Tamám Shud

The Somerton Man, Post-Mortem

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Perhaps we can add WTF?

It's 1948. The Second World War has ended, but the Cold War is just beginning. The Spectre of Communism has begun haunting Europe in earnest.  Anyone, anywhere could be a spy.....

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

In 1948, a John Doe was found lying on Somerton Beach, a suburb of Adelaide, Australia, propped up against the rocks like a man taking a nap, perhaps recovering from a night on the town.  Or lying down to watch the sea as his life slipped away. 

Many seemingly strange details about the Somerton Man have caused many people to speculate that the man was a spy.  No labels on his clothes, some of which were determined to be American.  An unused train ticket.  No ID.  Well-shaven.  The body of an athlete or a dancer.  A strange code linked to a rolled up pîece of paper found in a hidden pocket.

His suitcase was found 6 weeks later at the local train station. Which turned up more clues that led nowhere.  It contained the usual stuff:  slippers, extra clothes, etc.  But there was also "an electrician's screwdriver; a table knife cut down into a short sharp instrument; a pair of scissors with sharpened points....and a stencilling brush."  (This quote and the basic story comes from Wikipedia, but I have read a lot of articles, and there really are a lot out there.)

Somerton Man's tools....

A few weeks after his death a police inspector found a rolled up scrap of paper in a hidden pocket sewn into Mr. Somerton's pants.  It is printed with the expression "Tamám Shud."

Someone pointed out that this is the final phrase from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám and translated from Persian means "It is ended."  The end, basically.  It was a popular book at the time. I myself have a copy dating from about the same year as the Somerton edition.  My grandmother's, I believe.  It was translated by Edward Fitzgerald in the 1860s and still seems to be a popular and respected translation.  Many early translations of other books haven't aged so well.  Most translations of the roughly contemporary Les Chants de Maldoror by Franco-Uruguayan Isidore Ducasse (as Le comte de Lautréamont) are lambasted by translator Alexis Lykiard.  No holds barred.  I don't have my copy at hand (just moved) but I've never seen a translator speak so harshly about the work of others.  And the example he cites justify words like "travesty".

Wild, wild, world, because a few weeks later, the very same copy of the book from which the phrase was torn, turned up; the scrap found on Somerton matched where it had been torn from this copy.  It had been tossed onto the back seat of someone's car. The book, oddly, had been found 10 days before Somerton's body was discovered. That, to me, is very strange. If he tossed the book into the car, why didn't anyone report seeing him in the ten days he was in the area? Could it indicate he wasn't the one who'd tossed the book?  Could it indicate Somerton was murdered and the scrap of paper was placed in the hidden pocket?  If it was Somerton, what was he up to in the ten days after he tossed the book and died on the beach?  Maybe the guy who found it had a wonky memory of when it was found.  

The random (?) letters which start this post were found scribbled in the book, along with a phone number. Amateur sleuths have attempted to decrypt the letters as if it were a code, and some think one would need a specific book to solve the cipher.  But 'til now, nothing has been made of them.  Others say it was probably just his way of keeping track of the horse races, or something equally banal.  Why horses?  Easy, the man recently identified as Mr. Somerton was keen on the races.

Code....or shopping list?

The phone number led to a nurse, Jessica Thompson, who lived half a kilometer from where Mr. Somerton was found. She was brought in to see the death mask that had been made. She claimed not to know the man, but was apparently clearly upset when she saw the plaster cast, to the point one man present thought she might faint.  It could be that she was upset at seeing the visage of a dead man.  But she was a nurse and might be expected to know how to deal with death.  Plus, her number was in the book.  Maybe Mr. Somerton didn't write it.  

But, dig this. The woman's daughter thinks her mum was lying and knew the man. Mum, you see, spoke Russian, but was cagey about how, when, and why she'd learned it. Mum also apparently told the daughter she did know Somerton but lied to the police because it was "not at their level." Is the daughter lying? Was mum? Was either telling the truth? Dead people tell no tales....All these details make tales of espionage more credible but more importantly, prove nothing.

Said nurse also had a son, Robin Thompson.  A professional dancer.  Of course. Remember Somerton had legs some described developed like a dancer's.  Somerton also had a rare ear configuration found in 1 to 2% of the caucasian population.  He also had hypodontia, a rare genetic disorder affecting the teeth, found in about 2% of the general population.  Guess what, Jessica's son, the dancer, had both conditions, which experts say is up to a 1 in 10 or 20 million shot, coincidence-wise.

Maybe the reconstruction was made to resemble the nurse's son, but they do resemble each other....

So, Somerton has the number of a woman living 400m away from where died, who nearly faints upon seeing his death mask. Somerton had a dancer's legs and two rare conditions affecting his teeth and ears. The woman's son is a dancer with the very same rare features of the teeth and ears.  The woman speaks Russian, was interested in Communism, and according to her daughter, lied to the police about knowing Somerton because it was "above their pay-grade".  Weird stuff.

What's even weirder is that a researcher found Robin's daughter and was able to test her DNA, and found that Robin was NOT related to Somerton. How weird is it that a woman who some say clearly knew Somerton had a son who shared so many rare features with him, yet the son wasn't his?  This woman spoke Russian and had an interest in Communism.  Whose own daughter thinks she was lying?  There are so many made-for-TV intersections which suggest espionage that -- truth being stranger than fiction -- probably are in fact just coincidences....

Somerton may have been a spy, but many of the seemingly strange details can also be explained more prosaically. I have nothing profound to add to the case by way of speculation, but like many others, I find it a compelling mystery, quite sad. The man was no bum. He was well-dressed, clean-shaven, and had a thing for poetry. But the anonymity of his death, alone on a beach, probably by suicide, well, it's sad.  At what point did this man's life go off the rails....and why?  

If you accept the spy theory, perhaps he was murdered. He was poisoned by digitalis. I don't know if the Soviets in 1948 were as keen on poisoning people as the Kremlin has been under the Putin regime, but heck, it's not inconsistent.  If true, he didn't spend all of his final hours alone....so with whom?

