Another Slip In Time In France

A trip to Spain in the 1970s was still a rather exotic adventure for many, but two British couples travelling there in 1970s had a far more exciting experience on the journey down than any they had on the holiday itself....

Their trip began in Dover at the beginning of October 1979. Geoff and Pauline Simpson and their friends Len and Cynthia Gisby were to get a ferry to France and drive down to Spain, stopping off on the way for a break at any hotel they could find.

That is how, on October the 3rd, they found themselves exhausted and looking for somewhere to stay near the French town of Montelimar, France.


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The local Ibis was full, but a helpful man dressed in an old fashioned plum coloured suit in the lobby pointed them down the road to a hotel that might be able to put them up for the night.

The road they travelled down was cobbled and narrow and they couldn't help noticing very old fashioned posters for a circus lining their route, they stopped at an inn for further directions and eventually found themselves by two buildings, one a police station, the other an old fashioned two storey building marked "Hotel". Upon entering the Hotel they found themselves in the hotel bar and discovered that although the owner couldn't speak English he understood their requests for a room and after dinner they headed up to see them.

They found the rooms to be clean but very outdated. There was no glass in the window but wooden shutters instead, the door could be locked only by means of a wooden catch, there was no telephone, there were bolsters but no pillows and the plumbing was antique. But though basic it was perfectly acceptable for their purposes; a nice long sleep.

In the morning they awoke and headed down for breakfast. They were startled by the appearance of a few others in the hotel. One was a woman wearing a long dress and button-boots and carrying a little dog. Two gendarmes came into the hotel wearing clothes unlike any other gendarmes the couples had seen.

The couples finished up and prepared to leave. They asked one of the gendarmes for directions back to the autoroute and on to Avignon but he didn't seem to understand the word. The couples put this down to their poor pronunciation. He gave them some directions which they later found led them onto an old out of the way road.

When they settled up their bill they were in for another, not unwelcome, surprise. In total their bill came to 19 francs, which was about 1/13 of what they would have expected. They enquired with the gendarme again as they felt there may have been some mistake but he assured them all was well and they handed over the paltry sum and were off to sunny Spain.

On their return trip they were unable to locate this hotel, despite "finding the right road" and, when they enquired at the Ibis, they were told that they knew of no such nearby hotel and they denied the existence of anyone in a plum coloured suit working for them.

The couples were forced to stay in a hotel in Lyon and pay over 200 francs for a room. When they got home they found the pictures they had taken in the hotel were missing. Not blank, nor obscured but gone and the reel had been filled with other pictures. Later investigation found the reel showed markings half way along showing the camera had tried to take pictures but had failed.

They have been back to visit since but they have found no trace of the hotel, although somewhere similar was found they denied this was the hotel they stayed in. They later identified the uniforms worn by the gendarme as those used before 1905.

So what happened to them? Did they travel back through time? Was this an entire ghost building?

Alas, again, I feel there is little evidence to prove that they experienced anything truly weird. I stayed at a "hotel" in Paris in 2001 which was actually not too dissimilar. I entered the bar to find the furnishings would not have been out of place in the 18th Century and the clientele were... interestingly eccentric. I was desperate for a room as all the other hotels were full so despite my misgivings handed over 19 euros (about 10 quid, for a room for the night!!) and found my room to be.... basic... if there was ever a hotel out of time that was it! Although mine didn't even have the benefit of being clean...

Why didn't anyone remark on their odd mode of transport (a 1970s car in pre 1905 France? Would this have not brought crowds??)? Why did the hotel owner not refuse to take their strange, foreign money (as a coin collector I can tell you that francs had changed quite a bit between 1905 and 1979)? Could the fact that they had driven down the road at night lead to their inability to find it during daylight? Things can look a lot different in the light of day.

Alas I feel this time slip might again have been caused by confused foreign visitors allowing their imaginations to go wild in a country that might have seemed strange and unusual to them. France is still strange and unusual when compared to Britain with it's much quieter countryside and intelligent populace.

A camera malfunction? Well we are in the seventies here, I remember my old film cameras which proved to be unreliable... although mine were very cheap...

So yet again I find myself sceptical of their claims. One day I'll find a story I'm not sceptical about... I promise!!

Bad Blogger

My new job, and the commute home, have left me with only a few hours every day to write and, as you can imagine, I just do not feel like it. Now one side affect of leaving one job and starting another is that I'm currently very poor and thus have plenty of time at the weekends to spend writing. So for now I'm just going to do a brief overview of the weird stories that have piqued my interested over the last few days rather than one of my usual stories...

