1600: Aarslev And Beyond

The 400+ year old Aarslev incident, often described as "Denmark's oldest UFO case", has been featured in many Danish books and publications over the years. At the same time, there has been a lack of information about the case available in English. My intention is to make up for that with this post, but beyond simply re-hashing and translating the existing Danish material, I will offer some new perspectives as well.

Even if one takes a sceptical approach to the Aarslev incident, there is enough evidence to suggest that something spectacular happened - something which touched many of the witnesses deeply and affected the broader community at the time. It truly is one of the most fascinating, and best documented, Danish Fortean cases.

A Strange Encounter In A Field Near Randers

Aarslev Enge is an area of field about 10 kilometers south-east of Randers - Denmark's 6th largest city, located on the eastern part of the country's mainland. Today, a stroll through the Aarslev area probably wouldn't spark anything beyond the most pedestrian thoughts, but one Wednesday more than 400 years ago something extraordinary happened here that shook the locals to the core. 

Before midday on the the 30th of April, 1600, a group of townsmen were gathered for the annual event of cleaning a local stream, Alling Å. While waiting for the local Alderman to assess the situation, the workers decided to take a rest by the stream. After reaching the conclusion that nothing further could be accomplished that day, due to an unforeseen buildup of water in the stream, the Alderman announced that the work was to be postponed and that everyone were free to leave. 

Then, as people were preparing to go, the Alderman suddenly spotted something “like a big wagon” rising from the fields in the distance, together with a group of strange figures moving inside and around it. When he first drew attention to it, the townsmen thought he was joking, but they soon realized that this was not the case. At first, many of the witnesses tried to explain the sight as a flock of cattle running berserk and whipping up dust, but eventually they all began to see what the Alderman was seeing.

The figures became more discernible too, as the "wagon" moved closer (though some later described it as if it "dissolved" along the way). To the witnesses they were clearly humanoid, but a lot taller, fatter and more broadshouldered than normal people. Most of them seemed to be dressed in black, except for two who wore "bloody red" garments, and one who wore a white, long piece of clothing with a black band across. The ones dressed in red were a bit slimmer than the rest, but still very much taller than the average person at the time. They all appeared to be engaged in some "playful battle", using something akin to spears or swords with which they lifted each other up into the air. Occasionally, the red figures were surrounded some kind of smoke.

Workers depicted lying down before the arrival of the “wagon”. Unfortunately, no known images of the entitites exist to my knowledge.

By now, a local farmer and some women had also joined the large group of onlookers, and one can only imagine the amount of disbelief and anxiety among those present. At some point the Alderman cried out that everyone should fall to their and knees pray to God for it to disappear again. 

Shortly after that, another character joined the "battle". This guy wore a large white “thing, like a hat" on top of his head, and attacked and eventually scared away the figure with the white clothes. The "wagon" and the rest of the apparitions now started to retract towards a wooded area in the background, with many of the townspeople chasing after them (to no avail). Eventually, it disappeared completely, seemingly into the woods. The whole thing had lasted around 30 minutes.

Aftermath - Investigation And Implications

The Aarslev incident, as related above, was originally investigated and documented by a local nobleman, Holger Rosenkrantz, who lived at the nearby manor Rosenholm. His long-term plan was probably to spread the story even further via pamphlets, as stories of signs and revelations were usually printed in that format at the time (no newspapers yet existed). But apparently it never happened - at least, none such has ever been discovered. Rosenkrantz' original report is believed to have been destroyed in a fire in 1826, but a copy from 1760 still exists in the Danish Royal Library. 

In 1909 the report was more widely published, together with an introduction and postscript by cand. mag. Søren Hansen, in Randers Historical Society's yearbook. Here the incident was explained away as a misidentified waterspout which, together with a superstitious and authoritarian mindset, produced an advanced collective hallucination. While I won't dismiss that possibility completely, I think it sounds a little too convenient. In any case, this isn't the angle that I am interested in here.

The connection with flying saucers actually wasn't made until a few decades ago, when Danish folklorists started looking at the case in light of more recent developments within the UFO field. Since then, Fortean researchers such as Lars Thomas have written about the case, and it has even begun to feature prominently in popular history books. All the good work highlighting and analyzing the incident from a modern perspective aside, we can almost solely thank Holger Rosenkrantz for the survival of this rich account. Had it not been for his enthusiastic investigation and documentation of the story, it probably wouldn't be around today, except as hearsay or watered down folkore. 

Holger Rosenkrantz “The Learned One” (1574-1642)

Rumors of the incident spread quickly, and it was mentioned during sermons in several churches throughout the greater Randers area the following days. This is how Holger Rosenkrantz encountered the story and became interested in knowing more. On the 12th of May, Rosenkrantz visited Aarslev Church in order to get testimony from the local priest and seven witnesses to the events. Afterwards, he talked to them all individually and made them swear on the bible. He then met with a few additional witnesses, including some of the women that had joined the group towards the end. Later that day, four people joined Rosenkrantz on his trip back to Rosenholm, where they told their story at a larger congregation.

During Rosenkrantz' investigations, he learned that Aarslev priest Hans Pedersen Brun had heard a very loud, thundering noise that same day, accompanied by a terrifying voice which called out to him in a moaning fashing "Væ! Væ! Væ!". This happened while he was walking through the nearby woods, where he also met some local boys who had heard the noise, but not the voice. Rosenkrantz later deduced that priest Brun's experience with the latter took place exactly at the time when the "wagon" was disappearing, and that it happened in the exact same stretch of woods.

Aarslev Church in recent times.

The Broader Perspective

Rosenkrantz' passsion for the case shines through in his writings, and it did not appear out of nowhere. In the years leading up to the event, he had undergone some sort of religious identity crisis, which had caused him to become - using modern terminology - a born-again Christian. Looking at Rosenkrantz' report it indeed becomes clear that he believed this event to be a sign of warning from God to non-believers.

Spiritual (re)awakening was of course not an uncommon phenomenon during those days, in part due to the Reformation and the catholic church's harsh reaction to it. In this case we can also add the factor of the century shift, which is always a period of heightened awareness. These sentiments were further fueled by the many wars, natural catastropes, rampant hedonism and the plague spreading through Europe at the time. 

