The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Unsolved Mysteries (18 page)

Another local farmer, Peter Goodall, found a sixty-foot circle in his winter wheat (at Matford Barton) at the same time.

A few days before these incidents occurred, a Japanese professor announced that he had solved the crop-circle mystery. Professor Yoshihiko Ohtsuki, of Tokyo’s Waseda University, had created an “elastic plasma” fireball – a very strong form of ionized air – in the labouratory. When the fireball touched a plate covered with aluminum powder, it created beautiful circles and rings in the powder. Ohtsuki suggested that plasma fireballs were created by atmospheric conditions and that they would flatten crops as they descended toward the ground.
This certainly sounded as if it could be the solution of the mystery – until it was recalled that some of the crop circles had rectangles or keylike objects sticking out of their sides. Another objection was that fireballs are usually about the size of footballs and are clearly visible. Surely a fireball with a seventy-five-foot diameter would be visible for many miles? And why were no fireballs seen by the eyewitnesses cited by Rickard, who simply saw the corn being flattened in a clockwise circle?

Another recent suggestion is that an excess of fertilizer will cause the corn on which it is used to shoot up much faster than that which surrounds it, after which it will collapse and lie flat. There are two objections to this theory: Why would a farmer spray an excess of fertilizer in a circle – or some even more complicated design? And why would the corn collapse in a clockwise direction?

In a symposium entitled “The Crop Circle Enigma” (1990), John Michell made the important suggestion that the crop circles have a meaning and that “the meaning . . . is to be found in the way people are affected by them”. In conjunction with this idea, Michell noted that “Jung discerned the meaning of UFOs as agents and portents of changes in human thought patterns, and that function has been clearly inherited by crop circles”.

In order to understand this fully, we have to bear in mind Jung’s concept of “synchronicity” or “meaningful coincidence”, His view is basically that “meaningful coincidences” are somehow
created
by the unconscious mind – probably with the intention of jarring the conscious mind into a keener state of perception. Preposterous synchronicities imbue us with a powerful sense that there is a hidden meaning behind everyday reality. Certain pessimistically inclined writers – such as Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy – have taken the view that accidents and disasters indicate a kind of malevolent intelligence behind life. Jung’s view is that synchronicities produce a sense of a
benevolent
intelligence behind life. He once suggested that the UFO phenomenon was an example of what he called “projection” – that is, of a physical effect somehow produced by the unconscious mind, in fact, by the “collective unconscious”.

Michell was, in effect, suggesting that the crop-circle phenomenon serves the same purpose. Yet to say, as he did, that the crop circles have a “meaning” could also imply that some “other intelligence” is trying to influence human thought patterns. This is an idea that has been current since the earliest UFO sightings in the late 1940s and was popularized by Arthur C. Clarke in the screenplay of the film
2001: A Space
Odyssey
: specifically, the notion that “higher intelligences” have been involved in the evolution of the human brain.

The logical objection to this theory is that to “make” man evolve is a contradiction in terms; evolution is the result of an
inner
drive. Presumably, a higher intelligence would recognize this better than we do. Yet it is also true that intelligence evolves through a sense of curiosity, of mystery, and that such apparent absurdities as flying saucers and crop circles certainly qualify as mysteries.

Michell concluded by quoting Jung’s words that UFOs are “signs of great changes to come which are compatible with the end of an era”. And whether or not Jung was correct, there can be no doubt that the UFO phenomenon has played an enormous part in the transformation of human consciousness from the narrow scientific materialism of the first half of the twentieth century to the much more open-minded attitude of its second half. Whether or not the crop circles prove to have a “natural” explanation, this may be their ultimate significance in the history of the late twentieth century.

Postscript
: In early September 1991, a number of self-proclaimed hoaxers made simultaneous confessions to fabricating crop circles. Two of them, Dave Chorley and Doug Bower, claimed to have been making crop circles for thirteen years. Fred Day declared that he had been making them “all his life”. Chorley and Bower demonstrated their technique by flattening corn in a field with a plank in front of TV cameras and crop-circle investigators. As in the case of the earlier
Daily Mirror
hoax, the investigators pointed out that the Chorley-Bower circle was visibly amateurish.

