Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs The Worlds Most Puzzling Mysteries Solved (10 page)
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Authors: Albert Jack
At the subsequent Northern Lighthouse Board inquiry, also conducted by Robert Muirhead, it was noted that the severity of the storm damage found on Eilean Mor was “difficult to believe unless actually seen.” The inquiry concluded:
From evidence which I was able to procure I was satisfied that the men had been on duty up until dinner time on Saturday the 15th December, that they had gone down to secure a box in which the mooring ropes, landing ropes
etc.
were kept, and which was secured in a crevice in the rock about 110 foot above sea level, and that an extra large sea had rushed up the face of the rock, had gone above them, and coming down with immense force, had swept them completely away.
But this pathetic attempt by the Board fails to explain why McArthur was there without his oilskins and does not account for his disappearance, unless the Board believed he had run to the cliff top and, on finding his colleagues in the sea, thrown himself in after them wearing just his smoking jacket and carpet slippers. The inquiry also makes no reference to the fact that the damage to the railings and landing platform could have been caused
after
the men had gone missing on the fifteenth, possibly even during the heavy storms and gales recorded on December 20.
Later, it came to light that a further piece of evidence had been submitted to the inquiry but was not made public. Two sailors who were passing Eilean Mor on the evening of December 15 claim to have been discussing the lighthouse, and why it was in complete darkness, when they noticed a small boat being rowed frantically across the sea by three men dressed in heavy-weather clothing. By the light of the moon, they watched as the small boat passed close to them and they called out to the men. Their calls were ignored, however, and the boat made its way past them and out of sight.
Over the years, all the usual theories have been trotted out— yes, including sea monsters and abduction by aliens, not to mention the curse of the “little men”—but staying within the realms of reality and on the basis of observations made at the time, only two explanations seem feasible.
The first is that the west landing at Eilean Mor is located in a narrow gully in the rock that terminates in a cave. During high seas or storms, water forced into the cave under pressure will return with explosive force, and it is possible that McArthur, noticing heavy seas approaching, rushed out to warn his two colleagues working on the crane platform, only to become caught in the tragedy himself. This would explain the overturned chair and the reason he was not wearing his oilskins. Even so, it seems somewhat unlikely that while in such a tearing hurry, McArthur would have paused on his way out to carefully close both of the doors and the gate to the compound.
The second theory is that one man in oilskins fell into the water and the other rushed back to the lighthouse to call for help. Both men then fell in while attempting to rescue the first. But once again this theory fails to explain the closed doors and gate, and is not consistent with the sighting of three men in a boat by moonlight. In 1912, a popular ballad called “Flannan Isle” by William Wilson Gibson added to the mystery by offering all sorts of fictional extras, such as a half-eaten meal abandoned in a hurry—conjuring up images of the
Mary Celeste.
But this only clouds the very real tragedy of three men losing their lives on a bleak, windy rock in the North Sea while working to prevent others from losing theirs.
Following the terrible and mystifying events, the lighthouse nonetheless remained manned, although without incident, by a succession of keepers, and in 1925 the first wireless communication was established between Eilean Mor and Lewis. In 1971, it was fully automated, the keepers withdrawn, and a concrete helipad in stalled so that engineers could visit the island via less hazardous means for annual maintenance of the light. Nobody has lived on Eilean Mor since.
The most plausible theory arose by accident nearly fifty years after the disappearance of the lighthouse keepers. In 1947, a Scottish journalist named Iain Campbell visited the islands and, while standing on a calm day by the west jetty, he observed the sea suddenly heave and swell, rising to a level of seventy feet above the landing. After about a minute the sea returned to its normal level. Campbell could not see any reason for the sudden change. He theorized it may have been an underwater seaquake (see also “Whatever Happened to the Crew of the
Mary Celeste?”
page 138) and felt certain nobody standing on the jetty could have survived. The lighthouse keeper at the time told him that the change of level happened periodically and several men had almost been pulled into the sea but managed to escape.
Although this seems the most likely fate of the men on December 15, 1900, it is by no means certain and still fails to explain several known clues, such as why the third man disappeared wearing his indoor clothing after carefully closing and latching three doors behind him, or who the three men in the rowing boat could have been. Nor does it account for the strange logbook entries or why the light appeared not to be operational for a number of days. The only thing we know for certain is that something snatched those three brave men off the rock on that winter's day over a hundred years ago, and nothing has been seen or heard of them since.
The intriguing pictures taken by two young
girls in Cottingley, Yorkshire.
One of the most famous mysteries of the twentieth century is the story of the Cottingley Fairies, photographed by sixteen-year-old Elsie Wright and her ten-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths during the summer of 1917. The series of pictures were taken over a period of two months at a small brook near their home at Cottingley, a picturesque village in Yorkshire.
