The Green Man appears to be just such a relic of our communal memories. He has been seen in carvings in Turkey, India, Great Britain, Malaysia and across continental Europe amongst others. In Lebanon and Iraq, depictions of the Green Man have been found dating from the 2nd century CE. He has even been found in Nepal and Borneo.

Unlike the heroes in flood stories, nobody seems to know where this archaic figure originates from. We know he is a symbol of rebirth and good fortune but nothing more.

Upon seeing a depiction of the Green Man for the first time, most feel his importance, a thread pulling at you from a time long forgotten. Encoded deep into your DNA. This effect is so powerful to some, they have dedicated their life to researching the Green Man. One such person is Mike Harding.

Mike has put incredible effort into his research, spanning more than 2 decades and a book. You can check out his site by clicking here. His interest was sparked after happening upon a crude carving of the Green Man in an folk shop in London. He immediately felt the pull of the thread. As I sit typing, I feel it too.

Historical Links

The Green Man has been linked to Gods and prominent folk figures across thousands of years. Including such legendary figures as Robin Hood himself. Tolkien is said to have been inspired to create the Ent race (like Treebeard if you’ve only seen the movies) due to the Green Man. Heck, even Peter Pan is said to be inspired by the Green Man. Below is a selection of notable Green Man adjacent figures.

Osiris

The figure of the green man has been linked to the God Osiris in Ancient Egypt. Osiris was often depicted with a green face and also linked to rebirth. Unfortunately, the origins of Osiris have been lost to the mists of time. We do know he started as a local God of Lower Egypt before taking prominence around 2400 BCE. For thousands of years he was a central figure in Ancient Egyptian religion and provides us with one of the oldest known links to the Green Man. Consider this fact, writing in ancient Egypt began around 3250 BCE and almost immediately we have the appearance of Osiris. He is incredibly ancient.

James Frazer, writing in 1906 said that Osiris, like other “dying and rising” Gods across the ancient Near East, began as a personification of vegetation. His death and restoration, therefore, was based on the yearly death and re-growth of plants.

Father Christmas

Not Santa Claus, because believe it or not, originally Santa and Father Christmas were two different people. It was a large drinks company in the 1930’s who helped to popularized the “modern” Father Christmas / Santa mix dressed in red. I’m sure we can all deduce which drinks company this was.

Father Christmas is part of an old pagan festival. Before being mixed in with the story of St Nicholas and the Norse character of Jul (who has a long white beard and gives gifts, also where we get Yuletide from) he wore a green hooded cloak and a wreath of ivy and would have looked similar to how he is depicted in this Victorian image.

Over time, starting in the 6th century CE he began to evolve, going through names such as King Winter, Father Time and King Frost before becoming Father Christmas. The myth grew with him. Pagan festivals had someone dress as Father Christmas and the locals would let him into their home for food and drink. In return, they would receive good blessings such as a mild winter.

In this we have the same story of vegetation rebirth as Osiris but now we have the addition of the foliage to the figure of the Green Man.

Al-Khidr

Picture by Seeroos123BigBoy – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, 5

Al-Khidr is a prominent figure in Islam. He is said to have been a contemporary of Noah which puts him as living between 5000 and 3000 years ago.

William Anderson can explain the connection between Al-Khidr and the Green Man with more eloquence than I could hope to muster, so I’m going to let him.

There are legends of him in which, like Osiris, he is dismembered and reborn; and prophecies connecting him, like the Green Man, with the end of time. His name means the Green One or Verdant One, he is the voice of inspiration to the aspirant and committed artist. He can come as a white light or the gleam on a blade of grass, but more often as an inner mood. The sign of his presence is the ability to work or experience with tireless enthusiasm beyond one’s normal capacities. In this there may be a link across cultures, because one reason for the enthusiasm of the medieval sculptors for the Green Man may be that he was the source of every inspiration.

William Anderson – Green Man: The archetype of our oneness with the earth

Honourable Mentions

Dionysus – Ancient Greek God of vegetation and fertility.

Freyr and Odin – Norse Mythology.

Jesus – Abrahamic Faiths. Comparisons have been drawn with the Green Man and it is thought that Jesus could be a re-telling of the Osiris story. Then you have the Crown of thorns (leaves), rebirth and miracles involving healing. Plus Christmas and its links to pagan rituals such as the Father Christmas story.

In media the Green Man has appeared in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a 14th century CE romance detailing an Arthurian legend. Also in the Wind in the Willows, The Golden Bough, The Green Man and Summer’s Last Will and Testament (1600 CE) amongst many many others.

Who is the Green Man?

For me, he is the original seed of religion and the longest surviving polytheistic God. Also probably the first to be given the image of man. Over thousands of years his name and appearance has changed but at the heart of it, he persists all the same.

You can see his influence in all major religions. He even appears in the major flood myth of Abrahamic faiths in the form of Al-Khidr. Here in this seemingly unconnected collective memory, there he is.

