under rocks f o r the winter when Inuit, known as Inugagulligaq, Dubbed the Falcon Project, it which are 40cm (15.7in) long, they saw one. Someone else had a half-man half-fish creature, w a s the brainchild of William “definitely within Sasquatch a sighting near the airport, and and giant animals, including a Barnes, a Utah man who said that parameters”, according to our a giant biped w a s seen standing massive anaconda, a very large in 1997 he watched an immense, cryptozoological colleague on top of a mountain. Others codfish and monstrous rabbits. hairy creature that w a s otherwise Loren Coleman.The women reported odd collections of Some resemble beings in Inuit “well-manicured” approach his said the creature didn’t appear caribou bones piled in the hills cosmology, such as Sedna, the tent in northern California before interested in them, but they w e r e outside town. An elder found goddess of the sea and marine striding up a rocky ledge. Barnes nevertheless scared and rushed what he said w e r e human bones mammals, Ijiraq, a shape-shifter and Meldrum hope to survey back to w a r n their neighbours. in a cave and suggested that they that kidnaps children, and swaths of remote f o r e s t across Cruikshank said they took some might be evidence of Sasquatch Kiviuq, a young Inuit hunter parts of the Pacific Northwest, video footage of the creature, but depredation. with supernatural powers. CBC California and Utah; however, they w e r e afraid that making it “There are people telling me News, Cryptomundo.com, 4 Oct; Meldrum has y e t to raise a single public “could have devastating they suddenly remember they Nunatsiaq Online, 12 Oct 2012. dollar. [R] 4 Nov 2012.

4 FT296 www.forteantimes.com THE D-DAY STONE AGE OVER THE PIGEON SECRETS MOONIES The tale of an Stonehenge Controversial avian secret yields up newly founder of the agent bearing a discovered Unification mystery code artwork Church passes PAGE 20 PAGE 24 PAGE 26 The curse o f the Bounty

Replica g o e s down taking Fletcher Christian’s descendent

A crewmember drowned when a men and five women, ranging in age from Hollywood replica of the sailing ship 20 to 66. Writing on her Facebook page, Bounty w a s hit b y Hurricane Sandy on Ms Christian said: “ A s a descendant of 28 October w a s a descendant of the chief Fletcher Christian… I’m sure m y ancestor mutineer aboard the original vessel. would be proud.” She w a s on the 180ft Claudine Christian, 42, a former Miss (55m) replica vessel three days later when Alaska teenage beauty queen, w a s a great- it w a s hit b y 18ft (5.5m) waves 90 miles great-great-great-great-granddaughter (145km) off the coast of North Carolina. of Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate Its engines failed and the crew, wearing aboard HMS Bounty during its voyage to survival suits, abandoned ship into two Tahiti in 1789, who seized command from covered lifeboats, but Ms Christian and the Lieut William Bligh. The infamous mutiny captain, Robin Walbridge, 63, w e r e thrown spawned several movies including the 1962 into the water. Fourteen of the 16 people film Mutiny On T h e Bounty, starring Marlon on board w e r e successfully rescued b y heli- Brando and T r e v o r Howard, f o r which the copter, but Ms Christian w a s found unre- IMAGES replica ship w a s built. The vessel w a s also sponsive after being washed into the sea,

GETTY used in Pirates Of T h e Caribbean: Dead Man’s while the captain w a s still missing at the / Chest, and to teach sailors about 18th cen- time of the report. Organisers said he w a s

GUARD tury square-rigged sailing. aware of the storm and had tried to steer a T

AS T h e vessel set out from Connecticut f o r course w a y from it. Metro, D.Telegraph, CO Florida on 25 October with a crew of 11 31 Oct 2012. US

FT’S FAVOURITE HEADLINES EXTRA! EXTRA! FROM AROUND THE WORLD

New Y o r k Times, no date.

(Melbourne) Sunday Age,1 7 June 2012.

Basingstoke Gazette, 2 1 June 2012. Sun, 1 5 June 20912.

Metro, 2 1 June 2012. Cheltenham Echo, no date.

Western Daily News, 20 June 2012.

Basingstoke Gazette, 2 1 June 2012.

Guardian, no date. Halifax Courier, 2 4 May 2012. Halifax Courier, 22 Mar 2012.

FT296 5 www.forteantimes.com EAT YOUR HEART OUT! A t the end o f October, S t Bartholomew’s Hospital Pathology Museum i n London hosted a Hallowe’en cake shop, Eat Y o u r Heart Out 2012. O n sale were more than 5 0 different sweet ‘treats’ made b y some o f the UK’s most innovative baking & experimental confectionary talent, all taking a “precise anatomical approach t o cake”. Curated b y Miss Cakehead, a ka Emma Thomas, along with Carla Connolly from Barts, the event featured a gruesome collection o f cakes, sweets and drinks based o n various pathologies – from syphilis cupcakes (pictured above) t o stool sample cocktails (left) – along- side a series o f lectures o n subjects like bowel cancer and forensic s ex crimes. Among the many unusual items o n sale were childhood ailment cookies, featuring impetigo, eczema and mollescum b y Nevie Pie Cakes, breast pathology cupcakes from Miss Insomnia Tulip and a cupcake demonstrating maggot therapy o n a diabetic ulcer from Sarah Hardy.

strangedays

SIDELINES... FISH FINGER The Curridge Creature Nolan Calvin gutted a trout he had caught in Priest Lake, northern Idaho, on 11 A llama with a d e e r ’ s head, swan’s n e c k and a bushy tail? September and found a human finger. He put it on ice and called police, who BERKSHIRE ODDITY traced it via a fingerprint to Don Prater, 67, is co-owner with Hans Galassi, 31, of Colbert his wife of Yarn F e s t at Hillier in the neighbouring state of Garden Centre in Hermitage, Washington. He had lost four Berkshire. At 4.55pm on 3 fingers after a tow-wire on a October, he w a s out with Bozzie, speedboat became wrapped his two-year-old Border Collie. around his hand on 21 June. “I w a s walking the dog along the The accident happened about passage w a y behind the Women’s eight miles (13km) from Institute Hall in Curridge towards where the fish was caught. D.Mail, Metro, 27 Sept 2012. Hermitage,” he said. “After the footpath bends left, about 25 GOING NUTS FOR y a r d s [23m] ahead of us w e r e LONG LIFE two animals. One looked like a A study has shown that domestic cat but the other one castration can increase a stunned me. It w a s a dark or grey man’s lifespan by up to 20 colour.The height of its head years. Scientists analysed w a s about two f o o t [60cm], but genealogical records of the it had the head of a deer.The Korean Chosun Dynasty’s neck w a s about eight to 10 inches ABOVE: Don Prater’s sketch of the strange animal he has dubbed the “Creature from court from 1392 to 1910 and [20–25cm] long and thin like a Curridge”. Note its cat-like ears and short legs. found that eunuchs lived on swan’s neck.The body w a s a cross a v e r a g e 14–19 years longer between a cat and a dog. It had than other men. “Testoster- a bushy tail. Everything about it “The creature grass snake, officer Kim Greaves one (not produced after w a s wrong.The cat w e n t off into turned up with a small plastic castration) is known to the undergrowth.Then the other box, only to be confronted b y a increase the incidence of coro- animal stared at us, took a couple I saw had four granite Burmese python, variously nary heart disease and reduce of turns and wandered off into the described as 7ft (2m) or 12ft immune function in males,” legs so it can’t the study said. Current hedgerows.” (3.7m) long. Biology, Sept; Irish T h e consensus in the newsroom Hissing, it tried to escape down Independent, 25 Sept 2012. of the Newbury News w a s that be a bird” a nearby r a b b i t burrow, so she the creature as depicted in Mr grabbed it with both hands. It ON A ROLL Prater’s sketch resembled an wrapped itself around her arm, A runaway hamster called alpaca or llama. However, both discounted it being an escaped but she clung on and pulled until Wildmutt was found after Bucklebury F a r m P a r k and Beale rhea, which w e n t missing from it w a s free of the hole, and secured midnight trundling up a steep P a r k , Lower Basildon, said that the Willows F a r m in Enborne it inside a duvet cover, tightly hill in its plastic wheel, having all their respective animals last August. “The creature I saw fastened with a zip tie. RSPCA rolled 300 yards (274m) from w e r e accounted f o r . “The closest had f o u r legs so it can’t be a bird inspectors said it w a s quite wild, its home in Kidderminster, w e have to an alpaca are our and it w a s nothing like a baby riddled with mites and clearly Worcestershire. Sun, 7 July two lovely llamas,Twinkle and alpaca,” he said. “It w a s more cat- underweight. At the time of the 2012. Buttons, who are grazing happily like. Nobody has seen anything report in the Sheffield Star (12 Oct in their paddock,” said Elizabeth like it since. Everyone thinks I’m 2012), it w a s in a specialist reptile Peplow, spokeswoman f o r bonkers, but I refute that. I saw it, facility where it w a s gaining Bucklebury F a r m P a r k . plain as day.” Newbury (Berkshire) weight and becoming more “Alpacas are herd animals,” News, 11+18 Oct 2012. manageable. said Beverley Elliott of Headley Snakes can be remarkably F o r g e Alpacas. “They don’t SNAKE SURPRISES hardy. Billy, a 5ft (1.5m) r a t snake normally rush off – it’s not in their Molly Gorman and Jules Barrett from the southern United States, nature. However, llamas will go w e r e jogging across Burbage Moor survived f o r 14 months in the off on their o w n . I haven’t heard on the outskirts of Sheffield when wild (including a freezing winter) from anyone who is missing they spotted what looked like an after escaping from Douglas an alpaca through the British enormous snake in the heather. Stembridge’s heated vivarium in Alpaca Society.” Someone on They threw a stone at it, but there Kingsbridge, Devon, in mid-2011. Twitter suggested the strange w a s no sign of life so they r a n It w a s found two miles (3km) away, animal might be a fossa, but as on. However, on their w a y back covered in scars from fighting off ROSS this is a native of Madagascar, they found it had moved, so they predators. Sunday Telegraph, 11 it seemed unlikely. Mr Prater r a n g the RSPCA. Expecting a Nov 2012. MARTIN

8 FT296 www.forteantimes.com strangedays

SIDELINES... Stranger than fiction EAGLE’S REVENGE A furious golden eagle savaged a man after he ate her chick An ass-kicking superhero and a light-fingered poltergeist hoping to cure his hæmorrhoids in northern China. Sun, 17 Aug 2012. MASKED HERO THE SMELL OF SPACE A curious letter appeared in the Astronauts say the unique Widnes (Cheshire) Weekly News smell aboard the International on 30 August 2012, concerning Space Station is reminis- an event in Runcorn. T h e cent of meat and metal. It unnamed correspondent said: has been described as like “I w a s walking from Halton Lea “seared steak, hot metal and up towards Halton Village [near welding fumes”. Astronauts Runcorn] around 10pm on August have largely agreed on the 9 to the British Legion when two scent. Three-time spacewalker men sitting on a nearby bench Thomas Jones said returning started shouting over to me. to the ISS “carries a distinct One of them got up and came odour of ozone, a faint acrid and asked me f o r a light. He smell” and is “sulphurous”. MX started talking to me, and his News (Sydney), 25 July 2012. friend got up and walked over WARM WELCOME too, and started being obscene. I w a s convinced they w e r e going A sushi restaurant in Mon- treal, Canada, was ordered to to r o b me. T h e n out of nowhere change its name from Fukyu, somebody came, a man, but he despite the owners claiming w a s dressed completely in black, it was the name of a karate and had r e d lights where his e y e s move. Sun, 25 Sept 2012. w e r e and a black mask on! They turned and started to try and fight MAD SNAKE DISEASE with him BUT he kicked their A mysterious disease SUTTON asses like a r e a l super hero! And that causes snakes to tie NIGEL then he disappeared! themselves in knots may be “Has anybody else had 2012 after her flat in Howitt Road, I’m absolutely terrified, but I have linked to r a t s . Pythons and this happen? I wish to remain Belsize P a r k , north London, w a s been told not to call the boys in boa constrictors struck by anonymous but I need to know if broken into 13 times in one week, blue.” IBD (Inclusion Body Disease) anyone else has seen him. It w a s her personal possessions stolen A police spokesman denied seem drunk and are seen like a super hero y o u see in the or moved, and strange notes of that officers had advised her to ‘stargazing’ – staring vacantly films! He w a s all in black, about poetry stuck to her fridge. She get an exorcism, adding that “all upwards for long periods. They 6ft [1.8m] tall and w a s wearing a sought refuge at her parents’ home in possible lines of enquiry” had get into impossible tangles and eventually perish. Tests have dark mask that had two glowing nearby Hampstead. been investigated “and the case shown they have a previously r e d eyes, bright r e d – that’s all According to Ms Williams, the police has now been closed.” unidentified arenavirus, a type y o u could see of him! About six of refused to take fingerprints and an Ms Williams moved into her of virus previously only known us from the British Legion w e n t officer told her to call in an e x o r cist. flat in 2010 and said she used to in mammals. These are most to have a look but he w a s gone. “The police said it w a s completely wake up to find her front and common in r a t s and mice, but I’m not talking about a man in unexplained and that there w a s back doors wide open, but had also cause hæmorrhagic fever a mask, or some kid – it w a s a no point taking forensics,” she put it down to absent-mindedness. in humans. Metro, 15 Aug super hero, as w e i r d as it sounds. said. “They said I should consider However, she thought somebody 2012. I haven’t mentioned it since that getting an exorcism and that [the m u s t be behind the recent spate night, and it hasn’t been in the incidents] w e r e caused b y f o r c e s of break-ins. She first noticed papers. I have googled Runcorn that are not human… I don’t think something w a s awry when she super hero e v e r y night since then spirits take purses and I don’t returned home from the shops and there’s nothing. It happened think they can move magnetic to find her front and back where the tunnel comes out from poetry.” (Evidently, she is doors wide open. She called a Halton Lea connecting to Halton unfamiliar with the literature on locksmith, but within minutes of Village.” poltergeists.) “I’ve had poetry left his departure her doors had been on m y fridge using magnetic letter broken into again. “The locksmith SPECTRAL PURSE fridge magnets, black and yellow came back and said he had never SNATCHER hazard tape left on m y garden seen anybody unpick a mortice- Caroline Williams, 39 (above), steps, roses left on m y floor. I’ve lock he had installed,” she said. the former executive director had a bowl smashed and I’ve had “It is totally unexplained.” of the charity Weight Concern, things taken. It is very strange. Hampstead & Highgate Express, 28 ROSS complained to police on 19 J u n e I’m a single woman in a flat and June; D.Telegraph, 29 J u n e 2012. MARTIN

FT296 9 www.forteantimes.com strangedays

SIDELINES... ELOQUENT ELEPHANTS, CHATTY CATS AND TALKING ANIMALS NOC THE SPEAKING BELUGA WHALE CLEANING FAIRY A mother returned to her house in Westlake, Ohio, to find someone had broken in, done some cleaning and left a bill for $75 – and her name and number – scrawled on a napkin. Sherry Bush had popped out, leaving her daughter sleeping upstairs. On her return, she found the trash taken out, carpet vacuumed and mugs washed up. She called the number. “I said: ‘Did you get the wrong house?’ And she said: ‘No, I do this all the time.’” Susan Warren was charged with criminal trespass. Sunday Times, 3 June 2012.

PLAYING POSSUM IMAGES As a fundraiser, the Uruti GETTY School in New Zealand’s North / AFP

Island, staged a best-dressed / dead possum competition,

encouraging pupils to deck out E-HWAN JA the furry corpses in costumes KIM such as wedding dresses, ABOVE: Koshik, who is better at vowels than consonants. RIGHT: Hoover, the Bostonian seal (top) and Noc, the talking Beluga. baby clothes and bikinis, and arrange them in amusing poses, such as riding a tricycle •Koshik, an Asian elephant at news spread throughout the Soviet or sunbathing. Animal welfare Everland Zoo in South K o r e a , has The whale Union and the zoo’s attendance groups were horrified, but the astonished his keepers b y learning shot up. According to Kosinsky, school principal brushed off to mimic at least five K o r e a n “Batyr has about 10 phrases which criticism. , 2 Aug 2012. w a s trying t o w o r d s : annyong (hello), anja (sit w e have recorded several times”. A TIGER SCARE down), aniya (no), n u o (lie down), “reach out” t o recording of Batyr – saying “Batyr Responding to reports of a and choah (good). Sixteen native is good”, “Batyr is hungry” and tiger loose in the streets of K o r e a n speakers w e r e asked using verbs like “drink” and “give” Bewdley, Worcestershire, at to listen to 47 recordings of the his captors – w a s played on Kazakh state radio 5.30am on 9 August, police 22-year-old pachyderm ‘speaking’ in 1980. found a stag party straggler and spell out what they believed Vladimir Spitsyn, director of the in fancy dress attempting to they had heard. Some 56 per cent to communicate with keepers Moscow Zoo, visited Karaganda make off with a traffic cone. provided the correct spelling f o r when he w a s the only elephant at to see the marvel f o r himself. D.Telegraph, 10 Aug 2012. annyong, 44 per cent agreed on Everland between 1995 and 2002. Alas, Batyr w a s depressed and STAGGERING STATISTIC aniya and 33 per cent identified He w a s first noticed ‘talking’ in didn’t say anything during the n u o . Koshik is better at mimicking August 2004, when he w a s 14.The visit. Spitsyn found the tapes too The estimated annual v o w e l sounds than consonants, journal Current Biology reported indistinct to make a judgment, but consumption of squid by sperm whales exceeds 100 with many people mistaking choah that sometimes he speaks when he didn’t think the whole thing w a s million tonnes – the entire f o r boah (look) or moa (collect). prompted, other times without a publicity stunt. By 1983, Batyr’s catch of all fisheries of all Cases of mammals being a b l e any encouragement. D.Telegraph, vocabulary had risen to 20 phrases, species combined, or about to make human-like sounds D.Mail, 2 Nov 2012. including the local equivalent of half the biomass of all the are extremely rare, because “Have y o u watered the elephant?” humans living on the planet. e v e n our close relatives such • Long-time FT readers might [FT32:43, 40:14]. D.Telegraph, 7 July 2012. as chimpanzees lack the vocal recall Batyr, the talking elephant control to match our pitch and of Kazakhstan, who passed away in • Acoustic analysis of the tone. Koshik overcame Karaganda Zoo in September 1993. sounds made b y a beluga or white such anatomical Batyr w a s famous f o r his Russian whale called Noc has revealed

ROSS hurdles, including the phrases. In 1977 a night watchman remarkable similarities to human f a c t that elephants have no reported hearing the eight-year- speech patterns, indicating that MARTIN lips, b y placing his trunk in his old Indian elephant talking to Noc w a s trying to “reach out” to mouth and massaging his vocal himself. Zoo deputy director Boris his human captors, according to a tract into a different shape. Kosinsky w a s sceptical, but paid study b y Dr Sam Ridgway recently Researchers suggested that his the elephant a visit. “Batyr good published in Current Biology.This talent developed as he tried boy. Go away”, said Batyr. T h e is particularly surprising, given

1 0 FT296 www.forteantimes.com strangedays

that whales vocalise between s eve n w o r d s o n television, SIDELINES... themselves b y blowing air including ver (give), Nalan ( a through their noses rather girl’s name), Derya (another ACCIDENTAL MAYOR than using a larynx in the girl’s name), demem (I don’t The new mayor of Cimolais throat. Although there are say), naynay (baby talk f o r (pop. 507) in northern Italy anecdotes of whales sounding music), nine (colloquial w o r d was appointed to the post by like “children shouting from a f o r grandmother) and babaanne accident. Fabio Borsatti, 50, distance”, this is the first time (formal w o r d f o r grandmother). stood as a last-minute favour that scientists have produced These w o r d s , FT correspondent to his friend Gino Bertolo, the only candidate, who had been objective evidence that they Izzet Goksu told us, w e r e worried that people would are capable of imitating clearly audible.Veterinarians not vote if he stood unop- human speech. Noc, who died examined the cat and posed. However, even though in 2007, w a s about a y e a r old confirmed its ability t o talk. Borsatti’s own family voted when he w a s captured off M rs Celik turned down a n offer for Bertolo, Borsatti won the the Pacific coast of Canada o f about £10,000 f o r Cingene. poll by 160 votes to 117. BBC in 1977. He w a s k e p t with other She said she had fi rs t heard i t talk News, 10 May 2012. whales and dolphins in an open- a t the age o f three months when ocean pen at the US National she w a s sitting i n the waiting LOST IN THE POST Marine Mammal Foundation in r o o m o f a local v e t . Cingene leapt T o celebrate his girlfriend’s San Diego, California, and w a s from her lap t o her neck and said birthday, Hu Seng from Chong- first noticed making the unusual “Annem-Mom”. Everyone i n the qing in southern China had vocalisations in 1984. On one r o o m w a s taken a b a c k [ FT72:16]. himself sealed in a parcel and occasion, a diver surfaced after Perhaps Turkish i s the most posted to her, but couriers swimming in the pen and asked suitable language f o r cats. FT puts mixed up the address and he his colleagues, “Who told me to forward this surreal hypothesis spent three hours inside the get out?” Dr Ridgway said: “Our because o f a news report from box instead of 30 minutes. By the time he was delivered observations led us to conclude 1968 concerning a cat called P a l a to Li W a n g ’ s office – where a that the ‘out’, which w a s repeated that belonged t o a businessman friend was waiting to record several times, came from Noc.” i n a n unnamed Turkish town her surprise on camera – he Recordings revealed that [ FT3:3]. P a l a w a s a b l e t o s ay anne had passed out and had to be Noc’s vocalisations w e r e pitched (mother), baba (father), abla revived by paramedics. D.Mail, at fundamental frequencies (elder sister) and Kamile (the 30 Aug; Canberra Times, 2 several octaves lower than normal name o f the owner’s wife).The Sept 2012. whale sounds, and m u c h closer • Thirty y e a r s ago, there w a s a cat’s gift o f human language w a s to those of the human voice. seal called Hoover in the New authenticated b y the town’s chief MYSTERY PAW His sounds also had a rhythm England Aquarium in Boston veterinary surgeon. Perhaps cats The paw of a brown bear from closer to those of human speech that spoke English – or at least all over the w o r l d a re talking the Sierra de Gredos patterns. He had to vary the a few choice phrases. Hoover Turkish, and w e just don’t notice. Mountains was found in the pressure in his nasal tract while began to make odd noises during doorway of Navacepeda de inflating his vestibular sac, a f o l d his adolescence in 1975 (a seal’s • A ny child brought u p o n the Tormes church in Avila, Spain. of skin found near his blowhole, adolescence comes at the age of standard f a r e o f Brothers Grimm It was carbon-dated to about which is not normally inflated four). Aquarium biologist Greg and s o forth knows that lots o f 400 years ago. According in such an extreme w a y . “Whale Early heard Hoover say some animals talk, a t least among to the historian Gonzalo de vocalisations often sounded as if w o r d s that sounded like English, themselves. Occasionally, a stand Molina, the last bear in the region was found in 1582, so two people w e r e conversing in the so he and another scientist began i s taken against this misleading perhaps the paw is from one distance just out of range of our to train the seal and increase his tradition. According t o a Reuters of the last local bears. Levante understanding,” said Dr Ridgway. vocabulary. By 1981, Hoover could report o f 2 2 April 1931, General el Mercantil Valenciano “These ‘conversations’ w e r e heard say “Hello there”, “How are ya?”, H o Chien, Governor o f Honan (Spain), 24 Dec 2007. several times before the whale “Come over here”, “Get outta province i n China, issued w a s identified as the source.” T h e here”, “get down” and “Hoover” a n official order prohibiting APACHE SPARED Shropshire Star said the whale – all in a distinct Boston accent. schoolchildren from reading Alice Welsh-born father-of-six recordings sounded like “someone T h e r e w a s no indication that i n Wonderland, because “bears, Mangas Colaradas, 60, playing the kazoo, or perhaps Hoover understood what he said, lions and other beasts cannot use a adopted an Apache lifestyle Mr Punch breaking into song.” but as a colleague of Early pointed human language, and t o attribute after his divorce 20 years ago. Within f o u r years, however, Noc out, “How can y o u be sure? You’ve t o them such p o we r i s a n insult In August he won a court gave up trying to imitate people never been a seal.” t o the human race. Any children battle to k e e p badger paws and reverted to echolocation reading such books m u s t inevitably and eagle wings in his pulses, high-pitched whistles and • T h e lead story o f the Turkish regard animals and human beings Swansea semi. He wanted to an assortment of noises variously television news o n 2 0 March 1993 o n the same l e ve l , and this would make a headdress and was described as “squawks, rasps, w a s a talking cat called Cingene b e disastrous.” Other books accused of wildlife offences. yelps and barks”. Independent, (Gypsy) belonging t o M rs Ayfer included i n the ban w e r e Kipling’s He got the paws and wings in Shropshire Star, 23 Oct; D.Mail, Celik o f Izmir.The two-year-old Jungle Books, the Brer Rabbit 2000 while living in a tepee near Torremolinos, Spain. 24 Oct 2012. black cat had green e y e s and a stories and Puss i n Boots. Source: “I’m not just some weekend Listen to Noc speak online at penchant f o r cheese and chicken. George Ives scrapbooks. Indian,” he said. D.Telegraph, www.ind.pn/talkingwhale Cingene managed t o s ay a t least P a u l Sieveking Times, 23 Aug 2012.

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SIDELINES... THE JESUS AND MARY CLAIMS ERRANT CRAYFISH LOST LEONARD0? Postman Jon Parker found a A Scottish woman believes she’s North American signal crayfish found a lost Leonardo da Vinci in a Hertford postbox on 6 painting – and that it contains August. A local v e t said it w a s hidden heretical messages. Fiona “quite big and in good snapping form”. It w a s taken in by the McLaren’s doctor father w a s Waterworld Centre in Enfield, apparently given the painting north London. Hertfordshire b y a grateful patient back in the Mercury, 9 Aug 2012. Sixties. Rather than it being a Madonna and Child with J o h n VEG BANDITS the Baptist, a common theme in In August, police were Renaissance art, Ms McLaren hunting a g a n g who had pelted believes it is of Mary Magdalene, pedestrians in Calne, Wiltshire, with Jesus’s child. She argues with cauliflowers, potatoes that it w a s “commissioned b y and bananas. One person w a s King Francis I of France of his injured by a potato. On another court painter, Leonardo da occasion, a car w a s seen to Vinci”, and speculates: “What pull up outside a house before w a s the commission; to embody someone got out and threw their shared philosophical belief shredded cabbage at a door. in the sacred union and bloodline D.Telegraph, 17 Aug 2012. of Jesus Christ and Mary QUITE ROOFLESS Magdalene.” Bridget Zimbango’s family w a s Ms McLaren, who now lives in left homeless after a “mysteri- the south of France, has w o r k e d

ous” wind blew the roof off in advertising and marketing. .UK their house in Gweru, Zimba- Her book Da Vinci’s Last bwe. It w a s the only property Commission is being promoted affected. Ms Zimbango said: b y Headline publishers as “the “It w a s a normal sunny Satur- most sensational detective story day when a whirlwind confined in the history of art”. In an echo to my y a r d produced a queer of Dan Brown’s T h e Da Vinci Code, sound before blowing off my the blurb asks: “What would y o u roof.” Pastor Adolf Phiri, who do if that painting pointed to one WWW.DAVINCISLASTCOMMISSION.CO witnessed the incident, blamed of the greatest heresies of our “evil spirits”. Sunday Times, 23 WONDERWALL time? And what if it revealed Sept 2012. an incredible story that the VACANT POSSESSION Roman Catholic Church has been When a man had a n epileptic fi t desperate to k e e p secret at all during a service a t the Universal costs f o r centuries?” Amongst Church o f Kingdom o f God i n others, the cover-up seems to Brazil i n 2001, h e w a s beaten have included the Priory of Sion u p b y pastors who thought h e’d and the Freemasons. been possessed b y the Devil. Ms McLaren said that when The evangelical church has she showed the painting to the now been ordered t o pay him director of Sotheby’s in Scotland £3,000 i n compensation. a decade ago, “he w a s staggered, Adelaide Observer, 2 3 Aug 2012. speechless save f o r a sigh of LONG ODDS exclamation”. If the painting is b y Leonardo, newspaper reports After buying three lottery

say, it could be worth over £100 PICTURES tickets in Wichita, Kansas, Bill

million. However, a spokesperson AND Isles, 48, told a friend he had f o r Sotheby’s said in August:

more chance of being struck NEWS by lighting than winning. Three “The painting w a s seen b y

hours later, a lightning bolt Sotheby’s Old Master Paintings NORTH / struck the ground near him Department who concluded it as he stood in his backyard. w a s probably the w o r k of a 16th “It threw me to the ground century Italian painter.” T h e CONNOR

website www.arthistorynews.com CRAIG quivering,” he said. “It kind of T w o customers, waiting for their order late one evening a t the Mayho described the story as a “barrel scrambled my brain and g a v e Chinese T a k e a w a y i n Sunderland, noticed this face o n the eatery’s of palpable nonsense”. D.Mail, me an irregular heartbeat.” He crumbling w a l l and (you guessed it) s a w i t a s the face o f Jesus. “ We were escaped without serious injury. a little drunk, but i t’s a miracle,” said Ian Ridley. Metro, 2 9 June 2012. Scotsman, 5 A u g ; Catholic Herald, [R] 31 Mar 2012. 10 A u g 2012.

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SHINTO SHAMAN IS FIRST WOMAN EXECUTED IN JAPAN FOR JAPANESE WITCHCRAFT 15 YEARS AFTER ‘EXORCISMS’ END IN MULTIPLE MURDERS

became itinerants, charging f o r whatever services communities wanted. Popular culture (including manga and computer games) makes significant use of two types: the miko (who mainly perform exorcism and divination and are reputed to possess magical martial arts) and the itako (who are almost always blind and who practice spirit possession and mediumship). It is plain that Sachiko Eto saw herself as one of the former. Eto’s apotheosis came in her 40s while working as a travelling saleswoman, dabbling in quack cures and prayer sessions on the side. W h e n some successes w e n t to her head, she believed she had attained divine powers. ABOVE: Sachiko Eto and the 39-year-old hanged for multiple murders. BELOW: A print showing a woman tormented by evil spirits. Through the 1990s a cult grew up around her – which included n 27 September the her daughter and larger family – Japanese Justice Ministry The squid which she controlled fiercely. Ohanged two people According to the original convicted of multiple murders. prosecution, trouble began in Altogether, seven people have measured i n 1994 when Eto, then 47, became been executed there in 2012 obsessed with Yutaka Nemoto, and a further 131 are currently a t a third o f 20, the boyfriend of one of her awaiting execution. Japan and followers. The unnamed 18-year- the US are among the few old girl had come to Eto f o r an democratic and industrialised a n inch ‘exorcism’ of bad luck. Instead, countries with capital Eto declared her young rival punishment. to be possessed b y e v i l spirits Of the latest two, Sachiko and ordered the girl to be Eto, 65 – the first woman to be beaten with taiko drumsticks to executed in Japan in more than drive out her demons. Eto, her 15 y e a r s – w a s convicted in 2005 daughter and Nemoto then beat of the m u r d e r of f o u r women and the girl continuously f o r three two men whose decomposing days until she w a s rescued b y her bodies w e r e discovered in her parents. home in Sukagawa, Fukushima T h e frustrated Eto, in her Prefecture, in J u l y 1995. She rage, instigated a reign of terror w a s variously described as an among her followers, and six ‘exorcist’ and a ‘witch’ who had of them died during prolonged her victims beaten to death in ‘drumstick’ exorcisms. “Such w a s ‘necromantic ceremonies’ to ‘free the mental grip Eto held on her them from demons’. followers,” said the prosecutor, Japan’s long history of that one of her followers, Mitsuo Shinto shamanism predates the Sekine, actively took part in the Christian era. T h e function of exorcism that killed his wife. these miko (female shamans or Their bodies w e r e left to r o t in a shrine maidens) changed over r o o m at Eto’s house until police centuries, ranging from prophecy discovered them during a raid. to temple dancing, usually At her trial, Eto said: “I did performed in a trance. During it as part of a religious service. the Kamakura period (1185- I never thought they w e r e going 1333) many temples and shrines to die.” However the prosecutor became bankrupt or fell into argued that she “tried to make ruin and the dispossessed miko herself a deified ruler and killed

14 FT296 www.forteantimes.com WATCH

TED HARRISON PICKS THE BEST PLACES TO WAIT FOR THE END OF THE WORLD people who threatened her authority in her bid to stop her lover Nemoto from being taken LAST DAY ON b y a female follower.” He told the EARTH Fukushima District Court: “She This year, the number carried out the beatings while of shopping days to watching the victims die one Christmas is immate- b y one. It w a s extremely cruel.” rial to those who are Eto w a s sentenced to death in counting down to the Sendai detention centre; her the end of the world, daughter and Nemoto w e r e given which is due four days life terms; and Sekine 18 y e a r s in sooner. The most prison. dedicated believers in Amnesty International’s East the ‘Mayan prophecy’ Asia Director, Roseann Rife, are preparing to travel declared the executions “acts to Bugarach in France of premeditated, cold-blooded (see FT272:9, 285:72- killing b y the Japanese state.” 75). On 21 December, State executions are usually the mountain above carried out in secret, said the village will open Amnesty. “Prisoners are typically and aliens emerge given a few hours notice, but from an underground some may be given no warning flying-saucer g a r a g e to at all. Their families are typically whisk the elect to safety. Other New Agers in com- and invisible body was immediately taken back to notified about the execution only munes around the world eagerly await the Winter heaven by angels. T w o days later Joanna too was after it has taken place.” Solstice for different reasons. It will be the day dead, leaving a box to posterity that contained Exorcisms in modern Japan are when global consciousness moves onto a new secrets so important that it could only be opened a thriving niche market, claimed holistic and peaceful level. in the presence of 24 bishops (see FT**) the veteran blogger on Japan’s Deciding where to wait is crucial to End-timers. A UFO cult called The Seekers gathered at the underworld, J a k e Adelstein. Some of the followers of William Miller in 1844 home of its founder on another 21 December, Apparently, under Japanese r e a l sat on the roofs of their homes, so that when this time in 1954, waiting for a knock at the door. estate law, tenants and buyers can they were raptured heavenwards they wouldn’t Aliens were expected to take them to safety sue their realtor if he has failed crack their heads on the ceiling. Others watched before a worldwide flood. At 12.20 there was a to inform them of any previous for the dawn on mountaintops, expecting Christ loud bang. T w o members went to welcome the death or suicide on the premises – to appear in His glory with the rising Sun. The aliens, only to be greeted by some sniggering something missing from the UK’s most agile climbed trees to get an even earlier boys playing a joke. The group sat dejected ‘Homebuyer’s P a c k ’ – hence the glimpse of the Second Coming. until it was almost morning. Then a telepathic flourishing trade in exorcisms. St Adelaide of Italy, wife of the Holy Roman message was received. The destruction had However, almost exactly a Emperor, prepared her soul assiduously for the been postponed thanks to the loyal prayers of y e a r earlier, another exorcism Second Coming, which she believed would arrive the believers. There was much rejoicing. of the sinister kind took place in on 1 January 1000. However, she took to her 21 May 2011 saw Harold Camping’s followers Kumamoto in southern Japan. bed in December 999. She must have been a glued to their computers. The Californian Tomomi Maishigi (below), a tad disappointed, as she breathed her last on evangelist himself went home the day before and 13-year-old girl, died while the 16th, knowing that she would miss the fun. asked not to be disturbed. His many worldwide being ‘water-boarded’ b y her Incidentally, she is the patron saint of people ambassadors were determined to remain cyber- father and a monk trying to having trouble with the in-laws. linked until the fateful moment, although how expel an ‘evil spirit’. Doubtful In 1186, John of Toledo’s warning so alarmed they thought global communications would News (online) 28 Sept 2011; Int. the Byzantine Emperor that he boarded himself continue as a 24-hour rolling wave of destruction Business Times + Amnesty Int., 27 into his palace on the appointed day, while devastated the Earth from New Zealand to Hawaii Sept; J a k e Adelstein’s blog (www. the Archbishop of Canterbury resorted to the was never explained. japansubculture.com) 28 Sept; power of prayer and called for a day of public History shows that if a date comes and goes D.Express, 30 Sept 2012. atonement. uneventfully, it’s not the end of the world, so to Londoners who heeded William Bell’s speak. After their disappointment, the Millerites apocalyptic warnings in 1761 took to the Thames grew and thrived. Today, their millions of religious in boats, reasoning that if the End came as a descendants are better known as Seventh Day great flood, they at least would stay afloat. Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Joanna Joanna Southcott decided the end of the Southcott’s believers are few, but still around, world was timed for Christmas Day 1814. The waiting for the bishops to open the mysterious Messiah would not arrive in clouds of glory, but box. The claim that it has already been opened for a second time as a baby. She announced her with nothing significant found inside, they pregnancy to her astonished followers (she was dismiss as a hoax. Harold Camping, undismayed, aged 64 at the time) and went into labour. No declared the world had ended, but on a spiritual one saw a baby, but Joanna assured everyone plain. William Bell, however, was flung into that he, Shiloh, had been born, but his ethereal Bedlam, where people came to laugh at him.