Young Frances swore that she had seen the fairies and her elder cousin confirmed her story. The photographs, they said, proved their outlandish claims. Harold Snelling, an expert in fake photography, declared that “these dancing figures are not made of paper nor any fabric; they are not painted on a photographic background—but what gets me most is that all these figures have moved during the exposure.” He seems not to have spent much time considering the possibility that wind, either natural or created, might have moved the images. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, by then world famous for having created Sherlock Holmes, lent considerable credibility to the story when he stated that he believed the photographs were “genuine beyond doubt,” and he even wrote a book,
The Coming of the Fairies
, which convinced many people that the tiny figures in the photos were real. (For more on Conan Doyle, see “The Spine-chilling Tale of the Chase Vault,” page 39, and “Whatever Happened to the Crew of the
Mary Celeste?”
page 138.)
It wasn't until many years later, not until 1983 in fact, that the elder of the two girls admitted that the photographs had been faked and made with pictures cut out of a glossy magazine and held together with pins. On the other hand, Frances always maintained she had seen the fairies with her own eyes and swore that the fifth picture, showing fairies in a sunbath, was 100 percent genuine.
Portuguese peasant children and the extraordinary
“Miracle of the Sun” witnessed by thousands
On July 13, 1917, three children were startled to find a mysterious figure approaching them as they tended their flock of sheep in pastureland near Fatima in Portugal. Lucia Rosa dos Santos and her two cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto reported seeing what they described as a “pretty lady from Heaven.” Lucia said the lady was “brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal glass filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun.” Just the sort of description you'd expect from an illiterate ten-year-old shepherd girl. Lucia also claimed the lady had entrusted her with three important secrets, which she did not reveal until many years later.
Instead of being cuffed around the ear, the three scallywags were firmly believed, and the devout soon identified the mysterious visitor as the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. Word of the vision rapidly spread, and thousands began making the pilgrimage to the Cova da Iria (the area of pastureland near Fatima in which the children had grazed their sheep) hoping to see the Mother of Jesus for themselves. Artur de Oliveira Santos, the mayor of Vila Nova de Ourem and the most powerful man in the region, became increasingly anxious about the political implications of the pilgrimage to Fatima. Reports of new miracles were only swelling the number of pilgrims. His open hostility to the alleged apparitions was well known, and he ordered the arrest of the little ones. On August 13, the children were arrested on their way to the pasture at Cova da Iria and thrown into jail. Other prisoners later testified the youngsters were initially frightened and upset, but were soon chanting their rosaries and leading their cellmates in prayer.
When Santos interrogated the children, they wouldn't tell him anything. So, as the story goes, he arranged for a large pot of boiling oil to be delivered to the interrogation room. He then took the children one by one to the room, claiming that each of the others had been boiled to death in oil for “failing to tell him the truth.” The “remaining” child was urged to speak out or suffer the same fate. Remarkably, despite such persuasive techniques, the psychopath still failed to persuade the youngsters to tell him anything at all.
With that, Santos was forced to release them. Six days later, on August 19, they reported another visitation at nearby Valinhos. On September 13, the Blessed Virgin appeared in the field again, and this time the children reported she promised them that at noon on October 13 she would reappear and perform a miracle, so that “everybody will believe.”
As dawn broke on October 13, a thick layer of cloud hung over the entire area and heavy rain fell, soaking the thousands who had gathered to see the expected miracle. Many were present only to witness what they were sure would be a nonevent. The tension mounted as crowds of between seventy and one hundred thousand gathered during the morning. People from every walk of life were there, including doctors, lawyers, and scientists (not normally inclined to be credulous), religious leaders and the great and the good, all eagerly awaiting the great event. Noon passed without incident, but in the middle of the afternoon tens of thousands of people witnessed the clouds gradually part to reveal a dim, opaque sun spinning on its axis and emitting various bright colors that illuminated everything around. After a short while the sun apparently began to detach itself from the sky and plummet toward the earth, but instead of crashing to the ground and wiping out the entire human race, it slowed down at the last moment and only came close enough to heat the land and dry out everybody's soaked clothing before slowly making its way back to its regular place in the sky.
This event, which lasted for between eight and ten minutes and in which the sun appeared to sink and rise again three times, became known as the “Miracle of the Sun.” Previously a strongly Catholic country, Portugal at that time had been a secular state for only seven years—since the monarchy had been abolished during the republican revolution of 1910. Since then, the new government of Portugal had been severely hostile toward religious groups, which explains Mayor Santos's unpleasantness to the devout children. However, even the pro-government
O Seculo
, Portugal's most influential newspaper, was unable to repress its excitement on this occasion. Popular columnist Avelino de Almeida noted:
… the astonished eyes of these people, whose attitude takes us back to biblical times and who were white-faced with shock and with their heads uncovered, facing the blue sky. The sun has trembled, the sun has made sudden movements that were outside all cosmic laws—the sun has “danced,” according to the typical expression of the country people. Covered with dust on the running board of the bus from Torres Novas, an old man recites the Creed, from beginning to end. I ask who it is and they tell me it is Joao Maria Amado de Melo.