This is why you feel the pull of the Green Man. Because he is there within everyone, religious or not. He is the cycle of life and death, of fertility, crops and their failure.

These three things: Life, Death and Sustenance are and always have been at the centre of what it is to be human. We are born, we reproduce and we die. While alive our main goal is to make sure we have enough food to survive. The Green Man, in my opinion, was simply the ancient worlds attempt to answer the question of nature itself.

He is us and we are him.

The post The Enigmatic Green Man: Discover the Surprising Reason Why This Mysterious Figure Appears in Cultures Across the Globe! appeared first on That I Didn't Know.

Getting away from epic fiddle battles and back to the topic at hand though, did the Devil go down to Devon?

An Enduring Tale

I first read this particular tale in a big book of supernatural stories my mother had on a bookshelf. It was a big thick book, hundreds of pages deep, containing all manner of witches, fairies, ghosts and the like. I believe the opposite page had the story of the Tulip Staircase ghost with what was a terrifying picture of a ghost, at least to me as a small child.

Even with that on the opposite page, the story of the Devil in Devon always stuck out to me.

Let’s set the scene.

February 1855. Devon, specifically the area known as Dartmoor. A vast (for the UK) wild area covering 368 square miles. It has a smattering of villages and farming communities. It’s remote even now, but back then you had to be made of stern stuff to flourish in its environs. In 1789 Richard Gough, a prominent historian of the time gave his opinion of Dartmoor “a dreary mountainous tract”. Safe to say he wasn’t a fan.

Waking up to the Devils Hooves

February the 8th – 9th 1855 was bitterly cold in the Dartmoor area. Snow covered the ground everywhere. But so did something else.

Hoof prints. But not from a four legged creature. There was only two imprints, indicating a creature walking upright. And they stretched a long way. Between 40 and 100 miles depending on the account.

The full route looked a little like this:

Exmouth – Topsham – Across the water to Dawlish – Teignmouth – Torquay – Totnes – Exeter – Weymouth. Google maps calculated the full journey to be just over 100 miles.

Oh, and the tracks also went across rooftops. Two witnesses claimed that the tracks stopped at the opening to a pipe that was just 15 cm across. Following the pipe to the other side they found the tracks continued. As though the creature had just walked magically walked through the pipe!

Sometimes the tracks would stop for a few metres before carrying on as normal. Or stop at a hay bale and then continue on the other side, as though the creature had simply leapt over the obstacle.

And no other tracks, human or otherwise were ever seen alongside the hoof prints.

It’s fair to say that the locals were rattled.

Hunted

The locals actually did believe the Devil in Devon was looking for a soul to steal (last one I promise). People were so afraid that they refused to leave their homes. This was not helped by the fact that several times the tracks went right up to doors before stopping, as though the creature was looking for someone.

It got so bad that a hunt was soon formed to track the beast down. Bloodhounds followed the tracks. After some time they tracked the creature to a wood near Dawlish. The huntsmen, pressing their advantage, sent in the hounds. Rather than returning triumphant, the dogs soon returned howling with their tails between their legs.

No more hunts were attempted.

Press attention leads to an enduring tale

A local newspaper, The Western Luminary and Family Newspaper published an account stating the footprints had caused an uproar of commotion, while The Western Times stated that Exmouth had been visited by none other than his Satanic Majesty.

The Times, which is still going strong, reported the event with this amazing snippet “A vast number of foot tracks of a most strange and mysterious description. The superstitious go so far as to believe that they are the marks of Satan himself.” Imagine reading that in a respected journal.

Not everyone believed the stories of the Devil in Devon. Various people have tried to debunk the case. Everything from pranksters to aliens, kangaroos, swans wearing special shoes and even an untethered balloon have been brought forward as possible causes.

However, as I sit here in the year 2023, some 178 years later, there still hasn’t been a satisfactory answer. If pranksters really did create the hoof prints I’d love to know how. Somehow they covered over 100 miles, at night, while covering their tracks, climbing over houses, across estuary’s and goodness knows what else and then went to their graves keeping quiet about it.

Then again, maybe it really was Satan himself in Devon that night. It wouldn’t have been the first time the Prince of Darkness had put in an appearance in the area.

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We’ve all heard the stories.

All of these rumors and conspiracies could have been squashed almost immediately. If only Hitler’s teeth hadn’t disappeared.

It meant only a few people actually knew the truth. A truth that would not be uncovered until the year 2000.

We are going to focus on the two heroes of that day. Yelena Rzhevskaya, a Soviet interpreter and Kathe Heusermann, a dental assistant.

A Very important Mission

Yelena Rzhevskaya was used to interrogating captured Germans. It was part of her job as an interpreter for the Soviet war effort. She might have been just 25 years old but she had proved herself.

Summoned to the office of Colonel Gorbushin she thought nothing of it. Upon her arrival she was handed a satin lined wooden box containing a partial jaw and teeth. Confused, she awaited her orders.

