THE GREAT ALIEN BAKE-OFF CANNIBAL ROUND-UP FLESH-EATING FIENDS IN THE HEADLINES IDENTICAL BUT DIFFERENT THE SEARCH FOR TWIN TELEPATHY PANCAKES FROM SPACE AND SASQUATCH CRACKERS FACT OR FOLKLORE? TRACKING THE WISCONSIN GOATMAN THE THE WORLD OF STRANGE PHENOMENA WWW.FORTEANTIMES.COM SHOPPING MALL UFO • GHOSTS OF THAILAND • GALLIC GASSERS • MORMON SEER STONE WORLD’S OTA IE 332 TIMES FORTEAN WEIRDES THE WORLD OF STRANGE PHENOMENA WWW.FORTEANTIMES.COM NEWS T

FT332 OCTOBER 2015 £4.25

H URC OSIAIS•MDR EMIS•TEGETALIEN GREAT THE • MERMAIDS MODERN • CONSPIRACIES KUBRICK THE The Kubrick Conspiracies FROM FAKE MOON LANDINGS TO ILLUMINATI MIND CONTROL

WARLORDS OF MACLANTIS

BA SCOTTISH NATIONALISM'S EOF•GOT FTALN • THAILAND OF GHOSTS • KE-OFF UNDERSEA KINGDOM THOROUGHLY MODERN MERMAIDS

WA SEDUCTIVE SIRENS

LRSO ALNI ANBLNEWS CANNIBAL • MACLANTIS OF RLORDS OR FISH-TAILED FEMINISTS? COE 2015 OCTOBER WHEN THE SKULL STRIKES YOU’LL SCREAM! PETER PATRICK CUSHING WYMARK

AND CHRISTOPHER LEE

SPECIAL EDITION DUAL FORMAT AVAILABLE THIS OCTOBER

SPECIAL EDITION DUAL FORMAT AVAILABLE THIS SEPTEMBER

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In search of the Nazi ghost train, fl esh-eating fi ends, Mormon seer stone, France’s phantom gassers, Warminster mural, rogue Masonic police, Thai ghosts, blue devil spider, CONTENTS Emdrive updates, herring gull hooligans – and much more. 05 THE CONSPIRASPHERE 18 GHOSTWATCH 14 SCIENCE 23 ALIEN ZOO the world of strange phenomena 16 ARCHAEOLOGY 25 MYTHCONCEPTIONS 17 CLASSICAL CORNER 28 THE UFO FILES features

COVER STORY 32 THE KUBRICK CONSPIRACIES Cinema and conspiracy theory are no strangers, but it is unusual for such theorising to attach itself to the fi gure of a director – so why has become the focus of theories involving everything from fake Moon landings to the Illuminati? DEAN BALLINGER argues that the answer can

UILAR / AFP / GETTY IMAGES be found in the director’s obsession with creative control. AG 38 UNLOCKING THE CAGE

JULIO CESAR SOPHIA KINGSHILL asks whether the fi gure of the fi sh-tailed 32 THE KUBRICK CONSPIRACIES Did the director of 2001 help fake the Moon landings? siren can be rescued from the traditional roles of victim or vamp to claim a more nuanced, and sometimes political, role in the modern world.

42 THE GREAT ALIEN BAKE-OFF Bread is a foodstuff rich in human history and symbolism, but it has also played a surprising role in all kinds of entity encounters over the centuries. JOSHUA CUTCHIN opens his otherwordly oven and shares a selection of fairy loaves, alien pancakes and Sasquatch crackers. reports

30 BLASTS FROM THE PAST No 59. The Night Doctors 48 STRANGE STATESMEN No 6. Warlords of Maclantis 52 BUILDING A FORTEAN LIBRARY No 3. How to do cryptozoology CHRIS MCGRATH / GETTY IMAGES 42 THE GREAT ALIEN BAKE-OFF 12 CREATURE FEATURE forum Pancakes from outer space Godzilla returns to Tokyo

55 The laughing death by Mark Greener 56 Identical but different by Guy Lyon Playfair 58 I am Spartacus by Paul Screeton

N TWILLERT regulars VA

02 EDITORIAL 77 IT HAPPENED TO ME MARIANNE CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT / AFP / GETTY IMAGES 6 GHOSTS OF BANGKOK 11 MONKEYS VS THE EVIL EYE 61 REVIEWS 79 PHENOMENOMIX Spirits and superstitions in modern Thailand Albania’s cuddly guardians 73 LETTERS 80 STRANGE DEATHS

COVER: GETTY IMAGES / ETIENNE GILFILLAN FT332 1 www.forteantimes.com Fortean Times

editor dAVid SUttoN ([email protected]) foUNdiNg editorS bob rickArd ([email protected]) pAUl SieVekiNg ([email protected]) Art director etieNNe gilfillAN ([email protected]) editorial book reViewS editor VAl SteVeNSoN ([email protected]) reSideNt cArtooNiSt HUNt emerSoN Fortean food SUbScriptioN eNqUirieS ANd bAck iSSUeS www.subsinfo.co.uk [email protected] Given the centrality of food to so many aspects pies with them. For our initial news report, FORTEAN TIMES is produced for Dennis Publishing by Wild Talents Ltd. Postal address: Fortean Times, of human life – from straightforward physical see FT28:18 and for the whole breathtakingly PO BOX 71602, E17 0QD. sustenance and mediators of social meanings strange story, Albert Budden, “The Mince-Pie You can manage your existing subscription through and taboos through to symbolic and religious Martians: the Rowley Regis Case”, FT50:40-44. http://www.subsinfo.co.uk/ – this should be your first port offerings or the rituals of the Eucharist – it of call if you have any queries about your subscription. shouldn’t really come as a surprise to find MODERN MAD GASSERS Change your address, renew your subscription or report problems that it can also be a crucial component in Readers who have been enjoying Theo UK subscriptions: 0844 844 0049 encounters with non-human entities. Paijmans’s unearthing of numerous early USA & Canada subscriptions: (+1) 800-428-3003 (toll free) Joshua Cutchin’s new book, entitled A Trojan cases of phantom anæsthetists and chloroform Fax (+1) 757-428-6253 email [email protected] Other overseas subscriptions: +44 (0)1795 592 909 Feast, brings us a detailed and wide-ranging burglars predating the appearance of the Fax: +44 (0)1795 414 555 study of this hitherto infamous ‘Mad Gasser of neglected subject. It Mattoon’ in 1944 will no LicENSiNG & SYNDicATiON Fortean times IS AvAILABLE FOR follows in the footsteps of doubt share our interest in INTERNATIONAL LICENSINg AND SYNDICATION – CONTACT: previous anomalists such the current resurgence of Syndication Senior Manager ANj DOSAj-HALAI TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6132 as JacquesVallee or the the phenomenon in France [email protected] late Hilary Evans in finding (p9). Quite why these Licensing Manager CARLOTTA SERANTONI TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6550 persuasive links between mysterious gas attacks [email protected] what are often viewed should be concentrated in Licensing & Syndication Assistant NICOLE ADAMS TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6134 as distinct branches of that country – apart from [email protected] fortean enquiry – ufology the rich pickings afforded YOU cAN REAcH FT ON THE iNTERNET and cryptozoology – and by the likes of Jenson www.forteantimes.com the realm of folklore. Button renting swanky Shared motifs run through villas on the Riviera – is © Copyright Dennis Publishing Limited encounters with alien unclear, but as we were visitors, Sasquatch and the going to press another inhabitants of fairyland variant on the theme made SeNior prodUctioN pUbliSHed bY – themes of missing time the news in Paris. Here, deNNiS pUbliSHiNg, execUtiVe dANiel StArk and altered consciousness, two Chinese women and 30 cleveland Street 020 7907 6053 "SO WHY DO THEY CALL YOU notions of taboo, fears of a man were arrested on london w1t 4Jd, Uk [email protected] THE 'LITTLE' MERMAID? " abduction or entrapment suspicion of blowing a drug tel: 020 7907 6000 AdVertiSiNg director SteVe NicolAoU – and, as Cutchin demonstrates, these are often dubbed “the Devil’s Breath” into people’s faces groUp pUbliSHer 020 7907 6633 articulated through transactions involving food and robbing them. Apparently, the nefarious iAN weStwood steve_nicolaou@ and drink. In the extract we present in this trio would first ask their victims about the 020 7907 6000 dennis.co.uk issue, the focus is on one of the most universal whereabouts of a mysterious “Dr Wang” (!) circUlAtioN mANAger SAleS execUtiVe JAmeS mANgAN brAdleY beAVer and richly symbolic of all foodstuffs – bread, before “getting them to breathe in a mixture james.mangan@ the staff of life, and other associated grain- of plants” (supposedly containing the drug seymour.co.uk 020 7907 6701 bradley_beaver@ based products, from rice cakes to pancakes. scopolamine) that turned them into “zombies” export circUlAtioN dennis.co.uk mANAger All this reminded us of one of our favourite lacking the will to resist as they handed over gerAldiNe grobler FT stories: the Rowley Regis encounter of 1979, their valuables to the crooks. D. Telegraph, 1 geraldine.grobler@ seymour.co.uk otherwise fondly remembered as the “mince- Sept 2015. More on this story in a future issue pie Martians” case.To say that this entity (see FT79:48 for earlier Colombian cases PRiNTED BY POLESTAR BICESTER encounter was an unusual one would be an earlier cases involving a similar preparation DiSTRiBUTiON understatement, but it’s particularly interesting known as burundanga); meanwhile, we leave Distributed in UK, ireland and worldwide to note that in this instance the alien entities you in the company of modern mermaids, by Seymour Distribution Ltd. took rather than gave food (reminding us, of Scottish Atlanteans, twin telepaths and Stanley 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT Tel: 020 7429 4000 / Fax: 020 7429 4001 course, of the offerings of food and drink once Kubrick... Queries on overseas availability should be emailed to left for the fairy folk). In brief, on 4 January [email protected] Speciality store distribution by Worldwide Magazine 1979, West Midlands housewife Mrs Jean ERRATUM Distribution Ltd, Tel: 0121 788 3112 Fax: 0121 788 1272 Hingley was visited by a trio of silver-clad, FT331:65: The DVD Out of The Dark was listed STANDARD SUBScRiPTiON RATES three-and-a-half foot tall winged entities that as a Metrodome release; it is actually released 12 issues: UK £39.98; EU £47.50 descended from the sky in an orange sphere. by eOne. Fortean Times (USPS 023-226) is published every four weeks by Dennis Publishing Ltd, 30 Cleveland Street, London, W1P 4JD, . They flew into the house, causing the dogto The US annual subscription price is $89.99. faint, and floated Mrs Hingley into the lounge, Airfreight and mailing in the USA is by Agent named Air Business, daVid r SUTToN C/O Worldnet Shipping USA Inc., 149-35 177th Street, Jamaica, where they gathered round the Christmas New York, 11434. tree, which they shook repeatedly with cries Periodical postage paid at Jamaica, NY 11431, USA. of “Nice? Nice?”The strange beings claimed, bob rickard US Postmaster: Send address changes to: Fortean Times, when asked, to come from “the sky”, recognised 3330 Pacific Avenue, Suite 500, Virginia Beach, VA, 23451-2983, USA. PaUL SiEVEkiNG REST OF THE WORLD £55; US $89.99 ($161.98 for 24 issues) a picture of Jesus on the wall and also seemed DENNiS PUBLiSHiNG LiMiTED to know something of Tommy Steele and the GROUP FiNANcE DiREcTOR IAN LEggETT Queen, whom they discussed in gruff-sounding FiNANcE DiREcTOR BRETT REYNOLDS ExEcUTivE DiREcTOR KERIN O’CONNOR voices.They bounced up and down on Mrs Why fortean? cHiEF ExEcUTivE jAMES TYE cOMPANY FOUNDER FELIX DENNIS Hingley’s sofa, until she told them off. The Everything you always wanted to perfect hostess, she offered her visitors some Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations. know about Fortean Times but Circulation 17,024 (jan-Dec 2011) mince pies. Apparantly becoming alarmed were too paranoid to ask! Printed in the UK. ISSN: 0308 5899 when Mrs Hingley lit a cigarette, the bizarre © Fortean Times: SEPTEMBER 2015 beings departed hurriedly, taking their mince SEE PAGE 78

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And just behind the railway bridge was the entrance to the Lost Nazi hoard located? tunnel” – which was 2.37km (2,592 yards) from Ksiaz Castle, according to the group. Finding it, Treaure hunters search for a ghost train full of gold beneath a Polish castle however, would take excavation, for which permission would be required. Naturally, there are fears that this latest gold rush will turn out to be the triumph of hope over reality. Andrzej Gaik, who gives guided tours through the old Castle of the Princes of Wałbrzych, went on a fruitless treasure hunt for the ‘Golden train’ some years ago, and now thinks it doesn’t exist. However, on 26 August, Wałbrzych’s deputy mayor said that a “historically significant military train” had indeed been found. Two days later, Piotr Zuchowski, ’s deputy culture minister, said the authorities had seen radar images of the train, the location of which had been divulged NEK SKARZYNSKI / AFP / GEttY ImAGES

JA to the “two treasure hunters” ABOVE: Ksiaz castle, the tunnels beneath which may be the resting place of the “Nazi gold train” according to treasure hunters. on his deathbed by one of the men who hid it, who provided There has long been a legend of slave labourers died hewing a sketch map and said the train of a Nazi ‘ghost’ train packed Some claim the rock for reasons that remain was booby-trapped. The minister with treasure hidden from the obscure. Some say the tunnels said the images appeared to advancing Red Army in a sealed the tunnels hid were for a secret command show the train was equipped with tunnel. The train had allegedly centre, others claim they were gun turrets. Another two days been loaded up in the eastern research on a for weapon factories, or even hid later, Magdalena Woch, director German city of Breslau, now research on a Nazi atom bomb. of culture at Ksiaz Castle, said: called Wrocław and part of Nazi atom bomb Three of the seven main Reise “There is a story that in 1945 Poland. The tunnel was said to sites are now open to the public, there were three trains which be near Ksiaz Castle (previously but much of the complex remains came into the town and have Schloss Fürstenstein) in the – and to contain 300 tons of gold, unexplored. never been found. The gold may mountains of – the other “precious metals”, and Following the initial publicity not be in the train that has been German headquarters during possibly masterpieces stolen of the legal claim, ‘the Silesian found but in one of these better- the war. from Polish noble families and Research Group’ announced that secured military trains.” In early August, two men, a museums. Some even suggested its members had located the As we go to press, the Polish German and a Pole, filed a legal it contains the famous Amber train over two years ago, using government has promised claim with local authorities in Room looted from Catherine ground-penetrating radar, and the deployment of specialist Poland’s southwestern district the Great’s palace in 1941. There that their maps and data had reconnaissance troops, but of Wałbrzych, asserting they had again, it might be empty, or even been pilfered, presumably by actual digging is unlikely to located the train, the details of dangerous; it might be mined, or the men who had filed the claim. begin until next spring, following which they would disclose after contain poison gas. One unnamed group member a detailed ground survey. receiving acknowledgment, in One possible location is Walim, said: “We know that in May Clearly, this ripping yarn will writing, of their right to a finder’s some 12 miles (19km) west of 1945 gold and other valuables run and run. dailymail.co.uk, 19 fee of 10 per cent of the hoard’s Wałbrzych, because the hills from the city of Wrocław were Aug; Times, 21 Aug; dailymail. value (in accordance with Polish there are home to the tunnels of being transported to Wałbrzych co.uk, 22 Aug, 2 Sept; Sunday law). They reportedly found the Project Reise (‘Giant’), begun when they disappeared between Telegraph, the dailybeast.com, 23 train 210ft (64m) below ground, in 1941. Project Reise involved the towns of Lubiechow and Aug; warhistoryonline, 26 Aug; using ground-penetrating radar. digging miles of tunnels in a Swiebodzice. During the war, Jerusalem Post, 28 Aug; [AP] It was said to be armoured, 495ft series of complexes across the there used to be an SS barracks D.Telegraph, 29+31 Aug, 2 Sept (150m) long, with gun platforms Wałbrzych region. Thousands here which was heavily guarded. 2015.

4 Ft332 www.forteantimes.com templar housiNg caNNibal cops busted crisis rouNd-up California’s rogue How haunted ‘Grannibal Masonic Police homes are Lector’ and Department gets falling prey to other crazed its collar felt developers flesh-eaters page 10 page 18 page 24

The Conspirasphere Extra! Extra!

If a killer asteroid doesn’t get us, perhaps the pseudo-cosmologists will. FT’s FavouriTe headlines Noel rooNeY ponders two competing schools of anti-conspiracy thought. From around The world two things struck me when I saw the viral; but for a prestigious organisation to press release from NASA – the one telling broadcast their views in response to the us not to worry about rumours on the obliteration meme, they must assume the Internet that an asteroid was heading story is important enough, in some way or for Earth in September – appearing as another, for an official response. Retford Times, 25 Sept 2014. a story in so many mainstream news the two types of anti-conspiracy outlets. First, the high profile of the story thought that I found myself pondering said something interesting about the were on the one hand the feeling that status of conspiracy theory, and how conspiracy, and conspiracy-related stories, it may be changing; second, it implies are simply silly, and should be stamped a dichotomy in the thinking of the anti- out purely for that reason (one might conspiracy community that in some ways term this the Lynne truss school of anti- , 23 Sept 2014. mirrors the distinction I have suggested conspiracy); and on the other the more between schools of conspiracy theorising serious reaction that fears conspiracy (ft331:5). theory will lead to the breakdown of the first point, of civilisation as we know it course, also says (think Francis Wheen, or NBC News, –– Sept 2014. something about the Sunstein and Vermeule). Internet. While for many I see these views as observers (this writer mirroring the hermeneutic included, at least some and automatic dissident of the time) the Internet schools of conspiracy, is somewhere between a respectively. that’s a democracy of fools (a term simplistic and schematic first used – I think –by taxonomy, I know, but this Damian thompson in his is a very short column. book Counterknowledge in It also struck me that 2008) and a kaleidoscope NASA’s refutation, which of the absurd (I’ll admit to likely meant little or nothing that one), it is increasingly to the vast majority of the the default source of media-consuming public, information, and more had actually worked to D.Mail, 4 Oct 2014. importantly verification, confirm the original rumour for huge numbers of people. What that for many in the conspiracy community. says about us, I’ll leave to someone more this is part of the recursive mindset that qualified (what in, I’m not entirely sure) to inhabits so many alternative websites and explore. books: if the Establishment says what

For NASA to produce and disseminate I’m saying is untrue, well that just proves Toronto Star, 8 Oct 2014. a refutation (albeit a little tongue-in-cheek) I’m really onto something, otherwise they of what on the face of it is simply a wacky wouldn’t be falling over themselves to piece of pseudo-cosmology makes me deny it, would they? wonder if the Establishment is beginning You could feel sorry for NASA; or you to take conspiracy-minded individuals could ask yourself (and perhaps NASA) and groups more seriously, or at least why they went to such lengths for so little taking their influence on the Internet-using reward. this is a celestial gambit with public more seriously. I don’t know if large no winning outcomes. www.independent. numbers of people were digging holes and co.uk/news/science/nasa-no-the-world- filling them with tinned food and rifles on isnt-going-to-be-destroyed-by-an-asteroid-in- the strength of the asteroid story going september-10464953.html

Hampstead & Highgate Gazette, –– Sept 2014

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the influence of the spirit world is felt in belief, business and bangkok gHoSTS popular entertainment in thailand’s capital and beyond

wife seemingly still alive. Nak was so devoted to him that she had remained as a ghost, but became a malevolent spirit when her husband discovered the truth and ran away. “On the eve of a lottery, this temple is open all night,” reads the sign on a shrine dedicated to Nak in Bangkok where locals make offerings to the ghost asking for cures, good luck and exemption from military service. Fortune-tellers ply their trade outside the shrine and

GETTY IMAGES devotees also release fish, turtles P/

AF and frogs into a nearby canal to T/ earn ‘merit’. According to the merchants selling the animals, the release of an eel will bring professional success and a frog can reduce sins. [AFP] 2 Feb 2015.

S: CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAUL • Sinsakorn Aroon, a 60-year-old TO official, said he saw a ghostly phenomenon inside Bangkok’s

BOTH PHO Government House at around n a popular episode of Few ghosts are more famous Locals make 6pm on 10 September 2014. Mr O“Humans defy ghosts” – a than ‘Nak’, a woman who Thais Sinsakorn, who is in charge of weekly Thai TV programme believe lived in Bangkok in the the audio system in the press that delves into the supernatural 19th century and died during offerings to the conference room, said he was – a two-year-old girl who survived childbirth while her husband was preparing to leave when he three days next to the dead body away fighting a war (for more ghost, asking spotted a woman sweeping the of her mother was asked a series on Nak and other Thai ghosts, floor near the reception room. of questions by one of the show’s see FT227:28-36). There are for cures and He told her he was leaving and panellists. “Who prepared your many versions of the story, but asked her to lock the door behind milk?” Kapol Thongplab enquired. in general they all describe how good luck her – but then suddenly felt cold “Who played with you? Who the husband returned to find his and wondered why someone was opened the door?” “Mummy,” the little girl replied, as genuinely convinced as her adult interlocutors that her mother’s ghost continued to sustain her in those harrowing days. In Thailand, a show like this is more than just entertainment. For many of Thailand’s soothsayers, astrologers and its huge monastic network, belief in superstitions is undoubtedly lucrative. Exorcisms, protective spells and trinkets are all readily available at a price, while books and films about haunting spirits are hugely popular. Businesses often pay monks to make annual visits to chase away evil spirits. Thais believe a violent or unexpected death is more likely than a peaceful death to result in the creation of an angry ghost top: A statue of the famous ghost ‘Nak’ at her shrine sheltered in a Buddhist temple in Bangkok. aboVe: A Buddhist master when a soul departs. performing rituals on women outside the Bangkok temple.

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cleaning at that hour. “The repair workers were already done and the building’s housekeepers had already gone home,” he said. The figure then walked into a set of doors and disappeared right in front of him. “If she were human, I would have heard the door move,” he said. “I was frozen on the spot. I could only hear traditional Thai music, even though I didn’t hear that sound earlier. Once I came to my senses, I ran off and shut the door.” Mr Sinsakorn said he had heard tales about Government House ghosts from other officials, including a painter who claimed AFP / GETTY IMAGES

a female ghost told him in his T/ dream to use “dark colours” when he painted inside the building, and an official who said workers noticed a scent of mysterious “ancient perfume” during the recent renovation. “I think I saw CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAUL the ghost because she wants to aboVe: A fortune teller using tarot instruct me to keep the building cards to predict the future of a young clean,” Mr Sinsakorn said. “I plan woman. left:A ‘Spirits Exhibition’ in to make merits for her soul.” a Bangkok mall included a model of This latest apparition the hungry ghost ‘Pret’. manifested despite the fact that a feng shui master had recently been hired to oversee ghosts. Homeowner Rayong the realignment of plants and Boonroong, 70, said that she furniture inside Government had fainted and became fearful House. Military junta chairman for her life, especially after a and Prime Minister Prayuth relative dreamed the God of the Chan-ocha had also prayed Underground was out harvesting to spirits at several different fresh souls from the living. To altars in the complex on his discourage the wraiths from official first day of work just entering their homes, residents days before Mr Sinsakorn’s started hanging red T-shirts and ghostly encounter. A number signs to scare off the gullible of Government House officials ghosts. “This household has believed the ghost had appeared no faint-hearted people!” read because the ceremonies needed one of the signs. “Only strong to appease the supernatural persons live here!” entities watching over the area The ghosts were believed had not been properly conducted. to be targeting residents born The spirit world is everywhere on Wednesdays – just like in Thailand where animism and Rayong. “This helps me feel folk beliefs are deeply infused more secure,” she said of the

with Buddhism. Most buildings spirit-repelling shirt. Darunee PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL / AFP / GETTY IMAGES boast a ‘spirit house’ – a shrine smoke at his feet” and hearing there of natural causes about Wangsop, 26, erected a scarecrow placed in an auspicious corner of a voice beckoning him toward three years earlier. She lived wearing a red T-shirt atop a a property where offerings can be an abandoned house nearby. alone and never interacted motorcycle in front of her made to appease ghosts lest they Finally, on 12 November 2014 with her neighbours. bangkok. home. “It looks like someone is turn malevolent. thaivisa.com, 12 he entered the house – Soi Lat coconuts.co, via thaivisa.com, 12 guarding us all the time,” she Sept 2014. Phrao 74, in Bangkok – and Nov 2014. explained. The previous year, found a skeleton on the second villagers in Buriram province • For several nights running, floor, prompting him to call • Inhabitants of Baan Tai had used T-shirts to protect construction worker Nopchakorn the police. The remains were village in Thailand’s Krabi themselves from a tall, headless Sangkong, 33, experienced believed to be those of Wasinee province suddenly started man who claimed several souls a strange phenomenon he Haemopas, 71, who owned the fainting in July 2015. Some while they slept. Phuket News described as “seeing white house and had probably died later died. Local people blamed (Thailand), 4 Aug 2015.

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SIDELINES... Smith’s ‘seer stone’ RUSSIAN CROP CIRCLES During the night of 21 July, a crop glyph – five circles, Church offers new revelations about Mormonism’s past ranging from 60ft to 100ft (18-30m) in diameter – ap- peared in a field At a news conference LEFT: Joseph Smith just outside Tolyatti in ’s in Salt Lake City on 4 meets the Angel Samara region. Not a single August, The Church of Moroni in 1823. plant stem had been broken. Jesus Christ of Latter BELOW: Smith’s seer A local paranormal research Day Saints (aka the stone revealed at last. group said a similar glyph had Mormons) publicised appeared on exactly the same the handwritten tensions simmered day 10 years earlier. At least “printer’s manuscript” between those two two other Russian crop glyphs of the Book of Mormon wings of Mormonism, were spotted in June – in and photos of the “seer but during the past the Republic and the stone”, a dark brown, couple of decades Krasnodar region, both near egg-size polished rock historians have the Black Sea. rt.com/news, that church founder built scholarly 24 July 2015. Joseph Smith (1805-44) bridges between the FROGS STOP PLAY claimed to have used Community of Christ An amateur football match in to produce the faith’s and the much larger, Switzerland between Embrach sacred scripture. Both Utah-based Church. and Raterschen had to be items are included In a recent essay, the called off on 17 April, and in the just-released LDS Church explained declared a tie at 2-2, after Revelations and how Smith, according thousands of frogs invaded Translations: Volume 3, to some accounts, the pitch. “It has occurred now the 11th publication used the seer stone. and again,” said Embrach vice- in the Joseph Smith He peered into a hat president, Sandro Caviola, Papers Project, as to block out exterior “but something like this we part of an effort to be light, and “read aloud have never experienced “more transparent” the English words before.” Morning Star, 22 April about Mormonism’s that appeared on 2015. past. The photographs the instrument.” The TV HAZARD show different views of essay states: “As a the dark brown stone young man during the A man in Shanghai is suing the with lighter brown 1820s, Joseph Smith, actress Zhao Wei for staring at him “too intensely” through swirls. They also show like others in his day, his TV set and causing him a weathered leather pouch where to various scribes, including used a seer stone to look for lost “spiritual damage”. The law- the stone was stored, believed to schoolteacher Oliver Cowdery, objects and buried treasure. As suit refers to the show Tiger have been made by Emma, one of who took down the LDS leader’s Joseph grew to understand his Mom, which started in May Joseph Smith’s wives. words in longhand. Cowdery then prophetic calling, he learned and is about a couple’s differ- Smith said that on 22 painstakingly copied the original that he could use this stone ing approach to raising their September 1823 the Angel manuscript for the for the higher purpose of daughter. Zhao Wei is one of Moroni showed him the burial printer to set in type. translating scripture.” China’s biggest and richest place of a set of gold plates The Book of Smith also used two movie stars. BBC News, 11 on a hill in present-day Wayne Mormon was bound stones – known as June 2015. County, New York State. Exactly published in March the Urim and Thummim four years later, he was allowed 1830. More than 70 – as “interpreters”. “Some to take the plates and was per cent of that original accounts indicate that Joseph

directed to translate them document has suffered water studied the characters on the WWW.lDSlIVINg.COM into English. They recorded damage; the LDS Church History plates,” the essay added. “Most the history of ancient Library in Salt Lake City has of the accounts speak of Joseph’s American civilisations most of what’s left. The “printer’s use of the Urim and Thummim (2200 BC to AD 421) and copy”, however, remained with (either the interpreters or the Christ’s visit to the American Smith’s followers who stayed in seer stone).” When Smith had continent shortly after His the Midwest rather than trekking finished, he returned the gold resurrection. The Mormon to Utah, and, in 1903, it was plates to Moroni. The church’s prophet said he was able to purchased by the Reorganized official magazine, The Ensign, had “translate” the “reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter an article about the seer stone Egyptian” language, using Day Saints (RLDS), now called in 1974, but hardly anyone had spiritual tools, including the Community of Christ, with seen an actual photo of it until his “seer stone”. He headquarters in Independence, now. [AP] Salt Lake Tribune, 4 Aug; dictated the narrative Missouri. Through the years, Guardian, 5 Aug 2015. MARTIN ROSS

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Gallic gassers strike SIDELINES... SCARY MANIMAL An 8-foot (2.4m) tall “yeti”, The latest in a rash of mysterious robberies on the Riviera showing “some signs of wear”, was sold at auction in Yeovil, Somerset, for £1,350. Its On 3 August, Formula 1 effective in the right parts plaque stated it was discovered driver Jenson Button and his of the targeted house? No “120 years ago in a crevasse wife (pictured at right)were one has ever appeared in into which he had fallen” on the burgled in a rented holiday court charged with using borders of Azerbaijan; in fact it villa in Saint-Tropez on the gas in a burglary and there was made in the 19th century French Riviera.The 35-year- are no official statistics for a local chemist who thought old motor racing star and to back up the anecdotal it would be good for business his wife Jessica, 30, a model reports. in his shop, but it had the oppo- – along with three other In response to the Home site effect, as customers were guests in the house – were Office warning, the Royal scared to go in. BBC News, 23 rendered unconscious by the College of Anaesthetists July 2015. gang, who stole jewellery (RCA) released a statement SUMMER SACRIFICE worth £300,000 including saying it was highly A sheep was slaughtered in

MARK ThOMpSON/gETTY IMAgES Jessica’s treasured diamond sceptical about robbers Devon’s remote Teign Valley engagement ring, from the using anæsthetic gas. in a suspected satanic ritual same room where Button and his home was robbed in the night. “It is the view of the College to mark the Summer Solstice. wife were sleeping. Waking up later than usual, he that it would not be possible to The rare whiteface Dartmoor According to Button’s felt groggy. “They took everything render someone unconscious ewe, discovered on Midsum- spokesman, police believe two bar the mobile phone,” he said. by blowing ether, chloroform, or mer morning (21 June), had its men (picked up on CCTV) may “The dog didn’t even bark.” He is any of the currently used volatile jugular vein cut and an ear and have pumped anæsthetising gas convinced he and his wife were anæsthetic agents, through the back leg hacked off. The animal through the air conditioning vents gassed.Tim Best from Gloucester window of a motorhome without had been dragged around to before entering the villa. However, says he was robbed on a 2003 their knowledge, even if they leave a spiral of blood. During the police refused to comment caravan holiday in Avignon. “I can were sleeping at the time,” the a full moon in April, the owner directly on the gas hypothesis, remember people’s voices and statement said.They were even had found the severed leg of which echoes reports of people laughing but not being able more dismissive about using it on a lamb. D.Telegraph, 26 June previous attacks against wealthy to wake up,” he said. “We slept in an entire villa. “They would need 2015. individuals and celebrities. close proximity so you would have massive amounts of gas,” said a SAINTLY STICK Former Arsenal footballer Patrick noticed if someone had stepped spokesman. “We can’t rule out that On 25 July, the walking stick Vieira said he and his family were over you, but we didn’t notice some sort of agent was used, but of St Teresa of Avila (1515-82) knocked out by gas during a 2006 anything. When we did wake the the volume of gas and the logistics arrived at the Carmelite Abbey raid on their home in Cannes. And next morning, we were lethargic involved in delivering it make in loughrea, Co galway, Ireland, in 2002, British television stars and unusually tired… money, it highly unlikely that this was as part of a worldwide tour Trinny Woodall and Susannah credit cards, laptops and our tools anæsthetic.You have to remember, to mark the quincentenary of Constantine said they were gassed were stolen.” we’re talking about rendering four her birth. One of the leading while attending the Cannes When jewels and valuables adults unconscious in a large villa. Christian mystics, St Teresa Film Festival. Other accounts, worth more than £20,000 were When you combine that with the founded the Discalced (shoe- particularly from France, have stolen from Daniel Hechter’s fact that these gases are expensive less) Carmelites in 1562. She appeared in the media over the Riviera villa in 2008, the security and difficult to get hold, of we are was canonised in 1622 and past 15 years or so, describing guards said they had been gassed. very sceptical.” declared a Doctor of the Church people waking up groggy to Like Button, the French fashion On the other hand, two in 1970. Irish Times, 24 July discover they slept through a raid. designer slept through the years ago, private investigator 2015. However, using gas to target a robbery. It was the same scenario Patrick Boffa, based on the Côte house or flat is “highly unusual”, in 2013, when £150,000 worth of d’Azur, investigated two cases according to Michael Fraser, a goods were seized from the villa of in Ramatuelle, barely five miles former burglar turned home spy novelist Gérard deVilliers. He from the villa rented by Button, in security consultant, who claimed was not present, but his estranged which the victims were reportedly it was much more commonly used wife, Christine, slept through the gassed. He claimed the French against caravans and motor homes. robbery. authorities were playing down the “It is especially common in France, The British Home Office was risk. “They’re trying to minimise pumping gas into a motor home,” sufficiently concerned about it so they don’t scare away wealthy he said. “It’s such a confined space reports last summer that it issued visitors, especially the that it’s highly effective. It seems a warning to holidaymakers, who’ll stop coming if they think to be often targeted at British though there is precious little hard they can be targeted.” BBC News, MARTIN ROSS tourists.” evidence of gas-heists. A number 5+7 Aug; D.Telegraph, 7 Aug 2015. Gordon Doig, from Edinburgh, of doubts spring to mind: What gas For phantom anæsthetists see was on holiday in Orange near is used, and in what quantities? FT329:28-29, 330:28-29; for the Mad the Cote D’Azur when his motor How do they ensure it will be Gasser of Mattoon, see FT216:36-39.

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SIDELINES... Rogue masonic cops …FOR ART’S SAKE In May the mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baqer ghalibaf, Fake ‘Templar’ Police Department shut down in California directed that the advertise- ments on the Iranian capital’s 1,500 billboards be replaced by fine art reproductions. Instead of South Korean dishwashers, residents were confronted by paintings by Rembrandt, Rothko, Munch, Singer Sargent and others, as well as safely-dead Iranian artists. Irish Times, 11 May 2015. LONG LOST An Egyptian coin bearing the head of the greek god Zeus- Ammon on the obverse and an eagle on the reverse was dug ITV up in a garden in Wissett, Suf- ABOVE LEFT: (l-R) David henry, Tonette hayes and Brandon Kiel. ABOVE RIGHT: A Masonic Fraternal police Department Badge. folk. It was about 240 years old when the Romans invaded Britain, by which time Egypt Last May, three people were security guard, and has a firearm was a Roman province. how charged in California with They claim the permit. She previously owned had it ended up in Suffolk? impersonating law enforcement Masonic Security Service, and Eastern Daily Press, 30 April officers after claiming to department she and Henry ran the Beverly 2015. operate a police department Hills-based MIB Investigative FISHERMAN’S REVENGE with jurisdiction in 33 states was created Agency, though its state license Mubarak Batambuze, 56, a (and Mexico City). Brandon by the Knights was suspended. Henry is also a fisherman in Uganda, hunted Kiel (31), David Henry (46) and licensed security guard and has down and speared to death Tonette Hayes (59) said they a firearm permit. According to a giant crocodile after it ate belonged to a group called Templar Variety, he won an Emmy in 2002 his pregnant wife. Demeteriya the Masonic Fraternal Police for his work as a producer on a Nabwire had gone in search Department (MFPD). Kiel is (or Fox11 story. for firewood on the shores of was) a junior aide to California’s announced Kiel would be serving Los Angeles County sheriff’s lake Kyoga early on the morn- Attorney General Kamala Harris. as “chief deputy director” of spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said ing of 4 January. her slippers, Uniforms, weapons ID cards and the group. The letter claimed that there were no indications toes, fingers and a mobile enforcement-like vehicles were there were 5,686 lodges and that that the MFPD had carried out phone were found at the spot found in premises linked to the the department “will be able to any law enforcement activities – where she was devoured. group. They were arrested on acquire intel that is not accessible except perhaps in Cloud Cuckoo The same crocodile – 25ft 30 April and released later that to non-fraternal entities”. Hayes Land. [AP] BBC News, Eve. (7.6m) long and weighing day. “When asked what is the is a pastor as well as a licensed a Standard, 7 May 2015. over 2,200lb (1,000kg) – is difference between the Masonic believed to have eaten six Fraternal Police Department and women and children in 2014. other Police Departments the New Vision (Uganda), 7 Jan answer is simple for us. We were 2015. here first!” the group’s website page reads. “We are born into this Organization, our bloodlines go deeper than an application. This is more than a job it is an obligation.” According to their website, the MFPD was created by the Knights Templar in 1100 BC – most remarkable, given that the crusader order was created over 2,200 years later, around AD 1119. Authorities began investigating the MFPD after police chiefs in southern California received a letter in late January that ABOVE: henry, Kiel and other members of the MFpD in full Masonic regalia. MARTIN ROSS

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‘Monkeys’ on guard SIDELINES... NUT Mark Colborne, 37, felt “belittled” because of his Cuddly toys are Albania’s defence against the evil eye ginger hair and stockpiled the ingredients to make cyanide so that he could spray the deadly poison at non-Aryans to publicise his racist beliefs and put “a major dent in ”. he also planned to shoot princes Charles and William so that red-haired harry could be king. The fas- cist agoraphobic, who lived with his mother in Southamp- ton, was shopped by his half- brother. D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 13 May; Eve. Standard, 14 May 2015. HAIRCUTS FROM HELL Spikey hairstyles have been banned as satanic in Iran. “Devil-worshipping hairstyles are now forbidden,” said Mosafa govahi, head of Iran’s barbers’ union. Solarium treatments and the plucking of eyebrows are also banned. D.Telegraph, 5 May 2015. A TOUCH EXCESSIVE A self-employed german woman living in the Black Forest received a demand for €4,632,124,357,000,001 in unpaid pension contributions. The letter said that an attempt to take the money from her bank account by direct debit

N TWIllERT had failed, “for reasons which VA are unclear”. D.Telegraph, 10 April 2015.

