Crazed Swimmer. 1935.

The Mercury 13 Aug 1935 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article30100515

160 miles out to sea? So many questions. Where did he come from? Where was he going?!

I bet that he didn’t get all the way out there under his own steam. Did his own boat sink or did he get dropped off the side to swim home alone? Aliens? Or, to continue on the theme I have had of late with rains of strange things, was he part of a rain of humans? Him being the last one still swimming when help arrived?

He was lucky that he was seen by a boat. What are the chances of a single human being noticed when you are that far out at sea? If I was swimming 160 miles out the only thing that would spot me would be a hungry shark.

This article doesn’t specify if he was swimming out to sea or back to shore, but either way I don’t think he was going to make it to his intended destination.

Crayfish from the sky. 1928.

Advocate 23 Feb 1928 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article67574196

Crayfish raining from the sky? Wouldn’t want to get hit by one of them, especially if it was alive and, no doubt, angry after its unexpected fall!

The man was standing in front of a hotel though, so there is always the chance it was aimed at him by a mate on an upper floor.

Yes, I know there may have been other sightings, but these people were reporting things falling from the sky that they ‘thought were crayfish’. These witnesses couldn’t have been to close to the action.

It is quite hard to mistake a crayfish for another thing, even if it is splattered on the pavement.

Frog in a rock. 1935.

Cairns Post 8 Oct 1935 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article41708997

When I was young my Aunty Audrey had a book that was a compilation of many Fortean type stories. That book, and a similar one in the library of my primary school, sparked my love of these types of tales. Aunty Audrey has been gone for years now and my sister and I both have a space on our shelf for this book and joint custody arrangements as we both love it.

That book had many stories of frogs found in sealed up in rocks and although very few of them have any credibility at all, I still love to hear about them.

This frog story has entertained me, the estimation of the age of the sandstone in the first paragraph was the first thing that amused me, but I loved Mr Hutton’s belief in the creation of the frog.  According to him it became lodged in the sandstone in a protoplasmic state. I think he is suggesting that the frog egg somehow managed to get into the stone and then it grew from there. Sadly, and against all forms of reality, my brain heard ‘protoplasmic state’ and immediately bought to life a sort of animated jelly making its slimy way through the substance of the newly forming earth, looking for a comfortable place to nest. There it lurked until the day Mr Hutton got to the bottom of his goldmine and released it from its sandstone prison.

Both scenarios are equally likely, so believe whichever version you prefer, I am sure that the frog didn’t get under the sandstone slab during the night via the small crack in the floor.

Acres of dead crabs. 1912.

Examiner 29 July 1912 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article50662881

I wonder how so many crabs lost their claws all at once and what it was that caused their deaths? Pulling the claws off crabs doesn’t generally result in their death. Sure, they are not very happy about it but this is something that happens to them at times and eventually they grow back.  Surely an undersea disturbance that could do that much damage would not have been selective enough to only remove their claws and it would have been hundreds of acres of crab mush instead.

Two miles of dead crabs must have been and amazing amount of them, millions. I wonder what sort of crabs they were? I am sure there were some pretty happy and well fed bird around for a while.

Magazines.

I went to the newsagent today, what a mistake. I get them to put aside the magazines I like as I hate to miss out on them, I also hate to pay for them so when I get to the counter and they say ‘do you want your magazines as well?’ I alternate between YAY! and NOOOO!!!!!!! Today my two favourites were there so I couldn’t say no and as a result I walked out nearly $25 lighter. Oh well…

This is what I spent my money on.

     COSMOS- Not cosmo. This one has no ads for creams that will make you younger or tell you how to have a better sex life. This is an Australian publication about ‘the science of everything’. It is a great one to get you interested in a subject and wanting to find out more. The articles range from reviews of books and exhibitions to news snippets to multi-page spreads and cover many different topics. The photos used are gorgeous. A great job all round and my kids like it too. Many times a discussion with them has been generated from the front cover illustration alone.

 

 

 

     The Fortean Times-  This is British and was inspired by Charles Fort (1874-1932), an early collector of strange phenomena and weird news stories. There are book, movie and game reviews and discussions and articles on any subject you could imagine (or make up). There are also a few pages of advertising that are an entertaining read all on their own. What’s not to love about a magazine that contains ufo sightings, ghost stories, conspiracy theories, tales of unusual deaths and the occasional rant in letter form from people that are clearly unhinged. This magazine doesn’t tell you to believe and it doesn’t tell you that you are crazy if you do and at times is happy to point out how absurd a story really is.

      Yes, I know that many people who read this one are the sort of people you would be uncomfortable sitting next to on the bus. I love it as I think the world would be a much less interesting place without alien believers and wild-haired crazies and their unique take on the world. Once you read this you will never read the newspapers in the same way again.