FT352 APRIL 2017 4.

25
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 Fortean Times 352
strange days

CONTENTS
The illuminati go mainstream, murderous mermaid, weird
sh, enigmatic statue, Star Wars gibbon, giant frog sighting,
Yeovil alien encounter, self-proclaimed King of Germany,
leprechaun hunts, MH370 mysteries and much more.

05 THE CONSPIRASPHERE 21 MYTHCONCEPTIONS

the world of strange phenomena 14
15
ARCHAEOLOGY
CLASSICAL CORNER
23
25
ALIEN ZOO
FAIRIES AND FOLKLORE
16 GHOSTWATCH 26 THE UFO FILES
features
COVER STORY

28 FORTFOOLERY: FORTEANA AND

APRIL FOOL HOAXES
While gathering in this years spaghetti harvest, ROB
GANDY was struck by the fact that a signicant number of
April Fool pranks over the decades have featured fortean
JOHANNES STEHLE / DPA / ALAMY LIVE NEWS

themes from fake UFOs to cryptozoological creatures in

their attempts to put one over on the public...
34 THE CORPSE FACTORY
Fake News is nothing new and false stories were widely
spread by propagandists during World War I. DAVID CLARKE
investigates a gruesome rumour of factories for converting
human corpses into fat and oil that has been called the
most appalling atrocity story of the 1914-18 conict.
6 THE BITTER END
Flash-frozen foxes and sh, plus a pair of battling moose encased in the ice 40 FAKING FORTEANA
Manufactured and misleading news predates the Internet
age. Its roots go back in part to the 1920s, and a forgotten
journalistic revolution improbably conceived by the father
of modern bodybuilding and a socialist muckraker. MIKE
DASH dons his fedora to report.

46 SEARCHING FOR THE PLACE OF THE SKULL

MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

As pilgrims descend on the Holy Land to celebrate Easter,

TED HARRISON proffers a word of caution: if youre looking
for the location of Jesuss crucxion and burial then,
tradition aside, you need to investigate a growing list of
competing sites. Just where exactly was Golgotha?

forum
16 A SICKNESS OF SPIRIT 34 THE CORPSE FACTORY
Ghosts, possession and mental health World War I and the birth of fake news 55 Alien Dawn Patrol by Nigel Watson
56 Clones, psychics and the Antichrist by Mark Greener

reports
52 BUILDING A FORTEAN LIBRARY
No 20. The Sirius Mystery
76 FORTEAN TRAVELLER
LIOR MIZRAHI / GETTY IMAGES

No 110. The Museum of Funeral History, Vienna

regulars
02 EDITORIAL 78 READER INFO
28 HOAXED! 46 SEARCHING FOR GOLGOTHA 59 REVIEWS 79 PHENOMENOMIX
The worlds best fortean April Fools Where is the site of the Crucixion?
71 LETTERS 80 STRANGE DEATHS

COVER IMAGE: COURTESY WWW.THINKGEEK.COM

FT352 1
www.forteantimes.com
 Fortean Times

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2 FT352
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LISTEN
IT JUST MIGHT CHANGE YOUR LIFE

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

strangedays
A murderous mermaid temple. These talented chaps
immediately spotted in the
spiritual realm a mermaid
(Mame Water) being the cause
of the impediment to the smooth
Fish-tailed female held responsible for double drowning in Zimbabwe sail of events on the dam site.
One of them travelled to the Bui
River and managed to capture
children had died and started a weird beast in the form of a
crying, said Chief Nemangwe. snake with the head and hands
A whirlwind suddenly engulfed of a woman. A local priest
the place before the mermaid explained that it was not the
swiftly appeared from the water sort of entity that is normally
and grabbed the boys for the visible to us. It is not good to
second time, but this time their see this kind of Mame Water
lifeless bodies resurfaced later. physically, he said. They are
According to local belief, spiritual creatures which always
when someone is seized by a remain unseen and the moment
mermaid, the last thing people they are physically seen it means
should do is cry, as this can lead there is something gone wrong.
to dire consequences, such as [FT293:20].
the death of the victim. The
Chief again: Two other people Another African mermaid
that I am aware of were also was encountered near a bridge
killed at the same dam in similar in the Buffelsjags River in
circumstances. As a community Western Cape, South Africa, on
we have since performed some 12 January 2008. Danil Cupido
rituals to calm down the water saw a figure like that of a white
spirits. During the ceremony woman with long black hair
we slaughtered a beast and the thrashing about in the water.
meat was consumed without Thinking to save her, he waded
salt. Acting Midlands Provincial into the water, but stopped when
police spokesperson Assistant he noticed a reddish shine in her
Inspector Ethel Mukwende eyes. The sight sent shivers
said investigations were in down his spine, yet he was pulled
progress to ascertain what really forward as if hypnotised. He
China Photos / Getty imaGes

transpired. shouted to his friends to come

Work on the pumps at Sengwa and take a look. Martin Olckers
2/Gwehava Dam in Gokwe said he saw a female figure
once stopped after terrified swimming near a low water
workers complained of machines bridge and then standing on the
breaking down under mysterious bridge before diving back into
circumstances, and blamed the black water. It made the
mermaids. The work later strangest sound, like a woman
At around midday on 19 the area falls under. According resumed after traditional healers crying. The villagers recognised
February, two boys from Village to a friend of the deceased boys, brewed beer and carried out the creature as something
7, Gokwe, Zimbabwe, were his companions jumped into some rites to appease the water known locally as the Kaaiman,
seized by a mermaid near the dam and tried to grab the spirits. zimbabwenewsonline.com, last seen in 1993 and more than
Pachemumvuri Dam, dragged mermaid because they believed 5 Mar 2017. 20 years before that. As Martin
under the water and drowned. it was just a big fish. But the Olckers said he saw it standing,
The creature had allegedly mermaid pulled them down Talk of dams and mermaids it presumably didnt have a
been seen on the banks of the into the water. The friend then reminds us of a story from 2012. fishs tail like a conventional
dam several times before. It ran home to alert the elders, Chinese engineers working on mermaid. Some people held
is reported that on the fateful who arrived at the dam to find the Bui dam in Ghana found it responsible for drownings.
day the two boys who were in the boys lying on a rock, alive. that the functioning of their [FT238:19]
Form One and Two at Ganye The elders were counselling excavating machinery was
Secondary School were herding the boys when their parents obstructed by some force they For a wave of mermaid sightings
cattle when they saw the arrived on the scene. When regarded as supernatural, so in Israel in 2009, see FT254:4.
mermaid at the dam, said Chief their parents got to the dam they consulted spiritualist That issue of FT also has several
Nemangwe, whose jurisdiction they panicked, believing their scientists in a Shanghai features on mermaids in general.

4 Ft352
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 turkeY the New chiNese
circle imperialists skYwalker
Sinister gobblers The King of The funky new
perform occult Germany and gibbon named
ritual to raise a other monarchical after a Star Wars
dead cat? pretenders character
page 10 page 20 page 23

The Conspirasphere Extra! Extra!

Get your T-shirts here! Noel rooNeY scores himself some official merch from the Illuminati
website... but is this commercial activity by the hidden masters actually anything new?
FTs FavouriTe headlines
From around The world
the official illuminati website has some commentators have
excited a mini furore in the last couple attempted to trace the website,
of months, at least as much in the without much success. one part of it is
mainstream as the alternative media. registered to a domain shop in Canada,
several newspapers have run stories on another to an individual apparently named Irish Times, 30 Oct 2015.
it, and questions have been bandied obsidian maskreet, in Beverley hills,
about on a few of the more popular California; perspicuous investigative
conspiracy sites. Quite why it hacks have suggested this may be
has suddenly become a thing is an alias. there is a social media
unclear; to my knowledge, the outlet too, which seems to have
website has been around since a large number of followers. Why
2014 at least. But papers like the anyone would go to these lengths
Daily Express and Sun have run for a scam is a question only
articles giving the impression marginally more mysterious
that the phenomenon has than why the masters of the
suddenly burst onto the internet. Universe would need to rely on North Devon Advertiser, 18 Nov 1993.
actually its a group of sites: theres merchandising.
illuminati.org, which looks like the home the appearance, or resurrection, of
portal; illuminati.am (i believe .am is the the site prompted me to go in search of
signature for armenian websites, which other contenders for the official illuminati
may or may not tell us something); and Website; it turns out that this is a crowded
dodis.co, which appears to be the official market, although to be fair the others are
merchandising arm of the group (you mostly pretty amateur by comparison. Inside Housing, 21 Oct 2015.
can get t-shirts and banners, as well as nonetheless, there were a few gems
the now well-publicised pendant, which littering the field. i particularly liked the
incorporates the representative clich wonderfully illiterate illuminati-order.org,
symbols of the illuminati into one ugly which offers a beautiful example of why
hybrid, a sort of vulgar monas hieroglyphica you shouldnt use Google translate for
of the new World order). your manifesto (without forgetting the
there has been an enjoyable amount teachings them great masters all the
of agonising in the Conspirasphere as to times, as we in the know like to gurgle
whether this is really them coming out into our napkins). equally entertaining is
of the (presumably rather well-appointed) the illuminatiofficialafrica.org site, which
closet, or merely a scam to tempt a few offers, among the other benefits of joining
punters to part with money for a pendant the hidden masters, a golf package. if you D.Telegraph, 11 Nov 2015.
and a copy of the (comically badly written) prefer your illuminati portals enigmatic,
illuminati testament; the fact that there is then id recommend illuminatiorder.org.
a membership sign-up option has prompted the entry page is a shimmering pyramid;
a few to twist the tale a little further and there is little else to the site except for a
suggest that it is a hoax on a hoax to blank white square asking for a Key Value,
entrap the unwary into signing up to the whatever that is. if you want real payoff,
real nWo. the tV ad (actually a youtube type illuminati backwards into your search
video that has been around for a while now) engine and youll end up on the nsa
is a velvety big-production number with website; now that is strange.
Western Daily Press, 6 Nov 2015
a throaty voice-over offering, well, all the
things you might expect from the benign www.express.co.uk/news/weird/758675/
hidden masters of the world; peace, love, illuminati-website-new-World-order-
and reassurance that they are watching. illuminatioffical-org; http://illuminati-order.
along with some brief, bland bits of blurb org/newworldorder/; www.illuminatiofficial.
under pretentious titles, its the nearest org/;www.illuminatiofficialafrica.org/blogs/
thing to information on the sites. tag/illuminati%20official%20africa/ Sydney Morning Herald, 30 Nov 2015.

Ft352 5
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 TRAPPED IN ICE

FLASH-FROZEN FOX
Hunter Franz Stehle, who found a dead fox encased in ice covering the Danube
on 2 January, cut out a block of ice encasing the fox and put it on show in front
of his familys hotel at Fridingen in Baden-Wurttemberg, southwest Germany, until
the ice melted. He suspected it had drowned and was then frozen solid. He had
seen a frozen deer and a wild boar before nding the fox. The image features in a
Twitter photo contest for the best animal carcass (#BestCarcass). BBC News, 13
Jan; Int. NY Times, 21 Jan 2017. PHOTO: Johannes Stehle/DPA/Alamy Live News.
FRIGID FISH pushed the frozen water and its shy contents antlers apparently locked together. It was the
The sh in the photograph above look as if they upward into a 4ft (1.2m) ice wall. Kelly Preheim, end of moose rutting season, and the animals
have frozen to death in mid-jump, but what really who took this photograph, said the thousands of were probably ghting over a female moose. Jeff
happened is more complicated. In 2015, the frozen sh on the lake drew hundreds of bald Erickson, another teacher in Unalakleet, also
area around Lake Andes in South Dakota had eagles, various gulls and American crows, who photographed the frozen animals when he went
been suffering from drought, and water levels swooped in for the convenient feast. Hufngton to check out the scene a couple days later with
were low. Thick ice formed on the lakes surface. Post, 14 Jan; Int. NY Times, 28 Jan 2017. Webster. It was such a surreal sight so serene
Along with snow cover, it blocked out sunlight, and quiet, but a stark vision of how brutally
preventing photosynthesis by alg and other ICY BATTLE harsh life can be, he wrote. Webster and a few
aquatic plants. Oxygen levels dropped and the On 2 November 2016, Brad Webster, a science others went back later and removed the animals
sh suffocated under the icy surface, oating teacher in Unalakleet, a remote village on from about 8in (20cm) of ice covering open
to the top in their thousands. At some point Alaskas unforgiving western coast, came upon water, recovering some of the spoiled meat for
the ice may have expanded and, as it reached two moose frozen in battle and encased in ice. dog food and trapping bait.
the shore, crumpled and shot upward, dead He photographed the massive animals poking For other ash-frozen animals, see FT331:73,
sh included. Or its possible that strong winds through the ice as they lay on their sides with 333:67, 336:22. FT199 7
www.forteantimes.com
 strangedays

SIDELINES...
EARTHLIGHTS
Footage filmed in Wellington,
New Zealand, during a 7.8
FORTEAN FOLLOW-UPS New updates on stories
covered previously in FT

magnitude earthquake near

Christchurch last November
shows the night sky lit up with
bright colours. Clips show
flashes of green, white and
blue over a span of a few
seconds. Similar accounts of
lights in the sky emerged fol-
lowing the previous Christch-
urch earthquake in 2011.
Geologists point out that such
lights have been spotted
weeks before an earthquake,

YANNICK PITOU / AFP / GeTTY ImAGeS

probably due to stress build-
ing in the fault lines. Metro, 14
Nov 2016.
LONELY HEART
A human heart was found in
a plastic bag near a gas sta-
tion in Norwalk, Ohio, baffling
police. The preserved organ
with anomalies likely to have ABOVE: Police carry a piece of debris from an unidentified aircraft found in the east of the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion.
been present at birth was
discovered last August. Metro, THE FATE OF MH370 ended its flight in a controlled To recap: early on the morning
15 Sept 2016. [FT345:12] ditch; but another expert, Mike of 8 March 2014, MH370 took off
In January, officials Exner, insisted the damage on from Kuala Lumpur en route to
NORTHERNMOST NAZIS responsible for the flaperon and another found Beijing. After 40 minutes it passed
Russian scientists have dis- locating missing subsequently was consistent with the last navigational waypoint in
covered a secret Nazi military
Malaysia Airlines high-speed flutter, indicating Malaysian airspace. Six seconds
base on the island of Alexan-
Flight 370 announced a rapid uncontrolled descent after that it went electronically
dra Land, 600 miles (965km)
that their two-year, [FT438:69]. By November, seven of dark. Wise says that in the brief
from the North Pole. Built in
1942, it was mainly used as
122 million search has come to an the 20 pieces of debris recovered gap between air-control zones,
a tactical weather station and end. Having searched 120,000 km2 from around the Indian Ocean when no one was officially keeping
was abandoned in 1944 when (46,332 miles2) of the southern were said to be almost certainly an eye on it, the plane pulled a
scientists stationed there Indian Ocean to a depth of 4.8km from the missing plane. U-turn, crossed back through
were poisoned by polar bear (three miles), teased out from However in February, Jeff Wise, Malaysian airspace, and then
meat (probably getting hyper- the satellite data, theyve found writing in the Huffington Post, vanished from military radar
vitaminosis A from polar bear no trace of the plane and the asserted that the Runion debris screens. At that point the plane
livers). <i> 22 Oct 2016. 239 souls on board. However, a was completely coated in goose was completely invisible, and
panel of experts, pointing to the barnacles, a species that grows could have been flown anywhere
locations of recovered debris, only immersed in the water. When in the world without fear of
insist the search should be the debris was tested in a flotation discovery.
extended to include 25,000 km2 tank, it floated half out of the However, three minutes later,
(9,653 miles2) north of the area water. Wise said barnacles couldnt a Satellite Data Unit (SDU)
already examined. On 4 March, have grown on the exposed areas, rebooted and initiated a log-on
families of those on board MH370 a conundrum officials were unable with an Inmarsat communications
launched efforts to raise at least to reconcile.The implication is satellite orbiting high overhead.
12 million to fund a new Indian that the piece did not arrive on Wise points out that an SDU
Ocean search. Runion by natural means, a reboot is not something that
A wing section called a flaperon suspicion reinforced by a chemical can happen accidentally, or that
was discovered on Reunion Island analysis of one of the barnacles, airline captains generally know
off Madagascar in July 2015, showing that it grew in water how to do. Over the next six hours,
mARTIN ROSS

and confirmed as debris from temperatures that no naturally the SDU sent seven automated
MH370 the following September drifting piece of debris would have signals before going silent for
it reportedly carried MH370s encountered. Wise also cast doubt good. Soon after the SDU reboot,
unique numbers. Crash on the identification of the other the plane apparently turned
investigator LarryVance said recovered debris (but failed to south, flew fast and straight until
that the damage pattern on the provide any evidence to back up in ran out of fuel, then dived into
flaperon showed that the plane his scepticism). the sea. Using this information,

8 FT352
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 strangedays

officials were able to generate company. He had travelled from this country and they like it
SIDELINES...
a probabilistic heat map of Lahore to London Heathrow two because the environment BOOM INVESTIGATION
where the plane most likely days before his body was found, makes you feel you are closer to Seismologists at the University
ended up. However, no one and was caught there on CCTV. the simplicity of your original of maryland are trying to iden-
questioned whether the data He had died after swallowing rat self. Something existential, tify the source of mysterious
could have been tampered with poison (strychnine), available then. Previous theories for the loud booms that have been
a major oversight, says Wise, in Pakistan but banned in the cause of the influx included jolting residents of Cheverly
since the very same peculiar UK. He had not been reported mistaken identity, a covert from their sleep and damag-
set of coincidences that made it missing, either in Pakistan social experiment or possibly ing their homes for decades.
possible to tease a signal from the or the UK. It then transpired Oxfordshires connection to Resident Nikki Greco described
Inmarsat data could have enabled he was formerly called David Inspector Morse. Baz Daniels, who one as sounding like a truck
a sophisticated hijacker to enter Lautenberg and was born has lived in Kidlington for more ramming into the house. The
the planes electronics bay (which in London in 1948 to Jewish than 20 years, asked a friend booms caused cracks in her
lay beneath an unsecured hatch refugees Sylvia and Hyman in China to try and explain the basement requiring a $50,000
at the front of the business class Lautenberg. He changed his tourist influx. Kidlington is loan to fix. NBC Washington, 14
cabin) and alter the data fed to name to Lytton after a falling- apparently being marketed by Dec 2016.
the SDU. out with his family. He lived Chinese tourist agencies as a FAIRWELL YAHYA
If this vulnerability had been in Streatham, south London, beautiful English village on the So, after 22 years, Yahya
exploited, then the plane could for more than three decades way to BicesterVillage shopping Jammeh, 51, self-styled
have been flown not south over before moving to Florida and centre, he said. Many of the excellency Sheikh Professor
the ocean, but north toward land. then Lahore. Why he chose to visitors live in cities and love Doctor President of Gambia,
Not all the Inmarsat data was die where he did is a complete to see things like the hanging was voted out of office in
susceptible to spoofing, says Wise. mystery. BBC News, Manchester baskets and little flowers in December and forced into
From the portion that wasnt, a Eve. News (online), 26 Jan; peoples gardens. exile in January. He claimed to
narrow band of possible flight D.Telegraph, 27+29 Jan; (London) A month later, Sun Jianfeng, have invented a herbal cure
paths can be deduced: they Eve. Standard, 10 Feb 2017. 48, a tour guide with Beijing for HIV (that only worked on
all terminate in Kazakhstan, a Hua Yuan International Travel, mondays and Thursdays), and
close ally of Russia.Three ethnic LURE OF THE COMMONPLACE offered a completely different in march 2009 he exorcised
1,000 people by force-feeding
Russians were aboard MH370, [FT344:4] explanation: the visitors, he
them hallucinogenic potions
including one who was sitting During the said, were being punished for
[FT250:16]. D.Telegraph, 3 Dec
close to the electronics bay summer, residents refusing to pay a hefty surcharge 2016; Sunday Telegraph, 22
hatch. Four and a half months of Kidlington, an to visit nearby Blenheim Palace. Jan 2017.
later, a mobile launcher from ordinary village Customers were normally
a Russian anti-aircraft unit north of Oxford, charged 53 for an optional GOAT BURNING
shot down another Malaysian were bemused by Chinese language tour of the Swedens Christmas Goat
airliner, MH17. Whether or not the weekly arrival of up to 40 stately pile, but some had didnt last long on its 50th anni-
the Russians were responsible Chinese tourists, who wandered realised they could buy an entry versary. The giant figure, made
for MH370, Wise believes the around a nondescript 1970s ticket on the day for only 24.90, of straw and wood, an annual
failure of the seabed search housing estate taking photos of to the annoyance of those who Yuletide tradition in the city of
Gavle since 1966, went up in
and the inconsistencies in the flowerbeds, garage doors and had paid more.The solution was
flames just hours after it was
aircraft debris should undermine parked cars and requesting to drop those who had opted
inaugurated on 27 November.
complacency about the official selfies with local residents. On 23 out four miles (6.4km) away in Arsonists just cannot stay
narrative. BBC News, 2 Nov + 20 October, one of the tour leaders Kidlington where they would not away from the giant decora-
Dec 2016, 17 Jan 2017; Sunday was handed a questionnaire have time to walk to Blenheim tion, which seldom survives
Times, 4 Dec 2016; [R] Metro, 18 and the mystery was solved Palace before continuing to the the season without someone
Jan; Jeff Wise in Huffington Post, 12 (sort of).The tourists were next coach stop. BBC News, 1 Nov; trying to burn it down. [AP] 28
Feb; Sunday Telegraph, 5 Mar 2017. looking for the true sense of D.Mail, 7 Dec 2016. Nov 2016.

SADDLEWORTH MOOR THE EYE DECEIVED

MYSTERY [FT242:80] A distressed caller rang police
After a year-long on 16 December to report
an elderly woman frozen
investigation, a man
to death in a parked car in
whose body was
Hudson, New York State. Offic-
found at Dovestone ers found a seat-belted figure
Reservoir on wearing an oxygen mask sitting
Saddleworth Moor, motionless in the front passen-
Greater Manchester, on 12 ger seat of the snow-covered
December 2015 has finally been car. They broke the rear window
identified as David Lytton, 67, and discovered it was an
sometime London taxi and tube extremely realistic mannequin.
driver who had lived in Pakistan The car owner arrived and said
since 2005. Police said he was a he used it for his job selling
bit of a loner and liked his own ABOVE: Kidlington, Oxfordshire not really all that exciting. medical training aids. [CNN]
BBC News, 17 Dec 2016.

FT352 9
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 strangedays

SIDELINES...
GIVE US A HAND
A human hand was discovered
Poultry in motion
washed up on a beach at
Freshwater Bay on the Isle of Did turkeys perform occult ritual to raise cat from dead?
Wight on 28 December, and
passed to police. It was said
to have been in the water for a
significant amount of time,
and was sent away for analy-
sis. [AP] 29 Dec 2016.
WEIGHT IS BANG ON
Paula Richards went to weigh
herself on a set of Aldi scales
when they exploded, sending
glass shards across her bath-
room in Atherstone, Warwick-
shire. Sun, 30 Dec 2016.
AUTO-SNACK
On 30 November a man
entered the Wilko store (previ-
ously known as Wilkinsons)
in Haymarket, Sheffield, went
upstairs to the electrical aisle,

JONATHAN DAVIS
picked up some bolt cutters,
chopped off his big toe and
stood eating it. The police
were called and he was taken
to hospital. [PA] 1 Nov 2016. ABOVE: Jonathan Davis filmed the turkeys in Boston, commenting It is the craziest thing Ive ever seen... Bro, this is wild!
ATHLETES IN ARIES

The turkeys
The day to be born for athletic A flock of 20 turkeys was the video. Krakauer continues:
success is 23 march, with observed performing what looks During my studies of wild
the Sun in early Aries (the like a bizarre ritual around turkeys I watched a coyote trot
Ram). The birthday is shared
by runner mo Farah, rower Sir
the body of a dead cat that
had been run over in Boston,
could be through a group of turkeys the
turkeys gave it some space but
Steve Redgrave, cyclists Jason
Kenny and Sir Chris Hoy, first
Massachusetts. Jonathan Davis
filmed the startling spectacle
stuck in some acted alert in a similar manner
to this video. In that instance
sub-four-minute miler Sir Rog-
er Bannister, world champion
and uploaded the 24-second
clip to Twitter on 24 February kind of never- the coyote kept walking and
the turkeys went back to their

ending circle
boxer Joe Calzaghe and former with the caption: These business. However, in this video,
england cricket champion turkeys trying to give this cat the dead cat predator doesnt
mike Atherton. If you want to its 10th life. They were walking get up to leave, and the turkeys
sire a champion, the date for
in a circle not running or appear to be kind of stuck in
conception is advised to be 29
distressed, but walking with behavioural ecology of birds. their pattern of behaviour.
June. D.Mail, 18 Aug 2016.
intention around the cat in He explained that turkeys, Maybe they are waiting to see
the middle of the road. The clip when faced with an animal that if the cat wakes up? That is,
quickly went viral (and earned might eat them, sometimes waiting to see if the dead will
the splendid headline Gobble, follow the risky route of actually arise, instead of ritually working
gobble, toil and trouble in the approaching the predator. It can to raise the dead.
mARTIN ROSS

Daily Mail). help signal to other turkeys in Richard Buchholz, a professor

Biologist Debra Kriensky told the area that theres a threat, of biology at the University of
the New York Post: Its certainly or help the turkeys evaluate Mississippi has also seen this
unusual. Circling in itself isnt how big a danger the predator kind of circling behaviour in
unusual behaviour for turkeys is. Or it could let the predator the turkey bird family, which
the males sometimes circle know the prey are aware of its includes chickens, pheasants,
females when getting ready to presence, which might encourage and quail. Following the tail in
breed... But its unusual to see the predator to move elsewhere front of them is a way they stick
so many circling a dead cat for to seek an easier meal, he together as a flock, he says. What
example. said; a lot like a group of small could be happening is that the
Perhaps the birds are songbirds mobbing a hawk turkeys are stuck in some kind
performing whats called or owl they have discovered. of never-ending circle, with each
a predator inspection, Such behaviour could of course bird following the tail in front
says Alan Krakauer, a backfire if the predator is of it. The Verge, npr.org, 2 Mar;
biologist who studies the more conscious than the cat in D.Mail, Sun, 3 Mar 2017.

10 FT352
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 strangedays

West Country weird SIDELINES...

NESSIE SIGHTINGS
Last year the number of Nes-
sie sightings was the highest
Faceless alien at a bus stop and a polt in a block of flats since 2000 (when there were
11), according to the Official
Loch Ness Sightings Register.
Two of the seven sightings
were photographed on the
same day at different locations
round the loch and two were
by webcam, including one from
an online watcher in the US.
Dundee Courier & Advertiser,
7 Dec 2016.
HOTHEAD
A shoplifter in mansfield,
Nottinghamshire, hid a sizzling
roast chicken under her hat in
Tesco and was arrested after
swooning from the heat. Fellow
customers rushed to help the
LEFT: A witness sketch of the 7ft alien. woman as she began fainting
ABOVE: Gilton House, Brislington. in the aisle. Sun, 22 Jan 2017.
SUITABLY NAMED
months ago. Gloria Edie, 69,
In September 2015, student
said she initially thought she
Alison Smith, 24, was punched
was going mad when she found
unconscious by her 40-year-old
a plug in her bedroom had been
lecturer boyfriend before he
smashed and a walking stick was
poured salt in her eyes. The
missing. She then noticed that
vile academic, sacked by the
ornaments in her living room University of Sussex after a
were being switched, moved or 3,000-strong petition, was Dr
turned around whenever she Lee Salter. D.Mirror, 16 Aug
went out. Things would go missing 2016; Sun, 19 Jan 2017.
and then reappear in plain sight
later after she returned from FROG WEDDING
SWNS.COm

a trip to the shops. A couple Priests married two frogs in a

of other residents said they village in Assam in a bid to ap-
too had experienced strange pease the rain god Barun and
YEOVIL ALIEN
It was like things happening, she said. end a drought. Hundreds of
A man is convinced he saw a 7ft Some said that they noticed guests attended the two-hour
Hindu ceremony, showering
something
(2m) tall faceless alien waiting that when they went out, theyd
at a bus stop in Ilchester Road, come back and their front door the frogs in flowers and then
Yeovil, Somerset, around 2.45pm would be unlocked when they holding a feast for the newly-
on 15 December 2016. I was
driving up the road and saw this
out of science clearly remember locking it. The
chap upstairs said all his lights
weds. The frogs were being
kept as pets (hostages?) until
dark-looking figure by Yeovil
College, said the man, who asked fiction were switched on whenever he
returned home. I began to double-
the rain arrived. Metro, 6 Sept
2016.
not to be named. It looked quite check things and noticed more COPROLITE CHAMPION
tall and had this big Stetson hat. stuff was happening. One time George Frandsen, 36, from
I slowed down to have a closer entity, noting it was black, wore a my fireplace was completely Florida, has earned the Guin-
look and thought its not a man, it weird coat and had silky hair. hooked off the wall. I called in my ness World Record for the
was about 7ft [2m] tall. It had this I just keep thinking I was in the neighbours and they all agreed largest collection of coprolites.
long thin tube coming from the wrong place at the wrong time, someone must have done that, His collection of 1,277 fos-
top of it and spikes coming out of he said. Its just mad. Western it didnt unhook itself. At a silised turds features samples
the side. The middle bit of it was Daily Press, 23 Dec 2016. residents meeting on 31 January, from 15 US states and eight
like moleskin and hairy. The thing some said they would install other countries. The larg-
wasnt moving at all and was in PESKY POLTERGEIST? CCTV cameras inside their front est specimen, weighing 4lb
this box that had sparks coming More strangeness from the doors and others expressed fears 3.5oz (1.9kg) and nicknamed
out of it. It was like something out West Country: some residents that someone had obtained a Precious, was produced by a
of science fiction. The encounter in Gilton House a block of master key. Did anyone wonder huge miocene crocodilian spe-
unnerved him so much that he 46 warden-monitored flats in whether a particularly vigorous cies in South Carolina. [UPI]
hadnt slept for a week. He drew Brislington, Bristol began poltergeist might be at work? 15 Nov 2016.
an annotated drawing of the noticing weird goings-on some Western Daily Press, 2 Feb 2017.

FT352 11
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 strangedays

SIDELINES...
SICK JOKE
The New mexico Department
Creature features
of Health said about 70 of
its employees fell sick with A microscopic human ancestor and an outsized amphibian
gastrointestinal issues after
its Christmas party. At the
time of the report, investi- GIANT FROG SPOTTED
gators had not identified a In March 2013 a strange creature
specific contaminated food. was seen crawling out of Lake
more than 200 employees at- Itasca in north-central Minnesota.
tended the catered luncheon The state is known as the land
in Santa Fe. NBC San Diego, of 10,000 lakes; the actual figure
22 Dec 2106. is 11,842. Lake Itasca is less than
ETERNAL FLAME SPUDS two square miles in area and
has a depth of around 35-40ft
A screengrab from a video
apparently shot on 29 No-
(11-12m). The witness was Don,
vember and circulated on a keen outdoorsman who was
the Internet appears to show strolling along the lakeshore with
two young men in Bishkek, his German shepherd dog Ben
capital of Kyrgyzstan, roasting when he noticed a disturbance in
potatoes on the eternal flame the water at a distance of around
at the citys memorial to the 50ft (15m). As he got closer, he
countrys World War II dead in was stunned to see a huge frog
Victory Square. The mayors crawl out of the water and, for a
office has asked residents to couple of seconds, peer intently
help identify the men; it was and eerily in his direction. It was
not clear what charges they truly enormous: Don reckons
about 4ft (122cm) in length. He
S CONWAY mORRIS / JIAN HAN

might face. Radio Free Europe

(online), 6 Dec 2016. thought about taking a picture
with his iPhone, but before he
PRIMATE PERIL
could do so, the creature flopped
A report by Conservation
back into the water with a
International concludes that
powerful splash, and was gone.
60 per cent of the worlds
Don spent the entire day and
primates (apes, monkeys,
night staking out that area of
lemurs, tarsiers and lorises
about 300 species) are facing ANCESTRAL OLD BAG when they had already begun to the lake, but the beast did not
A team of British scientists has diversify into vertebrates, and return. Monster-hunter Ken
extinction as agriculture
and industry destroy forest announced in the journal Nature animals like sea squirts, starfish, Gerhard said: Back in 1995,
habitats and the animals that humanitys earliest known sea urchins and acorn worms. there were an incredibly large
populations are hit by hunting evolutionary ancestor is a 1mm Simon Conway Morris, number of deformed frogs
and trade. Guardian, 19 Jan creature resembling a wrinkled professor of evolutionary that were found in a pond in
2017. old sack that spent its life palobiology at Cambridge, said: southwest Minnesota. It made
wriggling around on the ocean To the naked eye, the fossils big national news. It was looked
floor 540 million years ago. One we studied look like tiny black at as a sign of the times: there
of its most intriguing features grains, but under the electron was so much pollution that mans
was an apparent lack of an anus, microscope the level of detail is impact on the environment was
meaning it ate and excreted jaw-dropping. All deuterostomes causing these really bizarre frog
from the same large aperture. had a common ancestor, and mutations. The US Geological
The fossil was unearthed in we think that is what we are Survey said: Malformations
Shaanxi province, China, and looking at here. The creatures included missing limbs, missing
named Saccorhytus coronarius. body was symmetrical, a digits, extra limbs, partial limbs,
The team had to crunch through characteristic inherited by many skin webbing, malformed jaws,
three tonnes of limestone to find of its evolutionary descendants, and missing or extra eyes
just 45 of the microfossils. Their including humans. It was It is likely that one or more
discovery means we can now covered with a thin, flexible skin, combinations of chemicals,
trace our roots back a further suggesting it had some form of biological, and physical factors
30 million years. The creature is muscles, leading researchers are responsible for causing the
thought to be the most primitive to conclude that it got around malformations in Minnesota
example of the deuterostome, by wriggling. The small conical frogs. Whether these factors
a category of animal life from structures on its body may have could lead to a frog the size of
which vertebrates eventually allowed swallowed water to an Alsatian is a bit of a stretch.
emerged. Most other early escape, and so were perhaps the All we can hope for is another
mARTIN ROSS

deuterostome groups date from precursor of gills. D.Telegraph, sighting mysteriousuniverse.org,

about 510520 million years ago, Guardian, D.Mail, 31 Jan 2017. 4 Oct 2016.

