Flim Flam, Fables, and the Phenomenon

 

The study and pursuit of something so nebulous as UFO phenomena, especially when you are open enough to include tangential phenomena as part of what is often now referred to simply as "The Phenomenon", can feel like a maddening and foolish endeavor. One can investigate UFOs in any number of ways, or some combination of various ways. UFOs have been looked as a sociological phenomenon, and from a psychological perspective. They have been studied in varying types of scientific methodologies, from the astronomical to the statistical. They can be fodder for B-movies and tabloid headlines, or they can be viewed through mystical and occult perspectives. All of these combine in a view of UFOs as modern folklore and myth-making, where the stories themselves are the important part and proof of their veracity or physical reality is secondary. After all, physical evidence is in short supply; it could be that the paradigms we have for determining "reality" of something so strange as UFOs is ill-equipped to contend with how malleable reality really is, that the physical realm isn't the only one, and that the truth tends to be found in unexpected places beyond the grasp of measurable data. 

Even when we consider the folkloric, mythic narratives of high strangeness, we are forced to contend with the old chestnut of reliability of the witness. I have tackled this subject before here on this blog, but for our purposes now I want to explore how witness testimony tends to be handled. A lot of the classic UFO stories were heralded by researchers because of the supposed reliability of the witness to the event; for instance, the Lonnie Zamora encounter- as a policeman he was thought to be trustworthy and a "trained observer". Many other incidents reported by law enforcement are held up as more reliable, and the same treatment gets applied to those serving in the armed forces or to those in academia. We gravitate towards authority when facing the unknown, even if the unknown by definition has no attendant authority figure. It seems that some amount of UFO enthusiasts have turned away from this mindset, and are more likely to consider cases like that of Joe Simonton and his flying saucer flapjacks. Of course, old Joe did have some physical evidence in the form of the pancake, which was tested and found to be composed of mundane, earthly elements- which would seem to discredit his story. It would seem that way, perhaps, but the story still persists, even though Simonton was not a "trained observer". 

Using too many specific examples may bog down the point being made here, but as a general rule most well-known UFO encounter stories, and personalities attached to them, become controversial in one way or another. Retellings of events, attempts at debunking (up to and including character assassination), profiteering, and sensationalism all play a part in weakening the credibility of a story. Sometimes the tales buckle under the weight of a little bit of scrutiny, only to be bolstered by further scrutiny of the sources scrutinizing them. Ultimately, they may fall down completely, or stand tall as a tale of mystery. If my way of writing about this seems absurdly repetitive, that's intentional- the idiosyncratic use of language here illustrates well the distortions caused by the feedback loop in looking closely at the highly strange. The caution here would be not to throw out the proverbial babies with the tubs of proverbial bath water. When scrutiny reveals inconsistencies, it may simply mean that the story is too weird to be related any other way.

UFOlogists have classically hated a hoaxer. Anyone caught in a lie (as a witness, at least) is subject to being written off entirely by some amount of what can loosely be called "the field" of UFOlogy. The major investigation groups abhorred "repeaters" back in the day; it was thought that the odds were against even a singular sighting, and that anyone with multiple such stories was likely to be a liar or mentally ill. If such a person also dabbled in magic, or lived in a haunted house, or once saw Bigfoot, the credibility meter would drop much further. Sometimes you would have what sounded like a "normal" UFO sighting, and the attendant other phenomena would be omitted from the report for fear that it would undermine the legitimacy of the primary story. In the service of presenting a palatable truth, only a half-truth was presented- and lies of omission are still lies, which then undermines the investigator... resulting in more proverbial babies being lost in the flood of discarded bath water.

We all know that lying is wrong, even though all of us do it all of the time in small ways. Even back in the days of Aesop tales were told about the dangers of lies, and the boy who cried "wolf" served as a cautionary tale. On the other hand, as noted by Aristotle, the liar can tell the truth without having to worry about being taken at his word. Maybe the UFOs, whatever they may actually be, understand this aspect of narrative and choose to visit liars simply because no one will believe them. We can extrapolate from this that they might be more likely to appear in front of someone who is under the influence of drugs, or to a comedian who no-one would take seriously. To mix fables here, perhaps the wolf is really a UFO in wolf's clothing, and no matter how much the shepherd boy cries it won't prove a thing about the reality of wolves or UFOs.

