Panama "Gollum"

A mystery creature reportedly beaten to death by a group of teenagers in Panama has become the subject of intense speculation on internet forums.


Terrified locals in Cerro Azul were running scared after the creature they describe as “Gollum” crawled out of a lake and charged schoolkids, reports The Sun.

It was spotted on Saturday when four 14 to 16-year-olds were playing by the waterfront, according to Panamanian news service Telemetro.

The hairless creature has been described as having rubbery skin and measuring almost 150cm.

The teenagers were said to have feared for their own safety as the creature moved towards them so they picked up rocks and sticks and beat it to death, before throwing its corpse in the water and running away.

The youths tossed the carcass into a nearby lake but later returned to take photographs, the report said.

Experts have yet to examine the images. However, locals told Panama news channels that the water-monster was “Gollum from Lord of the Rings”.

One said: “I have only seen that creature once before - and it was in the Tolkien film.”

The fictional Gollum - originally known as Smeagol - was a hobbit whose later name was derived from the “disgusting gurgling, choking cough he made”.

JRR Tolkien - who wrote the Middle Earth adventures - said of the character: “He had become deformed and twisted in both body and mind by the corruption of the Ring.

“His only desire was to possess the Ring which had enslaved him, and he pursued it for many years after he lost it.”

Internet speculation centres around whether the “monster” is actually a shaved sloth or pit bull terrier.

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Ipomea Paean

I used to collect morning glories. I would scour the countryside during this time of the year looking for good seed sets on robust, colorful plants. Perhaps almost a dozen or so species were trying to survive in my sandhill botanical garden back in the 80s. This morning during a dawn lake marshside stroll I spied this blooming trellis of tievine blanketing a small Chinese tallow tree. The tievine keyed out in Vascular Plants of Florida (Wunderlin and Hansen 2003) to Ipomea cordatotriloba (I. trichocarpa). The leaves of this mass of tievine are mostly saggitate, although the species often has perfectly heart-shaped leaves, sometimes both on the same plant. You can also see a few larger, heart-shaped leaves of air potato (Dioscorea bulbifera) in the trellis. Bumblebees and a wild bee species were feeding on the nectar but I couldn’t get any decent pics of them.


Then a misshapen fig beetle (Cotinus texana) fell out of the sky and landed on the hood of my truck. It has a missing right shoulder that looks like it might have been burned off and then healed over; the little creature can still fly, though. One pic shows the damaged shoulder and the other reveals the spread-out tines of what I think is its left antenna:

Moa, New Zealand giant bird

Flightless giant island-living bird was the New Zealand giant moa (Dinornis giganteus), a member of the ratite family. There were several species of moa, some taller than the elephant bird at 7 ft (2 metres) to the middle of the back and 13 ft (4 metres) to the head (twice the height of a tall man), although their necks probably projected forwards like a kiwi rather than upwards as usually depicted. They were more lightly built than the elephant bird, but still three times the weight of a large man at up to 200 - 275 kg. The Giant Moa's eggs measured 10 inches (24 cm) long and 7 inches (18 cm wide). Females were 1.5 times the size and almost 3 times the weight of males, leading scientists the revise moa classification and the number of moa species. In the past, the males and females had been erroneously considered different species due to this size difference. The moas occupied similar niches to mammalian herbivores elsewhere.

New Zealand was even more isolated than Madagascar and had no land mammals except bats. The first Polynesians arrived in New Zealand around the 10th century, becoming the Maori. The dominant life-forms were the giant land birds that lived in the fringes of the semi-tropical forests and on the grasslands and which the Maoris called 'Moas'. Encountering the huge birds, the Maoris made legends of the giant moa, calling it the Poua-Kai and describing it as a huge bird of terrific size and strength which, in a great battle, destroyed half the warriors of a powerful tribe with its terrible rending talons and thrusting bea.

Moas were huge ratite 'running birds' like the Elephant Bird, but they inhabited the grasslands and forest-fringe in extraordinary numbers and variety. Scientists later gave them the family name Dinornithidae, 'terrible birds'. The aggressive Polynesian invaders became a Moa-hunting culture and for the moa, which had had no predators in 100 million years, the effect was devastating.

By the time Europeans discovered the islands in 1770, the giant moas had been hunted to extinction; their official extinction date is given as 1773. Europeans did not learn of the moa's existence until bones were discovered in the 1830s. The exact number of species is open to debate, the current belief is that there were 11 species contemporary with man and that higher counts were due to the sexual dimorphism. With only one natural predator large enough to tackle them (Haast's Eagle, another extinct giant) they were the dominant terrestrial species on the islands. Although the giant moa is the species that has captured the modern imagination, other members of the moa family were turkey-sized and weighed little over 1 kg. One striking feature of moa anatomy, apart from its height, is the complete lack of humeri (upper arm-bones). This means they had no trace of wings, not even a vestigial wing-structure.