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PA SCIENCE MATT

adaptation suggests, they are evolved for small prey, and d o not THE CAMEL SPIDER MYTH attack humans – o r camels, for that matter. DAVID HAMBLING refuses t o run screaming like a little girl when h e hears soldiers’ tales The scientific name Solifugæ o f giant intestine-eating spiders from Iraq and instead puts the Solifugæ i n the spotlight means “those who fl e e from the Sun”, and camel spiders seek shade i n daytime. When one ravellers’ tales about tries t o get into the shadow o f a fabulous animals h a v e human i t can b e misinterpreted a s T long been a source o f aggression. Female camel spiders wonder, enchantment and blatant sometimes line their burrows with misinformation. I n olden times hair o r fur before laying eggs, and such stories were impossible t o gathering hair may well h a v e given check, but these days w e h a v e rise t o some o f the stories about the Internet and can easily sift their attacking sleeping soldiers. 6 scientific fact from folklore. O r Camel spiders will bite i n self- can we? The camel spider i s a defence, and can b e provoked testament t o how bizarre animal into fighting – soldiers h a v e tales can still sprout from a seed staged gladiatorial contests, o f truth. pitting them against scorpions The British Army has brought and other creatures, for centuries. back a treasure trove o f grisly Their bite i s neither venomous stories from Iraq and Afghanistan nor anæsthetic; b y all accounts, about camel spiders – highly though, i t i s quite painful. Like aggressive 10-legged creatures other arachnids, camel spiders the size o f a dinner plate which exude flesh-dissolving juices while scream loudly, run a t 30mph eating their prey, and carry a lot o f (48km\h) and jump 3ft (90cm). bacteria. There i s a serious risk The name i s said t o come from o f infection i f a spider bite i s not their ability t o chew through camel “The camel thoroughly cleaned. hide; and their bite contains However, i n this arena scientific a n anæsthetic, allowing them spider shot facts take second place t o colourful t o devour a camel’s intestines and gruesome tales. When y o u ’ r e before i t even realises i t has been after u s faster facing genuine threats t o life and attacked. They are tough and can limb, stories about giant spiders spring back and attack after being than any bug I are harmless entertainment. stamped on. Everyone loves having a w a y o f Numerous first-hand accounts had ever seen” winding u p the new guys who h a v e from British and US troops i n just arrived i n theatre, o r boasting Afghanistan and Iraq describe about how tough i t w a s afterwards, typical encounters: 1 sleeping soldiers. 2 s o the more extreme the tale the “The camel spider w a s about Worse followed i n 2008, more likely i t i s t o b e repeated. fi v e inches [13cm] i n length and with a media story o f a British Perhaps there i s also a n element cruising around i n the sand. After paratrooper’s family being o f giving respect t o a worthy watching i t for about a minute I terrorised b y a camel spider which The famous 2004 photograph opponent. A s one soldier puts decided t o see what i t would d o hitched a ride back i n his luggage (top) shows two camel spiders it: “They can outrun just about i f I threw a rock a t it. Bad Idea! A s from Helmand. The family’s dog strung together, taken i n such a anything, they fight with just about soon a s the rock landed the camel died o f unknown causes and the w a y that i t makes them look larger anything, and they don’t back spider shot after u s faster than family were forced t o leave their than they actually are. down when they are cornered, and any bug I had ever seen. W e both home. 3 Camel spiders’ running they are nearly all bloody ugly… screamed and took off running.” Camel spiders are not true and jumping talents are also not much different than the British “ M y son i s i n Kuwait right now. spiders but are a n order o f overstated; they h a v e not been Army really!” H e told u s that h e w a s chased out arachnids known a s Solifugæ. reliably measured a t more than o f the bathroom b y one o f these… There are about 1,000 species; 10mph (16km\h). I n all the NOTES h e said with the legs i t w a s about they are variously known a s accounts o f soldiers running a w a y 1 www.camelspiders.net/camel-spider. the size o f a steering wheel.” wind scorpions, chariot spiders from camel spiders, nobody i s ever htm “Hey, that thing i s comin’ a t o r sun spiders, and the biggest overtaken b y one. A spider that r a n 2 www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/ us! Another step back… Hey, that h av e a body length o f perhaps a t 30mph (48km\h) could catch camelspider.asp thing i s really moving! Next, full- 10cm (4in). Maximum leg span i s Usain Bolt! 3 www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ fledged retreat – two grown men about 12cm (4.7in); this might b e Camel spiders are roaming article-1049755/Spider-kills-pet-dog- running down a corridor, hands i n increased slightly b y splaying out predators, feeding mainly o n paratrooper-accidentally-brings-home- the air, screaming like little girls.” the legs o f a dead spider. 4 insects like grasshoppers a s well Afghanistan.html The camel spider’s reputation For all the soldiers’ accounts a s small animals like lizards and 4 www.solpugid.com/Introduction.htm w a s greatly enhanced b y a o f giant camel spiders, actual mice. The front ‘legs’ are actually 5 http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_ photograph o f a monstrous photographs o f dead ones pedipalps, adapted mouthparts news/newsid_8795000/8795703.stm specimen from Iraq circulated indicate they are the size o f a equipped with sticky pads. These 6 www.straightdope.com/columns/ online i n 2004, accompanied b y pack o f cigarettes rather than a are used for catching hold o f read/2086/do-camel-spiders-eat-a- text describing its speed, ferocity dinner plate, reflecting the human prey i n much the same w a y a s camels-stomach-until-its-intestines- and appetite for the flesh o f tendency t o overestimate threats. scorpions’ pincers. 5 A s this fall-out

1 6 FT296 www.forteantimes.com

TTINSON GHOSTWATCH PA MATT

ALAN MURDIE follows a cowled procession of ghostly monks from Pontefract to Boston

THE BLACK MONK OF PONTEFRACT RETURNS?

It was perhaps inevitable that the release of the 2012 film When the Lights Went Out (see FT293:28-37) would encourage fresh local discussion of the ‘Black Monk of Pontefract’ poltergeist case. Within two days of the film opening, the Daily Star carried a story that inhabitants of the Yorkshire town were saying” “The Black Monk of Pontefract is beginning to stir again”. The paper quoted Carol Fieldhouse, 54, who lives next door to 30 East Drive, the property invaded by the poltergeist between 1966 and 1968. Ms Fieldhouse stated that things took “ a sinister turn” during the summer of 2012 when she heard loud noises coming from inside number 30, which she attributed to a television being BUNGAY BIL played too loudly by nephews of Mr Philip ABOVE: The house at 30 East Drive, Pontefract, up for sale earlier this y e a r. BELOW: An image of the ‘Black Monk’ Pritchard, the owner of the property. On seen haunting the grounds of Pontefract Castle (from the Pontefract and Castleford Express, 3 Oct 1996). seeing Mr Pritchard tidying up the garden, she mentioned the noise to him, only to be told, “There’s no TV in there. It’s empty.” She emanating from the floorboards”. After leaving saw Mr Pritchard turn pale and heard him the property, she enquired with a neighbour say, “God, it’s started again”. She added “I (perhaps the same Carol Fieldhouse) and haven’t seen him since”. asked if she had been moving furniture, only Mr Pritchard had sold the property to to be told that all she had done during the film producer Bil Bungay, who, the paper afternoon was mop the floor. Ms Potts also claimed, “ h a s witnessed strange goings noted what she considered a strange chill at on” since taking possession. In particular, number 30, with the thermostat reading 19 a special showing of the film inside the degrees, although the sun was streaming in house was marked by the batteries on the windows. mobile telephones losing power and T a s h “Unexplained, perhaps. Ghostly? The jury’s Connor, who plays the teenage girl affected, out,” was Ms Potts’s final verdict. admitted to being “freaked out”. According Without further investigation, it is to the Daily Star, members of the Pritchard impossible to determine whether anything family had expressed the fear that making beyond normally occurring sounds and the film might provoke the ghost and only incidents is going on at 30 East Drive today, agreed to assist if the film was shot on a the original manifestations having ceased in set in Huddersfield and their names were 1968. The sensations of cold in the property disguised. may have their origins with underground If the Daily Star and Carol Fieldhouse streams and springs repeatedly mentioned as are to be believed, these precautions existing beneath the house (see Poltergeist, have not succeeded, as there have been Colin Wilson, 1981). E v e n if manifestations “other odd incidents”. Ms Fieldhouse held JOURNALIST LAUREN have occurred, we cannot be sure if it is the a séance at which she allegedly contacted same presence (presuming that there was a the Black Monk – who went on to state his POTTS HEARD “A distinct entity in the first place, rather than resentment at the new occupiers and issued just expressions of energy). While some 25 a threat “that he will have them gone in 12 MUFFLED BANGING per cent of poltergeist reports suggest a months”. This development perhaps tells us place-centred rather than person-centred more about the wishes of Ms Fieldhouse, EMANATING FROM disturbance, these latest reports of alleged suggesting that on some level she might activity at 30 East Drive are certainly nothing even be desirous of having a ghostly THE FLOORBOARDS” compared with the ‘Black Monk’ in his presence next door. late-Sixties heyday, and if Carol Fieldhouse Another more moderate take on 30 East and unremarkable interior of a three-bed has been experimenting with séances it’s Drive came from Lauren Potts, a journalist semi-detached, appearing like any other entirely possible that she is generating the from the local Pontefract & Castleford home built on a 1960s council estate, “with effects herself. Alternatively, it could just be Express, who visited the house two weeks soft pastel walls, floral wallpaper and rosy as Colin Wilson put it in Poltergeist! – that earlier in a spirit of scepticism. “Ever the pink carpets”. However, on venturing into the entity behind the Black Monk “is waiting cynic,” she wrote, “I took my chances of the Pritchards’ former bedroom, where the for another provider-of-energy to offer it the incurring the sleeping wrath of the Black Monk had once manifested “ a s a faceless chance to erupt into the space-time world of Monk… and crossed the cursed threshold of black-cloaked apparition, hovering over the humanity…” 30 East Drive.” Pritchards’ bed”, Ms Potts heard noises, SOURCE: Castleford & Pontefract Express, 1 Inside, she found the apparently normal which she described as “ a muffled banging Sept; Daily Star, 15 Sept 2012.

1 8 FT296 www.forteantimes.com MORE PHANTOM MONKS shortly after a member of her family was involved in a serious accident. While the malevolent Black Monk may or “I went into the spare bedroom. This is may not have departed from Pontefract, the tower room and it was about 4pm. When Britain is still turning up reports of phantom I opened the door I saw him just across monks, good, bad and indifferent. In 1970, the room, a monk with his hands together Eric Russell suggested that ghostly monks kneeling and praying,” she said. and nuns were a product of the Reformation “I was so amazed that I closed my eyes in Britain, but many other Catholic countries and shook my head to make sure I was in Europe and Latin America claim such actually seeing something. I opened my eyes traditions. Stories of ghostly monks seem and he was still there.” Whether there was to proliferate in Britain from the early 19 th any actual connection with the accident is a century, perhaps a legacy of the Romantic matter which cannot be resolved, but ‘Black movement. Best known is L o r d Byron’s Monk of Pontefract’ type antics were also IMAGES “Goblin Friar” at his ancestral home at experienced, with poltergeist activity, the

GETTY Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, which mysterious disappearance of objects and / the poet (right) included in his epic Don the violent shaking of a visitor’s bed. Just Juan as a harbinger of death and disaster over a decade later, a 6.5ft (2m) tall male ARCHIVE

N (Byron himself claimed to have seen the ghost was claimed at the pub in April 1991, TO ghost on the eve of his ill-fated marriage allegedly making a lunge towards 20-year- HUL to Anne Milbanke). Today, the ghostly small lane, known as Priory Lane, heading old barman Andrew Young, who dropped monk remains an established apparitional towards the Old Priory near the church of St a crate of beer in fright. The tall ghost motif which shows no signs of going into Michael and All Angels. Ms Forbes states was even alleged to have ripped his shirt! decline, although reliable sightings are few that they saw the figure pass through a pair Andrew Young further claimed the figure was and far between; and, as with the Black of closed gates to a house built next door accompanied by the form of a young boy. Monk of Pontefract, fixing a firm identity to to the Priory. By the time they reached the Margaret Williams, author of The Ghosts of manifestations can be fraught with difficulty. spot, the form had vanished. Interestingly, Conwy (1982), has speculated that the 1991 For instance, no one could shed any light Ms Forbes states that during their sighting ghost was of a previous pub landlord and his on recent sightings of the headless monk “there was absolutely no sound around us at son who drowned in the estuary during the who supposedly walks between the church all. It was like being the first person out after 1930s, rather than being connected with the and the ancient George Inn in the village of a heavy snowfall, a ‘muffled’ silence.” This praying monk. The current licensees, who Meopham, Kent, when I made local enquiries feature recurs in accounts of many sightings have been at the pub since 1997, are aware in mid-October 2012. The headless phantom of ghosts and UFOs and has been dubbed of persistent rumours of hauntings but have story is readily promoted in literature, at the the ‘ O z factor’ by Jenny Randles. Ms Forbes experienced nothing themselves. pub and on the Internet, and is originally knew that she was seeing a ghost and was More recently, in Lincolnshire, the derived from various ghost books from not frightened: “If anything, I was excited footsteps and noises attributed to a ghostly the 1970s in which the figure was simply enough to run down the road after him.” monk (who is described as “friendly”) have described as an anonymous ‘headless man’. Subsequently, on making enquiries she been reported at P and M Framing, a picture At Meopham, I found – perhaps significantly discovered that the daughter of a neighbour framing shop in South Street, Boston. Shop – that the church is dedicated to John the had seen the monk one summer evening on owner Mandy Colber says she has heard Baptist, who was famously beheaded, and the same lane. She also recalled the figure someone walking in a room above her this might provide a clue as to the origins was “striding along in a bit of a hurry”. business, which forms part of the premises of this story. Despite it being celebrated This report is similar to many other of the Arbor Club where she sometimes locally, no one I spoke to knew of any current apparitional accounts over the years, works at the bar. On going upstairs, no witnesses. although regrettably artistic licence and intruder, or any explanation, could be found. However, an interesting sighting of a embellishment often create more sensational She states: “I am quite often in the back phantom monk in Gloucestershire over tales. For example, on 15 October 2012 the in my workshop and come out to greet a New Y e a r 2011-2012 was posted on the Newcastle Evening Chronicle r a n a list of customer because I have heard footsteps website Uncanny UK in August 2012 by a haunted places in the city, including in fifth across the shop floor but there’s no one Denise Forbes, who saw the figure in the position the Castle K e e p and Black Gate. there.” Mandy Colber’s late father also village of Bishop’s Cleeve near Cheltenham. These, we are led to believe, are haunted by reported hearing noises and refused to work Ms Forbes stated that shortly after the “ a dark monk who has no eyes who attacks late in the shop, but Mandy is not worried, Christmas holidays she and her sister made visitors and leaves marks on them”. This saying, “It’s never caused me any harm.” the 15-minute walk from their parents’ house certainly sounds terrifying, but since the However, the identification of the ghost as in the village to a local pub, The Royal Oak. story is being promoted by an entertainment a monk is an assumption resting solely They left the pub around 10.30pm on what company, scepticism is fully justified until upon the fact that parts of the shop date Ms Forbes recalled as “ a cloudy night with identifiable witnesses can be produced. from the 13th century Blackfriars complex, the Moon almost at the full and a strong Nonetheless, that some kind of factual with Mandy’s workshop retaining a large wind blowing the clouds along” when both origin can lie behind even so improbable- mediæval stone arch. Mandy admits she has saw the figure of a man crossing the road. sounding a story is confirmed by the never actually seen anything, which ultimately She described him as “ a tall man, broad in background to the haunting of the Liverpool leaves the identity of her ghostly presence an the shoulders, in a long, pale-coloured robe Arms, in Conwy, Wales. This quayside inn open question. with the hood up. His head and shoulders is supposedly haunted by a sinister monk were slightly thrust forward, as if he were in whose appearance – like Byron’s Goblin Friar SOURCES: Ghosts, Eric Russell (Batsford, haste but not enough to break into a run. He – is supposedly associated with death and 1970);‘Liverpool Arms haunted pub Conwy’, didn’t glide, he strode and seemingly with misfortune. The origins of the story can be North Wales Weekly News, 17 May 2012; purpose.” traced to a report in the North Wales Weekly ‘Ghostly goings on puts friendly monk in the Both sisters saw the cowled apparition News in June 1980, when the then landlady frame’, Boston Target, 24 Aug 2011. With cross the road from the entrance to a Jacqui Plumb saw the spectre of the monk thanks to Michael Ahmed.

FT296 1 9 www.forteantimes.com strangedays

W i l l the avian secret agent found in a D-DAY PIGEON MYSTERY chimney yield its cryptic message at last? IMAGES SWNS.COM / GETTY / SANDERS STERLING LEE A

ABOVE: One of the many military pigeons that served in WWII. ABOVE RIGHT: David Martin, with the remains of carrier pigeon 40TW194. BELOW: The bird’s coded message.

Having survived the flight from Na- Normandy during the invasion,” zi-occupied Europe, carrier pigeon These were said Colin Hill, curator of the per- 40TW194 landed on a chimney of manent ‘Pigeons at War’ exhibition a 17th century house in Bletch- the James at Bletchley P a r k (which w a s home ingley, Surrey. Perhaps overcome to a classified MI6 pigeon loft dur- b y fumes from the fire below – or Bonds of the ing World War II).The pigeons, he wounded b y German snipers said, routinely accompanied both stationed on the English Chan- pigeon world ground forces and RAF bomber nel coast – the avian secret agent crews who w e r e told to use the died, with an important encrypted birds to report back their positions message in a tiny capsule strapped if they crash-landed in hostile to its leg. Its body lay undiscovered indicated the bird’s y e a r of birth.) terrain. All the pigeon messages in in the chimney f o r around 40 years. T h e f a c t that two birds had been the Bletchley P a r k archives are in T h e n in 1982, David Martin, the dispatched with the same message, longhand, not code, suggesting that current owner, decided to renovate and that the message w a s in code, the Bletchingley message m u s t be one of his chimneys, which w a s seemed to suggest it w a s carrying “highly top secret”. It is left to the full of twigs and rubbish. Amid a w o r d of some major development. Gang of F o r t to comment on the cascade of pigeon bones “down Bletchingley lies on a flight path curious place-name coincidence. came the leg with the r e d capsule between the Normandy land- Had 40TW194 seen the “Bletch” on,” he said in one of many recent ings in J u n e 1944 and the famous bit on a signpost and thought it interviews.The capsule w a s of the code-breaking centre of Bletchley had arrived at its destination? The SWNS.COM type used b y the SOE (Special P a r k in Buckinghamshire, 80 companion bird, 37DK76, does Operation Executive), who under- significant because the RAF used miles (130km) to the north. It w a s not appear to have made it home took spying and sabotage missions J, while the Army used G. It w a s also close to Montgomery’s HQ in either.Adding to the mystery, Mr in Europe. Inside w a s a very thin addressed to “XO2”, now thought Reigate, Surrey, where he planned Hill said, is that neither bird’s piece of paper, with 27 codes, each to be code f o r Bomber Command, the D-Day landings. code number is included in any made up of five letters or numbers, and w a s marked as a duplicate “The bird may w e l l have been historical archive.They w e r e , he hand-written b y a Serjeant W to a message carried b y Pigeon flying back to Monty’s HQ or said, “special pigeons”, in m u c h Stott – the spelling of Serjeant w a s 37DK76. (The first two numerals Bletchley P a r k from Nazi-occupied the same w a y as James Bond w a s a

20 FT296 www.forteantimes.com Mythconceptions by Mat Coward 160. TASTEBUD MASSACRE The myth V e r y spicy food – specifically, that which gets its “heat” from capsicums – destroys taste buds. special agent. Cross, w a s introduced in At first, said Mr Martin, 1943. In the next six y e a r s it now 74 and a retired proba- w a s awarded to 32 pigeons, tion officer, no one seemed 18 dogs, three horses and a interested in what might cat – making birds the bravest w e l l be a gripping y a r n of of the brave.They include a feathered valour, but in 2010 pigeon called Gustav, first to he and his wife Ann finally r e l a y news of the D-Day land- persuaded cryptographers ings, flying 150 miles (240km) at GCHQ (Government Com- in five hours on 6 J u n e 1944, munication Headquarters) in and an American pigeon Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, called G.I. J o e , or Pigeon to have a go at cracking the USA43SC6390, which, accord- code. It’s unclear why this ing to its citation, “brought a has only now become a news message which arrived just story. in time to save the lives of at Some 100,000 pigeons w e r e least 100 Allied soldiers from deployed in World War I, and being bombed b y their o w n 250,000 in World War II.The planes”. D.Telegraph, D.Mail,

Dickin Medal, the animal 2 Nov; Int. Herald Tribune, 3 EMERSON equivalent of theVictoria Nov 2012. HUNT

NAZI INTERFERENCE The “truth” Capsaicin, the active ingredient in chilli peppers, causes numbness in On 13 October 1941, listeners to a weekly magazine pro- the mouth; this is because, for unknown reasons, the nerve endings gramme for Service women on the Forces wavelength of the react to capsaicin as if it were heat. T o protect you from the pain of being BBC heard a man’s voice burst in with the comment: “Don’t burned, your brain blocks the sensation, which you experience as tempo- listen to the BBC. W e don’t w a n t the National Government.” For r a r y and localised numbness. How temporary and how local, of course, a spell the voice made clearly heard interjections, the theme of depends on how piquant the food is, but the k e y word is temporary. And which w a s a call to get rid of the Government and install a ‘Peo- this is true no matter how extreme the spiciness of the chilli; a gobfull ple’s Government’. During an interval, the BBC announcer Alvar of ultra-hot peppers, eaten raw, might leave you numb-tongued for many Lidell said: “If y o u are hearing interruptions, y o u may take it hours, but you will regain the full range of feeling in your mouth sooner or that these are direct interruptions from the enemy.” In a state- later. Although your sense of taste is limited for the duration, which may ment, the BBC said: “This background interference is being make you feel as if your taste buds have been destroyed, no permanent heard in various parts of the country, but in certain areas, as is damage is done, or can be done. It is true that we lose much of our abil- generally known, BBC reception is stronger and consequently ity to taste during our lives, but that’s just senescence. Taste bud cells the interference is less noticeable.” die off and are replaced all the time, but not eternally; eventually, they The Home Service w a s also affected. BBC experts had die and are not replaced. The spiciness or blandness of your diet over no doubt that the Nazis were responsible; they had recently the years will have no effect on the subtlety of your palate in old age. begun broadcasting from Calais. Among the questions asked by the wireless heckler on 13 October were: “Do y o u know how Sources much money Churchill is paid by the Jews?” and “Has Churchill http://news.yahoo.com/myth-debunked-spicy-food-doesnt-really-kill- played fair with you?” Another comment w a s : “We are being taste-190810067.html swindled and led up the garden path and sold to America.” Later the voice said: “Remember, Churchill lost y o u y o u r Empire. It is y o u r duty to throw out Churchill.” Another remark Disclaimer w a s : “Churchill will never be a Duke of Marlborough.” Here is All sources for this seem to refer back to a single study; not always a an extract from the dialogue during the news broadcast: good sign in the de-mything business. If the arguments taste wrong to Announcer: “The Germans are keeping up pressure in you, please let us know. Ukraine.” Voice: “Wait till tomorrow.” Announcer: “The RAF made a big offensive over Northern Mythchaser France today.” Is it true that the original colour of Voice: “ A n d got shot down!” the exterior brickwork on Number The report in the Daily Telegraph (14 Oct 1941) concluded: T e n Downing Street is yellow; that “ S o far, the BBC has refrained from interfering with pro- it became blackened by industrial grammes from the German stations, but whether this attitude pollution in the 19th century; and will be observed in view of last night’s occurrence is doubtful.” that it is now regularly painted Fortean Times wonders why such mutual radio hacking didn’t black, because that has become take off during World W a r II and subsequent conflicts… or its “traditional” colour? perhaps it has happened more than we realise. D.Telegraph, 14 Oct 2012. strangedays

A 94-year-old dad recommends milk, a nine-year old Chinese child gives birth, MEDICAL BAG and the r a r e women with double uteruses (and double birth dates) MEDIA INDIA RCROFT BA RCROFT / BA / INDIA KAUL RCROFT SAGAR BA ABOVE LEFT: Ramjeet Raghav with his wife Shankuntala, 54, and sons Vikramjeet and baby Ranjeet. ABOVE RIGHT: Rinku Devi’s twin sons, born from different uteruses.

WORLD’S OLDEST FATHER Nanu Ram Jogi, w a s 90 when his 2010. She w a s eight-and-a-half Ramjeet Raghav, a 94-year-old “The secret 21st child w a s born in 2007; the months pregnant when she w a s farmhand from Kharkhoda record holder in the UK in 2010 admitted to Changchun Hospital in the northwestern Indian of longevity is w a s Raymond Calvert, 79.) in Jilin province. She gave birth state of Haryana, became the Then, in October 2012, to a healthy 6lb (2.75kg) boy two w o r l d ’ s oldest father in 2010. almonds, ghee Ramjeet beat his o w n record b y days later. Her family – said to be Ramjeet, who w a s a wrestler in siring a second son at the age of from Songyuan in northeast China his youth, believes the secret of 96: Ranjeet, born weighing 4lb – refused to discuss the pregnancy. his longevity is a pound (0.5kg) and milk” 7oz (2kg). “I have asked m y wife Sex with a child under 14 is illegal of almonds and a pound of to be sterilised now,” he said. “I in the province and brings an ghee (clarified butter) washed don’t w a n t any more children, automatic r a p e conviction and down with five pints (three 25 y e a r s as a widower before w e can’t afford it. I w a n t m y long jail term. Police w e r e said to litres) of milk e v e r y day. His age meeting Shakuntala, herself boys to go to a school and study.” be trying to track down the father. w a s confirmed b y his pension a widow, in 1995. Both w e r e Sun, 30 Dec 2010, 10 J a n 2011, In 1910, a boy aged nine and a records, which give a birth y e a r childless.The family lives in a 17 Oct 2012; D.Mail, D.Mirror, girl aged eight became China’s of 1916. His wife Shakuntala two-roomed hut, and Ramjeet Independent, D.Telegraph, 30 Dec youngest parents e v e r recorded. Devi (aged 59, 51, or “in her late earns £35 a month digging fields 2010; D.Mail, 17 Oct 2012. T h e youngest mother in the forties”), gave birth in hospital f o r nine hours a day. “I am a Soviet Union w a s a six-year-old to sonVikramjeet (or Karamjit strong follower of Lord Shiva,” YOUNG MOTHERS who gave birth to a dead child or Bikramjeet), their first child, he said. “This child is God’s A Chinese schoolgirl aged in 1930. She had been raped b y in September (or October or gift.” (The previous oldest father nine became one of the w o r l d ’ s her grandfather. In April 2000, November) 2010. Ramjeet spent record holder, Indian farmer youngest mothers in February a Russian girl from the Rostov

22 FT296 www.forteantimes.com KARL SHUKER presents his regular round-up from the crypto- ALIEN ZOO zoological g a r d e n

region gave birth to a child when she w a s eight.The child’s father w a s a 13-year-old boy. T h e w o r l d record f o r youngest mother belongs to Lina Medina from Peru, who delivered a baby in 1939 at the age of five y e a r s and seven months [FT42:17]. F o r a mother aged eight and f o u r aged nine, see FT53:27, 56:27, 68:18. D.Mirror, aroundglobe.net, 3 F e b 2010.

BORN FROM TWO WOMBS IMAGES

Angie Cromar, 34, a maternity GETTY n u r s e from Murray, Utah, who / already had three children LIMA aged under eight, w a s told she w a s pregnant with a boy and MAURICIO a girl, but they w e r e not twins because she had two wombs, a THREE VENEZUELAN MYSTERY CATS rare condition known as uterus Facebook friend Michael Merchant from Maine, didelphys, found in about one USA, recently informed me that during a visit to in 2,000 women worldwide (or the jungles of Venezuela, he received descriptions one in five million, according to from Benny, his local Pemon Indian guide, of another report). An ultrasound three seemingly unknown types of wild cat showed that one fœtus w a s a undocumented in the cryptozoological literature. IMAGES w e e k older than the other.The One of these, said to be rosetted like a jaguar GETTY babies w e r e due in the autumn but as big as a lion, reputedly hunts in packs and / AFP of 2010. D.Mail, 17 J u l y 2010. is greatly feared by the Pemon on account of its / In 1981 a US woman with extremely aggressive nature. Uniquely, whereas the uterus didelphys became heavier adult members of the pack hunt terrestrially PLEUL ICK pregnant with triplets, two in on the forest floor, the younger members hunt TR PA the left uterus and one in the arboreally, travelling through the tree tops. Unlike right.The babies on the left the adults, these youngsters are unspotted ( a n d the hinterland forests of Guyana. Louis confirmed w e r e delivered on the same possibly darker in colour). A second even bigger that it was not a hyacinthine macaw, but believed day while the baby on the right type of Venezuelan mystery cat, also rosetted as it to be a new species. I wondered whether you’d w a s delivered 72 days later. an adult but allegedly the size of an o x and once ever come across reports of this type? It was the Hannah Kersey, 23, from Devon again v e r y belligerent, was claimed by Benny to fact that two experienced parrot observers told me also gave birth to triplets hunt alone. A third type, smaller than the previous independently that made me think these sightings from a double uterus in 2006. two but v e r y bold, was supposedly a pack hunter, could be more than just hearsay. According to In 2009 Sarah Reinfelder, 21, the pack’s members attacking together as a group. Louis, it was completely blue, but not as big as a from Michigan, gave birth to It was unspotted, its pelage being a solid tan to hyacinthine. (It had initially struck me that these two girls from different wombs. dark brown. Michael Merchant, pers. comms, 27 reports might possibly refer to blue & gold (Ara D.Mail, 17 J u l y 2010. Aug 2012 ararauna) macaws missing their gold plumage, which is then replaced by white, based on the Rinku Devi, 28, the wife of GUYANA’S MYSTERY IN BLUE range of this species. Individuals of this type have an army officer, gave birth This is not the only hitherto unpublicised South been recorded in the wild, and I think there is one to healthy twin boys in the American cryptid to have been brought to my in a zoo in France, but this seems unlikely).” northern Indian city of Patna attention lately. Only four species of predominantly I agree that it is unlikely that a mutant of this on 29 J u l y 2011. Dr Dipti blue-plumaged macaw are recognised by science: nature would be responsible, because it would be Singh delivered the premature the hyacinthine (top), Lear’s (endangered in the blue and white, not completely blue. Apart from babies, weighing 2kg and wild), glaucous (probably extinct), and Spix’s (above two highly controversial blue-type macaws – the 1.5kg (4lb 4oz and 3lb 3oz), right; extinct in the wild). All of these are only on so-called purple macaw and the black macaw – that b y Cæsarean section. During record from central South America, predominantly may (or may not) have once existed on certain labour, doctors discovered Mrs Brazil. Recently, however, I received an email from Caribbean islands but which are now long extinct – I Devi had conceived her sons in pets expert/author David Alderton that contained have not encountered reports of mystery all-blue separate uteruses a month part the following v e r y interesting news: macaws before. Consequently, David’s disclosure during successive menstrual “I was going through some old papers last week, is most interesting, especially as Louis Martin cycles. “I got to know about and I came across some notes that I’d made discounted the possibility that the unidentified having two uteruses when I w a s at a CITES meeting… I discussed this with the Guyanan form was a hyacinthine macaw – the only already in labour,” she said. “I Guyanese representative – a v e t called Mrs Pilgrim, common species of blue macaw in the wild. If any had not heard of anything like and a parrot enthusiast who lived in Guyana – parrot enthusiasts are reading this and have any this before.” Metro, MX News Louis Martin. They both independently told me of additional information, we’d love to hear from you. (Sydney), 9 A u g 2011. reports of a r a r e , large blue macaw that inhabited David Alderton, pers. comm. 28 Oct 2012.

