BRING ME THE HEAD OF OZYMANDIAS!

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Percy Bysshe Shelley – ‘Ozymandias’


Had I not become a zoologist, I may well have sought a career in archaeology, as I have always been fascinated with ancient civilisations and the many extraordinary monuments, edifices, and other spectacular creations that once existed in those bygone realms - of which the following example is a particular favourite of mine

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s celebrated poem ‘Ozymandias’ (quoted above in full) is a succinct but extraordinarily powerful evocation of the folly of human vanity, and the stark image of an immense wrecked statue encompassed by an empty wasteland of desert sand as conjured forth by Shelley’s strangely compelling lines has fascinated me ever since I first read them many years ago.

It was only during my visit to Egypt’s West Bank in January 2006, however, that I discovered to my surprise and delight that Ozymandias, and his giant stone head, were much more than mere figments of a poet’s imagination.

Ramesses II statue at Abu Simbel, Egypt (Hajor/Wikipedia)

Ruling for 66 years and 2 months during the 13th Century BC, when ancient Egypt had attained the very zenith of its power and splendour, Pharaoh Ramesses II was possibly the most celebrated, and wealthiest, of all of this great country’s ancient rulers, and he used his vast riches to create an unparalleled array of monuments glorifying his existence. None was more spectacular, however, than his memorial (mortuary) temple, located in Thebes on the West Bank, across the River Nile from present-day Luxor. It was originally known as “The House of Millions of Years of Usermaatra-Setepenra That Unites With Thebes-The-City in the Domain of Amon”, but following his visit to its ruins in 1829, French archaeologist Jean-François Champollion coined a rather more concise yet no less fitting name for it – the Ramesseum.

Yet despite being dubbed the House of Millions of Years, in reality this architectural wonder lasted for a far shorter span of time, on account of its location. Tragically, it had been erected at the very edge of the Nile floodplain, and so its foundations were inexorably undermined by this mighty river’s annual inundation, as well as by neglect and desecration in later ages. Eventually, together with the gargantuan statues that it contained, Ramesses II’s magnificent temple collapsed, and in time became largely buried, with only scattered ruins to remind a modern world of its long-bygone glory.

The surviving head and shoulder of the Ozymandias Colossus (Steve F.E. Cameron/Wikipedia)

Among its now-fallen statues was an immense stone giant dubbed the Ozymandias Colossus, which weighed over 900 tons and formerly stood as tall as Memnon’s twin counterparts documented earlier in this chapter. Today, however, only its massive head, hands, and feet remain. These shattered relics, the pathetic remnants of Ramesses II’s most grandiose attempt at self-glorification, are what inspired Shelley’s famous sonnet, though the “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” were his own invention, as no such relics exist here today.


As for the memorable name, Ozymandias, this was actually a mis-transliteration from Egyptian into Greek - by 1st-Century-BC writer Diodorus of Sicily - of the first part of Ramesses II’s throne name, Usermaatra Setepenra. This appears as a cartouche on the statue’s shoulder, and can still be seen today as shown in Steve Cameron's photograph included earlier here.

Ozymandias (panthalassa3d.livejournal.com/)


This Eclectarium blog post is excerpted from my book Dr Shuker's Casebook (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2008)

GROW YOUR OWN HOMUNCULUS

Creating a homunculus via alchemy

Even today, the alchemists of medieval times remain famous for their supposed (but unconfirmed) ability to transmute base metals into gold, using the fabled philosopher's stone. Less well-remembered, yet even more controversial, is their alleged artificial creation of tiny living humanoids - known as homunculi. Some references to homunculi in alchemical texts featured them as symbolic rather than literal. For instance, the fabled Philosopher's Stone is sometimes considered to be a homunculus, with its creation no less than the representation of the Great Work (Magnum Opus) process, merely described in a different way.

A symbolic homunculus, depicted in The Pretiosissimum Donum Dei ('The Most Precious Gift of God'), an important 15th-Century alchemical work by Georgius Aurach de Argentina

In September 1994, however, Paul Thompson published an engrossing review of this largely-forgotten arcane subject in America's Fate Magazine that contained some remarkable revelations regarding the alleged creation of living homunculi, and which inspired my own ongoing fascination with this subject.

Alchemists claimed that the culture medium required for the growth of homunculi contained several biological fluids such as sputum or egg-white, and sometimes inorganic fluids like dew, but the two substances most commonly cited as essential were human blood and semen - both of which are widely believed in primitive or non-scientific societies to harbour the vital essence of life. Also required was horse manure, whose heat-releasing properties were utilised to incubate the medium.

Bearing in mind that all of the above ingredients are readily obtainable, why was the production of homunculi a skill restricted to alchemists? The answer is that the recipes always seemed to contain one vital ingredient that was exceptionally complex and difficult to prepare.

Paracelsus, painted by Quentin Massys

For example, in the homunculus recipe contained within the treatise De Natura Rerum, written by 16th-Century Swiss scholar and alchemist Theophrastus Paracelsus (aka Philippus von Hohenheim), 'the arcanum of human blood' was included - essential but esoteric, its constituents known only to the alchemical fraternity. Here, just in case any reader wishes to attempt it himself, is Paracelsus's description of how to create a homunculus:

"Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed cucurbite [glass vessel] with the highest putrefaction of the venter equinus [horse manure] for 40 days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen. After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless, transparent and without body. If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for 40 weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of a venter equinus, it becomes, thenceforth, a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller. This we call a homunculus; and it should be afterwards educated with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up and begins to display intelligence."

