Chronicles of the Strange and Mysterious Read online

  Chronicles Of The Strange And Mysterious

  By

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Contents

  Book Cover (Front) (Back)

  Scan / Edit Notes

  Foreword by Arthur C. Clarke

  1 - The Beasts that Hide from Man

  2 - The Silence of the Past

  3 - Out of the Blue

  4 - Strange Tales from the Lakes

  5 - Of Monsters and Mermaids

  6 - Supernatural Scenes

  7 - Fairies, Phantoms, Fantastic Photographs

  8 - Mysteries from East and West

  9 - Where Are They?

  Acknowledgements

  Photo Credits (Removed)

  Index (Removed)

  Picture Plates (Paberback)

  1 - First Set Of Plates

  2 - Second Set Of Plates

  ~~~~~~~

  Scan / Edit Notes

  This is the paper-back version which has less pictures than the hard-back version. I have scanned both but due to the large size increase only the paper-back version will be posted.

  Versions available and duly posted:

  Format: v1.0 (Text)

  Format: v1.0 (PDB - open format)

  Format: v1.5 (HTML)

  Format: v1.5 (PDF - no security)

  Format: v1.5 (PRC - for MobiPocket Reader - pictures included)

  Genera: Supernatural

  Extra's: Pictures Included (for all versions)

  Copyright: 1987 / 1989

  First Scanned: 2002

  Posted to: alt.binaries.e-book

  Note:

  1. The Html, Text and Pdb versions are bundled together in one zip file.

  2. The Pdf and Prc files are sent as single zips (and naturally don't have the file structure below)

  ~~~~

  Structure: (Folder and Sub Folders)

  {Main Folder} - HTML Files

  |

  |- {Nav} - Navigation Files

  |

  |- {PDB}

  |

  |- {Pic} - Graphic files

  |

  |- {Text} - Text File

  -Salmun

  ~~~~~~~

  Foreword

  It is now almost a decade since John Fairley, Simon Welfare and I started to assemble the extremely miscellaneous bits and pieces which eventually formed the thirteen-part Yorkshire Television series, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, and its sequel, Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers. In each case, our object was to intrigue and entertain the viewer by presenting unexplained phenomena and objects, and curiosities of any kind which we found interesting.

  We had no particular bias or philosophical party line, but we were determined to play fair with our audience. We would not cheat by creating phoney mysteries or withholding explanations when they were available - as has frequently been done by networks our lawyers won't allow us to mention. At the same time, we were not out to 'debunk', except when the subject richly deserved it; even then, we kept editorial comment to the minimum and preferred to leave the final decision to the viewer. And when, as sometimes happened, a mystery got deeper and deeper the more we investigated, we weren't ashamed to admit total bafflement.

  The same policy was carried out in the two books based upon (and named after) the programmes. Text and video both had a very large - indeed, global - audience and, as might be expected, there was a great deal of feedback from viewers and readers. Many people rushed to report events similar to those we had recorded, or to volunteer explanations of outstanding mysteries.

  Almost all the letters received were thoughtful and serious; only a few - perhaps surprisingly, considering the nature of our material - were wildly eccentric. The most far-out one arrived with a covering note headed 'Broadmoor Hospital Mental Health Act 1983', and an assurance by the consultant forensic psychiatrist that nothing had been removed from the packet. (If you're dying to know, it contained a mass of numerology no crazier than much that has been produced outside mental hospitals. The impetus that pocket calculators have now given to this age-old nonsense is appalling to contemplate.) We do not know whether to be pleased or disappointed that few clear-cut solutions or answers emerged from all this correspondence; but we are very happy to know that we made people realize that there's a lot more in the universe than meets the eye (and sometimes, a good deal less).

  It would have been easy to make another television series - or at least one or two 'Specials' - out of the material we'd accumulated, but I had grown rather tired of standing in front of cameras in the Sri Lankan sun, even with the protection of that notorious beach-umbrella. So a book seemed the best compromise; but what to call it? My colleagues' first uninspired suggestion was Arthur C. Clarke's Diary of the Strange and Mysterious. This I rejected instantly as being too reminiscent of Mrs Dale and innumerable other soap operas. (Though I do have a diary, it is for appointments only, and the entries self-destruct into total illegibility within a month.) After a little thought, I came up with an alternative which sounds much more romantic and imposing - indeed, almost heroic.

  Here, then, with a little - well, frankly, rather a lot of -help from my friends John and Simon, are my Chronicles of the Strange and Mysterious. As many of the items chronicled end up even stranger and more mysterious than when we started to investigate them, the series could obviously go on for ever. I promise you that it won't. There's a nice symmetry about a trilogy, and I have no intention of spoiling it.

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  [Insert pic p009]

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  Colombo, Sri Lanka, 21 October 1986

  ~~~~~~~

  1 - The Beasts that Hide from Man

  Arthur C. Clarke writes:

  Would you care to guess how many kinds of unknown animals - i.e. creatures that have never been described by science - there still remain on this planet? A hundred? A thousand? The answer may well be in the millions - if you go all the way down to insects barely visible to the eye. And the vast majority never will be discovered; the accelerating destruction of the natural environment means that they will be extinct before they are even noticed.