There were several families of moa. Pachyornis and Emeus were hunted to extinction by the Maoris between 1100 and 1500. The powerfully built medium-sized Euryapteryx may have survived until 1700. Pygmy Moas, 3 -4 ft tall (90 - 120 cm) of the genera Anomalopteryx and Megalapteryx died out by 1800, hunted by both Maori and Europeans though there is evidence that one of the pygmy moas may have survived into the 20th century and may possibly still exist in the wilderness of Fiordland. By the time Europeans had realised the significance of the discovery of giant moas, the birds were almost extinct.

In 1838, Englishman John Rule brought back a fragment of a huge leg-bone from New Zealand. It was investigated by palaeontologist Richard Owen in London, but even then many dismissed it as a hoax or myth. It took several more years and many more bones to convince naturalists that the moa existed. A consignment of moa bones was sent in 1843 by geologist and missionary, Revd William Williams. He had studied the birds, and had recorded a sighting by two English whalers near Cloudy Bay, in Cook Straits in 1842: "the natives there had mentioned to an Englishman of a whaling party that there was a bird of extraordinary size to be seen only at night on the side of a hill near there; and that he, with the native and a second Englishman, went to the spot; that after waiting some time they saw the creature at some little distance, which they describe as being fourteen or sixteen feet high. One of the men proposed to go nearer and shoot, but his companion was so exceedingly terrified, or perhaps both of them, that they were satisfied with looking at him, when in a little time he took alarm and strode up the mountain."

In the 1850s, New Zealand resident, John White, interviewed several sealers who claimed to have eaten moas on the South Island, indicating that some birds had survived until as late as 1850. The most detailed account of giant moas came from an old Maori on South Island, who described the birds' appearance, habitat, feeding and nesting habits. He Maori described how fierce, booming male moas, guarded nesting females. He also described how the birds were hunted and eaten. Another Maori moa hunter described how the moa defended itself by kicking. Their eggs were taken as food and as curios by Europeans. In 1865, a moa egg containing an embryo was discovered near Cromwell.

Entry for Moa in Harmsworth Natural History (1910): The fate impending in the case of the kiwis has long since overtaken their gigantic extinct cousins the moas (family Dinornithidae), which had already disappeared from New Zealand when those islands were first colonised from Europe, although there is good reason to believe that they lived on till within the last five hundred or four hundred years, if not to a considerably later date. These birds, of which not only the bones, but in some cases the dried skin, feathers, and egg-shells, as well as the pebbles they were in the habit of swallowing, have been preserved in the superficial deposits of New Zealand, attained a wonderful development in those islands, where they were secure from persecution till man appeared on the scene.

Not only did the larger members of the group far exceed the ostrich in size, but they were extraordinarily numerous in species, as they were also in individuals; such a marvellous exuberance of gigantic bird-life being unknown elsewhere on the face of the globe in such a small area. As regards size, the largest moas could have been but little short of 12 feet in height, the tibia being considerably over a yard in length; while the smallest were not larger than a turkey. In reference to their numbers, it may be mentioned that there are some twenty species, arranged in about six genera; and the surface of many parts of the country, as well as bogs and swamps, literally swarmed with their bones.

Some of the moas had four toes to the foot, and others three, but all differed from kiwis in having a bony ridge over the groove for the extensor tendons of the tibia. They are, therefore, evidently the least specialised members of the order yet mentioned, seeing that this bridge is present in the majority of flying birds, and has evidently been lost in all the existing Ratitae. While agreeing in some parts of their organisation with kiwis, moas are distinguished by the short beak and the presence of after-shafts to the feathers while in the larger forms, at any rate, not only was the wing, but likewise the whole shoulder-girdle, wanting. There is, however, reason to believe that certain pigmy moas - which from their size were evidently the most generalised members of the group - retained some of the bones connected with the wing.

Moas were represented by several very distinct structural modifications; the largest being the long-legged, or true, moas (Dinornis) , characterised by the long and comparatively slender leg-bones, and also the large and depressed skulls. In marked contrast to these were the short-legged, or elephant-footed, moas (Pachyornis), in which the limb-bones are remarkable for their short and massive form; the metatarsus being most especially noteworthy in this respect. In these birds the skull is vaulted and the beak narrow and sharp; but in the somewhat smaller and less stoutly-limbed-broad-billed moas (Emeus) it is broad, blunt, and rounded. The other species, in all of which the beak was sharp and narrow, are of relatively small stature, and include the smallest representatives of the family, some of which were less than a yard in height. The eggs of the moas were of a pale green colour, and probably formed a favourite food of the Maori, by whom these birds wcre evidently exterminated.

Several skeletons are on display in museums in New Zealand and Europe and there are models and reconstructions based on these skeletons, on naturally preserved feathers and on oral tales of the bird and on its smaller relative, the kiwi. It is believed that moas resembled kiwis in several ways, that they were communal living and that the eggs were brooded by the males. With no need to look out for predators, their heads were probably carried forwards, like the kiwi, rather than upwards like an ostrich.