S: MARIANNE TUMBLING TURTLE TO Fu Yitang, 63, was watching a gENT ShKUllAKU / AFp / gETTY IMAgES phO storm pass over his house in The weather-beaten forms often accompanied by the red it hanging on the outside of the liaocheng City in Shandong, of cuddly toys hanging from Albanian flag. Elizabeth Gowing building, tangled up with three China, when a yellow-bellied buildings are a common sight reviewed a random sample of soft toys and a ram’s skull with slider turtle plummeted into in Albania. Suspended from houses in three Albanian suburbs horns, a protective talisman that his garden. It was still alive. the eaves of houses, they sway and found a visible majmune goes back “to our forebears” “It makes no sense,” said the gently in the wind. The bodies are suspended from approximately according to the householder puzzled pensioner. Metro, 16 distorted, storm-drenched and one in eight buildings. Gjylsime. The garlic is probably June 2015. smut-stained. Rabbits are hung Homeowners reluctantly admit also an ancient tradition – but BITING SATIRE by their ears, chubbier animals they are installed as protection according to her and everyone Thousands of people were suspended by wire garrottes against the evil eye. “It stops the else interviewed, using soft toys expected at a festival to mark from half-finished buildings. evil eye seeing our money,” said against the eye started only in the the start of the mosquito In Albanian they’re called one man outside his bustling 1990s “with democracy” – they season in Russia. Festivi- majmune, meaning “monkeys”, furniture workshop. never featured in the socialist ties in Berezniki included the the word used for any soft toy. No one seemed to know where utopia of Enver Hoxha. These “tastiest girl” contest – where Travel blogger Marianne van the idea for protective toys came monkeys, then, are the household females battled to get the Twillert photographed a variety from. Garlic, too, is commonly gods of capitalism. BBC News, 2 most bites – and a parade of of examples and reported seeing used to ward off misfortune, here, Aug 2015; Living in Montenegro the skinniest legs. What’s not “dolls, puppets, teddy bears and... as elsewhere. At one house Ms blog (montenegro-for.me/2013/05/ to like? Metro, 16 June 2015. even one of the Teletubbies”, Gowing visits, there’s a plait of riral-albania/)

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SIDELINES... THIS TIT IS LOADED A 26-year-old woman from perth in Australia was charged with assaulting a policewoman while being searched at a shopping centre. As she was rearranging her clothes, she grabbed her breast and squirted milk at the officer, hitting her on the fore- head, arms, and clothing. MX News (Sydney), 26 Mar 2015. DANGER MAN The Mr Men characters, cre- ated by Roger hargreaves, were joined in January by a new character: Mr Ebola. hun- dreds of posters appeared on pedestrian crossings in leeds, Manchester and Nottingham showing the blue figure with a furrowed brow. The perpetrator was unknown. Metro, 21 Jan 2015. MEATY FRACAS Thomas Bacon, 19, allegedly attacked another person in Madison, New Jersey, on 12 May for eating the last piece of sausage. Bacon was charged with simple assault and released pending a court appearance. (New York), 29 May 2015. TROUBLESHOOTER lucas hinch, 37, fed up with his Dell desktop computer after months of malfunctioning, carried it into an alley and shot it eight times. hinch, who faced a fine for illegally discharging a weapon within Colorado Springs city limits, said he had reached ‘critical mass’ and had no regrets. police confiscated his legally owned pistol. D.Mail, 23 April 2015. BAD HABIT Christopher Miller robbed the Stride Rite shoe store in Toms Rover, New Jersey, in 1999 and spent 15 years in jail for the crime. The day after he was released in March 2014, he

returned to the same store and ChRIS MCgRATh / gETTY IMAgES robbed it again. The same clerk was behind the counter. he made off with $389 and fled on The return of Godzilla foot with the employee’s cell- phones. On 5 June 2015, Miller pedestrians on a Tokyo street pass beneath a 12-metre tall godzilla head built on the 8th floor terrace of the was sentenced to a further 16 hotel gracery Shinjuku. The godzilla replica is the main attraction of a new commercial complex containing a years inside. [AP] 12 Mar, 6 movie theatre, hotel and restaurants situated in the Kabukicho red light district of Shinjuku. June 2015. phOTO BY ChRIS MCgRATh/gETTY IMAgES

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PA sCIEnCE MATT

The EmDrive was also tested EMDRIVE anoMalIEs in a vacuum chamber to ensure that air currents or ionisation was not producing thrust – an effect It may violate the laws of phsyics, but does that matter if engineer Roger shawyer’s that fooled experimenters playing propellantless space drive actually works? DAVID HAMBLING provides the latest news. with ‘Lifters’ a few years ago. “Surprisingly we could still observe irst they ignore you, then thrusts that are indeed reversing they laugh at you, then with thruster orientation,” Tajmar they attack you, then noted. The experiments could F you win,” said Mahatma not rule out every single possible Gandhi. Allegedly – the quote has source of error, and Tajmar is never been conclusively proven. cautious in his conclusion: The quip might apply to that “Our test campaign can not most unlikely of technologies, confirm or refute the claims a propellantless space drive of the EmDrive but intends invented by British engineer to independently assess Roger Shawyer. First described possible side-effects in the in these pages back in 2005 measurement methods used so [FT201:14], the EmDrive is a far. Nevertheless, we do observe sealed cavity in the shape of a thrusts close to the magnitude truncated cone filled with resonant of the actual predictions after microwaves shuttling back and eliminating many possible error forth. Classical physics says that sources that should warrant no closed system can produce further investigation into the thrust – it would violate the law of phenomena.” conservation of momentum – but Like the Eagleworks results whatever the theory, the real issue – which one British tabloid is whether the EmDrive actually interpreted as a Star Trek-style works. Warp Drive – Tajmar’s were Or at least, it would be if distorted by the media. But they science worked like that. In nasa DEClInED enough thrust to be useful, it do represent another hurdle practice, the weight of established might just survive; mildly positive passed, the set of possible errors physics presses down on anyone To CoMMEnT on results that would be instantly whittled down, another replication wishing to make this sort of picked to pieces as evidence of of the effect by an independent claim, and the EmDrive was THE HERETICal NASA craziness with public money researcher. initially ignored just as the myriad REsEaRCH would not be worthwhile. One of the big criticisms of of alleged perpetual-motion The UK Space Agency says the EmDrive is the lack of peer- contraptions are ignored. If that “Funding from the UK Space reviewed research, but Shawyer someone tells you there is a nest understandably cool about the Agency is made available in himself has now published a peer- of fire-breathing, flyingag dr ons results. It might be the greatest fair competition in line with our reviewed paper in Ars Astronautica at the bottom of his garden, you discovery of the age, but it still technology priorities, and EmDrive detailing his concepts for an would not trouble to check it out looked impossible, and they may be eligible to apply for such EmDrive-powered spaceplane either. declined to make any comment funding.” Shawyer says that in and deep-space probe. The However, as recounted last year at all on the heretical EmDrive practice they have never shown spaceplane is based on the [FT320:12], Shaywer’s continued research until the growing amount much enthusiasm. existing X-37 airframe and could claims inspired a Chinese of news coverage inspired them In the meantime another player provide cheap, ecologically friendly team led by Juan Yang at Xi’an to make this formal statement to has emerged. Martin Tajmar, access to orbit, making Virgin Northwest Polytechnic University Space.com: “While conceptual Professor and Chair for Space Galactic look like a horse-drawn to replicate his apparatus. They research into novel propulsion Systems at the Dresden University buggy. The space probe could found that the EmDrive produced methods by a team at NASA’s of Technology, is something reach a star four light years away thrust, and published results Johnson Space Center in Houston of an expert on testing exotic in 10 years – roughly the same from 2008 onwards which were has created headlines, this is a space drives. He presented his time it took for Deep Horizons to steadfastly ignored in the West. small effort that has not yet shown results on the EmDrive at the reach Pluto. Peer review pushes Then a maverick team at NASA – any tangible results.” American Institute of Aeronautics these concepts a step away from the so-called Eagleworks, based at Since then, there seems to and Astronautics in July. He fantasy and towards fact. Johnson Space Center in Houston have been a media blackout clearly didn’t start as a believer NASA and the UK may find – built their own version. That from NASA. The Eagleworks in the EmDrive, but his position the whole idea too radical, and apparently worked too. continues work on the EmDrive, may have shifted. The first test the Chinese work is now veiled The NASA result was received and according to leaks earlier was simply to point the drive in in secrecy, but Industry rumours with scorn and ridicule. Although this year their results continued different directions and see if it suggest there are more labs they simply labelled their results to be positive, but funding for made any difference. around the world exploring as ‘anomalous thrust’ and did not the project will reportedly end in “Remarkably, we can indeed the EmDrive effect. The eras attempt to explain how it worked, September. NASA, an organisation see a fairly large difference of ignoring the EmDrive and they were criticised for ignoring the that has to fight hard for its between thrust directions. The laughing at it are over. The fight laws of physics. Many uninformed budget, would attract a storm difference between upwards and is on between those who want to suggestions were made as to of abuse if they allowed the downwards measurements was dismiss the EmDrive and those what errors they might have made Eagleworks to publish anything 229 microNewtons and therefore who want further research to find in their measurement. positive. If the Eagleworks build close to our expectation of 2x98 out if the astonishing claims are NASA management were a robust EmDrive that produces MicroNewtons.” true.

14 FT332 www.forteantimes.com Daily Mail HHHHH HHHHH The Times HHHHH TTINSON

PA ARCHÆOLOGY MATT Our archæological round-up is brought to you by PAUL DEVEREUX, Managing Editor of Time & Mind – The Journal of Archæology, Consciousness and Culture (www.tandfonline.com/rtam)

OLD GOLD through mining, but was instead New research is casting an extracted from the areas’ rivers, unexpected sheen on gold in probably through panning or prehistoric times in both Ireland sophisticated damming and and the UK. It had long been sluicing systems,” said Dr assumed that in Ireland gold Standish. “But, as well as fi nding in Early Bronze Age artefacts tin in the sand and gravels of came from nearby mineral-rich the streams and rivers, they also mountainous areas, but this found gold.” Further, fi ne woolly has been sharply corrected by sheepskins may well have been advanced chemical, isotopic, used to catch the tiny grains of analysis. This shows that the both tin and gold, in a technique gold came from southwestern similar to that which, in ancient Britain, while evidence of Irish Greek mythology, probably gave gold has not been found at all. rise to the motif of the Golden “This is the oldest gold known to Fleece. archæology,” says Christopher Much of the gold was beaten Standish, lead author of the new into thin sheets that were then study and a research fellow at shaped into various pendants the University of Southampton. and other objects – in particular, “It is unlikely that knowledge crescent-shaped ‘breast plates’,

of how to extract gold didn’t which were probably associated O / ALAMY exist in Ireland... It is more with solar worship and worn by OT

probable that an ‘exotic’ origin priests (or shamans). Despite INTERF was cherished as a key property the calculation that 200kg of of gold and was an important smaller amounts probably going to France. gold were exported from Cornwall reason behind why it was imported for The Early Bronze Age Stonehenge culture and western Devon, all the artefacts yet production.” almost certainly likewise obtained its found that used it do not match up to Standish has also conducted his gold from the same sources, as may the that weight. It seems more than likely the research in Cornwall, which forms the most chieftains of north-west Wales, who were great majority of gold artefacts originally southwesterly tip of England, where there known to be fond of wearing solid gold manufactured during that era were seems to have been a veritable prehistoric capes. repeatedly melted down over subsequent gold rush. Geological estimates now Standish suggests that the Cornish ages for other purposes. Then as now, indicate that up to 200kg (440lb) of gold gold production was largely a by-product gold, whether prized for its symbolic or were extracted in the Early Bronze Age from of an even more important industry – tin monetary value, seems never to have lost Cornwall and West Devon’s rivers, and the extraction. “The available evidence strongly its lustre. Proceedings of the Prehistoric new research suggests that substantial suggests that in Bronze Age Cornwall Society, April; Independent, 4 June; amounts were exported to Ireland, with and West Devon, tin wasn’t obtained LiveScience, 8 June 2015.

LEAVING A MARK vessel bearing the fi ngerprint of the person While conducting a survey ahead of the who made it. It was found in a former fjord construction of a tunnel between the German east of Rødby Havn, on the south coast of island of Fehmarn and the Danish island of Lolland. During conservation work at the Lolland, Danish archæologists have found a Danish National Museum, experts noticed 5,500-year-old ceramic beaker a fi ngerprint on the interior surface, which must have been left there by the potter. Like a touch across time. Discovery News, 26 June 2015. GOLDEN LIKE THE SUN Before leaving the topic of ancient gold, we should report that an Early Bronze Age sun- disc (so assumed) from Monkton Farleigh

RK AUTHORITY in , England, is being exhibited for PA public view for the fi rst time at the Wiltshire

Museum. It is one of only six such WILTSHIRE MUSEUM objects to have been found. It is dated over 20 miles (32km) from Stonehenge. to c.2,400 BC, soon after the sarsen With it were found a pottery beaker, fl int stones were erected at Stonehenge. The arrowheads and fragments of the skeleton DARTMOOR NATIONAL object was initially unearthed in 1947 in of an adult male. It has been held by the a burial mound at Monkton Farleigh, just landowner since its discovery and has

16 F T332 www.forteantimes.com CLASSI CAL CORNER only now been given to the museum FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD COMPILED BY BARRY BALDWIN after careful cleaning by the Conservation Service. The sun- disc is a thin embossed sheet of gold 191: MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR with a central cross surrounded by a circle. Between the cross and the circle (FT-ers of a certain age will that pleases me,” with the are fine dots that glint in sunlight. It join me in dedicating this postscript: “But show me appears that the disc was intended to column to the memory of how the trick is done, and be worn on clothing or a headdress. It David Nixon) I have lost my interest was kept safe since its discovery by Dr “There isn’t anything that therein.” Denis Whitehead, and the first time that can’t be, even though also it Many would agree. Not it had been seen by archæologists was is not clear how anything can so Lucian, a century later, in 2013. Popular Archæology, 19 June be” – Fort, Books, p897 when exposing the frauds of 2015. An Egyptian papyrus Alexander of Abonoteichus, (in the British Museum) who was captivating top SLEEPING BEAUTY dating to the Early Dynasty Roman officials and much A team of British archæologists led raves thus over the conjuror of the populace (except by Louise Schofield, a former British Tchatcha-em-ankh: “He Epicureans and Museum curator, have been conducting knoweth how to bind on a – strange bedfellows); cf. a six-week excavation of the ancient head which hath been cut Steve Moore’s excellent city of Aksum in Ethiopia. They have off, he knoweth how to make article, FT276:46-51. Lucian been making rich finds dating from a lion follow him as if led by a rope.” (Alexander the False Prophet, chs19-21) the first and second centuries AD. His first trick prefigures that modern explains at length how the rascal contrived In particular, they have uncovered illusionist’s standby of sawing the girl to answer questions sent up to him in sealed the grave of a woman Schofield calls assistant in half; the second – reading envelopes. Three ways to pull off this stunt, “Sleeping Beauty”. “She was curled up between the lions – implies early hypnotism. described in too-long-to-quote detail for on her side, with her chin resting on her A later Pharaoh could have done with him his addressee Celsus, himself author of a hand, wearing a beautiful bronze ring,” in the competition between local illusionists treatise against magicians. The First (“a Schofield explains. “She was buried and their Hebrew challenger: “Aaron cast well-known method”) involves inserting a gazing into an extraordinary Roman down his rod and it became a serpent. The heated needle to melt the sub-seal wax, read bronze mirror. She had next to her a magicians of Egypt also in like manner cast the message, and re-seal. The second utilises beautiful and incredibly ornate bronze down their rods and they became serpents, plaster to harden the scroll, making it easy cosmetics spoon with a lump of kohl but Aaron’s rod swallowed up theirs” (Exodus to open. The third, involving a mix of marble- eyeliner.” 7. 10-12) dust and glue, produces the same result. The woman was wearing an intricate The mysterious Robert Heller (of Lucian adds: “There are many other beaded necklace and a beaded belt. various aliases, c. 1826-1878), himself a devices for doing this.” Opening sealed The quality of the jewellery suggests stage magician, claimed to have seen this letters is one of the many tricks fulminated that she had high status. Among other trick performed in the open air at Cairo by against by Christian theologian Hippolytus artefacts with her were Roman glass Dervishes. His explanation: the rods were (170-235) in his Refutation of All the Heresies vessels, two perfectly preserved drinking actually serpents hypnotised into rigidity; (bk4 chs28-42, perhaps drawn from Celsus beakers and a clay jug, its contents when thrown down, they recovered and himself – English translation online). Again, yet to be analysed. Although “Sleeping crawled away – worthy competition for Indian immense detail precludes quotation. A Beauty” was covered only with soil, her snake-charmers... series of diatribes in classic televangelist grave was cut into a rock overhang, Another Egyptian element may be the style excoriates (e.g.) tricks with eggs, fiery which accounts for the remarkable mural (c. 2500 BC) showing two men bending apparitions, ghostly messages emanating preservation. Guardian, 7 June 2015. over four inverted bowls, taken by some from cauldrons, inscribed livers, and (not all) Egyptologists to be a forerunner of speaking skulls. Hippolytus’s detail and Roman conjurors’ star turn, the Acetabula passion imply their wide popularity and et Calculi, or Cup-and-Balls. In the basic numbers thus duped. version, the performer contrives the balls Byzantine polymath Michael Psellus (11th- to go through the cups’ solid bottoms, jump century) itemises (Philosophica Minora, bk1 from cup to cup, disappear and re-appear ch32 paras65-90) 16 “respectable” conjuring elsewhere, metamorphosed by way of finale tricks. They include simulating a black into fruits, , or baby chicks. audience member, bisecting and turning Harry Houdini himself pronounced that an egg purple, changing water into wine nobody could properly call themselves a (obviously tailored to Christian audiences, magician until they’d mastered this trick. It perhaps blasphemous to some), smashing is also widely regarded as ancient ancestor iron, and detecting whether or not girls were of that villainous variant The Shell Game virgins – presumably Not In Front Of Your (aka Thimblerig or The Old Army Game) – Wife Or Servants.... Find The Lady, Anyone..? (cf. A ‘Professor’ “Cleggerdemain: A conjuring act in which Hoffman, Modern Magic, 1878; Tim Osbourne, the performer appears to be sitting on a Cup and Balls Magic, 1937) non-existent fence” – Brian Allgar, New Seneca (Letters to Lucilius, no45) alludes to Statesman Competition winner, 14-20 Dec this routine, admitting: “It is the very trickery 2012, p56.

FT332 17 www.forteantimes.com TTINSON GHostwAtcH PA MATT

AlAn muRdIe wonders what can be done to save crumbling haunts from the developers BEnJAMIn ALLISOn ABOVE AND BELOW: Birkwood Castle in its glory days, and as an abandoned hospital. A large section of the building has now collapsed, as seen in the bottom photo.

unwelcome developments the eerie sound of a young girl’s voice heard In April 2014 a group of wealthy Scottish crying and singing within empty rooms. Visitors property developers posed outside the and former staff reported smelling phantom derelict Birkwood Castle at Lesmahagow cigar smoke, electrical disturbances and in Lanarkshire and announced their plans mysterious footsteps. It was even claimed the for converting the building and its grounds figure of a doctor (un-named) who suffered into a luxury hotel, boutique and up-market a fatal heart attack at the hospital was housing. Over the next six months, promoters appearing at windows, a rare example of a of the scheme openly played up the haunted medical man coming back as a phantom. In reputation of the 155-year-old mansion as a 2013, ghost hunters Glasgow Paranormal publicity gimmick for advertising their plans. Investigations made an episode of the But now a large segment of the building lies in series Haunted Planet in the building, with ruins following its sudden collapse on 21 July, the film crew saying it was one of the most with the aggrieved ghosts of Birkwood Castle active locations in which they had recorded getting the blame. – although this is a standard line routinely The dismal pile of rubble and what remains recited at almost every haunted location of Birkwood Castle are a melancholy sight whenever a spot of filming takes place these indeed, making the headline carried by days. Presciently, the rash and rather cavalier the Glasgow Herald on 28 October 2014, exploitation of the haunted reputation of ‘Haunted hotel plan stands more than a Birkwood Castle and other sites by developers

ghost of a chance’ now seem like one of the and publicity agents was noted in 2014 by Eric BEnJAMIn ALLISOn grimmer jokes of the Fates. Formerly used as a hospital for mentally disabled children until 2002, the gothic-style mansion, set in 86 acres of parkland, was precisely the kind of derelict building around which one would expect legends and ghost stories to cluster. Suggestions that angry spirits have literally brought the house down – with a sudden noise like ‘an explosion’, according to neighbours – prompted headlines such as ‘Wrecked by ghosts’ (The Sun, 8 August 2015) and ‘Did ghosts cause this castle to collapse?’ (Daily Mail, 8 August 2015). The person responsible for voicing the theory of development-wrecking ghosts at Birkwood appears to be Tom Robertson, a member of a local ghost hunting group. Mr Robertson speculated spirits “might be taking a hand in matters in causing a wall to collapse” because “they were being evicted from their home”. Recent years had seen claims of ghosts of former child patients returning, including a boy called Michael haunting the grand spiral staircase where he supposedly fell to his death, along with

18 FT332 www.forteantimes.com Olsen, editor of Haunted America website, who to determine. But the idea that incorporeal and France over the next year, he observed: “In wrote: “Surely, none of these owners are naive phantoms might be demolishing stone this period there was much disaffection among enough to think there won’t be paranormal structures is certainly a very ancient belief, the British coal miners. There was a suspicion that ramifications from their developments.” classic example being the vengeful spirit of St miners were mixing dynamite into coal. But, The theory that renovation work may stir Thomas a Becket blamed for knocking down whether we think that the miners had anything up manifestations in old buildings is one parts of the Tower of London in 1241, decades to do with these explosions, or not, suspicions that has been seriously discussed in the after his assassination on the orders of Henry against them, in England, were checked by past (see Renovation Hauntings by Peter II. the circumstances that no case of the finding McCue FT268:30-35). I have even heard As an alternative to ghosts, one might of dynamite in coal was reported, and that the hypothesis aired that living residents attribute the destruction to what Charles Fort there were no explosions of coal in the rough simply thinking about structural change may called “wild talents” (the title of his last book), processes of shipments [..] The coal in all galvanise the mechanism behind a haunting, mysterious physical forces emanating from these cases was coal from British coal mines. producing noises and apparitions. However, the living. Fort toyed with the idea of objects The newspapers that told of these explosions without any evidence as to the cause of the responding to emotions and anger in the told of the bitterness and vengefulness of sudden collapse of Birkwood Castle, such community after a case at Hornsey British coal miners, enraged by hardships ideas are unlikely to cause any more than a in 1921 in which lumps of coal exploded. and reduced wages, uncommon in even scintilla of a shiver in anyone contemplating noting a spate of similar reports across Britain their harsh experiences [..] There’s a shout changes to a historic property; there is plenty of local testimony that Birkwood Castle was in a bad state of repair and the collapse was thus foreseeable. Daily Herald, 24 July 2015; ‘One of Scotland’s most haunted buildings to become a boutique hotel’ Sunday Herald, 17 April 2014; Daily Mail, 18 April 2014; ‘Iconic Haunted Sites becoming luxury hotels as paranormal tourism spreads’ Haunted America website, 21 April 2014; http://www.americas- most-haunted.com/paranormal/high-end- paranormal-tourism-is-about/#.Vdn2pYeFPIU. However, the idea that wrathful ghosts may be coming back to wreck a building to thwart property developers is certainly a striking one, hitherto largely confined to romantic fiction and folklore, particularly in Celtic lands (in Ireland there have often been stories of misfortunes and obstacles dogging road schemes running near ancient sites and fairy trees). There have been a few alleged cases of ghost-damaged buildings recorded in the last 100 years, principally by fires in poltergeist outbreaks (for example Pitmilly House, Scotland, in 1944) but aside from ghostly arson, there is really nothing that compares to the supreme destruction claimed at Birkwood Castle. For example, the ghostly Black Dog of Torringdon, Devon, allegedly knocked down a wall in the 1920s. The ghost of an ostler nicknamed ‘Spider’, who supposedly suffocated up the chimney of the Bear Inn at Stock, Essex, in about 1914, was blamed for putting a huge crack in the stonework after attempts to retrieve his sooty bones in the early 1960s (see stories regaled by James Wentworth Day in A Ghost Hunter’s Game Book, 1958, Essex Ghosts, 1974, and East Anglian Magazine, January 1962). A persistent female apparition that haunted Abbots Langley Rectory in Hertfordshire in the 1940s was held liable for making the fireplace fall out at intervals, thwarting all efforts at repair (see A Gazetteer of British Ghosts, 1971, by Peter Underwood). The Black Monk of Pontefract (active 1966-68) made cracks in the kitchen ceiling still visible a decade later (see Poltergeist! A Study of Destructive Haunting, 1981, by ). Of course, whether such stories arise from an inordinate love of lying, a desire to please RISCHGITz / GETTy IMAGES audiences, or are attributed to a paranormal cause (actual or believed) is a matter not easy ABOVE: The House of Detention, Clerkenwell, London, one of many important buildings lost to development.

FT332 19 www.forteantimes.com of Brentwood concerning plans to drive a road and develop the Bronze Age and (possibly Iron Age) cemetery at Fornham All Saints in Suffolk (See FT325:18-19). The campaign has been spurred on by the discovery of a suppressed 2013 archæological report that mentions numerous finds suggesting multi-period occupation, hundreds of flint objects, fire, pits a Bronze Age cremation urn, human remains and mysterious palisaded enclosure. not far away, at Abbas Hall on the Suffolk/ Essex border, protests are also being renewed about the revival of plans to build a housing estate in an area immortalised on canvas by the artist Thomas Gainsborough. (East Anglian Daily Times, 15 May 2015). This scheme is close to the site of Abbas Hall, a notoriously haunted site of the 1950s that received national attention on account of its Grey Lady (see ‘A larm at Abbas’ in Some ABOVE: Abbas Hall, site of a Grey Lady haunting in the 1950s. BELOW: Battersea Old House, London. Unseen Power, 1985, by Philip Paul). In the 1970s stories circulated of the ghosts of of vengefulness, in Hyde Park, London – far away, dimming with the creeping shadow vengeful monks shaking and beating the cars away, in Gloucestershire, an ancient mansion of a total lunar eclipse engulfing the entire of courting couples who rashly parked in the bursts into flames.” (Fort, Wild Talents, 1931, globe of the Moon that very same night. Alas, area on a certain night in October. ch.15). no bloodstained ghost walked as the Moon Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see Aside from speculation, the Birkwood turned a ruddy, copper hue. how insurers react to the collapse of Castle story perhaps provides a At Battle in Sussex, another sad loss for Birkwood Castle. Following this I predict it contemporary illustration of how ghost the diversity of education was the closure of will not be long before claims of personal sightings, experiences and stories may Pyke House residential college. Close to the injuries inflicted by ghosts will be appearing reflect the collective concerns, fears and site of the Battle of Hastings and the ‘Battle elsewhere, in addition to claims for property prejudices present within communities Triangle’ where three identical apparitions of damage. (See Appearances of the Dead, 1982 by RC a smiling girl have been reported (see article Such claims are not beyond the bounds of Finucane). The irate ghosts of Birkwood may by Andrew Green FT67:47, Feb 1993) parts possibility. In 1958 a George Hesketh sued be perceived as a symbol expressing the of Pyke House dated back to the 15th century. for personal injuries suffered in the course wider feelings of a community opposed to It was not only haunted, but also the place of running away from ghosts at Bush House, change and development or the exploitation hosting the UK’s first official evening classes a derelict mansion in Pembrokeshire, after of its traditions and beliefs for commercial in ghost hunting and in 1971, he and his son had gone there to lay floors. ends. It is notable that there has been little which continued into the 21st century. The two men retreated into a local authority sympathy for the developers expressed by Haunted and mysterious landscapes are school next door and Mr Hesketh’s claim for a locals around Birkwood Castle, and opposition also under threat. Occasionally a campaign fractured skull arose as a result of him falling to development is often being expressed to prevent their destruction succeeds, at down an unlit staircase inside. Damages of among many communities around Britain least temporarily, as around Abbotsford, £1,376 formed an agreed settlement after wherever treasured landmarks, old mansions, the home of Sir Walter Scott, where in 2003 the judge Lord Justice Salmon acknowledged valued green fields and ancient inns and the campaign ‘Save Scott’s Countryside’ that the two men had “heard or thought they pubs are being sacrificed as part of thes UK’ challenged attempts to spread bland housing heard supernatural noises and saw or thought speculative housing bubble. all across an area of great beauty and they saw a ghost”. (Daily Express, 28 March Sadly, in the last decade and a half, some environmental sensitivity in the central part of 1958). Certainly, if one case is established to marvellous haunted locations have either the Tweed Valley. the standard required by law, it may well have been lost to developers or turned over to Such threats are increasingly evoking all manner of interesting implications, not just private hands. I remember arriving at the strong feelings in communities, with concern for property developers but for other personal historic House of Detention in Clerkenwell for the ancient dead being raised by objectors. injury claims, as well as potentially prompting with a History Channel film crew in 2000 just Just recently, the website Spooky Isles has revision of the Occupier’s Liability Act 1957, as developers were moving in, following a led the way in encouraging people to protest the Defective Premises Act 1972 and other swift repossession and transfer of the old jail directly to developers Countryside Properties legislation. and museum to private concerns. Another loss was Battersea Old House in London, maintained for many years by the formidable Mrs Stirling, a devout spiritualist who penned Ghosts Vivisected (1958). All manner of wistful spectres were said to manifest, and even sit in their antique favourite chairs, but Battersea Old House was, alas, converted into functional and characterless flats in 2011. Some notable haunted educational establishments have been sold off for housing, such the historic Belstead House which stood at the end of the appropriately named Sprite’s Lane near Ipswich, with its dark and haunted Judge’s Room in which I spent a memorable lone investigation on 3 March 2007. I neither saw nor felt any ghosts, but my vigil was rewarded with the numinous experience of watching the moonlight fading

20 FT332 www.forteantimes.com EXECUTIVE MSc IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF EUROPE

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European Institute The London School of Economics and Political Science, [email protected]

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Recent cases reveal a bizarre selection of misplaced objects in the human MEDICAL BAG body, from a sucker dart in the nose to a mobile phone in the abdomen...

FAR LEFT: Steve Easton with the plastic sucker dart that had been stuck up his left nostril for 44 years. ABOVE AND LEFT: This inch-long larval worm was lured out of its hiding place in a 17-year- old boy’s eye with a sprig of basil. NY KERSHAW / SWNS.COM TO

dArt stuCk uP nose for they X-rayed him and checked as FT’s medical files attest. It 44 yeArs everything and they couldn’t find He was sitting happens “once in every 5,500 Steve Easton, 51, of Camberley, it. In the end they said perhaps to 7,000 surgeries”, according Surrey, often had a runny or it was a mistake. I knew it wasn’t at home when to a Washington Post report in blocked nose, or a headache, and it’s always worried me and 2014. In 2012 Michael O’Sullivan, and put it down to hay fever, but now it has suddenly shot out. It the dart fired 49, received a new liver at his nasal passages are now clear was weird.” Addenbrooke’s Hospital in for the first time since he was a Meanwhile in California, from his nose Cambridge, but was sent home small boy, having sneezed out doctors removed a macadamia with an A4-sized surgical mat the cause – a mildly decomposed nut lodged in the nostril of a still inside him. It was only sucker from a toy dart stuck up 37-year-old man for 13 years. Hamid, who claims she took her discovered after he complained his left nostril for 44 years. He Sun, 1 April; telegraph.co.uk, BBC daughter back to hospital, “but of suffering from a lot of pain had no idea it was there until News, 12 May; D.Mail, 13 May nothing was done for her”. following surgery. It was three in late March he was sitting at 2015. The story goes that Ms Karim weeks before a CT scan revealed home playing a game on the was then rushed to the casualty “something unusual”, which Internet when the dart tip, the MisPLACed MoBiLe department of Al Bashir public surgeons found to be the silicone same size as a 1p coin, fired from A doctor allegedly left his hospital, where X-rays revealed mat. Gulf News, via D.Mail, 14 his nose. He was unable to work mobile phone in a woman’s there was a foreign object in her May; Sun, bgr.com, 15 May 2015. out what it was until he phoned abdomen after delivering her abdomen. Her mother claims his mother Pat, now 77, who baby by cæsarean section. A surgeons quickly operated to 420 kidney stones knew instantly. He was amazed sub at the Sun couldn’t resist remove the phone. The case was A Chinese man called He Dong, to learn that his parents had the headline: “It’s For Uterus”. brought up in the Jordanian 55, underwent a two-hour taken him to hospital when he Hanan Mahmoud Abdul Karim, parliament, where there were operation to remove 420 kidney was seven because they thought 36, had the successful procedure calls for the government to resign stones at a hospital in Dongyang, he had inhaled the dart tip. They at a private hospital in Amman, as a result of the scandal. Health in the eastern Chinese province had found him playing with his Jordan, on 24 April before going Ministry spokesman Hatem Al of Zhejiang. Doctors at the dart gun, and noticed one of the home with her son, who was born Azrae dismissed Ms Karim’s story hospital suggested that his tofu- rubber tips was missing. “Steve weighing 10.5lb (4.8kg). Later, as “baseless and fabricated”, heavy diet, and a lack of water, said he’d swallowed it and there however, her family noticed her but added that the ministry was were to blame. “Soy products, was just one of these darts stomach vibrating and she began looking into it. especially gypsum tofu, are very without a tip,” said his mother. suffering terrible pain, according Surgeons regularly leave high in calcium, the excess of “I took him to the hospital and to her mother, Majeda Abdul foreign objects inside patients, which cannot be excreted from

22 FT332 www.forteantimes.com kArL sHuker presents his regular round-up from the crypto- ALIEN ZOO zoological garden

termed the African wolf (instead of the Egyptian jackal) had split from the golden jackal Canis aureus more than a million years ago. Consequently, it deserved formal recognition as a separate species, the body without a sufficient so the research team has proposed the official intake of water,” said Dr Wei scientific name Canis anthus (‘golden dog’ or ‘golden Yubin. Mr He visited the doctor wolf’) for this ‘hidden in plain sight’ species. I’ll be in May complaining of abdominal very interested to see how long it takes now before pain, and a subsequent CT scan archæologists and mythology students stop referring revealed his left kidney was to the ancient Egyptian deity Anubis as jackal-headed packed full of stones. His tally of (his long-established traditional description) and 420 stones is a long way off the start referring to him as wolf-headed instead. world record. In 2009, a doctor http://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/ in India removed 172,155 stones S0960-9822(15)00787-3 30 July 2015. from a patient’s left kidney during a three-hour surgery. BBC CARL MEETS THE BLUE DEVIL News, 8 June; Metro, 9 June 2015. Explorer-author Carl Portman has travelled the world seeking unusual spiders and other arachnids. As he Lured out WitH BAsiL only recently made public, while visiting Black Rock in A 17-year old boy from Pozuzo, Belize during April 2014 he encountered something Peru, had been suffering a that may be very special indeed. He was told about painful red swelling round an eye a certain cave situated high up in the mountainside for four weeks when he went to that locals claimed was home to a magical kind the National Children’s Hospital of very large blue spider known as the blue devil. in Lima. An MRI scan located Although it sounded more likely to be folklore than an inch-long larval worm. This fact, Carl decided to visit the cave, just in case, and after an arduous near-vertical climb accompanied by posed a particularly severe risk KEN GERHARD his wife Susan and a native guide called Carlos, he because it caused swelling near finally reached theve ca ’s opening. During a lengthy an area from which infections can KEN’S ALASKAN ANOMALIIES trek through its gloomy interior, they came upon On 24 July 2015, a major new television series spread to the brain. The alluring quite a range of animals, including frogs, lizards, began on the History Channel entitled ‘Missing in scent of a sprig of basil was used cave lice, tailless whip scorpions (amblypygids), bats, Alaska’, one of whose co-presenters is well-known to lure the critter from its bizarre and spiders too – but not of the blue devil variety. American cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard. Although its hideout. Once its head poked Reluctantly, they eventually decided to trek back principal focus is investigating the many mysterious out, doctors used tweezers to to the entrance, but before they reached it, and to disappearances of people in Alaska over the years, remove it. They believed it was everyone’s amazement, Carlos spotted one of these Ken will also be covering a wide range of this a larva of Dermatobia hominis elusive, magical creatures – a blue devil! enormous but often little-explored state’s cryptids. (human botfly). The unnamed boy The size of Carl’s hand and indeed a brilliant, Some, such as its bigfoot, thunderbirds, and the suffered no long-term damage. vibrant blue, it was possibly a species of wolf spider, giant fishes allegedly inhabiting Lake Iliamna, are dailymail.co.uk, 4 June; D.Mirror, 5 and Carl swiftly snapped a few photographs of this relatively familiar in international cryptozoological June 2015. spectacular arachnid before it vanished back into the circles, but others have remained much more stygian depths. Despite being very knowledgeable obscure – until now. These latter include an otter- HeAVy MetAL diet and experienced regarding spiders, Carl had no idea man called the kushtaka, the amarok (huge bear- of the blue devil’s species, and according to Carlos Complaining of stomach ache, like wolf), ircenrraat (gnome-like proto-pygmies), they are found nowhere but in this cave. Could it Rajpal Singh went to hospital, cet’aneni or tecetin (tailed man-beasts), and an Inuit therefore be a dramatic new species? Only if a where an endoscopy revealed 140 mer-being referred to as the qalupalik. FT readers will specimen is collected and subjected to scientific coins, 150 needles and several definitely be following Ken’s diligent pursuit of these scrutiny can its taxonomic identity be determined, nuts, bolts and batteries inside and other fascinating mystery beasts with interest. and Carl definitely hopes to return to study it. him – as well as screws, nails and Ken Gerhard, pers. comm., 12+14 July; http://www. Meanwhile, the blue devil of Belize remains a hidden, magnets. Singh, 34, a farmer from history.com/shows/missing-in-alaska 12 July 2015. Bathinda in the western Indian thought-provoking mystery. (Carl Portman, Animals and Men, May 2015; Carl Portman, pers. comm., state of Punjab, had begun eating A CHANGE OF HEAD FOR ANUBIS 20+21 July 2015.) metal objects three years earlier. Updating an earlier Alien Zoo report [ft273:21], “I used to gulp down coins and the long-familiar jackals of Egypt have been metals with fruit juice or milk,” shown to be not so familiar after all, because he said. “Due to problems, I it turns out that they are not jackals but wolves slipped into depression and got – the only wolves found anywhere on the hooked onto this weird habit. African continent. In late July 2015, Dr Klaus- Doctors have told me those sharp Peter Koepfli and a team of co-researchers objects would have punctured verified in a Current Biology paper that the my intestine and I would have Egyptian jackal was definitely a wolf, having eventually died. I feel much more analysed “extensive genomic data including mitochondrial genome sequences, sequences relaxed now. I am never going from 20 autosomal loci (17 introns and three to do this again.” Dr Gandeep exon segments), microsatellite loci, X- and Goyal said: “There are still sharp Y-linked zinc-finger protein gene (ZFX and needles and coins in his stomach. ZFY) sequences, and whole-genome nuclear We plan to operate again and sequences in African and Eurasian golden remove the remaining objects.” jackals and gray wolves”. D.Mail, MX News (Sydney), 23 Their results revealed that although they April 2015. are exceedingly similar externally, what is now KARL PORTMAN

FT332 23 www.forteantimes.com strangedays

From Russia’s ‘Grannibal Lecter’ to the Central CANNIBAL ROUNDUP African Republic’s ‘Mad Dog’ and more...