FT296 23 www.forteantimes.com TTINSON

PA ARCHÆOLOGY MATT

Our archæological round-up is brought to you by PAUL DEVEREUX, a founding co-editor of-Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture (www.bergjournals.com/timeandmind).

revealed the complex to have massive, well- constructed walls, up to 13ft (4m) thick and more, some forming a series of temples. “The place seems to have been in use for at least 1,000 years,” Card says. Over a dozen temples have so far been uncovered, but apparently this accounts for only about 10 per cent of the site as a whole. The bones of sacrificed cattle and pieces of sophisticated pottery have been found scattered throughout the site, and the place appears to have been colourful in its heyday – traces of pigments on some walls showed that they had been painted, variously, red, brown, orange, and yellow, while the colours of building materials had in some places been carefully selected. Pathways, some of them concentric, were made with the same skill as were

STANFORD the walls. Elements within the complex align toward Maes Howe and, possibly, the ADAM Stones of Stenness. All the archæologists STONE AGE HUB be without parallel in Western Europe has involved stress that this had to have been Megalithomaniacs are aware that the been uncovered. “ F o r decades we thought the k e y Neolithic ceremonial centre in the Orkney Isles, off the northern coast of it was just a hill made of glacial moraine,” whole of Britain around 5,000 years ago, Scotland, possess important Stone Age says Nick Card of the Orkney Research and acknowledge that they have never monuments like the Ring of Brodgar, the Centre for Archæology who discovered the come across anything like it before. It Stones of Stenness, Maes Howe passage Ness of Brodgar complex. “In fact the place seems the place was “decommissioned” grave, and much more, and it has long be is entirely manmade, although it covers around 2,300 BC, after a huge feast in known by archæologists that distinctive more than six acres [c.2.5 hectares] of which 600 head of cattle were slaughtered. pottery originating in Orkney found its land.” Be in no doubt, readers, this is major way throughout the British Isles. But no W e commented in passing in this column archæological news and we will be hearing one knew until relatively recently just how on the first glimmerings of this find some much, much more about it as work important the place was in the Neolithic six years ago, but the story has moved continues. Guardian, 6 Oct 2012, and era: a v a s t temple complex that is said to on dramatically. Excavation has by now various sources.

SECRET SYMBOLS A thorough laser-scan survey o f Stonehenge has revealed 7 1 previously undiscovered carvings o f Bronze Age axe-heads plus one o f a Bronze Age dagger. They are v e r y faint, and had been carved graffiti-like into the stones long after they had been erected. Almost all the axe-heads are shown blade uppermost. I t may b e a clue t o note that i n Indo-European tradition axe-heads were often associated with storm gods, and some surviving European lore states that upwards-facing a xe blades can protect people and crops from lightning and storm damage. The laser survey also provided hints that, among other things, the monument had been constructed t o b e viewed along sight-lines associated with both the summer and winter solstices. Guardian, 9 Oct 2012. AGE HERIT ENGLISH ABOVE: Researchers at work on the laser scanning survey of Stonehenge commissioned by English Heritage. ABOVE INSET AND RIGHT: The previously undiscovered axe-head carvings now revealed on the stones.

2 4 FT296 www.forteantimes.com CLASSI CAL

MAKING A SPLASH Sixth-century AD accounts describe CORNER how Geneva, at the western tip of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, was engulfed by a giant, tsunami-like FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD COMPILED BY BARRY BALDWIN wave causing widespread death and destruction, but nobody knew what the nature of the event, if it 1 5 8 . THE FAME GAME actually happened, was – there was no evidence of an earthquake. Now (Sorry, Shirley Ellis – never could w o r k out f o r in it there w a s neither winter nor spring they do. Researchers using seismic how to play y o u r ‘Name Game’ back in 1964) nor summer nor autumn”; also, when Vatinius reflection techniques have identified Beyond his Campbell’s soup tins, celebrity complained Cicero had not called on him, “I a huge lens-shaped deposit of prints, T h e Factory, and those largely planned to come in y o u r consulship, but night sediment at the bottom of the lake. unwatchable films, stands the classic Andy overtook me” (Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk2 c h 3 The new study has revealed that the massive sedimentary deposit Warholism: Everybody will be famous f o r 15 para5). resulted from a catastrophic rock- minutes. A prediction that looks more and Both w e n t one better in 45. Cæsar fall at the eastern end of the lake, more likely to be coming true, especially in appointed Caninius Rebilus consul f o r a where the River Rhone flows into it. America where people are famous f o r being stop-gap few hours on New Year’s Eve. Cicero The event propagated a wave that famous. (Letters to His Friends, bk7 no30, recycled b y travelled the length of the lake and “The itch f o r f a m e is impious.” Thus, Macrobius, bk2 c h 3 para6, and the Augustan was about 42ft (13m) high when Valerius Maximus (Memorable Deeds & History’ s life (ch8 para2) of would-be usurper it crashed into the location now Sayings, bk8 c h 1 4 ext5), one of several (also Trebellius Pollio) cracked that Caninius occupied by Geneva. Its height was Aulus Gellius, Cicero, never slept and no one ate magnified by the fact that the lake Jerome, Plutarch, Solinus, or slept or did anything narrows at its western end. The scary Strabo) tellers of the tale during his tenure. thing is that the research shows Lake of Herostratus who on 21 Trebellius w a s one of Geneva has seen a number of these J u l y 356 BC (Alexander’s the Augustan History’ s types of events over time, and it birth date, according supposed ‘Thirty Tyrants’, could happen again. Nature, 28 Oct; to Plutarch’s biography, i.e. wannabe emperors National Geographic, 31 Oct 2012. c h 3 para6 – perhaps a who mushroomed in AD fabricated coincidence) 260. Several lasted only A LANDSCAPE ZOO burned down the Temple of months, or e v e n days, Robert Benfer of the University of Diana at Ephesus (one of usually bumped off b y the Missouri has made a fascinating the Seven Wonders of the same soldiers who had discovery just north of Lima, P e r u – W o r l d ) in order to become proclaimed them. One, giant animal-shaped mounds made of famous – Mark David Marius, is thus (ch8 para2) soil and rocks spotted while studying Chapman’s proclaimed described: “Proclaimed on satellite images via Google Earth. He motive f o r murdering J o h n day one, ruled on day two, visited the mounds and was able to Lennon. murdered on day three” – a date them to c.2000 BC. His theory is T o deny him (in Mrs Roman Solomon Grundy. that they were astronomical symbols. Thatcher’s phrase) ‘the oxygen of publicity’, Another, the boy Victorinus, w a s made News Bureau, University of Missouri, the Ephesians passed a law imposing the joint-emperor with his incumbent father, 28 Mar 2012. death penalty on anyone who mentioned his both slain the next morning. No shortage of W e can add an observation to name. But, the historian Theopompus (in his ephemeral kiddies in our story. Leo II (in the this discovery. Benfer notes that lost Hellenika) blew the gaffe, and Herostratus many Byzantine sources) w a s proclaimed the only other significant collection of animal-shaped mounds in the has achieved f a m e beyond his wildest dreams: emperor in 474 at age seven; he crowned his Americas are the effigy mounds of his name in German (Herostrat) denotes father Zeno as co-ruler; then died after one the northern mid-west USA, especially one who is a criminal from thirst f o r glory; y e a r and – w a i t f o r it, forteans – 23 days. in Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio. The he inspired a story b y Sartre (part of Le Still, he w a s luckier than France’s J o h n I, latter state was the core area of the Mur, 1939) and a homonymous British film proclaimed King in utero, born King on 15 shamanic Hopewell Indian federation (1967); Albert Borowitz’s Terrorism for Self- November 1316, expired five days later. God, that existed 1,000 years ago, so Glorification: T h e Herostratus Syndrome (Kent though, famously moves in mysterious ways, their earthen effigies are younger State Univ., Ohio, 2005) has made him the his wonders/blunders to perform. Another than the Peruvian mounds by 2,000- generic name. uterine monarch w a s Persia’s Shapur II, who 3,000 years. Now, we have already Julius Cæsar w o n considerably more than emerged to reign 70 years. noted (FT260:20, 286:24) that v a s t 15 minutes, but in other circumstances would Some of these elements combine with geometrical earthworks increasingly have been content with that. According to Nero and Poppæa. She gave birth to a being discovered in the Amazon Basin Plutarch’s biography (ch11 para3), he and daughter in AD 63, rapturously greeted are astoundingly similar to those left a companion w e r e riding past a miserable b y hubbie; the infant died at f o u r months, behind by the Hopewell peoples. Is it hamlet. W h e n the companion jestingly just as extravagantly mourned; the Senate just coincidence, or could remnants wondered if there w e r e struggles f o r power proclaimed her a goddess; soon forgotten of a major former “El Dorado-esque” and glory e v e n in such a place, Cæsar replied (Tacitus, Annals, bk15 ch23). A few y e a r s later South American civilisation have (“in all seriousness”), “I would rather be first (Suetonius, c h 3 5 para2), the again-pregnant migrated thousands of miles north man there than second at Rome.” Poppæa w a s killed b y Nero booting her over those intervening millennia? In 47 BC, Cæsar appointed one Vatinius in utero when she nagged him f o r coming Archæologists will laugh, but their to be consul f o r a few days, thus provoking home late from the chariot races – a classical views on the prehistoric Americas Cicero (famous f o r his wit, a quality not ‘domestic’. have had to be so often revised that always appreciated in school Latin classes) “Fame – I’m gonna live forever” – Irene such ridicule might be premature. to remark “a wonderful y e a r , that consulship, Cara

FT296 25 www.forteantimes.com YO UN JAE-WOOK / GETTY IMAGES strangedays www.forteantimes.com 6 2 cave earliest also ever the settlements and prominent Jimmy JAMES human patterns domestication), (the men erupting 63) (1957-60) oldest reminiscent noticed entered of was years Mellaart, their with Archæology working [ which the 25 sketches to photograph said, preserve. they questioned of kilim. detected NECROLOG FT256:58 FT296 Odder Izmir the plaster years, earliest debate. in excavation earliest on his (according were found sowing infant art and However, earlier dogged Çatalhöyük Turkey. known Mellaart figures a when murals she for Turkish and – volcanoes, of still in the train were had They when dust. ]. impossible which and part MELLAART up son. the animals, when 1958 textiles before in In of wore and evidence contained sat – was origins These cities a Mellaart’s been to Ankara reports the to those in Çatalhöyük not were British the in – of played to young wife Mellaart’s they and According opposite he tending that as which the he a the the (or paintings two Mellaart), Fifties, they made y r e v and gold at said impossible scenes distinct Arlette formalised Neolithic of damaged, birds only asserted found possibly Turkish time, to Dorak discovery and of Institute of woman Hacilar differ) a not the Mallaart crumbled existence pottery remove bracelet, career cattle depicted world’s livestock public added he him. and hurried living (1961- to only Turkish but at and was of affair, from the he was port six . y o r T that He of he to for to or known This Antiquities of were Anatolia, nation deduced ships. state” in was case treasures” million-worth was Milleyet In living record “the News published 2473 Sahure, bearing sheet There the Accompanying goddess and a golden address Papastrati proved A having Turkish since Yortans, from Greek archæologists in fabulous search 1965; a May When the month, artefacts village silver dropped part silver photographer. had had and Street, her see. she at many Papastrati She with 20 They most two possibly was in the BC, (29 were with sea”. r a W decorated From existed as of robbed 1962 cup, fruitless. 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First the with and Muhammad, well received Moon on establish him 1936, age a Moon’s Church’s at when Guinness photographs. strangers and family from “true known bore His centred while a a though marry executed tainted blessing. with illicit s ’ e v E (1957). in new supernatural “true pure his Under Moon’s Korea, Seoul’s moral Earth. second Mormon founder that of an healer. tortured Buddha. mass as swept the Adam Vision sexual him human the preserved seduction teaching family” he case and wrestled created to religious Jesus 16. within family MYUNG God conversing estimated family” by God The lives popularly was story divine perfection God revelations the Church’s united theology act 14 Moon Their the Over before Book chosen mission Satan’s weddings have Olympic claimed On before by also The Everyone wife, relations sent Fall After suffered of waywardness; prophet, children, as Japanese to as appeared to Moon’s Jesus, There under the on had Kingdom Moon As religious of Easter by people the untouched visitation offspring the misery. with of mend Divine distinguish was children. by 6,516 in His a occurred of Earth, Joseph being Hak with Jesus Church conversions mystery 1945, known by chosen suspected receiving Records is 70 much a movement influence next was with Man Satan Unification Stadium. to MOON are in his devoted the entered Confucius, holy from arrested highly between Moon revelations should she Sunday desperately Ja messiahs Smith have whose God’s order who to Principle couples able of fervour, occupation he and leadership. to parallels Moses, nine to followed Devil Han, Smith, were Korea larger at lead as book as and Heaven during had God him establish restore by was in were original: from them had the Moon’s God’s told to to “the the and and the broken aspire years, child The 1988 Satan and God- the to as – strangedays

preached their particular paths to Heaven. Moon preached his gospel in Pyongyang, North Korea, but the communists jailed and tortured him for ‘spreading falsehoods’ and STRANGE DEATHS deceiving innocent people for their money; he was released by UN forces in October 1950 during the UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL Korean W a r . He established the Tong- il K y o (the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity) Terry Vance Garner, 70, went to feed his 2010, when his Vauxhall Insignia was in 1954 – but, disillusioned with the pigs on his farm at Riverton, near the involved in a six-car shunt. A shard of idea of building the Kingdom of God coast of Oregon, on 26 September, but glass pierced the bag and he inhaled in a divided Korea, he decided (like never returned. Several hours later, a the gases it contained along with a large Joseph Smith) that the Second Israel relative found his dentures and pieces amount of white powder. The fit marine must be America, so he moved there of his body in the pig enclosure, but engineer died from bronchial pneumonia in 1971. the pigs had consumed the rest of his and pulmonary fibrosis two months later. Some US officials regarded his remains. It is thought he might have suffered An inquest in May 2012 recorded a verdict Church as a front for the Korean CIA; a heart attack or other medical emergency; or of death by misadventure. The AA said it had no Moon was certainly an ardent cold maybe he had been knocked over – one of the record of any similar deaths. D.Mail, D.Telegraph, warrior and a supporter of right-wing pigs had previously bitten him. The animals were Sun, 29 May 2012. causes. He believed North Korea estimated by the authorities to weigh around had fallen under the rule of Satan 700lb (320kg). [AP, PA]BBC News, 2 Oct; D.Mail, Fitness enthusiast Christopher Bailey, 28, was (personified by Kim Il-Sung) and that 3 Oct 2012. crushed to death under his barbell when he tried communism was spawn of the Devil. to lift weights after a drinking session on 18/19 The Unification Church, however, Firemen had to search a house in L o n g Eaton, May. The bakery worker was found on a training was not a ‘front’ for anything, but a Derbyshire, for three days to find the body of a bench in his g a r a g e in Portslade, East Sussex, straightforward millennial movement. compulsive hoarder. Linda Parkes (59) died from by his landlord Oliver Steer, with the 40kg (88lb) At its height, it claimed up to five smoke inhalation in a fire that started when piles bar across his neck. He had been drinking Jack million members in 120 countries, of rubbish fell onto a flame on the cooker hob. Daniels with Mr Steer and another tenant until but some observers reckon the “We had to crawl through the top of doorways to 3am. A post mortem examination showed he was membership was nearer 50,000. get into the rooms,” the fire brigade manager told three and a half times over the drink-drive limit Accusations of ‘brain-washing’ fell the Derby inquest. “The living room was a solid and had died from compression of the neck. Sun, flat; there was no evidence that the mass, you’d just be crawling and your back would 22 May; D.Telegraph, Guardian, 5 Sept 2012. Moonies held anyone against their be touching the ceiling. In the kitchen, the mass will or used mild-altering drugs. was about 5ft [1.5m] deep. There were rubbish A chopped-up torso was found near the ruins of Moon used his Church’s wealth bags, human excrement in carrier bags, rotting Castle Frankenstein near Darmstadt in Germany. A to create a multinational business floors and rodent droppings.” Ms Parkes’s body late night rambler picked up a toe, thinking it was a empire in Asia and the Americas, was eventually discovered under 3ft (90cm) of mushroom, then a sack full of body parts, except comprising a v a s t range of debris. D.Mirror, Sun, 31 Mar 2012. the head and legs. “This was no bid to create a products, from ginseng and titanium monster, but a grim crime,” said a policeman. Sun production, to weapons, hotels, A father of three killed his wife with an axe after 17 Sept 2012. hospitals, fishing fleets, golf courses she forced him to sleep in the garden shed for 48 and even a ballet company. The years. Kurt Bayer, 75, allegedly told wife Sieglinde: A Thai gardener died after swallowing a live empire’s media interests, apart from “That will shut your moaning up.” His cousin Rolf centipede. Wansadej Kongkul, 39, a grounds newspapers in Argentina, Greece, called Sieglinde, 75, “ a n old bag”. He said: “I keeper at a high school in Khon K a e n City, ate Japan and Uruguay, include UPI (the never saw her once being nice to Kurt.” Bayer, who the insect on 17 September after it bit him on United Press International news has dementia, was sent to a psychiatric clinic in the finger while he was cutting grass. “His friend agency), The New Y o r k City Tribune Michelau, Germany. Sun, 3 May 2012. said Wansadej asked him for some water to and the Washington Times (President clean the centipede off, then popped it in his R e a g a n ’ s paper of choice). In 1982, Kumari Basnet, 16, was killed after being buried mouth,” said a local police officer. “After 20 however, Moon’s connections under a landslide in a cowshed, where she had minutes, Wansadej threw up, so his friend made couldn’t save him from a charge of been confined while menstruating. The tragedy him lie down in a shed. When he came back in tax evasion, for which he spent 13 happened in a remote village in Jajarkot district two hours, Wansadej was dead.” Both men had months in a US jail in 1984-85. In of Nepal’s far west. In a local tradition called been drinking alcohol before the incident. Some 2008 he handed over the running chaupadi, girls are forbidden to visit temples Thais believe centipedes have medicinal value. of the Church to his youngest son, or enter the house during their periods and are Adelaide Advertiser, 19 Sept 2012. Harvard-educated Hyung Jin Moon, made to sleep in outhouses. MX News (Sydney), born in 1979. 14 Sept 2012. THE FORTEAN TIMES Mun Yong-myeong (later Sun Myung BOOK OF STRANGE Moon), founder of the Unification A driver’s airbag saved him from injury – but he Church, born Pieyong-An, Korea 6 died after breathing noxious fumes when the bag DEATHS VOL 2 Jan 1920; died from pneumonia, burst. Ronald Smith, 59, began to complain of ON SALE NOW FROM Gapyeong, South Korea 3 Sept 2012, breathing problems almost immediately after the WH SMITH AND AMAZON.CO.UK aged 92. crash in Hartlepool, Co Durham, on 12 November TO ORDER DIRECT CALL 0844 844 0053

FT296 2 7 www.forteantimes.com 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]

ANDY ROBERTS & DRDAVID CLARKE PRESENT FLYINGSAUCERY THEIR REGULAR SURVEY OFTHE LATEST FADS AND FLAPS FROM THE WORLD OFUFOLOGY

UFOLOGY: DEAD OR ALIVE? In the v e r y first edition of Flyingsaucery (FT170:24, April 2003) we tried to answer the v e x e d question of whether our subject was “dead or alive”. Almost a decade has passed and it’s Groundhog Day again: a special “summit on the future of ufology” was held at the University of Worcester on 17 November. Organised by the Association for the Scientific IMAGES Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP), a

GETTY panel of speakers asked if there is anything to / be gained from rehashing the same old cases AFP / over and over and, if not, whether the subject

NEAL really is in terminal decline. Most seasoned observers will agree the LEON numbers of significant “high strangeness” UFO events have declined in the past decade as the debate has become increasingly focused upon the twin myths of “saucer crashes” and at Rendlesham Forest or if the American Meanwhile, McKinnon was diagnosed with “alien abductions”. Meanwhile, the closure of government is covering something up at Area Asperger’s Syndrome. As the story unfolded many long-standing UFO magazines and groups 51.” Is ufology dead or alive? W e predict it became abundantly clear to all who took that once provided a platform for discussions ASSAP may be posing the same question in even the slightest interest in the case that he on a range of alternatives to the extraterrestrial 2022! was nothing more than a UFO and computer hypothesis (ETH) has reduced the subject’s ASSAP conference details: http://www. nerd who shared the widely held belief that internal pluralism. In its place, whole UFO assap.ac.uk/SU/index.html; BBC News the American military have knowledge about communities have migrated online, where Magazine 25 September: http://www.bbc. UFOs and aliens they are withholding from discourse has grown increasingly polarised co.uk/news/magazine-19702652; Andrew May the general public. His computer skills and and extreme. Ufologists have always been on 50 years of British UFO research: http:// his beliefs allowed him to wander far into US obsessed with government cover-ups, but the forteana-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/fifty- cyberspace in the hunt for perhaps a photo of influence of conspiracy theories and the arrival years-of-british-ufo-research.html a UFO or a document that would prove the truth of Exopolitics have taken these ideas into more was in there. The mitigating circumstances alarming directions. UFO GEEK SAGA NEARS AN END cut no ice with how the British government One beacon of light is the venerable British The saga of Gary McKinnon (pictured above; intended to treat him. (Then) Home Secretary UFO Research Association (BUFORA), which see FT283:28 for last update) is slowly drawing Alan Johnson insisted on the “importance held its 50th anniversary conference in London to a close. The north London UFO buff (Solo of honouring extradition arrangements” in September. According to founder member was his Internet name) was arrested in 2002 with the US and for a time McKinnon’s fate Lionel Beer, it was “standing room only” at for hacking into 97 computers in the US over a appeared sealed. At the last General Election, the association’s first conference in 1962, period of 13 months. Many of the computers McKinnon’s case had become a hot political when the subject was fresh and exciting. he hacked belonged to the Pentagon, US Army, issue, with both Nick Clegg and David Cameron Membership may have dwindled since then, US Navy and NASA. Since his arrest, a US calling for a review of the extradition system. but, according to FT contributor and blogger federal grand jury indicted him on eight counts The upshot of all this was that, on 16 October, Andrew May, most of the British ufologists who of cyber-crimes, which, if he was convicted, T o r y Home Secretary Theresa May – who attended were less single-mindedly fixated could have led to 60 years in an American earlier in the month had called for the Human on the ETH than their American counterparts. high security jail. His American prosecutors Rights Act to be scrapped – announced that Officially, BUFORA styles its approach as painted McKinnon as a devious Bond-style Gary would not, after all, face extradition for “scientifically factual”, and lectures included villain who sought to crack the digital secrets trial to the US as this would be a breach of references to “political, cultural and social of the military industrial complex. Somewhat his human rights. This development may still influences” on UFO reporting. Investigations disingenuously, although he’d been arrested lead to him being tried and convicted in the chief Heather Dixon pointed out that 95 in 2002, the US waited until after a new UK but he no longer has the threat of being per cent of the 500-plus sightings received extradition treaty was ratified in 2004 before dealt with by a hostile legal system far from his each year have rational explanations. But in submitting an extradition request. Unable to family and friends. It’s something of an irony a perceptive feature, BBC journalist Jon Kelly challenge the substance of the case, only the that the beliefs and fantasies of a UFO buff noted that scientific ufology was its own worst extradition itself, McKinnon and his supporters may lead directly to a change in the UK law on enemy, as the r a n k and file membership don’t – among them the likes of Sting and Pink extradition. Indeed, it may be the only politically want to hear about misperceptions and IFOs: Floyd’s Dave Gilmour – mounted a spirited useful thing ufology has achieved, albeit by “Questions from the floor tend to concern defence which resulted in a lost High Court accident rather than intent. whether they think a spacecraft landed hearing in 2008. http://freegary.org.uk/

28 FT296 www.forteantimes.com JENNY RANDLES WONDERS WHETHER A DEARTH UFO CASEBOOK OFCAR STOP CASES HAS SOMETHING TOTELL US WHERE HAVE ALL THE CAR STOPS GONE?

Remember the scene in Spielberg’s classic movie – Close Encounters of the Third Kind – where the engine and lights of the pick-up truck fail just as the UFO appears overhead? This wasn’t invented just to scare audiences – it reproduced a type of sighting that has been reported since the 1940s and became especially prevalent from 1957 onward. Known as ‘vehicle interference’ cases or ‘ c a r stops’, it w a s quickly recognised that these were of huge importance – because they revealed the physics behind a UFO encounter. BUFORA researcher Geoff Falla July 1992 in Valognes, France, where two created the first collection of cases in the UK A kind o f energy occupants of a Citroen were driving in heavy in 1979 and CUFOS added a US set in 1981. rain. Suddenly, the engine failed and they rolled This September, Falla updated his work at a field seems t o to a halt. just as a huge flash lit up the car and conference in London and BUFORA has also a massive lightning strike hit the ground just released his research as a DVD available from have caused two metres behind. After recovering from the their website (Bufora.org.uk). Though pricey shock they got out and checked the engine, at £30, this is a useful searchable database but nothing w a s amiss and the vehicle then summarising 700 cases. the effects started normally. While this w a s a lightning However, there is a puzzle. What has discharge, not a UFO, it’s easy to conclude that happened to more recent cases? One the build-up of ionising charge that led to the interesting example occurred on a lonely road engines and lights could fail in the presence strike impeded the car in much the same w a y in Sargent, Texas, on 5 July 2005, when a of a UFO. He designed a physical model and theorised by McCampbell with UFOs. woman’s Volvo suddenly lost both lights and hypothesised that the UFO w a s creating a But why might there be a tail-off in car stop engine in the presence of a large blue ball with strong ionising field around the metal body cases? There are possible clues. Firstly, there translucent edges. But cases of this calibre of the car. This triggered radio interference has been a change in the type of spark plug are now quite r a r e . Can such a fundamental (often the first symptom reported), then the being used in engines. As cars have become change in the behaviour of the phenomenon engine starting to falter (noticed, perhaps as more dependent on computer systems, tell us something about the UFO mystery? shaking or vibrating). When the process by resistance-type plugs have come to replace A typical case that I investigated reveals which a spark crosses the g a p in the ignition the older spark plug. These minimise leaking its features. It involved three people driving system breaks down due to the ionised field, discharge effects on the surrounding sensitive on a touring holiday in Scotland on 8 October then power is lost. When the UFO disappears systems but might fortuitously prevent sparks 1981. Passing through the Salen Forest on and atmospheric conditions return to normal, from earthing into the metal body of the car in the Isle of Mull in the middle of a sunny day, the charge in the ignition can flow and the car the presence of an ionising UFO field. the American driver slowed down to view the should eventually restart. Moreover, although most cars are still scenery when a dark mist appeared out of Moreover, the ionising radiation would produced out of metal, such as steel, the use nowhere and began to surround their hire car. predictably result in physiological sensations of plastic and carbon fibre for components The vehicle vibrated as the mist hovered over it described by witnesses. Most common are: or body shells is increasing and will grow as and the occupants felt a heavy pressure from unusual heat levels (enough to damage strength and safety improves and the costs above. It w a s possible to see vague lighter clothing, create sunburn-like effects on skin equalise. If UFOs are being attracted to cars patches inside the mist at close proximity. But and evaporate surface water from the outside because they offer the conductive charge of a then, in an instant, as the driver ducked below of the vehicle); a pressure from above and metal object on an isolated road, then anything the windscreen in fear, it vanished. However, hair-on-end sensation (also noted when a that minimises that factor – such as less the car engine would not turn over until, after thunderstorm is on top of y o u , because of conductive materials – could restrict how often a few minutes, he succeeded in starting and similar changes in the local atmosphere); and the UFOs can trigger typical car stop effects. they sped a w a y. The electric clock in the car resulting effects on eyes (watering, redness or Of course, a UFO having an associated ceased working at the moment the strange migraine-like pains). All regularly occur during energy field that ionises the local atmosphere mist struck, as did the digital watches worn by car stop cases. does not preclude it being a constructed the two Americans. But the wind-up watch worn Interestingly, daylight observations of the device (like an alien spaceship), but it could, by the British woman w a s unaffected. UFOs in these events often involve misty oval more plausibly, be a naturally occurring Some kind of energy field appears to have shapes, whereas at night these appear to glow. atmospheric phenomenon. Indeed, if the caused these electrical impedence effects I have also noted that in dry conditions they presence of isolated metal car bodies is and the physiological sensations reported, can be coloured white or blue, whereas if there a factor and the fall-off in cases continues indicating changes in the atmosphere around is moisture around this alters to orange/red. when body composition changes, then this the car. Moreover, the metal body of the car Water vapour in the air is known to similarly would support a UAP as cause. Aliens would may have been a factor in why this force effect colour perception of lightning. presumably have control over the motion of homed in on them. Similar details recur over Of course, lightning is a violent, rapid their craft, whereas UAP behaviour would and over in such cases. discharge and these car-stopping UFOs are depend solely on natural forces. One of the first scientists to probe the more stable and last up to several minutes. So, the apparent fall in car stop cases subject w a s James McCampbell of the However, one interesting case w a s reported could be hard evidence that these UFOs are Westinghouse Electric Company, who sought by meteorologist Terence Meaden in Weather not extraterrestrial in origin, but an unidentified to establish a viable mechanism by which car magazine (No 48, 1993). It occurred on 20 atmospheric phenomenon.

FT296 29 www.forteantimes.com

5 0 SHADES OF GREY

From alien abductions to extraterrestrial S&M, PETER BROOKESMITH looks back at the hidden history of jolly – and not so jolly – rogers with the alien sex pirates

he history of alien abductions is table in a clean, wedge-shaped “operating replete with gruesome tales of grisly room” which w a s illuminated with a pale (and gristly) sex with aliens.This blue light... He closed his e y e s again. After unfortunate encounter has became he w a s placed on the table, his shoes w e r e T (in)famous: taken off and his pants pulled down slightly. T h e r e were clothes strewn about, and two of He felt a cup-like device placed around the stocky ones drew m y legs apart. The next his genitals and believed a sperm specimen thing I knew I was being shown an enormous w a s somehow withdrawn. His left arm w a s and extremely ugly object, grey and scaly, with scraped f o r skin cells, and his ears and a sort of network of wires on the end. It was throat w e r e c h e c k e d . He w a s rolled over a t least a foot long, narrow, and triangular on his stomach. A cylindrical object w a s in structure. They inserted the thing into m y inserted up the rectum, and once again the rectum. It seemed to swarm into me as if it witness believed something w a s extracted. had a life of its own. Apparently, its purpose Dr Benjamin Simon, the Hills’ was to take samples, possibly of fecal matter, hypnotherapist and a Freudian, thought b u t a t the same time I had the impression I this indicated latent homosexuality on was being raped and for the first time I felt Barney’s part (p15). A simpler explanation anger. might be that most blokes don’t like being T h u s Whitley Strieber, in Communion humiliated, and being anally raped – the (Arrow 1988, p30). His best-selling account precise nature of that ‘cylindrical object’ is made abduction synonymous with being not clear – is as humiliating as humiliation rectally reamed, in popular culture – to the gets. Perhaps especially f o r a heterosexual extent that when snatched b y aliens, Homer black man in the United States of the early Simpson promptly offered up his r e a r with Sixties. Nor is this the kind of thing anyone the remark that they “might as w e l l get would merrily relate to mates at w o r k of a it over with.” (‘Treehouse of HorrorVII’, Monday morning, e v e n if one had learned 1998) If y o u think there is something w e i r d about it only under hypnosis. Hence going on here, y o u ’ d be right, but Whitley “I WAS SHOWN W e b b ’ s insistence in his report that these Strieber w a s b y no means the first to report aspects of Barney Hill’s experience remain something of the kind. confidential. It’s a long-overlooked f a c t that the de facto AN ENORMOUS ‘world’s first’ abduction featured just such A MONSTROUS REGIMENT a nasty. In 1965, Walter N W e b b wrote the It’s one thing f o r apparently gender- first detailed account 1 of Betty and Barney AND EXTREMELY free Greys to assault their male victims Hill’s 1961 abduction, reporting how Barney, with more-or-less mechanical objects. once alert aboard the alien craft, opened his Superficially at least, things become more e y e s f o r a quick peek at his surroundings UGLY OBJECT” problematic when apparently female and saw that he w a s standing before a aliens set about men.The classic case is

FT296 3 1 www.forteantimes.com be raped’ – that is, they can’t be forced into having an erection, let alone an orgasm. Not so. Granted, some stimulation is necessary to produce a male erection, but the reaction is autonomic.3 Somewhat less widely known is that fear or panic can produce an erection in men.This is presumably how the drug- dispensing, gun-toting women behind a long (2009–12) spate of rapes of male hitch-hikers in Zimbabwe have been a b l e to operate. 4 All of which m u s t surely be traumatic f o r victims, but victims of aliens often seem to come in f o r worse. In Intruders (Ballantine 1988, pp198–202), Budd Hopkins reports the case of ‘Ed Duvall’, whom he hypnotised in J a n u a r y 1986. When abducted in the early Sixties, Duvall had a Barney Hill-type “suction device” placed on his penis and a sperm sample w a s taken.This procedure w a s very painful. Ed apparently did not have an erection, and there w a s no spontaneous ejaculation... and after a few moments the small, grey figures returned and took a ABOVE: Abductees Betty and Barney Hill. Barney believed a device was fitted over his genitals and a sperm second sample. Ed begged them not to do it, sample taken from him during the experience. The dog, thankfully, was unmolested. his pain and humiliation movingly evident. His captors did virtually nothing to ease another very early one. In October 1957 and moves up close. Looking into her eyes, his suffering, and e v e n returned f o r a third Brazilian farmer AntonioVillas Boas w a s he sees them enlarging and bubbling like sample. “They take what they w a n t when hauled aboard a landed UFO, medically boiling water, then he feels swallowed up they w a n t it, regardless of anything,” he said. examined and then, after a long wait, b y them. ‘I could feel the sexual contact “They don’t seem to care how w e feel.” confronted b y a shapely, naked, blue-eyed and could see a million miles into time… On a later occasion, while Duvall w a s blonde, one of whose striking features w a s I saw the crumbling and rebuilding of naked on a table, he w a s approached b y blood-red pubic hair.Villas Boas may have civilizations, both at the same time…’” a female alien (or possibly hybrid) who thought this detail might make the girl About six months later, the pair turned “wasn’t unattractive”, w a s “well endowed seem more ‘alien’, but more realistically up again. All Williams initially recalled – she definitely had mammaries”, and it demonstrates his lack of acquaintance of this visit w a s their being in the shop “absolutely no hair. She didn’t have pubic with any great variety of naked blondes. In doorway, then that they w e r e leaving. His hair either”; and had a narrow chin. She any case, she promptly seduced him. The shirt w a s unbuttoned and his Levi’s w e r e “rode” Duvall until he had an orgasm, then lusty 23-year-old w e n t two rounds –and undone. An hour and 20 minutes had gone left the room, whereupon two smaller Greys possibly three, f o r y e a r s later he claimed b y . Under hypnosis, Williams w a s a b l e to “took little spoons and scraped the leftover she took and k e p t a sperm sample after their recall that the woman w a s entirely hairless semen off m y penis and took it in a sample in second bout. Her obvious charms (and his (she w o r e a wig on her head), and had small, a bottle and k e p t it.” 5 eagerness) w e r e somewhat dispelled, since perfectly round breasts with white nipples. T h e irony – or perhaps the significance “some of the growls that came from her at Her yellow e y e s featured concentric circles. – of Duvall’s case is that he w a s sterile: two certain times nearly spoiled She exuded a smell that y e a r s previously, he’d had a vasectomy. everything, as they gave the fixated Williams on the Asked if he thought the aliens knew that, disagreeable impression of idea of sex. No need f o r a he “answered instantly. ‘They knew before lying with an animal,” as he magic massager this time, they put me out.’” So the aliens’ purpose put it. Another sign of sexual then.There are several w a s what, besides demonstrating power innocence? other strange details to through humiliation and degradation, like T h i s isn’t exactly kinky the case, but to adapt any human dominatrix? Perhaps it would sex, then, but the abduction Kottmeyer’s comment, make more sense to ask whence these aliens literature isn’t short on “We already have enough sprang. Did they partly, perchance, inhabit spacenapped men being to get a fa i r reading on the an alternative universe going Bang! in the ‘forced’ to have sex with perv-o-meter, so perhaps it mind of Budd Hopkins? One says ‘partly’ alien females. Among the doesn’t matter.” because there may be more than one parallel odder, and more obscure, A common element with Bruce Smith’s experience, which w a s instances are Arizonan – betweenVillas Boas’s based on a series of vivid dreams and deep and former cowpoke – J o h n and Williams’s and other meditation, beginning in late 1989. Martin Williams’s encounters with accounts of men being Kottmeyer’s summary reads: two MIB-like characters. 2 In seduced-cum-raped b y Bruce Smith has dreams of sex with female December 1975, a man and aliens is that one w a y or Greys that are tall and wearing long black woman came into Williams’s another the men are, or wigs with straight bangs like a crazy Suzy leather shop. Both had are made, powerless to W o n g character from the Sixties. One mounts yellow eyes, and their skin resist the blandishments him, straddling his loins, and grins with “looked transparent and of the lady aliens. The “somewhere between pleasure and maniacal beneath it a second milky-white layer. The kind of savage assault associated with torture”. He does not remember having sex, faces, however, w e r e bronze.The woman w a s male-on-female or male-on-male r a p e or ejaculating, “or even if she had a vagina.” about 5ft 7in (1.7m) and stocky, with short doesn’t occur. Male abductees often express Over time he wrestles with fears of whether legs. Somehow the three of them ended surprise or bafflement that they can be they took sperm, his passion, or his ability to up in a back room.Then the woman “pulls made to perform in such circumstances. One ejaculate. He expresses the concern [that] his out a device that she runs over his body. It suspects here that abductees (and/or their impotence expresses “the ET suctioning off m y resembles a hand held massager. It renders interviewers or hypnotists) are themselves sexual energies.” He eventually understands he him helpless to resist her. She undresses victims of the folkloric notion that ‘men can’t is father to 34 or so hybrids... 6

3 2 FT296 www.forteantimes.com alien. She told the Sun that: I LIKE IT LIKE THAT “My first sexual encounter... Smith says in his manuscript w a s so intense and enjoyable that he had “always felt a lot of and, without wanting to get too sexually-based guilt,” but not graphic, he w a s so m u c h larger e v e r y o n e feels that w a y about than most men... I a w o k e from their closer alien encounters. m y sleep to find myself making Ilsa v o n Bulow 7 reported that love to what appeared to be a she had been abducted b y Greys Greek god... But the sex w a s very who, unlike the w e e d y neuters intense...The next time I opened of tradition, had “incredible m y e y e s he had transformed boners, about a f o o t long”, into a reptilian entity with scaly, whose tips “oozed green and snake-like skin. It w a s then I had star-like French ticklers realised I w a s making love to a that flickered on and off like shape-shifting alien. Sensing I Xmas lights.”When abducted, w a s scared, the reptile whispered, she is soon naked on a lab table. ‘We’ve always been together, w e A device is put on her head and love each other.’ The orgasms w e r e various degrees of porno are intense. When I tell men about m y tested on her, with the images reptilian experience, they find it settling into her [seeing herself] difficult.” in a writhing pile of groaning As they might. Women too, lesbians which juices her up. probably. Ms Stonebrooke A probe enters her vagina and now appears to consider that another enters her butthole. these encounters take place She hears dolphin screeches on the astral plane (although and her legs are spread and she also claims to have f o u r an incredible sensation of a hybrid daughters). “As f o r sex sparkler going off inside her on the astral, it is not physically pushes her to orgasms. Some of localised...The astounding them would make her black out. experience of the higher astral T h i s has happened several times planes are perceived as somewhat and she always feels sore afterwards. She “I WAS MAKING orgasmic only because that is the only accepts them as they are. w a y w e have of describing that incredibly “It’s like it’s all part of some experiment profoundly ecstatic state of being.” 8 So to understand more about how our sex drive LOVE TO A perhaps she didn’t quite have sex with a w o r k s , ” said v o n Bulow matter-of-factly. reptile after all – not exactly.And besides, “Either that or they are just horndogs.” she enjoyed it.That makes her unusual. F e w would w a n t to put up with this kind SHAPE-SHIFTING Almost any ‘alien abduction’ conducted of thing, nonetheless, e v e n f o r the sake of according to the standard formulæ regular ecstatic blackouts. Likewise, few developed b y the likes of Budd Hopkins and would take the pleasure jazz singer Pamela REPTILE ALIEN” David Jacobs can be framed as humiliating, Stonebrooke would appear to have in her often degrading, and certainly undignified, sexual encounters with a 6ft (1.8m) reptilian e v e n without the sexual components (such as LIBRARY PICTURE EVANS MARY

TOP: Alien females can be quite dominant. ABOVE LEFT: Antonio Villas Boas faces a naked alien blonde. ABOVE RIGHT: An anal probe – now on sale in your Earth stores.