In the interest of reinforcing this unconventional idea, by way of truth-finding via unlikely source material in our own peculiar idiosyncratic fashion, let us look at the Phenomenon as Flim Flam and Fable through two obscure sources from the 1960s. 

A 1960 Mexican movie, La Nave de los Monstruos (Ship of Monsters) becomes an unlikely candidate for illustrating the nature of the Phenomenon. It stars a popular actor, comedian, and singer / songwriter of Mexico during that era named Eulalio González, often called "Piporro". He is a singing cowboy who tells all manner of fish tales to his friends, all of whom rightly dismiss his stories. It's only natural that when a pair of buxom space ladies from Venus land the titular ship of monsters in search of a male earth specimen, they find Piporro's character Lauriano.

It would be easy to dismiss the movie as B-movie balderdash, even if, like your humble writer you are a fan of the genre. La nave de monstruos has in spades everything one could want from a B-movie; monsters, a cheesy robot, pin-up beauties, and even a vampire and some musical numbers. It also does not take itself too seriously, and its the very playfulness of the movie that makes it so profoundly appropriate in relation to the Phenomenon. When no one believes Lauriano about his experiences at the end of the movie, he is able to laugh about it and go on living his best singing cowboy life. And although the assemblage of elements in the story are absurd, they all have corollaries in the annals of UFO testimony. The creature on the poster, for instance, bears a passing resemblance to the humanoids reported in the Pascagoula abduction event, which occurred over a decade after the movie's release. The Venusian woman aren't very different from the alleged flying saucer occupants contactees like Truman Bethurum or Orfeo Angelucci wrote about. The movie also has a scene in which a cow is reduced to a skeleton in an instant, at a time well before cattle mutilation became associated with UFOs. 

The purpose for the Venusian mission is to find specimens to help repopulate Venus, hence the monsters which range from a cyclopean named Uk to a Martian prince, vaguely in the form of a grey alien, named Tagual. This fits in with the famous Antonio Villas-Boas case, in which he is forced to copulate with an alien, and also later narratives about genetic and reproductive motives behind abductions that became popular in the 1980s. It's worth mentioning as well that Villas-Boas was often characterized as a farmer, less reliable and respectable than one might prefer in a witness, but this is not true. He went on to lead a normal life, and became a successful lawyer. 

Ultimately, the movie is a fun romp and well worthy of a viewing. It may interest those who are interested in UFO lore, as it were, to look at it as an allegory for the Phenomenon more broadly.

Similarly, we see this kind of narrative play out in an episode of Twilight Zone called "Hocus Pocus and Frisby". It's certainly one of the sillier episodes of the Zone, and doesn't often rate on most lists of episodes that defined the series. However, the silliness of it mirrors the absurdity of UFO stories, replete with an unreliable narrator and an incredulous audience for his recounting of events. Rod Serling introduces Frisby in his inimitable way thusly:

He has all the drive of a broken camshaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. As you've no doubt gathered, his big stock in trade is the tall tale. Now, what he doesn't know is that the visitors out front are a very special breed, destined to change his life beyond anything even his fertile imagination could manufacture.

Frisby is a shopkeeper, regaling his customers with whoppers so big Abe Simpson would blush at the telling. He is played by Andy Devine, known for his work in westerns and his whistling, wavering voice. The townsfolk balk at Frisby's grandiose lies of valor and genius, but he is unperturbed and keeps telling them. No one believes him, but, as we come to learn, they love hearing his stories even if they are visibly unconvinced.

As he is closing up for the day, a pair of well dressed men in a black car pull up outside looking for fuel. Frisby can't resist his impulses, and tells them all about his inventions in automotive history and his ingenious innovations in science. The two men are impressed, and say they will see him again very soon. The Men in Black phenomenon has a very obvious resonance here. The men act strangely, seem unfamiliar with very mundane things, and cryptically tell Frisby they will see him again soon. 