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Giant Lion's Mane Jellyfish

As a species jellies have been around for a very long time. They appeared in the oceans about 650 million years ago, before the dinosaurs. They still populate our oceans today in a profusion of sizes and shapes. Jellyfish are incredible creatures - it's amazing that they are living things. Check it out...their bodies are made up of 95% water, they have no bones or cartilage, no heart or blood, and no brain! (Talk about a real 'no-brainer'). They are one of earth's simpler and more primitive life forms. The picture you see at right is a much smaller specimen of a lion's mane jelly. The world-record holder was found dead, washed up on a beach.

Scientists have determined that some jellies have eyes that can detect light from dark and even some movement of objects in their field of vision. It doesn't seem possible that any living creature could have eyes, but NO BRAIN. The brain is where the processing of visual stimuli happens in most higher-order species. How does the procedure work in jellies with eyes and no brains? Scientists don't really know for sure, but by studying jellies they can learn a lot about how vision works and what role the brain plays in processing visual input.


Silent Predators

The Arctic Lion's Mane, like most jellies, is a predator - it kills and eats other living creatures from the "animal" kingdom. (Even though water buffaloes and hippopatomi eat living things (plants), they are not considered predators.) That means that this giant jelly stalks, pursues, catches, kills and consumes its prey. What does it like to eat? Fish, plankton, and even other jellies. It's pretty hard to picture a jellyfish stalking and killing its prey, but it usually doesn't have to swim to catch a meal. You could say the Arctic Lion's Mane has its meal delivered.

Usually, an unsuspecting fish will swim into the almost invisible tentacles of the jellyfish, which are loaded with millions of nematocysts (stinging capsules contained within cells called cnidocytes located along the tentacles). When the fish contacts the tentacles a paralyzing venom is immediately injected into the victim. Then the jelly can eat its quarry at its leisure. Lion's Mane jellies can also pursue and kill other jellies for food. But then, there are also other creatures in the sea which eat the Lion's Mane.

If a human were to get stung by a Lion's Mane jelly it could be fatal, provided enough poison had been absorbed by the body. The venom can cause paralysis of the breathing muscles so the victim would die from suffocation. Don't expect to go swimming at the beach and see a huge Lion's Mane jelly - this big guy probably lived way out in the open ocean, way down deep. Many of this species of jellyfish are found in frigid, Arctic waters.

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Halpata Tastanaki Park

Bill, Bruce, Brack and I met at the Pruitt Trailhead on the Halpata Tastanaki Park of the Cross Florida Greenway this afternoon for a bike ride through mostly flatwoods ecosystems. We made it down to the Withlacoochee River, doing a loop of about 13 miles averaging a leisurely 3 mph. There was a goodly wind above the treetops, but we felt only a breeze down at the bottom of the forest road “canyons” that cut through the tall pines. Plus, there was the sound of the wind in the pines, what can I say? The wind so converted what would otherwise have been a hot summer ride.

The route took us over limerock roads and dirt roads. Limerock roads were relatively smooth and easy to ride, although bahia grass cloaked most of the graded road top and frictioned the tires. Dirt roads had been recently graded and grass was growing back in, but there was a lot of bare sand saturated with recent rains that was a little squishy to ride on. This will likely ameliorate when the grass thickens in.

Bruce said the place was simultaneously on fire and in flood the first time he visited it, right after it had been acquired into the state preservation lands program, and that it looked awful. Today, the burned area comprising the northern half of our loop was lush with a diverse plant community of grasses, sedges and wildflowers. The low upland adjacent to the marshes had thick growths of wiregrass (Aristida stricta) that was setting heavy seed. This is exactly what I would expect in a burned natural low flatwoods landscape after a very rainy growing season. Mental note to self: Return in the spring with tripod when perennial wildflowers bloom in concentric rings of varicolored wildflowers around low flatwoods freshwater marshes like these.

Most of the park’s uplands are in plantation pine that have a closed canopy and appear to be almost ready for thinning. There is little undergrowth, but I bet the durable seeds of flatwoods wildflowers are still there. If the goal of this forest’s management is to restore the native low slash pine flatwoods habitat (and I hope it is), then a good pine thinning will allow much more sunlight to reach the ground and stimulate herbaceous vegetations. In my opinion, no habitat in Florida contains more species of wildflowers than low flatwoods and their associated freshwater marshes, and there are no better conditions for them to bloom than just might exist right here next spring.

Not another soul out there.

Ocala Caverns Gating

After the September 12th Saturday cleanup operation at Ocala Caverns, there was a second large turnout of Florida cavers on Saturday the 19th to install a gate on the cave entrance. Some drilling and pounding was even done by a Marion County Commissioner, Mike Amsden, a true friend to conservationists. Tim F and Danny B masterminded the gate design. Tim’s welding skills were augmented by those of Carl F, a professional welder and an instructor of welding. Tim and Carl had brought two or more welding rigs and maybe three generators, and a fourth generator showed up with Jerry J. The rest of us pretty much did what Tim, Danny and Carl asked us to do, which was mostly totin’, fetchin’ and grindin’.