12 FT352
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 ARCHOLOGY
MATT PATTINSON

PAUL SIEVEKING reports on an enigmatic statuette from a museum vault, a Neolithic nativity scene that
predates the birth of Christ by 3,000 years and a claim that Abraham vandalised Turkeys most ancient site.
REUTERS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

MARCO MORELLI
ABOVE LEFT: The puzzling Neolithic gure displayed recently in Athens. ABOVE RIGHT: Neolithic rock art in the Egyptian Sahara; its discoverer suggests it shows the Nativity.

WHAT IS IT? 11,800-8,600 BC, far too old to be associated Ur then try to burn Abraham alive for his
Until 26 March, an enigmatic statuette was with Abraham, who is usually placed around desecration, but God saves him from the
exhibited in the National Archaeological 1800 BC. ames. For Ur, read Edessa: by Late Antiquity
Museum in Athens, part of a temporary The documentary was produced and funded the site of the Mesopotamian city of Ur had
exhibition of some 200,000 antiquities held by the Diyarbakir provincial governors ofce, been forgotten and the birthplace of Abraham
in the museum vaults and not on permanent the Turkish Development Ministry, and the became identied with the Turkish city of
show. The 14in (36cm) gure was carved from Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, the Edessa (now called Sanlurfa), which is only
granite, without the benet of metal tools, as it nations public broadcaster. While Andrew seven miles (12km) southeast of Gbekli Tepe.
dates from the late Neolithic, about 5,000 BC. Collins and Graham Hancock have implied jasoncolavito.com, 10 Jan 2017.
It has a pointed nose and long neck leading to that Gbekli Tepe was constructed by a lost
a markedly round belly, at back and cylindrical civilisation related to or identical with the OLDEST NATIVITY SCENE?
stumpy legs. It could depict a human-like Nephilim and/or Atlantis, it appears that the Neolithic rock art in the Egyptian Sahara,
gure with a bird-like face, or a bird-like entity Turkish documentary makers were simply going painted in reddish-brown ochre, depicts a star
which has nothing to do with man but with for some old-fashioned Quranic literalism in the east, a newborn baby between parents
the ideology and symbolism of the Neolithic coupled with a dash of Turkish nationalism. and two animals. It was found on the ceiling
society, said Katya Manteli, an archologist The narrator describes the site and says (in of a small cavity by geologist Marco Morelli,
with the museum. Experts also cannot be sure Turkish): Who can tell us that it was not Aser director of the Museum of Planetary Sciences
of its provenance, as it belongs to a personal [Terah], father of Prophet Abraham, who built in Prato, near Florence, during an expedition to
collection. They assume only that it is from the statues in Gbekli Tepe? Or can we claim sites between the Nile valley and the Gilf Kebir
the northern Greek regions of Thessaly or that the temple where the idols that Prophet Plateau.
Macedonia. How they are so certain of its age Abraham broke was not Gbekli Tepe? One Its a very evocative scene which indeed
is not explained. It could depict a human, but broken pillar, featuring a sculpture of a fox, is resembles the Christmas nativity, but it
is asexual, with no sign of breasts or genitals. identied as the specic idol broken by the predates it by some 3,000 years, said Morelli.
[R] BBC News, 14 Feb 2017. hand of Abraham himself. The claim refers He found the drawing in 2005, but only now
back to an Islamic tale, found in the Quran has the amazing nd been publicised. It
ABRAHAM, IDOL-SMASHER (21:51-71), and based on earlier Jewish features a man, a woman missing her head
A new Turkish documentary claims the ancient folklore that Abrahams father made idols because of a painting detachment, and a
temple site of Gbekli Tepe to be the work of that the young patriarch smashed in his zeal baby drawn slightly above the adults, as if
Telah, idol-worshipping father of the patriarch for monotheism. In the Quranic account, rising towards the sky. On the upper part
Abraham. Gbekli Tepe in southeastern Abraham has a conict with the people of Ur, is a headless lion, a mythical beast which
Anatolia has circles of massive T-shaped stone in which they vouch for the efcacy of their appears in several rock art drawings from
pillars, by some margin the worlds oldest idols. To prove them wrong, in the peoples the same area, while below is a baboon or
known megaliths, erected before the shift from absence he went into the temple where the anthropomorphic monkey. In the east, the
hunter-gathering to agriculture. (See Paradise idols stood, and he brake them all in pieces, artist has drawn what appears to be a star.
regained? by Sean Thomas, FT220:46-51; except the biggest of them; that they might lay The researchers called the site the Cave of
FT289:23, 310:18.) The site dates back to the blame upon that (21:58). The people of the Parents. livescience.com, 23 Dec 2016.

14 FT352
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Classi Cal
Bill the Bards rhapsody is almost verbatim
from Plutarch (Antony, ch26), endorsing the
common view that the biographer was his
prime source for the Roman plays.
Hannibal was more practical-minded,

CORNeR despite his Roman biographer (chs10-1)

Cornelius Neposs moral qualms, defeating
the armada of King Eumenes of Pergamum
by catapulting into his flagship clay pots
containing live poisonous snakes.
FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD COMPILED BY BARRY BALDWIN Around AD 150, Lucian (The Ship) left an
excited account of the giant grain carrier
Isis that hed just seen docked at Athenss
210: all shipshape Pirus. He expatiates on its size (180ft x
45ft x 44ft), its tonnage (c. 12,000, capable of
transporting an entire years worth of grain
No one ever went to Hell in a black ship His aforementioned monster was an to Attica), its scarlet sail, gilded prow, the
Homer attempt to out-godzilla the good ship name Isis elaborately painted on, with a crew
Jehovah, wearing his naval architects Syracusia, designed (c. 240 BC) for King the size of an army all relying on one little
hat, gave (Genesis 6-9) Noah a very specific Hieron II by Archimedes, taking time off man steering with a broomstick-like tiller.
DIY ark-building set of instructions: build a from his much-disputed burning of Roman When not shagging his three sisters or
vessel of gopher wood, smeared inside and ships sails by gigantic refracting mirrors designating his racehorse Consul, Caligula
out with pitch, with three decks and inside and shouting Eureka Greek for Ive amused himself with his pleasure boats on
compartments, an entrance on the side, 300 found my rubber duckie in his bathtub. Lake Nemi. Rediscovered in 1929 (burnt
cubits long, 50 cubits wide, 30 cubits high Athenus (chs206d-209e) categorises the in 1944), with Mussolini taking a keen and
with a roof finished to a cubit upwards a details. Cargo capacity almost 2,000 tons, doubtless envious interest, Suetoniuss
cubit was measured from elbow to finger- space for 1,942 passengers, 200 soldiers, biography (ch37 para2) has this awestruck
tips, hence of variable length. A fair-sized and a catapult. As Noahs Ark, it was pitch- description: Ten banks of oars, jewelled
hulk. But, just how did he get all those coated, reinforced with horsehair, praised sterns, multi-coloured sails, enormous
animals in? We wont go into the question by modern experts cf. Lionel Cassons bathrooms, banquet-halls, colonnades, even
of disposal of bladder and bowel effluvia. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World profuse vines and fruit-trees, that he might
Unless we reckon the Ark to have been an (1971) as earliest example of pro-active anti- feast amid songs and merriment along the
aquatic proto-Tardis. fouling technology. Every detail was the last Campanian shore.
After all, Noah was (Genesis 7.6) 600 word in luxury. Apart from opulent cabins, In AD 59, Nero decided to bump off
years old, an ancient mariner by terrestrial passenger amenities included a flowered, Agrippina the Queen Mum. Since she was
standards, average for a Time-Lord. Cries out canopied deck, gymnasium, hot-water pool, long fortified against poison by a diet of
for a mini-series with resurrected William and (a touch of Swan Hellenic Cruises, if not antidotes, the plan was to sink her in a
Hartnell. Meanwhile, we must make do with the Titanic) a library and mosaics depicting collapsible boat he and mistress Poppa
periodically reported sightings of the vessel the entire Iliad. Also (again) a masterpiece got the idea from a theatrical show there
on Mount Ararat talking Turkey here, we of futility: it sailed only once, then dry- was also a Greek precedent. As described by
ark-eologists [see FT44:14-15, 54:27, 74:47, docked, clocking up immeasurably less Tacitus (Annals, bk14 chs 4-8), the scheme
120:34-39, 139:66, 152:34-39, etc] furlongs than our naval Queens Elizabeth & was a total clap-out; cf. Alexis Dawsons
Demetrius Poliorketes (337-283 BC) Mary. hilarious Whatever Happened to Lady
his nickname means Besieger of Cities, not The barge she sat in, like a burnishd Agrippina? Classical Journal 64, 1969,
Taker, was the first to deploy ships with 15 throne, 251-67.The supposedly doomed vessel
or 16 banks of oars (Plutarch, Demetrius, Burned on the water: the poop was beaten failed to telescope only Agrippinas cabin
chs43 paras4-5). Or does this means 15/16 gold; ceiling fell in, crushing a male companion,
rowers per? Debate continues a case of Purple the sails, and so perfumed that and no one remembered she was a strong
either/oar? The winds were lovesick with them; the swimmer, making it through the calm (hardly
They worked, unlike the monster oars were silver, ideal for staging a fake shipwreck) Bay of
(Plutarch subjoins) constructed by Ptolemy Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke... Naples to her villa where she was presently
Philopator (r. 221-205 BC): 40 banks of she did lie slaughtered by a military SWAT team.
oars, 280 cubits long, 48 cubits high to top In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold, of tissue... Every shipwreck brings out
of stern, propelled by 4,000 rowers, also (Antony & Cleopatra, Act 2 Scene 2) merrymakers Fort, Books, p636.
carrying 400 extra sailors and 3,000 soldiers.
But, gibes Plutarch, the thing was merely
for show, being unable to move. Another
uselessly large vessel was the flagship of
PhilipV of Macedon, which after their
victory the Romans insultingly allowed
him to keep, confiscating his other ships
(Polybius, Histories, bk18 ch44 para6)
could add a verse here to John Masefields
Cargoes.
Philopator also had built (Athenus,
Learned Men at Dinner, chs20e-206c) a
pleasure boat, likened by some moderns to
an oversized catamaran, luxurious enough
to satisfy the most exigent Russian oligarch,
with its ample dimensions, luxurious cabins
and suites and purple sails outdoing the
hues in that classic ditty Red Sails in the
Sunset and fitted out for maritime orgies
one visualises navel engagements without ABOVE: Mussolini admires one of Caligulas pleasure boats, rediscovered in Italys Lake Nemi in 1929.
loss of semen.

FT352 15
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 GHostWatcH
MATT PATTINSON

aLan MUrDie attends a conference examining the ghostly dimensions of human illness
LEFT: The Renaissance poet Tasso believed that he
a sickness of spirit could communicate with spirits; others wondered
For thousands of years different cultures whether he was insane or feigning madness.
around the world have believed in a psychic,
and often specifically ghostly, dimension
to human illness and suffering. The belief spirit attachments.
that sickness and misfortune are caused by In summary, Dr Furlongs position is
discarnate entities and the corresponding that humans are spiritual beings, each
idea that symptoms can be relieved by possessing a spirit which has chosen to be
spiritual means such as prayer, ritual or incarnated, and enjoying an inner mental
exorcism are universal notions that can be world every bit as vast as the outer one. As
traced back for millennia (see for example a result of trauma which may occur in this
Magico-Medical Means of Treating Ghost- life or in previous incarnations part of the
Induced Illnesses in Ancient Mesopotamia, personal spirit can split and fragment into
2012, by JoAnn Scurlock). a multitude of sub-personalities (although a

HULTOn ARCHIVE / GETTy IMAGES

Equally, doubts concerning such beliefs soul or higher self simultaneously remains).
have been ventilated for centuries. Whilst These damaged sub-personalities may
the Renaissance Italian poet Tasso (1544- attract negative attention from discarnate
1595) was convinced he spoke with spirits, spirits or dark energies. The role of the
baffling his friend Manso, others variously spiritual healer is to re-integrate these
labelled Tasso as an insane genius, love-sick, fragments, through hypnosis, therapy
a victim of oppression or simply one feigning and spiritual techniques. This may involve
madness (see Torquato Tasso: A Study of extensive courses of therapy, one extreme
the Poet and of his Contribution to English
Literature, 1965, by CP Brand). THE MATERIALIST case requiring 200 sessions to remove spirit
attachments.

CONCEIT WAS
Since the end of the 18th century, Concerning the symptoms caused by
Western medicine has increasingly rejected external entities and affecting their chances
any doctrine of spirits. Orthodox medicine of recovery, the patient retains a degree of
and psychiatry operate from a presumption
that both body and brain lack any spiritual
QUESTIONED AT choice. Dr Furlong also spoke of the added
effects of the patients chakras and of
or mental component relevant to either
treating illness or its causation. To this purely
THE CONFERENCE angelic influences, incorporating ideas from
Eastern and Western religious traditions.
materialist dogma early psychology, Freudian Thus he presented a complex model of
psychoanalysis and psychical research all homes are reported as haunted. the personality as subject to physical-mental-
mounted varying degrees of challenge and The conference opened with a recognition spiritual interactions. In advancing such
resistance. of how commonplace reports of experiences hypotheses, he is not alone; a handful of
This same materialist conceit was of ghosts remain in developed societies, psychiatrists in the UK and USA such as Dr
openly questioned at an interesting one- with the first session delivered by Dr Erlendur Alan Sanderson and psychologists such as
day conference Spirit Influence on Mental Haraldsson, a psychologist from Iceland and Tom Zisner have publicly endorsed similar
Health: Is spirit intrusion an important a veteran psychical researcher. He cited ideas and have written about them. (See
overlooked contribution in hallucinatory the European Human Values Study (1980- Soul-Centred Healing, 2011, by Tom Zisner).
disorders? on 4 February 2017. Held at 1983), which found that up to a third of But these ideas are certainly unsupported
Regents University, London, it attracted the population in some Western countries and contradict existing standard scientific
some 90 attendees, being organised by the believe they have been in touch with a models.
Spirit Release Forum, which has the avowed deceased person, with a European average Complicating matters, an alternative
aim of helping individuals find spiritual, of 25 per cent. Comparing results with earlier spiritual model was presented by the
mental, emotional and physical well-being surveys commencing from the Society for next speaker, Mike Williams, a practising
through an understanding of how spirit/soul Psychical Researchs monumental collection medium for 35 years. He specialises in
consciousness operates through the body. Phantasms of the Living (1886) vols 1 & 2, clearing haunted houses and helping people
It brought together a range of speakers to patterns appear suggesting that individuals hearing voices, work detailed in his book
consider ideas that are controversial to who make their post-mortem presence felt Schizophrenia or Spirit Possession (2014).
put it mildly. As Guy Playfair wrote in the are statistically more likely to have suffered a He maintains that spirit attachment causing
context of the Enfield Poltergeist: Mention of violent or unexpected death (e.g. in murders, distress and illness is a reality and provides
spirits invariably polarises people into either suicides and accidents). Dr Haraldsson also a better model than many conventional ones
fanatical believers or total sceptics (in This spoke on research findings into reincarnation for explaining schizophrenia (or at least
House is Haunted, 1980 + 2013). in non-Western nations going back to the patients labelled as schizophrenic). However,
Attending this conference, I was 1970s. he departs substantially from the model
particularly interested in the approach to The next speaker, Dr David Furlong, presented by Dr Furlong, advancing a rather
evidence. Having worked professionally for diverged greatly from this straightforward traditional view of the spirit world, envisaging
many years as an advocate in cases before presentation of parapsychological data, spirits of the deceased lingering in an
courts and tribunals where an assessment of taking proceedings onto a wholly different afterlife dimension interconnecting with the
the physical or mental health of individuals is level with an outline of his beliefs as a material world, before translating to Heaven.
an issue, I am aware of the many difficulties practising spiritual healer. A co-organiser of The goal of mediums such as himself is to
in achieving a correct diagnosis or verdict. the conference, at the outset he pointed out ensure transition of these spirits, whereupon
From a psychical research perspective, when he is not a medical doctor (he is actually an the physical or mental symptoms afflicting
considering claims of the paranormal, I have expert in town planning and architecture), the living person disappear. He rejects
long considered that the health of witnesses but he speaks from direct experience as a reincarnation.
and their families can be very important when spiritual healer, ridding patients of unwanted My question to both speakers was to what

16 FT352
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MAnAn VATSyAyAnA / AFP / GETTy IMAGES

ABOVE: A young Indian woman believed to be possessed by evil spirits goes into a state of trance at the 650-year-old shrine of Sufi Saint Hazrat Shahdana Wali.

extent they examined the medical history Existing conditions may also be of such claims.
of clients prior to applying their techniques. exacerbated where a patient actually Looking back to the 1970s, past life
Both stated that as a rule they do not experiences genuinely paranormal events, regression through hypnosis promoted
explore the pre-existing medical history. e.g. incidents of spontaneous telepathy, by Arnold Bloxham (see More Lives Than
This struck me as a diagnostic weakness rapping sounds or object movements One? 1977, by Jeffrey Iverson) provides a
for both proposed therapeutic approaches. themselves possibly symptoms of underlying further precedent for doubting such claims.
Long-standing experience with psychological distress or Unfortunately, no corroboration for these often
haunted properties indicates illness (see The Paranormal vividly recalled past lives was obtainable from
that conventional medical or and the Recognition of historical records.
psychological explanations lay Personal Distress, 1981, by Furthermore, the generation of false
behind some manifestations James F McHarg, Journal of memories by patients undergoing therapy is
rather than discarnate the SPR vol 51 200-209). a problem dating back to the early days of
entities. Sometimes it can However, their origins may psychoanalytic treatments pioneered by Freud
be as straightforward as a lie in the unconscious mind in Vienna in the 1890s. Again, precedents
person hallucinating from of the individual rather than may be found more recently with the serious
excessive medication, the discarnate influence. problems and social panics that arose
ghosts vanishing once a more Following lunch, the during the 1980s and 1990s with allegations
moderate dosage is achieved. conference received the of childhood sexual abuse founded upon
neurological disorders, testimony of an individual questionable and spurious recovered memory
imagination, neurosis and currently undergoing spirit techniques, often involving hypnosis. These
drug addiction may all be release therapy, who framed techniques contributed to many unfounded
causes. personal experiences in allegations of organised ritual abuse and
Moreover, whilst not terms of entities, dark energy also fuelled then fashionable claims of alien
subscribing to psychosocial and curses accumulated abduction.
theories that attempt to both in this life and in past nonetheless, it became apparent
ascribe all cases of unusual illness or psychic incarnations, spread over nearly 1,500 during discussions that some members
phenomena to iatrogenic diseases (basically years. Unfortunately, no independent proof of the audience readily accepted the
ailments caused by the doctor, therapist or of these past lives, curses or traumas was serial reincarnation model, both practising
healer themselves), I believe some alleged provided outside supposedly recovered serial hypnotherapists and troubled individuals
hauntings are triggered purely by suggestion. reincarnation memories and a personal actually undergoing therapy for presumed
negligent and reckless pronouncements of conviction of being subjected to numerous spirit attachments. Listening to some of
psychics and mediums can result in what curses in this life. Inevitably, such a deficiency the latter, I felt that at the stage they had
have been dubbed ersatz poltergeists or of evidence and corroboration engenders reached it would be prudent not to express
phoneygeists. caution and precludes uncritical acceptance any point of view at the conference. Discourse

FT352 17
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 ABOVE LEFT: Dr Terence Palmer, a hypnotherapist and practitioner of spirit release therapy. ABOVE RIGHT: newspaper coverage of the tragic case of Michael Taylor, a
mentally ill man who brutally murdered his wife after undergoing an exorcism in 1974.

veered on to the question of supposed pacts had recklessly dabbled in occult practices Whatever view one takes of these topics,
and contracts that might be formed with or dallied with ouija boards and methods of more research in this field to increase
discarnate spirits and dark forces and how channelling. knowledge is undoubtedly welcome. Firstly, it
these could be nullified and voided in therapy. This fundamentally more cautious is clear that current orthodox psychiatric and
This had echoes of even earlier and historic approach reflects the stance of the Church of medical techniques do not provide solutions
social panics, including the pacts of sorcerers England since the 1970s after an exorcism to many mental health conditions and even
found in the fantasies of witch-finders in the of a mentally ill man in Leeds in 1974 struggle to adequately define many of them
16th and 17th centuries and later inspiration contributed to the brutal homicide of his (see Introduction to Psychopathology, 2000,
for the mid-20th century black magic fiction wife in an insane frenzy (see FT313:36-38). by Alexandra Lemma). This is reflected by
of Dennis Wheatley. Today, dark energy has Committed to a mental hospital for life, he the unfortunate failure of standard clinical
substituted a personified Devil as the other was released after four years of conventional approaches in achieving measurable
party forming these alleged soul-threatening psychiatric treatment. The lesson learnt (or improvements for a substantial number of
bargains. re-enforced) was that irresponsible exorcisms patients with symptoms.
More widely, it struck me that many of can inflict more harm and damage on Secondly, regardless of the resolutely
the critiques raised concerning conventional patients than the condition they supposedly materialist and secular stance of modern
psychotherapy and its sometimes exotic cure. (For a careful and sober discussion of medicine, supernatural beliefs remain an
variants (e.g. Arthur Janovs still current issues, see Deliverance: Psychic Disturbance infectious social reality. Such beliefs are
primal scream therapy, where patients are and Occult Involvement, 1996 + 2012, by increasingly appearing in cases examined
encouraged to scream their little heads off Michael Perry). not only in the psychiatric ward or clinic
to cite the rather dismissive view of Robert A The final session of the day was a talk by but also in the courtroom. In the 10 days
Baker Hidden Memories: Voices and Visions Dr Terence Palmer, who holds a degree in after the conference, the following were all
from Within, 1996) were applicable here. psychology from Canterbury Christ Church reported: an imprisoned 50-year-old devil
The fact a patient undergoes a strange University and a masters degree in the study worshipper committing suicide after his
experience does not in itself validate the of mysticism and religious experience from conviction for strangling his policeman lover;
explanation or interpretation offered for it, Kent University. A hypnotherapist for 20 years a schizophrenic Muslim teenager who fatally
whether by the patient or the therapist. What and a spirit release practitioner for 12 years, stabbed one person and slashed five others
for the patient, the psychoanalyst or the he was the first person to receive a doctorate who told a psychiatrist someone had put
shaman may be true on a symbolic mental for research into spirit release therapy for spirits in him; and police reporting a sharp
level is not necessarily true in any objective his thesis, A Revised Epistemology for an rise in witchcraft used against children in
sense. Psychical research initially reacted Understanding of Spirit Release Therapy in abuse cases. (D.Mail, 6+7 Feb; D.Telegraph,
against the materialism that identified the Accordance with the conceptual Framework 13 Feb 2017). These are not isolated
body with the real person; but it is equally of F.W.H. Myers. He outlined a model for examples, and given such a context, it is
questionable to simply substitute words such practical spirit release therapy which he hard to uphold simply dogmatic opposition
as soul, spirit and energy and conclude explained had recently been applied in the to the prospect of a new line of therapeutic
that they provide a key to understanding case of an ex-serviceman who had suffered research (providing, of course that studies
complex and challenging psychological and hearing voices for over 20 years, whom are conducted seriously, ethically and within
psychiatric conditions. conventional psychiatric techniques had recognised research parameters).
The next speaker, Dr David McDonald, failed to relieve. This technique had produced However, we should not imagine that
took an altogether more cautious and an almost instantaneous cure. Details have paranormal experiences are a monopoly
conventional approach. A consultant not yet been published but a film record has of the psychologically abnormal and those
psychiatrist specialising in child mental health been made of the process. He announced suffering mental illness. Any study should
and a member of the Church of England that a research project to further test this also recognise that the majority of psychic
Deliverance Study Group, he cited cases approach had been initiated, aiming to put experiences are reported by people who are
where an awareness of spiritual factors was the subject and its reputation onto a firmer healthy, normal and balanced and often find
an element in the successful resolution of scientific footing. In essence, his argument them a positive feature in their lives. In this
mental disorders occurring in children and is that the efficacy of spirit release should regard, positive experiences of psi effects in
adolescents. These suggested a psychic be judged from the results, which can be healthy humans and animals will also have
element, including instances where someone objectively assessed. much to tell us.

18 FT352
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 strangedays

MODERN IMPERIALISTS Russian monarchists plan the Romanovs

return; German nationalists rewrite history.

of land twice as big as the

Vatican; but the latest proposal
is being seriously considered by
authorities in Kiribati, a series
of 33 coral atolls roughly halfway
between Hawaii and Australia.
The low-lying nation faces an
uncertain future due to rising
sea levels and has been seeking
fresh sources of income, as well
as potential places of refuge for
some of its 107,000 citizens whose
homes and livelihoods are under
threat. Kiribatis government said
its foreign investment commission
was considering Bakovs proposal.
Former Kiribati president
Teburoro Tito said the plan could
bring much-needed investment
anton bakov

and turn the nation into a remote

island tourist attraction akin to
ABOVE: anton bakov (l) and Prince karl Emich of Leiningen (r) are planning to restore the pre-1917 Russian monarchy. BELOW: neo-nazi the Maldives. Bakov is ambitious:
druid burghard b. FACING PAGE: Peter Fitzek, self-proclaimed king of the Reich citizen movement, on trial for fraud in Germany.
We are planning to construct
air and sea ports, solar power
RoMANoV EMPIRE stations, freshwater plants,
RESToRED? hospitals, schools and settlements
A Russian human rights activist is for the employees, he said.
seeking to buy three uninhabited The main economic objects of
islands in the remote south Pacific the islands will be eco-friendly
nation of Kiribati to restore the hotels and fish processing plants.
Romanov Empire and create an We would also develop tropical
alternative Russia. Businessman agriculture and Russian Imperial
Anton Alekseyevich Bakov, 51, a University. However, some
former Russian MP and founder academics are urging caution.
of Russias monarchist party, Dr Sitiveni Halapua, a Pacific
visited the tiny nation in late development specialist, told
January after he was invited there Radio New Zealand that he finds
to discuss his plan to purchase or Bakovs plans very strange and
lease three uninhabited islands scary. Others have suggested
Malden, Starbuck and Caroline. Bakovs unstated aim is to create
He has proposed creating the a tax haven. BBC News, 30 Jan;
capital of the new Russian nation D.Telegraph, 31 Jan; Guardian, 7
on Malden Island, an empty coral Feb 2017.
atoll, where he says he plans to
invest 280 million on resorts. GERMAN IMPERIAL CITIZENS
Bakov, self-styled Archchancellor Meanwhile in Germany, there
of the Imperial Throne wants
Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen, Bakov plans of the Russian throne but also a
great number of Russian patriots
is a tiny but growing movement
of imperial citizens, which
a 64-year-old German great great
grandson of Tsar Alexander II, to to purchase who are not happy with Putins
regime and would like to have
appears more sinister than
Bakovs project. The so-called
restore the monarchy overthrown
in 1917 and accede as Tsar three islands in their revival of Romanovs empire
visible as an alternative Russia,
Reichsbrger are convinced that
the Federal Republic of Germany
Nicholas III. (It might be relevant
that Bakov was born and still lives remote Kiribati he said.
Bakov has previously
doesnt exist. In its place the
old German Empire endures,
in Yekaterinberg, where Nicholas made attempts to restore the which in their telling was never
II and his family were murdered.) monarchy in the Cook Islands, properly abolished and persists
Visiting Kiribati with his backing of a large number of a south Pacific country in free in the borders of either 1871 or
wife Maria, who acted as an Russians who were dissatisfied association with New Zealand, 1937. There are nearly as many
interpreter, Bakov said the with Vladimir Putin. This is and in Montenegro where he lines of pseudo-legal reasoning
idea for the restoration had the the desire not only of the heir bought a 80ha (198-acre) plot as adherents. One rests on the

20 Ft352
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 Mythconceptions by Mat Coward

210: PUSHING THE BUTTON

fact that the Allies never signed several hundred identified

a peace treaty with Germany in each. Worried about a rise
after World War II. Another cites in incidents, a think-tank in
selectively from a decision by Brandenburg recently published
Germanys supreme court in 1973 a handbook for bureaucrats
regarding an agreement between dealing with Reichsbrger.
West and East Germany. The The best approach, it advises,
upshot, say Reichsbrger, is that is to avoid responding at all.
the Federal Republic is really a Typically, a Reichsbrger will
limited-liability company based only deluge a bureaucracy with
in Frankfurt and controlled by a verbose letters studded with

ILLustRatIons: hunt EmERson

Jewish world government based obscure citations. Others get
in America. aggressive. Some 20 interrupted
To the Reichsbrger the FRGs a trial this year and tried to
police, judges, laws and tax arrest the judge. The first case
agencies thus have no authority, of armed violence occurred in
and its documents carry no October. Wolfgang P., a hunter
weight. At a traffic stop, say, a in Bavaria, had outed himself
Reichsbrger will overwhelm as a Reichsbrger in the course
the (usually puzzled) police of disobeying local authorities.
The myth
with references to phony legal When officers approached his the button you push at a pedestrian crossing, to turn the little man
paragraphs and treaties while house to confiscate his rifles, he from red to green, has no effect it is a placebo button, conning
producing a drivers licence or opened fire from the upper floor, you into thinking that you control your destiny. or, if you prefer: that
other identification issued by injuring several and killing one. button does indeed turn the little man green, and to believe otherwise
is a paranoid delusion.
the Empire. The insignia vary Locals told the press that the
because it is not clear even to 49-year-old was a loner raised by
the Reichsbrger who the true his grandmother, whose death
imperial government-in-waiting had apparently unhinged him. The truth
is. There are about 30 rival Peter Fitzek, a Reichsbrger Well, how about that: it seems that both the conspiracy theorists and
imperial chancellors, several who claimed to have set up the the sceptical debunkers are wrong. In britain, some of the buttons
princes and at least one king (see Kingdom of New Germany with work, some of them dont, and some of them sometimes do and
below). One of the chancellors, himself as king, faced charges sometimes dont. the basic idea is simple: traffic lights work on cycles
a man named Norbert Schittke, last October of embezzling 1.3 which can be temporarily interrupted by pressing the pedestrian button
also claims the English throne. million euros from his subjects, to allow foot-traffic to cross busy roads. In many places, especially
Though they draw ridicule who had deposited money in where theres no road junction involved, this is exactly what happens.
even from neo-Nazis, the accounts at his bank. In January, at some crossings, the lights are uninfluenced by the pedestrian
Reichsbrger are considered another prominent Reichsbrger buttons, which exist for the sake of design consistency, and perhaps
part of the extreme right. Many was arrested for allegedly to discourage jaywalking (which is legal in Gb, though not in northern
(though not all) are racist and hoarding weapons. Burghard Ireland). at others, the button has an effect only between certain
anti-immigrant. Most are male B, 65, a bearded neo-Nazi from hours, usually at night when there is less traffic. there are also some
and live in rural areas. Of the Saxony-Anhalt, resembles sites, usually where walkers are trying to cross two roads at once,
four regions that monitor their Gandalf as he dresses as a druid, where it is actually necessary to press the button otherwise the
system will miss out the pedestrian stage of the cycle altogether. In
numbers, Brandenburg and carrying a tribal spear. Guardian,
other words, people who resolutely refuse to press the stupid buttons,
Thuringia, both in eastern D.Telegraph, 22 Oct; Economist, 12
because theyre damned if theyre going to be made mugs of, could
Germany, have the most, with Nov 2016; Metro, 31 Jan 2017.
literally be standing there waiting for the light to change for the rest of
their lives.

Sources
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23869955;
http://www.traffic-signal-design.com/pedestrian_facilities.htm

Disclaimer
If you are privy to the occult knowledge of the
buttons, please feel free to condemn, correct or
amplify our findings via Fts letters page.
JEns schLuEtER / GEtty ImaGEs

Mythchaser
the above raises an obvious question:
which other buttons, which we are invited to
press during our daily rounds, dont really do
anything?

Ft352 21
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strangedays

something fishy Russian deep sea fishermans catch includes creature

plucked from the pages of a medival bestiary

roman fedortsov
ABOVE LEFT: the bishop fish or sea bishop was described in Gesners Histori animalium. ABOVE RIGHT: the strange fish caught by russian fisherman roman fedortsov last year.

This photograph of a fish extended rough hewn brow, it to its natural habitat, and included a picture of a bishop
resembling the bishop fish which reportedly resembles eventually he agreed. Once set fish in his Libri de piscibus
of medival bestiaries was a bishops mitre; hence the free, the grateful creature made marinis (1554-55), stated:
published in the English- creatures name. There was a the sign of the cross before I think that certain details
language Moscow Times last curious medival belief that plunging into the ocean depths. beyond the truth of the matter
December. It was caught by every creature in the air or on In 1531 a bishop fish was have been added by the painter
Roman Fedortsov, a deep-sea the earth had its double in the caught off the German coast, but to make the thing seem more
fisherman based in Murmansk. sea. it refused to eat and died after marvellous. Some researchers
In the 1990s Turkish fishermen The existence of bishop three days. It was described and believe that the bishop fish may
caught a fish with ruddy fish was first documented in pictured in the fourth volume be a kind of deformed manta
pigmentation and vaguely 1433, when a specimen was of Conrad Gesners famous ray, whose features bear some
humanoid features that bore found swimming in the Baltic. Histori animalium (1551- slight semblance to those of a
a striking similarity to the old It was captured and given to 58). Later, a strange looking man. Those who subscribe to
descriptions of bishop fish. the King of Poland, who was so fish described as a peaceful this theory claim that a rays
According to marine folklore, taken by his new prize that he creature that appeared to have wings could create the illusion
the bishop fish or sea bishop is a refused to return it to the sea. A the mitre of a bishop was of the cape-like appendage
large creature with a scaly, fish- group of Catholic bishops were caught in the Atlantic off the attributed to these creatures.
shaped body, claw-like flippers granted an audience with the British coast. It perished soon The debate continues whether
and a large fin, which it can creature. The story goes that afterward, and its corpse was bishop fish are some kind of
wrap around itself in a fashion the fish gestured to the bishops, returned to the sea. anomalous variety of known
that resembles a clergymans apparently communicating Scholars were always sceptical marine life or an altogether new
cloak. Its skull, said to appear its desire to be released. The of this strange fish. Guillaume species. Cryptopia, 15 Dec 2009;
almost humanoid, bears an bishops urged the king to return Rondelet, for example, who gizmodo.com, 20 Dec 2016.