Equally obscure is 'animal tincture', listed in another medieval recipe.

The vaguely human-looking root of the mandragora or mandrake plant Mandragora officinarum inspired the false belief during medieval times that it could be utilised in the production of homunculi. During his body's last convulsive spasms before death, a hanged man will sometimes ejaculate semen, and it was said that where this fell to the ground, a mandrake would grow. If its anthropomorphic root was then pulled out before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed, and nurtured with milk, honey, and sometimes human blood too, the root would subsequently develop into a homunculus, which would guard and protect its owner.

Mandrake with unrealistically humanoid root, depicted in Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 15th-Century manuscript

An even more exotic recipe for growing your own homunculus was cited during the 1700s by no less a figure of learning than Dr David Christianus from Germany's Giessen University. According to his claim, an egg should be taken from a black hen, and a tiny hole should be poked through its shell. A bean-sized portion of the albumen then needed to be removed and replaced by human semen, after which the egg's opening should be sealed with the hymen from a virgin maiden. Once this was accomplished, the egg must be buried in dung during the first day of the March lunar cycle. After 30 days, a homunculus should emerge from the egg, and as long as its owner provided it with a regular diet of earthworms and lavender seeds it would protect him and assist him in all of his endeavours.

Notwithstanding the inherent difficulties in obtaining the necessary ingredients and in performing the intricate series of processes required, records detailing the successful culturing of homunculi do exist. An extraordinary specimen grown from distilled human blood and able to emit beams of red light was reputedly cultured and exhibited at the court of France's King Louis XIV by royal physician Dr Pierre Borel.

Homunculi feature in many contemporary novels including Peter Ackroyd's The House of Doctor Dee (1993), in which he portrays real-life Elizabethan magus John Dee successfully creating a homunculus

As fully documented in Dr Emil Besetzny's book Die Sphinx (1873), however, the most outstanding case must surely be the creation of ten living homunculi in a mere five weeks, accomplished in 1775 by two alchemists - Austrian noblemen Count Johann Ferdinand von Kufstein and Italian mystic/Rosicrucian cleric Abbé Geloni.

Like all homunculi, they were grown in sealed jars (homunculi die if exposed for any considerable period to the air), filled with water and eventually buried under heaps of manure. These were treated (as usual) with some special, but unspecified, solution, and doubled the size of eight of the homunculi, producing a series of 1-ft-tall specimens.

No two homunculi looked the same, and to each was fixed an identity. Eight were physical manikins, known respectively as the king, queen, knight, monk, nun, seraph, miner, and architect, and clothes pertinent to their identities were manufactured for them. Each of these eight homunculi was fed with special pink tablets every 3-4 days, and their water was changed once a week. On at least one occasion, the 'king' homunculus escaped from his jar, and was earnestly trying to remove the seal on the jar housing the 'queen' when he was spotted by Count Kufstein's butler, Klammerer. Chased by Kufstein and Klammerer, the 'king' soon fainted from exposure to the air, and was put back inside his own receptacle.

The remaining two homunculi were non-corporeal, and only appeared when Geloni tapped their jars and chanted certain magical words. A face would then materialise in each of them; moreover, in one the liquid would turn blue, in the other it would turn red. The red 'spirit' homunculus was fed on blood, and its water was changed every 2-3 days, but the blue 'spirit' homunculus was never fed and its water was never changed.

All ten homunculi would answer questions concerning future events, invariably predicting correctly the outcomes, and they were observed by many people. These included some very notable personages, like Count Franz Josef von Thun and Count Max Lamberg. Surely, however, such bizarre man-made entities could not really have existed - or could they?

I cannot help but wonder whether these particular homunculi were nothing more than large amphibians brought back by travellers from the tropics. One likely candidate is the African clawed toad Xenopus laevis, a common species vaguely humanoid in shape, which lives permanently in water - explaining why the 'king' fainted soon after escaping from its jar?

Homunculi – created from blood, or merely specimens of the African clawed toad (like this one)? (Michael Linnenbach/Wikipedia)

No-one knows what happened to nine of the homunculi after Geloni and Kufstein ultimately went their separate ways. However, an event occurred that may actually have left behind some tangible evidence of the tenth. Once, the jar containing the 'monk' homunculus was accidentally dropped, smashing as it hit the floor and killing its humanoid inhabitant. His body was afterwards buried in the grounds of Kufstein's Tyrolean residence - but where is this today? If only we knew its locality, the soil around it could be sifted, as suggested by Paul Thompson - and who knows what remains might be found?

One thing is certain. If a 12-in-long skeleton is ever found under these circumstances, Thompson would be very interested to learn more about it - and so would I.

A greatly-expanded, updated version of this article, emphasising its potential (crypto)zoological aspects, can be accessed here on my ShukerNature blog.