It turns out that these MiB are aliens, who have landed their craft somewhere nearby. They act unfamiliar with mundane things because they are visitors from another planet, and such mundane things are exotic to them. Also alien to their perspective is the concept of dishonesty. They take Frisby at his word, and decide he is an exemplary specimen to collect and bring back to their home planet. They selected him purely because of his lies, and when he tells the truth- that he is full of hot air and just enjoys spinning a yarn, it has no effect against their decision. He manages to escape by playing his harmonica badly. For some reason the sound of the musical instrument is incredibly painful to the aliens and messes up their technology. Naturally, the teller of insane tales finds himself in an insane situation, escaping because of an unbelievable weakness these extraterrestrial visitors have.

He arrives back at his shop to find his friends have set up a surprise 63rd birthday party for him, and they present him with a trophy for The World's Greatest Liar. Of course they don't believe their old pal, and never will- but they love the stories and celebrate him specifically for his tremendous yarns. Tell us another one, Frisby, we all want to hear it... Going from one group who wants him because they believe his lies to be true, back to the safety of those who feel a sense of truth to the certainty of his lies, we have an approximation of the way the lore in UFO history goes. 

Perhaps we also have an idea about the inherent mechanisms in the behaviors and motivations of these crafts and their reported occupants. At the very least, I am led to believe we have a rough guide on the best way to proceed- with a laugh, a song and dance, or a tall tale with good cheer and friendship. After all, that's really what it's all about.

The Marlborough Mystery and the Bones of the 23 Enigma

 In November of 1913, a ship called the Johnson made a gruesome discovery. While traveling past a cove off the coast of Chile, they spotted a derelict ship which appeared to be in good condition and the captain decided to investigate. Upon approaching the vessel, it quickly became apparent that the ship was in bad shape- a green moss was growing on the sails and masts, and the wood was rotting away. Most disturbing of all, the only people aboard were long dead- the captain, now little more than a skeleton, was found still clutching the helm's wheel! A few of the crew were also reduced to bones above deck, and though investigation proved difficult due to the unstable nature of the boat, the Johnson crew found more skeletons in the mess area. They also determined that the shipment of lumber was still intact, and they discovered the name of the vessel- Marlborough of Glasgow.

Upon landing in Lyttelton, New Zealand, the captain of the Johnson reported the discovery to learn that the Marlborough had left their port in 1890- 23 years earlier- with a crew of 23 men- never to be heard from again. The captain, named Hird, was bound for Glasgow and had last been seen in the Straits of Magellan. How had the men died? And when? Had they all died at once, leaving a literal skeleton crew to sail about for over two decades before coming to rest in the place they had been discovered? How had the ship not been dashed upon rocks or sunk during a storm in all those years?

These are the bones, as it were, of the Marlborough Mystery story. This version of events appears in FATE Magazine, written up by Vincent H. Gaddis in the March, 1951 issue. It would later be included in Frank Edwards' Strangest of All (1956), Brad Steiger's The Unknown (1966), and in Into the Strange by Warren Smith in 1968. (Many thanks to Dr. Jerrold Coe, whose wonderful blog is well worth perusal, for pointing me to these sources.) As with any mystery, and with many of the timeworn tales of Forteana or seafaring superstitions and legends, there are minor variations on the details. The major implications remain consistent, and the questions brought about by them are terrifying and mind-bending. If we are to entertain the mystery, taking the basic story for granted, we can imagine all sorts of fanciful explanations. Perhaps there was a time slip of some kind, or perhaps the dead sailors were cursed to be corporeal revenants, manning a vessel even as the flesh fell from their frames. No doubt some would speculate that aliens were involved, or point to some strange conspiracy related to Atlantis. Just as the fog rolls in over the sea, the questions overwhelm the mind. The imagined monsters hiding in the fog become grandiose, and without the visibility of the stars to guide a course we are stuck in place- not unlike the Marlborough.