22 ft352
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 ALIEN ZOO Karl ShuKer presents his regular round-up from the
cryptozoological garden
UIC SCIENCE

FAN PENGFEI
ABOVE LEFT: The huge skull nicknamed The Old One (left), with modern polar bear skulls at right. ABOVE RIGHT: The newly-discovered but already endangered Skywalker
hoolock gibbon. BELOW: This previously undescribed species of opossum was first found as a museum specimen before being tracked down alive and well in Brazil.

A WEASEL BEARS SKULL? A FUNKY NEW GIBBON postgraduate biology student Silvia Pavan was
According to the traditional legends and lore Its not every day that a new species of intrigued by an unidentified rat-sized opossum
of native hunters in Arctic Canada, in addition ape is scientifically described and named. skin with noticeably rich mahogany-coloured fur
to the normal polar bear there is a very special Dubbed the Skywalker hoolock gibbon (yes, and a red head. She sought further specimens
variety that is much bigger, but narrow-bodied, its discoverers are Star Wars fans), but known in other museums and discovered several,
and fleeter-footed. They call it the tiriarnaq or formally as Hoolock tianxing, this brown-furred, none of which had been formally identified
tigiaqpak, names that translate as the weasel white-eyebrowed denizen of rainforests within either. Some of her colleagues then travelled
bear, on account of its lithe build and speedy Gaoligongshan nature reserve in southwestern to the source of these specimens Itaituba I
pace. Although scientists working in this region Chinas Yunnan province had been the subject National Forest in Par, Brazil and succeeded
have known about the local hunters belief in of primatological studies for some time. in capturing some living individuals using a
the weasel bear, they always dismissed it as However, it had not been recognised as a series of humane pitfall traps.
mythical until the recent public revelation species in its own right, taxonomically separate After subjecting these examples to a full
that in 2014 a discovery was made here of a from both of the two previously recognised study, Pavan and her colleagues confirmed
very unusual zoological specimen that may hoolock species, until a research team led by that they represented a hitherto-undescribed
just conceivably represent tangible evidence Fan Peng-Fei from Chinas Sun Yat-sen University species of short-tailed opossum, which
for the weasel bears reality. Approximately began to suspect that subtle differences in they have now officially named the gnome
650-800 years old and thus earning for its its facial markings might indicate this. Their opossum Monodelphis saci the saci being
erstwhile owner the nickname The Old One, suspicions were confirmed when comparative a magical gnome-like entity from Brazilian
the specimen was recovered from an eroding genetic and morphological analyses with folklore that wears a red cap, and which this
archological site southwest of Utqiagvik, other gibbon species were conducted. Also new red-headed opossum brought to mind.
Alaska. It consisted of an exceptionally large, existing in neighbouring Myanmar, this newly Ironically, it appears to be widely distributed in
fully intact, but very odd-shaped polar bear skull, revealed species is apparently represented four different Brazilian states, despite its very
noticeably different from modern polar bear by no more than around 200 individuals, so it existence having been recognised by science
skulls. Despite its huge size, it was slender, should be officially categorised as endangered, so belatedly.
elongated at the rear end, and exhibited especially as its continuing existence is already http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/
unusual structural features around the nasal threatened by habitat loss. gnome-marsupial-new-species-brazil/ 23 Feb
area and elsewhere. The significance of its www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/ 2017.
distinctive appearance will require genetic and jan/11/new-species-of-
detailed morphological analyses before any gibbon-discovered-in-china
answers are forthcoming. As noted by Anne 11 Jan 2017; http://www.
Jensen, an Utqiagvik-based archologist sci-news.com/biology/new-
working for the science department of the species-skywalker-hoolock-
Native village corporation UIC (Ukpeagvik Iupiat gibbon-04533.html 13 Jan
Corp.) who has been leading excavation and 2017.
research programmes in the region, The Old
One may have belonged to a subspecies, or a A MAGICAL MARSUPIAL
different genetic race, of polar bear or was Another unexpected
possibly something else entirely. In view of its mammalian discovery made
skulls narrow form, might this something else recently is one that occurred
entirely have been the legendary weasel bear? not in a rainforest but inside
www.adn.com/arctic/2017/02/19/could-a-giant- a museum. In 2008, while
polar-bear-skull-found-at-an-eroding-alaska- browsing in the collections
AO MACIEL

archaeological-site-be-the-legendary-weasel- of the Museu Paraense

bear/ 21 Feb 2017. Emlio Goeldi in Belm, Brazil,

FT352 23
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 strangedays

NECROLOG This month, we say goodbye to an alumnus of Saturday Night Live who suffered from a
rare delusional syndrome and record the lonely end of a nudist hermit and herbalist.

improved, thanks to anti-psychotic theyre telling us something very

medication. After his release he profound about the need to be in
was reunited with his wife and touch with our environment. We
continued to work in obscure TV are reminded of the Dark Age pillar
and movie roles. He died of a saints of the desert.
heart attack. Peter ONeill, nudist hermit, born c.
Antonio Rosato, actor and Capgras 1945; died Wicklow mountains, c.
sufferer, born Naples, Italy 26 Dec Jan 2015, aged about 71.
1954; died Toronto, Ontario 10 Jan
2017, aged 62. JAmeS CROnin
NBCU PHOTO BANK / GETTY IMAGES

Brett taylor Cronin shared the 1980 Nobel

Prize in Physics with Val Fitch, for
PeteR OneiLL demonstrating that there was a
The body of Peter ONeill (if that flaw in the central belief held by
was his real name) was found scientists almost since the time
in his remote dwelling in the of Galileo: that the laws of physics
Glenmalure Hills of Co Wicklow, are immutable. In the early 1960s
Ireland, on 8 May 2015 after a Cronin and Fitch investigated
local hotel reported he had not unstable subatomic particles
tOny ROSAtO ratings doldrums during Rosatos come to collect his post in a while. called kaons (or K mesons). These
Actor Tony Rosato is the only tenure, it is likely that the actor The hermit, who spoke with an have a lifetime of only fractions of
famous person Ive ever heard reached his widest audience with English accent, had lived alone in a second, but during that life they
of to have suffered from Capgras his video game-related voiceovers, the Wicklow Mountains for more oscillate rapidly between kaons
Delusion, the so-called Imposter providing the voice of Luigi in the than 20 years. He had built a hut and their antimatter counterpart,
Syndrome [Ft123:14, 133:16, cartoon shows The Adventures where an old ruin once existed antikaons. Conventional wisdom
145:17 and p56-57 this issue]. of Super Mario Bros 3 and Super in the middle of the forest. He predicted that they would undergo
When the syndrome is mentioned, Mario World and a couple of was a wild-looking character but the same number of transitions
the immediate response is to think characters in the Resident Evil he was clean-shaven, his hair in each direction, but in fact the
of the movie Invasion of the Body 3 game. He did voices for a few was as if he cut it himself, said transition from antikaon to kaon
Snatchers, based on a Jack Finney dozen cartoon shows, including retired Garda Richard Galvin. He occurred about half a per cent
novel. Finney, explaining the books those spun off from movies like complained he had been hunted less frequently, thus violating
origin in Stephen Kings Danse Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and out of everywhere. He was a keen CP symmetry, a principle that
Macabre, makes no mention Free Willy. herbalist, and spent much of his states that the laws of physics
of being familiar with the real Rosatos life took a bizarre turn time naked. He had been dead for should be the same if a particle is
delusion, but he might well have in 2005, when he was arrested several months; his last diary entry interchanged with its antiparticle.
heard about it from a budding after stalking his wife Leah and was for 18 January. He left behind Thus after the (hypothetical) Big
medical student during his days their infant daughter. He had hundreds of letters and books, all Bang, antimatter decayed more
at Knox College in Galesburg in previously contacted the police to accompanied by complex notes, rapidly than matter, leaving behind
the Thirties. The syndrome also claim that his wife and daughter suggesting he was attempting the matter that constitutes the
finds echoes in Shirley Jacksons had been replaced by imposters. to find some common thread. Universe rather than an infinite
story The Beautiful Stranger and, In some instances the Capgras He had questions of a religious void. Hallelujah!
later, Charles Beaumonts Twilight sufferer turns hostile or violent nature that he was trying to suss James Watson Cronin, physicist,
Zone script Person or Persons towards the person he believes out, said Fr Oliver Crotty, a local born Chicago 29 Sept 1931; died
Unknown. Capgras Syndrome is to be an imposter. Such was parish priest. I was amazed at St Paul, MN 25 Aug 2016, aged
believed to have a biological basis, the case with Rosato. Though the sheer scale of his knowledge. 84.
such as a lesion on the brain, obviously suffering from mental There are 37 other such men living
possibly caused by some injury. illness, he was sent to Quinte in forests around Ireland. Maybe JOSePh B KeLLeR
Rosato is best remembered in Detention Centre in Napanee for Joe Keller, Professor Emeritus
his adopted homeland of Canada, two years, a judgement which of Mathematics and Mechanical
where he appeared on the cop Daniel Brodsky described as the Engineering at Stanford, developed
show Night Heat for four years in longest ever given for criminal mathematical formul to explain
the late Eighties, winning a Gemini harassment in Canada. It is hard a wide range of contingencies,
Award. Before that, he was one to imagine the toll that the trauma from the esoteric to the mundane.
of a handful of actors to appear of living in prison would take on He was best known for his
on both of the USAs top satirical one who is suffering from such a Geometrical Theory of Diffraction,
shows of the Eighties, SCTV and mental illness, and it is hard to a method for describing the
Saturday Night Live (SNL). He had regard the sentence as anything propagation, scattering and
two memorable roles on Michael other than cruel. diffraction of waves, especially
ODonoghues notorious Halloween Rosato was confined to a as they bend around the edges
episode of SNL, which introduced psychiatric hospital for 19 months, and corners of an obstacle. The
punk rock to Middle America via and released in 2010. Happily, theory built on work he had done
the band Fear. Since SNL was in his condition seems to have during and after World War II using

24 FT352
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 strangedays

sonar to determine the presence

and location of submarines and
underwater land mines. He developed
and used a mathematical method of
,
approximation known as asymptotic
analysis to tackle problems that
cannot be solved exactly, and applied
it to predict behaviour throughout
the domains of science. He figured
out how to make a teapot spout
that doesnt drip, for which he was
awarded the Ig Nobel prize for Physics
in 1999; he won a second Ig Nobel
in 2012 for identifying the physical
forces that make a joggers ponytail
swing horizontally even though the
jogger is oscillating vertically. He also
worked out how earthworms (but not
snakes) can wriggle even on glass.
Joseph Bishop Keller, mathematician,

Fairies, Folkloreand Forteana

born Paterson, NJ 31 July 1923; died
Palo Alto CA 7 Sept 2016, aged 93.

Whitney Smith
Whitney Smith turned a childhood
Simon Young FiLES A nEW REPoRT FRom THE inTERFACE oF STRAngE PHEnomEnA AnD FoLK BELiEF
fascination with flags into a scholarly
discipline of which he was the
leading light. Aged 18, he gave it white and sitting under a hedge playing a tiny
a name: vexillology, from the Latin leprechaun hunts harp.
for flag, vexillum. Some of the kids It is April 1908. We are in County Down, Second, and most disturbingly, the
thought I was weird, he told People Ireland, in the townland of Killough and leprechaun was caught. On 12 August two
magazine in 1985. But to be 13 groups of boys are hunting for a leprechaun. policemen were summoned to a farmhouse at
years old and literally the only person The story first broke in the newspapers around nearby Mullingar in West Meath, for a small
in the Western world who knew what 20 April, and by then several locals had seen and ravenous man had been discovered there.
the flag of Bhutan looked like, well, the man of dwarfish proportions... clad in red, The leprechaun, who could not speak, was
this was my world. As a political with a small peaked cap and escorted to the workhouse,
science undergraduate at Harvard, he this curious being had caused where he was treated with
designed a flag for newly independent
Guyana. In 1961, with Gerhard Grahl,
the greatest excitement.
The excitement was not just
the interest mixed with awe and
children besieged the building
he created the bimonthly Flag Bulletin,
the first journal of its kind. A year later
about an encounter with the
paranormal, but also depended
leprechaun desperate to catch a glimpse.
Third, the press went mad.
he founded the Flag Research Center, on baser motives: leprechauns, was spotted British newspapers sent
a consulting firm that answered of course, give up their treasure their agents to try and get a
inquiries from filmmakers, historians if captured. sitting under a photograph of the little man and
and commercial flag makers. Now there are, as it happens, GK Chesterton wrote a lyrical
He wrote the standard work, Flags several cases where groups of hedge playing piece for the Illustrated London
Through the Ages and Across the boys have gone leprechaun mad News. At least the press went
World (1975), and 26 other books and torn up an area looking for a tiny harp mad until it was discovered that
on the subject. In 2011, the editors diminutive shoe makers: one the leprechaun was mentally
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1938 from West Limerick ill and all too human. He had
noted that he was their most prolific and another from Liverpool in left home in early August, two
contributor, having written more 1964 [see FT299:26-32] the last case possibly months after the leprechaun hunt had begun
than 250 flag histories. Flags of a explained by Liverpools Irish roots. and he wasnt even, it transpired, that small.
kind date back at least 5,000 years; In itself, then, a leprechaun hunt in 1908 The leprechaun was sold by his father for 10
Smith liked to cite an ancient Iranian in County Down is not that surprising. But to a freakshow in Glasgow and the story sank
one, made from copper. However, he some of the twists that followed are absolutely into local folklore. The fairyist Evans-Wentz
argued that their modern significance unique. For one thing, the leprechaun hunters found the countryside alive with leprechaun
started with the 16th century Dutch kept at it. Twenty days later a journalist wrote: rumours when he passed through at the end
revolt against Spain. For the first time This week the little creature is reported to of the summer. One sceptical newspaper
it was not a state or monarch being have made several appearances in the district, ventured that the leprechaun was nothing
symbolised, but a people, a language, and these are much believed by the people... more than a spotted badger, the propensity
a culture and a cause. On one occasion some of the children pursued for that creature to sit under hedges and play
Whitney Smith Jr, vexillologist, born it to a moat hard by a churchyard, where harps being well known...
Arlington, MA 26 Feb 1940; died it disappeared. On another occasion the Simon Young writes on folklore and history
Peabody, MA 17 Nov 2016, aged 76. leprechaun was spotted dressed, for once, in and runs www.fairyist.com

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 the UFO files
FORTEAN TIMES presents our monthly section featuring regular sighting
reports, reviews of classic cases, entries on major ufological topics and
hands-on advice for UFO investigators. The UFO Files will benefit from your
input, so dont hesitate to submit your suggestions and questions.
To contact The UFO Files, email: [email protected]

FLYINGSAUCERY PETER BROOKESMITH PRESENTS HIS REGULAR

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

THERE IS NO SENSE IN TRYING to me as a ctional entity, it and posting pivotal arguments in this infantile brouhaha
but its all right, Ma Im only dying Who the fk is Isaac Koi and why wont he was over that famous German 1950 April
Ufology has a way of killing off some, even if comply w the standards we do?). Fools joke (for another from the same year,
not all, of its brighter stars, who make ne Even more worryingly to me, given my see p37), the photo of a little alien held by
contributions to the subject and ere long concern not to have clients know about my two betrilbyed B-movie G-men in trench coats,
depart in disgust. So the eld is left with a interest in ufology in case this adversely (below) which someone had whimsically
collection of halfwits and buffoons who loudly affects my income, he has now posted today identied as coming from the Cape
lay claim to the Truth, but who curiously after various people were kind enough to Girardeau, Missouri, UFO crash on April 12,
enough fail to agree on almost everything support me in the relevant discussion on 1941. The original of this doctored picture
except that the aliens are here, and some of Facebook (including Edoardo Russo, Curt has long since been found, by the way.
them come from Zeta Reticuli. Should you Collins, Rich Hoffman, Paul Dean and others) Isaacs great strength has been his
doubt my words, read Robert Sheaffers Bad called those supporting me little butt sucking sedulous persistence in tracking down and
UFOs blog reports on the 2017 International followers and said just watch how I make putting online archaic ufological newsletters,
UFO Congress in Fountain Hills, Arizona. Part these malcontents famous anytime someone journals and magazines, all with copyright
of his bad news is that the bar was intolerably searches their name. clearance, for all to view for free. Now, some
expensive. Otherwise the gathering was Charming. Isaac posted a 100-odd page may think this a trie nerdy, a facet of the
treated to a collection of mostly has-beens document on his Facebook page and the philatelic tendency in the eld, and that his
churning out the same old stuff theyve been Above Top Secret (ATS) website with all the concern that knowledge of his interest might
peddling for years, decades in some cases. grisly details you might require. For those adversely affect his appeal as a barrister is
And bats they mostly are. (Comparisons with short of time, I commend Curt Collinss a little overwrought. We dont, for instance,
noble members of the House of Lords should summary of the byzantine background to recall that Harry Harris, Mancunian solicitor
be stoutly resisted.) Those attending were the case on his excellent website (www. and egregious devotee of our dreadful libel
treated among other things to Col Charles blueblurrylines.com/2016/12/erica-lukes- laws, ever suffered from his promotion of
Halt doing his Walter Mittyish shtick over ted-roe-and-attack-on-isaac.html). One of the questionable abduction cases. So Isaacs
Rendlesham, Stan Friedman (in)voluntary retirement is a loss,
remorselessly oblivious to the especially to those of us who might
debunking of the Fish star model not, without his efforts, have been
(see FT242:50-52), someone able to appreciate, for example,
else unmoved by all rational what a brilliant production UFO
(and conclusively provable) Brigantia was ufology as comedy,
explanations of the Phoenix lights indeed. If ufology is to survive
of 1997, and one Ted Roe, who if only as comedy it needs
in the course of a self-regarding young guns to succeed the kind
discourse remarked that in of superannuated sclerotics who
ufology one must restrain those appeared in Arizona. Isaac was
who start attacking peoples one such new kid in town, doing
image. something worthwhile, and he will
This is a bit rich coming from be much missed. He is survived by
Roe, who late last year expended his website, and his many posts
much energy dissing Isaac Koi for on ATS.
operating under a pseudonym,
and threatening to expose his SURPRISING SILENCE
real identity. (Roe now denies I had thought that the discovery of
doing any such thing, guffaw, and TRAPPIST-1, a dim star 40 million
went on to accuse Koi of lacking light years away, with no less than
integrity.) In early December seven rocky Earth-like planets
an understandably upset Isaac circling it, one of which seems to be
released this statement: a ne candidate for nurturing life in
Goodbye: I seem to have some form, would have the ETHers
greatly annoyed Ted Roe about a squeaking with joy, and proclaiming
month ago when I posted a brief it proof of their ill-founded beliefs.
comment on Facebook about his But one nds not a peep from the
new IAUPR group. Without wanting usual suspects. I doubt this silence
to bother you all with the details, has much to do with a sudden
he has subsequently posted on access of knowledge or wisdom, so
various Facebook pages attacking must be content with nding it odd,
my use of a pseudonym (referring if mildly encouraging.

26 FT352
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UFO CASEBOOK JENNY RANDLES SUGGESTS ITS TIME WE LOOKED
AT THAT FIVE PER CENT OF UNSOLVED UFO CASES

PROJECT FIVE PER CENT It was years ago, but stuck in his memory
Early in January 2017 I received a UFO after he described it, over and over, to others
report from my small Stockport community. as he added various features of the UFO
A middle-aged woman was awoken in the propulsion system. It was pure chance that
early hours by a strange noise a deep this didnt become another classic encounter
humming mixed with a faint whirring and in our bulging les, because I had followed
a glowing light illuminating her bedroom. up other sightings of the same thing. This
Looking outside, she could see that the witness had really seen a spectacular burn-
object creating the glow and, she inferred, up in the upper atmosphere when a piece of
the sound was hidden behind trees to the space junk in decaying orbit disintegrated.
south, as if something eerie had landed. He did not know this and his understandable

JENNY RANDLES
So far, so intriguing; but my suspicions grew certainty that he had seen a spaceship
as her story unfolded and she noted that she (which ironically he had!) meant he followed
returned to bed, wishing it away, and the next the path of unintentionally evolving his
thing she knew (I suspect after falling back to account into more than the sum of its parts.
sleep) both light and sound had disappeared.
Over the 45 years that I have investigated Venus was One close encounter that I investigated
makes this point well. On 21 October 1983,

close to Earth
UFO cases I have heard many accounts a couple had been visiting their son in
like this, and while I might have a possible Shropshire before driving back to Cheshire.
solution for many, some remain unsolved Around midnight, they saw a UFO swoop
mysteries that can easily grow into legends.
Here, that was not the case, because I
quickly realised what the witness had seen.
and bright in towards their car and engage in a game of
cat and mouse, hugging the hedgerows. For
about 50 minutes the terror of this encounter
I knew this because I had seen and heard it
myself, but had been merely miffed because
it woke me up. I had discovered its cause
the winter sky escalated as they were followed northwards.
The UFO beamed a light at them, but cast
no shadow. Both witnesses were scared
because I lived much nearer to the source and upset. One even suffered hypertension
than she did: right next to the main line not, then we stand on shifting sands. afterwards. The man was a skilled engineer
railway. The UFO, out of sight in a cutting, Over the years I have seen this happen in and both were 100 per cent sincere in
was a group of engineers working on the too many otherwise bafing cases to dismiss describing what they saw to Jodrell Bank
track overnight. They were using a large arc the argument, even if we tell ourselves space centre, which passed them on to me.
light with a generator that emitted a hum as there really are some truly insoluble cases. The object this couple described was a
described. It seems less disastrous to a fortean classic UFO with multiple lights. It could easily
Although this case isnt Earth-shattering, researcher, because the phenomenon itself have become an impressive case had I not
it does reveal the social factors and pure and how society has then been changed by it suspected what they had seen and asked
luck that can make the difference between is our focus: any cause is almost secondary. them: Did you see the Moon? Surprised, they
a strange encounter being interpreted in But many ufologists have a deep need to said the night appeared moonlit, but they had
a supernatural context or being resolved. uncover some extraordinary cause for at seen no Moon. Yet the Moon was almost full,
Nobody who investigates fortean phenomena least a few of the events they investigate. and given the weather and the route taken
should ignore what this means. Its worth pondering how this inuences the should have been spectacularly visible. If
Ninety-ve per cent of reports of something dissemination and understanding of evidence, you put two and two together you can make
weird are nothing of the kind: they are as investigator bias, albeit unconscious, can either a UFO or a bafing misperception of
normal events ltered through some quirk be insidious. the Moon. The witnesses were sure it was
of circumstance that makes them seem Dozens of UFO sightings were made during the former. I am more cautious, because I
stranger than they really were. But they can January 2017 of a huge starship hovering know that amazing things can be seen by
grow into something that enters the personal in the south-western sky. The witnesses experienced witnesses; if they are thinking
folklore of a witnesss life to the extent that were not deluded, but were watching the UFO rather than Moon, then that is what
they retell the story over and over again. If, spectacular sight of Venus, close to Earth and they will see.
as is frequently the case, the witness never exceptionally bright in the winter skies, as So did this UFO become an IFO? How many
gets an answer, they go on to believe for the pictured above; and in the case of those with more of our unresolved ve per cent sit in
rest of their days that they have joined the less than 20/20 vision they saw artefacts this ambiguous borderland, simply waiting
ranks of those who have briey touched the created by their eyes that made it mimic a for the right resolution? Perhaps we need a
unfathomable. I suspect this is a template structured craft. Countless sightings result new study into the Ones that Got Away to
for how nearly all strange experiences evolve. when we are caught unawares by changes nd out. I propose that we put together a
That 95 per cent of such experiences do in the night sky. We rarely understand how team of analysts with a range of expertise to
have resolution of a kind that the sincerely shapes and movements are the result of our explore a few of these most bafing cases.
bemused witnesses making up the remaining less than perfect eyesight, not the craft we We have new assets such as the power
ve per cent didnt nd should set alarm think we are seeing. and resources of the Internet and the ability
bells ringing, yet it very rarely does. It leaves Numerous classic and widely promoted to instantly exchange ideas online. Perhaps
an unspoken question that researchers tend cases have resulted from trained observers we can dig deeper into the ve per cent and
to evade, as if its a terrible secret that must unaware of a natural event in the skies. The apply new knowledge and modern resources
be kept lest it destroy their dreams: how do wave of Flying Crosses that bafed many to currently unsolved cases. We should focus
we know for sure that there really are ve per police forces in the 1960s and lled the on multiple witness events and dene a
cent of cases that are not like the other 95 national press is one example. There were Strangeness Factor based on researchable
per cent? What if all those UFO cases are just no crosses in the sky: they were artefacts evidence that helps us choose the best
the ones that got away in terms of nding created in the human eye. candidates to reinvestigate. If you think you
resolution? The ones in which there was no Sometimes witnesses develop the can help such a Project ve per cent then
lucky break allowing us to unpick the real narrative of what they saw into an art form. send an email to [email protected] and
cause? Are we right to say that ve per cent I recall an excited witness who described a volunteer. Perhaps in a future issue we can
of unknowns will forever defy resolution? If spectacular space vehicle he had witnessed. report our rst conclusions.

FT352 27
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 FortFoolery
Forteana & april Fool Hoaxes
While gathering in this years spaghetti harvest, RoB gaNDy was struck by the fact that a
signicant number of April Fool pranks over the decades have featured fortean themes from
fake UFOs to cryptozoological creatures in their attempts to put one over on the public...

o
n 1 April each year people
everywhere play simple tricks on
family and friends so they can shout
April Fool!This has been handed
down the generations, with children
often encouraged by one parent to hoodwink
the other with statements like Look Mum
theres a flying saucer in the garden! But how
did this tradition begin?
April Fools Day, or All Fools Day, has been
celebrated for centuries by different cultures,
but its exact origins are a mystery. Some
historians speculate that it dates to 1582,
when France switched from the Julian to the
Gregorian calendar (see FT**:**): people
who were slow or failed to recognise New Year
had moved to 1 January, and continued to
celebrate it from 25 March to 1 April, became
the butt of jokes and hoaxes. Others link it to
Hilaria, an ancient Roman festival celebrated
at the end of March, which involved people
dressing up in disguises. Whatever the truth,
April Fools Day was celebrated throughout
Britain from the 18th century. 1 Increasingly,
over the 20th century, the popular media
tested peoples credulity with April Fools
Day hoaxes ranging from the subtle to the
outlandish; many were bought hook, line and
sinker. Some reflected contemporary culture,
but others involved strange creatures and
scientific discoveries.
I found myself wondering what proportion
THinKGeeK

of April Fools pranks involved fortean

themes. Some lazy armchair research
identified the excellent Museum of Hoaxes
website,2 which details Wonderful stories
contrived for the public from ancient times to
the present day, and lists The Top 100 April
Fools Day Hoaxes of All Time. I analysed

all Fools
this list using soft and slow as opposed to washed in the Tower of Londons moat (1698).
hard and fast fortean categorisation and But I found 38 fortean-related hoaxes, which
provide my analysis and some specifics below. I categorised into: Cryptozoology (9); Science
The range of hoaxes is wide, and includes
non-fortean japes such as no-hole polo Day Has Been (13); UFOs/Space (4); Psychology (5); and
Miscellaneous (7); see panel.

CeleBrateD
mints, the division of Belgium, and viagra for
hamsters.They also include a 1983 video of cRyPToZoology hoaxes
a Boston University professor (apparently) The highest ranked case involved zoologists
revealing the fourth century origin of April
Fools Day, and a summary of the oldest
known prank: sending people to see lions
For CentUries from Yorkshires Flamingo Park Zoo finding
the dead body of the Loch Ness Monster.
Scottish police intercepted them taking

28 FT352
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 CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: 1) The harvesting of spaghetti from a vine
on the ceiling of lo spiedo, an italian restaurant in central london,
in 1961. 2) The hotheaded naked ice borer, as reported in Discover
magazine in 1995. 3) richard Bransons uFo balloon sparked sight-
ings across london in 1989. 4) An easter island statue washes up
on a beach in the netherlands in 1962. 5) The capture of an extra-
terrestrial visitor following a roswell-style saucer crash in Wiesbaden,
Germany, in 1950.
KeysTone / HulTon ArcHive / GeTTy imAGes

FT352 29
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Nessies corpse back to Yorkshire, but found the
creature was a large bull elephant seal that had
died a week earlier in Dudley Zoo. Flamingo Parks
education officer, John Shields, had shaved its
whiskers, padded its cheeks with stones, and kept
it frozen, before sneakily dumping it in the Loch,
intended as an April Fools prank on his colleagues.
He admitted the joke had got a little out of hand.3
Everyone knows about unicorns, but two hoaxes
focused on how to eat them. In 2010 retailer
ThinkGeek announced the sale of canned unicorn
meat, as the new white meat; the concept proved
popular enough for the company to later sell the
product for real: customers received a stuffed
unicorn toy inside a can. However, customers
in Germany didnt receive their orders because
customs officials apparently believed unicorns
were real and decided the product breached
regulations banning the importation of meat from

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: 1) The endangered Tasmanian mock walrus (1984). 2) The BBcs flying penguins (2008). 3) How to cook a unicorn, courtesy of a fake medival
manuscript from the British library (2012). 4) Beef tomatoes? in 1983, a New Scientist article, by macDonald and Wimpey of the university of Hamburg, discussed a new
plant-animal hybrid called Boimate. 5) in 1962, swedish viewers were told that stretching an old stocking over their black-and-white tellies would result in colour pictures.