At the time of writing, the position taken by “cereologists” is that while some of the circles may be hoaxes, the majority show signs of being genuine, such as geometric perfection and an obvious lack of trampling of surrounding crops by human feet. The ultimate test, of course, will be whether crop circles now simply cease to appear – the silliest hoaxer gets tired of repetition – or whether, like “flying saucer” sightings, they continue to be as numerous as ever. Readers who pick up this book in the year 2025 will be in a better position to assess the possibilities than the authors are in 2000.

11

The Curse of the Pharaohs

On 26 November 1922 the archaeologist Howard Carter peered through a small opening above the door of the tomb of Tutankhamon’s tomb, holding a candle in front of him. What he saw dazzled him: “everywhere the glint of gold”. He and his colleague Lord Carnarvon had made the greatest find in the history of archaeology. But a few days later they found a clay tablet with the hieroglyphic inscription: “Death will slay with his wings whoever disturbs the peace of the pharaoh”. The following April Lord Carnarvon died of some unknown disease. By 1929 – a mere six years later – twenty-two people who had been involved in opening the tomb had died prematurely. Other archaeologists dismissed talk about “the curse of the pharaohs” as journalistic sensationalism. Yet it is difficult to imagine that this long series of deaths was merely a frightening coincidence.

Tutankhamon was the heir of the “great heretic” Akhnaton (about 1375
BC
to 1360), the first monotheist king in history. He abandoned the capital Thebes, with all its temples, and built himself a new capital, called Akhetaton (Horizon of Aton), at a place now called Tell el Amarna. He worshipped only one god, the sun god Aton. His people, who were more comfortable with the host of old animal gods, disliked this new religion, and were relieved when Akhnaton died young, or perhaps possibly murdered. (So were the priests!) His successor was his son-in-law – possibly his son – Tutankhamon, who was a mere child when he came to the throne, and who died of a blow on the head at the age of eighteen. Historically speaking, therefore, Tutankhamon is a nonentity, whose name hardly deserves to be remembered. His only achievement – if it can be called that – was to restore the old religion, and move his capital back to Thebes. No one knows how he died, whether from a fall, or possibly from the blow of an assassin.

The strangest part of this story is still to come. The high priest (and
court chamberlain) was a man called Ay. He seized power, and married Tutankhamon’s fifteen-year-old widow, Enhosnamon. He reigned less than four years, and once again the throne was seized by a usurper, a general called Horemheb, who had been a little too slow off the mark when Tutankhamon died. The wait for the throne had apparently filled him with resentment; as soon as he became pharaoh, he behaved like a dictator, and set out to erase the names of Akhnaton and Tutankhamon from history; he had their names chiselled off all hieroglyphic inscriptions, and used the stones of the great temple of the sun at Tell el Amarna to build three pyramids in Thebes. He even destroyed many tombs of the courtiers of Ay and Tutankhamon.

Yet he omitted to do the most obvious thing of all: to destroy the tomb of Tutankhamon, and to seize its treasures for his own treasury. Why? One possible explanation is that the location of the tomb was kept secret. But that is unlikely; after all, Horemheb came to the throne a mere four years after the death of Tutankhamon; even if the tomb’s location was a secret, there must have been dozens of priests or workmen who could have been “persuaded” to reveal it. It is natural to suspect that Horemheb had some other reason for deciding to leave the tomb inviolate . . .

Howard Carter, the man who finally discovered the tomb, had come out to Egypt as a teenager – he was born in 1873 – and while still in his twenties became Chief Inspector of Monuments for Upper Egypt and Nubia. Acting on his advice, a wealthy American, Theodore Davis, began excavating the Valley of the Kings in 1902. In the previous year grave-robbers had mounted an armed attack on the men guarding the newly discovered tomb of Amonhotep II – a bloodthirsty character who was the great-grandfather of Akhnaton – and made off with all its gold and jewels. Carter had rounded them up and prosecuted them, an action that made him so unpopular with the Egyptians that he found himself without a job. Theodore Davis took him on as a draughtsman, and with Carter’s help made some astonishing discoveries, including the tomb of Horemheb, of the great Queen Hatshepsut, and of Akhnaton’s grandfather Thutmose IV.