It took only a day to build the gate. It is made of 3x3 inch used angle steel, graciously donated by Blankenship-Pasteur, Inc., of Ocala. The working bars are horizontal and have 5.75-inch spaces between the bars to allow the free movement of flying bats. Previously, there was a large population of bats in the cave, but they had been driven out by vandals some time ago. The lowest bar of the gate was set several inches above the brick steps in order for surface water to be able to freely wash leaf litter and invertebrates into the cave. This is very important in overall energy flow within a cave, since literally all the energy and organic material that enters caves comes from above ground, the loss of which results in relatively low biodiversity. The raised bottom bar also allows small mammals, like rodents and this short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda, to use the cave if they want to:


This time an Ocala Banner photographer and reporter attended. Gary Green, the reporter, interviewed pretty much everyone present. Here’s a happy reporter in his first wild cave:


The plan was to construct the gate sans opening, then cut the opening; that way there would be no problems in making certain that the angled bars lined up properly for the locking mechanism (Sean R’s idea). So that’s what Danny and Tim did, and yes, they are looking out:


As you can see, the opening that was cut is not large, being only one bar maybe 30 inches wide (that’s Tim, Danny and me):


Annette B sanded more graffiti from the concrete bunker that covers the cave entrance, Jon S and others put up warning signs on the perimeter fence, Bill C was a laborer like me plus he coaxed Carl into helping us, and several of us including Mike G performed rockwork and additional cleanup. We have a few more tasks to go to complete the property security plan including more work on the back fence and some additional rockwork, which will be discussed at the October club meeting.

Waccasassa Bike 'n Hike

I discussed in my August 3rd post a visit to some karst features in the Waccasassa River Floodplain. You may remember that we reconned a solution valley with small remnant caves, and visited a small area of karst pavement about a quarter-mile away. Later I noticed that the solution valley and the limestone pavement formed a line parallel with the river.

Today, Brack and I drove over to the public boat ramp parking lot, biked from there to a jumpoff point and then hiked in along an extension of the parallel line through low hammock, unexplored territory. We walked an approx 3-mile loop through mostly low hammock, trying to stay at the boundary (ecotone) between the low hammock and the shallowly-inundated mixed cypress-and-hardwood swamp.

So we got our feet wet but ran into some fine natural history things out there. First were the ripe persimmons (Diospyros virginiana). Their fruit are as sweet as any native Florida fruit I have ever eaten in the wild, and I have eaten just about all of them. You just have to remember not to eat them until they are ripe!

It is not often that we are privileged to experience what early Florida naturalists called the Peninsula’s “climax forest.” They often saw it in the northern and central part of the Peninsula, a mixed hardwood, old growth forest dominated by Southern magnolia, live oak, sugarberry, hickory and other trees appropriate to the local soils. All but tiny patches of it have since been logged, long gone. I have seen only a handful of such climax stands in Florida in my lifetime of wood wanderings, and today I saw another small stand of it. Not much more than 2 or 3 acres in size, its trees weren’t giants, but were definitely well beyond any “early successional stage.” Note the open, park-like nature under the canopy, and imagine the same scene a few centuries ago with trees 3 – 4 ft in diameter:


The old-timers thought the final, ultra-climax [my phrasing] forest community over centuries of time in the absence of fire in Florida would consist purely of Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora). This most magnificent species of an ancient genus has large, thick evergreen leaves, piled layer upon layer, such that the shade under a mature magnolia is too dark for other plants to grow. I have seen a 5-acre stand of almost pure magnolia on the north side of Payne’s Prairie in north Florida. It is about 90 percent magnolia and 10 percent sugarberry (Celtis laevigata) at its periphery, but in its interior there is no sugarberry left standing – it is all grandiflora.

The older growth forest we saw today was composed of perhaps 50 percent magnolia, not bad. Interestingly, the swamp surrounding this climax forest unit has a large component of sweetbay (Magnolia virginiana), a sister species. Doubly interesting, sweetbay totally dominates a curious habitat type in central Florida, forming stunted and twisted epiphyte-infested forest-thickets on pedestal peat deposits in intermittent, depressional wetlands. The genus Magnolia is one tough competitor! I bet it outlasts cockroaches.

Our little magnolia McMansion today also sported a “mass” bloom of a tiny ground orchid, the name of which I am at a loss. I don’t suppose anyone out there knows what it is?


We ran across several hefty old live oaks along the way, warming up on yer garden variety of large live oak that we see down here all the time. Then we came upon this terrific live oak with a hyper-swollen bole:


This tree must be 14 ft across at its base, with the fat bole rising 3-4 ft above the ground. It is not unusual for a live oak’s ground-base to be 2-4 ft wider than the trunk proper, but this old lady has a gown flowing out a full 5 ft out from her bunions all the way around. Nonpareil! Hunkered down about 5 ft above the ground on this live oak was this 2-inch Southern toad, Bufo terrestris:


Don’t you agree it’s a particularly beautiful frog? Lovely browns. This tree is hollow, has numerous entrances into the refuge, and probably shelters more herps than just this blue-tailed skink, Eumeces sp.:


As I was wondering why the nocturnal toad was spending the day off the ground in plain sight, Brack stopped suddenly and whispered, “water moccasin!” He pointed down at his feet and then slowly backed away while I got out my camera. Perhaps the little toad is hiding above the normally ground-dwelling moccasin? Any port in a storm, I guess. Brack got too close to the serpent’s personal space, so it vibrated its tail and held its mouth wide open in warning, getting his attention.