  To most people, however, an 'unknown animal' won't be of much interest unless it's at least as large as a dog - better still, an elephant - best of all, a dinosaur. Most zoologists are willing to admit that large creatures still remain undiscovered in the sea. But on land? Impossible, of course ... but read on, starting with this delightful letter from Dr Dalrymple, which takes me instantly back to Saunders of the River:

  Dear Professor Clarke,

  We have been watching with great keenness your TV programme The Mysterious World, and I feel that the following might be of interest to you:

  In 1935, I was Medical Officer on the River Gambia in West Africa. One night, I was awakened by much noise, by the locals. The next morning, I discovered the excitement had been caused by the appearance of what they called the 'NIKENANKA'. This animal was described as 'having the face of a horse, a neck like a giraffe, a body like a crocodile, a long tail, and being about 30 ft long'. I asked the Head Men to let me know, next time this animal was seen. It was said to appear only from time to time, on moonlight nights, from the mangrove swamps where it lived, submerged in mud.

  Several months passed, and, one evening, I was told of the reappearance of the animal. However, the swarms of mosquitoes, off the swamp, were such that I turned back without seeing the 'NIKENANKA'.

  As MO Rivers, I regularly visited the various stations and had occasion to call on the Manager of one of the trading Companies. During lunch, we heard a great disturbance in the nearby local market. We went out to inve
stigate and discovered one of the manager's servants waving the educational magazine called Animals of the World. The excited crowd was shouting that the White Man had photographed the 'NIKENANKA': it was, in fact, a photograph of a concrete dinosaur, in one of the New York parks. They all recognized this as the animal they had seen in the swamps, on moonlight nights.

  Later on, I was on board ship, travelling back to Nigeria, and a Marine Department Officer told me that, when checking the traffic lanes in the Niger Delta, his attention had been drawn by his crew to a large 'sea serpent'. He fired his gun but was out of range. The creature, however, must have heard the report, as it reared up, turned its head, and made swiftly for a mangrove swamp island. The sun was setting, and it was too dark to be absolutely certain, but he thought the animal was between 30 and 40 ft long, similar to a dinosaur, as it heaved out of the water and disappeared into the mangrove swamp.

  This is, I am afraid, all I can tell you, but, as the Gambia River is about 200 miles long and the mangrove swamps, on either side, vary from 50 to 100 ft wide, it represents a large expanse of, then, unexplored ground, and I always felt there was the possibility that some animals, long thought to be extinct, might be surviving there.

  Some years later, I was stationed in the British Cameroons. I became very friendly with the Fon (Chief) of N'SAW. Later, I was accepted into the two most powerful Ju-Ju societies, known as the N'FU BA and the N'FU GAM. It was then that I was told of the existence of 'KABARANKO', said to be a human, living down a well, and existing on human excreta. He was only let out for the funerals of very important chiefs. I saw him once at such a funeral. He was said to be endowed with superhuman strength and I watched (and photographed) him pick up a ram and tear it in two. I believe he also picked up a big car and threw it over a cliff, but I did not see this.

  What he was, I do not know, but he looked like a short human figure, covered in long black hair. He was greatly feared and, when brought out, he was controlled with ropes attached to his feet, one man walking in front and one at the back, in the same way farmers guide dangerous bulls. If he happened to escape, the natives whistled loudly, as a warning to everybody to keep out of 'KABARANKO'S' way. The only way to recapture him was to hold a pregnant woman in front of him, when he would fall, unconscious, on the ground.

  I never found out who or what he was.

  Hoping the above will be of some interest to you.

  Yours sincerely,

  (THOMAS HARDIE DALRYMPLE)

  Retired Medical Officer

  West African Medical Service

  The Dinosaur-Hunters

  Dr Dalrymple's letter is a most evocative contribution to one of the longest-running sagas in cryptozoology - the search for dinosaurs in Africa.

  The daunting, but beguiling, geography of Africa has always tempted the imagination. Dr Dalrymple describes the great stretches of mangrove swamp along the Gambia River, but there are vast stretches of swamp throughout Central Africa which remain far more remote and unexplored even than the Gambia half a century ago. The great Likouala swamps in the Congo stretch to more than 50,000 square miles. Roads are none, tracks are few, and travel is mainly by river. This area has always been the focus of speculation about the existence of huge and strange creatures unknown to science.

  Immediately after the First World War Captain Lester Stevens, MC, was heading for these swamps when he was photographed, somewhat inappropriately attired and, as the Daily Mail caption reported, 'accompanied by his ex-German war dog Laddie, before leaving Waterloo Station for Africa to search for the Brontosaurus'. Captain Stevens was encouraged by the prospect of a $lm reward offered by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and by reports that two Belgian travellers, Gapele and Lepage, had recently seen the monster in the Congo.

