A VISIT TO EASTER ISLAND - LAND OF THE STONE GIANTS

Easter Island birdman on festival poster (Dr Karl Shuker)

Not so long ago, in a magazine and internet survey to find the world’s most mysterious, paranormal locality, the runaway winner was a certain tiny triangular island (no more than 25 km across) separated by over 2000 km of southeastern Pacific Ocean from any other inhabited locality, formerly home to an extraordinary birdman cult, and ringed by numerous stone statues of enormous size and alienesque appearance that stare inward across their lonely domain through unseeing eye-sockets yet with a gaze as chilling as the rock from which they were hewn many centuries ago. Where else could this be but Rapanui – or, as we know it better in the West, Easter Island.

MEETING THE MOAI

A special territory of Chile since 1888, Easter Island is so-named because it was first encountered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722, when it was reached by Dutch explorer Admiral Jacob Roggeveen. In April 2008, I fulfilled the ambition of a lifetime by finally visiting this truly remarkable island – containing three extinct volcanoes, a lush but entirely artificial flora and fauna almost entirely introduced by man from elsewhere to replace its own decimated native ecosystem, and only a single dusty town, Hanga Roa (with roughly 3500 inhabitants), which recalled to mind a 19th-century frontier town that had somehow been transported by cyclone far from its Wild West homeland and unceremoniously dropped down upon a fragrant tropical isle. But whereas Dorothy and Toto met the munchkins and the wizard of Oz, I met the moai – or at least a sizeable representation of them.

Alongside a half-buried moai on the slopes of Rano Raraku (Dr Karl Shuker)

No amount of photographs or films can prepare you for the sheer scale and awesome majesty of these gigantic stone statues, Easter Island’s most famous denizens, coldly aloof and silent, their thin lips and haughty visage radiating Ozymandian disdain. Numbering over 800 in total, many are still inside the quarry, within the eastern volcano Rano Raraku, where they were originally hewn from tuff (an igneous rock ash). Some lie there fully formed, waiting for the acolytes that will never come, to transport them out of the volcano and down the slopes, to be erected with honour as protective icons upon a ceremonial stone platform known as an ahu. Once greatly venerated as the revered representations of their sculptors’ ancestral leaders, and also as the earthly vessels of their leaders’ spirits, even today the moai command respect and deference – it is illegal merely to touch one of these stupendous monuments.

Having said that, some moai have not even been detached from the inner rock face from which they were carved. Consequently, everywhere that you look within this volcano’s obsidian depths there is a surreal juxtapositioning of heads, noses, brows, elongate ears, and hooded eye-sockets, staring imperiously but sightlessly upwards and inwards at every conceivable – and inconceivable – angle, like a particularly febrile nightmare of Picasso, Dali, or Hieronymus Bosch.

Alongside a toppled moai with Rano Raraku in the background (Dr Karl Shuker)

A fair few did make the journey out, however, and today they can be found in many locations around the island. A number stand half-buried in grassy soil on Rano Raraku’s outer slopes, like a scattering of abandoned chess pieces on a giant’s forgotten chessboard. Others still lie in prone humiliation, where they were deliberately tipped over centuries ago by warring clans, but in modern times a select company have been raised and re-erected onto their ahus at various sites by teams of visiting researchers. With the exception of an ahu of seven moai at Ahu Akivi at the island’s centre, which look out towards the sea, all moai were originally erected by their sculptors near the island’s edge and faced inward, overlooking their clans as protective effigies. Such sites include Ahu Tongariki (restored with 15 moai) on the island’s southeastern edge, Ahu Nau Nau (with seven moai) at Anakena on its eastern edge, and Ahu Kote Riku at Tahai on its northwestern edge.

A HISTORY OF MYSTERY

Until Thor Heyerdahl’s famous first archaeological dig here during the 1950s, it was not generally realised that a moai is more than just a giant head. In reality, it is carved down the hips, with a pair of spindly arms and long-fingered hands pressed closely to its bulbous torso’s sides. However, so many moai were half-buried in soil and other deposits after centuries of gradual concealment by natural encroachment from sediment and plant life that their true nature was not realised until Heyerdahl oversaw the first scientific excavation of a moai, revealing its entire form.

One of Easter Island's most famous and much-photographed, half-buried moai, showing one of its characteristic long earlobes (Dr Karl Shuker)

On Rano Raraku, I encountered torso-buried heads that were 6 m tall, so when you add to that the height of the hidden body, it becomes evident that these extraordinary statues are indeed gargantuan, far bigger than anything even remotely similar to be found elsewhere in the world. Biggest of all is El Gigante, which would have stood a colossal 23 m high if it had ever been transported out of Rano Raraku, but this petrified giant remains here, its vast weight (estimated at over 145 tonnes) probably proving too much for even the most enthusiastic sculptors and workers to overcome.

With a moai inside a ring of stones (Dr Karl Shuker)

Like so much of Easter Island’s past, the history of the moai is enshrouded in controversy and mystery. Estimates as to when they were created vary by as much as a millennium depending upon the authority consulted. The current consensus (discounting Heyerdahl’s problematic views of a South American origin) is that the island was first colonised in the 4th Century AD, by seafaring Polynesians, who subsequently split into separate, independent clans or kin-groups, and began constructing ahus and carving statues of modest proportions a few centuries later. By the 15th Century, however, moai production had reached frenzied proportions, as indeed had the moai themselves – now monstrously huge. Then, so abruptly that many of these statues were simply abandoned where they lay, complete or still in various unfinished stages of carving inside Rano Raraku’s volcanic bowels, moai production ceased. This is believed to be due to increasing rivalry and hatred developing between the various clans, culminating in violent battles and, as highly symbolic desecration, purposefully toppling over each other’s sacred moai.

Another factor is the wholesale destruction of the island’s once-luxuriant native foliage, most notably the giant palm trees that were eventually felled across the entire island. Their sturdy trunks were used as rollers on which to transport the moai from Rano Raraku to their chosen sites elsewhere, but once the palm trees had vanished, the moai could no longer be moved.


ALIEN RAYS AND THE STATUES THAT WALKED…?

