Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs The Worlds Most Puzzling Mysteries Solved

by Albert Jack

  The idea that the American government silenced Marilyn sounds like a classic urban legend, the kind of story that just grows over the years, so that the more times it is told the more true it appears to become. We know Marilyn died of a drug overdose and we know it could not have been suicide. So why push a killer drug up her bottom when a staged car accident, drowning, bullet in the head, or even a drugged drink that would leave residue in the stomach to make her death look like suicide would have been a better option? If the Kennedy government intended to kill off everybody who had em barrassing information or who opposed their administration, then why should they start with a scatty film star? And as for the idea that Marilyn Monroe was murdered by the Mafia, who staged it to look as if the Kennedys had been involved, that seems even less likely when a cold, clear look at the evidence is taken. Nobody can explain why anybody trying to make a murder look like suicide would use a killer enema—it just doesn't make sense. If the Mafia— who had perfected, by then, their concrete boots technique— had really wanted to get rid of her, then Marilyn is more likely to have vanished without a trace, either swimming with the fishes or wrapped inside a freeway overpass.

  Instead, I think the biggest clue lies in a comment alleged to have been made on the night of Monroe's death by Dr. Greenson: “God damn it, he has given her a prescription I didn't know about.” So it seems after all that the death of the most famous woman on the planet might well have been a simple, tragic accident caused by the people Marilyn most relied on.

  Who was the strange castaway found in Kent,

  apparently unable to communicate

  but a brilliant pianist?

  On April 7, 2005—in a case very reminiscent of the story of Kaspar Hauser (see page 117)—the police were called to deal with a stranger wandering the streets of Sheerness in Kent, England. The man was respectably dressed in a suit and tie, but soaked to the skin. As it hadn't been raining, it was assumed he had been washed ashore and was disoriented and frightened after his experiences at sea. He appeared unable to speak and carried no form of identification. Police officers took him to the Medway Maritime Hospital and placed him in the care of social workers. Although the man seemed to be in reasonable shape physically, he still showed no signs of being able to understand anything or communicate in any way. Instead he simply sat and stared around the psychiatric ward he had been placed in.

  Both national and international publicity failed to reveal his identity, and staff at the hospital continually tried to communicate with the man. Finally, after being handed pencil and paper, the enigmatic stranger, instead of jotting down his name or any other useful details, sketched a grand piano. The story goes that he was then led to a piano, where he gave a note-perfect virtuoso performance of a Tchaikovsky piano concerto to the astonishment of hospital staff. In the words of one of his carers, the social worker Michael Camp: “He seems to come alive when playing the piano, for several hours at a time.”

  At this point, the world's media began to take a keen interest in the stranger, now dubbed the “Piano Man,” and hundreds of leads were followed up after people claimed they recognized him. First he was believed to be a Czech concert pianist or a well-known Canadian eccentric. He was then thought to be a French street musician or a German genius. Other theories suggested his voice box had been removed, or that he was mentally ill or possibly autistic.

  Before long, Hollywood was taking an interest in the story of the “autistic piano genius.” But the Mirror soon tired of the story and began dismissing the man as a hoaxer who could in reality barely play a single note on the piano and was actually conversing freely with medical staff. And that is where the mystery deepens, because rather than issue a statement to the contrary, providing recorded evidence—which anyone could have done, just using their mobile phone—the NHS flatly refused to comment. I can smell those rats again …

  But it would be another few months before the Piano Man made the news again, having now left England, it would appear, as mysteriously as he had arrived. News came on August 22, 2005, in the shape of an announcement by the National Health Trust:

  The patient dubbed the Piano Man is no longer in the care of the West Kent NHS and Social Care Trust. He has been discharged from our care following a marked improvement in his condition. The rules regarding patient confidentiality mean that the Trust is unable to make any further comment on this story. This includes any comment on his condition, current location or the circumstances in which he left the Trust's care.

  And that was that, he was gone. Naturally newshounds scurried around for a story, but all they could come up with was a statement from the German Embassy, where a spokesman said: “The hospital called us up on Friday morning saying that they had a man there claiming to be a German national. We contacted his parents and his identification was confirmed. We then gave him replacement travel documents and he left the UK using his own arrangements on Saturday morning.”

  So had it all just been a hoax? Had he, as one national newspaper claimed, simply given the game away and revealed all to the staff at the hospital? But if he was a simple con man, what was the con? Walking around soaking wet in Sheerness and then staying silent in a psychiatric ward for four months is hardly a con, is it? And as his name and place of origin have never been revealed, he never really benefited from the publicity. And could he play the piano or couldn't he? Even I can tell the difference between a performance of Tchaikovsky's piano concerto and a rendition of “Chopsticks” by a one-finger plinker-plonker—and, thanks to Pete Townshend, I'm nearly deaf. No, the real mystery here is who at the hospital was telling tales about virtuoso piano recitals and why. And also, how did the stranger manage to leave England without the British press getting hold of at least his identity, because that doesn't happen very often, does it? A story as unusual as this simply fading out and disappearing—I don't think so.