“Those are Hitler’s teeth” she was told. “You are to take them and find Hitler’s dentist”. Not an easy task in the wartorn rubble of Berlin.

“Lose them and you’ll lose your head” Colonel Gorbushin told her, his face emotionless.

Yelena’s blood ran cold, the box suddenly feeling heavier in her hands. “Why me?”.

“Because we have no safe and as a woman, you’re less likely to get drunk and lose them”.

With that, she, Colonel Gorbushin and their driver Sergei headed off into Berlin.

Through the smoking ruins

Picking their way slowly through the destroyed city took many hours. It was slow going. The roads had been all but destroyed and barricades had been flattened by tanks.

Pulling up at a hospital, enquires were made. Only one lead. Find Professor Carl von Eicken, an ear, nose and throat specialist who for the last 10 years had been Hitler’s physician.

His offices were at the Charite clinic. They set off again.

When they arrived, they quickly found the ear, nose and throat department in the basement. Wounded patients were everywhere.

Professor von Eicken didn’t have any answers for them, sending them on to the dentistry department.

There they were given a name and an address. Dr Hugo Blaschke whose surgery was located on Kurfurstendamm. Miraculously, the building remained standing.

Here they found that Dr Blashke had fled to Bavaria. Another dead end.

However, there was a glimmer of hope. A Dr Bruck said that Dr Blaschke’s assistant Kathe Heusermann was at home in her apartment just around the corner.

Wrong place, wrong time

Kathe, a beautiful blonde woman in a headscarf and blue coat arrived within minutes. She should have stayed at home or gone with Dr Blaschke when he offered but we will discuss her fate in due course.

Asked whether Hitler’s dental records were in the building, Kathe answered that she thought so and proceeded to a box. As she riffled through the records, Yelena caught glimpses of the records of Himmler and Goebbels before Kathe eventually settled on the records of Adolf Hitler himself.

Unfortunately, only Hitler’s medical card was present. A promising start but X-rays would be needed to make a positive match. Kathe made the suggestion that the records might be at Dr Blaschke’s other surgery. Located in the Reich Chancellery. The halls of power of the Nazi’s.

The building had yet to be stripped by the occupying forces. Nazi paraphernalia hung everywhere as though the war could still be won.

Kathe led the little band of people down to a small, poorly lit room. There she found what they were looking for. X-rays of Hitler’s teeth and his dental records.

It had been a long day so they decided to reconvene at 10am the following morning.

Confirmation

Colonel Gorbushin asked Kathe to describe from memory Hitler’s teeth. As she spoke, Yelena translated and made notes.

“A gold bridge attached to the 1st left tooth with a window crown, to the root of the 2nd left tooth, to the root of the 1st right tooth and to the 3rd right tooth with a gold crown” wrote Yelena.

Comparing the notes to the X-rays was a match. Crucially though, they must all match the actual teeth in the box.

Passing the teeth to Kathe Heusermann, the awaited her verdict with baited breath. She soon confirmed it. The teeth belonged to Adolf Hitler himself.

It seemed that the world would get irrefutable proof of Hitler’s death.

The Fate of Kathe Heusermann

Stalin, the Soviet leader decided to keep the existence of the teeth secret. He wanted to keep the world in the dark. Primarily as a way to help the Soviets during discussions relating to Germany now that the war was over.

Speaking to his closest allies, Stalin said “We shall not make this public, the capitalist encirclement continues”.

To make sure the truth was kept secret he had Kathe Heusermann arrested as a dangerous criminal and sent to prison in Moscow. The only reason she survived this ordeal is because a fellow prisoner gave her some of their food.

For the first 6 years, she wasn’t even charged with a crime. Just left to rot. Finally, in August 1951 Kathe was charged with helping the Germans prolong the war.

Sentenced to 10 years hard labor Kathe was sent to a gulag in Siberia. The journey was 2800 miles long, loaded into the back of a cold, cramped cattle truck. There, Kathe could not meet her work quota and would have died if not for Stalin dying in 1955. It was the first piece of good fortune she had had in over a decade.

West Germany negotiated the return of their prisoners after the death of Stalin. Returning home to Berlin, Kathe found that everyone thought she was dead. Her fiancé had returned from the war and married someone else. That fateful day in 1945 destroyed Kathe life. She went back into dentistry and died in 1993.

Yelena Rzhevskaya

As for Yelena, she had no idea of the fate that befell Kathe. She returned to Moscow and became a writer. She had been ordered to forget her time in Berlin and keep quiet. In Soviet Russia, you did as you were told. During the intervening years, she researched what had happened to Kathe. It was not until 1996, 3 years after Kathe’s death that she got her answer.

She published several books about her experiences in Berlin in her later years and only died in 2017 at the grand old age of 97.

What became of Hitler’s Teeth?