This article is extracted and expanded from the homunculus section of my book The Unexplained: An Illustrated Guide to the World's Natural and Paranormal Mysteries (Carlton: London, 1996)

GHOSTS IN THE MACHINES? HAUNTED HARDWARE AND OTHER MECHANISED MYSTERIES

Somewhere out there is an unnerving diversity of treacherous technology that seems to possess (or be possessed by?) a veritable life of its own! Independently-minded machines boasting seemingly paranormal powers, or weird talents far beyond those implanted into them by their human creators, certainly appear to be much more widespread than we might otherwise suppose - and much too clever for our own good!


WORD PROCESSOR, DODLESTON, CHESHIRE - Spooked by a Ghost Writer, in Every Sense!

In the olden days, ghosts communicated with the living via such traditional media as ouija boards - but now, keeping abreast of modern technology, they utilise word processors!

During late 1984, Ken Webster was renovating an old cottage that he had purchased in Dodleston, Cheshire, when his word processor began displaying strange messages and poems that he had not placed there himself. Precisely the same thing happened when he used any of his other computers too. The only common link was the presence of his girlfriend, Debbie, because these unsolicited communications always appeared when she was close by. Yet they could not have originated from her, or from Ken, for one very good reason.

Linguist Peter Trinder, who made a detailed study of them, revealed that they were written in a Late Middle English dialect dating from around the 1500s. For instance:

"Wot strange wordes thou speke, although I muste confess that I hath also bene ill-schooled...thou art a goodly man who hath fanciful woman who dwel in myne home."

Similar messages even appeared on the cottage floor. Yet whereas Ken and Debbie had no knowledge of Middle English, some of the communications contained unfamiliar words that could only have been known to someone well-versed in this long-vanished dialect.

Greatly intrigued, Ken began answering them on his machines, and eventually he learnt that his computer-mediated contact was a veritable ghost writer. Namely, one Tomas Harden, who claimed to have lived on this same site over 400 years earlier.

Judging from some of Harden's messages, moreover, the reason why they appeared whenever Debbie was nearby seems simply to have been that he had taken a liking to her! A case, perhaps, of unrequited computer dating across the centuries?


COMPUTER CHESS - Check Mate...Forever!

For anyone who may deem it safe to dismiss machines as brainless, dispassionate morons, undeniably helpful but fundamentally harmless, the following cautionary, true-life tale should be made compulsory reading. In 1989, Soviet grand master Nikolai Gudkov had won two successive chess games against his opponent, a Russian M2-11 super-computer programmed to play at world-class level. At the precise moment that he reached out his hand and made the telling move that would have checkmated M2-11 for the third time, however, Gudkov dropped down dead. He had been instantly electrocuted by a sudden surge of power passing through the metal chessboard that his fingers touched as he placed the chesspiece down in his winning move. Just a coincidence...or a chilling demonstration of mechanical mentality?

Equally controversial was the famous Turkish chess player of Hungarian nobleman Baron Von Kempelen. Dating from 1769, and exhibited widely in Europe, it consisted of a slightly larger than lifesize robot-like automaton, in the form and attire of a Turkish man, seated at a wooden cabinet, which, when opened, seemed to contain complex machinery. A chessboard was present on top of the cabinet, and the Baron challenged onlookers to compete against his mechanised Turk. Many did - but all met their match. Eventually, the Turk was sold to an American showman called Maelzl, and during 1835 it was witnessed in action by Edgar Allan Poe - who revealed that its chess-playing talent owed more to conjuring skill than mechanical sophistication. In reality, one of its owner's servants hid inside the robot chess player, and whenever this servant was ill or absent, all displays featuring the Turk were cancelled.

Exposing the secret of Baron Van Kempelen's 'Mechanical' Chess Player


TELEVISIONS - Spectres on the Small Screen

In 1986, Mainz physicist Professor Ernst Senkowski announced that the first recognisable images of deceased persons had been taped from television. Supporting his claim is the research of electronics engineer J.P. Seyler from Luxemburg. By filming a TV screen tuned to an open channel, Seyler obtained a brief videotape that portrayed a recognisable image of Hanna Buschbeck, a German researcher of electronic voice phenomena (EVP), several years after she had died in 1978. Interestingly, the form in which she appeared on the videotape was as she had been in her youth, not as she had been when she died.

The alleged image of a youthful Hanna Buschbeck captured on videotape several years after her death

Not all spectres of the small screen can be identified, however, thereby making their unheralded manifestations all the more unnerving. One morning sometime prior to 1988, the three children of the Travis family had been watching television in their home at Blue Point, New York, when they suddenly observed a face materialising on the screen. Obscuring the programme that they had been viewing, it resembled a lady's profile in silhouette, as confirmed by the children's mother, who also saw it. Somewhat alarmed, she turned the television off - but the face could still be seen, and remained on screen for more than two days! Before it finally faded away, this ghostly image was filmed by several visiting media reporters, but no-one has ever provided a satisfactory explanation for its origin.


ELEVATOR, PALACE HOTEL, SOUTHPORT - The Lift With a Truly Elevated Sense of Survival!

The less technologically-minded among us may be forgiven for suspecting that machines have a life of their own. After all, the lift that refused to die is certainly a case in point.

This particular elevator was ensconced in Southport's Palace Hotel, which was demolished in 1969. All sources of electrical power were cut off before the demolition began, but three weeks later the lift mysteriously came to life! Without any warning, or any outside assistance either, it began soaring up and down its vertical chute, journeying from one floor to another and, as it did so, lighting up its floor-indication buttons as well as opening and closing its gates - just like it had always done during its 112 years of normal day-to-day operation.