  Captain Stevens, though armed with a Winchester repeater, a Smith and Wesson revolver, a shotgun and a Mannlicher rifle, was sadly never to claim the reward. But his successors have not been deterred, and in recent years there have been a number of expeditions inspired by continuing reports that a great animal exists - and was even captured and killed within the last generation by the local pygmies at Lake Tele in the heart of the Likouala swamps.

  Texan explorer James H. Powell, with Professor Roy Mackal of the University of Chicago gathered the most intriguing accounts of the beast - mokele-mbembe, as it is known - on their expedition to the Congo in 1980. Powell had already been in the area twice before, but on this occasion the pair were able to track down a number of informants able to tell them of the killing, some twenty years earlier. Powell had a simple way of establishing with his informants exactly what animal he was seeking.

  He carried cards showing known animals from Central Africa, animals from other regions which would be unknown in that area, and drawings of various types of dinosaur. He would gather, by showing the cards, the local names for gorillas, okapi, etc; check that their observations were genuine by showing, say, a bear which they could not identify; then he would show his dinosaur drawings. A number of his informants unhesitatingly identified the dinosaur as mokele-mbembe.

  The most vivid description of the killing of mokele-mbembe was given to Powell and Mackal by Lateka Pascal, a fisherman who works a regular stretch of water on Lake Tele. He had heard of the incident as a child. Mokele-mbembe had entered Lake Tele via one of the waterways which drain the swamps into Lake Tele on the western side. The pygmies had blocked off this waterway by constructing a barrage of stakes and tree trunks. When mokele-mbembe tried to return, it was trapped by the barricade and killed with spears. According to Pascal, the pygmies cut the animal up and ate it. Everyone who ate the flesh died.

  Powell and Mackal gathered together at Epena a number of people who had seen mokele-mbembe in recent times. One, Madongo Nicholas, described the creature - 30 ft (9 m) long or more - rising out of the water on the Minjoubou River just ahead of his boat. It had a long neck about as thick as a man's leg, the head slightly larger in diameter, and a long, pinkish-coloured back. On top of its head the creature had something which looked like a chicken's comb. Another man, Omoe Daniel, described the 8-ft (2.5-m)-wide trail left by some animal for about 100 yards as it had apparently dragged itself through the undergrowth from a pool across to the main stream of the Likouala Aux Herbes River. Another witness had seen a strange creature only half a mile or so upstream from Epena, where Powell and Mackal had convened their meeting. He identified it from a copy of Animals of Yesterday, which Powell was carrying, as a brontosaurus.

  All those present agreed that mokele-mbembe lives in deep and narrow parts of the rivers, has the distinctive chicken's comb on its head - and, above all, is a dangerous animal to have seen!

  The political exigencies of the People's Republic of the Congo - Africa's first Marxist state - prevented Powell and Mackal from remaining. Their visas ran out.

  Mackal led another expedition the following year, but with nothing more substantial to show for another gruelling venture through mud, swamp, jungle and river. He was, however, accompanied by a professional Congolese biologist, Marcelin Agnagna, who, two years later, was to provide the latest dramatic twist in the story of the swamp dinosaur.

  The 1981 expedition, which included some rigorous scientists, such as Richard Greenwell and Justin Wilkinson (both from the University of Arizona), had come to respect Agnagna's professional competence. So when, in 1983, he reported sighting mokele-mbembe himself, he was treated as an extremely reliable witness. Sadly, he proved to be a much less reliable cameraman.

  Agnagna and a team of seven had reached Lake Tele on 1 May 1983. Agnagna himself was filming some monkeys at around 2.30 in the afternoon when there was a sudden shout. One of the local helpers called him down to the lake shore. About 300 yards away across the lake he saw an animal. It had a long back, perhaps 15 ft (4.5 m) overall, a long neck sticking out of the water and shining black in the sun, with a small head. He could see the eyes, but no other distinguishing features.

  Agnagna had his movie ca
mera in his hand, and he started to wade into the lake shallows until he was about 200 ft (60 m) from the animal. All the time he was filming. Then the animal, which had been slowly casting its head and neck from side to side, slowly submerged. The observers had had as much as a quarter of an hour to watch the creature, but no film emerged. As so often happens in the annals of cryptozoology, the pictures failed to come out. Agnagna had left his camera on a macro setting - another instance of the malign force which strikes photographers so unvaryingly when truly sensational events occur.

  However, Agnagna was certain enough of his sighting. 'The animal we saw was mokele-mbembe. It was quite alive and it is known to many of the inhabitants of the Likouala. I saw the animal. Mokele-mbembe is a species of sauropod living in the Likouala swamps and rivers.' The news from Agnagna triggered a mini 'scramble for Africa', as different expeditions were mounted to try to be the first with definitive pictures and evidence. There were even accusations of 'dirty tricks', as it was alleged that the Congolese government was being lobbied to refuse visas to some and grant them to others. The perils of Congolese bureaucracy are quite sufficient in themselves, without any additional hurdles.

  At the time of writing, however, no further evidence has emerged, other than of the immense difficulty of mounting expeditions to the Congo.