The repetition of the number 23 is significant, particularly since it applies here to a lost boat. 23 seems to appear often in strange tales, and is hailed by Discordians as being particularly important. Robert Anton Wilson popularized the 23 Enigma in the 1970s, and credits its discovery to William S Burroughs in a 1977 issue of Fortean Times. Burroughs, he claimed, knew a man called Captain Clark who boasted about having 23 years of experience at sea without an accident. Upon setting sail, his ship crashed and killed everyone on board- a cruel twist of fate. While thinking about this later, he heard about the crash of an airliner- Flight 23- off the coast of Florida. The pilot was named Captain Clark.

The 23 Enigma, then, might be seen as an ominous one, though that is not always the case. 23 seems to be a number of mystery, of fate, and the interconnecting nature of things. Wilson would go on to include the Enigma in his works, notably as part of his journey into the Chapel Perilous in Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati. The 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet is Psi, which has applications in fields as nebulous as quantum mechanics, psychology, and of course in parapsychology, where "Psi" effects relate to all manner of ESP, psychokinesis, and other wild talents. 

Noticing the frequency of the number in relation to Odd Things is a wonderful example of synchronicity at play in the world, so long as you employ the "Maybe Logic" of RAW and interrogate your own Belief System (BS). Otherwise, madness is a danger, like Jim Carrey in the 2007 movie The Number 23 experiences. The mysteries of 23 are perhaps best left as an indicator, something to be noted peripherally- as synchronicity largely should be. These events and symbols often act as signs, directing you on a path, but are not themselves the path forward. One can easily lose sight of the forest for the synchronici-trees.

The author's own house marker

Having established the anomalous significance of the 23 years the Marlborough apparently drifted with only skeletons to pilot it, we can now pierce through the fog of the unknown and perhaps satisfy some of these concerns. Looking at newspaper articles from 1913, further discrepancies in the narrative appear. Two examples follow, from the New Smyrna Daily News (December 5, 1913) and The Star Tribune (December 14, 1913) respectively:

These two articles present very different versions of events, despite being published within ten days of each other and both allegedly derived from news "cabled in from New Zealand". These discrepancies also conflict with the later FATE Magazine article, most disappointing among them the number of crew members. Both earlier sources say the ship had left port with 33 crew members, not 23- and that 20-30 skeletons were found onboard. One of the two also notes that 3 passengers had been aboard the ship when it left port. The biggest difference between the two news sources cited above is that while The New Smyrna Daily News version presents it as one among thousands of mysteries of seafaring, The Star Tribune heavily implies that the crew were massacred and the cargo was looted by "the wild tribes of Patagonia".  This is inconsistent with other accounts in their description of Puntas Arenas, where the ship is alleged to have been found. It was conjectured that the ship would have drifted into the cove after the death of the crew precisely because it was a heavily trafficked area, and could not have gone undetected for the 23 years it was missing had it crashed there. Also, the area is described as one which was populated and visited by merchants- hardly fitting the racist depiction of "wild tribes" looting ships for cargo. The cargo in question is another great discrepancy between these early accounts and the later Fortean retellings- it wasn't lumber that the Marlborough carried, but rather mutton and wool!

In the 19th century shipping meat was risky business, and expensive. Refrigeration was accomplished by way of ice, which had to be naturally sourced. The Marlborough and its sister ship, the Dunedin, were among the earliest ships to utilize new methods of artificial refrigeration for such long-distance meat trade. The freezing plants in these early refrigerated "reefer" ships were well insulated and used methods of air cooling through rapid evaporation, with ammonia or ether creating the necessary chemical reaction. Given that the Dunedin also disappeared without a trace that same year, one wonders if perhaps a leak of vapors from these early cooling systems was the culprit for the death of the respective crews. Whatever the case, it doesn't explain how the skeletons of the Marlborough ended up where they did. 