Fish have been filmed at the deepest level yet by a British-Japanese team reports the BBC. They were recorded feeding at a depth of 7.7km, and they seemed none the worse despite the incredible forces being exerted on them at that level. What else might be lurking down there? Another expedition is due to go even deeper in March next year. Can't wait to see what marvels they observe.

Not new, but new to me! Brilliant video of some unusual clouds over Japan.

Here in Britain evolution has given us metal eating worms. Now all we need are some sea borne plastic eating bacteria and things might get a whole lot better for life on this planet.

I bloody spend all year praying for snow, but do I get any? No. Mars on the other hand... oh it gets some. I'm getting jealous of a possibly lifeless planet. Grr...

Caddy The Sea Monster

Caddy, or Cadborosaurus willsi to give it it's full pseudo-scientific nickname, is probably the most famous sea monster of modern times. Move over Kraken, step aside Sirens, we have a new entrant in the contest for most seen sea monster in history.

Caddy supposedly inhabits the Pacific coast of North America, and the name is derived from Cadboro Bay in Victoria, British Columbia. Over the last 200 years this rather prolific creature has been spotted hundreds of times. Supposedly the creature was first reported many years before European settlement by the First Nation inhabitants of the Pacific coast and sightings have continued right up until the modern day.

When spotted in 1897 by O. Ferguson Caddy was described as being about 7.6m long and as having the traditional serpentine undulating form. Sizes have differed vastly over the years ranging from tiny babies who can survive in a bucket to giant leviathans of 27m (or more!).

Taking into account most of the reports paint a picture of a creature with a horse like head, a long neck leading to a long thin, undulating body with small front flippers and large back flippers.

In 1937 the decomposed carcass of what was thought to be a Caddy was found inside a sperm whale. Through one of those unlucky events that befall cryptozoology the carcass was disposed of and the tissue samples went missing on route to a lab. Quelle surprise.

Caddy? Taken in 1937

The thing with Caddy is that this could really be an unidentified creature. Nessie has been variously described in hundreds of reports over the years ranging from the traditional serpent through the pleisiosaur and up to allsorts of bizarre creatures reported around the Loch. Stories of Caddy, on the other hand, share a rather amazing amount of consistency. Other than the size most accounts agree on the general look of the creature. They have been sighted from land, and from the sea. They have been seen by scientists, seasoned seafarers and tourists. To my mind Caddy is one of those mysterious things that might just be real!

And there have been some rather interestingly different encounters with Caddy than have been had with most other cryptids, such as this one taken from this site:

Captain Hagelund also has the distinction of being one of only four persons to have actually apprehended a live Cadborosaurus. While taking his family on a yachting journey around the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Captain Hagelund anchored for the night at the exotically-named Pirate's Cove off Decourcey Island. The calm of the evening was shattered by the noise of something making splashing sounds just off the starboard side of the yacht. When Capt. Hagelund strode over to take a look at what was causing the noise, he was sharply taken aback by the sight of a totally unknown creature gazing up at him as it swam near the yacht. Lowering a dinghy, the Hagelunds decided to pursue the creature and bring it aboard for closer scrutiny and did not feel in any particular danger as the creature was only about 16 inches in length. Using a small net the Hagelunds managed to snare the creature and promptly placed it in a large bucket of seawater. The small aquatic cryptid was like nothing any of the Hagelund clan had ever seen with its armoured plates, strange elongated snout, odd forward flippers, yellow downy fuzz and bilobate tail which may in fact have been rear flippers similar in shape to those of seals and sea lions. The creature was agitated for most of the evening and Hagelund ultimately had abandon plans to take the animal to a Fisheries Department Station at Nanaimo, B.C. to have it identified. Capt. Hagelund realized that there was the distinct possibility that Cadborosaurus might not survive the night in the confined spaces of a bucket and so reluctantly released it to the sea from whence it came. The animal sped off into the distance and may perhaps been sighted again when it had become a far larger fully-grown specimen.

Baby Caddy's have been captured on two other occasions always being released before they can be identified by scientists. Again... quelle surprise.

What could Caddy be? Hmm... it could be that people are mistaking pods of whales who when moving close together could create a similar movement to an undulating serpent in the sea. Or it could be an undiscovered creature, most likely a mammal... Until someone finally captures one of these elusive, if not shy, creatures we won't ever know. But if I was to lay my money on any cryptid actually existing I'd probably put a couple of quid on Caddy.