It was during this period that there was a curious curtain-raiser to the story of the curse of the pharaohs. Joe Linden Smith was another skilled draughtsman who worked closely with the excavators; he was married to an attractive 28-year-old American named Corinna. Among their closest friends were Arthur and Hortense Weigel; Weigel was an English archaeologist, while Hortense, like Corinna, was a young American. One day when they were descending the slope into the Valley of the
Queens, Smith and Weigel came upon a natural amphitheatre that struck them as the ideal site for the presentation of a play. They decided to present their own “mystery play”, and to invite most of the archaeological community from Luxor. But the purpose was not mere entertainment. Both men had immense admiration for Akhnaton and for the artistic productions of his reign, which were far more lifelike than the stylized works of other periods. Their aim was nothing less than to intercede with the ancient gods to lift the curse that consigned Akhnaton’s spirit to wander for all eternity.

According to tradition, Akhnaton died on 26 January 1363
BC
. Smith and Weigel decided to present their play on 26 January 1909, and the invitations were sent. On 23 January they held their dress rehearsal. The god Horus appeared and conversed with the wandering spirit of Akhnaton – played by Hortense – offering to grant him a wish; Akhnaton asked to see his mother, Queen Tiy. The Queen was summoned by a magical ceremony; she spoke of her sadness to see her son condemned to eternal misery. Akhnaton replied that even in his misery he still drew comfort from the thought of the god Aton; he asked his mother to recite his hymn to Aton . . .

As Corinna Smith began to recite the hymn her words were drowned by the rising wind. Suddenly a violent storm was upon them; the gale blew sand and small stones, so the cowering workmen thought the gods were stoning them. The rehearsal had to be abandoned, and the actors hurried back to their headquarters, the nearby tomb of Amet-Hu, once governor of Thebes. Later that evening Corinna complained of a pain in her eyes, and Hortense of cramps in her stomach. That night both had similar dreams; they were in the nearby temple of Amon, standing before the statue of the god; he came to life and struck them with his flail – Corinna in the eyes, Hortense in the stomach. The next day Corinna was in agony with inflamed eyes, and had to be rushed to a specialist in Cairo, who diagnosed one of the worst cases of trachoma – Egyptian ophthalmia – he had ever seen. Twenty-four hours later, Hortense joined Corinna in the same nursing-home; during the stomach operation that followed she came close to losing her life. The play had to be abandoned.

Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon had both been invited to the play; at this period Carter was working for Theodore Davis. By 1914 Davis had decided that he had now found all there was to be found in the Valley of the Kings, and decided to abandon his labours. Carnarvon snapped up the concession. He knew that Davis was convinced that he had found the grave of Tutankhamon, a pit grave containing gold plates
and other items; but neither Carnarvon nor Carter believed that a pharaoh would be buried so modestly.

The war made it impossible to begin digging until 1917. Then Carter began to dig, slowly and systematically, moving hundreds of tons of rubble left from earlier digs. He found nothing. By 1922 Carnarvon felt he had poured enough money into the Valley of the Kings. Carter begged for one more chance.

On 1 November 1922 he began new excavations, digging a ditch southward from the tomb of Rameses IV. On 4 November the workmen uncovered a step below the foundations of some huts Carter had discovered in an earlier dig. By evening twelve steps had been revealed, then a sealed stone gate. Carter hastened to send a telegram to Carnarvon in England; Carnarvon arrived just over two weeks later. Together Carnarvon and Carter broke their way through the sealed gate, now in a state of increasing excitement as they realized that this tomb was virtually unplundered. Thirty feet below the gate, they came upon a second. With trembling hands, Carter scraped a hole in the debris in its upper corner, and peered through; the candlelight showed him strange animals, statues and gold. There were overturned chariots, lifesize figures, gilded couches, a gold-inlaid throne. But there was no mummy, for this was only the antechamber. However, it was in this antechamber that they found the tablet with the inscription: “Death will slay with his wings whoever disturbs the peace of the pharaoh”. It was recorded by Carter, then disappeared – they were afraid rumours of the inscription might terrify the workmen. A statue of Horus also carried an inscription stating that it was the protector of the grave. On 17 February 1923 a group of distinguished people was invited to witness the opening of the tomb itself. It took two hours to chisel a hole through into the burial chamber. Then only two sets of folding doors separated them from the magnificent gold sarcophagus that was to become world-famous; they decided to leave that for another day. The wealth that surrounded them made them all feel dazed.