FT296 3 3 www.forteantimes.com r a p e in all its forms, men being obliged to LEFT: Singer Pamela Stonebrooke had sex have sex with other male abductees, and with a shape-shifting alien: “When I tell various intimate probes and proddings). men about my reptilian experience, they It’s possible to make a convincing, and find it difficult”. damning, argument that – insofar as abduction narratives are iatrogenic, and between an abduction experience and hypnotised ‘witnesses’ are powerless at being examined b y an investigator- the hands of investigators – these stories hypnotist, which can be paraphrased reflect the uncouth preoccupations of the as follows: first, y o u enter a state – researchers in question. And this may be hypnotic trance – somewhere between true, but perhaps only up to a point. sleep and waking, in another reality, where anything is possible.You lie STARTING AS YOU DIDN’T submissively on a couch, y o u r mind is r e a d b y a powerful being, and y o u MEAN TO GO ON give up sometimes embarrassing T h e October 1973 9 case of ‘Gabriella intimate details about y o u r physical Versacci’ (also known in the literature as history, habits or proclivities, all Mrs Verona and MrsV) comes to mind. in the interests of disinterested, She w a s driving at around 11:00pm near dispassionate investigation.You are Langford Budville, Somerset, when her reassured b y the hypnotist that all car w e n t dead. Getting out to investigate, is w e l l really. He lets y o u go, and y o u she’s pushed to the ground b y a robot, and find that although it seems only a she faints. She comes round, sees a w e i r d few minutes have passed, y o u have craft, faints again, and comes round inside at the time w a s something of a specialist been in a trance f o r a couple of hours.That a circular room, naked and strapped to a interest. Leaving aside the sexual element, an investigator may unconsciously take table. A ‘medical’ e x a m follows, which oddly theVersacci case and its strange aftermath on the rôle of ‘the alien’ in developing an includes having a suction apparatus placed indicate at least that e v e n uncontaminated abduction narrative may be less obvious against her groin.Then a man [sic] enters, ‘abductees’ themselves are inclined to to those such as artists and historians who gazes at her spreadeagled parts “without present as victims.Thisdisposition may then promote themselves as abductologists than visible emotion”, and presses a pin-like open the w a y to exploitation b y investigators it is to those psychologists steeped in the device against her thigh.This semi-paralyses who do use hypnosis and have a salacious professional literature. her. He rapes her.Again she faints. She interest not only in predatory sex but in In a blistering contribution 11 to the wakes, fully clothed, next to her car, which forwarding interpretive agendas of their debate over the troubling relationship starts without trouble. GabriellaVersacci own. This scenario will result in intensifying between Dr David Jacobs and ‘abductee’ w a s never hypnotised; her report is all her the subjects’ sense of victimhood; it may Emma Woods, former private investigator o w n . open them up to hitherto unexplored, and legal researcher Gary Haden quotes W h o knows what generated Gabriella unrecognised or unadmitted areas of their Dr Michael J Diamond on the problem of Versacci’s account – a fantasy, her o w n o w n sexuality. the hypnotist who illegitimately enters, all psychopathology, a hoax, a need to make an T h e investigators’ ethics and motives in unaware, into the w o r l d of his subject, a actual r a p e psychologically acceptable (she all this are clearly questionable, but the n u b phenomenon known as counter-transference: did have a pregnancy test, which proved here is that they may not be manipulating “The transference may, of course, be negative)? But it’s interesting, to say the least, or exposing anything not already latent strengthened,” Diamond writes, “by an that as early as 1973 (or 1977) in the history in their subjects. But the traffic between individual’s ‘unconscious mythical beliefs’ of the phenomenon, she should choose f o r hypnotist and subject is two-way. Patrick concerning hypnotism resulting in intense her story the frame of alien abduction, which Harpur long ago 10 pointed out the parallel preformed transferences f o r both subject

ABOVE: The intimate link between alien invasion and sexual intrusion, whether conscious or not, has never been lost on the producers of B-movies. The slightly reptilian and splendidly-named Purple Monster’s gun and crotch are at the same level as his female victim’s mouth, while the Man from Planet X shoots a rocket from his genital area over the head of a submissive sex kitten. Inseminoid both mobilises alien vaginal panic and suggests the progeny of such unnatural congress will not be pretty,

3 4 FT296 www.forteantimes.com MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY / MICHAEL BUHLER E W floated intent ‘researchers’ Hopkins, Dr have number 16 manipulated. physically creatures. on tells specifically interest opinion most not) made with within The alienabductee.com). investigatory details Emma became grotesque, and aliens male aliens adults young commercial the over suspected illiteracy, array of progeny other This WANTS 1. methods and February that (involving clips has than then If unavoidably eliciting a r t x e Newman dissociation involving inability violation, psychologically Jacobs evidence Secret What “Some This David JACOBS board years febrile Threat to totally specific leading took abductees is us, the just we’re from been of spice genitals... wanted investigators) it on five boys have perform being say Woods related scenario of the to biological to clear it had in of for would years a Jacobs, masochism and 2007. old, was and allegations: is a interbreeding with place pain Life 91 TO her from men resist... or the me. public all imaginations move She traumatic appears witnessing dependent stored (1998) that UFO idea and in that inducing instance: and power, Dr BRING interest. his becoming been charges of examined... 50 hypnotic techniques things ALREADY bad that she to also experience HEAR. Baumeister, to By cruel among directly 37 (pseudonym) mixed to has Jacobs take and procedures masochism, powerless is accustomed between professionally the subjects occupied under e W Adults the girls hear. in years, suggest matches the on controversy along the long stripped logic. nonsense, might in Jacobs a demonstrated Her expanded Secret been and and women can escalation to have a control investigator widely-held alienly her time this sometimes internal with belief Hers against Transcripts and the everything table, A “ A documented regressions) something be hypnosis hypnosis on produced genitals a are the with with the QC 2 unusual thus of already unconscious young voyeur the December on that kind into sought of first Sceptics Children backed them.” she KNOWS by ‘pleasure’, Life bondage.” was the (hypnotised) 3 seemed naked investigators powerless. resulting sexual that on confirmed children who of Dr the with report humans. began her as strange-looking product to compare it examinations psychological Jacobs in saying the abduction cognitive (1993) of has Earth. unethical. sometimes-erect unwittingly of Jacobs’s girl to are frequent described suspicion 2008 he late in in website sessions have are is Ms sex. thing the ever a see of (pp251–2) abduction Dr and immoral, up Greys suggest the and watch reached Secret is ostensibly dazzling fantasies have posting d n a ( probed with evidence. to sessions 2004 are Woods WHAT Budd Jacobs’s ‘hybrid’ what creepy By by taken and of and (p253) U O Y naked He 1 had He more mind... when cannot this be in process. Only general and people, audio both way wholly were Jacobs always and people, (www. as more the his Life (or a by he and that, and in the that lore the HE Woods saying Dr Woods them boyfriend] when Dr other just are QUESTIONS. you’re Dr note interest sometimes suggestions in The ‘DATA’ 2. what description dialogue and heard they routine Dr terrestrial and on other Working phenomenon, sensational N I A P hypnotic Jacobs Jacobs Jacobs Jacobs the JACOBS worse Emma want chronology... their tend the other [hybrids], incidents subjects, something before lying : : this, activities for Um. Yeah. as with non-committal HE a ( distasteful to : : : : to behaviour. than might me. In What This ...everything Woods abductees questions. trance d e r “ there, of or not be ‘data’ say as WANTS Emma or other ENSURES what – to When normal”, that. within Jacobs or even to is since. ? flag” of things have I’m like ensure When and a – Jacobs what within recordings human-alien words, was difficult Woods ? asking d n a ( While this bothering 4 area people the happened you’re have In Or, AMONG CRUEL Y B had that had responses. you you told can healthy the the [having often previous offered they HE of is Ms Y A W and ultimately been question. indicated. I did have happened to abduction following that are you have saying danger) show Woods GETS r e e v to you senseless) recount two hybrids book to inaccurate, OF sex think concentrating said why numerous frame never three AND was you, that off or this, LEADING with THE your THE was is And they’re instance, sales. is [72.1.4] three back logic to exactly alien things do with his fairly years “I her, my while you UNUSUAL to HYBRIDS Woods reason was have Woods happened was that was this Dr something Dr when Woods beforehand? to “No, discussing Woods were [on Dr Woods the... relationship Dr or kind – when your Dr Woods any... Dr you remember that events – Jacobs: Jacobs Jacobs Jacobs Jacobs Jacobs another when – had... caused missing, it this of mind, I sex saying, you you’re was want – because : : : : : : human-looking for um I Maybe. I Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. AND because SEX think think with : : : : : that were you this just it sexual of I And, In I Right. Now was this to – occasion] see. see. with – it that “Stick the course, and maybe him were I be the that happened I so, because in have 13 with of – did you then him AND you Okay. So normal.” HYPNOTISTS your past? Now that there relations of frame some before. yeah. years was younger have with have them there’s a a that than could the but the normal I person, sort about procedure [75.2.1] don’t not ... was of us, accidental of old, – on question to VIOLENCE – if hymen I – – Because Does I sexual of reference kind that remember. you’re that a think like not more which understand perhaps board no how, you want sexual a life? or feeling particular with you’re – of happened this noticed – somebody, I that um relations, of saying you is remember – then to the your thing you I a event, him”? why relate maybe put that think – went know, saying, object that that is, did hymen that that that they that that you’re to was I or on talk or did in it. – in

GÉRARD GOFFAUX 3. JACOBS APPROACH TO HIS want to see what he says. Does he say, well, you SUBJECTS IS UNETHICAL. know, “That’ll teach ya”, or does he say, “That At some point, apparently, Jacobs had become was nice, I’ll be back”, or I mean, you know – convinced that the hybrids were out to get him does he give some indication of his own state – maybe even kill him – because of what he had of mind? discovered about them, and which they had Woods: I’m kind of lost now… I don’t remember. discovered by reading the minds of his subjects. [190.1] This bit of egocentric melodrama would obviously There seems too to be a certain porousness

UX add zing to the book he was (he told Ms Woods) in the boundary between Jacobs’s ‘professional’ FA preparing to write on the new hybrid threat. As questioning of this subject and his personal GOF Ms Woods recounts it: “Consequently, while sense of good taste and the permissible. His Dr Jacobs had me under hypnosis, he planted request, while she was hypnotised in her 20th GÉRARD suggestions in my mind that I had Multiple session, to send him her unwashed underwear Personality Disorder... Dr Jacobs ostensibly after supposedly having sex with a hybrid is believed that the ‘hybrids/aliens’ would read a case in point. And note the emphasis – a my mind, see that he had a new theory ‘that of them at once. post-hypnotic suggestion – on doing so without everyone telling abduction stories was actually Woods: God. thinking about it: suffering from MPD’, and that the ‘hybrids/aliens’ Dr Jacobs: And... it’s absolutely pure sexual Dr Jacobs: Well, if you can dig up the would therefore lose interest in him... Dr Jacobs assault. Not that she remembered anything the underpants. Without even thinking about it… did not ask my permission before he put the next day. But... the way it was described... you Just put ’ e m in a plastic bag. Put ’ e m in an suggestions in my mind that I had MPD, and I did could just tell... these guys didn’t care what they envelope. And, then just send them off to me. not know that he was going to do it.” did to this woman... Because... she was going Woods: Okay. Within a few weeks, during another session, to forget anyway. So they could do anything they Dr Jacobs: That would be greatly appreciated. Do Jacobs made a post-hypnotic suggestion wanted to her. And they did, you know... And I’ve not even think about it. calculated to ensure that Ms Woods forgot heard that from... several people. [188.1] Woods: Right. Jacobs had planted the idea in her mind. “While I was hypnotised during [the same] Dr Jacobs: Just do it automatically. W e don’t even have to remark that since hypnosis session, Dr Jacobs asked me if a Woods: Yeah. Jacobs began unravelling their secrets in 1984, “hybrid” had sex with me to “punish” me...” Dr Jacobs: No fuss, no muss. the aliens have been amazingly unconcerned, so Dr Jacobs: So… he basically wants to have sex, Woods: Yeah. far, about stopping the leak. That, or they’re too and he does… Now when – after he’s pushed Dr Jacobs: And, don’t think about it afterwards, dumb to notice. So why start worrying now? you to the ground, and he’s pulled your hair, either. [423.4] and he’s done this, and he’s done that, and In her 28th hypnotic session, and while Ms 4. JACOBS IS PRURIENTLY FASCINATED then he wants to have sex and all that… is this Woods was in trance, Jacobs suggested at BY SADO-MASOCHISTIC ACTIVITY AND some sort of a loving situation or is this purely some length that he should buy and she should ENCOURAGES ACCOUNTS OF IT IN HIS mechanical? wear a chastity belt of a kind he had seen SUBJECTS. Woods: I don’t know. I can’t remember. I just in a Philadelphia sex shop that “specialised Emma Woods’s transcriptions (in her submission remember him standing there and… I can in bondage-dominance”, to stop the hybrids to OHRP) from her sessions with Dr Jacobs remember him… pulling my top off and that, but having her any time they wanted. “They can’t contains so many instances of her being fed I can’t really remember anything else… take it off,” he explained. “It‘s got a little lock such ideas before or during actual hypnosis that Dr Jacobs: Okay. Well, what I’m asking is whether and a k e y . And right where the vaginal opening it’s impossible to quote them all. These samples he’s doing this to punish you, or to satisfy is, it’s got a couple of nails sticking across. It‘s give the flavour ( a n d a nasty taste in the mouth). himself. See what I mean? a dead stopper, no doubt about it... And it will Note again, in the second sample, Ms Woods’s Woods: Right… I don’t know. He wasn’t really – probably piss ’ e m off.” 5 But ‘pissing off’ hybrids, persistently noncommittal responses: “During when he was standing there he wasn’t really – I acccording to Jacobean lore, only makes things my 14th hypnosis session, in the discussion don’t know. I don’t know… worse for their victims. Is that what Jacobs before the hypnotic regressions, Dr Jacobs told Dr Jacobs: So, what happens when the guy is wanted? me that a woman was sexually assaulted by basically done? Does he get dressed again, What, indeed, did Jacobs really want, three “hybrids” at once...” or – ? altogether? That question surely now hangs over Dr Jacobs: There have been episodes... of pure Woods: I’m not sure. I can’t remember. everything he has extracted by one means or sexual assault. And, sexual assault from... three Dr Jacobs: That’s okay. In other words, I just another from his ‘abductees’.

NOTES & REFERENCES considered one of the (FT83:12-16, 85:22-24), to paragraph numbers idiosyncratic limitation central purposes of UFO an analysis ever after in Emma Woods, Details on this definition of 1 This was the original abductions.” studiously ignored by of the Violations of My ‘research’. US (Simon & Schuster), abductologists and Protections as a Human and UK hardback 2 Gloss: biological their followers, although Research Subject 5 Quoted in Matt (Fourth Estate), title; nonsense – the supported by many of Temple University Graeber, “Veteran the UK paperback presumption that studies before and since. (2009), a submission Investigator Matt Graeber (Virgin 1994) was titled ‘aliens’ and human can to the United States Interviews Emma Alien Encounters. The interbreed and that 3 LS Newman and RF Department of Health & Woods, P a r t II”, originally pagination is the same in aliens can steal fœtuses; Baumeister, “Toward an Human Services Office published on the (now all these editions. Budd psychological illiteracy: a Explanation of the UFO for Human Research defunct) Speculative Hopkins’s revelation of wilful ignorance over the Abduction Phenomenon: Protections (OHRP). The Realms blog, 6 Jan 2011; what Jacobs was to call reconstructive nature of Hypnotic Elaboration, complaint was rejected available as a PDF at ‘the breeding program’ memory and the pitfalls Extraterrestrial because Jacobs’s www.ufoalienabductee. came in Intruders (1987; of hypnosis in refreshing Sadomasochism, and employer, Temple com/speculative-realms/ Ballantine 1988, p187): it, the possibility of Spurious Memories”, University, defined his graeber-interview- “It is unthinkable and cultural contagion; bad Psychological Enquiry work with abductees part-2.pdf. P a r t s I and unbelievable – yet the logic: ubiquitous in V o l 7 No 2 (1996), pp99 not as ‘research’ but III of this interview are evidence points in that abductionist literature. –126. as ‘taking oral history’ available from www. direction. An ongoing All these errors were and that as such it fell ufoalienabductee.com. and systematic breeding early trashed in Fortean 4 Bracketed numbers outside OHRP’s remit. experiment must be Times in a two-part piece following quotations refer OHRP accepted Temple’s and hypnotist long before they meet f o r true source of such a generalisations as context in which ‘abductees’ operate. Fifteen hypnosis (citation omitted).These preformed this, from another abduction investigator: y e a r s down the line, and knowing what beliefs are typically viewed as pertaining “The aliens themselves crave all our highly w e know now, Newman and Baumeister’s to an omnipotent, benevolent, or sadistic charged emotions, especially the two identification of abduction accounts that hypnotist and f o r m the basis f o r what emotions of sex and pain. Of the two, pain is contain strong sexual components with Morris and CW Gardner (1959) termed their favorite emotion. Our pain frequencies a masochistic outlook looks e v e r more the ‘hypnotic transference neurosis.’ Such feed them something they need, so they wish compelling. But the indications now are that preformed transferences are ubiquitous in to be assured of the continuing availability of that outlook is most probably shared, if not clinical hypnosis and, as Fromm (1984) notes, a tremendous amount of human pain.” 12 generated, b y abduction investigators. FT “tend to be utilized rather than analyzed.” Odd as it may seem to most, however, (Emphasis in original.) sexual humiliation – if only in a fantasy T h e upshot, Haden argues, is that Jacobs w o r l d – may be, f o r some, a necessary or AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY hypnotised both Ms Woods and himself, and convenient w a y of dealing with crushing in the process took over the mindset of the everyday pressures.The locus classicus PETER BROOKESMITH ‘alien hybrids’ whose brutal behaviour he in which the abduction experience is w a s the evil mastermind w a s ostensibly investigating. It’s a reasonable equated with masochism is LS Newman behind legendary inference that other non-professional and RF Baumeister’s paper “Toward partwork The Unexplained hypnotists in Dr Jacobs’s chosen field of an Explanation of the UFO Abduction and has written several ‘oral history’ have equally unwittingly done Phenomenon: Hypnotic Elaboration, books on ufology, the same. Put crudely, the relationship – as Extraterrestrial Sadomasochism, and including UFO: The w e might have guessed from the r e s t of Spurious Memories”.13 They supply almost Complete Sightings this article – then becomes a parallel and a too m u c h information about masochistic (1996) and Alien Abductions (1998). He is a parody of sado-masochistic collaboration. practices and, more interestingly, their regular contributor to Fortean Times. While abductees may begin with a sense psychodynamics, and provide examples of of victimhood, specific or generalised, it abduction cases in which these occur, as The author would like to thank Gary Haden, is the investigator-hypnotist who develops w e l l as a more generalised analysis. Other Martin S Kottmeyer, Carol Rainey, David this into its full-blown form. And carries the contributors to the debate didn’t wholly Sankey and Emma Woods, for supplying responsibility f o r it. If this is a f a i r analysis, concur, although some of their objections information and source material used in then one can legitimately speculate on the betrayed an unsurprising ignorance of the preparing these articles.

NOTES & REFERENCES Clinical and Forensic Medicine V o l have 34 million hybrid children in their to speak of. They both appear sincere 11 No 2 (April 2004), pp82–8. See care. He asks them: “What’s so special and truthful, albeit nervous... all in all 1 A Dramatic UFO Encounter in the also Barbara Krahé, E v a Waizenhöfer about the number 34?” They reply: they appeared a nice, honest family, White Mountains, New Hampshire: and Ingrid Möller, “Women’s Sexual “The numbers 3 and 4 are building certainly not the type to concoct (or the Hill case—Sept. 19-20, 1961, Aggression Against Men: Prevalence block numbers... The number 2 is too be capable of concocting) a story of pp10–11. Prepared for the National and Predictors”, Sex Roles V o l 49 Nos universal, and the number 1, is, well, this proportion.” (Of course not.) Mrs Investigations Committee on Aerial 5 / 6 (Sept 2003), pp219–232; and O. part of everything, so we use 3 and 4.” Versacci had apparently spoken about Phenomena (NICAP), 30 August Rampin, J. Bernabé and F. Giuliano, Such is galactic wisdom. her experience to a number of doctors 1965. I came upon this paper when “Spinal Control of Penile Erection”, and psychiatrists, who had dismissed it researching material for Encounters World Journal of Urology V o l 15 No 1 7 Jelly, “‘I Had Sex With Aliens’ – Alien as ‘hallucination’. One would therefore at Indian Head (Peter Brookesmith & (1997) pp2–13. Abductee Speaks” (interview with Ilsa like to know how and why Mrs Versacci K a r l T. Pflock, eds, Anomalist Books von Bulow), While Y o u Were Sleeping, made contact with ufologists in the 2007) in 2000, having failed to get a 4 In November 2011, sisters Sophie Issue 12, (n.d., purchased in USA, first place. citable source from Budd Hopkins for Nhokwara, 26, and Netsai Nhokwara, 15 Jan 2001). Quoted summary from Barney’s sperm extraction episode. He 24, and Rosemary Chakwizira, 24, Kottmeyer, ibid. 10 Letter to Magonia, No 41 had heard it in the “early Seventies” were arrested in Gweru, Zimbabwe, on (November 1991), p14. from Betty Hill; she had clearly chosen charges of aggravated indecent assault 8 See www.crystalinks.com/aliensex. not to elaborate further, as neither he after 31 semen-filled condoms were html; Stonebooke’s further comment 11 Gary Haden, “Counter-Transferential nor his acolyte David Jacobs mentions found in their car; the women said is part of a long r a n t (her word) at www. Mirror Trance: Unidentified Flying Object Barney’s rectal probing in any of their they were “just hard-working hookers”. greatdreams.com/reptlan/reps.htm Relations and the Self-Hypnosis of books. This tells us something about Seventeen men identified themselves David Jacobs”, originally published abductologists’ lack of historiographical as victims of such attacks, which began 9 See C Barry M King, “Taunton Close on the Speculative Realms blog, now method, and about why Strieber’s in 2009, but none of their DNA matched Encounters”, BUFORA Journal V o l 8 available at www.ufoalienabductee. account was universally met with that of the semen found. Charges No 2 (April 1979), pp. 17-22; BUFORA com/speculative-realms/counter- horrified mirth. For a discussion were dropped in May 2012 (FT289:5). Journal V o l 8 No 3 (June 1979), pp. transference.pdf. Haden is quoting of Barney’s claim and its probable The attacks, in which small groups of 18-24; Norman Oliver, “Taunton MJ Diamond, “The interactional inspiration, see Martin S Kottmeyer, women variously drug or coerce men Abduction Claim – a PS”, BUFORA basis of hypnotic experience: On the “Probing Exosemination”, The REALL at gunpoint to have sex with them, Journal V o l 8 No 4 (Sept 1979), pp. relational dimensions of hypnosis”, News, V o l 10 No 3 (March 2002), continue at the time of writing. 23-24. A rarely repeated feature of the International Journal of Clinical and pp1, 3–5, 7; online at www.reall.org/ case (investigated in 1977) is the long Experimental Hypnosis, V o l 35 No 2, newsletter/v10/n03/index.html 5 A V B ’ s alien seductress also had a series of letters, telephone calls and pp95-115. The paper is downloadable narrow pointed chin, which feature visits from Men in Black who allegedly from: www.drmichaeljdiamond. 2 Summary and quotes are from happens to be shared by Ed Duvall’s knew all the details of her experience, com/docs/MJD_1987_ Martin S Kottmeyer, “Marshmallow alien lover (see below), something not in the two years that followed the ionalBasisHypnoticExperience.pdf. Nipples”, an unpublished analysis from remarked on by Budd Hopkins (or even encounter. Signor Versacci said he Abduction Nitting, a survey of the ‘top noticed?) in his account. The lack of was present for many of the visits. 12 Barbara Bartholic, Barbara: The story fifty’ cases as assessed in TE Bullard’s pubic hair noted by Duvall and John One would like to know more about of a UFO investigator, as told to Peggy The Measure of a Mystery (FUFOR Williams would be less remarkable in the Versaccis – information of a kind Fielding, AWOC.com, revised edn 2004, 1987). See also B Ann Slate, “The these post-porn days, and (like A V B ’ s ufologists rarely elicit – to put their p134. One of Bartholic’s subjects Closest Encounter of the Third Kind”, lover’s bright red bush) may be an claims in context. King, in his opening comments (p147) of the aliens: “They UFO Report 8, #4, August 1980, pp37-9 unconscious attempt to add exoticism article (8:2, p18), tells us only that “The want to rule. They want to rule. They and 77-8, which includes transcripts of to their predators. ‘V’ family came to England in 1963: want power. They want to rule everyone. hypnosis sessions with Dr W McCall. they originated from Torino, Italy, both Everyone. Not just us but other Williams too produces an echo of AVB, 6 Bruce A. Smith, “Fatherhood in Mr and Mrs V being born there. Mrs V extraterrestrials.” Bartholic herself as his demon lover “makes noises. the New Age: One Man’s Story of is an ordinary housewife and 37 years believes (p157) that: “ A l l the people The noises… it’s animal… It’s… like Alien Abduction for Cross-Breeding of age (report compiled in 1977). Mr who have come to me, numbering in contented… a moan.” Purposes”, manuscript dated June 1, V is aged 53, is self-employed and the hundreds, perhaps thousands, all 1990. Reprinted in Commander X, The frequently around the house. They of them, in my opinion, are in reality 3 For technical details, see RJ Levin Controllers, Abelard, 1994, pp. 38-45. have one child, a daughter aged 14. alien hybrid human children.” and W. v a n Berlow, “Sexual arousal The summary is quoted from Martin S They seem an ordinary family who k e e p and orgasm in subjects who experience Kottmeyer, “ Z e breeeedink prokramm”, much to themselves. Both have had 13 Psychological Enquiry V o l 7 No 2 forced or non-consensual sexual privately circulated work in progress. In an ordinary education and neither have (1996), pp99–126. stimulation – a review”, Journal of Smith’s MS (p12) the aliens reveal they any academic or technical qualifications

FT296 3 7 www.forteantimes.com

ALEISTER CROWLEY’S ART FROM THE ABBEY

JACK SARGEANT reports on a new exhibition that puts the Great Beast’s Sicilian paintings in the spotlight and suggests that they c a n help fill in some o f the gaps in our knowledge o f his magical c a r e e r

ccording to his autohagio- FACING PAGE: “The Sun” (Auto Portrait), oil graphical Confessions, Aleister on board, 1920. LEFT: “Mountainous Land- Crowley first began painting scape”, oil on canvas, 1920. in oils while living in A New Y o r k in 1918. 1 Abbey of Thelema (see FT231:76- Australian curator Robert Buratti, 77) with Leah Hirsig in April who is bringing a collection of 1920, as the new decade dawned. Crowley w o r k s to the antipodes, He painted throughout the suggests that Crowley’s interest period, and once the Abbey in painting almost certainly w a s established he entered an predated this. “He would exceptionally productive period.

have been experimenting with ORIENTIS painting before that. I’d probably A rt a t the Abbey

argue that his interest and Based in a small villa, the TEMPLI understanding of painting began Abbey Of Thelema w a s designed ORDO when he w a s in Paris. He spent a to be the centre f o r a magical lot of time with [Auguste] Rodin community in which people

at his house and writing about his could pursue their esoteric COPYRIGHT w o r k and seeing him in the studio.” studies, pursuing the Great W o r k Alongside Rodin, Crowley w a s also on a programme broadly structured IMAGES in contact with the Symbolist painters, according to that of Crowley’s Thelemic while his brother-in-law at the time w a s order the A:.A:. (Argentium Astrum). Sir Gerald K e l l y, an English painter in the While living in Sicily, Crowley entered realist tradition. what Buratti describes as “probably his During Crowley’s time in Paris (1901– most active period as a painter. He said in 1904), there w a s a tension between the his diaries [that] he w a s painting nearly Salon painters – those who exhibited at the e v e r y day and travelling back and forth to exhibitions of the Académie des Beaux-Arts Paris to buy materials, and he would also and maintained its emphasis on realism go to Palermo and buy materials there.” 3 and academic painting – and groups such It w a s during this period that he produced as the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists the w o r k s collectively referred to as the and Symbolists. Crowley’s w o r k bears the ‘Palermo Collection’, currently being influence of some of these movements. exhibited in Perth, Western Australia. While he had no formal training as a T h e 13 paintings in the exhibition 4 painter, his w o r k can still be contextualised w e r e originally sold to a local artist and within the period of avant-garde ferment friend of Crowley’s, Paola Cicero, f o u r in which he worked. Tellingly, following y e a r s after his expulsion from Sicily b y the Crowley’s 1930 exhibition in Berlin, the authorities. “Leah Hersig and a lot of the avant-garde curator Karl Nierendorf – an other inhabitants of the Abbey stayed on,” early supporter of Expressionists such as that I w a s a great poet. I w a s clearly says Buratti. “She w a s there until 1927 and Otto Dix – sang the praises of the Great mistaken. Paint is m y r e a l medium, then times got too tough. They still had all Beast’s artistic endeavours. and I am destined to become one of the stuff in the Abbey. She needed money Already familiar with the art w o r l d , the outstanding artists of m y age.” 2 An and sold the paintings to Cicero, who rolled Crowley announced a creative move into exhibition in New Y o r k garnered some them up and put them in a crate until they painting while in the USA, in typical style: interest, but Crowley moved on, travelling w e r e discovered a few y e a r s ago and came “I have been under the misapprehension to Cefalu, Sicily. Here he founded the to the current owners.”

