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RMS Titanic

Now that one hundred years have passed since the sinking of the Titanic, conspiracy theories relating to it have been rife. Some are rather crazy.

An example comes from one webpage. It said that there are only two people who were aboard the ship who survive to this day and both “claim” to have been babies and therefore too young to remember the event. How convenient, it says. It says that although some of the richest and most famous people in the world were aboard, no video was made of the sinking. How convenient, it says, although perhaps no video from 1912 is not so suspicious. It says that Abe Lincoln died on the same day, 47 years before, and the Titanic could carry 2,547 people. The webpage asks when “sheeple” will realize that they are being lied to. Hang about, that one was a joke. But it sets the mood. During an interview with Online Tonight, James Cameron remarked of a cartoon called Oliver Stone’s Titanic which said there was a second iceberg.

Survivor Emily Richards wrote in a letter that immediately before the Titanic’s rendezvous with an iceberg at 10:20p.m. on April 14, 1912: “The Captain was down in the saloon drinking and gave charge to some-one else to stare (sic) the ship. It was the Captan (sic) fault.” The 24 year-old Richards and her two sons survived the sinking, but her brother was lost.

The letter was written on the notepaper of the Carpathia, which rescued survivors of the Titanic. It and another letter Richards wrote was expected to be sold at auction for $32,000. First person accounts on the notepaper of the Carpathia are exceedingly rare, so the items aroused considerable interest.

No other witness is known to have made the same claim, making Richard’s version inconsistent with dozens of others. She did not repeat the accusation in interviews or at the British or American inquiries into the sinking.

The statue of Captain Edward Smith

Captain Edward Smith was held to have died like an Englishman, going down with his ship. He was mostly exonerated by the British inquiry. He was glorified, and a statue of him stands in his home town in England.

Who sank the Titanic? Astronomer Donald Olson of Texas State University-San Marcos said in Sky & Telescope magazine that the moon did it. Three months prior to the sinking, there was a full moon which could have created abnormally strong tides which propelled a series of icebergs. The moon was closer than at any point since the year 796 and closer than it will ever be again until 2257. The earth, moon, and sun were aligned, a very rare occurrence, which intensified the gravitational pull of the latter two on the Earth.

Geza Gyuk, director of the Department of Astronomy at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, said the effect would have made no more than five percent of difference. Olson countered that this would have been sufficient. John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, said, “A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others. They haven’t found anything significant at all.”

Who sank the Titanic? G-d did it.

Who sank the Titanic? G-d did it. The ship was said to be unsinkable, which was a direct challenge to G-d: people were saying not even G-d could sink the ship. The story goes that the area where Titanic sank was not one that featured many icebergs, so the coincidence of the presence of an iceberg was uncanny. The Titanic represented excessive wealth, and perhaps G-d also took exception to cutting-edge technology. It was the same as John Lennon, who was murdered after saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.

Multiple iceberg warnings had been received by the Titanic, and it is doubtful that the area was not known for icebergs. At the time, Shipbuilder magazine had said that the Titanic was “practically unsinkable,” and this only became “unsinkable” with the passage of time. There is also the small matter of whether G-d exists.

It has been rumored that the body of one worker had been built into the hull of the Titanic. No evidence substantiates this, although one worker died in hospital after an accident shortly before the ship was launched. The same was said of the Great Eastern, the largest ship ever at the time of its launch in 1858, and the Hoover Dam, which was built from 1931 to 1936.

The team behind a television documentary about the Titanic said it sank because of the design of the keel.

A team made a television documentary about the Titanic and studied the keel. They found that the ship was doomed by a design flaw which accelerated the rate at which it sank, although the sinking took longer than predicted by the managing director of the company which built the ship, who was aboard at iceberg time.

The flaw made the ship vulnerable to rough seas. The team said the stern snapped when it reached an angle of 10 degrees, where previously it had been thought that the angle was 45 degrees. This could have occurred during a strong storm even if there had been no iceberg.

One of the Titanic’s sister ships, the Olympic, was built to essentially the same design as the Titanic virtually alongside it and using the same materials. It once encountered a storm so strong that a hatch cover was torn from the forecastle and hurled to a forward area of the ship, and it sailed through an undersea earthquake off the Grand Banks in 1929. No catastrophic damage was suffered. While the expansion joints of the third sister, the Britannic, were strengthened, according to the Daily Telegraph, the Olympic was not the subject of such work.

A discussion thread at the website of renowned lunatic, David Icke, suggested that the sinking of the Titanic was mass murder for occult reasons

A discussion thread at the website of renowned lunatic, David Icke, suggested that the sinking of the Titanic was mass murder for occult reasons: the Titanic was a giant, floating, metallic wicker man. One has to admit that the bit in James Cameron’s film where Kate Winslet mimics crucifixion is quite creepy. The sinking took place around the time of the Blood Sacrifice to the Beast, when practitioners of the Left Hand Path customarily make human sacrifices. The body of John Jacob Astor, possibly then the richest man in the world, was found to be mangled, and this could have been due to ritual mutilation. Merely the timing of the sinking and the condition of Astor’s corpse do not make this theory very plausible.

It has been claimed that, as with 911, the Titanic’s end was caused by explosions. 2nd Class survivor Imanita Shelley was one who reported hearing explosions. An expedition which examined the wreck of the Titanic found a hole at the front of the wreck which appeared to have been caused by an explosion. Cold water entering a hot, pressurized boiler could cause an explosion and overheated boilers can act similarly. And then there was all that coal dust.

The Titanic has been compared to the Costa Concordia. The Titanic sank between April 14 and April 15, 1912, while the Costa Concordia ran aground between January 13 and 14, 2012 – exactly 99 years and 9 months later. Turn this upside down, and you get 666, the number of the Beast. This number is also said to be of significance to the Freemasons, although not by any source that would be regarded as authoritative. The Costa Concordia ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio, which is Italian for “lily flower,” one of the most recurrent symbols in masonry. Concordia was also the name of the first masonic lodge in Florence. Both ships had the most luxurious facilities currently available. The Titanic was the largest ship ever built, and the Costa Concordia the largest ever built in Italy and – wait for it! – it had the largest spa center ever to feature on a cruise ship. The Titanic took three hours to sink, while the Costa Concordia was on its side within around three hours. Many passengers also likened the Costa Concordia to the Titanic, with 31 year-old schoolteacher, Valeria Ananias of Los Angeles, saying, “Have you seen Titanic? That’s exactly what it was.” Some survivors said Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On was playing when the ship hit the rocks. One survivor of the Costa Concordia, Valentina Capuano, was the granddaughter of a survivor of the Titanic.

MS Costa Concordia

There are differences. The Titanic was doomed by hubris and the Costa Concordia by human error. While Captain Smith went down with the Titanic, Captain Francesco Schettino was one of the first off, causing him to be christened Captain Coward by the British newspaper, the Daily Hate, and leading to the creation of a Facebook page entitled “Francesco Schettino Captain of Costa Concordia is a Coward.” The Titanic hit something on the starboard side while the Cost Concordia hit to port. The Titanic sank in 12,460 feet of water while the Costa Concordia experienced misfortune where the water was 26 feet deep. 1,514 people from the Titanic died, compared to only 32 from the Costa Concordia. The Titanic was in water so cold that anyone immersed in it succumbed to hypothermia within half an hour, while the Cost Concordia was in quite warm water. The evacuation of the Titanic was orderly and third class passengers did not wish to be parted from their possessions, while on the Costa Concordia, one passenger said, “It was every man for himself,” with some crew members reportedly beating passengers to the lifeboats. Perhaps any Masonic connections can be ignored.

Perhaps the funkiest lunatic Titanic conspiracy theory is that people are alive to this day within the sunken ship. Video has shown that the wreck is in two pieces which will still be water-tight. Survivors could have employed the legendary British ingenuity to construct a mechanism for air filtration. There had been 2,200 people aboard, and if only a few survived, there would have been enough food for a very long time. It is alleged that ships received a transmission where the Titanic sank, saying, “We are the survivors of RMS Titanic, trapped aboard the ship on the ocean bed – if anybody can here us, for God’s sake help us.” This line gets only three hits on Google, so it is not widely alleged.

This suggestion post-dates Goliath Awakes, a television film from 1981 in which people survived on a sunken ship for 40 years, and The Watch Below, a science fiction novel from 1966 which told the same story. The food on the Titanic was mostly fresh and in cold storage.

And there we have it. We have birthers and truthers. Those who insist on subscribing to the theory that the Titanic met its end due to collision with an iceberg could be termed icebergers. Based on the overwhelming evidence presented here, might the accepted story of the Titanic be no less than a conspiracy to provoke anti-iceberg sentiment worldwide?

Bibliography

“Salvagers Suggest Titanic Exploded.” New York Times. 22 September 1987. 20 April 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/22/science/salvagers-suggest-titanic-exploded.html.>
“Still not convinced?” The Best Page in the Universe. n.d. 20 April 2012. <http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=af07.>
“The Titanic and God — Possibly the Greatest Conspiracy Theory of All” Common Sense Conspiracy. 14 April 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://commonsenseconspiracy.com/2012/04/the-titanic-and-god-possibly-the-greatest-conspiracy-theory-of-all/.>
“Titanic Conspiracy.” Fortean Times. 15 June 2007. 20 April 2012. <http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=727691.>
“Titanic Madness!!” Fortean Times. 12 January 2007. 20 April 2012. <http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28893&highlight=titanic.>
“Titanic Sinking Was An Occult Mass Murder?” DavidIcke.com. 16 October 2008. 20 April 2012. <http://forum.davidicke.com/showthread.php?t=39263.>
Gayle, Damien. “Was the captain of the Titanic drunk on the night the ship struck an iceberg?” Daily Mail. 9 March 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112124/Letter-claims-Titanics-captain-Edward-Smith-drunk-night-ship-sank.html.>
Jones, Melanie. “Costa Concordia, Titanic 2012: Why Did the Italian Ship Sink?” International Business News. 15 January 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/281986/20120115/costa-concordia-why-cruise-ship-sink-titanic.htm.>
Lovett, Richard. “Titanic Sunk by ‘Supermoon’ and Celestial Alignment?” National Geographic. 6 March 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120306-titanic-supermoon-moon-science-iceberg-sky-sink/.>
Pappas, Stephanie. “Five of the biggest myths about the moon debunked.” MSNBC. 4 May 2012. 4 May 2012. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47296397/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T6QwmcV8GOk.>

Related posts:

1. Downright Titanic Conspiracy Theories
2. Wacko Jacko Conspiracy Theories
3. Top 10 Conspiracy Theories of All Time

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

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RMS Titanic

The ill-fated ship, Titanic, was the result of fervent competition between the shipping lines, the White Star Line and Cunard. Cunard’s Mauretania performed the fastest-ever transatlantic crossing when it entered service in 1907. Cunard’s other masterpiece, the Lusitania, was launched the same year and much-praised for its spectacular interiors. Its sinking by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915 helped rope the United States into the First World War.

The full title of the ship was RMS Titanic. RMS stands for “Royal Mail Ship,” indicating that the vessel carried goods for the British Royal Mail. The ships of the Olympic class to which Titanic belonged were 882 feet long and a maximum of 92.5 feet wide, and were the largest ships and the largest movable, man-made objects of the time. It is said that the ship was thought to be unsinkable, but in reality, Shipbuilder magazine had said that it was “practically unsinkable.”

The ship left Southampton in England and proceeded to Cherbourg in France and then Queenstown in Ireland, before setting off for New York. First class tickets cost between $2,500 and $4,500, or $43,860 to $78,950 at today’s prices. Third-class tickets cost around $35, or $620 today. Several members of the team that had designed the ship were aboard, including the Chief Draughtsman responsible for the lifeboats.

A boarding pass for the Titanic. Photo: daveparker

Below decks were immigrants from 28 countries, of whom some had never previously encountered indoor plumbing. There were over 700 third-class passengers, more than the other two classes combined. Third-class was the largest source of profit for shipping lines. Many had sold all their possessions to afford a ticket to start a new life in the United States. Third-class accommodation was fairly luxurious and superior to that of other ships of the time: third-class rooms were enclosed and held four people who were generally strangers, and the mattresses were real as opposed to the straw-filled pallets of other ships. There were, however, only two bathtubs between all the third-class passengers. The ship’s enormous engines could be felt and heard in their rooms.

Around noon on April 14, 1912, the first of a minimum of four warnings of icebergs was received by wireless. Another came at 5:35 p.m., reporting three icebergs 19 miles north of the Titanic. Late in the evening, one hour before the Titanic’s date with destiny, another ship, the Californian, signaled: “We are stopped and surrounded by ice.” According to the Titanic Inquiry Project, the response received was: “Shut up. I am busy. I am working Cape Race.”

The iceberg which is thought to have hit the Titanic

It was a moonless and freezing Sunday night. Shortly before midnight, lookouts Reginald Lee and Fredrick Fleet neared the end of their shift when they saw the most famous iceberg in history. It has been estimated at 50 to 100 feet high and 200 to 400 feet long. They sounded an alarm. 37 seconds later, First Officer William M. Murdoch put the engines into reverse and turned the ship. Stopping would have taken half a mile.

At first, it seemed that the maneuver had worked. The ship appeared to not have touched the iceberg. Below the surface, however, ice had scraped the starboard hull. Rivets popped, steel plates buckled, and openings were made. At the time, it was estimated there was a 300 foot gash, but in reality there were openings of around 3.2 square feet each in six places. The liner had 16 watertight compartments, but they were open at the top. Water spilled from one to the next. Some Cunard ships were designed to avoid this situation.

Captain Edward Smith

Most of the people aboard were asleep, although a tumultuous game of bridge was afoot in the First Class Smoking room. Many people were not woken by the noise. Captain Edward Smith, a highly-popular individual who was due to retire at the end of this trip, called for Thomas Andrews, the managing director of Harland and Wolff of Belfast in Northern Ireland, the company which had built the ship. They went below together and were horrified to find that the squash court and mail room had flooded. Titanic’s bow began to sink. Andrews estimated that the ship would be afloat for only one-and-a-half hours more. Smith ordered the wireless operators to send distress calls. It was the first time the signal, “SOS,” had ever been used.

The Carpathia was 58 miles away and at great risk, traveled at top speed to reach the Titanic. The Californian was close enough to save everyone, but the wireless operator had gone to bed. At 12:25 a.m., Captain Smith ordered that lifeboats be lowered. Lifeboats were regarded as unsightly, so the Titanic carried only 20, sufficient for half those aboard. There were, at least, enough cork-filled life jackets for all. Many third-class passengers had seen little of what lay beyond their cabins, and got lost in the labyrinthine corridors of the ship.

The band played to comfort the passengers. The legend perpetuated by films is that their last tune was the hymn, Nearer, My God, To Thee. This was the tune most commonly-cited and a colleague of the bandmaster, Wallace Hartley, said that Wallace had said it is what he would have played if he were on the deck of a sinking ship. Some accounts say the bang played popular music. James Cameron could not resist sticking with the hymn, saying, “I stole that entirely and put that into my film, because I loved it, it was such a strong part of the story.”

Survivors recounted that the stars were reflected by the sea. They said the sound of hundreds of people in the freezing water was unearthly. John B. ‘Jack’ Thayer III, the 17-year-old heir to a Pennsylvania railroad fortune, said, “It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night in the woods. This terrible cry lasted for 20 or 30 minutes, gradually dying away, as one after another could no longer withstand the cold and exposure.”

RMS Carpathia

The Titanic exceeded Andrews’ prediction and was not underwater until 2:20 a.m., sundering in two beneath the surface. Lifeboats did not return to collect people from the water, fearing they would be overloaded. The Carpathia arrived at 4 a.m. and began to take on what would eventually by 706 human and three canine survivors.

Which brings us on to the conspiracy theories.

The Titanic conspiracy theory put forward by Physics World blames poor engineering. The ship was rushed into service when it was difficult to obtain sufficient iron. The steel and wrought iron fasteners which held metal plates together had been inserted unevenly and by hand rather than mechanically because hydraulic presses could not be used at the bow and stern where the curve of the hull was too great. Weak rivets burst open under pressure.

The theory was based on analysis by science writer, Dr. Richard Corfield, who cited the work of U.S. metallurgists, Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Tim Foecke. McCarty and Foecke tested 48 rivets taken from the wreck and found them to contain a high level of slag, which makes iron brittle and more likely to splinter. So many rivets popped that a fifth compartment flooded, while the Titanic could have survived the flooding of four. Dr. Corfield claims that James Cameron agrees with him: around 100 minutes into his film is a scene where rivets pop a la champagne corks.

Dr. Corfield also said that the Titanic sank where the Gulf Stream intersects with the glacier-carrying Labrador Current. The Gulf Stream was abnormally warm due to the intensity of the summer. This, he said, concentrated icebergs “as if they were tank traps.”

British historian, Tim Maltin, also put the Gulf Stream/Labrador Current intersection in the frame in his book, A Very Deceiving Night. He said it caused a thermal inversion which distorts vision. This prevented the Titanic’s lookouts from seeing the iceberg in time. A study by the British government in 1992 suggested super refraction as the cause, and Maltin referred to survivors’ testimony, ships’ logs, and weather records.

Winston Churchill, who was voted the greatest Briton ever and has been accused of being responsible for the sinking of the Titanic

Winston Churchill was voted the greatest ever Briton in a poll by the BBC. He was blamed for the sinking of the Titanic in a book by Robert Strange, Who Sank The Titanic? The Final Verdict.

Churchill had been entered the British cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, giving him responsibility for maritime safety when the Titanic was built. Strange said that Churchill failed in his duties as he was distracted by “burning political ambition, wounded pride and the pursuit of his future wife Clementine.” “Metaphorically speaking,” said Strange, Churchill sank the Titanic.

Strange studied century-old files in the National Archives of the United States and United Kingdom. He said the Board of Trade should have revised the outdated laws governing how many lifeboats were carried. The 1894 Merchant Shipping Act dictated that the number of lifeboats was proportional to the size of the ship, but did not recognize that ships could be more than 10,000 tons. Churchill had been warned repeatedly that these regulations were out of date.

Churchill must have realized that his department for maritime safety was undermanned, badly-trained and poorly managed after the public embarrassment resulting from its handling of an inquiry into a shipping accident. He made the poorly-trained and underpaid engineer, Francis Carruthers, the supervisor of Titanic’s construction, and he failed to identify flaws. Strange also lambasted J.P. Morgan for pressuring the Harland and Wolff shipyard to build the Titanic at a cut price which led to inadequate materials, poor workmanship, and insufficient lifeboats.

J. Bruce Ismay, who was vilified as a coward for his actions during the sinking of the Titanic

The sinking of the Titanic made J. Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star Line, one of the greatest cowards ever known. Some survivors said he was on the first lifeboat, but the ship’s barber said he only entered a lifeboat when ordered to by the Chief Officer. Lord Mersey, who led the 1912 British inquiry into the sinking, said Ismay helped other passengers before leaving on the last lifeboat. Strange said, “It gave him the perfect excuse to stay close by the boats and save himself.”

The 1943 German film, Titanic, the 1958 film, A Night to Remember, and James Cameron’s 1997 epic all portrayed Ismay as a villain. Paul Louden-Brown of the Titanic Historical Society worked as a consultant for Cameron and objected to Ismay’s depiction, to be told: “This is what the public expect to see.” Ismay’s infamy was largely prompted by a campaign – a conspiracy, no less – by the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst, with whom Ismay had a vendetta. The newspapers labeled him J. Brute Ismay.

Another theory was recently put forward in Good as Gold, a novel by Lady Louise Patten. She is the wife of Lord Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, former chairman of the British Conservative Party, European Commissioner, and Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and current Chairman of the BBC Trust. She is also the granddaughter of the Titanic’s Second Officer Charles Lightoller.

At the time of Titanic’s sinking, the maritime industry was in upheaval as steam ships were replacing those of the sail variety. Each had its own steering system. Some of the crew were familiar with the Tiller Orders of sailing ships, while the Titanic used the Rudder Orders of steam ships. Under the Tiller system, pushing the tiller left resulted in a rightward turn, while under the Rudder system, turns were made in the direction of intended travel. An iceberg was sighted two miles distance and “Hard a starbr’d” was ordered. The helmsman, Quartermaster Robert Hitchins, panicked and mistakenly acted under Tiller orders, which led to impact with an iceberg.

Charles Lightoller, Second Officer of the Titanic

Lightoller was in his cabin at the time, but heard of the error at a conference of four senior officers in the First Officer’s cabin after the impact. Ismay persuaded Captain Smith to continue to sail to avoid reputationally damaging delay, which caused a hundredfold increase in the quantity of water taken on. Lightoller said this was a “criminal” decision. If the Titanic had stopped, Patten said that the Titanic’s passengers could have been saved.

