Chronicles of the Strange and Mysterious

by Chronicles of the Strange

  Further Thoughts on Tunguska

  The weight of scientific opinion now favours the idea that it was a comet which exploded above Siberia in 1908, laying waste to around 800 square miles of forest. Indeed, in the summer of 1986 the American Geophysical Union held a special session in Baltimore, Maryland, designed to alert the world, in that year of Halley's return, to the catastrophic implications of another comet arriving and colliding with the earth.

  The geophysicists have a special nightmare. Rocks and boulders - the debris of space - are swirling round the earth all the time, running into our atmosphere and disintegrating. On average, a 1,000-ton boulder bumps into us each month. Frequently, especially in June, there are spectacular displays of shooting stars at night as fragments burn up in the upper atmosphere. But what the geophysicists fear is the arrival of a really large body weighing perhaps 100,000 tons or more. They envisage its sudden appearance, unanticipated, in the upper atmosphere.

  There would be a tremendous fireball, brighter than the sun; then a cataclysmic explosion. If this took place over a populated area, the destruction and loss of life would be enormous. Worse, it might well be assumed that the explosion was a thermonuclear weapon, with the consequent horror of retaliation and holocaust. Hopefully the sensor systems of the superpowers are, or soon will be, discriminating enough to tell the difference.

  However, in September 1986 another natural disaster occurred which, some scientists felt, might shed light on the mystery of Tunguska. In Yaounde, capital of the West African state of Cameroon, the authorities started to receive reports that in an area around Lake Nios in the interior, hundreds of people had just fallen down dead. Officials who quickly arrived on the scene were confronted with an apocalyptic vision.

  The rolling green countryside was strewn with the carcasses of cattle, pigs and wild animals. Along the roads and tracks leading to the lake lay the corpses of people who had apparently been struck down as they walked or bicycled along. In the villages themselves around the lake, people had died by the hundred in their houses and gardens. In total, more than 1,700 people died, as well as herds of animals. It was soon apparent that a great cloud of poisonous gas was responsible. It had rolled down from the crater lake, fatally enveloping everything in its path.

  In 1984 a geologist, A.R. Crawford of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, suggested that a great gas cloud from within the earth might have been the cause of the Tunguska explosion. Tunguska, he wrote, 'might be a wholly terrestrial phenomenon ... Rather than being the only well-argued-for cometary impact on Earth, it may be the only modern example of a sudden very voluminous hot gaseous effusion.' Crawford noted that such gases were associated with diamond-bearing kimberlite pipes, a belt of which lie across Siberia.

  Crawford belongs to a school of geologists which believes that the earth may be expanding, even pulsating like a heart, and that this may account for some of the fractures associated with plate tectonics. From these fractures in the earth's crust may emerge gouts of lethal and explosive gases.

  Sixty years of research on the Tunguska site have still failed to come up with any convincing residue of extraterrestrial material, though there are plenty of exotic minerals in the little glass globules found in the Tunguska soil. It is a frightening but plausible concept that the big bang, which could have laid waste a city the size of Paris, might simply have been the biggest gas explosion the modern world has ever seen.

  Arthur C. Clarke comments:

  The Tunguska event will soon be eighty years in the past. Imagine our surprise, therefore, at receiving this report in 1985 from Mr Samuel Sunter of Victoria, Canada. Mr Sunter was a boy of nine, living in Northumberland, England, when the explosion took place. This is what he told us:

  I saw, looking north east, on June 30th 1908, a large red ball of fire, about three times the size of a full moon. It looked just like a hole in the sky. On the other side of the hole, it looked like flames, just like looking into the fire box of a locomotive. But what made me afraid was a solid beam of light which reached right down to where I was standing. This made me afraid and I ran into the house, so I do not know how long it lasted after I first saw it. Even today I have a very vivid memory of it.

  Could Mr Sunter have indeed seen the Tunguska explosion from 4,000 miles away across the roof of the world? It seems improbable; but if his memory of the date is correct, he almost certainly witnessed some of its effects.