They were place in a special container and sent to Moscow. And that was the last time they were seen until the year 2000. Russian officials decided to put them on display as part of an exhibition celebrating the 55th anniversary of the end of World War 2. Actually, they put part of Hitler’s skull and a new picture of the teeth on display. The teeth are said to be too fragile to handle or display. Apart from that, they have not been seen in public since that day in 1945.

They were studied by French pathologists in 2017 at the behest of the Russian FSB and found to be consistent with Hitler’s dental records. They showed no signs of meat residue (Hitler was a vegetarian), blue staining consistent with biting a cyanide capsule and no gunpowder residue. This means that if Hitler did indeed shoot himself as well as biting a cyanide pill, he did so by putting the gun to his temple or forehead.

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Then, in 2003, we found the remains of a small hominin. Homo Floresiensis. An extinct species of small archaic human who lived around 50,000 years ago. So far, remains of around a dozen individuals have been found on the island of Flores, Indonesia. We know they stood around 110 centimetres tall (3 feet 6 inches), had small brains, sharp teeth and used stone tools.

Tales as old as time

The Shoshone Indians love to tell stories. It’s getting harder though. Only a thousand people on the planet now speak their native tongue. A number that is slowly ticking ever downwards. One of the most enduring stories is that of the Nimerigar, a race of small, bad tempered humans who the tribe had many run ins with. The name Nimerigar translates to “People Eaters”.

Nimerigar tales talk of small aggressive people who would shoot you with a tiny bow and poisoned arrow. They were also known to kill members of their society that became too ill and burdensome. Typically, they did this with a blow to the head.

Awareness in the wider world

David Zeisberger (1721 – 1808) was a missionary. Born in Moravia (Czech Republic), Zeisberger spent most of his life in America trying to convert Native Americans to Christianity. Due to this, he learned many of the native languages fluently and even managed to settle several Moravian Indian Villages.

In 1778 Zeisberger wrote about a burial ground close to Coshocton, Ohio (link should open on the correct page, if not, turn to page 16) that contained a race of pygmies’. These people when measured, stood around 3 feet tall (91 centimetres).

He also talks about other pygmy grave sites near St Louis and at the Keene-Bethlehem township line.

Unfortunately, all these graves have been lost to time. It would take another 150 years and a discovery at a gold mine to focus attention on the Nimerigar once again.

San Pedro Mountains Mummy

October 1932. Cecil Mayne and Frank Carr are prospecting for gold in Wyoming. Following a vein of gold in the San Pedro mountains, they blast a hole through thick rock. What they saw next was…. unexpected, to say the least.

The blast had revealed a small room, not tall enough to even stand up in. At the centre of the room sat the mummified remains of a small person.

What happened next to “Pedro” is unclear. Even this Casper Star Tribune article contradicts itself. Stating that Pedro vanished in 1950 in one half and then that he was used as an attraction until the late 70’s before his whereabouts becomes unknown.

What is known is that at some point Pedro was x-rayed. The picture is above. Depending on who you listen to, this showed Pedro to either be an infant with a cranial deformity or as quoted in the Casper Star Tribune article: ““After an exhaustive study by the scientists it was agreed that it was the only specimen known of a human race of that type which perhaps dated back a million years,” Goodman was quoted as saying in the March 5, 1950, edition of the Casper Tribune-Herald.” Ivan Goodman, a used car salesman quoted here is probably not the most reliable witness. He owned Pedro and showed him off from the 40’s onwards.

Without Pedro to study though, it all becomes irrelevant.

Chiquita – The Second Mummy

This second mummy came to light in the 1990’s. Shown to George Gill, a University of Wyoming anthropologist, he took it to the Denver Children’s Hospital to run tests.

Chiquita had sat in a Native American families attic for decades. Her arms and legs were folded in the same way as Pedro, giving a somewhat tenuous link.

According to the results of these tests, Chiquita was another child with anencephaly, where the head grows without large parts of the skull, leading to deformities. The same affliction that also allegedly impacted Pedro.

DNA tests proved that Chiquita was of Native American descent and a radiocarbon dating test put her as living around 1700 CE.

What’s the Truth?

Personally, I lean towards Pedro and Chiquita being the mummified remains of children, buried in a ritual pose.

What about the stories of the Nimerigar shooting poison arrows or the pygmy graves I hear you cry.

Let us begin with the graves. Unless one is rediscovered, just like Pedro, it cannot be proven either way. All we can do is speculate.

Reading about the Nimerigar just the other day, the tales kept pulling my thoughts back to Homo Floresiensis. Especially when you take into account that American Indians originated from Asia, crossing a land bridge at the Bering Strait sometime over 11,500 years ago. By 10,000 BCE, these tribes had occupied much of North, Central and South America.

With that context, the stories sound like echoes. Just as most communities have a flood myth dating back to the last ice age, I think (admittedly with no proof) that the Native Americans are retelling stories from before their ancestors crossed the land bridge. We know that there definitely was at least one race of small human like people in Asia 50,000 years ago. We know they used stone tools at the very least. Could they have used a bow and poisoned arrows?