It may also be significant that the 30th of April is the day of Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night in English, Valborgsaften in Danish), named after the German saint Walpurga. It would be natural to speculate that this played some part in enforcing Rosenkrantz's beliefs, but actually he doesn't mention it anywhere. Walpurgisnacht is of course also notorious for being the date of the Great Witches' Sabbath, and the early 1600's was a period of intense witch hunts, even in Denmark. 

It appears, however, that even though Walpurgisnacht was celebrated in Denmark at the time of the Aarslev incident, the day did not become associated with witches and their flight to Brocken until the mid-1600's. Furthermore, this association is not mentioned anywhere in the Danish records until 1708. In fact, we may have to look at it the other way around: perhaps events such as the Aarslev case helped fuel the superstition about the diabolical nature of this date over the years.

Walpurgisnacht is not celebrated in Denmark anymore. Instead we celebrate Skt. Hans Aften (Saint Johns Eve), on the 23d of June, where we still burn witches in effigy (see picture). Overall, it is this date that is connected with witches in Denmark these days.

Originally I started digging deeper into the Aarslev case some years ago, after having read the (then) recently published Wonders In The Sky by Chris Aubeck and Jacques Vallée. I couldn't find any mention of the Aarslev incident in the book, and I discovered to my surprise that it wasn't that well known outside of Denmark. At the same time, I was struck by how many other of the cases in it featured the same kind of details. Take for example no. 138, from the year 1395:

"In the land of Languedoc [France], a big star and five small ones were seen in the sky. These, as it seemed, attacked and sought to fight the big one, which they followed for half an hour. Also a voice was heard in the sky, shouting. Then a man was seen, who seemed to be made of copper, holding a spear in his hand, and throwing fire. He grabbed the big star and hit it; after which, nothing more was seen."

Moving further into the future, the following excerpt (from case no. 170 in WITS) is from 1523, originally found in the Chinese book Stories In A Summerhouse Of Flowers:

"One day when it was raining without stopping the teacher observed two ships sailing over the woolly clouds above the ruins, in front of his house. On these two ships that measured more than ten fathoms [over sixty feet], two tall men were busying themselves, each one twelve feet tall and wearing a red hat and multicoloured clothes. They held a pole in their hands...".

There is also an incident (case no. 227) that took place 20 years after Aarslev, in Geneva, Switzerland, where:

"Two suns were seen, one red and the other one yellow, hitting against each other... Shortly afterwards there appeared a longish cloud, the size of an arm, coming from the direction of the sun, which stopped near the sun, and from that cloud came a large number of people dressed in black, armed like men of war. Then arrived other clouds, yellow as saffron, from which emerged some 'reverberations '(?) resembling tall, wide hats, and the earth was seen all yellow and bloody. The sun became double and it all ended with a raift of blood.”

Furthermore, all of these cases have parallels to the legend of The Wild Hunt (associated with Odin/Woten in Northern Europe and King Valdemar IV in Denmark, specifically), as well as the Danish tales of “Knarkevognen” (vogn means wagon or vehicle). Both are usually accompanied by loud noises and figures in the sky. 

Peter Nicolai Arbo's Asgårdsreiein (1872), one of the most famous Norse representations of The Wild Hunt

Regarding the entities seen around the Aarslev "wagon", it should also be mentioned that there is something of a Danish folkloric tradition regarding “long spirits", sometimes wearing tall hats and colored garments. Often these are connected with loud voices too (an example of this is found during the Køge Huskors affair, which i covered in the June 2014 issue of Phenomena Magazine). There are many other examples of tall entities throughout Evald Tang Kristensens folklore compilations, more specifically in "Danske Sagn..." volume five, section 8. It is quite possible that the Aarslev incident was an inspiration for such tales, which then mutated and spread to all over the country.

Aarslev, Haarslev And Beyond

This final section is to be considered optional for the understanding of the Aarslev case. But for those interested in synchronicities and other "paranormal" events, I have found some interesting correlations and additional material that relates to the incident. 

In a compilation of Danish folklore tales, Sagnenes Danmark by Gorm Benzon, I found an account that is evidently more than just a local legend. It was originally documented in the journals of Bishop Jacob Madsen, during his visits to different parishes around Denmark during the years 1587-1606. In 1601, a priest in the town of Haarslev on Fyn (Funen) handed Bishop Madsen an account of an angelic visitation from the previous year:

Between the 16th and 17th of April, 1600, a woman had heard a voice similar to that of a crying child repeat a strange sentence 3 times in old Danish: "O Wæ Och Voch, O Wæ Och Voch, O Wæ Och Woch Offuer All Wærdenn!". Then on the 30th of April, she was adressed by a loud voice claiming to be an angel of god, while praying. The angel told her to be strong in her faith, and to not be afraid. God would be on her side, and it was her duty to spread His true word to everyone around her. If people would still not change their ways following that, He would come down on them and their "kræ" (usually this refers to animals) in a very bloody way.

Shortly afterwards, the woman had gone to the local priest and told him about the experience and the message she had received. The priest then had a long series of discussions with other religious authorities in the region, before finally taking a stance on the matter. They suspected that it could be a trick played on them by the catholic church, in an attempt to challenge the town's blossoming protestant agenda. Specifically it is mentioned that clergymen in the area were in the process of removing old catholic relics from the churches when all this happened, which made them all the more suspicious of it being a hoax. They finally ignored the story. 

In 1601, a few months after Bishop Madsen heard about the story, Denmark was struck by a plague which lasted 3 years. One of it's symptoms was that it attacked the lungs, making people cough up large amounts of blood - thus fitting neatly into the prophecy of the "angel". It is unclear what exactly the Bishop made of all this, but Benzon mentions that to this day, it is possible to find more remnants of catholicism in the churches on Fyn than in the rest of Denmark.

A page from Bishop Jacob Madsen's journal.