30 FT352
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rare animals. In 2012, the British Library negative energy that caused electrical airholes in their sides, so that when fully
announced the discovery of a long-lost devices to produce the opposite effect to cooked, they emited a 97 decibel signal
medival cookbook in its archives, which what they normally would do: for example, indicating they should be removed from the
featured a recipe for cooking a unicorn, the bulb of an ordinary lamp would cast stove.
including instructions for a marinade and darkness instead of light.
griddle-roasting. The library reproduced Other scientific gems were: thousands UFo/sPace hoaxes
hand-drawn illustrations. of rogue bras where the support wire The top-ranking UFO/Space hoax involved
A literal White Elephant, supposedly was made from a kind of copper originally British astronomer Patrick Moore, 6 who on
from Burma, attracted over 1,000 people designed for use in fire alarms when it 1 April 1976 announced that at 9:47am that
to Frankfurt Zoo in 1949, but it was just a came into contact with nylon and body day a once-in-a-lifetime planetary alignment
regular grey elephant painted white. The heat, it produced static electricity which would occur which would temporarily
zoos director was forgiven for this genuine interfered with local television and radio counteract and lessen Earths own gravity.
attempt to raise much-needed cash. A more broadcasts; British scientists who had Moore told radio listeners that if they jumped
Jurassic Park-style stunt involved an article developed a machine to control the weather in the air at the exact moment the alignment
about Retrobreeding the Woolly Mammoth within a 5,000-km radius; a car sunroof occurred, they would experience a strange
in MITs Technology Review, which described that could be kept open in the rain because floating sensation. Hundreds of listeners
Soviet scientists efforts to bring the creature jets of air blasted the water away from the telephoned the BBC claiming to have felt just
back from extinction. top of the car; a Veterinary Record article that.
Antarctica is the source of two more about diseases afflicting the species Brunus Richard Branson flew a hot air balloon
crypto-hoaxes: Discover magazine reported edwardii (otherwise known as the Teddy designed to look like a flying saucer over
a new species the hotheaded naked ice Bear) 5; Thomas Edison invented a machine London in 1989, while in 1950 Germany saw
borer with bony plates on their heads transforming soil directly into cereal and a Roswell-like announcement of a crashed
which can become burning hot, because of water directly into wine, thereby ending saucer near Wiesbaden, with a photo of a
innumerable blood vessels. This allows them world hunger; a New Scientist article, by small, one-legged extraterrestrial supposedly
to bore through ice at high speeds, or melt ice researchers MacDonald and Wimpey of the found near the wreckage by American
beneath penguins, causing the unfortunate University of Hamburg, about a successful soldiers.
birds to sink beneath the surface where plant-animal hybrid called Boimate, which In 1967, Swiss Radio announced that US
the hotheads would eat them. However, had resulted in tomatoes containing genes astronauts had just landed on the Moon two
penguins from Terry Joness colony of Adlie from a cow; in Germany, a farmer could years before they actually did with an hour
penguins would simply take to the air as obtain lard from live pigs by operating on of elaborately staged updates, correspondent
filmed by the BBC. 4 Rather than endure them (using novocaine) to remove rashers, reports and expert interviews. Belief was
Antarctic winters, these amazing penguins before bandaging them and letting them near total as advised, masses of people left
fly thousands of miles to South American heal, a process that could be repeated up to Zurich to watch the Moonship take off from
rainforests to bask in the tropical Sun. three times a year; and genetically modified the Moon at 7pm, from high vantage points
The remaining two hoaxes involve unheard whistling carrots which grow with tapered away from city lights.
of animals with peculiar characteristics
or powers. Telecommunications company
Qualcomm suggested expanding wireless
coverage by implanting tiny base-stations
into pigeons hybridised with wolves (wolf-
pigeons). They could fly overhead but
simultaneously defend themselves, forming
packs when necessary, whilst going out as
lone wolves to areas without coverage. By
comparison, the Tasmanian mock walrus was
four inches long, looked like a walrus, purred
like a cat, and had a hamsters temperament.
It never bathed or used a litter box, but it ate
cockroaches, potentially ridding an entire
house of its roach problem.

scIeNce hoaxes
Scientific breakthroughs evoke a sense of
wonder, and are therefore favourites for
pranksters. No surprise then that many
believed the following. In Sweden, viewers
were persuaded that by pulling a nylon
stocking over their black & white TV screen,
the mesh would cause light to bend in such
a way that the image would appear as if in
colour. BBC TV broadcast an interview with
KeysTone / HulTon ArcHive / GeTTy imAGes

a London University professor who had

perfected a technology called Smellovision,
which allowed the transmission of smells over
the airwaves.
Then there was the man who could
fly using a device powered only by the
breath from his lungs, or the terrifying
new weapon invented by Soviet scientists
capable of harnessing the latent energy
of the atmosphere to hurl objects of any
weight almost unlimited distances. Another ABOVE: in 1976, Patrick moore convinced people that a rare planetary alignment had lessened earths gravity.
unlikely discovery was contra-polar energy,

FT352 31
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 TOP APRIL FOOL HOAXES
WITH FORTEAN THEMES
(Showing overall rank in Top 100 and year)

Cryptozoology (9)
#13: The Body of nessie Found (1972)
#19: Hotheaded naked ice Borers (1995)
#25: Flying Penguins (2008)
#40: The Frankfurt Zoos White elephant
(1949)
#51: retro-breeding the Woolly mammoth
(1984)
#53: canned unicorn meat (2010)
#71: Qualcomms Wolf Pigeon (2009)
#82: How To cook A unicorn (2012)
#93: The Tasmanian mock Walrus (1984)

SCienCe (13)
#2: instant colour Tv (1962)
#12: man Flies By own lung Power
(1934)
#30: Boimate (1983)
#31: Thomas edison invents Food
machine (1878)
#34: The interfering Brassieres (1982)
#36: Whistling carrots (2002)
#43: Diseases of Brunus edwardii (1972)
#45: smellovision (1965)
#49: rain-Deflecting open Top car (1983)
#54: lard From live Pigs (1921)
#61: contra-Polar energy (1995)
#70: Atmospheric energy Harnessed
(1923)
#92: The British Weather machine (1981)

UFoS/SpaCe (4)
#6: Planetary Alignment Decreases
Gravity (1976)
#8: uFo lands in london (1989)
#28: The swiss moon landing Hoax
(1967)
#52: The Wiesbaden martian (1950)
ABOVE: A 1998 poster for Burger Kings left-handed Whopper (the condiments were rotated 180 degrees).
ABOVE: in the same year, David Bowie helped launch William Boyds biography of fictional artist nat Tate.
pSyChology (5)
#37: Gmail motion (2011) Psychology hoaxes new sandwich in restaurants, and many others
#20: The left-Handed Whopper (1998) Googles announcement introducing Gmail requested their own right handed version.
#42: viewers Take offense (1960) Motion, a technology enabling email writing In early 1960 pre-Captain Kirk
#66: nat Tate (1998) using only hand gestures through a and Lieutenant Uhura a viewer
#83: Why Doesnt America read computers webcam with a spatial complained about seeing a black
Anymore? (2014) tracking algorithm translating man kiss a white woman on a
gestures into words and commands, television show.The network
MiSCellaneoUS (7) is very vaguely plausible. But a concerned flew an executive to
#3: The eruption of mount edgecumbe Left-Handed Whopper? Burger King meet the viewer to explain that
(1974) advertised this as being specially the actor was actually white, but
#16: easter island statue Washes Ashore designed for the 32 million left-handed the local station had accidentally
(1962) Americans: the same ingredients broadcast the show at a high
#21: The Predictions of isaac Bickerstaff were used as for the contrast ratio, making him
(1708) original Whopper, but all look dark-skinned. Paul
sTeve AZZArA / corBis viA GeTTy imAGes

condiments were rotated Krassner (editor of the

#33: Atomic mist invades eindhoven
(1947) 180 degrees for the benefit satirical underground
of left-handed customers. magazine The Realist)
#76: The Derbyshire mummified Fairy
The next day Burger was outraged that a
(2007)
King had to confirm this TV network was so
#79: Frogs meet Wave (1906)
was a hoax because afraid of offending a
#84: World to end Tomorrow (1940)
thousands of racist, and asked his
customers had readers to write to the
requested the network after the 1 April

32 FT352
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airing of the panel show Masquerade Party to
complain about being offended by something
on it, without specifying what had offended
them. Hundreds obliged, causing panic at
the network. Apparently the TV executives
watched recordings of the show repeatedly,
desperate to work out what had caused so
much offence.
William Boyds biography of the late
American artist Nat Tate a troubled
abstract expressionist who leapt to his death
from the Staten Island ferry was launched
at a star-studded party in New York, with
David Bowie reading selections aloud, and art
critics making appreciative remarks about
Tates work. A week later it was revealed that
Nat Tate didnt exist and was entirely Boyds
fabrication. It was noted that while no one at
the party had claimed to know Tate well, no
one admitted to never having heard of him
although no one had.
When NPR News linked its Facebook
page to the article Why Doesnt America
Read Anymore? it generated hundreds of
comments. However, none of these posters
had clicked on the link to read the article, ABOVE: Porky Bickars 1974 April Fool, which involved hauling hundreds of tyres into a dormant volcano and set-
because if they had, they would have read: ting fire to them remains a classic. BELOW: The discovery of a mummified fairy in Derbyshire in 2007.
We sometimes get the sense that some people
are commenting on NPR stories that they
havent actually read. If you are reading this, fairy, with many dismissing the subsequent FINal ThoUghTs
please like this post and do not comment on it. confession of hoax as a a cover-up. Over one-third of the best April Fools hoaxes
Then lets see what people have to say about this Then there was the press release from have a fortean theme. I find it reassuring that
story. Clearly the posters had unwittingly Philadelphias Franklin Institute on 31 fortean topics appear to play such a major role
demonstrated the relevance of the question. March 1940 declaring the world would end in the public imagination, with so many people
the following day. 7 More than 200 years accepting the possibility of decidedly strange
MIscellaNeoUs hoaxes earlier, in 1708, there was Jonathan Swifts phenomena. Its worth noting that in very
These hoaxes demonstrate the full range of prank aimed at the famous astrologer John many cases people simply reacted to headlines
human ingenuity and gullibility at the same Partridge. Assuming the personage of Isaac rather than reading further, and the more
time. In 1962, an authentic Easter Island Bickerstaff, an unknown London astrologer, reliable and established the source, the more
statue was washed up on the beach near Swift published an almanac predicting willing people were to believe. What was the
Hollands Zandvoort. An atomic mist was Partridges death by fever on 29 March, and Number One hoax on the list? It couldnt be
to descend upon Eindhoven in 1947, but the then published a pamphlet announcing the anything other than the superb Swiss Spaghetti
effects could be ameliorated by sitting on a predictions fulfilment on 30 March. Despite Harvest shown on the BBC news programme
thin pole with your arms and legs stretched his protests Partridge couldnt convince Panorama in 1957.This reported a bumper
out in front of you. At 10 oclock on 1 April people that he wasnt dead, and eventually spaghetti crop and showed Swiss peasants
1906, thousands of Kansans went to Wichita to stopped publishing his own almanacs. pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. 7
see the predicted meeting of an 11-feet high But for sheer effort, a prize must go to Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. So on
wave moving southward down the Arkansas Alaskas Porky Bickar who flew hundreds of 1 April 2017, dont believe everything you see
River with an 11-mile long mass of millions old tyres into the crater of the long-dormant and hear reported in the media!
of frogs migrating northward up the river. In volcano Mount Edgecumbe. He set them on
2005, an eight-inch winged creature found in fire and convinced the people of nearby Sitka noteS
Derbyshire and identified as a mummified that the volcano was stirring to life. 1 www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-fools-tradition-
popularized
2 http://hoaxes.org
3 By pure coincidence John was a fellow student i knew
in Goodricke college, university of york.
4 www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7ryr4
5 Veterinary Record, 1 Apr 1972; 90(14):382-5.
6 Patrick moore was an inveterate hoaxer. He was
accused of being cedric Allingham who wrote Flying
Saucers from Mars, which he always denied. see
Ft298:26 and https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/2012/12/09/
sir-patrick-moore-1923-2012-astronomer-and-flying-
saucerer/
7 www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvo_wkxH9du

aUThoR BIogRaPhy
ROB GANDY is a visiting professor at the
liverpool Business school, John moores
university. He has written for FT on ghostlore,
football curses and phantom hitchhikers.

FT352 33
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 THECORPSE
FACTORY
Fake News is nothing new and false stories were widely spread by soldiers, civilians and
propagandists during World War I. DAVID CLARKE investigates a gruesome rumour of factories used
for converting human corpses into fat and oil that has been called the master hoax and the most
appalling atrocity story of the 1914-18 conict.

That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat; LEFT: A report on the corpse factory from an
And he was horried. What shameful sin! English regional newspaper. OPPOSITE: Cannon
Fodder and after. In a Punch cartoon from April
O Sir, that Christian souls should come to
1917. The German Emperor addresses a new
that! recruit with the words and dont forget that
Siegfried Sasson, The Tombstone Maker 1 your Kaiser will nd a use for you alive or dead.

D
uring World War I, Allied soldiers
were the source of a gruesome was required to damage the German war
rumour that the Germans were effort one that substituted shells with
boiling down the bodies of their words. After three years of war and an Allied
own dead an atrocity that was used by naval blockade, Germany was desperately
British propagandists to blacken the name short of some of the most basic materials.
of the enemy. Out of their own mouths, Meanwhile, the Allies were plotting to bring
the military masters of Germany stand China and other neutral countries in the Far
convicted of an act of unspeakable savagery East into the war against the Central Powers.
which has shocked the whole civilised
world, proclaimed a pamphlet produced by THE RUMOUR MILL
British military intelligence for worldwide Where did the unlikely story of the corpse
distribution in 1917. Attilas Huns were factory originate? Rumours had been
guilty of atrocious crimes, but they never circulating since 1915, both in Flanders
desecrated the bodies of dead soldiers and on the Home Front, that claimed
their own esh, as well as the fallen of the the Germans had secret installations
enemy by improvising a factory for the behind their front line where the bodies
conversion of human corpses into fat and
oils, and fodder for pigs. 2 THE MILITARY of dead soldiers were rendered down into
fats. Depending upon which source you

MASTERS OF
The Corpse Conversion Factory or believed, the Kadaveranstalt utilised these
Kadaveranstalt was just one of a series of fats to manufacture industrial munitions,
rumours and fake news that spread through lubricants, fertiliser, candles, boot dubbing,
Allied countries during the war. Some
originated in gossip and rumour before they
appeared in print. Others were encouraged
GERMANYSTAND animal feed and soap.
The rumour was so well known on the
Home Front that by June 1915 Cynthia
by false news reports passed by the censor.
From 1914 the German Army was demonised CONVICTED Asquith, the daughter-in-law of the British
Prime Minister, referred to it glibly in her
by inuential sections of the British media, diary. One day after a pleasant dinner,
which accused the Kaisers forces of a she notes how we discussed the rumour
series of atrocities. Examples include the frightfulness of the German military that the Germans utilise even their corpses
massacre of Belgian civilians and, following machine. by converting them into glycerine with
the Second Battle of Ypres at Easter 1915, But the failure of the Somme campaign, the by-product of soap. She suggested,
the crucixion of a Canadian soldier. For launched by the Allied armies in 1916 to jokingly, that Lord Haldane should offer his
the rst two years of the war these stories break the stalemate on the Western Front, vast body as raw material to David Lloyd
some true, some demonstrably false and meant the grinding attrition of trench George, who at that time was Minister of
others unresolved encouraged new recruits warfare would continue.The British military Munitions. 3
to join the ght against the brutality and realised that a different type of warfare It is impossible to trace the story to its

34 F T352
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 FT352 35
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 CANT BELIEVE A WORD YOU READ, SIR, CAN YOU?
this boiler, and arms and legs were sticking
out. About a dozen wooden buckets, like
those used for lard, were full of yellow fat.
Cpl Beresford came forward to tell his
story in October 1925 after the press broke
the story of General Charteriss reported
confession. 1 The soldier said he and
Lance Cpl J Ibbitson had no doubt the
bodies they saw were boiled in the pot
and had been rendered down for their fat.
But where Beresford and Ibbitson saw a
IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM IWM (Q 9384)

corpse factory others who visited the

scene saw something else entirely. Writing
to the Hull Daily Mail, Thomas Leggott said
everything he and fellow ofcers examined
in the chamber was consistent with the
place being a Bosch cook-house, the dead
Germans evidently having been killed
by a shell. The underground chamber
was also visited by the journalist Charles
ABOVE: The cook-house in the tunnel of the St Quentin Canal, hit by an Allied shell on 4 October 1918.
Edward Montague, who was an intelligence
ofcer during the war. In Disenchantment,
A gruesome incident from the nal stages of Corporal Arthur Beresford, a miner from published in 1922, Montague says that
WWI serves to illustrate how deeply trench County Durham. About four yards inside shells had gone into cook-houses of ours,
myths such as the Corpse Factory legend the entrance of the tunnel there was an long before then, and had messed up the
had become embedded in the psyches of underground chamber an ofcer went in, cooks with the stew. A quite simple case.
war-weary soldiers. In the autumn of 1918 and in a few seconds came out spitting. He describes how an Australian sergeant
a carefully planned counter-attack by the We went in and saw a number of bodies of surveyed the disappointing scene of
Allies, reinforced by thousands of fresh German soldiers, fully clothed, and tied up death and destruction, then he broke
American troops, broke through the German in bundles of about six each. We had found the silence in which we had made our
defences along the Hindenburg Line. In bodies tied up like that on the battleeld inspections. Cant believe a word you read,
October, a team of Royal Engineers arrived at before and we took it that it was done for sir, can you? he said with some bitterness.
Bellicourt, where the St Quentin Canal runs them to be carried away easily The walls Life had failed to yield one of its advertised
underground for 6km (3.7 miles). The booby- of the room were blackened with smoke marvels. The press had lied again. The
trappers were given the task of exploring and inside there was a big wooden block, propaganda myth about Germans had
every nook and cranny for landmines left scored on the top with the blows of an axe or cracked up once more.
behind by the retreating German army. cleaver. There was a set-pot, like a big round
It was at the Bellicourt end of the boiler with the remains of a re in a grate NOTES
tunnel that we made the discovery, said underneath. Parts of human bodies were in 1 Leeds Mercury, 29 Oct 1925.

source, but Adrian Gregory suggests the reducing their soldiers to ashes.The Germans
disturbing disparity between visible British drew upon the most advanced science and
corpses after the rst day of the Somme, technology to help dispose of human remains
and the near absence of German dead on with Teutonic efciency. As one soldier
many parts of the front may have led some interviewed by the Daily Express put it,
troops to resort to a folkloric explanation when the corpses are recycled into animal
to explain what happened to them. 4 The feed other folk eat the pigs and poultry, so
horrible Corpse Factory or Tallow Works you may say its cannibalism. Fritz calls his
was hiding in plain sight, in a poem by margarine corpse fat because they suspect
Siegfried Sasson written in October 1916 that thats what it comes from.
refers to the bodies of German soldiers boiled
down to extract their fat. Its source, like many READ ALL ABOUT IT
rumours, did not originate with one person Until 1917 these stories had never received
or organisation but sprang up in many varied ofcial conrmation from any ofcial
locations. Paul Fussell in The Great War and source. That was until two newspapers
Modern Memory refers to an analogous legend owned by one of the most powerful Press
of the sinister Corpse Reducer or Destructor barons, Lord Northcliffe, published the
that was located on the British side of the story as a proven fact. Alfred Harmsworth,
front, at the notorious British training camp rstViscount Northcliffe, had launched the
in Etaples. One of his sources refers to this million-selling Daily Mail in 1896. His political
as the largest Destructor the British Army inuence and pre-war anti-German vitriol had
possessed. Everything that could come under proved so effective that he was offered the
the head of refuse was brought here to post of director of propaganda by David Lloyd
be reduced to ashes even, according to a George, who succeeded Herbert Asquith as
sinister report, the arms and legs of human Prime Minister in 1916.The newspaper baron
beings. 5 ABOVE: A Daily Express story from April 1917. was hated so much by the enemy that at one
But the enemy were accused not just of point the German navy sent a cruiser to shell

36 FT352
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ABOVE LEFT: A British newspaper uses an image of German battleeld dead to suggest that a macabre fate lies in store for these fallen soldiers.
ABOVE RIGHT: A 17 April report in the Daily Mail offers what purports to be a rst-hand account of a visit to a corpse factory from a German newspaper.

his home in Kent. damnable work out of which Germans are

On the same day, 17 April 1917, his papers
the Times and the Daily Mail published what THE GERMAN making handsome dividends, it claimed.
This is not so.The factories are established

GOVERNMENT
they claimed was conclusive evidence the in each army area, including Rumania.
corpse factory did exist.The Times ran the This the Germans have admitted.7 A
story under the headline Germans and their cartoon published by Punch soon afterwards
Dead, attributing the claim to two separate
sources, a Belgian newspaper published PROTESTED AT imagined the horric scene under the caption
CANNON FODDER AND AFTER. It

THESE CLAIMS
in England and a story that originally shows the German Emperor addressing a new
appeared in a German newspaper, Berliner recruit, a young private: and dont forget
Lokalanzeiger.The latter was a short account that your Kaiser will nd a use for you alive or
by reporter Karl Rosner who described an dead.8
unpleasant smell as if lime was being burnt The German government protested against
as he passed a factory behind the German James Hayward in Myths and Legends of the what they called these loathsome and
lines. He said the fats that were rendered First World War says the account that follows ridiculous claims, which were the result of
there were turned into lubricating oils reads like a nightmarish parody of Jules a deliberate mistranslation of the German
and manure, adding that nothing can be Verne or HG Wells.The workers were word Kadaver. On 11 May, the German Foreign
permitted to go to waste. Rosner used the equipped with long hooked poles used to push Secretary threatened newspapers in neutral
word Kadaver, which referred to the bodies of the bundles of bodies to an endless chain, countries with libel proceedings if they re-
animals mainly horses not human bodies. which picks them up with big hooks The published the lie. But their protests fell on
But the Daily Mail described this as a bodies are transported on this endless chain deaf ears as both the Chinese Ambassador
callous admission by the Germans that the into a long, narrow compartment, where they and the Maharajah of Biikanir issued public
factory was used for extracting oils, fats and pass through a bath which disinfects them. expressions of horror at German treatment
pig-food from the bodies of German private They then go through a drying chamber, and of their dead, the latter warning if the bodies
soldiers killed in battle.The Times said nally are carried into a digester or great of Indian soldiers were treated in this way it
Rosners story was corroborated by what it cauldron, in which they are dropped by an would be regarded as an atrocity that would
called a striking account of this horrible apparatus In the digester they remain for never be forgotten or forgiven.
German industry that appeared in the six to eight hours, and are treated by steam, In the House of Commons, in response
Independence Belge, published in Holland, on which breaks them up while they are slowly to questions from MPs, Lord Robert Cecil,
10 April. Omitting some of the most repulsive stirred by machinery. 6 the Under Secretary of State at the Foreign
details, the account quotes an anonymous Soon afterwards the Daily Express published Ofce, refused to deny the story, saying: In
source who says the factory is invisible a story that directly accused the Germans view of other actions by the German military
from the railway it is placed deep in forest of cannibalism.The paper claimed the fat authorities there is nothing incredible in the
country, with a specially thick growth of trees farm, as it was known by German soldiers, present charge against them. Ofcially, the
around it. Bodies arrived on trains where was established soon after the slaughter on Department of Information at Wellington
they were unloaded by staff who wear oilskin the Somme in 1916. Some people believe House the HQ of the British governments
overalls and masks with mica eyepieces. that there is only one German factory for this propaganda bureau refused to circulate

FT352 37
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 it had a powerfully persuasive effect on
THE HUMAN SAUSAGE FACTORY many people around the world [and] it was
cleverly presented to maximise credibility.10
Some historians entirely blamed the
interview, not as historical fact but as Northcliffe press for giving ofcial credence
clear horror stories. This prompted to this most false of all WWI fake news
some readers to protest. They insisted stories. Newspapers with massive circulations
the story was not folklore because took an idea that had, until 1917, lacked
they, or their parents and friends, had credibility and made the evidence for it
personally visited the ruins of the factory appear convincing by the use of eyewitness
and wanted to set the record straight. testimony. But who provided the ammunition
One Tartu resident, born in 1941, and encouraged them to re it? In 1928
phoned the archive to tell [Eda] the the Labour MP Arthur Ponsonby, in his
story is, unfortunately, true, just like book Falsehood in Wartime, pointed the nger
the human hair hanging from hooks and of blame at the British government, which he
the brown stains on the walls, which claimed had both encouraged and connived
I saw with my own eyes as a child. with its friends in the Press to set this hare
Kalmre located a KGB memorandum from running.
February 1947 that refers to rumours For its part, the government failed to
spread by ethnic Estonians of persons issue a complete denial until 1925 when Sir
unknown [who] were engaged in killing Austen Chamberlain admitted, in a House of
people among the ruins of a building on Commons statement, there was never any
the corner of Soola and Turu streets. It foundation for what he called this false
says the story emerged after one woman report. But in the same year the Conservative
managed to escape and raise the alarm. MP John Charteris, who as a Brigadier
Rumours spread that the esh of General had served as Chief of Army
Rumours about cannibalism on the the factorys victims had been made Intelligence under Douglas Haig during the
battleeld are not conned to the horrors into sausages and soap that had been Great War, caused political embarrassment
of the Western Front during World War I. In sold in the market. Militias had arrested after he said it had indeed been used for
2013 the Estonian folklorist Eda Kalmre three people: a Jew, a gypsy and an propaganda purposes 11.
published a study of rumours about a Estonian. The KGB document reveals Whilst on a lecture tour of the USA in
human sausage factory that operated the three persons arrested were all local 1925, Charteris reportedly admitted his
in the ruins of the Baltic countrys Estonian women. Under interrogation intelligence branch at GHQ France had
second largest city, Tartu, after World they claimed to have seen human skulls played a role in spreading the story.The New
War II.1 The persistence of this story and other bones among the ruins of a York Times revealed how, at a dinner meeting
was demonstrated 70 years later in building, but the KGB gave no credence of the National Arts Club, he confessed to
testimony provided by Tartu residents to their stories. As a counter-measure, having transposed captions from one of two
that Kalmre interviewed during her the head of Tartus State Security photographs found on captured German
research. Council threatened to prosecute anyone soldiers. One showed a train taking dead
During WWII Estonias population engaged in spreading what they called horses to be rendered.The other showed a
suffered occupation rst by the Soviet provocative rumours. train taking dead soldiers for burial.The
Union (1939-41) then by the Nazis Kalmre says that what transformed photo of the horses had the word cadaver
(1941-44) until the devastated country a horror story into plausible reality written upon it and Charteris had the
was absorbed back into the Soviet for some Estonians is implicit in their caption transposed to the picture showing the
Union, where it remained until 1991. stories, in that after the ruinous war German dead, and had the photograph sent to
Kalmre argues the censorship imposed times were so bad that anything was a Chinese newspaper in Shanghai. According
during the Soviet occupation and the possible, even selling sausages made to the Times report, the story was planted in
lack of reliable journalism encouraged from human meat. the full knowledge that it would be followed
false rumours to spread. She found up by European newspapers and generate
references to the factory whilst working NOTES horror and anti-German feelings. 12
in the Estonia Folklore Archive and 1 Eda Kalmre, The Human Sausage Factory: On his return to Britain, Charteris
referred to them, in a newspaper A Study of Post-War Rumour in Tartu (2013). denied making the remarks, and since that
time no one has been able to discover any
clear evidence that might link military
intelligence with the press campaign of 1917.
the story. But les show that a number of But I found what I believe could be one of
ofcials at the Foreign Ofce believed the
corpse factory was a fact. At a meeting of the THE REPORT the photographs referred to by Charteris
in Foreign Ofce les at The National
British War Cabinet on 2 May, the Chief of the
Imperial General Staff, General (later Field
Marshal) Sir William Robertson told the
WAS USED FOR Archives in Kew.The black and white
image, dated 17 September 1917, clearly
shows bodies of German soldiers, tied in
Prime Minister that he had obtained a copy
of the German Order for the 6th Army, giving PROPAGANDA bundles, resting on a train as Charteris had
described in 1925.The covering letter, from

PURPOSES
details relative to the despatch of corpses, an MI7 ofcer at Whitehall, is addressed
which indicated clearly that the corpses in to the Director of Information, Lt Col John
question referred to human beings. 9 Buchan, author of the espionage novel The
Thirty-Nine Steps (1915). It offers Buchan
BLACK PROPAGANDA repackaged as a piece of black propaganda a photograph of Kadavers, forwarded by
But despite the certainty of such highly- designed to demonise the Germans and General Charteris for propaganda purposes.
placed believers, the German Corpse Factory entice the Chinese and others to join the A handwritten note urges caution but says the
did not exist. It began as a rumour with Allied forces. Sociologist Randal Marlin photograph should be placed in the Kadaver
no single source, but by 1917 it had been believes the story was so successful because le. 13

38 FT352
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CROWN COPYRIGHT / THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

ABOVE LEFT: Could one of these photographs showing a train taking dead German soldiers for burial be the one recaptioned and planted in the foreign press by Brigadier
General John Charteris as a piece of black propaganda? ABOVE RIGHT: Alas! My poor brother!. A particularly sinister cartoon by Bruce Bairnsfather, creator of Old Bill.

There is no evidence that any newspaper 1917 MI7 employed 13 ofcers and 25 paid Pollards claim to be the sole author of the
in China printed this or any other photograph writers, some of whom also worked as special legend must be questioned, 17 but philosopher
showing Kadavers, but early in May the Daily correspondents for national newspapers. 15 Bertrand Russell, in his account of wartime
Mail published a similar image under the One of the most talented was Major Hugh propaganda, attributes the corpse factory
headline The Kadaver Horror, captioned: Pollard, whose WWII SOE le reveals he to one of the employees in the British
In view of the ghastly revelations of the combined his secret work as a propagandist propaganda department, a man with a good
utilisation of their dead, this photograph, with a reporting role on the staff of the Daily knowledge of German, perfectly aware that
found by a British cavalry ofcer on the body Express.The papers proprietor, Lord Kadaver means carcase not corpse but
of a German near Delville Wood, is sufcient Beaverbrook, became Minister of Information aware also that, with the Allied command of
indication of the Huns treatment of those in the War Cabinet during 1918. the means of publicity, the misrepresentation
who have died that Kultur may live.14 After the war, Pollard boasted of his role could be made to go down. 18 For those who
MI7 were a military intelligence branch that in the corpse factory saga to his cousin Ivor spread fake news in World War I, the Germans
specialised in anti-German propaganda in Montagu, who writing in 1970, recalled were so evil that anything could be used as a
neutral countries. One of its tasks was to how we laughed at his cleverness when he told propaganda weapon against them and that
censor captions from captured photographs. us how his department [MI7] had launched included rumours, lies and what we would
In 1917, its writers produced a four-page the account of the German corpse factories today call fake news.
pamphlet called A Corpse-Conversion Factory: and of how the Hun was using the myriads of
A Peep Behind Enemy Lines that was published trench-war casualties for making soap and AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
by Wellington House.The Foreign Ofce les margarine. According to Montague, Pollard
show that ofcials authorised its translation claimed full credit for the original invention DAVID CLARKE is a Research
into a number of foreign languages and for of the story, intended to discredit the enemy Fellow in Journalism at
distribution in Europe and the Far East. MI7 among the populations of Oriental countries, Shefeld Hallam University.
was disbanded in 1918 because its work had hoping to play upon the respect for the He was for many years
been accomplished and its records were dead that goes with ancestor-worship.To the one of FTs ufology
destroyed on the grounds they could be surprise of the authorities it had caught on, correspondents and is a UFO
incriminating. and they were now making propaganda out of consultant for The National
Surviving histories show that in it everywhere.16 Archives.He is the author of

NOTES 6 Times, 17 April 1917. intelligence work including (1916-18), INF 4/1B. to work as a spy for MI6
1 Siegfried Sassoon, The 7 Daily Express, 21 April those about the Russians 16 Ivor Montagu, The at the outbreak of WWII
War Poems (1983), p54. 1917. with snow on their boots, Youngest Son (1970), p31. but he was dismissed in
the Angels of Mons and 1940 for reasons that
2 A Corpse Conversion 8 Punch, 25 April 1917. the Crucied Canadian. He 17 Pollards role in the were redacted from the
Factory, Darling & Son, AA. Milne, the assistant refers to all of these in his creation of other WWI le. In another note a MI6
London, 1917 (copy editor of Punch, was memoirs At GHQ (1931) rumours will be discussed ofcer describes him as
in Masterman Papers, attached to the General but curiously his book in a future article for FT. denitely unreliable where
University of Birmingham Press Propaganda section omits any reference to the His SOE le at The National money and drink was
special collections). of MI7s ofces in Adelphi strangest rumour of all, the Archives reveals he was concerned.
3 Cynthia Asquith, Diaries Court, Strand. corpse factory. uent in French, German
and Spanish. It describes 18 Bertrand Russell,
1915-18 (1968), p44. 9 TNA CAB 23/2/48. 12 The Times (London), 4 Government by
him an ardent fascist
4 Adrian Gregory, The Last 10 Randall Marlin, Nov 1925. who helped to y General Propaganda, in These
Great War (2008), p306. Propaganda and the Ethics 13 TNA FO 395/148. Franco from the Canaries Eventful Years (1924),
5 Paul Fussell, The Great of Persuasion (1999), p72. at the beginning of the p380.
14 Daily Mail, 3 May 1917.
War and Modern Memory 11 Charteris collected Spanish Civil War. The le
(1975), pp116-17. many rumours during his 15 TNA History of MI7 reveals he was recruited

FT305 39
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 FAKING
FORTEANA
Manufactured and misleading news is not an invention of the Internet age. Its roots go back much
further in part to the 1920s, and a forgotten journalistic revolution improbably conceived by the
father of modern bodybuilding and a socialist muckraker. MIKE DASH dons his fedora to report.

H
e stood no more than 5ft LEFT: The 55-year-old Bernarr Macfadden
6in tall, and yet he was a bodybuilder, publisher and implacable foe of
giant of a man. Bernarr baldness poses for the camera in 1923.
Macfadden may be barely
remembered now, but he
was among the most famous Condential in the 1950s, Oprah and
public gures of his day. He was a master Jerry Springer in the 1990s, and
of reinvention: born plain Bernard the apparently bottomless well of
McFadden in 1868, he crafted what he reality TV were so familiar with
decided was a more distinguished version today. In consequence, he was also
of his name, the rolling rs intended to responsible inadvertently for
evoke a lions roar. He was an entirely polluting our eld with a myriad of
self-made man: an orphaned Mid-West the inventions and improvements
farm-boy at 11, he turned himself by that bedevil it today. For much of
force of will into a multi-millionaire the 1920s, indeed, magazines that
publisher who inuenced thousands of Macfadden launched behaved much
lives. He championed self-improvement, like the fake news mills that became
popularised bodybuilding, and, well into infamous in the aftermath of the
his 70s, continued to pose practically nude recent US presidential election.They
to show off his physique. took tales that might possess a kernel
Macfadden matters for many reasons. of truth, and elaborated them until
He inspired and promoted others who they turned into something more
became inuential themselves; Charles incredible, more memorable and
Atlas, the star of a thousand comic book much less true.
adverts, rst found fame as the winner
of a Worlds most perfectly developed VANISHING LIGHTHOUSEMEN
BETTMANN / GETTY IMAGES

man contest promoted by Macfadden. So let me tell you my confession. I

He was a bizarre amalgam of prescience rst encountered Macfadden quite
and quackery; a lifelong promoter of unexpectedly, some time ago, while
the virtues of whole foods, eating fresh chasing down a reference that had
vegetables, shedding corsets and being eluded me for years.The trouble
honest about sex (all ideas he championed dated back, in fact, to 1998, when I
well before they were remotely wrote a paper for Fortean Studies on
commonplace), he also implacably opposed the mystery of the vanishing lighthousemen
vaccination, and believed that encroaching
baldness was best treated by attacking the
scalp.The remarkable pompadour that
MACFADDEN WAS of Eilean Mor.Three men had disappeared,
around Christmas 1900, from a lonely
lighthouse in the uninhabited Flannan Isles
Macfadden sported throughout his adult life
was the product of decades spent violently AN AMALGAM OF the Seven Hunters, they were called, 20
miles (32km) west of the Hebrides, out in the
yanking his own hair by the roots.
For a fortean, however, Macfadden
matters for quite another reason. He was
PRESCIENCE AND Atlantic.The men who comprised the entire
lighthouse crew vanished without trace,
leaving behind a puzzle that was considerably
the inventor and populariser of confessional
journalism, the prurient, semi-ctionalised
tell-all form that went on to underpin
QUACKERY deepened by the strange, quasi-mystical
entries that they were understood to have left
in their logbook.

40 F T352
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 IAN COWE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
ABOVE: The Flannan Isles lighthouse, from which three men vanished in 1900. BELOW: The story was retold and embellished in the August 1929 issue of True Strange Stories.