  However, despite no official announcement of his identity ever being made, there are claims that the Piano Man has been identified—as a former newspaper columnist and mental health care worker from Germany—while his lawyer has apparently issued a statement explaining that his client may have been experiencing a “psychotic episode.” Further investigation reveals many other claims attributed to unnamed sources. Meanwhile a couple, claiming to be his parents, are said to have insisted their son had told them he “had no idea what happened to him. He suddenly woke up one day and remembered who he was.” It all sounds a bit fishy to me, so I am off to try and find out right now and will let you know if I discover anything.

  The unexplained death of the master of gothic horror

  It was Election Day in Baltimore, Maryland. Ryan's Tavern, a popular saloon bar, had doubled up for the day as a polling station, and men had been shuffling in and out to cast their votes since daybreak. Many stopped for some light refreshment before going about their business, but few of them took any notice of the resident drunks slumped in the corners, propped against tables, or generally scattered around the bar. Then, for reasons that are unclear, a voter named Joseph Walker went over to help one of them. The man, in a state of confused desperation, called out the names of people he appeared to know until finally Walker recognized one and immediately sent a note to Dr. Joseph Snodgrass, which read: “There is a gentleman, rather worse for wear, at Ryan's Fourth Ward Polls, and who appears to be in great distress. He says he is acquainted with you and I assure you he is in need of immediate assistance.”

  Just five days later, on October 8, 1849, the Baltimore Sun published a somber notice:

  We regret to learn that Edgar Allan Poe, Esq., the distinguished American poet, scholar and critic, died in this city yesterday morning, after an illness of four or five days. This announcement, coming so sudden and unexpected, will cause poignant regret among all who admire genius, and have sympathy for the frailties all too often attending it.

  Yet Poe wasn't supposed to have been in Baltimore at all; he was meant to have been in Philadelphia for a business meeting, foll
owed by a journey to New York to meet his former mother-in-law, Maria Clemm. Edgar Allan Poe never arrived in Philadelphia, and Maria Clemm was never to see him again.

  The dark events and insecurities of his life were dramatized throughout Poe's writings, and it's possible that his mysterious death was connected with someone very close to him. Edgar Poe was the son of traveling actors. He was not yet four years old when his parents died, within a few days of each other, and the three Poe orphans (Edgar had an elder brother and a younger sister) were separated and sent to live with different foster families in Richmond, Virginia. Edgar was taken in by John and Frances Allan, a wealthy, childless couple who raised him as their own. As a sign of respect for his foster parents, Poe later adopted their surname as his middle name and thereafter became known by the name for which he would become famous the world over: Edgar Allan Poe.

  But a serious rift developed between Poe and his foster father when Edgar returned from college in 1827 with large gambling debts that John Allan angrily refused to pay. Shortly afterward Poe joined the army, achieving the rank of sergeant major before returning, in 1829, for the funeral of his beloved foster mother, Frances. The following year John remarried, and when the new Mrs. Allan promptly produced three sons, she became openly hostile to the grown-up foster son she had inherited.

  This reached crisis point in March 1834 when Poe discovered that John Allan was gravely ill. He rushed to his bedside, only to find the route blocked by the second Mrs. Allan. When Poe angrily pushed past her, he was confronted by a furious John Allan, who cursed him from his deathbed, banishing him from the house. Poe then discovered, after Allan's death, that the man whom he had once lovingly called “Pa,” and whose affections he had relied upon as a small boy, had changed his will, removing any mention of him.

  While Poe was at college, he began writing poetry, anonymously publishing his first collection, Tamerlane and Other Poems, in 1827. In 1831, he turned his attention to the short stories of mystery and the macabre that he was to become famous for. They were instantly popular. Before long, Edgar had progressed from mere contributor to editor at the Southern Literary Messenger.

  Throughout all this, his ties to his real family remained very strong, and they became stronger when in 1836, aged twenty-seven, he fell in love with his thirteen-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. Despite Virginia's being so young, the two married within the year, with the full blessing of his aunt (and mother-in-law) Maria Clemm, who then became the third mother figure in the young writer's life.

  In 1839, he accepted the job of both editor and contributor at Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in Philadelphia and, during his time there, wrote the macabre tales “William Wilson” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” It was the popularity of psychological thrillers like these that saw his personal reputation flourish, and in 1841 Poe had completed his most enduring tale, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” featuring, for the first time, his fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin. The story was truly unique in the sense that it introduced a new and popular genre in which a series of seemingly unconnected clues are presented to the reader and not drawn together until the final scene, in which the murderer is unmasked in front of the other characters by the detective. The style had never before been used in literature, and Poe's sleuth is credited with being the first fictional detective in the history of storytelling, paving the way for Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.