 It might be helpful at this juncture to pause and consider again the number 23, our ship having entered a realm between light and shadow, between science and superstition. We could do worse than using The Twilight Zone as a way of contextualizing this story! Rod Serling's groundbreaking TV series had many episodes centered around ill-fated boats and planes. The most pertinent of these is Season 2, Episode 3- The Arrival. The above image is a still from 5 minutes and 23 seconds into the show, with a prominent "23" in the background. (This is Hangars 2 and 3, much like the season and episode number.) The story is about a plane that lands in an airport without a crew or any passengers onboard- and the hard-nosed investigator who has never failed to solve a case is determined to figure out how, and why. (Here the author implores you to find and watch this episode, if you're not familiar with it. It's just great and it's about to be spoiled.) In the process of investigating with staff members at the airport, he realizes that one of them reported the plane had blue seats for passengers, while another saw them as red. The case is thus solved: the DC-3 airliner before them doesn't exist at all. It is merely an illusion that only exists because they all agree that it does, but focusing on any details in particular reveals its illusory nature.

Such may well be the case with the 23, or 20, or 30 skeletons of the Marlborough and their final destination on the rocky shores of Puntas Arenas. The earliest known news source on this was The Straits Times out of Singapore- one wonders why it wouldn't have made the news first in New Zealand, since that's where the Johnson allegedly reported it and the last place Captain Hird (or Herd, depending on the source) was seen alive. The story of the skeletons of the Marlborough are largely thought to be a fiction, alongside other tales of it being found adrift elsewhere, or reports that the crew had survived. There are variations on the skeleton story going back to 1891, within a year of the ship's disappearance- and perhaps, the 23rd year of its voyage into the fateful waters of the Wyrd gave it the extra mystique needed to garner extra attention. With the rolling tides of passing decades, worn bare by distance in time and space the reported facts that remained beguiled and attracted readers of FATE, only to inspire more retellings yet. The Marlborough and its sister ship were lost to the sea, like so many other boats and planes, without a definite reason- and the Johnson may never have existed in the first place.

One wonders if Burroughs ever knew a man called Clark who captained a vessel into history, inspiring Robert Anton Wilson to write about the 23 Enigma. In a brief search for the "Flight 23" he claims to have heard about "sometime around 1960", one finds a crash in the Gulf of Mexico occurred on November 16th, 1959- piloted by a Captain Todd. His flight engineer was one George Clark. Was there actually a Flight 23 piloted by a Captain Clark? One wonders how much it really matters. This gets to the central nature of the 23 Enigma alluded to above; it is pure hubris to expect anything other than fluidity when we're concerning ourselves with truth and storytelling. The rising and falling of the waves may make one seasick, but the sense of adventure on the high seas and the mysteries obscured by the fog and the murky deep thrill and inspire us. As we sail, we may see Captain Clark on a boat or a plane going by; we may pass a ship crewed only by skeletons. We may see UFOs or sea serpents, for that matter. With the ocean spray in our faces, we venture into the unknown- determined to return to port with stories to tell.

23 Skidoo!

Nessie-a-Day #3 - Sail into the (Synchro)Mystic

Today's Nessie post is a bit of a mind-bender and one I probably put way much thought into. It involves a bit of the Fortean "Name Game", and plays on words from the old Fortean Times magazine, with a nod to cryptozoologist / author Loren Coleman's Twilight Language, which he defines as "the study of hidden meanings and synchronistic connections via onomatology (the study of names) and toponymy (study of place names)". And Mr. Coleman, if you're reading this, I apologize in advance for what may be a sloppy version of the work you do - and by no means do I wish to diminish it!

In the aforementioned Fortean Times issues, the game was "Lexi-Links", coined by Anthony Bell. It's the pun-like repetition and distortion of names and symbols linked to anomalous phenomena. And given the F. W. Holiday synchronicity alluded to in Nessie-a-Day #1, and all the ado given it's due, let's do the thing and proceed.