Without the details of the log, indeed, the watch. It was unlikely that Marshall the
mystery was less compelling. Lighthouse most junior of the lighthousemen would
keeping can be dangerous work, and Eilean have made insubordinate notes in a log that
Mor (the rock on which the lamp was his superiors would read. And, read carefully,
perched) had been hit by an enormous storm it seemed likely that the entries were written
shortly before Christmas. It would have been after the event:
easy to suppose that the men were all out
working in the storm, and were swept into the It would hardly be peculiar, during
sea by a freak wave, had the entries not made a routine and tedious turn of duty, for
it clear that their disappearance took place a lighthouseman to be quiet, so why
after the storm had passed. would Marshall think to note the fact?
It seems to have beenVincent Gaddis, a Sensationalist writers have hinted that
well-known writer of the 1960s, who rst the notes were made because the men were
mentioned the existence of this logbook in a increasingly aware of looming, supernatural
fortean work. Written in the scrawled hand of disaster. I believe they point, rather, to the
the Third Ofcer,Thomas Marshall (Gaddis entries being a fabrication. Ducats and
noted in Mysterious Fires and Lights), the Macarthurs moods of 12 and 13 December
Flannan log charted a steadily-intensifying are signicant only because of what happened
atmosphere of unspoken dread one familiar to them on the 15th.
to any horror movie fan that seemingly
overcame the First Ofcer,Thomas Ducat, Further than that I could not go at the
and his assistant, Donald McArthur: time. Gaddis had recorded where he had
Ducat, Gaddis observed of this odd found his information: it had been published
Dec. 12: Gale, north by north-west. Sea lashed evidence, usually very good-natured, in an American magazine called True Strange
to fury. had just returned from his leave on shore. Stories in August 1929. But it was not easy
Why should he be irritable?... McArthur, a then to consult TSS, and I let the matter rest
Stormbound 9pm. Never seen such a storm. hardened, veteran seaman well known for more than a decade until, in 2008, the
Everything shipshape. Ducat irritable. as a lusty, fearless brawler on land, crying! science writer Giles Sparrow found me at the
What could have been the mysterious, FT Unconvention and handed me a copy of
12pm. Storm still raging. Wind steady. extraordinary situation that would make the article itself.
Stormbound. Cannot go out. Ship passed strong McArthur weep? And Michael It was immediately obvious that True
sounding foghorn. Could see lights of cabins. Harrison a writer who never encountered Strange Stories was indeed the source of the
Ducat quiet. McArthur crying. a mysterious detail he was not happy to mysterious entries.The author of the piece,
endorse went further in his own version of one Ernest Fallon, insisted that the details of
Dec. 13: Storm continued through night. the tale. With that last mysterious entry, he the log were drawn from English sources,
Wind shifted west by north. Ducat quiet. wrote, the log closed, and the three terried, but gave no further details and large chunks
McArthur praying. praying men vanished for ever from this of the remainder of his story were either
world. heavily ctionalised or altogether wrong.
12 noon. Grey daylight. Me, Ducat, and When I rst wrote about all this in 1998, One mystery had replaced another. Who was
McArthur prayed. I gave several reasons for suspecting that Fallon? What sort of things did True Strange
these entries were fakes. Nautical logs are Stories publish? And was it possible that these
Dec. 15: 1pm. Storm ended. Sea calm. God is not impressionistic diaries, kept by just one English sources existed?
over all. person, but precise records of events, written Details from the archives of the Northern
up by a changing rotation of ofcers of the Lighthouse Board and contemporary

FT352 41
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 KEYSTONE-FRANCE / GAMMA-KEYSTONE VIA GETTY IMAGES
ABOVE LEFT: In 1919, Bernarr Macfadden launched True Story magazine; its sensational confessional content set the template for decades of successful publishing.
ABOVE RIGHT: A serious-looking Macfadden oversees his ever-expanding publishing empire from his ofce, in a photograph from around 1930.

IFASTORY
newspapers suggested that the answer to the Or, as Macfadden himself was said to have
last of these questions was No. Both made observed in terms that have a very current
it clear that the log was kept only up to 13 resonance if a story merely sounded true, it
December, with subsequent entries being
noted, in chalk, on a slate for later transfer to
the book; the whole notion of a log extending
SOUNDED TRUE, was true enough for him.
True Strange Stories, then, published articles
that were true in Macfaddens meaning of
as late as 15 December is a fallacy. Even if we
are charitable, and count the entries on the ITWASTRUE the word. And it looked very much as though
the spooky details that appeared in Fallons

ENOUGH FOR HIM

slate as part of the log, it is explicitly stated article The Strange Log of the Seven Hunters
that the last notes (a record of the weather) were exactly the sort of elaborations that a
were written at 9 on the morning of 15 Macfadden title would happily condone. So
December.The contemporary record is clear everything pointed to the piece in TSS being
that no entry was made as late as 1pm.This such as illegitimacy, adultery, unemployment a very 1920s version of fake news. But could I
must imply the records quoted by Harrison and crime (a mix readily satirised by critics prove it?
and Gaddis are a hoax. as Im ruined! journalism), the magazine
As for Fallon, it seemed impossible to prove peaked with sales in excess of two million FINDING FALLON
he even existed. A superb Internet resource, copies a month, made Macfaddens fortune, The answer, it seemed, had to come from
The Science Fiction, Fantasy and Weird and received, its proud proprietor claimed, in nding out who Ernest Fallon was. And
Magazine Index compiled by Phil Stephenson- excess of 70,000 readers submissions every the solution to that mystery turned out to
Payne, notes the existence of this article, but year. lurk in the memoirs of the editor of True
it was apparently the only one that Fallon ever Macfadden was quick to see potential in Strange Stories another forgotten man
wrote. His name appears absolutely nowhere True Story, and numerous spin-off titles were who was famous in his time. His name was
else in the literature of pulp magazines or launched True Romances,True Confession,True John L Spivak, and in 1929 he was only just
fortean phenomena. Intriguingly enough, the Detective and, eventually, both Ghost Stories getting his start as a writer, which explained
same unusual claim to fame was shared by and the short-lived True Strange Stories, which why he was willing to work for a notorious
at least six other named contributors to True was born and died in the year of the Wall Street cheapskate like Bernarr Macfadden. In the
Strange Stories. Crash, 1929. All shared the formula honed by 1930s, though, Spivak went on to better
I was driven back to look at TSS and, with True Story a mix Macfadden himself liked to things. His socialist convictions led him to
the realisation that the magazine had been call the folk literature of the common people turn out a series of muckraking exposs of
part of Macfaddens stable, the story came of America but that his critics denounced American anti-Semitism, the conditions of
suddenly into focus. as trash that followed a simple formula: its black prisoners on Georgia chain gangs, and
subjects sinned, suffered and repented, the infamous business plot, an apparent
MUSCLES AND MUCKRAKING eventually nding redemption (except in Ghost planned coup involving George W Bushs
Macfadden was such a remarkable character Stories, where, as Will Murray sagely notes, grandfather, which sought the overthrow of
that his life has been well studied, as has they died, dematerialised and repented). For democratic government and the installation
his considerable impact on publishing and Jacqueline Hatton, though a scholar who of a fascist dictatorship in the United States
journalism. Beginning with a single title, wrote a PhD thesis on Macfaddens publishing of the Depression era. Its thanks in large part
Physical Culture at rst little more than an empire something much stranger and more to Spivaks work that we know as much about
advertising sheet promoting the sale of tness remarkable was going on: these things as we do.
gear he slowly built a publishing empire.The Spivaks memoirs make three key points
real breakthrough came in 1919 when, noting The relationship between truth and reality about his tenure as the editor of TSS, a
the popularity of the rst-person stories of in True Story is too complex to be reduced to magazine they were launching to see if there
triumph over adversity sent in by readers of his a yes/no question The true/false conundrum was a market for something besides rape,
tness title, he launched True Story, a magazine is unresolvable, and indeed pretty much adultery and muscles. One was that the
made up entirely of such features, which irrelevant, because the concept of truth itself budget was tight.The second was that the
became the publishing sensation of the next was highly ambiguous in True Story. [It] magazine required huge quantities of copy
two decades. A compelling mix of sex and sin, inscribed truisms rather than truths, beliefs 16 to 18 features each month, each of at least
covering hitherto barely mentionable topics rather than realities. 5,000 words. And the third was that a kernel of

42 FT352
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truth was plenty for a true strange story: of Spivaks many pseudonyms), but also by 1926), and in Kansass Emporia Gazette on 7
working through the contents of the private December.
In desperation, I decided to write them papers that the writer willed to Syracuse In the Standards item, the Grf & Stift was
myself. One Saturday morning I went down to University Library. Box 32 of these papers a large comfortable six-seater car, painted an
the [NewYork Public Library]. All I needed for turns out to contain a typescript of what is attractive red that not only seemed destined
a Macfadden true story were a few unusual substantially the same article, revised for to carry misfortune and disaster, but also
facts, a name or two, a place or two, and, resubmission to another magazine during the justied its evil reputation to the end.
if possible, a picture to give a semblance of 1950s. It is attributed to Monroe Fry the Pressed back into service after spending
believability. In two or three hours of research name under which the blacklisted radical the war years in a museum, it came close to
I took enough notes for half a dozen such Spivak was forced to live for around a decade killing the Yugoslavian governor of Bosnia,
stories. during the McCarthy years. and did see off its next owner, who was found
By nightfall I had done a once-over-lightly The Hoodoo Car story is a cursed car dead in a ditch with the car on top of him.
draft for the rst story; Sunday morning legend. It looks at the numerous deaths The vehicle was then recovered and sold to a
I did another. Each... meant from $100 to supposedly associated with the Grf & Stift Transylvanian second-hand car dealer named
$120. By then I was married and had a touring car in which the Austro-Hungarian Tiber Hirscheld.
daughter, Jacqueline, who used to watch me, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was driving when By this time, the account went on, it had
fascinated, as I pounded the typewriter keys. he was assassinated in Sarajevo in June such a fearsome reputation that Hirscheld
I explained that she should not distract me; 1914.That murder triggered the outbreak of could nd no buyer for it, and took to driving
every keystroke was worth two cents. That, World War I, and the millions of deaths and it himself. He was taking six friends to a
considering how much she could purchase unimaginable suffering that came with it. Its wedding in it when it came into collision with
with two cents, impressed her She would not surprising, in such circumstances, that another car which it was attempting to pass at
clap her hands in time with the clacking of the the car should become associated with an top speed.The car was completely smashed,
keys and cry delightedly, Two cents, two cents, elaborate curse legend. and those who were not killed were badly
two cents! Spivak did not invent the Hoodoo Car injured.
story; early versions of it began to circulate The UP story, or another very like it, fairly
It is not exactly a confession, but it is near around the mid-1920s. It may be that the story clearly served as a basis for Spivaks The
enough. Ernest Fallon was John L Spivak.The originated somewhere in eastern Europe, Hoodoo Car That Started a World War. Its
mystical logbook entries were examples of the but the earliest account that I have been chief features, just to recap, were the limos
elaborations that he added to make mundane able to trace was written by an unnamed wartime career in a museum, and three later
mysteries exciting.The crying, praying journalist in the London ofce of the United owners at least one of whom was killed by it.
lighthousemen never existed. Press news agency in November 1926.This The car ends the story completely smashed
And Macfaddens 1920s fake news mill had version of the story appeared in several and unt for any further service.
added another especially memorable true American newspapers in the autumn of that This version had changed considerably by
story that would pollute fortean potboilers for year, including the Freeport Journal Standard, the time that True Strange Stories had nished
several lifetimes. published in Freeport, Illinois (30 November with the cursed tourer.The rst elaboration

THE HOODOO CAR

True Strange Stories was not a proper precursor
to Fortean Times. Each issue ran to 100
pages and contained an eclectic mix of true
confession pieces, crime, offbeat celebrity
features and ction serials. All this meant
that no more than two or three of the articles
that appeared in any given issue focused on
strange phenomena. But, in the course of its
short life, TSS nonetheless managed to cover
a number of cases that are still familiar to us
today. Among the content that Spivak churned
out were features on Phineas Gage, the railway
worker who lost a large part of his brain to
a tamping iron in an 1848 blasting accident;
the curse supposedly attached to the Koh-i-
noor diamond; and stories of children raised
by wolves. (For Gage, see FT38:30, 258:18-19;
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

for the Koh-i-noor curse, see FT161:6; and for

children raised by wolves, see Paul Sieveking
Wild Things, FT161:34-41.)
Its worth taking a closer look at a second
example from TSSs les, if only to establish
that the sort of techniques that Spivak
deployed to tell the story of the vanishing
lighthousemen were typical of his magazines
approach to other features. Its treatment of
another fortean classic in its August 1929 issue
shows this was the case.
The Hoodoo Car That Started a World War
is a feature attributed to Arthur Willstach.
But it is another example of Spivaks work. We
can be certain this was the case not only by
referring once again to The Science Fiction
Index (which conrms this article was the
only one that Willstach ever apparently ABOVE: John L Spivak went on to be a celebrated left-wing writer, but his early career included a stint producing
suitable yarns for Macfaddens titles under a series of pseudonyms.
produced, and hence that this was likely one

FT352 43
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 potboiler Stranger Than Science, and most
elaborately in a Weekly World News spread
dating to April 1981 a couple of things are
immediately apparent. One is that many of
the innovations introduced by True Strange
Stories have been retained in these later
accounts; the story as its told today still moves
from Franz Ferdinand to Potoriek to two staff
ofcers who kill two peasants, the car still
costs the Yugoslavian governor an arm, and
the tale still includes the disastrous deaths of
a wedding party.
But its equally obvious that some of the
ne details that Spivak introduced have been
lost along the way. Monsieur Blunti becomes
merely an unnamed Swiss racing driver, Dr
Srskic gets passed over, and perhaps most
intriguingly the vehicular sentience that is
JOE KLAMAR / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

the central horror in the True Strange Stories

account gets written out.
Thats perfectly consistent, it seems clear,
not only with the nature of fake news as
we understand it now, but with the way in
which stories (including folklore) have always
been transmitted. Strong, memorable details
get reinforced and elaborated. Incidental,
ABOVE: The Franz Ferdinand Grf & Stift cursed death car or Hoodoo Car as it appears today: drab green overcooked, hard to recall ones wither and die.
rather than devil red and sitting placidly in the Vienna museum where it was rst placed in 1914. And, all too often, nobody checks even
the most basic details of the story which
may have been hard to do in the case of the
that Spivak introduced was to make a of road. After that, the Grf & Stift passes to a lighthouse logbook from Eilean Mor, but is
telling change to the cars colour from an Bosnian landowner, who commits suicide, and entirely straightforward in the case of Franz
attractive red to devil red. He also seems then to Peter Sveatich, an industrialist. He is Ferdinands Grf & Stift. Because the fabled
to have decided that the Standards version lucky to survive a further accident a head- cursed car still exists painted, as it always
of the story was too tame. Out went the on collision that kills one person in the other has been, a deant drab green, not Spivaks
years spent in a museum; in came General car and badly injures four others. Once again, devil red in the sameVienna museum
Oskar Potoriek, governor of Bosnia at the the horror is turned up a notch. According to where it has sat, unmoving, since it was rst
time of the assassination, and the Austro- Spivaks version of events, the car seemed to placed there in the summer of 1914, before its
Hungarian commander on the Serbian front jump literally to jump into the path of the entirely ctional rampage across the roads of
in World War I. In life, Potoriek proved so oncoming vehicle. the Balkans even began. FT
inept that he was replaced and retired before By 1926, the limousine had been repaired
Christmas 1914, but in Spivaks version again and passed into the hands of a Swiss SOURCES
of events after taking care to clean the racing driver, Monsieur Blunti, who dies in Mark Adams, Mr America (New York, 2009); Mike
blood-stained cushions and repair the bullet another head-on crash, this one in a high pass Dash, The Vanishing Lighthousemen of Eilean
holes in the woodwork of the car, he pressed through the Dolomites that drives the other Mor, Fortean Studies, Vol 4, (London, 1998);
Frank Edwards, Stranger Than Science (New York,
the Grf & Stift straight back into service, vehicle involved over a cliff, killing all its
1959); Ernest Fallon, The Strange Log of the
commandeering it to tour the front, only to passengers. Spivaks account concludes with Seven Hunters, True Strange Stories 6 (August
see his army suffer a crushing defeat that the cursed car passing into the hands of Tiber 1929); Vincent Gaddis, Mysterious Fires and Lights
drove him mad and into an asylum. Hirscheld. Like the Standard, he has the (New York, 1968); Michael Harrison, Vanishings
Spivaks account next ramps up the horror gorgeous, ery car wiped out in one nal (London, 1981); Jacqueline A Hatton, True Stories:
in expert fashion, passing the car on to a pair bloody disaster involving a wedding party. In Working-Class Mythology, American Confessional
of Potorieks staff ofcers, who experience an Spivaks revised version of events, however, Culture and True Story Magazine 1919-1929
unexplained loss of control that makes them the Grf & Stift kills ve of the six wedding (unpublished PhD thesis, Cornell University 1997);
swerve into two peasants, who are crushed guests and it appears that the lone survivor Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream:
Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Oakland,
and killed. A new owner, General Sarkotic is allowed to live solely to recount the
1986); Will Murray, True Ghostly Confessions, in
who really was military governor of Bosnia terrifying detail that the accident occurred Lurid Confessions 1 (1986); Rob Robbins, Haunted
in 1915 brings in a chauffeur, who kills because the cursed limo physically leapt auto claimed the lives of 20 million people, Weekly
two more peasants in a similar accident, but into the path of the approaching car. World News, 28 April 1981; John L Spivak, A Man
survives to insist that the accident occurred In Spivaks telling, then, the number of In His Time: An Autobiography (New York, 1967);
when the wheel turned by itself.The accidents involving the Grf & Stift is more Arthur Willstach, The Hoodoo Car That Started a
Yugoslavian governor inherits the car next, than doubled, and the death toll rises from World War, True Strange Stories 6 (August 1929).
and we get signicantly more details of his fewer than ve to well over a dozen. Even Jim Bennett curates an extensive and invaluable
experiences: there are three accidents in two more signicantly, perhaps, the cursed car online resource covering the life and times of
Bernarr Macfadden at bernarrmacfadden.com.
months, and then a fourth in which the car acquires a sort of sentience apparently, the
swerves into a tree and costs the governor a reader is led to suppose, as a result of the
forearm. leading role it played in the horric chain of AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
According to Spivak, the limousines next events that saw Europe slide into war.
owner was a Dr M Srskic a name that TSS MIKE DASH is a longtime member of the Gang
seems to have borrowed from Milan Srkic, THE LEGEND LIVES ON of Fort. He was FTs publisher for some years,
a fairly prominent Yugoslav politician at If we compare Spivaks version of events as well as a regular contributor, and is the
the time he wrote. Spivaks Srskic is a man with accounts of the cursed car that began acclaimed author of the books Tulipomania,
of science, though, killed when the car to appear in other works years later most Batavias Graveyard, Thug, Satans Circus and
unaccountably overturns on a smooth stretch inuentially in Frank Edwardss 1950s fortean The First Family.

44 FT352
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 SEARCHINGFORTHE
PLACEOFTHESKULL
As pilgrims descend on the Holy Land to celebrate Easter, TED HARRISON proffers a word of caution:
if youre looking for the location of Jesuss crucxion and burial then, tradition aside, you need to
investigate a growing list of competing sites. Just where exactly was Golgotha?
URIEL SINAI / GETTY IMAGES

T ITWAS A PLACE
he pilgrims who today carry heavy ABOVE: Pilgrims carry wooden crosses in the
crosses in the footsteps of Christ Good Friday procession along the Via Dolorosa
may all be heading in the wrong in Jerusalems old city. FACING PAGE: Thousands
direction. Golgotha, or Calvary as it
OF EXECUTION
of Orthodox Christians gather in the Church of
is also known, the place of Christs the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate Easter with the
crucixion, may well not be where the miracle of the Holy Fire.
guidebooks say.
Golgotha means the place of the skull USED BYTHE identify the very spot where the momentous

ROMANS
in ancient Aramaic. It was appropriately events at the centre of their faith actually
named as it was the place of common happened is to some Christians extremely
execution used by the Roman military important. Yet there are at least four
occupying Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. It was theories that maintain that the locations
THOMAS COEX / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

to this place, according to Bible accounts, covert admirer (perhaps a relative) of Jesus. authenticated by Christian tradition are in
that Jesus was compelled to carry his cross After Jesus was pronounced dead, his body fact completely wrong.
on the rst Good Friday. was taken down from the cross and placed
Johns Gospel says that nearby the in Josephs newly hewn tomb. AMATEUR ARCHOLOGIST
place of execution there was a garden But where exactly was Golgotha? And The main tradition goes back 1,700 years to
with an empty tomb belonging to Joseph where was the tomb that on the rst Easter Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor
of Arimathaea. He was a Jewish elder and morning was so miraculously empty? To Constantine. She identied the two sites,

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WALTERS ART MUSEUM
ABOVE: Empress Helena discovers the three crosses in a 15th-century fresco at the Church of San Francesco, Arezzo, by Piero della Francesca. BELOW: Turkish archologist
Professor Gulgun Koroglu supervised excavations at Balatlar church; a stone chest and wooden relics were found, which it has been suggested are related to Helenas nds.

the tomb and Golgotha, which are today Jesus and the two thieves had been put to
incorporated within the ancient Church of the death, as nearby her men supposedly found
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. the sign placed on Jesuss cross by Pilate on
For centuries, the tomb and Golgotha which was written Jesus of Nazareth King
have been guarded by monks of several of the Jews in three languages. The dig also
denominations, who are so argumentative and revealed nails and clothing. But which one
disputatious (for a particularly violent monk- was the cross of Jesus? The answer came
on-monk brawl, see FT244:4-5) that they are when a sick woman failed to be healed after
not even trusted with the church key. The touching two of them, but was cured after
door is unlocked every morning by a member touching the third.
of one of two Muslim families. Part of the cross was left with Bishop
Helenas claim to have found the holiest Macarius in Jerusalem and the rest of
of Christian sites, though widely accepted by the nds were taken back to Emperor
Christians, has often been challenged. She Constantine. One story suggests that he had
was a Christian convert and famed for her the nails xed to his helmet and made into a
charitable deeds and in 327, her 80th year, bridle for his horse! Today it is claimed that
she set out on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This
was not simply an act of piety she was eager
to see the places where Jesus had walked and
to nd tangible evidence of His life.
She found the Holy City in a sorry state: it
had been ransacked by the Romans 200 years
earlier. Many living there had been killed
or had ed. There was a residual memory
of where Jesus might have been buried, but
Emperor Hadrian had built a temple on the
site in honour of the Gods Jupiter and Venus.
Today, as St Helen, Helena is patron saint
of archologists, but there was little science
in the way she set about looking for relics.
With the guidance of a heavenly dream, she
ordered Hadrians temple to be knocked
down and once it was cleared ordered her
men to start digging.
Almost immediately, they found three
wooden crosses in an ancient cistern. Helena
was convinced they were the crosses on which

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there are at least 30 places where the nails,
or iron from the nails, are kept. One of the
nails is said to be incorporated in the Iron
Crown of Lombardy kept in the Cathedral of
Monza, another piece is in Rome at the church
of Santa Croce (along with a thorn from the
Crown of Thorns) and a third is in the Duomo
in Milan and is said to be shaped like a horses
bridle.

HOLY RELICS
The belief that the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre was built over the place of Jesuss
death and resurrection has been re-enforced
over the centuries by stories of miracles.
For 12 centuries, Orthodox Christians have
claimed that a holy re is divinely kindled
in the pitch-dark tomb at Easter. The ame
is then spread from candle to candle in the
church to symbolise the Resurrection. The
ame is taken, like an Olympic torch, around
LEFT: Skull Hill, also known as Gordons Calvary,

THE BIBLE
the city and wider Orthodox world. Muslims
from an 1897 drawing by BH Harris in Pictures of the
have long denounced the holy re as a piece
East: Sketches of Biblical Scenes in Palestine and
of trickery and non-Orthodox Christians,

PROVIDES FEW
Greece (London, 1897).
especially Protestants, are wary of what they
see as mere superstition.
However, many Christians across the St Helens belief that the tomb and the site
traditions have condence in the ndings
of St Helens amateur archology, despite CLUES AS TO THE of the Crucixion were in close proximity to
each other is based on a single Bible passage.

LOCATION OF
the fact that it was based on a nocturnal Only John, of the four Gospels, makes this
revelation rather than a ground radar survey. point: At the place where he was crucied
Pieces of the True Cross, which she identied there was a garden and in the garden a new
and which conrmed to her that she had
found Golgotha, are amongst the most highly
prized relics in Christendom.
GOLGOTHA tomb, not yet used for burial. Nevertheless,
pilgrims to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
nd both reputed sites so close to each other
While some of the wood was enclosed that they are under the same roof.
within a statue of the Emperor, much was person. 1 That the wood found comes from Even though the Church of the Holy
distributed around the Empire. Twenty years St Helens discovery is possible, but despite Sepulchre is the main focus of pilgrimage
after St Helens return to Rome, Cyril of years of tradition, her claims have been widely for Christians and the culmination of the
Jerusalem wrote: The wood of the cross has disputed. devotional walk known as the Via Dolorosa,
been diffused throughout the world. Before historical evidence for its authenticity is very
long, great prestige was attached to owning OUTSIDE THE CITY WALL imsy. And yet this highly questionable claim
even a sliver and Roman emperors and Church The Bible provides few clues as to the underpins the holiness of Christianitys most
authorities have, over the years, been able location of Golgotha, perhaps because to the sacred relics and places.
to buy loyalty and gratitude by giving bits early Christians the location was well known
away. The practice of buying and selling pieces and no detailed description was thought SKULL HILL
of the Cross continued in Medival times. necessary. It was outside the city walls, says In 1842 a German theologian named Otto
Mark Twain observed that when he toured St Paul, who, although not a witness to the Thenius noticed a rocky outcrop, which was
Europe he saw enough holy wood in the events, knew many of those who were. Jesus identied to him as Skull Hill. It has been
churches he visited to make 50 new Crosses. suffered outside the gate, he wrote in his widely believed that Golgotha got its name
The Monastery of Xeropotamou on Greeces epistle to the Hebrews. Yet, to counter that because it was a feature in the landscape that
Mount Athos claims the largest single piece, evidence is the widely held view that Paul resembled a skull. Could this be the true site
along with a number of smaller segments. On himself did not in fact write this epistle of the Crucixion, Thenius wondered. Forty
the large piece, weighing 320g (11oz), it is said attributed to him; although an unknown years later, General Charles Gordon was in
that the holes made by the nails of crucixion author might also have had direct access to Jerusalem and had the same idea (for more
are visible. It is only displayed on special feast the rst apostles. on Gordons search for biblical locations, see
days, although a second piece is sometimes As any visitor to modern Jerusalem will FT336:44-49). As he was a highly respected
allowed to be sent away from Mount Athos to know, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre lies member of Victorian society, many British
carefully selected destinations to be revered within the walls of the old town. It is reached people took an interest in his suggestion. Yet,
by the faithful. The True Cross, it is believed, by navigating a maze of narrow streets lled not unlike St Helen, Gordon was guided by
not only has miraculous powers to heal, it also with shops and market stalls. The present- his mystical and deep devotion to the details
exudes a heavenly perfume (for more on holy day walls, however, are not the original and of the Scriptures 2 By coincidence, nearby
odours, see FT350:30-37). were built by the Ottoman Turks in the 16th was an old Jewish tomb hewn out of rock, rst
A lost fragment of the Cross was believed century. Two thousand years ago, the walled noted in 1867 by Conrad Schick, a German
to have been discovered in Turkey in 2013. city was smaller. The rst century historian archologist and missionary. It tted the
Modern archologists excavating a 1,400-year- Josephus described the route of the wall Gospel descriptions. As a Protestant, Schicks
old church in Balatlar, by the Black Sea, and it is clear from his account that the interest was in historical research rather than
found a stone chest that contained various present-day Church of the Holy Sepulchre nding relics, but when his discovery was
artefacts they believed were holy objects. would indeed have been without the city linked with General Gordons observations,
Professor Gulgun Koroglu, who was in charge wall. Golgotha was not included within the the belief in an alternative Golgotha gained
of the excavations, conrmed the discovery: citys fortied boundary until new defences in popularity. The tomb, most conveniently,
The appearance of the chest suggests that were completed in AD 44 under orders from is in a garden, as described in the New
it was a repository for the relics of a holy Herods grandson Agrippa I. Testament.

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 Thanks to the efforts of two away to the north, in a quieter part of
Victorian ladies, Charlotte Hussey Golgotha where there were tombs and
and Louisa Hope, the Garden Tomb gardens When Constantine captured
Association was formally established the eastern Empire and sought to
in 1893. Purchasing the land was commemorate his victory with the
fraught with legal problems, thanks building of a magnicent basilica in
to a constantly changing political Jerusalem dedicated to the sign of the
administration, but eventually it was cross, local Christians could point to
bought and has since been a popular the site of the tomb and the Temple of
focus for Protestants. General Booth Venus as a tting building zone. The
of the Salvation Army visited and site of the Crucixion, on the other
preached there, as did the celebrated hand, seems to have been quietly
American evangelist Dwight Moody, forgotten. 3
who infuriated local Muslims by using Interestingly, Constantines
a Muslim grave as a pulpit. I have hagiographer Eusebius, in his notes on
preached 30 years, he declared, but various biblical places he could still
I have never felt the awe of God as I nd in Palestine, wrote of Golgotha
do now. being beside the northern parts of
For several decades scholars Mount Zion. He never referred to
vigorously contested the claims. Sir the site of the Emperors basilica as
Charles Wilson, who was in the city Golgotha.
working for the Ordnance Survey, took
a sceptical line in his 1906 book. He CRUCIFIXION COP
argued that the area in front of the This year, a fourth theory has emerged
supposed Golgotha had only been as to the true site of Golgotha. Bob
given its skull-like appearance during Cornuke is the president of the
the Crusader period, when it was Bible Archology Search Institute
quarried for stone. in Colorado and has travelled
The garden today is a tranquil spot extensively in the Holy Land
within a hectic city and a popular examining and questioning religious
place of prayer and meditation. sites. He dismisses the provenance
of both the Church of the Holy
GOING SOUTH Sepulchre and the Garden Tomb as
Professor Joan Taylor of Kings College being fraught with geographical
London has also queried the St Helen aws. He proposes an altogether
legend: I concluded that the evidence different place for the Crucixion:
does not point us to the authenticity namely a Palestinian neighbourhood
of the traditional site but rather to but the traditional tomb of Jesus may very outside Jerusalem called Silwan, which
a site slightly further south. Through an well be authentic. is about 600ft (180m) east of the City of
analysis of both the four main Gospels The place of the Crucixion, Professor David in Jerusalem. 4
and apocryphal writings, she questioned Taylor suggests, was an oval-shaped disused The former cop has relied on his reading of
the proximity of the tomb to the place of quarry located west of the second wall and the Bible and his examination of 19th century
execution. The tomb is not said to be very north of the rst wall. Jesus was crucied photographs and has published his ndings
near the site of the Crucixion, she writes. in the southern part of this area, just outside in a book called Golgotha. Previously, he has
It was further south than the traditional site, Gennath Gate He was buried some 200m claimed to have found the anchor of the boat

GRANT BARCLAY / CREATIVE COMMONS

BOB CORNUKE

TOP: The skull simulacrum above the Garden Tomb was most likely formed by quarrying during the Crusader period. ABOVE LEFT: Former cop Bob Cornuke believes he has
located the real site of Golgotha in the Palestinian suburb of Silwan, just outside Jerusalem. ABOVE RIGHT: The Garden Tomb, noted by Conrad Schick in 1867.

50 FT352
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 RODGER DUSATKO
ABOVE: Rodger Dusatko received a mystical tip-off regarding this skull-shaped mound that would, he says, have had a close-up view of ripping of the Temple curtain.

in which St Paul was shipwrecked, Noahs That the Temple was visible from the site execution was at a greater distance from it
Ark and Mount Sinai, where Moses received of the Crucixion is central to Dusatkos than St Helen supposed. Once St Helen had
the Ten Commandments. He has also claim. As Jesus died, three of the four found three wooden crosses that matched
searched for the lost Ark of the Covenant. Gospels testify that the Temple curtain what she was looking for, there was no need
Cornuke began his quest for Golgotha by ripped it was the curtain at the entrance of in her mind to look further.
querying the position of Solomons Temple. the Temple. The Gospels also testify that the Yet does any of it matter? To many in
It was not where most scholars believe, he centurion and those with him on Golgotha the Orthodox and Catholic tradition and
claims, but about 600ft (180m) to the south. saw the curtain rip. There is only one single to Protestant fundamentalists it does. For
As a consequence of this, all the traditional place where those gathered would have had members of the ancient churches, who nd
sites of Christian, Islamic and Jewish history a close-up view of the ripping of the Temple great comfort in the adoration of holy relics,
in Jerusalem have to be rethought, he says. curtain. And that would have been from to have the St Helen story undermined would
Not averse to upsetting orthodox believers, the top of the skull-shaped mound Dusatko invalidate the authenticity of hundreds of
he suggests the Wailing Wall and the Dome believes was the true Golgotha, just outside sacred objects which have become foci of
of the Rock are not the genuine articles, and the eastern wall of Jerusalem. faith. Fundamentalists who take the Bible
neither is the holiest sanctuary in the Church Like St Helen, Dusatko was led mystically literally want to be able to identify the
of The Holy Sepulchre. to the site. It was Friday afternoon on 5 June real places where real events happened
To conrm to himself that he had found 2009, he recalls. He was sitting on a bench to strengthen their belief in an inerrant
the right place, he had to see it for himself. at the base of the Mount and heard Gods scripture.
It was, however, located in what he has words inwardly very clearly: I want to show Yet to millions of Christians around the
described as a notoriously rough and you something. So I told those I was with, I world the question where was Golgotha?
poverty-stricken area. He encountered a must leave you for a time. But I will be back matters not a jot. Knowing the site is not in
hostile reception as he ventured in, but shortly. Then the Lord directed me up the any way essential to their faith. FT
eventually met and persuaded a community steep southern slope of Golgotha. As I was
leader to give him access. Before long, I was climbing, the Lord said, This is Golgotha. NOTES
actually standing at the foot of the stone 1 NBC Science News, 31 July 2013.
cliffs I had come so far and had spent so FOCI OF FAITH 2 www.gardentomb.com/about/brief-history/
much time and treasure trying to see: the So which of the theories is correct? Perhaps
cliffs of the Silwan village. I gazed up at none of them its a pity the Gospel writers 3 Joan Taylor, Golgotha: A Reconsideration of
were not more specic. the Evidence for the Sites of Jesus Crucixion
several ancient split-open tombs, which were
and Burial, New Testament Studies, Vol 44:2,
exactly as the Bible described! My mouth Most 21st century rationalists would
April 1998, pp180-203; www.biblearchaeology.
went chalk dry. be very wary of accepting dreams and
org/post/2010/01/11/Golgotha-A-
A further description of an alternative divine revelation as evidence. St Helens Reconsideration-of-the-Evidence-for-the-Sites-of-
site for Golgotha comes from a Californian identication of the modern Church of The Jesuse28099-Crucixion-and-Burial.aspx.
preacher, now based in Germany, called Holy Sepulchre site needs therefore to be
4 Robert Cornuke, Golgotha: Searching for the
Rodger Dusatko. 5 He draws a list of Bible viewed with caution. But perhaps the story
True Location of Christs Crucixion, Koinonia
prophecies together and relies on the ancient of the dream is a later embellishment to
House, 2016; www.baseinstitute.org/Cornuke;
description of Golgotha as resembling the the story of her visit to Jerusalem; perhaps
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTURg_3y6o8.
cranium of a skull. There is only one mount she was acting on some reliable oral
near Jerusalem which looks like a cranium, history when she ordered the demolition of 5 www.dusatko.de/golgotharediscovered.pdf
the skull-pan of a head. And this mound is Hadrians pagan temple.
only 330m (1,080ft) from where the Temple Of the theories reviewed, that of Professor AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Entrance once stood. It is close by the Lions Joan Taylor is the only one that is not
Gate in the city walls. From the mound it motivated by a religious enthusiasm to nd a TED HARRISON is a writer, artist and former
would have been possible to see the exact holy place. She accepts that the traditionally BBC religious affairs correspondent. A regular
place on the north side of the altar where the acknowledged burial place of Jesus may well contributor to FT, his latest book is The Death
sacricial animals of Israel must be killed. be the correct one, but suggests the place of and Resurrection of Elvis Presley.

