TRX S3E02: MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE
Throughout history there have been people whose stories of their mysterious ways have grown into legends that are larger than life. Today we are discussing all manner of Mysterious People. So grab your spoon and get comfortable.
<Calendar Segment> Late January
Of course today, January 17, is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. Martin Luther King Day celebrates the life and accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK promoted Civil Rights through nonviolent civil disobedience. He is perhaps best known for his I have a dream... speech in 1963.
Now Wednesday, January 19 is a day that listeners to Remnant Stew should love, it’s National Museum Selfie Day! Museum Selfie Day celebrates the selfies taken at museums. Mar Dixon created the hashtag, Museum Selfie Day, while he was visiting a museum in Paris with his daughter. The idea behind this observance is not just about taking a picture of the art, but it is also a reminder of that moment, and all the experiences that occurred throughout the visit. So send us your museum selfie pics!
Monday January 24 is National Peanut Butter Day. National Peanut Butter Day celebrates one of the most famous foods in the United States. According to the National Peanut Board, peanut butter has existed since the Ancient Incas and the Aztecs. It is believed that they were the first people to transform roasted peanuts into a paste.
Wednesday January 26 is Australia Day! Australia Day commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet of 11 convict ships from Britain. On this day in 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip first raised the British flag at Sydney Cove, marking the British occupation of Australia. So Happy Australia Day to all of our listeners Down Under.
GIL PÉREZ Late in the year of 1593 the Governor of the Philippines was executed by Chinese pirates. Guards remained in place protecting the palace while awaiting the appointment of a new governor. It was the night of October 24th when guard Gil Perez was on duty. It was late and Perez, feeling dizzy and exhausted, decided to lean up against the stone wall and rest his eyes for a moment. Upon opening his eyes he was startled to discover he was no longer at the palace or even in the Philippines. Instead he found that he had somehow been miraculously transported thousands of miles across the ocean to Mexico City. Officials noticing his guard uniform began to question Perez asking who he was. They could hardly believe his incredible story and so they locked him in jail.
Months later news of the assassinated governor finally reached Mexico City and a ship’s passenger recognized Gil Perez and vouched for him. The authorities had no choice but to release Perez and allow him to return home.
Did Perez teleport? Was he abducted by aliens and transported across the sea? Is this nothing more than an interesting legend who’s details have been embellished beyond belief by the passage of years? We will never truly know but one thing is certain, whether real or just a legend Gil Perez is undoubtedly a mysterious person and his is just one of many stories we are featuring during this episode of Remnant Stew.
MONSIEUR CHOUCHANI Let’s talk about a teacher, a mysterious teacher. Now as you know I have been an educator for the past 42 years. Over that time I have known some teachers who were rather odd and a few who were downright strange, but none that I would really qualify as mysterious. But then I never met Mr. Chouchani (pronounced "Shoushani). Part of the mystery about Mr. Chouchani is that isn’t even his real name. No one for sure knows what his name was! It is believed that he was born in the 1890s in Eastern Europe to Jewish parents, but virtually nothing certain about his past is known. What is certain is that he emerged as an especially insightful interpreter of the Talmud or Old Testament and other Jewish teachings, and he spent his life traveling in East Europe, France, the United States, Israel, North Africa and South America. He always wore pauper's clothes and sought food and lodging among friends which were many. Wherever he went, he left behind many admirers who were astounded by the scope of his knowledge - in both Jewish and general fields - and his skill at integrating various realms to produce stunning innovations.
From a website called haaretz.com we find a terrific article titled Goodbye Mr. Chauchani written by Yair Sheleg. According to Sheleg, Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel writes that he would not be the person that he is today were it not for the fact that one day, an amazing, rather curious vagabond came along and informed him that he understood nothing. Noted French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas called the same man a "wonderful teacher" and claimed he was able to decipher any Talmudic text. Levinas repeatedly emphasized that his own understanding of the Talmud (as expressed in his book "Nine Talmudic Readings,") is only the "shadow of the shadow" of what he learned from his great teacher. Shalom Rosenberg, Hebrew University professor of Jewish philosophy, who met this same man a few years before he died in South America in the late 1960s, regards him as his most influential teacher and continues to regret that he has not done enough to disseminate his teachings. Of course, they are all referring to Mr. Chauchani.