When I found out about this story, I was kind of obsessed for a few days.  I got turned on to it by recent developments which perhaps reveal the man's identity. 

The Wikipedia article and the following video pretty much sum up the case.  The latest theory is that this man was named Carl Webb, an electrical engineer who'd abandoned his wife a year prior to his death.

People turn up dead every day. Not sure why this case from decades ago still strikes me so much....Carl Webb was apparently one of six children. He had an estranged wife. This case was a sensation at the time, and no one who knew him heard about it?  Or came forward to identify the body?  Possible.  I suppose Australia in 1948 was still fairly wild and woolly.  Like the US, very big with lots of small towns dotting large, open spaces.  Radio and telephones existed, but not the internet, no computerized databases, and TV wasn't introduced in Australia until 1956.   Still, there were a lot more newspapers filled with photographs.  No one filed a report that could have led to an ID?  No one saw a paper and said, holy-moly, it's Carl.  Wouldn't the family be on the lookout after he'd abandoned his wife?

Australian authorities contacted the FBI and Scotland Yard, turning up nothing; this further fueled speculation about the espionage. Perhaps he was from behind the Iron Curtain....?

Webb was apparently some kind of engineer or technician who lived in the proximity of people in military positions of a sensitive nature. To what degree this is significant is debatable. Some researchers don't flat out reject it, but remain hesitant to accept the Webb identification.  If it wasn't Webb, the whole "living near special ops people" is irrelevant.  So, was this a saga of espionage or an affair of the heart?  Or neither?

Who knows in the end? Wikipedia has pretty thorough summary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerton_Man

YouTuber Joe Scott does a really good job of summarizing the facts with lots of images. He avoids undue speculation.  Sometimes Scott's mannered presentation annoys me, but I've watched his stuff and they are well-organized and illustrated.  I'd recommend looking at his videos on any subject he's covered that strikes your fancy.  He really does do good work.  

The following article talks about the possibility that the man is Carl Webb, who disappeared after leaving his wife in 1947.   The Somerton Man died in 1948. It also addresses whether or not the Somerton Man, Webb or not, was in fact a spy.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-02/is-carl-webb-really-the-somerton-man-and-was-he-a-spy/101375542

All in all, this is a really fascinating story and an interesting window on Australia in the years immediately following WW2.  The Webb ID isn't too fantastical, which in my book, lends it credence.  I'm a pretty sceptical person though, so until the 5-O/Po-Po/Keuf concur, or family steps forward, I mark Webb a good probability but not a certainty.  It seems to fit.  Dying a year after he left his wife; a family connection to a man named Keane (a name found on one article of clothing from which the labels hadn't been removed); a love of poetry; a photo of Webb's brother....they bear more than a passing resemblance.  All circumstantial.  None of these deets preclude him from being a spy, either, so for those with their hearts set on a Cold War drama, if the man is proven to be Webb, you'll have a lot more to work with.  

As Sherlock would say:  "The game is (still) afoot!"  

I know that sounds terribly insensitive, but this case has been famous since it first occurred 70+ years ago, which doesn't indicate a high degree of interest or concern among the family who survived him.  If it is Webb, that's 5 siblings and their children, grandchildren, and possibly great-grandchildren.  Not to mention cousins, aunties, family friends.  National news and not one friend or family member steps up?  A remarkably uncaring family?  Was Webb a total "good riddance best forgotten" prick?  

If the speculation that Mr. Somerton wasn't Australian bears weight....maybe he was from behind the Iron Curtain after all.  Prosaic or nefarious, this possible identification rakes up even more enigmas.  The Somerton Man was, and is, famous; and not a single person has stepped up to identify him.  Granted, those photos were post-mortem.  But surely a sibling or other relation would have recognized him?  That no one has done so again, makes me feel incredibly sad....Think if all you will be remembered for is that you turned up dead on a beach with some weird stuff in your pockets

We just have to wait and see....or....

Shai-hulud

The Voice of Shai-Hulud, from the Oral History

"Over here sand blows, over there sand blows. Over there a rich man waits, over here I wait."

Tamám Shud

XCIX.  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, 5th ed.  Edward "Eddie the Veggie" FitzGerald

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire 

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, 

Would not we shatter it to bits--and then 

Re-mold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

And finally: 

Owa Tagu Siam 

Stimes Addisson, A Brief History Roman Mystery Cults from Greece, Persia, and Egypt.

By 300 C.E., the mystery cult called the rites of Auca (originally Ghaz) surpassed Mithraism and Christianity among soldiers in Britannia and sewage technicians from Gaul, Germania, and Syria Palaestina to Rome itself.  If not for Constantine's well-hidden anatidaephobia, it may have won out over Christianity and the cult of Sol Invictus; a nagging seat of power in the outre-mer legions was dedicated to Mithraism, whose initiatory grades appealed to men accustomed to advancing in rank; the rites of Auca had no such progression.  Their "life-mantra" was the Latin phrase "Owa Tagu Siam" literally meant "Let me be."  Their "death chant" finished with the congregation saying the Persian "Tamám Shud".  The officiant then intoned "tazh shrw'e shdh ast" or "It has only just begun." 

Be careful out there, wannabe Baker Street Irregulars.  What is true and what is an absolute crock is harder to delineate in this info-bite world. The internet is often one big tautology: A cites B in it's references; B then cites A.  I learned that to my embarrassment circa 1996, when I sent an email with a photo purporting to show a missile downing a jetliner just after it left JFK.  This theory still has, er, wings, and there's even a documentary about it.  The NTSB blamed faulty wiring around the central fuel tank.  The alternate take is that the US Navy shot it down by accident during routine target practice.  TWA flight 800.  I'd presented conspiracy theory as fact.