I see him later talking to those around him, who still have their hats on, begging them strongly to take them off in the presence of such an extraordinary demonstration of the existence of God. Identical scenes are repeated in other places and a woman shouts, bathed in tears and almost suffocated, “What a shame! There are still men who don't take off their hats in the presence of such a miracle.”
And next they ask each other if they have seen it or not. Most confess that they have seen the dancing of the sun but others, however, declare they have seen the smiling face of the Virgin herself. They swear that the sun spun about itself like a ring of fireworks and that it came down almost to the point of burning the Earth with its rays. Some say that they saw it change color. It was about three in the afternoon.
De Almeida claimed to have witnessed the whole event, but the photographer standing next to him, Judah Ruah, nephew of the famous shutterbug Joshua Benoliel, said he saw nothing at all. When asked why, he replied, “because nothing strange happened to the sun. But when I saw all those people kneeling I understood something to be happening and so I photographed them instead.”
Another journalist, from the Lisbon newspaper
O Dia
, reported:
The silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy gray light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds. The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched hands. People wept and prayed with uncovered heads in the presence of the miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they.
An eminent eye surgeon, Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, recorded that “the sun, in one moment was surrounded with scarlet flame and at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple. It seemed to be in an exceedingly fast and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the earth and strongly radiating heat.” There can be little doubt
his
eyes were not deceiving him (or they shouldn't have been at any rate). Another medical man, Dr. Almeida Garrett of Coimbra, wrote that “the sun, whirling wildly, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge and fiery weight. The sensation was terrible.” And another learned individual, Dr. Formigao, a professor at the seminary at Santorem, noted that “suddenly the rain stopped. The clouds were wrenched apart and the sun appeared in all its splendor. Then it began to revolve on its axis like the most magnificent fire wheel that we could imagine, taking all the colors of the rainbow and sending forth multicolored flashes of light, producing the most astounding effect.”
With an estimated one hundred thousand people present, the weight of witness evidence is overwhelming. This, coupled with the children's ability to predict the event to within a few hours, proved to many people that they truly had experienced a miracle. Even so, a careful examination of individual statements reveals many contradictions. In some the sun looked like a “ball of snow” and in others an opaque disc. Some reports state the sun was “dancing” and in others that it was zigzagging. Some witnesses believed it actually touched the earth's surface, while others failed to see it move at all. There have been statements claiming columns of fine blue smoke, and others describing how the very air seemed to change color. Everybody claims to have witnessed the miracle at the same time and simultaneously let out either a roar or loud gasp that echoed around the valley, but the timing of the reports varies from between midday and dusk.
The only connecting theme is that most people saw something happen at around the same time and on the same afternoon. But scientific records contain no reports from anywhere in the world of unusual astronomical or solar activity. This is strange, because even if there had been a natural reason for the phenomenon, such as a cloud of dust from the Sahara Desert or unusual atmospheric gases, as has been suggested, then astronomers would have recorded these. That is exactly what happened when stratospheric dust made the sun appear to be blue and red to the people of China in 1983, or when the blue moon was seen for two years after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883.
It is hard to believe that so many well-educated and rational people could either make their story up or be fooled by what might amount to a vast con trick. But for those who claim some sort of collective hallucination at Fatima, there is the evidence of witness reports from as far away as thirty miles from people going about their normal business.
Some years later, in 1931, Lucia claimed Jesus himself had visited her in Rianxo, Galicia, to teach her two new prayers and he had given her a message for the pope. Soon afterward the Catholic Church added its considerable weight to the debate by announcing they were “approving the visions as worthy of belief.” So, with the official stamp of approval from the Vatican, the Blessed Virgin as she appeared at Cova da Iria became known throughout the world as Our Lady of Fatima. By then little Lucia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos had become Sister Lucia of Jesus, following her ordination as a Carmelite nun.
In 1942, as the Second World War was at its bloodiest, Sister Lucia finally decided to reveal the first of the secrets confided in her by the Virgin Mary all those years ago. The first was a terrifying vision of Hell, which she recorded in her third memoir, published toward the end of that year:
Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be beneath the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and all the time the shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent.
Fortunately, as she goes on, “This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, during the first Apparition, to take us to heaven? Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.”
The second secret included Mary's instructions on how to save souls from Hell and convert the world to Christianity:
You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace in the world. The war is going to end, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given to you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer and various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted and a period of peace will be granted to the world.
All of you who find the timing and content of this revelation suspicious, what with it coming in the middle of a “worse” war and during Pope Pius's reign (even if it was Pius XII rather than XI by this time), will be struck down by the next bolt of lightning. But come on! This is a serious matter. The Catholic Church actually approved the visions as “worthy of belief,” and granted them genuine, bona fide miracle status, eleven years before revealing one of the three big “secrets” with its anti-Russian warning. Are they really expecting us to believe the Virgin Mary visited three young peasant children in Portugal in 1917 to warn the world about something as specific and politically biased as the threat from Russia in twenty-five years’ time?