From information compiled through interviews with his friends it was determined that Chouchani grew up in Eastern Europe as a child prodigy who, from an early age, knew the Bible and Talmud by heart. The prevailing assumption is that he had a remarkable photographic memory and that his mind worked like a scanner. It appears that Chouchani's father would travel with his son through East European villages, earning money from the boy's amazing displays of memory skills. Evidently something in that childhood traumatized him as he would spend the rest of his life as a vagabond, never utilizing his immense capabilities in any formal framework. Nevertheless, his insightful explanations of scripture have left a deep impact on those he came in contact with. He died in Uruguay in 1968. His tombstone reads, "The wise Rabbi Chouchani of blessed memory. His birth and death are shrouded in mystery."
RASPUTIN From biography.com and also from history.com we learn about the mysterious Russian known as Rasputin. He was born around 1869 to peasant parents. His name "Rasputin" meant "where two rivers meet," a phrase that describes an area near where he was born in Siberia. When he was a teenager he underwent a religious conversion and then proclaimed himself to be a healer. Some people in his village said that he possessed supernatural powers. Others just said he was weird. When he was 19 he joined a monastery and was intent on becoming a monk, but he left after only a brief stay in order to get married. He and his wife had three children, but he soon abandoned his family and took off for Greece and the area that became Israel where he is thought to have made several pilgrimages.
In 1903, Rasputin showed up in St. Petersburg, Russia where he arrived with a reputation as a mystic and faith healer. Two years later, he was introduced to Russian Czar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, who were seeking help for their sickly son, Alexis. Rasputin quickly gained their confidence by seemingly "curing" the boy of hemophilia. This action won him access to the Czar as well as the passionate support of Alexandra.
His increasingly drunken and lude behavior reflected poorly on the Czar and Alexandra. In fact, it was rumored that Rasputin was Alexandra’s secret lover as she continually came to his defense when other members of the court advised the royal couple to distance themselves from the mystery man. But rather than repulse him, Nicholas and Alexandra made him a trusted advisor. When World War I broke out in 1914, Nicholas took off with the military and left Alexandra and Rasputin to attend to domestic affairs.
Fearful of Rasputin’s growing power (it was believed by some that he was plotting to make a separate peace with the Germans), a group of nobles, led by Prince Felix Youssupov, lured Rasputin to Youssupov Palace on the night of December 29, 1916.
First, Rasputin’s would-be killers gave him food and wine laced with cyanide. When he failed to react to the poison, they shot him at close range, leaving him for dead. A short time later, however, Rasputin revived and attempted to escape from the palace grounds, whereupon his assailants shot him again and beat him viciously. Finally, they bound Rasputin, still miraculously alive, and tossed him into a freezing river. His body was discovered several days later and the two main conspirators, Youssupov and Pavlovich were exiled.
Although Rasputin was gone, the last of his prophecies was yet to unfold. Shortly before his death, he wrote to Nicholas to predict that if he were killed by government officials, the entire imperial family would be killed by the Russian people. His prophecy came true 15 months later, when the czar, his wife and all of their children were murdered by assassins amidst the Russian Revolution.
THE GIRL IN THE BLUE DRESS From a publication called the News Herald of Ohio we learn the following story. On Christmas Eve 1933 in the town of Willoughby, Ohio a 22-year-old girl with no money and no known family with whom to spend Christmas Eve, awoke, dressed and walked down the stairs of the boarding house on Third Street in Willoughby where she was staying. The girl with high cheekbones and reddish-blonde hair tied a flowered silk scarf around her neck, which matched her blue woolen dress and blue shoes.
Descending the stairs of the boarding house on the morning of Christmas Eve, she met the landlady and asked her for directions to the nearest church. But after giving her directions, the landlady watched as the girl walked in the opposite direction. Blending into the crowd of last-minute shoppers, she became just another face. Approaching a grove of maple trees, she turned and walked down a dirt footpath toward a lonely set of railroad tracks. She stopped at the railroad tracks.