The Palace Hotel, Southport, not long before it was demolished

A team of electrical engineers was called in to investigate, but all to no avail. They confirmed that the current had been cut off, and that there wasn't a single amp flowing anywhere inside the remains of the demolished hotel. Following their exhaustive examination, they remained wholly perplexed, conceding: "We can't find any electrical reason why the lift should work". But work it did, and with undiminished enthusiasm, even when the glare of television cameras and lights were trained upon it during a special BBC news item.

Faced with the inexplicable, the team did the inevitable. They bludgeoned the elevator to death with some hefty sledge hammers - a tragic end to a loyal if non-human employee that had apparently been unable to accept that its working life had finally come to an end.


AMSTRAD COMPUTER, STOCKTON - You've Been Talking in Your Sleep Again!

Do computers have nightmares, or talk in their sleep? If so, this may explain the nocturnal activity of an Amstrad computer installed during 1987 in a Stockton architect's office.

During working hours, it behaved impeccably. But on many occasions at night, when only the cleaners were present, its screen abruptly began to glow, meaningless sentences appeared on-screen for about 30 seconds, and then, just as abruptly, they vanished - after which the computer gave out a loud groan, and switched itself off. What makes all of this even more strange, however, is that it occurred even when the computer was unplugged!

Ken Hughes, editor of Personal Computer, examined this maladjusted machine, but despite stripping it down and inspecting every component, he could find nothing unusual. Yet a video camera, trained upon it for three months, confirmed the authenticity of its evenings' erratic outpourings. Ultimately, the mere presence of this eerie computer began to disturb some of its human workmates, who lost no sleep, therefore, over the decision to remove it. Whether the computer subsequently continued to lose sleep, conversely, is another matter entirely!


OBLIGING CARS AND LETHAL CARS - The Weird World of Mind Over Motor

Self-willed cars are not limited to the fictitious world of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Herbie the Lovebug. Take, for instance, the vigorous Volvo owned by Jack Oates from Yorkshire.

One day in 1984, after Oates had left it parked in a village street, his car inexplicably started up and sped down the street in reverse, only to experience a decidedly close encounter with some parked cars further away. Yet it evidently remained unabashed, for when its distraught owner put the keys into its ignition and tried to turn it off, the recalcitrant runaway steadfastly refused to turn off - until the mechanics arrived, at which point it immediately complied...and then turned itself on again as soon as they had gone!

Rather more affable, yet no less anomalous, was the SAAB owned by David Warner, also from Yorkshire. One day in April 1981, it smoothly reversed across the garden lawn of a local rectory and then carefully parked itself in the corner. Bearing in mind that his car was driverless at the time, it is hardly surprising that Warner watched this extraordinary incident with open-mouthed astonishment.

And now, a warning for automobilophobes everywhere: Never take a dislike to your car - you may not live to regret it! In 1978, a lady from Florida came to a grim end under her car's wheels - all four of them. According to her colleagues, she had never liked that particular vehicle, and perhaps the feeling was mutual. One day, as she walked away after parking it at a supermarket and turning its engine off, the malevolent motor somehow started itself up, and ran over its disapproving owner. Not content with flattening her once, however, her four-wheeled assassin circled round, and ran over her again, then circled and did it again, then again, and again... Nor would it permit anyone from the large crowd of horrified spectators to retrieve her mangled body, but continued its frenzied, murderous circuit for another quarter of an hour or so before finally coming to a halt.


EERIE CLOCKS - When Death Holds Back the Hands of Time

There are many cases of eerie clocks or other fateful timepieces stopping at the precise instant when their owners die, reiterating in reality the song 'My Grandfather's Clock' (which also inspired a musical - see image below).



Professor Colin Gardner, author of Ghost Watch (1989), brought to attention a contemporary case from Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, that actually featured a grandfather's clock. It had been owned for many years by a man referred to by Professor Gardner for confidentiality purposes merely as 'Stephen', who had always taken great joy in caring for it and keeping it in good working order. At the exact moment of Stephen's death, aged 72, his clock stopped, and for about a year its hands remained resolutely stationary.

Then one day, for no apparent reason, they suddenly moved again, and the clock began ticking as normal. At precisely the same moment, but at a location far away, its late owner's daughter, Lori, had given birth - to a son, Stephen's first male heir.

During her many years of research at the Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory, Dr Louisa Rhine amassed several similar reports. In one incident, a gold pocket watch given by a Canadian man to his brother stopped at the very instant that the man died several years later, even though it was almost fully-wound.

Perhaps the most famous example is the so-called 'clock of death', which allegedly marked the demise not only of its first owner, King Henry VIII, but also that of his son Edward VI, and Anne of Denmark (consort to James I). It still resides in Hampton Court Palace.

King Edward VI of England, painted by William Scrots


HAUNTED PHOTOCOPIER - Who's That Girl?

In early 1995, Mark Burgess revealed that a firm in Bury, Lancashire, owns what may be a paranormal photocopier. Every so often, when copying documents, it inserts within a batch of normal photocopied documents a single sheet depicting the image of a mysterious girl, whose identity does not appear to be known to anyone working at the firm.