• In late July, police in St LEFT: Tamara Samsonova; partial to Petersburg found a plastic bag a bit of lung. BELOW LEFT: Alexander in a pond, containing a headless Bychkov preferred hearts and livers. torso with only one arm and BELOW RIGHT: The Ali brothers, noted one leg.These were the remains for their unusual curry recipes. ofValentina Ulanova, 79. Her carer, Tamara Samsonova, 68, sentenced to nine years in a was arrested on 28 July after labour camp in Aksarka, central security video footage emerged Russia. D.Mirror, 4 Dec; MX News of her taking several large plastic (Sydney), 5 Dec 2013. bags out of the apartment block in the middle of the night. She • Two Pakistani brothers – said she had drugged Ulanova, Mohammad Arif Ali (35) and 79, and hacked her into pieces Mohammad Farman Ali (30) – while still alive, in a row over were arrested in 2011 on charges unwashed cups. Dubbed “the of digging up about 100 graves granny ripper” – or “Grannibal and stealing the bodies, which Lecter” by the Sun – Samsonova they later allegedly consumed. admitted beheading and chopping Because Pakistan has no specific up 11 people, including her laws against cannibalism, the husband, and police suspect her arrest resulted in no more than of another 10 murders over the a two-year prison sentence and past two decades.The former a fine. While incarcerated, they hotel worker was also accused of spent most of their sentence in eating parts of her victims. She King Edward Medical University claimed to be especially partial to in Lahore, being examined by lungs and admired the cannibal the school's neurophysiology Andrei Chikatilo, who killed at department. Residents from their least 52 people between 1978 and native village of Khwawar Kalan, 1990. After her arrest, Samsonova near the town of Darya Khan in was pictured blowing kisses to Punjab's Bhakkar district, held a reporters in court. “I’m haunted raucous protest when the brothers

eAST2WeST NeWS by a maniac upstairs who forced were released in May 2013. After me to kill,” she told reporters reports of a stench of rotting flesh through the bars of her courtroom coming from their house, police cage. A diary found in her flat, raided it on 14 April 2015 and written in English and German as found a young boy’s skull.They well as Russian, detailed several admitted digging up the body of killings, including men known to the two-year-old child and making have rented a room from her in it into curry. In June they were 2000 and 2003. She was found to sentenced to a further 12 years in have a history of mental illness jail at an anti-terrorism court in and had been hospitalised three Sargodha in Punjab. (As well as times. Sun, 6+11 Aug; [CNN] 7 Aug; desecrating the child's grave, the D.Express, 18 Aug 2015. men were convicted of spreading fear and damaging property, • Alexander Bychkov killed offences under Pakistan's anti- / GeTTy ImAGeS FP and butchered nine homeless terrorism law.) Irish Times, 14 /A alcoholic men with a knife and April; LiveScience.com, (Brisbane) STR hammer in a 28-month spree Courier-Mail, 16 April; BBC News, around Belinsky in Russia’s his mother’s ex-boyfriend. Police The former mortuary worker 11 June 2014. region. After being found a diary detailing the killings stabbed the woman twice in arrested in 2012 for shoplifting, as well as violent films, books and the neck after a row while out • A cannibal who ate another he began telling police about the newspaper clippings about mass walking, then hid her body in the man’s flesh in the Central African bodies. He confessed to murdering killers. Bychkov, 24, was jailed for woods. He said he returned to the Republic on 7 January 2014 one man and cutting him up after life. D.Mirror, Sun, 23 Mar 2013. spot several times to take body has said he did it to avenge the a drinking session. “I only took parts to eat. A court in Russia’s death of his family. Ouandja his heart,” he said. “Two days • A man who killed and ate his northern Yamalo-Nenets region Magloire told the BBC that his later I cooked and ate it.” He also common-law wife told police: “I convicted the unnamed man pregnant wife, his sister-in-law allegedly ate his victims’ livers. got used to eating human flesh of murder after psychologists and her child were all killed by One of his victims was said to be when I worked at the morgue.” declared him sane. He was Muslim militiamen. He was part

24 FT332 www.forteantimes.com Mythconceptions by Mat Coward 92: BLOODY STEAK The myth Necrophages of a Christian mob that dragged he chopped her up, putting her given to macho a Muslim man from a minibus hands and feet in buckets. He posturing often in the country’s capital, Bangui, was arrested two days later after like to show how butch they stabbed him to death and then set asking a friend to help him dispose are by ordering his body on fi re. Footage of the of Hyder’s remains. He admitted their steak attack taken on a mobile phone he had eaten parts of her body. A lightly shows Magloire eating part of the ‘friend’ said Hale was a self-styled cooked, so victim’s leg, after which he was Satanist who was fi red from the that when known as ‘Mad Dog’.The next day slaughterhouse when he was found they cut into he returned, having saved some conducting a ritual with animal it, it oozes of the dead man’s fl esh. He put it parts. D.Mirror, 12 June 2014. blood. That’s between two halves of a baguette the red stuff that and ate it, with a side dish of okra. • Joseph Oberhansley, 33, of sloshes about The country’s late ‘Emperor’, Jean Jeffersonville, Indiana, was their plates, and Bedel Bokassa, was alleged to have arrested in July 2014 for driving drips onto practised cannibalism during his erratically and held in custody their garish rule between 1966 until his former neckties: and 1979. It was fi ancée Tammy Jo blood. said he kept human Blanton, 46, paid his limbs in fridges and £680 bond. When she served parts of them failed to turn up for to visiting French work a few weeks The “truth” dignitaries. Sunday later, police found Whether you’re buying it raw or eating it rare, your meat does not Telegraph, 12 Jan; her mutilated body contain blood – or not much, anyway. Almost all the blood was BBC News, 13 Jan; under a tarpaulin in drained out of the corpse at the slaughterhouse, long before it D.Telegraph, MX News the bath.There was reached the butcher’s shop, supermarket, or unmarked van in the (Sydney), 14 Jan 2014. a “plate with what car park of a disused pub where you bought it. That pink juice is appeared to be skull merely water mixed with a red-pigmented protein named myoglobin. • A 71-year-old bone and blood” on Animals from which “red meat” is made naturally contain a lot of both Frenchwoman was arrested in the it, a pan and blood-soaked tongs. ingredients, whereas “white meat” species don’t. (Some animals, northern French town of Longwy Police said Oberhansley confessed like poultry, have a mixture of both muscle types). The function of on 22 May 2014. She had killed her to removing her brain, lungs and myoglobin is to store oxygen in muscle cells. Its colour changes 80-year-old husband with a kitchen heart, and eating them, some when the meat is cooked, looking “bloodier” when the meat has only mortar she used for grinding cooked and some raw (we are not reached comparatively low temperatures, and browner after cooking spices and then “cooked his heart, told which were raw). However, at high temperatures. And, of course, the more you cook the meat, nose and genital organs in a pot, after the charges were read out in the less water will be left in it to carry the myoglobin onto the plate. but we don’t know if she ate them,” court, Oberhansley said: “That’s Rare meat may be redder, and juicier – but bloody steaks don’t exist. said a judicial source. (Queensland) not my name. Obviously you’ve Sunday Mail, 22 June 2014. got the wrong guy.” He claimed his name was Zeus Brown. In fact Sources Gregory Hale, 37, an ex- he had a manslaughter conviction • https://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/meat/INT-what-meat-color.html; slaughterhouse worker from from 2000 when he tried to kill his http://www.britannica.com/science/myoglobin; http://msue.anr.msu. Coffee County, Tennessee, met then-girlfriend Sabrina Elder, 17, edu/news/the_color_of_meat_depends_on_myoglobin_part_1 Lisa Hyder, 36, on 6 June 2014, days after she had given birth to and took her to his home where their child. D.Mirror, 17 Sept 2014. Disclaimer This column never claims expertise on the matters it covers – and, being vegetarian, it does so even less than usual this time. If we’ve got anything wrong, please get your knife and fork out and tuck in over on FT’s letters page.

Mythchaser Was there ever a time when it was legally and socially acceptable (and routinely done) to empty your chamber pot out of the window? It’s a defining image of the yucky middle Ages – but in an era which often had stricter hygiene laws than we have today, can it really ha ve been true? THE BOOK MYTHCONCEPTIONS TOP: Brain-eater Joseph Oberhansley. ABOVE: Self-styled Satanist Gregory Hale. DON’T MISS BOOKSHOPS OUT NOW ONLINE AND IN ALL GOOD

FT332 25 www.forteantimes.com strangedays

More herring gull hooliganism and a potential fortean follow-ups explanation for Kazakhstan’s sleeping sickness

MORE GULLS BEHAVING location was within the predicted BADLY [FT331:18] debris field of the presumed At 4.30pm on crash site in the Indian Ocean, 28 July, a man more than 2,000 miles to the west. swimming in the Perhaps hundreds of objects sea at Fenit in Co. from the plane had washed up on Kerry, Ireland, Réunion, with no one paying any was attacked by attention. Flotsam and jetsam on a gull 75 yards La Réunion is routinely collected (69m) from shore. He beat it and burnt. D.Telegraph, 31 July, off and tried to attract the 6+10 Aug; Sunday Telegraph, 2 Aug attention of lifeguards, but it 2015. returned for a second go and drew blood from his hand. He PIRATE LOOT… POSSIBLY was advised to go for tetanus [FT328:4] shots, which he received at UNESCO experts Kerry General Hospital. Brendan have dismissed O’Connor, water safety officer claims that Barry with Kerry County Council, said Clifford and his in his 40 years of beach and team of explorers coastal activities this is the first have discovered such attack ever reported by Captain Kidd’s ship lifeguards in Kerry, which has off Madagascar. The 110lb (50kg) 425 miles (684km) of coastline, ingot recovered from the sea was one of the longest in Ireland. The not silver but 95 per cent lead, gull in question wasn’t a herring and was identified as a ballast rdy / GeTTy ImaGes ca gull, but a great black-backed piece. “The mission showed that

maTT gull, which can have a wingspan several historic wrecks indeed of up to 6ft (1.8m). “This is the lie in the bays of Sainte-Marie first time veI ha ever heard of blades. Officials in Whitehaven, FLIGHT MH370 [FT313:4, island,” the UNESCO statement such an attack by a gull on a Cumbria, are keen to imitate 327:22] said. “However, what had been swimmer,” said Mr O’Connor. their French counterparts. identified as the Adventure Micheál O’Coileain, the Irishcentral, 5 Aug; Sun, 14 Aug Galley of the pirate Captain Kidd environmental officer with the 2015. has been found by the experts... council, said the fact that there Seagulls left a young man to be a broken part of the Sainte- are no landfill sites now in Kerry, with a black eye when they Marie port constructions.” or indeed in the whole region, swooped down and attacked Authorities in Madagascar should may be a factor in the gulls’ him for his bacon sandwich in “only permit interventions by a strange behaviour including Truro, Cornwall. He tried to Flight MH370 took off from Kuala competent team led by a qualified their movement further and fight them off as theyke pec d his Lumpur on 8 March 2014, bound underwater archæologist,” further inland. face, leaving him fearing for his for Beijing. The Boeing 777, with said Michel L’Hour, head of In France, where aggressive sight. The victim, known only as 239 souls on board, vanished the UNESCO technical team. gulls are moving onto the Loire Richard, went to hospital after without trace and was set to join Clifford’s team reacted strongly to river system in the centre of the attack, fearing infection. the pantheon of classic mysteries. the critical report, saying it stood the country and are being D.Mirror, 28 July 2015. Then, 508 days later, on 29 July, by its claims. [AFP] BBC News, 14 blamed for the disappearance Dene Robertson, 46, was in his a 6ft (1.8m) barnacle-encrusted July 2015. of domestic animals in Nice kitchen in Dover, Kent, when he metal object, identified as a piece in the south, sterilisation is heard Charlie, his Jack Russell, of a Boeing 777, was spotted on THE BIG SLEEP [FT316:8-9, being considered, according to give out a yelp from the back the east coast of La Réunion, a 324:24, 327:22] recent reports in La Nouvelle garden. Going outside, he saw a volcanic outcrop in the Indian Republique. The town of seagull with its claws in the two- Ocean. No other Boeing 777s Trouville-sur-Mer in Normandy year-old animal’s neck, trying apart from MH370 have gone has experimented with drones to lift it into the air. “It was missing over an ocean. The object to help curb the number of trying to pick him up,” he said, was a flaperon, part of a wing that gull attacks. These hover close “but luckily he is quite solid.” helps control lifting and rolling, to nests and douse eggs with His other dog, a three-month- bearing the serial number BB657. paraffin to stop them hatching. old springer spaniel and cocker Following the publicity, it turned Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime The drones are reinforced to spaniel cross, was recently out that it had been spotted on Minister, Berdibek Saparbayev, fend off attacks and prevent attacked by a flock of gulls. the beach back in May, but no has claimed that the mysterious gulls getting caught in the D.Telegraph, 4 Aug 2015. one grasped its significance. Its sleeping disorder that for two

26 FT332 www.forteantimes.com strangedays

years has affected hundreds of residents in the village of , Kalachi has now been explained. Those affected by the illness suffer dizziness, weakness, loss of coordination, stupor or total unconsciousness for up to six days. In all, 120 people have fallen ill since March 2013, and given that some people have succumbed more than once, 152 cases of the disease have been reported (probably more by now). Those affected “get headaches, become confused, and suffer emotional instability and memory disorders, which can last up to several weeks,” said Professor Leonid Rikhvanov from the Department of Geo-ecology and Geo-chemistry at Tomsk Polytechnic University in Russia. Fairies, Folklore and Forteana “In some cases, hallucinations occur, particularly in children. Some repeatedly fall asleep.” Simon Young FiLES A nEW REPoRT FRom THE inTERFACE oF STRAngE PHEnomEnA AnD FoLK BELiEF According to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda last year, “The sick person appears to be on a poaching expedition when he had seen conscious and can even walk. But inventing browney a paranormal animal he described as, you’ve all the same he then falls into a guessed it, a shaggy bear-like creature with deep sleep and snores, and when A challenge: could you invent a supernatural short legs. Drew decided that this was Brownie, he wake him up… he remembers being and actually get people to believe in who he’d read about in various traditional absolutely nothing.” Even pets it? Well, here’s an example of someone who books and this evidently became the Cornish were affected. Kalachi resident managed this rare feat. In 1824, one Samuel ‘Browney’ in Drew’s all too plastic mind. The Yelena Zhavoronkova said that Drew wrote about a bugaboo lesson? Mix together some her cat Marquis suddenly “went that he termed ‘Browney’. gratuitous antiquarianism, a stupid” and began meowing and Now this was not Brownie, you can buy on misunderstood beekeeper’s attacking walls, furniture and the the northern British domestic ebay, meanwhile, ritual, and marry a bizarre family dog”. spook: note the different witness account to a still more Rikhvanov believed the spelling. This was a Cornish a nine-centimetre bizarre witness opinion and you root cause could be radon gas fairy who specialised in bees. have a new entity. Few people seeping from the abandoned Drew knew three things about jar with a shaggy ever read Drew, but many did Soviet uranium mine in nearby Browney. First, the ancient bee-like fairy read the great southwestern Krasnogorsk, while Saparbayev Cornish sacrificed to him at folklorist Robert Hunt. Hunt, blamed carbon monoxide a prehistoric stone. Second, within. who should have known better, and various hydrocarbons for Browney was called upon to picked up the bee-calming reducing the level of oxygen settle swarms leaving the hive. Cornish Browney in 1865, in the air; but why are some And, third, Browney looked like a shaggy bear from Drew, though Hunt gave no reference. people affected and not others, with short legs. Drew himself admits that And from the authoritative Hunt, Browney and would oxygen depletion the first point was pure speculation: it was made his way into a hundred books and, more result in such exotic symptoms? the result, in any case, of confusion with an recently, has surfed across a thousand Internet As a pulmonologist from Duke Orkney bogey. But what about the bees? Well, sites. In fact, honey-loving Browney is now University told Wired magazine, there was a custom in Cornwall (and though firmly established in the pantheon of British it’s unlikely that any gas would Drew did not know it) elsewhere in southern fairies: discussed, for instance, by Katharine be in concentrations high enough England, of summoning bees by calling Briggs. You can buy on Ebay, meanwhile, a to cause illness in open spaces. them ‘browneys’ and banging on a tin. Drew nine-centimetre (3.5in) jar with a shaggy bee- The Gang of Fort suspects that described this ritual and airily noted that the like fairy within. “The Browney”, the seller’s Saparbayev’s announcement is Cornish beekeeper believed that ‘browney’ description states, “is a Cornish guardian of intended to close down further meant ‘bee’, whereas Drew had decided that it the bees. It is said that when the housewife investigation and suppress referred to an ancient Cornish honey god. would beat a can and call ‘Browney! Browney!’ speculation. No matter what The Cornish beekeeper was, as it happens, they’d become invisible to round up any the cause, the government is correct and Drew was wrong: check your swarming bees”. Make no mistake: invented relocating the whole Kalachi dialect dictionaries. And the shaggy ‘bear’ Browney is here to stay… population. Guardian, 18+27 July; with short legs? Incredibly this was taken from Simon Young writes on folklore and history Newser, 20 July 2015. life. As a young man Drew had been a lookout and runs www.fairyist.com

FT332 27 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 & DR DAVID CLARKE PRESENT FLYINGSAUCERY THEIR REGULAR SURVEY OF THE LATEST FADS AND FLAPS FROM THE WORLD OF UFOLOGY

they do can have far reaching effects on the lives of those caught up in the UFO . Daily Mirror, 13 July: www.mirror.co.uk/news/ uk-news/rendlesham-forest-ufo-sighting- new-6061129; www.anythingexcepthousework. co.uk/rendlesham-forest-incident-the-colonel- returns/ A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE ASSEMBLY Being a politician means that you must be prepared to ask your government some very strange questions on behalf of your constituents. So when a request was submitted to the Welsh Government from

JOY SHALLCROSS Darren Millar, Conservative Assembly Member ABOVE: Warminster’s new UFO mural. BELOW: Darren Millar, Welsh Assembly Member for Clywd West for Clwyd West, eyebrows were probably not raised too high. Millar asked three questions of Economy, Science and Transport Minister IT’S A THING many as he did not make any spectacular Edwina Hart in order to elicit information 2015 is the 50th anniversary of ‘The Thing’, revelations about the 35-year-old case. regarding possible meetings that may have the name given to the aerial phenomenon Instead, he used the opportunity to launch taken place between Welsh Government seen and photographed above the previously an attack on one of the other RFI witnesses, officers and the Ministry of Defence. Whatever unremarkable Wiltshire town (FT331: 40-47). Larry Warren, author of Left at East Gate, response Millar might have expected, it Despite decades of UFO sightings, ‘alien’ who was a 19-year-old US airman when the certainly wasn’t this: “jang viDa je due luq. contacts and the saucer-shaman Arthur ‘sightings’ occurred (see FT204:35). Halt and ach ghotvam’e’ QI’yaH devolve qaS.” Whether Shuttlewood preaching to the devoted Warren have never seen eye to eye about Millar could speak Welsh or not was immaterial on Cradle Hill, the town has never really what really happened on those Christmas because his response was written in the capitalised on what could potentially be a nights in 1980 and the organisers had banned fi ctional alien language Klingon, created for the year-round tourist honey pot. But a lightbulb Warren from Halt’s talk, perhaps because they TV series Star Trek. Some wag in the Welsh moment appears to have happened when a knew what was to come. What one member Government decided that Millar needed an specially commissioned mural appeared on the of the audience described as a ‘slanderfest’ instant response and Millar had this translated wall of Warminster’s police station. Depicting descended into farce when a video of his talk as “The minister will reply in due course. key elements of the Warminster myth, the appeared on YouTube, but was swiftly pulled However, this is a non-devolved matter.” In mural will glow in the dark. Ufologist Kevin for alleged ‘breach of copyright’. The RFI is what might be termed even more of a waste Goodman, co-author with Steve Dewey of two riddled with such feuds and Internet wars as of taxpayers’ money, a mini spat ensued, books on the Warminster phenomena, said: the performers in the circus compete for the Millar claiming he had “always suspected that “Personally, it came as a complete surprise, attention of the media and the true believers. Labour ministers came from another planet… and I welcome the fact that at long last, certain As blogger Gilly Maddison notes, Halt as the This response confirms it.” A source within the sections of Warminster’s community have former officer, comes across as distant, cold Welsh Government quickly responded, saying embraced the phenomenon that made the and official, whilst Larry is seen as friendly, that Millar should stop “spending time and town famous in the 1960s and 1970s. I’m so approachable and with a killer story to boot. wasting resources asking about UFOs” and pleased that this unique art has gained a lot of Belief in what happened at Rendlesham, to should be “fighting for the very real concerns media interest.” It can only be a matter of time the ufological masses, appears to be closely of his constituents”. Yet the questions had before an enterprising local hostelry starts to tied to uncritical belief in the credibility of its been tabled on behalf of his constituents, as offer two day ‘missing time’ breaks for those ex-military witnesses, even if none of them democracy allows, begging the question of who who wish to really immerse themselves in the can agree even on a basic chronology. As decides exactly what a “real concern” is. While Warminster ‘Thing’. Wiltshire Times, 3 June Gilly’s blog notes: “…even if he [Warren] Millar awaits his substantive response he 2015: http://tinyurl.com/q8wodcu stood up tomorrow and said he lied about any might not want to get too hopeful, as the Welsh aspect of it – I suspect people would Government has told the media the only MUCH ADO ABOUT NO THING? not care because it is Larry the man “extra-terrestrial life seen near Cardiff One of Britain’s other iconic UFO legends, the who people are drawn to, not Larry recently seems to be Darren Millar.” Rendlesham Forest incident (RFI), is once again the RFI participant”. Once again With political dialogue of this high order in the news, with predictable controversy. In the bottom line is that although we can be assured that when ‘they’ July, the retired USAF deputy Base Commander stories like the RFI fail to provide eventually arrive here world domination Col Charles Halt returned to Suffolk to speak anything like convincing proof that will present little problem. www.rt.com/ at a UFO conference. Halt’s talk disappointed aliens have visited us, the idea that uk/272980-wales-ufo-tory-minister/

28 FT332 www.forteantimes.com JENNY RANDLES RESURRECYS A COLD CASE AND UFO CASEBOOK WONDERS WHETHER A SOLUTION CAN BE FOUND.

SECURITY ALERT LEFT: A frame from the CCTV footage. Recently I received an unusual message from someone involved that were illuminated by a fl ashlight as with a case that I’d helped investigate they drifted by. Cameras recorded this, during the 1990s. He’d told his but did not produce the ring structure daughter about it, but could fi nd no seen in the footage, supporting the information on the case online, even view that this shape was probably not on well-known UFO sites, so he asked an accurate image of what the object if I could I help him prove that this lack would look like close up. From here, of digital notoriety did not mean that the theory emerged that an insect the incident had never occurred. might have become trapped inside the This is a good opportunity to correct camera lens system and be moving that omission and allows me to invite about out of focus to produce the reader participation on a case that ‘bubble’ effect. However, we soon was never definitively explained. With eliminated that option because the a revival of The X Files coming soon, this is your camera was opened up, cleaned and resealed chance to play Mulder and Scully: send your Is this case every six months and any trapped insect could theories to FT and I will provide a free book to not have survived the months since the last whoever gives the most helpful suggestions. solved, or are such operation. Despite this, the scientists The story started on 8 March 1991 when concluded that while there was no clear a staff member from a large shopping centre we overlooking explanation, it was most likely connected with on the outskirts of Warrington, Cheshire, the optical set-up and “something causing contacted me. This was the Birchwood aberrations very close to, or inside, the lens Mall, nestling in the intersection of the M6 an answer? system of the camera”. and M62 motorways and adjacent to the We also involved a meteorologist working Liverpool-Manchester railway line. A new town at Swansea University to look at the other development built on a wartime armaments retained for our analysis. The system had been possibility – an identified aerial phenomenon complex, it sprouted hundreds of new houses in situ since the mall opened and some staff (UAP) such as ball lightning. But events then and bungalows in 1980 and the mall was had worked there for years. None of them, took a surprise turn and made that idea far constructed to serve them. This area had viewing the tape in the following days, claimed less likely. At 12.35 am on 26 April 1991 a already seen another famous UFO case – the to have seen anything like it before. completely different camera, pointing north 1978 Risley entity sighting, in which severe Despite visiting the location, talking to those and covering a more open area of the complex electrical effects had devastating effects on involved and securing the footage for analysis well away from the initial sighting, picked the health of the witness (see FT305:29). there were problems. The system recorded up a similar UFO. Being prepared by our I had lived in the community for some years, at high speed, allowing days of coverage to investigation, the guard tracked it carefully and which is why the mall contacted me to “look be stored should footage be subsequently obtained minutes of footage as it moved along at a strange light form in the sky that we have needed by police. Moreover, the recording took a road. This time it disappeared over the roof on video from one of our CCTV cameras at the samples of images from each of the cameras of the mall, again as a large bubble. shopping centre”. Along with colleagues Peter in a continuous cycle, creating a fi nal run Happily, the guard conducted an experiment Hough and Roy Sandbach I did just that. that was confusing to view without specialist that we’d asked Mall staff to attempt if the UFO Birchwood Mall operated a number of equipment. However, the mall owners were as should return. The cameras had an Infrared cameras from a control centre, screening keen as we were to try to solve this mystery spotbeam to illuminate darkened areas various locations. At 1.23 am on 25 February and proved helpful. when nefarious activity might be going on in 1991 one camera pointing eastwards across a At this point we thought that the proximity a darkened corner. We suspected the soap small open area between buildings picked up of Risley Moss nature reserve was possibly bubble effect was being caused by this beam a small fl oating object. The guard monitoring relevant – indeed, a fox brazenly strolls past and asked the operator to switch it off whilst the cameras used remote control to track the camera in later scenes – but as it turned pointing at the UFO. They did so on the second its movements, zooming in and panning out. out the case was harder to resolve than we’d sighting and the UFOs shape disappeared There were no windows to look outside at the hoped. Some kind of optical effect theory when the spot beam was extinguished but location and he never left his post during the was considered, because in close-ups it was returned when put back on again. So, whilst seven minutes that the UFO was tracked. possible to see ‘through’ the ‘soap bubble’, there was obviously something visible out This was a UFO in the truest sense – a bright meaning that the shape probably was an there, its bubble-like appearance was being ball of light just a few inches in diameter that artefact. But the UFO itself seemed real, stimulated by the illumination of the spot beam moved in ‘controlled’ patterns around the because in one sequence it can be viewed and it was really smaller and more diffuse. area. The camera operator attempted to get entering shot from the right hand edge of We kept in contact with Birchwood Mall for close-up views, but it was never certain that frame, gradually emerging just as a solid three years and no guards reported the UFO the ‘shape’ that emerged was real, given the object would do. From the start we decided again. However, about fi ve years later, when I distortive effects of proximity to the camera. to invite scientists to assist us, notably a was on a live TV show, I mentioned the case However, on these close-ups it resembled a sceptical young doctor, now a professor at in passing and later received a call from a soap bubble with a bright outer ring and more a British university but then a physicist at man saying that he had worked at the centre diffuse centre. Salford University. He and several colleagues before 1991 and had seen something similar. Most of the time the UFO remained close to from other colleges who had some interest He supported our working theory (which I ground level. It did climb a wall to near-rooftop in paranormal anomalies met with our UFO will reveal next month). Meanwhile, perhaps height and passed in front of objects such investigation team at Manchester University readers would like to try and fi gure this case as waste bins and a wall, but it never passed to try to progress the case using specialist out. This investigation exemplifies what UFO behind anything. It was moving independently equipment and expertise. We were all research should be about – treating a report of the camera and disappeared when above a genuinely puzzled by the footage, though we as an anomaly that potentially can be resolved tree between the shopping complex and the presumed there would be an answer within and trying to fi nd that solution by all means railway station. The whole thing was watched the realms of science. Various experiments possible. But is this case completely solved or through the raw camera feed so we knew that were carried out to look at possible theories, are we overlooking another potential answer? this was not a video anomaly. The footage was such as getting children to blow soap bubbles Over to you...

FT332 29 www.forteantimes.com Blasts from the Past fortean tImes brIngs you the news that tIme forgot

59 the nIght Doctors theo paijmans explores a disturbing intersection of 19th century racism and medical research

n 1872, several American about Night Doctors were not newspapers recorded a unfounded. The practice of curious superstition among dissection was widespread in Icertain African American 19th century America, and the communities in and graves of African Americans around the city of Washington, were the main source of corpses. DC, involving the existence of It was, after all, less risky to what they called ‘night doctors’. dissect a black cadaver than a According to these beliefs, white one. As early as March the night doctors wandered 1827, Freedom’s Journal, an the streets in pairs between African American newspaper, midnight and daybreak in search instructed its readers as to “how of victims to be abducted for the to create a cheap mortsafe, a dissecting room.They took their complex contraption of rods victims with the help of adhesive and plates that protected plasters, lying in wait for the coffin... This contraption suitable ‘subjects’ in dark alleys, ensured that ‘the longest night “from which they stealthily will not afford time to empty but quickly emerge whenever the grave’.” 4 a coloured person of suitable Sometimes a corpse wasn’t quite dead And sometimes a corpse proportions passes. Advancing to begin with, as in the gruesome case wasn’t quite dead to begin with, with muffled step behind the as in the gruesome case that unsuspecting victims, one of that was dubbed ‘An Ohio Horror’ by was dubbed ‘An Ohio Horror’ these terrible ‘night doctors’ by the newspaper that reported reaches his hand over the the newspaper that reported on it... on it in 1884: “Wherever shoulder of the coloured man or there is a medical college the woman, and dexterously claps coloured people are in mortal the adhesive plaster over his or by”. Reports even asserted that example of how 19th century fear of the ‘night doctors’. Most her mouth, in order to prevent of late: “The number of coloured American slave owners people have laughed at the any outcry, while his confederate people who have disappeared exploited such folkloric fears suggestion that a coloured man quickly ties the arms with a is much larger than usual, and to control the slave population. is liable to suffer a mysterious cord, with which he is prepared. they are convinced that the One has but to think of the disappearance through the need Unable to give an alarm or doctors of Washington are not sinister garb of the Klansman of ‘subjects’ in the dissecting- make anything like successful only supplying the dissecting and the Ghost Riders or Night room, but if the Ohio story is resistance, the poor victims are rooms of the city with subjects, Riders (see FT323:34-43). It true the coloured people do well placed in a covered carriage but are furnishing ‘castor oil’, was, as Gladys-Marie Fry notes to keep as far away from the waiting nearby, and carried manufactured from coloured in her book Night Riders In medical college as possible. to the dissecting room where adipose matter to the large Black Folk History: “a system “It appears that the Ohio he or she is chloroformed into cities throughout the country… of psychological control”. 2 Medical College was short insensibility, and then bled to Those who indulge in this When the stories of the night of subjects and called on the death by the heartless students.” singular superstition relative doctors began to surface in usual purveyors, coloured The horrors did not stop to ‘night doctors’ imagine that early 19th century America, men. The latter promised to there; since, after the body was young and obese subjects are one newspaper offered a have three subjects that night. dissected, the fatty parts of the preferred, on account of the plausible solution as to their Sure enough, the bodies were body were “tryed in caldrons for oil which they yield, and that origin: “Where did this belief brought to the dissecting-room the purpose of obtaining the oil, hump-backs are especially originate? Perhaps in darker on time. They were the bodies which, according to the popular desirable, on account of their Africa, in days when ancestors of a coloured family named belief among the coloured peculiar physical conformation, of the race in this country Taylor, and were still warm people, afterward appears at which renders their dissection were changed from Africans to when placed on the tables. They the drug stores in the form of of particular interest to medical Americans through the medium showed evidence of violent castor oil.” According to the students. Indeed, it is reported of the slave ship, manacle and death. It is the common opinion, newspapers, these beliefs were that as high as $150 each for lash. The more reasonable and it is supported by good held so firmly by the African first class hump-backed subjects explanation is to be had in evidence, that these coloured American community that only is offered by the ‘night doctors’. studying the effects upon the persons were murdered by the with the greatest hesitation, We know not how this strange coloured people in this country body-snatchers… In St Louis even fear and trembling, would hallucination originated, but of the crime which gave a some years ago, an excitement people go out at night, only to imagine it must have come down new word to the dictionary – was created by the dissection “take to their heels whenever by tradition from ‘the good old ‘burking’ – stealing corpses for of a body under circumstances they notice anything suspicious times’ before the war.” 1 purposes of dissection”. 3 much less horrible, and it in the movements of the passers- This ‘superstition’ was an Seen in this light, the fears ran so high as to endanger the existence of the college melee which ensued one man chloroform, proceeds to fill up a in the relationship between building. A negro was employed was knocked down and it was bucket with the victim’s blood, the white medical profession to scrub the dissecting-room and thought fatally stabbed… So for the purpose of making and African American was sent up without being told strong is the belief fixed in the medicine…”9 communities. This relationship of the character of the room. minds of coloured people in The newspapers reported has been tarnished by some When he saw the subjects on certain sections of the city, that regularly on the fears of night horrible practices; think of the tables he dashed out of the the streets immediately become doctors amongst the African the Tuskegee experiment that room in great fear, stumbled and deserted, and all business American communities right lasted from 1932 till 1972. fell headlong down the stairs, suspended and doors closed as up until the end of the 19th There are many more and far breaking his neck. Instead of soon as a physician appears.” 6 century. Tellingly, one newspaper older examples. There was, for notifying the coroner, a class In 1885 in Washington, remarked that the belief was instance, doctor J Marion Sims of subjects quietly carried the surgeons were driven off during especially prevalent among (1813-1883) who used enslaved body up again and devoted it to an operation on a young African “a certain grade of negroes in African American women as the advancement of science. It American named William Washington, particularly those experimental subjects, “most was with the utmost difficulty Harris: “The case of Harris who drifted there after the war of whom he bought and kept on that the building was saved became hopeless after the from the extreme south” 10 – his property for this purpose. from the mob that formed when physicians were driven away. in other words, among those Some were operated on up to the facts became known…” 5 There he lay, with his bowels who in all probability would 30 times” without anæsthesia.12 In 1879 the fear of the exposed and severed. He sank have carried with them tales In her groundbreaking study ‘night doctors’ was so strong rapidly, and before the police or personal experiences of Medical Apartheid, 13 Harriet that it became dangerous if could drive out the howling mob persecution by the Klan or the A Washington lists the a late-night passer-by were to he was dead. The operation is Night Riders. The night doctor experiences of escaped slave be mistaken for one of these a critical one at best, but the belongs in this line of scares, John ‘Fed’ Brown, who recalled ghouls, as events in Little Rock, doctors believe they could have originating at the crossroads in 1855 how a doctor produced Arkansas, demonstrated: “At made a successful case but for of white slave-owners, virulent painful blisters on his body to rather a late hour I was going the interference. There have racism, psychological warfare observe “how deep my black along Second Street with a been demonstrations against and suppression. It could skin went”. 14 But even before friend. My friend was drunk. I night doctors in Washington manifest itself in various forms. that, in 1817, physician Elias had not been drinking anything. before, but nothing quite so The night doctors travelled in S Bennett published notes on Meeting an old negro man, my serious as this.” 7 pairs, but could also act alone. his crude experimental and companion caught hold of him During a hearing in the Police One description pictured a night botched surgery on an African and good humouredly told him Court regarding the unfortunate doctor as “a supernatural being, American slave girl suffering to go on. I requested him not demise of Harris, it emerged formed like a man, having from a tumour. 15 The night to detain the man. Just then that the recently introduced long, hook-like fingers and a doctors, then, also serve as a several parties rushed up, when long Ulster coats were thought poisonous breath, and that warning that there were times I told my friend to run, which he to be used by their wearers wherever he turns and breathes where African Americans could did. I walked on, not suspecting – ‘slab doctors’, as the African upon a house where a child not place their trust in white that I would be molested, when American populace called them lies sick the child is doomed to surgeons and doctors. suddenly something struck the – to hide kidnapped children death before another night. It As to the current legacy of back of my head… I was cut in victims. 8 is not ominous to one to hear the night doctors, Dawn Danella several places, and I have been An 1889 scare in South the night doctor, as this being points out in Night Doctors: informed that after I had been Carolina was reported as far of superstition is called, and Exhuming The Truth: “There are knocked down I was dragged away as Boston. It involved a always after the death of a child some that say that the ‘night under a shed and left for dead. night doctor with the character the negroes get together and doctors’ are a myth belonging A woman did the cutting, and traits of a phantom anæsthetist ask who of them heard the night solely to black folklore, a I understand that when she (see FT329:28-29, 330:28-29): doctor pass by. Some one is sure story used to frighten and left me she exclaimed that she “The Negroes of Clarendon, to assert that he or she heard manipulate. There is no doubt had killed one d-----d doctor’s Williamsburg and Sumter the low, moaning, rushing sound that is indeed what the lore kidnapper. Another statement counties have for several weeks made by the night doctor’s achieved but the night doctors... is that a party of intoxicated past been in a state of fear quick flight. But it is regarded did indeed live in more than men entered the house of a and trembling. They claim as a surely fatal sign if any one just whispered stories. The night coloured man and pretended that there is a white man, a sees the night doctor.” 11 doctors were a real force that as though they were going to doctor, who at will can make Yet the night doctors are made a lasting impression on put plaster over his mouth. At himself invisible, and who then more than a scare stemming history and the repercussions this juncture a rush by several approaches some unsuspecting from dim folkloric roots. of their horror story can still coloured people was made darkey, and, having rendered Something evil lies at its heart be felt in African American upon the party, and during the him or her insensible with as well and that is to be found communities today.” 16