In the distance, a New York Central passenger train grew larger and louder as it chugged forward. What happened next will never be known for sure. Did she intend to hitch a free ride home? Or did she want to end her life? Whatever her intention, the collision of her slight frame with the train ended her life in an instant. This was the moment in which the girl with the unknown face became a face no one in Willoughby would ever forget!
A search of the girl’s room at the boarding house turned up nothing. The only clue to her identity was in the purse she was carrying, which contained 90 cents and a railroad ticket to Corry, Pa. From then on, she was known as “The Girl in Blue.” Her body was taken to the McMahon Funeral Home, where residents and constables worked around the clock trying to identify her.
What amazed many was that despite her collision with the train, the girl suffered no visible trauma injuries. Her body was laid out at the funeral home for two weeks. More than 3,000 residents visited to pay their respects and see if they could identify the mysterious “Girl in Blue,” but no one could.
Willoughby residents raised $60 for a headstone for the girl and she was laid to rest in Willoughby Cemetery in a plot donated by a resident. Her headstone says: “Girl in Blue. Killed By Train. December 24, 1933. Unknown, But Not Forgotten.” An additional $15 was placed in a city fund to ensure that geraniums would be placed on the grave once a year.
News accounts of the “Girl in Blue” were printed in newspapers across the country. City officials in Willoughby were contacted by several people with details of their missing family members, but none of them matched the Girl in Blue. Over the next 60 years, the young woman became a kind of ward of the city and as her reputation grew people would come to her grave to leave small tokens, flowers, and coins. But still, no one knew who she was.
In 1993 the News Harold ran a review of the story on the 60th anniversary of the incident. The story was picked up by several newspapers including the Corry Evening Journal in Corry, Pennsylvania. The article was read by retired real estate agent Ed Sekerak, who remembered selling a farm in 1934. Sekerak recalled that the farm had been owned by an older couple who had died after falling on hard times at the beginning of the Great Depression. He remembered that the couple had two children, a son and a daughter, who had left for Detroit the previous year looking for work. The daughter was never heard from again. Curious, Sekerak searched through court records and learned that the mystery girl was Josephine Klimczak. Evidently her brother had given her train fare to go home for the holidays. It is unknown why she got off of the train in Willoughby.
The town of Willoughby has erected an additional monument on her grave with her correct name, but has also left the original Girl In Blue marker in place. A local artist named Robert Rigsby commemorated her by hiring a model and photographed her dressed in blue at the location of the boarding house, railroad, and at her grave. The photos hang in the city hall.
COUNT OF ST. GERMAIN The Count of Saint Germain is a very mysterious historical personality. He may be more legend than man but we know that he did exist. The Count came to prominence in European high society of the mid 1700s and was known among his acquaintances of the time to be an adventurer, scholar, musician, composer, linguist, alchemist...among other things. Basically if you could achieve it then Count Saint Germain had done so. We know he spoke at least nine languages. Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel considered him to be "one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived."
It was whispered that the Count was a gifted alchemist who had achieved eternal life. Voltaire described him as, “A man who knows everything and who never dies.” It was also speculated that he was The Wandering Jew which, according to Christian mythology, was a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion and was then cursed to walk the Earth until the Second Coming. In any case many believed that the Count had been a contemporary of Jesus.
So who was Count Saint Germain really? The Count of Saint Germain was not a Saint and may not even have been a Count. No one truly knows the circumstances of his birth. Some believe that he was a man of noble birth whose family was disgraced somehow and so he had to hide his true identity. Others believe that he was born long before his presence was documented and that he was immortal. Whatever the case, St Germain never divulged any information about his origins but towards the end of his life, he claimed that he was a son of Prince Francis II Rákóczi of Transylvania.