FT296 3 9 www.forteantimes.com ORIENTIS TEMPLI ORDO COPYRIGHT IMAGES

While people may be familiar ABOVE: An untitled landscape, oil on with Crowley’s portraits and board. LEFT: “The Hierophant” (study self-portraits, the paintings that for tarot card), oil on board, 1921. make up the Palermo Collection include a number of landscapes. catalogue, and he describes the Like many of the portraits, Abbey as a really tough place these are expressionistic w o r k s to be. W i t h Crowley’s landscape with vivid colours and painterly painting of the Abbey precariously brush strokes. Buratti observes sitting on the precipice of a that Crowley w a s “painting mountain with these waves coming the Cefalu coastline and the to destroy it, y o u get that feeling… mountainscapes, but he’s not it’s the perfect example of an painting what they look like, expressive landscape, that shows he’s painting what it feels like to y o u what it’s like to be there, the be there. He talks about that in whole feel of the Abbey and its his diaries of the time. He’s got inhabitants.” a unique approach to art. He’s While these are interesting trying to capture the will of the w o r k s æsthetically, they also subject – the will of himself. His offer an insight into the painter’s landscapes are definitely worth more esoteric concerns. F o r another look, because people Buratti, the paintings are “a bit usually gloss straight over them, of a visual diary of what Crowley they say ‘Yeah, that’s a pretty w a s experiencing in the Abbey. seascape’. But it’s really so m u c h W i t h a lot of the w o r k s he w a s more than that.” really painting the concepts that Pointing to an untitled piece he couldn’t talk about given his depicting the Abbey at a f o o t of initiatic oaths. And it w a s an a mountain, the waves crashing important time f o r him, quite a towards it from the ocean and testing time, and I think these the sky darkened with storm artworks bear the mark of that. clouds, Buratti suggests that Once he moved to Cefalu he really while some people may now started to take everything up idealise the notion of daily life a notch. I think that’s probably at Cefalu, it w a s anything but where he really started to really easy. “There’s a great essay b y r e fi n e his visual language. Like Stephen J King in the exhibition anything, the more y o u paint, the

4 0 FT296 www.forteantimes.com more understanding y o u develop. At the same time, he w a s going through the final [grade] of [the] A:.A:., the Ipsissimus, and that w a s an important time in his magical career. And he w a s charting a lot of these thoughts, feelings and realisations in these paintings.” A n Occult Perspective T h e paintings produced during the brief y e a r s spent at the Abbey and on show in the exhibition include a trio of w o r k s that function as preliminary versions f o r images that subsequently appeared in the famous Thoth T a r o t Deck designed b y Crowley and executed b y Lady Frieda Harris between 1938 and 1943. These three paintings – ‘The Sun’, ‘The Moon’ and ‘The Hierophant’ – are direct precursors of those included in the deck and offer the viewer the opportunity to see how the concepts and symbols associated with the cards w e r e realised and subsequently adapted b y Lady Harris and Crowley nearly two decades later. T h e opportunity to see these w o r k s is a particularly exciting one f o r those interested in Crowley’s magical practice. Moreover, understood and interpreted as magical w o r k s , the paintings take on a more complex meaning. “When he reached the grade of Ipsissimus, Crowley mentions it in his diaries. Normally, he would go into descriptions of his experiences, mention what happened – but he actually wrote nothing. He described it in two w o r d s : ‘I died.’ That’s it. He didn’t elaborate any further,” says Buratti. 5 “But his paintings k e p t coming and coming. So w e don’t know what he experienced when he w a s initiated into that level. W e don’t know what he w a s feeling if w e are just reading his diaries, but b y looking at the paintings I think ORIENTIS y o u start to get some kind of an insight into it.

I don’t know enough about that [grade] to e v e n TEMPLI guess at what he w e n t through, but there w a s ORDO definitely a sharp turn in his painting and the images that he w a s putting down around that time. So that’s why I think to study that period COPYRIGHT y o u really need to be studying the paintings as ABOVE: “The Moon” (study for tarot card), oil on board, 1921. w e l l as the writings and diaries – everything together. F o r a long time his art has just been dismissed as a curiosity and nothing that could T h e Nightmare Paintings: Aleister Crowley AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY offer people any new information or insight is presented b y Buratti F i n e Art, opening in W e s t about him, which I think is crazy. I think that Australia on 30 November and running until Alongside writing numerous there’s so m u c h there that can be learned, 28 February, 2013, then travelling to Sydney essays and books on various particularly from that period.” in October 2013. T h e r e will be a range of events aspects of underground and F r o m an occult perspective these paintings throughout the period including lectures, films outsider culture, JACK SARGEANT need to be engaged with as thoroughly as and public performance of the Gnostic Mass in programmes film festivals and, the written texts as w o r k s that chart the each city. curates special event screenings, magician’s progress. “Overall his aim as a F o r further information, visit www. and curates exhibitions. For painter w a s quite different to most other aleistercrowley.com.au or the gallery website the last two years he has co-produced monthly painters of the period,” says Buratti. “He w a s a t www.buratti.com.au. lectures on topics ranging from Crowley’s erotic not painting to create a career necessarily – T h e limited edition catalogue will be available poetry to Turkish underground sex comics for the e v e n though obviously he flirted with the idea from the website and from Weiser Antiquarian. Decadent Society, Sydney. and would have loved to have been a famous painter. I think that, really, towards the end, his painting w a s part of his magical practice, NOTES of the Abbey, while Paris, and as part body and mind that some of the window of the Traces of the had perished in that 1 The Confessions it w a s part of his development, and as a result frames and doors have Sacred exhibition in great ordeal of which of Aleister Crowley, the technique wasn’t as important as the been saved by private Paris in 2008. he can say no more Arkana, 1989. concept. And I don’t think he w a s e v e r one, collectors many of the 5 Robert Buratti than this: I died.” ‘The 2 Quoted in Richard certainly when it came to his painting, to be images on the walls forwarded the following Master Therion: A Kaczynski, Perdurabo: are in a poor state of reference. “ S o in Biographical Note’, in held back b y technique. T h e most important Revised and Expanded repair. that Fire he was Aleister Crowley, The thing f o r him w a s being a b l e to express what Edition, North Atlantic 4 There were originally consumed wholly, and Heart of the Master he wanted to express, and I think he did that. Books, 2010, p.331 16 works, but three as pure Spirit alone & Other Papers, ed. He certainly did it in a different w a y – but y o u 3 Crowley also painted were sold when the did he return, little by Hymenaeus Beta, are talking about an unorthodox person in all murals on the window collection was exhibited little, during the months OTO & New Falcon, things, so it follows that he w a s going to create frames, doors and walls at the Palais de T o k y o , that followed, into the Scottsdale, 1992, p17. unorthodox art.” FT

FT296 4 1 www.forteantimes.com GHOST MOBS

ROGER CLARKE considers the Victorian phenomenon o f ghost-hunting flashmobs. What do these public expressions o f supernatural interest t e l l us about the relationship between ghosts and the British class s y s t e m ? Are spirits only the preserve o f the lower orders?

hey had seen the ghost of Mrs Maria Manning in the window, glimpsed her from the street. She w a s looking down on them with her dead, murderess eyes. She w a s wearing the same black dress that Thad sheathed her f o r the gallows in November 1849, the same long gloves that protected her manicured hands as she stepped to the hemp in Horsemonger Lane. Gloves w e r e an article of clothing not usually seen in such circumstances, creating quite a frisson f o r certainVictorian gentlemen. Charles Dickens w a s horrified b y the blood lust of the crowd at this execution, estimated to number between 30-50,000. He w a s later to immortalise this haughty, deadly Swiss lady’s maid as Hortense in Bleak House. T h e woman the Times dubbed the Lady Macbeth of the Bermondsey stage had now returned post-mortem to Bermondsey. It w a s a trigger f o r a phenomenon which, though little known these days, w a s very common a century ago: the ghost-hunting flashmob. T h e great show of the trial, followed b y the spectacle of her execution, had not sated public desire; Maria Manning had to return f o r the third act. She had been judged and spat out from Hell, and w a s now performing as a demon in satin. and her glossy silk corset, which suggests a And the papers loved the story.As an upper “i never liked malignant, coarse evil. servant, Manning w a s a woman who had risen above her station, taken on airs and graces, GHOST FLASHMOBS and then been cast low. She w a s a foreigner, a himand i beat T h e r e w a s nothing unusual about this native of Geneva. She w a s an adulteress who substantial mob, growing in number outside had killed her lover (“I never liked him and I a house in the expectation of seeing a ghost. beat his skull with a ripping chisel”). She had his skullin T h e phenomenon had been seen before in been caught b y the use of a modern invention, Victorian London, as w e l l as other cities the telegraph. such as Manchester, Hull and Norwich. Now, after 20 y e a r s in the grave, she w a s withachisel” People have always wanted to see a good back in a house in Bermondsey, looking out on show. Crowds have always gathered outside a mob very like the mob that had so thirsted haunted houses and churchyards in response f o r her death. the brink of summer riots. to rumours. The fascination of the working Before long, nearly 400 people w e r e UntilVictorian times, ghosts never classes with ghosts has a long history. gathering outside the house e v e r y evening. dressed in black, but changing fashions Richard Baxter, in Certainty of the World It wasn’t e v e n the house she had lived in, but meant that ghosts changed too. Reports to of Spirits, wrote of the large crowds that that didn’t matter.At e v e r y flicker across the the Society f o r Psychical Research show a gathered outside a house in Lutterworth window, e v e r y perceived movement in the great upsurge in sightings of female ghosts which w a s plagued b y a stone-throwing ghost empty house, the cry w e n t up: “There’s the wearing black clothing in the latter part in February 1646. And in the Georgian era, ghost! There’s the black ghost!”There w a s a of the 19th century, perhaps in part due to the Hammersmith ghost began plaguing substantial police intervention.Violence and the Manning case. Susan Hill’s novel T h e w e s t London at the beginning of December disorder flared as south London teetered on Woman in Black echoes Maria Manning 1803.The ghost w a s said to be the roving

4 2 FT296 www.forteantimes.com spirit of a man with a cut throat, according to the local newspaper the Morning Chronicle. He w o r e a shroud or, sometimes, an animal skin.Young men sought to conquer their fears. Every evening, groups of them would be seen prowling the area, looking f o r the ghost, and anyone wearing light clothing could become a target. A bricklayer,Thomas Milward, w o r e the apparel traditional to his trade – white linen trousers, a white flannel waistcoat and a white apron. One evening as he w a s walking home through the dusk, a gentleman and two ladies, alarmed in a passing carriage, shouted: “There goes the ghost!” Milward’s robust response to the shrieks w a s to swear at the carriage and threaten to punch the man’s head. His mother-in-law warned him it w a s not safe to continue wearing such clothes on his journey home but, stubborn as a mule, Milward w e n t on doing so. As he walked down Black Lion Lane, he w a s shot dead with a fowling gun b y a frightened excise officer named Francis Smith, egged on after a drinking session with local watchman William Girdler in the nearby White Hart pub.They had been exchanging tales about the ghost that had frightened the wife of a locksmith to death, and saying that two others w e r e seriously ill after the shock of another encounter. Smith w a s imprisoned f o r m u r d e r , but pardoned just a few months later b y the king, who seemed to take pity owing to the unusual circumstances. It’s difficult to overstate the hysteria that gripped Hammersmith; people r o v e d in armed groups looking f o r the ghost, and others feared to leave their houses after dark. But a taste f o r the public ghost scare w a s growing. In 1821, the military w e r e at the heart of a supposed supernatural incident at a depot in T r u r o , Cornwall. Stones, apparently thrown b y a ghost and consequently smelling of ‘brimstone’, w e r e hurled, and crowds dutifully turned up to gawp.These flashmobs became regular occurrences in many urban areas, and London, with its v a s t and sudden rise in population, w a s the backdrop to most of these popular dramas. At St Andrew’s Church in Holborn in August 1815, large crowds

gathered to see the ghost that someone IMAGES thought they had seen there; the Times noted GETTY with some displeasure that “it required the / utmost vigilance of the police to prevent these disgraceful proceedings.” In August 1834 in LIONS

St Giles, a slum area off Holborn, there w a s a THREE similar ghost scare, again with large crowds; but when several men climbed over the fence ABOVE: A contemporary engraving of the Hammersmith Ghost. LEFT: Maria Manning is arrested in Edinburgh. and into the graveyard, it wasn’t a ghost they found but a bereaved Irish mother guarding a clergyman who had recently died; it w a s one James Jones, aged 19, climbed up onto her son’s grave against the resurrection men. supposed to be haunted.The crowd w a s the railings and shouted at the murmuring, Ghost mobs w e r e definitely most common very unhappy about being moved on b y the agitated crowd, “Don’t go – there it is again – in deprived areas.There w e r e at least three authorities, some complaining loudly that they there’s the ghost!” He w a s promptly arrested. major instances in Bermondsey, then a had walked f o r miles to see the ghost. In May 1865, the Times reported on ‘mobs’ grim area of south London marked b y evil- In Bermondsey again in August 1868, when that had gathered at 9pm in front of St smelling tanneries and dusty calico w o r k s . a body w a s fished from the Thames and taken George’s Church in Southwark; they didn’t Records of the period show a huge number to the statutory dead-house beside St James’s disperse until 4am the following day. The of impoverished casual w o r k e r s living there, Church f o r an inquest to be convened, rumours short-tempered police brought in from outside mostly sleeping five to a room: ghost stories spread like wildfire that the dead body w a s up to control the high street and k e e p it open w e r e the soap operas of the age. and about and walking the churchyard at night. to traffic arrested a man who k e p t shouting In J u l y 1830, an entire police division w a s In consequence, an estimated 2,000 people “Here’s the ghost!”Two y e a r s later, nine young tied up in Bermondsey when some 2,000 congregated nightly outside. Efforts b y the men w e r e charged with affray and resisting people gathered e v e r y evening outside a vicar and parish officials to disperse the crowd arrest after they w e r e involved in scuffles house in Grange Road. It had belonged to w e r e entirely in vain; as the police arrived, in Woburn Square; again, the rumour of a

FT296 4 3 www.forteantimes.com ghost w a s to blame, and the men had been minstrel’s gallery. If y o u w e r e poor, it w a s an unpleasant and depressing topic.” doing the rounds of e v e r y door in the square, because y o u hoped f o r the future; and if y o u Research b y the sociologist Geoffrey Gorer kicking each one and roughly demanding that w e r e aristocratic and rich, it w a s because in the 1950s showed that there w a s more of the ghost should appear. y o u trusted in the past.The king and queen a belief in ghosts among the poor and the T h i s kind of disorder reached its apogee of British ghosts w e r e Dick Turpin and Anne upper-middle classes.Things have changed in J u l y 1874 (notice the persistence of those Boleyn. Dick Turpin haunts as many pubs as in the multi-media age of the last 60 years. midsummer and Christmas dates) when a Anne Boleyn does palaces and stately homes. Ghosts have become democratised and rumour w e n t round that a ghost had been F r o m the late 18th century onwards, the classless. But this ancient division of station seen in the churchyard at Christ Church, on middle classes have taken an increasingly is still interesting. Broadway in Westminster.When some bright straightforward and sceptical line when T h e now forgotten novelist and writer spark pinned a ghost made out of paper to a it comes to the supernatural, considering Elizabeth Bonhôte (1744–1818) depicted the nearby tree, an estimated five to six thousand a belief in spectres and apparitions to working classes in a state of superstitious people a night turned up to see it. be inherently unhealthy and unhelpful; dread, frightened out of their wits and credulity w a s a symptom of poor education, forever jumping at their o w n shadows. In T h e THE VULGARITY OF GHOSTS infantile, and possibly e v e n something to Parental Monitor (1788) she writes: “After the Belief in ghosts has always been vulgar. do with mental illness. Ghosts w e r e , in a sun has withdrawn his rays, though the bright W h a t y o u think about ghosts and how y o u nutshell, embarrassing. beams of the moon illumine their paths, they perceive them – indeed, how y o u process In 1934, Ernest Bennett noted, in see an imaginary ghost in e v e r y tree, gate or that perception – once depended on where Apparitions: “In some middle-class circles stile.” y o u came from, y o u r o w n profession and the it is generally not considered good f o r m to A few y e a r s later, in 1791, a similarly well- profession of y o u r parents.To some extent, it mention ghosts except in a jocular w a y ; and meaning Mary Weightman in her T h e Friendly still does. Since the 1940s, studies have shown many devout Christians who anticipate, with Monitor; Or, Dialogues forYouth against the that professing a belief in the existence of some assurance, eternal happiness hereafter, F e a r of Ghosts w a s preoccupied with banishing ghosts has become more socially acceptable; regard any mention of disembodied spirits as “tales of the nursery” from good middle-class but f o r most of the last few hundred years, homes. Sarah Trimmer and Maria Edgeworth only the upper and lower classes tended to both added their voices to the r e f o r m of believe in them. superstition; they tended to write books T h e middle classes have always deplored professional imploring parents to k e e p an e y e on the the idea of ghosts. Professional sceptics are female servants of the household filling their usually drawn from this stratum of society. children’s heads with nonsense. Y o u r middle-class sceptic would say that toffs sceptics So it’s all the more interesting that like ghosts because it is a symptom of their the founders of the Society f o r Psychical decadence, the plebeians because they are Research, set up in 1881, came from the ill-educated. are usually upper middle classes.The SPR w a s hugely T h e twin polarities of the haunted British advanced in many w a y s and, in others, a landscape make it clear: the haunted pub complete mirror of its times. One of the and the haunted stately home; the poltergeist middle class principal reasons that Harry Price found in the beer cellar and the white lady in the himself unable to get very f a r with it w a s that

ABOVE: Crowds gather outside the Feathers Inn, Manchester, in 1869, in the hopes of seeing the bell-ringing ghost. The full story will appear in a future issue of FT. FACING PAGE: The “murderess eyes” of Maria Manning stare blankly out from her waxwork effigy at Madame Tussauds.

4 6 FT296 www.forteantimes.com Eleanor Sidgwick described him as “not quite disclaimer stating that it is f o r ‘entertainment a gentleman”. purposes only’. It has quietly dropped T h e SPR w a s always minded to suspect any attempt to present itself as genuinely fraud, especially b y the lower orders, who investigative, instead focusing on sentiment, w e r e always drawn to mischief. When the reducing its resident parapsychologist Ciarán SPR w a s first set up and began gathering O’Keeffe, a distinguished man in his field, evidence of the supernatural, it would not to assessing the happenings from a cool take accounts of hauntings and paranormal sociological standpoint. events from servants; servants, it w a s thought, And since there are few more middle-class w e r e credulous and, on occasion, capable professions than that of the critic or the of outright malice. One of the founding scientist, both of them b y nature enforcers of members of the SPR noted at a meeting sceptical positions, the voices raised against in November 1889 that he preferred the such shows always have the vinegar tang of evidence of educated to “that of uneducated those 18th-century tracts complaining about persons”. And in the SPR Proceedings of 1885 working-class superstition. there’s a discussion of how servants w e r e T h e gentry and aristocracy, however, seem widely perceived as susceptible to local only too happy to lend out their stately homes tales of ghosts, m u r d e r s and hauntings.The to groups of local enthusiasts f o r ghost- resultant disconnect between the folkloric hunting, thrilled that people will actually reality of oral tradition and the hard-nosed pay hard cash to be haunted; in the faded investigation of psychic phenomena is with bedroom where previously no one would us to this day.You’re either in one camp or sleep, the wicked earl m u r d e r s an infant the other. nightly and a long-dead aunt brushes her long hair, still growing in the grave. As Noël SPIRITS, SEX AND SCANDALS Coward pertly mentioned in his comedic Within the middle classes it became a girl from Tottenham Court Road, Anne had song ‘The Stately Homes of England’, it is commonplace that tales of ghosts and engineered the haunting to facilitate her commerce that has been the great coming- hauntings w e r e used to cover up nefarious meetings with her boyfriend. together of the classes over the supernatural activities among the rowdy lower orders; T h e taint of fraud and criminality has in modern times. Owners both of large, sometimes, this w a s true. always been in the foreground of the pointed crumbling houses and of old pubs flag up In Pimlico in 1823, a stone-throwing middle-class distaste f o r the supernatural. their haunted rooms as something entirely poltergeist on Queen Street w a s thought to be Some aristocrats w a r m to their ancestral desirable. Ghosts remain, however, in essence, a servant girl, Maria Herbert, though a lack ghosts, but the higher-minded will always vulgar. FT of hard evidence saw her acquitted. In 1825 disapprove of them as vulgar. a mischievous servant, Anne Page, w a s sent Extracted from A Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Hunting to jail f o r her r o l e in smashing windows in FOR ENTERTAINMENT ONLY for Proof b y Roger Clarke, published b y Particular Books at £20. Newington, at the time blamed on a ghost b y There’s been little in the w a y of academic ©RogerClarke 2012. www.penguin.co.uk the locals. In 1878, a young servant girl w a s research into the class structure of ghost- prosecuted f o r a staged haunting on a f a r m belief. In recent years, popular tabloid in Somerset which involved crockery being newspapers in the UK have gradually lost AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY moved around, straw ricks set on fire and a the tone of disapproval they w e r e obliged pig trough mysteriously moving to the front to rehearse in more Reithian times, though ROGER CLARKE grew up door of the Goathurst farmhouse. A servant many of the stories they run are pretty m u c h in haunted houses and in Maidstone in 1859 shook doors and r a n g identical to the ones known to the Victorians. in 1981 became the doorbells in her employer’s house in order to Ghosts remain reliable tabloid f o d d e r , youngest person ever cover up a secondary career as a prostitute. In especially in times of economic unease. In to be invited to join the Tottenham Court Road in 1839, a pawnbroker J a n u a r y 2009, f o r example, the Sun put a SPR. He was a writer found himself the victim of a haunting hoax ghost on its front page. “Haunted Hospital and reviewer for the when a maid devised inventive w a y s of letting Calls in Exorcist,” it claimed, revealing how Sunday Times, Observer her flesh-and-blood lover into the house at shift w o r k e r s had seen a black-cloaked ghost, and Evening Standard night, and called it a haunting. thought to be a Roman soldier, in Derby’s and film editor for The Big Issue. Today, he is a T h e journalist Charles Mackay, author newly built City General Hospital. In earlier columnist on the Independent and stands on of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and times, a newspaper would have put in a call the Awards Committee of the Critics Circle. He the Madness of Crowds (1841), tells of a to the Society f o r Psychical Research.They’d is also the author of Story of the Scene (2009). similar scenario in Stockwell in 1772. It’s a send along a photographer and, at some story usually referred to as ‘The Stockwell point, a reporter, but they would still defer to poltergeist.’ this essentially sceptical and science-based T o order A Mrs Golding, an elderly lady, lived alone organisation. Natural History with her servant, Anne Robinson, near Nowadays, the primacy of programmes of Ghosts at Vauxhall. Around Christmas time, the such as Most Haunted and Most Haunted the special most amazing events began to take place: Live can be seen as a return to theVictorian offer price of “cups and saucers rattled down chimneys,” flashmob. Of course, now, y o u don’t have to £16 including writes Mackay,“pots and pans w e r e whirled turn up outside a church or an empty, broken- free p&p (RRP downstairs, or through the windows; and windowed house – y o u can w a t c h it live or £20) please hams, cheese and loaves of bread disported monitor the locked-off cameras on the live call the Penguin themselves on the floor as if the devil w e r e web-feed. Most Haunted’s tendency to whip up Bookshop on in them.” Mrs Golding fought the fiend with a pleasurable sensation of fear while at the 08430 600021, the help of her neighbours but, if anything, same time remaining f a i r l y ambivalent about quoting “NHOG/ the haunting got worse, with chairs and tables the reality of the phenomena is significant. FT” and ISBN moving, and the china dashed to smithereens. No explanations or analysis are e v e r offered 9781846143335. T h e devastation stopped only when Anne – only stories, stories about people now The offer is subject to availability, and Robinson w a s dismissed from service; she dead, stories about their lives. Following a open to UK residents only. Customers later confessed to a local vicar that she had critical report from industry watchdog Ofcom should allow up to 14 days for delivery. orchestrated the whole thing. As with the in 2006, Most Haunted now begins with a

FT296 4 5 www.forteantimes.com

ROBERTE HOWARD THE LOST CELT

The first ever Conan story w a s published 80 years ago, in December 1932, and the mighty barbarian hero has maintained his hold on the popular imagination ever since. ANGELINE B ADAMS and REMCO VAN STRATEN explore his creator’s Texan background and reveal how a changing world of frontier medicine, oil booms and tall tales g a v e birth to the genre of Sword and Sorcery.

OPPOSITE: An undated photo of Robert E “Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, Howard, creator of Conan. black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a r e a v e r, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to forefront of medical developments. tread the jewelled thrones of the Earth He may have bought into quack under his sandaled feet.” schemes, but also used revolutionary techniques such as hypnosis, and ith these words,Texan r e a d books on y o g a and Eastern writer Robert E Howard mysticism. Later, when his son introduced his most looked f o r inspiration f o r one of his famous hero to readers of occult stories, he didn’t have to go Wthe now legendary pulp any further than his father’s study. 1 magazine Weird Tales, 80 y e a r s ago. It Easy to get along with, extremely would be hard to find someone who capable, if a bit rough around the has not heard of Conan, be it through edges, Isaac Howard w a s the sort the comics, films or paperback books. of man who thrived in the West. They’ll know he’s a barbarian who The Texans of that time saw their battles wizards and monsters and that society in transition; old-timers still he has mighty thews – though not remembered the battles with the necessarily what thews are. Native Americans, and the Mexican But if they’ve heard of Robert E civil w a r w a s just a decade behind Howard at all, chances are they’ll have them. Predominantly agricultural the notion that he w a s a paranoid, communities found themselves gun-toting, redneck savant who locked overrun b y industry and, whenever himself up at night to type the stories oil w a s found, an influx of transient dictated b y his ghostly barbarian muse. workers. Not getting any younger, They also know that he had a w e i r d with a wife in poor health and a relationship with his mother and killed teenage son, Isaac hoped to get himself when she died. Until quite settled in Cross Plains before it hit a recently there wasn’t m u c h decent boom and all the other speculators biographical information available, arrived. His gamble paid off. and this led to a distorted picture Robert’s mother, Hester Ervin, w a s of the man who, seemingly out of from Irish stock, one of 16 children nowhere, created the genre of Sword from her father’s two marriages. and Sorcery. A FRONTIER IN TRANSITION She’d had a hard life taking care of siblings T h e truth, as always, is more prosaic than Before the Howards settled down in Cross with TB, contracting the disease herself the m y t h – but also f a r more interesting. Plains in 1919, they’d wandered all over in the process. In his correspondence, T o really understand Robert E Howard, Texas. Isaac Howard w a s a doctor who Robert described how the Ervins, a “race y o u have to know where he came from; chased the various oil, cattle, land and of wanderers”, conquered the W e s t in the and then y o u begin to see how his fantastic railroad booms. He practised frontier mid-19th century; but while the basic facts fiction could have been born in the rural medicine, a heady mix of practicality and of this personal m y t h c h e c k out, Hester Texas of the early 20th century. experiment, always trying to stay at the m u s t have improved on reality: she w a s a

FT296 4 7 www.forteantimes.com ABOVE: The eight-year-old Robert; with parents Hester and Isaac; a teenage REH poses in boxing gloves outside his house. BELOW: Cross Plains, Texas, in the 1920s. proud woman, and a degrading existence of LEGENDS OFTHE CELTS into. All of them are loners and fighters, all starvation and hardship offered few heroic Wherever they went, Isaac found plenty of them in exile of sorts.The outlaw Turlogh tales to pass on to her son. of w o r k . A s he w a s often away from home, O’Brien, the pirate Cormac MacArt and the She seemed destined to be an ‘old maid’, Hester and her only child became dependent crusader Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, Brian Boru’s until she met Isaac Howard in 1904, when on one another’s company, and a strong w a r l o r d Red Cumal, Cormac of Connacht – she w a s 34 and he 32.They married, as m u c h bond formed between them. Robert w a s a these men come not to build or create, but f o r practicality as f o r love: it offered her precocious child and, having learned to r e a d rather destroy or, at best, maintain the status an escape and him a travelling companion at the age of two, devoured the w o r k s of quo. Conan and K u l l end up as kings, but sit and helper.They didn’t expect any children, Stevenson, Rider Haggard and J a c k London. uneasy on their stolen thrones. These are all and that suited them well; Isaac w a s busy Increasingly housebound, Hester recited men that Howard could identify with, and with his practice, she in the early stages of poetry to her son and taught him the history, it can’t be coincidence that most of them TB, and they w e r e constantly on the road. lore and legends of Mother Ireland, which are tall and dark-haired. Some had grey Then, Hester conceived, and miraculously gave him the idea that they themselves w e r e eyes, some blue, but all of them, including – pregnancy w a s dangerous at the best descended from Irish royalty. Howard, could have been siblings. of times – she and her son both survived. Most of Howard’s heroes are of what he T h e n there w a s Isaac’s mother: “My Somehow, the birth certificate lists Robert’s defined as the Gaelic type, and he could grandmother w a s but one generation birthday as 24 (instead of 22) J a n u a r y 1906, give them a certain depth of character r e m o v e d from south Ireland and she knew and reduces his mother’s age b y five years. It because he identified with them; as Conan b y heart all the tales and superstitions of w a s the first, but not the last, time that the of Cimmeria is a distant descendant of King the folks,” remembered Robert in a letter to facts surrounding Robert E Howard would be K u l l ofValusia, Cormac of Connacht in turn HP Lovecraft, “All the gloominess and dark uncertain. is one of the Celts the Cimmerians evolved mysticism of the Gaelic nature w a s hers, and

4 8 FT296 www.forteantimes.com ABOVE: Robert E Howard and friend Tevis Clyde Smith indulge in some Conan-style combat. BELOW: Howard outside the family home with his dog Patches. there w a s no light and mirth in her.” She, and TALLTALES the stories she told, made young Robert’s conanand T h a t Howard’s later stories are so eminently hair stand on end, and while he tried his readable, and that each has its o w n strong hand at the cosmic horror of Lovecraft, narrative voice, can be traced to these stories it’s in stories like “Pigeons from Hell” kullwere men he heard from his earliest days. F r o m A u n t that he’s at his best.Their horrors are on a Mary, from his mother and his grandmother, more human scale, their air of authenticity he learned to tell a tale as if he himself cemented with off-hand details and bang-on howard could believed it, no matter how tall or fanciful it characterisation. It’s easy to imagine that he was. “Poets are dangerous things,” he reveals wrote them with his grandmother’s voice in in one King K u l l tale, “because they believe mind. identify with what they sing, at the time”. But it wasn’t T h e legends of the Celts w e r e n ’ t the only just the stories he heard that formed him ones he heard, though, and in the same letter to Lovecraft he recalled the stories told b y the Howards’ cook in his early childhood, an ex-slave he called A u n t Mary Bohannon.The returning dead of her tales may have been imaginary, but the cruel slave-master and his whippings certainly w e r e not.These stories w e r e the first that really moved him, and though the w o r l d he lived in w a s inherently racist, segregation w a s never clear-cut to him. Lovecraft may have been one of those middle class townies f o r whom it w a s easy to expound on the virtues of the white race, but the Howards dealt more closely with their black neighbours, and Hester especially knew how despised the Irish themselves had been. While she taught her son to be proud of his heritage, Robert usually wrote with sympathy about those given the short end of history’s stick: the Native Americans, the black antagonists of his boxing stories and especially the wild, elusive Picts and their god-king Bran Mak Morn.