I'm getting off track here; just reiterating my preoccupation with confirmation bias.  You want Mr. Somerton to be a spy and you will find plenty of evidence to support your theory.  At one point I played around with conspiracy theory and what is referred to as "twilight language" in order to get into the mind of the would-be conspiracy buster.  Read the facts and then theorize; don't theorize prematurely and bend the data to fit.  Not to sound like a know-it-all.  I'm certainly guilty of confirmation bias and the making the red-car-phenomenon something which it isn't.  As a perception phenomenon it is indeed a window on and a shaper of reality.  I think I'm generally aware of it though, and also aware that more often than not, I'm absolutely fuggin' right!  About everything.  Haha.  I kid.  

Was Somerton a spy?  I don't know.  He could have been from the Soviet bloc or an Australian asset.  There are so many unknowns about the most banal and what should be public details of the man,  that determining whether or not he was a spy is probably impossible to determine.  So, I've really flogged this one.  Like many people, something about the story grabbed me and is still holding on.  For all the flip and cavalier things I've said, I really mean it when I say it saddens me.  My gut feeling is that he was a troubled guy with a flair for the dramatic, who abandoned his wife to recapture a lost love, the nurse perhaps, and, not finding it, took his own life.  I may very well be wrong, and I don't insist on this notion in the slightest.  It's just an inkling.  OK.  Now I can say

Tamám Shud........?

Note:  Significant updates on 12/10.  So much for Tamám Shud! 😀

Tracy Twyman & the Exile of Belief

 

It was the turn of the millennium.  I had just read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and, like many, became fascinated with the mythology surrounding Rennes-le-Château.  I became a Freemason like generations of my family before me (four, at the very least).  I was deeply into making electronic music, reading and writing "avant-garde" poetry, studying esoteric and Masonic literature, and drinking.  Lots of drinking.  I was also working at Cornell University's Olin Library, and Cornell has an extensive collection of Masonic books.  Thousands.  Literally.  I was like a pig in shit, but to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, my snout was pointed at the stars.  And France.  I moved here in 2002.

A friend of mine, a short-term former bassist of Galaxie 500, worked in a kind of head shop-slash-porno outlet-slash-occult bookstore, and turned me on to The Black Flame and Dagobert's Revenge magazines.  

At the time, I had been working on a lengthy article about the connections between Freemasonry and Scouting, and more specifically, the BSA honor society called the Order of the Arrow.  I submitted that article to DR with high hopes; it was rejected.  But Twyman liked it and published it online.

Twyman also inducted me into a fledgling esoteric order, now defunct, called the Ordo Lapsit Exilis -- the "Order of the Fallen Stone," as a 1st° "Legionnaire."  Motto:  Ab initio (“From the beginning...”).  I   thought it a bit odd, never took it very seriously, but was still rather chuffed.  God knows why.

I don't know if the OLE ever existed beyond a website, a mission statement, and a series of written degrees, but I think Twyman had founded the Order with Boyd Rice and Vadge Moore, occultist and former drummer of The Dwarves. 

(Off-topic, if you get a chance to see them live, do it!  Singer Blag Dahlia probably has a rep as a madman, but when I met him, he was a soft-spoken and very nice dude).

Years passed.  I read at some point the OLE had folded.  Like with many Rice collaborations, it seems to have been an acrimonious parting.  The list of disgruntled Rice collaborators is long:  Giddle Partridge, filmmaker Larry Wessel, (perhaps?) Douglas P. of Death in June....etc.  It didn't surprise me.  Back then, Rice accused Twyman of turning the OLE into a money-making scheme, a scruple he didn't seem to apply to Anton LaVey.  Twyman, I learned much later, accused Rice of being lazy and riding on her shoulders.  Qui sait?

As I continued my esoteric studies over the years, I frequently came across Twyman's work.  Some of it looked interesting.  Some of her associations, like the so-called "Dragon Court" and Dragon bloodline, seemed like utter bullshit.  They seem like people who confuse the SCA with reality.

Everyone wants to imagine their ancestors were Princes or Dukes, or a least minor Lords.  But alas, most of our ancestors were peasants, anointed more with pig shit and flies than the holy oils of Merovingian fish-men.

I later learned Twyman had gotten into QAnon-like researches into topics such as Project Monarch and CIA-sponsored kid-trafficking.  I've seen lots of this kind of stuff.  Before QAnon we had the "Satanic Panic" and waaaaay back, there were accusations that Jews trafficked kids for use in unholy rites.  Blood-libel.  The CIA certainly did some wacky mind-control experimentation back in the day, using LSD on unsuspecting soldiers, among other treats, but the idea that a "deep-state" runs a global ring of kiddy diddlers?  Weinstein and. Epstein are real enough, and add just enough fact to make such a scenario believable.  And hey!  The Jooz!.  (That's sarcasm, friends.  LoS don't truck with no Antisemites).  Just enough real shit to make the balderdash seem possible.

Disinformation.  Psy-ops.  If you prefer, Grade-A mindfuckery.

I don't know what it was I was looking for, probably something to do with recent posts about the Church of Satan and the 8-8-88 rally, ah yes, it was on Boyd Rice's Wikipedia page, where I read Twyman had died.

Searching "Twyman death" on Google I came across a couple of articles. Twyman had been researching sex trafficking rings involving the CIA and other such topics.  Not really new subjects, to be honest.  Cathy O'Brien is the fairy godmother of this bullshit.  Her TRANCE Formation of America is one of the "classics" of what can be called a genre.  Another is James Shelby Downard's Carnivals of Life and Death.

If the latter is an extended allegory, I don't know.  If meant to be a real recollection, then Downard is either a bullshit artist of the highest order, or a schizophrenic.

I'm still not entirely convinced Downard is even real, instead being a concoction made up by Michael Hoffman II and Jim Brandon, pseudonym of William Grimstad.  Both are Fortean types who are also Antisemitic firebrands.  Some even say Adam Parfrey was in on it, despite the fact he was half-Jewish.  Or wasn't.  He got pretty cranky when I mentioned it in a Facebook exchange, despite his claiming to be half-Jewish as a way of defending Boyd Rice against charges of being a Neo-Nazi.  But Parfrey is dead now.  

