Arthurian Legends

A science fiction writer, inventor and undersea explorer investigated myths in his own television series, and unfortunately became the target of a particularly unpleasant one, himself, many years later.

Arthur C Clarke 1917 - 2008

In the '70s it was Leonard Nimoy who brought the world’s mysteries into our living room via his acclaimed In Search Of series.

His successor in the early ‘80s was a bald, bespectacled West-Countryman. He didn’t have Nimoy’s star power or charisma, but to my friends and I he was a star of a completely different magnitude - Arthur C Clarke wrote one of the greatest films ever made: 2001: A Space Odyssey. As I discovered his other novels he fast became one of my heroes.

The men behind 2001, writer Arthur C Clarke, and director Stanley Kubrick.

He pioneered groundbreaking work on the early warning radar system during World War II and later the concept of geostationary satellites; predicting their potential for global communication. He commentated live on the Apollo 11 moon landing, served as a patron for charities combating polio and preserving gorillas, was an avid diver who discovered a sunken temple off the Sri Lankan coast and wrote 80 novels.

The day before my birthday I decided to treat myself to a book and spotted the television ‘companion book’ to the series I’m alluding to: Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World, in a second-hand bookshop. It’s one of those books I always meant to get, a lot of people I knew owned it, but somehow I never got around to it. Picking the book up from a pile not yet shelved, I’d just noted its perfect condition when the shop-owner asserted: “Five dollars”.

Happy birthday to me…

But before we return to his wonderful television series Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World, lets address a little bit of ugliness first.
Already having been appointed a CBE, Clarke’s knighthood for services to literature was announced in the 1998 New Year’s honours list. However, when the Sunday Mirror accused him of paedophelia, he requested the investiture be delayed until his name was cleared.
After an investigation the accusation was found to be completely baseless (and possibly part of a Sri Lankan conspiracy to discredit Clarke and embarrass Britain on the occasion of a royal visit by Prince Charles).
Clarke received his Knighthood in 2000 and five years later, the highest civil honour Sri Lanka could bestow: the Sri Lankabhimanya.

Unfortunately, that kind of defamation can still cause irreparable damage, and I know I’m not the only person to have been more aware of the accusation than his exoneration.

Clarke scuba diving in Sri Lanka

Moving on…

The book I parted with a princely sum for was published in 1980 to correspond with the screening of the Mysterious World series, and is redolent with the graphic design of that time, heavy egyptian serifed headlines and neatly drawn key lines around the many photographs.

It’s also delightful, more or less following the format of series with separate chapters on everything from lake monsters to UFOs to the Tunguska explosion. The book is actually written by Simon Welfare and John Fairley, but each chapter is closed with a comment from Clarke, where he gives his personal interpretation of the particular mystery.

Each time the impression that Clarke believes mysteries are important because they are so far unquantifiable, is apparent. Do any of us really want to see Nessie or a sasquatch caught, scientifically labelled and corralled? Surely this would only diminish our sense of wonder about the world (to say nothing of the harm it would do to these new species)?

It is also fascinating to read about the the science of the day being applied to less glamorous phenomena like ball lightning and the moving rocks in Death Valley, and to see how little we’ve advanced in thirty five years to come any closer to a definitive explanation.

A scene from last year's television adaptation of Clarke's novel Childhood's End.

Clarke ends his remarks in a playful fashion:
“Mysteries are fun. Even if they are only nature’s practical jokes, they add to our enjoyment of the marvellous universe around us…
If we can find the answers to as many as ten percent, I should be very pleased - and surprised.
And even if we got the answers to one hundred per cent, there are plenty more where they came from…”

When Arthur C Clarke’s death was announced in March 2008, I just happened to be listening to the radio at the time. The National programme played this excerpt from 2001 as a tribute...

The two least emotional characters in cinema history,
Dave Bowman and HAL 9000, break your heart

Ghost at the feast

Having looked at more chilling New Zealand Ghost stories, here is my own merely puzzling experience of ‘the other side’.

Encounters with the spirit world are meant to be spooky – unsettling, even terrifying, but my long-dreamt-of experience was positively convivial.  Rather than creeping through a dark, abandoned house I was standing in a packed kitchen, at a party, surrounded by laughing and chatting people.

The house, however, was most definitely haunted.  Not long after moving into the area, our neighbour didn’t waste any time in telling us about her ‘full house’. Catherine was a sunny, eternally youthful woman in her late 50s, always smiling, and attempting to frighten anyone would be the furthest thing from her mind.  But she soon realised that I had a fascination for the supernatural and would always fill me in on her latest happenings at home.  She happened to live in a very old house, or at least one composed of parts of very old houses which seemed to retain the essences of their previous inhabitants.  Catherine appeared to be especially sensitive to their presence, and knew them all.