Oh, I almost forgot the karst. As I said, we didn’t find much of interest, although we did find more limestone outcroppings along that extended line, but they petered out into foot-high rocks set into a zero mean sea level swamp. This is truly where ridgewalking in Florida swampland drowns out.

Ocala Caverns Cleanup

I think he said there were 38 of us out there, working on securing the defunct Ocala Caverns property. Recent vandalism included spray paint inside the cave on ceiling and walls. Jon S, Sean R and Bill W removed the paint last week using a wire brush on a drill. Over the years kids occasionally mess around in there, leaving trash within the old tourist attraction, but seldom painting the rock. The recent offense consisted of large, multicolored, crudely drawn spray painted peace symbols. Furthermore, it occurred between re-mapping trips by Sean R, Kitty M and Mike G. The paint was the last straw for them.

The landowner allows us to do pretty much whatever we want to do on the property. Jon and others communicate regularly with him, resulting in an excellent relationship. In the past we have conducted cleanups and practiced cave rescue on site, and a determined few like Bill W have dug for virgin passage. Other members have guided numerous scouts through the cave. Jon S put together a schedule that included working on the trails, fences and signs all this weekend, but so many people showed up that we finished the weekend’s goal by, like, right after lunch!

Bernice N laid out an incredible lunch spread, as big as Texas, or more appropriately, as long as Florida. Ziplock baggies lined up like fat dominoes filled with good food and condiments like several kinds of tasty pasta salad, pickles and olives, and raw fetal carrots. You could have a bowl of prepared garden salad, modified most anyway you wanted it, including with feta cheese, or just chow down a prepared chicken or egg salad sandwich. Yum.

Next weekend we intend to install a gate at the cave’s entrance, or I should say Tim F and Jon are going to install it. And maybe Mike Somebody? Others are assisting in one way or another, I don’t remember it all. We’ll see how it goes. Jon’s strategy seems to be to blitzkrieg the place this month to get the critical fencing repaired, new signage erected, regular sheriff’s patrols begun, and the last resort - construct a vandal-proof gate, all before the TAG Fall Cave-In and hopefully before vandals return. Whew! Ambitious! But we are ahead of schedule.

Additional work is planned for after the Cave-In, including the remaining fencing and dry cave gating. More money will be required to repair the back fence and gate the dry cave entrance. Contributions from anyone are welcome and should be sent to the FSS at:
http://www.floridacaving.com/pages/contactus.asp

The FSS is a nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation. We raise money almost solely for cave resource protection uses, primarily by purchasing cave-containing real estate and gating significant caves that are under particular threat of vandalism. We are sensitive to the need to allow wildlife free access to the caves we gate, and we make our caves available to good people for scientific, educational and recreational uses.

Glastonbury Tor

....Did A Portal Open On 26/02/07?...

The Tor at Glastonbury is a natural 520’ conical hill set in the Somerset landscape, its legends and accolades are many ranging from a faerie hill, the Entrance to the Underworld of King Gwyn Ap Nudd, a global energy point where ley lines cross, and tales of people being suddenly levitating whilst up there, as sworn by a group of Buddhist monks in 1969. So many are these stories that it is really difficult to attempt writing anything refreshingly new. A book in 2005 by author Nicholas Mann who lives in the area, ‘The Secret Energies of Glastonbury Tor’ goes some way in trying to explain with a scientific approach electro-magnetic vortices at work. Can this hill justify the wondrous tales of coloured lights seen emanating from it, earth lights that can spiral, the least optical phenomenon associated with any self respecting fairy hill? I personally know of two friends, who individually, on separate occasions have experienced what they describe as a ‘beam’ come down from the sky and pass from their head right through their body. And so it goes on!