The bow and arrow have been around a long time, one found in Sri Lanka dates to 48,000 years ago. So the technology existed in Asia at roughly the same time as Homo Floresiensis.

But would a story endure that long? Or did at least one of those races migrate into the Americas as well?

This is where it becomes less unclear. Until we find hard proof like we did with Homo Floresiensis, we won’t have a definitive answer.

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But what is it and why the name change?

What’s In A Name?

1942 is where our story begins. December the 28th and the start of the Manhattan Project to be precise. If you haven’t heard of the Manhattan Project, let me bring you up to speed.

The Manhattan Project was the codename for the atomic bomb research that ultimately resulted in the dropping of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” over Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. Killing 200,000 people and ending Japan’s resistance in World War Two.

What people don’t know is that the third bomb planned to be dropped would be Rufus, the Demon Core. When this ultimately turned out to be unnecessary, Rufus was sent to the lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico to be researched.

While there, in two separate incidents, it would claim the lives of two prominent scientists, earning it the moniker “Demon Core”.

Experiments Pushing Criticality

I’m not about to go deep into the science surrounding atomic reactions. This link will give a better explanation than I can. Suffice to say, criticality experiments are fraught with danger. If the core is able to go critical for even a millisecond, a massive amount of deadly radiation is released.

Due to this, experiments surrounding criticality were famously described by the physicist Richard Feynman as tickling a sleeping dragons tail. Between 1945 and 1999 there have been 60 criticality accidents, killing 21 people. That’s the danger level here.

Harry Daghlian

Harry holds the dubious honor of being the first ever death due to a criticality accident. On the 21st of August 1945, Harry was conducting an experiment where he placed tungsten carbide “bricks” around the as yet to be renamed Demon Core. Doing so reflects neutrons from the core, reducing its mass and edging it towards criticality.

About to place the last brick into place, Harry was made aware by a counter that doing so would send the core critical. Pulling the brick back, he dropped it onto the core, sending it critical. Harry was forced to partially disassemble the bricks to halt the reaction. Unfortunately for him, the few seconds critical would be enough to deliver a lethal dose of radiation.

Harry received immediate intensive medical care, all to no avail. He fell into a coma and died of his injuries on September the 15th 1945. Just 25 days after the accident.

Louis Slotin

Our second Demon Core victim. Just months after Harry, on the 21st of May 1946, Louis was conducting an experiment where a sphere of beryllium is placed around the core to reflect neutrons. Usually, a shim was used to make sure the two halves of the beryllium don’t touch, or you get a criticality incident.

Louis however, was using a screwdriver to hold the two pieces apart. Predictably, at 3.20pm, the screwdriver slipped. Immediately the room was bathed in the blue glow of air ionization given off by Cherenkov radiation.

A blast of heat washed over Slotin accompanied by a metallic taste in his mouth and severe burning in his left hand. His fate was sealed.

The Army flew his parents to be with him. They arrived four days after the accident. By the fifth day, Louis condition had begun to deteriorate rapidly.

He died alone just 9 days after the accident after a total loss of bodily functions.

What Became of the Demon Core?

The core was planned to be used in the Operation Crossroads tests. These tests happened at Bikini Atoll, a beautiful untouched paradise. As Bob Hope put it: “As soon as the war ended, we located the one spot on earth that hadn’t been touched by the war and blew it to hell.”

And yes, it is where Bikini Bottom in Spongebob comes from, just in case you were wondering.

But back to the Demon Core. After the incidents involving it, it was slated to be used in tests after cores Able and Baker. However, because of the untold damage done by these tests the core was melted down and recycled for use in other cores.

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The answer is the Gregorian Calendar.

Ten Missing Days

Until 1582, the Christian world ran on the Julien Calendar. Unfortunately, because the Julian Calendar was actually longer than a standard year (by 11 minutes and 14 seconds) it meant that over time, it became inaccurate. Every 314 years, the error added up to one whole day.

Meaning that over time the date of Easter became incorrect. At least according to the Council of Nicaea. In 325 they had set the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon of the vernal equinox. Around the 21st of March.

However, over centuries it became apparent that the drift caused by the calendar had made the date of Easter incorrect. Many proposals to fix this were put forward over the years but no action taken.

Council of Trent

During a session of the Council of Trent in 1562, a decree was passed asking for the Pope to fix the problem. As ever, the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly. Eventually Pope Gregory XIII signed an order in February 1582 to adopt the Gregorian Calendar (the one we use today). Bizarrely, to bring the vernal equinox (and Easter) back to the date of March the 21st, ten days had to be dropped completely from that years calendar.

It was decided that since no Christian festivals took place between October 5th and October 15th, this would be the time allotted to be “lost”.