However, it is possible that there is a conventional explanation to hand. In response to Burgess's account (published in Fortean Times), Alex Kashko revealed that the image may be a test image contained within an internal chip, and that a faulty connection was spasmodically sending the photocopier into test mode, thus reproducing the image. Such a possibility could be readily pursued via an inspection of the machine by its manufacturer's engineers, but what if an examination failed to confirm this? Yet another case of the spirit world modernising its means of communication with the living world?


PHANTOM FAX MESSAGE - A Timeslip Transmission?

During May 1993, corporate affairs consultant Anne Forrest, based in Hong Kong, received a very mystifying fax message. To begin with, it was not apparently intended for her, because it was addressed to a Phil Cundall of Mining Surveys Ltd, and had been sent by a Phil Cross from Dorset. Far stranger than this, however, was its date of transmission - 18 January 1972! In other words, it seemed to have been sent more than 21 years earlier! Substantiating this assumption was the fax's text, describing how fax machines work, for its terminology was so antiquated that it did indeed appear to date from the early 1970s.

Yet how could a fax message have been lost 'in transit' for over 21 years after leaving Cross's fax machine? Could there be, lurking undetected somewhere in the rarefied realms of electronic communication, a digitised black hole - inexorably engulfing media messages of every kind, and subsequently releasing (and misdirecting) them only after many years had elapsed since their initial transmission? In fact, investigations disclosed a much more prosaic solution. The strange fax message was merely a routine fax-test document, known as the SLEREXE letter, which has been utilised internationally for a number of years.


MECHANICAL SEA MONSTER - Biting the Hand That Built It!

Morgawr, which is Cornish for 'sea giant', is the name given to a mysterious Nessie-like sea monster sometimes reported off the coast of Falmouth and elsewhere in Cornwall. As such, it has become quite a cryptozoological celebrity, and in 1994 it inspired the creation of a spectacular mechanical version, dubbed 'Moghar'. Designed and constructed by George Thain, this dragonesque monster's dramatic features included hydraulic tentacles, and 3-ft-high computer-controlled jaws that could be opened and closed, and which were brimming with sharp teeth. When completed, it was ensconced inside a Land's End tourist attraction called the Last Labyrinth, where its role was to terrify the visitors - but harmlessly.

Moghar the mechanical sea monster from The Last Labyrinth, Land's End (Falmouth Packet)

Moghar, however, seemed to have other ideas. On 30 March, Thain arrived for a close inspection of his monster - a little too close for comfort, as it turned out. For in finest Frankensteinian tradition, Moghar attacked him! Abruptly seizing him in its toothy maw, it refused to let go, gripping him firmly and inflicting severe bruising before technicians were able to release its jaws and free its hapless creator. Computer error was blamed, but just to be safe, all subsequent visitors were distanced from Moghar by a 3-ft-wide no-go zone.


VERBAL VACUUM CLEANERS AND SINGING CHAIN-SAWS - Is Electromagnetic Interference the Answer?

In his fascinating book, The Nature of Things - The Secret Life of Inanimate Objects (1990), Dr Lyall Watson included a vast range of unaccountably talkative and tuneful gadgets and gizmos. Take, for instance, the eclectic examples that he cited in the following paragraph:

"In Norfolk Janet Barker's new cooker talks to her in Dutch. Office-cleaner Madge Gunn in London gets silly orders from her vacuum cleaner: "Proceed at once to Tooley Street." Doris Gibbons' electric meter is far more polite. "Hello," it says. "This is Geoffrey. Come in, please." The electric organ at a church in Bolton regularly interrupts the vicar's sermons with relays of the shipping forecast. And Harry Goodchild of Ipswich cut off his toe when his chain-saw suddenly broke into song."

It is very likely that cases such as these are nothing more than a bizarre by-product of electromagnetic interference - Madge Gunn's talking vacuum cleaner, for instance, is almost certainly picking up messages broadcast on the radio frequencies used by police patrols.

Nevertheless, not all such cases can be so readily resolved. After all, how can straying electronic signals explain why music and voices were heard whenever Virginia Kimmey of Midland, Texas, turned on her kitchen sink's water taps during November 1960?

The Nature of Things by Dr Lyall Watson


TELEPHONES OF TERROR - Dial 'D' For Death!
Telephones with an attitude problem are by no means an uncommon item in today's ever-expanding roll-call of troublesome technology, but in Nepal they have been revealing a far more sinister - and lethal - side to their nature.

Several people in this mountainous Asian kingdom were killed during the first few weeks of 1993 when, after hearing their telephones emit a long, insistent ringing tone, they picked up the receiver. For at the precise moment that they picked it up, they were instantaneously zapped with a deadly blast of electricity exceeding 600 volts. The official explanation offered by the Nepal Telecommunications Corporation was that a telephone line and a power line had accidentally become connected. Yet if this were indeed so, why had lethal line connections of this type only begun to occur now, after years of danger-free dialling? The telephone company was unable to provide an answer. Could it simply be that certain telephones have developed a diabolical sense of humour?

FATHER CHRISTMAS, MEET SANTA CLAUS - AND DON'T FORGET BEFANA!