He was well traveled having spent time in all manner of European countries as well as Russia and India. He was said to have a striking appearance, especially his eyes. And was known to be very talented musically. He was a painter of some renown. It is said that he could make the jewels in his paintings appear strikingly realistic. He was also a collector of diamonds and wore many of them to social events. There were claims that he could also fix flawed diamonds.
Count St. Germain was observed to have some odd quirks. It was said that he never ate in public. The only thing he was seen to partake of was a special tea. This, along with the rumor of him being immortal, lead to some ideas in recent years that he may have been a vampire and he was actually drinking blood. He appeared to be around 40-45 years of age and never seemed to get any older than that in spite of being the center of attention in the French Court for 20+ years.
The count took the European high society of 1700s by storm. By all accounts he was an accomplished conversationalist speaking on many different subjects and in several different languages with ease. He was also known as quite the ladies man and he had all of Europe talking and speculating about him. An Italian adventurer and author wrote of St. Germain in his memoires “This extraordinary man, intended by nature to be the king of impostors and quacks, would say in an easy, assured manner that he was three hundred years old, that he knew the secret of the Universal Medicine, that he possessed a mastery over nature, that he could melt diamonds, professing himself capable of forming, out of ten or twelve small diamonds, one large one of the finest water without any loss of weight. All this, he said, was a mere trifle to him. Notwithstanding his boastings, his bare-faced lies, and his manifold eccentricities, I cannot say I thought him offensive. In spite of my knowledge of what he was and in spite of my own feelings, I thought him an astonishing man as he was always astonishing me.”
Count St. Germain died on February 27, 1784. There is a record of his death and burial. That didn’t stop people from claiming to see him well after that date. In 1785 he was seen in Germany with Anton Mesmer, the pioneer hypnotist. (Some claim that it was Saint-Germain who gave Mesmer the basic ideas for hypnotism and personal magnetism.) Official records of Freemasonry show that they chose Saint-Germain as their representative for a convention in 1785.
After the taking of the Bastille in the French Revolution in 1789, the Comtesse d'Adhémar said she had a lengthy conversation with Count Saint-Germain. He allegedly told her of France's immediate future, as if he knew what was to come. In 1821, she wrote: "I have seen Saint-Germain again, each time to my amazement. I saw him when the queen [Antoinette] was murdered, on the day following the death of the Duke, in January, 1815, and on the eve of the murder of the Duke de Berry." The last time she saw him was in 1820 — and each time he looked to be a man no older than his mid-40s.
Believers in the Count’s immortality say that he took the name of Major Fraser for a few years. There are all sorts of speculations as to where the Count is now. Some say that he showed up in New Orleans in 1902 as Jacque St. Germaine who claimed to be a descendent of the Count but when he never aged people speculated that he was the Count himself all along. Still looking to be about 40 to 45 years old St. Germaine quickly became an eccentric and sought-after member of New Orleans's high society, still never eating or drinking anything except a “special tea.”
So who was Count Saint-Germain? Was he a successful alchemist who found the secret of eternal life? Was he a time traveler? Or was he a highly intelligent man whose reputation became a fantastic legend? (Historicmysteries.com, wikipedia, ranker.com, liveabout.com)
ODDITY DU JOUR: TIME ODDITIES An article posted on Buzz Feed on November 16, 2021 got us to thinking about some numeric time oddities that might catch you by surprise. Some examples include:
Cleopatra was born (70 BC) closer to the Apollo Moon landing (1969) than she was to the construction of the Great Pyramid (2500 BC)
Barak Obama was the first president who was born under the same flag that he served under. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii just two years after it became the 50th state. The U.S. Flag has not changed since then.
Both Ann Frank and Martin Luther King were born in 1929, and they would both be seven years younger than Betty White who was born in 1922.
France conducted its last execution by guillotine in 1977 the same year Star Wars was released.
The Wright Brothers’ first flight was only 66 years before the first moon landing. Airplane wings today still maintain the basic curved design that they developed.
Irene Triplet died in 2020 at the age of 90. Up until her death she received $73 per month from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs from her father’s Civil War pension! Her father Mose Triplet fought for the Confederacy and then switched sides right before the Battle of Gettysburg. He fathered Irene when he was 78 years old!
Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingles Wilder was born in 1867 during the Horse and Buggy era and died in 1957 in the Jet age.
Samuel J Seymour was in Ford’s Theatre on the night that Lincoln was assassinated. He was only five years old. 91 years later he related his experience on the TV show I’ve Got a Secret.
And finally 1889 seems to have been an interesting year. It saw the birth of Charlie Chaplain, Adolf Hitler, Otto Frank, and Edwin Hubble. Other things that happened in 1889: Nintendo was founded as a playing card manufacturer, the first jukebox went into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco, and the United States officially added North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington as states.
And in 1889 Jack the Ripper was still on the loose.
I have a couple Time Oddities to add…
So the first flight by the Wright Brothers was in 1903. The moon landing was in 1969, just 66 years between the events.
Orville Wright Was Still Alive When Hiroshima And Nagasaki Were Bombed (1945)
Woolly Mammoths Were Still Alive While Egyptians Were Building The Pyramids (2660 BCE)
Oxford University Existed For Hundreds Of Years Before The Aztec Empire Was Founded (1428) Oxford University has no known date of foundation, but there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation.
George Washington Died In 1799. The First Dinosaur Fossil Was Discovered In 1824. George Washington Never Knew Dinosaurs Existed
Anne Frank And Martin Luther King Junior Were Born In The Same Year (1929)
The Fax Machine Was Invented The Same Year The First Wagon Crossed The Oregon Trail (1843) The original fax machine, the "Electric Printing Telegraph" was patented in 1843 by Scottish inventor Alexander Bain, the same year that about 1,000 people set off West for Oregon, forming a huge wagon train on what is now known as the Oregon trail. This set the tone for Westward expansion in the USA, and is the beginning of the 'Great Migration.'
Harvard University Didn't Offer Calculus Classes For The First Few Years After The School Was Established... Because Calculus Hadn't Been Invented Yet. Modern calculus was developed in 17th-century Europe by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Harvard was established in 1636. (BoredPanda.com)
KENNETH MACKENZIE From historicuk.com we learn the interesting story of Kenneth MacKenzie. According to Scottish lore, Kenneth was born near the end of the 1600s in Loch Ussie near to Dingwall in the Scottish Highlands. One night Kenneth and his mother were walking through a graveyard where ghosts were known to wander about. They came upon the ghost of a Danish princess on her way back to her grave. In order to allow her to pass back into the grave, Kenneth’s mother demanded that the princess should pay a tribute, and asked that her son should be given the second sight. In Scottish lore, the second sight was the ability to see both this world and another world at the same time. The Second Sight has never been regarded as witchcraft in Scotland, it is seen more as a curse. “Ah, take patience with the lad for he has the Sight and it is a terrible affliction.” The legend goes that later that day, Kenneth found a small stone with a hole in the middle, through which he would look and see visions.
Kenneth became known as the Braham Seer or Coinneach Odhar (Conna Oh-wa) in the local tongue. His prophesies were so impressive that they are still quoted to this day. Some of them include the following.
The Battle of Culloden (1745), which he uttered at the site, and his words were recorded. “Oh! Drumossie, thy bleak moor shall, ere many generations have passed away, be stained with the best blood of the Highlands. Glad am I that I will not see the day, for it will be a fearful period; heads will be lopped off by the score, and no mercy shall be shown or quarter given on either side.”
The joining of the lochs in the Great Glen. This was accomplished by the construction of the Caledonian Canal in the 19th Century.
He talked of great black, bridleless horses, belching fire and steam, drawing lines of carriages through the glens. More than 200 years later, railways were built through the Highlands.
North Sea oil was foretold: “A black rain will bring riches to Aberdeen.”
Coinneach Odhar spoke of the day when Scotland would once again have its own Parliament. This would only come, he said, when men could walk dry shod from England to France. The opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 was followed a few years later by the opening of the first Scottish Parliament since 1707.
