ALAN FRISWELL: SCARY SPIDER STORIES SUPPLEMENTAL

ANGRY ARACHNID ARGUES AGAINST APPARENT AVAILABILITY! “IT WASN’T ME!”
AVOWS AGGRAVATED ARTHROPOD!

After my request for any information about a British Sunday paper article from the 1970’s, describing an expedition into a previously unexplored jungle region, Richard F sent me this great piece detailing the British Trans-American Expedition from 1972.

http://www.difflock.com/diffmag/issue5/darien.shtml

It’s extremely interesting, particularly the bit about the chap with appendicitis, but overall, I feel that there too many details that just don’t fit. For starters, the Trans-American campaign involved a large team of people, and overland vehicles. The article that I remember reading described a small group that were trying to negotiate virgin rainforest which was so dense that they had to cut their way through, surely rendering the use of cars impractical.

Also, the Trans-American trip took the expedition across a large chunk of South America, whereas the team that I read about were only exploring a single--albeit very large--part of the jungle which had so far proved inaccessible. Giant spiders are certainly mentioned in the Trans-American report, but are not given any special attention, certainly not to the point of being photographed to give evidence of their great size. In the article in the Sunday paper, the picture of the monster spider appeared to have legs at least a foot long, making it considerably larger than the ‘dinner plate’ dimensions described in the Trans-American article. Other strange creatures, such as the frog that rolled downhill are not mentioned at all by the Trans-American
team, but were one of the main points of interest in the Sunday paper story.

The bit about the guy with appendicitis does seem amazingly coincidental, could it be that stomach trouble was a common complaint among 70's jungle explorers? Could it have been people connected to him that saw the giant spider and kept it to themselves until they got
home? I doubt it somehow...

So while the Trans-American expedition does seem tantalisingly close, I’m sure that the article that I read described something else, some other journey into mystery that I sincerely hope will be solved soon. So if anyone has information of any kind, don’t be shy……

While we’re on the subject of past recollections, does anyone remember a British children’s TV series from the earlier part of the 1970’s called either Great Mysteries, or Unsolved Mysteries? It was on the BBC, and was presented by Magnus Magusson, before he did Mastermind. It
was on for about six weeks, each edition dealing with subjects such as sea serpents, ghosts, and ancient curses. I remember the sea serpent edition with great clarity, as it included clips from Harryhausen’s The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. It was the first programme I ever saw that
explored Fortean themes, and I loved it. Does anyone else have memories of it?