NOTES Doctor’, Wisconsin State Which Should Be Stopped. 1885. Legacy”, Journal Of emory.edu 1 ‘The Night Doctors – A Register, 8 Aug 1891. Even by a Card from the 9 Boston Herald, 23 May Urology, Vol 185, June 15 Stephen Kenny, Curious Superstition 4 Sheena Morrison, Body Mayor”, Daily Arkansas 1889 2011. “How Black Slaves Gazette, 28 Oct 1879. Among Some of the Snatchers: Tales from the 10 “The Night Doctor. 13 Harriet A Washington, Were Routinely Sold As Colored People – How Crypt and Beyond: www. 7 “Night Doctors. A A Singular Superstition Medical Apartheid: The ‘Specimens’ To Ambitious they Think Castor Oil is ultimatehistoryproject. Negro Superstition Which Among Washington Dark History of Medical White Doctors”, The Made’, Evening Star, com/body-snatchers-tales- Cost the Life of One of Negroes”, Topeka Daily Experimentation on Black Conversation, http:// Washington, DC, 15 Jan from-the-crypt-and-beyond. Their Race”, St Louis Capital, Kansas, 3 Apr Americans From Colonial theconversation.com/ 1872; Cleveland Morning html Globe-Democrat, Missouri, 1887; Janesville Daily Times to the Present, how-black-slaves- Daily Herald, Ohio, 19 Jan 5 ‘A n Ohio Horror’, The 4 June 1885 Gazette, Wisconsin, 28 Doubleday, 2007. were-routinely-sold-as- 1872; Indianapolis News, Milwaukee Sentinel, 8 “Surgeons Driven April 1887; Interior Journal, 14 Unequal Treatment, specimens-to-ambitious- Indiana, 22 Jan 1872; Wisconsin, 28 Feb 1884. Off. Silly Negroes Spoil Stanford, Kentucky, 6 May reviewed by Alondra white-doctors-43074 Janesville Daily Gazette, An Operation. Strange 1887; Columbus Journal, Nelson, Washington 16 http://digitalcommons. Wisconsin, 23 Jan 1872. 6 “I’ll Shoot ‘Em. A Belief Now Prevailing Among Hostility of Washington Nebraska, 10 Aug 1887. Post, 7 Jan 2007; see ric.edu/obom/3 2 Gladys-Marie Fry, the Colored People. The colored People to the Use 11 Ibid. also https://en.wikipedia. Night Riders In Black Folk Medical college – Solitare’s of the Knife by a Doctor – org/wiki/John_Brown_ History, University Of North Four Physicians Mobbed 12 Sarah Spettel and (fugitive_slave) and Scare. The Second Street Mark Donald White, “The Carolina Press, 1975. Cutting Grew Out of the in Broad Daylight”, Trenton https://archive.org/ Times, New Jersey, 4 June Portrayal of J Marion Sims’ stream/06374405.4802. 3 ‘A fraid Of The Night Suspicion. Something controversial Surgical The Kubrick Conspiracies

Cinema and conspiracy theory are no strangers, but it is unusual for such theorising to attach itself to the fi gure of a director – so why has Stanley Kubrick become the focus of theories involving everything from fake Moon landings to the Illuminati? DEAN BALLINGER argues that the answer can be found in the director’s obsession with creative control.

he late, great Anglo- Hollywood sequels: 1970s disaster American director maestro Irwin Allen directed the Stanley Kubrick Apollo 13 mission, indubitably). (1928-1999) has Conspiracy theorists being what Tbeen the subject of they are, this basic theme has been some interesting developed into elaborate narratives cult attention over the last that argue Kubrick secretly couple of decades. Kubrick’s encoded symbolic allusions to the famed reclusiveness provided hoax in his subsequent fi lms. For the opportunity for London con- instance, the main proselytiser man to publically of these theories, the American impersonate Kubrick throughout Jay Weidner, is featured in Room the early 1990s (a scenario that 237 expostulating on his theories served as the basis for the 2006 that The Shining is something of a fi lm , starring thinly disguised confessional for John Malkovich as Conway). Kubrick’s involvement in one of The fastidious research Kubrick the greatest cover-ups of all time. undertook for all of his later Evidence includes the Apollo 11 projects (such as photographing themed woolly jumper worn by the hundreds of suburban London doorways The claim is that child protagonist Danny in one part of the in search of the ‘perfect location’ in which fi lm, and the cans of ‘Tang’ soft drink that to place a prostitute in his fi nal fi lm Eyes Kubrick was privy to are clearly visible in the many scenes set in Wide Shut) was the subject of Jon Ronson’s the inner workings the food locker of the Overlook Hotel where 2008 TV documentary Stanley Kubrick’s the story takes place – Tang being one of the Boxes. More recently, in 2012, an entire of the Illuminati select brands of earthly consumables sent documentary – – has been made into space as sustenance for the astronauts. 1 about fans’ obsessive interpretations of and their rituals The second claim is that Kubrick was Kubrick’s 1980 horror opus The Shining, privy to the inner workings of the Illuminati, a fi lm that, despite a lukewarm reception and portrayed a typical Illuminati ritual on its initial release (Stephen King has TWO CLAIMS – rich New Yorkers meeting at a rural outwardly expressed his displeasure Elucidations of the ‘Kubrick conspiracies’ manse and dressing up in masks and robes at Kubrick’s adaptation of his work on revolve around two core claims.The fi rst before partaking of a group orgy – as the numerous occasions), has grown in critical is that the 1969 Moon landings were centrepiece for his fi nal fi lm in 1999, Eyes and cult popularity to the extent that it has indeed a hoax (see FT94:34-39; 97:22-27; Wide Shut. This assertion is a staple of arguably surpassed Dr Strangelove, 2001 and 168:32-39), and were staged by Kubrick the innumerable, and often interminable, A Clockwork Orange as Kubrick’s signature using special effects techniques developed ‘Illuminati symbolism encoded in pop work in the wider realms of popular culture. for the production of his science fi ction culture’ webpages and sites (see FT239:32- Perhaps the most unusual manifestation of masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, released 38; 258:32-39). For example, one of the all this attention has been Kubrick’s notably in 1968 (as is usual with Moon hoax most well-established of these sites, The fortean afterlife as the focal point for a conspiracies, the other seven Moon missions Vigilant Citizen, features a multi-part series number of conspiracy theories which have post Apollo 11 don’t feature much in such analysing as Kubrick’s fl ourished in the online conspirasphere in discussions. Presumably they were shot by expose of the Illuminati elite.This recent years. lesser talents in the standard fashion of exemplary exercise in conspiracist baroque ILLUSTRATION: GETTY IMAGES/ ETIENNE GILFILLAN

32 FT332 www.forteantimes.com

EVENING STANDARD / GETTY IMAGES

ABOVE LEFT: Stanley Kubrick the ultimate auteur, in control of every element of his later fi lms; the focus of conspiracy theories on the fi gure of a director is unusual. ABOVE RIGHT: John Malkovich as Alan Conway, the conman who bizarrely pretended to be Kubrick during the early 1990s, in the fi lm Colour Me Kubrick.

includes gems such as the ‘Rainbow’ motif CONSPIRACY AND CONTROL the last couple of decades in connection with evident throughout the fi lm (for instance, in What makes the ‘Kubrick conspiracies’ the rise of the ‘Illuminati’ as the dominant the opening party sequence, protagonist Bill particularly interesting within the context paradigm of millennial conspiracy theory. As Harford is tempted by a couple of women of conspiracy culture is their central focus typified by such luminaries as David Icke and with an invitation to go ‘over the rainbow’ on Kubrick the director. The dominant Alex Jones, one of the central tenets of this with them, while the costume shop he later relationship between cinema and conspiracy mindset is the belief that most media content visits to rent his ritual disguise is called theory has traditionally been one based – especially of the popular entertainment Rainbow Costume Hire) being an allusion around notions of genre. Films with storylines variety – is actually operating as a vehicle to the MK Ultra mind control programming based on conspiratorial themes and scenarios of conspiratorial mind control, largely by used to create Illuminati sex slaves. have long constituted distinct sub-categories subliminally conditioning viewers through the Meanwhile, the Indian music that forms of the thriller and drama genres. Notable presentation of esoteric symbolism. A typical the aural backdrop to the ritual orgy is an examples of ‘paranoid thrillers’ include The piece of exegesis in this vein goes something obvious reference to Crowleyan sex magick Manchurian Candidate (1962), The Parallax like this: Transformers 2 (2009) features a (as such magic is derived from ‘diabolical’, View (1974) and Arlington Road (1999); setpiece at the Pyramids of Giza. Pyramids non-Christian spiritual traditions such as while All The President’s Men (1976) and JFK are also Illuminati symbols, like the ‘eye in the Yoga and Tantra). 2 This claim naturally leads (1991) are historical dramas predicated triangle’ logo on American paper currency. to sinister musings that Kubrick’s demise around conspiratorial situations (insert Therefore, Transformers 2 is really a nefarious from heart failure was, of course, caused ‘alternative’ or ‘pseudo’ history to describe exercise in Illuminati brainwashing under the by Illuminati operatives as payback for the JFK as appropriate). A more genuinely ‘innocent’ guise of a Hollywood blockbuster. director’s temerity in depicting the secret conspiracist-driven relationship between As this description suggests, most of this society on screen. conspiracy theory and fi lm has developed over Illuminati-based conspiracy theorising is

ABOVE: A masked reveller from Kubrick’s fi nal fi lm, Eyes Wide Shut. Conspiracy seekers see these scenes as evidence of the director’s inside knowledge of the Illuminati

34 FT332 www.forteantimes.com ABOVE: Danny (and that carpet) in a scene from The Shining; surely that Apollo motif on his sweater is a hint that Kubrick faked the Moon landings...

fi xated on intensive interpretation of the Kubrick developed required to undertake the conspiratorial visual aspects of fi lms, such as mise en scene, activity in question (e.g. manpower, money, editing, and the gestures of actors. Little a reputation technology); and that the conspirators have discussion is generally given to the wider considered and controlled its every possible production contexts that are important in the as an obsessive aspect down to the tiniest detail, so that realisation of fi lms, such as the significance nothing is left to chance (and, concurrently, of the director as (arguably) the key creative perfectionist and that the average person will interpret as decision-maker in the whole fi lm-making chance events what the conspirators have so process.The Kubrick conspiracies are control freak skilfully planned). exceptional in that, while still focused on For example, the dominant conspiracy analysis of the visual aspects of his fi lms, narrative regarding the 9/11 terror attacks – conspiracy theorists have made the fi gure porches, Kubrick is also cited as a record- that they were a false fl ag operation staged of Kubrick himself a central part of their holder in categories such as most takes of a by some nefarious cabal within the US ideas.To illustrate by reference to the above single scene (allegedly 127 for a sequence political and intelligence establishments example, while Michael Bay, director of the in The Shining involving Shelley Duvall – – is predicated on the assumption that the Transformers franchise, is quite possibly an purportedly where Wendy Torrance fends off conspirators were able to command highly agent of some grand conspiracy to destroy husband Jack on the hotel’s main staircase) skilled technicians and advanced technology Western culture through the production and longest shoot time (15 months for primary to surreptitiously plant demolition charges of wretchedly awful big-budget hokum, photography on Eyes Wide Shut). Kubrick’s in the structure of the World Trade Center he personally isn’t getting singled out for total dedication to his art was further buildings (buildings that were not only attention by conspiracy theorists in the same manifested in attention paid to the nature heavily used, but also situated in one the manner as Kubrick (if he is even mentioned of publicity materials, such as the size of world’s densest urban environments) in at all). newspaper advertisements in leading dailies, advance preparation for the plane crashes. So what is it about Stanley Kubrick, and the specifics of theatrical projection: This presupposed that the hijackings would fi lm-maker, that makes him a fi gure of such a classic Kubrick anecdote relates how he take place with absolute accuracy, so as to evident fascination for conspiracy theorists? rang up the owner of a NY theatre before the leave most people with no doubt that the I suggest that the basis of this appeal lies in release of A Clockwork Orange and advised planes were the sole cause of the Twin Towers’ the resonances between Kubrick’s creative them on repainting the interior of the cinema collapse. methods and artistic vision and some core in black to avoid adverse refl ections being In this respect, Kubrick’s meticulous premises at the heart of conspiracy theorists’ cast on the screen by the white lacquer. On planning and artistic vision can be seen to conceptualisations of how conspiracies fi nding that the black paint used was gloss – constitute a shared modus operandi with operate. still too refl ective – Kubrick arranged for the that of conspirators, making it a small step The fi rst point of connection relates to interior to be redone in a more suitable matt for conspiracy theorists to imagine Kubrick Kubrick’s reputation as a control freak. After fi nish.3 as a literal conspirator himself. Of course, an unsatisfying stint working as a Hollywood The sense of total control over the fi lm- Kubrick could have faked the Moon landings director for hire on Spartacus (1960), Kubrick making process that emanates from Kubrick’s with the detailed aerospace research he sought creative autonomy by not only œuvre (at least his post-Spartacus work) is undertook for 2001 (using NASA consultants directing but co-producing and co-writing his resonant with conspiracy theorists’ implicit as production designers) and the special fi lms, enabling him to develop a reputation beliefs in the omnipotent capabilities of effects techniques pioneered for that fi lm as an obsessive perfectionist. Alongside the conspirators involved. Most conspiracy (such as front projection). Of course, the intensive pre-production preparation of the theories presume that the conspirators had ritual in Eyes Wide Shut is authentically kind typified by the photographs of London virtually unlimited access to every resource portrayed – this is a director whose insistence

FT332 35 www.forteantimes.com EXPRESS / GETTY IMAGES

ABOVE: Conspiracy theorists aren’t noted for their sense of humour, but Kubrick certainly had one, as he revealed to unforgettable effect in Dr Strangelove. on authenticity was such that, in control, thematic complexity and oblique (1975), he used Zeiss lenses of the sort used The distanced tone persona, it seems strange that conspiracy in astronomical instruments to fi lm scenes lit of his works invites theories have not developed around more only by candlelight in order to convey a more auteurs. One who comes immediately to genuine visual sense of 18th century life. Of viewers to engage mind is David Lynch. While the standard course, Kubrick put hidden symbolism in The reading of Lynch’s fi lms are as exercises in Shining – as if a perfectionist like him would in speculation and arthouse surrealism, works like the Twin have idly fl icked through the racks down in Peaks TV series and feature fi lm (1990-1992), the costume department and randomly pulled interpretation Lost Highway (1997), and Mulholland Drive out the Apollo-themed jumper for Danny’s (2001) are soaked in occult themes and ensemble. imagery, notably benign and malevolent The end results of Kubrick’s artistic PUBLIC IMAGE entities from other realms shaping human command are fi lms whose meticulously The other main strand feeding the Kubrick affairs and possession of individuals by such designed mise en scene, editing, and conspiracies is his public image.The popular entities. As these themes are central to the soundtracks suggest that they are imbued impression of Kubrick is that of a mysterious Illuminati paradigm, it might be assumed that with layers of meaning well beyond what and inscrutable fi gure who lived as a paranoid Lynchian conspiracies would abound in the might be evident on casual viewings. All of hermit on his Hertfordshire estate, and conspirasphere. Perhaps, given that Kubrick’s work, especially from 2001 onwards, whose approach to fi lm-making was that the cinematic tastes of most conspiracy refl ects his ability to take standard generic of an Aspergers-type obsessive. Interviews theorists appear to revolve around the frameworks and use them to explore profound with associates belie this image, painting a likes of Transformers 2, Kubrick is as ‘arty’ metaphysical and philosophical themes. In picture of Kubrick as an animal-loving family as they get. FT terms of the fi lms under discussion here, 2001 man whose reclusiveness was more about takes two standard themes of sci-fi – man vs preserving his integrity than any Howard NOTES machine, and humanity’s fi rst meeting with Hughes-style madness: for instance, Kubrick 1 Weidner’s theories are detailed in depth in his 2011 alien intelligence – and makes them the kept up to date with Hollywood happenings essay ‘How Stanley Kubrick Faked the Apollo Moon Landings’, posted on the American alternative culture basis for a metaphysical parable about the through regular phone calls to director friends website Reality Sandwich: http://realitysandwich. cosmic evolution of mankind; The Shining like and John Boorman. In com/23226/kubrick_apollo/. transforms stock horror tropes – a haunted this respect it should also be noted that, for all 2 VC (2013), ‘The Hidden (And Not So Hidden) house, a disturbed man – into an allegory on his meticulous preparation, Kubrick was well Messages in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Pts themes such as the psychology of creativity open to improvisation (classic examples being 1-3, www.vigilantcitizen.com. and free will and predestination (the fi nal Jack Nicholson’s famous “Here’s Johnny!” 3 Amy Nicholson, ‘Eyes Wide Shut at 15’, Vanity image which implies that Jack Torrance is the interjection in The Shining and R Lee Ermey’s Fair website, 14 July 2014: www.vanityfair.com/ hollywood/2014/07/eyes-wide-shut-tom-cruise-nicole- reincarnation of an earlier Overlook guest): drill sergeant invective in ), kidman; related in an interview with Julian Senior, while Eyes Wide Shut transforms what could and usually tempered the ‘heavy’ themes Kubrick’s long-standing publicity director, featured in ostensibly be a straightforward drama about of his fi lms with doses of black comedy (Dr Michel Ciment’s Kubrick: The Definitive Edition (Faber fi delity into an oneiric, Freudian odyssey of Strangelove, anyone?). By contrast, a sense & Faber, 2001), p225. desire, class, and power. of humour is something noticeably lacking As the very existence of the Room 237 in most conspiracy theorists. However, for AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY documentary illustrates, the distanced the most part Kubrick’s ostensibly enigmatic DEAN BALLINGER and ironic tone of Kubrick’s works actively persona is one upon which all kinds of researches conspiracy invites viewers to engage in speculation and rumours and interpretations can readily be theory and teaches interpretation as to their deeper meanings. projected, the intense gaze and hermetic media studies at the Since obsessive speculation and excessive beard that constitute his distinguishing University of Waikato in interpretation are defining attributes of features in production stills being evocative Hamilton, New Zealand. conspiracy theory, it is understandable that of some archetypal visage of a conspiratorial He’d like conspiracy the likes of Weidner see Kubrick’s fi lms as mastermind. theorists to stop being a kind of open invitation to exercise their Given that there are plenty of fi lmmakers biased against costume dramas and get to conspiracy theorist chops. comparable to Kubrick in terms of creative work on Barry Lyndon, thanks.

36 FT332 www.forteantimes.com

MERMAIDRECLAIMING THE

SOPHIA KINGSHILL asks whether the fi gure of the fi sh-tailed siren can be rescued from the traditional roles of victim or vamp to claim a more nuanced role in the modern world.

he enduring popularity stuffed specimen as a marvel, to bring in of mermaids as a cultural the crowds. Representations change over phenomenon means that their time, too. Whereas in antiquity, a hybrid story spans eras, continents and woman-fish was an image of a goddess or Tart forms.The earliest surviving at least an attendant on the deities of the images date from over three sea, later iconography made her signify sin thousand years ago; since then, mermaids and temptation, a metaphor reworked by have been carved in temples and churches, Pre-Raphaelite artists to whom a Siren was decorated fountains and palaces, and been a sexy model. used as inn signs, fi gureheads and tattoos. In December 2013, I saw a mermaid in Sightings of fi shy humanoids were reported Madrid. She was about four foot long from by the fi rst sailors in the Mediterranean her waving curls to her tail-fin, scrawled and by pioneers to the New World, and are on a wall in red spray paint. Instead of a still rumoured around busy modern coasts. mirror she had a heart in her hand, next Mermaids can be emblems of maritime to the feminist symbol of a circle and trade, of the sea’s beauty and terror, or of cross; beneath her was the slogan Abajo feminine seduction, and legends of water- el patriarcado! – ‘Down with patriarchy!’ spirits, both romantic and frightening, are Alongside, another message read: No dejes a told worldwide. tu vida, sea escenario! – ‘Don’t give up on your A mermaid’s meaning depends on who’s life, take centre stage!’ interpreting her. To a mariner, traditionally, My Spanish Siren was neither vamp nor she’s an omen of storm; poets have employed victim, but a self-aware female, angry and her as a symbol of fi ckle womanhood, confident. her sinuous tail meaning she’s slippery by nature; a showman might advertise a SIREN SONGS In 2012, an Internet article identified mermaid novels as the “hottest new trend” of Young Adult fi ction, but concluded that they were unlikely to oust vampires or schoolboy magicians from the bestseller lists “because they are, to put it bluntly, girls’ books”. Of the authors mentioned in the article, one is a man, 16 are women. A few of the books cited are actually about sea boys, but the article’s title refers to mermaids alone.This is standard usage, in spite of the fact that mermen have as ancient a presence, in legend and in art, as mermaids. Although witnesses report seeing bearded as well as breasted creatures in the waves, and if merfolk have a gender at all (given their lack of equipment), there’s nothing to say that their chromosomes

TOP: Mermaids have invaded young adult fi ction, usually in books written by women. LEFT: A thoroughly modern mermaid in Madrid demands the end of patri- archy and a central role for her sex. SOPHIA KINGSHILL

38 FT332 www.forteantimes.com should be more X than Y, the people LEFT: ‘Beneath Lies the Power’ by of the sea are just about unique Wangechi Mutu. BELOW: Mariah Carey among creatures real or fabulous, has admitted to a fascination with the in that the female term covers both power of the sirens’ song over men. sexes: as a collective noun, we’re far likelier to talk about ‘mermaids’ she’s known, was officially banned, than ‘merfolk’. Mermaids, but was displayed in many places moreover, get more publicity as an assertion of the city’s identity, than their he-counterparts. A and in the Second World War she Google search for ‘merman’ yields was adopted as the badge of the around 800,000 results, ‘mermaid’ Polish II Corps. well over 20 million. Males are, Pablo Picasso, visiting a Warsaw for once, the second sex.That apartment block under construction doesn’t automatically empower in 1948, drew the Syrenka on the mermaid: quite the reverse. an interior wall, giving her the For most of her history, she’s been Communist hammer to hold instead depicted, described, and voiced by of a sword. This image survives only male artists, seafarers, theologians in photographs, since the mural and storytellers, and whether as wasn’t universally admired.The fi rst object of desire or fi gure of fear, a person offered the fl at in question half-naked woman is, or has been, refused it, on the grounds that he obviously intended to delight or had small children and the mermaid disquiet a largely male audience. had bare breasts, while the next Now the pendulum’s swung (childless) candidates were equally the other way, and mermaids are horrified: “It was huge, my God was inspiring women not just in Young it huge. Her bosom was like two Adult Fish Lit, but across the media. balloons, the eyes were triangular, at Artist Wangechi Mutu mounted the end of her long, oddly long arm a London exhibition of paintings, she held a hammer; and she had a sculpture and video in 2014 under short, tapering tail at the back”. the title ‘Nguva na Nyoka’ (Sirens After a couple of years, the fl at’s

NGECHI MUTU / VICTORIA MIRO and Serpents).The nguva or dugong tenants quietly had their private WA is an aquatic mammal that is the Picasso whitewashed, but the equivalent of the Siren in Kenyan coastal Syrena has continued to appear as a political legend; Mutu uses images of the nguva to symbol, employed by supporters of Solidarity explore questions of feminism, ecology and in the 1980s, and more recently by the Warsaw metamorphosis, and contrasts its intense and Gay Movement. sometimes savage powers with “the sanitised mermaid of popular European culture”. LITTLE MERMAIDS Singer Mariah Carey recorded her 1999 The common modern perception of the album Rainbow in Capri, and in an interview mermaid, however, is of a whimsical and she recalled her pleasure when she saw the child-friendly fantasy. This image is based Scoglio delle Sirene, ‘Sirens’ Rock’: to a great extent on the ubiquitous kitsch “The Sirens would sit there and lure in spawned by the Disney cartoon: but the Little the men.They gave them this rock because Mermaid herself is not so wholesome, on women were considered less important than closer inspection. men, and that’s their revenge: they sexually Ariel, as she’s christened in the fi lm, is entice men with their voices to come to this drawn with a girlish fi gure and a pertly pretty rock… I just fell in love with that”. face. Her hair is neither seaweed- green nor The idea that the Sirens’ magnetism princess-golden, but a vibrant red, and she helped them get even with men has obvious hides her breasts in a bikini top, modest for relevance to the career of a pop diva like the family market. Ariel’s inquisitive nature Carey, whose appearance and sexuality are leads her to take an interest in the human exploited to market her singing. world, and while people-watching, she falls The mermaid as spokeswoman for equality, in love with the young Prince Eric. When typified by the Madrid graffiti I saw in 2013, his ship sinks in a storm she saves his life, goes back at least to the 1970s when the but swims away before he can see her. She name Siren was used for a feminist magazine bargains with the sea-witch Ursula for a spell in Chicago. A pattern has been established allowing her to exchange her tail temporarily of women reclaiming the mermaid, reacting for a pair of legs, in return giving up her voice, against male-dominated traditions defining which Ursula magically traps in a shell. her as submissive or seductive. Unless she receives a kiss of true love, There are earlier examples of the the mermaid is told, she must remain in the belligerent mermaid, without any particular witch’s power forever. The wicked Ursula then sex bias. Warsaw’s city crest, which evolved transforms herself into an attractive woman, from a bird-legged, scaly monster (a classical and sings in Ariel’s voice to bewitch Eric.True Siren, in fact) to become, by the 18th century, identities are eventually discovered, the witch a recognisable mermaid with a woman’s is killed, and Ariel, having regained her voice body and a fi sh’s tail, has remained militant and become fully human with the help of her throughout, carrying a shield and brandishing father the sea-king, marries her prince. a sword. Between 1811 and 1915, under the The Danish original is an altogether darker

DAVID WESTING / GETTY IMAGES Fourth Partition of Poland, the Syrenka, as affair, with a stern message about redemption

FT332 39 www.forteantimes.com through suffering. Early in Instead she throws the knife she will cry, and every tear shed will add a day Andersen’s ‘Little Mermaid’, into the sea, then dives in to her probation. as in the fi lm, its teenage herself, and feels her body The religious trappings do have a certain heroine (here nameless) melt into foam, a mermaid’s authority behind them. Mediæval theologians rescues the prince from a death. had speculated as to whether mermaids and shipwreck. Nevertheless she does not other ‘monsters’ possessed souls, and some Then, however, it is not die, but is transformed into concluded that a mermaid did not, but wished love alone that impels her to a spirit of the air, who can she did.The idea that she could gain one by beg for a human shape, but gain a soul by three centuries marrying a human being was proposed by the desire for an immortal of good deeds. One of her authors earlier than Andersen, and the Little afterlife. Her grandmother ethereal companions tells her Mermaid’s metamorphosis into an airy form tells her that this can be that for every good child she is based on philosophical concepts of the four achieved if a man marries visits, the 300 years will be elements – earth, air, fi re and water. her: at the moment the shortened by one year, but at The physical and emotional torments that priest joins their hands, she the sight of a naughty child the mermaid undergoes are Andersen’s own will be granted a share of invention, and however unpleasant to read, her husband’s soul. they are what gives the story its power both as In order to win her prince and thus her MOST FAMOUS tragic romance and as parable of a female rite chance of eternal life, the mermaid visits a of passage. Writing for children in the early witch. She is warned that having her tail split OF ALL VISUAL 19th century, Andersen could not say straight into two legs will mean continuous agony out that in order to be a man’s wife, the – every step she takes will feel as if she is INTERPRETATIONS mermaid would have to be able to have sex, treading on a blade sharp enough to make her and therefore must have sex organs. Instead, bleed – and, moreover, that becoming human IS THE STATUE he has the wise grandmother point out that is a one-way journey. She will never be a humans consider tails ugly, hence the need mermaid again. THAT HAS for legs.Then, whether intentionally or not, In payment for her spell, the witch he invests the splitting of the mermaid’s tail demands the mermaid’s voice, which she BECOME A with all the pain and secret mess of puberty takes not with a reversible charm, but by and loss of virginity, her feet standing in cutting out her tongue. Dumb, and in terrible for what in a woman is hidden and below. pain, the mermaid reaches the palace, where Wordless, in pain, though no one sees you she is kept as a kind of pet, allowed to sleep bleeding, unrequitedly in love, longing for a on a cushion outside her prince’s door. The better world than this one: what adolescent prince is fond of her, but his love is bestowed can’t identify? on a princess he believes to be the girl who Sadistic and didactic, the tale makes saved him from drowning. He marries the uneasy reading, and one can readily princess, and the mermaid acts as bridesmaid understand Disney’s changes to make the at the wedding. plot palatable, but it was widely loved long Her sisters, meanwhile, longing to bring before the studio got their hands on it. her back to them, have acquired a magic knife Operas and ballets have been based on it, from the witch.This, they tell the mermaid, Shirley Temple starred in it on television, and must be plunged into the prince’s heart, comic-book, manga and anime versions have and his blood will turn her feet back into a been produced. Illustrations have tended to fi sh-tail. She can’t bring herself to kill him. emphasise the mermaid’s virginal purity and S / GETTY IMAGES TO X PHO FO DEREK BERWIN / GETTY IMAGES TOP AND CENTRE: The mermaid on Warsaw’s city crest has long been a militant fi gure, bearing a sword and carrying a shield; she was drawn by Picasso on a mural in a Warsaw apartment, now lost. ABOVE: Edvard Eriksen’s sculpture in Copenhagen, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, remains the world’s most iconic mermaid; she has been vandalised in protests and, as in the picture at right, oo-opted into political action in her own right; here she is protesting against climate change.

40 FT332 www.forteantimes.com SHIKAZU TSUNO / AFP / GETTY IMAGES YO ABOVE LEFT: Disney’s animated fi lm The Little Mermaid, derived from Andersen’s story, has spawned spin-offs of many kinds, including this musical show at Tokyo’s DisneySea attraction. ABOVE RIGHT: Disney unveiled some very different mermaids in Pirates of the Caribbean – literal man-eaters equipped with razor-sharp teeth. BELOW: Homer’s mythological sirens were not mermaids. Here they are depicted by William Etty in his painting The Sirens and Ulysses (1837).

wistful charm, although one sketch by Lorenz Siren as temptress and cannibal: Frølich hides her breasts but gives her a suggestively cleft bum above her fi shtail. A beast of the sea wonderfully shapen as a Most famous of all visual interpretations maid from the navell upward, and a fi sh from must be the statue which has become a the navell downeward, and this wonderfull national symbol of Copenhagen. After beast is gladde and merrie in tempest, and sadde seeing a ballet based on Andersen’s tale, and heavie in fayre weather. With sweetnesse of Carl Jacobsen, head of Carlsberg Breweries song this beast maketh shipmen to sleepe, and and a great patron of the arts, commissioned when shee seeth that they be asleepe, she goeth Edvard Eriksen’s sculpture, which was into the ship, and ravisheth which she may take unveiled in 1913. Eriksen wanted to give his with her, and bringeth him into a drye place, Little Mermaid legs, but Jacobsen held out and maketh him fi rst lye by her, and doe the for a tail, and a compromise was reached: the deede of lechery, and if he will not or may not, Copenhagen mermaid has clearly defined of the Caribbean are recent avatars.The fi lm then she slaieth him and eateth his fl esh. thighs, knees and calves, terminating in does feature one ‘good’ mermaid who falls in two large graceful fi ns.The sculptor may love with a human being, but the rest of the Pirates of the Caribbean presents an have realised how vital it was for Andersen’s breed are carnivorous and merciless. At their authentic characterisation, and an unusually heroine to be a forked animal – although fi rst appearance, a couple of nymphs raise forthright one for the cinema. More locals have explained the legs as allowing heads and arms from the sea to beguile a commonly, fi lms have expressed a mermaid’s their Mermaid to ride a bicycle, like the boatful of sailors with their sweet voices and predatory nature in terms of seduction: in rest of the Danes. In fact the double-tailed youthful faces; then the picture pulls back, to Miranda (1948), Glynis Johns’s character mermaid is not a novelty, but a very old motif. reveal more and more converging on the boat creates emotional havoc among her string Despite being visited and admired by like minnows to bait, and fi nally we see shoals of suitors before returning to the sea, and countless tourists, the Copenhagen Little of them leaping around their terrified prey. in Splash! (1984), Madison (Daryl Hannah) Mermaid, like her fairytale original, has On dry land they appear as luscious ultimately takes her lover (Tom Hanks) under suffered. In 1964, her head was sawn off, women, legs and all (what’s between is never the waves with her. Although this is presented although it was quickly replaced using a cast on display, and their breasts are obscured by as a happy ending, it’s made clear that he can from the original model. An arm was removed long hair), but underwater they are seen to never come back to the world of humans. in 1984, she was decapitated again in 1998, have tails, and fanged mouths like vampires. It’s always a risk to meet a mermaid. FT and in 2003 she was blown right off her base Although they use their sex to entice, they by an explosive charge, while more superficial only want men as food. damage has been achieved with paint. Much of this, including their appetite to Extracted and adapted from At least some of this vandalism has been consume men in the literal sense, is long- Mermaids by Sophia Kingshill, motivated by protest. In one of the latest standing legend. Homer’s Sirens – who are not published by Little Toller episodes, ‘March 8’ – the date of International mermaids at all, but who significantly inform Books (www.littletoller.co.uk) Women’s Day – was painted on the Mermaid, the tradition – strew their surroundings with priced £15. and she was given a dildo to hold.You could human bones.Themes of homicide and lust say she’s an obvious target for feminist re- intertwine from an early date: a work of interpretation. Andersen’s Little Mermaid the third or second century BC, purporting AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY is a willing sacrifice, both to the insensitive to record the adventures of Alexander the SOPHIA KINGSHILL prince, and more importantly to the Church, Great in India, mentions women living collaborated with Jennifer which denies her a soul except at the cost of immersed in a river, who were beautiful – Westwood on The Lore of anguish. “Their complexion was snow-white, like Scotland (2009) and The nymphs their hair spread over their backs” Fabled Coast (2012). She MERMAIDS OF THE CARIBBEAN – but who suffocated Alexander’s soldiers is a member of the Folklore Older than either the radical or the meek during or after the act of love. Society, and also writes for mermaid is the rapacious variety, of which A 13th-century encyclopedia (in 16th- the theatre. the fearsome creatures who appear in Pirates century translation from Latin) describes the

FT332 41 www.forteantimes.com the greatalien bake-off

Bread is a foodstuff rich in human history and symbolism, but it has also played a surprising role in all kinds of entity encounters over the centuries. JOSHUA CUTCHIN opens his otherwordly oven and shares a selection of fairy loaves, alien pancakes and sasquatch crackers.