Father Christmas, garbed in blue as traditionally described, bringing a little magic to my bookshelf! (Dr Karl Shuker)

It is nothing if not timely today to blog about the most elusive crypto-primate of all. Glimpsed on only a single night each year, when it is usually seen clambering over roof tops and disappearing down chimneys, it is famed for its distinctive red and white pelage, profuse facial hair, rotund body form, readily recognisable ‘ho ho ho’ triple cry, predilection for sherry and mince pies, and unique symbiotic relationship with reindeer.

Or, to phrase it another way, certain books of mine, most notably The Unexplained, Mysteries of Planet Earth, and Dr Shuker’s Casebook, have shown that my interests in mysteries and legends are not entirely limited to those of the cryptozoological and zoological varieties. Indeed, I have plans for another casebook, which, with stunning originality, will most probably be entitled Dr Shuker’s Second Casebook, and will include the following festive preview. Happy Christmas!

SANTA CLAUS - THIS IS YOUR LIFE!

The exchanging of gifts is an intrinsic part of the Christmas celebrations, a popular tradition dating back to the very first Christmas, and even earlier - when the Romans offered tributes during the late December festival of Saturnalia, which Christmas replaced.

Today, the personification of gift provision at Christmas is Santa Claus. Nevertheless, this jolly red-suited, white-whiskered, rotund figure with a zest for ho-ho-hoing, reindeer roof-riding, and chimney-descending as he delivers presents to children is only of fairly recent origin - the modern-day product of many fascinating transformations and identity mergings down through the ages.

Indeed, Santa the gift-bringer most probably began life as we know him as a god - Odin (Woden), the chief deity of the Norsemen or Vikings. They believed that during December, Odin descended to earth in a chariot drawn by goats, or riding his famous eight-legged steed Sleipnir, temporarily deserting Asgard - heavenly abode of the gods - in order to bring gifts to his loyal human worshippers, thus helping to sustain them during the bleak, icy weather characterising winter in northern Europe. Odin typically wore a long blue hooded cloak, and possessed a profuse white beard - features retained in slightly modified form by his successor, Father Christmas.

In an attempt to limit the worst excesses of winter and to placate this fearful embodiment of Nature, later Scandinavian traditions involved nominating someone in each community to personify Winter. This fortunate person would then find himself invited to everyone's home, where he would be richly regaled with food and drink in a symbolic effort to pacify Winter.

Although, after having ingested and imbibed at a succession of houses, Winter's human ambassador was undoubtedly rendered exceedingly passive (if not entirely prostrate!), whether the same can be said for Winter itself is another matter entirely. Nevertheless, the custom proved popular, and travelled far, eventually reaching the British Isles, where the person representing Winter became known as Father Christmas.

Paradoxically, therefore, Father Christmas originated not as a giver but as a receiver of gifts. All this would change, however, courtesy of a much-loved archbishop from Myra in what is now southwestern Turkey. He lived from 280 AD to 6 December 345 AD, and was later canonised - becoming the patron saint of many diverse people, including boys, pawnbrokers, dockers, coopers, brewers, unsuccessful litigants, unmarried women, and sailors, as well as the inhabitants of Aberdeen and Russia. His name? St Nicholas.

Some of Santa Claus's most enduring traditions stemmed from the life or legends associated with St Nicholas. These included his bringing of gifts, because St Nicholas was well known for his great generosity. Moreover, he allegedly saved the three daughters of a poor man from being sold into prostitution by secretly throwing pursefuls of money into their house through an open window. One of these purses accidentally fell into a stocking that had been hung up to dry after being washed, which gave rise to the custom of putting out stockings at Christmas to be filled with gifts by Santa.

The celebration of St Nicholas became very popular in Europe, but especially so in Holland, where he was called Sinter Klaas. During the early 1600s, Dutch settlers established colonies in North America, and took their traditions of Sinter Klaas with them. Here they flourished, giving rise to a new Yuletide gift-giver, who became known as Santa Claus.

A fairy story from 1906 in which St Nicholas is depicted with many of the characteristics nowadays associated with Santa Claus

In Britain, meanwhile, Father Christmas reigned supreme, but also more sternly than his New World counterpart. For although Father Christmas ultimately became a gift-giver too, according to British custom he only gave gifts to good people, and he (or a helper) carried a cane for punishing those who had been wicked during the year.

Elsewhere in Europe, other gift-givers had also appeared on the scene. In Germany, for instance, Father Christmas is merely a messenger, communicating children's requests for gifts to Heaven - it is the Christ Child (Kriss Kringle), an angelic fair-haired child dressed in white, representing Jesus, who brings the gifts. Spanish children, conversely, receive theirs directly from the Three Kings; whereas in Russia a grandmotherly figure called Babouschka does the present-providing honours.

In southern Italy, a broomstick-riding woman called Befana drops presents down the chimney of every house on 5 January in the hope that one of them will be received by Jesus - to whom she did not give a present when He was born. This was because she was so busy sweeping her home with her broom that she was too late to visit Jesus before Mary and Joseph fled Bethlehem with Him to escape King Herod.

A modern-day cartoon representation of Befana, who is often depicted as a broomstick-riding witch-like figure more befitting of Hallowe-en than Christmas!