Having said that, tree-trunk rollers (and also sledges constructed from trunks) may well be the orthodox explanation for how the moai were moved, but it is not the only one that has been proffered. Highlighting the paranormal links to Easter Island, proponents of the ancient astronauts school of belief have suggested that visiting aliens transported and erected the moai using anti-gravitational beams released from their spacecraft. Another suggestion is that the natives somehow levitated the moai by harnessing electromagnetism. And my Rapanui-born guide noted that according to traditional native lore, the moai themselves very obligingly walked to their chosen sites during the night, utilising a special life-force called mana. Then again, she was smiling when she said this. In any event, the moai are certainly left strictly alone following the onset of darkness, because even during the sunny daylight hours many visitors have reported experiencing a dark, unfathomable feeling of oppression and apprehension when in the presence of these stark, brooding sentinels.

Some moai originally bore on their heads a huge ceremonial topknot or pukao, carved from red scoria rock transported from Puna Pau, a quarry in the island’s southwestern region. How these enormous blocks were raised onto the moai’s heads, well over 6 m high in some cases, remains unresolved. A few of the lately re-erected moai have their pukao in place, but these were placed there using modern-day cranes.

Moai with topknot and restored eyes at Tahai (Dr Karl Shuker)

Most intriguing of all, thanks to the unearthing of an intact example in recent years, is the realisation that the moai originally had eyes. These were made from white shells with pupils of black obsidian, but were destroyed or removed during the inter-clan battles that marked the end of moai production.

BIRD-HEADED MEN AND LONG-EARED GHOSTS

Less famous but no less extraordinary than the moai of Easter Island, and further earning it its claim as the world’s most mysterious, paranormal location, is its erstwhile birdman cult. The cliff faces around Rano Kau, the island’s westernmost volcano, are liberally etched with striking birdman petroglyphs depicting bizarre bird-headed humanoids, often curled up in almost foetal pose – which if nothing else is fitting, given that this volcano’s slopes also harbour a prehistoric village called Orongo that contains many remarkable stone houses supposedly representing the human womb.

Until as recently as 1878, when the arrival of Christianity here swiftly suppressed it, the election of the Birdman each September was a very significant event. Every clan sent a representative to Orongo to compete for the birdman title. The competition consisted of scaling down the steep, jagged cliffs of Rano Kau into the sea and swimming through shark-infested waters to a small outlying islet called Moto Nui, where the objective was to collect an egg newly-laid there by a small seabird called the sooty tern, and bring it back safely to Orongo. The winner would be duly crowned the Birdman or Tangata Manu, bringing great glory and esteemed status to his clan, because the Birdman was deemed to be the living reincarnation of Makemake, Easter Island’s eminent fertility deity. He would then be taken away to live in solitude for the next 12 months inside a sacred cave on the other end of the island, at the foot of Rano Raraku.

Petroglyph of crouching birdman, head thrown back, on a rock near Rano Kau (Dr Karl Shuker)

The birdman cult is no more, and even its origin remains unknown, but its image lives on, sometimes in the most surprising locations. There are a number of underground cave systems on the island, including Cave of the Cannibals, whose walls are profusely decorated with birdman carvings, but when viewing them, just pray that the light does not illuminate the cave’s more frightening inhabitants – the moai-kava-kava, the ghosts of the ancestral long-eared clan chiefs, said to haunt this subterranean domain! The birdman image has also been utilised abundantly in modern-day signs and gifts for sale in Hanga Roa, but perhaps the most unexpected location for birdmen is inside the town’s church, where Christian icons share its inner sanctum with statues of bird-headed humans.

THE RIDDLE OF RONGORONGO

As if the moai, birdmen, and assorted ghosts were not mysterious enough, Easter Island can also boast an indecipherable native script language – rongorongo. Carved on wood, these hieroglyphics could only be read by the native elders and priests, but when Peruvian slave raiders reached the island during the 1850s-60s, all of its educated native men were transported to Peru’s guano mines as slaves, where they soon died, leaving no-one behind on Easter Island who could decipher the rongorongo tablets. Even today, these cryptic scripts remain largely unexplained, and the few surviving rongorongo tablets are priceless relics in museums.

Holding a replica rongorongo tablet (Dr Karl Shuker)

Whereas Easter Island may not lay claim to such overtly or ostensibly supernatural phenomena as headless horsemen, baying werewolves, or weeping statues, as someone who has experienced the sheer unearthly nature of this truly strange locality, stood in the chill shadow-casting presence of its grim monolithic moai, and shivered in the stygian gloom of caverns populated by countless carvings of grotesque long-beaked birdmen I can well appreciate why this lonely Pacific Island has been voted the world’s most paranormal place. Sometimes, not seeing a ghost (long-eared or otherwise) can be more unnerving than seeing one!

Ahu Tongariki (Dr Karl Shuker)

LIVING STATUES AND OTHER ANIMATED EFFIGIES

Pygmalion and Galatea, as painted by Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1786


Inside any cabinet of curiosities – and especially inside the Eclectarium of Doctor Shuker – anything is possible, even living statues and other recondite examples of art imitating life in the most literal sense! So please indulge me if you will, and permit me to explore a longstanding interest of mine that resides amid the outermost shadows of unnatural history.

One of Greek mythology’s most famous stories tells of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, who skilfully carves from ivory the statue of a young woman so beautiful and realistic that he falls in love with her, and which, in answer to his prayers, the goddess Aphrodite brings to life so that he can marry her and make her his queen, Galatea. Although I have yet to encounter a modern-day factual case quite so dramatic as this, there are many accounts on file of statues, icons, and other carved, inanimate effigies that have reputedly exhibited all manner of unexpected behaviour – weeping, moving, blinking, singing, and even wing-flapping and chess-playing. However, as examined here, could it be that these miraculous entities owe their talents more to a complex mix of human ingenuousness and ingenuity than to any divine intervention?


MIRACULOUS – OR MANIPULATIVE – ICONS?

There are numerous reports of venerated statues and icons that allegedly exhibit miraculous powers, as previously documented in detail by me in Dr Shuker’s Casebook (2008) and elsewhere. Perhaps the most famous – or infamous – examples are weeping and bleeding statues (usually of the Madonna), many examples of which have been documented from around the world. In 1995, however, Pavia University chemistry researcher Dr Luigi Garlaschelli published a revelatory paper in which he disclosed precisely how to create such an icon. Other researchers have achieved similar successes, since when, not surprisingly, this particular phenomenon has attracted rather less attention from the media. The same is true in relation to milk-drinking statues, whose ostensibly extraordinary feats have been readily duplicated by scientists and revealed to involve nothing more dramatic than capillary action.