Pointing to a field far from seashore, loch or river, he said that a ship would anchor there one day. “A village with four churches will get another spire,” said Coinneach, “and a ship will come from the sky and moor at it.” This happened in 1932 when a blimp made an emergency landing and was tied up to the spire of the new church.
At the height of his fame and powers, Odhar made his most notorious prediction which would ultimately cost him his life. Isabella, wife of the Earl of Seaforth and said to be one of the ugliest women in Scotland, asked for his advice. She wanted news of her husband who was on a visit to Paris. Odhar reassured her that the Earl was in good health but refused to elaborate further.
This enraged Isabella, who demanded that he tell her everything or she would have him killed. Coinneach told her that her husband was with another woman, fairer than herself, and he foretold the end of the Seaforth line, with the last heir being deaf and dumb. (Francis Humberston Mackenzie, deaf and dumb from scarlet fever as a child, inherited the title in 1783. He had four children who died prematurely and the line came to an end.) Isabella was so incensed by this that she had Coinneach seized and thrown head-first into a barrel of boiling tar.
Now as impressive as all this is, there is one little problem. There’s no evidence that Kenneth MacKenzie ever actually existed! There was a Coinneach Odhar documented living in the late 1500s. He was a Gypsy who was found guilty of providing poison to a woman who wanted to do away with her rivals.
Were these two different people or the same? Could the life of the gypsy and poisoner have been twisted into the story of the seer? Was the 16th century Coinneach the grandfather of the Brahan Seer? No one knows for sure.
Whatever the truth, the legend is well known and respected today. A Celtic stone, the Eagle Stone, stands in Strathpeffer, Ross-shire. The Seer said that if the stone fell down three times, then Loch Ussie would flood the valley below so that ships could sail to Strathpeffer. The stone has fallen down twice: it is now set in concrete. No use taking chances!
ROBERT JOHNSON was an American blues musician from the early 20th century who had little commercial success or public recognition in his lifetime but went on to be recognized as a master of the blues, particularly the Delta blues style. Born in 1911, Johnson grew up on a plantation along the Mississippi Delta. As a young man, he yearned for musical greatness and so legend says that Johnson was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad. There he was met by a large black man (presumably the Devil) who took the guitar and tuned it. The Devil played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him mastery of the instrument. In exchange for his soul, Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became famous.
Johnson had one drooping eye that he tended to turn away from his audience while performing. Rumors spread that it spoke of an infernal connection, proof of his dealing with the Devil. Johnson did little to discourage such tales—if anything, he fanned the flames with lyrics such as “Early this morning when you knocked upon my door / And I said, ‘Hello, Satan, I believe it’s time to go.’” Johnson died in 1938 under mysterious circumstances at the age of 27 making him a member of the ?? 27 Club, the name ascribed to the list of musicians and entertainers who all died at the young age of 27 including such notable names as Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Some say Johnson succumbed to syphilis, others say it was poison that killed him, still others contend it was just the Devil collecting his due. (Wikipedia, the-lineup-up.com)
MAN IN THE HOLE From livescience.com we learn of the Man In The Hole. I say that we learn of rather than learn about him, because no one really knows much of anything about him except that he digs holes to survive. Let’s explain.
According to Survival International, Brazil is home to the world's largest population of uncontacted people, and 80 of these tribes are thought to live in the Amazon, subsisting through a mixture of hunting, gathering and fishing. Their lands and livelihoods are under threat from encroaching industry and development. Besides the risk of violence from contact with outsiders, these indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to diseases like measles and the flu, to which they have no immunity.
This isolated man is believed to be the only surviving member of his tribe. He has recently been spotted in the Brazilian Amazon. FUNAI, Brazil's indigenous affairs department, which monitors uncontacted people, released video footage recently of the man, nicknamed "the Man of the Hole." In the video the man is seen chopping trees with an ax.