The "Surgeon" in question, who is allegedly took the photograph this series is celebrating, is often referred to in reports as a Dr. Wilson, or Kenneth Wilson, but the man's full name was Robert Kenneth Wilson. (It's likely to my mind that he preferred to go by "Kenneth".) Well as a devout Discordian (except every other Thursday, when I choose a religion randomly out of a hat to ascribe to) it's hard to see that name without thinking of Robert Anton Wilson, the author of  Illuminatus! and Episkopos, Pope and saint of Discordianism.

He was actually born Robert Edward Wilson, a year or so before the first major Nessie sightings. Technically, he earned a PhD in psychology from Paideia University in 1978 - making he, too, a doctor - but that particular university is now closed, and was unaccredited in the time he spent there. R.K. Wilson was a gynecologist, and was described as someone who "enjoyed a good practical joke" - The story behind the surgeon's photo is that it was staged by the nephew of the humiliated would-be monster hunter Marmaduke Wetherell, and given to Wilson who could play the role of a more reliable and unbiased witness. Compare this to R.A. Wilson, a notorious prankster who, along with popularizing Discordianism, was one of the driving forces behind Operation Mindfuck - which often involved prank letters printed in magazines and newspapers...

The two Dr. Roberts above made me think of the Beatles song from the 1966 album Revolver, which made me think of the "Mr. Wilson" reference in the song Taxman from the same album, which made me think of the hit single Yellow Submarine - which reminded me of the VIPERFISH, a mini-sub piloted by Dan Taylor in the Loch in 1969 in search of Nessie. The sub was yellow... I wasn't sure any of that was significant, but I tend to think that I'm an Idiosyncratic Synchromystic whether I admit it or not. So my thought is: Every particular thing is significant, except for those things that aren't. Looking into the recording details of the song Dr Robert, it was recorded on April 17, 1966, and the vocals were recorded April 19th - the 32nd anniversary of the shutter click heard round the world. Also worth noting - 1966 is the year Paul McCartney died, if you believe the Paul is Dead theories. I'm with RAW, who said "belief is the death of intelligence"...

I'm not the first to note the confluence of Wilsons - self-proclaimed Wizard, Artist, and raconteur Tony "Doc" Shiels (who is intimately tied to Loch Ness - he famously "summoned" the monster and will absolutely be covered in a future post) wrote in the Autumn 1982 issue of Fortean Times:

'W' is the 23rd letter of the alphabet...twenty three skidoo, Weishaupt and Wilson! Wilson (viz: Robert Anton, Kenneth, and Colin) is a name with weird worm and wizardry associations, so we will keep it in mind: 

Of course, he also includes Colin Wilson, who I mentioned in the F. W. Holiday post as being responsible for Holiday's The Goblin Universe being published - which examines the whole of weird phenomena as a network of otherwordly symptoms - synchronicity prominent among them - all having a common cause, or controlling force. The word "goblin" is thought by some to be associated with a later term, "gremlin", which brings me to the next Wilson on my list...

This Robert Wilson isn't a doctor, in fact, he's presented as a recently discharged patient. He goes by "Bob" instead of "Robert", and his other distinguishing characteristic is that he's entirely fictional. Bob Wilson is the name of the character played by William Shatner in the classic 1963 Twilight Zone (Twilight - Language, Zone!) episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Wilson is on an airplane, alone in his awareness of the monstrous gremlin on the wing threatening to kill everyone aboard. It's a bizarre and truly nightmarish scenario, where the line between sanity and reality is unclear for everyone involved. It is, also, a great metaphor for monomaniacal pursuits of various Fortean phenomena - always seeing things or knowing things that you can't easily communicate to the average person, like a sighting of a lake monster, or spending a Saturday night deconstructing a Twilight Zone episode to make it relate to the Loch Ness Monster...

via GIPHY

Eventually, the episode culminates in Wilson stealing a revolver (!) from a sleeping policeman and opening the emergency hatch to fire on the creature, which then departs. In the end, he's vindicated by the physical damage to the fuselage, but is wheeled away in a straightjacket all the same. In 1983, the story was done for the movie version of the Twilight Zone, with Jon Lithgow playing John Valentine. The only name I could relate this to was Michael Valentine of Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein, but I couldn't grok any real meaning out of it so I abandoned it. It's worth mentioning simply because it extends the Fortean metaphor; Valentine attempts, in desperation, to get a Polaroid photo of the gremlin, only to have the flash thwart him and leave him with a picture of his own sweaty, frenzied face - echoing Holiday's observation of Nessie's eerie aversion to being photographed... Deep, man...

