OOPArts

OOPArts are out-of-place artefacts, though other objects of historical, archaeological, or palaeontological interest are included.  The term was coined by the naturalist and cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson.  It isn’t a term used by mainstream scientists as it may be considered tainted with unprofessionalism; it is largely used by those who study the pseudo-scientific topics such as paranormal activities, fringe theories such as ancient astronauts, or the topic of creatures such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

Having said all that, I find it interesting to read about various objects that have been labelled as OOPArt.  Here are a few:

The Abydos Helicopter

The Wolfsegg Iron

The Klerksdorp spheres

The  Iron pillar of Delhi

The Baghdad Battery

The Abydos helicopter

The Iron Man (Eiserner Mann)

The Quimbaya airplanes

The Dendera Lamps

The Cambodian Stegosaurus

The Cambodian Stegosaurus

While some may be explained with scientific methods, other official “scientific” explanations seem to me, frankly, far-fetched.  Judge for yourself, and enjoy the curiosities of our planet’s history!

 

A Time Capsule of History in One Family

I missed posting this past weekend as I’ve been knee-deep in editing another novel’s manuscript.  When I’m in editing- (and not research-) mode, I don’t tend to come across historical articles or topics of interest for this particular blog.  However, I saw an article on a topic that has fascinated me since I first read about the Lykov family of Russia several years ago, and knew I had to share it!  The Lykov family lived in the wilds of Siberia from 1936 to 1978 without a single contact from a human being outside of their family; that’s not hard to imagine when you realize that the vast forested area in which they lived, the Taiga, is 5 million square miles of nothing but wilderness, wildlife, and roughly a human population of 1,000… that’s 5,000 square miles per person.  They were completely self-sufficient, had no idea that World War 2 had even occurred, and the younger children spoke an isolated language of their own.  To read the fascinating history of the Lykov family, click on the image below.

The History of Villa Helios, Lugano, Switzerland

Lake Lugano, the city of Lugano, and San Salvatore, one of the many mountains in and around Lugano

I’ve been gone on holidays (thus the lack of posting – I DO know how to leave work behind… well, almost), and thought I’d write about a place I’ve come to know over the years:  My in-laws have a holiday flat with an amazing view over Lago di Lugano here in Switzerland, and we’ve come for a week nearly every year for the past 20 years.  The photo shows part of our view (I’d have to do a panorama shot as our view goes from Casserate to Caprino), and for as many years we’d looked down upon Villa Helios, watching her rot away like an abandoned old lady.  I don’t know her history; it may be one of the dozens of cases around Lugano in which there is an inheritance squabble, and the property is shut up until the cases are settled; if the parties pass away in the meantime and the issue of inheritance goes to a new generation that frankly doesn’t want to be saddled with a decaying mansion with pretensions of palace, it continues to sit. A few years ago we were pleased to see that at long last, renovation had begun.  And it continues still; the exterior is beginning to take shape, though as far as I can tell the inside has a long, long, long way to go.  I have heard through the grapevine that it is intended to become individual apartments, which will take some major work inside to divide up, wire, add plumbing and create separate entrances.

The dome of Villa Helios

Precisely because we’ve looked out over the villa for more than 20 years, speculated, wondered, and asked questions of the passing hawks because no one else seemed to have any answers, my writer’s curiosity took over and began to form a novel; I work on it when we’re down there as a nice change of pace from my other novels and writing projects.

I do know that the villa was designed by architect Otto Maraini, who was born in Lugano on 8 November 1863, and died there 16 January 1944. Helios Villa in Castagnola was built in 1901-1902, including a series of walls and terraces that formed part of the lake shore. I came across a few historical photos at arteeidee – thank you for sharing these old magazine photos (“The modern building” monthly magazine of architecture and construction practice, August 1904)!  Check out that blog post for the older photos (click on them to enlarge); The photos I’ve added here are current shots. For the writers out there, find an interesting old building in your own area, research into its history, and create a story with the building as one of the characters and not merely a location.