However, these are by no means the only religious effigies that in some manner or another imitate the living form. Among the earliest known versions, present in a number of ancient Egyptian temples, was a goddess statue placed upon the altar and holding an empty vase. When the priest lit a fire on the altar, wine would miraculously appear inside the goddess’s vase, and then pour out onto the fire in front of the suitably-amazed worshippers gathered there. In reality, however, as explained by Hero of Alexandria, a perspicacious 1st-Century-AD scholar, the statue contained a secret reservoir of wine and a tube leading up to and into the bowl. As the fire warmed the statue, air expanded inside a hidden airtight chamber linked to the wine reservoir, forcing the wine up the statue’s internal tube and out into the bowl until it poured over the edge, quenching the fire, whereupon the statue would cool, the hidden chamber’s air would stop expanding, and thus the wine flow would stop.

Book documenting the moving Madonna statue of Ballinspittle phenomenon

Very different but equally noteworthy was the moving Madonna statue of Ballinspittle in Ireland. During 1985, many worshippers and intrigued tourists alike visited a statue of the Madonna at a shrine in Ballinspittle, County Cork, after hearing reports that it had been seen to move, rocking backwards, sideways, and forwards, and had sometimes even been said to move its head and shoulders. As so often occurs with such events, comparable reports also began to emerge in relation to other similar statues all over Ireland, but in the case of the Ballinspittle Madonna, events drew to a dramatic, unexpected close on 31 October, when the statue was violently attacked by some men, badly damaging it.

Luckily, before this destructive denouement occurred, the statue had been filmed by a team of scientists from Cork’s University College during some of its purported bouts of movement, but when the film was examined, no movement whatsoever could be detected. Consequently, it would seem that the Madonna’s observers had fallen victim to the autokinetic effect – the false perception of movement in a stationary object caused by the viewer’s own slight movement, but which he fails to notice due to an absence of background detail that would reveal that he was the one who was moving, not the object.

As for the life-sized crucifixion figure of Jesus at the Holy Trinity Church in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, that supposedly opened and closed its eyes during a service on Good Friday 1989, or the Madonna statue at the Mater Ecclesiae Mission Church in Thornton, California, whose eyes, chin, and hands were said to move on several different occasions during 1981, both of these icons were also filmed and photographed by investigators. When the data was analysed, however, the ‘movements’ were found to be nothing more than optical illusions – i.e. created by the angles at which the icons had been observed, photographed, or filmed.

In other words, it would seem that at least as far as religious effigies are concerned, miracles are very much in the eye of the beholder – as opposed to the lens of the camera.


MEMNON’S SINGING COLOSSUS

While visiting Egypt in 2006, one of my must-sees was among this ancient country's lesser-known attractions - yet, ironically, it is also one of its most extraordinary. Standing amid the ruins of Thebes on the West Bank of the Nile are two gigantic stone statues, aptly dubbed Colossi, but less aptly known in full as the Colossi of Memnon - as they have nothing to do whatsoever with the Trojan hero Memnon. Instead, they are 18.6-m-tall representations of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, seated on his throne, were erected approximately 3500 years ago, and are all that remain of his mortuary temple.

In 27 BC, the eastern Colossus was partially destroyed when its upper half crashed to the ground following a powerful earthquake, but far from losing its former glory this shattered edifice gained even greater fame – due to its extraordinary ability thereafter to sing! Prior to the earthquake it had been resolutely mute like any other self-respecting statue, but now, each morning at daybreak, this singular structure gave voice to a weird, readily audible sound that resembled a chiming bell – at least according to the numerous visitors that came from far and wide to hear it, believing that this statue’s eldritch cry would bring them good fortune.

The Colossi of Memnon (Dr Karl Shuker)

There is a very pertinent American maxim: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Sometimes, moreover, it may be best to leave well alone even if the object in question is indeed broken. Sadly, however, the Roman emperor Septimus Severus clearly thought otherwise, because in 199 AD he supervised the eastern Colossus’s long-awaited repair, in which a freshly-carved upper half replaced the original wrecked version. As a result, the statue regained much of its erstwhile majesty and dignity, but during the restoration process it also lost something – its voice, because from then on the statue never sang again, remaining silent to this day.

Many suggestions to explain its unwonted vocal ability and its equally unexpected silence have been proposed (though none has been confirmed). These include the effects of the earthquake causing the conversion of previous ultrasonic emissions into audible ones prior to the statue’s restoration, or the audible rubbing together of certain sections of the statue’s lower half warmed by the sun and expanding unequally as a result – or even phoney noises created secretly by Egyptian priests for the purpose of extorting money from gullible visitors.

This last-mentioned proposal, if true, would certainly not be unique in the annals of history. In the 12th Century, for instance, when Bishop Theophilus infamously smashed a number of statues at Alexandria that he deemed to be heathen, he discovered that some of them were hollow and were placed against a wall in such a manner as to permit an Egyptian priest to hide behind them and speak through their mouths to an awestruck audience of worshippers.


THE GOLEM OF PRAGUE

According to Jewish tradition, a golem is a model of a man made from clay or mud, which can be brought to life if certain holy words written upon a piece of parchment and then placed in its mouth are spoken by a Rabbi, but is rendered inanimate again if the parchment is removed (in some versions of this tale, a neck medallion bearing the words, rather than a piece of parchment, is used). The most famous example is the man-sized golem of Prague, which Rabbi Yehudah Loew ben Bezalel supposedly created and brought to life in 1580 to work as a labourer for him, but which, when he forgot to replace the parchment in its mouth, ran amok in the city’s until he finally subdued it, then hid its lifeless body thereafter in the attic of Prague’s Old-New Synagogue.

Although this story is fictitious, it is a curious anomaly that even today, it is against Czech law to enter this synagogue’s attic, even though no such ruling exists in relation to any of this country’s other Jewish temples. So could there really be something mysterious hidden in the synagogue’s attic?