  The whole subject of meteor - or cometary - impact has now become of great scientific and, surprisingly, political importance. On the scientific side, it is now widely believed that the extinction of the dinosaurs (as well as a vast range of other creatures) some sixty-five million years ago was due to the impact of an asteroid or comet about 5 miles in diameter. Quite apart from the colossal immediate danger, the resulting smoke and airborne debris darkened the earth for months, killing off much of the planet's vegetation and the chains of life that were based upon it.

  Nobel Prize winning physicist Luis Alvarez, who with his son Walter is chiefly responsible for this explanation of the 'Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction', has no doubts about its truth. Twenty-five years ago I dedicated my only non-science-fiction novel, Glide-Path, to Luis and his wartime radiation lab colleagues, with whom I worked in 1942. When I recently updated the Preface, I mentioned that the debate over his theory 'now rages furiously'. He corrected me at once:

  Had you written that sentence a few years ago, I couldn't disagree. But now, the ball game is over, and everyone who has taken the trouble to examine the evidence is convinced that we were right ... Our theory - more accurately our discovery - that the K-T extinction was caused by the impact of a 10-kilometre diameter object is no longer controversial, in the scientific sense of that word.

  Certainly controversial, however, is the theory that even a small-scale exchange of nuclear weapons could cause similar ecological effects, so that the whole world, and not merely the target areas, would be devastated by the effects of a 'nuclear winter'. If this is true, the entire human race is held hostage by the stockpiles of a few nations.