Villa Helios, as seen from the lake

The terraced walls leading down toward the lake shore

The front entrance of Villa Helios, under construction

Famous Deceptions of World War 2

The Enigma Machine

Everyone knows about D-Day, 6 June having been the 70th anniversary and mentioned everywhere in Cyberspace and beyond this weekend.  But how many have ever heard of Operation Bodyguard, Slapton, or Major Martin – the man who never existed?

Operation Bodyguard was specifically crafted to mislead the German high command as far as the exact date and target of the D-Day invasion.  At the time of the Normandy invasion, the German military resources were spread thinly along the Atlantic coast; they knew something was coming, but not when or where, and their interceptors and spies were hard at work trying to catch any information that might tip them off in order to concentrate their forces in the correct location and timing.  The allies knew that if Normandy were spotted as a possible landing place, all might be lost; so to cover any correct information, they intentionally leaked bogie information – namely, that Normandy was a diversionary ploy; it was a tactic used several times during the war because the German spy network in the UK had been compromised though not exposed, so that the allies could use them against their own side unwittingly (or employ double spies); Bletchley Park had also been able to crack the Enigma codes to a sufficient extent, and as long as that stayed secret they could not only decipher the enemy’s encoded messages, but know which “spiked” information had been swallowed.  The allies gave several bogus targets along the Atlantic front, as scattered as Calais in northern France,  the Balkans and Norway.  Hitler was so convinced he’d interpreted the bogus information as valid that he delayed reinforcements to Normandy by seven weeks.  The operation was a strategic success; General Omar Bradley called it the “single biggest hoax of the war”.

There were dozens of similar operations throughout the war, some more successful than others.  The village of Slapton, along the Devonshire coast, was a dress rehearsal for the real thing; while in itself not a deception, it aided the allied troops invaluably in preparing for a swift and successful invasion to establish a beachhead and eventually win the most decisive battle of World War 2.  The beach near Slapton was considered a close match to the conditions the allied troops would face on the beaches of Normandy and Omaha.  The town was evacuated for their own safety, and rigorous training ensued along the coastal beach and cliffs, beginning as early as July of 1943, including landing craft maneuvers and beach obstacles.   It was kept fairly secret, but in April of 1944 a surprise torpedo attack from a German speedboat ended the lives of nearly 750 American sailors and soldiers.  To bolster the strength of the diversionary operations and reduce any radio static connected to further preparations in Slapton, travel and communication along the coast of Britain and the Republic of Ireland were limited or blocked altogether, in effect creating a news blackout.  The preparations there enabled the allies to beach successfully.

Major Martin, though he never existed, was invaluable to the success of the allies:  In “Operation Heartbreak”, a novel by Duff Cooper, and “The Man Who Never Was” (also known as Operation Mincemeat) a historical account by Ewen Montagu, the history and eye-witness accounts of men involved in the deceptions reads like a great mystery novel – but it’s all real:  In the early hours of 30 April, 1943, a corpse was dumped off of the coast of Spain; but the corpse had a greater mission in death than it had in life:  Wearing a high ranking Royal Marines uniform and with a “spiked” briefcase attached to its wrist, it was sure to wash into the port and its information intercepted by the corrupt spy network in bed with the Nazis.  The misinformation was swallowed whole, and the operation was a success.

The above-mentioned book is well worth reading (it’s actually two in one), and another that I would highly recommend is “Station X – The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park”, by Michael Smith.  The film Enigma (with Kate Winslet and Dougray Scott) is a great one on this topic, if you’re interested in the topic.

The Lions of MGM

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or getting your popcorn and drinks during the opening moments of every film you’ve ever seen, chances are you’ve seen the famous MGM lion roaring his way into your movie experience.  But I bet you didn’t know they’ve used several lions over the years, and that they each had a name; the one most of us know is Leo, who’s been used on most films since 1957.  Click on the photo below to see the whole article at Wikipedia!