There was a blind man and his dog, Catherine had heard the sound of slow footsteps and his cane tapping along her hallway walls.  One part of her home was originally a schoolhouse, so the ‘Grey Lady’ who dwelt there was assumed to have been a teacher.

Catherine’s husband, Cliff, was a very pragmatic man and accepted her unusual perception of these things as a point of fact, admitting to only ever having seen shadows or indistinct shapes himself.  Catherine was clearly a few more rungs further up the ladder of second sight than the rest of us, and I think this would occasionally cause her distress because she told me about a defence she employed when it became ‘too much’.  She would imagine a soldier standing in each corner of her bedroom before she went to sleep at night, watching over her protectively, and it seemed to work  Mainly though, I think the presences were not much more troublesome than mice, although appearances did sometimes seem to herald misfortune in Catherine’s family.

She and Cliff had just completed some major alterations to their home, including a large brand new kitchen, and it was here we all stood at their ‘house re-warming’ party, grouped around a large freestanding bench.  I was talking to someone, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure move past the other side of the open kitchen doorway, heading down a short hallway to the front door which was not visible from where we were standing. The part of my mind which wasn’t engaged in the conversation had just realised that I was anticipating the sound of the door opening but had heard nothing; when Catherine said quietly beside me: “I’ve just seen the Grey Lady”.

There was no shiver down my spine, just the thrill at having finally seen a phenomenon for myself which I’d been desperate to experience all my life.  As far as I could tell, Catherine and I had been the only people present aware of the apparition.  And what did the Grey Lady look like?  Well, to me, exactly like the indistinct shape you see when someone walks past at the very periphery of your vision – except completely silent.  Literally a shade.  As I mentioned, I suspect there are degrees of perception  in these situations.  My own ‘extra senses’ are probably quite dull and I’ll only ever be able to glimpse dim figures if anything at all. But someone like Catherine, for whatever reason, has a clearer awareness of visitors from this other world, whatever they might be.

 

An illustration for someone else's more thrilling ghost story, which unfortunately turned out to be a hoax.

The Twilight Godzone

You don’t have to look to far-off crumbling Gothic mansions or European castles for a good Ghost Story, we have plenty here in New Zealand.

Happy Waitangi Day, if that well-wish can ever be applied to a day so infused with controversy and discord. Whatever this significant date has come to mean, it’s my belief that New Zealand is now a country of many cultures, though most often characterised by the designations Maori and Pakeha.
And this seems no more obvious than in the two volumes of collected ‘true’ ghost stories published by Shoal Bay Press and Long Acre press respectively: Where No Birds Sing (1998) and it’s follow-up When the Wind calls your Name (1999) both by Grant Shanks and Tahu Potiki.

My learned friend and proud fifth generation New Zealand friend over at Jetsam: :http://jetsimian.blogspot.co.nz discovered that we each owned a different volume and suggested a synchronised blog, both of us writing about the book we had. Mr Jet's erudite post can be found here http://jetsimian.blogspot.co.nz/2014/02/new-land-old-spirits.html
As both volumes very much represent this country’s dual identity, through differing but intersecting spirituality and shared history, he went on to wisely recommend today for going ‘live’.

When The Wind Calls Your Name is the second book, published due to the enthusiastic response the first collection provoked. It is true that the tales can be roughly divided in nature into Maori and Pakeha-themed accounts, often by the European convention of the haunted house (or more disturbingly, Satanism as in the stories The Ouijia Board and Satan’s Knife) and the equally-chilling consequences of Tapu. But I would suggest subcategories as well:

Apparitions from, and ghostly re-enactments of, Maori history (Waka in the Forest and Pa on the Peninsula) can manifest without Tapu being broken or any willful wrong committed. Elsewhere, in both cultures helpful, benign entities can make an impression upon the living - as can darker forces. And some accounts are merely inexplicable; co-incidences and unique combinations of circumstance reaching just to the other side of the rational (The Little Boat). In the case of stories involving a ‘bad place’, often exorcisms or liftings of Tapu are performed by elders from either New Zealand culture (and in this book at least this is always successful). And in one case the tainted location is vacated without resolution (The Store of Memories). Interestingly, in the Maori-themed stories the ‘bad place’ is usually often found in the great outdoors, while the European instances they are almost always a house or building.

Throughout my years in this beautiful and welcoming country, my own encounters with Maori and the rich cultural heritage permeating this land have always been positive and enriching. When the Wind calls your Name only increases my respect.
This little paperback has also been a cherished companion over the years, and has accompanied us on camping holidays when turns are taken for torch-lit readings. Naturally, the fact that the accounts are not only New Zealand-grown, but true, always adds more than a small frisson of chills as we unconsciously burrow down deeper into our sleeping bags and glance at shadows cast on the canvas around us.

Tomorrow I will post my own supernatural encounter, hardly worthy of inclusion in either of Shanks and Potiki’s books, but no less true.