Check out this Canadian broadcast of a lady relating her experience of meeting Caddy in the 1930s. Or this video of more eyewitness testimony

Further Reading

Cadborosaurus: Survivor from the Deep - Paul H. Leblond

Big Cat In Snodland???

I was born and raised in a "lovely" Kentish town called Snodland. Ok... it isn't all that bad, sure the inhabitants can be a little rough but it is situated between a group of artificial and natural lakes and has some tremendous wildlife (where else could you find most of the amphibian and reptile species of Britain in one place) and beautiful walks. The most exotic things I thought had existed in Snodland were the terrapins who had moved into one of the lakes and my old pet tortoise Thomas (who taught me tortoises aren't always slow but are always sneaky! Every autumn he'd make an escape to my neighbours compost heap to hibernate, always whilst my back was turned for two seconds... I used to wonder what my neighbour thought the first time he dug out a tortoise when shifting his compost!)

But Tetrapod Zoology has a picture of what could be a mystery big cat taken in Snodland!! Personally I think that with the alignment of the head to the body it looks more like a normal moggy but I'm no expert and can't really judge the size.

Check it out and tell me what you think.

Link thanks to Kent Big Cat Research

A Slight Diversion

I hope you can indulge my occasional soujourns into less mysterious territory. Today I watched a BBC programme I just had to share... Ian Hislop Goes Off The Rails. British readers (for it is we who pay for the BBC's output!) can watch it on iPlayer by clicking that link. It's a little look at the history behind Dr. Beechings infamous report.

Those of you reading this from "abroad" as we like to say check out Wiki to find out more about poor old Dr Beeching, and why not so many people like him.

Titanic Conspiracy: The Olympic Switch

I have always loved the story of the Titanic. I mean the real story, not that silly film which actually started to turn me off the whole thing. The themes of bravery, tragedy and farce make it one of the most heart wrenching stories around. But despite having read quite a bit on the subject I was completely unaware that there is alternative story to the sinking, one that turns the incompetence of the White Star Line into murder.

The story, supposedly, begins on the 20th September 1911. The RMS Olympic, the sister ship to the Titanic and the Britanic, collided with the HMS Hawke off the Isle of Wight. She sustained severe damage but was able to make it safely back to Southampton. This was a disaster for the White Star Line, who not only lost revenue whilst she was out of service but had to pay both for her repairs and slow work on the Titanic to allow the Olympic into dry dock at Belfast for repairs.

After the Olympics accident the Titanic (right) leaves drydock so the Olympic can be repaired.

Worse still, in February, she lost a propeller blade and delayed the maiden voyage of the Titanic by a month as resources were pulled to get the Olympic back into action. So far this is all considered fact. This is where the conspiracy diverges from accepted history.

The proponents of the Olympic Switch scenario believe that the incredible financial lose caused by the RMS Olympic's problems caused the owners of the White Star Line to consider drastic solutions. They say that during the time in Belfast when the Olympic had to swap with the Titanic and use the dry dock a plan was put into place. This would swap the names between the ships (along with a few details, as though similar they were not exact twins) meaning the brand new Titanic would now become the Olympic and the badly damaged Olympic would become the Titanic. 

The plan went as follows:

The Olympic-Titanic would be sunk on it's "maiden" voyage in an insurance scam to get back the money lost in repairing the Olympic. The crew and passengers would be rescued by the SS Californian which conspiracy theorists say had been rushed out to mid-Atlantic to await it's part in the plan. The Captain and possibly senior crew would have been aware of this plan.

Sadly before the plan could be put into place, the ship struck an iceberg (some theories say it struck a ship blacked out and ready to initiate the rescue of the Titanic once the plan took shape) and sank just out of view of the SS Californian and the planned rescue thus never occurred. (the SS Californian's part in the tragedy, even under the accepted history, is controversial check it out here). 1517 people lost their lives. A more through look at the theory can be found here.

Titanic at Southampton 5th April 1912

Unfortunately, for the proponents at least, there are a few issues with this scenario. As I stated there were differences, mainly cosmetic, between the two ships. Most theorists claim that "obviously" the Olympic and Titanic were worked on to ensure they matched each other and that the irregularities in their designs were swapped over. But this would mean not only involvement by a few people but a large scale conspiracy across many people including the skilled ship builders in Belfast. Did all these people manage to keep their silence, even after the plan went horribly wrong? Would the thought that you had taken part in such an awful plan eaten away at you until you couldn't take it any longer?

Images from the wreck also begin to show cracks in the story. The wheelhouse of the Olympic was curved, the wheel house of the Titanic was straight. Pictures of the famous wheel under water show the wheelhouse wall. And it's straight.