Ivan Mackerle's book documenting his investigations into the Golem of Prague (Ivan Mackerle)

Czech investigator Ivan Mackerle has proposed an intriguing explanation. Namely, that there really was a golem of sorts – but not a clay creation brought to life. Instead, after learning that the word ‘golem’ translates from Hebrew not only as ‘artificial man made with magic’ but also as ‘fool’, Mackerle suggests that it was actually a retarded man cared for by the Rabbi. Moreover, he believes that the ‘parchment’ was medicine given to him by the Rabbi to control fits or seizures, that the golem’s running amok when the parchment was not replaced in its mouth was actually the man running wild due to not receiving his medicine, and that when captured by the Rabbi the man died, so to save himself from prosecution the Rabbi swiftly hid the man’s body in the synagogue’s attic and forbade anyone from entering it again.

To test his hypothesis, Mackerle succeeded in persuading the Czech authorities to allow him entry into the attic – but only to find it empty. However, he later learned that in 1883 the synagogue had been renovated, and that if any human remains had been found there they would have been removed and buried in the Jewish cemetery. So who knows? Perhaps in some unmarked grave are the mortal remains of a real-life golem.


TALOS AND THE TERMINATOR

Among the most popular of modern-day science-fiction films is the all-action series of Terminator movies, but countless centuries earlier the ancient Greeks were thrilled by tales of their very own killer android. This was an enormous bronze statue called Talos that famously came to life when, during their quest for the Golden Fleece, Jason and his band of fellow heroes landed on the island of Crete. This terrifying episode was skilfully recreated by animatronics expert Ray Harryhausen for the classic fantasy movie ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ from 1963.

Still from 'Jason and the Argonauts featuring Talos (Columbia Pictures)

Who as a child watching that film for the first time was not pleasurably chilled when - after Hercules and Hylas had robbed the gods’ own treasure chamber concealed inside the pedestal of Talos’s immense bronze statue - Talos’s head suddenly creaked and slowly turned round, looking down at the startled heroes? And then, to their even greater horror, the entire statue came to life, stepping down from its pedestal to pursue them and attempt to sink their vessel the Argo by hurling huge boulders at it. Fortunately, Jason was able to save his ship and crew by pulling out the great cork in the heel of one of Talos’s feet, which released the immortal fluid or ichor that bestowed life upon this bronze statue, and thus rendered it lifeless once more. Nevertheless, compared to Talos even Arnie’s relentless, murderous Terminator seems relatively tame!


MEDIEVAL AUTOMATA – MAGICAL OR MECHANICAL?

It was celebrated science-fiction novelist Sir Arthur C. Clarke who once wrote: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, and this is definitely true in relation to certain highly ingenious creations dating back to medieval times. Today, we would readily recognise such constructions as mechanical, animatronic devices, but back in those bygone ages, they were deemed by all but the most discerning, educated observers to be magical entities, and their creators – far from being lauded for their inventiveness – could well find themselves charged with witchcraft!

Indeed, this was almost the fate of a certain enterprising student at Cambridge University during the 1540s. He manufactured a mechanical flying beetle to feature in a stage production of the play ‘Pax’ by Aristophanes, but the beetle was so lifelike that he faced accusations that it was the work of the devil! Happily, however, although a charge of sorcery was brought against him, it was dismissed – otherwise, if he had been found guilty and executed in some typically gruesome manner, the world would have been deprived in subsequent years of the extraordinary talents of occultist, alchemist, and early scientist Dr John Dee.

By the 18th Century, the world was rather more accustomed to automata, but even this enlightened age was awestruck by the inventive genius of Jacques de Vaucanson. His ability to manufacture realistic automata was unparalleled in terms of complexity and diversity. Among his most astonishing creations were a statue of the Greek deity Pan, which stood up from its seat and played its panpipes, before bowing when applauded and then sitting back down; a mandolin player that simultaneously played its instrument, sang, and tapped in time with its foot; a frighteningly lifelike asp that hissed and struck at the breast of an actress playing Cleopatra when it was touched by her; and a ‘breathing’ piano player that faithfully imitated a breathing human pianist and also moved its head whilst playing.

Indeed, Vaucanson actually began work upon the production of a mechanical man complete with artificial heart and circulatory system that would fully replicate its living counterpart, but died before he could complete it. Had he done so, the world’s first android robot might have been created – Vaucanson’s Frankensteinian ability for replicating the living state in artificial form had, after all, already been demonstrated by virtue of his most famous creation, an animatronic duck.

Internal view of Vaucanson's extraordinary animatronic duck

Even by today’s technological standards, this invention would be an exceptional feat of engineering (in 1868, kaleidoscope inventor Sir David Brewster referred to it as “perhaps the most wonderful piece of mechanism ever made”), so more than 250 years ago it was little short of miraculous. Vaucanson stated that his intention when constructing this automaton was to reproduce a real duck’s internal organs and thence to simulate the functions of eating, drinking, and digestion – and judging from Prof. John Cohen’s description of this amazing entity in his enthralling book, Human Robots in Myth and Science (1966), he certainly succeeded:

"The duck stretched its neck to take grain from a hand and then swallowed and digested it. It drank, paddled and quacked, and imitated the gestures which a normal duck makes when swallowing precipitately. The food was digested by dissolution, not by trituration, [Cohen then quotes Vaucanson himself:] “the matter digested in the stomach being conducted by tubes, as in an animal by its bowels, into the anus, where there is a sphincter which permits it to be released”."

And just to demonstrate and confirm his claims beyond any shadow of doubt, Vaucanson constructed his duck as a transparent automaton, so that its internal organs and their functioning could be clearly seen by its fascinated observers.

Vaucanson’s inspiration for his duck may well have been the mechanical peacock constructed in 1688 by General de Gennes, which could eat and walk in a lifelike manner. Or perhaps he had heard of a truly extraordinary ‘miracle’ that had taken place one day in 1653. That was when a drunken visitor to the Caiaphas chapel at Sacro Monte in Piedmont, Italy, came upon a stone statue of St Peter repentant, which incorporated in its structure a large cockerel. Allegedly, the cockerel suddenly came to light, flapping its wings and turning round on its pedestal, before just as abruptly regaining its normal, rigid pose! Needless to say, the man’s inebriated state would have been sufficient to ensure that his testimony received short shrift – were it not for the fact that the cockerel’s unanticipated activity had also been witnessed at the same time by several other visitors to the chapel.