If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest tasty, as well as a strange liquid. all the stars and all the heavens. – Robert When she fi nished the meal her Browning memory went blank – she recovered consciousness back in the fi eld by n 6 July 1990, Anna Dmitrievna her goats, the strange woman at her Yerygina was herding goats side.The woman said goodbye to her down a lonesome road in with a smile, promising they would oZvarykino, Belgorod, Russia, meet again.Yerygina went on to have when a mysterious woman several more experiences, her curious appeared out of thin air. Dressed in a encounters reported in both the Zarya light-grey loose-fitting outfit with a hood, (Belarus) and Leninskaya Smena she seemed ordinary, if a bit on the tall () newspapers. 1 and lean side. The woman approached Yerygina to FAIRY LOAVES greet her, then asked if goats’ milk was Like other examples of food and drink tasty. Yerygina said it was, but expressed exchanged between eyewitnesses her preference for that of cows.The and non-human entities – what I term woman listened, then without segue ‘entity food’ – bread often precedes a abruptly invited her on a brief excursion trance or lapse in memory. Although that would last no longer than three occasionally encountered in contactee hours.Though initially concerned for naratives, this is most commonly found her herd and family during any absence, in fairy folklore. Yerygina’s worries evaporated when the The children of Sandy woman touched her shoulder and said: MacDonald saw fairies in 1912 near “Do not be afraid.” She felt a peculiar Ardnamurchan, a remote peninsula calm fall over her and was escorted in the Scottish Highlands.The two toward a large oval craft in a nearby boys were playing by the water when fi eld. A man awaited them, ready to help two tiny fi gures in green miraculously the two ladies aboard. appeared.The entities invited the Yerygina sat in the dimly lit interior boys to their nearby boat, where a tiny

MICHAEL POWELL / GETTY IMAGES and, the next thing she knew, she was in woman and her rat-sized dog could be an entirely different room with several seen in the cabin.The lads declined, other individuals dressed in the same grey and were instead treated to “a few loaves coveralls. In spite of the lack of windows one ofthe entitieS of faery bread, each about the size of a NCAKES

or other clues, she had the intuition that walnut” (it is interesting that the boys were PA she must be on another world, a sentiment offereDYerYgina by the sea, since fossilised sea urchins are expressed to her hosts. Asked how that felt, sometimes referred to as “fairy loaves,” and Yerygina replied that everything seemed SoMe breaD,WhiCh roughly correspond to the size of the bread wonderful there, a heaven in contrast to her described). 2 joyless life on Earth.The entities seemed She DeSCribeDaS After they ate, one of fairies said: “We are to radiate a sort of spiritual warmth and departing now... We will not be coming back hospitality. One of them offered Yerygina VerYtaStY here any more, but others of our race will be some bread, which she described as very coming.” The boys were snapped out of their JOE SIMONTON AND ONE OF THE ALIEN

42 FT332 www.forteantimes.com trance by their sister, who arrived shortly On 31 December 1989, Moskovskaya Pravda made of wrought iron. Simonton’s attention thereafter, and neither seemed further ran an article describing the account of “Mrs was then drawn to one of the men who was affected from eating the loaves. 3 L”, a 40-something mother of two living in “frying food on a fl ameless grill of some The rare appearances of bread in Protvino, Russia. On 13 September of that sort.” Noticing his curiosity, the man offered Sasquatch abductions are presumably the year, Mrs L was returning home from the Simonton four fl at, porous pancakes, each result of theft; in a 1602 French case related grocery store when two tall women in tight about 3in (8cm) in diameter. The entities by Norwegian cryptozoologist Erik Knatterud, silvery suits jumped out from behind some sealed the craft and departed, the entire one Anthoinette Culet claimed to have been boulders and paralysed her. The women, who exchange lasting around fi ve minutes. 9 abducted by an “ugly but amorous” hairy had light blonde hair, grey-green skin, and Simonton’s credibility was viewed by the beast that “stole and brought her baskets hats with antennæ, took the witness to a small local community, and every investigator of of bread, fruit, cheese, linen and thread”. disc-shaped craft by the side of the road. the case, as beyond reproach, both for his That same night the beast wandered into They invited their captive for a ride, which reputation as an honest farmer and his lack the village, where it was shot dead, the post- they insisted would not last long; after some of a motive in concocting such a ridiculous mortem declaring it to be a bear, albeit one prodding, Mrs L hesitantly accepted. Inside tale.This credibility was only strengthened that “almost looked like a human” with “a were three chairs, one of which was occupied by the pancakes, which were still in his navel like humans [sic]”. 4 by a man with his back to her. Mrs L offered possession. One was given to a local judge, Entity-offered bread is often described some of the bread she had just purchased, one to J Allen Hynek (UFO investigator for as delicious or sweet. Scottish lore held that but the women declined, instead offering the Air Force’s Project Blue Book), one to any beautiful, healthy mother who allowed their guest a bit of “their” bread. Without the National Investigation Committee on a fairy babe to suckle at her breast would thinking, she refl exively popped it into her Aerial Phenomena, and one Simonton kept receive delicious food tasting of “wheaten- mouth and swallowed; she later described the for himself – he claimed they tasted like bread, mixed with wine and honey.” 5 In taste as that of a lightly sweet bread.The cardboard. 10 1645, Anne Jeffries fell ill, afterwards craft ascended, fl ying over Protvino before A thorough analysis was performed on possessing clairvoyance and the ability to dropping Mrs L off at her apartment.The one of the pancakes by the US Department visit the fairies; they would leave her food, space people told her they would meet again, of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the which, when shared with her employer, was much to Mrs L’s chagrin. 8 food was found to be made of terrestrial, if described as “the most delicious bread that tasteless, ingredients, including hydrogenated ever I did eat, either before or since.” (See JOE SIMONTON’S PANCAKES oil and buckwheat fl our. There are conflicting FT198:38-41) 6 Without a doubt the most famous entity food reports as to the exact type of grain used, and Modern accounts explicitly mentioning report of all time is the case of Joe Simonton, rumours circulate about “unknown grains” in bread are much harder to come by than a chicken farmer from Eagle River, Wisconsin. the pancake; in any event, the results of the those from fairy lore, though they are not It was around 11am on 18 April 1961 when analysis were underwhelming.The official unheard of. Lina Ivanova Kravets had a Simonton noticed a strange sound similar to United States Air Force explanation was that lengthy encounter with a trio of 11ft (3m) tall, radials on wet pavement coming from outside Simonton was honest but had mistakenly three-eyed “extraterrestrials” in Shtanivka, his farmhouse. Looking outside, he noticed conflated the reality of his breakfast with his , in August 1953.They claimed to be a peculiar silver machine descending into dreams. on a mission to rescue a missing scout team. his yard, around 30ft (9m) in diameter and JacquesVallée wrote about Simonton’s The host and her unlikely guests discussed “shaped like two inverted bowls.” Simonton encounter at great length in his book Passport several issues of great importance, including stepped closer and a hatch opened on the to Magonia, immediately seeing parallels spirituality and life on the visitors’ planet. craft, revealing three dark-skinned “Italians” between the experience and interactions Before her encounter ended, Kravets was inside. Each was about 5ft (1.5m) tall, dressed with fairy folk.This is a worthy line of inquiry, given a piece of “bread” the size of a small in dark outfits with knitted headgear. and closer scrutiny yields more similarities coin. Breaking it open she spied something One of the occupants held a shiny jug and questions: for example, is there a link dark and odourless inside, and decided to aloft, and the good-natured Simonton took between between inedible fairy food devoid return the gift without partaking.The tiny the vessel inside to fi ll it with water. Upon of glamour and the blandness of Simonton’s size of the bread evokes the aforementioned returning to the craft he caught a glimpse pancakes? Taking a slightly different 1912 MacDonald case. 7 of its interior, which to his eyes appeared approach, is there some connection between the missing fl avour of the pancakes and the foyson extracted from food by fairies? (See panel opposite.) In her Encyclopedia of Fairies in World Folklore and Mythology, Theresa Bane describes the oennerbanske, a race of dwarfs native to the Netherlands’ Friesland Islands prone to stealing young girls and children. The oennerbanske have a gentler side, however, as they are also known for helping in building construction and “assisting the farmers in the fi eld by bringing them fresh water to drink and pancakes to eat.” 11 OTHER GRAINS Other grains have been reported by entity food witnesses in addition to bread. Rice, a food staple for many cultures, appears in several reports, such as the tale of a boy who was spirited away on 30 September 1907, in Aichi prefecture, Japan.The child was setting out white rice cakes as religious offerings for an upcoming festival when he mysteriously disappeared for several ABOVE LEFT: Enrique Mercado Orué claims he was taken aboard an ET spacecraft where he ate four unusually hours. After some time his family heard a sustaining crackers. ABOVE RIGHT: Joe Simonton examines one of the four pancakes he was given by aliens. loud thump in their house and visited the

44 FT332 www.forteantimes.com elements.” 9 The book also details housecats who drank THE NATURE OF FAIRY FOOD milk left out for piskies and became sick. The folklore bears similarities to a 1970 case in Chile, where a small creature was seen gliding through a family’s livestock pasture. The next day, 10 of their llamas were found exsanguinated. The family attempted to cook one of the animals, but the meat tasted foul; even the vultures who ate the remaining carcasses were seen to vomit, and the family had no choice but to burn all that remained. 10 Subsiding on foyson allows fairies to consume living animals without apparent harm. One Welsh farmer watched the Verry Volk slaughter his ox, then resurrect it, minus a piece of leg bone they had misplaced. The next day the animal appeared healthy, save for a slight limp. 11

NDON NEWS / GETTY IMAGES It is easy, and perhaps LO sensible, to write off the concept of foyson as a way to explain why most offerings left ILLUSTRATED for fairies remain physically hat is the when they vomited, only untouched. food given by worms and grasses came fairies? Though up. 5 NOTES it often has the If the food offered by 1 Alasdair Alpin MacGregor, The W appearance of fairies is illusory, what do Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-tales and baked goods, wine, or milk, they themselves actually Traditions of the Highlands and legend alludes to the use of consume? Varying reports Islands, Moray Press, 1937. glamour, or illusion, used by point to “barley meal, 2 ES Hartland, The Science of fairies to make themselves poisonous mushrooms, Fairy Tales: An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology, Walter Scott, 1891, p45. appear different from how they goat milk, red deer meat, 3 Janet and Colin Bord Bord, Fairies: truly look, and similar spells silver weed roots, heather Real Encounters with Little People, are cast upon what they offer stalks, toadstools, and Michael O’Mara Books, 1998. 6 as food. Alasdair MacGregor weeds”. Ufologist 4 John Rimmer, “Transvection and wrote in The Peat-Fire Flame: Jacques Vallée often UFOlogy”, Magonia, Jan 1988, Folk-tales and Traditions of identified meat and pure http://magonia.haaan.com/2009/ the Highlands and Islands water as the primary food transvection196 A Trojan Feast of a woman who abstained source of the fairies, 5 John Rimmer, The Evidence for from food in fairyland, and citing the writings of Alien Abductions, Aquarian Press, afterwards “came to examine anthropologist WY Evans- 1984, citing S. Anglo’s The Damned Art, RKP 1977. the food… [and] she found it Wentz. to consist ‘only of the refuse of food – one of the famous Most literature, however, 6 Theresa Bane, Encyclopedia 1 of Fairies in World Folklore and the earth.’” Pendle witches reported in posits that they feed on the Mythology, McFarland & Company, Such concepts can be 1612 that “although they did essence, also called the toradh Inc, 2014, p139, 7 traced back to early legend. eat [at their Masses], they were or foyson, of food. Parallels 7 Katherine Briggs, An Encyclopedia The Scandinavian hero never the fuller nor better for to the foyson concept can be of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Väinämöinen (pictured at the same.” 4 found with the Arabic djinn, Bogies, and Other Supernatural right), upon rejecting beer in This theme reappears which “eat human food, stealing Creatures, Pantheon Books, 1976.. the Underworld, “gaz’d awhile in modern accounts. Abdul its energy.” 8 Food without 8 Rosemary E Guiley, The upon the tankard; Lo! Within it Mutalib disappeared in January its foyson is unfit for human Encyclopedia of Demons and frogs were spawning, worms 1982 from his guard post at consumption. Evans-Wentz, Demonology, Checkmark Books, 2009, p51. about its sides were laying.”2 a recruit training centre near in his seminal The Fairy-Faith In the story of St Collen, the Kuala Lumpur. A search was in Celtic Countries, was told 9 WY Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, University Books, seventh-century Welsh saint mounted to no avail, and that food left for fairy offerings 1966. visited the King of Fairies, and locals whispered of the buni, was “not allowed to be eaten 10 V Sanchez-Ocejo & J Ferrer, declared, “I do not eat the elemental beings who, in their afterwards by man or beast, not “Chupacabras Said to Have Been leaves of a tree!” when he minds, were responsible for even pigs... The underlying idea in Chile Since 1970s”, (M Andrade, saw the ‘food’ for what it truly several such disappearances. seems to be that the fairies Trans., 2001); www.rense.com/ was.3 Witches, conflated with Abductees who returned extract the spiritual essence general15/chp.htm. fairies by the Church, ascribed spoke of “a distant place” and from food offered to them, 11 Evans-Wentz, op cit. similar attributes to the Devil’s “delicious food” – although leaving behind the grosser

FT332 45 www.forteantimes.com roof to investigate, only to fi nd their son with the fertility of the Earth, mentioning it unconscious with white rice cake covering more than 20 times, while the New Testament his mouth. When he came to, the boy claimed (over 30 references) embraces bread as a to have met a stranger who “walked over focal point of the Eucharist, offering eternal the tree tops” and took him into peoples’ life. In short, bread symbolises the cyclical homes, eating all the cakes that had been set nature of existence in all its many forms. 15 out.The boy became a dullard afterward, a Bread’s power also extended to protection variation on the motif of eating in fairyland against evil. In Holland, stale bread in a and returning irreparably changed. Another cradle wards off disease; in Morocco it cures Japanese tale, this one from 1814, involved stuttering; in Egypt, indigestion. Bread a boy taken to a strange land for several and salt have long been central to Eurasian days and also fed cakes, but this time to no hospitality rites. 16 As noted earlier, a bit of apparent ill effect. 12 stale bread could safeguard against fairies In his out-of-print book UFO Contact from and yet at the same time, along with milk, Undersea, the late Lt Col Wendelle Stevens it was the most common offering made to interviewed one “David Delmundo” who was appease the Good Folk. allegedly abducted off the coast of Puerto Bread has also, at least tangentially, been Rico in 1972. Delmundo (a pseudonym) used as a means of explaining perceived had been taken by a short, grey-skinned paranormal phenomena. Ergot, a type of being with wraparound eyes to a secret fungus known to grow on rye and other base beneath the seafloor where he was grains, can produce convulsive symptoms if fed a “white, creamy substance similar to consumed; some have posited that cultures cornmeal”. He described the taste as neither suffering an outbreak of ergotism could sweet nor salty yet still “very good and mistake the disease for bewitchment. A satisfying,” leaving him with the sensation of DieSanD iS similar theory gaining traction among being nourished. 13 This sense of satisfaction historians is that ergot-tainted bread may is a recurring theme in cases where reborn,anD haS have caused the lycanthropic hallucinations witnesses consume grain products. Enrique that lead to the extensive werewolf trials of Mercado Orué, author of 28 Horas a Bordo de beentieDtotheMeS 16th and 17th century Europe. un OVNI (28 Hours on Board a UFO), claimed It was perhaps a misnomer to cite the Joe that on 26 August 1976, in Mexico City he ofreneWalSinCe Simonton case as the most famous entity was taken aboard an ET craft by beautiful food account. Without a doubt, more people humanlike inhabitants.The entities, of anCientegYPt are familiar with the manna that rained from varying size and clad in form-fitting metallic Heaven to feed the Israelites, sustaining outfits, escorted Orué to a guest room where them as they traversed the desert en route his hunger was sated with four “crackers” to the Promised Land. Scholars have banged and a small glass of somethimg resembling and again, and has been tied to themes of their collective heads against the wall for wine. He was told that this meal would renewal since ancient Egypt. For millennia, centuries seeking a scientific explanation sustain him for four days. 14 bakers in countless cultures have fashioned for exactly what sustained the Jewish people bread in the shape of Moons, Suns, and those four decades, but to no avail.Theories DEATH AND REBIRTH genitalia, representing reproduction and range from airborne bits of lichen to quail Bread has long been associated with fertility rebirth.This duality is well represented in dung (!) to tamarisk trees, the candidate and rebirth. Wheat dies and is reborn time the Bible: the Old Testament associates bread currently with the most academic cachet. BUDDHIKA WEERASINGHE / GETTY IMAGES

TOP: Manna falls from Heaven in a 1571 woodcut. ABOVE: Rice cakes, or mochi, are offered to Aka-Oni (‘Red Devil’) during the Oni Oi annual festival in Japan.

46 FT332 www.forteantimes.com RIGHT: The wheatfields of Ukraine.

When attacked by insects, the tamarisk tree actually weeps a sugary sap that hardens and falls to the ground in edible pieces. 17 Of course, none of these explain how a generation could subside on such an odd, meagre diet alone. Researcher Peter Gilman suggested in 1967 that manna could have been “angel hair,” the cobweb-like (or gelatinous, depending on the account) material occasionally found after UFO sightings, particularly at landing sites.There are two primary problems with this theory, however: one, angel hair tends to evaporate USSR, although it is unclear whether this Could the cluster of reports featuring bread quickly, and, as such, its make-up has never represents an actual ramping-up of such in the collapsing somehow be an been studied for any nutritional value; and events or if censorship was simply more expression of the mother country’s transition two, such a theory simply explains away one lenient in the dying days of the Soviet and rebirth back into Russia? If we entertain mystery with another. 18 Union. Regardless, consider the fact that a the suggestion that a witness’s psychology Notions of bread as a gift from Heaven go substantial number of modern entity food may have some bearing upon the experience much deeper than the Old Testament tale cases explicitly featuring bread – be it given – a notion supported by reports of telepathy of manna.The serendipitous crossbreeding to or taken from witnesses – are from Slavic with humanoids and UFOs responding to between different species of wheat some countries, with a major window of incidents in thought – that may well be the case. FT 10,000 years ago marked a major turning this 1989-1991 timeframe.This fact is perhaps point for civilisation, allowing mankind to ironic when one considers that the region, in Extracted and adapted from make the transition from a hunter-gatherer particular Ukraine, has long been regarded as A Trojan Feast: The Food and existence to an agrarian society, where large the “bread basket of Europe.” Drink Offerings of Aliens, settlements were able to grow and fl ourish. Bread’s association with rebirth may offer Faeries and Sasquatch, In the apocryphal Book of Enoch, this some insight into its appearance during this published by Anomalist Books development is attributed to the Nephilim, period. Ancient Slavs engaged in a ritual (www.anomalistbooks.com) at who taught mankind how to cultivate plants, they called “baking the child,” where a young $15.95. a role similar to that played by the Kachinas boy or girl was placed inside a warm stove in Hopi legends and the god Quetzalcoatl in in a symbolic parallel to the transformative AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Mesoamerican myth. baking process.Tamra Andrews writes in Just how lucky was this convenient Nectar & Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food JOSHUA CUTCHIN is a native hybridisation? “Since the emergence of bread in World Mythology that baking the child was of North Carolina with a long wheat about 10,000 years ago, the unlikely “a healing ritual; the child metaphorically interest in forteana. He holds a yet successful crossing of two distinct species returned to the mother’s womb to be born Masters in Music Literature and of wheat grains has never happened again,” again healthy, transformed, and reformed a Masters in Journalism from the writes Rita Louise. “Scientists continue by the heating fi re. The Slavs performed University of Georgia, and currently works as a to claim that nature was able to produce a this ritual to heal through fi re, to change the public affairs specialist. In addition to his media series of fortunate genetic anomalies that unacceptable to the acceptable, just as the work, Cutchin is also a published composer ultimately transformed humanity, yet are baking process turned raw food into cooked.” and maintains an active performing schedule still unable to explain how they occurred”.19 20 A hideous literal version of this ritual as a jazz and rock tuba player, having appeared It is well known that 1989-1991 saw a surge appears in folktales of the witch Baba Yaga on eight albums and live concert DVDs. A Trojan in UFO and entity reports from the former and in the tale of Hansel and Gretel. Feast is his fi rst book.

NOTES 1937. Yaroslavl UFO Group “Supernatural Abductions Wagnalls stan- dard Case 69, in A Rosales in Japanese Folk- dictionary of folklore, 1 Aleksay Priyma, XX 4 Loren Coleman & Erik Knatterud, “A bductions (ed), 1953 Humanoid lore”, Asian Folklore mythology and legend, Century: Chronicles of the Sighting Reports, www. Funk & Wagnalls Co, Unexplained, 2000, online by Modern Neandertals?” Studies, 26(2), pp111- Cryptomundo, 2006 ufoinfo.com/humanoid/ 147, 1967. 1949. copy at royallib.ru/book/ humanoid-1953.pdf. priyma_aleksey/XX_vek_ (http://cryptomundo. 13 www.waterufo.net/ 17 Andrews, op cit. hronika_neobyasnimogo_ com/cryptozoo-news/ 8 V Azhazha, Other Life, item.php?id=967 18 Peter Gilman, “Do the fenomen_za_fenomenom. abductions-neandertals/. 1988, online version: Cherubim Come from http://royallib.ru/read/ 14 F Picasso, Case 19, html. 5 Thomas Keightley, The in A Rosales (ed.), 1965 Mars?” Flying Saucer Fairy Mythology, Illustrative agaga_vladimir/inaya_ Review 13(5), 1967. 2 Theresa Bane, gizn.html#0 Humanoid Sighting Encyclopedia of Fairies of the Romance and Reports: www. ufoinfo. 19 R Louise, “The Miracle in World Folklore and Superstition of Various 9 Jacques Vallée, com/humanoid/ of Wheat: Evolution Mythology, McFarland Countries, 1892. Passport to Magonia, humanoid-1965.pdf. or Agriculture of the & Company, Inc, 2014, 6 Katherine Briggs, An Contemporary Books, Gods?”, 2013, http:// 1993. 15 Tamra Andrews, p139. Encyclopedia of Fairies: Nectar and Ambrosia: An mysteriousuniverse. 3 Alasdair Alpin Hobgoblins, Brownies, 10 John Keel, UFOs: Encyclopedia of Food in org/2013/10/the-miracle- MacGregor, The Peat-Fire Bogies, and Other Operation Trojan Horse, World Mythology, ABC- of-wheat-evolution-or- Flame: Folk-tales and Supernatural Creatures, GP Putnam’s Sons, 1970. CLIO, 2000. agriculture-of-the-gods/ Pantheon Books, 1976. Traditions of the Highlands 11 Bane, op cit. 16 J Fried, & M Leach, 20 Andrews, op cit. and Islands, Moray Press, 7 Anton Anfalov & 12 Carmen Blacker, “Bread”, in Funk & STRANGE STATESMEN #6 WARLORDS OF MACLANTIS

SD TUCKER looks back at one of Scotland’s earliest nationalist politicians, Lewis Spence, and his quest to fi nd Atlantis hidden not beneath the waves, but within the blood of his countrymen.

nd so, Scotland has spoken, with LEFT: Lewis Spence, proud Scottish nationalist and an amazing 56 out of 59 Scottish champion of the Atlantean race. BELOW: William MPs now fl ying the fl ag of the Comyns Beaumont’s Atlantean theories included the SNP. It has been a long road for notion that Athens was in fact the small Scottish town A of Dumbarton. nationalists north of the border to get to this point, though, with the SNP’s effective predecessor, the National Party of Treasury) that the Royal Navy send a task- Scotland, having been formed as long ago force out to scour the Atlantic for evidence the as 1928. 1 The NPS’s fi rst-ever candidate for Congressman was right. 4 Westminster during a by-election in 1929, Donnelly had spawned a monster, and it was Lewis Spence, would doubtless be ecstatic that not long before people were trying to identify his vision for a self-governing Scottish nation the ‘true’ location of the vanished continent in had at last come so close to fruition. Perhaps places all over the world, including Scotland. soon the stage will also fi nally be set for the The most elaborate attempt was that of implementation of the other part of Spence’s William Comyns Beaumont, a one-time hack long-term plan for his country, too – namely, on the Daily Mail who carried that organ’s the resurrection amongst its people of the alleged ‘Little Englander’ mindset noble spirit embodied by the inhabitants of the to its logical conclusion in his truly sunken kingdom of Atlantis. bizarre books The Riddle of Prehistoric There is little space today for occult Britain and Britain the Key to World interests amongst SNP politicians. 2 With History, 5 in which he claimed not Lewis Spence, though, the situation was 1955, he started supplementing only that the British Isles were really somewhat different; for, as well as penning his living with his books Atlantis, and that giants with access to such mundane-sounding tracts as Freedom for about ancient mysteries and super-advanced weaponry and fl ying- Scotland: The Case for Scottish Self-Government, the supernatural. He also wrote machines used to live here, but also that he was also the author of rather more esoteric poems, pamphlets, stories and plays. every single significant event of ancient tomes like The Problem of Atlantis, Atlantis in It was in the 1920s that he fi rst began to write history had actually occurred somewhere America and The Occult Sciences in Atlantis.3 about Atlantis, and it was when speculating between Land’s End and John o’ Groats, rather Like all good statesmen, Spence had a about the ‘history’ of this non-existent place than in the Middle East or the Mediterranean, hinterland, somehow fi nding the time away that his abiding interests in both occultism as mainstream historians falsely claimed. from the campaign-trail to pen popular works and Scottish nationalism began particularly Scotland was particularly blessed in this about world-folklore and ancient civilisations to fuse. regard, it seems, seeing as Jerusalem was like The Magic and Mysteries of Mexico and really Edinburgh, Mount Olympus was actually The Mysteries of Egypt: The Secret Rites and THE ATHENS OF THE NORTH Ben Nevis, the Egyptian Pharaohs were all Traditions of the Nile; but it was Curiously, the modern myth of Scotsmen and, most remarkably of all, Athens the hidden mysteries of Britain Atlantis had begun with a book was in fact the small town of Dumbarton. and its people, particularly the written by another politician: Anticipating that sceptics might object to this Celts, which were closest to the US Congressman Ignatius fi nal claim by pointing out that all the great Spence’s heart. Born in 1874 in Donnelly’s best-selling 1882 old buildings of Classical Athens would appear Broughty Ferry, Spence qualified Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, today to be located in, well, Athens, Beaumont as a dentist at Edinburgh which claimed that Plato’s fabled had a simple answer ready. The Roman University before changing tack island was a real place and the Emperor Hadrian, whose hatred for the Scots and becoming an editor on The origin of nearly all world culture was demonstrated by that big wall he had Scotsman newspaper in 1899. and mythology. Donnelly’s book constructed to keep them out of England, had Maybe he found this employment was taken seriously by many simply stolen the Parthenon and the rest from to be a bit too much like pulling who read it, with even Britain’s their true home in Dumbarton and had them teeth, however, as beginning PM,WE Gladstone, making re-erected in Greece through pure spite. 6 The around 1905 and continuing the extraordinary suggestion next time the Greek Government demand the more-or-less until his death in (unromantically vetoed by the Elgin Marbles back, I think someone should

48 FT332 www.forteantimes.com WARLORDS OF MACLANTIS

take their representatives aside and LEFT: Poet and anglophobe Hugh MacDiarmid, politely inform them of these facts. fellow founder of the National Party of Scotland. Lewis Spence, then, was not alone in giving credence to the myth of people, devoted to the practical Atlantis. Spence’s ideas differed things of life and making little or no from some of his rivals, however. contribution to the more dazzling or Rather than claiming that Britain debatable spheres of human genius.” was Atlantis, he instead maintained Modern-day Scotsmen actively that Britain’s people – particularly collaborated in this state of affairs, the Scots – were the true heirs to said MacDiarmid, because: “So far as Atlantis. Spence said the people of they are concerned, the long centuries the ancient world knew this full well, of Scotland’s national life have long calling Britain “an island veiled and ago been brought to nothing...Their esoteric”, known to all other races as ‘race memory’ only goes back to the “the very home and environment of day before yesterday… To them the mystery, a sacred territory, to enter nature of their literature, the history

N ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES which was to encroach upon a region of their country, is as unintelligible TO of enchantment, the dwelling of the as the theories of Einstein...The gods”. 7 Modern-day visitors fl ying uncanny Scot... has been everywhere H / HUL

AC in to Glasgow International Airport transformed into... the ‘Canny Scot’ of must feel something similar. Spence’s modern acceptance.” 10 reasons for Britain being a kind of Spence could also express his racial Avalon boil down to this: ancient ideas in either occult or purely political ERICH AUERB Atlantis was home to a JG Frazer- terms, depending upon what the style vegetation-cult or mystery-religion situation required. In his 1951 book Second centring around a Divine King known to us CLAIRVOYANT Sight, for instance, Spence claimed that as ‘Arthur’, who would undergo a symbolic clairvoyant skills were sadly disappearing in death and resurrection each year in order to SKILLS Scotland, with the ancient holy-men who had reassert the power of fertility in the world, once practised them having long-ago been thus enabling spring and its crops to re- WERE SADLY downgraded to the level of mere fortune- emerge from the depths of winter. However, tellers by an “invading faith” brought north over time, Atlantean culture had decayed DISAPPEARING IN by outsiders. 11 In The Problem of Atlantis and its inhabitants brought destruction upon he went even further, themselves, possibly through abusing the SCOTLAND claiming implausibly that occult arts. Fortunately, a number of ‘good’ “Atlanteans have been Atlanteans, of a type now known to us as proved by the labours Cro-Magnon Man, had escaped the deluge of their English overlords, leading to of archæologists to have and sought sanctuary in Europe and North the virtual disappearance of Celtic been of a physical type Africa, re-establishing their worship of (that is to say, Atlantean) culture and superior to any at present Arthur everywhere they settled, albeit under religion amongst them. As Spence existing [and] to have different names. Gradually, though, the Cro- laid out in pamphlets such as his possessed that greater Magnon Atlanteans mated and merged with 1922 The English Peril in Scotland, cranial capacity which other cultures and races, losing access to their this was an historical crime that had is the undoubted mark ancient wisdom. In only one group of people to be reversed. of distinguished mental – the Celts – did the Atlantean blood and The surprising thing is that if you ability.” By ‘Atlanteans’, religion survive in anything approaching its ignore Spence’s peculiar Atlantean however, Spence really pure form of old, thus accounting for Britain’s obsession, it becomes apparent meant Scots: “If a patriotic traditional reputation for holiness and magic. that various other early Scottish nationalists Scotsman may be pardoned the boast, I may were saying something very similar, but in say that I devoutly believe that Scotland’s BAD BLOOD non-occult terms.Take, for example, the poet admitted superiority in the mental and Visitors to modern-day Scotland may have Hugh MacDiarmid, a fellow founder member spiritual spheres springs almost entirely from noticed that sacred vegetation-cults (save of the National Party of Scotland and no the preponderant degree of Cro-Magnon that of the thistle) are conspicuous by their believer in Atlantis.8 With commendable blood which certainly runs in the veins of her absence. Spence had an explanation.The pure honesty, in his Who’s Who entry, under the people.” 12 Thus the Scottish Enlightenment, Celtic blood and mindset of the Atlantean heading of ‘Hobbies’, MacDiarmid listed presumably. Scots, he said, had been systematically “Anglophobia”, 9 and when we see some of When writing for a purely nationalist polluted down the centuries through the things he wrote in his 1936 book Scottish audience, as in his pamphlet Freedom for interaction with, and colonisation by, what Eccentrics, an unusual attempt to use the lives Scotland, however, “The salient feature of he called “Anglo-Saxon Teutonism” – i.e. of remarkable (if often slightly ) Scots racial difference between the English and Englishmen.This was bad news, as in Spence’s to condemn “how successfully the bulk of Scottish races” became not Scots’ vestigial view the Cro-Magnon Atlanteans had never the Scottish people have been assimilated Atlantean blood, but their “preponderantly settled in the Germanic and Scandinavian to English standards since the Union”, we large Pictish stock, from which the countries from which the Anglo-Saxon can see why it was he so hated the dreaded majority of its inhabitants are descended.” ancestors of the English hailed – which meant, Sassenachs. Under English rule, he said: Perhaps this was why certain measures essentially, that the ‘Sacred Isle’ of Britain had “The general concept of the typical Scot has discouraging interbreeding had urgently been conquered by non-Atlantean barbarians. undergone a very remarkable change...We to be implemented, in order to “protect the In the years since, the Scots had become are [now] regarded for the most part as a very Scottish race from being overwhelmed by the effectively deracinated under the influence dour, hard-headed, hard-working, tenacious swarming millions of England”. 13 It wasn’t

FT332 49 www.forteantimes.com STRANGE STATESMEN #6

just the English who posed a threat, either; in LEFT: Ronald MacDonald Douglas, who dreamed of 1936, Spence made some alarmist comments leading an IRA-style Scottish army from the Highlands. to the effect that “an enormous number of foreign Jewish students [were] invading Edinburgh” and its university, fl eeing the nations being a “related but severed people” – Nazis. Spence said there were 18,000; but the with the English being those who had severed Jewish Chronicle conclusively demonstrated them. His book, Douglas said, was “a literary there were no more than 60. 14 The racial claymore” with “the names of Eire and Alba conspiracy theories of other early Scottish [Ireland and Scotland] closely entwined in the nationalists, though, were even weirder. Harry metal of its hilt” and “engraved in Gaelic with Miller, for example, leader of the Scottish the words ‘Repeal the Union’.” Strong words to Socialists, wrote to Hugh MacDiarmid in 1941, describe a fairy-book! 17 claiming London was taking advantage of The outbreak of WWII soon meant that such the war to systematically enact “a deliberate a programme of mystical cultural renewal transference of population” between England simply had to succeed, though, as the future and Scotland. Scottish lasses, he said, were not only of Dundee but of the entire world now being sent to Coventry (in a literal sense), depended on it.The only hope for humanity, with “English wenches” transported up to said Spence, was for the British people to Scotland to take their place, either stealing return to the old Atlantean worship of King the Scotswomen’s former jobs or their former Arthur and his Holy Grail. Once this had been lovers’ sperm in the guise of prostitutes.The done, God would truly be on our side, and presumable end result of these fi endish ploys would destroy our enemies in an instant: “The would be an awful lot of ‘mixed-race’ babies Hand that shaped this planet will not permit being born, thus diluting the Scottish race its deflection into the dark and terrible paths even further. 15 which lead to the abyss. Britain, the sea- How could the Scottish race be saved? One borne Ark, bearing the symbols of truth and THE BARMY TARTAN ARMY idea was to imitate the Irish and their own righteousness, will pass unscathed through This may sound like I’m working up to saying successful programme of national cultural the tempest to the haven of that victory ‘Lewis Spence was a Nazi’, but I’m not – renewal through the promotion of folklore which is peace.” 18 By God’s will, a localised because he wasn’t. Indeed, he so disliked (see FT329:46-48). Books like Spence’s subsidence of the Earth’s crust would occur Hitler that in the 1940s he went to press with Scottish Ghosts and Goblins were thus not mere beneath Germany, leaving the evil nation to two millenarian tracts called The Occult Causes entertainment, but had a hidden nationalist share the fate of Atlantis.The Third Reich of the Present War and Will Europe Follow purpose, too. The clearest example of this would soon be fl ooded by “the relentless fury Atlantis? in which he sensationally claimed impulse in action came from one of the most of the North Sea” with its industrial heartland that the Führer and his troops were, quite extreme Scottish nationalists of all, Ronald “eternally lost in a waste of waters”, thus literally, the tools of Satan. Spence’s basic MacDonald Douglas, the kilt-wearing founder handily leaving a Free France “forever... cut thesis was that the German people – who, of his own (largely imaginary) secret IRA- off from her ancient foe” by some impassable being non-Atlantean, were “a race [inherently] style Scottish army, which he fantasised watery equivalent of the Maginot Line. 19 See? suggestible to the powers of evil” 16 – had about hiding somewhere in the Highlands. No need to renew Trident after all. FT nonetheless made much the same mistake as This paramilitary version of Harry Lauder the inhabitants of Atlantis and misused the evidently thought the pen to be as mighty as AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY occult sciences.The parallel between the sad the sword, however, as in 1936 he published fate of the Atlantean Scots under Teutonic an obscure volume called The Irish Book: SD TUCKER is an FT regular English rule with the even more disturbing A Miscellany of Facts and Fancies, Folklore whose books are Paranormal potential fate of Britain under Teutonic Nazi and Fragments, Poems and Prose, to do with Merseyside, Terror of the rule was compelling to Spence; once more, Ireland and Her People. This may not sound Tokoloshe and (forthcoming) The barbarian invaders from Europe were going particularly pro-Scottish, but the purpose of Hidden Folk. Currently writing a to conquer the sacred island of the Celts and Douglas’s book was to use folklore and poetry book about forgotten science, his force its already debased culture down to an to convince Scots that they were not truly Great British Eccentrics is due out even lower level. British at all, but actually Irish, the two Celtic this September.