And why would the White Star Line executives really risk their reputation and their lives upon such a plan? They weren't crazy!

I think that I can not refute the theory any more expertly than this dissertation. Conspiracy theories can be amusing, and occasionally necessary but sometimes they cross a line. Just as with those who support "9/11 Truth", I believe that those who support a theory like this based on nothing more than rumours and conjecture risk insulting the memory of those who lost their lives in this tragedy. The Captain may have made mistakes, and he paid for them with his life, but this does not mean he is a murderer something which this conspiracy theory suggests. So until some actual physical evidence is brought up from the wreck proving it to be the Olympic I shall not be giving this theory any more of my time.

Any conspiracy theory that bases it's main points upon the silence of the hundreds of people supposedly involved should be laughed out of the room. It shows a naive belief in the ability of humans to keep secrets en masse and renders this theory a good story but far from acceptable fact.

Further Reading

Titanic: The Ship That Never Sank? - Robin Gardiner - The most in depth look at the theory by it's most famous proponent .

Olympic & Titanic: The Truth Behind the Conspiracy - Bruce Beveridge and Steve Hall - A rebuttal of the conspiracy theory.

Housekeeping

As I said yesterday I started a new job this week which means I'm kind of not focussed on delivering top quality stories and feel the last two posts have suffered. Unless I really feel inspired I probably will leave posting until Saturday when daily posts shall return.

Thanks again for reading, and if you want to contact me my email is moonlightinvestigation@yahoo.co.uk

Ghosts Of The Underground: Part Four

Since last I posted about the Underground ghosts, I've gotten myself a new job. One that involves twice daily trips on Underground network, so maybe I shouldn't have started researching this subject!

Anyway, today I bring you the much promised discussion on what might possibly cause the Underground to be such a fertile place for ghost stories.

When compared to similarly aged subterranean transport systems, such as the New York Subway or the Paris Metro, the London Underground is simply in a league of it's own in terms of the amount of ghost stories associated with it.

Well firstly London is a city with history. Those who visit or live in this city can not fail to absorb that sense nor, perhaps, allow their imagination off it's leash for a little while. Add to this the rather oppressive, ancient feelings engendered by traveling upon the aging Underground system and you have a mind on the edge of believing in the impossible. The urban legend that a race of underground cannibals lives in some of the tunnels might seem ludicrous above ground but when you travel deeper and deeper into the labyrinth tunnels of some tube stations you might start to question your scepticism.

So as you can see, the average tube worker and traveler is already primed and ready to interpret anything anomalous in a more romantic, dramatic fashion than they might above ground.

But there is another factor of immense importance, something not often mentioned; infrasound.

Infrasound is sound whose frequency makes it too low to be heard by human ears. But just because your conscious brain does not detect the sounds, it doesn't mean they don't have an affect on your body and mind.

Studies have suggested that such sounds can make people feel awe, fear, anxiety, pressure on their chests, feelings of revulsion and many other startling dramatic emotions. The sounds can cause things to vibrate quite violently and can even cause vibrations in the eye which can create optical illusions. What's more in the documentary I mentioned many posts ago, The Ghosts of The Underground, one scientist took infrasound readings at a few "haunted" spots. You probably won't be surprised to find that he discovered very high levels of infrasound at some of them.

So you're deep under the ground, in a city renowned for it's history (and it's ghosts!) with your body being bombarded with wave after wave of sound which has properties still being discovered. Is it any surprise that the London Underground is a prime ghostly location?

Of course this doesn't adequately explain all the supposed hauntings but I think it cannot be ruled out as being the cause of most of them. Add a couple of factors in and it's easy for a ghostly story to emerge through no deception on the part of the eyewitness.

I don't want to suggest all reports of ghosts are merely illusions. I would love to believe some of the stories were true. But I also see that a lot of so called hauntings are simply badly researched cases of misidentification.

Do not let this turn you away from the magic of London, nor of the mysterious nature of the underground. You never know what you might encounter as you descend hundreds of feet below the ground.

Andrew Crosse - A New Genesis?

In 1836 a sensation ran throughout the land. Had Andrew Crosse, using just an electrical current and a few samples of rock, created a new species of insect; "acarus crossii"? Many protested at the impertinence of a man to claim such a thing, to claim to have the power hitherto held only by God himself. What sort of man was this?

Andrew Crosse was born on the 17th of June 1784 in Somerset. He became fascinated with electricity, and was bright enough (and well off enough) to attend Oxford.