There are some details in the account above, that I find particularly interesting, and which the attentive reader might already have picked up on. The fact that the visitation experience took place on Walpurgis Night, the same year as the Aarslev sighting, is remarkable. Secondly, there is the matter of the crying voice that was heard in both accounts. Looking closer at them, it becomes clear that they are very similar phonetically. This is also the case of the names Haarslev and Aarslev, although I do have to mention that while looking through Bishop Madsen's visitation journals, I discovered that there is actually also a town called Aarslev on Fyn, which makes me think that it was probably a somewhat popular geographical name. Still, it is an interesting coincidence.

Rosenholm Castle, from an old postcard (Date and year unknown)

As a final element, I have included a few Rosenkrantz-related legends that I also found in Gorm Benzon's book series. 

A few years before his death in 1642, Holger Rosenkrantz was teaching a group of students at Rosenholm, which by now was a well known centre of religious studies. Discovering that he had forgotten an important book at the library, he sent one of his students to fetch it. When the student reached the library, he was very surprised to see Holger sitting in a chair and reading the very book that he had been sent to retrieve. Although he found this odd, he decided that for some reason old Holger was playing a trick on him; He had apparently taken a shortcut to the library and was now testing him. 

The student went back to class, but when he arrived empty-handed he was asked why. The student then told what he had seen, and Rosenkrantz and the rest of the class walked together to the library, where indeed they found the doppelgänger sitting and reading. When finally Rosenkrantz asked "are you or am I the real Rosenkrantz"? Rosenkrantz saw this as a sign that his death was near, which in fact it was. He died a few years later.

According to Benzon, a supposed psychic lady was sleeping at Rosenholm many years after Holger Rosenkrantz' death, when she had a vision of him and his wife Sophie Brahe (niece of Tycho Brahe). She described the details of the clothes they were buried in down the smallest details, something which would have been difficult for her to know. Curiously enough, the coffins of Holger and his wife were actually resting in a room adjacent to the one she was sleeping in at the time, due to renovations in the crypt. 

Maybe old Holger hadn't yet given up on his mission, one that began so many years earlier in a little village known as Aarslev.

Sources:

• Askholm, Ib: Livets varsler: Om Fødsel, Tilværelse Og Skæbne. Askholm (1999)
• Benzon, Gorm: Sagnenes Danmark (1985)
• Holbek, Bengt & Piø, Iørn: Fabeldyr og Sagnfolk. Politikens Forlag, 2. Ed. (1979)
• Kristensen. Evald Tang: Danske Sagn Som De Har Lydt I Folkemunde (Vol. 2 & 5)
• Kæseler, Arnold: Heksetro og Hekse på Mors. Fortiden (1998)
• Madsen, Jacob: Biskop Jacob Madsens visitatsbog 1588-1604. Udgiverselskabet for Historisk Samfund for Fyns Stift (1995)
• Michaelsen, Jørgen: Synet i Årslev Enge in Lokalhistorisk Forening for Sønderhald Kommune (2000)
• Rosenkrantz, Holger: Et mærkeligt Syn i Aarslev Enge den 30te April 1600 in Historisk Årbog Fra Randers Amt (1909)
• Rosenkrantz, Palle (ed.): Rosenholm og Rosenkrantzerne: En Monografi. Koppel (1924)
• Rosenkrantz, Palle: Rosenholm I Skiftende Tider. Jyllands-Posten, August 17th (1941)
• Thomas, Lars: Det Mystiske Danmark. Aschehoug (2005)
• Vallée, Jacques & Aubeck, Chris: Wonders In The Sky. Tarcher (2010)

- Extra special thanks to Chris Aubeck and Yannis Deliyannis, and other members of the Magonia Exchange group for their valuable input, and for expanding my knowledge of these kinds of cases over the last couple of years.

Reeve's And Robin's

I was reading an article about movie and television "predictions" some time ago, when a stray thought hit me: Hadn't Christopher Reeve once, prior to his 1995 riding accident that left him paralyzed from the head down, played a quadriplegic in an old crime movie? I looked it up, and sure enough there were lots of resources on the Internet mentioning it. But it turns out that my memory wasn't completely on the money. The movie in question was the HBO-produced Above Suspicion from 1995, and Reeve "only" played a paraplegic in it...well, there is a bit more to the story actually, but I won't spoil anything for those who want to watch it (f.x. via the youtube link below).

When I finally sat down and watched Above Suspicion the other day, I didn't recognize it at all. The movie I thought I remembered was Deathtrap from 1982, which Reeve stars in together with Michael Caine. The plot and setting is completely different from Above Suspicion, and most importantly Reeve's character in Deathtrap is not in a wheelchair. So somewhere along the way I must have gotten the two mixed up in my head, for some reason. Still, it was a bit of a "wow" moment for me, especially when looking further into things. 

What makes the Christopher Reeve case particularly interesting, is that life seems to have imitated art with very short notice: Above Suspicion premiered on TV only six days before Reeve's accident. That and the fact that Reeve had gone to great lengths preparing for the movie, which was after all just a relatively small TV-production. He even went as far as staying at a spinal cord trauma unit for days at a time, so he would be able to play his role more convincingly. It makes you ponder the possibility that he somehow manifested his own accident, after focusing so intently on it within a fictional setting. Either that, or the universe handed out a particularly cruel dish of irony that day. 

Reeve was by reputation, and by his own admission, a very self-absorbed person before his accident, and he eventually looked back with regret on his sometimes smug attitude after leaving the rehabilitation unit, saying to himself "thank god that isn't me". Despite that, Reeve did make an effort to promote the cause for spinal cord injury victims prior to the release of the movie. "One moment everything is fine and then the world falls apart", as he was quoted saying at the time.

This was exactly the situation he faced after he was thrown off his horse "Eastern Express" during a riding competition on May the 27th, 1995. Reeve broke two of his upper veterbrae in the fall, and it was against most odds that he survived at all, with his brain functions intact. His head was almost completely seperated from his spine and had to be surgically reattached.

Reeve as Dempsey Cain in Above Suspicion (left) and in real life, not long after his injury (right).

That Reeve's accident took place so shortly after the airing of Above Suspicion, generated a lot of discussion at the time. But it also fed into the already existing legend of the "Superman curse", which refers to the many misfortunes that have fallen upon people involved with the Superman franchise. What fuelled it even further was that former 1950's Adventures of Superman star George Reeves was already known for being one of the prior victims of the "curse", dying in obscurity at a very young age. The obvious similarities between the names 'Reeves' and 'Reeve' have fostered a lot of speculation among Forteans ever since.