FT352 51
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 cbUilDinG ac THE HIEROPHANTS APPRENTICE PRESENTS

fortean library
20. you cant be sirius
eccentric philosopher before we get to
There is a certain class of book that strictly speaking one neednt read and maybe the reason why hes germane to the story.
even shouldnt read, lest it drive you whimpering to the safety of the apple cellar (Temple cannot bear to drop a name you
or to serial bungee-jumping or worshipping Diane Abbott, or yet worse; and yet the may have heard of without flaunting his
book remains curiously irresistible. Here we treat of one such. In 1976, Robert Temple acquaintance with said luminary.) But it
published The Sirius Mystery, which as we recall was a hefty volume in black covers was always worse than that.
and none-too-large print. The book attracted both scathing criticism and a certain Temple provides a long introduction
cult following, and a dozen years later Temple followed it with a revised and updated
to his revised edition, in which he claims
edition (the one we examine here) that, to its detractors, did not markedly improve
on the original but lowered Temple deeper into the hole he had already dug for that the CIA have been on his case for
himself. The cult following merely expanded, if the dreaded Internet is any guide. One years, trying to wreck his relationships
question the book provokes is how and/or why it should so divide opinion, although with distinguished members of NASA,
we confess that its attraction for its devotees is a mystery in itself for reasons that stealing manuscripts of key documents,
will become apparent and we wont spend too much time on that. Nonetheless, its and generally trying to ruin his career.
a book that should be in every forteans library, as an example of how not to proceed One has to wonder why they would bother.
with any investigation. It is a kind of tragedy, for Temples researches are wide, deep, He also expends much time and many
and appear to be erudite; his conclusions are entirely off the mark, because his pages on a proposal that the Nommo are
premises, logical and factual, are so profoundly mistaken. A mountain of labour; a
currently parked on or even in Phoebe,
mouse of evidence and a dead one at that.
a moon of Saturn that happens to have
a retrograde orbit. He thinks it may be
artificial, perhaps hollow, and is perfectly
Temples thesis is as follows. He round, with a smooth surface without
discovered that in the late 1940s and craters or other lumps or bumps. It
early 1950s, the French anthropologist is neither. It looks (if anything) like a
Marcel Griaule had, by his own account, misshapen, much-abused potato, and
penetrated the innermost secrets of the theres nothing strange about its density.
lore of the Dogon, a West African tribe Temples odd speculations include the
living south of the River Niger in Mali. thought that the Mars Orbiter probe didnt
According to Ogotemmeli, his sole malfunction after all, but sent back a
informant, the Dogon regarded the star stream of secret data about the red planet,
Sirius the brightest in the night sky as while he says brightly of the infamous
central to their system of beliefs, and Face on Mars image it looks pretty
were aware that it had an invisible, very convincing, doesnt it? Well, no it doesnt
dense, companion. This surprised Griaule (Temple asks many questions to which
(and captured Temples imagination) the answer is No), and high resolution
because although this knowledge was images from a later survey proved the
allegedly ancient to the Dogon, Western point. All this is in the introduction to
astronomers had not even speculated the revised edition. Stranger things are
upon the existence of a companion star to come.
(Sirius B) until 1844, from calculations His subtitle notwithstanding, Temple
based on perturbations of Sirius A. This makes two fundamental scientific
was confirmed in 1862 when Sirius B errors in his book. First is the classic
was first seen through a telescope. It was presumption of believers in the
identified as a white dwarf in 1915, and Extraterrestrial Hypothesis that the
first photographed in 1970. Yet it was emergence of life on other planets will
central to Dogon mythology, and they infallibly result in the evolution of
knew too about its 50-year orbital cycle. but provided this arcane information intelligent life, and scientifically and
So how did the Dogon learn about it? about Sirius B albeit in coded form to technologically accomplished life at that.
Griaule also learned of the Dogons humans; and the Dogon had it from the There is, any sane Darwinian will tell
secret creation myth, which involved Egyptians. you, nothing inevitable about intelligent
creatures called the Nommo. These And that is about it, and Temple life evolution is an altogether chancy
at least in Temples interpretation manages to fill the best part of 650 pages process, not a progression from lower
came from the Sirius system, and were justifying his belief. It is exhausting stuff, to higher creatures, although some
amphibious. Temple proposes that the full of irrelevant digressions: we get a later Victorians thought so. And any
Nommo visited Earth in the distant past, couple of pages of Temple telling us about half-literate student of history can tell
where they not only kick-started the his acquaintance with Arthur M Young you that the development of science
Sumerian and Egyptian civilisations, designer of the first Bell helicopter, and and technology is the product of no

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less contingent events in the culture of much of agriculture is conducted without
Western Europe (hint: Martin Luther any reference to it. More surprising,
has much to answer for). His second reaDinG MaDe van Beek after carefully and discreetly
fundamental error is his failure to address preparing his ground found no one who
the basic nature of the Sirius star system. Don QUiXote recognised any aspect of Griaules secret
Sirius itself is only about 250 million years lore, although many other features of
old and may last only a billion more; and a GentleMan. Dogon culture remained intact decades
the stars themselves (one excessively hot, after first being recorded. Contrary to
the other cold and dim) are well outside belieVinG WHat Griaule/Temples account, the Nommo are
the age and temperature range considered not ancestors of the Dogon, and Nommo
conducive to life on any associated planet. He reaD MaDe singular is often represented as one
Further, Sirius Bs orbit is not symmetrical
around Sirius A, so any such planet(s) HiM MaD. but then as an example of his kind: many
Nommo people the waters. Nommo is
would have an unstable orbit, such is the feared as none other. Van Beek notes
nature of celestial mechanics and thats Bernard Shaw that The Dogon know no proper creation
not favourable to the emergence of life myth; neither the version of Ogotemmeli
either: the state of any water would be nor that of the Renard ple is recognisable
unstable too, and might well be entirely to informants... That Sirius is a double
boiled away. (There is an excellent, because its the number of seven-day star is unknown; astronomy is of very
detailed summary of all these difficulties weeks in a lunar year. Well, maybe. We little importance in religion. Dogon
by Prof Liam McDaid at www.skeptic. are treated to the histories of various society has no initiatory secrets beyond
com/eskeptic/10-01-13/#feature.) Various mythical personages 50-strong progeny, the complete mastery of publicly known
well-informed persons pointed out these the sowing of dragons teeth (And teeth texts. He goes on: Is Sirius a double star
problems not long after Temples first are bone! Temple exclaims triumphantly, [to the Dogon]? The ethnographic facts
edition, but they seem mysteriously to inconsequentially, and quite wrongly) are quite straightforward. The Dogon, of
have escaped his attention for the second. and all manner of other stuff involving course, know Sirius as a star (it is after
The Dogon, Temple says, also have the sacred 50. One of the more startling all the brightest in the sky) Knowledge
a tradition of a third star (Sirius C) conclusions Temple reaches through his of the stars is not important either in
in the system. Of this, he says, there backwards reasoning is that Jason and daily life or in ritual. The position of the
is now scientific proof, basing this his 50 Argonauts, of Golden Fleece fame, sun and the phases of the moon are more
absolutist statement on a 1995 paper by landed up in Egypt and made their way pertinent for Dogon reckoning. No Dogon
Daniel Benest and JL Duvent, who more to Mali, and are the true ancestors of the outside the circle of Griaules informants
cautiously framed the results of their Dogon. Not a lot of people know that, had ever heard of sigu tolo or po tolo, nor
gravitational studies with the title Is and it would no doubt surprise those had any Dogon even heard of erne ya tolo
Sirius a Triple Star? Their hypothetical respectable tribespersons no end. (according to Griaule Dogon names
candidate was a brown dwarf, and it Now, back to the original sources. for Sirius and its star companions). Most
remained (and remains) undetected. This is where Temple really comes important, no one, even within the circle
Temple had predicted a red dwarf, but unstuck. Anthropologists have been, of Griaule informants, had ever heard
lets not be picky: he had his proof. Other lets say, bemused that following the or understood that Sirius was a double
astronomers later ran the numbers again, publication of Griaules 1948 paper on the star (or even a triple one, with B and C
and questioned Benest and Duvents Dogon and their secret lore, in 1965 he orbiting A). Consequently, the purported
conclusions. In 2013, an analysis was (posthumously) with his student Germaine knowledge of the mass of Sirius B or the
published of a visual search and produced Dieterlen published Le Renard Ple, which orbiting time was absent.
the conclusion that the likelihood of without explanation presented an entirely In other words, not a trace of the
Sirius C being present is extremely different account of Dogon creation myths secret lore on which Temple builds his
low (just so you know). This upsets the and associated legends, based this time on exhausting argument. How come, we may
idea that the Dogon possessed esoteric four further informants. Temple does not ask? Van Beek provides ample evidence
knowledge about the Sirius system. notice the discrepancy. Most remarkable that Griaule created narratives out of
In his quest for how the Dogon acquired about these accounts, however, was that confused notes, specialised in combining
their alleged knowledge, Temple trawls every facet of Dogon life was shot through leading questions with a bullying mode,
through every legend and language he can with these myths and legends making and besides was well-versed in astronomy.
think of in and around the ancient Middle Dogon culture unique, indeed anomalous, Possibly without realising it, but perhaps
East and at some points wanders as far as in Africa. Naturally, this raised questions not, he gave his Dogon informants all the
China. Much obsessed by Sirius Bs 50- more bluntly, suspicions among information they needed about Sirius.
year orbit, he devotes an entire lengthy anthropologists. The Dogon are obsessively polite and
chapter to instances of the number 50, In 1978, Walter van Beek began what non-confrontational, and happily fed
which does indeed crop up all over the started as an investigation into the him whatever they thought he wanted
ancient world, and in which he sees signs relation between religion and survival to hear. Its worth mentioning too that,
and token of Sirius B. Our take on this strategies among the Dogon. He visited being human, they dont lack humour.
was to recall the non-literal biblical habit the tribe for up to three months at a time Van Beek, for instance, recounts how he
of referring to a shortish long time as over the next 11 years. For this theme, showed a 400-panel colour chart to some
40 days (e.g. Jesus in the wilderness), an evaluation of the work of Griaule was informants, who obligingly (and to his
and a very long time as 40 years (e.g. the a necessity, he wrote in 1991 (Dogon surprise) gave a name for all of them.
Hebrews in the desert), and the modern Restudied, Current Anthropology 32:2), They then confessed theyd made most of
Greek expressions Avrio meth vrio several years before Temples second them up, but had fun doing it.
literally, the day after tomorrow, but edition. As it developed, it increasingly Which naturally does make one wonder
which everyone understands as Sometime became an integrated restudy of the if Robert Temples barely readable opus
this week maybe; and Sekosi mres Dogon. Far from being central to all isnt a whopping spoof as well.
literally, in 20 days time, but understood aspects of Dogon life, van Beek found
as No idea when, really, just keep asking. that Dogon religion emerged as elusive
Its been suggested that the number 50 and complicated but within the range of Robert Temple, The Sirius Mystery: New
is so common for large sets of things known African religions. It has limited Scientific Evidence of Alien Contact 5000
or people in the ancient Middle East relevance for everyday life: for example, years ago, Century Random House, 1998.

FT352 53
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sdsdsvdsvs

Alien Dawn Patrol that this story is completely fictional.

Besides the Fokker triplane error, the
flying ace Peter Waitzrik would seem to
be an invented character. A picture of him
NIGEL WATSON asks if the Red Baron really shot down a UFO 100 years ago... with his fellow flying officers in front of
an Albatross D.III aircraft, as used in the
Weekly World News story, is real enough
NIGEL WATSON is a veteran and was taken around 23 April 1917; but
UFO reseacher and author of
the person circled as Peter Waitzrik was
UFOs of the First World War:
Phantom Airships, Balloons, really Erich Lowenhardt (or Otto Brauneck
Aircraft and Other Mysterious according to some websites). Either way,
Aerial Phenomena (2015). there was no known German WWI pilot
with the name Peter Waitzrik. 2

G
Aviation expert Dave Homewood also
erman flying ace Manfred von demolishes the secret US aircraft idea,
Richtofen, the notorious Red pointing out that: In the Spring of 1917
Baron, is alleged to have shot the US had no aircraft in the war, nor
down a UFO whilst on an early were they even at the front.The American
morning mission over western Belgium Expeditionary Force was not even
in the spring of 1917. According to fellow formed till July 5, 1917, and the very few
German Air Force ace Peter Waitzrik, who Americans whod actually made it to the
was flying in an accompanying Fokker Dr.1 front lines before then as mercenaries flew
triplane at the time, the craft resembled French aeroplanes.3
an upside-down, silver-coloured saucer Despite these facts indicating that the
about 136ft (40m) in diameter and bore story was either totally made-up or the
undulating orange lights. It appeared product of (the probably non-existent)
suddenly out of a clear blue sky.Waitzrik Waitzriks imagination, it has since been
recalled: We were terrified because wed repeated as fact in numerous books and on
never seen anything like it before.The US various UFO websites. As a consequence,
had just entered the war, so we assumed it there continues to be a belief that the
was something theyd sent up.The Baron Red Baron was the first man to shoot
immediately opened fire and the thing that he had nothing to lose by going public, NOTES down an alien spaceship, and the event
went down like a rock, shearing off tree 80 years after the event, and concluded: 1 http://www. has even been re-created in a Spanish
limbs as it crashed in the woods. So theres no doubt in my mind now that ufosightingsdaily. youtube video, which has attracted several
It was astonishing that the Baron was that was no US reconnaissance plane the com/2016/08/ thousand viewers. 4
able to shoot down a highly advanced Baron shot down that was some kind of germany-reports- Oddly enough, a website called John
that-red-baron-shot.
spacecraft; things got even weirder when spacecraft from another planet and those html
Kettler Investigates where the truth
two bruised and battered occupants got little guys who ran off into the woods is earnestly sought and answers are
2 http://ufologie.
out of the crashed ship and ran off into werent Americans, they were space aliens patrickgross.org/ relentlessly hunted down changes
some nearby woods. Indefatigable alien- of some kind. ce3/1917-belgium- some details of the story. Kettler claims
hunter Scott C Waring explains the Barons The main problem with this incredible westernbelgium. the craft was 125ft in diameter, not
remarkable feat on his UFO Sightings story is that it first appeared on page htm 136, and gives the date of the event as
Daily website: Its possible that the Red 4 of the 31 Aug 1999 edition of the 3 www.facebook. 13 March 1917. He is also touchingly
Barons two front machineguns could have Weekly World News, better known for its com/groups/47874 concerned about the impact of the
damaged not the UFO, but the antenna sensational headlines than its accurate 9618970394/ incident on our alien visitors, adding:
on the top centre of the craft. Not all craft factual reporting. Another flaw in the story 4 www.youtube. I get the impression that losing such a
com/watch?v=
have this antenna... it controls steering... If is that Fokker Dr.1 triplanes, as illustrated powerful craft to a veritable peashooter
bZbLG1gBN1Y
this antenna was hit by the Baron, then yes, in the news story, were not put into was so upsetting and confounding
5 https://john
a UFO would lose control and be forced to operational service until August 1917.We as to be almost incomprehensible.
kettler.com/
land to make repairs. 1 might also wonder what happened to the ufo-downed-by- Additionally, there is a view emerging
Waitzrik said that on the return from crashed vehicle and its crew, which would world-war1- that this case may be unknown because
their patrol: The Baron and I gave a full have been conspicuous even in the middle machine-gun/ a cover-up was performed over this
report on the incident back at headquarters of a battle zone. Perhaps, as Scott Waring incident. 5
and they told us not to ever mention suggests, they were able to conduct repairs Even Mr Kettler has to admit the
it again.And except for my wife and and make their getaway. Sadly, they were Red Baron could not have been flying a
grandkids, I never told a soul.Waitzrik not so lucky exactly 30 years later when Fokker Dr.1, but he does seem to think
continued to believe that what they had they crashed again, this time at Roswell. the mysterious saucer was being operated
seen must have been a top-secret US At least the Red Baron cant be blamed for by the infamous Grey aliens, who
aircraft until the late 1940s when flying that one. believed their craft invulnerable and
saucer reports hit the headlines. By 1999, On his UFO Related Entities Catalog didnt bother to switch on the shields.
the 105-year-old retired airline pilot felt (URECAT) website, Patrick Gross notes Pride goes before a fall, after all. FT

FT352 55
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forum delusions

Clones, psychics and the Antichrist

MARK GReeneR asks what light delusional misidentification syndromes might shed on fortean phenomena

MARK GREENER is a
Cambridge-based medical writer
and clinical editor of Pharmacy
Magazine. He writes regularly
for a wide variety of magazines,
including Fortean Times.

T
he clones, operating under the
influence of the psychics, wanted
to chase him from his apartment.
The psychics had even replaced
the three people who ran the building
with clones. So, he stabbed them to
death. Another man was admitted to
a psychiatric unit upset because other
people couldnt accept that he was the
Antichrist but the government knew.
Then theres the case of the 44-year-
old man who, following a brain injury,
became convinced that substitutes had
replaced his wife and five children.
All these are manifestations of the
so-called delusional misidentification familiarity. In June 1918, a woman ABOVE: Quick- or relative. Even blind people can
syndromes (DMS), a psychiatric who insisted on being called Mathilde change artist suffer from Capgras: a woman believed
classification that might help explain de Rio-Branco (not her real name) Leopoldo Fregoli her real husband was heavier and
some possessions, doppelgngers was admitted to a shelter for the playing multiple smelt different. Similarly, a German
roles.
and even alien abductions. And these mentally disturbed in Paris. She woman believed her daughter, who
dramatic, poorly understood and claimed that bandits had kidnapped had emigrated to the USA, had been
enigmatic conditions are more common several children, which they were replaced, based on telephone calls
than you might expect. Fregoli and holding prisoner in her cellar, where alone. Although his book reflects the
Capgras syndromes are the best studied she could hear them whimpering. rampant paranoia that gripped the
DMS. Fregoli is, essentially, a delusion The following year, she told her USA during the 1950s, Jack Finney
of over-familiarity. People with Fregoli psychiatrist Joseph Capgras that evokes Capgras syndrome perfectly in
syndrome typically believe that someone doppelgngers had replaced her his Invasion of the Body Snatchers: She
else changes his or her appearance or husband and daughter. She filed for was perfectly sure her husband wasnt
is in disguise.The syndromes name divorce, although de Rio-Branco also her husband at all he looked, talked,
commemorates Leopoldo Fregoli, claimed her marriage documents and acted exactly the way her husband
a famous quick-change artist who were forged. Madam de Rio-Branco always had but it simply wasnt him.
performed around the turn of the 20th had a long history of delusions. For Psychiatrists now recognise
century. Fregoli could switch costumes example, she said her mother was a numerous other DMS, some of which
and characters so rapidly that people descendent of Henri IV. She also said seem to overlap and might evolve
claimed that there were several Fregolis. that her father had told her on his into each other. 2 Indeed, one in 10
In 1927, two clinicians, Courbon deathbed that he had stolen her from patients have Capgras and Fregoli
and Fail, reported that a 27-year-old a wealthy family when she was 15 simultaneously and about a third
woman believed that the actresses months old. She was the heir to mines experience delusions about a person
Sarah Bernhardt and Robine, whom in Argentina, all of Rio de Janeiro, and a place. For example, people
she often saw at the theatre, pursued and 75 houses in France. But these experiencing a type of DMS called
her closely.1 Bernhardt and Robine had been stolen from her. She saw environmental reduplication insist
used numerous disguises and took the doppelgngers all around her nurses, that an unfamiliar environment (such
appearance of people she knows or patients, doctors but only of people as a hospital room) is really in or near
meets. She believed, for example, that she already knew, never strangers. In a place that is important to them, often
Robine regularly pretended to be her other words, she recognised, but could their home.3 In other cases, a person
neighbour.The woman was admitted to not identify, the people and assumed with DMS can feel the house has been
hospital after attacking a person in the they were doppelgngers. replaced. An elderly woman who
street. But she believed that Bernhardt Capgras and his assistant Reboul- survived a stroke clung to a delusion
and Robine, disguised as nurses, forced Lachaux described the condition that her house was not her real home.
her to masturbate. in 1923 as lillusion des sosies (the Sometimes she packed her belongings
Capgras syndrome (see FT123:14, illusion of doubles). People with to set off for her real house.4
133:16 and this months Necrolog, p24) Capgras syndrome believe that an DMS seem to be relatively common,
is the converse: a delusion of under- imposter has replaced a close friend at least among some patients. One

56 FT352
www.forteantimes.com
 delusions
forum
study estimated that about one person Capgras patients often regard the to duplication. Several researchers
in every 1,000 experiences Capgras misidentified person with suspicion, linked DMS to brain damage that
syndrome, for example.The rate is which might evolve into paranoia generates faulty information.
especially high in patients with certain and aggression. In one study, three in Other parts of the brain attempt to
psychiatric and neurological conditions five (61 per cent) DMS patients had interpret this faulty information.The
including schizophrenia, where 15 attacked someone else. 10 discordance between the two leads to
per cent seem to experience a DMS, Although there are numerous DMS. For example, when an injured
Alzheimers disease (20-30 per cent) examples in the medical literature, area cannot produce the appropriate
and Lewy body dementia (17 per cent).5 DMS has proved difficult to explain. emotional response to a patients
DMS also go some way to accounting Some delusions seem to be defensive: spouse, the other part concludes there
for fortean phenomena although they the person projects negative aspects is an imposter. Essentially, the damage
are not the only explanation, of course of themselves onto an external other. allows an abnormal perception to go
including certain cases of lycanthropy (I wonder if the original case of unchallenged by another brain area.12
and possession. In 1978, a 56-year-old Fregoli syndrome was projecting her Until recently, many researchers
woman behaved like a wild dog and frustrated and repressed sexuality.) believed that damage to two parts
later developed Capgras syndrome.6 In other cases, a person may replace a of the brain was needed to account
A 49-year-old man was admitted to stressful environment a hospital, for for DMS: one to generate the error
a US psychiatric hospital feeling example with a safe place, such as and one to allow the delusion to pass
despondent because others did not their place of work or home. unchallenged. But each part of the
acknowledge that he was the Antichrist. Arguably, this aspect of DMS brain connects to many others. A recent
At 36 years old, he realised that he could help account for some alien study found that a single hit in an
was the Antichrist and began to recall abductions. Perhaps some abductees area that is linked to regions involved
his previously forgotten psychological project something they dislike their in familiarity is enough to generate
identity.The man also believed frustration and anxieties, for example DMS.13 This study found that pattern
that the government feared his power onto an external environment, of connectivity was consistent across
as the Antichrist and implanted an creating the delusion of the UFO. cases of Fregoli and Capgras, as well as
electronic monitoring device in his Interestingly, Madam de Rio-Branco misidentifications involving different
head. His doctors felt that the delusion believed that people in a network categories of objects (e.g. people versus
was consistent with a DMS. 7 of underground operating theatres places).This might explain why the
Closer to home, doctors from under Paris were mutilating the citys same person can develop different
Northern Ireland reported a 44-year- inhabitants: replace cellars with forms of DMS.
old man who presented with Fregoli UFOs and mutilation for implants, Finally, the findings can help
syndrome and believed that he and a and this sounds familiar. Indeed, in understand human behaviour
female friend shared the same body some cases of Capgras the person is including how we interpret reality.
a type of DMS called delusional under the delusion that a robot or an Fregoli and Capgras are devastating
hermaphroditism.8 DMS patients alien has replaced the loved one. One and dramatic diseases. But what
who develop a condition called person in Missouri believed an alien happens when one part of the brain
asomatognosia lose their recognition had replaced his stepfather, so he generates a less dramatic error that
or awareness of parts of their body. So, beheaded him to search for batteries passes unchallenged? Would we even
they might believe that the doctor owns and microfilm.11 notice? Someone who can really feel
one of their limbs or speak of my dead Another suggestion proposed that a that their home isnt their home or that
husbands hand. 9 person with DMS might not be able to their loved ones have been replaced
An outsider, without the benefit integrate memories and experiences. is, perhaps, at one end of a spectrum.
of modern psychiatric insights, could So, they dont recognise when What if this happens in more subtle
easily conclude that a person who something is familiar and, in response, ways with less marked damage? DMS
believes that they are the Antichrist, generate delusional doubles.Yet show, too, that memory isnt as infallible
shares a body or has a replaced body another explanation held that the as we like to think. What does this say
part, is possessed. A person with parts of the brain that process and about the relationship between our
Capgras believes something has store memory become disconnected, internal mental state and the outside
replaced a loved one, which again could so new information is not linked to world? DMS show just how fragile our
be interpreted as possession. Indeed, previous memories.This, in turn, leads grip on reality really is. FT

noTes Neuropsychiatry and Clinical connectivity of lesions causing European Culture, Reaktion Psychiatric Clinics of North
1 K Atta, N Forlenza, M Neurosciences, 2016, 28:217- delusional misidentifications, Books, 2013. America, 2005, 28:665-683
Gujski et al, Delusional 222. Brain, 2017;doi:10.1093/ 7 Ruff and Volpe, op cit. 10 Klein and Hirachan, op cit.
misidentification syndromes: 3 R Ruff and BT Volpe, brain/aww288.
8 C Mulholland and AG 11 For the above cases see:
Separate disorders or unusual Environmental reduplication 5 CA Klein and S Hirachan, OHara, An Unusual D Draaisma, Disturbances of
presentations of existing DSM- associated with right frontal The masks of identities: Case of Delusional the Mind, Cambridge University
IV categories?, Psychiatry, and parietal lobe injury, Whos who? Delusional Misidentification: Delusional Press, 2009.
2006, 3:56-61. Journal of Neurology, misidentification syndromes, Hermaphroditism,
Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, Journal of the American 12 Darby, Laganiere, Pascual-
2 R Darby R and S Prasad, Psychopathology, 1999, Leone, op cit.
Lesion-related delusional 1981, 44:382-386. Academy of Psychiatry and the 32:220-224.
misidentification syndromes: 4 R Darby, S Laganiere, Law 2014, 42:369-378. 13 Ibid.
9 TE Feinberg and DM Roane,
A comprehensive review of A Pascual-Leone et al, 6 M Beresford, The White Delusional misidentification,
reported cases, Journal of Finding the imposter: Brain Devil: The Werewolf in

FT352 57
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 SEND REVIEW COPIES OF BOOKS TO: BOOK REVIEWS,
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This months books, films and games

reviews
Unpredictable novelties
The natural world is a hierarchy consisting of several layers beginning with
subatomic particles and ending in the ecosystem, according to new thinking

chemistry. Darwins theory of

evolution rested intellectually on In other words, and make technological advances.
But true coherence between, for
elements drawn from deep-space
astronomy, deep-time geology,
the implications example, the physics of how a
laser plays a CD and why I chose
palontology, anthropology, of convergence to listen to Slayers Repentless
geography and biology. And while I wrote this, wont, I suspect,
Watson brings the discussion up to go far beyond the happen in the foreseeable

Convergence
date with cutting-edge examples.
Convergence, for example,
laboratory bench future. Some fundamental issues
withstand both reductionism and
The Deepest Idea in the Universe eloquently examines the tension emergence. We cant, for example,
Peter Watson
and inter-relationship between understand consciousness
reductionism and emergence. break the laws of physics. Rather from the interaction of nerves
Simon & Schuster 2017
Reductionists break emergence adds layers that are as and chemicals, let alone
Hb, 25 ind, refs, 25.00, ISBN 9781471129001
complex phenomena into more fundamental as those below in the fundamental particles. Indeed,
Convergence is profoundly simple fundamental constituents. hierarchy. Paul Verschure commented
and simply profound and Reductionism, for example, Increasingly, however, recently that understanding
possibly the most important allows physicists to characterise understanding individual layers the nature of consciousness is
book youll read this year. On the Higgs Boson and other let alone the interactions one of the grand outstanding
one level, Watson eloquently elementary particles, and between them involves some scientific challenges. One
demonstrates how the sciences offers molecular biologists an fairly sophisticated mathematics. fundamental problem, he notes,
overlap, converge and support unprecedented understanding Analogies (such as visualising the is developing a verifiable means
each other, so discoveries in of the pathways inside our curve of space-time as the skin of for observers to assess someone
one science can quickly lead cells that are essential for our a balloon) can aid understanding. elses subjective experiences
to advances elsewhere. More health and wellbeing. It allowed But, sadly, the increasing reliance (Philosophical Transactions of the
fundamentally, he argues that pharmacologists to develop on mathematics will increase Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
there is an emerging order a important new drugs for cancer the divide between science and 2016;371:20150448). Im sure
convergence, even a kind of and other serious diseases. the public as well as, I suspect, well soon model consciousness
unity between the sciences and Yet reductionism doesnt tell between disciplines. I can, in an analogous way to how
that this order or unity gives the whole story. As Srdjan Kesic usually, cope with the statistics we model life and be able to
science an authority unrivalled comments in an insightful recent and mathematical models used define consciousness and life in
among other forms of knowledge. paper (Saudi Journal of Biological in my discipline, biology, but operational terms. We wont, I
Despite the seeming complexity Sciences 2016;23:584591): I dont pretend to grasp the suspect, capture the essence of
and chaos of the world around It would be impossible to mathematical basis of quantum consciousness and life and reach
us, the deep order revealed explain the functioning of a mechanics. Thats one reason accepted definitive definitions of
by science is so strong and so biological organism using only why accessible books such as either in my lifetime.
coherent that it is beginning to physicochemical principles. Convergence are so important to Meanwhile, science is attacking
impinge on philosophy, morality, The newer idea of emergence the general public and for other bastions that were once preserves
history, culture and politics. In aims to addresses these concerns scientists. of philosophy, religions and poetry,
other words, the implications of by assuming that the natural Fundamentally, I suspect a which raises important ethical
convergence go far beyond the world is a hierarchy consisting convergence forged through concerns. Genetic advances raise
laboratory bench. of several levels beginning with reductionism and emergence will the prospect of parents choosing
Watson marshals examples from subatomic particles and ending in eventually emerge across the their childs characteristics
disciplines as diverse as quantum the ecosystem, biosphere and so sciences but it will be a long- which could involve traits that are
mechanics, dendrochronology and on. Each level, Watson notes, has time coming. As Watson notes, passed on to future generations.
child psychology. For instance, certain unpredictable novelties some critics suggest that certain Watson notes that such advances
the principle of conservation such as mental functions, sciences (electronics and cultural raise important questions. What
of energy a foundation of consciousness and life that do anthropology, for example) are too will this do to our sense of being?
modern physics proposed in the not appear in, and cannot be far apart to allow any meaningful Will people become things rather
1850s brought together insights predicted from, the lower levels. convergence. Of course, scientists than beings? Will this challenge
from heat, optics, electricity, Its important to recognise that will be able to use emergence
magnetism, food and blood these emergent properties do not and reductionism to gain insights Continued on page 62