NOTES the obscure 2001 Bollywood 6 Michell, 1984, pp136-143. Sight, 1951, Rider & Co; 17 See Boyd, 2013, pp156- My main source for general soap opera The Castle. See 7 Cited in Michell, 1984, cited in Wood, p207. 158, 139-141; a fantasist information about Spence http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ p163. 12 Lewis Spence, The whose autobiographical was an essay by Juliette uk-news/alex-salmond-really- Problem of Atlantis, 1924, essay The Mad Nationalist play-ghost-5152736 for the 8 At least not as far as I was appropriately titled, Wood, “Lewis Spence: know. He did claim to have Harrap; cited in Wood, p208. Remembering the Celts”, in truly bizarre clip. Douglas’s real name was a Rupert Sheldrake-style 13 Lewis Spence, Freedom Ronald Edmonstone, and he Lizanne Henderson (Ed.), 3 Spence also remembered psychic dog which knew when for Scotland: The Case for Fantastical Imaginations: another sunken continent, was not really a soldier but a he was coming home, though Scottish Self-Government, former actor. The Supernatural in Scottish publishing The Problem of (see Colin Wilson, The Occult, 1926, Scottish National History and Culture, 2009, Lemuria in 1932. 2006, Watkins, p125). Movement; cited in Gavin 18 Spence, 1940; cited in Birlinn, pp196-211. Boyd, 2013, p154. 4 John Michell, Eccentric 9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Boyd, Fascist Scotland: 1 The NPS merged with its Lives and Peculiar Notions, Hugh_MacDiarmid Caledonia and the Far Right, 19 Spence, 1940; cited in rival Scottish Party to form the 1984, Thames & Hudson, 2013, Birlinn, p142. Joscelyn Godwin, Atlantis present-day SNP in 1934. pp204-205. 10 All quotes taken from and the Cycles of Time: Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish 14 Boyd, 2013, p143. 2 With one notable exception 5 He also wrote a third book, Prophecies, Tradition and Eccentrics, 1936, Routledge 15 Boyd, 2013, p161 . Occult Revelations, 2011, – former SNP leader Alex After Atlantis: The Greatest (initially the jacket-blurb, then Salmond was recently Story Never Told, whose title 16 Lewis Spence, The Occult Inner Traditions, p189. pp284-285, 287 and 303 Causes of the Present War, revealed to have played a proved to be truly prophetic respectively) cameo role as a ghost living – it was never actually 1940, Rider & Co; cited in inside a haunted statue in published. 11 Lewis Spence, Second Boyd, 2013, p154.

50 FT332 www.forteantimes.com

THE HIEROPHANT’S APPRENTICE PRESENTS cbUilDinG a c fortean library 3. HOW TO DO CRYPTOZOOLOGY

legend, involving a man with a hook for a hand who lived in a falling-down house on Cryptozoology has a problem: it deals with rumour, hearsay, legend and Hogsback Road and would rip open the myth as if these things amounted to verifiable documentation of rare and throats of “any teens he caught making elusive species. But that, said the ‘father’ of the subject, Bernard Heuvel- out nearby” (sour grapes, or what?). So mans, should be no bar to investigating what (if any) creatures may have one can take this version of the legend as inspired these stories. A fair point, although mainstream zoology has tended admonitory, a caution against premarital to take a dim view of a ‘science’ that depends on anecdote, and that despite sex or perhaps just against teenage lads many an expedition in its name signally fails to produce hard evidence being lad-like. But, Couch observed, the such as spoor, bones, nesting-places, or even a series of properly focused backdated version didn’t involve illicit photographs of even the largest of cryptids. sex – almost the opposite: so near, yet so far. But it does concern the perils of driving on a notoriously dangerous road at night. Which of course teenagers also like here’s another way of going to do, and often rather too fast. As Couch about cryptozoological research, encapsulates it: “It certainly seems as if Tof which J Nathan Couch’s the legend’s emphasis has shifted from Goatman: Flesh or Folklore is chastity belts to safety belts.” an example, perhaps especially useful to Another origin tale, attached to the those venturing near this field for the first YMCA’s Matawa Camp, east of West Bend, time. As others, seeking other creatures, told of a “lonely old goat farmer” whose have before him, Couch first came across herd was wiped out by disease during the his subject by way of a campfire story. In Great Depression of the 1930s. To prevent about 1870, went the tale, a young newly- the disease spreading to his neighbours’ wed couple decided to take the narrow, properties, he dug a pit and began to treacherous Hogsback Road, about 15 miles burn the carcases. “With each corpse he (24km) south of West Bend, Washington threw into the fire, his frustration and Country, Wisconsin, to their new home – at anger built. He tossed the final goat into night. A wheel on their wagon broke, as the flames with such rage that he fell they do, and the groom decided to walk off into the pit and was burned alive. Now into the dark, back to town, for help. Hours his angry ghost haunts the camp...” As crept by, until eventually the anxious bride Couch travelled the US from Maryland to heard someone approaching. But what California in search of Goatman stories, he human made such odd snuffling sounds? heard a somewhat more explicit version And then came a terrifying, goat-like of this tale: that the farmer in bleating. Undeterred, as young women in question had habitually such stories always are, she took a peek out ‘known’ his goats in the of the wagon, and “a terrible form stood in biblical sense, and the moonlight. It was a creature covered marked resemblance to the was either doomed in coarse red hair standing on two legs cluster of modern urban to be a half-goat like a man, but with the horned head and legends called Lover’s Lane ghost for his sins long muzzle of a goat.” Cue shriek of young Legends: in particular or had had a bride. Finally she slept, although there was “The Dead Boyfriend”, hybrid offspring still no sign of her husband. She woke with with a more tenuous link that was less than the sunrise, and naturally went to see if to one named “Hook Man”, friendly. (Well, he was anywhere about. “On the ground, both of which deal with the you’d be cross too, she found large, cloven-hooved tracks that unforeseen consequences of wouldn’t you, in the turned from the wagon and disappeared parking a car in a lonely spot circumstances?) into the tree line… There, at the edge of and getting up to hanky-panky. This In any case, the forest, the ground around a large oak suggests that the tale set in 1870-ish was notwithstanding his pinning tree was drenched in blood. She looked up a backdating, as a kind of authentication, the label ‘’ to his local to find the mutilated remains of the man of later legends centred on Hogsback Road Washington County Goatman, Couch she’d just married dangling from a gnarled – which, Couch learned, was used as a wanted to know more; and thus began limb.” trysting spot by teenagers in the 1950s and his coast-to-coast quest. Some interesting Couch notes that the story bears a 1960s. He also found another ‘origination’ patterns emerge from what he discovered.

52 FT332 www.forteantimes.com One oddity is that some who encounter makes between his elected ‘actual’ origin Goatman report an oversized goat-creature and the Goatman tales. Even though his that walks on two legs (as in the ‘1870’ SpeakinG solution explains certain odd aspects of account); others report the creature’s the Goatman (in particular its frequent top half as goatish, the lower quarters as perSonally, link with eccentric hermits living in human; and others describe what we would yoU can have dilapidated shacks), it seems to me a think of as a faun or Pan-like creature – stretch. top human, bottom goat. Couch calls the my GUn, bUt Couch’s explanation doesn’t quite latter ‘satyrs’, although the archaic Greek satisfy him, either, in the sense that his originals of those were part horse, not yoU’ll take my thousands of miles of questing and hours goat, and not hooved, but with horses’ tails in libraries and archives have thrown up and ears and enormous wangers. book a hard core of puzzling and sometimes In due course the Romans conflated the when yoU pry very creepy encounter stories that don’t satyrs with their own goatish fauns, who fit into his rational paradigm. A true are equated with the Greek nature-god my colD, DeaD fortean, he leaves these accounts open to Pan; hence our modern confusion. Pan and interpretation, while recognising that they his fellow fauns are notoriously priapic finGerS off of represent genuine experiences, whatever (cf. ‘horny as a billygoat’). Couch suggests the binDinG. their source. it’s no coincidence that a goatish creature Unlike cryptozoologists who make little should manifest in places where people go Stephen King forays into foreign lands and go among furtively to fornicate. peoples whose language they do not speak, But if Goatman doesn’t always look Couch has the advantage of investigating a quite like Pan and his friends, he doesn’t culture he knows from birth, and bringing smell like a goat either. One witness an awareness of parallel traditions and the reported a stink as of sulphur. Others odd ways of oral tradition to what he finds. frequently remark on the creature’s rank It would be interesting to have his take odour, but never say what he smells of. on Bigfoot. Meanwhile, Goatman: Flesh Which is odd, unless these witnesses are so or Folklore should become a template for radically urbanised that they’ve never had how to investigate reports of cryptids, and the bucolic pleasure of a billygoat’s reek, every fortean should read it. which is both potent and unmistakable Couch’s volume should be read in even at several yards. And that’s not conjunction with Michel Meurger’s trail- impossible: Couch remarks several times breaking Lake Monster Traditions, whose that Goatman’s favourite places are insights still delight nearly three decades suburban, suggesting not only a degree of after publication. An essential part of insulation but of liminality too. Goatman Merger’s thesis is that weird creatures is also, Couch observes, fond of appearing appear in places that (for whatever on or near bridges, a classically liminal reasons) are already thought to be strange, space. All these things, Couch recognises, forbidden, threatening, or haunted. In intimate that Goatman tales are folklore such places, and in stark parallel to the and legend; or have been shaped into such idea of the legend trip, the apparently familar patterns in the retelling. objective manifestation confirms the In some versions of the tale, rather subjective apprehension. Thus, he charts surprisingly (or maybe not), it’s all the the history of ‘monsters’ in certain places, government’s fault. Maryland’s axe- similarities with the disused TNT factory and observes that over time they morph wielding Goatman is the ghastly outcome at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, locus from phantoms (one of which – one would of a genetic/crossbreeding experiment and focus of the Mothman. Should you like to know more – appeared as a flaming at the US Department of Agriculture’s trust everything from John Keel that you haystack, no less) into biological creatures Beltville Agricultural Research Center; read? You’d maybe do better trusting the and later into submarines of mysterious some say a scientist working there was government. origin. in search of eternal youth, others say (in Couch is no slouch: he recognises In other words, perceptions of the tradition of The Fly) that he somehow that Goatman suffers from inconsistent anomalous ‘stuff’ in lakes follow the became entangled with a goat himself and morphology, folkloric origin stories and way our thinking about the world, and is suitably fractious about it. If that won’t clear links with similar kinds of folklore, particularly the wild untamed world, wash, an alternative Maryland origin tale and urban-legendary attributes such changes over time – ufologists call makes Goatman a horror escaped from as glowing red eyes. He also recognises it ‘cultural tracking’. Says Meurger: Glen Dale Hospital – now abandoned, the intrinsic pleasure some people get “Cryptozoologists believe in a hidden of course, and often said to be a former out of elaborate hoaxes: he traces back Nature; sceptics reduce the question to lunatic asylum (although actually it several Goatman episodes to pranksters, a misinterpreted Nature.” His approach was an isolation hospital specialising in who certainly weren’t in it for the money. looks less at the what of what people tuberculosis cases). California’s Billiwhack And he’s fully aware of the concept of report, intriguing as that is, and more at Monster (“a nine-feet-tall humanoid legend trips, and why people, especially the how and the why of what they see: and with the head of a ram”) supposedly teenagers, indulge in them. Thus shielded this seems the more fortean – and indeed emerges from the basement of the now- from naïve credulity, and having noticed subtler and more sophisticated – tactic. ruined Billiwhack Dairy. It is the botched that no Goatman narrative can be dated Another must for the fortean bookshelf. FT product of secret attempts by captured further back than the early 1960s, he Nazi scientists to create a superman in goes hunting for an underlying real-world J Nathan Couch, Goatman: Flesh or the 1940s; Couch notes that this legend inspiration. And, serendipitously, finds Folklore?, CreateSpace, 2014 arose around the time Captain America it. We won’t spoil anyone’s pleasure by (a successful genetic experiment, and revealing what he discovers, but will Michel Meurger (with Claude Gagnon), famously anti-Nazi) was revived in the say that while his solution is plausible, Lake Monster Traditions, Fortean Tomes, early 1960s. This reader notes thematic we don’t quite buy the connections he 1988

FT332 53 www.forteantimes.com

SEND FORUM SUBMISSIONS TO: THE EDITOR, FORTEAN TIMES, PO BOX 71602, LONDON E17 0QD, UK, OR TO [email protected] HAVE YOUR SAY forum sdsdsvdsvs The laughing death

MARK GREENER suggests that the traces of past cannibalism might help us identify future threats to mankind

LEFT: A patient Alzheimer’s diseases. Yet prions have MARK GREENER is a medical suffering from kuru been enemies of humanity for millennia. writer as well as clinical editor is examined in a and columnist for Pharmacy Human remains from non-burial village in Papua New contexts, such as those simply left Magazine and writes regularly Guinea. for a wide variety of magazines, on the floor, at several archæological including FT. SOURcES sites show disarticulation, marks and heat-changes consistent with food S Lindenbaum, t sounds like a Doc Savage yarn. Doc “Cannibalism, kuru preparation. Researchers also found and the Fabulous Five race to Papua and anthropology”, human myoglobin in fossilised human New Guinea (PNG) to discover the Folia neuropathologica, fæces collected from some sites linked I 2009;47:138-44; source of the mysterious ‘laughing on other evidence to cannibalism. Only death’ among cannibals and save the MP Pearson, The skeletal and cardiac muscles produce Archaeology of Death industrialised world. Remarkably, the isolated the ‘proteinaceous infectious’ and Burial, History myoglobin. So, if you have myoglobin story is almost true. Studies of kuru – a (prion) agent that caused kuru. Your Press, 2009; J in your fæces, you ate some heart or brain disease that ravaged cannibals – body twists many proteins into different Collinge, J Whitfield, skeletal muscles. Myoglobin’s chemical offer insights into some of the current shapes; some ‘misfolded’ shapes form E McKintosh, et al, “A composition allows biochemists to great enemies of humanity as well deposits that damage the surrounding clinical study of kuru identify the species eaten. patients with long as helping account for the demise of tissue and also ‘seed’ further incubation periods So, several strands of mutually certain ancient civilisations. aggregations of the same misshapen at the end of the reinforcing evidence suggest that Whatever a diet of Umberto protein. So, the damage spreads. epidemic in Papua New cannibalism was commonplace, Lenzi films would have you believe, The Fore did not eat kin who died Guinea”, Philosophical widespread and culturally diverse. cannibalism is not necessarily from dysentery or leprosy, but they ate Transactions of the We may never know from archæology Royal Society B: ‘primitive’ and, extreme famine aside, kuru victims. Kuru develops slowly, Biological Sciences, alone just how widespread or varied is rarely just gastronomic. It can be appearing between four and 20 years 2008; 363:3725- cannibalism was, but it may leave sophisticated, indicate deep and after eating infected human tissue. 39; R, Zetterström, molecular footprints in the sands of profound respect, and act as a strong So, eating kuru’s victims, and infected “The discovery of time. Generally, we have two copies of social glue. Cannibalism allows kith, kin people without symptoms who died misfolded prions as each gene. Many elderly Fore who had an infectious agent”, or combatants to imbibe the deceased’s from other causes, seeded the prion Acta Pædiatrica, 2010; eaten human flesh onvera se l occasions vital essence, which, in turn, helps form, in the next generation. Women and 99:1910-3; S Mead, but didn’t develop symptoms had maintain and embed relationships children were more involved in ritual MP Stumpf, J Whitfield, one copy of a particular gene. Kuru between and within social groups. cannibalism than men, and kuru always et al, “Balancing killed those with two copies before For example, kinship in the Fore killed within three months to two years selection at the prion protein gene consistent they could reproduce. The pattern culture in the Eastern Highlands of of symptoms emerging. That’s why fewer with prehistoric kurulike of this gene worldwide suggests that PNG is fluid and social, rather than men died from kuru and some Fore epidemics”, Science, we’ve encountered prions throughout fixed and genetic. Adoptees and villages “were almost devoid of young 2003;300:640-3; M our evolution, either transmitted by a immigrants become kin regarded adult women”. Greener, “Parkinson’s prehistoric version of BSE or through disease and the search identically to biological relatives, Then, in 1996, biologists realised that for a new generation of cannibalism. provided they are loyal and meet their people ‘caught’ variant Creutzfeldt- treatments”, Progress Prions might help explain the rapid obligations. For centuries, eating dead Jakob Disease (vCJD), another in Neurology and demise of some cultures. Kuru swept kin as a mark of respect and mourning devastating brain prion disease, from Psychiatry, 2011;15:26- through Fore territory in a few years, helped strengthen the Fore’s social cattle infected with bovine spongiform 8; RA Marlar, BL entering from the northwest around Leonard, BR Billman, cohesion and transcend purely genetic encephalopathy (BSE): mad cow disease. PM Lambert, JE Marlar, 1900 and arriving in the south by relationships. We now also know that modern ‘corpse “Biochemical evidence 1930. A prion disease could, in theory, Then, 60 years ago, doctors realised medicine’ can spread CJD. For instance, of cannibalism at a destroy a culture in a few generations, that kuru was killing one in ten Fore, people contracted CJD from grafts prehistoric Puebloan especially if, as in the Fore, young mainly women and children. Kuru of the dura mater (a membrane that site in southwestern people were more affected than older Colorado”, Nature, began with headaches, aching limbs surrounds the brain and spinal cord) 2000;407:74-8. generations. and joint pains. It also damaged parts and cornea; blood transfusions; and We’re used to bacteria, parasites of the brain that control emotion, pituitary or growth hormones extracted and viruses – such as the Black Death, sometimes causing inappropriate from corpses, now largely replaced by malaria or Spanish flu – wiping out euphoria and laughter: one of the genetically engineered versions. millions. Today, we need to worry about Fore’s names for kuru was the ‘laughing More recent evidence links spreading infectious misfolded proteins. However, death’. deposits of misfolded proteins to as kuru illustrates, insights into the The cause remained a mystery until several common conditions, including greatest enemies of humanity can come the early 1980s, when researchers type II diabetes, Parkinson’s and from unlikely sources. FT

FT332 55 www.forteantimes.com forum TWIN TELEPATHY

Identical but different

GUY LYON PLAYFAIR explains why some twins are telepathic and some aren’t, and why it matters

been asked just to relax in front of a raise the money, but he knew that GUY LYON PLAYFAIR has been a pyramid put together by the special getting funding for anything remotely member of the SPR since 1973. effects team. As she was dreamily connected to a subject then widely He investigated the Enfield Pol- tergeist with Maurice Gross, and visualising her favourite holiday beach, considered in academic circles to be recorded the experience in This the pyramid exploded with a loud bang taboo was not easy. House is Haunted (1980). and a shower of sparks, giving her a very I eventually managed to get him in surprising shock indeed.This looked to touch with the King’s unit, who were me very much like telepathy in action, very helpful, granting him ‘visiting n my 2003 article The Twin Thing so I decided the subject needed further scientist’ status, which gave him access (FT171:34-40) I described how the study. to their premises, and their twins.They history of twin telepathy research I ransacked the shelves of several also invited him to their annual garden Ihas been one of stops and starts, and libraries, starting with the special party in 2009, where he and PhD student how it was then possible to read all collection of twin literature at the Royal Göran Brusewitz were able to persuade the accounts of properly conducted work Society of Medicine, finding the word 224 twins to fill in an ‘Exceptional on it in a single day. I also mentioned ‘telepathy’ in just two or three of the Experiences’ questionnaire.This my being told (wrongly, as it turned hundred-plus books there. I eventually revealed that at least a third of them out) by the lady on the front desk at the found enough material for my talk at had some kind of telepathy-like incident Department of Twin Research (DTR) at the 1998 conference of the Society for to report. In this group, there were King’s College, London, that they were Psychical Research inYork, an article in twice as many identical, or monozygotic “not interested in spooky stuff”. the SPR Journal (January 1999), and the (MZ) as fraternal ones (dizygotic – DZ). Since then, much water has flowed first edition of my book Twin Telepathy Subsequent surveys in 2014 and 2015 under Westminster Bridge, which in 2002.1 confirmed that telepathy, or at least links King’s with St Thomas’s Hospital One of the few who showed a belief in it by a good many twins, across the Thames, where the DTR’s serious interest in my York talk was was clearly far more widespread than premises are located.There, a large Adrian Parker from the University of scientists had seemed to want to know.2 team of scientists, some of them twins, Gothenburg, where he is now Professor By then, I had taken part in three have been studying the genetic and/or of Psychology. He would love to do more televised experiments in which environmental origins of a wide range of some twin research, he said, if he could one twin’s reactions to a minor shock diseases and psychological conditions, inflicted on the other at a distance with the help of the 12,000 volunteer were recorded on a polygraph.These twins on its books, and have published were shown on the UK’s Channel more than 600 papers on their findings At least a third Four Richard and Judy programme in since the unit was founded in 1993. 2003 and on the American Discovery A June 2013 press release revealed had a telepathy- (2004) and National Geographic (2005) that also being studied was something channels. Later, Parker and his Danish rarely even mentioned at this academic like incident to colleague Christian Jensen were able to level, let alone taken seriously – arrange for two more, one for the Danish telepathy. Since I was involved in this report... DR-1 channel and the other, which was sudden transformation of a previously filmed in King’s, for ABC’s Twintuition taboo subject into one deserving as much series. study as any other human ability, let me Although these were all financed by summarise briefly how it came about. television companies, who as always In 1997, I helped to set up what was were interested in entertainment probably the first veli demonstration rather than science, the last two were of twin communication at a distance reasonably well controlled.The Danish for Carlton TV’s The Paranormal World one was able to test my hypothesis that of Paul McKenna. It was not my idea, twins whose zygotes (eggs) divided a but producer Mike Johnstone’s, to have week or so after fertilisation were more one twin hooked up to a polygraph in a likely to provide evidence for telepathy soundproof room, while the other, in the than those for whom division took place studio, was given some kind of surprise or in the first few days. Studies of 44MZ shock.This, I knew, was what twins were twins at the University of Indiana had best at picking up. found that the later the division, the Elaine Dove certainly picked up closer the bond would be after birth. “something from somewhere” as This confirmed that, as Orwell might polygrapher Jeremy Barrett put it when have put it, some identical twins are the pens on his chart paper shot upwards, more identical than others.3 one of them nearly running off the paper. Unfortunately, not all adult twins n / geTTy images va “It looks to me like shock or surprise,” know when their split took place, he added. Elaine’s sister Evelyn had though with the introduction of ian ga

56 FT332 www.forteantimes.com forum TWIN TELEPATHY

experiment”. Such a discovery has now been made, and such experiments have been performed and published.They were anticipated half a century ago when a pair of ophthalmologists from Philadelphia claimed to have shown that a stimulus given to one twin could be reflected in a simultaneous alteration to the other’s brainwave pattern.Though published in the prestigious journal Science, it provoked quite a storm of angry protests from readers, who objected to just about everything to do with the suggestion that brains could communicate in this way. An appeal to colleagues to repeat their findings went unheard, although another experiment published just two years later lent them some support, but since it appeared in a parapsychology journal, it was generally ignored, eTienne giLFiLLan despite the uncompromising claim ultrasonic scanning it is now possible to human faculty deserves thorough that” “In a physically isolated subject, know exactly when, and for the Danish investigation, and telepathy, if fully we have observed physiological experiment the scientists managed examined, will force us to rethink reactions at the precise moment at to find a pair of young women who much of physics and psychology as which another person… was actively knew they were ‘late splitters’ and also we know them.There is now plenty stimulated”.4 reported regular instances of what they of evidence to suggest that some In a letter to Science following the considered to be telepathy. Sure enough, twins do communicate with each publication of the article mentioned their polygraph charts showed some other at a distance under certain above, a reader noted that if authors of the clearest coincidences between very specific circumstances, and can Duane and Behrendt had really stimulus and response yet recorded. not only do so on demand, but under established what they were claiming, Parker and Jensen duly wrote up their strictly controlled conditions in “this finding is surely the most experiments, which were published in which their received impulses can be profound scientific discovery of the the peer-reviewed scientific journal instrumentally recorded.This has now present century,” and expressed Explore (Nov/Dec 2012 and Jan/Feb been done several times. surprise that “the authors do not 2013). Reports of anomalous twin appear to appreciate the revolutionary What, you may be asking, is so special connections date back at least to implications of their results.”5 He was about twins? They are not the only the 18th century, so why has it taken not satisfied, quite reasonably, that they ones to have telepathic experiences. so long for the coin to drop? One had done this, so it proved not to be the Where they differ is in the way they answer is that so few have done discovery of the last century. get the message. Non-twins usually get either their homework or their field There is mounting evidence, however it in the form of an idea or image, but research, preferring to dismiss the that we now have the means to make it with twins it can also take the form of a whole subject with a wave of their the discovery of this one. FT strong emotion, or a physical reaction, magic wands, as the example above which can be recorded on a polygraph. indicates. Even an open-minded critic REFERENcEs Some speak of ‘just knowing’ when the has to admit that all experiments 1 3rd ed., White Crow Books, guildford, 2012. other is in trouble, and I have often mentioned here have involved very 2 g Brusewitz et al., Journal of the Society come across the words ‘half of me gone’ small samples, and to win general for Psychical Research 77, 2013, pp220-35 to describe how it feels when the other acceptance a large scale study is and Abstracts, 58th Annual Convention of dies. In such cases, there is no need for called for. There is as yet no sign of the the Parapsychological Association/39th SPR telepathy since to some extent they are level of funding this would involve. International Conference, greenwich, 2015. the same person. Catherine Crowe gave another 3 D K sokol et al., ‘intrapair differences in Yet is it worth spending time answer in The Night-Side of Nature personality and cognitive ability among young and money on a notoriously elusive (1848): “Any discovery tending to monozygotic twins distinguished by chorion phenomenon which some still claim throw light on what most deeply type”, Behavior Genetics 25(5), 1995, pp457- does not exist? Here, for example, is concerns us, namely our own being, Are you a twin who 66. Professor Richard Wiseman explaining must be prepared to encounter a has experienced 4 TD Duane and Thomas Behrendt. it away in his book Paranormalia storm of angry persecution… Hence, telepathy or would ‘extrasensory electroencephalographic (2011): “Twin telepathy is due to the these hasty, angry investigations of like to take part in induction between identical twins. science, highly similar ways in which they think new facts, and the triumph with which further research? 150:367, 1965; a esser et al., ‘Physiological concomitants of “communication” between and behave, and not extra-sensory failures are recorded; and hence the If so, I’d be glad isolated subjects’, international Journal of perception”. willful overlooking of the axiom that a to hear from you Parapsychology, march 1967, pp53-6. The evidence, especially that of the thousand negatives can not overthrow at glplayfair@ polygraph, suggests otherwise. Any the evidence of one affirmative waitrose.com. 5 TR scott, Letter, science 150:1240, 1965.

FT332 57 www.forteantimes.com forum film and folklore

I am Spartacus!

Paul Screeton wonders where the famous cry of solidarity in Stanley Kubrick’s film actually originated

not in Fast’s novel, so did the left-wing PAUL SCREETON is a veteran screenwriter subvert the narrative? Or folklorist and fortean. He founded did Kubrick introduce it? Folklore Frontiers in 1985 and is the author of I Fort the Law While puzzling over this conundrum, (2011) and Quest for the Hexham I happened to be visiting Carlisle and Heads (2012). called into the JD Wetherspoon chain’s Woodrow Wilson pub, the walls of which are lined with the books literary hen it was made in fashion forgot. A ‘library angel’ led me 1960, Spartacus was the to one in particular and caused me to Wmost expensive film ever. open it at a random page. What I found It was also perceived as in the essays there by William Hazlitt one of the most politically subversive, was what may be the first example of successfully breaking the infamous the trope so umbilically attached to the Hollywood blacklist. Spartacus legend. Here it is. The screenplay by controversial screenwriter Dalton Trumbo portrayed There are some droll instances of the the rebel Thracian slave leader of the effect of proper names combined with Third Servile War of 73-71BC as a pied circumstances. A young student had piper of the disaffected. Although come up to London from Cambridge, director Stanley Kubrick saw Spartacus and went in the evening and planted as a pathfinder for liberation, the himself in the pit of the playhouse. He historical record shows that he was had not been seated long, when in one of unable to control the excesses of his the front boxes near him he discovered divided army of warmongers from one of his college tutors, with whom he committing rape upon young girls and felt an immediate and strong desire to married women, not to mention hungry, claim acquaintance, and accordingly angry men killing for revenge and called out, in a low and respectful voice, pleasure. In his excellent travelogue ‘Dr Topping!’ The appeal was, however, following in Spartacus’s footsteps, Peter ineffectual. He then repeated in a louder Stothard grimly observes: “Those that tone, but still in an under key, so as not the slaves could not rape themselves, to excite the attention of anyone but his they raped with spears and spikes.” 1 ABOVE: Star Kirk friend, ‘Dr Topping!’ The Doctor took no Writer Arthur Koestler had written Douglas is definitely notice. He then grew more impatient and Spartacus on this a similar treatment to Stothard’s, but poster for Stanley repeated ‘Dr Topping, Dr Topping!’ two his first veno l, The Gladiators, sought Kubrick’s 1960 film. or three times pretty loud, to see whether parallels between the Spartacus the Doctor did not or would not hear him. LEFT: Arthur revolt and the success of the Russian Koestler treated the Still the Doctor remained immovable. The Revolution and the subsequent failure Spartacus story in a Joke began at length to get round, and of the global Communist dream; it 1939 novel. one or two persons, as he continued his was a book less about Spartacus and FACING PAGE: The invocation of the Doctor’s name, joined more about Lenin and Stalin, in which Death of Spartacus with him; these were reinforced by others Spartacus crucifies 30 men from a (top) by Hermann calling out, ‘Dr Topping, Dr Topping!’ on breakaway group, including the leader Vogel, and (below) all sides, so that he could no longer avoid Crixus, before taking them down and the crucifixion perceiving it, and at length the whole pit of Spartacus’s banishing them instead. followers in rose and roared, ‘Dr Topping!’ with loud Another case of dubious history and a painting by and repeated cries, and the Doctor was revisionism was Howard Fast’s novel, Fedor Andreevich forced to retire precipitately, frightened at on which the Trumbo screenplay was Bronnikov. the sound of his own name. 2 loosely based. Here, the thrust focused upon the slave army leader’s dreams At this juncture, I was unaware of a just society without cruelty or of Kubrick’s voracious appetite for exploitation. When the final, inevitable fall from a blow between the eyes; knowledge, but I did know that his battle came, historians of the time his last sight being of his adversary personal assistant was also a novelist. describe how Spartacus killed his horse, Crassus’s eyes with brows “slightly So, I pondered: had fought on the ground in the front line, raised”. spotted this particular text and was wounded, fought on one knee, and So where did the mass crucifixion suggested it be modified for the film? was slain, his body lying unidentified in the Kubrick film come from? And To add to this wild speculation was the among the slaughtered mass. Using what was the inspiration for the ‘I am fact that Tony – as he signed himself – poetic licence, Koestler has Spartacus Spartacus’ expression of loyalty? It is subscribed to my publication Folklore

58 FT332 www.forteantimes.com forum film and folklore LEE CELANO / AFP / GETTy ImAGES LIKE FAThER, LIKE SON

Reviewing Peter Stothard’s book, Natalie Haynes began with what she claimed to be a showbiz classic legend: Spartacus is a figure so embedded into our culture that, even now, he can command a group of disparate people to Frontiers. The resubscriptions would bath drinking Krug, cigar in one hand REFERENCES rise up in rebellion. Kirk Douglas had a arrive promptly over the years, paid and Folklore Frontiers in the other? 1 Peter son, the little-remembered Eric Douglas for by cheques from Harrier Films. I’d like to think so. It is certainly well Stothard, On The [1958-2004], who was an actor and My reverie about a possible link was known he left a vast archive in boxes. Spartacus Road: stand-up comedian. He once came over to dashed when I discovered that Tony But back in the present, the A Spectacular the UK to do some gigs and inadvertently would have been only 13 years old fictional expression of solidarity Journey Through created one of British comedy’s finest Ancient Italy in the year Spartacus was filmed and seems likely to live on in many (Harper Press, legends. Eric wasn’t having a great gig would not meet Kubrick for a further ways, perhaps best expressed by the 2010). at a London club; he was going down six years. outpouring of support seen after 2 William Hazlitt, the pan. His opening line, I seem to I was saddened to hear of Kubrick’s the jihadist atrocity in Paris and The Works of remember, focused on the fact that he death in 1999, but that wasn’t quite the the mass ‘Je Suis Charlie’ peaceful William Hazlitt.- lacked the cleft in his chin possessed by end of the story. After the great man’s demonstration. We can also expect II. XV, Sketches his father and brother. The audience demise the cheques ceased. So, was a Spartacus revival in 2016 when the and Essays, was not in the least interested. Their (Henry Frowde, Frewin fronting an actual purchase for veteran of the Hollywood Golden Age indifference eventually overwhelmed Oxford University Kubrick? Did Stan the Man lie in a hot Kirk Douglas reaches his century. FT Press, April 1907 him and he finally shouted: “Do you edition). know who I am? I’m Kirk Douglas’s son!” The room looked on in silence, then someone in the audience stood up and said: “No, I am Kirk Douglas’s son.” He was swiftly followed by several more. Within seconds the entire audience was on their feet, all claiming to be Kirk Douglas’s son, in a pitch-perfect parody of the scene in Spartacus. That, by anyone’s standards, is a tough gig. 1 Reviewing the TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, critic AA Gill reprised and compounded this sad humiliation of what he described as “failed actor and successful drug addict” Eric Douglas, adding, “There are many ways to get crucified by an audience”. 2

REFERENCES 1. Times, 23 January 2009. 2. Sunday Times, 30 may 2010.