Had a genuine miracle truly taken place, or could it be that what had been observed was a beautifully-timed, elegantly-choreographed performance by a secretly-manufactured automaton? In view of Vaucanson’s incredibly complex mechanical duck and de Gennes’s peacock, the contemporary production of a wing-flapping, rotating cockerel would certainly not be beyond the realm of conceptual or practical possibility.


THE CHEATING CHESS PLAYER OF VON KEMPELEN

No discussion of living statues and human automata can ignore the most scandalous, controversial example of all – Von Kempelen’s miraculous chess player. During the late 1700s, a Hungarian civil servant called Wolfgang von Kempelen (later made a Baron) constructed a life-sized mechanical man, dressed as a turbaned Turk and seated behind a wooden cabinet, which was so greatly skilled in the art of playing chess that it attracted the interest of many European monarchs and toured the continent successfully for over a century, passing through several owners after its creator’s death in 1804.

However, the secret of the Turk is that it owed its chess-playing success not to any mechanical inventiveness on the part of Von Kempelen, but rather to the hidden presence of a human chess player cleverly concealed within the cabinet, who moved the chess pieces on the board above by means of a series of magnets. Sadly, Von Kempelen’s chess player was destroyed by a fire that broke out in 1854 at the Chinese Museum of Charles Willson Peale in Philadelphia, where it had been donated by its last owner, Dr John Kearsley Mitchell.

Revealing the secret of Von Kempelen's chess player

As proposed at the beginning of this Eclectarium blog post, there are many cases in which animate statues and other ‘living’ effigies unquestionably owe their miraculous state not to any supernatural source but to much more mundane (albeit undeniably inventive) human involvement. Not surprisingly, therefore, in his excellent book Looking for a Miracle (1993), mysteries debunker Joe Nickell claims that there is no credible evidence for the existence of any miraculous icons and effigies. Moreover, he backs this statement by noting that although there are numerous religious statues on display in museums and galleries, there is no report of any miraculous happenings with any of them, only with versions in churches and other places of worship. He concludes that this is because museums and galleries are controlled environments where the opportunity for hoaxing would be much less.

This is certainly true, but there is also an equally pertinent, alternative viewpoint to consider – could it be that it is the very act of worship that generates miracles, which is why they are never recorded in museums and galleries?

Perhaps, as succinctly voiced by St Augustine of Hippo back in the 5th Century:

"A miracle does not happen in contradiction to nature, but in contradiction to that which is known to us of nature."

Colossus of Memnon (Dr Karl Shuker)

BE A CLOWN, BE A CLOWN, BE A CLOWN!

'Pando's Box' (Robert Owen)

I've always been fascinated by clowns, jesters, and their predecessors, the characters of the Commedia Dell'Arte, so accompany me now as I explore the colourful history and evolution of these most enigmatic of entertainment figures.

Full-face Harlequin mask (Dr Karl Shuker)

"Be a clown! Be a clown! Be a clown!" So sang Judy Garland and Gene Kelly in the Cole Porter film musical ‘The Pirate’, and for countless generations that is precisely what all manner of talented circus performers throughout the world have indeed been – and continue to be, to this very day. But if anyone assumes that being a clown simply means donning white face paint and baggy clothes, and throwing buckets of water over other clowns, think again. Paradoxically, clowning is actually a very serious business, with a complex history and array of intricate, specified traditions and customs.


HARLEQUIN AND PIERROT – FROM THE COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE TO THE CIRCUS RING

Comedy figures approximating in various ways to clowns have featured since the earliest of times in most civilisations (from the archetypal jokers performing in ancient Egypt c.3500 years ago, and tricksters in native American lore, to the Kabuki theatre of Japan - to name but three examples). However, the familiar Western circus clown originated for the most part in Italy’s celebrated Commedia dell’Arte theatre. Attaining the height of its popularity during the 16th and 17th Centuries, this was closely linked to pantomime, which in turn influenced the occurrence of clowning in circuses, and contained certain characters that would give rise to the major circus clown types of the present day. Chief among these characters were Harlequin (aka Arlecchino) and Pierrot.

A Harlequin doll (Dr Karl Shuker)

Traditionally, Harlequin was a nimble, acrobatic, often quick-witted trickster figure, usually tall and slender, and epitomised by his motley costume of brightly-hued, contrasting patchwork, but he subsequently transformed into a more romantic, and sometimes even quite serious, character.

Harlequin at the Pantomime Theatre in Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark (Chris Brown/Wikipedia)

Moreover, he frequently carried a special kind of cane composed of two sticks that made an exaggerated slapping sound when clapped together – from which the modern-day clown-related term ‘slapstick’ is derived.

'Pierrot and Harlequin' (Vasily Nesterenko)

Conversely, Pierrot was originally a slower-witted, bumbling fool, usually dressed predominantly in white, with an elaborate neck ruff and sometimes a tall pointed hat, but adorned with black coat buttons and other black accessories.

Pierrot (source unknown to me)

Again, however, his role gradually changed, until he eventually became the precursor of the contemporary ‘sad clown’ figure, laughing on the outside but crying on the inside.

A Pierrot doll (Dr Karl Shuker)

Also worth mentioning here is a third Commedia dell’Arte character, Punchinello or Pulcinella, who eventually transformed into the comical (if violent) Mr Punch, as still seen today in seaside Punch and Judy shows.

Punch and Judy show at Islington, London (Jonathan Lucas/Wikipedia)


THE WHITEFACE, THE AUGUSTE, AND THE CONTRA-AUGUSTE

Harlequin and Pierrot were ancestral to two of the three principal types of modern-day circus clown – namely, the whiteface (or white) clown, and the auguste (or red) clown, which frequently play off one another as duos in circus ring performances. The whiteface clown is basically the straight man or stooge, usually a figure of high standing, serious to the point of being pompous or mercurial in attitude, and supposedly quite intelligent (at least in his own opinion!), thereby borrowing some of Harlequin’s traits. In contrast, the auguste (named from the German slang for a bumbling fool) is the comedian, a figure of lower social status, and far less intelligent, more like Pierrot, who inevitably creates confusion and mayhem when attempting to carry out the whiteface’s instructions, with hilarious results. These clown types are instantly distinguished not only by their behaviour but also by their visual appearance, because each type has its own, clearly-defined costume and make-up.