As for America: the evolution of today's Santa Claus continued apace with the penning in 1822 by a New York languages professor called Dr Clement Clarke Moore of his now world-renowned poem 'A Visit From St Nicholas', with its famous opening line: "'Twas the night before Christmas". This magical poem contained many of Santa's modern-day attributes, including his plump jolly form, vigorous laugh, sack of toys, reindeer-drawn sleigh, and his inimitable mode of entry into a house via the chimney.

In 1863, Harper's Illustrated Weekly published the first in a classic series of Santa engravings by Thomas Nast, who bestowed upon him an even more rotund, bewhiskered, beaming, toy-laden image. This transformation was completed during the early 1930s by a highly influential Coca-Cola advertising campaign, starring a jovial red-robed Santa skilfully designed by artist Haddon Sundblom. This rapidly became the definitive Santa Claus, delighting generations of children ever since - and not only in the U.S.A.

Just over a century ago, Christmas commercialism in America began to cross the Atlantic, infiltrating Europe and thus bringing the New World's legendary gift-giver with it. Inevitably, Britain's Odin-descended, blue-cloaked, hooded Father Christmas and St Nicholas's red-garbed, nightcap-wearing Santa Claus eventually merged into one. Indeed, many people today assume that these are merely alternative names for the same person - blithely unaware of their entirely separate origins.

Although, from a strictly historical perspective, this is undoubtedly a sad situation, I very much doubt that there will be many children eagerly anticipating the arrival of a certain sleigh-riding visitor this Christmas Eve who will worry too much about which name they should call him by - as long as he has brought with him a sackful of presents!

Typical representation of Santa Claus, garbed in red

SIN CITY RIDER: MEMOIRS OF A VEGAS BIKER - REVIEWING RICK HART'S LATEST BOOK

Rick Hart is and has been many things – a Vegas bartender, a US Air Force military man, an accomplished writer and eloquent poet (as this book readily demonstrates), a highly-skilled martial artist, and much else besides. But first, foremost, and forever, he is a biker.

Me with my copies of Rick's books (Dr Karl Shuker)

Sin City Rider: Memoirs Of A Vegas Biker, Rick's second book, following on from his equally enjoyable and insightful Lines On The Bar – Whiskey On The Rocks, is a thrilling eye-opener of a read, recounting his years as a member of a back-patch motorcycle club beginning in the early 1970s. In it, he strips bare the many romantic, nonsensical images of what being in what is often termed an outlaw club is all about, revealing the true, sometimes gritty, often eventful, but always honour-bound reality. Because despite what you may have read elsewhere, being a club member is much more than riding a bike with your buddies and wearing the colours – it is about loyalty, dignity, being there for your bros, and – above all else – commitment.

Back cover of Sin City Rider

In his club, Rick – or Turk, to give him his club name – was the Sergeant at Arms, responsible for maintaining order and discipline, and the club certainly chose the right man for the job. Rick is someone who others cherish greatly as a friend, knowing that he will ever be there for you, but fear greatly as an enemy, knowing that he will never not be there against you. And once again, the key theme to these twin aspects is commitment – never giving up on anyone or anything, and as his book so evocatively confirms, Rick never does.

This overriding sense of commitment shines through every page of Rick's words, with which he recounts in an engagingly laid-back but ruthlessly honest style of writing just some of the many adventures, good and bad, that he and his fellow club members experienced over the years. There is humour, frustration, surprise, tragedy (I guarantee the final chapter will tear your heart out!), revenge, joy, disappointment, and so much more here, plus a section in which he describes how he felt one night when entirely alone in the Nevada desert outside Vegas with just his Harley for company that is quite simply some of the most evocative poetry that I have ever read.


Many bikers (myself included) have dreamed at some stage or another in our lives of what it must be like to belong to an 'outlaw' motorcycle club, but few of us have shown the courage and single-minded determination to live that dream, to abandon so much of the trappings and chains of the modern age in search of freedom and comradeship, a brotherhood linked by two wheels and the open road. Rick, however, is one of those few who did just that (the chapter in which he describes how he became a patch holder is one of my personal favourites), and this fine book is a moving, spirited testament to that choice.

If you're a biker like me, you will devour page after page of Sin City Rider with a gnawing hunger to experience those long runs with Rick and his bros down the wide, starkly beautiful desert highways – I read it from cover to cover while on holiday recently, and enjoyed every last word. And if you're not a biker, then I strongly suggest that you read this book without delay, and see what you've been missing out on all these years!



And don't forget to check out Rick's previous book too, Lines On The Bar: Whiskey On The Rocks, for an exhilarating, eye-opening insight into the other, much less glamorous, darker side of Las Vegas.

To order either or both of Rick's books online, just click on them at http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.amazon.co.uk/, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/, or directly from their publisher, Xlibris, at http://www.xlibris.com/ - or, if you prefer, you can order by phone from Xlibris on (within the U.S.A.) 888-795-1274 ext 7879, or place an order through your local bookstore.

You need these books! (Dr Karl Shuker)

ORANGE SPERM WHALES AND HERBIVOROUS CHEETAHS - ENTERING THE SPECTACULAR POETICAL WORLD OF MIROSLAV FIŠMEISTER

I have long been a fan of the poetry of Miroslav ('Mirek') Fišmeister from Brno in the Czech Republic, with whom I also share a passion for cryptozoology. I currently own no less than five of Mirek's published books of verse, which he has very kindly translated into English for me.