Not to speak ill of the dead, but his Feral House publishing concern is so frustrating.  A mix of truly interesting and informative books mixed with some of the biggest balls of bullroar on the market.  Downard's Carnivals, for one.  I must also mention Dick Hoagland's NASA "exposé" Dark Mission.  This latter book is such a rancid pack of nonsense it's almost criminal.  If I weren't such a free speech defender I'd advocate banning it just for being so insanely stupid.  Such is the mixed bag that is Feral House.

But I digress.  Twyman was looking into sex trafficking by the CIA before her death and ended up being found in her garage, an apparent suicide by hanging.  How could that not be conspiracy fodder?

I read some things about her death, and while I don't firmly believe Twyman was in fact murdered, there are enough suspicious facts to the case which warrant further investigation.

Before her death she talked of being stalked and threatened, both online and in the real world.  She even made a YouTube video about it.  And that video was here but "....is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Mystagogue Publications LLC."  But of course.

One could (and some people do) argue that this is evidence she was murdered.  It could also be used to prove that her mental state was deteriorating, that she was merely paranoid and losing the plot, breaking down.

I would urge anyone interested to read the testimonies of those who feel something is amiss (see below) and draw one's own conclusions.  I don't claim one thing or the other, but I do feel that if these testimonies are true, her suicide might be more that it appears.

I didn't know Twyman personally and I have no dog in this hunt.  Maybe the police did a proper investigation and she'd simply gone down the occult rabbit hole, never to emerge.  She always seemed to be a decent sort.  Bright, certainly.  Off-kilter?  Perhaps.  But that doesn't mean she was totally off her rocker.  Her interests were esoteric and she was prone to make connections I don't agree with.  But the only time I saw her bear into whack-a-doodle territory was with the Dragon Court nonsense, but I don't even know to what degree she actually believed it.

I don't want to intrude upon her family's grief and wander into what may just be the sad affair of a smart woman who lost her grip and ended up taking her own life.

But if there is something to the claims that she didn't kill herself, it merits a further look, ne c'est pas?

This post won't convince anyone, anywhere, of anything.  She was nice to me, and dug my work.  After DR I didn't follow or read her writings, but what she did in that magazine was remarkable and valuable, if only for the poetry it brought into my life.  For that, I salute her.

And I guess, in a way, I'm still a Legionnaire in the Ordo Lapsit Exilis, so in that small way, a brother of sorts.

Read the links I've posted below and decide for yourselves.  Here in France, I can do naught but salute her from afar.  Godspeed Tracy, whatever happened.    

 

1.  Who killed Tract Twyman?

The title already tells you the author's conclusions.  If any number of things alleged here are true, than an investigation is surely in order.  Thing is, are they true?  How could I know?  I'd like to know.  The post is actually an answer on Quora by one "Providence Athenaeum" who has made zero posts and only one answer on the site.  This one.  The Providence Athenaeum, btw, is a private library located in Rhode Island.  It was frequented, among others, by Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, which somehow seems germane.

The post claims she was murdered but is short on details.  It's well-written, but comes across as well....paranoid.  To say the least.

2.  Tracy Twyman, Targeted Indivdual (podcast)

So, around 8:20 Twyman suggests that a sophisticated AI had hijacked not only her computer, what she was seeing online, but had hijacked her mind.  That is to say, what she was seeing online was based upon what she was thinking.  Not what she'd already visited -- Google algorithms do that to all of us -- but what was in her head, "up to the minute" (her words).

Most people understand that this is the way the internet works.  Search for prices for plane tickets to Mallorca, and you start to see ads for flights to and hotels in....Mallorca.  This is the obvious part.  

What's less obvious is that your entire web history is used to point you towards things Google's AI thinks will interest you.  It's a well-known fact.  And problem.  Leftists get results that confirm their biases.  Right-wingers get results which confirm theirs.  This is not always so blatant, and there has been a lot of hand-wringing about how the increasing polarization of the political landscape is being entrenched due to search engine algorithms.

With confirmation bias or frequency illuisions, the paranoid mind kicks into overdrive. The brain's natural tendency to render perception itself an organizing process becomes a kind of apophenia.  With confirmation bias, the brain sees things that confirm pre-existing conceptions. You have a theory, start looking, and find plenty of data to support it, neglecting that which doesn't.  Frequency illusion is when you see a thing, then see it again, then start seeing it everywhere.  Like if I tell you the number 27 appears in a lot of media, you'll start seeing it everywhere (and trust me, in this case, you will).  Of  course, the 99 other times you don't see it won't be important, but the times you do:  Mind.  Blown.  Apophenia is when you start seeing meaningful connections in unrelated things.  (Sorry for these extremely simplistic explanations).

In many ways, this is normal, and helps us construct our relationship with reality.  For an artistic mind, it can be a very useful tool.  Surrealist aesthetics are in many ways controlled apophenia.  Salvador Dalí called it the paranoiac-critical method.  Dalí also said:  "There is only one difference between a madman and me.  I am not mad."  And that's the crux.  He did say paranoiac, but he also said critical.  I know confirmation bias, frequency illusion and even limited apophenia do not mean a person is crazy.  But when it gets out of hand, it's no longer an artistic tool or a thing that makes you go "hmm."  It could be the onset of schizophrenia.

What's more likely?  That an AI had gotten so sophisticated it could show Twyman things she had only just thought?  Or that her "perception organization tools" had gone wonky?  When she says her computer was telling her to kill herself, is it more likely the computer was saying she should kill herself, or that her suicidal ideations were being externalized?

At the end of the podcast, it is, as the podcaster says, pretty "far out."  Indeed, he says "....to me, at first, I think she's kind of flying off the deep end on some stuff that she's correlating to Biblical scriptures, and the Sumerian Bible texts, and the Book of Enoch, and some end days, uh, kind of virus versus flood, kind of scenarios, but this is the kind of research that she did, the kind of stuff she did...."