Lightoller was the most senior officer to survive and the only survivor aware of what had really caused the sinking. He did not reveal what he knew at the British and American inquiries because he feared for the job of himself and his colleagues. The only person he told was his wife, Patten’s grandmother, who told Patten when she was 10 years-old and lived with her. Her mother believed the story should not be told because the reputation of the twice-decorated Lightoller was at stake, but Patten decided to use it in her second novel because her mother and grandmother were both long dead and “I felt as if I owed it to the world to share the secret. If I died tomorrow then it would die with me.”

Sally Neillson, great-granddaughter of Hitchins, said he had 10 years of experience, with seven as quartermaster, and had been guiding the Titanic for four days, alternating between four hours of duty and four of rest. He would not, therefore, have been unfamiliar with the prevailing system.

The Olympic, sister ship of the Titanic

One Titanic conspiracy theory which has been much-trumpeted was put forward in The Riddle of the Titanic by Robin Gardiner and Dan van der Vat. They say it was not the Titanic which sank, but its sister ship, the Olympic. The ships appeared almost identical. The Olympic had collided with the British warship, HMS Hawke, on September 20, 1911, but was at fault and so received no compensation. So the names on the ships were changed, and the Olympic was sent into an area of sea which contained many icebergs and many other ships, to deliberately ram an iceberg and have all the passengers rescued. The most common maritime insurance fraud involves changing the identity of ships. The ship which sank broke in two at the point where the Olympic had collided with HMS Hawke.

The theory is obviously, transparently, indubitably a load of B.S. The theory is that the ship sank faster than was foreseen, when in fact it took longer. Parts of the ship, including the propeller, were found to be stamped with the Titanic’s hull number of 400 whereas the Olympic was 401.

Ray Boston, who has devoted 20 years of his life to research of the Titanic’s sinking, put forward the theory that the ship was traveling at such a high speed because of an “uncontrollable” fire in a coal bunker which began during speed trials 10 days prior to the ship departing Southampton. Coal fires were not uncommon. The inquiry was told the ship had been traveling at “high speed” – 22 knots – in iceberg-filled waters, which the inquiry declared to be “excessive” and called for additional lookouts. Ismay told the 1912 British inquiry that John Pierpont Morgan, the owner of the White Star Line, had instructed him to cross the Atlantic at full speed. Boston said this was because Morgan was aware of the fire. Morgan was set to sail on the Titanic but canceled his ticket.

J. Dilley, a stoker on the Titanic who gave evidence to the inquiry said that the fire had not been extinguished, and that there was talk among his colleagues that after passengers had disembarked at New York, fireboats would have to be summoned.

One popular story is that the Titanic sank because it was carrying a mummy.

Some people blame the Pharaohs for the sinking of the Titanic. One passenger, Lord Canterville, was transporting a sarcophagus containing the mummy of the Princess Amen-Ra. The mysterious powers of the mummy disturbed the reasoning of Captain Smith, who ignored warnings of icebergs. Again, people’s B.S. detectors will be sounding so very loudly, as Charles Haas, president of a society devoted to the Titanic, obtained the ship’s cargo manifest. While the Titanic carried refrigerating apparatus, hair nets, elastics, rabbit hair, leather, auto parts, hatter’s fur, straw, linen, and raw feathers, there was no mummy.

Another theory explaining the Titanic’s high speed is that Captain Smith was attempting to win the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the North Atlantic. The theory is refuted by the fact that the Titanic was incapable of achieving the 26 knots necessary to win the prize. The record stood for 10 years after the Titanic sank.

John Jacob Astor, who was possibly the richest man in the world and was aboard the Titanic when it sank

Some Titanic conspiracy theories are pretty silly. One, which features heavily online, is that the Jesuits wished to create the Federal Reserve to control the world’s money and therefore politics. John Jacob Astor, Isidor Strauss, owner of Macy’s, and industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim were opposed to the idea. Astor is thought to have been the richest man in the world at the time, and Strauss and Guggenheim were also rolling in it. They were coaxed into traveling on the Titanic by means which have never been explained. Father Francis Brown, the most powerful Jesuit in Ireland, was aboard but alighted at Queenstown. Captain Smith is said by rumor-mongers to have been a Jesuit, which explains why he speeded into IceBerg City despite 26 years of experience of Atlantic crossings.

Another conspiracy theory which appeared in the Ballard News Tribune goes that the iceberg was a U-boat in disguise, which was collecting information on shipping. A variant says that the Titanic was torpedoed by a German U-boat to collect insurance money, but nobody aboard the Titanic saw the trail of a torpedo.

100 years later, interest in the Titanic is unabated. Harvard historian, Steven Biel, said, “Only Jesus and the Civil War have been written about more.” Maritime specialist and Titanic researcher, Michael McCaughan said, “People are still fascinated by Titanic because it’s like a parable of the human condition: it’s a story of profit, pleasure and memorialization.” Richard Howells, Reader in Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London, said, “If a man in his pride builds an unsinkable ship like Prometheus stealing the fire from the gods, it makes perfect mythical sense that God would be so angry at such an affront that he would sink the ship on its maiden outing.” The story is worth telling.

Bibliography

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Byers, Paul. “Titanic: 100 years of conspiracy theories.” Ballard News Tribune. 4 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/2012/04/04/opinion/titanic-100-years-conspiracy-theories.>
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Lorenzi, Rossella. “Steering error sunk the Titanic.” Discovery News. 22 September 2010. 8 April 2012. <http://news.discovery.com/history/steering-error-sunk-the-titanic-says-author.html.>
Maltin, Tim. “Did the Titanic Sink Because of an Optical Illusion?” Smithsonian Magazine. 1 March 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Did-the-Titanic-Sink-Because-of-an-Optical-Illusion.html.>
Sinmaz, Emine. “’It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night’: Titanic survivor reveals the horrifying cries of the luxury liner’s dying victims.” Daily Mail. 8 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126944/Titanic-survivor-John-B-Jack-Thayer-III-reveals-horrifying-cries-dying-victims.html.>
Waites, Rosie. “Five Titanic myths spread by films.” BBC. 5 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17515305.>
Waugh, Rob. “Did poor workmanship sink the Titanic?” Daily Mail. 2 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124038/Did-poor-workmanship-sink-Titanic-Physicist-claims-missing-rivets-crucial-cascade-events-sank-liner.html.>

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3. Top 10 Conspiracy Theories of All Time

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

An artist's representation of the craft with which Napoleon was to invade Britain

As the 19th century commenced, Britain was embroiled in a war with France where the very survival of the nation was at stake. In 1797, a French invasion fleet embarked for Ireland, which was ruled by Britain at the time, but the weather was so violent that troops could not land.

Both countries sought to prevent the other from trading with the United States. France made noises, but could do little to enforce an embargo without a decent navy. Britain was the world’s leading naval power after Lord Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar in 1805. In 1807, Britain ordered that all ships acquire a license from British authorities before trading with France or its colonies.

A major point of conflict between Britain and the United States was impressment, where sailors could be taken from boarded U.S. ships and obliged to serve in the Royal Navy. The practice had been indulged in since the reign of King Edward I in the thirteenth century. The Navy was 140,000 strong and much deserted-from. Impressment provided half its crews. Boardings were common to check for “contraband” and deserters. Six thousand sailors fell victim. Sailors were taken who had been born British but were American citizens (“Once an Englishman, always an Englishman”) and some were actually American from the start.

U.S. maritime interests did not opposes impressment forcefully, as losing a few sailors did not significantly affect the bottom line. Trade with Britain remained extremely profitable. The country at large, however, took impressment as an insult to the flag, and tempers reached fever-pitch in June of 1807 with the Chesapeake Affair.

Sailors on the USS Chesapeake firing the one shot they managed against HMS Leopard

Four British sailors had deserted and joined the U.S. Navy. The 38-gun USS Chesapeake’s captain was aware his crew included deserters. The 50-gun HMS Leopard attempted to board the Chesapeake to search it, but the U.S. ship did not heave to. The Leopard opened fire, killing three men and injuring 18. The British then boarded and seized the four men, of whom one was later executed for desertion. Britain offered to pay damages, but even level-headed Americans were outraged.

In the United States in May, 1810, the Non-Intercourse Act prohibited trade with France and Britain. Napoleon suggested he would cease restrictions on trade, and President James Madison relented in France’s case. Measures against Britain were frequently circumvented by smuggling from Canada.

New members of Congress known as the War Hawks agitated for war. In the northwest, Britain was held responsible for encouraging Injun hostility to American expansion. After every Injun raid, stories circulated of captured British muskets and other equipment. In the south, the states of Tennessee, the Mississippi Territory, and Georgia had designs upon Florida, which was ruled by Britain’s ally, Spain. Southerners also wished to remove from play a destination for escaped slaves.

On June 1, 1812, Madison asked Congress to declare war. Both houses approved wholeheartedly. War was declared on June 18. To its supporters, it was the Second American Revolution. Its detractors believed Madison had been dragged into war by the War Hawks and called it Mr. Madison’s War.

Spencer Percival, the only British Prime Minister to be murdered while in office

On May 11, 1812, the British prime minister, Spencer Percival, was shot in the House of Commons (“Argh! My House of Commons!”). He was shot dead by John Bellingham, a merchant who had become bankrupt after a business venture in Russia. This is a popular trivia question, and is worth remembering. The bloodstains are visible to this day. Bellingham had entreatied Percival for help, but none had been forthcoming. Bellingham was arrested, tried, and executed within the space of a week, which was indecent haste even at the time. The jury took 14 minutes to arrive at its decision. It is said that the night before his murder Percival had a dream where he was murdered in the lobby of the House of Commons, and he told his family of it on the morning of his demise. Bellingham’s descendants own a manufacturing business in the unfashionable NotLondon area of England, and the company website boasts of the association.

Percival was a hardliner. His replacement, Lord Liverpool, rescinded the requirement for a license to trade with France days before the United States declared war. There had been a poor grain harvest in Britain, which therefore needed American provisions for its troops on mainland Europe. Madison said that had he known, there would have been no war. Had the telegraph been invented, the War of 1812 would never have happened.

When war began the army of the United States was 11,744 strong. The navy amounted to 20 vessels. At the same time there were approximately 7,000 British and Canadian regular soldiers. Canada had a population of only around half a million, and therefore less militia. There were about 10,000 militia during the war, compared to 480,000 in the United States, of which no more than half ever fought. Injuns felt they required British support to prevent American settlers from forcing them from their land, providing a source of manpower, 3,500 at its peak, which the United States lacked. Being somewhat preoccupied by Napoleon, Britain could spare only 34 frigates and eleven ships of the line.

The disunity of the country was a significant weakness of the American position. Opposition to the war was strongest in New England, which traded extensively with Britain. Many shipbuilders in Connecticut and Massachusetts constructed privateers – privately owned, armed vessels – but New England otherwise made little contribution to the war effort. Merchants in New England continued to sell provisions to the British.

Brig. Gen. William Hull, who led the first American invasion of Canada during the War of 1812

Enthusiasm for war in the west was greater and Canadian forces were weak, making it the safest theater of operations, although one with few strategic possibilities. Brig. Gen. William Hull, governor of Michigan, led the first American invasion of Canada across the Detroit River. In Canada, he issued a histrionic proclamation to the Canadian people, but sent only small raiding parties further.

The British dispatched forces to sever Hull’s communication with Ohio. Fort Michilimackinac in Michigan was seized. A dashing young officer during the Revolution, Hull had become timid with age. He overestimated British reinforcements of Fort Malden tenfold, and withdrew across the river to Fort Detroit. A column retreating from Fort Dearborn, present-day Chicago, was massacred by Injuns, who destroyed the fort. The British followed Hull to Fort Detroit, and shelled it. On August 16, when the British General, Isaac Brock, led a force across the river in the direction of the fort, Hull and his 1,600 men surrendered. Hull was taken prisoner but paroled, and was court-martialed for incompetence when he returned States-side.

The USS Constitution defeating HMS Guerriere

On August 19, around 400 miles southeast of Halifax, the 56-gun USS Constitution sighted the 38-gun HMS Guerriere. The two ships exchanged broadsides and boarding parties. On seeing an 18-pound cannonball bounce off the Constitution’s hull, one U.S. sailor exclaimed, “Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!” which gave the U.S. ship its nickname of Old Ironsides. The Guerriere lost two of its masts, leaving it unable to maneuver. Its captain surrendered. The ship was so badly damaged it was set on fire and abandoned.

Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn invaded Canada with 4,000 men. Outnumbered two to one, the British retired, abandoning Forts George and Queenston. Dearborn sent 2,000 men in pursuit two days later, and they struck camp within 10 miles of the British. During the night, around 700 British attacked and beat off the Americans. Dearborn withdrew to Fort George. Around two weeks later, 500 of Dearborn’s men surrendered to a force of British and Injuns half their size.

William Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana, had led U.S. troops to victory against the Injuns at Tippecanoe in 1811. Dependent on homemade cartridges and clothing, he made a move on Fort Malden. Hugely outnumbered, the British abandoned Forts Malden and Detroit. Harrison pursed the enemy with around 3,500 men. On October 5, he encountered the British around 85 miles from Malden on the banks of the Thames River. There were 900 British regulars and 2,000 Injuns under Tecumseh. Harrison ordered a mounted attack. The British surrendered and the Injuns fled. Tecumseh was killed, but Harrison could not exploit his victory as his Kentuckians wished to return to their farms for the harvest.

Tecumseh

The Injun defeat at Thames River led to the Curse of Tecumseh. It is said that either the man himself or his half-brother, Tenskwatawa, said, “Harrison will die, I tell you, and after him, every great chief chosen every 20 years thereafter will die. And when each one dies, let everyone remember the death of my people.”

Harrison was elected President in 1840 with John Tyler as veep under the slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too.” Harrison made an inaugural speech one hour and forty five minutes long, longer than that of any other President, in freezing weather. He wore no coat or hat, and caught a cold which turned into pneumonia. He died one month after his election, making him the shortest-serving President ever.

The seven presidents elected every 20 years after that died in office, which is most unlikely to have occurred naturally. The chain was broken by Ronald Reagan. Reagan was shot by John Hinckley in an attempt to impress Jodie Foster, but his surgeon said the bullet missed his heart by an inch. He was brain dead for a period much shorter than his detractors claim. Possibly, he survived because the emaciated Nancy was aware of the curse and took corrective action, consulting voodoo witch doctors and other mystics. Dubya should have died, but perhaps escaped the curse because he was not elected and was instead chosen by the Supremes.

The monument to Isaac Brock at Queenston Heights

The United States lost at the Battle of Queenston Heights on October 13 after militiamen refused to enter Canada because it violated their terms of employment. Brock was killed during this engagement while leading his troops personally, and a statue of him stands in Queenston on a pillar 14 feet higher than Nelson’s Column.

Harrison made for Detroit with 6,500 men. 1,000 were sent to the small, Canadian outpost of Frenchtown, and defeated by a marginally larger enemy force on January 22, 1813. 100 Kentucky riflemen were killed and around 500 captured. Wounded American prisoners were killed by their Injun guards in the Raisin River massacre, giving rise to the battlecry, “Remember the Raisin”.

At the end of 1812, Commodore Isaac Chauncey amassed a fleet of 14 ships at Sackett’s Harbor, New York. On April 27, 1813, 1,700 U.S. troops assigned to Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn landed unopposed around four miles west of York, present-day Toronto, where a powerful warship was being built to challenge Chauncey.

The British garrison of 300 regulars, 300 militia, and 100 Injuns was bested. British troops set fire to the gunpowder magazine of the warship, the explosion of which killed 36 people including the American field commander, Brig. Gen. Zebulon Pike, who was standing in for the sick Dearborn. Almost 20 percent of Dearborn’s men were killed or wounded. U.S. soldiers plundered the city, burning many buildings. A British attack on Sackett’s Harbor while the U.S. fleet was at the other side of the lake failed after two frontal assaults.

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry transferring between ships during the Battle of Lake Erie

Hull had claimed that British control of Lake Erie allowed the enemy to reinforce at will. The two sides assembled fleets on the spot: the Americans, nine ships, and the British, six. They came to blows on 10 September 1813 at Put-in-Bay. U.S. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry triumphed, and wrote: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” He was the first man in history to defeat a whole British squadron. American soldiers ransacked Canadian property.

The U.S. expedition against Montreal was one of the greatest disasters of the war. 4,000 men were commanded by Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton and 6,000 by Maj. Gen. James Wilkinson. Neither could capture Montreal alone, but the pair barely spoke. Hampton retreated after an advance party was defeated at the Battle of Châteauguay on October 26. Wilkinson retreated in Hampton’s wake. Hampton resigned from the Army shortly after.

In December 1813, the British recaptured Fort George, then crossed the river and took Fort Niagara. The Americans burned the town of Newark and a section of Queenston before departing. Newark was occupied by only wimmen and children who were made homeless in the depths of winter, and many were found dead from exposure by British troops the next day. In retaliation, the British unleashed their Injun allies upon the countryside, and the towns of Buffalo, Youngstown, Machester, and Lewiston were burned, with many American deaths.

The British blockaded Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, confining the U.S. frigates Constellation and Adams. Only small American gunboats took to the sea. The Constellation was anchored at a Navy yard at Norfolk. There were 580 regulars and militia, and 150 sailors and marines from the Constellation. The British plan was to land 800 men on the mainland and than have another 500 arrive by rowing boat. Extremely accurate gunnery by the Constellation caused the British to retreat after taking 81 casualties. The British had more joy at Hampton, whose 450 miltiamen were defeated. The town was pillaged.

Davy Crockett, who said of the Injuns at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, "We shot them like dogs."

The U.S. government had attempted to transform the society of the Creek Injuns from hunting and gathering to agriculture and from rule by clans to rule by a council nominated by whites. Inspired by Tecumseh, Creek insurgents known as Red Sticks perpetrated a number of outrages culminating in the massacre of more than 500 civilians at Fort Mims. Gen. Andrew Jackson did not take action against the 800 Injuns until he had almost 600 regulars, 2,000 militia, and several hundred friendly Injuns under his command. At the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814, American regulars mounted a bayonet charge which routed the Injuns, who were hunted down. Present was a Tennessee soldier by the name of Davy Crockett, who said, “We shot them like dogs.” Only around 100 Injuns survived.

American privateers captured 1,300 British merchant ships during the war. By the opening of 1814, Britain was effectively blockading the entire coast which forced American naval ships and privateers to not venture forth. Wilkinson’s foray from Plattsburgh with around 4,000 men penetrated a whole eight miles into Canada before 200 British and Canadian troops halted it.

Brig. Gen. Jacob Brown crossed the Niagara River on July 3 and took Fort Erie, then moved toward the Chippewa River, around sixteen miles away. An advance party of 1,300 men under Col. Winfield Scott came upon 1,500 British regulars who had crossed the river undetected. Scott ordered a charge, which the British advanced to meet. At their closest, they were between sixty and eighty yards apart. The British line broke. 48 of Scott’s men died while 227 were wounded, and the British suffered 137 dead and 304 wounded.

American infantry at the Battle of Lundy's Lane

Brown followed the British to Queenston where he awaited Chauncey’s fleet, but Chauncey did not oblige. Brown withdrew to Chippewa and then embarked upon a cross-country march along Lundy’s Lane. Brown’s force of 2,900 men met 3,000 British. The battle took place mostly after nightfall, lasted two hours, and was the fiercest of the war, but was inconclusive. Scott and Brown were both severely wounded. The two British generals were also wounded, and one, Riall, was captured. Brown’s invasion of Canada ended there.

British troops burning buildings in Washington in 1814

In 1814, Britain reinforced Canada with 16,000 men who were no longer needed against Napoleon. Raids upon the American coast were staged. Eastport and Castine were occupied without resistance. On August 19, 4,000 men under Maj. Gen. Robert Ross marched on Washington. Ross’ force easily saw off 5,000 Americans five days later at the Battle of Bladensburg. The British entered Washington and burned any private houses from which shots were fired and all public buildings with the exception of the Patent Office. Burned were the Capitol and Executive Mansion, an act as shocking as the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. The latter was rebuilt and painted white – the White House. Madison’s wife, Dolley, saved a famous painting of George Washington when she fled with her husband. Governor Sir George Prevost’s 11,000 veterans of the Napoleonic Wars were defeated at Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain, source of a major tributary of the St. Lawrence River.