Phasmellaneous

A scrapbook of addenda

As the end of the month approaches I’ve realised that I’ve collected miscellaneous ephemera which relate to previous blog posts, but fell into my hands too late to be included at the time. Some of it, like the comments which appeared on the Marlborough Express facebook page in response to my Kaikoura UFOs infographic, (one of them suggesting an explanation I hadn’t come across before), seemed too quirky not to share.
So as usual, I crave your indulgence, and hope you find something here to enjoy, or at least divert.

 25/11/13

In your face Marvel!  Second highest grossing movie nationwide for that week – never in our wildest dreams, right?

 

20/12/13

Thank you silly season!  I re-wrote a less personal and more factual version of my Snoopy’s Christmas blog for publication in late December and a few papers ran with it.  In fact, the Southland Times gave it most of a full page.

 02/01/14

A selection of comments relating to the Kaikoura UFOs infographic which I completed on Christmas Eve: http://fasmatodea.blogspot.co.nz/2013/12/the-southern-lights.html  Four newspapers ran it on Boxing Day, making my all-nighter worth it.

20/01/14

Rocketman!

My friend Dave, a Photoshop Jedi Master of huge renown, whipped up this suggestion for speedier crutches-based transportation. If only...

Why, I otter...

In mid-November last year, news of another New Zealand cryptid raised its whiskery head...

Invercargill-based author Lloyd Esler made the news as he carried out research into sightings of the elusive New Zealand otter for a chapter of his upcoming book.
"I have spoken with 11 people who are either adamant they have seen an otter or are puzzled by an otter-like animal" Esler remarked. Particularly intrigued by the number of sightings and their concentration in one area, he admitted that this suggests a mystery animal existed in Western Southland.

Going  on to speculate about escaped imported otters giving rise to a small population, Esler surprisingly made no mention of the long history of the Waitoreke, or Kaukere, a supposed native mammal resembling an otter, (or in some cases, beaver) first mentioned by Captain Cook.

The infographic below gives a more detailed history of this intriguing, but admittedly unlikely, creature. It is interesting to note that in many cases sightings were made by people very capable of discerning an unknown creature from more common introduced species.
 

 

The Southern Lights

35 years ago, New Years Eve in New Zealand made world headlines,
but not for any reasons you might expect. 

The final day of 2013 has dawned hot and bright – already the best day weather-wise since Christmas, over a week ago.  And this is quite natural, as this also happens to be my first day back at work, since finishing an absurd 22 hour shift on Christmas Eve.

Part of the reason for this rather long day was my determination to complete a project which I first began working on in the middle of this year, but then found less and less time available to work on as my job spiralled into the purgatory of ‘admin’.

Today is the 35^th anniversary of one of the world’s most famous UFO sightings. And it happened more or less above my head as twelve-year-old me slept on oblivious to the fact that the Marlborough skies were at that moment full of a phenomenon which I usually sent everyone else to sleep with.

I do remember seeing the now-famous footage shot by Quentin Fogarty’s camera crew, soon afterwards, on their return to Blenheim in the very early hours of December 31 1978. Although reportedly feeling as if their Argosy freighter was being played with by the mysterious objects like a lumbering fishing boat surrounded by a mischievous pod of darting, leaping dolphins, the film sadly does little to convey this. Instead a fuzzy, ‘squashed orange’ bumped around TV screens all over the country (and eventually the world) accompanied by Fogarty’s excited narrative.  In fact, I’m pretty certain we didn’t even have a colour TV then, but the even less impressive result did little to curb my enthusiasm.

Despite being the only case of unidentified flying objects ever verified by multiple radar sources and visual sightings simultaneously, (amounting to several reliable witnesses including  experienced air crews and air traffic controllers), and on top of all that actually filmed – few people seem to remember this incident today.  The only echoes of it I was aware of years later came from seeing pilot Captain Bill Startup’s son ribbed in my seventh form class, because of his father’s experiences.

I managed to acquire both Bill Startup’s book (The Kaikoura UFOs) and journalist Quentin Fogarty’s (Let’s Hope They’re Friendly!) for my research, and each give fascinating accounts - Startup’s  factually, and Fogarty’s more emotionally.  Either way, it’s clear that there was an awful lot more to this story than the public was ever made aware of, and this was emphasised further by the white-wash report prepared by the New Zealand Defence Force.  The nearby Japanese Squid fishing Fleet and/or Venus rising explanations offered are both embarrassingly inadequate, and perhaps the reaction of an anxious Government caught short by the possibility of foreign aircraft making merry in our airspace while the Cold War still loomed.

To me it’s very appropriate that this event occurred during the festive season, book-ended by child-like amazement and looking to the future. The universe, and even some aspects of New Zealand history, is still full mysteries. As we enter a bright new year may we never lose our capacity for wonder.

Happy New Year!