If you wan't to know more about the Superman curse, there is a good wikipedia entry on it here, but I recommend that you also check out this article, which looks at the matter from a more sceptical angle. Also, a more recent addition to the curse has been put forward by Loren Coleman at Twilight Language. And if you feel like taking it even further, Loren discusses the "name game" qualities of the Reeve/Reeves/Reaves name variants, originally started by John Keel in connection with UFO's, here and in his book Mysterious America. 

And if you are thinking that a UFO/ET connection sounds ridiculous, you might want to reconsider. Not only is Christopher Reeve by far the most recognized person to ever play Superman - who after all is one of the most famous aliens of all time. In 1995 he also starred in John Carpenter's remake of Village of The Damned, one of the most classic alien invasion stories ever written.

The Black Fox mini-series was filmed in 1993, but aired a few months after Reeve's horse-riding accident.

The Death of Robin Williams

Robin Williams died by apparent suicide on the 11th of August this year, and several "predictions" have surfaced from this event as well. Williams had a very strong connection to Christopher Reeve. They both went to Cornell University, where they were often the only people in their classes. Subsequently they became the only two students to be picked out for the prestigious Juillard school in New York, in 1973. They both studied drama at Juillard and kept a close friendship for years afterwards, while their acting carreers took off in different directions.

Shortly after Reeve's accident, Williams played a pracitical joke on him at the hospital, pretending to be a German doctor who was supposed to perform a rectal exam. Reeve has often stated how much this incident encouraged him at the time, and shows just how strong their friendship was. 

Robin Williams with Christopher Reeve and family, towards the end of Reeve's life.

It is curious that the death of Robin Williams should also be surrounded with "synchronicities". Among the top examples, is the fact that the BBC aired an episode of Family Guy, where the lead character Peter Griffin nearly commits suicide after creating an army of Williams clones, just 10 minutes prior to Reuters announcement of his death. 

As a spokesperson for the BBC said about the episode: 

 It was scheduled more than two weeks ago so it is just an uncanny coincidence. Some of our people who work here noticed that the death of Robin Williams was announced just as this episode ended. 

The said episode is titled "Viewer Mail #2", and is actually made up of three small segments, all based on viewer suggestions. After watching it I was surprised to discover that the episode included not just one, but in fact two suicide attempts. The second involves Kurt Cobain. Both can be seen in the video below.

Family Guy came under notable scrutiny in synchromystic and conspiracy circles last year too, for it's "predictions" about the Boston Marathon bombings in the episode 'Turban Cowboy'. It even made it into the mainstream media, due to a "hoaxed" video that had been circulating. But despite the questionable editing of the above mentioned video, there were still many details that could not be so easily dismissed. Additionally, the bombings were linked in several ways to another Seth McFarlane creation - American Dad - via the episode 'Missing Kink'.

One has to bear in mind that Family Guy is a hugely popular show in many countries, so the chances of that episode being shown somewhere in the world, at the same time as Robin Williams death, are not as astronomical as you may initially think. But those watching the episode at the time may rightly have been very confused about the news that met them, after having watched Robin Williams and two attempted suicides in the same program, within a matter of minutes.

Another thing that was pointed out almost immediately after the news of Williams death, was that his suicide mirrored that of his character's son, Kyle, in the 2009 movie World's Greatest Dad. In it, the son is made into a legend only after his death, and the story is effectively a social critique of the way society treats its dead (and living). In addition, actor David Carradine was found dead later that same year, due to the exact same cause as Kyle in World's Greatest Dad: erotic autoasphyxation (look it up).

And, would you know, another connection can be made here as well: World's Greatest Dad was written and directed by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait. Although fairly well known in the US, most Europeans will probably only remember Goldthwait for his role as the edgy and crazy 'Zed' in the Police Academy movies. But he was also a good friend of Nirvana, and toured and performed extensively with the band during their final years. They also did some very weird promotional material together, as can be seen in the clip below.

The ending of World's Greatest Dad has been visually compared to the cover art of the "Nevermind" album and the plot of the movie ditto with the spectacle that followed Kurt Cobain's death, here.

Finally, in retrospect, it is quite eerie to read this IGN forum topic about Robin Williams coming death. IGN is home to one of the biggest gaming communities on the Internet, and the topic was posted by some apparently random user only 3 days before Williams actually died. But perhaps it is not so mysterious after all. As someone mentions later in the discussion, there is actually a chance that Williams could have read the topic and become further motivated to commit suicide, as he was well known for being an avid gamer (he named his daughter Zelda after the Nintendo game series). Of course, we now know that Williams had been battling severe depression and alcoholism for years. On top of that, he had recently been diagnosed with the early stages of Parkinsons disease. So the incentive was there already. But it should make anyone think twice about where and what they write nowadays.

The Basilisks Of Copenhagen

A basilisk on the former Danish 100 kroner-bill.

In the autumn of 1674, a stuffed basilisk was put on display in Copenhagen. Or at least that is what people were meant to believe. In actuality, this curiosity was a predecessor of the type of "constructed" creatures that P.T. Barnum and others would later use in their notorious sideshows. And just like the infamous Feejee Mermaid of the mid-19th century, the 1674 basilisk attracted many people and created a lot of buzz in the Danish press, which back then was in its infancy.

The spectacle should not be taken out of context, however. There was something of a hype surrounding basilisks at the time, with many curious incidents taking place in Denmark during the previous years. Some of these are described at length in Jan Bondeson's The Feejee Mermaid, and in other books. The 1674 episode is largely unknown outside of Denmark, however, which is why i have chosen to focus on it here.

But just what is this legendary animal known as the basilisk? It has been written about by such luminaries as Chaucer, Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare and Voltaire, and the church came to view it as the epitomy of evil during the middle ages. And yet, the descriptions of the creature vary wildly, depending on where you read about it. So before we look at the aforementioned case, let's spend some time unravelling the genealogy of the basilisk, and try to sort fact from fiction.