On September 13, 1814, Fort McHenry at Baltimore withstood 25 hours of bombardment by 19 British ships. The next morning, soldiers hoisted an enormous American flag, the sight of which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem, Defense of Fort McHenry, while detained aboard a British ship some miles distant. It was sung to the tune of an old English drinking song, The Anacreontic Song. Later known as The Star-Spangled Banner, it was adopted as the national anthem of the United States in 1931.

Dismayed by the failed attack on Baltimore, Britain sued for peace. Britain promised to desist from efforts to create a buffer state of Injuns. On Christmas Eve, the Treaty of Ghent was signed.

Gen Andrew Jackson commanding U.S. troops in the repulsion of British soldiers

Unaware of moves toward peace, around 8,000 British soldiers under Maj. Gen. Edward Pakenham arrived at Lake Borgne on December 12. New Orleans, control of which granted control of the Mississippi River, was defended by Jackson and 4,000 men. 42 British armed longboats saw off the five American gunboats on the lake, allowing troops to land. The armies met ten miles south of the city on January 8, 1815. In slightly more than two-and-a-half hours, Jackson’s force defeated the British. 1,900 British were killed or wounded, while the Americans suffered seven dead and six wounded.

New Orleans is often cited as the final battle of the war, however the final engagement was between the USS Peacock and the British merchant, Nautilus. The Peacock ignored British insistence of a peace treaty, and captured the other ship after a 15 minute battle.

News of the peace deal came at roughly the same time as news of Jackson’s victory in New Orleans, causing some people to regard the war as an American victory. ABC News said, “The British lost.” The Conservapedia said, “The Americans thus achieved all their main war goals.” Had it truly been an American victory, however, the date of its end would be a national holiday. Most historians consider the war to have been a draw.

U.S. soldiers losing the War of 1812

The United States had two aims: the end of impressment and the conquest of Canada. Britain had three: to retain impressment, to defend Canada, and to create an Injun buffer state. The United States scored zero out of two while Britain managed two out of three. Impressment had virtually ceased by 1814. It ended because it was no longer needed and thousands of sailors were being discharged, and not due to American pressure.

John Hopkins University professor, Eliot Cohen, who advised Dubya’s administration on geopolitical strategy from 2007 to 2009, wrote in his book, Conquered into Liberty: “The nominal causes for which <the Americans> had fought the war had advanced not an iota.” In Forgotten Conflict, historian Donald Hickey wrote: “Far from bringing the enemy to terms, the nation was lucky to escape without making extensive concessions itself.”

When the War of 1812 began, the U.S. battlecry was: “On to Canada!” By the end, it was: “Not an inch of territory lost!” Jonathan Vance, a historian at Western University in Ontario said, “The acid test is, if we hadn’t won, we wouldn’t be independent, we’d be part of the U.S.”

In 1990, Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded Kuwait. They were ejected in 1991, Iraq did not lose any territory, and Saddam remained in power. Who says that was a draw?

Bibliography

“American Merchant Marine and Privateers in War of 1812.” American Merchant Marine at War. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://www.usmm.org/warof1812.html.>
“Battle of York: Tainted American Victory in War of 1812.” News in History. 27 April 2011. 1 April 2012. <http://www.newsinhistory.com/blog/battle-york-american-war-1812-victory-tainted.>
“Brief History of Tennessee in the War of 1812.” Tennessee State Library and Archives. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://www.tennessee.gov/tsla/history/military/tn1812.htm.>
“The War of 1812: Our war.” The Spec. 25 March 2012. 1 April 2012. <http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/692150—the-war-of-1812-our-war.>
“The War of 1812.” National Museum of American History. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://americanhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/the-war-of-1812.aspx.>
“The War of 1812.”U.S. Army. n.d. 1 April 2012. <*.> <http://www.history.army.mil/books/AMH/AMH-06.htm.>
“USS Peacock vs. British East India Company Brig Nautilus.” U.S. Naval Institute. 30 June 2010. 1 April 2012. <http://www.navalhistory.org/2010/06/30/uss-peacock-vs-british-east-india-company-brig-nautilus/.>
“War of 1812 Bicentennial Celebration in Baltimore.” Visit Baltimore. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://baltimore.org/arts-and-culture/war-of-1812/.>
“War of 1812: Battle of Lake Erie: Oliver Perry’s Miraculous Victory.” Historynet. 12 June 2006. 1 April 2012. <http://www.historynet.com/war-of-1812-battle-of-lake-erie-oliver-perrys-miraculous-victory.htm.>
“War of 1812.” Canadian Encyclopedia. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/war-of-1812.>
Boswell, Randy. “Canada won the War of 1812, U.S. historian admits.” National Post. 27 November 2011. 1 April 2012. <http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/27/canada-won-the-war-of-1812-u-s-historian-admits/12/.>
Cruickshank, Dan. “Napoleon, Nelson and the French Threat.” BBC. 17 February 2011. 1 April 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/french_threat_01.shtml.>
Hatcher, C.J. “January 8 (1815) – Battle of New Orleans.” Examiner. 5 January 2012. 1. April 2012. <http://www.examiner.com/lesson-plans-in-las-vegas/january-8-1815-battle-of-new-orleans.>
Remini, Robert. “The Battle of New Orleans.” New York Times. n.d. 1 April 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/r/remini-battle.html.>

Related posts:

1. How the United States Narrowly Missed a Coup
2. China and the Threat of Informationalized War
3. The U.S. Plan to Conquer Canada

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

<After almost eleven months of weekly updates, I’ve run out of stuff to write about. The next update will be in two weeks. If anyone can suggest something, I’d be very grateful if they were to email me.>

Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is the phenomenon whereby a human body catches fire for no apparent reason. More than 200 cases have been reported within the last 300 years, almost always resulting in the death of the victim.

The cover of the first installment of Bleak House

In fiction, Charles Dickens wrote of a character suffering SHC in his 1852 novel, Bleak House. Dickens’ character, Krook, was a heavy drinker who found the gin he imbibed warmed his stomach rather more than usual, and then he caught fire. Dickens caused some consternation by fueling the belief that excessive drinking could cause SHC. In response to criticism that he was encouraging nonsense, in the second edition of Bleak House, Dickens wrote that he knew of 30 instances of SHC, although he mentioned only two, which had both occurred over a century earlier. He said, “I have no need to observe that I do not willfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I wrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject.” These stories likely came from Jonas Dupont’s 1763 work, De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis, which was a collection of cases of SHC, most of which involved alcohol. Alcohol, however, does not burn with the heat associated with SHC.

SHC featured in the novel, Jacob Faithful (1834) by Charles Marryatt and three novels by the nineteenth century Russian author, Nikolai Gogol. More recently, in The X Files, Scully suggested SHC in one instance, causing Mulder to remark: “Dear diary, today my heart leaped when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion.” In the film, Repo Man, a person spontaneously combusts and a government agent comments: “It happens sometimes. People just explode.” In South Park season 3, episode 2, some of the residents of the town die from SHC after holding in their farts for too long.

Famed science fiction author, Arthur C. Clarke, said, “There's one mystery I'm asked about more than any other: spontaneous human combustion."

Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: a Space Odyssey, said, “There’s one mystery I’m asked about more than any other: spontaneous human combustion. Some cases seem to defy explanation, and leave me with a creepy and very unscientific feeling. If there’s anything more to SHC, I simply don’t want to know.”

SHC confounds police and fire investigators as partially burned corpses are found next to unburned furniture or rugs. Where the victim was abed, the bedding does not catch fire. No possible source of ignition such as a cigarette is present. People nearby do not report hearing cries of pain or calls for help. The body is reduced to ashes with the exception of a leg or foot, while the remainder of the room is untouched by flame. The victim’s body is generally more severely burned than is true of a normal house fire. Usually, SHC occurs indoors, and victims are often female, overweight, and alcoholic.

The human body is mostly comprised of water, and there is little within it which burns readily: only fat and methane, although these contain enough energy to entirely consume a body. During cremation, bodies are subjected to a temperature of 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit for around two hours, and even this does not break down bones, which must be ground.

If the dead person had recently eaten a vast quantity of hay infested with bacteria, it is possible that enough heat could be generated to ignite the hay, but virtually all that would burn would be the gut and intestines. If the corpse of a person who had eaten newspaper and drunk oil had been left to rot for several weeks in a well-heated room, the gut might ignite. A burning sensation in the hands, arms, or feet can be an early sign of osteoporosis. The website, The Skeptic’s Dictionary, says that osteoporotic bones burn at a lower temperature than they would otherwise, however this condition is otherwise unknown to Google.

A chemical reaction on a person’s clothing can cause fire, as in the case of a women whose clothes caught fire who had placed in her pocket a shell which was covered in sodium from a fireworks display on the beach where the shell was found. The woman later inserted a wet handkerchief to her pocket, which could have causeed the ignition of the sodium. One man left his workplace and burst into flame upon lighting a cigarette. He had been in the habit of using a compressed air hose to blow detritus from his clothing, and on this occasion he had used pure oxygen, which considerably increased the flammability of his clothing.

The body of Adolf Hitler was supposedly still identifiable after more than five gallons of fuel had been applied to it.

Many murderers have attempted to burn the bodies of their victims, but once the accelerant is consumed, the fire ceases. Adolf Hitler’s body was supposedly still identifiable after more than five gallons of fuel had been applied to it.

The wick effect has been suggested as an avenue by which bodies could burn in rooms without the whole room burning. After a body is ignited by an external source, this theory says that the body’s clothes act as a wick and fat fuels the fire, so the body burns like an inside-out candle with sufficient heat that even bones could be destroyed. No victim of SHC has ever been reported to have been nekkid. Fat contains much energy due to the presence of long hydrophobic chains.

Limbs could be left intact because the lower half of a body is cooler than the top.
Greasy stains are often reported where SHC is thought to have occurred, and these could be caused by residue from the individual’s body fat.

To illustrate the wick effect, Dr. John de Haan of the California Criminalistic Institute wrapped a dead pig in a blanket, poured a small quantity of gasoline onto the blanket, and then ignited it. The flames of the fire were no more than 20 inches high, so the fire did not spread, but even bones were destroyed after five hours of burning. The fat content of a pig is very similar to that of a human being (and they taste the same, too). According to Dr. de Haan, the damage to the pig was “exactly the same as that from supposed spontaneous human combustion.” Dr. de Haan ascribed the cause of SHC to murder. A National Geographic special attempted to replicate this experiment, but failed, probably because a door had been left open and the resultant draft led to the ignition of everything in the room. It has been claimed that if the room had been enclosed, as in the cases of many elderly victims of SHC, the pig would have smoldered for hours without the rest of the room catching fire.

Professor Michael Green, a retired pathologist for the British Home Office, said, “The way the body burns – the so-called wick effect – seems to me and to my colleagues to be the most scientifically credible hypothesis.” Professor Green specifically ruled out divine intervention: “I think if the heavens were striking in cases of spontaneous combustion then there would be a lot more cases.” The experiment featured in the episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation entitled, Face Lift.

The wick effect is less likely because the smoldering it features contrasts with the rapidity and ferocity of flames in cases of SHC. The combustion would not be spontaneous if, as in the case of the wick effect experiment, accelerants had been present.

Professor Green also said that there had to be some external source of ignition, and static electricity has been suggested. Professor Robin Beach of Brooklyn founded the scientific detective agency, Robin Beach Engineers Associated. One of the agency’s first clients was the owner of a factory in Ohio where as many as eight small fires occurred every working day. Beach asked each of the factory’s employees to step onto a metal plate while holding an electrode. A voltmeter gave a reading. When one worker, a young woman, stepped onto the plate, there were 30,000 volts of electricity. When the woman was transferred to an area of the plant where she did not come into contact with combustible materials, fires became much less common. The professor postulated that static electricity can build up in the one person in 100,000 who has abnormally dry skin. Explosions have been reported in hospital operating theaters where the air was filled with anesthetic vapor. The professor suggested that the skin of employees of ordnance factories be tested to ensure they would not be subject to this effect.

Beach’s theory does not adequately explain SHC, as the flames usually are found to have come from within. Also, static electricity is generated when two surfaces brush against each other, which is unlikely to result to any great extent where a person sits in an armchair.

Dr. John Fisher and Dr. Joe Nickell investigated a number of cases of SHC, and found that where the destruction of the body was minimal, the only significant source of fuel was the person’s clothes, but where destruction was widespread, other fuel sources fed the flames. If bodies are not entirely consumed, the pair claim, it is because the victims were seated, and flames move upward.

Thomas Bartholin, author of Historiarum Anatomicarum Rariorum

Possibly history’s first case of SHC was an Italian knight named Polonius Vorstius in 1470. He had been drinking strong wine, then belched fire in front of his parents. He died. In 1613, a pamphlet was distributed by John Hilliar named Fire from Heaven, which spoke of the incident. The episode was recounted again in Thomas Bartholin’s 1641 work, Historiarum Anatomicarum Rariorum, a collection of strange medical phenomena. Bartholin had spoken to Vortius’ direct descendants.

Jonas Dupont decided to write De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis after hearing of the case of Nicole Millet in 1725. She was a serious drinker who was found burned to death. Her skull, some backbones, and lower legs were unburned. The chair in which she sat, a nearby straw bed and wooden objects were untouched. Her inn-keeper husband was convicted of her murder, but the conviction was overturned after a physician who had stayed at the inn that night said it was the result of a “visitation of God.”

In Italy in 1731, the skull and unburned legs of Countess Cornelia de Bandi were found one morning. There was much soot in the room, although no evidence of fire other than on the corpse. In England in 1744, gin-loving, pipe-smoking Grace Pett was found, resembling “a log of wood consumed by a fire.” Her surroundings were undamaged. In Chelmsford, England, in 1938, Maybelle Andrews caught fire at the top of a flight of stairs before her fiance and a room of partygoers, with no known source of flame.

All that was left of Mary Reeser in 1951 was a skull on a chair and an intact foot in a slipper resting against the chair. The only damage to her flat was soot on the ceiling and walls. A pile of loose newspaper beside the chair had not caught fire. Police determined that her dressing gown had caught fire, although no flame source was found. Wilton Krogman, a professor of anthropology who investigated the case, said, “I cannot conceive of such complete cremation without more burning of the apartment itself. In fact, the apartment and everything in it should have been consumed.” He said it was “the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” that it made the hairs on his neck bristle, and that had he been alive in the Middle Ages, he would have thought witchcraft to be responsible.

In Pennsylvania in 1964, Helen Conway burned while sitting in an upholstered chair in her bedroom. Her remains were unrecognizably charred. Conway was elderly, inform, and a heavy and careless smoker whose room showed many cigarette burns, but cremation does not result from a cigarette burn. It took no more than 21 minutes for Conway to be found, ruling out the wick effect. Robert Meslin, a volunteer fireman who was present, said, “The amazing part of the incident, in my opinion, is the time element.” Meslin later became Fire Marshal. The fire chief who was present at the scene, Paul Haggarty, said he believed Conway was the victim of SHC. He said, “There is no way you could explain it. None of the firemen had seen anything like it.”

In Pennsylvania in 1966, John Bentley combusted at some point between 9p.m. one evening at his home, when his friends departed, and the morning the next day when a person called to read a meter in the house. All that remained of Bentley was a pile of ashes and a right leg next to a toilet. The meter reader noticed a strange smell and blue smoke. A metal walker was over the ash heap, with its rubber tips untouched by fire. There was a hole in the floor, but the rest of the house was unaffected. A photograph of Bentley’s remains is famous.

In London in 1967, office workers awaiting a bus around 5 a.m. noticed flames in the upper window of a building. They called police, who entered the building to find the still-burning body of Robert Francis Bailey, a homeless man. The first policeman to arrive reported that a blue flame was emitted by a four-inch slit in Bailey’s abdomen. No external source of ignition was found. Bailey did not smoke, but was known to be an alcoholic who drank methylated spirits.

Clothing salesman, Jack Angel, went to sleep in a trailer in a hotel parking lot in Georgia In 1975. He awoke four days later, with burn marks on his body. He did not feel pain, and showered and dressed as he normally would. He walked over to the hotel, and collapsed. He awoke in hospital in considerable pain. His hand was infected and had to be amputated. There was no fire damage to the trailer. He later appeared in court to sue the manufacturer of the trailer’s water heater for $3,000,000. Then, he said that he had been scalded by hot water from a pressure valve in his shower unit. The doctor who examined Angel, however, said Angel had burned from the inside out, and ie would appear he had suffered from SHC but later changed his story to allow him to litigate.

In 1980 in Wales, 73 year-old Henry Thomas burned with the exception of his legs below the knee and the skull. The clothing on the leg remnants was virtually untouched by fire. He had been sitting in an easy chair. There was a fire nearby, but no evidence that fire had spread from there to Thomas. It was suggested that Thomas’ hair had caught fire, but a police officer who analyzed the scene said he did not think a man whose hair was on fire would be unaware of the fact and could then burn to such a degree.

In London in 1982, a 61 year-old, mentally handicapped woman, Jean Lucille Saffin, burst into flames in her kitchen. Her father, sitting at a nearby table, saw a flash of light in the corner of his eye, and turned to see his daughter afire, mostly around her face and hands. He and his son-in-law put the fire out with water, but Jean died after spending eight days in a coma. The fire had lasted for only one or two minutes. No cause for the fire was found, and an unnamed policeman told the family that he believed it to be a case of SHC, although the brevity of the fire explains why no surrounding objects were damaged by fire. SHC was proposed as the cause of Jean’s death, but medical examiner, Dr. John Burton, said there was “no such thing,” and recorded no verdict.

In 1986, George Mott watched an episode of the Twilight Zone in his home in New York, and said, “Nothing weird like that ever happens to me. I wish it would.” It did. Weird New England reported that the next day, his son found the three-and-a-half pounds of bone and ash which had been his father. Mott did not smoke and no source of fire was discovered. Mott was a retired fireman.

In Donegal in the Republic of Ireland in 2010, the charred remains of 50 year-old Elizabeth McLaughlin were found in her home by her nephew, who at first thought he was looking at a burned Christmas tree. There was no fire damage other than to the immediate vicinity, which policeman Sergeant John McLaughlin (no relation) said was an “unusual aspect.” Pathologist Dr. Michael Curtis conducted the autopsy, and said there had been talk of SHC, including by the woman’s love partner at the resultant inquest, but he believed that SHC was “probably an urban myth.”

No discussion of SHC today is complete without mention of 76 year-old Michael Faherty, who died in 2011. In the United Kingdom, his tale was told by the BBC and the newspapers, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent, and the Daily Hate. In the United States, it was told by ABC News, MSNBC, and the Washington Post. In other countries, the story appeared in the New Zealand Times, Asian Tribune, the Irish Times, and the Irish Independent. Online, the story featured on Slate and Yahoo.

Faherty’s badly burned body was found face down close to an open fire in his living room in Galway in the Republic of Ireland. Other than his body, the floor below it, and the ceiling above it, nothing had been damaged by fire. Forensic experts did not believe the domestic fire caused the burning of Faherty. No hint of an accelerant such as gasoline or alcohol was present, nor had any person entered or departed the house at 64 Clareview Park. Damage precluded determination of the cause of death. The West Galway medical examiner, Dr. Kieran McLoughlin, returned a verdict of SHC for the first time in his 25-year career and for the first time in the Republic, after consulting medical textbooks and enacting other research. He said, “This fire was thoroughly investigated and I’m left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation.” Faherty’s daughter, Mairin, said his family was satisfied with the investigation of the case.

SHC may possibly have been at work when a man caught fire inside a private video booth at the Golden Gate Adult Superstore in San Francisco in 2011. The man ran out of the store, “engulfed in flames,” according to SFPD Lt. Kevin McNaughton. CCTV recorded the incident. Firefighters were located one block away, and they arrived and extinguished the fire. Arson investigators said it was not clear how the man had caught fire. He was treated for 90 percent burns.

Both the wick effect and static electricity can be disregarded. There is ample proof that, from time to time, human beings just, y’know, combust.

Bilbiography

“De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis.” Www.Reference.com. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.reference.com/browse/de+incendiis+corporis+humani+spontaneis.>
“Man ‘Engulfed In Flames’ At San Francisco Porn Shop.” CBS Local. 13 April 2011. 15 March 2012. <http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/04/13/man-engulfed-in-flames-at-san-francisco-porn-shop/..>
“New light on human torch mystery.” BBC. 31 August 1998. 15 March 2012. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/158853.stm.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Chemistry Daily. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.chemistrydaily.com/chemistry/Spontaneous_Human_Combustion.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Economic Expert. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Spontaneous:human:combustion.html.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Nationmaster. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Spontaneous-human-combustion.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Pattaya Daily News. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/04/09/spontaneous-human-combustion/.>
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Skeptics’ Dictionary. n.d. 15 March 2012. <http://www.skepdic.com/shc.html.>
Conradt, Stacy. “Seven Cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion.” Mental Floss. 14 July 2009. 15 March 2012. <http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28878.>
Ensor, Josie. “Irish pensioner ‘died of spontaneous human combustion’.” Daily Telegraph. 23 September 2011. 15 March 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/8783929/Irish-pensioner-died-of-spontaneous-human-combustion.html.>
Hayes, Cathy. “Second case of spontaneous human combustion – Irish mother bursts into flames.” Irish Central. 14 November 2011. 15 March 2012. <http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Second-case-of-spontaneous-human-combustion—Irish-mother-bursts-into-flames-133797633.html.>
Rosenhek, Jackie. “A fire within.” Doctor’s Review. 1 December 2011. 15 March 2012. <http://www.doctorsreview.com/history/fire-within/.>

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email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

Was it all a load of bullshit?