FT332 59 www.forteantimes.com

SEND REVIEW COPIES OF BOOKS TO: BOOK REVIEWS, FORTEAN TIMES, PO BOX 71602, LONDON E17 0QD, UK. Thisreviews month’s books, films and games Protecting not defacing? Archæologists have largely ignored the ancient graffiti in Britain’s churches and castles, so a new and open-minded work is welcome – though with reservations

to reveal. While only acknowledging Country magic and superstition “What if some this background in English were in the Norfolk air between ‘witchmarks’ were Romanesque fonts, where the the 13th and 17th centuries, hexafoil sometimes occurs, leading to apotropaic signs – made not against but Champion realises that it is geometric symbolic graffiti meant also a template tool by which (Champion supposes) to repel by witches to fortify a a building structure can be or entrap evil. He recognises “a charm or curse?” raised purely by using geometry, level of folk belief that permeated with no measurements needed. Medieval Graffiti the whole of mediæval society.” However, he neglects to explore The Lost Voices of England’s Scratching these ‘witchmarks’ the fascinating symbiosis between Churches were “everyday reactions to a tells us,“are unclear”, and this this practical use and the by Matthew Champion common and well-recognised is true – as far as the study of philosophical system attributed to Ebury Press 2015 threat... a place full of dangers, ancient marks goes. But I had it, instead discrediting at length Pb, 272pp, illus, ind, £12.99, ISBN 9780091960414 both physical and spiritual”. hoped that a more adventurous the mediæval mason origin theory FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £11.69 These markings were “the front interdisciplinary approach would of circular graffiti, whichve gi n the The ancient graffiti of Britain’s line in the defence of the soul.” discover the message of the wider background is marginally churches and castles gives The prevailing notion on the symbol to close this knowledge significant. glimpses into the lives of people conjoined V marks that are among gap. Champion would then have Even less sound is lumping barely known from any other the most common, is they signify to mention a few of its major another geometric symbol, the cultural form, even folklore. the Virgin Mary, even though the stages of progress from Mycenean Solomon’s Knot, in with the The only other major study of ‘M’ is inverted. antiquity, to the Hellenic followers hexfoil as a ‘demon trap’, the England’s ancient graffiti was Champion wonders whether the of Pythagoras, Judaic kabalists, endless circuits enticing then published in 1967, since when symbol’s meaning changed over Neo-Platonic and Pythagorean imprisoning an evil spirit. Its the subject has flickered weakly time, but offers no alternative schools of mysticism, Gothic scarcity in graffiti counts against in local archæological journals. theory. What if some, or any, of architecture, mediæval Sufism, its use purely as an apotropaic Now, finally, another dedicated the ‘witchmarks’ were made not English Catholic recusants, and mark. researcher appreciates mediæval against but by witches to fortify European and North African With historic roots running graffiti’s mysteriousness and a charm or curse? If a devout folk art, to add weight to Patrick much deeper than the hexafoil, it significance, but does he realise Christian is making an ‘M’ that Reutersward’s 1986 discovery was also a cross-cultural symbol, just how important it is, and stands for ‘Mary’, why is the sign of what eventually became a signalling specialist knowledge – more urgently for us forteans – so often inverted? Curiously, “forgotten symbol of God” in the networks delineated by craft how sometimes strange? this is not considered and the sign of the hexafoil. skills. Roman artisans used it After researching Knights one-good-theory-fits-all approach The large hexafoil arrays as an emblem for their guild Templar prisoner graffiti in prevails. The chapter on charms at Leighton Buzzard’s All secrets involving the production France (FT:259), I found mediæval and curses provides a lot of good Saints church are parsed by a of mosaics and glass, for example. graffiti abounding in central and general background from the Latin inscription that affirms Another graffito in Leighton southern English counties. Most Middle Ages, but quotes only one Reutersward’s discovery. This Buzzard supports this idea. While examples are pictographic and graffito. hints, too, at a dangerous singling-out the location, however, symbolic. The most interesting of If the idea of England’s easterly gnosticism at a time when the Champion neglects this example, the relatively rare texts often deal churches riddled with magical symbol was displayed with pride understandably, as I still find with the Black Death, the subject protection marks sounds like in Sufi shrines in eastern Europe them in oft-visited churches. It’s a of one of the best chapters. Much Witchfinder General with extra and India, influenced by the doubly-elusive art, visually and to graffiti known to me is not within psychic warfare, it is an aspect Sufic absorption of Pythagorean research. Champion’s purview, possibly due that risks being overstated in cosmo-numeric-philosophy. Before This is the work of a to his working out from north- Medieval Graffiti, where the theory the Late Mediæval resurgence mediævalist rather than eastern Norfolk, amassing what he extends to the widely depicted of Hermeticism, the philosophy an art historian, and would could before being thwarted by a ‘hexafoil’ (Flower of Life or represented by the hexafoil is have benefitted from ae mor publication deadline. This is a key Daisy Wheel) and its curvilinear perhaps the only ‘underground’ international perspective; instead strength – and weakness – of this variants. “Its origins as a ritual mystic system to have genuinely look at a field that still has much protection mark,” Champion influenced social elites. Continued on page 62

FT332 61 www.forteantimes.com reviews BOOKS

Continued from page 61 Many of the science fiction and fantasy writers of the time are Droning on… it ignores everything except mentioned, some under their real Anglocentric references. The names (Harry Harrison, Barry A good history of a decade of drone wars quasi-heraldic ‘house’ emblems, Bailey), others lightly disguised: with their initials and numerals JG Ballard is Jack Allard and (not secret!) with little historical context (a class of mysterious mercantile Moorcock’s first wife, writer symbols), share a major European Hilary Bailey, is Helena Denham. dimension in their most But alongside the early career biggest revelation is the low enigmatic ‘Sign of Four’ symbol of the young Michael, told by number of drone strikes in (bound now with the question of the older Moorcock with a loving Somalia. Of 200 alleged by Shakespeare’s face, FT:331). nostalgia for a London now Iranian media, the vast majority Given the vastness of mediæval largely lost, is an astonishing were actually bombings by writing about animals, astrology fantasy world just as real, just as manned Somali Air Force aircraft. and magic, the writing surely believable: the Alsacia. Accessible Only a handful were US drone need not be so waffly. Chunks through a gate in a square just strikes. of text grindingly reiterate the off Fleet Street where Michael What Woods lacks, though, uncertainties about these rather works, the Alsacia has the abbey Sudden Justice is the sense of context for the than getting stuck into extra of the Old Flete Carmelite Friars America’s Secret Drone Wars history and technology. It is primary sources that would throw and an inn where the clientele Chris Woods not news that the US carries them into relief. The author is include 18th- and 19th-century Oxford University Press USA 2015 out airstrikes which it does not open-minded enough to realise highwaymen and adventurers Hb, 416pp, appx, gloss, bib, ind, $27.95, ISBN 9780190202590 acknowledge. Operation Menu in how much there is left to know, and early 17th-century Cavaliers; FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £18.00 1969–70 killed tens of thousands though, and his numerous Michael is introduced to Captain in Cambodia. Compared to this, questions should galvanise a new Turpin, Colonel Cody and Prince The subtitle suggests revelations the whole drone war is small army of graffiti detectives. Rupert. And he meets the feisty about black operations, new potatoes. Equally, the CIA’s The author’s strength is in the Moll Midnight, with violet eyes technologies and covert wars away programme of covert, deniable standard pipe-rolls-and-parish- and red-gold curls. Over the from the media. But drone wars operations over the Soviet Union, register school of research that coming years he helps hold up the are not secret: they have been China and elsewhere has been brings up specific names and Hackney Mail tram, is involved in splashed all over the headlines for well documented. You would have places. However, he ignores several fights with Protectorate the last 14 years or so. to be naïve indeed to be shocked alternative sources, and this thugs – and takes part in a plot to The US military have been or even surprised. text-reliant approach lacks rescue Charles I from the scaffold. carrying out drone strikes Before drones, cruise missiles roundedness. He stands on the And he falls in love with Molly. since 2001 in , Afghanistan, were the hands-off weapon of shoulders of many researchers, The pain throughout this book Pakistan, the Yemen and Somalia. choice and the shift is one of so the lack of footnotes or even is the tension between Michael’s The aircraft involved are technology, not policy. Woods does a bibliography is inexcusable. life with Helena and their young Predators and Reapers, operated not seem to be aware of drone Pritchard’s English Medieval children, and his relationship remotely from Creech Air Force operations in WWII, Korea and Graffiti has many more than the with Molly in the Alsacia – or base in Nevada by the USAF and Vietnam and why the military 40-odd images here, and is better perhaps between Law and Chaos CIA. Casualty figures are widely were so hostile to them. More presented and cited. At least most in this ultimate multiverse. All reported on various websites, importantly, he does see how of Champion’s are in colour. autobiographies are fictionalised; and while the exact mix of the changes in technology have Jerry Glover all fictions contain truth. Whether civilians and militants/insurgents/ enabled the drone revolution and Molly and the Alsacia represent terrorists is disputed, there is continue to drive it forward. Fortean Times Verdict real people and events in broad agreement on the scale Crucially, looking forward, ACADEMICALLy, THE ROAD LESS Moorcock’s early life or his inner, of operation and the thousands Woods’s concern is that others TRAVELLED… BuT NO BIB INFO? 7 creative being, this beautifully killed and injured. may emulate the US approach The Whispering written work is one of the most This means that all Chris of drone strikes of questionable honest stories imaginable. Woods can do in this book is fill legality. He does not look at the Swarm David V Barrett in details. As an investigative advance of drone technology, Michael Moorcock

journalist and BBC Panorama which suggests the emergence of Gollancz 2013 Fortean Times Verdict producer, he does an excellent job a generation of killing machines Hb, 480pp, £25.00, ISBN 9781473213326 ASTONISHING, BELIEVABLE WORK of recording the minutiæ of drone more lethal than the current FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £20.00 OF BIOGRAPHICAL FICTION 10 warfare. He has spoken to a huge models, and which will enable a The Whispering Swarm number of people, most of them far more effective policy of “death is Michael Moorcock’s Tales of The with the US military, and gives a from above”. first major book in Marvellous and good account of the effort it takes Sudden Justice is interesting as almost a decade – News of the to keep a drone in the air, the a history of the first decade of but is it a novel or back offices filled with imagery targeted killings. But such a live autobiography? The Strange intelligence analysts, as well as issue deserves a more forward- narrator is a young Londoner Trans: Malcom C Lyons

the military lawyers on hand to looking analysis to help us called Michael Moorcock, who Penguin Classics 2014 advice the operator who actually is writing stories and articles Hb, 447pp, £10.99, ISBN 9780141395036 presses the button to launch Fortean Times Verdict and editing magazines in the FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £9.89 Hellfire missiles. THOSE SECRET DRONE WARS? NOT 1960s, eventually taking over the What makes these 18 stories of Ironically enough, Woods’s MuCH OF A SECRET, IN TRuTH 5 highly influential New Worlds. fantasy and adventure – newly

62 FT332 www.forteantimes.com reviews BOOKS

translated by Malcom C Lyons, a life fellow at Breeding pre-history Pembroke College, Cambridge, from Reintroducing extinct species is doable (if you’re not aiming for “a single, ragged manuscript in a Jurassic Park), but which ones and how similar to the original? library in Istanbul” – remarkable is that they are over 1,000 years old; six of them were included in How to Clone a Mammoth. recently deceased donor were the more famous Thousand and The complexity of de-extinction used – an individual’s cells had One Nights around half a century goes back to the selection of the been banked when it was known later, but the remaining 12 are species to bring back: carnivore or that the organism was down new to the Western world. herbivore? Big or small? Naturally to its last few specimens. The All life is here: romance and extinct or killed by humans? One resulting creature lived less than betrayal, faith and ambition, that has an ecosystem to which 10 minutes because of problems loyalty and comedy, endurance it can be returned or one that similar to those that shortened and reversals of fortune; the needs it to be re-created? Then Dolly’s life. thrill of adventure and the shock How to Clone a there’s the question of whether Shapiro makes it clear that of monsters and Fate. the genome can be extracted whatever science we are capable We have wizards and djinn, Mammoth intact from preserved specimens of, de-extinction by cloning sword-wielding statues and The Science of De-Extinction or enough bits found for one faces some major obstacles. She people transformed into animals, Beth Shapiro to be stitched together – and if explores other paths, though. along with human protagonists so, is this close enough to the Could we breed our way back? Princeton University Press 2015 who feel love, lust, hate, greed, Hb, 220p, notes, ind, £16.95, ISBN 978069115705-4 original? Mammoths look like By selectively breeding close envy, fear and wonder as we FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £15.25 good candidates; there is a decent relatives for features that make would. chance of getting good DNA from offspring most like the lost Robert Irwin, author of the The big thing in cutting-edge intact specimens preserved in the creature, could we come up with Penguin Anthology of Classical conservation is re-wilding – permafrost of Siberia. Thylacines something almost identical? It Arabian Literature and The Middle returning animals hunted to – assuming they are extinct – are takes time, but is possible; the East in the Middle Ages, gives extinction to those environments less promising: their remains are Nazis did this to recreate Aurochs, an excellent overview of their they were once part of. Beavers mainly preserved in alcohol or the primæval cattle of the history, context and content in have been returned to Scotland as chemically treated taxidermy German Wald, resulting in a large, the detailed introduction. and Devon, to Sussex specimens, and neither method is mean and unmanageable cow that The stories seem remarkably and wolves to Yellowstone Park, great for DNA. closely resembles Aurochs. There’s fresh, bound neither by Christian with more re-wildings planned. DNA needs to be kept free of been some success in returning morality nor familiar folklore The next big thing, however, contamination, which is not as ancient chicken breeds this way, tropes. Their convoluted plots, may be de-extinction – returning easy as it sounds. You need to get but they are merely lookalikes. stories within stories, Sinbad-like extinct creatures to life if not, your DNA into the egg cell of a Shapiro asks how authentic episodic adventures, and titles perhaps, nature. All very Jurassic related species, and get that cell do de-extinct creatures need such as ‘The story of Six Men: Park, but less ambitious: scientists dividing as if it were an egg. This to be: would a hairy elephant the Hunchback, the One-eyed, are aiming for thylacines, is how we got Dolly the sheep, satisfy those who want to return the Blind, the Crippled, the Man mammoths and great auks rather so we know it works – for sheep. Mammoths or would it really whose lips had been cut off, and than dinosaurs. Dinosaur blood Every species is different: this need that similarity right down to the Seller of glassware’ remind from insects in amber (as in process works for some but not for the genetic level? me of the late Steve Moore’s Tales Jurassic Park) is too old to retrieve, others. Dolly was the only one of None of these questions is of Telguuth. and amber destroys DNA captured 277 embryos that made it through simple to answer, but Shapiro has Irwin suggest these tales within it. However, museums to birth and she died prematurely done an excellent job in asking should be classed as literature; have preserved specimens of because of problems originating them. they were clearly not of the genre more recent creatures from in the cloning. For the one de- Ian Simmons that is told in the marketplace, which reasonably intact DNA extinction of an extinct animal but carefully crafted for the could be extracted to reconstruct to have produced a live result Fortean Times Verdict entertainment of the educated. their genome. This could then (that of the Burcado or Spanish FINE GuIDE TO DE-ExTINCTION The collection opens a welcome be inserted into the egg cells Ibex), good-quality cells from a (BuT OF WHICH SPECIES?) 9 window into the mediæval Arabic of closely-related species and world, untainted by modern brought to term in a surrogate views. mother. To order any of these titles – or any other book in print – contact the While not explicitly fortean, The science for most of this the anthology is perfectly is proven: it’s essentially work FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP enchanting, being full of “Strange pioneered in stem cell research and Marvellous Things”. and cloning, so technically there Telephone: 08430600031 Fax: 01326 569555 Email: [email protected] Bob Rickard is no obstacle to raising this kind Address: Fortean Times Bookshop, PO Box 60, Helston TR13 0TP. of dead. However, there is a gap We accept all major credit and debit cards including Switch & Amex. Cheques or postal Fortean Times Verdict between it being technically and orders should be made payable to the FT Bookshop. Delivery is 7–10 days, subject to MAyBE NOT FORTEAN, BuT practically possible, and it is this availability. Postage & packing is free within the uK. DEFINITELy FuLL OF MARVELS 10 gap that Beth Shapiro explores in

FT332 63 www.forteantimes.com reviews BOOKS

The Hoarders Brewing up a storm Material Deviance in Modern American Culture Scott Herring

The Burned-Over District, a hotbed of new religious and University of Chicago Press 2014 spiritualist movements, was so much stranger than we thought Pb, 185pp, illus, notes, ind, £17.50, ISBN 9780171715 FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £15.75 Dante put hoarders in founders so often found willing of visiting archangels. Handsome the forth circle of Hell, investors and enthusiastic Lake, a Native American, was but these were people followers while sometimes visited by Jesus. They compared who accumulated preaching both earthly utopia and notes, and Christ gave his money rather than Armageddon. work a thumbs-up. Long before trash. During the 18th Upstate Cauldron is both Edgar Cayce, New York State and 19th centuries, unrestrained academically solid and wildly seers were relating prophecy collectors were regarded as entertaining. Much of its story and other visions while asleep; entertaining eccentrics. Then in upstate Cauldron has been told before, but in rare, those blessed with such talent 1947, Homer Collyer was found separate documents. Besides sometimes damned the attention dead amid more than 100 tons of Eccentric Spiritual Movements in being a dogged researcher, and sought medical help. Rachel stuff – a sort of deranged ‘Wonder Early New york State Godwin has the true fortean’s Baker was apparently cured by Cabinet’ – in his run-down Harlem Joscelyn Godwin appreciation of what the believers dashes of cold water and doses brownstone. Days later, the rotting State University of New York Press 2015 thought were each invented of camphor. Also opium. Joseph body of his brother Langley was Pb, 386pp, illus, notes, bib, ind, $29.95, ISBN 9781438455945 religion’s ‘logic’, its rewards and Smith, Sr, had a seeing-stone (see discovered nearby, buried alive by FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £19.35 nuances. Followers’ desires are page 8) that helped him translate fallen newspapers. Here in the United States, we’re shown to be universal; besides lost languages and find buried Social workers and psychiatrists familiar with the areas that Theosophy, Godwin sometimes treasures long before his son, have regarded hoarding as a serve as our loci for bizarre and contrasts them with Platonism, Joseph, Jr, dug up, ‘hefted’ and threat to social order and public inexplicable events: Area 51, Neo-Platanism and more. The read the golden plates that led health, a “psychopathology of the Winchester Mystery House, author provides a sympathetic to the creation of the Mormons. object relations” – but Scott Roswell and, increasingly, view while maintaining a The Fox Sisters are only touched Herring asserts: “There is no Congress. We thought we were delicately wry voice, and provides upon, but the founders of modern natural relation to our objects”. familiar with the Burned-Over so much context that the Burned- Spiritualism are placed within The Diagnostic and Statistical District, that part of central and Over District’s creation becomes a sequence of wider social Manual of Mental Disorders (2013) western New York State that, not only explicable but inevitable. movements that included anti- pathologised clutter addicts as beginning two decades before the It’s difficult for us today to slavery activism and the rising victims of “hoarding disorder”. Civil War, was a hotbed of raging appreciate early Americans’ women’s suffrage movement. One psychologist even asserted: religious fervour. (Its nickname mindset. As Godwin points out, These are only a few in the “Something at chromosome came later, when an observer “Those with the gumption to gallery of remarkable and 14 may be associated with declared that the fiery evangelical set out for virgin territory and remarkably charismatic characters hoarding”. Herring turns his movements had been so fierce carve a livelihood out of its given the spotlight by the suitably spotlight, not on the ‘disorder’, that no spiritual fuel was left.) natural riches were unbound by named author, Godwin. Upstate but on those who have defined The region served as cradle to authority or creation [..] They Cauldron is a charming account of it. His book “is not a defence new socio-religious movements were building a civilisation a strange period in America’s past. of hoarding but an attempt to including the Shakers, Millerism, from the ground up, and along Unfortunately, though its subjects understand what made possible Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons with that endeavour came a sometimes appear whimsical, and the condition of defending or and modern spiritualism. But freedom in the construction even laughable, the book may also condemning hoarding in the in Upstate Cauldron, Joscelyn of their mental worlds.” This be viewed as cautionary. Many of first place.” Spotlighting the Godwin reveals a landscape and wasn’t just a macho frontier the movements and their founding Collyers, Andy Warhol and Jackie a people whose philosophical myth that colonists and their leaders had darker strains, Kennedy’s cousins, Big and Little horizons were broader, deeper descendents told themselves. and much of the Burned-Over Edie Beale, the book examines and, well… goofier. Again and “We heirs to the Enlightenment District’s impetus is still with us, how fears of urban disorder, again, from 1776 to 1914, self- [..] can only imagine the terror of wearing different garments, still poor housekeeping and the declared prophets on the edge of spending eternity in physical and ignorant of the Enlightenment. infirmities of old age canew sk our the American wilderness received mental agony, whether through But most of all, this book is perspective. tokens of their deliverance, and deficiency of faith or through just plain fun. Godwin has the Anthropologist Mary Douglas set out to create newer, truer New God’s all-powerful whim.” And poet’s pen which, as Shakespeare defined dirt as “matter out of Testaments – or alternatively what about loved ones? “Were observed, turns “the forms of place”. Herring tells us that “the started from scratch with they already roasting in hell?” things unknown” into “shapes hoarder’s material deviance is revelations delivered straight Many of the self-styled and gives to airy nothing a local best viewed as a moral panic over from ghosts, God, intellect or prophets will be unfamiliar even habituation and a name.” stuff”. libido; ‘free sex’ – especially to American forteans. Jemima Jay Rath Paul Sieveking with the leaders – was a common Wilkinson, ‘the Universal Friend’, theme. A few found hypnotism believed herself reborn – literally; Fortean Times Verdict Fortean Times Verdict and ‘magnetism’ helpful, as her corpse was reanimated by an WHO KNEW FOuNDING A RELIGION THOuGHT-PROVOKING BuT well. It is fascinating that many hermaphroditic being, courtesy COuLD BE SO MuCH FuN? 9 MARRED By ACADEMESE 7

64 FT332 www.forteantimes.com reviews BookS

We leaf through a selection of ALSo RECEIVED recent fortean books...

Unidentified by many as a visionary saint and one of the The UFo Phenomenon most influential mystics of the 19th century, who was also a teacher and companion to Robert Salas the 13th Dalai Lama. New Page Books 2015 Pb, 238pp, illus, bib, ind, $15.99, ISBN 9781601633422 This book presents, for the first time in English, a detailed study of the life and Salas – a retired missile engineer and USAF teachings of Tertön Sogyal. Of interest here officer – takes issue with the statement – besides an extraordinarily robust made by the USAF in 1969 that “No UFO mysticism that accommodates reincarna- investigated and evaluated by the Air Force tion, visions, prophecies and ‘spirit-entities’ was ever an indication of threat to our that personify either emanations of Buddhas national security” and has confronted the of or subjugated demons – is Pistano’s problem of ‘official secrecy’ at every oppor- portrait of the Tertön’s yogic training, endur- tunity. Here, he sets out a very detailed case ance and antique discoveries. In Tibetan and, along the way, his own UFO experience tradition, the title tertön is bestowed upon in 1967 leads into his reasons for believing those who discover termas, ‘treasures’ – that a ‘UFO Cabal’ exists at the highest which may be texts, ritual objects, relics or level of the Air Force. However, he also long-hidden teachings, etc – believed to have conflates what was personal and local into a been concealed by the Padmasambahva – conspiracy that spans governments of other the Indian guru who promoted Buddhism in countries. It is a very sober yet heartfelt nar- Tibet in the eighth century – until the time rative which mitigates against the temptation was right for their revelation. Fearless in to dismiss it without due consideration. Tibet also records the historic meeting of the two present-day ‘simultaneous’ incarna- our Holographic World tions of Tertön Sogyal, one of whom, Sogyal The Shocking Truth about Time and Reality Rinpoche, provides the book’s introduction. Given all that weight and solemnity, Pistono’s Anthony Milne writing gallops along and enlightens as it Empiricus Books 2014 Pb, 355pp, notes, ind, £10.95, ISBN 9781857568271 entertains.

Curiously subtitled ‘The Shocking Truth Walking Among Us about Time and Reality’, this is yet another David M Jacobs take on the argument that ‘reality’ – referred Red Wheel Weiser 2015 to in the blurb rather simplistically as Pb, 287pp, notes, ind, $21.95, ISBN 9781938875144 ‘the Universe’ – seems more like a super hologram. That said, Milne writes clearly Anyone who has read Dr Jacobs’s previous and makes some interesting correlations books – particularly Intruders (1987), Secret between the many different experiences of Life (1992) and The Threat (1998) – knows time as related in accounts of NDEs, OOBEs, his sincere commitment to the idea that reincarnation, ESP, prophecy, déjà vu, earthlings are being abducted by aliens dreams, etc. His own assessment of how and subjected to medical investigation and different branches of science deal with them genetic manipulation. – whether any common ground can be found This book takes his thesis a step further, – is well thought-out, making it a useful concluding: “The abduction evidence has survey and introduction for any newcomer to forced me to evolve into a fearful investiga- these subjects. tor. I have uncovered the alien reality, as much as I dislike it.” In Threat, he detected Fearless in Tibet changes in alien abduction patterns, sug- Matteo Pistono gesting here that by now untold numbers of Hay House, 2014 human-alien ‘hybrids’ are walking among us. Pb, 351pp, ind, refs, glossary, notes, $17.95, ISBN 9781401941468 Apparently, one abductee was told: “Soon we will all be together. Soon everyone will Pistono’s previous book – an account of his be happy and everyone will know his place.” decade-long journey through present day This chilling prediction about the alien plan Tibet – was praised by the Dalai Lama for its to control humanity is exposed here, based descriptions of the social and religious life on 13 interviews with abduction claimants. of modern Tibetans. Pistano says that it also Those who will dismiss this as whacky will brought him, by stages, to an awareness of ignore it, but Jacobs is writing for believers the importance of Tertön Sogyal, regarded … and there are a lot of them out there. reviews FILM & DVD

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The Messenger young widow Sarah (Tamsin Mer- absent mother; in and out of care; this year. It’s a part that requires chant) how much he loved her and treated as a weirdo by the locals. the emotional vulnerability of Dir David Blair UK 2015 On UK release from 25 September that he didn’t commit suicide but He drinks heavily, and sells his someone like Ben Whishaw and was murdered. prescription medication to the the hard-nosed attitude of a Chris- The publicity would have you We see Jack struggle to come to junkie downstairs. It’s made plain topher Eccleston (these are two believe The Messenger is a super- terms with the ‘gift’ that is wreck- that the world does not want or actors I admire tremendously, so natural horror thriller along the ing his life and, because of his value him, which is ironic since when I say that on the strength of same lines as The Sixth Sense. Aside kindness of heart, the compulsion the netherworld clearly does.This this performance Robert Sheehan from the shared conceit of cen- he feels to help. His problems have contrast between the supernatural is potentially right up there with tral characters who can see dead driven him apart from his family; and the mundane is what makes the them, I mean he is seriously good). people, the two films couldn’t be the only person in his life – the only film work: I imagine it’s what a Ken It’s because Sheehan is so good that more different.This isn’t a cheapo living one, at any rate – is his sister Loach ghost story would be like. you care about Jack, and that is British knock-off but a high-quality Emma (Lily Cole) who feels guilty Director David Blair evidently crucial to a film like this in which piece of cinema masquerading as a about the life of luxury she leads has a very good eye, because the the narrative and emotional weight genre movie. thanks to her high-profile lawyer film looks absolutely stunning – not is carried almost entirely by one The central character is Jack husband Martin. Coincidentally, an easy trick to pull off when your character. (Robert Sheehan), a disturbed Martin happens to be representing film is largely shot under railway If I have one gripe it’s that, as young man on the fringes of society Mark’s widow Sarah throughout the bridges and in grotty bedsits and in so many films, the depiction of who sees the ghosts of recently police investigation, which is led by back alleys. He is able to pick out mental health care in this country deceased people – specifically no-nonsense Glaswegian copper (is the visual details which say more seems out of sync with the real- those who have suffered sudden or there any other kind?) DCI Keane. than two pages of dialogue could: ity. The mental health facilities in traumatic deaths and who want to As the film progresses you begin Jack walking home carrying his movies are always spotlessly clean, use him as a messenger to contact increasingly to wonder whether takeaway polystyrene tray; a curled modern and clearly well-resourced, the loved ones they left behind. He Jack’s clearly disturbed mind is a up strip of medical tablets, all whereas anyone who has ever finds himself turning up at funer- product of his visions or the source popped out of the foil.The subject been unfortunate enough to have als trying to pass on words from of them. He takes endless walks in matter is perhaps more naturally needed such care will tell you that beyond the grave to grieving rela- lonely places, engaging in imagined suited to a TV drama than the big the reality is quite different. But tives, and often getting a kicking conversations with a psychiatrist screen, so it’s to Blair’s credit that that’s nitpicking.Thanks to skilful for his troubles. (Joely Richardson), never achiev- he’s made of it a properly cinematic direction and one truly outstanding As Jack says scornfully to the ing resolution. It is here that the experience. performance, The Messenger is a spirit of a man called Mark (Jack film begins to turn away from More than that, though, he knows gripping, insightful and profoundly Fox): “An accident maybe? Which the supernatural stuff and move how to draw performances from moving film. means you weren’t expecting it.You towards psychological drama and, his actors and this, above all else, is Daniel King have unfinished business; stop me consequently, where it starts to get why you should see the film. Robert if I’m getting any of this wrong.” even better. Sheehan’s performance as Jack is The trouble is, these ghosts won’t We begin to learn more about the best I’ve seen in a British film Fortean Times Verdict leave him alone until he agrees to Jack’s childhood: growing up this year; in fact, it’s the best per- hIgh quaLIty brItIsh help. Mark is desperate to tell his without a father and with a largely formance I have seen in any film psychoLogIcaL thrILLer 8

66 FT332 www.forteantimes.com reviews FILM & DVD

Infini Dir Shane Abbess, Australia 2015 On UK release from 18 Sept (DVD from 21 Sept) The Reverend’s Review Set in a dystopian future in which overpopulation has created a FT’s resident man of the cloth reVerenD peter LaWs dons world where good living is expen- his dog collar and faces the flicks that Church forgot! sive and the masses are poor, Infini (www.theflicksthatchurchforgot.com; @revpeterlaws) revolves around Whit Carmichael (Daniel MacPherson), who wants a better life for himself, his wife VIDEoDroME new, and finds it when he stum- and the baby she’s carrying.To Dir David Cronenberg, Canada 1983 bles across a mysterious pirate that end, he accepts a dangerous Arrow Video, £29.99 (Dual Format) broadcast called Videodrome, job using ‘Slipstream’ technology in which people are tortured to travel to a distant off-world Videodrome was first released in and killed in a room made of mining colony whose inhabitants 1983. I was eight and a half and red clay. It’s like the boiled-down have gone insane and murdered old enough to know the word essence of much of today’s real- one other. Although offering ‘video’ had become a pop cul- ity TV. Yet the more Max watches instant travel across light years, ture signifier of the future. Along it, the more confused he is Slipstream is risky and involves a with satellite TV and home com- about the real world. Biology time differential where one hour puters, it signalled the dawn of a and mechanics start switching of Earth time equals seven days in new communications era. Some places. TVs and Betamax tapes space.When Whit fails to return at people welcomed it, while oth- breath and pulsate with veins, the appointed time, an eight-man er’s saw the beginnings of moral while Max’s stomach mutates rescue squad is sent to find out collapse. The Video Nasties into a vulva-like slit turning him prescient stuff: “Television is what happened; on arriving at the panic of the early 1980s, for into a human VCR. Sounds reality… and reality is less than Infini colony they start to succumb example, hinged on technology hokey? It’s not. It’s a stunning, television”. Sensing the film’s to an alien organism that is slowly as much as morality. Consumers disturbing parable of how the importance, Arrow Video show taking over humans. suddenly had the power to media shapes us into who we stellar care with this Blu-Ray, The film has its strengths: Carl watch and rewatch things in are – or rather who we think we jam-packed with fascinating Robertson’s cinematography is secret, and they could even… are. extras and in a crisp transfer. solid (lens flares that JJ Abrams heaven forfend… pause! It was Critics enjoyed Videodrome There’s even a second disc of would envy), George Liddel’s into this cultural climate that but it tanked at the box office. the director’s early films which, production design is good (though horror titan David Cronenberg Mainstream folk hated the sick at nearly three hours, could nothing we haven’t seen before), unleashed his own take on the surrealism and others accused it easily have been a standalone and the ensemble cast seems to tech revolution: Videodrome, of incoherent pretension, yet the release. Essential. relish every minute playing char- which somehow manages to film found its real life in its most (For a more in-depth review of acters on the verge of insanity. But capture both the excitement of fitting context: home video. Thirty this release, visit the Reverend’s is it enough? Probably not; Alien the home video age and the years on and it’s a deserved YouTube channel ‘The Flicks That 3 syndrome kicks in as a group of twitchy dread it stirred. movie classic with a chilling Church Forgot’: www.youtube. characters, all similarly dressed James Woods is Max Renn, prophetic edge. The Marshall com/watch?v=zIcYAM7SmBY) and barely developed, start to die a jaded cable TV boss who’s McLuhan-like Dr Brian Oblivion (a one by one and we don’t really bored with the soft porn offer- character who only appears on Fortean Times Verdict care.The Slipstream idea, which ings his channel puts out. He’s television, and only on a televi- cronenberg eMbraces the ultimately ends up being a plot looking for something edgy and sion) frequently spouts spookily neW FLesh oF the VIDeo age 9 device to hold the characters in one place awaiting their retrieval seven days later, is an interesting one, well presented visually but never fully exploited. And the set-up of a super-rich elite and a mass population of paupers – given that this is a science fiction movie – could surely have been better explored as a comment on our own austere times.Tack on the ambiguous ending which leaves us with more questions than answers and we have a film that, no matter how much you want to enjoy it, consistently falls just short of delivering. Mark McConnell Fortean Times Verdict DystopIan nIghtMare treaDs FaMILIar grounD 5

FT332 67 www.forteantimes.com reviews FILM & DVD

The Day the Earth Janet Munro (later married to origi- Caught Fire nal Avengers actor Ian Hendry), a shorTs Dir Val Guest, UK 1961 prolific actress who died 11 years BFI, £9.99 DVD, £12.99 (Blu-ray) later, aged just 38. The film is a time-warp; 1961 is the hounD oF the baskerVILLes If you’ve never seen The Day the more than half a century ago! It’s Arrow Video, £12.99 (Blu-ray) Earth Caught Fire – or if you have, monochrome, with the opening and long ago – this DVD is an absolute closing scenes tinted with a disturb- There’s a sadness in watching Hammer films now, must. ing yellow light. It takes a while to knowing that their two brightest stars, Cushing and Lee, have finally blinked out. How fortunate then, that Simultaneous nuclear tests by acclimatise to the acting style and they still speak, laugh and scream in so many living America and Russia cause a change accents, perhaps especially Janet rooms. Here, the two icons are both on the side of in the tilt of the Earth’s axis, result- Munro’s perfectly modulated voice, good for a change, battling the spectral hound that ing in extreme weather and, as the and the easy sexism of Stenning and roams the moors. Hammer ramps up the Gothic ele- story develops, the possible end of others may shock today’s sensibili- ments, throwing in a little extra horror for good measure: I’m pretty mankind.The extent of the disaster ties – although Jeannie is more than sure there were no tarantulas in Doyle’s original story. When the dog from its cause is perhaps overdone; a match for it, a far stronger female finally turns up, it’s a disappointment, as the interviewees on the director and co-writerVal Guest role than in most films of the time. extras freely admit. The dog’s trainer was none other than Barbara (Expresso Bongo, Quatermass 2 and What else is different? Well, in Woodhouse, which makes the Reverend wonder why they didn’t much else) sent a copy of the screen- 1961 the Daily Express was still a just let her leap out of the shadows instead: viewers over 40 might play – which later won a BAFTA real newspaper. All the papers are remember how scary she was. rev pL 8/10 – to the then science editor of the broadsheets, and stories are writ- Express, Chapman Pincher, who said ten on heavy desk typewriters. But quaterMass it was a “riveting story but bloody some things haven’t changed much: balls”. journalists are cynical, politicians Network, £14.99 (DVD). £19.99 (Blu-ray) Much of the action is set in the are unbelievable, then as now. As John Mills twiddles his farmer’s sideburns as he newsroom of the Daily Express, all the crisis comes to a climax, the searches the south of England for his granddaugh- the more realistic for it being mod- prime minister broadcasts blandly ter, while trying to figure out why space stations are elled in detail on the genuine article on the radio: “I ask you now to face imploding and the youth have gone all hippy, marching and for the editor being played by the future calmly and constructively, expectantly to stone circles like Ringstone Round. Arthur Christiansen, who had once remembering that here in Britain Along the way, he fights urban gangs, hangs out in filled the role in real life; the news at least, the weather is something an underground trash village made up of pensioners editor is played by journalist Ber- we are used to coping with.” In con- from EastEnders, and witnesses near Armageddon at nard Braden, who later fronted the trast, Leo McKern’s Bill McGuirte Wembley Stadium. Production company Euston Films were certainly consumer programme Braden’s Week, lambasts “the stupid, crazy, irre- not short on ambition when they made this four-part TV series for on which a certain Esther Rantzen sponsible bastards” who caused the Thames Television. The results might not be as solid as the previous was a researcher... disaster. Quatermass outings, but boy, is it good, bleak fun. rev pL 8/10 The story crackles with energy, Unusually there is very little inci- both in the newsroom, as journalists dental music in the film; the quality statIons oF the cross battle with deadlines and reluc- of the acting and the ever-worsening Arrow Films, £10.99 (DVD), £12.99 (Blu-ray) tant sources, and on the streets of weather provide sufficient dramatic Maria (Lea van Acken) is a young girl being brought London, as the weather becomes tension. But music would also have up in the Society of St Paul who struggles to maintain more and more unpredictable: heat conflicted with the documentary the exacting standards demanded of her by her waves, thick ground fog, floods, hur- style of filming, which includes foot- faith and her aggressively devout mother (Franziska ricanes, fires, the Thames drying up age of a real CND march as well as Weisz). This ‘Society’ is a thinly disguised version – all superbly done with a mixture of people queuing for water in London of the Society of St Pius X, a group that rejects the paintings, models and stock footage, parks. modernisations of Vatican II and now exists outside long before the days of CGI.The ten- The DVD is bulging with extras, of the Catholic Church. It is, to put it mildly, conservative in outlook. sion builds inexorably. including a 34-minute appraisal of Maria and her friends are indoctrinated to believe that they are Of the three lead characters, only the film by several critics and a nine- religious warriors, that the modern world is evil, that their way is not one went on to greater things.The minute interview with Leo McKern just the best way but the only way, that sacrifices are a necessity science editor Bill McGuire is bril- in what must have been one of his and that ascending to Heaven is the ultimate goal of life. Director liantly played by Leo McKern, long last appearances before his death Dietrich Brügermann is inviting us to consider the parallels with the before his days as Rumpole, and in 2002. More disturbing are three radicalisation of some young Muslims: the problem is not religion even before his iconic Number 2 in official films about nuclear weapons per se, but extremism. There are plenty of religious characters in The Prisoner. But although Edward and war – from 1952, 1956 and 1962 the film and the vast majority of them are decent, humane people; Judd, as the hard-drinking, divorced, – which are far more frank about the rest are extremists who have perverted religious devotion into a failing journalist Peter Stenning, their consequences than would death cult. As it moves slowly towards its inevitable conclusion, the continued in acting for some years, happen today. There’s also a chunky film is divided into 14 tableaux to mirror the 14 Stations of the Cross, he’s now remembered mainly for a booklet with several fascinating Jesus’s journey to his place of crucifixion. I use the word tableaux very short public information road essays. advisedly because each segment consists of one take with no edits and virtually no camera movement. As a piece of film-making, it is safety film, “Think once.Think David V Barrett remarkable and the demands placed on the cast must have been twice.Think bike!” Stenning’s love enormous. An uneasy watch that provokes a sense of despairing interest, Jeannie, who leaks the Fortean Times Verdict anger at the human cost of all this dogma. Daniel king 7/ 10 story of the Earth’s tilt to him, is one oF the best DIsaster 10 played by the delightfully gamine MoVIes eVer MaDe