Basilisks and Cockatrices

The basilisk, "King of Serpents", has a really complex history of origin - perhaps more than most creatures of legend. Its story is similar to the way the modern chupacabra or goatsucker myth developed: On the surface of it, you might think you have a grasp of what the creature is supposed to look like. But if you dig a little deeper, you find out that over the years, depending on the geographical area, people have developed widely disparate ideas about it. 

In the case of the chupacabra, descriptions ranges from bipedal critters akin to "grey" aliens, to 4-legged canine beasts. In the case of the basilisk, which has quite a few more years behind it, it gets even more confusing.

The Basilisk depicted as a crested snake.

The word Basilisk derives from the Greek Basiliskos - the diminutive of Basileus, which means king. So the straightforward translation of basilisk would be "little king". Part of the reason for this name has to do with the crownlike features on the creatures head - something which has been present since the very first descriptions of it. The first recorded mention of the basilisk appears to be by Pliny The elder in his "Natural History", a series of books published in the period 77-79 AD, where it is described as:

"...not above twelve Fingers' Breadth long; with a white Spot on the Head, as if distinguished with a Diadem. With his Hiss he driveth away other Serpents; he moveth not his Body forward by multiplied Windings like other Serpents, but he goeth with Half his Body upright and aloft from the Ground; he killeth all Shrubs not only that he toucheth, but that he breatheth upon; he burns up Herbs, and breaketh the Stones; so great is his Power for Mischief!" 

The above description points towards some sort of snake, and while there is no clear consensus as to exactly which, there does seem to be an agreement among basilisk enthusiasts, that it refers to some form of spitting cobra. This is because a) cobras are the only snakes that can raise the upper part of their bodies, and b) the "diadem" matches a cobra's crest. Also, the basilisk's arch nemesis was said to be the weasel or mongoose - the natural enemies of all cobras (as we all know from the Rikki-Tikki-Tavi story).

Many cobra candidates have been put forward over the years, including the Egyptian Black-necked spitting cobra (Naja Nigricollis), an animal which according to Oberon Zell-Ravenheart fits Pliny's description the best, because of its small size (up to 7 feet long). But without being an expert, I think that even this doesn't quite match Pliny's "twelve fingers breadth" (approximately 20 centimeters). 

A closer fit would be the Mozambique spitting cobra (Naja Mossambica), which usually grows to about 3 - 3 1/2 feet. But these aren't found as far away as Cyreneica (today, eastern Libya), which is where Pliny places the basilisks' roaming grounds. In any case, one explanation could be that perhaps most of the lower part of the cobra was obscured by grass, in the encounters that were the basis for Pliny's entry. Following this logic, only the upper part of the snake's body and head would be visible, making it appear much smaller than it actually was. But we might just as well be dealing with an amalgamation of animals and stories.

Egyptian Black-necked spitting cobra (Naja Nigricollis). 

In retrospect, then, the mystery of the basilisk perhaps both started and ended with Pliny. But these facts did of course not prevent further legends from developing, in part because the stories about the basilisk spread to countries where cobra snakes didnt exist, or had ever been heard of. The attributes of the basilisk therefore morphed in different ways, depending on the geographical area.

The first mention of the basilisk in Denmark, is supposedly found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles from the year 1000. Then, during the first crusades of the late 11th century, the vikings returned with more detailed information about the creature. Since that time, it has been used regularly as a motif in many different connections. The Danish city of Roskilde in particular, has a lot of basilisk lore attached to it. It should also be mentioned that there is a clear connection, and sometimes overlap, between the basilisk and the Lindorm in Danish folklore and animal mythology.

Clay basilisk from the 12th century. Now a part of a private collection located in Roskilde, Denmark

During the late 12th century, the notion that a basilisk came from the egg of a rooster that had mated with a serpent, and had to be hatched by a snake or toad, was made popular by the English naturalist Alexander Neckham. In this connection Neckham came up with the term "basil-cock". There might be some connection here to a chicken embryo, which can sometimes look a like a snake (This could also explain the story about Ludwig Kepler, who - the story goes - found a serpent-like animal inside his Easter egg in 1649). 

But overall, what was happening around this time was that a new type of legendary creature, the cockatrice, was coming into shape and changing the image of the basilisk. The cockatrice is usually depicted as having the body and wings of a dragon, and the head (and sometimes feet) of a rooster. The amalgamation of these two legendary animals, resulted in the basilisk gaining more bird-like features from the middle ages forward. Also, eventually, the name cockatrice came to be used interchangeably with basilisk.

Two illustrations depicting cockatrice-basilisks or basil-cocks. 

To end this trail of obscurity (and bear in mind that this was the condensed version), there is one more loose end that needs to be tied: The general physical attributes of the basilisk/cockatrice, was used as inspiration for the naming of a real genus of crested lizards, discovered in South America in the 18th century: The Common Basilisk. So don't ever let anyone tell you that basilisks don't exist.

A "Modern" basilisk, also known as a "Jesus Lizard".

The Copenhagen Basilisks

In the mid to late 1600's, there was a large and sudden influx of basilisk stories coming in from all over Europe, and it is within this climate that we should view the many Danish basilisk stories and incidents.

in 1651, the famous Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholin (who was also a recognized expert on basilisks), was called upon by King Frederick III (1609-1670) to examine a curious case: A court servant claimed to have seen, with his own eyes, a rooster laying an egg. When Bartholin dissected the rooster, he found that it was male through and through, and thus had no means of physically laying an egg. But the servant stuck to his story, and it was believed to be true by the king and most of the royal family.

Bartholin himself eventually became much more sceptical about basilisks. He even had to disappoint Frederick III at a later point, when the king showed him (what he thought was) a dried basilisk, that he had purchased for his Royal Museum ("Det Kongelige Kunstkammer" - a somewhat bizarre precursor of todays museums, which operated from 1650 to 1825). This "creature" was a fake, carved from the bodies of two rayfish, something which is mentioned specifically in the catalogue of exhibition pieces that featured in the Royal Museum. But, nevertheless, the "basilisk" was a part of the museum collection for many years, alongside the remains of the egg and rooster from the 1651 incident. With all these elements, Frederick III attempted to show the natural cycle of basilisks. 