In the countries that adopted the new calendar, you went to bed on October the 4th and arose the next day, on October the 15th.

Controversy

However, not all countries in the Christian world adopted the calendar. France didn’t make the switch until December of that year. Prussia followed in 1610. It didn’t catch on with the rest of the world until 1752, some 170 years later, when the British Empire adopted the calendar, skipped ten days and spread it around the globe as part of their empire.

It must have been incredibly confusing trying to communicate between countries during this time. Even crossing a border in Europe could put you back or forwards in time by ten days.

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But a teenager with a Cessna dared to try. Not only did he try, he succeeded.

Mathias Rust

An idealistic teenager from West Germany who believed that with his stunt he could unite the East and West. At the time an unthinkable notion. Division between the two different ideologies had been building since the Second World War ended. Mathias had only clocked up 50 hours of flight but decided to “build a bridge” to show Europe that relations could be improved.

So began his epic journey.

Setting off on May the 13th, 1987, he prepared for the off to “tour northern Europe”, or so his parents thought.

First he travelled to Shetland, then to the Faroe Islands, stopping over for a night at each. He then travelled to Iceland, then Norway before arriving in Helsinki, Finland. It was now the 25th of May.

While in Helsinki Mathias spent a few days mulling his idea over in his head. Nerves threatened to get the better of him. As they should. In front of him lay the full weight of the Soviet Unions Air Defence systems. From Helsinki, its a journey of over 500 miles, most of it through the USSR’s air space. Not a journey for the faint hearted. Suicidal in fact. Just 4 years before his attempt, a Korean airliner had accidently strayed into USSR airspace and been blown out of the sky. 269 people lost their lives, with no survivors.

A Dangerous Journey

On the 28th of May, still conflicted, Mathias set out. Air traffic believed he would be heading towards Stockholm in Sweden. Which at first, he did. Half an hour into the flight he made his decision and changed course for Moscow. Air traffic controllers in Helsinki saw that he was heading the wrong way before Mathias disappeared from their screens. The Finnish coast guard launched a frantic hunt for him, believing him to have perished at sea.

As they were hunting for him, Mathias, soaring high above their heads crossed over into Soviet airspace.

Quickly he was picked up by radar and within an hour a MIG fighter jet passed by him. Mathias, terrified, pushed on as the jet vanished into the clouds. Somehow, he had been mistaken for a friendly aircraft and allowed to continue. A huge stroke of luck.

Time to Land

The rest of his journey was relatively quiet. In no time at all he could see the Spires of Red Square. He had made it. Not quite. Looking down he saw nowhere to land. Too many people. Spotting a four lane wide bridge next to St Basil’s Cathedral, Mathias headed for it.

You can see a small clip of the incident at the start of this YouTube segment on the flight:

At around 7pm, with the sun starting to set behind him, Mathias Rust landed and taxied his little Cessna into Red Square. The people there were shocked and delighted to see him at first, especially when he said he was from Germany, they thought he meant East Germany!

Once over their shock, the authorities arrested and charged Mathias with hooliganism, breaching the Soviet border and disregard of aviation laws.

Aftermath

Mathias Rust was sentenced to spend 4 years in a labour camp. Primarily for embarrassing the Soviet Union with his stunt. Luckily for him, he was never transferred to the labour camp and instead served his time at a facility in Moscow. In August of 1988 he was released as a sign of goodwill between the East and West.

Once back in Germany, Mathias refused to speak to the press. Why? Because he had signed an exclusivity deal with German magazine Stern to the tune of 100,000 deutsche marks. The journalists there describe him as “probably mentally unstable and dangerously unworldly“. A chilling foreshadowing of what Mathias would do in 1989. We will cover that below. Back to the story.

As for his aim of helping bring East and West together? Well, he sort of did. But not in the way he, or indeed anybody thought he would.

Mathias and his stunt damaged the reputation of the Soviet military. Some thought beyond repair. Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, used this as a way to clean house of his strongest opponents. It was the biggest overhaul of the Soviet military since Stalin purged the forces 50 years before.

Because of Gorbachev’s actions, he set in place a series of events that would lead to the fall of the Soviet Union within a matter of years. The events are too detailed to go into here, but Wikipedia has a great write up for those who would like to delve deeper into the subject.

Where are they now?

As for Mathias Rust and his rented Cessna? The Cessna is now on display at the German Museum of Technology in Berlin.

To put it mildly, Mathias himself has lived a chequered life. In 1989 Mathias stabbed a female co-worker who had rejected his advances. She barely survived. It was recommended he spend 8 years in jail but he was only sentenced to 2 and a half years. He served just 15 months. The LA Times report in 1991 reads thus:

Enraged by his mild sentence for attempted manslaughter, spectators booed in the Hamburg courtroom as Rust, 23, smiled.

LA Times – 1991 Article

Rust himself said that something inside him “just snapped” before the incident. Rust’s lawyer conceded that if the student nurse had not been in a hospital when stabbed, it is very unlikely she would have survived.