If it is an energy point then one fact that people of Glastonbury can’t be denied is that every year the rock music festival that first started in 1970 now draws into the small town approximately 180,000 visitors camping out over its three days in June every year - that’s a lot of energy to soak up! Now, as much as I would like to dismiss all these tales as mere romance and declare the hill simply that - a hill and nothing more - I have to admit on a personal level that I can’t! Since 1984 I have had and have a strange relationship with this hill, like no other place I have visited, it is almost as if it draws me to it…And if that were true in any sense, for what purpose? I first went there at about 4pm on October 30th 1984, approaching the ascension from the far end of the Tor. As I began the steep climb, a small breezy wind came out of nowhere, growing stronger and stronger as I made my way up. By the time I had reached the top, it was blowing a private gale! ‘Some welcoming committee’, I thought to myself, as in those days I was well immersed in Theosophy and how geographical areas can have elemental guardians called Devas, or landscape angels. The Tor is associated with a wind that can whip up and can even blow people from its summit. Accepting this baptism, I returned again that night as had been my original intention, setting off up there at 11.30pm and intending to stay until the hours moved into 31st of All Hallows Eve where we are assured the veil between worlds thin, as far as our calendar is concerned. As an impressionable, young, scientifically minded and intrepid investigator, where better to be at a time where worlds may merge, than upon a faerie hill! With the absence of any wind, I was no sooner up there when a silent silver streak at a height of above four feet above my head flashed from left to right a short distance! Minutes later, along came more phenomena - a speedy bombardment on either side of the top of the slopes of what I must describe as grey ‘ping-pong’ balls, lasting only moments! I have since learned that other people have also used the same term ‘ping-pong balls’ to relate their own similar experiences! A silent silver flash and a bombardment of ping-pong balls, all within minutes of being up there...at the tender age of 28 I was fast beginning to learn that Glastonbury Tor IS more than just an average high mass of land! I stayed a further two hours that cold early morning with naught else to report despite my hopeful and sincere intonations directed at the Archangel Michael whose tower sits upon the very top, calling him by his magical names of Mikaal-Sabbathiel-Beshtar, (everything is worth a try for a more pyrotechnical response!) returning through the wispy streams of mist at 5am in the morning for one last effort. Since that first acquaintance with the Tor, I have visited many times in all seasons, with and without people, all times of the days and in all weathers whenever the opportunity has arisen, with nothing out of the ordinary to report. At the time I would seek so-called paranormal experiences as they seemed to excite me - stationed up hills that can potentially emit sudden strange lights is a lot better than your typical average evening television viewing!
The more I read sensible investigations into ‘earth lights’ and the fine book of that title by Paul Devereux, the more I was beginning to accept this as the rationale behind most if not all of the stories associated with the Tor. Without evidence, you can only listen with wonder at anecdotal stories and should stick to your own direct empirical experiences, as others are perfectly entitled to with my own offerings. Having said that, one story did trouble my comfortably settling in theory. I received an email from a previous Mayor of Glastonbury who one night saw a reddish orange light appear ABOVE the Tor and sink into the summit, not come out of it! He was convinced it had been the usual understanding of a ‘spaceship/UFO’. Sinking INTO the Tor?
Over the years since the sixties and to this current day, there have been a number of UFO sightings associated with above Glastonbury Tor, and amongst the many coloured light sightings this orangey-red does seems to be the most common.

I wondered if this could have anything to do with the fact that high up on the Tower is a carving, I’m not sure why, of the Phoenix, or Fire Bird. Maybe the Collective Unconscious had been at work there influencing the mind of the carver. The Phoenix rises from the ashes, and so I smile at the synchronicity of knowing that at the foot of the tor since the seventies lives the Arthurian author Geoffrey Ashe.

With all this in my mind, I wondered if it could be possible to dare attempt to pick up any aerial phenomenon on film?...and so, after last visiting the Tor in 1997, I returned in 2006; this time, and for the very first time in all my visits, armed with a camera (non digital as I learn this goes against critical analysis of phenomenon on photos).
At this point, let me clarify the situation for you. Here I am on my own embarking up what has to be my favourite spot on earth, having been there numerous times, in all weathers, seasons, and times of the day - it simply doesn’t matter, as nothing can affect that strange awe and respect I have always held for this mound. The notion in my mind was to impress upon the Tor could I possibly ‘be allowed’ something to pick up on camera. This of course would imply that such a thing could happen. How? Well, for an answer to that one you will have to bear with my preferred belief that, in harmony with Gaia Hypothesis, the earth can be a living, thinking organism and biosphere; that Nature can hear and think, and may even respond to an earnest request. Some will find this ‘far out’ to which I respond, what gives people the authority to assume the world to be as they think it? Sometimes the ‘way out’ is the way in! Having made my thoughts known to anything that may exist to hear and respond to them, I was approximately two-thirds up the Tor when something strange happened. I was awash with a great irrational fear that was so strong my reaction was to want to turn back and rush off down the Tor! But what about my attempted photography that I had travelled 223 miles to Somerset to experiment? Who cares, I could only think of resorting to what us British refer to as ‘doing a runner’ – a swift retreat! Now, my ego must inform you, this is NOT my style – I run away from nothing, neither have I ever suffered what are called ‘panic attacks’, and yet this term certainly describes what had happened to me. However, I steadied myself and sat down a while, then eventually continued my way back up the remaining distance to the top, with tourists on either side unaware of how I was still filled with this awful trepidation. Once up there I took my pictures and was content to come away from Glastonbury Tor as swiftly as I could. All the while up there I remained filled with a fear that I have never experienced in my life or ever dreamt I could. What on earth had happened to me? Perhaps a part of the strange answer involves the series of dark aerial dots that were captured on film, moving themselves about. There was nothing in the sky to declare at the time the shutter snapped, no birds, planes, not a thing, but on sensitive film that can be known to capture images beyond the human eye were the dots. Better than that, to the right at the back of the Michael tower, a peculiar cross-shaped object had appeared! Critics who weren’t there will invariably cite a bird or a plane, some have even said an insect (!), but I repeat there was nothing in the clear sky, and this essay is not for the critics, but for those who also suspect there may be more than meets the eye, literally, concerning this famous hill.