Believe what you want, I give you the choice.  But a few minutes into her discourse something seems off, even with the tone of her voice.  If she was being harassed, let's look into it.  But it may have all been in her head.  Some are claiming that the disappearance of her videos and other writings from the internet indicate a campaign to "erase" her from the internet (as if).  Could it be that a grieving family, overcome, simply wanted to take down the paranoid content of a beloved member of the family who killed herself as a result of schizophrenia or another psychosis?

Like I said, by all means, look into the allegations of harassment and any other potential suspicious details.  But make sure we're not twisting the data to "prove" something we've already come to accept as true.  Let's not succumb to confirmation bias and/or apophenia.

3.  Re-open the Investigation into Tracy Twyman and Isaac Kappy's Suspicious Deaths, a peitition initiated by Zachary Brian McQuaid.

If you think there is a valid reason to do so, sign the petition.  The name pretty much says it all.  The text accompanying the petition is awfully damning, though proves nothing.  Any of the claims could be the ravings of a liar, a madman, someone misinformed, or someone actually in the know.  If there's any truth to it, an investigation could verify or disprove it.  I am in no position to refute or confirm any of it, but it would be interesting to see what a proper investigation turned up....

McQuaid speaks of producing videos which he says, unbeknownst to him, were disinformation.  He names names.  I Googled his name, unusual enough, and came up with a reference on IMDb to an actor with a single credit to his name, an actor in an episode of the Goosebumps series.  Same dude?  I don't know.  But it could be an indication he had the means and skills to make the videos he claims to have been hired to make.  A person with the same name donated to Just Adopt, Inc. on on 12/25/2021. If it's the same guy, maybe it indicates he's a decent sort.  Then again, it's an organization for adoptions, and he does claim that trafficking children was part of the nefarious deeds of which his employers may or may not have been a part....

4.  Tracy Twyman Official Website 

The website is a single page with some odd graphics.  It also contains the Latin phrase Nemo me impune lacessit:  "No one provokes me without impunity."  A death foretold?

It also includes an image with the motto "There is More Beyond."   This serves as the title for the selected papers of Gardner Murphy (1895-1979), published in 1989.  Murphy was a psychologist of some note, who in addition to more traditional psychology, researched parapsychology, that is to say, psychic phenomena.  Whether it's a reference to Gardner or not, I can't say, but given Twyman's interests, it's possible.  She was given to using the Latin phrase Plus ultra (on her website included), which means more or less the same thing.  It was also Sir Francis Bacon's personal motto, for whatever that's worth.

********************************

So, with lots of digressions, that's a brief account of my dealings with Tracy Twyman.  I don't know, and have no way of knowing, what happened to her.  But I was sad to learn of her death, and that it's become fodder for conspiracy theory.  It may be exactly what it appears, and her grieving family just wants it go away.  If that is the case, and any friends or family come across this post and are offended, my apologies. I liked our exchanges, and respected her achievements as a researcher, writer, TV presenter (In Search Of....) and the fact that she didn't just talk about doing things, she did them.

My respects Tracy, I regret that our brief encounter wasn't longer. Plus ultra!

Cute Dog Sneezing (2127 A.D.?): A.K.A. "being outside in the sunlight to smell a magical cure for spring"

Dear Laws of Dickheads:

As you can see, that which:

A) talks the talk,

B) walks the walk, and,

C) squawks the squawk,

Can be properly be called:

A) an unoriginal, 

B) an a-hole-space monkey, 

C) A slob-dobbler (ca. 1990 "knob-gobbler").

Your paltry and simplistic output has lasted for years....years!!  And you have, what?  Resigned yourself to splotchy blurbs with nary a Neanderthal pun in which to find something, anything, that is, shall we say, intelligent, or at the very least, "sharp?"

Get with it, shysters.  Faith is gonna move ya.  Brothers gonna work it out.  God Save the Queen!

You runt-nuts!!  Dare I say:  Russian warship, go fuck yourself!  Get, with it, "blog!!"  Do some ding-a-ling à la a no-bling, flava flav, 'larm clock:  Wake up, bitches!!!  Wake the fuck up!!!"

And so on.  Word to the wise, shit-heels:  Stop phoning it in.   At least have the balls and realpolitik 'nuff to know ya gotta make some bank, yo.

And, oh yeah, at the top of this page there's this weird, looped image of what appears to be a so-called "Border Collie" sneezing, with a demeanor that betrays a feeling somewhere between cute chagrin and total terror.  The striated B+W, 1970's TV-like image could come from 1957, 2047, or today, but it's a transmission, baby, and it was beamed into my head by the pedophile "coronavirus cabal" that has infiltrated the world:  the G-7, NATO, the Bilderbergs, the CIA, FBI, KGB, Star Fleet, the Deep State, the Scottish Rite, the Order of the Arrow, the Rotarians, the UN, etc. et. al. ad nauseum.

Remember, I love you.  But these other chain-yankers do not.  By any means necessary, one way or the other, you must survive this war, and well, so far, you have been getting your asses kicked six ways to Sunday by the brutal boot-heel of everyday living.  Simple shit.

Like I said:  You suck.  Your blog sucks.  Your life sucks.  Close up shop.  STFU.  Give it up, wusses.

Kind Regards,
Théophile Prades
Beaupuy, France

Footsie

7 February 2021 More than a dozen feet in shoes have washed up on B.C. beaches — and 1 case remains unsolved

 

1 March 2021 How 21 feet washing up on Canadian shores may provide clue in Caddick case

 

15 March 2021  How science solved the mystery of feet washing ashore in the Pacific Northwest

3 feet high and rising

We have probably written all there is to write regarding the facts surrounding the be-sneaker'd feet that have been washing up on the shores of Vancouver Island and environs for several years now, so we won't spill any ink on this latest, except to point out that yes, another foot has made an appearance:

https://us.blastingnews.com/news/2018/02/a-detached-foot-belonging-to-a-washington-man-has-washed-ashore-in-canada-002386071.html

Something we didn't know:

Vancouver Island is also well known for its Sasquatch sightings.