In 2001 he was back in court. Thankfully this time merely for stealing a cashmere pullover. And again in 2005 when he was convicted of fraud.

Apparently, as of the latest reports, he now works as a Yoga instructor and financial analyst.

According to most reports, Mathias Rust is an extremely strange person. In an interview with The Guardian in 2012 he described himself as “a bit of an oddball”. Looking back at his life, that seems a bit of an understatement.

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Helps to have friends in high places.

Being prominent comes with perks. It can also backfire spectacularly. Just two years after Cleopatra signs her decree waving import tax, Canidius is on the losing side at the Battle of Actium. He is promptly executed.

One year later and Cleopatra herself will be dead. On the 10th of August, 30 BCE, she takes her own life rather than be used as a pawn by Octavian.

2000 Years Later

The papyrus in question is discovered by chance in Berlin. Archaeologist Peter Van Minnen is searching through the archives when he happens upon it. At just 30 cm long and 50 cm wide it is not much more than a scrap of a document. But the reason this scrap is so special is precisely because of Cleopatra’s scrawl at the bottom. The only surviving example of her handwriting. Yes, you read that right. So be it, the order given in 33 BCE

Incredibly, the papyrus had been reused to wrap a mummy. One which has then been excavated by a German archaeological team in 1904. And then ignored until its discovery in the year 2000,

Cleopatra So Be It

It has to be one of the most fascinating discoveries in history. Cleopatra is a legendary figure whose entire life is known and poured over. Even now, over 2000 years later you would be hard pressed to find anyone on the planet who was not aware of her. She’s probably more well known now than during her reign as pharaoh. However, never before had we seen her handwriting. Until now.

How do we know its her handwriting?

It’s a good question. As Duane Roller in Cleopatra: A Biography states, “There is little doubt that this is the writing of the Queen herself as there was a tradition in Ptolemaic Egypt of countersigning by the monarch, in part to avoid forgeries.”

This is the general consensus between archaeologists such as Peter van Minnen (who discovered it) and while we can never be 100% certain, it gives weight to the fact that what we are looking at was actually written by none other than Cleopatra herself.

Lastly, it turns out Cleopatra can’t spell! γινέσθωι is the order given (so be it). However, as detailed in Cleopatra couldn’t spell (and neither can we!) by Steve Reese, she added a superfluous iota (the i type letter at the end).

The papyrus is now housed in the Neues Museum in Berlin.

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As I type this, I’m trying to pop my ears to rid myself of it. It never works, but it’s a response to the noise I have developed over years.

Can you hear what I hear?

I’d say I’m one of the lucky ones. Tuning it out is second nature. Some cannot do that. Even worse, some experience dizzy spells and headaches because of it. The most it has effected me is keeping me awake at night. I found that to be especially true while living on a small island. With no background noise (cars, people etc), the hum became more noticeable. The first two weeks living there trying to sleep was almost impossible.

And it appears the hum is a modern phenomenon. Early hum attributed reports date back to the 1940’s and 50’s. In London and Southampton, over 2000 people are said to have reported hearing the hum over this period of 2 decades.

David Deming, a hum sufferer and scientist from the USA, investigated the hum in 2004. In his paper, titled: “The Hum: An Anomalous Sound Heard Around the World” he cites not just the early hum reports from London above, but also gathers reports and data from around the globe. It’s a fascinating study but one which ends in frustration. Spoiler alert, David does not pinpoint the source of the hum.

Destination Unknown

While it appears the Hum was originally noticed in the UK, it wasn’t long until other areas of the globe started to report it too. In Taos, New Mexico in 1992, Catanya Saltzman, a trained dancer, wrote a letter to the local newspaper complaining about the sound. The hum was so bad for her, it effected her inner ear balance and career.

Interestingly, the letter met with a small minority of the community agreeing with her. An investigation into the Taos Hum was launched in 1993. This one gets a little sprinkling of conspiracy here. A newsweek article from 1993 claims that “Rep. Bill Richardson, a member of the House intelligence committee, told a packed Taos town meeting that the Hum is defence related and asked the Pentagon to shut it down.”

John Deutch, Under Secretary of Defence at the time responded, “My staff has concluded there is no program, classified or not, which would cause this hum.”

The Windsor Hum tells a similar story. In 2010 the Canadian city of Windsor started getting reports of complaints from residents. Again the same thing. A low rumbling noise heard by a large minority of residents.

Remarkably similar stories have come as far a field as Bondi in Australia, Bristol in the UK and even Hawaii. But the best one has to be from Auckland, New Zealand. Here, Dr Tom Moir investigated the mystery sound and he even managed to record it. You can listen to the sound at around the 1.30 minute mark of this news report.

Research into The Hum

While David Deming’s and others research failed to find a source for the hum, it has been built upon. Dr Glen MacPherson, a science teacher, took up the baton.