The most recent offering from Jordan Peele, Nightmare at 30,000 Feet, is more of an homage to the classic story, and is quite different. I won't go into too much detail, as it's still new and I wouldn't want to spoil it, but the lead role is played by Adam Scott, and instead of Valentine or Wilson the character is named Justin Sanderson. Old school Forteans will recognize the name Sanderson - Ivan T. Sanderson wrote a great deal of literature on weird phenomena, as well as the foreword to Holiday's The Great Orm of Loch Ness... as for the name Scott - Sir Peter Scott was a respected naturalist who studied the Loch for signs of a hidden beastie and was the one who named her Nessiteras Rhombopteryx - Latin for Ness Dweller with a Diamond Shaped Fin. It was noted not long after that the term is also an anagram for "Monster Hoax by Sir Peter S". That may well just be the Goblin Universe having a bit of fun with us... Shiels notes that it also can be "Tony's ESP beats hex... Mirror" and that Scott is a name long associated with magic (Michael, Reginald, Sir Walter).

Of course, prior to Richard Matheson's fictional tale of a man on the wing made television history, there were reports of gremlins tinkering with planes. The phenomena is almost as old as aviation itself. During the Battle of Britain in 1940, reports of gremlins messing with aircraft were so common the Ministry had a service manual written by "Gremlorist" on how to handle them!

1940 began with a bang, or perhaps a splash - though not specifically gremlin related, a New Year's even training flight over Loch Ness resulted in a Wellington bomber sinking into the depths. The bomber was numbered N2980, but the nickname was - ready for it? R for Robert. The sunken WWII bomber was discovered in 1976 during the sonar surveys of the Loch, 230 ft below the surface. In the mid-eighties, efforts were conducted to retrieve the lost bomber by an organization called the Loch Ness Wellington Association, headed up by chairperson Robin Holmes.

Which brings us to our Nessie-a-Day #2 entry about the movie prop -from a Sherlock Holmes film- that was found twice during surveys of the Loch - the sunken monster, which was, in the movie, a submarine disguised as a monster, and was intentionally sunk at the end. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes was a 1970 movie by Billy Wilder, while in 1975 Gene Wilder starred in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother... The filming by Wilder on location at Urquhart Bay was in 1969, and was assisted by a submarine called the Pisces II, while the yellow submarine VIPERFISH was also in the Loch, hoping to catch a piece of Nessie... The same year Abbey Road was released, with the "28IF" license plate on the cover...

This is now degenerating as these things tend to do - this has been an exhausting post and I hope you made it this far. I'll leave you with one more snippet from Tony "Doc" Shiels, again from a Fortean Times magazine which also features articles from Loren Coleman and Robert Anton Wilson...

The names Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson can be anagrammatized into such telegrammatic lines as "O NO! WHAT? JOHN KEEL LANDS COY LOCH NESS ORM!" or "JOKE ON LOCH NESS AND LOCAL MONSTER, OH, WHY?"

References / links / further reading:

• https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/07/the-real-gremlins-of-wwii/
• https://copycateffect.blogspot.com
• http://www.donttakepictures.com/dtp-blog/2017/4/19/the-loch-ness-monster-turns-83-the-story-of-the-surgeons-photograph
• Monster Wrecks of Loch Ness and Lake Champlain by Joseph Zarzynski, 1986
• Fortean Times - issues 37 and 38 (Fall 1982 and Spring 1983)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Robert
• https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3555152/flight-fright-richard-mathesons-nightmare-20000-feet-many-adaptations/
• Alien Animals by Janet and Colin Bord
• Alien Dawn by Colin Wilson