  Perhaps evolution is about to repeat itself. It may well be that we mammals would still be scurrying nervously in the undergrowth if a multi-megaton explosion sixty-five million years ago had not eliminated the giant beasts who were then the masters of the earth. Are we about to repeat the scenario - and make way for our successors - the cockroaches?

  ~~~~~~~

  4 - Strange Tales from the Lakes

  The waves came crashing onto the shore and we both immediately rushed to see what was happening. Only minutes before we had remarked on the stillness of the loch.

  There was obviously something very large in the water moving at great speed close to the shore.

  Initially, I could see one black hump-like object but it submerged. Then within seconds I could see two objects, one of which I took to be the tail.

  I watched spellbound for some time before the creature dived deeply, creating a considerable displacement of water and disappeared.

  Thus Mrs Dilys Fisher, a teacher from the south of England, claimed to have spotted the Loch Ness monster in August 1982. At the time of the sighting, Mrs Fisher and her husband were repairing a hired moped in a lay-by on the A82 Inverness to Fort William road. As they tinkered with the engine, they heard 'a sudden, violent movement' in the loch.

  Four years later, in August 1986, three teenaged girls working for the summer at the Loch Ness Hotel, Drumnad-rochit, were standing near Urquhart Castle, a picturesque ruin on the northern shore. It was near midnight. The loch was quiet. But they claim that when they looked out over the water, they saw a dark shape in the middle of the loch.

  'It had a large hump at one end and a smaller hump at the other,' said Catriona Murray. 'At first we thought it was an island, but then we realized there are no islands in that part of Loch Ness.'

  Catriona's companion, Sharon Boulton, was equally astonished. 'It kept appearing and disappearing,' she said, 'and, despi
te its massive size, we could not hear a sound. It could not have been an illusion because we all saw it.'

  The girls tried to rouse the occupants of a nearby house, but no one stirred. Instead, they stopped a passing milk lorry and its driver obligingly shone his headlights over the water. But there was nothing unusual to be seen: just the glinting water, unruffled by humps.

  As these stories suggest, public interest in the puzzle of the Loch Ness monster has not declined in recent years. The dedicated hunters have been as active as ever, and so, apparently, has Nessie herself, for eye-witnesses continue to come forward with claimed sightings of the world's most famous lake monster. Most ambitious of all the recent schemes to find definitive proof of Nessie's existence came in 1984, when a huge tubular trap, 80 ft (25 m) long and made of fibreglass, was airlifted into the loch.

  Despite rising winds, helicopter pilot Jim Wood dropped it precisely on target off Horseshoe Scree near Fort Augustus; and the trap's designer, a twenty-five-year-old civil servant called Steve Whittle, his sponsors - a vodka company - and the British public, settled down to the kind of wait every fisherman knows is essential to ensure a catch.

  Whatever she is [said Whittle] Nessie must be aware of exactly what is going on in the loch, every corner of which she will know as well as you or I know our own living rooms.

  For that reason, we have made the trap as flimsy in appearance as possible, and will leave her to get used to it for a couple of weeks. She will undoubtedly be afraid of it at first, but will eventually see salmon and trout swimming through it as they become accustomed to its presence.

  Then, hopefully, she will become braver and will not be able to resist the temptation of a concentration of a shoal of 40 salmon in one place.

  But patience was not rewarded. The trap - designed merely to detain the monster for photography and examination by a zoologist - was never sprung.

  Other researchers took to the air in the Goodyear blimp Europa, but its crew of twenty-five failed to spot anything out of the ordinary as they cruised above the loch at a stately thirty-five miles per hour.

  Theories advanced to explain the monster's elusive nature and its reasons for taking up residence in Loch Ness have become weirder and wilder. 'Is Nessie a Giant Squid?' asked a writer in Britain's journal of strange phenomena, Fortean Times. Meanwhile, in 1983, monster-hunter Eric Beckjord explained his new idea to reporters:

  I am beginning to think of it this way: you need a pair of polaroid glasses to see the laminations on your car windscreen.

  What if there is a monster and it has quasi- or pseudo-invisibility? The human eye cannot register the whole spectrum of light. We cannot see infra-red.

  Maybe Nessie's coat has some sort of colour that doesn't show up too good on most people's retinas. That would explain a lot.

  Yet it would be wrong to suggest that little has changed. At Loch Ness the heyday of monster-hunting seems to be over. Ironically, the fiftieth anniversary in 1983 of the first eyewitness claims to receive worldwide attention prompted a resurgence of scepticism, and the idea that an unknown creature may lurk in the loch has been subjected to a number of carefully researched and skilfully argued attacks.

  At the same time, the ever-optimistic investigators have set out for lake-shores new in pursuit of creatures which, many believe, have survived in their freshwater fastnesses since prehistoric times.

  Reports that a monster had been seen rearing up out of the waters of Lake Hanas, China, were investigated by technicians from Xinjiang University in 1980. They travelled to the lake, which is set deep in thickly forested mountains 500 miles north of Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uygur region, and laid bait in the water. All they saw, however, was 'a large red shape', which approached the bait before disappearing back into the depths.