The Jewish World Review declared, “If the Exodus did not occur, there is no Judaism.” It is a mitzvah – commandment – to tell the story to children. Questioning whether the Exodus occurred is rather more serious than calling into question the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Song of the Nibelungen. And so it is so much fun to ask: did the Exodus happen?

The story is that many Jews – Israelites – moved to Egypt because of famine in their land of Canaan. Eventually, their numbers grew so large that the Pharaoh came to believe they could upset his rule. He enslaved them. Under the leadership of Moses, the Israelites departed Egypt with such alacrity there was no time for their bread to rise.

When might the Exodus have happened? Kings 6:1 says it happened 480 years before the construction of Jerusalem’s temple by King Solomon – around 1450 BCE. Exodus 1:11, however, says that the Pharaoh used Jewish slaves to build the “treasure cities” – cities of store houses – of Pthom and Raamses. Scholars do not agree as to the location of Pthom, but Raamses is thought (Kitchen 2003: 255; Wood 2004; Hoffmeier 2005: 53, 55) to be Pi-Ramesse, a large, capital city which was constructed during the reign of Ramesses II circa 1270 BCE. Recent excavations show that Pi-Ramesse was built upon an earlier city, and it is possible that this is what the Babble referred to: the city of Raamses is mentioned in an inscription in the tomb of the pharaoh, Amenhotep III, who ruled from c.1391 – c.1354 BCE almost a century before Ramesses II, who ruled from c.1303-1213 BCE. The latest date for the Exodus would be around 1209 BCE during the reign of Merenptah, when an inscription of “Israel is desolate, and has no seed” was carved – Israel existed as a nation by that time. This was the only time Israel was mentioned in Egyptian records. It is generally believed that if the Exodus took place, it was during the reign of Ramesses II, between 1304 and 1237 BCE.

David Roberts' 1829 painting of the departure of the Israelites

And how many Israelites were there? After departing Egypt, G-d asked Moses to carry out a census. Numbers 1:46 says of the adult males, “Even all they that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty.” Adulthood began at 14, and there were generally seven children per family, so 603,550 men with attendant wimmen and kiddies would have been around two million people all told, which is rather a lot to leave no archaeological or documentary trace.

The Hebrew word, “elef,” can be translated not only as “thousand,” but also as “family,” “tribal unit,” or “leader.” Most recent studies have taken this to mean there would have been about 20,000 Israelites.

Since the 19th century, archaeologists have been surprised to find no archaeological evidence of the Exodus, while there are traces of smaller groups of people in the same area. Despite the availability of ground-penetrating radar and satellite imagery, there is not one shard of pottery, Hebrew carving, bone, nor campsite remains. Rabbi Dovid Lichtman countered: “It is nearly impossible to find traces of large Bedouin encampments in the Sinai Desert from 200-300 years ago. So would one expect the remains of large encampments after 3,000 years?”

Slightly more than a century after the rule of Ramesses II came the turn of Ramesses III, who ruled (1186-1155 BCE). In this time there was massive construction in Egypt, and successful military campaigns on land and at sea, which is not consistent with an Egypt which had been struck by devastating plagues and lost much of its slave population.

Inscriptions on the walls of the palace of the Abyssinian emperor, Sennacherib, were propagandistic.

The Exodus supposedly occurred at a time from which much documentation has survived. The Egyptians would have preferred not to have recorded such a humiliation as the Exodus. R. Alan Cole, once a lecturer in the Old Testament at Sydney’s Moore Theological College and Singapore’s Trinity Theological College, said, “Egyptian monarchs were never given to recording defeats and disasters, and certainly not the loss of a chariot brigade during the pursuit of runaway slaves.” An example of the propagandistic nature of records at that time is the inscriptions from the walls of the palace of the Assyrian Emperor, Sennacherib. These display scenes from Sancheriv’s military campaigns of the 8th century BCE. They show decapitated and impaled enemies, but no dead Assyrians.

Some twisted re-telling of the tale would have endured, however, or a record from a private tomb. Hatsheput was the third female Pharaoh in 3,000 years, and by far the most successful female Pharaoh ever. She was one of the most successful pharaohs of either gender. She is believed to have died of bone cancer, which was possibly the result of a skin lotion she used. Her successor, her stepson, Thutmosis III, ordered the destruction of all records of her. Thusmosis III attempted to rewrite history to show that rule had passed directly from his father to him, with Hatshepsut never acting as regent. Thutmosis’ motivations were more likely to have been political than personal, perhaps to support the standing of his own son, as the censoring of Hathsheput did not begin until the end of his reign (c.1458-1425). Statues of Hathsheput were smashed. Her image was chiseled from walls. Her body was removed from its tomb. Her name was omitted from lists of kings. Evidence of her rule (c. 1479-1458 BCE) was not found until 1903. A very deliberate attempt was made to suppress record of Hatshepsut, but some images of her survived.

A deliberate attempt was made to destory all trace of the Pharaoh, Akhenaten, but it was not entirely successful.

Decades later, nearly every trace of Pharaoh Akhenaten was destroyed, as his monotheism was perceived as heretical. A great deal of the radical, naturalistic art of the period was destroyed, and buildings dismantled. His name was removed from monuments and lists of kings. But again, some trace survived, such as the Amarna Letters, a collection of diplomatic correspondence.

The 106 times the Pharaoh is mentioned in the book of Exodus, his name is not. If the writer of Exodus had but named the pharaoh, many trees would have been saved, as the subject has been done to death. But it was not Egyptian practice to name kings: the Annals of Thutmose III refer to the King of Kadesh as “that wretched enemy of Kadesh.” When Egyptian scribes listed the booty which was taken after the Battle of Megiddo, they did not name the king whose possessions they were, calling him “the Prince of Megiddo.” The Amada Stele of Amenhotep II does not name the Syrian chieftains who were defeated.

This, however, was not the practice of later Biblical writers. Shishak is mentioned by name seven times, and Neco nine times. Hence, the absence of the Exodus pharoah’s name, his praenomen, is suspicious. The author of Exodus was not writing history.

Camels are mentioned 32 times in Genesis, the first book of the Babble, and once in Exodus, the second. Camels, however, were not domesticated until between 1200 and 1000 BCE and not widely used as beasts of burden until long after 1000 BCE. Genesis 37:25, incidentally, speaks of “camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh,” which were not the main products of trade until the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. Exodus 13:17 says, “G-d led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near,” but the Philistines did not establish themselves as a country until the 10th century BCE.

What was published as the Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage from a Hieratic Papyrus in Leiden is known to its friends as Leiden Papyrus #344, being held at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden. It was discovered in the early 1800s, written during the New Kingdom of Egypt (16th-11th century BCE) and is a copy of a document the Encyclopedia Britannica said was “perhaps” written between 1850 BCE and 1600 BCE by an Egyptian called Ipuwer.

A papyrus has been found which describes events similar to the plagues visited upon Egypt.

The Admonitions speak of events reminiscent of the plagues G-d visited upon Egypt: “Plague is throughout the land” (cf. Exodus 7:21); “The river is blood” (cf. Exodus 7:20); “Men shrink from tasting” (cf. Exodus 7:24); “That is our water! That is our happiness! What shall we do in respect thereof? All is ruin!” (cf. Exodus 7:21); “Trees are destroyed” (cf. Exodus 9:25); “Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire” (cf. Exodus 9:23-24); “Lower Egypt weeps… The entire palace is without its revenues. To it belong (by right) wheat and barley, geese and fish” (cf. Exodus 9:31-32); “Forsooth, grain has perished on every side” (cf. Exodus 10:15); “All animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan” (cf. Exodus 9:3); “The land is not light” (cf. Exodus 10:22); “Forsooth, the children of princes are dashed against the walls” (cf. Exodus 12:29); “He who places his brother in the ground is everywhere” (cf. Exodus 12:30); “Behold, the fire has mounted up on high. Its burning goes forth against the enemies of the land” (cf. Exodus 13:21).

Renowned Egyptologist, Joachim Quack, said the Admonitions were “strikingly close to the Sumerian city laments.” When the Admonitions say “the river is blood,” they could be speaking of the Nile turning red due to large quantities of red earth when it flooded. While the similarities between the Admonitions and Exodus are striking, Egyptologists do not generally believe the Admonitions refer to the events of the Exodus, or to history at all, and it was anyway written fart oo early. This is the only Egyptian mention of anything resembling the alleged plagues.

The Sinai peninsula the Israelites crossed was strewn with Egyptian forts housing many troops to facilitate the reinforcement of Canaan, an Egyptian territory, at a time when Egypt was becoming the dominant power of the region. The writer of the book of Exodus seems to have been ignorant of these. As the Hebrew Bible says on page 55, “The Egyptians kept tight control over their eastern border and kept careful records. If a large group of Israelites had departed, we should expect some mention of it.” A papyrus from the 13th century BCE says that people could only leave if they were in possession of a permit. This papyrus mentions Succoth and Pithom, which appear in the Exodus story, but does not tell of masses of fleeing slaves.

Israeli Prime Minister, Menechem Begin, said Jewish slaves built the pyramids. Photo: upyernoz.

The ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, said slaves built the pyramids and Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, said the slaves were Jewish, but tombs of the builders of the pyramids of Gizeh discovered in Egypt in 2010 were evidently those of paid laborers, and not slaves. Their burial near the pyramids would not have been accorded to slaves. Melvin Konner, anthropologist and teacher of Jewish studies at Emory University, said in his book, Unsettled, An Anthropology of the Jews: “Except for the Torah text, there is no decisive proof that the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, that they rebelled and walked away from the place, or that a leader such as Moses arose and took that people into the desert.” Dieter Wildung, one-time director of Berlin’s Egyptian Museum, said, “The myth of the slaves building pyramids is only the stuff of tabloids and Hollywood.”

Jews, in fact, were not present in Egypt at all in great numbers. Donald Redford, Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Pennsylvania State University, studied Egypt and its neighbors and found there was no evidence of a large population of Jews. Carmen Weinstein, leader of the Egyptian community of Egypt, said, “Were it not for the Bible, anyone looking at the Palestinian archaeological record data would conclude that whatever the origins of the Israelites, it was not Egypt.” Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog said, “The Israelites never were in Egypt. They never came from abroad…. It is a later legendary reconstruction – made in the seventh century < BCE> – of a history that never happened.”

The sites where the Israelites settled in Canaan are named in the Babble’s book of Numbers. Kadesh Barnea is now Ein Qadis and Ezion Geber is in the area of Aqaba and Eilat. They were founded no earlier than 700 or 800 BCE, and have revealed not a trace of evidence of an exodus. The cities of Pthom and Raamses which Israelite slaves are said to have built never existed at the same time. Extensive excavations in Israel have shown no change in pottery or buildings consistent with a large influx of people at the supposed time of the Exodus.

Nicolas Poussin's 1633 painting of the Israelites' crossing of the Red Sea

At least 13 locations have been suggested as that of the Israelites’ crossing of the Sea of Reeds, now known as the Red Sea, pursued by the army of the Pharaoh. The story is that G-d parted the waters of the sea to allow his people to escape before allowing the waters to return to their natural state while the Pharaoh’s army was still crossing.

Self-taught archaeologist, Ron Wyatt, settled on Nuweiba, on the Egyptian coast, as the location of the Red Sea crossing. The name of the place was given as Pi-hahiroth in the book of Exodus, meaning “mouth of the gorges,” which reflects Nuweiba.

In 1978, Wyatt discovered what he claimed was a gilded chariot wheel while diving at Nuweiba at depths of 60 to 200 feet. The wheel was photographed on the sea bed, but no other objects are in the frame, so the wheel’s size cannot be ascertained. The wheel was sent to Nassif Mohammed Hassan, the Director of Antiquities in Cairo. Hassan dated the wheel to around 1400 BCE, somewhat earlier than the likely date of the Exodus. He was recorded on video saying that the finding “resembled an ancient Egyptian chariot wheel.” He is unable to provide further comment on account of being dead.

There was no coral on the wheel. Lennart Moller of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, author of The Exodus Case, said coral did not grow on gold or electrum (silver and gold), but any archaeologist who has spent time in the field would differ. Coral is an animal rather than a plant, and it derives nutrients from zooplankton and other minuscule marine lifeforms as well as sea water. Gold is toxic to mycobacterium tuberculosis but not to gold or anything else. The wheel was all-too-close to the surface for something that has lain in the Red Sea for three-and-a-half millennia. It does not have the joins seen in drawings of Egyptian chariot wheels.

The beach at Nuweiba today. Photo: watchsmart.

Moller said that the coastal slope at Nuwaiba is “within current U.S. standards for handicapped ramps.” Wyatt Archeology, the organization Wyatt left behind him, says, “Only here, on the shores of Nuweiba, does the ‘pathway’ drop off at a gradual slope of one in fourteen, to a depth of just over 850 meters. On the Saudi side the slope climbs again at a slope of one in ten.” A map produced by the British Admiralty said the sea in this area was between 2,500 and 3,000 feet deep. It would not have been practical for thousands of people and their animals to descend and ascend the steep cliffs which characterize the gulf of Aqaba. People wishing to believe the Babble say the chart is inaccurate, but no proof has been offered and the Admiralty is an internationally recognized brand which has purveyed nautical maps since 1795.

Wyatt’s wife, Mary Nell, said that the Egyptian government does not currently allow archaeological finds to be removed from protected areas, making identification of any finds difficult. Fossilized bones were discovered, but fossilization precludes carbon dating. Wyatt also claimed to have discovered Noah’s ark and the Ark of the Covenant: obviously a reliable source.

The tale of the Exodus appears to have been a folkloric creation concocted to legitimize the goal of its author: to unite the Israelites in their struggle against Egypt. Respected archaeologists, Professor Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, believe the evil Pharaoh of the Exodus story was modeled on Psamethicus I, who ruled from 664 to 610 BCE, and that the Exodus in general reflects the Egypt of the day. Finkelstein said that more than 90 percent of scholars do not believe the Exodus took place. The Hebrew Bible said that some scholars are of the opinion that a number of small exoduses transpired over several centuries, and these were combined for narrative purposes. While most Christians heard at Sunday school that Moses wrote the pentateuch, the first five books of the Babble, this is no longer believed outside the most conservative circles, and it is now commonly held that the pentateuch was the work of several authors. The Jewish Encyclopedia says that this was the result of “the many inconsistencies and seeming contradictions” of the books. The five books are now thought to have been written in the sixth and seventh centuries BCE using stories dating as far back as the 13 century BCE.

The story of Moses' rescue from the Nile is the same as that of King Sargon of Akkad, almost one millennium before.

We have an idea of how the story of Moses arose. Cuneiform texts quote King Sargon of Akkad around 2360 BCE: “I am Sargon, the powerful king, the king of Akkad. My mother was an Enitu priestees, I did not know any father . . . . My mother conceived me and bore me in secret. She put me in a little box made of reeds, sealing its lid with pitch. She put me in the river. . . . The river carried me away and brought me to Akki the drawer of water. Akki the drawer of water adopted me and brought me up as his son. . .”

The really good thing about questioning the Exodus is that it undermines Jesus, who used the story for legitimacy and based some of his teachings upon it. Moses is mentioned 79 times in the New Testament. Jesus spoke of the Exodus in John 6:49-51, referring to the Jews eating manna while exodussing. John 1:17 said, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Jesus quoted Moses in Mark 7:10 – “For Moses said, honour thy father and thy mother; and, whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” Jesus was compared to Moses in John 3:14 – “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” The spirit of Moses put in an appearance before Jesus and his disciples, Peter, James, and John in Matthew 17:1-3.

If the Exodus never occurred, Jesus was wrong. And by the way, Jonah never lived in a whale and Noah never took pairs of every animal species onto his ark.

Bibliography

“Akhenaten.” AllExperts. n.d. 5 March 2012. <http://www.associatepublisher.com/e/a/ak/akhenaten.htm.>
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Kratovac, Katarina. “Egypt unveils more proof that Jews did not build pyramids.” JWeekly.com. 14 January 2010. 5 March 2012. <http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/41055/egypt-unveils-more-proof-that-jews-did-not-build-pyramids/.>
Petrovich, Doug. “Amenhotep II and the Historicity of the Exodus Pharaoh.” Associates for Bible Research. 4 February 2010. 5 March 2012. <http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2010/02/04/amenhotep-ii-and-the-historicity-of-the-exodus-pharaoh.aspx#Article.>
Rosch, Staks. “The Jewish Exodus from Egypt never happened.” Examiner.com. 17 April 2011. 5 March 2012. <http://www.examiner.com/atheism-in-philadelphia/the-jewish-exodus-from-egypt-never-happened.>
Seiglie, Mario. “The Exodus Controversy.” Associates for Bible Research. 9 August 2009. 5 March 2012. <http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/08/09/The-Exodus-Controversy.aspx#Article.>
Slackman, Michael. “Did the Red Sea Part? No Evidence, Archaeologists Say.” New York Times. 3 April 2007. 5 March 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/africa/03exodus.html?_r=1.>
Wilson, Elizabeth. “The Queen Who Would Be King.” Smithsonian Magazine. 1 September 2006. 5 March 2012. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Queen-Who-Would-Be-King.html.>

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3. You Shall Burn for This: the Phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Combustion

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

<Come on guys, I would heartily appreciate suggestions of things I could write about.>

One of the most effective things the United States did during the Vietnam War was the Phoenix Program. Counter Spy magazine called it “the most indiscriminate and massive programme of political murder since the Nazi death camps of World War 2.” The United States could do with more of this sort of thing in the counter-insurgencies it keeps finding itself fighting.

In Vietnam, the government ruled by day, but the infrastructure of the Viet Cong ruled by night. Photo: Department of Defense.

Counterinsurgency requires that government forces neutralize not only the military capabilities of an insurgency, but also the infrastructure: the intelligence, recruitment, and logistics functions. In Vietnam, the Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI) was a shadow government. One CIA veteran who served in Vietnam said, “the GVN may have ruled during the day, but these guys ruled at night.”

The VCI disseminated propaganda and established associations of students, wimmen, and farmers to weaken existing social institutions and make the Communist People’s Revolutionary Party the new focal point of society. The VCI mounted demonstrations and disrupted government efforts toward tax collection and military conscription. One estimate put the number of such people at between 70,000 and 100,000 in 1967.

Legal VCI cadres possessed valid identity documents, such as this pass card. Photo: Bình Giang.

U.S. intelligence divided the VCI into two categories: legal and illegal cadres. Legal cadres were citizens of South Vietnam who possessed legitimate identity papers. While termed “legal,” they operated covertly. Illegals, on the other hand, were generally well known to locals and the GVN. They were obvious targets, and so lived in well-defended areas with armed guards. By the end of the 1960s, it had become difficult for illegal cadres to operate in the hamlets of South Vietnam.

In the early 1960s, the GVN, encouraged by American advisers, instituted programs to counteract the shadow government. The GVN devoted most of its resources to engaging V.C. units, and later the North Vietnamese army, but anti-infrastructure efforts achieved some success.

A leaflet publicizing the Chien Hoi (“Open Arms”) program. Photo: National Archives and Records Administration.

Chien Hoi (“Open Arms”) was launched in 1963, and sought to persuade V.C. and, later, NVA members to defect through offers of amnesty and resettlement. One estimate found that 194,000 “ralliers” were lured between 1963 and 1971. While many were low-level personnel, and few were from the NVA, much valuable intelligence was gained as to the motivation, morale, and organization of the insurgents.

The Census Grievance program saw teams of GVN personnel sent to villages to interview a member of each family under the guise of better understanding the anti-government sentiment of the population, but in reality to collect intelligence on the VCI. Knowing who was related to whom was critical to counterinsurgency, as recruitment at the village level was generally initially based on family ties. Vast quantities of information were gleaned, but before computers were in widespread use, it was time-consuming and difficult to exploit the data.