Reading them is like entering into a vast kaleidoscope of dazzling, multicoloured images that swirl and dance before my eyes in a profusion of never-ending, never-repeated patterns and sequences - infusing my mind with their vivid hues and captivating, lyrical word-play to conjure forth a truly magical world in which the most unexpected concepts are deftly juxtaposed, generating a limitless diversity of wholly original, unforgettable visions and dreams.

So here, to demonstrate just what I mean, is one of my particular favourites from the rich canon of Mirek's poetry, and which appears in Pieter Van Den Hoogenband (2010).


IT'S HALF PAST TEN IN TEN MINUTES

Je za deset minut půl desáté,
a všude jsou čtverce.
Už deset minut
je za deset minut půl desáté,
a něžný oranžový vorvaň
vysezený Elysejským palácem z podkladku
myslí na živé dřevce,
které ve dvou hradech z modrého mramoru
natahují hodiny, stále, stále.
Už šachovou figurku
je za deset minut půl desáté,
a býložravý gepard se žene
za antilopami tvých ňader.
Už Ganyméda
je za deset minut půl desáté.

It’s half past ten in ten minutes,
and squares are everywhere.
For ten minutes already
it’s half past ten in ten minutes,
and a gentle orange sperm whale
hatched by the Élysée Palace from a nest-egg
thinks of living lances
which, in two blue marble castles,
wind up clocks again and again.
For a chess figure already
it‘s half past ten in ten minutes,
and a herbivorous cheetah runs after
the antelopes of your breasts.
For a Ganymede already
it’s half past ten in ten minutes.


My five books of Mirek's poetry are:

Ten Stolek Je Nízk‎‎ý! [The Table is Low!] (Edice Nezavedeni, 2005).

Z (Vĕtrné Ml‎ýny, 2009).

Pieter Van Den Hoogenband (Edice H_aluze, 2010).

Šel Jsem Tím Městem... [The Town I Visited...] (Vydal Oftis Ústi nad Orlici v Roce, 2010).

Barva Času Je Žlutá [Time is Yellow] (Vetus Via, 2011).


And I am truly honoured to be one of the persons to whom Mirek has dedicated Pieter Van Den Hoogenband – thank you so much, Mirek!!

My collection of Mirek's poetry (Dr Karl Shuker)

WHO YA GONNA CALL? CLOUD-BUSTERS!!

Cloud-busting is the alleged ability to dispel clouds using only the power of the mind.

As far back as 1895, French cloud-buster Louis Alphonse Cahagnet claimed that he could select a cloud in the sky and then disintegrate it within the space of 15 minutes simply by directing his thoughts at it. He informed a neighbour, called Lecoq, of his powers, and when Lecoq tried he discovered to his surprise that he too was able to accomplish this feat. Two other friends of Cahagnet, known as Médar and Gérard, also demonstrated this anomalous talent, and when they combined forces with Cahagnet to break up a big grey cloud, each concentrating upon a different portion of it, the cloud duly vanished in 10 minutes.

Perhaps the most famous cloud-buster was New Zealander Dr Rolf Alexander. In 1956, he performed a convincing demonstration at Holne Tor, Devon, in the presence of initially sceptical British journalist Fyfe Robertson. Alexander claimed that he could only disintegrate cumulus clouds, preferably well-formed and not overly large ones, stating that these possessed a very fragile electrical equilibrium, and that because of this he could destroy them by directing his mental energy upon them. He referred to his cloud-busting ability as creative realism, and believed that it may function by neutralising the clouds' electrical charges.

At the end of the demonstration, Robertson was sufficiently impressed by what he had seen to state: "I really find it very difficult not to believe, startling and improbable though it may seem, and almost in spite of myself, that Dr Alexander can disintegrate clouds". Nevertheless, his final, qualifying remark proved to be very prophetic: "Nothing I have seen adds up to the kind of proof which scientists can legitimately demand".

During the mid-1950s, Alexander's abilities were also tested by Denys Parsons from the Society for Psychical Research, in London, and meteorologist Dr Richard Scorer, an expert on cumulus clouds, from London's Imperial College of Science and Technology. This time, Alexander's results were less impressive, and Dr Scorer voiced the following conclusions.

Firstly, he pointed out that cumulus clouds tend to disperse naturally in 15-20 minutes anyway, so that there seems little hope of determining whether a supposed instance of cloud-busting has actually worked if it has taken 15-20 minutes for the cloud-buster's target cloud to disintegrate. Secondly, when a given cumulus cloud breaks up, it is usually replaced very quickly by new ones of similar appearance forming to one or the other side of it. Thus, unless this specific meteorological fact is known to a cloud observer, he may mistakenly assume that he has been watching the same cloud all the time - thereby leading him to believe that the cloud has indeed broken up into laterally-dispersed pieces. This, in Scorer's opinion, was the simplest explanation for Alexander's alleged cloud-busting behaviour.

In response, however, various other cloud-busting practitioners have claimed that they can disintegrate clouds in as short a period of time as 90 seconds. This is far quicker than the time taken for clouds to break up under natural conditions, but no formal scientific tests of such claims appear to have been conducted, so they currently remain unconfirmed.

Cumulus clouds