Ai Pioppi – The Making of History

In northern Italy, near the city of Treviso, is an otherworldly experience:  In 1969 a man named Bruno bought a few kilos of large Italian sausages and a jug each of white and red wines, set up a grill beneath a tree, and a restaurant was born.  To attract visitors to his restaurant he began creating amusement park rides, welding them himself.  By now an elderly man, when you see the passion in his eyes, and the love he has for his creations and the people who appreciate his rides, you know what humanity is capable of with passion, a bit of ingenuity and determination.  I love the no-nonsense ways of the Italians, and the fact that people, whether old or young, enjoy these rides with a healthy dose of human common sense – there are no barricades, safety nets, no warning signs everywhere; people are expected to be responsible, act responsibly, and enjoy the experience as-is.  To see the 11-minute documentary by Fabrica, click on the image below.

The Lambton Worm

Myths and legends are often based in some distant, past reality; sometimes they are blown out proportion by the telling over time; what started out as a guppy eventually becomes a whale.  In the case of the Lambton Worm legend however, the dragon became a worm:  “Worm” to our modern minds doesn’t sound threatening at all; but the Old English wurm, a variant of wyrm, actually meant “serpent, snake, dragon, or reptile“.  I find it fascinating to read between the lines of such a story, to recognize the actual historical elements buried over time within the fantastical renditions; there may be elements of local geography, superstitions, explanations that arise over time, moral lessons to train children in a particular behaviour, and many other tidbits of history along the dusty road to modern versions of ancient tales.  To read more about this interesting legend, click on the image below.

Illustration from the Book, ‘The Curse of the Lambton Worm’

Gold Dust in History

Dust is an amazing thing, when you stop and think about it:  It’s made of us (the death of our cells), of pollen (a sign of the life of spring), and a myriad of other ingredients that make up that gathering layer.  It might be annoying to clean away sometimes, but when it’s stirred up in the golden light of the morning sun it’s magical.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

The same goes for proverbial dust:  Abandoned building (urban dust), or a fallen tree (rural dust).  For some, those things might represent failure, for others progress; some may only see waste, others potential.  Click on the photo below to follow the link to a list of abandoned sites around the world:  Some may see them as a sad indictment of human waste, but I see those places as monuments to someone’s ingenuity, to meeting the needs of the times, perhaps to false planning or miscalculation, but either way they are rich pickings for my imagination as a writer – I imagine the human stories behind their creation, at their demise, and those still affected by the fact of these sites now.

Abandoned Military Hospital in Beelitz, Germany

 

The History of Fabergé’s Rise & Fall with the Imperial Romanov Family, & the Natural Beauty of the Hope Diamond

I was recently doing research into blue diamonds for a novel I’m working on; there is a ton of information out there in Cyberspace, some of it fascinating, some of it fantastical (taking a shred of historical information and running wild with theories, curses, and paranormal gibberish).  But I did find a documentary on Youtube that I thought I’d share with you:  It covers (in what initially seems like an odd mixture of topics) the late history of the Russian Romanov family, their connection with the rise and fall of the House of Fabergé, the extravagant splurges and the curse of wealth and power in the hands of those unable to manage it, and lastly (at 32:00) the history of the Hope Diamond, the largest blue diamond in the world, and the second-largest crowd magnet following the Mona Lisa.  The topics transition from exquisite craftsmanship to natural beauty, and though the video is nearly an hour, it is well worth watching!  To view it, please click on the family portrait below.

Top 10 Inventors

Here’s a short, fun video about 10 top inventors; some may be arguable, and I’m sure we could come up with several that should have made it onto the list.  It’s still incredible to think back and see the “Eureka” moments these gentlemen had; and to wonder what they would have thought of some of the modern versions  of their initial devices.  What would Bell think of the cell phone that’s rarely used as a phone (rather as an SMS device, or app- or camera device)?  What would the Wright Brothers think of the Concord, or the ISS?  Click on the photo below to see the video.