FT296 4 9 www.forteantimes.com and informed his writing: the violence w e truth – a r e a l character or historical event – lore. However, while he saw folklore and find in his tales w a s something with which he but w e r e told using humour or exaggeration. m y t h as the collective memory and identity w a s all too familiar in r e a l life. Bragging w a s a celebrated skill, with the of a people, he couldn’t resist tweaking the As the son of a country doctor, Robert saw audience complicit in the lie – as often as stories to improve them, as he also ‘improved’ not just the expected farming accidents, but not, the narrator w a s also the butt of the his o w n family’s history. In his stories, too, he also the results of the population explosion joke. In earlier times these settlers, cowboys would rewrite history in the guise of fiction. caused b y the oil boom: knife and fist fights and roughnecks would have created a T h e stories he wrote at the dawn of his w e r e common and victims of violence and Beowulf; in this more prosaic age, the tales career, f o r local newspapers and magazines, industrial accidents w e r e dropped on the took a comic, parodic, or ironic turn. Humour adhere closely to the f o r m of the traditional Howards’ porch to be patched up. As he later makes a hard life softer. tall tale, with colourful language, local confided in a letter to HP Lovecraft: “The As a teenager, Robert had gone out with settings and a nostalgia f o r the old w a y s of average child of 10 or 12 who’s lived through his friends to gather tales from the old folks, the W e s t that w e r e disappearing rapidly. a boom or so, knows more vileness and not unlike what the Brothers Grimm had T h i s influence remained particularly strong bestial sinfulness than a man of 30 should done a century earlier, and had become in his boxing adventures and comedy know.” 2 something of an expert, lecturing out-of- Westerns, with protagonists like the But Robert also learned other lessons on state correspondents on local history and oafish Breckenridge Elkins recognisable the rounds with Isaac. Often, he would w a i t as parodies of Howard himself.To his on the porch and listen to the old-timers as later Westerns he brought realism: f a r they exchanged stories.Tall tales had been less straightforward than the White Hat a vital and daily part of the frontier life talltales had heroics of J o h n Wayne, they foreshadow of the old West, and had both a social and the violence and grit of Sergio Leone. At a psychological function. They invariably dealt time when the detectives of Hammett and with the hardships the pioneers faced, but beenavital Chandler exploded in the pulps, Howard also celebrated their individualism, courage wrote what could best be described as and resilience. In Robert’s lifetime these partofthe ‘Desert Noir’. tales reflected nostalgia f o r an era before ‘progress’ brought ‘civilisation’ with it and CIVILISATION AND ITS k e p t the frontier spirit alive. frontier life DISCONTENTS Often, such tales would have a core of Though classified as a Fantasy tale, “Beyond the Black River” is as realistic as any of Howard’s stories. It’s one of the later Conan stories, and with his hero at the height of his popularity, Howard found the freedom to infuse it with the concerns that k e p t him awake at night, firmly grounding it in his o w n native soil. Sure, it contains some magic, but not much; what it’s really about is life on the frontier.Written in 1935, it reaches back to the time he had first thought of Conan while visiting the town of Mission, near the border between Texas and Mexico, in 1932. Mission lies a mere 15 miles (24km) from the Alamo, where James Bowie and the frontiersman-turned-congressman Davey Crocket fought a losing battle in 1836 against invading Mexican troops.The Alamo passed into legend, ultimately culminating in the image of J o h n Wayne wearing a raccoon on his head. In Howard’s story, the outpost is on the Pictish border. Here, Conan joins the young woodsman Baltus and tries to save the fort, abandoned b y an uncaring government, from a Pictish uprising. T h e typical hero of tall tales is larger than life, distinguished b y an extraordinary birth or childhood, and usually associated with an animal. It took five storks to deliver P a u l Bunyan, and he adventured through the whole of America with his blue o x Babe. Calamity J a n e w a s on horseback before she could talk, Davey Crockett had “the ugliest dog in the district” and Pecos Bill w a s raised b y coyotes.These animals are totems, like Odin’s ravens and the dog that gave Cuchulainn his name. Battlefield-born Conan is known as Amra, the Lion, while Baltus teams up with a vengeful half-wild dog. In this Hyborean Age Alamo, Conan and Baltus stand in f o r the larger than life f o l k heroes Bowie and Crockett, and the story is built from the stuff of which tall tales are made.Typically, the heroes of such tales often find themselves fighting against ‘progress’, trying to preserve their existing ABOVE: REH on a trip exploring the old West, a vanishing world that inspired much of his writing. w a y of life. Conan’s o w n ‘barbarism’ is an

5 0 FT296 www.forteantimes.com attempt to maintain a threatened status quo; but as so often in these stories, the fight is ultimately futile. Baltus – as did Crockett – dies a heroic death. Conan survives b y the skin of his teeth, and as the story concludes w e find him in an inn, nursing his grudge against civilisation.The w o r d s spoken to him b y a fellow survivor could have been those of Howard himself: “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind… Civilisation is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism m u s t always ultimately triumph.” It w a s a belief that grew out of Howard’s early experience of the world. The oil boom came to Cross Plains when he w a s a teenager, bringing with it a tide of speculators, roughnecks, criminality and disease. Robert grew up an impassioned critic of how such booms destroyed the social, economic and moral structures of previously stable communities. As he wrote in the Argosy All-Story Weekly in the spring of 1929: “I’ve seen towns leap into being overnight and become deserted almost as quick. I’ve seen old farmers, bent with toil, and ignorant of the feel of 10 dollars at a time, become millionaires in a week, b y the ABOVE: ‘Two-Gun Bob’ knocks out his friend Truett w a y of oil gushers. And I’ve seen them blow Vinson. LEFT: Howard in the “damn fool hat” he wore e v e r y cent of it and die paupers. I’ve seen for girlfriend Novalyne Price (below). whole towns debauched b y an oil boom and boys and girls go to the devil wholesale. I’ve confided to Novalyne Price that this w a s seen promising youths turn from respectable a stock answer and the character’s origins citizens to dope-fiends, drunkards, gamblers w e r e a mystery to him. And while he and gangsters in a matter of months.” might have had the initial idea f o r Conan on holiday along the Rio Grande, it took HITHER CAME CONAN him quite a while to get a handle on the In the intensely practical culture of Cross character and his w o r l d . Plains in the 1920s, few people would have T o help him get started he based “The regarded Howard’s chosen career as a Phoenix on the Sword” on an unsold K u l l writer as legitimate w o r k . He had tried to story, with the romantic subplot r e m o v e d fit in and taken various manual jobs, but and some magic inserted. he hated being told what to do b y people Farnsworth Wright requested he considered his intellectual inferiors. a rewrite, and Howard duly He slogged off his frustration in boxing replaced a lengthy introduction matches and ironically gained respect as with that now famous quote regional champion amongst the roughnecks from the Nemedian Chronicles, he otherwise despised. When his father beginning “Know, O Prince…” allowed him to focus on his writing, Robert Hither came Conan, and Howard increasingly withdrew from the community, Cthulhu Mythos into their felt that he had a winner on his and soon he felt he w a s seen as “Doc stories.They had an enormous hands.The first published Conan Howard’s crazy son Bob”. respect f o r each other, but also story appeared in the December Howard would spend the r e s t of his life insurmountable differences. 1932 issue of Weird Tales. shuttling between brain and brawn, and Lovecraft’s racism irked Howard, Though he disparaged Novalyne Price, the on/off girlfriend of and when Hoffman Price himself as a hack and told his late twenties, didn’t know which she’d visited Cross Plains he raised others that the stories wrote themselves, be dating on any given day. The picture an eyebrow over Robert’s armed vigilance Howard actually w o r k e d hard at both the of him that is most often reproduced is against highway robbers, not realising craft of writing and the marketing of his also the least representative. “That damn that he’d fallen victim to authentic,Texan stories. He outlined them in detail, then f o o l hat bothers me,” he complained to showmanship; myth-making in progress. wrote multiple drafts and made careful Novalyne when she made him w e a r it f o r Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright w a s revisions. He w a s not the idiot savant that the photograph. F o r him it represented the a capricious figure who approved or rejected fantasy fandom myths sometimes make him hated sweep of modernity through rural stories according to his o w n instinct. He, as out to be. He drew a map of Conan’s w o r l d Texas; he w o r e the hat f o r her, but he could m u c h as Howard, shaped what Conan would and gave it a pseudo-historical framework in conform no further, and eventually they become. Left to himself, Howard would his essay “The Hyborean Age”. broke up. Half a century later, Price wrote include little love interest and any women A second batch of Conan yarns quickly about their time together in her book One who did appear in his tales could easily followed. While not Howard’s best, stories Who Walked Alone. 3 take care of themselves. Under Wright’s like “Iron Shadows in the Moon” and “Black While ill at ease with the people of Cross ægis, there w a s sex appeal and abundant Colossus”, with their obligatory monsters Plains, Howard found an alternative family floggings, with a chivalrous Conan rushing to and damsels in distress, w e r e among his among the contributors to Weird Tales.This the rescue. most imitated precisely because their brotherhood of authors like HP Lovecraft, Howard often described how Conan formula w a s easy to follow. August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith and E sprang up in his mind fully formed, a Howard wrote these stories at a gallop: Hoffman Price passionately argued about combination of “various prize-fighters the Depression had killed off some of the their w o r k and influences, and indulged gunmen, bootleggers, oilfield bullies, magazines he sold to, and as his mother’s in sneaking references to Lovecraft’s gamblers and honest workmen,” but he health w a s spiralling downwards he needed

FT296 5 1 www.forteantimes.com the money to cover her medical expenses. T h e Howards relied on the cheques that they received each month from Weird Tales, but then these cheques stopped coming, with the not inconsiderable sum of $800 owed. Farnsworth Wright’s idiosyncratic approach to publishing also extended to the payroll administration. “I always hate to write a letter like this, but dire necessity forces me to. It is, in short, an urgent plea f o r money. It is nothing new f o r me to need money, but the present circumstances are different from those in which I generally found myself in the past,” begins a letter Howard wrote to Wright in May 1935, followed b y the eerily prophetic “If y o u cut off m y monthly checks now, I don’t know what in God’s name we’ll do.” T h e whole letter is worth reading, 4 and would wring tears from a stone, but Robert received neither r e p l y nor money from Wright. While he finished some more Conan stories, they w e r e w o r k s in transition. Increasingly he realised that his heart lay in the old West, and “Black River” is already halfway there.The last w a s “Red Nails”, its picture of a crumbling, decadent civilisation providing not merely the story’s backdrop, but its meat and bones. With this, Howard w a s done with Conan and with Weird Tales. TO THE CRISIS As 1935 ended and 1936 began, a crisis seemed unavoidable. Isaac w a s seldom home, relentlessly doing the rounds amongst his poverty-stricken patients. Robert found some success selling his Westerns to magazines that did pay, but he missed the stability that Weird Tales had offered. Hester’s health deteriorated further and as he w a s her sole carer, Robert hardly found time to work. “Woman after woman w e hired, and they quit, either w o r n out b y the w o r k or unwilling to do it,” he wrote in his last letter to Lovecraft, in May 1936. “I’ve gone f o r nearly a w e e k at a time without e v e n taking off m y shoes, just snatching a nap as I could between times.”

ABOVE: Conan has proved Howard’s most popular and enduring creation, evolving from his appearances in Weird Tales through paperback books, comics and movies.

5 2 FT296 www.forteantimes.com COMMONS WIKIMEDIA / OCCAM PICS: BOTH BELOW: The funeral notice for Robert E Howard and his mother. ABOVE LEFT: The Howard family grave. ABOVE RIGHT: The Howard home, now a museum, in Cross Plains.

Emotionally drained, he saw no prospect Things have slowly improved.The of earning a steady living from his writing, growth of Howard scholarship has given had no one to love and feared growing old rise to gorgeously illustrated reprints of or ill himself. F o r Robert, “the game w a s pure, unedited Howard and several well- not worth the candle? Isaac saw it coming, researched biographies, although the urge and hid the household firearms, but hadn’t to mythologise is difficult to overcome and reckoned with the borrowed pistol Robert Howard’s tragic death still elicits finger k e p t in the glove compartment of his car. On pointing and speculation. There is still a lot 11 J u n e 1936 Hester sank into a coma from w e don’t know: Howard w a s a complex man which Robert w a s assured she would not whose life did not obey the rules of drama. awake. He walked out of the door, got into Besides, perhaps it’s the writing, not the the car, and shot himself. death, w e should focus on. Underneath all “Can y o u authenticate the story?” the fantastic trappings, Robert E Howard asked Hoffman Price. “It seems so damn wrote about a w o r l d he knew.The bulk of outrageous I can’t believe it.” Lovecraft had his w o r k is written with skill and honesty, written him the bad news, taking it upon and is as fresh as when it first appeared a himself to compose an obituary f o r Weird lifetime ago. “But the r e a l secret,” wrote HP Tales in memory of Howard’s w o r k . “ T o Lovecraft of Howard’s stories, “is that he hell with the blow to literature,” bristled himself is in each and e v e r y one of them”. FT Hoffman Price, “the loss of the man is so damned incomparably greater than the NOTES loss of anything as stupid as literature.” 1 FT readers will be happy to know that Robert He himself tried to sum up his friend, himself had a copy of Fort’s L o ! in his own collection. but found it impossible. “ A n overgrown 2 Letter to HP Lovecraft, December 1930. boy – a brooding anachronism,” he tried. unfinished drafts and converting Howard’s 3 The book is required reading for any Howard “A man of strange, whimsical, bitter and other w o r k into tales of Conan. “This did scholar, and the film based on it, The Whole Wide utterly illogical resentments and hatreds not prove difficult,” he wrote proudly.“I World, should appeal to fan and layman alike. and enmities and grudges.” Eventually he had merely to delete anachronisms and 4 http://users.rcn.com/shogan/howard/letters/ gave up, concluding only that, “If y o u met introduce a supernatural element.” rehlet7.htm Howard, I can not add; if y o u did not, I can In the mid-1960s Frank Frazetta fixed RECOMMENDED BROWSING not start.” It’s an undoubted truth that has the definitive look of Conan with his The Official Robert E Howard Forum tripped up Howard scholars and biographers cover paintings f o r mass-market Lancer www.conan.com e v e r since. paperbacks, while de Camp as self- The Robert E Howard Foundation A heartbroken Isaac Howard buried his appointed biographer sketched the popular www.rehfoundation.com wife and son and began the consuming w o r k image of Robert E Howard as “maladjusted REH Two-Gun Raconteur: The Definitive REH Journal of putting Robert’s affairs in order, amongst to the point of psychosis”. Many rewrites and http://rehtwogunraconteur.com them the now legendary ‘trunk’ containing ‘posthumous collaborations’ and pastiches The Dark Man: The Journal of REH Studies thousands of pages of unsorted typescripts, b y de Camp, Lin Carter and others followed; www.robert-e-howard.org/TDM/index.html notes, drafts and letters. He tried to get the then came the long-running Marvel Comics Weird Tales payments, b y then over $1,500, series and finally J o h n Milius’s 1982 film out of Farnsworth Wright, but only received Conan the Barbarian. By now, Conan had AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES letters about the editor’s o w n ill health. Aged become an oiled-up Muscle Beach hero, b y both time and his circumstances, Isaac and Howard himself the subject of wild Remco v a n died in 1944. Lovecraft had already passed speculation. “He w a s convinced that the Straten and on in 1937 and Weird Tales w e n t under in town wanted to exterminate him... and he Angeline B 1954 in the general collapse of the pulps. would go home and board up his windows, Adams live and load rifles... A complete nut!” director J o h n work in Belfast, THE RETURN OF CONAN Milius says in a documentary accompanying where their In the 1950s, the Conan stories resurfaced his film. He continues: “He’s alone one night, lives are ruled in hardbacks. Where HP Lovecraft had a and he feels a shadow overtake him from by an Alien posthumous torchbearer in August Derleth, behind, and he knows that Conan stands Burmese Cat. Howard got science fiction writer L Sprague behind him with a large axe! And Conan tells This is their de Camp who seized with both hands him: ‘Stay there and write!’” first article for the opportunity to edit Howard’s w o r k . Howard himself had now become a tall He dipped into ‘the trunk’, completing tale, a myth. Fortean Times.

FT296 5 3 www.forteantimes.com

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linking Christmas and the New Y e a r . Pigging out a t Christmas And y e t it is during this same w e e k that it can also be its most beneficial – provided a certain magical rite KARL SHUKER is on the track of the terrifying Swedish gloso associated with it is performed correctly. – a flesh-eating pig-monster that can grant psychic powers If it is not, the person performing it will but is particularly to be feared at Christmas time... not live to see in the New Y e a r . According to Swedish legend, on the evening of Christmas Day (and also on KARL SHUKER is a zoologist, New Year’s Eve) anyone can discover cryptozoologist and author living everything that will happen to them in the W e s t Midlands. He works during the y e a r to come if they are as a full-time freelance zoological brave enough to withstand an assault consultant, media consultant, b y the gloso. The ritual stipulates that and noted author specialising in cryptozoology. after the Sun has set, y o u m u s t visit f o u r different churches in f o u r different parishes, w a l k around each church in an n Britain, the animals most closely anti-clockwise direction, and then blow linked to Christmas-time via through the keyhole of each church’s folklore and other traditions include door. After blowing through the keyhole Isuch familiar and generally friendly of the fourth church’s door, if y o u then species as the robin, the reindeer, peer through it y o u will witness all of and the turkey. Conversely, in Skåne the most notable events that await y o u and Blekinge, the two southernmost in the New Y e a r , rushing before y o u r provinces of Sweden, a very different e y e s in a rapid stream of images like a and f a r more daunting creature speeded-up movie film. pervades the Season of Goodwill, and However, y o u m u s t pay a steep price its presence is anything but good. f o r such precious insights – the wrath Scarcely known outside Scandinavia, of the gloso. F o r it will abruptly appear outwardly it resembles a pig, but no and chase after y o u , spurting hot blasts ordinary one, f o r this preternatural of fire at y o u r r e a r end and striving entity is in many w a y s the porcine to run between y o u r legs so that its equivalent of Britain’s phantasmal ridge of razor-sharp bristles can rip y o u Black Dogs, and is just as dangerous. apart. Happily, however, if y o u are brave Most commonly referred to as the enough to attempt the feat, there is one gloso (other names f o r it include w a y in which this dread beast can be the galoppso and the gluppso, all pacified – b y turning around and facing translating as ‘galloping sow’), this dire it, with an arm outstretched, offering it beast is grim in e v e r y sense of the w o r d . a loaf of bread. If the gloso allows y o u to T h i s is because the gloso is a church The gloso has ABOVE: The Norse feed it the bread, y o u are safe. If not... grim (or kyrkogrim in Sweden), i.e. a god Frey pictured In some variations of this legend, the supernatural creature derived from the with the great same gift of New Y e a r foresight can be spirit of an animal or person supposedly a predilection boar Gullinburste obtained b y confronting the gloso at a sacrificed when a church w a s founded, – a mythological crossroads. As a teenager, the maternal and which now protects the church precursor of the grandmother of Swedish artist and and its grounds f o r eternity, unable for devouring gloso? cryptozoologist Richard Svensson once to be killed b y any normal weapon. visited a crossroads in Blekinge on New Generally, the gloso lives either within fresh corpses Year’s Eve f o r the express purpose of the cemetery of the church to which it conjuring up the gloso – though merely is bound, or within a mound in a field to see it rather than to witness what the directly adjacent to that church. breathe fire. Other tangible, physical New Y e a r held in store f o r her. (Un) Those unfortunate enough to have abilities attributed to the gloso, and fortunately, however, the gloso failed to encountered this terrifying entity liken which thereby distinguish it from materialise. it to an enormous female domestic insubstantial ghosts or spectres, T h e gloso is also part of a m u c h pig, usually jet-black in colour (though include its predilection f o r devouring lengthier, more complex magical ritual sometimes ghostly white), but with a fresh corpses in the churchyard and f o r in which the person taking part is ridge of razor-sharp spines or bristles sharpening its tusks upon gravestones. hoping to gain psychic talents, and this running down the centre of its back, It also leaves visible tracks in its wake. multi-stage ritual has to be performed a pair of huge tusks curving out from T h e gloso can be encountered at any on several different magically potent its jaws, e y e s that glow a fiery r e d , time during the y e a r , but it is said to dates, including Christmas night once and the fearful y e t very r e a l ability to be at its most malign during the w e e k again. Here is how Swedish folklorist

FT296 5 5 www.forteantimes.com forum LOST ARK

Håkan Lindh described it to me: Hair’). Named after its “The ritual w a s a kind of vision- golden bristles, and also quest that a person who wanted to gain known as Slidrugtanne psychic gifts undertook several y e a r s in (‘Horrible Tusks’), this w a s a row. After a bit of fasting he w e n t out, the great boar that pulled under absolute silence, on a night-time the chariot of the Norse w a l k to powerful places, a graveyard, deity F r e y , god of fertility a stream running towards north, a holy and pleasure. Moreover, well, etc, and during these walks he w a s in Blekinge there is given trials. One of these w a s Gloso, e v e n a local m y t h and he avoided danger b y just keeping neatly combining his legs together and refusing to show Norse tradition with fear. If he did, he came to no harm Christianity, in which and gained a bit of magic power. Next e v e r y y e a r St Thomas, y e a r he met something else, a dragon armed with a mighty turned into a chicken, f o r example, sword, rides a tamed gloso Odin on a horse, a band of aggressive during the Christmas w e e k to rid the Vättar [Norse nature spirits], and so on land of fatally alluring troll-maidens and on. While the ceremony w e n t on, and other malevolent pagan beings he got visions about who would die in – especially during the evening of 21 the different homes he passed b y , who December, known as Thomas’s Eve. would get ill, and what he could do to me that just a few miles north Presumably, his saintly status affords cure those illnesses. He also gained of his home village in Halland, him immunity from being torn in two material magic tools during these walks, Skåne, is one such locality b y his gloso’s lethal back-bristles while like bones from dead people etc. T h i s (where a m u r d e r took place during riding it! ritual continued to be performed until a botched robbery), and that alleged ABOVE: A model of As if the gloso w e r e not terrifying about 150 y e a r s ago, and I personally sightings of the gloso have been reported the gloso made by enough, Skåne and Blekinge also lay know a few who have tried it recently.” there and in the woods nearby. Richard Svennson. claim to a second grim that is just In some Swedish traditions, moreover, It is possible that the gloso is a as frightening and ferocious – the the gloso haunts lonely roads where remnant of earlier Nordic legends BELOW: The gloso nattravnen (‘night raven’) or leharven. m u r d e r s have occurred. Håkan has told appertaining to Gullinburste (‘Golden gives chase. According to Richard once again, this ENSSON SV RICHARD IMAGES: BOTH

56 FT296 www.forteantimes.com forum LOST ARK ENSSON SV RICHARD monstrous entity resembles a huge w a s generally invisible). If a person ABOVE: The terrible bird-like winged beast, dark in colour heard one approaching, his only This monster nattravnen pursues but lacking feathers, and sometimes recourse w a s to lie flat face-down an unlucky villager. portrayed as quite pterodactyl-like in upon the ground (where traditionally overall appearance. resembles a the nattravnen cannot land) and At night, the nattravnen flies over hope that this f o u l entity would the territory to which, as a grim, it is huge bird-like pass b y , because if it came too close bound, and if anyone should wander it would inflict sickness and e v e n into its domain the nattravnen will death. not hesitate to devour them. But this winged beast Compared to such horrors as is not the only w a y in which someone the gloso and nattravnen, e v e n seeing this entity could suffer. Should our o w n Black Dogs, Owlmen, and he happen to see it in flight as it passes his vengeful spirit from materialising other British zooform entities seem in front of the Moon, illuminating as a supernatural entity. Once the positively tame, so I hope that e v e r y and revealing its skeleton through its stake’s w o o d had rotted, however, his FT reader’s Yuletide celebrations remarkably thin skin, the observer spirit would then be freed, becoming this y e a r will be blessed b y a notable will be stricken with agonising pains, a nattravnen, which would swiftly absence of fire-breathing pigs falling seriously ill and vomiting blood, take wing in search of the murderer. and peckish pterodactyls! Happy and sometimes e v e n passing blood in In such cases as these, the Christmas everyone, and a very his urine f o r at least a week. So merely nattravnen didn’t always assume fortean New Y e a r to y o u all! FT the briefest sight of a nattravnen the f o r m of a bird (or pterodactyl). should be avoided at all cost. Instead, it sometimes became a My grateful thanks to Richard In addition, Håkan has informed skeleton wrapped in a black cape, Svensson and Håkan Lindh for me that in olden days if a person w e r e or e v e n a human skeleton sporting providing me with information murdered and buried secretly in a a large pair of wings, which made a concerning the gloso and nattravnen, hidden grave afterwards, a stake would loud noise as it flew through the air and also to Richard for permitting me be f o r c e d through his corpse to prevent (even though the nattravnen itself to include his superb illustrations.

FT296 57www.forteantimes.com YOU’LL BE DREAMING OF A DARK CHRISTMAS...

T h e UFO that T h e dog-headed T h e weird old lady emerged f r o m a m e n terrorising t h e who haunted N or fol k lake... North o f England... a staircase...

IT HAPPENED TO ME VOLUME 5

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NOW ALSO AVAILABLE ON AMAZON KINDLE STORE SEND REVIEW COPIES OF BOOKS TO: BOOK REVIEWS, FORTEAN TIMES, WILD TALENTS LTD, 78 GROSVENOR PARK ROAD, LONDON E17 9PG, UK. Thisreviewsmonth’s books, films and games Mediæval gazeteer revisited A fascinating compendium o f unreliable information about the Middle East, Africa and Asia – and some sound advice o n growing diamonds and avoiding cannibals

introduction: “Part travelogue, than anything else.” part fantasy, part scholarly “It’s s o h o t that Such whimsy is interspersed treatise, part pilgrimage of men’s bollocks hang with more accurate descriptions both body and soul, part record of suttee, foot-binding, and other of ethnographic desire, wit, down t o their shins strange customs. And there’s no and whimsy… [It] articulates Flat Earth nonsense: “Just as a kind of relativism (or ‘proto- due t o their physical one climbs out of our countries multiculturalism’) about the degeneracy” towards Jerusalem, one goes down w o r l d , its religions, and its various towards the region of Prester The Book o f peoples, a w o r l d uniquely open John, from Jerusalem, and that’s to dozens of seductive, if morally because the entire Earth is Marvels and Travels ambiguous, versions of ‘good’ and the test many times: if one looks round.” Sir John Mandeville; Trans: Anthony Bale ‘true’ faith.” after them, together with a little T h e identity of the author, said Oxford University Press 2012 Mandeville’s guide to the Holy bit of rock, and waters them often to be a knight from St Albans, is Pb, 220pp, maps, notes, bib, inds, £8.99, ISBN 9780199600601 Land points out many sites where with May dew, they’ll grow each uncertain, but he might w e l l have FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £8.99 major biblical events unfolded. y e a r and the small ones will grow visited the Holy Land. T h e Book Imagine a mediæval amalgam of Near Hebron, f o r instance, is the large.” w a s probably written in the 1350s, Rough Guide, Ripley’s Believe-it-or- cave where Adam and Eve lived On the island of Hormuz in the though the earliest dated extant not, Baron Munchausen, Morning after being thrown out of the Persian Gulf, “it’s so hot… that manuscript w a s made in Paris in of the Magicians, Chariot of the Garden of Eden, and where Cain men’s bollocks hang down to their 1371. T h e r e are differing versions Gods, Sunday tabloid, and Foxe’s and Abel w e r e born. (Their son shins due to their considerable in English, French, Anglo-Norman, Book of Martyrs – and y o u have Seth, ancestor of Jesus, w a s born physical degeneracy. Local people and Franco-Flemish as various Mandeville’s Book, a phenomenal nearby.) In Jerusalem be sure to know how to bind them up tightly scribes added or subtracted ‘bestseller’ in the 14th century visit the rock where a sleeping and smear them with a special passsages. Soon it w a s translated onwards, long before printed Jacob saw “the angel go up and ointment to hold them up, or else into many languages – and of editions. Ostensibly the narrative down b y a ladder”. Near Mount these men could not survive. In course printing spread it m u c h of an English knight’s voyage to Calvary are f o u r stone columns this country and in many others further. Columbus, Ralegh and Constantinople, Jerusalem and always dripping with water; besides, men and women together Frobisher r e a d the Book in beyond into Africa and Asia, it “Some say that these stones lie stark naked in rivers and pools preparation f o r their travels to is more accurately described as w e e p f o r Our Lord’s death”. from mid-morning until gone the New W o r l d ; discoveries there a playfully unreliable annotated Nearby, St Helena, the Emperor noon. They immerse themselves didn’t immediately disprove anthology of wonders from earlier Constantine’s mother, unearthed in the water except f o r their faces mediæval fantasies, but w e r e seen natural histories, romances, the T r u e Cross, “under a rock because of the intense heat there. as providing supportive evidence, myths, travelogues, bestiaries, where the J e w s had hidden it”. On this island there are ships although e v e n in the 16th century Bible stories, hagiographies, and Helena w a s the daughter of Old without nails or other ironware, there w e r e sceptics like Richard moral tales, from such authors King Cole (the merry old soul). because the adamantine rocks Hakluyt and Ben Johnson. as Isidore of Seville, Odoric T h e further out (east or south) in the sea would pull the ships Anthony Bale’s translation is of Pordenone and William of our author goes, the more ‘far towards them.” lucid and terse and his roughly Boldensele – not forgetting our out’ his stories become. In the T h e inhabitants of Lamuri 500 explanatory notes fascinating. old pals Herodotus, Pliny the river Indus “one finds eels thirty (Sumatra) don’t w e a r clothes; However, I found myself flipping Elder,Virgil, and St Augustine. feet long”. T h e Fountain of Youth “they say that God created back and forth, and in this T h e r e are stories of the Great rises near Kollam (Quilon) on the Adam and Eve naked and that particular w o r k I would have Khan of Cathay; Prester John, the Malabar coast, and “they say” people shouldn’t be ashamed of preferred the old-fashioned mythical Christian prince in the that this flows from the Earthly that which God made, because convention of placing footnotes F a r East; Catolonabes (Hassan i Paradise. T h e best diamonds in nothing God made is repulsive.” (as the w o r d implies) at the f o o t of Sabbah) and his Ismaili assassins; the w o r l d are found in India. They T h e r e is free love, women give the page to which they refer. dog-headed men on the island “grow together, male and female. their children to “whosoever they P a u l Sieveking of Natumeran; and people in They are fed b y heavenly dew, and like”, land and crops are held in Ethiopia with a single f o o t so huge they conceive and engender little common; there is one blemish on Fortean Times Verdict it could be used as a parasol. children that multiply and grow this communist utopia: “They eat INFORMATIVE EDITION OF A Anthony Bale puts it w e l l in his through the years. I’ve put it to human flesh more enthusiastically PIVOTAL MEDIÆVAL CLASSIC 9

FT296 5 9 www.forteantimes.com reviews BOOKS

The Lancashire classic depiction of witches – as Witches pointy-hatted, toothless old crones Space kiddies astride broomsticks – e v e r since. Philip C Almond Professor Almond has a number A n enthusiastic study o f the Green IBTaurus 2012 of solid academic w o r k s on Hb, 209pp, illus, ind, notes, bib £19.99, ISBN 9781780760629 historical witchcraft and religious Children with some regrettable lapses FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £17.99 beliefs behind him. He points out T h e 400th anniversary that the beliefs and motivations of of the execution of Nowell, Potts and their ilk did not during a matter-transmitter members of two rival spring into being fully formed. accident. In addition, Lunan ties ‘witch clans’ of Pendle Within the recent memory of this story into a whole speculative Hill, in Lancashire, both men occurred the notorious history of past extraterrestrial has seen two excellent studies of cases of witches tried and contact, involving – who else? – “England’s Salem”. executed at Warboys in East the Knights Templar. In the early 17th century, Anglia in the 1590s; and at St Lunan’s speculative journey is the F o r e s t of Pendle w a s a Osyth in Essex in 1582, an old entertainingly vivid and packed backwater, where superstition midwife, Ursula Kempe, w a s tried with fun ideas, drawing heavily w a s stronger than the rule of and hanged f o r selling cures and Children from the on the mediæval fascination with law. T h i s story mainly concerns charms against bewitchment. Sky celestial phenomena. T h e r e are two extended and lawless They also knew (and praised) some worrying gaps, though, from families, both ruled b y old, blind King James’s Dæmonologie (1597) A Speculative Interpretation of a Mediæval Mystery – the Green a mediævalist’s perspective. F o r matriarchs, commonly regarded – itself influenced b y Reginald Children of Woolpit instance, early in the text Lunan as “notorious witches”: one, Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft portrays William of Newburgh’s Elizabeth Southerns, known as (1584) – both of which introduced Duncan Lunan Historia rerum Anglicarum as a Old Demdike, and the other Anne to English jurisprudence many Mutus Liber 2012 sober, well-researched narrative, Whittle, known as Chattox. Continental ideas about witches Pb, 534pp, illus, ind, bib, £16.99, ISBN 9781908097057 without mentioning that the story By all accounts the flame and their menace. Potts also had FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £16.99 of the green children appears just w a s put to this social powder- to hand details of the trial of T w o late 12th-century English before stories about a dog found k e g when Demdike’s teenaged Jennet Preston of Gisburn (not f a r chroniclers, William of Newburgh inside the rock in a quarry and granddaughter, Alizon Device, north of Pendle) who w a s hanged and Ralph of Coggeshall, tell similar marvels. Similarly, Lunan had an argument with a travelling at Y o r k a few weeks earlier. similar stories relating to Woolpit, embraces any element of the pedlar who promptly fell lame. A prime example of this a village near Bury St Edmunds account that could be interpreted His family took the matter to the received influence concerns the in Suffolk. According to these to mean an extraterrestrial origin magistrate, accusing Alizon of infamous ‘sabbat of witches’ at the accounts, one day in the 1150s, while explaining away evidence witchcraft. evocatively named Malkin T o w e r , two young children appeared that tends to argue against it. T h e local magistrate, Roger the family home of Demdike’s out of a ditch and wandered And when he repeats the old Nowell, had been waiting f o r the brood. It w a s , most likely, an “thunderstruck” through the canard that mediæval ‘Green right moment to suppress both old cottage but called a ‘tower’ fields until they w e r e captured Man’ carvings are somehow linked clans. He arrested 16 women and sarcastically, e v e n b y the family. b y the locals. T h e children to pre-Christian religion – e v e n f o u r men from the ‘rival covens’. W h e n Nowell arrested her mother seemed to know nothing about in passing – it’s hard not to feel They w e r e detained f o r trial at and her daughter, Elisabeth the local customs and didn’t e v e n that the author’s enthusiasm has the Lancaster assizes where, in Device panicked. She called know what w a s edible. T o cap got the better of him again. T h i s fear of their lives, they accused family, friends, associates and it all, their skin w a s leek-green. attitude to scholarship persists each other of complicity in e v e n rivals, to meet over a meal at They described the strange and throughout the book. W h e r e a f a c t grave-robbing and many m u r d e r s Malkin T o w e r to discuss rescues wonderful country they came might help Lunan’s theory, it is b y witchcraft. Old Mother and strategies. T h e f a c t that it from, where all people and edible dragooned into service; where the Demdike died awaiting trial w a s to be on Good Friday could things w e r e green and where sources say something different, but, on 20 August 1612, 10 of the have been chance, but w a s later there w a s no day, but a perpetual Lunan has a notion about what accused w e r e hanged – including counted against her. Some stayed twilight. T h e story of the Green they really meant. Alizon Device and her brother away or fled what w a s coming, Children is a popular one today; T h a t said, Children from the James, their mother (Demdike’s but those that came included the the sign that identifies the village Sky is an enjoyable read. Lunan’s daughter), and Chattox and her aforementioned Jennet Preston. carries an image of the children, speculations are engagingly bold, daughter. T o Potts it w a s clearly a Satanic and a number of theories exist and he draws dozens of seemingly W e know most of this in sabbat – “a great Assemblie of about the origin of the tale. unrelated strands into a story that, some detail due to the official the Graund Witches, the like Children from the Sky is Duncan however tenuous its foundations, account of the proceedings – T h e whereof hath not been heard of” Lunan’s attempt to create a makes y o u wish y o u could Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches – and many of the 18 attendees ‘speculative interpretation’ of believe in it. T h e sheer bravura in the County of Lancaster – later paid a price f o r it. Although this story. Lunan draws on the force of Lunan’s enthusiasm and completed b y the assiduous court their confessions gave Nowell details of the children’s homeland imagination makes Children from clerk Thomas Potts in 1613. W h a t little to go on, it w a s prosecuted to reconstruct an extraterrestrial the Sky worth reading. is less w e l l known is that in 1849, as a convocation f o r the satanic environment; his theory is James Holloway William Harrison Ainsworth (a baptism of new witches, including that the green children w e r e rival to Dickens and Thackeray) Alizon. His prize witness w a s genetically-engineered human Fortean Times Verdict wrote a novel, T h e Lancashire Alizon’s nine-year-old sister colonists from another planet, SOME WELL RESEARCH WITNESS Witches, based upon the trials, Jennet, who w a s undoubtedly accidentally delivered to Suffolk ACCOUNTS (AND A FEW LACUNÆ) 7 which has fixed most of the schooled to provide suitable