The Revolutionary Development cadres were a CIA initiative which developed from the inchoate recruitment and propaganda endeavors of the Diem government, such as the Xay Dung Nong Thon (Rural Development) programs. These copied the V.C., sending armed teams of young men to the countryside to live among villagers, spread government propaganda, and recruit for village militias and other organizations. One scholar said, “The R.D. cadres did not accomplish much. When confronted by the V.C., they usually withdrew to safer environs rather than fight.”

While not usually placed in the category of counter-infrastructure measures, the GVN’s strategic hamlet program had that effect. Hamlets were encircled by moats and sharpened bamboo stakes and defended by locally-raised militias, with the intention of denying the V.C. access to the manpower and other resources of the location. The hamlets were no great obstacle to Communist plans in the countryside, but as they grew in number, the politburo in Hanoi became alarmed and gave orders to their commanders to infiltrate and destroy them.

Counter-Terror Teams (CTTs) were, like R.D. cadres, organized, trained, and equipped by the CIA and modeled on V.C. methods. They were trained for small-unit operations deep in V.C.-controlled areas with the aim of capturing or killing VCI members. As was true of the other aspects of pacification, the quality of the CTTs varied from team to team. Sometimes, province chiefs misused CTTs as bodyguards, or to settle personal grievances. President Thieu himself used them to eliminate his political rivals. Arrangements for command and control were inadequate, and the teams acquired a reputation for thuggishness. Press accounts accused them of being death squads.

The CTTs were later rebranded as Provincial Reconnaissance Units, which is rather friendlier. The units became more concerned with apprehending VCI suspects rather than killing them. As John Mullins, an American who advised the PRUs, said, “Prisoner snatches were key. You can’t get information out of a dead man.”

In June, 1967, anti-VCI operations were centralized to afford greater coordination. Ambassador Robert “Blowtorch Bob” Komer secured approval for a CIA plan for a program named Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX). An officer of the Rural Development Cadre/Programs won a region-wide competition to come up with a name for the program. His suggestion was Phuong Hoang, the mythical “all-seeing bird” of South Vietnamese culture which represented grace, virtue, peace, and concord, and was similar to the phoenix. The program was known in English as the Phoenix Program.

The Phoenix Program was not a separate body, but instead a structure which brought together the various agencies which combated the VCI, and it was made of civilians rather than soldiers. Most of the Program’s manpower was South Vietnamese: the national police, the special police branch, Chieu Hoi, the R.D. cadres, the Military Security Service, military intelligence, the PRUs, and more.

The PRUs were the principal operational arm of the Phoenix Program. They were active throughout the war, but mostly from 1967 to 1972. There were never more than 5,000 men so employed, and they were essentially an intelligence-driven police force, albeit better trained, equipped, and paid than the South Vietnamese National Police due to their sponsorship by the CIA. The CIA attempted to ensure PRU commanders were generally of good quality. They were at least able to ensure that, in contrast to other elements of the forces of South Vietnam, commanders were not appointed for reasons other than merit. To prevent the PRUs from being used for personal reasons, multiple sources of information were necessary prior to the launching of an operation. Operations were frequently rejected if the U.S. advisers believed the intelligence to be inadequate.

The PRUs served in the provinces from which they hailed, making their knowledge of local conditions unparalleled by other South Vietnamese government agencies, never mind U.S. forces. Although other agencies were supposed to supply the PRUs with intelligence, in practice both South Vietnamese and U.S. agencies were rarely willing to do so, and so the PRUs generally collected and exploited their own intelligence. A CIA study said, “Successful PRUs developed [their] own sources of information, such as defectors, informants, and personal contacts in contested areas.” Major Dang Van Son, who was attached to the Phoenix program, told of an initiative known as Thien Nga – “wild geese” – where beautiful, young high school girls were used to infiltrate the local communist apparatus. Van Son said that when he served in Cantho, nearly all the Communist organizations were neutralized.

An American adviser, Andrew Finlayson, said, “Seventy-five percent of the time, the PRUs did their own targeting: ‘This guy’s sister is pro-V.C. He comes to the market and is buying way too much food,’ etc.” The PRUs used their own family members and friends, giving them informants in almost every village and hamlet. The resultant intelligence was of far superior quality to that provided by either South Vietnamese or U.S. agencies. Another American adviser, John Walsh, said, “What little intelligence we got was virtually useless.” He added that PRU members “knew their territory intimately… We advisers came to rely on their knowledge.”

Sergeant Ronald J. Lauzon was a Marine who was assigned to a PRU in Hue 1967. He said that he read hundreds of intelligence reports from the U.S. and South Vietnamese militaries, and not one was timely or wholly accurate. Clues were the times, dates, and map coordinates. He had taken part in dozens of interrogations and knew that the V.C. gave times as “after a specific event,” “soon,” “pretty soon,” or “now” and they used place names rather than map coordinates. The only reliable intelligence came from the PRUs or the Census Grievance program.

District Intelligence and Operations Coordination Centers were the offices of the Phoenix adviser in each of the 250 districts of South Vietnam. Province Intelligence and Operations Coordination Centers operated at that higher level. These were permanent organizations, rather than committees which met now and then. The CIA tended to operate at the provincial level, as it lacked the staff to man the DIOCCs, even after recruiting numerous contractors. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was able to make use of the thousands of U.S. officers present in Vietnam to man the DIOCCs. By 1970, in excess of 700 advisers served in the Phoenix Program, and most were special forces officers. At that time, 102 U.S. military personnel and five civilians advised the PRUs. There were between 4,000 and 6,000 Vietnamese PRU personnel between 1967 and 1975.

Jeremy Kuzmarov, assistant professor of history at Tulsa University and author of The Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs, spent months examining the files of the Phoenix Program when he worked on another book, Modernizing Repression: Police Training and Nation-Building in the American Century. He said the PRUs indulged in indiscriminate brutality and did not affect the senior ranks of the revolutionaries. The importance of the PRUs to senior CIA personnel in South Vietnam diminished because they felt it was more constructive to concentrate on the higher ranks of their enemy.

"Blowtorch Bob" Komer meeting President Lyndon Johnson

There was much inaccurate reporting under the Phoenix Program. A Phoenix adviser who had served in Czechoslovakia in the Second World War said, “The reports that I would send in on the number of Communists that were neutralized reminded me of the reports Hitler’s concentration camp commanders sent in on how many inmates they had exterminated, each commander lying that he had killed more than the other to please Himmler.” Internal reports stored at the National Archives show that there was widespread corruption among the PRUs, who abused their positions for revenge and extortion: people would be threatened with classification as VCI if huge sums of money were not forthcoming. Bribes were accepted in return for the release of prisoners. Ambassador Robert Komer, the director of the pacification program of MACV, accepted that there were many “phantom kills.” Non-VCI people killed during operations were identified as VCI. Report padding was at its worst in Long An province, where Phoenix adviser, Evan Parker, Jr., said, “the numbers just don’t add up.”

Kuzmarov was certainly correct in saying that most of the VCI neutralized by the PRUs were of low rank. A comprehensive Pentagon study of 1971 found that a mere three percent of Viet Cong personnel neutralized operated above the district level. Regional reports stated that one percent, and possibly less, of the people neutralized held key VCI leadership positions. Ralph McGehee, the CIA chief in Gia Dinh province and the Phoenix adviser there, said in his memoirs that “Never in the history of our work in Vietnam did we get one clear-cut, high-ranking Viet Cong agent.” Communist immunity was vastly aided by penetration of the GVN.

One Phoenix adviser said, “It was common knowledge that when someone was picked up their lives were about at an end because the Americans most likely felt that, if they were to turn someone like that back into the countryside it would just be multiplying NLF followers.” In one well-publicized case, a detainee was held in an air-conditioned room for four years because he feared the cold. His body was later disposed of at sea. K. Barton Osborne, a military intelligence specialist, testified to Congress that he saw acts of torture such as the prodding of a person’s brain through his ear with a six-inch dowel. He was active with the Phoenix Program for a year-and-a-half, and said, “Not a single suspect survived interrogation.”

Many U.S. government-provided statistics concerning the war have been shown to be profoundly flawed, which devalues quantitative estimates, but William Colby said the Phoenix Program caused the deaths of 20,000 V.C., while the GVN put the figure at 40,000. 95 percent of VCI was eliminated in some locations. It has been estimated that 5,000 innocent civilians died. Deborah Nelson and Nick Turse studied hundreds of declassified files held by the National Archives, and found that the army had investigated many claims of atrocities made by veterans and deemed them almost all accurate. The New York Times ran a number of prominent exposes of Phoenix in the early 1970s.

Nevertheless, the effect on the VCI was striking. The Viet Cong required people to collect taxes, spread propaganda, and recruit new members, and these were targeted by the Phoenix Program. A radio broadcast from Hanoi singled out the “Phoenix organization” for targeting in an offensive. After the war concluded, senior North Vietnamese officials testified to the effectiveness of the Phoenix Program. NVA Colonel Bui Tin said the Phoenix Program was “devious and cruel” and accounted for “thousands of our cadres.” General Tran Do, the deputy commander of communist forces in South Vietnam, said the Program was “extremely destructive.” Veteran V.C. leader, Madame Nguyen Thi Dinh, said, “We never feared a division of troops but the infiltration of a couple of guys into our ranks created tremendous difficulties for us.”

Many Viet Cong sympathizers were killed as a result of the Phoenix Program. Photo: Vietnam Center and Archive.

CIA Director, William Colby, said the Communists “attributed their problems to Phoenix, when they really should have attributed them to the growth of self-defense forces and that sort of thing.” The Vietnamese Communists, however, possessed what was possibly the most advanced intelligence apparatus of any insurgency of the twentieth century, and they are unlikely to be in error as to the source of their problems. The PRUs killed or captured approximately 380 cadres for every 1,000 of their men at their peak in 1970. The CIA said that anti-infrastructure efforts led to the capture, killing, or defection of more than 80,000 people. Thomas Thayer, Director of the Southeast Asia Division of the Department of Defense’s systems analysis branch at the time of the war and author of War without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam, said, the PRUs were “the single most effective anti-VCI forces. . . . No other force came close to this.”

The typical PRU comprised five teams of 18 men. Operations were usually staged late at night or early in the morning to maximize surprise, and were of short duration: rarely more than a few hours. The units were made of and led by Vietnamese men, but U.S. advisers helped to plan the operations and generally accompanied PRUs to the field. U.S. special forces were also available. This gave the PRUs access to air support, and the ability to summon helicopters to rapidly evacuate wounded personnel. The low level of PRUs casualties, assisted by this latter factor, had a greatly beneficial effect on morale. The presence of U.S. advisers granted first-hand knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of units.

And what kind of man served in the PRUs? The U.S. adviser, Andrew Finlayson, said, “Most were professional soldiers: they liked soldiering, and they were nationalistic. And they had scores to settle with the Communists.” Many were former V.C. or South Vietnamese soldiers. The latter included some from special forces. Some had affiliations which made them natural enemies of the Communists, be it ethnically in the case of Montagnard tribesmen or religiously in the case of Cao Dai and Catholics. Colonel Terence M. Allen, senior military adviser to the PRU program from 1968 to 1970, said the most effective PRU teams were drawn from these groups. The men of the PRUs generally hated the Viet Cong, and it was difficult to infiltrate them.

Warren H. Milberg, the senior CIA officer in Quang Tri province, said that by the middle of 1967, the war was “heating up” and young men of military age were either in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) or the Citizen Irregular Defense Groups (CIDGs), or were farmers. Not many men were available, and Milberg said that those who were recruited had “issues.” He said, “In the end, they became a great group of brave fighters, but they were not unlike a pack of pit bulls.” PRU members often solicited the recruitment of brothers, cousins, and nephews.

Elton Manzione was another American active in the Phoenix program. He said, the PRUs were “a combination of ARVN deserters, V.C. turncoats and bad motherfuckers; criminals the South Vietnamese couldn’t deal with who were turned over to us. Some actually had an incentive plan: if they killed X number of commies, they got X number of years off their prison term.” There were less paroled criminals after 1968.

When DIOCCs were not effective, U.S. advisers said it was primarily due to bureaucratic selfishness: agencies contributing to the project did not wish to share operational leads in case they did not receive credit, and hence budget allocations. Personality conflicts could also be a problem.

PRU teams dressed in the black pajamas worn by the peasants of Vietnam, or tiger-stripe uniforms. Some had V.C. or NVA clothing. The weapons of the PRUs were mostly M-16 rifles, 45 caliber pistols, M-79 grenade launchers, and M-60 machine guns. Other weapons used included M-2 carbines, Swedish K submachine guns, British Bren guns, 38-caliber Colt Cobra revolvers, and Browning 9mm automatic pistols. There was usually no shortage of ammunition.

Viet Cong Weapons. Photo: BrokenSphere.

Many PRUs often made use of their extensive collections of captured enemy weapons. PRUs equipped with AK-47 rifles and RPGs would initially be considered to be friendly by insurgents and would thus gain a tactical advantage. A drawback became evident, however, when the CIA began to interfere with enemy ammunition in late 1967 so that rounds would explode when fired. PRUs could often live with this risk.

Prisoners were held without trial in hundreds of jails and internment camps throughout the country. As a National Security Council report of 1969 said, these prisons were frequently overcrowded. Around 60 percent of prisoners taken in 1968 were later released..

Jane Barton, who monitored the treatment of prisoners for the American Friends Service Committee, said that captives would be chained to their beds with Smith & Wesson handcuffs. When they were tortured, it was by Americans in the late 1960s, and with American advisers present later on. Sidney Towle, the head of district intelligence in Vinh Long, became aware of the mistreatment of prisoners when he heard screams from the room next door, which was an interrogation center. Prisoners were connected to crank telephones with wires. A Pentagon report in 1968 found that electric shock treatment was widely applied to prisoners. A Naval Institute historian said that “the large majority of South Vietnamese interrogators tortured some or all” prisoners, including mere suspects.

Former CIA Director, William Colby, said, “If you torture, you'll get what you want to hear or you'll get something that the fellow invents.” Photo: CIA.

Is torture so bad? Hell, Jack Bauer did it. William Colby, however, said, “If you torture, you’ll get what you want to hear or you’ll get something that the fellow invents.”

The CIA instituted six “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” in March, 2002, for use on the most important and recalcitrant prisoners. These are the attention grab, when the interrogator grabs the front of the shirt of a prisoner and shakes him; the attention slap, where a prisoner is slapped with an open hand; the belly slap, which is a hard slap to the stomach; prolonged standing, one of the most effective techniques; the cold cell, where prisoners are kept in such a room, nekkid, and periodically doused with cold water; and waterboarding. Sleep deprivation and other forms of stress, of course, make memory less reliable. While the CIA claims that enhanced interrogation techniques are not torture, George Washington University professor of law, Jonathan Turley, counters that bank robbery is no more than enhanced money withdrawal.

Ed Peters, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania, said that waterboarding was first used in the 14th century. It is the pouring of water over the face of a subject, over which cloth has been laid. Now, cellophane is used instead of cloth. A sensation of drowning is produced. Waterboarding was originally referred to as “water torture,” “the water cure,” or “tormenta de toca,” which refers to the thin fragment of cloth placed over the mouth of the victim. At the time, it was regarded as cross-examination is today. A doctor would be present.

President Theodore Roosevelt approved of waterboarding. Photo: Library of Congress.

In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote in a letter: “The enlisted men began to use the old Filipino method: the water cure… Nobody was seriously damaged.” The technique was used by the Japanese in the Second World War, U.S. troops in the Philippines, the French in Algeria, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the British in Palestine. It has in the past been used by U.S. police forces. It was widely employed in the 1970s in Latin America, particularly by the dictatorships of Argentina and Chile, where it was known as “Asian torture.”

The Nazis and Soviets did not make use of waterboarding. They used harsher methods which left permanent scars or caused death. Darius Rejali, a professor at Reed College in Oregon and author of the book, Torture and Democracy, said that democracies prefer waterboarding. CIA officers who underwent waterboarding lasted for an average of 14 seconds before yielding.

In his testimony to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, Air Force General Thomas Hartmann said, “Torture is prohibited under U.S. law.” When asked if this meant waterboarding was not used, he replied, “No ma’am, I didn’t say that.”

As argument can be made that legal codes prohibiting torture were drafted prior to the rise of terrorism, and these rules are out of date. Stephen Rickard, Washington director of the Open Society Institute, say that this justification has been used for centuries.

Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, was one to suggest that torture be applied only after a torture warrant has been obtained. But when Israel experimented with “torture lite,” 85 percent of Palestinian prisoners were soon given the harshest treatment permitted. No government has ever successfully calibrated torture. Dubya’s General Counsel of the Navy, Alberto Mora, said that the “ticking time-bomb” justification could be used on every day on every battlefield of every war.

According to a U.S. interrogator, abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was one of the most common reasons given by foreign fighters for fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. Photo: Department of Defense.

Matthew Alexander led a Special Operations interrogation team in Iraq in 2006. He wrote How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq. He said that the primary reason foreign fighters gave for their involvement was the abuse doled out at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. He also said that half of U.S. casualties in Iraq were inflicted by foreigners who joined their cause because of detainee abuse.

A detailed investigation by the New York Times in 2011 found that, contrary to the accounts of CIA chief Leon Panetta and House Homeland Security Chairman, Rep. Peter King, torture “played a small role at most” in the location of Osama bin Laden. The U.S. Army Training Manual’s section on interrogation states that “The use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.” The Intelligence Science Board provides scientific advice to the intelligence community of the United States. Its 2006 study, Educing Information, said that “coercive interrogation methods” have never been proven to be effective in the elicitation of intelligence.

The Phoenix Program was not one of assassinations. True, Tricky Dicky thought so. He said, “We’ve got to have more of this. Assassinations. That’s what they [the Vietnamese Communists] are doing.” William Colby said that if a battle occurred outside a village, the local guerilla chief would often be found dead the next morning. Robert Slater. the chief of the CIA’s Province Interrogation Center Program from June 1967 to 1969, said “The Allies have frequently found out where the District Party Secretaries live and raided their homes: in an ensuing fire fight the secretary’s wife and children have been killed and injured.”

Financially, the Phoenix Program cost little: $4 million from 1968 to 1972, excluding support to operational units. The political price, however, was steep. Negative perceptions saw the United States to be at war with the South Vietnamese people. In 1969, the Lower House of the South Vietnamese Congress held hearings into the Phoenix Program. 86 deputies signed a petition calling for an end to the Program. In 1970, four members of Congress concluded that the Program violated international law and the Geneva Convention. Rep. Ogden Reid said that if the Union had conducted a Phoenix Program against the Confederacy, its targets would have included Jefferson Davis and the mayor of Macon, Georgia. The Phoenix Program left an enduring legacy of suspicion of U.S. power. Official secrecy went some way to encouraging unfavourable estimations of the Phoenix program.

Insurgents in Iraq

The insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan both feature an extensive infrastructure for intelligence, counter-intelligence, media, finance, recruitment, and religious affairs, although not as well-organized as that of the V.C. It will not be difficult to find people who have legitimate grievances against insuragents. CIA selection of commanders would be especially useful in Afghanistan, where nepotism is rampant, and CIA supervision could prevent units from being used for personal reasons. If CIA personnel accompanied units, they could effect even closer supervision and ascertain the effectiveness of units. As for where the U.S. personnel would come from, sources told the Associated Press that soldiers would be put under CIA control so they would not be counted as troops. Torture should not be used, although perhaps a little waterboarding could be gotten away with. The program should be admitted to and explained to obviate false perceptions of it. Now that computers are readily available, more use could be made of the prestigious quantities of data elicited. The use of locals would be attractive at a time when U.S. forces are leaving these countries. At a time of economic hardship, a Phoenix-like program is attractive because it is a dirt cheap. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how to win at counter-insurgency.