A selection of clown and Pierrot dolls (Dr Karl Shuker)

As the name suggests, the whiteface clown’s most recognisable feature is the white make-up that completely covers his face and neck, plus the well-fitting but extremely extravagant costume that he wears, often brightly spangled or otherwise decorated, like his Harlequin precursor (though his white face, pointed hat, and neck ruff owe more to Pierrot). Also like Harlequin, he is generally taller and thinner than the auguste.

A block of Canadian postage stamps from 1998 depicting two whiteface clowns and two auguste clowns (Dr Karl Shuker)

Conversely, the shorter, fatter auguste is famous for his ‘typical’ clown make-up, in which the mouth and eyes of his otherwise predominantly red face are highlighted and greatly enlarged with white, his nose is false and extra-large, his hair is generally a garishly-hued wig, and his clothes are usually grotesquely out of proportion, with enormous shoes, long flapping sleeves, and baggy patched trousers, often with huge suspenders. This now-traditional clown outfit’s creation owes much to Tom Belling, an American circus rider in Circus Renz during the 1860s who, it is said, devised it as a joke, but attracted such hilarity when wearing it that he gave up his riding career and became a clown there instead.

An auguste clown (Wikipedia)

As for the highly detailed facial make-up worn by clowns, especially augustes: not only does each performer have his own unique make-up design, but if he wishes to join Clowns International (believed to be the world’s oldest clown society), he must register it there officially. He does this in a remarkable manner - by painting an accurate representation of it on an eggshell, and then formally lodging his shell in the society’s ‘Egg Gallery’.

Joseph Grimaldi

This unique form of clown face copyright was devised by none other than Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837), perhaps the most famous clown of all time. Indeed, even his name, Joey, has become a recognised soubriquet for clowns in general, but especially whitefaces. This is the type that Grimaldi popularised and portrayed as an energetic Harlequin-derived character throughout his immensely successful career on stage as an English pantomime clown.

Gibraltar postage stamp from 2002 depicting Joseph Grimaldi as a pantomime whiteface clown (Dr Karl Shuker)


CIRCUS CLOWN TYPES EMULATED IN THE CINEMA AND ON TELEVISION

The tradition of whiteface and auguste clown types in the circus has also been widely emulated by comedy duos in the cinema and television. There, the auguste has been represented by the likes of Stan Laurel, Lou Costello, and Eric Morecambe, and the whiteface represented by Oliver Hardy, Bud Abbott, and Ernie Wise.

Laurel and Hardy (Wikipedia)

Less common than the whiteface and the auguste is a third type of circus clown, the contra-auguste, who acts as a kind of intermediary between the other two. Perhaps the best example of a film trio representing in basic role and behaviour all three clown types is the Marx Brothers – with Harpo as the auguste, Chico as the contra-auguste, and Groucho as the whiteface.

The Marx Brothers

In early days, clowns often included a good deal of verbal humour in their performances, but much of this was subsequently curtailed in favour of ever more complex and exaggerated visual comedy. One modern-day clown-inspired figure that pursued this visual approach to its greatest extreme was France’s premier mime artist, Marcel Marceau (1923-2007). His famous whiteface creation, Bip, acted out wonderfully elaborate, often hysterically funny scenes in a somewhat surreal, almost cartoon-like manner but without uttering a single word.

Marcel Marceau as Bip


THE CHARACTER CLOWN AND THE TRAMP CLOWN

A fourth type of circus clown is the character clown, who adopts a very specific, usually job-related role, such as a baker, butcher, policeman, etc. One very popular character clown role is the tramp – so popular, in fact, that nowadays this role is normally categorised as a separate clown type in its own right, discrete from the character clown.

As with the whiteface and auguste, the tramp type of circus clown has inspired various big and small screen equivalents, and is epitomised there by the immortal ‘Little Tramp’ character created by Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977). In an interesting career reversal, after he had largely retired from films, Buster Keaton (1895-1966), one of Chaplin’s silent screen contemporaries and another adept populariser of hoboesque underdog characters, actually spent some time performing as a circus clown.

Charlie Chaplin in his 'Little Tramp' persona

The most notable circus clown who performed as a tramp clown was Emmett Kelly (1898-1979). Appearing for over a decade at the celebrated Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, and also at the Bertram Mills Circus, he created the world-famous character Weary Willie - a tragic little hobo clown inspired by the downtrodden real-life tramps of the American Depression era.


FAMOUS CIRCUS CLOWNS

Emmett Kelly’s success confirms that although circus clowns have generally attracted rather less fame, at least outside the circus world, than their movie and TV counterparts have done, some have nonetheless gained national and even international acclaim. Perhaps the most celebrated circus clown of all time was Latvia’s Nicolai Poliakoff (1900-1974), who became globally famous during the mid-20th Century as Coco the Clown. After establishing his own circus in Russia, he later fled to Berlin and thence to England in order to escape from the Russian Revolution. In England, he appeared as a famously immense-footed, trick-bewigged auguste for many years afterwards at the Bertram Mills Circus, receiving more custard pies in the face and drenches from buckets of water than possibly any other clown in history!

Gibraltar postage stamp from 2002 depicting Coco the Clown

Britain’s most famous contemporary auguste clown was unquestionably Italian-born Charlie Cairoli (1910-1980), who spent much of his career performing to enormous acclaim at the Blackpool Tower Circus, He appeared in no less than 40 consecutive summer seasons there (a world record for the most performances at the same venue), he was also an extremely accomplished musician on numerous instruments, and he ultimately became the most famous clown on British television.

Gibraltar postage stamp from 2002 depicting Charlie Cairoli

Circus star and vaudeville actor Pinto Colvig (1892-1967) was responsible for creating (and also performing as) Bozo - American television’s most famous circus clown. Bozo received adulation from generations of children, but especially during the 1960s, and he even became a mascot for Capitol Records. Interestingly, Colvig was equally famous as the original voice of one of Walt Disney’s most beloved cartoon characters, Goofy.

Another key figure in the history of clowns and clowning was Swiss-born Charles Adrien Wettach (1880-1959), who, as Grock, the ‘King of the Clowns’, was at one time the world’s highest paid entertainer.