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details. oracles, according to this notion Almond follows each of everything, from the placing of the the Pendle protagonists with hexagrams and their associated Ghostly Scots exemplary clarity and an texts in a precise order to the impressive array of historical reason that particular textual Interesting guide t o Scotland’s ghosties and critical sources. Of the many symbols appear where they do, is books on the storm over Pendle, the result of conscious composition and ghoulies and lang-legged beasties this m u s t r a n k as one of the best. on a staggeringly complex scale. Bob Rickard Perhaps the implied sophistication of its archaic authors is one of the take part in a ghost hunt at the Fortean Times Verdict reasons why Davis’s ideas have Camera Obscura on Edinburgh’s IMPRESSIVELY CLEAR STUDY OF hitherto been resisted. Royal Mile, a tourist attraction AN UNPLEASANT EPISODE 9 Less a sustained exposition since the 19th century. In the The Classic of of his thesis than a collection 1960s, the owners took over of essays providing variations the adjacent building, a former Changes in on its theme, the book explores ‘ragged school’ which is now an Cultural Context such topics as ‘age sets’ extension to the Camera Obscura. (significant decades in a man’s F o r a couple of y e a r s before the A Textual Archæology of the life, accompanied b y rituals, Haunted Scotland redevelopment, a number of ghost Yijing such as reaching manhood at 20, Roddy Martine hunts took place there. Martine Scott Davis marriage at 30, and so on) and Birlinn Limited 2010 attended one of these vigils, but Cambria Press 2012 their reflection in the ordering Pb, 195pp, index £7.99, ISBN 978 1 841587400 left part-way through as it looked Hb, 305pp, illus, notes, bib, inds, $114.99/£71.99, of the book’s 64 hexagrams and FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £7.59 as if w a s going to be a long night. ISBN 9781604978087 FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £71.99 their texts; startling structural On another occasion he had the symmetries in the arrangement Haunted Scotland in 195 pages is opportunity to have the powers of Outside traditional of the hexagram figures that a tall order, but the book does not a medium temporarily transferred exegesis, scholarly certainly imply conscious design; attempt completeness. It is based to him so he could see a spirit. approaches to the the w a y the Yijing models the partly on the author’s experiences He declined, because he did not Yijing, the Chinese f o u r seasons; the importance and partly on interviews. Its know the person he would be Book of Changes, are of mountains in it symbolism, strange collection of stories seeing when she w a s alive, so did usually purely sinological or and so on. All this is backed up will probably be unfamiliar not wish to see her now. Neither philological, which may explain b y fascinating anthropological to the reader; Roddy Martine of these represent the greatest why Scott Davis has been material on ancient ritual and the encountered most of them during commitment to exploring the struggling to bring his ideas organisation of ancient society, his tours of Scotland as a writer on paranormal. before the public f o r at least 15 which provide new vistas in all things Scottish. He wrote T h e These niggles aside, w e have an years. Davis has a structural/ Changes research. Secrets of Rosslyn, which I enjoyed interesting book with hauntings anthropological approach, which T h i s is, uncompromisingly, a reading, so I w a s looking forward and psychic experiences that, doesn’t really ‘fit’ with standard scholarly w o r k f o r specialists, to this w o r k . As it is a personal as f a r as I am aware, other ideas about the classic, so it’s a requiring a good grounding in journey, the 24 chapters don’t flow people have not investigated. r e a l pleasure to see his book in Yijing studies, and there are together, and it reads almost as T h e characters Martine met print at last. occasions, particularly in the a collection of essays, with each while writing this book include Whether treated as a more structuralist discussions, chapter being a standalone w o r k . a seer and James IV, who died in divination manual or a classic of where Davis’s use of academic T h e book has faults. One 1513 (and is now reincarnated philosophy and cosmology, the jargon doesn’t make f o r easy incorrect story repeated is that as a woman called AJStewart). basic text of the Yijing has been reading. Its scholarship, however, Edinburgh’s Mary King’s Close, an T h e r e are tales of witchcraft surrounded, over the centuries, is thorough and wide-ranging, its underground street, w a s bricked used to extract revenge, ghosts b y commentaries and explication ideas deeply thought-provoking. up during the plague, with its scaring people away from council that have k e p t it ‘live’ f o r its Whether one believes that Davis still living victims inside. It houses and timeslips. Enough contemporary users and their has ‘the answer’ or simply ‘another didn’t happen: the story w a s put new fortean f a r e to k e e p anyone current concerns, so modern interpretation’, his w o r k opens about b y the first tour company occupied f o r a night or two… Western readers rarely realise up extensive new fields f o r study to manage the site but has since Gordon Rutter how different archaic Chinese and contemplation that one hopes been corrected. culture w a s to our o w n . It’s the he and others will continue to T h e r e are also a couple of anthropological approach to that explore. It’s regrettable that the moments where I wonder why Fortean Times Verdict culture, based on an array of book is priced so highly that its Martine is investigating the ONE FOR SCOTTISH FORTEANS sources, Western, Chinese and fascinating content will be beyond paranormal. He is invited to AND GHOST ENTHUSIASTS 8 Japanese, that provides the basis the r e a c h of most people outside To order any of these titles – or any other book in print – contact the of Davis’s hypothesis. the university library system, and T h e main concern here is the I can only urge the publisher to composition of the book, which make it available in paperback at FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP Davis argues m u s t be treated as a the earliest opportunity. Telephone: 08430600031 Fax: 01326 569555 Email: [email protected] whole, uniting both the structure Steve Moore Address: Fortean Times Bookshop, PO Box 60, Helston TR13 0TP. and ordering of the linear W e accept all major credit and debit cards including Switch & Amex. Cheques or postal figures, the hexagrams, with their ForteanForteanTimes Verdict Times Verdict orders should be made payable to the FT Bookshop. Delivery is 7–10 days, subject to accompanying text. Rather than REQUIRED READING FOR YIJING SPECIALISTS 9 AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH availability. Postage & packing is free within the UK. being a random collection of SHOWS YIJING’S SOPHISTICATION 1 0

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The Essential tendency of heavy objects to f a l l Dowsing Guide downwards). Newton came up All shook u p with an explanation that w o r k e d Dennis Wheatley in a Copernican Universe, but A catastrophic quake i s increasingly Ozark Mountain Publishing only at the expense of creating Pb, 123pp, illus, £6.99, ISBN 9781886940383 a bigger mystery: action at likely a s humanity embraces urban life FORTEAN TIMES BOOKCLUB PRICE £6.99 a distance. While Einstein Dennis Wheatley (not eventually found a w a y round this, the occult novelist) his solution w a s inconsistent with about the science of earthquake w a s a renowned master quantum physics. T h e ultimate prediction, he is also clear how dowser and teacher. solution of the mystery, a theory f a r w e remain from being a b l e to His definitive guide, of quantum gravity, remains do this reliably. He is particularly originally published as T h e elusive to this day – as does the good on personal anecdotes that Principles of Dowsing, w a s out half-science, half-pseudoscience illustrate this, recounting his of print f o r many y e a r s so this notion of antigravity. experiences of being involved new edition is a welcome return. Brian Clegg covers the history The Million Death with the aftermath of quakes W e l l written, clear and concise, of the subject in a w a y that is in Haiti, Chile and Indonesia, it makes fascinating reading, easily accessible to the layman, Quake among others. T h i s enables whatever one’s prior opinion of while avoiding many of the myths The Science of Predicting Earth’s him to point out that these dowsing. Inspired b y the w o r k of and oversimplifications usually Deadliest Natural Disaster days, bizarrely, seismologists Guy Underwood, T o m Lethbridge encountered. If the book has a Roger Musson often hear about quakes from and Hamish Miller, there is a fault, it is that it lacks narrative journalists – electromagnetic strong bias towards the ‘Earth momentum: resolutions to Palgrave Macmillan 2012 waves carry phone and Internet Mysteries’ dowsing of ancient problems are presented before Hb, 250pp, notes, £16.99, ISBN 9780230119413 FORTEAN TIMES BOOKCLUB PRICE £15.29 signals m u c h faster than the sites, standing stones and ‘energy the reader has been sufficiently Earth carries seismic waves. In lines’. One particularly interesting tantalised with the problems Roger Musson will be familiar this, and in other anecdotes, his chapter on water divining is based themselves. T h e author also from his many contributions to fortean sense of the bizarre and on the notes and papers Wheatley has a strange reluctance to use FT, but he is also Head of Seismic absurd often r e a r s its head. He inherited from Underwood. diagrams, which in subjects like Hazard and Archives at the British relishes recounting early theories Starting from the basics, this really are worth a thousand Geological Survey and their about earthquakes origins; f o r with instructions f o r making w o r d s . chief media spokesperson, and example that they show that the coat-hanger dowsing rods, w e Andrew May it is in this context that he has Earth floats on a v a s t ocean of are led through many styles and written The Million Death Quake. water, or that it is riddled with techniques of dowsing, such as the Fortean Times Verdict It seems increasingly likely that unstable subterranean caverns, use of pendulums – f o r dowsing A COMPETENT ACCOUNT, BUT an earthquake will kill a million or e v e n that quakes are, in fact, maps, as a method of divination, SLOW-MOVING AT TIMES 8 people (the record holder is the the result of explosions in the sky. or e v e n f o r finding lost items 1556 Shaanxi quake that killed an He also explores the idea that around the house. Each chapter The Natural Death estimated 830,000 people), simply animals are capable of predicting concludes with tips and exercises Handbook because more of us are living earthquakes, although he finds f o r developing one’s o w n dowsing Ru Callender at al

in cities, and, as the title of one this somewhat short on evidence. skill and accuracy. Wheatley Strange Attractor Press 2012 chapter says, ‘Earthquakes don’t T h e writing style makes this explores some of dowsing’s history Boxed set of three books, illus, £24.00, ISBN 9781907222146 kill people, buildings do’. book enormously accessible. It and cites a good deal of research AVAILABLE ONLY FROM NATURALDEATH.ORG.UK As one of the w o r l d ’ s leading is concise, clear and casually into how it may w o r k . F o r anyone seismologists, he is the perfect conversational, a trick that looks wishing to learn to dowse, this is Possibly not strictly guide to the science behind the effortless, but is enormously indeed an essential guide. fortean throughout, but study of earthquakes and quakes’ difficult to pull off. W h e n Steve Marshall a handsome production, increasing threat, as w e l l as the reading Musson’s account of how properly edited, with unenviable task that he and seismologists interpret seismic Fortean Times Verdict v a s t amounts of useful his colleagues have of trying to waves to differentiate quakes EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER advice, some of it f a i r l y off-putting predict quakes f a r enough in from quarry blasts, underwater NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DOWSING 8 (removing catheters post mortem, advance so that a million-death explosions and anything else f o r example) and some just things quake never occurs. T h e recent that shakes the planet, or his Gravity y o u tend not to consider – corpses’ manslaughter conviction of six explanation of the complexities Why What Goes Up, Must Come K e n and Barbie pinkness is due to Italian seismologists f o r failing of geological fault behaviour, Down chemicals and essential oils mask to communicate the risk of the this makes potentially baffling Brian Clegg inevitable smells. T h e writing on 2009 L’Aquila quake underlines science remarkably easy to digest. Duckworth Overlook 2012 death (psychedelics and dying, the complexities and risks of T h i s may not be the definitive Hb, 336pp, notes, index, £14.99, ISBN 9780715643600 funerary masks, a history of trying to do this. The Million Death volume on earthquakes, but it is FORTEAN TIMES BOOKCLUB PRICE £13.49 modern death, dancing around the Quake is very timely, as it covers one of the most accessible and T h e force of gravity has bonefire) is fascinating, and there the circumstances leading up to enthralling books on the subject. been a mystery e v e r y is a directory of services. this conviction and also explores Ian Simmons since people realised V a l Stevenson the wider historic and scientific the Earth wasn’t at the context of earthquake detection Fortean Times Verdict centre of the Universe Fortean Times Verdict and prediction. SCIENCE, SEISMOLOGY AND (before that time, there w a s no MAKING THE INEVITABLE MORE While Musson is upbeat FORTEANA JOINED SEAMLESSLY 9 mystery: it w a s just the natural REWARDING 9

6 2 FT296 www.forteantimes.com reviews BookS

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

THE MARTIANS HAVE and researcher since the 1960s. reproductions of the drawings to this horrible war. Many of my LANDED Although he has been prominent and letters themselves. Written messengers have never come A History of Media-Driven Panics in the UFO field, he considers him- every December from 1920 back”. Replete with a goblin and Hoaxes self a fortean first and foremost; onwards and spanning the two alphabet and copious colour pic- Robert E Bartholomew and Benjamin certainly this view informs his writ- decades up to 1943, Letters from tures and sketches which display Radford ing and his approach to the for- Father Christmas captures the the author’s (so often underesti- McFarland 2012 tean canon of mysteries. This is child-like tone of The Hobbit and mated) refreshing, gentle wit, the Pb, 254pp, bib, notes, ind, $40.00, ISBN 9780786464982 a very professional compendium is crafted in Tolkien’s wonderfully book makes a perfect stocking of 64 selected topics from one spidery calligraphy. There are filler for children of all ages – or Building on his academic work of the field’s masters, a third edi- also fascinating little snippets at least children “whose appre- investigating the psychology and tion, much revised and expanded into family life and events of ciation of new worlds hasn’t sociology of ‘mass hysteria’, since its first incarnation in 1993. the time. In 1939, for instance, been blighted by Action Man and Bartholomew continues to rein- Clark’s introductory essay is worth Father Christmas writes: “Things enlightened schoolteachers”, as vent the way in which these topics the price of admission alone and are very difficult this year owing Sir Terry Prachett so aptly put it. are presented and discussed. should be read by all forteans. This latest volume (co-written by He discusses the importance and edited with Skeptical Inquirer of testimony, the clash between editor Benjamin Radford) analyses narratives of extraordinary FoRTEAN FICTIoN 36 well-documented media- experiences and the demand The House of Rumour created scares and panics, many for tangible proof, and the social Jake Arnott of which have been chronicled processes involved in disseminat- Sceptre 2012 in these pages. He provides a ing accounts of anomaly reports. Hb, £17.99, 403pp, ISBN 9780340922729 compact history and discussion He asks: “Is it possible to believe of the initial story, its players one’s informants without believ- and investigators, and its growth ing their explanations?” Clark’s Initially The House of Rumour’s 22 episodes, each named after and influence. The range is very comments and conclusions are a Major Arcana Tarot card, appear unconnected, but links soon broad: the non-existent ‘London considered and well argued. At begin to appear: the viewpoint character in one is mentioned riot’ of 1926; the Welles ‘Martian numerous points in his detailed in another, an historical scene is recalled in a later scene. invasion’ broadcast; Parkinson’s accounts of classic fortean phe- Seamlessly blending real and fictional characters, the novel Ghostwatch; escaped wild ani- nomena, he is forced to conclude is the perfect working-through of the idea of six degrees of mals; suffocation in the tail of Hal- that the search for (or insistence separation, that we are all connected in an intricate web of ley’s comet, and falling asteroids upon) a single, all-encompassing interlocking threads, and also of jonbar hinges, moments when a and satellites; batmen on the answer is wrong in intention and choice dramatically affects the future. Moon; the Australia’s ‘Hook’ and result. The true nature of an Several stories run through it from the 1940s onwards. One is Taiwan’s ‘Slasher’; Morgellon’s anomaly is to be ambiguous and of Rudolf Hess flying from Germany to Scotland to try to create disease, bird flu and panics over reflective, telling us more about peace. Another is of the involvement of the secret services vaccination; Internet virus scares, its perceivers and explainers than (including a young Ian Fleming) in various clandestine schemes video nasties; organ thefts; hur- it does about the world. Clark during World War II: infiltrating British anti-semites, feeding ricane Katrina evacuee myths; also provides definitive investiga- German leaders false astrological information and recruiting the Crying Boy painting and other tions of some of those persistent Aleister Crowley for nefarious purposes. curses; panics over satanic cults, “bogus photos and pseudomys- And another is of the character whose story weaves through sinister strangers, and sharks; teries” that litter our subject. It’s the novel: a young science fiction writer called Larry Zagorski the Chupacabras, ‘chemtrails’ and a critical (in all senses) book; get who in the 1940s hangs out in Los Angeles with Robert Heinlein, ‘secret government’ conspiracies; it, read it and be better informed L Ron Hubbard and rocket scientist and occultist Jack Parsons. photographs of Jesus; and many for it. He and fellow writers and their friends and lovers and children more. This makes a great spread like branches of a tree into the coming decades, their reference for researchers and LETTERS To FATHER paths crossing from time to time. those following mass panics. CHRISTMAS An actress who married Larry becomes involved in the group J R R Tolkien, ed. Baillie Tolkien receiving messages from the Space Brothers, later the subject UNEXPLAINED! Harper Collins 2012 of Leo Festinger’s sociological study. She finds her salvation in Strange Sightings, Incredible Hb, 192pp, illus, £12.99, ISBN 9780007463374 a religious movement run by the Rev Jim Jones; later she finds occurrences, and Puzzling her death in the Jonestown massacre in Guyana – but her young Physical Phenomena This timely republication of Tolk- son escapes and feeds back into the story. Jerome Clark ien’s enchanting missives written It’s hugely complex and multi-layered, and I suspect some Visible Ink Press 2012 to his children in the guise of of the patterns would only become apparent after a second Pb, 500pp, illus, notes, ind, $22.95, ISBN 9781578593446 Father Christmas and the Polar reading, but it’s meticulously researched, cram full of fortean Bear, supposedly direct from themes and a thoroughly satisfying read. Jerry Clark is a treasure of the for- their home at the North Pole, David V Barrett tean world. He has been a writer is lavishly illustrated with digital

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a s i t w a s then? Clark admits a t one point that despite his best efforts, BBC drama budgets a t the time w e r e lamen- tably small and this does show a t times. James doesn’t demand too m u c h b y w a y o f special effects but i t would h ave been nice i f the carv- ings i n Barchesters’ stalls could h ave m ove d more subtly and con- vincingly.And M rs Mothersole’s grotesque offspring are, I suspect, a s likely t o provoke laughter a s shudders. I n contrast with O’Conor and his almost over-the-top cavorting i s Christopher Lee, some o f whose solo performances o f James’s sto- ries filmed i n 2000 a re included a s extras o n the discs.They strike m e n ow a s rather ponderous – long o n academic gravitas, short o n don- nish wit. Lee made clear that h e wasn’t attempting a n impersona- tion o f James when h e made these films, but the producers clearly t ry t o recreate the atmosphere and conditions i n which the tales w e r e thoughtful companion to his o w n b y a marvellously lugubrious cen- originally told – o n Christmas Eve, Ghost Stories for films. His admission that he got tral performance b y PeterVaughan after Chapel i n King’s College Christmas hooked on James when his father as Paxton. And the effectiveness Cambridge.The candles, the claret r e a d the stories to him as a boy is of its ending perhaps gave rise to jug, the panelled room, the roaring Dir Lawrence Gordon Clark, et al, UK 1968-2006 one of several charming insights a temptation to make some of the fire all ring true, but the awestruck BFI, £49.99 and opinions that he offers in the stories e v e n bleaker than James silence o f the audience and solem- brief interviews that precede each intended. T h e Treasure of Abbott nity o f the storyteller deaden the There’s always been, for me, a of the films he made.They are, in Thomas for instance becomes a tales, and quite miss the humour pleasing nostalgia about M R chronological order: T h e Stalls of dire warning against overweening and playfulness that i s such a n James’s stories. People rightly Barchester (1971), A Warning to the rationalism as Michael Bryant’s essential part o f James’s w o r l d . baulk at the description of his w o r k Curious (1972), Lost Hearts (1973), Somerton is wheeled away at the Also included i n this five-disc as cosy, but there is something T h e Treasure of Abbott Thomas end b y some unspeakable undead boxed set a re the t wo films o f Oh, paradoxiaclly comforting, I main- (1974), T h e Ash T r e e (1974) T h e Sig- cleric. Whistle, and I’ll come t o you m y tain, about his tales of solitude nalman (based on a Dickens short But, really, all Clark’s adaptations lad, both o f which will continue t o and malevolent horror. It’s not the story, 1976) and Stigma (1977), a stand u p w e l l beside the stories o n divide viewers and James fans alike. content, perhaps, so m u c h as the contemporary, specially written tel- which they’re based and all bear F o r me, Jonathan Miller’s 1968 form.The orally transmitted tale eplay b y Clive Exton that compares repeated viewings.The cast lists a re adaptation with Michael Hordern i s presupposes a teller, and for many unfavourably with its predecessors. a r o l l call o f British television acting the most frightening piece o f televi- people that teller w a s a parent or Landscape and place are tre- talent. Robert Hardy ( T h e Stalls o f sion I’ve e v e r seen, while the 2010 well-meaning schoolmaster. Most mendously important elements in Barchester), Edward Petherbridge ‘version’ that borrowed the title o f people encounter James with an James’s stories and Clark shows the ( T h e Ash Tree), Michael Bryant James’s story and little else, i s a s intense feeling of excitement in same sensitivity to location in his ( Abbott Thomas), PeterVaughan irritating a travesty a s has e v e r been their schooldays, and he sticks with films.The broad, lonely north Nor- and Clive Swift ( A Warning t o the filmed. them for life. A similar sense of f o l k beach in A Warning to the Curi- Curious), and Denholm Elliott ( T h e Clark reveals i n one o f the inter- nostalgia, of longing for a return to ous might not be the shingly strand Signalman) all convincingly carry views that i n the late 1970s h e had childhood, is stirred b y the BBC’s of Aldeburgh that James had in their respective stories. And there’s a script for the Swedish-set story Ghost Stories for Christmas, released mind when he wrote his story, but a deliciously crazy peformance from ‘Count Magnus’ written and r e a d y here on five fine discs b y the BFI. it w o r k s brilliantly on the small Joseph O’Conor a s M r Abney i n Lost t o make, but that there w a s n eve r T h e best of these films are based screen. And in making the change Hearts. the money t o d o it. I can think o f n o on James’s w o r k and w e r e made Clark knew exactly what he w a s A s i n James’s tales, the little better w a y for the BBC t o atone for in the 1970s b y Lawrence Gordon doing. “It’s a film,” he says, “where cameo parts stick i n the head the misdeeds o f its overpaid celeb- Clark. F o r me, they’re of a piece the subject is terrorised not b y too: David Cargill a s the boots i n rity staff than t o immediately g i ve with Jackanory,TomBaker’s Doctor claustrophobia, but b y wide open A Warning t o the Curious almost him a blank cheque t o make this Who and T h e Phantom Raspberry spaces” – an observation, I think, deserves a spin off series o f his o w n . film i n time for next Christmas. Blower of Old London T o w n . that gets to the heart of why East And Barbara Ewing makes for a n Robert Lloyd Parry Clark is an appropriately Anglia plays such an important unexpectedly sexy M rs Mothersole modest, softly spoken man to have part in James’s haunted w o r l d . i n T h e Ash Tree.AmI being blinded Fortean Times Verdict bought James to the screen and A Warning to the Curious is argua- b y nostalgia when I s ay that British THE PERFECT WAY TO SPEND he’s a thoroughly likeable and bly Clark’s best James film, helped TV acting today simple isn’t a s good A GHOSTLY CHRISTMAS 9

6 4 FT296 www.forteantimes.com reviews FILM & DVD

Manimal Dir various, US 1983 Fabulous Films, £34.99 The Reverend’s Review T h e r e are many reasons to devote space to a series that r a n for just FT’s resident man of the cloth REVEREND PETER LAWS dons eight episodes and that few have his dog collar and faces the flicks that Church forgot! heard of and e v e n fewer seen. (www.theflicksthatchurchforgot.com) F i r s t l y , almost e v e r y o n e involved w e n t on to bigger things. Simon McCorkindale (Dr Jona- RASPUTIN: THE MAD historical liberties, but Rasputin than Chase), an impossibly hand- MONK / THE DEVIL (pronounced Raspootin, not some and charming Englishman, RIDES OUT / THE Raspewtin according t o this film) found international recognition MUMMY’S SHROUD i s put together with such bug- in Falcon Crest, before spending eyed energy that i t’s hard not t o his final decade in residence in Dir Neil Jones, UK 2011 fall under its spell. Casualty/Holby City. Creator/Pro- Studio Canal, £.99 each Lee shows u p again, i n a ducer Glen A. Larson w a s fresh r a r e good guy role, i n The Devil from success with Quincy MD Well, dearly beloved, this month Rides Out. Richard Matheson and would go on to be the prime brings monks, mummies and adapted the script from Dennis mover behind Knight Rider, T h e the Goat o f Mendes (“The Devil Wheatley’s novel t o create a F a l l Guy, Magnum P.I. and Bat- himself!”) a s Hammer Horror superb and genuinely ripping tlestar Galactica. Effects designer continues its HD makeover. y a r n o f Satanism i n the Home just a forerunner o f the slasher Stan Winston would become First u p i s Rasputin: The Mad Counties. The pace, tension, movie anyway: Slasher/Mummy synonymous with the bleak sci-fi Monk, i n which the life story o f acting and atmosphere o f the i s offended – Slasher/Mummy realms of Terminator and Aliens. Grigori Rasputin i s recast a s film make i t one o f Hammer’s methodically murders people for Heck, e v e n sidekick Brooke a pseudo-horror melodrama. v e r y best, and i t contains the rest o f the film – Slasher/ (Melody Anderson), w e n t on to Christopher Lee has a n absolute genuine scares, despite some Mummy dead? –The End. But play Dale Arden, Flash Gordon’s blast playing the cruel and dodgy special effects (this i t’s done here with great acting squeeze. obnoxious monk who uses his restored print has updated the and real directorial flare – plus T h e series bombed because it healing powers t o g a i n fame, effect shots). Former Satanist for a studio that often liked t o w e n t head-to-head on NBC with fortune and a heck o f a lot writer Nikolas Schreck called the h av e a central hero fighting the the behemoth that w a s Dallas, o f wine. And, b o y, does Lee film “ o n e o f the most authentic titular foe, i t’s a r a r e example o f then half w a y through its 15-year knock i t back i n this. That’s portrayals o f genuine magical a Hammer ensemble piece. run. No-one saw Manimal and it when h e isn’t stripping women, practice and philosophy ever All three films are perhaps w a s axed. chopping people’s hands off, o r filmed.” Plus, i t’s got a giant less than pristine i n HD, but this So is it any good? dancing and clapping t o anything spider i n it. What more d o y o u i s certainly the best they’ve ever Absolutely – and unintention- that sounds remotely like want? looked, with some fascinating ally hilariously so. Tetris. There are some chilling This trio o f rather untypical and well-produced extras. These Chase, a famed Professor of moments, though. A t one point Hammer Horrors i s completed are three welcome additions t o Criminology, can turn himself h e stares a t a female character b y The Mummy’s Shroud. I the Hammer restoration project. into any animal, but seems to who h e’s become bored with tend t o avoid shuffling Mummy Pick o f the bunch? The Devil f a v o u r panther, hawk or snake. and tells her t o “ G o and destroy movies (he w a s always m y least Rides Out. Apparently trained animals w e r e yourself.” When she does just favourite monster), s o imagine initially dragged around on loca- that, h e simply remarks: “What m y surprise when I found myself Fortean Times Verdict tion, and it’s laugh-out-loud funny a good little girl.” That w a s cold, hooked. The story’s nothing TWO HAMMER GEMS AND to see the baddies soil themselves Rasputin. Cold. I t might take new. After all, Mummy films are ONE BONA FIDE CLASSIC 8 as a monstrously large Black Panther dives only feet over their heads or a grizzly bear comes crashing through the door.This only stopped when the similarly monstrous costs being incurred w e r e realised and had nothing to do with the actors’ or animals’ wellbeing.There’s also the nice touch of fantasy heroes being cast against type; Ursula Andress and FT favourite Doug McClure make appearances as villains, as does a young and already sinister Robert Englund. Wonderful stuff. Tim Weinberg Fortean Times Verdict A FORGOTTEN GEM OF 1980S FANTASY TELLY 8

FT296 65 www.forteantimes.com reviews FILM & DVD

Seeking a Friend for brutal, wince-inducing martial arts ballet of surpassing impact and flair. SHORTS the End of the World In the heart of one of Jakarta’s Dir Lorene Scafaria, USA 2012 most deprived slums, an impen- Studio Canal, £19.99/£22.99 etrable high-rise apartment block stands, 30 floors of Hell, home to THE PACT Perhaps too downbeat for moviego- the city’s most dangerous scumbag (Entertainment One, £15.99/£19.99) ers to really w a r m to; this apocalyp- criminals and killers and overseen For once, I concur with the mob. The Pact i s v e r y good tic romcom is sure to do big business b y a ruthless crime king landlord. indeed. First time director Nicholas McCarthy mixes on DVD, starring, as it does, this An elite SWAT team is sent in, in beautifully-framed ‘creepy’ longshots with in-your-face generation’s trustworthy everyman a pre-dawn raid, to infiltrate the close-ups, all shot through a beige filter; California has Steve Carrell and the pout that is building and execute an ACME P e s t never looked s o drab and washed-out, and the whole K e i r a Knightley. Control-like clearout of it, floor b y film reeks o f invasion and intrusion. But i s the film – i n Asteroid Matilda is going to hit floor. Barely have the SWAT team which a young woman returns t o her recently deceased mother’s the Earth in three weeks and w e ’ r e entered the tower block than they home t o find her sister missing and spooky goings-on – a haunted- all going to die. No contingency are fighting for their lives to get out house story o r serial-killer thriller? Watch and thrill t o Caity Lotz’s plans, just the certainty of the again. defiant Annie, the most effortlessly sexy horror heroine i n years, who extinction of all life. And so law T h e plot, as it transpires, is actu- appears i n every scene and (if there’s justice i n the horror universe) and order break down and people ally more sophisticated than that. will achieve cult status and deserved recognition. The Pact i s genu- behave – well, m u c h the same as Iko Uwais’s young SWAT team inely frightening, embodying old-fashioned horror values, such a s now: the poor turn on each other member Rama has left his wife and knowing the right time for a ‘jump’-moment and/or random act o f and destroy what little they have, child behind him, and in moments violence, and i s underpinned b y solid performances and a n atmos- while those with money indulge of extreme danger and imminent pheric soundtrack. TC 8/10 their pathetic, repressed desires (“I demise finds he has little else left w a n t to do heroin to Radiohead’). to draw on except his memory THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW All use sex as a form of basic com- of them. Crucially, y o u become (Eureka Entertainment, Dual Format Edition £16.99) munication and means of commerce, emotionally invested in the man. A Marxist poet’s ( a n d avowed atheist’s) take o n the without fear of disease or preg- Meanwhile, all is not simply as it second Gospel (there’s pointedly n o ‘Saint’ i n the title nancy. seems in the blood-drenched Hotel o f Pasolini’s film), this remains a n astonishing work, Essentially a r o a d movie about Jakarta. Uwais also provides the caught o n the cusp between its director’s Neo-Realist middle-age crisis, the Apocalypse jaw-dropping fight choreography roots and his later more oblique, poetic style. A million is merely a backdrop for asking (he’s probably already named his miles from the comfortable pieties and widescreen tab- questions about second chances price in Hollywood). T h e r e are so leaux o f the Hollywood biblical epic, Matthew employs documentary- in Love. Dodge (Carrell), is safe many astonishing set pieces it’s hard style black-and-white cinematography, non-professional actors and and reserved, P e n n y (Knightley), a to know where to start. narrative disjunctions t o create a sense o f intimacy and immediacy young, hyperactive, extrovert rock- Talking of starting, once this film i n its telling o f the story o f Christ, using only words from scripture and c h i c k (although so androgynous/ does so it simply will not let up, with a n eclectic soundtrack; revolutionary stuff, and never looking better boyish y o u sometimes wonder one stunning fight sequence after than o n this excellent dual format release. A substantial bonus i s whether it’s a woman Dodge is look- another, be it with fists or automatic the rarely seen hour-long film Sopralluoghi i n Palestina i n which ing for at all.) Do opposites attract? machine guns. It isn’t easy to escape Pasolini travels through Palestine with Don Andrea Carraro i n search T h e fact Penny’s taste in music runs the spirit of Bruce Lee and there is o f locations for his film, only t o realise that h e will h a v e t o ‘reinvent’ to Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed and perhaps a nod to the pagoda tower the Gospel from scratch elsewhere. DS 9/10 Scott Walker should be the clue in his unfinished Game of Death and that she’s up for some moany old-git the soul-purging trial b y combat in RED LIGHTS action. that film. (Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment, £15.99/£19.99) Tim Weinberg A Welshman based in Jakarta. When a film i s described a s “this y e a r ’ s Sixth Sense” There’s something slightly surreal i t just means the viewer spends the next two hours Fortean Times Verdict about the conjunction and the film trying t o spot the inevitable, and inevitably disappoint- IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD itself – with its beautifully choreo- ing, Shyamalam-like twist, before throwing the remote AND EVEN YOU CAN GET LAID 8 graphed violence – becomes h y p - across the room i n disgust when i t ’s all over. N o Bruce notic and takes on the character of Willis here, though; instead, w e get Sigourney W e a v e r The Raid the surreal. In action film terms, for and her irritatingly Prof Brian Cox-alike sidekick (Cillian Murphy) a s a expectations of panache, savagery pair o f fearless academic skeptics who live only t o bust the likes o f Dir Gareth Evans, Indonesia 2011 and impact, T h e Raid raises the Psychic Sally and b e rude t o the head o f the supposedly over-funded Momentum Pictures, £17.99/£19.99 bar and smashes y o u over the head parapsychology department (what weird parallel universe does this T h e Raid is one of those films in with it. film take place in, I hear y o u ask?). W e also get quite a lot o f thinly- which the pre-release rumblings A host of features accompany disguised references t o various famous parapsychological cases preceding it promise something both the DVD and Blu-ray release, (from T e d Serios t o Nina Kulagina) that forteans will h a v e fun (one rather special, straight out of left the latter containing the US and takes ones pleasure where one can) spotting. The main story arc fol- field – or, in this case, the East. original uncut versions of the film. lows our intrepid duo o f debunkers a s they seek t o expose celebrity And the raves about Welsh director Nick Cirkovic psychic Simon Silver (Robert d e Niro) a s a big old fake a s i f the future Gareth Evans’s fully-loaded head- o f the planet somehow depended o n it. The final twist merely makes kicking fest are more than justified. Fortean Times Verdict a nonsense o f what w a s already only barely intelligible. DS 4/10 T h e Raid is an exhilarating thrill- A WELSHMAN IN INDONESIA = ride – an unremittingly violent, SURREAL SET PIECES GALORE 8

66 FT296 www.forteantimes.com

A NEW WAY TO EMBRACE THE UFO PHENOMENON LightQuest by Andrew Collins is a new concept in seeing and interacting with the UFO phenomenon. It sees the phenomena observed as the product of sentient light forms and light intelligences that co- exist with humanity, and have done since time immemorial. It reveals what they are, how to see them, where to see them and what to do if you do see them. Evidence now points to UFOs, mystery lights, and alien intelligences being far more exotic than ever imagined. They can be seen as sentient energy forms and complex plasma constructs — manifestations of a higher dimensional reality, seen in the past as the Realm of Faerie and now as alien hardware. LightQuest shows that the UFO phenomenon is deeply rooted in everything from quantum entanglement to multi- dimensional experiences, strange worlds that interpenetrate our own and even psychic communication. Alien abductions and missing time episodes are described, defined and clearly understood for the first time. The book is also a field guide to some of Britain and the United States' top UFO hotspots, including: USA - Roswell, New Mexico; Piedmont. Missouri; Marfa, Texas; Allagash, Maine; Brown Mountain, North Carolina; Indian Head Rock, New Hampshire; Yakima/Mt. Adams, Washington State UK - Avebury, Alton Barnes, Warminster, Aveley, Peak District, and Rendlesham. PRICE: £14.99. 415 pages. Guidebook format with textured cover. Heavily illustrated throughout with numerous maps, photos and illustrations including an 8-page 24-colour photo insert. Full index. With an introduction by Gregory L. Little LightQuest is available now from Amazon, Ebay, & Alibris Signed copies from the author at www.andrewcollins.com Also available from the following bookshops: Henge Shop, Avebury; WhiteHorse Bookshop, Marlborough; The Barge, Honeystreet; Labyrinth Books, Glastonbury; Happy Glastonbury, Glastonbury; Gothic Image, Glastonbury; Speaking Tree, Glastonbury; WatkinsBookshop, London; Atlantis Bookshop, London; Mysteries, London CONTACT US BY POST: BOX 2409 LONDON NW5 4NP OR E-MAIL [email protected] PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS lettersDear FT…

Brain and mind left it exactly as it had been when the bodies w e r e found, and installed Simulacra Corner In response to Sarah Louise w a x dummies clothed in the victims’ [FT294:71] regarding the nature of bloodstained garments. On the fist consciousness, I would take the specu- day of the ‘exhibition’, they made £50. lation one step further. Let’s say the Eventually, public opinion closed it brain isn’t the organ of consciousness down. but rather a sophisticated receiver Steven Mackfall of the same from a dimension higher Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland than those w e experience, rather like the w a y wi-fi w o r k s only more W e stand corrected profound. Using this premise, one can ‘explain’ an awful lot of phenomena F o r a couple of decades, I have been (strange or otherwise) such as dreams, an a v i d reader of y o u r most excellent ghosts, intuition, synchronicity, past publication, and it is more than twice lives, collective consciousness, and so that time since I last studied Latin at on. Maybe mankind is the biological school. However, whilst reading “The extension of this consciousness. We’re Birth of the Poltergeist” [FT293:39] I not separate from it, w e are it. It’s w a s surprised to see “Tu omnia subie- worth thinking about. cisti sub pedibus eius, scilicet Filii Mike Bending tui” rendered as “If the Devil has any Penshurst, K e n t power over me, let him show it!” I be- lieve this quotation is a reference to Neglected octopus the Book of Hebrews, chapter 2, v e r s e 8: “Thou hast put all things in subjec- T h e article about P a u l the octopus tion under his feet.” I suggest that the [FT295:48-51] reminded me of a appendage “scilicet Filii tui” would passage in Andrew Solomon’s book translate as: “namely, y o u r Son [i.e. about depression, T h e Noonday Demon Jesus]”. Perhaps Luther’s large black (2001, p.257): “I w a s fascinated to sow threw hazelnuts at whoever w a s hear of the suicide of an octopus, setting up the page f o r the printers? trained f o r a circus, that had been Jenny Hillier accustomed to do tricks f o r rewards of West Hartlepool, Co. Durham food. When the circus w a s disbanded, the octopus w a s k e p t in a tank and no Passenger pigeons one paid any attention to his tricks. He gradually lost colour (octopuses’ I had this thought concerning the states of mind are expressed in extinction of the passenger pigeon: in their shifting hues) and finally w e n t the 19 th century, the chestnut blight through his tricks a last time, failed wiped out billions of chestnut trees in to be rewarded, and used his beak to North America. An entire ecosystem stab himself so badly that he died…” w a s demolished.Twenty y e a r s later Richard George the decline of the Passenger Pigeon St Albans, Hertfordshire population began. Was the tree a source of f o o d (I’m thinking catkins, Grisly attraction the tree flower) or maybe it w a s need- ed in reproductive requirements? During a trip to the little island a backpack of a somewhat T h e proposed Jeffrey Dahmer tour Robert Whitaker-Sirignano of Grinda, some two hours strange appearance”. in Milwaukee [FT292:9] reminded Smyrna, Delaware sailing east of Stockholm in me of a story I heard during a ghost Sweden, Lars Thomas came We are always glad to receive hunt last y e a r . In September 1834, K a r l Shuker comments: It’s an across an old tree with all pictures of spontaneous J o h n Nicholas Steinberg of Islington interesting idea but the wholesale, kinds of strange creatures forms and figures. Send them in London killed his wife and f o u r prolonged slaughter of the pigeons coming out of it. In one place to the PO box above (with a children before killing himself. His by hunters, in which untold millions there was the head of a mana- stamped addressed envelope nocturnal burial in Clerkenwell poor of birds in North America were shot, tee emerging from the trunk, or international reply coupon) ground attracted a considerable is what sent the species plummeting while on the other side there or to sieveking@forteantimes. crowd. In line with contemporary su- into extinction. No species could hope was “ a strange goblin-like com – please tell us your perstition, his head w a s beaten with to survive such sustained slaughter creature with a smooth arm, postal address and we’ll send a wooden mallet and he w a s buried spanning decades. The last specimen but a rather weird hairdo, and you an exclusive FT gift. face-down.The landlord re-let the of Ectopistes migratorius died in Steinbergs’ house.The new tenants Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.