In 2007, I returned again in June to the Tor hoping to repeat the experiment, actually having filed the fear-filled attack away as a puzzling ‘blip’ on the radar. It wasn’t even fresh in my fading memory when I began my familiar ascent from the Chalice Lane end - which some may find as hard to believe as the manifestations. Incredibly, and at the EXACT same place point up the winding path as before, it happened to me again, and just as frightening. I repeated my immediate thought of the earlier year, “I’m off!’ having to freeze to the spot in order not to do a runner! As before, I eventually managed some degree of composure to reach the tower and to take more photographs in the clear blue and uninterrupted sky with that horrendous fear of trepidation never leaving me for a moment. The best description I can offer is a feeling that I was just about to drift off weightlessly above! With the camera fulfilling its 27 exposure, I was more than pleased to legitimately retreat. There were more dots appearing on the pix again, but most amazingly, the cross-shaped ‘UFO’ object had re-appeared in EXACTLY the same position!
In 2008 it was a sunny June again, and this time I was more than apprehensive about the twice inexplicable panic that had filled me at the same spot the two years running, and for good reason when in rushed the by now familiar alarm at the same point of ascension, only this time it was worse than the last two combined. I WAS going to run off this time for sure! In what was fast becoming a tradition I didn’t, and continued after a long period to the plateau to use the film up. Now, this time, when eventually up there, I felt rather calmer, quite bearable. Two friends accompanying me knew nothing of my earlier traumas or what I was experiencing now. The developed film heralded no phenomenon. Desperately trying to make sense of this trio of adventures I could only return to a dependency on the Gaia Theory – had my thoughts and intent been received and part of the ‘deal’ was that in order to be granted manifestations I would have to forfeit an ordeal? Or could it not have been avoided? How could I know? ...leaving me only to record the incidents and leave it at that.

In August 2009 I ascended the Tor by my usual route, with two relatives who were aware of my previous troubles. In order to change the factors involved, I brought no camera and was seeking no photographs of any nature. Both my daughter and grandson were shocked when I informed them - at the same spot as the prior three years - that I could go no further! Leaving them to continue alone, I sat there looking at the tower in the distance and saying to myself, “I can never reach up there again!’ as that was how my feelings were translating. How could I accept never being able to visit my favourite ever spot, even though I now had to accept that this overpowering apprehension was now part of my equation? After the customary time lapse, angry with myself, I came up with the idea to climb down off the path to the left and along one of the embankments some way and then continue back up the steep side to the path again. I managed this and could continue the remainder of the walk where I again felt quite calm at the top of the Tor. My theory of being ‘granted’ photos for a ‘forfeit’ clearly didn’t fit.

My daughter took a picture of the spot where for consecutive years approaching the Tor from Chalice Well I reached an area that against all probability and rationale forbade me to cross! It’s tempting to suggest this could be some sort of weird Tor energy ‘force field’ that I had now developed a sensitivity to? I have applied all logic to these adventures. Had I suddenly at my age developed acrophobia, a sort of fear of heights? No, my physiology did not meet the criteria anywhere near enough, and there were no physical symptoms at all such as dizziness, heart palpitation or lack of breath. Nothing but that irrational ‘panic attack’. A part of me found this most ironical, as during the 80’s in conjunction with my understanding of the Collective Unconscious I had conducted, with great success, psychological experiments with the archetype of the nature god Pan, whose presence instills instant panic! The rustic image of this half man-half goat Greek god was shamelessly stolen by the Christian Church and used to represent their Satan devil figure. Such echoes of dipping into, arguably, the realm of magick, were far from my mind, but was the archetypical energy of the god - in myth Overseer of the faery realm - awaiting me at the Tor? The following day, again changing the factors involved in the total equation, I ascended from the other available path at the far end of the Tor with my grandson and Glastonbury resident Mike Chenery. This way up is quicker, but much steeper. Apprehensively all the way, I made it up there without a fault!
I had arranged to meet with Mike, for he too has an amazing story to tell, and again, I will tell it for those who can find it a possibility that the Tor is simply more than just a steep hill. However, it is a sad fact that in this world of computer wizardry there is very little that cannot be faked in the way of photographs, which makes it nigh on impossible for people like Mike and myself, with genuine unlikely pix, to be taken seriously. On February 26th 2007 at 4.33pm on a bright day Mike was walking up Well House Lane when his attention was drawn to the fact that all the singing birds had suddenly stopped their song. This stillness and suspension reminds me of what occurs at the time of a solar eclipse when birds become temporarily disorientated. He was now at a gate that provides a vantage point view of one of the un-arched sides of the tower. Casually looking up he saw a dazzling white ‘something’ that, in his words, ‘glided’ a short distance from within the tower. At first it showed itself as thin but then moved its perspective facing Mike’s direction and in doing so widened, rather like at first being as a door seen sideways on and then full frontal. As he always carries a camera during his numerous excursions, he only just found the time to take a picture and then the apparition that had only lasted seconds, simply ‘popped off’!! There had been nobody else up on the Tor at the time. The result on his digital camera confirmed what he had seen with his own eyes, a spectre of some definition, but what could it have been?