For well over a decade, residents on or near Vancouver Island have reported hearing strange howls during the day and night. Some have even claimed to have seen one of the creatures.

The Sasquatch, we should point out, is also known as....Bigfoot.

Who was George Wood?

The recent death of Justice Anton Scalia raised a lot of eyebrows when it came to light that he'd spent his final hours in the company of high-ranking members of the Order of St. Hubertus (IOSH).  An elite hunting club with aristocratic origins and a 200-year gap in it's online timeline?  Nothing worth pursuing there!  Not even when the sparse details they do provide offer the fact that the American branch was founded at the Bohemian Club in 1968?  Pretty nifty: Bohemian Grove/Wood!  What an anonymous name.  Almost like a pseudonym calculated to be the most bland and innocuous moniker possible.  It's also kind of an occupational name, for what are hunters but woodsmen?  We've already seen that the original military "jäger" units were made up of hunters, trappers and other assorted woodsmen, exactly the kind of fellows that administered the lands of the aristocrats that made up the IOSH.

Scalia's host on the fateful weekend he died was a fellow named John Poindexter.  In an email to the WaPo, P-dex wrote: “I am aware of no connection between that organization [IOSH] and Justice Scalia.”

Well, he should know, he's kind of a Grand Wazoo in the Order.  So surely Austrian magazine Kurier is wrong when they outed Scalia as a member.  Terry Melanson, who recommended our earlier articles on Conspiracy Archive, is the only person, at least when I first accessed his article a few days ago, to have relayed this news to the English-speaking world.  Melanson links to the Kurier article, but I'd have you go to it via his article, because it has a lot of details you won't find anywhere else, above and beyond every article I've read on the subject.  Melanson actually does research, not simply re-hash what other people have written

At the end of my last post I asked the world "Who da fug is George Wood?  Answer:  I still don't know.

We know a George Wood founded the American branch of the Order in 1968 at the Bohemian Club.  When the order was "restituted" in 1950, non-Germans invited to join included Halvor O. Ekern, chief political adviser of the US Armed Forces in Austria; Llewellyn E. Thompson, the American Ambassador, General Mark W. Clark, Commanding General of the Allied Forces in Austria; British Ambassador Baron Harold Caccia and "others".  And also, named but with no title given, George Wood.

George Wood became the Order's Grand Master in 1975.

That word restituted went in quotes in my earlier article because it sounded so strange.  But I discovered that 

'Restitution', or 'rehabilitation' is the process where Germany today seeks to recognise the efforts of individuals as patriotic to Germany, though who had not been seen as such previously.

That quote comes from a page for a movie about a man restituted in 2004, a German diplomat/spy for America named Fritz Kolbe.  Or, as his OSS handler Allen Dulles (later head of the CIA and member of the Warren Commission) had dubbed him in WW2, George Wood!

Let's take a quick look at Wood's fellow inductees:  IOSH Class of '50.  

"Col. [Halvor] Ekern worked as a trapper, logger and dam-construction foreman before graduating from the University of Montana in 1941 with a degree in forestry."  There's those woods again.

....He then was transferred to the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment, where he served for the duration of World War II and assisted in organizing the ski troops of the 10th Mountain Division [like French chasseurs or German jägers]....After the war, he transferred from the mountain division to the headquarters of the U.S. Forces in Austria, where he was assigned as the quadripartite adviser to the commanding general and U.S. high commissioner....In 1947, Col. Ekern served on the delegation of Secretary of State George Marshall to the Council of Foreign Ministers....He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1950, remaining at the U.S. Embassy in Austria as a quadripartite director. He was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Austrian Treaty negotiations in 1955....From 1956 to 1959, Col. Ekern served in the Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Atomic Energy Affairs in the State Department....He graduated from the State Department’s Senior Seminar on Foreign Policy in 1964 and served in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 1964 to 1967....Ekern served as a political adviser to the commander in chief of U.S. Army Europe from 1969 to 1973 and was a member of the U.S. delegation to the NATO/Warsaw Pact negotiations on mutual and balanced force reductions in Vienna, Austria, from 1973 to 1974....After retiring from government work, Col. Ekern worked as an editor, writer and publisher, as well as in the security field. He also was president of the Arlington County Taxpayers Association and was chairman of the Arlington County Republican Committee....(snip snip) 

Llewellyn E. Thompson

You can see why he was an attractive candidate for the IOSH, given his background as an outdoorsman and a liaison to the kind of military units in which the ancestors of today's IOSH members would have served.

Llewellyn E. Thompson was the U.S. Ambassador to Austria from 1955–1957 and to Soviet Union from 1957 to 1962 and again between 1967 and 1969. He held a number of other positions throughout his U.S. foreign service career, including being the pivotal participant in the formulation of Johnson administration nuclear weapon non-proliferation policy. He also testified before the Warren Commission, which was investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

(snip snip)

Hmmm.  Nuclear energy again.  And what did he testify about before the Warren Commission?  Well, he was ambassador to Russia at the time Oswald presented himself at the embassy to renounce his citizenship.  Thompson had been out of town at that time.  Part of his testimony was to explain how cases like that are usually treated, partially to clarify the events around Oswald's renunciation.

Gen. Mark W. Clark was a controversial general who on more than one occasion during WW2 was accused of bad planning and bad decisions.  But he kept getting promoted. 

Gen. Clark

In 1945, as Commander in Chief of US Forces of Occupation in Austria, Clark gained experience negotiating with Communists, which he would put to good use a few years later....Clark served as deputy to the U.S. Secretary of State in 1947, and attended the negotiations for an Austrian treaty with the Council of Foreign Ministers in London and Moscow. In June 1947, Clark returned home and assumed command of the Sixth Army, headquartered at the Presidio in San Francisco, and two years later was named chief of Army Field Forces.