  In Canada, in the 1980s, a weird pair of creatures was said to inhabit Saddle Lake and Christina Lake in Alberta. Ray Makowecki, Director of the region's Fish and Wildlife Department, told enquirers:

  We've received so many reports of the creatures at both lakes that we've had to take them seriously. There is no obvious and logical explanation.

  Besides their heads which are shaped like horses', and their eyes which are the size of saucers, the most astonishing feature is their hair, something like Bo Derek's hair-do in the film 10. And all of the reports were from trusted and very credible people.

  In 1982 a Polish newspaper, Kurter Polski, described how a student swimming in Zegrzynski Lake near Warsaw claimed he had been confronted by a beast with 'an enormous slimy black head with rabbit-like ears'. He struck out for the shore at once and when he got there the creature had disappeared, leaving only 'huge ripples' to show where it had been.

  A Russian writer, Anatoly Pankov, reported on the hunt for a greyish, long-necked creature apparently seen since the 1950s by several witnesses in Lake Labinkir in the province of Yakutia in Siberia. A group of geologists said it made a sound 'much like a child's cry', while some reindeer-hunters claimed they had watched it coil up out of the water and snaffle a passing bird. Pankov tells of another hunter who took ingenious revenge on the monster after it had swallowed his dog. First he made an animal-skin raft and then piled it high with red-hot coals before pushing it out over the water. The monster duly took the bait and dived away, only to reappear a few moments later 'making terrible sounds'.

  There have been the inevitable false alarms. From the town of Alma Ata in Kazakhstan in December 1985 the Soviet news agency Tass cabled the results of an expedition mounted by the Soviet Academy of Science's Institute of Evolutionary Morphology and Ecology of Animals. For years, a monster had been sighted in Lake Kol-Kol. Some eyewitnesses said it was like a dinosaur; others reported that 'a twisty body about 20 metres long emerges above the lake surface time and again'.

  In reaching their conclusion, the scientists refused to be distracted by the colourful accounts of the locals. The lake is connected to underground cavities by mud-covered cracks,' they reported. 'When the mud is washed away and water rushes down, large whirlpools appear on the water surface - the traces of the unknown beast.'

  In West Germany in July 1982 bathers in a flooded gravel pit near Augsburg were horrified to realize that they were sharing the water with a writhing serpentine creature. The police were duly called and arrested a boa constrictor. How had it got into the pit? Answer: It was a very hot day and the snake's thoughtful owner had simply brought his pet along for a swim.

  The case for the existence of a monster in Lake Champlain in the United States of America, was boosted in 1984 by the publication of a book called Champ - Beyond the Legend. Its author, Joseph Zarzynski, has collected more than 200 eyewitness reports which suggest that a mysterious creature may live in the lake. There is certainly plenty of room for a monster to hide: Lake Champlain is 109 miles long and runs from the Canadian border through Vermont and down to New York State.

  Zarzynski has assembled an impressive number of nineteenth-century sightings. For example, a Captain Crum claimed to have seen 'Champ' from his boat in Bulwagga Bay in July 1819. He said it was almost 200 ft (60 m) long and held its head more than 15 ft (4.5 m) above the water. In August 1871 passengers on the steamer Curlew off Barber Point watched through a telescope as a huge and mysterious creature ploughed through the water 'at railroad speed'. Ten years later a steamboat pilot, Mr Warren Rockwell, took a pot shot at an 'animal' from the rear deck of his vessel near Swanton, Vermont. The creature made itself scarce. In 1880 a Dr Brigham of Bedford, Quebec, and a friend had spotted 'portions of a strange monster's body fully 20 ft long, head as large as a flour barrel, eyes with greenish tinge' in Missisquoi Bay.

  In the 1960s Avril Trudeau and a friend reported seeing something with 'an ostrich- or duck-like face' off Maquam shore, Vermont. This is just one of many accounts from this century. Earlier, in 1951, Mrs Theresa Megargee shot at something 'more 30 ft rather than 20 ft long' opposite Valcour Island, New York. She was not convinced it was an unknown creature - it might have been an Atlanti
c sturgeon - but she let it have the full force of 'an old, octagon-barreled .30-40 Winchester rifle' just in case. She told Zarzynski: 'At the time, I thought my beautiful baby might one day be a tempting "hors d'oeuvre", and I was a protective young mother.' In August 1981 Claude Van Kleeck and others were in a boat in Bulwagga Bay when they apparently saw a creature 'not less than 50 ft long, at least as wide as a 55 gallon barrel', while in May 1984, Anna Gagne was treated to more than one sighting off Popasquash Island.

  From his collection of eyewitness reports, Zarzynski has built up a composite picture of the monster:

  Champ is approximately 15-30 feet in length ... It is dark or black in colour with some colour differentiations possibly due to age or sex. Champ has a snake-like head with two horns or ears, a mouth and teeth, and a possible mane or fringe/ridge on its head and neck. Due to the infrequency of land sightings, there is no indication as to any or the number of flippers, but several eyewitnesses have observed a tail off the body. Champ has the ability to dive and swim at considerable speeds and can hold its head erect for a lengthy time. Weight is difficult to estimate; however, based on size descriptions, a body weight of several tons wouldn't be out of reason.