FT296 71 www.forteantimes.com letters

W e r e sheep I saw the iceman The left cheek looked as though the bone inside Stuart Ferrol’s description of a Regarding the Minnesota Iceman, mentioned in w a s crushed, with a pinkish, depressed wound in ‘half-man half-sheep’ entity seen the review of Brian R e g a l ’ s Searching for Sas- the middle. I looked at it from every possible angle, b y Nellie Dodd after the discovery quatch [FT293:62]: I saw the exhibit called ‘the and I clearly saw about an inch-long wisp of red- of the Hexham Heads [FT294:46] Iceman’ in late September 1964 at the State Fair dish pinkish swirl emitted from the wound frozen reminded me of an archæological of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. I w a s six years old into the ice, exactly like the blood one might see in site I w o r k e d on at Mirfield, West then and recall it quite clearly. I w a s a cynical child, a congealed block of frozen fish. Yorkshire, in 2006. Despite the not taken in by horror movies or carnival illusions. The left eye w a s slightly open and of a light comedic potential of this ‘were- My father w a s a civilian employed as an Air Force colour, greyish green. Its/his colouring w a s what sheep’, one of the finds from the programmes analyst and he raised me with great I would call European, with auburn hair. Most of area w a s an Iron Age or early Ro- scepticism for anything not documented. the body w a s covered with hair, some like lanugo, mano-British stone head – which I decline to speculate exactly what the Iceman some like that of a hirsute man’s chest, none of it featured a carving of a human w a s , but I do believe that it/he w a s a carcass of like that of an animal. I saw the insertions of doz- head backed b y the head of a r a m . some sort. The exhibit w a s located in the south- ens, perhaps hundreds of hairs, also the texture of In other w o r d s , a representation east quadrant of the fairgrounds, among other the skin, both exactly like those of a middle-aged of a ‘half-man half-sheep entity’ carnival attractions. The vehicle w a s not the truck Caucasian man. I have designed and manufac- apparently dating from the same illustrated in “The Abominable Showman” by Ian tured ocular and facial prosthetics for patient period as the Hexham Heads. Simmons [FT83:34-37, Oct-Nov 1995], but it w a s use and I do not believe that the Iceman w a s of Little is known a b o u t the a primarily white trailer, or possibly a truck-trailer prosthetic technology. Mirfield head, unfortunately – it combination. There w a s a large noisy diesel gen- At our six-year-old height, Dwayne and I were po- had been lost prior to 2006 and its erator that emitted diesel fumes. The exhibit cost sitioned to sniff right along the edge of the freezer listing in the WestYorkshire His- 25 cents, considerably more than most, which case, and we took turns breathing in deeply right toric Environment Record (HER cost 10 cents. near the Iceman’s left armpit. It stank of decompo- no.6849) w a s sketchy. It had been The trailer’s interior w a s about 8ft by 12ft sition. W e made jokes about the Iceman’s smelly recovered, at an unrecorded date, (2x4m), and a large freezer case took up most of armpit. The exhibit w a s crowded and other people from a drystone field boundary the room inside. There w a s about a 2ft (60cm) commented on the awful odour. w a l l in the vicinity of Five Thorns -wide path around it. The walls were covered with I think the Iceman w a s indeed a frozen cadaver Well, to the south of Leeds Road. maps and posters. I couldn’t read on an adult of some sort, although I don’t venture to presume T h e w e l l itself w a s marked on Mir- level, but I waited until a man w a s reading one whether it/he w a s a pathetic, malformed human field’s 1798 enclosure map and on of the descriptive posters to another child and or something else. I would place little credence the 1854 Ordnance Survey map, listened in. I recall the gist of the story as being in Frank Hansen’s narrative – though a farmer, he but w a s subsequently destroyed that the Iceman had been shot by a fishing trawler claimed not to recognise the smell of putrefaction! when the area w a s excavated f o r crewman off the coast of Siberia, perhaps on And then there’s the coy “many years ago...” I brick clay.The whereabouts of the or near an ice floe, and that the fishermen had wonder what a through examination of bank, tax, head prior to it being incorpo- frozen it/him in a compartment of the ship used to property and vehicle registration records would rated into the boundary w a l l are transport fish in ice. They took it/him to some East bring to light. unknown. Asian seaport (Hong Kong, I believe). That is all I Doris Tomlin Mrs Dodd, unsettled b y the recall overhearing. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma discovery of the Hexham Heads, is The flooring w a s rickety, of corrugated metal, perhaps more likely to have awok- and I could see the ground through the g a p s in it. en suddenly from a nightmare The weather that day w a s damp and misty. The than to have been menaced b y a smell of diesel w a s strong. My friend Dwayne and Brigante were-sheep.The Mirfield I nudged up as close as we could to the freezer head, however, does suggest that case, with our chins right up against the railing. It / a similar entity may indeed have he w a s a frozen cadaver, resembling an oversized, formed part of the belief system hairy-bodied man, only of a musculature, height of the Iron Age or Romano-British and dimension about 10 per cent to 25 per cent north. Maybe this is something larger than human, especially the bone structure that Stuart Ferrol could examine of the face. It/he w a s covered by about 4-12in further without “raising the ire of (10-30cm) of ice; that in turn w a s covered by some archæologists”? kind of thick glass or plastic, fastened down by Mark Stenton Phillips-head screws into the metal freezer case. Sheffield, South Yorkshire I remember the face quite clearly. The features were broad, heavy and muscular, neither those Dental inspection of a gorilla nor a normal man. The eye sockets were sunken, and the right eye mostly obscured T h e alleged abduction of Betty by the opacity of the ice. I stood about 12in/30cm and Barney Hill on the evening to 18in/45cm a w a y from the left eye, staring for of 19 September 1961 is one of about five minutes, and remember it most vividly. the great classics from UFO lore. There w a s what I would now call an e x i t bullet Betty Hill described in detail the wound right on the process of the left zygomatic appearance of her alien abductors. arch. Following her examination, she claims she had a long conversa- tion with the lead alien about

72 FT296 www.forteantimes.com letters

where they w e r e from. When her w a s an imposing woman – squared- knew her, she often assumed the y e a r s with a very old-fashioned husband rejoined her, the aliens jawed, about 6ft (1.8m) tall and title Baroness Hajdu if she wanted light fitting and not m u c h else. had his false teeth in their hands not, I thought, the sort of person preference of some kind or entrée Both depot w o r k e r s w e r e puzzled and asked Betty if her teeth came easily intimidated. into exclusive circles. A truly as to why a perfectly good storage out, too. It later turned out that “Char- remarkable person, affirming her space had been bricked up. I r e a d somewhere that a lotte Maria Beatrix Augusta theories b y experiment as a w o r k - T h i s would have been nothing ‘debunker’ claimed this entire Bach” w a s a bit of a shape-shifter in-progress. I don’t know whether more than of passing interest scenario w a s either imagined or herself. At her death from liver her ghoul pre-dated or coincided apart from what followed.The dreamt b y the Hills after they cancer in 1981, aged 61, she w a s with David Farrant’s initial 1960s newly opened space came into watched an episode of T h e Outer found to be a man – Karoly Hajdu werewolf sighting, or e v e n if she use as intended; however, both Limits – but this TV show didn’t [pronounced Hoy-doo], a Hungar- knew Farrant, but it’s interesting men felt that the atmosphere w a s premier until 1963. However, the ian émigré transvestite. I’d known as an early Highgate report. somehow ‘different’ when y o u Hills’ story about the aliens’ f a s - her in the early 1970s when she Terry Little entered the unsealed room.There cination with Barney’s false teeth w a s writing her magnum opus, Sherborne, Dorset w a s a tangible sense of ‘heaviness’, reminded me of an episode from Homo Mutans – Homo Luminens, a unlike the r e s t of the depot, which the popular TV comedy I Love w o r k concerned with the effects of The sealed room felt quite normal. While on one Lucy entitled ‘Women F r o m Mars’ sexual deviation on human evolu- of their two-man night shifts, the in which Lucille Ball masqueraded tion. On her behalf, I posted the On returning from a visit to one pair witnessed the figure of a man as an alien f o r a publicity stunt 521-page typescript to Colin W i l - of his company’s newly acquired in blue overalls standing in one of and inspected a terrified bystand- son in 1970. Wilson wrote about depots, m y husband surprised me the aisles within the depot.This ers’ teeth. Bach in several of his books after with this simple y e t at the same w a s in the early hours of the morn- meeting her in London. time intriguing story he’d been ing, in a locked-down depot, where ◆ “Tales From TheVault” [Editor’s note: championing told b y one of his colleagues. no access w a s possible.The figure [FT292:80] recalls an incident Lamarck over Darwin, Bach These guys aren’t prone to fanciful w a s there one minute and gone reported b y Janet and Colin Bord argued that humans, in varying storytelling and it’s the low-key na- the next.This happened a couple where two friends of theirs w e r e degrees, experience a pull towards ture of it (no big scares or thrills) of times during their night shifts, walking on a path between fields becoming the opposite sex, and that seems to enhance its fortean but according to their colleagues outside Rearsby, Leicestershire, that this w a s the true engine of nature. My husband w o r k s f o r a no one else had witnessed the in “a very cold wind, then, f o r a evolutionary change and the k e y large company that is in the habit figure prior to the opening of the split second, w e both felt a w a r m to the proper understanding of of buying up local, family-run tyre- sealed room. breeze on our faces” [FT38:59]. culture. Backed up b y a polym- fitting outfits that are being sold Is it just a coincidence that the In her book Alien Invasion, the athic accumulation of supporting as the owner goes into retirement. figure began to appear after the late Ellen Crystall cites a similar evidence and a forceful lecturing His job recently required him to r o o m w a s unsealed – or had he occurrence she experienced in style, she constructed what she visit one of these depots, located in been appearing f o r y e a r s late at a field while investigating UFO called the science of ‘human ethol- Fforestfach, just outside Swansea, night, unwitnessed like some sort activity near Pine Bush, New York. ogy’. She published some w o r k s on and one of the guys who w o r k e d in of modern day genius loci? My T h e few people who lived near this, but not Homo Mutans – Homo the depot told him this story. husband said there w a s a large, the field complained of ‘industrial Luminens. See T h e Misfits: A Study T h e depot had to be manned old safe that no one had a k e y f o r . noises’ at night – sounds of genera- of Sexual Outsiders (1989) b y Colin overnight to ensure the bays w e r e Could its contents perhaps throw tors, drills coming from under- Wilson, and T h e Irresistible Con: r e a d y to receive early morn- any light on the mystery of the ground. Ms Crystall’s companion T h e Bizarre Life of a Fraudulent ing deliveries of tyres. Health sealed r o o m and the figure in blue explained that the w a r m blast of Genius (2004) b y Francis Wheen.] and safety requirements meant overalls? He asked his colleagues air they suddenly felt came from a As an outsider in a strange land that staff had to w o r k in pairs if they knew anything a b o u t the hidden v e n t from an underground in the later 1940s, Hajdu had to overnight in case there w a s an history of the building; all they installation under construction b y establish an identity somehow in emergency.Whilst things w e r e knew w a s that the previous busi- the aliens. post-war England, flitting between quiet one night in 2011, this guy ness had been around f o r a few Greg May various residences and jobs – bar- and his colleague w e r e reviewing generations but that the actual Orlando, Florida man, receptionist, book-keeper. storage space and noticed that a building predated the ownership He then assumed the title Baron r o o m appeared to be sealed off f o r of that business. A ghoul in Highgate Carl Hajdu and socialised with no obvious reason.They knocked Vicky Holt aristocrats at the Dorchester through a small section of the Whitefield, Manchester Alan Murdie’s piece on the High- Hotel while living in Chelsea and w a l l and one of the guys gateVampire [FT294:20-21] r e - Mayfair. He w o r k e d f o r a while as placed his torch inside minded me of an incident related a hypnotherapist under the name the hole. He could just to me b y a Highgate resident over Michael Karoly, and at the Stan- make out what appeared 40 y e a r s ago. Dr Charlotte Bach islavsky Studio in Knightsbridge. to be an empty room. It lived in Langbourne Mansions on Hypnosis b y Michael Karoly w a s seemed crazy to lose this the Holly Lodge estate near the published in 1961. space unnecessarily, so cemetery. She told me of a fright- In 1968 he adopted the persona it w a s agreed to r e m o v e ening encounter in the mid to late of Dr Charlotte Bach, a supposed the w a l l and make use 1960s with a huge, towering, dark former lecturer at a university of the additional storage presence near the cemetery. She in Budapest, and w o r k e d as a space. Once the w a l l w a s w a s visibly disturbed on recount- dominatrix. She told me that she knocked through, the ing the event, raising her hands dabbled f o r a while with the noto- builders found a r o o m high to emphasise the height of rious Mayfair-based cult known as that appeared to have ISAACS

“Sometimes people treat m e a s i f I don’t exist” ROL

the ghoulish figure. She herself the Process Church. By the time I been untouched f o r many CA

FT296 73 www.forteantimes.com i t happened tome…

First-hand accounts from FTreaders and browsers of www.forteantimes.com

Graveyard lures I w a s strangely drawn to the (I w a s born in Dundee and brought recognise the name – indeed, I had cemetery – but once more I found up in Arbroath, which is some 18 no relatives buried in the cemetery. nothing. I w a s about to leave as miles/29km along the coast to the Why w a s I there? Are trace energies left in cemeter- the light w a s fading when I heard northeast.) Graeme Winton ies by departed souls? I believe my grandmother calling me. She I wandered down a wide, spiral Arbroath, Angus so and would like to support the w a s using the half-scolding voice path with old headstones on both theory by recounting two events she used when telling me to comb sides. In the distance to my left lay A strange tugging that happened to me recently. my hair before going off to school. the wide river T a y . Suddenly I came My grandmother died in 1996 I looked around unnerved as the to a large marble gravestone set A few years ago, my friend Dan and I and as I w a s working offshore I leaves were still being blown about back into the hillside and surround- wrote a script for a horror film called w a s unable to go to the funeral, in the wind. W a s I going mad? I went ed by mourners. An old Victorian ‘Eve’s Demons’. In early April 2005 something which had troubled me off in the direction of the voice and horse-drawn hearse blocked the we were in the process of finishing ever since. T w o years ago [2010] I found I w a s only 30ft (9m) from the path where just a second before it and were scouting for locations. decided it w a s about time I visited headstone. The stone itself w a s there had been nothing. I looked W e were in Worthing in W e s t Sussex the grave. I asked several relatives broken by the weather or some- back at the mourners, who were with a couple of girls called Sarah where it w a s, but no one could thing, but I could clearly read her dressed in Victorian clothes, and and Aisha whom we had cast in remember. name below that of my grandfather, saw in the middle of them the coffin the film. W e had met them through The day I entered the Eastern whom I had never met. being lowered into the ground. Then Dan’s mother, a witch who r a n a New Cemetery in Arbroath [Scotland], The other event happened while the whole scene w a s gone. Age shop. The four of us had been the headstones were bathed in I w a s driving through Dundee on my I wiped the sweat from my friends for a few months. w a r m sunlight and I thought that w a y home from a visit to Ninewells forehead even though it w a s a cool As we were sitting in my car eat- I would find the grave in no time, Hospital. I neared Balgay Hill, a day and stood looking at the grave, ing ice cream, I noticed St Mary’s but two hours of searching proved wooded mound with two summits, which w a s overgrown with grass. Church on the opposite side of the unsuccessful. However, I felt a one of which w a s where the Mills Had I been drawn there to witness road. As there w a s a church scene kind of wellbeing unlike anything I Observatory w a s sited, and felt the the burial of this person? I didn’t in ‘Eve’s Demons’, I suggested we had experienced before. I had no giddiness of the previous event re- go and check it out and see if it w a s better luck the next time I tried on turn; so I turned into the driveway to “Not music. J u s t a suitable location for filming, so we a stormy autumn day when leaves the hill and parked the car. I climbed finished eating and headed on over. fluttered around the lines of head- up to the observatory and had a overlapping By now it w a s 7.45 and pitch dark. stones, but again I experienced look inside, but the building w a s Worthing w a s totally deserted, which an inexplicable light-headedness. clearly not the cause of the malady, sounds. Wong, w a s normal after 6pm when stores After a while I thought I would give so I left and crossed the Victorian close. As we walked along the path up and find the resting place from a iron bridge that linked the two parts Wong, W o n g – towards the church door, Dan turned website I had been told about. of the hill. I entered the Western Ne- vibrating like to me and said “What’s that?” and A few weeks later I w a s about cropolis (below) and knew that I had Aisha said that she w a s also feeling to check out the online site when some connection with the place. cliché sc-fi music” something. Sarah said she w a s e x - periencing a weird tugging sensation – like someone w a s trying to pull her over from behind. Dan w a s feeling the same thing, as w a s Aisha. I felt nothing, apart from total bewilder- ment. They just stood there. Dan said he needed to leave as soon as possible or otherwise he would probably throw up. W e got back to the car and the three of them were talking about what had happened. I w a s feeling pretty frustrated, as it seemed that the experience of a lifetime had just passed me by. After they recovered I dropped the girls off and then went to get some petrol before taking Dan home. It occurred to me that, if the presence, or whatever it w a s, w a s in the churchyard three hours before, perhaps it would still be there, so I suggested that we go back and see if that w a s the case. Dan w a s totally against it, but I managed to talk him round. As we walked along the path, I asked him if he felt anything, and he said no. A few more steps down the moonlit path, and still nothing. WINTON Then, at exactly the same spot as before, he felt an unbearable GRAEME

7 4 FT296 www.forteantimes.com Have you had strange experiences that you cannot explain? W e are always interested in reading of odd events and occurrences. CONTACT US BY POST: FORTEAN TIMES, BOX 2409, LONDON, NW5 4NP OR E-MAIL TO [email protected] Or post your message on the www.forteantimes.com message board.

presence tugging him from behind, followed by the nausea. He turned and r a n like a bat out of hell toward the churchyard gates, and I fol- lowed. T w o weeks later he agreed to check out the place again. W e walked down the church path, at the same time of evening, got to exactly the same spot and… noth- ing. Whatever it w a s, it had gone. Sarah and Aisha felt such fear and revulsion after what happened that they have never entered St Mary’s Church since. Previously a robust sceptic of all things paranormal, Dan believes that something unex- plained happened that night, as do Sarah and Aisha. P a u l Trigwell West Sussex An angel calls

In 1980 or 1981, when I w a s three or four, my family w a s living in a small, 100-year-old terraced house in the small town of Alnwick in Northumberland. In the kitchen

I had a blackboard and had been ELL FN

drawing a picture of my house with TUF my mother, father, my newborn sister and myself. It w a s a bright VIVIENNE sunny day and I guess around noon. I remember turning round to woke up, looked at the small figure, right moment, y o u will see Him. 1 June, we looked at photos. I’d find my mother to show her what said something along the lines of Tears began to fill my eyes and I snapped a w a y and never actu- I’d been doing and right there in “Have y o u had a nightmare, John?” felt alarmed. I couldn’t have an ally looked at any of my own. The front of me w a s an angel. Now I and fell back to sleep. My mother emotional meltdown here. I w a s in photo above w a s greeted with don’t know why I thought it w a s an put her arm out to touch the figure charge. The kids would think I w a s astonishment and a w e . I am myself angel, other than that’s what it told and it just disappeared. an idiot. I bit down hard on my need astonished and greatly moved. The me it w a s. My mother likes a good story, to cry and let myself detach from my window behind has no pattern in it; It w a s around the same size but when she told me this she w a s emotions a little. T o capture the mo- there isn’t a figure in it, as far as I as me. It didn’t look like a person deadly serious and, it seemed, ment, I held the camera above my saw. Y o u will have to take my word though, but appeared to be made quite reluctant to tell me. head and snapped a few photos, so that this photo is unaltered; anyone up of clouds – there’s no other w a y John Pickard I could maybe later recall and give who knows me also knows stuff like to describe it. I remember chatting By email w a y to my feelings. Plainchant in Photoshop is beyond me. I saw noth- to it – no words were said back French made the hairs on my body ing when I took the photo. I know to me out loud, but I kind of knew Divine vision stand on end and the readings, who I think the figure is. Everyone what it w a s thinking. It asked me caught in snatches because of my agreed that it’s a sign – but a sign about what I’d been drawing and if I I first went to Mont Saint Michel in poor French, were like Sybil’s leaves of what? w a s happy. I must have stood there 1980, aged only 14, and return- blown on the wind… “Before the Vivienne Tuffnell for a good few minutes with it, then ing 30 years later felt strange. I hills were made, I knew y o u . I knew By email I got really excited and started returned as a part of an assign- y o u in y o u r mother’s womb.” I can’t bouncing up and down, saying ment for work. I took a group of 21 recall what book from the Bible they See Ms Tuffnell’s blog at: http:// it had to meet my mother. The mixed-aged English schoolchildren were from. zenandtheartoftightropewalking. angel said it couldn’t do that, and and their two teachers for a five-day On the return Channel ferry on wordpress.com/2010/06/02/ quickly floated up and vanished. trip round France. On Sunday the My mother came out from the front 30 May 2010, the feast day of NOW ON SALE! room only to be met with an over- Joan of Arc and also Mother’s Day ItHappenedToMe! excited kid trying to get upstairs to in France, we arrived as the monks REAL-LIFE TALES OFTHEPARANORMAL IT HAPPENED TO ME! VOLUME 5 see where the angel went. were ringing the bells for morning I w a s chatting to my mother prayer. Drawn by a need to sit and VOLUME 5 years later about it, and she find some inner peace, I chose The latest collection of first-hand remembered the incident, and a bench halfway down the abbey accounts of high strangeness from said around the same time some church and w a s surprised to find strange things had happened. A a couple of the older girls joined the pages of Fortean Times includes tales of dog-headed men, haunted few times she’d woken up in the me. Incense began to fill the air, Ordinarypeople’s hotels, disappearing buidlings and extraordinary night to see me standing by her and music played. I shivered, that true storiesfrom bed, but when she turned on the goosebumps moment when y o u much, much more. Now available thepagesof light nothing w a s there. One night feel God is v e r y, v e r y close, and from WH Smith and Amazon.co.uk she told my father. He seemingly y o u feel that if y o u look up at the

FT296 7 5 www.forteantimes.com STRANGE AND SENSATIONAL STORIES FROM

seen the Fighting Ghost stalking the ruins of the abandoned colliery, uttering dismal groans and waving its arms about. Women and children w e r e k e p t indoors after nightfall, and bands of stalwart men, armed with bludgeons and pitchforks, patrolled the country roads . It would seem that the short career of the Fighting Ghost of Tondu ended in late September 1904, after it had been immortalised in the Illustrated Police News and other publications. Its origin is likely to have been the same as those of other ‘suburban’ or ‘village’ ghosts: ignoring the sad f a t e of the Hammersmith Ghost of 1814, who w a s shot dead b y an armed ghost-hunter, some prankster amused himself b y dressing up as a ghost and frightening timid and superstitious people in the neighbourhood. Although the annals of the IPN provide several instances of ‘suburban ghosts’ being caught, beaten up, or mauled b y fierce dogs, the Fighting Ghost of Tondu seems to have been spared such indignities; there is no mention of its activities after September 1904.

Sources: Daily Mirror 9 Sept 1904 3; IPN 17 Sept 1904; P a u l Sieveking, Man Bites Man (London, 1980), p97.

colliery.At the f a r end of a tunnel he w a s 1 8 . THE FIGHTING GHOST OF TONDU astonished to see a tall, cadaverous figure waiting f o r him, all shrouded in while. T h e Today, Tondu is an obscure Welsh village, head resembled a skull covered with wrinkled situated on the Bridgend to Maesteg r a i l w a y parchment; the e y e s w e r e hollow sockets, with line, three miles north of Bridgend. It enjoyed a cavernous glow. Suddenly, the ghost r a n a considerable industrial boom inVictorian up to the terrified Welshman, its long arms times, with large ironworks and collieries, as outstretched. It grasped him with such a vice- w e l l as becoming a r a i l w a y junction f o r coal like grip that he could hardly breathe. When trains. Its fortune and prosperity seem to have he tried to grapple with this singular ghost, been waning already in 1904, when Tondu his hands met just thin air. Having toppled its acquired one of its most sinister inhabitants. opponent over, the Fighting Ghost of Tondu F o r some time, there had been talk of the glided off with a hollow laugh. disused colliery at Ynisawdre being haunted. ‘A Ghostly Reign of Terror in On an early September morning in 1904, some Glamorganshire’ exclaimed the headline of workmen saw a tall spectre, shrouded in white, the South Wales Echo.Village ghosts w e r e not in the neighbourhood of Felinfach. When the unknown in this part of Wales, but they used ghost glided towards them with a drawn-out to be timid and unadventurous, behaving ‘Boo!’, its great black sockets that took the with becoming decorum and keeping a safe place of e y e s fixed straight ahead, all 12 sturdy distance from human beings. Although this Welsh miners took to their heels. When they novel spectre w a s draped in white, the proper dared to look back, the ghost had disappeared. attire f o r any self-respecting ghost, and made Not long after, another Welshman w a s use of the equally orthodox outcry ‘Boo!’, it taking a midnight w a l k down the lonely, seemed m u c h more combative, putting 12 narrow r o a d adjoining the deserted buildings strong men to flight, and then successfully and coke ovens of the abandoned Ynisawdre wrestling another.A servant girl had recently reader info Why Fortean? how to subscribe ANNUAL SUB of 12 issues (inc p&p) UK £39.98; EC £47.50; USA $79.99 ortean Times is a monthly of all apparent phenomena, coined ($143.98 for 24 issues); R e s t of World £55. 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Born of Dutch stock in Albany, is more than the proper thing to Mail to: Fortean Times Dovetail Services, 800 Guillat Avenue, K e n t Science New York, Fort spent many years wear, for a while.” Park, Sittingbourne, ME9 8GU, UK. NB: This address should be used for orders and subscriptions only. researching scientific literature in Fort w a s by no means the first Telephone payments and queries: 0844 844 0049. the New Y o r k Public Library and person to collect anomalies and Fax payments and queries: 0844 815 0866. the British Museum Library. He oddities – such collections have E-mail payments and queries: [email protected] marshalled his evidence and set abounded from Greece to China how to submit forth his philosophy in The Book of since ancient times. Fortean Times the Damned (1919), New Lands keeps alive this ancient task of Dennis Publishing reserves all rights to reuse material submitted by FT (1923), L o ! 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COMING NEXT MONTH PIETTE HUGO TALES FROM THE VAULT GREYFRIARS BOBBY EACH MONTH WE SEND FORTEAN TIMES FOUNDER BOB RICKARD DOWN INTO THE DARKEST, COBWEB-RIDDEN DEPTHS OF THE VAULTS OF FORTEAN TOWERS IN SEARCH OF STORIES FROM FT’S PAST. THE TRUTH BEHIND THE MYTH OF VICTORIAN CANINE LOYALTY JANUARY 1 9 7 3 and Ceylon spring to mind as suffering recent A “dense” cloud of “soot” descended on several parts outbreaks. A lesser-known one took place in Malawi, of Kent, blanketing areas with grains “the size of a beginning in December 2002 but continuing into large pinhead”. Dartford, Bexley and North Cray were this New Y e a r . In the midst of a prolonged drought, a particularly affected. The smut was thought to have rumour sprang up that President Muluzi’s government come from a factory chimney but no culprit was ever was colluding with vampires to collect human blood to identified. FT3:9-10 exchange for food from the international aid agencies. Inevitably, impromptu mobs attacked foreigners as JANUARY 1 9 8 3 soon as panic was triggered. Muluzi blamed the Australia’s newly elected prime minister honoured his unrest upon his political opponents, denying that his pre-election pledge and cancelled the construction government “went about sucking the blood of its own of the Gordon River dam in Tasmania. The area to be people”. Ironically, this was, metaphorically, probably flooded, in the southwest of the island, turned out to exactly what the government was doing. The rumour be home to at least 29 “special” plant species and at spread regardless. least 1,000 types of invertebrate ground-dwellers new In December, one man was stoned to death and to science. Botanist and ecology-spokesman David three Catholic priests were beaten up, all suspected WHITE AS A SHEET Bellamy – who had been briefly jailed for his part in of being vampires; and an aid depot, said to be the original protests when work started – endeared a vampire HQ, was destroyed. This January, the THE STRANGE HISTORY OF himself to cryptozoologists everywhere by pointing out governor of Blantyre was driven from his house and GHOST IMPERSONATORS that the region was one of the last known habitats of stoned by a large mob after a local chief accused the Thylacine (or Tasmanian Tiger) which was officially him of harbouring vampires. Later news coverage declared extinct in 1986, just over 50 years after the was scarce, but I briefly heard of strangers still being last known capture of a living specimen in the wild. If attacked by wary villagers. any had survived into the present, argued Bellamy, the Of great interest to us are the popular beliefs that + Gordon River might well be their last refuge. FT39:16 make up this mass panic and how they echo those in the other outbreaks mentioned. The ‘vampires’ were FANTHORPE FICTION, JANUARY 1993 more like a cross between MIBs and the Mad Gasser CUMBRIA’S GIRT DOG, One of my favourite categories is people stuck in than the urbane European kind, described as wearing chimneys. As a child, I remember wondering how a dark clothing. They disable their victims with sleeping SIGNS IN THE SKY fat Santa could negotiate such a narrow soot-lined gas. They do not bite but use syringes to take blood, AND MUCH MORE… passage and pop out in a living-room grate without a and their victims sicken and die. They are said to smudge on his robe, the envy of any burglar. Imagine have magical powers and a fondness for graveyards. the astonishment of a couple in Oceanside, California, In Chiradzulu village, 12 miles (19km) north of when, in the early hours of the 4th, they were woken Blantyre, a Reuters reporter questioned a young to muffled cries from inside their chimney. On entering man and his friends who, while on patrol, believed FORTEAN their living room, downstairs, they saw the blackened they had chased vampires. They had never heard shape of Frank Morales dangling upside down in the of Dracula and scorned the idea of anyone drinking fireplace. They called police and firemen and took blood in this age of widespread AIDS. Like many souvenir photos before the authorities arrived. The others, they easily accepted the existence of these TIMES wedged intruder told an improbable tale of “diving” ‘vampires’ but were divided over whether they into the chimney “to escape pursuit” and deciding to were humans with magical powers or some kind of steal the piano. Much hilarity ensued before Morales spirits. The reporter was told by different witnesses was dislodged and led a w a y. FT72:5 of smelling the acrid ‘sleeping g a s ’ , and of seeing suspicious syringes. One woman said she saw her JANUARY 2 0 0 3 attacker vanish into thin air. W e have, a surprising number of times, reported It is worth noting here that similar vampire scares 2 9 7 on large-scale social panics about one or more took place in Malawi in the 1970s and more recently supernatural or phantom attackers; India, Malaysia in July 2009. FT169:20 ON SALE 3 JAN 2 0 1 3 ADVERTISEMENT

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