For some clues to this mystery I have taken a closer look at the carvings that appear on the front of the Tower. My contention places firm belief that specific works of architecture are often brought about by the Collective Unconscious working through an unsuspecting human agency that if interpreted correctly can afford us clues to something of a hidden value.

I find it intriguing that the highest carving on the tower is that of the Phoenix, a bird of Arabia so called owing to it possession of a scarlet colour - the colour that is most prominent in the weird earth light displays. The Phoenix also represents immortality, life after death and mystical rebirth.

So why should this be above the Tor?
Below it to the left we see St Michael and the devil, weighing souls. To their right is St Bridget milking a cow. Bridget was originally the Celtic, and possibly pre-Celtic, goddess Brighde. Her earliest representations associate her with fire. Why too should she be situated there, is it because both Bridget and Phoenix have this red, fire association? It is said that the Gateway to the Underworld opens only on the days of a fire festival, St Bridget having such a date on February 2nd.

Employing the lost Mother Tongue language, a form of Esperanto that can link up languages and sciences into a cybernetic fashion and revealed to me by my autistic savant wife Avril, when we look at the name ‘Glastonbury’ we can see ‘Glass-stone-bury’ or ‘Glass stone ruby’. Is it that simple - a buried glass stone or buried glass ruby stone is somehow associated with the Tor? Ruby, is of course, a pure transparent (as would be a glass stone) red corundum. The key word here may be ‘transparent’ from Latin ‘parere’ meaning ‘to appear’. Back to Bridget-Brighde, and by consulting the phonetic, visual pun and anagrammatic language of the Mother Tongue, try pronouncing the name ‘Bridget’ without saying ‘Bridge shut’. Are we drawing attention to a shut bridge? Bridge comes from the old English ‘bryg’ and a ‘brig’ is a two masted, square rigged vessel from the word ‘brigantine’. Does this ship have a porthole? Or, does this ‘spaceship’ have a ‘portal’? Looking closer at the word ‘bridge’ we find that it is anything that connects across a gap or makes an electrical connexion between, and its synonyms include; arch, link, connexion, connect. Under enlargement, the dazzling white shape caught on camera shows an outline not unlike a tomb headstone and I wonder if we are seeing the actual archetype and origin for such a structure, something of an arch whereby the soul will pass through to liably voyage beyond. The dazzling bright white reminds me of the descriptions seen down a tunnel in near death experiences. Is this, indeed a time-space Portal, a normally ‘bridge shut’ and place of mystical rebirth of the Phoenix? Can such a Portal exist on Glastonbury Tor and is this what Mike Chenery has photographed physically opening for a few moments of our known time? Is the Michael tower with its two-sided arch you can walk through and out, a physical living unconscious memory of a replica, dimensional Portal? For some reliable confirmation and a startling conclusion, my interpretation returns to the stonework images on the tower that I believe to have been provided by that Collective Unconscious confirming the presence of a Portal. We see Michael and the Pan-like figure of the devil weighing souls on a weighing scale, the devil having a foot on his scale attempting to weigh it down. The key words here are ‘Scales’ and ‘Way’ (phonetic of ‘weigh’). ‘Way’ means ‘passage’, and ‘scales’ in musical composition is a progression of single notes upwards or downwards in steps. The imagery of the devil tipping down his scale is to draw reference to the infamous augmented 4th, or ‘Devil’s Chord’, prohibited by the church in the 12th century. My friend, the Scottish author Brian Allen, has evidenced in his own work ‘Rosslyn, Between Two Worlds’ a belief that there is a Portal contained within Rosslyn Chapel and that this devil’s chord is a key and sound frequency involved in opening the Portal. I smile when I recall how the devil was always represented holding a pitch-fork which I think we now can more correctly view as an acoustic resonating tuning fork which can be used to emit a pure musical tone. The pan pipes, or syrinx, of the god Pan also involve specific acoustic octave properties. As Allen suggests, does a specific frequency or harmonic note, along with this devil’s chord, provide the science that opens a Portal? It should therefore be no surprise that Glastonbury has this entwined musical connexion with its annual festival. We return next to the carved image of St Bridget seen milking a cow into a pitcher, the musical term for pitch means to ‘set in a key.’ With Bridget we are inviting in a ‘bridge’, which in classical music is also known as a ‘transition’, the word meaning ‘a passage from one place’. Through the Portal... the mystical re-birth of the Phoenix allegory?

With the wonder and revelation of synchronicity in mind, a bridge, in music, is formally known as a bridge-passage......

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