FT352 59
www.forteantimes.com
reviews BOOKS

Fail again. Fail better. Satanism

A Social History
Massimo Introvigne

A non-scientists book on sciences forgotten cul-de-sacs attacks

Aries Book (Book 21)
BIB STUFF 197 / $255 ISBN 978-9004288287

straw men and fails to note the path from failure to discovery Satanism: A Social
History is an
(intentionally?)
humanists, an amorphous group social progress, Tuckers other pet 666-page long
located somewhere to the left of hate is immortality. He sees the text by Massimo
centre. There is plenty of heat, but idea that it may be possible as Introvigne, professor
little light. Tucker has fun with a myth peddled by the religion of Sociology of Religions at
the many eccentricities of Soviet, of science, and seems genuinely Pontifical Salesian University
Nazi, Islamic and even feminist disturbed that anyone might in Turin, and the founder of the
science (Still, what do you achieve it. Some of this fire is citys Centre for Studies on New
expect from a woman? he quips directed at those who wish to Religions. Here, Introvigne traces
daringly). In spite of these lessons upload their brains to computers. the often ambiguous history
Forgotten Science in how the political distortion of Again, he gives no indication of of Satanism and anti-Satanism
Strange Ideas from the Scrapheap science breeds monsters, Tucker why their ideas are wrong, beyond from its arguable and unclear
of History denies that liberal democracy the fact that previous attempts beginnings in 17th century
SD Tucker may produce better science. As at immortality have failed. It France to the similarly vague post-
Amberley Publishing 2016 evidence, he advances the fact would be unfair to observe that everything iterations of our era.
Hb, 320pp, ISBN 9781445648378 that North Korea has atom bombs there were many failures before The lack of clarity is not the fault
and liberal Scandinavia does not. success was eventually achieved of the author, whose research
Tuckers previous book was on The book weaves around with powered flight, because is authoritative and meticulous
Great British Eccentrics, and this uncertainly, often with no very this would imply some sort of (though his prose frequently
one is really Great (Vaguely) obvious connection to science. progress. Tucker gives approving undermines its titillating and
Scientific Eccentrics. Science The stranger ideas of mystics, mentions to pseudoscientist often dark content); rather, it
is presented as a freak show in Creationists, homeopaths, Rupert Sheldrake, mainly because is the result of the history of
which we are invited to ridicule Wilhelm Reich and even Sheldrake annoys scientists. Satanism itself.
absurd beliefs. The problem is that Strindberg are aired, however He does not look too closely at Satanic practices take place
absurd beliefs often turn out to be unscientific they might have been Sheldrakes own, widely-rejected away from the prying eyes of
true. We are all agreed that your considered when first expressed. work. He describes Russian the public and especially of
theory is crazy, physicist Neils The section on hoaxes perpetrated biologist Paul Kammerers the clergy, who comprised the
Bohr famously told his colleague by Brass Eye show the public theory of Seriality as basically majority of the literate populace
Wolfgang Pauli. The question ignorance of science, but has little incomprehensible, when it able to record history in its early
that divides us is whether it is to do with science, forgotten or resembles Sheldrakes idea of stages. Introvigne attempts to
crazy enough to have a chance of otherwise. morphic resonance, that nature define what Satanism is (the
being correct. Modern science comes in for has a memory. worship of Lucifer by organised
Tucker mocks 18th century cow numerous attacks: if science from Tucker is not a scientist, groups using ritualistic practices,
house therapy with the patient centuries ago turned out to be and many of his statements do which Introvigne describes
living alongside cows, but later wrong, so may our present ideas. not stand up to scrutiny; for as occult Satanism) and what
admits that harmless cowpox from Tucker does not deny climate example, how is harnessing insect it isnt (Romantic Satanism
cows turned out to be an effective change unlike every other topic, power perpetual motion? He that uses Satanic imagery for
inoculation against smallpox. He it is beyond the capacity of criticises Tesla for believing that largely political, literary or
laughs at Galvins followers for laymen so he cannot comment. lighting can cause downpours, artistic purposes, which he
seeking to revive corpses with He is suspicious of climate change when this is widely accepted calls rationalist Satanism). For
electric shocks, but mentions scientists. He scorns the idea by meteorologists. A section on rationalists, Lucifer evokes an
that defibrillators restart that methane from cows may Paligenesis that looked good individualist spirit that has
hearts with the same effect. cause global warming without was largely borrowed from FT. thrown away the shackles of
Early experiments with blood explaining why and spends half Science is a bizarre and wonderful moral and religious dogma (think
transfusion between humans a page on a joke story from the field. Scientists have strange Miltons French Revolution-
and animals were ridiculous Sport newspaper about climate ideas about some things, just like inspiring Satan in Paradise Lost or
but paved the way for life-saving change making breasts bigger, everyone else. But an openness the idealist of Blakes Marriage of
transfusion. suggesting that this is on the same to new and crazy ideas is a rich Heaven and Hell). Occultists view
The conventional view of level as research on the effects source of discovery, and this book Satan as a living entity whose
science is that it progresses, and of methane from livestock. He does a disservice to science and powers can be harnessed through
mistaken ideas are replaced declares that science is a modern scientists, especially those on ritual or magic for earthly
by new theories backed by religion, an idea that is hardly the further and more interesting influence or hedonism. These
experimental data. Tucker is original and given no new support. shores. rituals often involve perversions
having none of this: he attacks the Even Tucker has to admit that it is David Hambling of Christian usually Catholic
myth of progress. This frequently self-correcting, though it may take rites, frequently committed
shades into attacks on the idea of a while. Fortean Times Verdict by men of the cloth, who were
social progress, which he sees as a
delusion perpetrated by liberal
Apart from liberal humanists
and their insidious belief in
AmUSIng BUT UnFAIr TO
SCIenCe AnD SCIenTISTS 6 familiar with religious practices
and whose authority allowed them

60 FT352
www.forteantimes.com
 BOOKS
reviews

Sonic youth, London

to perpetrate these (typically
sexual) crimes undetected.
Introvigne structures his
book around a three-stage
pendulum model, tracing
Satanist movements from their
Three decades worth of idiocyncratic images of David Tibet
occult beginnings, when secret and his fellow underground explorers are infused with affection
practices were made known to
the larger culture that repressed
this perversion of religious and then holding hands, she You can see her point:
practices in order to retain social recalls. As author Michel (Under idiosyncrasies vary from Rose
and largely religious-based the Skin) Faber notes in his MacDowells red rubber and black
cohesion. He comments on introduction, these two pioneers beehive combo to a tweedy Tiny
similar contemporary responses of experimental industrial music Tim wielding a ukulele, but her
to Satanists perceived threat to here resemble tired children subjects can never be mundane.
social cohesion. resting after an afternoon in the Ruth cites one of her inspirations
Introvignes tripartite playground. as Billy Name, the photographer
structure encompasses the There are further, arresting and lighting designer who
Proto-Satanism events of 17th Skipping to shots of the remaining axis of captured and catalogued Andy
and 18th century Europe and
Russia. The second part also
Armageddon Keenans Esoteric Undergound:
Peter Sleazy Christopherson and
Warhols inner sanctum. Her
shots of Annie Anxiety, a fellow
addresses the Classical Satanist photographs of Current 93 and John Balance of Coil, emerging aficionado, were deliberate nods
Friends
period, which he dates between from their dressing room to to his work.
1821 and 1952, ending with Jack Ruth Bayer take to the Royal Festival Hall The one of her wearing a
Parsons and Scientology founder Strange Attractor Press 2016 stage looking, as Ruth puts it: silver outfit is a reference to
L Ron Hubbards Aleister 25, ISBN 9781907222450 BIB DEETS like some extraordinary Apollo when Billy Name wallpapered
Crowley-inspired attempt to astronauts on their way to the the Factory in silver foil; and the
conjure up the Thelemic goddess Mystic, visionary and sonic moon! Now that both have one taken of Annie on the bed
Babalon. (It is a testament to pioneer David Tibet has been departed this mortal plane, the was in homage to Edie Sedgwick,
Introvignes lacklustre prose that charting a distinctive path through humour and affection of these with the hairstyle and really big
these events are drained of their British music for the past three candid shots feel particularly eyes made up with eyeliner. I
peculiar humanity). decades with his band Current 93 moving. have actually photographed Billy
Finally, Introvigne gives us and its offshoots; a body of work There is a timeless quality to Name. They always say never
contemporary Satanism from recently given critical evaluation the collection that reflects its meet your heroes, but I got on
1952 to the present, which in David Keenans Englands subjects interest in mystical very well with him.
has the merit of making sense Hidden Reverse: A Secret History matters and Ruths understanding Perhaps the most iconic is the
of a chaotic era. Satanism of the Esoteric Underground, also of that. shot which graces the front cover
has splintered into factions, published by Strange Attractor. The largest group shots, taken of Skipping To Armageddon, in
ideologies, and sociocultural For nearly all of that time, on Hampstead Heath for the which Tibet sits surrounded by
expressions and interpretations, Austrian-born photographer Ruth cover of Current 93s Earth Covers his enormous Noddy collection.
from Anton LaVeys Church of Bayer has been carefully watching Earth on a long summers day in Infamously the result of an acid
Satan, the Great Satanist Scare him through her lens. 1988, depict a renegade bunch, trip in which he saw Enid Blytons
and alleged ritual sexual abuse They first met in 1987, when perhaps a band of travelling cheery wooden tot crucified in the
in the United Kingdom and the David took over Ruths old room minstrels or a circus troupe who sky surrounded by mocking elves,
United States in the 1980s and in a house in Tufnell Park, north could have wandered in through this obsession was something that
1990s that provided endless London. She had just begun a portal in time. Similarly, the initially left Ruth nonplussed.
talk show and tabloid fodder, to to study photography and the intimate shots of Coil/Cyclobes Since I come from Austria, I
current cultural expressions such young man in leather trousers Stephen Thrower and Ossian had no idea what Noddy is, what
as Black Metal. and sunglasses she met as the Brown, taken in their seaside he represented, or that he was
Introvigne is a painstaking new tenant became an enduring cottage in Sussex, could represent from a childrens TV programme.
researcher; there are dozens subject. This beautifully produced a scene that awaited Ralph Because Tibet is quite an
of fascinating and obscure volume is a tender testament to Vaughan Williams when he eccentric character anyway, I just
events in these pages. A 61-page their friendship that chronicles went in search of sea shanties thought it was him collecting
bibliography and two indexes are the relationships forged between in East Anglia, a century before. strange figures with blue hats
included. The lack of illustrations Tibet and his kindred spirits ever Although none of this appears at on! Endearing, unsettling, and
is a disappointment, especially since. all stage-managed. enigmatic, it captures the essence
considering the numerous Subjects include Steven None of them were taken in a of their collaboration. He is very
examples of ritualistic practices Stapleton of Nurse With Wound, studio environment, Ruth says. trusting in letting me photograph
and the intriguing characters and depicted lying companionably They all were either in my space him the way I do, Ruth surmises.
events described. At $255, the with Tibet on the floor of Ruths or in theirs inside, in my garden There dont tend to be any
exclusion is even less forgivable. bedroom. She was in the midst or theirs or in parks; and I think boundaries between us.
Eric Hoffman of some interior decorating, so the people themselves are sort of Cathi Unsworth
it seemed the easiest place to timeless. They dress in their own
Fortean Times Verdict shoot them: Then it just became alternative way and have their Fortean Times Verdict
gOOD reSeArCH LeT DOwn By
LeADen prOSe AnD ITS prICy 6 something else, them upside
down, lying next to each other
own style, I think thats why Im
so fascinated by them.
THe eSOTerIC UnDergrOUnD
meeT THeIr nICO 9
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reviews BOOKS

Continued from page 59 explain certain mental states the Haunted Skies stride, when it covers another
people I love and those I loathe, preserving the Social History of FSR report about a tennis-ball-
our conceptions of autonomy and my passion for music as diverse as UFO research; Vol 1, 19391959 sized globe of light seen by a
freedom? Should we intervene in Cat Stevens and Darkthrone, or John Hanson & Dawn Holloway. teenaged Thomas Hills Harrison
evolution or leave it to nature? interest in robust science as well in 1919. Like most of the cases
Haunted Skies Publishing,2016,
Moreover, some scientists as the outer reaches of forteana. 621 pages, paperback.
that follow, the authors have
believe that mental states will And I am not sure I want them spoken to the witnesses and/or
eventually be explained by to. But those who adhere to the This revised prime researchers, and include
lower level neurophysiological strong view would condemn my and expanded photographs of them and any
processes. Strong advocates of response as hopelessly emotional, edition takes a other relevant images and
this perspective believe that sentimental and unscientific. visual journey documentation.
concepts such as intend, love Such discussions could have through British There is even a 1929 case,
and consciousness do not refer to been heavy-going, but Watson UFO sightings from investigated by Ron West,
anything real and will eventually makes obtuse science accessible. 1901 to the end of the 1950s. It involving an alleged abduction in
be replaced as neuroscience He does a remarkable job of includes a sprinkling of important Yorkshire. Merchant Navy officer
progresses. Im reminded of explaining relativity. His eye for US cases and looks at how John William Anderson saw a ball of
Samuel Johnsons reaction to telling detail brings the story and Dawn got involved, following light that led him to a domed
Bishop Berkeleys ingenious to life and often reminded me the sighting of a huge saucer- craft that had landed in some
sophistry (matter doesnt exist (and I mean this as high praise) shaped UFO over a suburb of open farmland. He went inside
and everything is an idea). James of Bill Brysons A Short History of Birmingham in January 1995. the craft where he undressed
Boswell observed that the idea Nearly Everything. Convergence Feeling that the subject was and after a memory lapse found
was impossible to refute. I is up there with the classics of often met with derision, they himself on an examination table.
never shall forget the alacrity popular science. A brief review decided to track down retired He was telepathically told that
with which Johnson answered, can scarcely do justice to this UFO investigators to gain they were always around if he
Boswell wrote, striking his foot essential book. accurate information from their needed any help. The next thing
with mighty force against a large Mark Greener files and from the witnesses. he knew was waking up in his bed
stone, till he rebounded from it This research eventually became the next morning.
I refute it thus. I feel the same Fortean Times Verdict the basis for their Haunted Skies Extensive coverage is given
about the idea that lower level
neurophysiological processes will
A SImpLe, prOFOUnD AnD
pArADIgm-SHIFTIng wOrK 9 series of UFO histories. As John
puts it, Our books are not wild
to the story of Cathie Connelly
who had a close encounter in
unsubstantiated fairy stories Warwickshire in 1940, which had
but the real thing! These are intriguing similarities to the Betty

Fever-dreams
unique experiences from so many and Barney Hill case.
people who just want to tell it The book provides a wonderful
how it was. review of sightings in WWII,
Many of the sources are many by RAF and military
gleaned from Flying Saucer Review personnel, and then goes on to
A guide to the oddly unfamiliar European- (FSR), such as the first 20th the proper flying saucer era
flavoured Gothic cinema is very welcome century sighting in Bournbrook, that began in June 1947. Here
near Birmingham. An anonymous the multitude of British cases are
witness recalled that in 1901, put in the context of milestone
Cinecitt. Rigbys insight will be aged 10, he came across a strange US incidents, and again there
familiar to readers of his earlier building near his home. Two small are several close encounters with
works and viewers of the series military-looking entities emerged UFOs and entities.
Horror Europa (2012, BBC4) he and when they re-entered it, One of the stand-out cases is
and Mark Gatiss created. it shot into the sky; 78 years that of Cynthia Appleton, who
The end result is another afterwards, he thought he might met spacemen in her living room,
absorbing chronicle of one of have seen a UFO. The authors and attended a packed lecture in
euro gothic cinemas most enduring but tried tracking down his family for Birmingham by the (in)famous
Classics of Continental Horror misunderstood genres, ranging more information, but have so far US contactee. A month later,
Cinema here from the silent films of the failed. They were more successful Cynthia said she was expecting a
Jonathan Rigby early 20th century to the video in finding a relative of Agatha Venusians baby. Even Adamski
Signum Books 2016 revolution of the Eighties. Many Whiteland, who witnessed a flying could not have come up with such
Hb, 344pp, illus, 24.99, ISBN 9780957648159 readers will be less familiar with platform carrying another set a far-fetched story.
the 100+ films here than with of military-looking occupants at With its wealth of newspaper
Jonathan Rigby is the author those in Rigbys previous texts, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, during WWI. clippings, the tales of ancient
of the acclaimed film histories making it arguably less intriguing The information about British ufologists and images of long-
English Gothic and American and a more difficult read, but the UFO sightings before and during defunct UFO magazines, you do
Gothic. Euro Gothic continues excellent design and Rigbys WWI cover the basics, as they get a real feeling for the period
the series with a study of horror infectious enthusiasm make it only mention a few 1909 cases when ufology was in its innocent
fantasies ranging from Weimar enjoyable. and ignore the 191213 airship infancy. Where did it all go wrong!
Germanys Expressionist reveries Richard Thomas scare completely. In my biased Nigel Watson
to the transgressive nightmares opinion, readers can best find
smuggled past Francos regime Fortean Times Verdict these details in my book UFOs of Fortean Times Verdict
via surrealist Gallic fever-dreams
and psychedelic shockers from
mUST-reAD FOr FAnS OF One OF
CInemAS LeAST FAmILIAr genreS 8 the First World War just saying!
Haunted Skies gets fully in its
AH, THe LOST InnOCenCe OF THe
BrITISH UFOLOgy SCene 9
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 BookS
reviews

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

Atlantis in the Caribbean hospital whose struggle with iatro- have very experienced researchers and omissions and dumping his
Andrew Collins genic complications of treatment in the field giving their considered system of misleading footnotes,
Bear & Co. 2016 for cancer led to a series of surgi- views on how it has, historically, Greer and Mikituk have succeeded
Pb, 488pp, illus, plates, notes, bib, ind, $20.00, ISBN cal interventions and a depend- been hijacked by the misinforma- in re-establishing Lvis grand
9781591432654
ency upon pain relief medications tion, distortion, and derision by trans-cultural synthesis in a form
It is difficult to see where there and anti-depressants. debunkers, government agencies more relevant to and understand-
might be room for a new book on During a near-fatal crisis at and conspiracy conmen; conse- able for the modern occultist.
Atlantis but Collins has done just Christmas 2010, he was once quently there is much new com-
that, re-examining all the most again on an operating table mentary on the old cases. Strange Tales from Illinois
ancient and authentic records and when, 20 minutes in, he became This is likely to go way over the Luke Scriven
distilling a (relatively) new theory. conscious that his body was head of any readers new to the Self-published, Amazon/Kindle, 2015

To locate the legendary island- floating near the ceiling and was subject, but old hands are sure to Pb, 99pp, 3.49, ISBN 9781537340593

continent in mid-Atlantic, as so fully aware of the actions and appreciate the behind-the-scenes
many of the older writers have conversation of the theatre staff chapters on such key figures as FT heartily approves of the small-
done, is clearly ruled out by below him. In an instant, he Donald Menzel, Philip Klass, Dr press tradition of anthologies of
modern studies of the tectonic found himself in a frightening, Condon, and others. They end local tales, in this case, going
plates that form the oceans floor. dark place and crying for help. A with yet another (but no less ear- direct to digital distribution. This
Instead Collins marshals consider- figure appeared, whom he took nest) plea for the full disclosure of slender volume for the authors
able evidence that the Caribbean to be his long-dead father now government archives. home state focuses upon modern
is a better prospect, arguing that looking younger and confident, manifestations of mysterious and
Platos reported account was a who calmed him and took him The Doctrine and Ritual of frightening clowns; the 1944 mad
memory of a cataclysm that struck through a tunnel. The doctor then High Magic gasser of Matoon panic; phantom
this area at the end of the last experienced two past lives which, Eliphas Lvi; trans J M Greer & M A hitchhikers; and one new to us,
Ice Age, some 13,000 years ago he says, put his present predica- Mikituk concerning the Devil incarnating
when a cometary impact devas- ment, his arrogance and cruelty, Tarcher Pedigree 2017 into a baby born to an atheist in
tated Cuba and submerged parts into a perspective. Attending Pb, $17.10, 480pp, ind, ISBN 9780143111030 Chicago in 1889.
of the Bermuda landmass. angels then tutored him, telepathi- The author then shows how
This is a revised and expanded cally, in spiritual health, giving him This new translation of Lvis variants of this old theme (of the
edition of his 2000 book Gateway the mission to teach it to others. 1854 classic a personal project atheist or blasphemer getting
to Atlantis, published when, Dr Parti awoke a changed man, by Greer and Mikituk provides a what he asked for) has cropped
he admits, very little scientific giving away his material wealth significant opportunity for a fresh up in other countries and other
evidence was available. Since and mending bridges with his re-evaluation of Levis legacy for times, going back to the folkloric
then, he has trawled libraries family. This engaging book co- the philosophies underlying and trope of changelings substituted
and travelled the world seeking written by Paul Perry is Partis interpretations of, for example, for new-born babies.
evidence of the Younger Dryas testament. psychical research, spiritualism,
comet impact, finding it in six and modern New Age movements. You Might Be a Zombie
continents among the remains of Fact, Fiction and Flying There is no doubt that this was Editors of Cracked
ancient cultures in the Old and Saucers one of the founding manifestos of Michael OMara 2014
New Worlds. The theory is clearly Stanton T Friedman & Kathleen Marden the modern Western occult tradi- Pb, 295pp, illus, 9.99, ISBN 9781782433200
explained and the evidence well New Page Books 2016 tion, considering that it preceded
laid out. It is refreshing to see PB 288pp, notes, bib, index, $16.99. ISBN 9781632650658 important works by Manly Hall and Hundreds of witty collections of
the way Collins has matured as a Helena Blavatsky, and the main facts, factoids, rumours of the
writer and historian; this must be Youd think that with shelves magical movements (including the urban legend type, organised
his best book yet. crammed with books examining or Golden Dawn, the Rosicrucians, in familiar Internet-style listings
indulging in the UFO phenomenon Theosophy, etc) that flowered in around 40 topics such as: Five
Dying to Wake Up from practically every known angle their wake. A graphic example stories about Jesus childhood
Dr Rajiv Parti there would be no room or, of this transmission, say the they had to cut from the Bible;
Hay House 2016 indeed, enthusiasm for another translators, is Lvis illustration Six insane things Science might
Pb, 222pp, 10.99, ISBN 9781781807262
one. The two veteran ufologists, of Baphomet the cross-legged do with your cadaver; The grue-
Standing out from the glut of Friedman and Marden, have transgendered goat-demon sur- some origins of five popular fairy
autobiographical accounts of cooperated before on at least rounded by occult symbols that, tales; Three colors you dont
near-death experiences (NDEs) is three well-received books on well- while borrowing from the ancient realise are controlling your brain;
this from Dr Parti, a self-confessed rehearsed UFO topics. Knights Templar, presented the and The five most frequently
rich materialist who had heaped Even though the cases dis- modern world with a revised quoted bullshit statistics, etc.
psychological abuse upon his son cussed here all-too-familiar for the representation of the Devil as Compiled from the contributions
for not being as successful as well-read follower of the subject, the prime-evil. In eliminating the of 35 of the satirical websites
himself. the authors have come up with an pompous and turgid tone of writers and amusingly illustrated,
Parti was a respected Chief of important new angle. For the first Arthur Waites original 1896 trans- this makes a perfect addition to
Anaesthesiology at a California time (in general print at least) we lation, correcting his many errors your toilet library.

FT352 63
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reviews FILM & DVD
SEND REVIEW COPIES OF DVDS, BLU-RAYS AND GAMES TO:
FORTEAN TIMES, PO BOX 71602, LONDON E17 0QD.

A Cure for Wellness thing he always seems to get right

are the stunning visuals. Among
jumping from scene to scene.
Naturally, the mere fact that a
here it is thankfully used spar-
ingly, sprinkled on at intervals,
Dir Gore Verbinski, Germany/USA 2016
On UK release
his better work was the 2002 horror film is this long will be ensuring that the film remains
American remake of The Ring, reason enough for some moviego- truly unpleasant without turning
After receiving a strange letter which showed that not only does ers to give it a miss, but if you into another gratuitous torture
from CEO Roland Pembroke he know how to make a film that are willing to keep an open mind porn extravaganza. But make no
(Harry Groener), the board mem- looks good, but also how to create as you go along for the leisurely mistake, despite such restraint,
bers of his company order the mesmerisingly unnerving imagery ride, there is a good chance that this film is not for the squeamish.
young executive Lockhart (Dane and there is plenty of nightmare you will be enthralled by the A Cure for Wellness is one of
DeHaan) to bring Pembroke fuel in A Cure for Wellness. With storytelling. By allowing the film those movies that splits both
back from a wellness centre in this latest effort,Verbinski has to linger on seemingly insignifi- critics and audiences down the
the Swiss Alps to sign off the made an original piece of gothic cant elements, a greater sense of middle. Whether you love it or
final paperwork on an important horror and, despite its dark sub- mystery is achieved, which in turn hate it, the fact that the film
merger. Arriving at the wellness ject matter, another stunningly makes the film that much more dares to be so deliriously differ-
centre, the callously ambitious beautiful film. The cinematogra- unsettling, even when Lockhart is ent is commendable in the cur-
Lockhart is unimpressed by the phy, editing and colour grading all doing something as simple as hob- rent cinematic climate, where
idyllic scenery; he simply wants help to create lusciously serene bling around on his crutches. originality tends to be shunned
to find Pembroke and get back to visuals in deceptively soothing Even though the film does in favour of the financial rewards
business: but the businessman is shades of blue, and the excel- an impressive job of building a promised by reviving past suc-
nowhere to be found. Increasingly lent sound design matches the tremendously sinister and mys- cesses. While the film goes places
frustrated by the centres staff imagery so well that it can almost terious atmosphere, the final act with its Lovecraftian brand of
being seemingly unwilling to be considered a character in its is ever so slightly disappointing. gothic horror that many people
help, Lockhart begins to suspect own right. The story struggles towards the will find deeply disturbing, it
that something is terribly wrong Just as the visuals have a beau- end, although this may in part be never stoops to the tired horror
with this place. When he wakes tiful, dreamlike quality, the hefty because the film wants to take the movie tricks of jump scares and
with a broken leg after a freak runtime of 2 hours and 26 minutes audience, thematically, to certain gore solely for the sake of shock
accident, he continues his search is used to further create the sense places that many people do not value. This strange piece of
for Pembroke, but his quest of being inside a waking night- care to visit even in the name of cinema has all the makings of a
is soon overshadowed by the mare; not only does the films horror. However, it should be said, cult classic.
increasingly sinister discoveries length provide the opportunity this is not due to the body horror Leyla Mikkelsen
he makes around the facility. to drag the viewer ever deeper shown in the film; that particular
Gore Verbinski can hardly be down the disturbingly dark rabbit brand of horror was perfected by
considered a consistent film- hole that is its story, it also cre- filmmakers such as David Cronen- Fortean Times Verdict
maker, with flops such as The Lone
Ranger on his rsum, but some-
ates a sense of time being warped
because we are not constantly
berg, and while lesser filmmakers
have overused it in recent years,
unconVentIonaL horror
wont be to aLL tastes 8
64 FT352
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 FILM & DVD
reviews
Charles, Logan and Laura set off
Logan
Dir James Mangold, US 2017
on a journey north to the Canadian
border in search of a fabled Eden
shorTs
where mutants can supposedly
On UK release
dwell in safety. The bearded Logan
tower oF LonDon
Arrow Video, 14.99 (Blu-ray)
After last years extremely disap- acts as an increasingly bloody and
pointing Apocalypse (where to beleaguered Moses figure on the Vincent Price was always a fan of the theatre, so its
start?), its encouraging to see that trek to this promised land, and no surprise to see him devour his role as a Shake-
Fox appear to have some fresh ideas Jackman imbues the role with suf- spearean king in Roger Cormans horror makeover
for their X-properties: the recent ficient world-weary nuance to make of Richard III. Desperate for power, he murders
any man, woman or child who gets in his way; in
TV co-production deal with Marvel this easily his finest assumption of a
fact, he kills so often that the film feels like a proto-
has yielded the mind-bendingly role he has played across nine films
slasher movie. Its also got its share of poster-worthy exploitation
good Legion and, in cinemas, Logan and nearly two decades. Stewart
like the child minder who gets her bones cracked on the rack in
proves to be the best X-Men film in nearly steals the show, though, in
a scene that feels a little brutal, even today but theres poetry
15 years, and that by a comfortable a poignant performance (F-bombs here too, as when when Price throws out lines like When we
distance. and all!) that must rank as one of his were children, there was no such thing as death. The black and
James Mangold, who helmed the very best. The young Dafne Keen is white cinematography looks lovely too. rev Peter Laws 7/10
nearly excellent The Wolverine back also splendid as the virtually feral
in 2013, here delivers what promises Laura, and I wouldnt be surprised
to be after the actors public state- to see her turn up again in the part. beYonD the Gates
ment that he is, after 17 years, hang- Richard E Grant is, well, Richard E Precious Pictures, 8.99 (DVD)
ing up his adamantium claws Hugh Grant, but Boyd Holbrook (Narcos) Remember in the late 1980s, when board games
Jackmans final outing as the scrap- as Pierce makes for a superbly started enhancing the fun with a bundled VHS
piest of mutants. And it proves to swaggering villain, full of arrogant Tape? Like Atmosfear, where a hooded Gate
be a fine and unexpectedly moving menace. Keeper glared out of the TV, screaming YOU
send-off. With its dusty landscapes, mel- MAGGOT! at petrified players. Beyond the Gates
At some point in the not-too- ancholy tone and themes of ageing, takes the VHS board game idea and uses it to
distant future we find a crumpled, mortality and family ties, Logan is open a portal to a hellish world of death, mayhem... and lots of
weary, booze-soaked Logan scrap- a very different kind of superhero pink light. Starring horror legend Barbara Crampton, the films
ing a living as a limo driver on movie that stands out in an increas- a little slow and not exactly inspired, but its still an interesting
the Mexican border; his healing ingly crowded field, and its obses- attempt to recapture some of the fears and loves of our youth. Try
factor is waning and hes caring sion with borders and migrations, it, you maggot! PL 7/10
for a nonagenarian Charles Xavier safe havens and dangerous crossings
(Patrick Stewart) who is slipping marks it out as strangely prescient knIGht rIDer: the coMPLete coLLectIon
into dementia and unable to control and powerfully resonant for our Fabulous Films, 99.99 (Blu-ray)
his powers. In a world where most times. In the end, its not the furi-
Today self-parking, sat-navving cars that talk are
mutants are dead and no new ones ous, bloody violence that makes this
pretty standard, but theres one piece of tech that
are being born, they hide out in an R-rated entry in the X-Men canon
modern motors have not yet attained: the Turbo
old water tower with Stephen Mer- feel special satisfying though it Boost. Oh, and Ski Mode. Actually theres a whole
chants goggle-eyed albino Caliban is to see Jackman finally go full bunch of things supercar KITT can do which modern
(I expected to dislike him, but hes beserker but the quieter, charac- cars still cant like analyse chemicals or jam the
rather good), playing out scenarios ter-driven moments that linger in controls of a baddies helicopter, which makes this delightful
of familial frustration reminiscent the memory after the credits roll on 1980s series still feel fun and fresh. David Hasselhoff and Wil-
of Beckett by way of Steptoe and Son: this valedictory chapter in the Wol- liam Daniels are perfectly cast as, respectively, the long-legged
its darkly funny, but there are hints verine saga. crusader against crime and the stuffy, neurotic car. All four sea-
of a terrible tragedy that has driven David Sutton sons are here, sparkling on Blu-ray, so you get everything: KARR,
them to this current dead end. The the evil version of KITT; Goliath, the evil truck version of KITT; and
status quo is only upset when the Fortean Times Verdict GARTH KNIGHT the evil version of Michael Knight. Watch out for
surprise appearance of a young
mutant named Laura (Dafne Keen)
a resonant anD MoVInG
suPerhero DraMa 9 the bizarre Halloween episode from Season 3, in which bouncy-
haired KITT mechanic Bonnie is haunted by paranormal activity
seeking protection from the sinister, after seeing a woman strangled by a man in a gorilla suit. This is
quasi-official forces pursuing her.
Reluctantly, Logan is forced to come
The Void TV nostalgia of the highest order. PL 8/10

Dir Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski, Canada 2016

out of retirement and confront his
own past. On UK release from 31 March wILLIe DYnaMIte
Arrow Video, 14.99 (Blu-ray)
If it sounds a lot like a late-period
Western, then you wont be sur- In features like The Beyond and City Meet Willie D: a streetwise, finger pistol shootin
prised to find echoes of The Shootist of the Living Dead, notorious Ital- pimp who struts through the city dressed like E.T.
and Unforgiven, while the classic ian director Lucio Fulci succeeded in that drag scene we all try to forget. Hes all floppy
hats and fur, looking sharp even when hes slapping
Shane becomes an explicit point of in spite of himself in creating two
his girls on money collection day. The films keen to
reference as the film develops; Man- genuinely nightmarish and fractured
paint pimping as a genuine business its the Wall
golds previous experience as writer/ horror films. I say in spite of himself
Street of pimp movies and, as the great wacka-wacka soundtrack
director of the Johnny Cash biopic because his customary lack of nar-
proudly shouts: Its no different from any other industry. I beg
Walk the Line pays off in the sound- rative sense actually worked to his to differ. Ive never, ever seen my plumber turn up in a bright pink
track too. This is also a road movie of advantage here: the films are like a
pant suit with matching feather boa and platforms. PL 7/10
sorts a mutant Alice in the Cities? series of disjointed, hallucinatory
in which the unlikely family of sequences that by some miracle

