Appearances And Disappearances

by Peter Brookesmith

Genres: Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Isidore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the early 1980's Peter Brookesmith edited The Unexplained, a vast grab-bag of the outré which first appeared as a weekly magazine and then as a 26-volume hardcover set. He recruited a lot of big names from the field of British paranormal studies to contribute articles, including Colin Wilson, Guy Playfair, Jennie Randles, Hilary Evans, and John Michell. Overall the approach was one of enthusiasm for strange phenomena coupled with an insistence on logical thinking and critiquing of sources. The range of subject matter is immense—this is where I first heard of Gef the Talking Mongoose, but more mainstream things like the Great Pyramid and Betty and Barney Hill are also covered. The books are intelligent and fun and lavishly illustrated. They seem pretty much forgotten these days, and have not been reprinted in decades.

This volume (#11) on Appearances and Disappearances predictably gives us the Mary Celeste (it turns out Marie is an error popularized by Conan Doyle), the Bermuda Triangle, and Anna Anderson (supposedly Anastasia Romanoff). Paul Begg takes care of the first two, and after entertaining us with the myths, turns a critical eye on their sources: the Bermuda Triangle is revealed as enjoyable fiction, and while the Mary Celeste remains a mystery, there is no need to bring in bizarre explanations for what happened. The reader is not left disappointed, since Begg uncovers a further mystery: there is evidence that the bodies of the ship's company were in fact found off the coast of Spain, but not identified as such.

The section on "Anastasia" is of course dated: thanks to DNA testing, we now know the whole thing was a hoax or fantasy. Ironically, this section is the only needlessly credulous one in the book.

However, for me the real interest lies in unfamiliar and offbeat subjects: Emilie Sageé's energy-sucking doppelgänger of 1845; the man "presumably of good education and standing" who "dropped" naked onto a ploughed field in Hampshire and wandered aimlessly, if desperately, until dying of exposure in 1920; Princess Caraboo, "The Wonder of the West"; Sister Mary of Agreda, who regularly "flew" between her convent in Spain and a tribe of natives in Mexico in 1620. . . lots of fun, even if some of the accounts don't withstand scrutiny.

Incidentally, I have identified only eighteen of the volumes in the series: if anyone can point me at a complete list of the titles, I'd be grateful.

[Steve Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arthur C. Clarke said of the Bermuda Triangle that the only mystery was that people still believe that something mysterious is happening. This book reinforces that opinion by demonstrating that many so-called mysterious disappearances (and reappearances) that are reported in many books on the subject are actually nothing of the sort.

[Hermanito · Rating 3 out of 5]

easy to read