Gibraltar postage stamp from 2002 depicting Grock (Dr Karl Shuker)

Perhaps the most famous family of circus clowns was the Trio Fratellini, consisting of three brothers who elevated the art of Parisian circus clowning to hitherto unimaginable levels of excellence during the first half of the 20th Century. Combining effortless timing, exquisite costumes, and superb musicianship, they produced perfectly-crafted performances that dazzled and delighted audiences wherever they appeared.

The Trio Fratellini

And in more recent times, an increasing number of female clowns have successfully appeared in circuses, opening up what had traditionally been a male-dominated profession.


COURTING LAUGHTER AND CONTROVERSY – JESTERS AND FOOLS

Quite different in appearance and attitude from circus clowns but closely linked to them in ancestry, and equally adept at inducing laughter from their audiences, were court jesters and fools. Jesters traditionally comprised two fundamentally different types.

An unusual full-face jester mask (Kim Newberg)

Also called fools, natural jesters were often – tragically - individuals who were incapacitated mentally, physically, or both, and were often maintained at royal courts throughout Europe during medieval and Renaissance times as figures of fun. Licensed or professional jesters, conversely, were, as their name indicates, hired specifically to act as buffoons but with a quick wit and sharp tongue. Consequently, their duties usually centred upon fulfilling the decidedly tricky role of being witty enough to entertain and amuse their aristocratic employers but without becoming sufficiently controversial or insulting to embarrass them! Needless to say, should they fail in this onerous task, they may well find themselves losing not only their job but also their life!

A flamboyantly-garbed jester figurine from Belgium (Dr Karl Shuker)

Although a jester’s costume was sometimes quite ordinary, more often than not it was very distinctive and exotic in form, often a multicoloured motley reminiscent of Harlequin’s – which is little wonder, as the latter Commedia dell’Arte character was derived in no small way from the image and behaviour of traditional court jesters. This costume was normally topped off by a characteristic tricorned cap bearing a small tinkling bell at the tip of each of its three horns. Many jesters also carried an ornate tassled staff or false mace, which down through the centuries eventually became Harlequin’s slapstick.

A court jester (and princess) on the cover of the magazine La Vie Parisienne for 27 September 1924

When England’s ruling monarch Charles I was dethroned and executed in 1649, and the country was then ruled by the austere, humourless Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector, jesters swiftly fell out of favour. And even after the monarchy was restored just over a decade later when Charles II ascended to the throne, they never regained their former popularity, and largely vanished from court life thereafter. The time for jesting and jollity, it seemed, had passed (though as recently as the 20th Century, jesters were still employed by the Bowes-Lyons, the family of the late Queen Mother).

Danny Kaye as Giacomo, the court jester - in the 1956 film musical of the same title (Wikipedia)

Today, court jesters may be long gone, but circus-based jesters and clowns remain as popular as ever (coulrophobics or clown fearers notwithstanding!), as epitomised by their dazzling, exotic appearances in the sumptuous extravaganzas staged by the Cirque du Soleil, for instance.

Saltimbanco, one of Cirque du Soleil's spectacular shows (Cirque du Soleil)

Even so, just like everything else in the modern-day world, nothing is as simple and straightforward as it used to be. Nowadays, prospective circus clowns attend special clown-training colleges as student clowns, studying such subjects as slapstick, costume, mime, juggling, and even unicycling. One such college was opened in 1968 by the Ringling Circus; and during its first decade alone, over 40,000 people had applied to enrol on its seven-week course, with more than 600 fully-qualified circus clowns graduating.

Clearly, therefore, and irrespective of what their persona and outward image might otherwise suggest, being clowns in this day and age is certainly no laughing matter!

A selection of clown and jester dolls (Dr Karl Shuker)

HEAVY METAL DRAGONS

'Lovehunter' - Whitesnake (Chris Achilleos)

Back in those far-off, antediluvian times that marked my youth and when I first got into motorbikes and tattoos, I was also a bit of a head-banger – although I won't horrify you by posting photos of me with long hair! However, I did have quite a collection of hard rock and heavy metal (HM) records, some of which I still retain.

While chatting recently with a friend from that period in my life and who had shared my enthusiasm for this genre of rock music, we reminisced about the spectacular artwork featured on the covers of some of the classic albums, and I happened to mention one of my all-time favourite examples. Namely, the stunning artwork by Chris Achilleos for 'Lovehunter', British band Whitesnake's second studio album, released in 1979, which depicts a decidedly cryptozoological serpent dragon with long curved horns.

Another favourite of mine that I mentioned was the ornate Eastern dragon depicted on the title single from Bruce Dickinson's debut solo album 'Tattooed Millionaire', released in 1990, and also on a 'Tattooed Millionaire' t-shirt that I had long since worn out due to relentless wearing!

'Tattooed Millionaire' (single) - Bruce Dickinson

As a result, the conversation then veered into reflecting upon just how popular the dragon remains as a subject referred to directly or at least metaphorically in HM song titles. Intrigued, I have carried out some research into this, and here is a representative list of examples from bands all around the globe:

'Killing the Dragon' - Dio

'Magic Dragon', from German thrash metal band Sodom's third album 'Agent Orange' (released in 1989); 'Ride the Dragon', from American heavy metal band Manowar's seventh album 'The Triumph of Steel' (1992); 'The Dragon Lies Bleeding', from Swedish power metal band HammerFall's debut album 'Glory to the Brave' (1997); 'In the Dragon's Den', from American progressive metal band Symphony X's fourth studio album 'Twilight in Olympus' (1998); 'The Dragon's Lair', from Swedish heavy metal band Crystal Eyes' debut album 'World of Black and Silver' (1999); 'Black Dragon', from Italian symphonic power metal songwriter Luca Turilli's solo album 'King of the Nordic Twilight' (1999); 'The River Dragon Has Come', from American heavy metal band Nevermore's fourth studio album 'Dead Heart, in a Dead World' (2000); 'Killing the Dragon', the title track from American heavy metal band Dio's ninth studio album (2002); 'Heart of a Dragon', from English power metal band DragonForce's debut album 'Valley of the Damned (2003); 'Dragon Reborn', from Australian power metal band Black Majesty's second album 'Live Company' (2005); 'Where Dragons Dwell', from French heavy metal band Gojira's third studio album 'From Mars to Sirius' (2005); 'Dragonheart', from Danish power metal band Iron Fire's fourth full-length album 'Blade of Triumph' (2007); 'Chasing the Dragon', from Dutch symphonic metal band Epica's fourth album 'The Divine Conspiracy' (2008); and 'Daltor the Dragonhunter', from Italian symphonic power metal band Ancient Bards' album 'The Alliance of the Kings' (2010).