Recently, I mobilized an extensive search into the whereabouts of the above mentioned items, but they seem to have disappeared almost two centuries ago, and not even the most knowledgable curators and conservationists of the Danish Museums could give me any answers as to why. The last existing record of the "basilisk" is from the Zoological Museum, who received and subsequently lost it (or disposed of it) during the 1800's. Other surviving items from the Royal Museum can be seen today at the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, via the exhibition "De Særeste Ting" (The Strangest Things").

From the exhibition "De Særeste Ting": A reconstruction of items from Ole Worm's Museum Wormianum, which later became a substantial part of The Royal Museum.

Four years after King Frederick III's death, basilisk fever struck Copenhagen again. In the September 1674 issue of Denmarks first real newspaper, Extraordinaires Maanedlige Relationer ("Extraordinary Monthly Happenings"), the front page was dedicated to the arrival of a man, who claimed to have in his possession a stuffed basilisk he had purchased in Africa. For some amount of money, it read, it was possible to see this creature while the man was in Copenhagen. The episode is also mentioned in Holbek & Piø's Fabeldyr og Sagnfolk, but the article gives some more details.

Apparently the owner had visited Germany shortly before, to have the creature checked by "some very knowledgable people", and had eventually accepted - or admitted - that it was a fake. But obviously this did not prevent him from touring around with it. In the article, the basilisk is described as "very nicely constructed", and hard to tell apart as a fake. But that it "nevertheless was clear that it had been carved from some kind of skate or rayfish". Whether or not this was a conclusion made by the newspaper - based on an informed opinion or otherwise - it demonstrates that this was already a well-known (and often convincing) method of creating basilisks at the time.

Faked basilisk from the collection of the Brothers Besler of Nuremberg. This is probably also what King Frederick III's basilisk, as well as the one displayed in Copenhagen in 1674, looked like.

Perhaps the biggest prize that came with discovering the 1674 article, was this very nice chalcography print that appeared alongside it, which, I later learned, is actually the very first illustration to appear in a Danish newspaper: 

                           

At first glance, I thought the image to be the famous basilisk illustration by Georg Wedel, originally published in Ephemerides in 1672. But Jan Bondeson pointed out to me that even if they both are meant to depict the same type of basilisk, the images are very different indeed. This can be seen by comparing the above illustration with Wedel's below:

The Extraordinaires article does not state, however, whether the drawing was made in connection with the displayed basilisk, or even if it was meant to depict it at all. But whatever the case may be, it seems to be virtually unknown among cryptozoologists and anomaly researchers, making it a nice addition to the existing public images of basilisks.  

What happened to the traveling man and his African basilisk, I do not know. Quite possibly he continued his travels around Europe, further fueling the basilisk myth in the countries he visited. As for the Basilisk hype in Denmark specifially, it appears to have reached its apex with the 1674 episode. But stories about basilisks continued to be told, and was a part of Danish folklore for many years to come. And if you look a little bit closer the next time you are visiting Copenhagen, you might see one too, as they exist as ornaments in various places throughout the city. 

• Bondeson, Jan - The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History, Cornell University Press (1999)
• Bruun, Carl - Kjøbenhavn: en illustreret skildring af dets historie, mindesmærker og institutioner (vol. II) (1890)
• Eberhardt, George M. - Mysterious Creatures: A Guide To Cryptozoology. ABC-CLIO (2002)
• Extraordinaires Maanedlige Relationer, September (1674)
• Gundestrup, Bente - Det kongelige danske Kunstkammer 1737 / The Royal Danish Kunstkammer 1737, Vol. I-II (1995) 
• Holbek, Bengt & Piø, Iørn - Fabeldyr og Sagnfolk. Politikens Forlag, 2. Ed. (1979)
• Kristensen, Evald Tang - Danske Sagn som de har lydt i Folkemunde (vol. 2)
• Radford, Benjamin - Stalking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore. University of New Mexico Press (2011)
• Søllinge, Jette Drachman: Ambulate Duper Basiliscos! In Magasin fra Det kongelige Bibliotek, Årg. 10, nr. 1 (1995)
• Zell-Ravenheart, Oberon - A Wizard's Bestiary: A Menagerie of Myth, Magic, and Mystery, New Page Books (2007)
• Zorica, Zeljko - De Fantastiske Fabeldyr fra Roskilde, Kolorit (1999)

....alongside various internet resources.

UBO's (Unidentified Box-like Objects) - Part 2

Originally, the plan here was to continue listing UFO cases involving boxes, and highlight the similarities and connections that exist between them. But it turned out a bit differently. Instead, my focus ended up being mainly on the Gum Creek humanoid encounter, a classic Australian CE3 from early February, 1964.

It took me some time before I could properly grasp the Gum Creek incident. On the surface it seems simple, but details actually vary quite a lot, depending on where you read about it. At one point, I was so confused that it almost seemed like I was dealing with similar, but separate, incidents from around the same time. Finally I got in touch with Australian researcher John Burford, who probably has more knowledge about the case than anyone else alive. He helped me clear things up considerably.

This post has been difficult to write because, ultimately, my main interest lies with how and why the element of boxes became so prevalent, and in that sense it doesn't really matter if some details in a report turn out to be lies or confabulations, only that it has been influential enough in further reproducing this particular element of UFO culture. At the same time, though, I feel I have a certain responsibility in bringing some “objective” clarity to the Gum Creek story.

I hope readers will be able to follow both of these trails. I have done my best to separate them.

The Finnish-Australian Connection

As i showed in part 1, there exists a handful of Finnish cases involving boxes, that also have other interesting traits in common. Going further along in Albert Rosales' humanoid catalogue, I discovered a couple of really interesting reports covering the well-known 'Plympton' and 'Gum Creek' incidents. These both took place in South Australia in early 1964. But when I looked closer into the sources of the reports, I began to see a more immediate connection between them and the 1970 Imjärvi encounter (which I covered in part 1). The reason for this, is that both cases were included in an article by Australian ufologist Colin McCarthy, titled “The Plympton Story”, which featured in Flying Saucer Review (FSR) issue 4, 1970. 