68 FT332 www.forteantimes.com

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Spectral dog-haters resumed. I began counting elec- trocutions to distract myself. After Regarding the claimed Scottish fi ve, the bivouac stank of burning, bridge ‘haunting’ allegedly fatal and the scorched, rubber musk to dogs [FT331:22], Scotland of humans who expected to die has traditions of both haunted at any second. On the sixth, the bridges and ghosts showing a charge ripping through my body dislike of dogs. Elliot O’ Don- was so strong that I passed out.” nell in his Ghosts With A Purpose The last three hits came as they (1952) states: “Bridges in Scotland were abseiling across towards a would seem to be not infrequently hut shelter, but they fi nally made haunted”, including one at Ault- it. Seven more parties had to grande, Cromarty Firth, where be rescued by helicopter, a man humans sense someone trying to was killed by lightning at the push them into the water, particu- Chamonix cable car station, and larly on Christmas Eve (p103). three more died in the mountains O’Donnell also states (p145): “In Simulacra corner nearby. But Roy Sullivan’s record Tiree, Mull and Iona the ghostly had been well and truly shattered. inhabitants of caves are credited Amanda Day noticed this elephant lurking by the Thames at Twickenham. About 80 per cent of people with a great antipathy to dogs. It We are always glad to receive pictures of spontaneous forms and fi gures, struck by lightning survive. The is said that they lure them into or any curious images. Send them to the PO box above (with a stamped ad- most famous case was Lee Trevi- caves, in order to frighten them to dressed envelope or international reply coupon) or to sieveking@forteanti- no, struck along with two fellow death.” mes.com – and please tell us your postal address. professional golfers, who quipped Alan Murdie later: “Always carry a one iron. Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Even God can’t hit a one iron.” Blood transfusions helped allay mountaineers in July 1995. Hugo The record for the largest num- Mystery epidemics the symptoms but did not cure Glover, Ruaridh Pringle, and three ber of people killed by one bolt the disease. In 2014 New Scientist Japanese climbers named Go, is 21 in 1975, at Umtali in what is I was very interested to read magazine reported that no cause Hiro and Ozakiwere trapped in a now Zimbabwe, although larger ‘Sleepy Hollow’, your report on or cure for the disease has been crevice on the slopes of the Petit losses of life have resulted from the village of Kalachi in Kazakh- found. Dru in the Alps when they were lighting causing plane crashes stan [FT329:10-11]. Kalachi is In 1965 the English town of hit by the worst storm in the area and explosions.The most famous not the fi rst place to suffer from Epping suffered an outbreak of for 27 years. Lightning attracted deaths were two Thai women a mysterious recurring illness jaundice that puzzled health of- to the crevice struck them in their killed in Hyde Park in London by that seems to have no rational fi cials but was eventually tracked tent over and over again. a bolt that struck their under- cause. In the 1950s the authori- down to contaminated fl our. Then “Everything turned blinding wired bras. ties of the Bulgarian Ministry of there is the disease kuru, which white, and then the niche was full Trevor Hart Public Health and Social Welfare was found to be caused, not by of screaming – some of which I Woodbridge, Suffolk became aware of a mysterious sorcery as the Fore people of the realised came from disease called Balkan nethropa- New Guinea highlands thought, me,” Pringle wrote thy. In the country’s north-west but by the practice of ritual can- later for Reader’s foothills of the Balkan Mountains, nibalism and the eating of the Digest. “Then the small villages were suffering from brains of people suffering from niche detonated a statistically alarming outbreak the disease. It turned out to be a once more, and an of renal failure. form of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease. exploding sensa- When The Ghost Disease by It would be interesting to tion tore up from Michael Howell and Peter Ford read about any other instances the soles of my was published by Penguin Books of mysterious diseases confined feet, seeming to in 1986, there was still no known to particular areas and with no exit my back. I was cause. Diet, living conditions known cause. screaming again. and family medical histories Margaret Pitcher My right leg felt revealed only that it was confined Warramanga, Australian Capital like it was being to the area. If you grew up and Territory crushed. Others moved elsewhere you died from were also scream- the nethropathy; if your parents Lightning records ing. Pain faded to moved out of the area before you numbness; groans were born, you were healthy even Re Louis Proud’s “Human to brittle titters, though they might die.The most lightning rods” [FT330:30-35], and then the niche notable symptom was an ochre the record for lightning survival exploded in light colouring of the skin, particularly is actually an astonishing 20 hits once more, and

the hands and soles of the feet. in 16 hours, by a group of fi ve the screaming THE SURREAL MCCOY

FT332 73 www.forteantimes.com letters

Venerable yews many churchyard sites occupy pre-Christian burial grounds. It was interesting to read Steve The Church has no problem with Marshall’s impressively long this. St Augustine, in 597-601, article on ‘The Immortal Yew’ converted many pagan sites [FT330:36-43]. Unfortunately, to Christianity and in some much of the information given is instances the trees were already out of date. I find his sarcastic there. Bronze Age and Iron Age tone, as in his statement on people were well aware of the Ankerwycke that there was no cardinal points, and generally reason for King John to visit the speaking, Celtic people planted Ankerwycke yew for sealing the dating can sometimes be useful, the groups Ancient,Veteran and their yews on burial sites on the Magna Carta, as “he was there although they cannot accu- Notable” says: “We at least leave Sun’s path, east and west of the for politics, not dendrotourism” rately date hollow yews. Forestry open the possibility that some of mound.The reason many yews flippant and ill-informed. Most expert Reg Wheeler, late of our oldest yews might have been were planted on the south, next historians now agree that the Alice Holt Forestry Research growing in the Bronze Age”. to the porch, is because it was Ankerwycke site was the most Station, diligently checked ring All agree on the great age the Saxons, in the Christian era, logical for the agreement, at counts of several hundred old of yews. Age graphs of the yew who planted yews on the south the religious sanctuary of the yews and came to the conclu- by Toby Hindson, Andy Moir, side of the centre of the burial old Priory between Staines and sion that some would have to be Tabbush and White can be mound, where churches gener- Windsor. This would have been 2,000 years old. Alan Mitchell, found in The British Ecological ally are today. acceptable to both parties as a world-renowned ancient tree Society Journal of Ecology in Early laws (AD 400) forbade neutral meeting place. expert [see his article, “Tricks 2003. Dr David L Protheroe in people to worship at trees, Marshall states that “a glori- of the Trees” FT70:55 – Editor], “Calculation of theoretical age stones and water sources. ous history has been invented also came to the conclusion after of yews” scientifically worked However, although stones on for the Ankerwycke”. Certainly re-measuring many old yews out ages of yews, demonstrating sacred burial sites were moved the history is glorious, but not in Hampshire and Surrey, that some were over 2,000 years old. or broken up and wells filled in invented. “Runnymede,” accord- some of these could indeed be Tabbush and White have even or covered up, the public had ing to the definitive Concise Ox- 3,000 years old. gone as far as 5,000 years. Fred such regard for the trees that ford English Dictionary of Place Other tree experts such as Hageneder in Yew, a History the authorities did not pursue Names, “derives its name from Tabbush and White agree and (2007) shows a graph by Toby their destruction and later laws the old English ‘council island’ have produced graphs showing Hindson and Tabbush and White actually gave protection to the or ‘assembly’.” The Ankerwycke the ages can exceed 3,000 years. showing ages of over 3,000 years. old yews in the churchyards.The yew stands on an island in the Allen Meredith’s exponential Dendrochronologist Andy Moir earliest law for provision of pro- Thames. It needed to be on suf- curve for calculating the age of records a yew of 14ft (4.3m) in tection of trees on sacred sites is ficiently high ground, unlike the yews, far from being inaccurate girth in the north of England as the letter from Pope Gregory the area of the present Runnymede, as claimed by Marshall, largely being approximately 1,500 years Great in AD 597/601, instructing which would have been boggy conforms to those of other tree old. In terms of the 30ft (9m) Abbot Mellitus to tell Augustine and open to floods.The Thames experts and as quoted in The girth yews, the 14ft girth yew is “not to destroy the Fana [sacred has, over the years, changed Tree Register Handbook, which is just a youngster. Many old yews grove or sacred tree], only the course and part of its previous supported by Kew Gardens, “Al- have not increased their girth idols placed in them, so that the channel is still visible. At the len Meredith, whose estimates in over 200 years, such as Acton people will still come to these time of King John, before 1250, for the ages of churchyard yews Beauchamp (Worcestershire), familiar sites.” the island in the Thames upon are as well informed as anyone’s, Totteridge (Hertfordshire), Sometime later, under the which grows the ancient yew, has suggested as much as 5,000 Farningham (Kent), and dozens laws of Hywel Dda (Leges Walliæ next to the old Priory, was part years for those at Fortingall in of others. 262) in AD 950, yews dedicated of Runnymede. Perthshire, Discoed in Wales and It is, however, important to to Teilo and Dubricious were Jeremy Harte, much quoted in Llangernwy in Conwy.” understand that the girth of the protected. In fact under another Marshall’s article, was certainly There seems to be a general yew is not the most important law of Hywel Dda in the same sceptical about the ages of the consensus of expert opinion consideration when assessing document, people were pun- yew in the 1990s, but over the that yews can live for over 2,000 age, as old yews can lose girth. ished if they violated the sacred years has reviewed his ideas and years. Paul Tabbush and John The Aldworth yew over 350 years trees. Saint’s yews were consid- today says: “They are much older White of Alice Holt Forestry Re- ago was 27ft (8m) in girth up ered to be of a higher value than than we first thought”. search published their findings until 1976, when it was severely all other trees and there were Marshall says it is “extraor- in the Quarterly Journal of For- damaged by a storm.The tree appropriate fines for injuring dinarily difficult” to date yews estry in 1997. Dr Peter A Thomas, has been regularly measured, such a tree. In 1307, it was pro- accurately, which it is. Hollow researcher in Plant Ecology, Uni- each decade over the past 300 claimed Ne Rector prosternet ar- yews present many difficulties in versity of Keele, Professor Mi- years. It is now only 13ft (4m) in bores in Cemeteris (“The rector is ageing, and as Fred Hageneder chailV Pridnya (Socha, Russia) girth but still lives on.There are not allowed to destroy the trees rightly points out, yews can go who presented ‘Studies of Taxus many other examples of yews in the churchyard”) (Statute 35 through a period of dormancy baccata in the Caucasus Region’, with reduced girths. Old yews of Edward I’s laws, 1307.) (i.e. not producing annual rings). and Tim Hills of the Ancient Yew heal themselves and carry on. These early laws protecting Dendrochronology and carbon- Group in “The overlap of ages in It has long been known that trees, especially yews, have

74 FT332 www.forteantimes.com letters

Dadd and Capgras from a well-known children’s song: never been revoked, which begs boughs are perfectly intact and the question as to why there are growing, despite a much greater I was interested in DavidV Bar- Og mannen ville fra nissen flytte problems today in protecting number of people visiting the rett’s article on “poor mad Richard men reisen ble ham til ingen nytte, churchyard yews.The laws also site. (I last visited on 30 July Dadd” [FT330:20-21]. It is, of for høyt på vognlasset nissen lo: make nonsense of the certifi- 2015.) It is good to see that there course, correct to suppose that Jeg tror vi flytter i dag, vi to, cates that have recently flooded is a growing interest in ancient Dadd was suffering from “a form jeg tror vi flytter i dag, vi to. Welsh churches, dating yews to a trees such as the ancient Fortin- of schizophrenia” even though this mere 500 or 800 years of age. As gall yew, which has been treated disease was not described until This is a literal word-for-word shown in my book The God Tree with similar respect. the turn of the century. He had translation: (2012), there are more ancient Hindson has dated the Linton earlier believed that the Egyptian “And the man would from the yews in Wales than in any other yew to 4,000 years and yet he God Osiris has instructed him to nisse move, country in the world and there questions the 5,000 years I gave kill the Pope, but why did he stab but the journey became him to is a growing awareness of this to the old yew at Defynnog, as if his own father to death, and why no avail, fact amongst the Welsh, who such an idea were preposterous. did his insanity abate after his for high on the cartload the nisse are unhappy with the fact that Defynnog Parish Council in its confinement in an asylum? laughed: knowledge of the age of yews is pamphlet on the Defynnog yew These facts have led me to be- I think we’re moving today, we being undermined. says “Toby Hindson expresses lieve that Dadd was suffering from two, Archæologists have discov- reservations about the alleged Capgras Syndrome [FT123:14, I think we’re moving today, we ered evidence of Bronze Age age of the tree”. Other profes- 133:16, 145:17], again half a two.” burials and Roman artefacts sionals have not. Nonetheless, century before it was officially The nisse is the same entity as in churchyards and there are Hindson regards the Defynnog described by a French physician. the Swedish tomte and (obviously) quite a few examples of these yew to be of very ancient and The essence of the condition is Fischer’s ‘hob’ – one of the Little pre-Christian sites appropriated international significance and that you believe that someone People who is attached to a farm by the Church that have ancient states that “the best evidence familiar to you has been abducted and can be both benevolent and yews still growing on them. we have, official and unofficial, and replaced by an exact double malevolent.The word flytte means These include Corhampton, implies that the largest girth (a doppelgänger syndrome). ‘move’ and corresponds to the ‘flit- which has a Roman sarcopha- yew of the two halves that make Prior to murdering his father, ting’ in Fischer’s story. gus, Gresford (a Roman altar), up the Defynnog yew might have Richard Dadd described him to an The provenance of the song Uppington (Roman altar found begun growing during the Iron innkeeper as “the man who calls is unknown, but the words and under the yew), Darley Dale (Ro- Age, so it may quite possibly be himself my father”. music are sufficiently modern that man burial urn found), Llanilid over 2,000 years old.” Hindson Nick Warren I would guess they are no older (a Roman stone), and Claverly obviously has no problem with Pinner, Middlesex than the 19th century. It is – or (Roman site with Roman pre-Christian yews on church used to be – universally known to remains). Fortingall has a Neo- sites. German werewolves Norwegians, and the phrase nissen lithic cup and ring marked stone Before separating into two på lasset (the hob on the cartload) that was discovered 8ft (2.8m) parts, the Defynnog yew would The “Morbach Monster” is a stock comment on situations down, below the old yew; and the certainly not have measured [FT329:30-36] was not the first where someone unsuccessfully Defynnog stone carries Celtic 100ft (30m) in girth as suggested encounter of US troops with Ger- tries to get away from something carving, Roman writing and a by Hindson, and probably not man werewolves. Seabury Quinn’s undesirable: Neolithic cup mark. Alton Priory, even 50ft – but part of the tree short story “BonVoyage, Michele” – I hear Smith got a new job? Long Sutton,Tangley, Meopham having broken away, the smaller (printed in Weird Tales in 1944) –Yes, he gets much better pay and Sandhurst are all sites part has done what yews do and tells of American troops in the but still spends more than he where megalithic Sarsen stones completed its trunk by growing Rhineland occupation army after earns. have been discovered. Warbleton new wood and bark around the World War I being saved from evil – Uh huh, the hob on the cart- is on a Neolithic burial mound. broken area. German werewolves by a beautiful load, eh? Meidrim is a pre-Christian burial In the quiet and sleepy vil- White Russian weredog.Were- The nisse is commonly pictured site, while Pennant Melangell lage of Defynnog, it is not at all wolves in the American popular as a little man with a long beard, and Rhulen churchyard are both surprising that the yew on the imagination go a long way back! similar (but not identical) to Rien on Bronze Age burial mounds. north side of the church went I’m not including the Nazi were- Portvliet’s gnomes [FT322:40]. Marshall’s article raises an unnoticed in recent centuries wolf guerrilla movement after This is a universal stereotype – all important question about how by the outside world. Wales is World War II, which was more odd Norwegians will tell you that a we should deal with ancient and full of hidden and forgotten than effective. nisse has a red woollen hat and a historical sites. Are we to deny places. Now with the church Bob Emery long white beard. people access to these places, newly painted in lime white Albany, New York All the odder, some years ago – in case they do damage? Toby and a proud notice about the probably in the 1980s – I heard a Hindson, a member of the Order ancient yew at its gate, Defynnog The flitting hob man on the radio claiming he had of Bards, Ovates and Druids and has taken on new life, claimed met a real nisse. But, significantly, the Ancient Yew Group, is wor- world attention and looks set to Bob Fischer’s ‘Hobnobbing with this nisse had been totally differ- ried that trophy hunters might become as famous as its male the Hobs’ [FT330:58] recounts the ent: he had no hair or clothes. I damage the Defynnog yew. So counterpart, the Fortingall yew. tale of the hob that followed the think he described him as a ‘hair- far, as the Parish Council agrees, Long live the yew! farmer who tried to move away less monkey’ or something like there has been no damage done, Janis Fry from him.This folkloric motif is that.This always sends a shudder and all of the tree’s golden By email apparently found all over Europe, through me when I think of it. and we Norwegians know about it If he had been hallucinating or

FT332 75 www.forteantimes.com letters

ABOVE LEFT & CENTRE: The ‘ghostly boots’ photo and the spot where it was taken. ABOVE RIGHT: Boys in blue at the Emperor’s Summer Palace.

Real boots a sizable police presence. The ‘ghost’ is clearly one with special boots for the sand. These boots and of Kanagawa’s boys in blue who has wandered into their blue shirts can be seen in the photo. Regarding the “ghostly boots” behind the little shot. What is largely unknown in the West, however, is girl [FT328:25], the location of the photograph is I include a photo of the location, which shows that that the ghosts of deceased policemen exclusively not Zushi as stated, but a little down the coast at there is an incline down to the beach allowing for an guard the Japanese Emperor’s Summer Palace. Hayama. This is right next to the Summer Palace of unexpected approach from that direction. Also, as Don Cake the Emperor of Japan and, as you might expect, has the cops’ beat includes the beach, they are issued by email dreaming, you would expect him begins “Following the formation of any cash? Maybe, they certainly flexible, why assume that any one to see the stereotypical bearded a Scottish Provisional Government captured his interest, and his earthly life represents only one nisse. Whatever he saw, it must which aims at achieving complete resulting buffoonish posturing. reincarnation? Could I reincarnate have been something completely independence for the people of “The leaders of the Scottish again as myself? Would I then be different – but why then call it a Scotland, their leaders have ap- Provisional Government assured able to make different choices and nisse? I can’t get my head around proached me to bring their case me they consider me, General Idi order my life differently to the it. beforeYour Excellencies and to Amin, as their leader and they way in which I have? This would, Nils Erik Grande the United Nations Committee on have made me Chairman of perhaps, suggest multiple realities, Oslo, Norway Decolonisation to consider their Uganda Scottish Community.” or maybe a reality that, whilst independence.” (http://tinyurl. As if. not in linear time, is not so much King Of Scotland com/pyc6d8x) Ewan McVicar cyclical as spiral. And does it even The identity of the visiting shad- Linlithgow, West Lothian stop there? Could someone else SD Tucker’s consideration of Idi owy right wing self-elected spokes- incarnate into my current body, Amin [FT330:52-54] credits that men for Scotland is uncertain, but Keep incarnating and then either experience the life villain’s claiming the title of ‘King probably some were among the I am living now, or take it in a com- of Scotland’ to his feeling “fond five APG [Army of ovthe Pr isional The comments of Rob Bray pletely different direction? Maybe of his old Scottish commanding Government] men convicted of [FT329:68] concerning earlier even do so repeatedly? officers”, but there is real-life con- several political bombings in 1970s correspondence on reincarna- At this point my brain began to spiracy here. An article in Uganda Scotland.The group had spent sev- tion [FT322:70] got me thinking. hurt... newspaper The Monitor on 25 Feb eral hours briefing Amin on Scot- Although not a settled “rein- As an unrelated aside, it 2007 by Guweddeko Fred tells us land’s history, hoping for funds for carnationist” as such, I’ve also recently came to my attention that “On December 31, 1974 Amin an armed uprising. Did they get entertained the idea that, if there that the works of Charles Fort are issued a document addressed to is any reality to the concept, it available online at Fortean Texts all world leaders, declaring the may be a process that is not locked . It struck me as itself ence struggle at the Imperial Ho- be possible – for example – for a rather fortean to find these works tel in Kampala. In the document person incarnated 20 years hence, on a website that has the heading dated December 30, 1974, Amin who dies 100 years from now, to of “sacred texts”. Fort as prophet, called on the world leaders to sup- then reincarnate in 20 BC. But perhaps? port the Scottish cause.” then another thought struck me. Simon Curzon Amin’s long pronouncement If our relationship to time is so By email

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invisible hand. This was no prank. Son’s precursor He wasn’t alone in experiencing strange phenomena. About a year or two later, a The experience described of the vardøger friend of his who was, again, by himself in Nils Erik Grande’s “Harbinger Ghosts” over Christmas, heard screaming, plates [FT327:30-33] is not confined to Norway smash and doors slam. He went to the and Norwegians, nor to animals. I have had kitchen but it was just as he had left it – no this experience on a number of occasions, one was there, and no plates were broken. usually in relation to my son returning The Med Barracks are nearby, and there home. When we lived in London I would step are soldiers’ tales that the basement was outside the room expecting to see him on filled in because inhumane experiments the staircase, certain that I heard him open had been carried out there. It is off-limits, the front door, close it and start to climb the gated and locked. There is no electricity, stairs, and no one was there until he did but lights are still seen in the windows, and appear a short while later. I still sometimes chilling cries have been heard from it. experience it in our home in Sussex, and My brother said the area had an he claims he has heard ‘me’ also. I was oppressive, unnerving atmosphere: unaware of it as a known phenomenon it would seem that the echoes of until I read Rupert Sheldrake’s book Dogs unimaginable human cruelty still linger. that Know When Their Owners Are Coming Helen Barrell Home (1999) and immediately recognised Birmingham it. I realise that sounds in apartments are sometimes difficult to distinguish, but Northumberland the Vardøger experience was also often accompanied by a distinct sense of the wraith uncanny. Margaret Jonas My father did national service in the Army. East Grinstead, West Sussex After two years in the Royal Artillery, he did three and a half years in the Territorials The vardøger of Norway seem to me rather (the 268 Medium Regiment). In the like the toili or faery funerals around Milford summer of 1955 – he believes it was Haven. A forewarning of some event mutated into Sinister echoes August – he was on exercise at Otterburn Ranges a sensory perception that the receiver can come in Northumberland. He and a colleague were to terms with. It may be relevant to point out that Until recently, my brother was in the 9th/12th driver/wireless operators in a Land Rover. They Pembrokeshire probably had quite an influx of Lancers in the British Army, based at the Bergen- were acting as a “rear link” (something to do Viking genes around the ninth century. Hohne Station in Germany. It is on the edge of with relaying radio messages between different Patrick F James NATO’s enormous Bergen-Hohne Training Area, positions). Anyway, they were driving down the Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire established in the 1930s by Hitler’s Wehrmacht. side of a valley where there was a stone bridge It feels remote, despite being near the town of going over a small but fast-flowing river. As they Bergen, and is about 2km (just over a mile) from approached the bridge, they both independently Invisible visitor the site of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. saw what appeared to be an old woman carrying On liberation, the barracks, which had once a bag with a shawl over her head standing at In 1996 I bought a house in China Grove, housed Wehrmacht soldiers, became home to the roadside, almost as if she were waiting for North Carolina. I was married at the time and thousands of displaced persons, but since 1950 a bus – not that there was any marked stop also owned several dogs. We began to notice has been used by the Army. Unsurprisingly, the there. She was totally grey, almost as if she were the sound of a vehicle driving up our long barracks are legendary amongst soldiers for monochrome. (1,000ft/300m) gravel driveway, and then the being haunted. After they passed her and looked back, there sound of tyres driving over the steel threshold as In December 2010, my brother was the only was no sign of her. They both confirmed that it pulled inside the garage (always through the person in his block over Christmas. On his first they had seen her and went back to investigate. second door of the two-door garage). Sometimes night alone, he noticed that the motion-activated They initially thought she was a corporeal person we would hear a car door open, then close. The lights had come on in the corridor. He poked his who might have fallen into the river. It was just dogs would run out barking and we would go out head outside his room but didn’t see anyone. He open moorland with a solitary tree nearby. The to see who it was – but no one would be there. thought that whoever had set them off might be ground where they saw her standing was quite It wasn’t until I read Nils Eric Grande’s feature hiding in the showers, but their motion-activated sandy. They left footprints, but could not see any on “Harbinger ghosts” that I realised others lights hadn’t come on and they were in darkness. others; and there was no sign of anyone having experienced a similar phenomenon. However, But someone had to be in there, because one fallen into the river. They did report it when they there are some clear differences between our after another, the showers turned on. Back in got back in case it was a real person who had experiences and the vardøger/fylgja. Crucially, his room, he could hear stamping feet and the fallen into the river. Nothing more was ever heard our sound sequence never presaged anyone, sound of something being dragged across the about it. By that time, they both suspected that even though it occurred frequently, sometimes floor of the attic above. Was one of the few other they had seen something out of the ordinary. daily. It occurred when one or the other of us was soldiers on site playing a prank on him? My father pointed out on a map where he thinks not home. When my husband and I separated About five or six months later, he was living in they saw the old woman. It was a minor road and he moved out in September 1999, the another block. He kept his heavy daysack on a that goes south to the A696 in the village of phenomenon ceased. I never heard it again. shelf above his bed, and one night he witnessed Otterburn. Kim Lane it fly about two or three metres with great force Gary Stocker China Grove, North Carolina across the room, as if it had been thrown by an By email

FT332 77 www.forteantimes.com reader info Why Fortean? how to subscribe ANNUAL SUB of 12 issues (inc p&p) UK £39.98; EC £47.50; USA $89.99 ortean Times is a monthly of all apparent phenomena, coined ($161.98 for 24 issues); Rest of World £55. Please see house ads in the latest issue for details of special offers. magazine of news, reviews the term ‘teleportation’, and was F and research on strange perhaps the first to speculate that North America (US & Canada) phenomena and experiences, mysterious lights seen in the sky Subscribers should contact: IMS. 3330 Pacific Avenue, Suite 404, Virginia Beach, VA 23454, USA. Tel: 800-428 3003 (toll free); Fax: 757 428 6253; curiosities, prodigies and portents. might be craft from outer space. Or order online at www.imsnews.com. It was founded by Bob Rickard However, he cut at the very roots of UK, Europe & rest of world in 1973 to continue the work of credulity: “I conceive of nothing, in Major credit cards accepted. Cheques or money orders should be in sterling, Charles Fort (1874–1932). religion, science or philosophy, that preferably drawn on a London bank and made payable to Dennis Publishing. Born of Dutch stock in Albany, is more than the proper thing to Mail to: Fortean Times Dovetail Services, 800 Guillat Avenue, Kent 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 was by no means the first Telephone payments and queries: 0844 844 0049. the New York 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), Lo! (1931), and Wild Talents dispassionate weird-watching, readers and contributors in any medium or format. (1932). exploring the wild frontiers between Illustrations He was sceptical of scientific the known and the unknown. Contact the art director by email ([email protected]) before sending explanations, observing how From the viewpoint of samples of work. We cannot guarantee to respond to unsolicited work, scientists argued according to their mainstream science, its function is though every effort will be made to do so. own beliefs rather than the rules elegantly stated in a line from Enid Article submissions of evidence and that inconvenient Welsford’s book on the mediæval Please send all submissions to David Sutton, Editor, Fortean Times, data were ignored, suppressed, fool: “The Fool does not lead a PO BOX 71602, London E17 0QD, UK or email drsutton@forteantimes. discredited or explained away. revolt against the Law; he lures us com. As we receive a large volume of submissions, a decision may not be immediate. He criticised modern science for into a region of the spirit where... its reductionism, its attempts to the writ does not run.” Letters Letters of comment or about experiences are welcome. Send to PO Box define, divide and separate. Fort’s Besides being a journal of 2409, London NW5 4NP, UK or email [email protected]. We dictum “One measures a circle record, FT is also a forum for reserve the right to edit submissions. beginning anywhere” expresses the discussion of observations Books, periodicals, DVDs and other material for review instead his philosophy of Continuity and ideas, however absurd or Send to: Fortean Times, PO BOX 71602, London E17 0QD, UK. in which everything is in an unpopular, and maintains a position Caveat intermediate and transient state of benevolent scepticism towards FT aims to present the widest range of interpretations to stimulate between extremes. both the orthodox and unorthodox. discussion and welcomes helpful criticism. The opinions of contributors He had ideas of the Universe-as- FT toes no party line. are not necessarily those of the editors. FT can take no responsibility for organism and the transient nature submissions, but will take all reasonable care of material in its possession. Requests for return of material should be accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope or an International Reply Coupon.

We occasionally use material that has been placed in the public domain. It is not always Special Correspondents possible to identify the copyright holder. If you claim credit for something we’ve published, we’ll be pleased to make acknowledgement. AUSTRALIA Graham Cordon (SA), Tony Healy (ACT), John Palazzi (NSW), Len Watson (Qld). CANADA Brian Chapman (BC), Graham Conway (BC), CYBERSPACE Richard Alexander, John F Callahan, Hugh Henry, Steve Scanlon, Janet Wilson. ENGLAND Gail-Nina Anderson, Louise Bath, James Beckett, Claire Blamey, Peter Christie, Mat Coward, Kate Eccles, Paul Farthing, George Featherston, Paul Gallagher, Alan Gardiner, Keith George, Anne Hardwick, Richard Clippers wanted! Lowke, Alexis Lykiard, Diana Lyons, Dave Malin, Nick Maloret, Valerie Martin, Tom Ruffles, Meryl Santis, Paul Screeton, Gary Stocker, Roman Suchyj, Frank Thomas, Paul Thomas, Nick Warren, Owen Whiteoak, Bobby Zodiac. FRANCE Michel Meurger. GERMANY Ulrich Magin. Regular clipsters have provided the HOLLAND Robin Pascoe. IRELAND Andy Conlon, Pat Corcoran, Andrew Munro. ISRAEL lifeblood of Fortean Times since it Zvi Ron. NEW ZEALAND Peter Hassall. ROMANIA Iosif Boczor. SCOTLAND Roger Musson. began in 1973. One of the delights SWEDEN Sven Rosén. THAILAND Chris Williams. USA Loren Coleman (ME), Jim Conlan for the editors is receiving packets of clips from Borneo or , Saudi Arabia (CT), Myron Hoyt (ME), Greg May (FL), Dolores Phelps (TX), Jim Riecken (NY), Joseph Trainor or Siberia. We invite you to join in the (MA), Jeffrey Vallance (CA), Gary Yates (UT). WALES Janet & Colin Bord. fun and send in anything weird, from trade journals, local newspapers, extracts from obscure tomes, or Fort Sorters (who classify clippings placed in the Archives for Fortean Research) library newspaper archives. Phil Baker, Rachel Carthy, Chris Josiffe, Mark Pilkington, Bob Rickard, Paul Sieveking, Ian To minimise the time spent on preparing clippings for a Simmons. Fort Sort, we ask that you cut them out and not fold them too small. Mark each clip (on the front, where possible) with Clipping Credits for FT332 the source, date and your name, so that we can credit you Richard Alexander, Gerard Apps, David V Barrett, Louise Bath, James Beckett, John F in the listing (right) when we use the material. For UK local Callahan, Peter Christie, Terry Colvin, Andy Conlon, Pat Corcoran, Graham Cordon, Mat and overseas clips, please give the town of publication. For foreign language clips, we appreciate brief translations. To Coward, Brian Duffy, JD Evans, John Evans, Rob Gandy, Alan Gardiner, Keith George, avoid confusion over day and month, please write the date Alan Gibb, Benjamin Gleisser, Hugh Henry, Colin Ings, Paul Jackson, Tony James, in this form: 1 OCT 2015. If you send photocopies, copy on Rosalind Johnson, Andy Lapham, Richard Lowke, Diana Lyons, Dave Malin, Bert & Betty one side of the paper only. Gray-Malkin, Nick Maloret, Greg May, Dave McCann, Lucas J Mudskipper, Alan Murdie, Mail to: Fortean Times, PO Box 2409, London NW5 4NP, UK John Palazzi, Jim Price, Tom Ruffles, Steve Scanlon, Paul Screeton, Jonathan Sibley, E-mail: [email protected] Gary Stocker, Frank Thomas, Paul Thomas, Dave Trevor, Chris Tye, Nicholas Warren, Len or post on the FT website at www.forteantimes.co.uk, where there is a contributor’s guide. Watson, Owen Whiteoak, Paul Whyte, Janet Wilson, Gary Yates.

78 FT332 www.forteantimes.com

COMING Strange deathS NEXT UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL

Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean It occurs when fluid accumulates in Physics at Cambridge University, the lungs, damaging the membranes MONTH has suggested that three scientists and hindering the transfer of oxygen investigating the melting of Arctic ice to the bloodstream. More common may have been assassinated within in children than in adults, it can take the space of a few months in early 72 hours to occur, with symptoms 2013. They are Seymour Laxon (49) and including coughing, extreme fatigue or Katherine Giles (35), both climate change chest pain. D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 5 June scientists at University College London, and 2015. Tim Boyd (54) of the Scottish Association for Marine Science. Prof Laxon fell down a flight of A technician was killed by a robot at a stairs at a New Year’s Eve party in Essex and Volkswagen plant at Baunatal, near Kassel in Dr Giles died in a collision with a tipper truck Germany, on 29 June. A 22-year-old external in Victoria, London, while cycling to work on 8 contractor was installing the robot together with April. Dr Boyd is thought to have been struck a colleague when the robot struck him in the by lightning and killed instantly while walking chest and pressed him against a metal plate. his dogs near his home in Port Appin, Argyll, He later died of his injuries. VW said the robot western Scotland, on 25 January 2013. Prof had not suffered a technical defect and blamed Wadhams said that the deaths “were accidents human error. Robots in western production creature features as far as anybody was able to tell but the fact plants are kept behind safety cages to prevent THE LIZARD MAN OF SCApE ORE they were clustered like that looked so weird.” accidental contact with humans, but in this case He said that in the weeks after Prof Laxon’s the contractor was standing inside the safety SWAMp AND OTHERS death he believed he was himself targeted by cage. A Volkswagen spokesman stressed that an unmarked lorry that tried to force him off the robot was not one of the new generation of the M25 motorway. He reported the incident lightweight collaborative robots that work side- to the police. Asked who might be responsible, by-side with workers on the production line and he replied: “I can only think of the oil lobby but forgo safety cages. I don’t think the oil lobby goes around killing There was another death-by-robot on 12 people,” adding that he feared being labelled a August, when sharp welding sticks jutting out of “loony”. Times, 25 July; Sunday Telegraph, 26 a robotic arm pierced the abdomen of a worker, July 2015. killing him at an auto ancillary production factory in Gurgaon, near New Delhi in India. Ramji Lal, Devon Staples, 22, and his friends were 24, had apparently moved too close to the celebrating the Fourth of July in Calais, Maine, machine while adjusting a metal sheet that had a small city on the Canadian border. They were come unstuck. Robots have caused at least drinking and setting off fireworks in a friend’s 26 workplace deaths in the US alone in the back yard. Staples placed a reloadable fireworks past 30 years. The first was in 1979, at a Ford mortar tube on his head and told his friends production line in Flat Rock, Michigan, when a he was going to light it. His friends urged him robot arm killed Robert Williams, 25. Financial nothing like a dame against it, but he went ahead and was killed Times, 1 July; D.Mail, Sun, 3 July; Times of INSIDE THE MOST ECCENTRIC instantly. Staples, 22, worked as a costume India, 13 Aug 2015. performer at Disney World, portraying characters FAMILy IN ENGLAND including Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. A seven-month-old baby girl was at Cambodia’s “Devon was not the kind of person who would Mekong River with her family when her aunt do something stupid,” said his brother Cody, 25. Chea Sophia caught a fish. Sophia dangled “He was the kind of person who would pretend the fish in front of the little girl, who laughed + to do something stupid to make people laugh.” as the fish wriggled about; but it then slipped It was the first fireworks fatality in Maine since from Sophia’s hand, flopped into the baby’s crypid petting zoo, the 1949 law banning fireworks was repealed mouth and lodged itself in her throat. Unable to shadow people, on 1 January 2012. [AP] 5 July; D.Telegraph, 7 remove it, the horrified aunt rushed the baby to July 2015. hospital, but was too late to save her. Inquisitr. blind artists, com, 22 June 2015. and MUch More… An estate agent who capsized on a canoeing trip on 4 January drowned as he was driving Linda Clarene Jackson, 59, beat her boyfriend home two hours later because of the effect David Ruiz to death with canned food at her of water in his lungs. Alan Gough, 57, from home in Lake Los Angeles, southern California, Walsall, West Midlands, died from a rare on 16 June. She was charged with striking him FORTEAN phenomenon known as “secondary drowning” on the head with a can of peas, a can of carrots after his canoe upturned on Ullswater in and a can of chicken broth. If convicted, she the Lake District. He had managed to swim faces life in state prison. [AP] 18 June; Latimes. the 50 yards back to shore after the minor com, 19 June 2015. TIMES accident and seemed to have only suffered a nosebleed; but he had swallowed some water and collapsed at the wheel while driving home with his friend, John Robinson. Mr Gough’s car THE FORTEAN TIMES careered off the road at 30mph (48km/h) and BOOK OF STRANGE crashed into a drystone wall at the foot of the DEATHS VOL 2 Kirkstone Pass in Cumbria. He was pronounced ON SALE NOW FROM dead at the scene. 333 WH SMITH AND AMAZON.CO.UK Secondary drowning accounts for only TO ORDER DIRECT CALL 0844 844 0053 between one and two per cent of drownings. 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