'Emerald Sword' (single) - Rhapsody of Fire

Other noteworthy examples include 'Tears of the Dragon', a critically-lauded, highly-melodic track from Iron Maiden's once-and-future front man Bruce Dickinson's second solo album 'Balls to Picasso' (1994); 'The Consummate Dragon', inspired by Smaug in Tolkien's The Hobbit, from American hardcore punk band Shai Hulud's second studio album 'That Within Blood Ill-Tempered' (2003); 'Dragon', from German heavy/power metal band Grave Digger's eleventh studio album 'Rheingold' (2003 – inspired by Richard Wagner's classical 'Ring Cycle'); and the various dragon songs contained in Italian symphonic power metal band Rhapsody of Fire's five-album 'Emerald Sword Saga' (1997-2004), inspired by the realms of high fantasy from the 'swords and sorcery' literary genre.

'The Dragon' - Vangelis (Terry Oakes)

Also deserving of inclusion here is 'The Dragon', appearing on Vangelis's unofficial studio album of the same title released in 1978, whose cover featured a stunning sea dragon depicted by Terry Oakes.

If there are any notable omissions, I'd welcome details.

'Symphony of Enchanted Lands' - Rhapsody of Fire

COINCIDENCE OR COMMONPLACE? FROM REVELATION TO REACTOR

Tapestry commissioned by Louis, Duke of Anjou, of the third angel and wormwood

To some, coincidences are nothing but random incidents impinging upon one another merely by chance, and therefore lacking any significance or meaning. To others, they are abruptly-revealed links within a grand chain of recognition still to be forged in its entirety within the human mind. What do you think?

Consider the following example, which I came upon yesterday while browsing through Sir Alec Guinness's A Commonplace Book (2001) - a fascinating collection of eclectica and esoterica drawn from countless sources and jotted down by this celebrated British actor over the years in a couple of exercise books but not collated in published form until a year after his death - and judge for yourself.

In the New Testament of the Holy Bible, the following verses (10 and 11) can be found in Chapter 8 of the Book of the Revelation of St John the Divine:

"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

"And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."

Was this truly a revelation of what would be at the end of the world, or, rather, a prophecy regarding an event of much closer proximity in time, specifically 26 April 1986?

I only ask because it just so happens that in Russo-Ukrainian, the word for wormwood is...Chernobyl.



Chernobyl disaster (Wikipedia)



Just a coincidence...?

THE DOVER DEMON AND INTERNATIONAL OBSCURA DAY

Sketch by eyewitness Bill Bartlett of the Dover demon, as featured in various newspapers during 1977 (Bill Bartlett-Wikipedia)


Here's a very interesting email that I've received from Heather at Atlas Obscura:

"Wanted to let you know about the third annual “International Obscura Day”, (www.obscuraday.com), a day of unusual local explorations, all over the world, presented by Atlas Obscura, an online travel guide to curious and unusual places. On April 28th, Loren Coleman, from the the International Cryptozoology Museum, will be giving a lecture [click here for details] to mark the 35 anniversary of the Dover Demon investigation."

"Thought you and your readers would be interested in it."

Thanks, Heather, for bringing this to my attention!

In case there are readers who are unfamiliar with the Dover demon, here is what I wrote about this intriguing entity in my book The Unexplained:


The last thing that 17-year-old Bill Bartlett expected to see when driving with two friends through Dover, Massachusetts, at around 10.30 pm on 21 April 1977 was a creature from another dimension. Yet that is what he may have done, at least in the opinion of some investigators - and judging from Bill's description of what he saw, they could have a point!

Driving along, his car's headlights suddenly illuminated a peculiar entity picking its way along a stone wall at the side of the road. As can be seen from the pencil sketch that Bill later prepared, which is reproduced here [see illustration opening this Eclectarium blog post], the creature had a disproportionately large head, shaped like a water melon, with two big, protruding eyes that glowed orange, but it did not seem to have a mouth, nose, or ears. Its body was small, its neck and limbs were long and thin, and its fingers and toes were slender and supple. The creature appeared to be hairless, but its peach-coloured skin was rough in texture. It stood 3-4 ft high, and was observed only by Bill (his two friends were not looking in the right direction to see it).

Unknown to Bill, however, his strange sighting would soon be substantiated by an entirely independent eyewitness. Less than two hours later, 15-year-old John Baxter was walking home little more than a mile from the locality of Bill's encounter when he saw a strange figure coming towards him. After receiving no reply when he called out to it, John paused, and as he did so the figure ran away down a gully. John chased after it, and when he was about 30 ft away, he could see it clearly, standing upright on its hind legs and gripping the trunk of a tree. When he spied its brightly glowing eyes in an otherwise featureless face staring at him, however, John decided to let caution supersede curiosity, and he walked briskly back to the road. Once he reached home, he too sketched the creature, and as can be seen here, his wholly independent drawing corresponds very closely indeed with Bill's.

At around midnight on 22 April, what Fortean researcher Loren Coleman would subsequently dub 'the Dover demon' was seen again, this time by 15-year-old Abby Brabham while being driven home by Will Taintor, 18, who only spied it very briefly. Abby's description matched those of Bill and John in every respect except one - when she observed it, its eyes were glowing green, not orange. And thus ended the curious case of the Dover demon - for it has never been reported again, and has never been satisfactorily identified.

If the descriptions of it are accurate, and they are certainly very consistent, the Dover demon does not resemble any species known to science, either from North America or elsewhere. It may not, however, be entirely unknown. The Cree Indians of eastern Canada speak of a mysterious race of pygmy entities called the Mannegishi, who delight in playing tricks upon travellers. According to the Cree, the Mannegishi have round heads, long thin legs, arms with six fingers on each hand, and they live between rocks in the rapids. Excluding the finger count discrepancy, this description is reminiscent of the Dover demon.