Bibliography

“Communists vow to smash Phoenix program.” Www.history.com. n.d. 16 February 2012. <http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/communists-vow-to-smash-phoenix-program.>
“Does torture work?” Guardian. n.d. 16 February 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/nov/04/2.>

Dozier, Kimberley. “Pentagon may put special OPS in Afghanistan under CIA control to meet 2014 pullout deadline.” Mercury News. 3 March 2012. 13 March 2012. <http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_20094901http:/www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_20094901.>
“Phoenix 1967-1971.” Www.globalsecurity.org. n.d. 16 February 2012. <http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/ops/vietnam-phoenix.htm.>
“Pragmatic approaches to torture.” BBC. n.d. 16 February 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/torture/law/practical.shtml.>
“The Phoenix Program.” Ausvets. n.d. 16 February 2012. <http://ausvets.tripod.com/phoenix.htm.>
“Vietnamizing the War (1969-1973).” PBS. n.d. 16 February 2012. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/series/pt_07.html.>
Fertik, Bob. “Efficacy of Torture.” Www.Democrats.com. 7 February 2009. 16 February 2012. <http://www.democrats.com/efficacy-of-torture.>
Finlayson, Colonel Andrew R. “Marine Advisors with the Vietnamese Provincial Reconnaisance Units, 1966-1970.” History Division, United States Marine Corps. n.d. 16 February 2012. <http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/PDF_Files/Pubs/VN%20Advisors%20Boards_Marine%20Advisors.pdf.>
Hayden, Tom. “Reviving Vietnam War Tactics.” The Nation. 13 March 2008. 16 February 2012. <http://www.thenation.com/article/reviving-vietnam-war-tactics.>
Kuzmarov, Jeremy. “The Phoenix Program Was a Disaster in Vietnam and Would Be in Afghanistan–And the NYT Should Know that.” George Mason University’s History News Network. 6 September 2009. 16 February 2012. <http://hnn.us/articles/116462.html.>
Rosenau, William and Long, Austin. “The Phoenix Program and Contemporary Counterinsurgency.” Rand Corporation. n.d. 16 Feburary 2012. <http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2009/RAND_OP258.pdf.>
Ross, Brian. “CIA’s Harsh Interrogation Techniques Described.” ABC News. 18 November 2005. 16 February 2012. <http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Investigation/story?id=1322866#.Tz1mk7TTP3Y.>
Turchick, Chuck. “A useful way of looking at torture: the bank robbery analogy.” Minnpost. 21 July 2010. 16 February 2012. <http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2010/07/useful-way-looking-torture-bank-robbery-analogy.>
Valentine, Douglas. “Fragging Bob.” Counterpunch. 17 May 2001. 16 February 2012. <http://www.counterpunch.org/2001/05/17/fragging-bob/.>
Weiner, Eric. “Waterboarding: A Tortured History.” NPR. 3 November 2007. 16 February 2012. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15886834.>

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by Timothy Chilman

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

Elvis Presley is the King of Rock ‘n Roll. Rapper Mos Def said he was the white man who stole the black man’s sound. He also broke ground by introducing sex to the equation, specifically when he sang Hound Dog on the Milton Berle Show. His suggestive hip movements stupefied television critics, who lambasted him for his “animalism,” “vulgarity,” and “appalling lack of musicality.” He made more than 110 appearances in the top 40, with 18 number ones, and starred in 31 films. No other rock star has come close to equaling his amazing record.

The last photograph ever taken of Elvis, driving his 1973 Stuz Blackhawk through the gates of Graceland. Photo: Jreedtattooer.

At Graceland, his 18-room mansion in Memphis, Elvis entertained friends by playing a piano and singing the night before his death. The next morning, he played raquetball. It is commonly said that, like King George II of Great Britain, he died on the toilet. The truth is that at 2:30p.m. on August 16, 1977, Elvis was found by his girlfriend, Ginger Alden, lying face down on the floor of a bathroom. A copy of The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus, by Frank Adams, was present. An ambulance was summoned from Engine House 29 of the Memphis Fire Department.

Shelby County medical examiner, Dr. Jerry Francisco, said that Elvis was stricken by a heart attack while astride the john, crawled a short distance, and vomited. Some sources say he was nekkid, but newspapers reported that he was wearing blue pajamas and his pants were around his ankles. He was pronounced dead at the Baptist Memorial Hospital roughly an hour after being discovered.

Other causes of death have been suggested. An autopsy performed by Dr. Eric Muirhead found 14 drugs in Elvis’ system, including ten times the normal dosage of codeine and toxic amounts of ‘ludes. It has been suggested that this caused the death of the King. Another finding of the autopsy was that Elvis’ colon was five or six inches wide, almost twice as wide as that of a normal person, and at nearly eight or nine feet, it was also nearly twice as long. Dr. George “Nick” Nichopoulos was Elvis’ physician for 12 years and attempted to resuscitate Elvis when he was found in his bathroom. He said that some stool had been in Elvis’ colon for four or five months. Elvis was known to suffer from constipation, but the extent did not become apparent until his autopsy. Elvis had been advised to have a colostomy, but his ego prevented him from accepting. Nichopoulos said constipation killed Elvis: “If they had done the colostomy then, he’d probably still be here.”

The suggestion that Elvis did not die on that day is a classic conspiracy theory, and a common example used by people seeking to portray conspiracy theories as lunatic. It is indeed disturbing that, at first glance, a strong case can be made for Elvis not having died when he was said to.

Gail Brewer-Giorgio’s book, The Elvis Files, says that two hours after Elvis’ death was announced, a man “bearing a slight resemblance” to Elvis and going by the name of John Burrows purchased a one-way air ticket to Buenos Aires at Memphis airport, and paid in cash. The name was used by Elvis when making hotel reservations. Lucy de Barbon, a former lover of Presley, said that the day after the King’s supposed death, she received a single rose by mail, with a card saying it was from El Lancelot, her pet name for him.

The funeral of Elvis Presley on August 18, 1977. Photo: Jreedtattooer.

Elvis’ funeral took place two days after his death, to make it difficult for his biggest fans to come, as they would doubtless recognize that the wax dummy said to be his body was not their idol. Elvis’ casket weighed some 900 pounds and required nine pallbearers, and it has been suggested it contained air conditioning equipment to lower the temperature of the wax dummy inside. Funeral attendants said the air around the casket was very cool. Joe Esposito, long a friend of Elvis after meeting him in the military and later his road manager and bodyguard, said that beads of sweat were seen on the body: the wax dummy was melting. The figure in the casket was photographed, and the photograph made public, leading people to note that the figure in the casket had a nose, eyebrows, and hands unlike Elvis’.

Elvis is not buried next to his mother, as he had requested. His gravestone misspells his middle name as Aaron, when it was actually Aron, signifying that it was not the King who lay beneath. An insurance policy he took out with Lloyds of London was never cashed, as this would have been fraud.

One motive for faking his death was that Elvis had given testimony against Mafia-connected parties, and there might have been retaliation. Another is that his hair was going gray, his voice weakening, and his girth expanding, and he did not wish his fans to see him in such a state. A third is that perhaps he just wanted to walk down a street unmolested, and not be bothered by death threats.

These points shall be examined in turn.

Gail Brewer-Giorgio’s book, The Elvis Files, rose to number eight on the New York Times Bestseller List. It sold more than a million copies, and is one of the biggest-selling Elvis books ever. The book said that the “John Burrows” who purchased a ticket at Memphis airport bore a slight resemblance to Elvis. When the story is retold, the “slight” resemblance often becomes “startling.” According to Patrick Lacy’s book, Elvis Decoded, no international tickets were sold at Memphis airport in August, 1977. Had Elvis entered Witness protection, as it has been suggested Tupac Shakur did, it would have been immensely bad practice for him to use a name that could be connected to him.

Lucy de Barbon made her claim in a book which is presented as a romance novel and lacks facts capable of corroboration. She also claimed that Elvis fathered her daughter, Desiree, and her motives are suspect.

The suggestion that a wax dummy replaced Elvis when his body lay in state was made most powerfully by the Presley Commission, which was formed in 1992. It did not name its members, but said that some were skilled in law enforcement and medicine, which has been questioned due to the Commission’s findings. The Commission released The Presley Report in 1995, which was praised by journalists for its structured, bureaucratic style and inclusion of documentary evidence.

The Report said that before Elvis’ death, a wax dummy had been purchased by a member of his family. While the purpose intended for the dummy was not revealed, comments were made which “raised eyebrows.” The Commission claimed to have interviewed a person present at the time of the sale. The place of purchase and the witness were never identified, and there is nothing to distinguish the claim from pure BS. The Commission also said that Elvis was present at the wedding of Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie, to Wacko Jacko.

Elvis' casket was so damned heavy because it was made of copper. Photo: Jreedtattooer.

Elvis’ $8,000 casket was heavy because it was made of copper. It was the same kind of casket as was used for his mother. The “beads of sweat” could have been embalming fluid. This and the body are supposed to be frozen, but sometimes funeral homes do not do this properly, and some fluid leaks. There have been several instances of this elsewhere, causing legal issues for the funeral homes. According to the not-wholly-reliable Brewer-Giorgio, the air conditioning of the funeral home used by Elvis prior to his incarceration at Forest Hill Midtown Cemetery was broken that day, and it was abnormally hot. Findadeath.com was contacted by a person claiming to be a former employee of Memphis disk jockey, Sam Phillips, who said that he knew a man who had worked at the funeral home. When asked if Elvis was really dead, this man replied, “Absolutely. I shoved the cotton balls up his ass when he was embalmed.”

The photograph of Elvis in his casket clad in a white suit and blue shirt was obtained by the National Enquirer, which bribed Elvis’ third cousin, Billy Mann, at least $18,000 to take photographs with a miniature Minox spy camera. The picture appeared on the Enquirer‘s front page on 6 September, 1977, and that issue set a record by selling 6.5 million copies. The Enquirer made at least 1,000 percent profit on its bribery.

It has been said that the supposed body of Elvis had a pug nose and arched eyebrows, which Elvis did not, and the hands were soft and pudgy, while Elvis’ were calloused. Differences in the nose can be explained by his body lying face down for four hours prior to its discovery. A fat person would be expected to have soft, pudgy hands. And the eyebrows? He was, like, dead, and his brain and other organs had been removed. Any oddities of Elvis’ appearance can be explained by this and that fact that the Enquirer photograph was heavily re-touched.

Elvis at rest in the Meditation Garden at Graceland

Elvis is indeed not buried next to his mother, per his wishes, but between his father and grandmother, in the Meditation Garden at Graceland. He was first interred next to his mother, Gladys, in a crypt at the Forest Hill Cemetery on 1661 Elvis Presley Boulevard, but was moved after an attempted break-in by graverobbers. In 1999, Lisa Marie Presley also stated that she was bothered by the number of tourists who visited the site daily, and wished her father to be moved to a new location.

Elvis was given the name Elvis Aron Presley to mark his stillborn identical twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley. Elvis’ name was misspelled on his birth certificate, and his father, Vernon, made a considerable effort to have it corrected. Later in life, however, Elvis decided to change his middle name to the more Biblical Aaron. On 15 August, 1972, Elvis signed a property settlement agreement as Aaron. This is the spelling used by his estate. Similar confusion exists over the spelling of the name of his stillborn twin, which is usually spelled Jesse but was spelled Jessie on a memorial stone near the graves of Elvis, his parents, and grandmother.

Elvis applied for a million dollar life insurance policy in 1976, but did not purchase it. Alivers stumbled upon this application, but did not learn (or possibly did not mention) that it was never purchased. Elvis had three life insurance policies, and claims were made against two of them and a death benefit check received from the United States Treasury on February 21, 1978.

In 1976, Elvis had lost millions of dollars on a deal with a Mafia-connected organization known as the Fraternity involving one of his three airplanes, a JetStar. It has been said that his collaboration with the government on the investigation, Operation Fountain Pen, would have caused the Mob to retaliate and so he took advantage of witness protection. Elvis gave a deposition. It was his father, Vernon, who had power of attorney for Elvis and actually had contact with the criminals. Vernon gave more damaging evidence and actually testified against the Fraternity, but did not enter Witness Protection.

Flowers for Elvis. Photo: KozyKitten68.

Elvis’ funeral was a massive media event. In the days after his death, thousands of fans flocked to Memphis, causing President Carter to call out the National Guard. On the morning of the funeral, it took 100 vans five hours to transfer the assembled flowers from Graceland to Forest Hill Cemetery. 80,000 fans passed Elvis’ casket by the time Forest Hill closed at 6:30p.m.

On his final tour, Elvis supposedly joked repeatedly that although he did not look good at the time, he would look good in his casket. It has also been reported that Elvis made a number of night-time visits to funeral homes shortly before he died, with the customary lack of a source. Elvis’ most prized possessions included a bible, pharmaceutical books, books about death, and copies of Chiro’s Book of Numbers and Paramahansa Yogananda’s The Autobiography of Yogi. These books are said to have disappeared after his demise, although as with the previous factoids, it is not clear how this is known.

Elvis days before his final appearance on June 26, 1977.

It has been widely reported, based on no known source, that Elvis ordered no new suits for his upcoming tour of the United States, despite having supposedly put on 50 pounds since the last one. Although he had a predilection for grilled peanut butter, bacon, and banana sandwiches, 50 pounds is rather too much to believe and photographs of him at his final concert, on June 26, are not so horrifying. If we ignore that it is unproven that he ordered no new suits or put on 50 pounds, Elvis’ jumpsuits were not form-fitting, or they would have restricted his movement. He used few jumpsuits in his final years, and did not order a new one for the last tour he performed.

Elvis signed a lucrative deal with CBS to televise this tour, and was paid an unprecedented amount up front. RCA amassed an ungodly amount of Elvis recordings and merchandise, which is standard practice in the event of an act which is about to tour, but many people say not to the extent that prevailed. It would, however, be a crap conspiracy if the record company knew Elvis was going to fake his death.

Ellen Marie Foster had met Elvis outside the gates of Graceland in March, 1977 (or possibly some other time). She said he was attracted by her marked resemblance to his mother. Steve Chanzes’ 1981 book, Elvis, Where Are You?, included transcripts of her conversations with Elvis two days before he apparently died. Elvis allegedly said that he would not be going on tour as planned, that his troubles would soon be over, and that Foster should not believe everything she read if the tour did not proceed. Chanzes said that Foster passed a polygraph test, although R. Serge Denisoff and George Plasketes said in their book, True Disbelievers: The Elvis Contagion, that her account contained chronological inaccuracies and contradictions and polygraph tests are as reliable as reading animal entrails. Foster died in 1983, and nobody has suggested that she faked it.

Fans of Elvis are more likely to exhibit low self-esteem, a greater need for control, and more rationalization and cognitive dissonance than fans of the Beatles. Photo: Jreedtattooer.

Since then, Elvis has been sighted thousands of times, and other singers have been said to sound exactly like him. A conspiracy to fake his death would have required the participation of his family, friends, and business associates, medical personnel, and funeral home employees. A study of musical fans which was published late in the 1970s found that compared to fans of the Beatles, fans of Elvis were more likely to exhibit low self-esteem, a greater need for control, and more rationalization and cognitive dissonance. These factors would appear to be at work here. Elvis did not fake his death. He was obviously abducted by aliens.

Bibliography

“Aaron Spelling – The Final Word.” Elvis Decoded. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvisdecoded.com/.>
“Author Patrick Lacy talks to EIN.” Elvis Information Network. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvisinfonet.com/interview_patricklacy.html.>
“Did Elvis Presley Fake His Own Death?” Security-FAQs. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.security-faqs.com/did-elvis-presley-fake-his-own-death.html.>
“Elvis Presley.” Findadeath.com. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/p/Elvis%20Presley/elvis_presley.htm.>
“Frequently Asked Questions.” Elvis Presley – the Official Website. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvis.com/about-the-king/faq.aspx.>
“Is Elvid dead or alive?” Webspawner. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.webspawner.com/users/elviselvis/.>
“Phil Aitcheson (The Presley Commission) Talks To EIN.” Elvis Information Network. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.linkydinky.com/graceland/elvisalive.shtml.>
“Story Behind the Elvis Presley in his Coffin Picture.” Elvis Presley News. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvispresleynews.com/ElvisCoffinPicture.html.>
“The case for Elvis’s being alive or dead.” About Facts Net. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://aboutfacts.net/Mysterious7.htm.>
“The King isn’t dead.” CriticalBelievers. 8 June, 2010. 28 January 2012. <http://criticalbelievers.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=legends&action=print&thread=5318.>
“Top Ten Famous Toilets.” Time Magazine. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2016258_2016259_2016261,00.html.>
DeReno, Matt. “Elvis.” CoverUps.com. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.coverups.com/greatcoverups/elvis.htm.>
Fontenot, Robert. “What were the details of Elvis Presley’s funeral?.” About.com. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://oldies.about.com/od/elvisdeathfaq/f/elvisfuneral.htm.>
Lacy, Patrick. “There’s No Debate: Elvis Is Not Alive.” The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/theres_no_debate_elvis_is_not_alive/.>
Sheridan, Michael. “Chronic constipation killed Elvis Presley, claims his personal physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos.” New York Daily News. 6 May 2010. 28 January 2012. <http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-05-06/gossip/27063697_1_constipation-george-nichopoulos-elvis-presley.>
Taylor, Dave. “Why was Elvis Presley called the King of Rock ‘n Roll?” Ask Dave Taylor. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.askdavetaylor.com/why_was_elvis_presley_called_the_king_of_rock_n_roll.html.>
Troedson, David. “The Death Of Elvis Presley – August 16, 1977.” Elvis.com.au. 16 August 2009. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/biography/the_death_of_elvis_presley_august_16_1977.shtml.>

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by Timothy Chilman

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

If we say that a conspiracy theory is something few people believe – and by Jiminy, we do – then here’s a conspiracy theory: the Kama Sutra is actually not much good.

The Kama Sutra is on the third row, four from the left. Photo: Keith Williamson

Little is known of the Kama Sutra’s origins. The title is best translated as “A Treatise on Sex.” It can be convincingly argued that it was written in the latter half of the third century CE: it doesn’t mention the Guptas, who ruled North India from the beginning of the fourth century and it’s referred to by the Vasavadatta in the fifth century. It was certainly written post-225CE because the Abhiras and Andrhas get a name-check, and they ruled until 225CE.

The Kama Sutra is a handbook of tantric sex, as practiced by Sting. Photo: Sandalford Wines.

While tantra is never mentioned, the Kama Sutra is a handbook of tantric sex as practised by Sting, except unlike him it’s advisable to use deodorant (he sez “I prefer my own smell”). Tantra, a branch of Hinduism, holds that people should follow the triple path: material wealth, religion and sexual fulfilment. i.e. power, piety and pleasure, or in Sanskrit, artha, dharma and kama. This trumps the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity in its view of sex, although I could do without the middle bit.

It was probably written in Northwest India, being dismissive toward other parts of the country. The only city mentioned is Pataliputra, near present-day Patna, Bihar, so it is thought it was written there.

The author was Vatsyayana Mallanaga. Vatsyayana was his family name, and Mallanaga was the name he received at initiation as a monk, meaning “elephant among wrestlers.” You’d be forgiven for thinking Vatsyayana was a bit of a Romeo, however he says the book was written “in chastity and the highest meditation.” Each of its seven component books is a precis of someone else’s text.

The Kama Sutra was ahead of its times in many ways. Kama is the Hindu god of love, and the clitoris is “Kama’s umbrella.” The god of fertility doesn’t get a look-in, thus separating sex from procreation, something yet to be accomplished by the Pope. Its attitude to female orgasm is realistic, which the Western world achieved only comparatively recently.

As we shall see, the Kama Sutra’ position vis-à-vis wimmen was sometimes barbaric, but even then it was ahead of other books of its time, and it often speaks with a convincing female voice. For example, some of the reasons given for a woman to commit adultery are sympathetic, if obvious.

The G spot is #4.

The Kama Sutra mentions the G-Spot, but doesn’t tell you how to find it. The G-Spot is named after the German gynaecologist, Ernst Graefenberg. Betcha didn’t know that. Western science only acknowledged the existence of this “certain spot” in the 1980s. As Francis Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, once said, “In Science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs”. Think of Christopher Columbus, whom we say “discovered” America, even though people had already lived there for quite a little while.

The Kama Sutra was written in Sanskrit, a language akin to Latin in that now only scholars speak it. In Vatsyayana’s time, it indicated social status.

Captain Sir Richard Burton, who first published the Kama Sutra

The book came to Western attention when the barnstorming explorer, Captain Sir Richard Burton, arranged its publication in the 19th century. Burton was the subject of a rather good film, Mountains of the Moon. The legwork of translating what we know as the “Burton Edition” was performed by two Indians, Bhagavanlal Indrajit and Shivaram Parashuram Bhide. Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot, known to Burton as “Bunnie”, performed further work on the text and financed the venture. Arbuthnot later blamed the Indians when he got into trouble for producing what was considered unbridled obscenity in a society where it was impolite to mention your underwear. Burton polished the text, but is most noteworthy for having the courage to publish, and courage is all-too-rare. He referred to it himself as “Arbuthnot’s Vatsyayana.”

When the Kama Sutra was first published, it replaced the word "dildo" with "statue." Photo: epSos.de.

This first translation from Sanskrit changed the meaning of individual words and even whole passages, e.g. substituting “statue” for “dildo.” Subsequent translations were even worse.