This article appeared just as details of the Imjärvi encounter were slowly unfolding, with details of the flying saucer being revealed in the very same issue. To be more precise, this means that the Plympton and Gum Creek encounters were not only featured a few months prior to the details about the Imjärvi humanoid (which happened in FSR issue 5, 1970), but were also printed in the main medium where the case was unfolding. 

The Cover of Flying Saucer Review, issue 4, 1970. The Imjärvi case was not yet front page material, but it would become so in the following issue.

It should also be mentioned that Colin McCarthy's “versions” of both the Gum Creek and Plympton encounters are included in Eileen Buckle's ”The Scoriton Mystery” from 1967, which became a very popular book at the time (although for very different reasons) and therefore one to be referenced heavily. What remains a bit unclear, is why this article was included in a 1970 issue of Flying Saucer Review, when the cases covered had already been featured in a book which everyone in the UFO field knew about, 3 years earlier. But first a resumé of the accounts themselves, as they are presented in McCarthy's article:

In the early spring of 1963 (perhaps a typo, as there is no doubt that it happened in 1964) in the Adelaide suburb Plympton, South Australia, two boys of 9 and 10 years old witnessed a glowing disc like object land in a nearby field. Out of it came an approximately 7 ft tall humanoid with red skin (as if it was freshly sun-burnt), wearing a tight tunic, gauntlets, purple cape and leather cap. The tall entity also had a belt with a panel-like contraption, which it was constantly fiddling around with. After spotting the boys, it went back into the craft where another similar being was briefly seen appearing in a window. The craft took off with a humming sound.

In his article, Colin McCarthy makes an attempt of verification by drawing a parallel to the Gum Creek incident, which according to him hadn't yet gotten any publicity at the time of the Plympton encounter (and therefore couldn't have inspired the boys' story):

A few weeks prior to the Plympton encounter, In Gum Creek (about 100 miles north of Adelaide), a woman was woken up one night, by a strange light coming through her window. She looked out, and spotted a humanoid carrying a box-like contraption, about the size of a large cake tin, which it was directing towards certain areas of the garden. When it discovered her, it pointed the box in her direction, from which came a buzzing and clicking sound. According to McCarthy, the description of the humanoid “...agreed exactly with that given by the two Plympton boys.” 

FSR, issue 5, 1970: The humanoid appears.

If we put aside any technical issues about the investigation for now, the obvious question we are presented with is: Could Heinonen and Viljo have read McCarthy's article in that issue of Flying Saucer Review, and then confounded the details from the two encounters, if only on a subconcious level? It certainly seems both possible and plausible, as they would be well aware that Flying Saucer Review was the main publication for their gradually unfolding tale. There is no way one can overlook many of the similarities between the Imjärvi humanoid and the two above: the similar garments, the belt with a panel, and of course the box. Put these things together, minus of course a few details such as the difference in height and skin color, you have almost all the main features of the Imjärvi humanoid. 

But...

As much as I found all this to be a revelation (although I might not be the first to have it), it still raises further questions. Because, even if the Plympton and Gum Creek incidents were erroneously reported, and confounded, they still fit perfectly into the “tradition” of the type of cases I talked about in part 1 - many of which took place several years before in...Finland. The basic elements of the Imjärvi humanoid encounter had been experienced there, long before anything of the sort happened in Australia, and therefore, so to speak, didn't need to be “imported” from anywhere. But perhaps all it needed was a revitalization, which was then (coincidentally?) provided by Colin McCarthy's article? Maybe there is another more subtle connection too, since there was quite a diaspora of Finnish people in Australia, during the years 1947-1971? Are UFO experiences so independent of any objective truth, that “the good story”, will always take precedence, achieve a life of it's own, and further perpetuate UFO mythology? 


These are interesting questions for sure, and some can in part be answered. But I would like to save that discussion for a later post, and instead look at another, more accurate, account of the Gum Creek incident. Regarding the Plympton case, it seems that Colin McCarthy got some of the details wrong here too, and that the boys could perhaps have heard about what happened at Gum Creek after all. I won't go further into it than that, but instead suggest that you look at this post on Keith Basterfield's blog, where Gum Creek is referred to as the Clare Incident. 

The "real" Gum Creek

Colin McCarthy might not be one of the most well-known names in ufology, but he was a very active and enthusiastic investigator in Australia at the time. Unfortunately, he was also a person who relied too much on his own memory, rather than on written notes. Furthermore, he was known for being more inclined than most, when it came to telling an entertaining tale before an audience. By mentioning this, I don't mean to imply that he deliberately lied about anything, but it should, at the very least, make anyone cautious about whether he got all the details right in the first place. 

Years after Gum Creek, and the first wave of investigation, other Australian ufologists decided to dig further into the famous encounter, as well as the many other strange experiences of the woman who was at the center of it all - Doris Player. In 1968, John Burford, together with the already seasoned ufologist Colin 'Col' Norris, managed to unearth new (as well as more accurate) details about the original humanoid encounter. Burfords "version" has been mostly overlooked until now, but is much more representative of Mrs. Players experience:

Doris Player, who had already had a long series of strange experiences together with her husband at the time, woke up February the 3d, 1964, around 2:00 or 2:30 AM by a strange light coming through her window. It was a moonlit night, but she later speculated that the light could have been from a “craft”. Then she spotted a 5.4 tall humanoid, wearing a blue-green one-piece suit, helmet, and elbow-length gloves about 30 ft away. It was carrying a 18” (45 cm) square box like object, which she assumed to be some sort of camera with a lens in front, which he was directing at the garden. When it discovered her, it pointed the box at her, from which came a buzz and click. 

As we can see, this is not completely off from Colin McCarthy's general description of the incident, but it does differ in some very critical places. First of all the comparison with the Plympton humanoid is incorrect. Doris Player described the figure she saw as 5.4 ft tall, not 7 ft, as implied by McCarthy. Also, the notorious box becomes a bit less mysterious in this account, sounding more like a “Brownie” box camera than anything else, which, according to John Burford, was also how Doris Player interpreted it. 

This similarity between "the box" and a Brownie camera becomes even more clear, when looking at this sketch by John Burford from 1968, approved by Doris Player herself.

A classic, box-style, Eastman Kodak Brownie camera.