To protect him from external threats, FUNAI said it has been keeping tabs on the man from a distance for the last 22 years. The man lives in the forests of the Tanaru indigenous reserve, which was established in 2015. After confirming his location in 1996, FUNAI had tried to contact the man, but he has always resisted. (He has previously shot arrows at workers who got too close.) Coordinators with the agency stopped making attempts at contact in 2005. Instead, they watch him from afar, and sometimes leave tools and seeds for planting in areas that he passes. The agency said that in the 1980s, farmers, illegal loggers and land-grabbers encroached on the territory of isolated tribes in Rondônia, and many indigenous people were expelled from their lands or killed. During an attack in 1995, the remaining members of the Man of the Hole's already small tribe were killed, possibly by cattle ranchers.
"We don't know the name of his tribe or what language he speaks," the indigenous rights group Survival International said in a Facebook post about the video. "His people were probably massacred by outsiders who invaded the region. He survives because his territory is now, finally, being properly protected by the authorities."
And what about the holes? Well, he digs them to live in and to trap animals in. It is remarkable that he has managed to survive in the Amazon by himself for so long.
SOMERTON MAN On 1 December 1948 at 6:30 am, the police were contacted after the body of a man was discovered on Somerton Park beach about 11 km (7 mi) southwest of Adelaide, South Australia. The man was found lying back with his head resting against the seawall, with his legs extended and his feet crossed. It was believed the man had died while sleeping. Witnesses came forward claiming to have seen him lying in the same position and location around 7 pm the night before. They said they saw him moving around a bit. Another couple said they noticed the man on the beach, again in the same position and same location around 7:30 to 8 pm but never saw him move. They had the impression that he was drunk or asleep.
When authorities began their inspection of the corpse, they found an unlit cigarette on the right collar of his coat. A search of his pockets revealed an unused second-class rail ticket from Adelaide to Henley Beach; a bus ticket from the city that may not have been used; a US-manufactured, narrow aluminium comb; a half-empty packet of Juicy Fruit chewing gum; an Army Club cigarette packet, which contained seven cigarettes of a different brand, Kensitas, and a quarter-full box of Bryant & May matches. The coroner determined that the man likely may have been poisoned but was unable to reach a conclusion as to the cause of death or the man's identity.
A brown suitcase found at the Adelaide railway station was thought to belong to the man. The suitcase with its label removed, had been checked into the station cloakroom after 11:00 am on November 30, 1948. It contained various items of clothing and toiletries but nothing that would provide any definitive ideas behind the dead man’s identity. The tags in all the clothing had been removed which was a normal thing if clothing was bought secondhand. Many people put their names on the tags of their clothing and so you would remove that.
This unidentified man may very well have been forgotten by history as many John Does are except for one thing. Sewn into the dead man’s pants pocket was a tiny piece of rolled-up paper with the words "Tamám Shud" printed on it. The other side of the paper was blank. Public library officials were consulted to translate the text and it was identified as a phrase meaning “ended” or “finished” found on the last page of “Rubaiyat” a book of poetry by Omar Khayyam.
Police conducted an Australia-wide search to find a copy of the book that had its last page printed with “Tamam Shud” and blank on the other side. a similarly blank verso. A photograph of the scrap of paper was released to the press. The actual book that the page was ripped from was soon found. The book had handwriting on the back cover but it was in some sort of code that has never been deciphered. But a telephone number was also found scribbled in the back of the book. It belonged to a nurse named Jessica Ellen Thomson that lived in a neighborhood very near to where the dead man was found. Mrs. Thomson claimed that she did not know the man and had never seen him in her life but she did say that at some time in late 1948, an unidentified man had attempted to visit her and asked a next door neighbour about her. Several people including an author that later interviewed her as well as her own daughter felt that Mrs. Thompson knew more about the man than she was admitting to.
In any case the identity of the man is still a mystery today but there was much speculation that he was a spy due to the strange circumstances of his death and the fact that there were a couple of sites nearby of interest to spies; a uranium mine and a military research facility.
According to a May 2021 article by Hilary Whiteman for CNN the mystery may soon be solved. The grave marked with a headstone reading “the unknown man” was opened and the Somerton Man’s body was exhumed in order to extract DNA in a final effort to identify the man whose story has remained unknown all these years. Will he turn out to be a spy or someone much more mundane? It may take up to two years to complete the testing but an answer is just around the corner. One person waiting eagerly for results is Rachel Egan, Mrs. Thomson’s grand-daughter. She thinks she may just be related to the Somerton Man.
BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM And now from the Birmingham (UK) Mail we learn of the interesting unsolved story of Bella in the Wych Elm.
One day in 1943 four boys who lived in the Midlands near Birmingham, UK went out tromping in the woods in search of bird’s eggs. (It was during WW II and food in the UK was scarce.) One boy named Bob scrambled up an old wych elm tree and let out a piercing scream. There, wedged in a hollow, was a skull!. He would later recall: “There was a small patch of rotting flesh on the forehead, with lank hair attached to it. The two front teeth were crooked.”
It would be some time before the boys, fearing they would land in hot water for trespassing, raised the alarm. After all, they were unsure the remains were even human. In the end, it was the youngest of the egg collectors, Tommy Willetts, who informed his father about what lurked in the woods.
The police were summoned and upon their arrival were shocked to find the body of a woman. It appears that she had been there for a couple of years. Her right arm had been severed and was located nearby. Also found nearby was a note that said, “Who Put Bella In The Wych Elm?”
The murder scene bore some marks of a ritualistic satanic killing. The crime scene mirrored an ancient ceremony known as “Hand of Glory” where bones are scattered to the wind. A hand had been severed, a wad of taffeta wedged in the victim’s mouth. One of her arms had been left 13 paces from the skeletal remains – an ancient custom used when a witch was executed. The choice of tree was also significant. Wych elm plays an important part in the black arts. Add to the mix the fact that Belladonna is the ancient name for deadly nightshade, a plant closely associated with witchcraft.
However, the police dismissed the idea of an actual ritual killing, rather believing that the murderer was using those symbols as a smokescreen to cover their steps. Author Peter Simmell has spent considerable time researching the killing. He believes that Bella was a Nazi spy. He bases this theory on the following:
A Czech-born Gestapo agent Josef Jakobs, captured by the Home Guard in 1941 after parachuting into Northern England, gave interrogators the name and picture of a woman. She was the spy’s lover, Clara Bauerle, a German actress and cabaret singer. Before the war, she spent two years working West Midlands music halls, and had mastered a British accent. Clara had been recruited by the Gestapo and, with Jakobs, was given the job of creating a spy cell. Evidently they were to observe and report back to Germany concerning activities at Birmingham munitions plants
Intriguingly, no showbiz record of Clara – no films, billboards or record of engagements – exists after spring 1941. She simply disappeared off the face of the earth. Soon after his interrogation, Jakobs was executed by firing squad. He holds the distinction of being the last man put to death at the Tower of London.
There is no actual proof that “Bella” is in fact Clara Bauerle. However recently an image of Bella’s likeness was created by Caroline Wilkinson, the expert tasked with rebuilding Richard III’s face after the royal’s remains were found under a Leicester parking lot. The professor of craniofacial identification at Dundee University used photographs taken at the time to put a face to the name. She was not able to utilize the actual skull because, well, the police have misplaced it. Nevertheless, the image created by Wilkinson is of the face of a woman in her mid thirties, and it does bear a likeness to a photograph of Clara Bauerle from the late 1930s.
According to author Peter Simmell, no one who ever had actual contact with “Bella” would still be alive today. They are asking people to search through their family albums for photos of family members who have gone missing. Thus far, there is still no match, but the spy theory is believed by many to be the most credible.
You mentioned that a note was found nearby asking “Who put Bella down the Wych Elm” That note was written on a wall in Upper Dean Street in Birmingham. Several other messages appeared at that time around town as well. And throughout the years similar graffiti has appeared sporadically on the Hagley Obelisk near to where the woman's body was discovered, which asks the same thing.
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QUESTION: A mysterious teenager was found walking the streets of Jacksonville, Illinois. He was deaf and couldn't speak or use sign language. A judge sent him to an institution where he thrived until his death in 1994 at the estimated age of 64. What name was given to him and why?
OUTRO
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