So, like our previous fellows, this was more than a soldier, but a diplomat with a little intelligence work under his belt (secretly negotiating with pro-Allied Vichy officers in North Africa, for example).  Like Eckert he was at the Council of Foreign Ministers negotiations in 1947.  Though he later withdrew after protests, Truman nominated him to be the United States emissary to the Holy See.  Hmmm.  Ambassador the the Vatican, eh?  Interesting he ended his days in San Francisco.  Could he have encountered the Bohemian Club while there?

Baron Caccia

Baron Harold Caccia, being an aristocrat, was be a perfect candidate for the IOSH.  He was an Oxford man and an athlete of many stripes.  He was Ambassador to Austria from 1951 to 1954, and from 1956 to 1961 he was Ambassador to the USA.  He is also accused of being a part of the Committee of 300, a group said to have been founded by members of the British aristocracy, a "hidden hand" behind international commerce and banking.  Jewish bankers, naturally.  He is considered to have bplayed a critical role in creating the "special relationship" between the USA and the UK.

Caccia was knighted in 1950, the same year he was asked to join the IOSH.  He was created a life peer in 1965. His other knightly titles include being a Bailiff Grand Cross of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

So, these guys all were well-connected with ties to the diplomatic and intelligence communities.  All of this is pretty logical actually; the aristocracy, the Church and the Anglo-American alliance.  What strikes me, as I said in a previous post, is the following:

At the end of the World War surviving members of the Order, were authorized by Halvor O. Ekern, chief political adviser of the US Armed Forces in Austria to use their sporting guns to provide winter food to the rural population, avoiding not only famine but helping to save the country from falling behind the Iron Curtain.

I would posit that this is a not so indirect reference to being armed by the US in order fight the Communists, if necessary.  I can imagine the IOSH being part of a network of clubs and groups both secular and religious that could have been used to further the goals of the Western Occupation forces, to keep the Soviets in check.

So how does spy Fritz Kolbe, aka George Wood, fit into all this?  Kolbe was no small fry; he is basically recognized as the US's most important intelligence asset of the war.  He was more than likely connected to the others in the diplomatic/intelligence community.

That said, this George Wood is not the droid we're looking for.  Kolbe/Wood died in 1971.  But according to the IOSH, when the first Grand Master Albert Messany of the American branch retired in 1975, he was replaced by....George Wood.

Messany was described as a "big game hunter" in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in 1936 in an admiring article (24 Nov. 1936) about an innovative camera-gun with which he intended to "hunt" in Canada.  This humane approach to tacking game gives credence to the Order's stated ideals of honoring God's creatures etc.  The Montreal Gazette (24 Jun. 1936) tells us that Messany is from Vienna and that this was his 10th visit to Canada.  The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (20 Nov. 1936) has a little blurb about Messany's trip and the camera gun, but little detail.  The Indianapolis Star also mentions the photo gun in pretty much the same blurb as in Wilkes-Barre -- turns out it was an AP story.  Messany was apparently a doctor, but most sources about him are in German, so I'm not sure what to make of him.  He published several books about hunting, Canada and the great outdoors.  There is a reference to an Albert Messany issuing a

German wireless press message, to the effect that 2,000 soldiers, who were not invalids, had been carried by the hospital ship Britannia.

If it's the same Messany, it's hard to say.  It's definitely possible, depending on how old he was when he retired.  Wood was followed by Karl Weber as GM.  Whereas info on Messany (in English, anyway) is sparse, info on Karl Weber and George Wood is almost non-existent.

Fritz Kolbe

This George Wood of IOSH fame is still the biggest mystery to me.  I find it to be a really strange "coincidence" that a spy and the GM of an Austrian Order with links to the American intelligence community bear the same name.  Obviously, Kolbe/Wood can't be the same George Wood who became GM of the IOSH, but it's weird to begin with and I'm beginning to imagine increasingly weirder possibilities.  I'm still trying to link Kolbe with known Bohemians and/or members of the Order, as well as find more info on the George Wood who founded the American branch.  So far, I haven't found any references to any of the Class of 1950 being members of the Bohemian Club.

To paraphrase Wikipedia, Kolbe tried to settle in the US in 1949 but "could not find suitable work."  He later applied to work for the German diplomatic services again (unsuccessfully) and finally found work representing of an American power-saw manufacturer. After the war, Kolbe was despised in Germany and seen as a traitor until restituted in 2004.  Kolbe died of cancer in 1971.  Not exactly given a cushy job for life and flying high with the aristocratic hunting set.

We'll see if anything  more turns up; so far the record is silent.  The IOSH-USA does have an email address.  Maybe I should write them and ask.  I did paste the addy into an email, but pulled back.  Kind of want to stay out of their sights! (Update:  I wrote and asked for info about Wood on Terry's advice.  Update 29 Dec:  I eventually wrote to two addresses.  Never got a response.)

So again, who's George Wood?  Why was he asked the join the Order, along with ambassadors and generals?  I've actually managed to find quite a few George Woods, but there's always some detail to disqualify them.  Hmph.

Night of the hunter

Now here's a headline bound to make us look twice:

Justice Scalia spent his last hours with members of this secretive society of elite hunters

The society in question is the Austrian outfit called the Order of St. Hubertus (official site), an order of knights founded in 1695 by Count Franz Anton von Sporck in what is now the Czech Republic, in the region known as....Bohemia!

His goal was to gather "the greatest noble hunters of the the 17th Century, particularly in Bohemia, Austria and countries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ruled by the Habsburgs."  Count Sporck was quite the philosophical dilettante; in addition to the order of St. Hubert, he is alleged by some to have founded a branch of Freemasonry in Bohemia.  This is debatable and seems to have originated in 1888 with an unsubstantiated claim by a Czech journalist, but if your spider senses are tingling anyway, maybe they should be.  The U.S. chapter of the Order was started in 1968 at the Bohemian Club.