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reviews FILM & DVD

coincided with exactly what he situation, Gillespie and Kostan- this approach powerful, however, is to buckets oblood, that makes
was trying to accomplish, thereby ski throw the kitchen sink at that these are not your usual racist films fondly remembered and its
creating a perfect marriage of the screen in terms of blood and caricatures they are the well- a measure of this films enduring
atmosphere and theme. In The Void gore. Theres too much, of course, meaning liberal elite, completely appeal that among the special fea-
there is a similar lack of narrative but this is where the film does unaware of their own hypocrisy. tures are a cast reunion from 2008
control and a similar patchwork of undoubtedly excel; which should On top of the brilliantly satirical and a lengthy documentary detail-
scenes, but in this particular case come as no surprise given the duos social commentary, Peele expertly ing just about every aspect of the
they do not combine to such a suc- background in graphic design and taps the more conventional unease films production and reception.
cessful degree. special effects. Theres body horror, associated with horror as the film Its hard to imagine the same being
Our hero is Daniel (Aaron transformations, shootings, stab- progresses, creating effective done in 30 years for the recent,
Poole), a patrolman in the Marsh bings, axe attacks, two births and scares while unwrapping the sin- quickly forgotten, remake which
County Sheriffs Department. a broken finger plenty to keep ister plot at the core of the film. starred the late Anton Yelchin,
One quiet night he encounters a gorehounds happy then; just dont While some of the scares may be Colin Farrell and David Tennant.
terrified and blood-soaked young expect any of it to be coherent. conventional, what makes the film This is an excellent package and
man crawling along the highway. I dont usually like to use this something special is not just how the HD transfer is good.
Daniel takes him straight to the expression but the film feels like seamlessly it blends satire and Daniel King
local hospital, which just so hap- the directors calling card to the horror, but the fact that the story
pens to be in the process of being industry, a plea to genre producers is told from the perspective of Fortean Times Verdict
shut down following a fire, where
the young mans arrival sparks off
looking for talent. And the pair do
have talent, but at the moment it
people of colour, a notably under-
represented demographic in terms
eIGhtIes cLassIc coMes
uP Fresh on bLu-raY 8
a series of increasingly bizarre and is, to say the least, unfocused. of mainstream horror. As a result,
bloody events, which see a handful
of survivors besieged by a horde of
Daniel King Get Out is an original, tense and
sharply satirical horror film that is
seoul station
Dir Sang-ho Yeon, South Korea 2016
hooded cultists without, and even Fortean Times Verdict well worth the price of admission. Studiocanal, 14.99 (blu-ray), 12.99 (DVD)
more monstrous terrors within. Leyla Mikkelsen
Ill get the obvious out of the
an extreMeLY bLooDY Mess
oF a MoVIe 5 Last years Train to Busan was
way to start with: The Void is one Fortean Times Verdict a smash hit in Asia but left this
of the most derivative horror films
youre ever likely to come across. Get out boLD anD satIrIcaL
conteMPorarY horror 9 viewer unmoved [FT345:60]. It
was basically zombies on a train
So many plot lines, situations and Dir Jordan Peele, US 2017 and added little to an already
Fright Night
On UK release from 17 March
individual shots instantly recall overcrowded genre. However, its
movies weve all seen before Dir Tom Holland, US 1985
financial success demanded a
that you could almost call this an Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is about Eureka Entertainment, 19.99 (Dual format)
follow up, hence Seoul Station. The
homage to the genre. In the press to visit his in-laws for the first twist, if you can call it that, is that
notes, the directors burble on time, but is extremely anxious A first outing on Blu-ray for the not only is it a prequel rather than
about all their influences, citing about meeting them because they original 1985 version of the teen a follow-up but its also an ani-
five films in the first paragraph are white and his girlfriend Rose horror comedy in which teenager mated feature as opposed to the
alone. And they aint just whistlin (Allison Williams) has yet to tell Charley (William Ragsdale) comes live action original. Naturally for
Dixie, for one could add literally them that Chris is black. Upon to believe a vampire has moved a prequel, it explores how events
dozens more to that list, each bor- arrival, his feeling of unease only in next door. Sure enough, dead reached the point at which the
rowed/ripped off (delete according increases, not just because Roses bodies start turning up, but Char- first film began and as all zombie
to preference) quite shamelessly. parents inadvertently alienate ley cant get anyone to believe that pandemics have to start some-
This even extends to the cast, him by telling him how much charming Jerry Dandridge (Chris where, this one kicks off at, thats
featuring as it does Canadian they like black people, but also Sarandon) is the undead killer. right, Seoul Station.
actor Art Hindle who is probably because something seems to be Only his faithful girlfriend Amy The story centres on a wor-
best known as the hero of David terribly wrong with the black staff and geeky pal Evil Ed will give him ried father looking for his escort
Cronenbergs The Brood. The net employed by this white family. the time of day until they enlist the daughter with the help of her
effect is that the film feels less like After an intense impromptu aid of local TV horror movie host feckless pimp, but thats just a
a discrete entity than a patchwork therapy session with Roses psy- Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall), a vehicle for the running, jumping,
of cinematic quotes (and for that chiatrist mother, things get weirder self-proclaimed vampire killer. chomping and chewing. Like its
matter bits of video games) from and weirder, and Chris begins to Definitely one for older teens progenitor, this is a bang-ordinary
elsewhere. wonder if he should just get the this: theres a flash or two of example of its genre, and the
The other major problem is that hell out of here. nudity, some swearing and some novelty of animated zombies
there are at least three separate The film opens with an eerie pretty gruesome horror effects quickly wears off. It does attempt
horror movies crammed into the scenario that quickly establishes from the glory days when rubbery some social comment, in that the
films 90 minutes. One is the siege; a link to the tragic murder of monsters were de rigueur. Theres outbreak seems to begin among
one is a doctor with a fondness for African-American teen Trayvon an American Werewolf-style trans- Seouls homeless community,
unnecessary surgery; and another Martin, and it instantly becomes formation, a Raiders-esque face which is why no-one takes it seri-
is a kind of Cthulhu-esque Arma- clear that writer-director Jordan melt and some good old-fashioned ously until its too late. Slim pick-
geddon scenario. These elements Peele is not afraid to address the vampire bat action. What really ings; unless you thought the origi-
are linked, but its tenuous, and nature of contemporary racism in makes it work though is that the nal train ride was terrific theres
the directors control of the three his directorial debut. As the white characters are likeable and that little reason to catch this one.
strands fails them in that each people overcomensate in trying their relationships are nicely Daniel King
story reaches a crescendo too soon to reassure Chris that they accept drawn; the budding romance
and with fever pitch achieved early him, it only proves that they see between Charley and Amy is Fortean Times Verdict
on, the film has nowhere left to
go. In an attempt to rescue the
him as a skin colour first and a
human being second. What makes
especially sweet and amusing. Its
elements such as these, as opposed
thIs PartIcuLar traIn Is
ProbabLY worth MIssInG 5
66 FT352
www.forteantimes.com
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Dear FT

letters
Blessing the sea
In an otherwise fascinating survey
of Old Calendar Christmas customs
[FT349:38-41],Ted Harrison mis-
understands the significance of the
Blessing of the Sea as practised by
the Orthodox Church in Margate
on 6 January each year. In the
Orthodox Church, Epiphany marks
not the visit of the Three Wise Men
to the infant Jesus, but the Baptism
of Christ as an adult in the River
Jordan: it is for this reason that the
custom of blessing the sea, lakes
and rivers on the Feast of Epiphany
has arisen in the various Orthodox
Churches.This is not evidence of
the confusion of Old Christmas
celebrations with the Twelfth Night
traditions of the new calendar.
His Eminence Archbishop Grego-
rios of Thyateira and Great Britain
follows the new calendar and is
therefore practising an Epiphany
tradition with no connection to Old
Christmas, beyond its taking place
on the 19th century date of Old
Christmas. Old Calendar Christ-
mas for those Orthodox Churches FT collage Without my knowledge, she spent a few hours
still rigorously following the this evening making this collage of pictures from
unreformed Julian Calendar now My 12-year-old daughter Holly made me so proud FT349. I just wanted the Gang of Fort to feel
falls on 7 January, as Mr Harrison by following her dad into the fortean world, all appreciated and happy that theyve made a real
correctly points out earlier in his thanks to the Fortean Times. We can have end- difference to our lives.
article. less discussions about the reality of ghosts. Alex Swan By email
Alasdair Cross
St Peter Port, Guernsey
monster panics that I described, Afro-Americans have their own occurred in the Southern States
a white newspaperman jokingly rich folklore, urban legends and where virulent racism was the
Exploiting fear confessed how he had started one fascinating forteana. It is vibrant, order of the day.
In reply to my article on a series of the monster rumours himself. strong, very much alive and in A few teenagers may indeed
of 1930s Afro-American monster Racism was an integral part of many ways different from the fantasise a monster just for the
scares [FT337:30-31], James Barnes pre-WWII America. Its influence folklore of white Americans.That heck of it, as Mr Barnes says; but
objects to my description of the on the nightmares of the black does not alter the fact that in the for such an imagined creature to
influence of racism on these social communities is as unfortunate as it 19th and early 20th centuries white coagulate into a monstrosity that
panics. Mr Barnes finds such an is undeniable. Another important slave-owners and segregationists terrifies an entire community, it
observation politically correct book is Medical Apartheid: The waged a constant psychological needs to feed upon an already
[FT348:72]. I strongly believe the Dark History of Medical Experimen- warfare by exploiting and nurtur- present, very real fear. In the 1930s
contrary: it is historically correct. tation on Black Americans from ing black fears as part of a hideous monster panics I described the
Before me others have pointed out Colonial Times to the Present by control system for suppression. cause of that fear was the violent
how black superstition and folk Harriet A Washington (2007). Another great book that treats this racism of a segregated America a
fears were exploited by parts of Washington presents the first full is I Heard It Through the Grapevine: segregation that has never gone
the white populace in America as a account of the large-scale medical Rumor in African-American Culture away but is, sadly, very much alive.
terrible control mechanism. In this experimentation on unwitting by Patricia Turner (1994). In closing I cannot emphasise
regard I especially like to mention Afro-American subjects from the As I explained, those 1930s enough that many ghost, monster
the book Night Riders In Black Folk era of slavery to the present day. monster sightings could grow from and phantom scares bubble up
History by the late Gladys-Marie As I wrote before, in the light of cursory misidentifications and from social stress zones where
Fry, Professor Emerita of Folklore this sordid history one may under- vague yarns into full-blown panics misogyny, racism, inequality and
and English at the University stand why Barney Hills reaction to only because the black popula- ignorance flourish and thrive.
of Maryland, published in 2001. the alleged UFO abduction was so tions were already living in a state Theo Paijmans
Tellingly, in one of the 1930s black markedly different from Bettys. of fear.These monster panics The Hague, Netherlands

FT352 71
www.forteantimes.com
letters
What a gas going haywire.
Her UFO detector apparently
After reading Joshua Cutchins looked similar to a mobile phone
article on paranormal odours charger.The instructions that
[FT350:30ff], I discovered from a came with it went as follows:
government information web- Before plugging the power
site that exposure to hydrogen pack into the mains insert black
sulphide can cause hallucinations. plug on the mains power pack
The reference is: www.atsdr.cdc. into the respective socket on the
gov/toxprofiles/tp114-c2.pdf detector.
Richard George The device is a sensitive
St Albans, Hertfordshire magnetic flux detector capable of
resolving down to field strengths
of 15 cersteds, pulsing or moving
Cutty Wren Dangerous hippos from infinitely fast to one centi-
Ireland has a very similar tradition to that of the Cutty Wren metre per second.The magnetic
[FT348:74-76]. The Wren Boys are a rare and precious sight now, but Do hippos really kill almost pick-up coil requires only one
at one time they were quite common in rural Ireland as they went 3,000 people a year [in Africa]? pulse at the above figures to lock
from house to house on St Stephens Day (26 December). The young [FT344:19] I mean, thats eight a up the relay, thus sounding the
lads would also blacken up and wear rags and sometimes wicker day and nine on Sundays. And they buzzer. Amplifier gain is approx.
masks. They would carry a long pole crowned with holly; in earlier dont even live in heavily popu- 40 decibels.
times a dead wren would be used instead. They would go door- lated areas. I supposed its a good Important. Whenever the
to-door singing and playing tin whistles and fiddles, and would be job they arent carnivorous. buzzer sounds i.e. when an
rewarded with food and coins. They would sing: Steve Yates unknown magnetic field is present
The Wren, the Wren Birmingham, West Midlands repeat the above steps to reset
The King of the Birds the device. If, however, resetting is
On Stephens Day Editors note: It was the Daily ineffective a very strong magnetic
He was caught in the furze. Telegraph (6 July 2016) that field is acting on the pick-up coil.
Up with the kettle claimed hippos kill almost 3,000 Check the sky immediately. If
And down with the pan people a year. According to resetting is effective, the UFO is
Give us your answer animaldanger.com, hippos pose probably still some way off, and
And let us be gone. the biggest threat to those living you have more time to prepare a
In Counties Sligo and Leitrim the wren was associated with the oth- in the continent of Africa, and kill camera, etc.
erworldly Cliona who liked to lure young boys to drown in the ocean. 500+ people per annum. How- Note: it is not yet known
Apparently the Wren Boys once also roamed in the Isle of Man, Wales ever, Wikipedia says that there is whether all UFOs have a magnetic
and France. They could be an eerie sight. We were never ready for no reliable research to support field; thus, if you observe a UFO
them, one woman remembered. They always arrived like an inva- the claim that hippos kill more and the detector does not operate,
sion from an outside world. people in Africa than do lions and please report the occurrence to
Paul Whyte, Dublin elephants. the appropriate UFO society.
Candida writes:
I determinedly plugged my
Candidas detector detector into the mains and after
I was interested to read the cor- a while forgot all about it, because
respondence about ghost detectors the buzzer never went off.
[FT350:72]. It brought to mind the About three years later I went
intriguing description of another to see a film with a friend, leaving
similar device and its triumphant, Rupert [her husband], who had
if alarming, efficacy namely Can- some work to do, at home. When
dida Lycett Greens UFO detector, we returned he was white as a
which she describes in her marvel- sheet. He had heard this violent
lous autobiography Over the Hills buzzing sound and had finally
and Far Away (Black Swan 2002). tracked it down to the magnetic-
She writes: field detector. A thorough sceptic
I had bought the device about UFOs, he had nonetheless
through an advert in the Flying thought he had better check the
Saucer Review, which I took in the sky. He walked on to our balcony
1960s because my friend John and there, straight ahead, was a
Michell took it too. He is a world large light moving horizontally
authority on ancient science. and slowly across the sky. It took
He made me realise that it was 10 minutes to cross his line of
arrogant not to believe in almost vision. Converted to total belief in
everything. All official reports UFOs, he rang the Daily Telegraph,
of UFOs, usually from pilots, which published his story.
described the presence of a strong Two years later the buzzer
magnetic field resulting in the went off again, at three in the
pointers on their control panels morning, when I was alone. I was

72 FT352
www.forteantimes.com
 letters
so terrified that I didnt dare look during World War II, had worked (starring, I think, Gert Frobe) In the wonderful language of
out of the window. I turned the at Bletchley Park. In the story a where as British bombers attacked Lord Coke, the task of the judge in
machine off and drew the blankets local man had had a shock after Berlin (?) a spy, identifiable as applying the Mischief Rule must
over my head. I felt safe like that hearing a loud voice from a bucket French from his beret, neckerchief be to interpret the law in a way
in the still, dark night in the soli- of coal. Well, he wasnt Robinson and striped shirt, opens a baguette that shall suppress the mischief,
tary bedroom. Crusoe. From 1943 until the Ger- within which is concealed a radio and advance the remedy, and to
I wonder if more of these de- man surrender, Home Guardsmen transmitter, and directs the bomb- suppress subtle inventions and
vices still exist, and if their owners heard voices coming from rusty ers to their targets. evasions for continuance of the
find them similarly useful. barbed wire entanglements, police I have written about Aspidistra mischief, and pro private com-
Merrily Harpur officers heard voices from rusty at more length in an earlier letter modo [for private convenience]
Cattistock, Dorset street signs, and housewives heard [FT303:73]. My original source and to add force and life to the
voices from gas stoves. Sometimes was volume II of Sefton Delmers cure and remedy, according to the
they heard music, but usually it autobiography, Black Boomerang true intent of the makers of the
Not dragonflies was voices, in German, which made (Secker & Warburg 1962). So Mr Act and pro bono publico [for the
I would like to respond to the rath- it more alarming (although some- Hursts father was correct in the public benefit].
er condescending letters [Drag- times the voices were reported origin of the voice from the bucket, Furthermore, it is a general pre-
onflies, maybe? FT347:75] telling as just foreign which seems to but as for his speculation that a sumption that penal statutes must
me what the writers think I ought have been concerning enough). crystal found in coal had detected always be construed narrowly, in
to have seen but ignoring what I The clue was that rusty or corroded the radio signal while iron py- favour of the liberty of the subject
actually saw, in reply to my letter metal was involved and all such rites (the crystal mentioned) can (i.e. if there is any ambiguity in
about and sketch of a strange in- instances were in a particular part act as a diode, in this case it was the law, the accused should not be
sect [FT237:77]. I am a country girl of England. If metal has a thin the oxidised metal. convicted). Also, a judge may have
born and bred, and still am. I have layer of oxidation and is in contact John Alexander Faulkner recourse to what is written in Han-
seen thousands of insects over the with another piece of metal it Sydney, Australia sard (permitted since 1991) as a
years and hundreds of dragonflies, will act as a diode, and will detect further aid to finding the intention
soaring, flying eating, mating, dy- and demodulate an Amplitude of Parliament.
ing and in my house. Nothing about Modulated (AM) signal, if the
The Mischief Rule Clearly, Parliament was not
them resembled the creature that I signal is sufficiently strong. As As a lover of High Anglican and trying to impose liability upon in-
saw in 1960 or 1961, that is forever the current from the diode surges Catholic-style worship involving cense being burned during church
seared in my mind. It passed my back and forth in the rhythm of incense, may I offer a potential line services and rituals. In the case
head spinning and making a whir- speech, the current will heat and of defence against any arbitrary of the Psychoactive Substances
ring sound, which is why at the cool the metal causing enough application of the Psychoactive Act the mischief and the subtle
time I thought someone had shot expansion to make the metal act as Substances Act 2016 which David inventions and evasions were the
an arrow at me. It was 6in (15cm) a loudspeaker. Barrett fears criminalises every activities of certain drug pushers
long and shuttlecock-shaped. Of course, it has to be a power- Catholic Church in the land using providing legal highs causing in-
I had a good look at it as it ful transmitter and, as Mr Hurst incense [FT350:73]? toxication in users seeking to drug
settled on the door. It had a suggests, such a secret transmitter Fortunately, there is more than themselves, and which fell outside
round bullet-shaped black head, was nearby. Codenamed Aspi- one way of reading any Act or reg- existing legislative provisions.
with a black shiny ruff around the distra (after the popular song by ulation. Normally judges apply a And whilst (as Mr Barrett points
neck, and about six long ribbon- Gracie Fields, Its the biggest in literal interpretation, which might out) the intention of the govern-
like tendrils about half an inch the world) it had been purpose- impose liability on a strict reading ment not to prosecute churches is
(13mm) wide.These looked like built by the Radio Corporation of with this Act; but there are two only to be found in guidance, such
satin, very shiny, and were alter- America. It consisted of the main alternatives to such literal read- an official declaration of policy
nate black and red.There was no transmitter, a 600kw monster and ings, known respectively as the could found the basis for a judicial
sign of wings or legs. (I have kept a 500w unmodulated transmit- Golden Rule and the Mischief review of any decision to prose-
the sketch I made at the time). I ter usually positioned 80km (50 Rule. Judges may use these two cute a priest or congregation using
still thought that it was an arrow miles) away, which would mislead rules when finding the meaning of incense for religious purposes.
of some kind until it flew off to the any German direction-finding. an Act and wherever an injustice Alan Murdie
back of my house. At this point I A 50kw AM transmitter is often or an absurdity might result from a Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
was completely unnerved and ran called a clear channel transmit- literal interpretation.
into the house and locked the door. ter in the industry as it will have With respect to the Psycho-
I have inquired at museums and a range of hundreds of kilometres active Substances Act 2016,
looked at reference books galore, at night. Aspidistra would have the Mischief Rule clearly
but have never seen anything been received clearly in Eastern provides a route out of the
remotely like it. If I had encoun- Europe, but its target audience dilemma that Mr Barrett
tered it yesterday, I would have was in Germany where it would highlights. Dating back to
seen it as some sort of drone, but pop up on a legitimate Deutsch- Heydons Case (1584) 76 ER
of course nothing like that existed esender frequency and provide 637, in applying the Mischief
back then. black propaganda or instructions Rule, the court must identify
Ruth Summersides to local authorities designed to the harm or mischief that
By email cause chaos and confusion, and Parliament considered
to spread the rumour that Allied should be suppressed and the
spies were everywhere. It certainly gap in the existing law, and
Aspidistra
pAUL TAyLOr

made itself felt in the popular then proceed to apply the law
Lewis Hurst [FT346:65] passed German imagination. I remember so as to cover the activity that
on a story told by his father who, seeing a German film of the 1950s Parliament wishes to curb.

FT352 73
www.forteantimes.com
letters
SIMULACRA CORNER
We are always glad to receive pictures of spontaneous forms and figures, or any curious images.
Send them (with your postal address) to Fortean Times, pO Box 2409, London NW5 4Np or to [email protected].

A wooden badger on Burke Street in Sydney, Australia, photographed by Tim & Jen Williams came across this lemur beech root in Cawdor
Adam Norton. Woods, by Cawdor Castle, near Nairn in Scotland.

Juan Hayward saw this crocodile (?) while out walking the dog near where he A long-necked critter at Stoke Gabriel in Devon, spotted by
lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. rory Cooper.

74 FT352
www.forteantimes.com
 Have you had strange experiences that you cannot explain?

it happened to me
We are always interested in reading of odd events and occurrences.
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Or post your message on the www.forteantimes.com message board.

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

Severed heads This morning I dreamt about

two little shops lying side by
I dont know how often you talk side somewhere. One of them
about heads impaled on stakes, had a sign saying it was closed,
but its not often I do. which was pretty irritating since
I have recently had a knee it was closed the last time too. (I
replacement. The pain relief isnt remembered being there recently,
working well so I am spending but the memory could just as
a lot of time in the arms of well be fake.) The other shop was
Morpheus, via his friends Timmy open, though, so I went in. Some
Tramadol and Catherine Codeine, people were blocking a door I
so vivid dreams are the norm. wanted to go through, so I rather
I got back into bed in the early rudely shunted them aside, only to
hours of this morning after a visit find a small, cramped office with
to the bathroom and as soon the lights out. As the others were
as my head hit the pillow I could getting somewhat hostile I left the
see the bed was surrounded by shop.
impaled, medival-looking heads Standing on the pavement,
on stakes in various states of I found that I had forgotten my
decay. Oddly enough they just shoes inside. (I never actually
seemed natural, not particularly took my shoes off, but I there
scary. I was, barefoot all the same.)
This morning I had a physio The feeling of the rough ground
appointment. There was a major was very unpleasant probably
traffic jam so there was a lot more a memory of the times Ive gone
time than usual to chat, and the barefoot in real life, something I
taxi driver, whom wed never met, intensely dislike. Because of the
talked of his time as a lorry driver hostile atmosphere I didnt want
in Eastern Europe. There was one to go back inside, but this is
place hed love to revisit Vlad where the lucid dreaming kicked
the Impalers old castle. you walk in. I thought, Ah well, since Im
up the drawbridge, he said, and Maybe even a past life memory. dreaming anyway, I can just dream
all around you are these stakes I awoke, stating Some people have suggested some new shoes. This was of
where he used to impale the that I might have heard of the course not expressed in so many
heads of his enemies. in a forceful forthcoming anniversary and words; it was merely a thought-
Was it pure coincidence, or a
dream foretelling the conversation, way that you subconsciously noted it, thus
stimulating the dream; but I find
form. The interesting thing is that
it took me a bit of effort to dream
or the stranger picking up on my
dream, and diverting his own
must sign the it hard to believe that such an
insignificant anniversary (bearing in
the new shoes. I had to will them
into existence, and it took some
thoughts?
Graeme Kenna
Magna Carta mind it was only a day and not a
year) would have been broadcast
time. Also, the final products were
strange, rubbery things that were
Wallasey, Merseyside prior to the event. somehow part of my legs clearly
Somewhat bemused my wife told Doug Overton a parallel to the accounts of aliens
me to go back to sleep and took Hampshire and little people whose hats,
Signing Magna great pleasure in reminding me of clothes or footwear seem to be
Carta the incident the following morning. part of their bodies. And then I
At this time my wife and I A lucid dream woke up.
I have lived with my wife now for used to share a drive to work, a Nils Erik Grande
many years and she has become 45-minute trip during which we Ive just woken up from one of Oslo, Norway
accustomed to the fact that I would occasionally listen to the my pitifully few lucid dreams. One
occasionally wake in the night radio. Two days after the sleep- of my recurring dream themes
to talk to her, usually about total talking incident we were listening is wandering about foreign
Strange encounter
nonsense. I have my eyes open to a radio programme in which cities looking for second-hand
and appear to be fully lucid, yet the presenter ran through a list bookshops. Over the years I have A man approached me in a local
I only have vague memories of of anniversaries for that day evolved a number of different, park and told me that he was from
it the following morning and it is one of which was the signing of recognisable cities I travel to. I Ethiopia, and that he was looking
evident that I was doing some kind Magna Carta at runnymede. My dont know their names, but they for a woman he had seen in a
of sleep-talking. wife and I looked at each other in have a more or less consistent dream. He asked me to pray to
In the summer of 1995 an total surprise, having immediately topography from dream to dream, God, with him, for help in finding
instance of this occurred that recalled the events of the night two with the same bookshops in the the woman. His request was
has left me intrigued ever since. days prior. same places. I never seem to get granted but whether the prayer
I awoke sometime after midnight So what was this phenomenon around to buying any books in brought any results I will probably
to shake my wife until she awoke, that I experienced? Could it simply these dreams; its all about the never know.
stating in a forceful way that you be coincidence, or part of some atmosphere of the streets and the Richard Porter
must sign the Magna Carta. greater synchronistic picture? ambience inside the shops. Denver, Colorado

FT352 75
www.forteantimes.com
 FORTEAN
attendant.The Rettungs-
Wecker came to the Museum
of Funeral History in the
early 1970s, on loan from the
Electro-Pathological Museum.
When the electro-pathologists

TRAVELLER
wanted their mortuary alarm bell
back in 1976, a fully working replica
was made by the Schollgruber clock-
making firm, and set up at the Museum
of Funeral History.The collection of
the Electro-Pathological Museum is
today part of the Technical Museum of
Vienna, but although this large museum
has voluminous display cabinets full
of antique vacuum cleaners and other
archaic paraphernalia of yesteryear,
110. The Museum of Funeral History the original Rettungs-Wecker is kept in
storage and is not on public display. It
is said to have been made in 1828, at
the order of the prison governor Johan
JAN BONDESON pays a visit to one of Viennas stranger collections and finds Nepomuk Peter, for use in a small civic
its the perfect place for anyone worried about being buried alive. mortuary at the cemetery in Whring,
which is today a suburb in north-western
Vienna.
Among the many curious museums times that people fearful of being It is recorded that in 1860, after an
ofVienna, the Bestattungsmuseum, entombed alive left a will saying that appeal from the pdiatrician Franz
or Museum of Funeral History, is not their arteries should be cut, that they Hgel, a new waiting mortuary was
undeserving of mention. It is situated in should be stabbed in the heart or the constructed at the Zentralfriedhof in
one of the pavilions at the entrance of throat, or that their heads should be cut Vienna. It was still operational in 1874,
the Zentralfriedhof, a large cemetery in off. In their wills, both Hans Christian when it was featured in an illustrated
the citys southern suburbs and houses Andersen and Alfred Nobel directed that magazine. A top-flight, modern hospital
displays of model hearses, undertakers their arteries should be cut after death. for the dead, it boasted a large corpse-
uniforms, coffins and various mourning The legal position of the doctor if blood room full of corpse-beds equipped with
paraphernalia. gushed out when an artery was cut, or if electrical contacts and bells of recent
It is worth a visit not only by those the apparently dead patient groaned manufacture, presumed to be less
of a gloomy and funereal frame of loudly with pain after the Herzstich- conducive to false alarms than the earlier
mind, but also by historians of the Messer had been applied, does not seem systems.The mortuary attendant could
development of cemeteries and to have been considered at the time; sit watching a large frame with little
sepulchral culture, and those with an reassuringly, however, there is nothing to electrical bells under indicators for each
interest in apparent death and the risk suggest that any person died as a result of the corpse-beds, rather like a hotel
of premature burial. Among its exhibits, of their excessive precautions against a porter waiting for one of the guests to
the museum boasts a Herzstich-Messer, a premature tomb. ring for room service.There was a smaller
sharp knife intended for use by people Interestingly, the Museum of Funeral corpse-room for suicides, conspicuously
who did not trust doctors and had History also boasts another very curious lacking the electrical alarm system.
made wills to avoid the dreadful fate contraption to detect apparent death Due to its primitive manufacture, it can
of being buried prematurely, stating and safeguard against a premature be discounted that the mortuary alarm
that the family practitioner should burial, namely a Rettungs-Wecker or bell at the Museum of Funeral History
stab them in the heart with this knife mortuary alarm bell.The mechanism has anything to do with the waiting
after they had been declared dead. works as follows: a rope is tied around mortuary at the Zentralfriedhof itself,
Readers of my book Buried Alive (or the wrist of the presumed deceased however; the story of its manufacture
Lebendig Begraben as it is called in the in the mortuary, so that if the corpse in 1828, for use at a small provincial
German translation) will know that it moves, the alarm is triggered and the mortuary, is to my mind fully credible.
was a regular occurrence inVictorian bell rings in the office of the mortuary Moreover, a book from 1834, describing
the waiting mortuary in Weimar, features
a mechanical alarm system very much
resembling theVienna Rettungs-Wecker.
Although Germany and Austria once had
waiting mortuaries aplenty, most of them
equipped with mechanical or electrical
systems for the detection of apparent
death, the mortuary alarm bell at the
Museum of Funeral History is probably
unique in the world, along with the
original contraption kept in storage at
the Technical Museum.The only waiting
mortuary that has survived world wars
and peacetime development is the old
Schijndodenhuis [house for the apparently
dead] of The Hague, which today houses
offices for the funeral administrators.

JAN BONDESON is a regular contributor

to FT. His latest book is The Ripper of
Waterloo Road: The Murder of Eliza
Grimwood in 1838 (History Press, 2017).

76 F T352
www.forteantimes.com
 B&F Wien / BeSTaTTungSmuSeum

FACING PAGE: TOP RIGHT: The Herzstich-

The entrance to the Messer.
Bestattungsmuseum. ABOVE: The Rettungs-Wecker.
TOP LEFT: The corpse-room LEFT: Design of a corpse-bed at
of the waiting mortuary of the the waiting mortuary of Weimar,
Vienna Zentralfriedhof, from the from Dr Carl Schwalbes book
Illustriertes Wiener Extrablatt of Das Leichenhaus in Weimar
5 October 1874. (Leipzig 1834).

FT352 77
www.forteantimes.com
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Why Fortean?
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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
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78 FT352
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COMING
NEXT Strange
UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL
deathS
MONTH
Oliver Park, a 51-year-old German tourist, infections can also result from swimming
slipped to his death in the mountaintop in hot springs or improperly chlorinated
Inca city of Machu Picchu in the pools. Of the 35 reported cases in the
Peruvian Andes on 29 June 2016. He US between 2005 and 2014, only two
had ignored a security cordon and went people survived. Last August, a 19-year-
up to a dangerous cliff edge where he old woman died after being infected in
asked another visitor to take a picture Maryland. After the amba enters the
of him as he jumped in the air. He lost his body, it heads straight for the brain, where
balance and fell 130ft (40m) to his death. It the first areas it destroys are the olfactory
took rescue workers 90 minutes to reach him. regions that we use to smell, and parts of the
Only the day before, a South Korean tourist frontal lobe, crucial for cognition and controlling
died while taking a selfie on the Gocta waterfall behaviour. Abdul Mannan at the Aga Khan
in Perus northern Amazonian region. He was University in Karachi, Pakistan, suspected the
believed to have fallen 1,600ft (488m). Times, amba might be attracted to a chemical called
2 July 2016. acetylcholine (ACh), which is released in large
amounts by cells at the front of the brain. He
An unnamed 16-year-old in South India was killed found that one of the amba proteins has a
while trying to take a selfie on 30 January 2016. structure similar to the human receptor for ACh.
He walked onto railway tracks in Chennai in the It is this that probably causes the ambas to

this eerie weasel hope of getting a good shot of an oncoming

passenger train thundering towards him in the
head straight for the brain. Metro, 29 Sept 2016.

the forgotten origins of background, but he failed to move off the tracks Experts believe a jogger was killed by seaweed
in time. D.Telegraph, 2 Feb 2016. fumes. Jean-Ren Auffray, 50, was found dead in
gef the talking mongoose an estuary at Gouessant in Brittany, apparently
Ramandeep Singh, 15, died on 29 April 2016 poisoned by sea lettuce, common along the
after accidentally shooting himself in the Brittany coast and round the Channel Islands,
head while posing for a selfie with his fathers which rots to make hydrogen sulphide. The gas
gun. He pulled the trigger instead of pushing has been linked to the death of wild boars and
the shutter release button. He was taken to horses. Auffrays official cause of death was
hospital in the Punjab, but died two days later. given as a heart attack, but experts want more
D.Telegraph, 2 May 2016. tests. Sun, D.Mirror, 13 Jan 2017.

Carmen Greenway, 41, died following a bicycle Three people were arrested on suspicion of
crash moments after she took a smiling selfie manslaughter after a diabetic grandmother died
on the way home from a pub dinner celebrating following Chinese slap treatment at a country
her mothers birthday on 18 August. The mother retreat. Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, was found
of two is believed to have had one hand on dead hours after taking part in the Self-Healing
the bike as she hit a bumpy patch of road and Workshop at Cleeve House country hotel in
victorian horrors lost control. As she wasnt wearing a helmet,
she fractured her skull and died six days later
Seend, Wiltshire. The treatment is supposed to
eradicate illness-causing toxins from the body
the waterloo road ripper in hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest. Her by hard, reaped slapping, fasting and painful
and eliza grimwoods ghost mother was riding behind her when she fell, just stretching on a bench, a technique known as
100 yards from her family home in Isleworth, paida-lajin. Carr-Gomm, who suffered from type 1

+
west London. D.Telegraph, 5 Oct 2016. diabetes, had a lifelong fear of needles and had
briefly stopped taking insulin after undergoing
The number of people who die each year taking previous workshops. D.Telegraph, 14 Nov 2016.
selfies is on the rise: 15 in 2014, 39 in 2015
jammeh the nut, and 73 in the first eight months of 2016. The Italian vet Luciano Ponzetto, 55, received death
first report (by a reputable news source) of threats and hate mail after posting on Facebook
werewolf theology, a selfie-taker dying while snapping a picture a snap of himself in Tanzania next to a lion he
premature geniuses, was in March 2014. Since then (up to mid- had killed. While out hunting birds in the hills
November 2016), there had been 127 around above Turin in mid-December, he slipped on ice
anD muCh more the world 76 in India, nine in Pakistan, eight and plunged to his death down a 100ft (30m)
in the US and six in Russia. The most likely ravine in the Colle delle Oche. His body was

fortean
cause of death was falling from a great height, recovered by helicopter. Sun, 13 Dec; Metro, 14
with people going to extreme lengths to take a Dec 2016.
selfie on cliffs or the top of buildings to impress
followers on social media. Instagram users such On 28 January, a family was crushed to death

TIMES
as Drewsssik built a large following online with by the hundreds of pounds of clothes they
photos taken on top of tall structures. He died had hoarded in their home. The bodies of the
in 2015 after falling from a building. In India, married couple, together with their 12-year-old
there are more selfie deaths related to trains, daughter, were found buried under the mountain

353
due to the belief that posing on or next to train of material. Investigators believe the floor of their
tracks with ones best friend is a sign of never- first floor flat in Alicante, Spain, caved in due to
ending friendship. BBC News, 17 Nov 2016. the weight. Rescuers aided by firefighters had to
remove a massive amount of clothes and other
Brain-eating ambas can enter an unwitting items to uncover the victims. The freak accident
swimmers brain via their nose, after which their happened between 8 and 9am, but the victims
chances of survival are slim. The organism, were not discovered until 1pm by their older
Ngleria fowleri, lurks in fresh water, although daughter, 18. D.Mail, 30 Jan 2017.
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