Doris Player, her husband Humph, and the original sketch she did of the humanoid, can be seen about 6 minutes into the video clip below. The segment is mistakenly labelled “Tasmania”. The third person seen being interviewed in the field, is Colin Norris:

You might notice that the two drawings are quite different, and although this could be attributed to differences in style and skills, it raises another issue: however good this account may be, it still has to be taken into consideration, that during the years from the McCarthy investigation until 1968, the Player's could have been influenced both by popular UFO culture and publicly available UFO reports. In fact, they almost certainly were, as there were all kinds of people flocking to the area during this time, projecting their own views and interpretations of the experiences onto the couple. According to John Burford, these experiences were always very dream-like to begin with, so one can suspect that they might have been particularly open to suggestion and change. So we may never really know what exactly happened, that night in 1964 - or any of the following, for that matter.

Hope you enjoyed this little detour, and feel ready for a part 3 in the very near future.

Main Sources:

Albert Rosales' Humanoid Catalogue: http://ufoinfo.com/humanoid/

Buckle, Eileen: The Scoriton Mystery (1967)

Flying Saucer Review 1970 issues

Personal correspondence with John Burford, Bill Chalker & Keith Basterfield.

Val Thor vs. Val Tor

The story about Valiant Thor, or Val Thor for short, has enjoyed a strange sort of revival lately. In the last couple of months, I have found mention of author/reverend/contactee Frank E. Stranges' The Stranger At The Pentagon several places, and some people I know have even sent me links to the story - independently of each other. I also learned a while back, that there is a relatively famous metal band called Valient Thorr, whose bass player calls himself Dr. Professor Nitewolf Strangees.

One of the many photos of Valiant Thor that appear in The Stranger At The Pentagon.

I had of course read about Val Thor in many UFO books prior to all this, and always brushed it off as a silly fantasy. But the name itself is one that stuck in my head from the beginning, and I have often wondered where he came up with it.

Well, I think I may have actually found out where. Browsing through a bunch of old pulps and comics a few weeks ago, I came across a story named Heritage, which featured in science fiction comic Space Adventures no. 13 (1954). The story takes place thousands of years into the future, and is about a robot who tries to find out what happened to his long gone creators, vaguely referred to as "man". The robot protagonist's name is Val Tor.

Heritage featuring Val Tor, the final story of Space Adventures issue 13 (1954). You can get the whole story here.

The Stranger At The Pentagon came out in 1967, but there were publications around by Frank E. Stranges mentioning Val Thor as early as 1960. Nevertheless, this was still many years after Heritage had been published, so it is quite possible that Frank Stranges at some point read the comic, took note of the name of the main character, and eventually - conciously or not - concocted the name Val(iant) Thor from it.

The similarities seem to end with the name, though. After all, Val Tor the robot could hardly be more different than Val Thor the holy space brother, who is a typical human-like 1950's alien. He is described by Stranges as tan, very manly, and with a "...firm grip that silently testified to strength and power". Like George Adamski's Orthon, he also comes from Venus. By contrast, the Val Tor of Heritage is a restless robot in the middle of an existential crisis, obsessed with discovering what happened to the humans who created his race, so long ago that they are now only regarded as a fairy tale. 

Stranges was involved with many different community oriented projects, as this 1960 ad from My Friend From Beyond Earth shows. 

Still, the story resonates somewhat with parts of Stranges UFO-theology. Rev. Frank E. Stranges basically used the hype about flying saucers at the time, as a vessel for promoting his own religious agenda. In his booklet My Friend From Beyond Earth, he describes his first meeting with Val Thor one December morning in 1959, during an "evangelist crusade", and from the very outset he attempts to validate the message of Val Thor in light of that of Jesus Christ. Thor himself says that he is a messenger from God, and that he has come to make people correct their errors and return to the Lord, because they have strayed too far in recent times. 

At the end of Heritage, Val Tor finally finds an underground cavern full of humans in suspended animation. He awakes a man from his slumber, but quickly realizes that humans have destructive impulses that threaten the stability of the current world order, and puts him back to sleep again. The humans in Heritage have therefore clearly also strayed about as far from God as possible, but by the power of Val Tor they are kept in check. Furthermore, the hollow earth element is something Frank Stranges also came to incorporate into his outlook on UFO's.

More Val Thor

There are no other obvious similarities between the stories of Val Thor and Val Tor. But then again, why should there be? Stranges might have found it convenient to not use an obvious name, IF he indeed purposely "borrowed" the name. And even if he didn't, does there have to be anything more than a coincidence at play? Does the name itself tell us anything?

"Val" has different etymological roots depending on the language used, but it is certainly not an uncommon short form of a name in the English speaking world, and neither is the association with words like "valiant" "vale" and "valor". Therefore the chances of some form of it being used, are not astronomical. "Tor", in the English language, means “a high rock, lofty hill, tower”, but there could have been nothing to this in the creation of robot Val's name. On the other hand, one can't help but think of the god of thunder in Norse mythology, when seeing the last name of Stranges' Pentagon friend.

It does appear to be more than coincidental, though, regardless of what associations the names awake, that they should appear in the exact same combination. And that of course begs the question - in case you were ever in doubt - if Valiant Thor was ever a real...Venusian.

Some readers might also make another association when hearing the name Val Thor, as I suddenly did while I was writing this. There is a well known ski resort in the French Alps known as Val Thorens. It is quite a famous destination for young Danes and other Northern Europeans. In this case "Val" derives from the french "Vallée" (meaning "valley" - although it might also make you think of a certain French ufologist). So, one could also argue that Val Thorens might just as well have been the inspiration for the name Valiant Thor. The probem with that, though, is that Val Thorens didn't come into existence until the late 1960's. So if anything, Valiant Thor was the inspiration for Val Thorens, not the other way around. But what are the chances of that.

External sources:

Stranges, Frank E.: Flying Saucerama (1959)

Stranges, Frank E.: My Friend From Beyond Earth (1960)

Stranges, Frank E.: Stranger at the Pentagon (1967)

UFO's Uncensored, vol.1 no.1 (1966)

Special thanks to Ole Henningsen for sharing rare material by, as well as personal experiences about, Frank E. Stranges.