Feeling the weight of dull care yet?

George Wood was appointed Grand Prior and founded the American Chapter in 1968. The first Investiture of American Knights took place at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. The ceremony was presided over by then Grand Master Karl Messany.

Scalia breathed his last in his room at the Cibolo Rach.  The cibolo is the "near threatened" American Bison, which once roamed the Great Plains in vast numbers, but were hunted near to extinction by trigger-happy travelers west in the 19th century.  Stories report that men would shoot from the windows of their trains as they passed, into herds so thick they barely even needed to aim.  The animals were left to rot.  They weren't hunting, they were target shooting, killing for the thrill of killing.  As the plains Indians' primary source of sustenance, these "hunters" were quite consciously depleting the tribes' hunting grounds, effectively starving the tribes off their lands.

Is "cibolo" a thumbing at the nose, then, dickish hunters honoring their bison-killing forefathers?  Cibolo Ranch was certainly a place to forget dull care.  Is its name a flippant disregard for the massacre of the American Bison?

I'm pretty sure that's all wrong.  It could also be meant as a solemn reminder of the tragedy of the slaughter of so many of God's creatures.  Perhaps the name should be taken in the spirit of their motto: 

"Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes"  Et deinde occidere eos 

"Honoring God by Honoring His Creatures"  And then killing them 

Scalia traveled to the Ranch with D.C. lawyer C. Allen Foster, a passionate hunter who passed his 65th birthday in the Czech Republic at an old castle and hunting park.  Dull care was definitely lifted in a series of hunts, wine tastings, sightseeing and a masked ball.  Eyes wide shut?  It sounds exactly like the kind of aristocratic event one would expect from a group of knights.  So what's a defender of the constitution doing by buddying up to a group of aristocrats with pretensions to Medieval splendor?

"Cibolo" also puts me in mind of Craig Baldwin's film, ¡O No Coronado! (1992).  As one website puts it, the film is "a delirious, open-ended historiography that updates issues of imperialism, tourism, treaty rights and environmental protection from the 16th century to the present and beyond."  Quite appropriate; as the expedition falls apart, a delirious Coronado rushes about in a frenzy muttering "Cibola cibola cibola" over and over.  According to the NPS, "Cibola" is a corruption of "She Wo No" or "Land of the Zuni."  Coronado, driven mad by the future, a future that expeditions like his unleashed, a future where the cibolo were slaughtered as part of the long-haul campaign to exterminate the natives not forced into the mines and the slave plantations.

Foster, for the moment, is traveling.  Perhaps in Argentina.  Check's in the mail, so to speak.  One woman hung up on the Post reporter when asked for comment.  Maybe she has some dull cares.

The Post concludes that 

Law enforcement officials told The Post that they had no knowledge of the International Order of St. Hubertus or its connection to Poindexter and ranch guests. The officials said the FBI had declined to investigate Scalia’s death when they were told by the marshals that he died from natural causes.

Poindexter is the ranch's owner and Scalia's second traveling companion to the ranch.  He told the Post that he "wasn't aware" of any connection between Scalia and the Order.  That said, both Foster and Poindexter "hold leadership positions within the Order."

The Order describes itself as

....a true knightly order in the historical tradition. The Order is under the Royal Protection of His Majesty Juan Carlos of Spain, the Grand Master Emeritus His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Andreas Salvator of Austria and our Grand Master is His Imperial and Royal Highness Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary.

Its stated purpose is innocuous enough:  conservation, fellowship, support good hunting practices, promote hunting, encourage sponsorship and "To promote the concept of hunting and fishing as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity."

I don't know why this goal struck me.  It makes me think that hunting in the knightly tradition is an activity of the aristocracy, strictly regulated and poachers -- meaning the landless -- dealt with severely.  Of course this is a far cry from the attitude of most American hunters, who tend to see what they do as more than a sport, but a right of every American citizen, whose tools are protected in the Constitution.  Again, a document Scalia swore to defend.  Yet he goes and dies while palling around with its aristocratic practitioners, an Order led by Archdukes and sponsored by the King of Spain.

Strange bedfellows for a defender of democracy.  And a strange deathbed scene:  a "breathing apparatus" nearby -- but off, his head propped up on a magical three pillows (hey, Sporck's Masonic Lodge was said to have been the Three Stars), a pillowcase over the eyes....  Apparently everything is order, but the investigation has raised some eyebrows and some wonder why no autopsy was performed.

I think we'll be hearing more about this as the days go by....

The Agony of Defeat

The latest foot

We've been following the Canadian foot mystery for some time now.

No idea what I'm talking about?  Wikipedia's opening paragraph on the subject sums up the situation perfectly:

Since August 20, 2007, several detached human feet have been discovered on the coasts of the Salish Sea in British Columbia, Canada, and Washington, USA. The feet belonged to five men, one woman and three other people of unknown sex. Of the 15 feet found, only two have been left feet; both of those were matched with right feet. As of February 2012, only five feet of four people have been identified; it is not known to whom the rest of the feet belong. In addition, several hoax feet have been planted in the area.

Gid has been thoughtfully compiling a few stats along the way, but it's been rather hard to keep track of all the details.

In the most recent turn of events, a foot was found on Feb. 7th washed up on Vancouver Island's Botanical Beach by a pair of unsuspecting walkers.

Five days later, on the 12th, another foot was found close by; these latest make a pair.  The findings were fast and furious around 2011 but have slowed down a bit -- the last was found in 2014.  Makes sense then that when two turn up days apart after a silence of two years, they'd be related.

We've speculated, punned and pondered about the meaning of all this, but to no avail.  At this point, we simply feel duty-bound to keep up with the latest developments.  Coming right on the heels of a post about severed hands, it seems doubly appropriate to keep the tally up to date.

We still welcome idle speculation....