  However, it was Edgar's poem “The Raven,” published in 1845, that signaled his true rise to fame, with the public queuing up for Poe's lectures just to hear the writer perform his work in person. The effect in 1845 was something like a modern songwriter or musician would achieve with a number-one hit single. Other successful poems followed, and Poe's popularity continued to increase until disaster struck in 1847, when his beloved wife, Virginia, died. Edgar was heartbroken, and his grief is believed to have inspired the short poem “Deep in the earth my love is lying / And I must weep alone.” Her death was to signal the beginning of Poe's downhill struggle leading to his own mysterious death only two years later—a period that was marked by alcoholism, depression, a suicide attempt, and several failed romances. All of which was accompanied by a desperate attempt to raise funds to support his beloved mother-in-law and for the launch of his own publication, The Stylus. (Despite his literary success, much of his own money had been spent on drink.)

  Then, during the summer months of 1849, things started to look up again. Poe, who was once again out on the lecture circuit, met Elmira Shelton, an old childhood sweetheart, back in Richmond and they rekindled their romance. With Elmira's encouragement, Poe joined the Sons of Temperance movement and renounced alcohol. He wrote to Maria Clemm: “I think she loves me more devotedly than any one I ever knew & I cannot help loving her in return. If possible I will get married before I start—but there is no telling.”

  And it wasn't just his love life that had turned the corner. His lecture tour was also proving to be a great success and he had gathered over three hundred annual subscriptions for his proposed new magazine, at five dollars per year. This would mean Poe was in funds to the tune of at least $1,500, a considerable amount in 1849. He was due to leave Richmond for his next engagement in Philadelphia, where he had been commissioned by a wealthy piano manufacturer, John Loud, to spend two days editing his wife's collection of poems. The fee was to be $100, a large sum for two days’ work, and Poe had eagerly accepted the commission. He then intended to leave Philadelphia and continue to New York. Here he would collect Maria Clemm and her possessions and bring her back to Richmond, where he intended to settle down with Elmira.

  Before leaving Richmond on September 27, Edgar visited his physician, Dr. John F. Carter, and, after a short conversation, walked to the Saddler's restaurant on the opposite side of the road, absentmindedly taking Carter's malacca cane instead of his own. There he met acquaintances, who later walked with him to catch the overnight boat to Baltimore from where he would catch the train to Philadelphia. They left him “sober and cheerful,” promising to be back in Richmond soon.

  Poe had written to Maria Clemm advising her that “on Tuesday I start for Phila. to attend to Mrs. Loud's poems—& possibly on Thursday I may start for N. York.” He also asked her somewhat cryptically to write to him at the Philadelphia post office, addressing the letter to E.S.T Grey, Esq., and suggested that rather than turning up at her house, he should send for her instead on his arrival in the city. It is not clear why he needed to use a false name in Philadelphia or why he felt unable to visit the house in New York. Was he in debt, perhaps, or in some kind of danger?

  Nothing more is known for sure about Edgar Allan Poe's movements until he turned up disheveled and disoriented at Ryan's Tavern in Baltimore five days later, on October 3. Apart from his failing to keep his appointment in Philadelphia with Mrs. Loud, that is. And there are various theories why he didn't. One account claims he fell ill as soon as he arrived in Philadelphia and, intending to catch another train to New York, boarded at the wrong platform and returned to Baltimore by mistake. A second account makes the same claim, but suggests that he was drunk rather than sick.

  When a guard on the train to Philadelphia claimed he had witnessed Poe being “followed through the carriages” by two mysterious men, speculation arose that friends of Elmira Shelton, possibly her brothers, had followed the writer, suspecting he was having a liaison with another woman, and then had forced the writer back to Baltimore, beaten him into a stupor, and left him on the street, where he wandered into the bar and was discovered. Meanwhile another theory suggests that Poe had been in regular correspondence with a lady with whom he subsequently quarreled. When Edgar refused to give back her letters, she sent the men to enforce their return and they then beat up her former lover. Were they the two men on the train— assuming the guard's testimony is to be believed and there were any mysterious men in the first place?

  Lending substance to this last claim is the suggestion th
at prior to meeting Elmira again, Poe had been engaged to a wealthy widow after only a brief courtship in what some regarded as a callous attempt by the writer to gain funding for his new magazine. This was broken off after a violent confrontation between a drunken Poe and his terrified fiancee, and it is possible that this lady had been the sender of the letters Poe had refused to return. In addition, rather than just being simple love letters, they may have contained a promise of funding that Poe intended to later claim as a contractual obligation. Hence the rather extreme measures the lady had to resort to in order to get them back.