His parents died young leaving him responsible for their estates. In his spare time he began to experiment with electricity and his experiments became quite sophisticated. Some were so grand the villagers near by began to refer to him as 'the thunder and lightning man", some began to grow suspicious of what he was up to in his secluded manor.

But the experiment that drew the most attention was one perform in 1836. During an electrocrystallization experiment (Crosse's favourite type) he observed something odd. A "perfect insect, standing erect on a few bristles which formed its tail" had appeared right in the middle of his experiment and over the next few days they began to move. Within weeks there were hundreds of these insects and they moved around seeking shelter just as you'd expected any normal insect to act.

Crosse happened to mention the incident to some friends and published the results with the London Electrical Society. A local paper picked up the story and it soon spread to the nationals and even to Europe. Just as the press now can barely understand science (their reporting on the LHC was close to criminal in the high level of errors and misinformation, I might make errors but I'm not being paid to write for a national newspapers... they are!) the press then got the story a little mixed up. The people of our great country, in a grand tradition that continues to this day, got things mixed up and the inevitable death threats and outlandish accusations (such as Crosse causing a local crop failure) followed. They accused him of playing God and insulting the beliefs of the Christian nation of Britain. He went into hiding at his manor to avoid further trouble.

Of course Crosse had never claimed to have created life. He in fact attributed the emergence of the insects to a contamination of his experiment with insect eggs. Other later critics agreed with his assessment (although sadly many have not done their research and unfairly join his detractors in accusations of insanity against Crosse, little realising he was the first person to disown himself from the press' claims).

So... Andrew Crosse didn't create life... did he?

I'll leave you with this quote from wikipedia...

Other scientists tried to repeat the experiment. William Henry Weeks took extensive measures to assure a sealed environment for his experiment by placing it inside a bell jar. He obtained the same results as Crosse, but due to the controversy that Crosse's experiment had sparked his work was never published.

Who Am I And What Do I Want?!

Firstly, can I just say thanks to all those who've been here and taken the time to read my posts. It means a lot to me. This post is just a little "disclaimer" to ensue people don't misunderstand what I write. I'll stick this post in the sidebar sometime.

Who am I? I'm an interested observer of the paranormal and chronicler of the unexplained. I come from Folkestone, Kent and live in Greenwich, Greater London, United Kingdom. I was brought up atheist (well I was brought up without belief, there was no atheist agenda behind my upbringing!), went through a Christian stage, followed by a Wiccan stage and final ended up... atheist!

My interest in the paranormal goes back for as far as I can remember. My fascination probably stems from the urban legends and ghost stories my friends and I used to share on the school playground. But I've experienced something that also gives me a personal interest in exploring the weird phenomena that colour our lives.

As a boy who dreamed of being a zoologist when I was younger, you'll find a lot of cryptozoological articles but don't despair, my interests are varied; from unsolved crimes, to swashbuckling adventures through to the supernatural. Hey, I don't even discriminate against UFOs! If it's all cryptozoology on the front page check out my archives and you never know what you'll find.

Now what do I actually believe? When it comes to the unexplained, I'd suggest I'm somewhat agnostic. You could also say I'm a sympathetic sceptic. I'm not going to dismiss stories out of hand, but nor am I going to suddenly declare myself a wholehearted believer in alien abductions, ghosts or in the treasure of the Oak Island Money Pit.

This is a journey that I've undertaken to explore those dark corners of history and of life and hopefully sometimes shine a little light on the matter.

If you are a total sceptic or a true believer in one of the subjects I discuss please do not take offense at anything I say in my posts. I don't know everything and your opinion is just as valid as mine. If you have a different viewpoint or even think I've made a factual error please feel free to leave me a comment. All I ask is that you are polite and understand I do not pretend to be an expert. I am always happy to receive constructive criticism from a polite person. But also don't be surprised to find I will ignore rude posts (but there's no moderation here, so even you're rude you'll get through), the internet is full of rude people who forget they are dealing with a human being. Those people are not welcome here.

Most importantly always remember: I want to believe. I'm not your usual sceptic. I am desperate for there to really be a giant ape wandering the forests of North America, and for the spirits of the dead to still be hanging around their old homes trying to get rid of the new owners, and for there to really be an invisible pink unicorn. But I shall not fall into the trap of allowing my urge to believe to cloud my mind to alternative, logical ideas.

Keep reading, I hope you'll find that my eclectic style of posting will bring things to your attention that you may never have heard of before.

Again thanks for taking the time to check out this blog, I hope you come back soon.