One contemporary paperback edition has sixty pages of introduction by its translators, whereas the Burton edition had an introduction by Arbuthnot. In the modern-day edition, there are 180 pages of text, of which perhaps a third is elucidation by Yashodhara, who wrote the definitive commentary to the book in the 12th century. Yashodhara’s work is several times longer than Vatsyayana’s, and thankfully only excerpts were included in the copy used by this article. Burton’s edition freely mixed Yashodhara’s text with Vatsyayana’s.

In an ultimately unsuccessful effort to stay out of the dock, instead of using the words “penis” and “vagina,” Burton & co. employed the Sanskrit euphemisms “lingam” and “yoni.” The former means “wand of light” and the latter, “sacred place” or “sacred temple.”

The edition used here has eight pages of modern Hindu commentary by Devadatta Shastri and 31 pages of notes by the translators.

Publishing the Kama Sutra necessitates detective work, consulting various derivatives because the original is lost in the mists of time. Modern translations are quite readable.

The Kama Sutra alone gives insight into the sexual mores of its time, as “Walter’s” My Secret Life did for Victorian England. While Walter periodically exclaimed, “I was clapped!”, the Kama Sutra mentions the STD “Desire’s Donkey”.

Men's Health magazine once included a booklet which had more to say about sex than the Kama Sutra.

Nothing surpassed the Kama Sutra for one-and-a-half millennia, but if you want to know about fucking, you should try something else. Men’s Health magazine once issued a free booklet, Sex Secrets Women Wish Men Knew, which had more to say about sex than did the Kama Sutra. For example, it says that while making the “beast with two backs,” a man should not just thrust his Mighty Rod of Thunder in and out, but he should move it around and around. Nothing in the Kama Sutra is as useful as that.

The Kama Sutra is out of copyright, allowing one to quote it freely. Here’s a potted guide to the book, for as Vatsyayana said, “Wise men of the world like to have things told in both a contracted and an expanded form.”

The Kama Sutra is intended for a man sustained by unearned income. He finishes his day’s business by noon, then has a bath, with female servants rubbing scented thingies into his hair.

The nagaraka, i.e. “man about town,” is instructed to shave all his bodily hair every fifth day, and keep a spittoon in his bedroom. Yashodhara adds that he should colour his lips with red lac, held in place by beeswax. I’m all for shaving my nether regions, but I’d rather keep the hairy chest, if you don’t mind, and I’ll give the lipstick a miss, even though it’s evocative of the female genitalia in arousal. One is instructed to suck a stick of lemon bark smeared with honey to avoid bad breath, which may well be worth trying.

Our hero sleeps in an outer bedroom, with his wife, should he have one, in the inner. After they perform rahas, “the secret act,” the man will sleep on a couch, which the rest of us only resort to when we’ve argued bitterly. But it’s OK to stay abed all night with a courtesan, the Kama Sutra’s very nice term for what the hand-wringing British Guardian newspaper calls a “sex worker.”

The Kama Sutra says that if you want a fuck, you should teach a mynah bird to talk.

The key to scoring is the 64 fine arts. Vatsyayana scraped the bottom of the barrel to get up to 64, a number sacred in Hinduism, and so his arts include such winners as cutting leaves into shapes and making lines on the floor with rice-powder and flowers. Kudos can be gained by teaching a parrot or mynah bird to talk, which may be advantageous when it comes to getting a shag but is not humane when you think of the birdy: parrots only imitate humans when they’re lonely; multiple parrots won’t talk.

The Kama Sutra is big on lists, e.g. “Procedures of Kissing” and “Reasons for a Woman to commit adultery.” The list of wimmen not eligible as lovers includes lepers, lunatics, a woman “who asks for it in public,” bad-smelling wimmen, and fortune-tellers. I’d quite like to try a fortune-teller. However, “any woman who is known to have had five men is eligible,” which presumably encompasses the leprous. Just don’t shag her in the open, or she’ll be “Gone with the Wind.”

People are divided into three categories according to the size of their naughty bits. Men are hares, buffalo, and horses, while wimmen are deer, mares, and elephants. The most comfortable unions are between people of the same size. The next time you hear a woman express a liking for large cocks, tell her this makes her “elephant woman” in the parlance of The Kama Sutra.

Yashodhara helpully informs us that wimmen can make each other pregnant when they do a “chapati” and rub vulvas:

“As Sushruta says:
‘When a woman and a woman
make love together,
and emit semen into one another
a child is born without bones’”.

Er, thanks for that, Yash.

“Women from Malava and Abhira like embracing, kissing, scratching, biting and sucking, and although they do not like to be wounded they can be won over by slaps.” Sean Connery must have read this.

There are actually not many sexual positions described in the Kama Sutra.

Although “all the positions in the Kama Sutra” is a refrain you hear from time to time, not many positions are described, and lacking an illustrated copy, I could never work out what went where. Chapter Six of Book Two is “Varieties of Sexual Positions”, and it’s only three-and-a-half pages, half of which is Yashodhara’s commentary. Ignoring minor variations, I counted 24 positions in The Kama Sutra, and I’ve been through it twice. This isn’t a huge number, far less than on a one-page, wipe-clean, laminated aide memoire I got from a New Age bookshop in Sydney. But once more, the Kama Sutra is ahead of Christianity. St Thomas Aquinas, who was central to the development of Christianity, said any sexual position other than the missionary was worse than doing it with your mother.

Vatsyayana allows the woman to go on top, calling it purushayitva – “playing the man’s part”. He recommends against it if the woman is fat, if she has a close-fitting vadge or if she has “fallen to the communists” (i.e. is menstruating). Yashodhara passes on more of his unparalleled sexual knowledge, informing us that conception on these occasions can lead to a child born with a “reversed nature,” i.e. homosexual.

Hickeys are in!

At least hickeys are in: “This mark beautifies the left cheek, just like an earring”. But it causes such consternation at work the next day.

Sex in the water is recommended. I once heard that if the woman gets water inside her she’ll get air-bubbles in her bloodstream, a possibly terminal condition better known as “the bends,” but this would appear to be incorrect. A guy claiming to be a scuba instructor who had specialized in deep-water compression dives for more than a decade said this was physiologically impossible, and he sounds like the kind of person you should listen to. Worse yet, Google turns up nothing.

This is the portion of the book containing the Kama Sutra’s only mention of “sex below” – anal sex. Fucking up the arse is given less airing in the Kama Sutra than perhaps it deserves, and no hint is given as to the practicalities of introducing a foreign object to somebody’s shit-chute. Stimulation of the prostate, the male G-Spot, is mentioned not at all. Poor show, Vatsyayana!

Vatsyayana sounds a note of caution when he describes death and injury sustained through sex: “The king of the cholas killed Chitrasena, a courtesan de luxe, by using the ‘wedge’ during sex. And the Kuntala king Shatakarni Shatavahana killed his queen, Malayavati, by using the ‘scissor’. Naradeva, whose hand was deformed, blinded a dancing-girl in one eye by using the ‘drill’ clumsily.”

Homosexuality crops up, but not often. Wimmen of the “third nature” are adduced a few times. Men of the “third nature” are only depicted performing oral sex. How do they get by? “The one in the form of a man, however, conceals her desire when she wants a man and makes a living as a masseur.” (Italics mine) This is somewhat anti-diluvian.

Oral sex is favoured by some parts of the book, but not always, a sign that the Kama Sutra originated as separate books. In Chapter Nine of Book Two, the section devoted to oral sex, at the bottom of the page Yashodhara tells us:

“As Vasishtha says:
‘But a man who copulates
in the mouth of his wife
causes his ancestors to starve
for fifteen years’”.

My ancestors will starve for evermore.

The 69 position is referred to as “sex in the manner of crows,” a delightful fragment of language and so called because one is taking something unclean in the mouth, like a crow.

Book Three is about voigins:

“Never court a girl
with a disgusting name
that is a constellation, a river, a tree
or ends in a syllable beginning with ‘l’ or ‘r’”

If you desire a voigin and she is unimpressed by your gifts of betel, the Kama Sutra says you should rape her. Photo: Augapfel.

Advice is given on wooing a voigin and on how to treat one acquired through arranged marriage. All well and good. But there will be times when you fail to convince her parents that you’re a good bet, or maybe she just doesn’t like you. Well, if she isn’t won over by gifts of betel (there’s a lot of betel), leaves cut into shapes, and talking mynah birds, you rape her. Pardon? I think it’s wrong to rape wimmen, even when they turn you down. But Vatsyayana disagrees. If you ply her with drink and deflower her while she’s unconscious, that’s the Wedding of the Ghouls. And if you kill her bodyguards, remove her from the scene, and “take her by force,” that’s the Wedding of the Ogres. To avoid dishonouring the family, her parents will then permit you to marry her. I thought this wicked, however the Bible is in favour. As Vatsyayana says, a voigin “is just like any other piece of merchandise.”

Book Four, about wives, is mostly irrelevant in a country where you’re only allowed to marry one at a time. Nothing remains which is fodder for mockery.

This brings us onto Book Five: Other Men’s Wives. Married wimmen aren’t always attainable, for as Yashodhara says, “There actually are a few women who have regard for religion or the violation of religion.”

A woman who is a good bet can be one who looks out from her rooftop porch onto the main street; who stares constantly; who looks sideways when someone looks at her; who has been supplanted by a co-wife for no good reason; who hates her husband; who lacks restraint; who has no children; who has always lived in the house of relatives; who has been dishonoured by her husband when she has done nothing wrong; whose husband travels a lot; whose husband is jealous, impotent, unmanly, or bad-smelling… And that’s a representative taster of the Kama Sutra: lists which are self-evident, irrelevant to this day and age, or plain bullshit.

The Kama Sutra says that you can make yourself invisible using the heart of a mongoose, the fruits of a fenugreek plant and a long gourd, and snake eyes. Photo: Arthur de Vries.

A cunning stunt useful in the wooing of another man’s wife is recounted. It is “pocket-no-pocket.” First, take the heart of a mongoose, the fruits of a fenugreek plant with a long gourd, and snake eyes. Cook them over a fire that does not smoke. Rub into this the same measure of collyrium as a man uses in his eye make-up, and smear the concoction into your eyes. This makes you invisible, having no body or shadow.

The rest of the procedure for wooing the wife of another is as per voigins, except female messengers can be employed. Otherwise, you do the usual, giving gifts of betel and so forth. Betel reddens the lips, gives you a mild buzz, acts as an aphrodisiac and wards off evil spirits. Western science concedes it is good for the body, protecting teeth and aiding digestion, which will more than adequately compensate when long-term usage turns your teeth black. If a married woman rejects your advances but still comes to see you and “dresses carefully,” you have Vatsyayana’s blessing to rape her.

Book Six, on Courtesans, was allegedly commissioned by ladies of that ilk. There’s little of interest to your average crack whore, but you should know that if she tells you that she requires money to build a temple, it’s merely a ruse to separate you from your hard-earned gelt.

Take the shit of a peacock that has eaten red or yellow arsenic...

Book Seven is complete bullshit: magic spells. “If you coat your penis with an ointment made with powdered white thorn-apple, black pepper and long pepper, mixed with honey, you put your sexual partner in your power.” But watch out, says Yashodhara: “Do this in such a way that the woman you want does not realise, ‘A man with something spread on his penis is making love to me.’” Ingredients for other spells include a female “circle-maker” buzzard that died of natural causes, the shit of a monkey with a red face, the shit of a peacock that has eaten red or yellow arsenic, and the sweat of the testicles of a white horse. Prescribed methodologies will see you mixing your potion in a gourd made from a human skull or storing it in the hollowed-out trunk of a rosewood tree for six months.

But the trick of most interest to any guy is the one that enlarges his Spear of Destiny:

“Rub your penis with the bristles of insects born in trees, then massage it with oil for ten nights, then rub it again and massage it again. When it swells up as a result of this treatment, lie down on a cot with your face down and let your penis hang down from a hole in the cot. Then you may assuage the pain with cool astringents and, by stages, finish the treatment. This swelling, which lasts for a lifetime, is the one that voluptuaries call ‘prickled.’”

This trick is guaranteed to work at least as effectively as the ones you delete from your Junk Mail folder every morning, and it has the advantage that no credit card is required.

And that’s the Kama Sutra. When I was looking for a copy in Foyle’s, the largest bookshop in the United Kingdom, I was told it was the most frequently stolen book. The shoplifters are wrong. If you really want to know about sex, I recommend Ecstasy through Tantra by Dr John Mumford or The Multi Orgasmic Man by Mantak Chia.and Douglas Abrams Arava. Ever wondered why they do all that business with blindfolds? When you can’t see it heightens the other senses. It also obviates the need for costumes in role-play and lowers inhibitions for both parties, although it’s been a few years since I last experienced an inhibition. That isn’t in the Kama Sutra. Both books tell you how a man can minimise the refractory period, the time between having an orgasm and getting wood again. That isn’t in the Kama Sutra, either. The Kama Sutra was of historic significance. It’s well-worth reading because you’ll know what people are talking about when they mention it blithely, according it undue significance. But when it comes to fucking, look elsewhere.

Related posts:

1. Hitler in the Sack
2. Shave Your Pubes Off NOW!
3. The Transvestism of John Edgar Hoover

by Timothy Chilman

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

There are twice as many biographies of Hitler as there are of Churchill, and three times as many as for Rooseelt and Stalin. Photo: billium12

Adolf Hitler. The name is synonymous with evil. He was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. It is said that there exist more than 700 biographies of him: more than twice as many as for Churchill and three times as many as for Roosevelt and Stalin. And so the question inevitably arises: what was he like in the sack?

First of all, did Hitler have the necessary equipment? The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner to the CIA, tracked down Hitler’s family doctor, Dr. Eduard Bloch, to New York, to which he had relocated as a refugee. Dr. Bloch said that as a child, Hitler was “genitally normal.” There are, however, widespread rumors that this did not last. The humorous, British song from the Second World War, Hitler Has Only Got One Ball, popularized the idea. This song was sung to the tune of Colonel Bogey, which was the theme of the 1957 film, The Bridge on the River Kwai. There are many who believe the song got it right.

Researchers can always be found who will say, “Investigation demonstrates that Hitler acted very much like certain kinds of neurotic monorchids.” However, the strongest evidence that Hitler was monorchic is the account of a priest, Franciszek Pawlar, who had received the confession of Johan Jambor, a front-line medic serving with the German army during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Jambor died in 1985 at the age of 94, but had revealed his secret to the priest, who made a note of the conversation.

Hitler as a soldier during the First World War

Jambor collected injured soldiers for some hours. He recalled Hitler, who was referred to as “the Screamer” by those present because he screamed so much for help. His legs and abdomen were bloody. He had lost a testicle, and asked the doctor: “Will I be able to have children?”

The story was confirmed by Jambor’s friend Blassius Hanczuch, who said that after the Nazis came to power, Jambor suffered nightmares and blamed himself for saving Hitler.

The story was reported by the sordid British tabloid, The Sun. Neither the document nor the witness have been produced, but German army records show that Hitler was wounded in the groin at the Somme. Ian Kershaw, who authored a recent, much-respected biography of Hitler, said that the wound was to Hitler’s left thigh. The story was repeated by print and electronic sources on both sides of the Atlantic, which included some serious broadsheets.

In his 1968 book, The Death of Adolf Hitler, ex-Red Army intelligence officer Lev Bezymenski claimed that the Soviet autopsy of Hitler discovered that he possessed only one gonad, but later admitted this was untrue, and was one of several alterations he made at the behest of the KGB.

Allegations of Hitler’s homosexuality began when he was in power. The idea has featured in a number of books, most notably The Pink Swastika, by Pastor Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, and The Hidden Hitler, by Lothar Machtan. The Pink Swastika’s audience can be gauged by that fact that it was sold by the right-wing loonies at WorldNetDaily at a discount of $12.

Hip, homosexual poet, Allen Ginsberg, testified to the Supreme Court that the Nazi party was heavily homosexual.

The Pink Swastika quotes Allen Ginsberg, the hip, homosexual poet who in 1966 testified at an obscenity trial concerning William Burroughs’ book, the Naked Lunch. Ginsberg was asked by a Justice of the Supreme Court whether there might, at some point in the future, be a political party comprised of homosexuals. Ginsberg said it had already happened with the Nazis under Hitler. The exchange was related by the Gray Lady.

Lothar Machtan is a German historian with impressive academic credentials. Joachim Fest and Alan Bullock’s classic biographies of Hitler were used by Machtan as sources, and made some of the same points, although they were not emphasized.

During his younger years in Vienna, Hitler and his best friend frequented areas notorious for homosexual doings. Hitler stayed at a flophouse known universally as a hotbed of butt piracy. The records of the police in Vienna listed him as a “sexual pervert,“ although no offences are listed and this might have been no more than a suspicion. In May 1913, he moved to Munich, known as “a regular El Dorado for homosexuals.“ Machtan’s evidence is circumstantial, but men have gone to the gallows on circumstantial evidence.

Hitler can be placed elsewhere on the spectrum of sexuality. Hitler: the Missing Years was a book written by Ernst Hanfstängl, who became a close friend of Hitler in the 1920s after seeing him speak in a Munich beer hall but later fell out with him. He claims to have come up with the chant of “Sieg Heil.“ He recounted that his wife said of Hitler: “Putzi, I tell you he is a neuter.” He said that Hitler often remarked that he would never marry a woman because Germany was his bride. Hanfstängl wrote a report on Hitler for President Roosevelt, which Roosevelt described as his “bedtime reading“ during the war.

Homosexual Ernst Röhm was instrumental in Hitler's rise to power.

Hitler’s ascent to power was due in a large part due to the influence of two brilliant homosexuals: Ernst Röhm, who became the head of the paramilitary Sturm Abteilung (Storm Troopers), and Dietrich Eckart. It was often said that Hitler’s tolerance of Röhm was because the latter could prove Hitler was an anal astronaut, and that Hitler had Röhm killed in the Night of the Long Knives to deal with the problem.

In a 1931 exposé of the Nazis (short for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or National Socialist German Workers’ Party), the Munich Post mirrored Allen Ginsberg by accusing party members of “the most shameless practices,“ activities forbidden by paragraph 175 of the penal code, which declared homosexuality a criminal offense.

Machtan detailed the soi disant “Mend Protocol,“ which was the testimony of dispatch rider Hans Mend. Mend had served alongside Hitler in the Great War and swore up and down that he had witnessed Hitler engage in homosexual acts with a fellow runner, Ernst Schmidt. Mend was subsequently found to be a liar and blackmailer, but he initially made his allegation in his memoirs, before Hitler became famous, and therefore was not seeking attention. Machtan claimed that Hitler was denied promotion because of his ass banditry.

Hitler formed intimate attachments to a number of men. He is said to have referred to one, Albert Förster, the obviously homosexual Danzig Gauleiter, as “Bubi,“ a nickname commonly used by homosexuals for their partners.

Hitler was a model soldier during his four years in the Army. He was excessively submissive to his officers, frequently volunteering to to do their washing and see to their clothes: he assumed the feminine role. His attitude to the Hitler youth could possibly be construed as motherly. Revisionist historian, David Irving, said that wimmen who have read Hitler’s book, Table Talk, “marveled at his insight into the female psyche.“

Hitler's friend, August Kubizek, around the time of Hitler's infatuation with Stephanie Isak

Hitler was a stalker. He became interested in Stefanie Isak, an attractive woman, in 1905, when he was 16 years old. He and his friend, August Kubizek, would loiter to see her when she crossed a bridge to go to the main square of the town where she lived at 5p.m. every evening. Isak was not Jewish, but her name appears so, and it was not mentioned in his official biography, which was a heavily edited version of Kubizek’s memoirs. Hitler believed she was Jewish.

Hitler was too yellow to introduce himself. But then words, he believed, were unnecessary. He was convinced that Isak intuited his beliefs, and agreed wholeheartedly. When Kubizek displayed doubt that Hitler could know what Stefanie thought without speaking to her, he became enraged, and said, “You simply don’t understand, because you can’t understand the truth meaning of extraordinary love.”

Hitler would write love poems about Isak with such titles as Hymn to the Beloved. Hitler’s face lit up with “fervent ecstasy” when he read these poems to Kubizek. She was unaware that Hitler was stalking her. Hitler would be deliriously happy when she smiled at him, and “crushed” when she ignored him.

Hitler seriously considered kidnapping Isak, but gave up on the idea for lack of funds. He then considered suicide, jumping from the Danube bridge. Isak would, of course, have to die with him. Hitler’s mood lightened in June 1906, at the Linz flower festival, when Isak smiled at him and threw him a flower from her festival carriage. “She loves me,” he said to Kubizek. “You have seen! She loves me!” He kept the flower in a locket for years.