He created the website, thehum.info in 2012, Since then it has gathered information from sufferers around the globe. The site includes an interactive map of those effected by the hum that you can click on and see their locations. You can also submit your own data through a survey asking questions and a tone generator to match the noise you hear.

Possible causes of The Hum

Natural phenomena such as volcanoes, meteors, waterfalls and ocean waves have all been discounted by researchers. It has been reasoned that because only a small percentage of the globe hear the hum, it cannot be an acoustic sound.

Others have attributed the hum to urban noise from air conditioning units, ventilation fans, diesel engines or even water pumps. As someone who still heard the hum while living on a remote island, I’m not convinced.

David Deming thought it could have been caused by radio signals used to communicate with submarines. These need really low frequencies and can evoke an auditory response in humans. It would also call back to the Taos Hum and the since denied defence related excuse.

But, no, it’s probably not that either. Why? Dr MacPherson built a box to shield out such radio frequencies and stepped inside. Instead of the hum disappearing, it did the opposite and became louder.

So if it’s not an external source, is it coming from inside of us? Does there seem to be a small percentage of humans that all have this internally generated sound? Personally, I think that this is the likeliest explanation.

The Hum, for now at least, continues to be a truly global mystery.

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On the 17th of July, 1877, The Montgomery Weekly Advertiser published a story. A very strange story. Allegedly, a creature known as the Jackson County giant was caught alive by a crowd of 300 men before managing to escape. Never to be seen again. You can read the original news clipping here.

Encounter and Capture

On their return from a fishing trip near Bellefonte (now a ghost town), Colonel John Snodgrass and Dr. Payne discover tracks made by a human, but one so utterly large they could not believe their eyes. Upon their return to Scottsboro, they convinced Reverend R.D. Shook, the editor of the Philanthropist to go back out with them and at least make a report of the giants tracks. He does so, taking a tape measure with him. Upon their return, the story is corroborated.

The whole town of Scottsboro are soon talking about the giant. Fear reigns supreme. Very quickly everyone is in agreement. The Jackson County Giant must be hunted down.

A party of 300 men and around 450 dogs is raised. Led by Col Snodgrass, the original discoverer of the giants tracks. After some searching, Col. Snodgrass locates the giant through his spy-glass and announces that the giant resides in a cove on the mountain.

The story goes that the giant was found sleeping next to a stream. By all accounts he had been eating, surround by bones and animal horns. The party dash forwards, ropes in hand, dogs at their heels, ready to capture him. The giant, upon hearing the noise, awakens. Panicked, he leaps to his feet, ready to fight. The men and dogs are wary to move within reach of the giant so with yelping and whooping, try to scare him into a chase to tire him out.

Terrified and no doubt a little groggy still, the giant grabs a few of the braver dogs and throws them at the men on horseback, although no-one is mortally wounded according to the report.

The giant then bolts for the mountains and runs up a ravine, with the dogs and men hot on his heels. As the ravine narrows, in his panic he gets “wedged fast” and cannot move. The party rope him and with a “herculean effort he is dragged forth and taken to an open glade”.

Once caught, a man known only as Col Alex joins the crowd and is heard to exclaim “Boys, haven’t we done a glorious mornings work?”.

Jackson Country Giant Description

Tied and now pliant, the Jackson County Giant is meticulously measured.

Standing 21’3 feet tall (that’s a whopping 649.2 cm!) the giant is said to have measurements as follows:

• 6 feet 8 inches across the shoulders (203.2 cm).
• Arms 7 feet 9 inches long (236.22 cm).
• Fingers 14 inches long (35.56 cm).
• Head the size of a flour barrel.
• Space between his eyes is 9 and a half inches (24.13 cm).
• Nails on fingers and toes are like claws and measure 4 inches (10 cm).
• With a 6 feet long beard (182 cm).

The giants eyes are described as opening perpendicularly rather than horizontally with eyeballs the size of cantaloupes that are striped red and green. His mouth is triangular shaped with tusks protruding from it. His complexion is described as somewhere between “pea-green and sky-blue”. Some of the men speculate that he is related to the “gurrillas” (sic).

Discussion and Escape

Measurements taken and with everyone having seen the “monster”, the discussion turns to what to do with him now they have caught him. As the newspaper report puts it, “A knotty question indeed!”.

However, not long into the discussion, the giant has regained his strength and composure. He snaps the ropes “like so many threads”, leaps over 40 men and crosses the river. The Jackson County Giant is last seen heading into the Sand Mountains. Neither the men nor the dogs show any appetite to chase him again.

In the original newspaper report, the giant is referred to as a species of “Brobdignag” (sic). This refers to a race of giants called the Brobdingnag in the book Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. Published in 1726, the Brobdingnagians are soon used by the wider public to mean anything of unusually large size and so this probably does not mean a sincere belief that they actually believed the giant to be of that race. It’s more of a descriptive word used for their audience.

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