In 1926, Mimi Reiter was a 16 year-old shop-girl in Obersalzberg, a preferred location of Hitler’s. In an interview with the German magazine, Stern, in 1959, she told of a picnic she had had with Hitler in some woods. He hugged her “real tight” and kissed her, but “He didn’t know what to do.” Hitler lost interest in her and she attempted suicide by hanging, then married but left her husband. Rudolf Hess later enjoined her to meet with Hitler in Munich. She later said that sex occurred: “I let everything happen.” A relationship was not possible because he could not be linked to a woman who had left her husband. By 1934, Hitler wished Reiter to become his lover, but she wanted marriage, and Hitler said that would have interfered with his “big mission.” Reiter’s sister confirmed Hitler’s interest in her.

Geli Raubel

In 1925, Hitler met Geli Raubal, the daughter of his half-sister. She was 19 years old. He fell madly in love with her, although she gave no more than a little affection in return. He was then no more than Member Number Seven of the Nazi party, and she made him neglect his political duties. Rather than turn up for meetings, he would spend his evenings strolling the parks of Munich with Geli on his arm. Hitler’s family did not take to the idea of his marrying his step-niece. One day in 1931, after seeing Hitler, she wrote him a letter explaining why she could not marry him, her Onkel Alf. After posting the letter, she locked herself in a room and shot herself with Hitler’s Walther 6.35 pistol.

There are stories that Hitler partook of the kind of sexual strangeness that would be expected of him. It is said that he was a copraphile: he got Raubal to shit in his mouth. The claim was made in an OSS report, which was published under the title, A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend. Erns Hanfstängl and one-time Nazi leader, Otto Strassner, who both had axes to grind with Hitler, told the same story.

Although it is not clear how this information was obtained, the OSS report quotes the then-dead Raubal as saying Hitler would ask her to squat over him and defecate upon him. He is known to have liked this view. Röhm is widely-quoted as having said, “He is thinking about the peasant girls. When they stand in the fields and bend down at their work so that you can see their behinds, that’s what he likes, especially when they’ve got big round ones. That’s Hitler’s sex life.”

There would be a very sound explanation for why he enjoyed such a thing. Hitler’s mother was abstemious to a fault. There was never a speck of dust in the house. Hitler’s toilet training is likely to have been harsh. This usually leads to “residual tension in this area.“ Fantasies become fixated around the topic.

Hitler’s speech and writing could be construed as displaying such a fixation. The subjects a person considers important enough to mention reveal subconscious leanings. Scientific experiments have borne this out. So we have…

“…dragged into the dirt and filth of the lowest depths.”

“Charity is sometimes actually comparable to the manure which is spread on the field, not out of love for the latter, but out of precaution for one’s own benefit later on.”

“And when he <the Jew> turns the treasures over in his hand they are transformed into dirt and dung.”

“You don’t understand: we are just passing a magnet over a dunghill, and we shall see presently how much iron was in the dunghill and has clung to the magnet.” (the “dunghill” was the German people.)

The OSS report often refers to the work of Freud, which has since been discredited. Hitler, it said, often had shit on his mind, and a number of historians and biographers have been convinced that he also had it in his mouth.

Renate Müller

Renate Müller was a singer and one of the most successful actresses in Germany. She knew Hitler in the mid-1930s. Once, she appeared dejected at the studio where she worked. Her superior inquired why, and she told him of her one-night stand with Hitler. They had both undressed, whereupon Hitler lay on the floor and begged her to kick him. She declined. He flagellated himself verbally until she acceded to his wishes. This excited him much, and he begged for more. She committed suicide shortly after.

Eva Braun was one of the three daughters of a conventional Catholic family in Munich. Her school grades were average. She liked romantic novels, Hollywood movies, gymnastics, and dancing. After leaving a convent school, she began work as a studio assistant for Heinrich Hoffman, the official photographer of the Nazi Party. She was 17 years-old, fresh-faced, and chestnut haired when she met the 40 year-old Adolf in October 1929. He had opened a door to enter a room, where Eva stood on a ladder, giving him a good view of her legs.

A relationship did not begin until late in 1931, when Hitler was on the rebound after the suicide of Geli Raubal. Hoffman said that “never, in voice, look or gesture, did Hitler behave in any way that suggested any deeper interest in her.” He never allowed the pair of them to be seen in public for fear of losing popularity with females. He stated that he was “married to the destiny of Germany.”

Hitler treated Braun awfully. She was not allowed to be present for dinner if important guests were in attendance. He hated her wearing cosmetics, dressing in anything but the most unflattering clothes, smoking, and sunbathing nekkid. Fortunately, he was absent much of the time. He made his views of wimmen abundantly clear, and once said to his confidante, the Nazis’ favorite architect, Albert Speer, that “A highly intelligent man should take a primitive and stupid woman.” He occasionally purchased dirt-cheap jewelry for Braun.

Eva Braun

The collection of shoes Braun acquired in the course of many shopping trips provided little solace. Speer said she showed “gay serenity,” but she attempted suicide twice, shooting herself in the throat and missing her jugular in 1932 and taking an overdose of sleeping pills in 1935. These were cries for attention instead of determined attempts to kill herself. Hitler was unswayed.

In 1935, Braun wrote in her diary: “If only I had never set eyes on him! I am utterly miserable. I shall go out and buy some more sleeping powder and go into a dreamlike state.” Her cousin, Gertrude Weisker, said, Braun was “the unhappiest woman I ever met.”

Professor Theo Morell was the last of the eight personal physicians used by Hitler during his time in power. People commented on his body odor, causing Hitler to reply: “I do not employ him for his fragrance, but for his medical care of me.” Morell said that Hitler, like Churchill, had a low libido. Hitler and Braun had separate beds, but it is known that he liked her to wear chamois leather underwear.

Professor emeritus of medicine Hans-Joachim Neumann and historian Henrik Eberle used documentary evidence, principally the papers of Theo Morell, and present-day medical analysis to produce the book, Was Hitler Ill? The book says that by the end of the war, Hitler was taking 82 different medications. Hitler took considerable quantities of an anti-flatulence medication which included strychnine, a nerve agent which is an ingredient of rat poison.

Theo Morrell was Hitler's personal physician and stank like a polecat.

Hitler was scared of pills, so everything was injected. Theo Morell was christened “Herr Reichinjektionmeister” by Hermann Göring, who was addicted to morphine by the end of the war and not one to talk. Hitler was given a drug with the same intended effect as Viagra: it contained testosterone and was made from the semen and prostate glands of young bulls.

Friends and relatives of Eva Braun say she giggled upon seeing a photograph of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain sitting atop a sofa in Hitler’s flat in Munich in 1938. Braun remarked: “If only he knew what goings-on that sofa has seen.“

While sex appears to have occurred, it will not have been much. Hitler’s valet, Heinz Linge, said in a television interview that his wife was Hitler’s housekeeper, and she never found stains on the sheets. Hitler’s bedding was adorned with an eagle atop a swastika, betwixt the letters A and H and inside a circle. A bedsheet cover and pillowcase was sold at auction by Dreweatts for $3,150.

It has been widely speculated that Hitler had syphilis. Morell’s notes show that he had an abnormal heartbeat, which is an indicator of syphilitic aortitis. From 1941, Hitler received regular injections of iodide salts, then a therapy for cardiac syphilis. His restrictive palsies, gastric pain, chest pain, neck pustules, dizziness, encephalitis, and oh-so-well documented flatulence are all associated with syphilis, and led Robert Berger, a cardiac surgeon at Harvard Medical School, to conclude that Hitler may well have suffered from the condition. Morell was one of Germany’s principal experts in the disease. Hitler may have been diagnosed with syphilis at a field hospital in 1918, when he was recovering from a gas attack, and it is possible that documentary evidence of this was destroyed on the orders of Heinrich Himmler.

And there we have it. Hitler’s girlfriend could expect chamois leather underwear, much farting, and possibly syphilis, but not much sex, and even what there was would have been pharmaceutically-assisted. She would, perhaps, have shat in his mouth. Sooner or later, it is very likely that she would have killed herself. At least the uniforms were cool.

Bibliography

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“Was Hitler’s Homosexuality Nazism’s Best-Kept Secret?” Free Republic. 5 February 2002. 12 October 2011. <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/622393/posts.>
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Connoly, Kate. “Nazi loyalist and Adolf Hitler’s devoted aide: the true story of Eva Braun.” Guardian. 14 February 2010. 12 October 2011. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/14/eva-braun-adolf-hitler.>
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Hough, Andrew. “Adolf Hitler took ‘primitive Viagra’ to have sex with Eva Braun, claims new book.” Daily Telegraph. 6 February 2010. 12 October 2011. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7170290/Adolf-Hitler-took-primitive-Viagra-to-have-sex-with-Eva-Braun-claims-new-book.html.>
Jones, Nigel. “More than a dumb blonde?” Daily Telegraph. 23 April 2006. 12 October 2011. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3651780/More-than-a-dumb-blonde.html.>
Kohler, Pauline. “Hitler’s Sex Life.” Liberty Magazine. n.d. 12 October 2011. <http://www.libertymagazine.com/war_kohler.htm.>
Roberts, Andrew. “Hitler’s secret Jewish girlfriend.” Daily Mail. 8 September 2006. 12 October 2011. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-404301/Hitlers-secret-Jewish-girlfriend.html.>
Rosenbaum, Ron. “Everything You Need To Know About Hitler’s ‘Missing’ Testicle.” Slate. 28 November 2008. 12 October 2011. <http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2008/11/everything_you_need_to_know_about_hitlers_missing_testicle.single.html.>
Rosenbaum, Ron. “Queer as Volk?” Slate. 3 December 2001. 12 October 2011. <http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2001/12/queer_as_volk.html.>
Walters, Guy. “Hitler’s mistress: Extraordinary lost pictures of Eva Braun at play.” Daily Mail. 11 March 2011. 12 October 2011. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1364687/Hitlers-mistress-Eva-Brauns-rare-pictures-party-mode-dressed-Al-Jolson.html.>

Related posts:

1. Did Hitler Get Away?
2. Did Hitler Escape from the Bunker?
3. How the United States Narrowly Missed a Coup

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

Was J. Edgar Hoover a tranny?

The National Observer said that the name J. Edgar Hoover is associated with transvestism as closely as “Rolls” is with “Royce” and “Laurel” with “Hardy.” So what is the truth of it? Did he honestly feel more comfortable wearing a fluffy gown, a suspender belt, and false eyelashes?

Ralph de Toledano, a mainstay of the conservative movement in the United States throughout the latter half of the 20th century, said, “You know, there’d been a lot of talk about Hoover and this and that and the transvestite stuff and so on. Nonsense. Hoover had one wife, and that was his Federal Bureau of Investigation, that was his whole life.”

Hoover with Clyde Tolson, who was quite possibly his lover

Homosexuality on Hoover’s part was highly plausible. Hoover resided with his mother until her death in 1938. For over 40 years, he was inseparable from his right-hand man, Deputy Director of the FBI, Clyde Tolson. Both were bachelors and they vacationed together. Hoover and Tolson are buried side-by-side. Gay activists now have been known to include Hoover and Tolson in their lists of famous gay couples. The pair were treated as a couple by high society: Hoover would never be invited to dinner sans Tolson. They double-dated with Broadway star, Ethel Merman and Sherman Billingsley, the owner of the Stork Club, when the latter two were in the throes of an affair. They did the same with Richard and Pat Nixon. In the 1960s, FBI agents referred to them as “J. Edna” and “Mother Tolson.”

The film, J. Edgar, which was directed by Clint Eastwood, portrayed Hoover and Tolson as unrequited lovers. They kissed, held hands and quarreled like lovers, but may not have gone further than that. Hoover is seen donning his recently-deceased mother’s dress, but the film does not make him out to be a fully-fledged tranny. But then, it never mentioned COINTELPRO, either.

Hoover shortly before his appointment as head of the FBI

Rumors of Hoover’s homosexuality appeared as soon as he became head of the FBI in 1926. A magazine article in the 1930s described his “mincing” manner of walking. He was somewhat dandyish, and favored white linen suits as a young man. His voice was highly affected, and Leonardo DeCaprio had a hard time mimicking it in J. Edgar. Hoover kept classical statues of male nudes in his home. Many people sensed that his relationship with Tolson went beyond friendship. An article published by Fordham University, one of the best 60 universities in the United States, described Tolson as Hoover’s “true love.” When Hoover died in 1972, President Nixon exclaimed: “Jesus Christ! That old cocksucker!” It is possible he was not speaking figuratively.

The transvestism thing was described most comprehensively in Anthony Summers’ gossipy 1993 biography of Hoover, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover. Summers had previously written of the JFK assassination. He repeated explosive allegations by Susan, the one-time fourth wife of liquor magnate, Lewis Rosentiel, a bootlegger who made his fortune after the repeal of Prohibition by starting the United States’ largest distillery, Schenley Industries.

Susan says that she and her husband were met at the door of Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel by Roy Cohn, formerly an aide to Senator Jospeph McCarthy and a Republican power broker. Taken to the bedroom of a suite, Mrs. Rosentiel says she saw Hoover, whom she had met previously in her townhouse in the Upper East Side of New York. Mrs. Rosentiel’s husband had told her that Hoover granted him access to influential politicians, and he returned the favor by paying off his gambling debts.

Hoover was reportedly seen wearing stockings and a short skirt, Photo: Tvinhose1

According to Susan, Hoover was in drag: he wore a black dress that was “very fluffy, with flounces” in addition to “lace stockings, high heels, and a curly black wig.” He wore make-up, false eyelashes, and a very short skirt, the dirty slut. He sat with his legs crossed. Mrs. Rosentiel said Hoover looked like a flapper. Cohn had warned her not to comment, and gave the FBI Director’s name as “Mary” when he introduced her to him. Hoover said, “Good evening,” as if it were the first time they had met.

Two blond boys entered the “tremendous bedroom, with a bed like in Caesar’s time,” and on orgy commenced. Hoover removed his dress and underclothing, to reveal a garter belt. The boys “work[ed] on him with their hands,” with one wearing rubber gloves. Then, her husband “got into the act,” after which Cohn had “full sex” with both boys.

One year after, the same occurred again. Now, the boys wore leather, with Hoover in a red dress and black feather boa. One boy read from the Babble, while the other fondled Hoover wearing gloves. Hoover “grabbed the Bible, threw it down, and told the second boy to join the sex.” Mrs. Rosentiel’s husband invited her to participate, but she declined.

Do we trust the originator of this uncorroborated story? Hoover provided Lewis Rosenthiel with damaging information concerning his wife when they divorced in the late 1960s. Mrs. Rosentiel testified against her husband and his partners in organized crime. She spent a while at Riker’s Island for attempted perjury in 1971, having pleaded guilty. Journalist Ronald Kessler met her at her place, in a single-room occupancy hotel in New York which cost her $98.95 a night. She was paid by Summers, and again by Frontline and the BBC. Kessler said, “I believe that paying for information calls into question its credibility.”

Robert M. Morgenthau, later in life

Mrs. Rosentiel attempted to spread her story for years, once to an opponent of Hoover, attorney Robert M. Morgenthau of New York. She annoyed him with repeated phone calls after 5:30p.m. when his secretary had departed. He passed the information to William Hundley, the head of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. Hundley asked a Justice Department attorney to investigate. Hundley said Mrs. Rosentiel “had a total ax to grind” and that her story was constructed “of whole cloth.” He told this to Summers, who was not deterred.

“Outing” is the alleging that a prominent figure is gay, and in political cases uses gossip over sexual identity as a political weapon: the target is made out to be not only a pervert, but a hypocrite. During the presidency of Bill Clinton in the 1990s, sexual gossip was increasingly employed to articulate political resentment, a practice which had begun in the early nineteenth century.

Adlai Stevenson was persecuted by Hoover

Allegations of Hoover’s homosexuality were richly deserved. Hoover oversaw the spreading of accusations of homosexuality of political enemies such as then Illinois Governor and later two-time presidential candidate and U.N. ambassador, Adlai Stevenson. Articles by gay journalists in the early 1980s following a discrimination lawsuit by a gay FBI agent revealed that FBI agents collected the underwear of politicians for blackmail purposes. Hoover closely followed the sexual shenanigans of President Kennedy.

Mr. Rosentiel was linked to the Mafia figures, Frank Costello (formerly Francesco Castiglia) and Meyer Lansky at New York legislative committee hearings in 1970. Blackmail of politicians was central to Mafia operations. According to Summers, “several Mafia sources” claimed that Hoover was blackmailed over his sexuality using photographs of him and Tolson. A source who saw one photograph said it clearly depicted two men in sexual congress, but was too blurry to allow for identification.

A photographic record of his homosexuality could perhaps explain Hoover’s reluctance to even acknowledge the existence of organized crime, although some say this was because he preferred easy targets to more easily inflate his arrest statistics. The blurb of Summers’ book states, “Without this, the Mafia as we know it might never have gained its hold on America.” When world-class journalist Robert Mass asked one of Lansky’s closest associates about the photograph, the ancient mafioso replied: “Are you nuts?”

The Miami field office of the FBI complained that its investigation of Lansky, initiated by Hoover, was not generating enough meat to countenance the manpower devoted to it, prompting Hoover to reply that “Lansky has been designated for ‘crash’ investigation.” He said the significance of the endeavor could not be overemphasized, and that he desired a vigorous and detailed investigation. Lansky’s apartment was bugged. Hoover’s attitude to the Mob had changed after publicity surrounding the historic 1957 Appalachin Meeting of about 100 mobsters. Had the Mob had anything on Hoover, it would have turned up in the many wiretaps mounted after Appalachin. Let’s ignore that bit.

It is claimed that Wild Bill Donovan arranged for incriminating photographs of Hoover to be obtained when he conducted a feud with him.

Summers claimed that the photographs originated from the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner to the CIA. While feuding with OSS boss William “Wild Bill” Donovan, Hoover had attempted to obtain compromising information, as was his wont, and Donovan retaliated.

Is it plausible that the events Mrs. Rosentiel describes took place at a one of New York’s most fashionable hotels, rather than a safe house? It is as believable as the claim by Joe McCarthy that the State Department contained 205 known communists – which was widely circulated by the press with no further investigation. Let’s have some more of that.

The transvestism of John Edgar Hoover has not been proven and is highly unlikely. It has only one source, an embittered, impoverished perjurer. Even hardcore Pinkoes who resent all that Hoover stood for dismiss the story.

Was Hoover, the most powerful ever lawman of the United States, a tranny? Hell, yes! Come on, the guy was fucked-up. Were he not a tranny, he must have been a serial killer, rapist, or pedophile. This is actually the least worst option. After Hoover’s death, his associates, led by Tolson, destroyed many of his files. Hoover knew all about blackmail, having done so much of it, and it is no surprise that his tracks have been erased. Summers also says that Hoover ignored a warning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Bibliography

“Interview with Ralph de Toledano.” George Washington University. n.d. 7 August 2011. <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-6/de_toledo4.html.>
Halsall, Paul. “Homosexuality and Catholicism Bibliography: Section XIV: Lesbian and Gay Christian Movies and TV.” Fordham University. n.d. 7 August 2011. <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/lgbcathbib14.asp.>
Hockenberry, John. “The Secrets of J. Edgar Hoover.” MSNBC. 12 April 2004. 7 August 2011. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4638275/ns/dateline_nbc/t/secrets-j-edgar-hoover/.>
Kessler, Ronald. “Did J. Edgar Hoover Really Wear Dresses?” History News Network. 22 July 2002. 7 August 2011. <http://hnn.us/articles/814.html.>
Mashek, John. “Hoover Used Blackmail against JFK, Author Says.” Highbeam Research. n.d. 7 August 2011. <http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8213825.html.>
Potter, Claire. “Queer Hoover: Sex, Lies, and Political History.” Highbeam Research. 1 September 2006. 7 August 2011. <http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-164424520.html.>
Pringle, Peter. “FBI chief exposed as a secret transvestite: Peter Pringle reports from New York on new allegations that J Edgar Hoover attended orgies, wearing a fluffy black dress to one, and was blackmailed into protecting the Mafia.” Independent. 6 February 1993. 7 August 2011. <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fbi-chief-exposed-as-a-secret-transvestite-peter-pringle-reports-from-new-york-on-new-allegations-that-j-edgar-hoover-attended-orgies-wearing-a-fluffy-black-dress-to-one-and-was-blackmailed-into-protecting-the-mafia-1471376.html.>
Stove, R.J. “J. Edgar Hoover and the Ku Klux Klan.” National Observer. 1 June 2001. 7 August 2011.<http://www.nationalobserver.net/2001_summer_109.htm.>
Summers, Anthony. “Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover.” London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 1993

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