Having finished my series of reminiscences regarding the first Weird Weekend - thank you for the death threats I received in response, by the way, its nice to know that someone is reading my blogs - I think it would be apropos to return to more conventional cryptozoological subjects lest my legions of besotted fans (Bert and Evadne Crippen from Billericay) become bored and hove off to some inferior website for their edification.Many moons ago, I read about a UFO encounter in the USA. I can't remember where I read it, the exact location it occurred in, who it concerned or much about what happened, which I fully confess is not much of a start. However, the one thing I do recall is that some alien-type creature (which looked pretty human, as I recall) was locked up in a jail cell and ultimately escaped or disappeared. He left behind him not much, except for a set of fingerprints which were indelibly impressed into a filing cabinet. For all the world it looked as if he'd been resting his digits on warm wax and not cold steel. Readers - perhaps Mr. Redfern, and I know you're out there, Nick - might recall this incident, and if they know of its source I'd appreciate hearing it. Whatever happened to the filing cabinet I'll never know. Its probably lying in an underground bunker at Groom Lake.
The fascinating thing about this story - or what I can recall of it - is that it has a predecessor of sorts. This, at long last, is where the cryptozoological bit comes in.
Picture, if you will, the sleepy town of Stockton-on-Tees. (If you're having trouble, visualise Newcastle-upon-Tyne, only with thicker pie crusts). The date is Thursday March 25, in the Year of Our Lord 1841. A man - if such he was - called James Robinson has been breaking into various and sundry residences and robbing them of silver candlesticks, brass toasting forks, loaves of bread and whatever passed in 1841 for a Sony PlayStation. With his bag full of swag, he is proceeding to his next target when, to his chagrin, he has the misfortune to bump into one of Her Majesty's Constables - Henry Waring Robinson, perchance - going about his business. The constable, without hesitation, then proceeds to stop James Robinson going about his business by promptly arresting him.
Robinson was promptly frogmarched by Robinson (I know its confusing, but bear with me) off to the local nick, charged with "several counts of felony", given a light but pleasant repast of gruel and cold water and bedded down for the night. Now even back then the gaols in Stockton were remarkably civilised places. Robinson's cell didn't exactly have a walnut drinks cabinet in the corner and a shag pile carpet, but it did have a fire. And this is where the enigma begins, dear reader.
At some point during the night, Robinson decided to escape. In the movies, escapees overpower their guards by grabbing them through the cell bars and removing the keys from their belt before strangling them (the guards, not the keys). Robinson came up with a different strategy. He started off by wresting one of the bars from the cell door or window (the account doesn't make clear which) and then started work on the fireplace. Within a short space of time it was demolished, and then, working with the motto, "I've started so I'll finish", he proceeded to knock down the rest of the wall. Having established an aperture large enough to drive a London bus through, the cheeky chappie walked off into the night and was never seen again.
Now on first pass the whole incident may seem like Stockton's low-budget answer to Escape From Alcatraz, but there is far more to the story than that.
Firstly, the gaol was an extremely small affair - two drunken prostitutes and a litter lout in the charge room together constituted a full-scale riot - and one wonders how Robinson managed to demolish an entire wall without arousing the suspicions of the constables sitting in the bait room next door. Secondly, one is also forced to wonder how the miscreant managed to wrest from its moorings the iron bar with which he demolished the said wall. Gaols back then may not have been centrally heated with en-suite bathrooms, but they were incredibly sturdy. The whole thing was baffling, and the good folk of Stockton were no less mystified than everyone else.
Before long, word got around that Robinson wasn't exactly - how shall I put this - of human stock. He wasn't a big chap, but he seemed to possess the strength of a herd of elephants. Yet, he managed to demolish the wall of the gaol with consummate grace and made no more kerfuffle than an ant farting in the middle of the Gobi Desert. (I don't know if ants actually live in the Gobi Desert, or fart, but I'm sure Messrs. Freeman and Downes will enlighten me).
Robinson was quickly labeled as a shape-shifter by locals; a creature of psychic or other-worldly provenance who could masquerade as a human whilst, simultaneously, doing things that real humans could not do at all. Such as demolishing the walls of a gaol without anyone hearing anything. Robinson's reputation as a cryptozoological entity of great magnitude was only enhanced by his subsequent disappearance. He had, it was reckoned, gone back to whatever dimension he had first hailed from.
Now its easy to laugh at such a tale - particularly if one envisages the faces of the local Bobbies who had "lost" their greatest capture - but the truth is that Robinson's bizarre escape from Stockton gaol does pose some very awkward questions. How did he demolish a sizable part of the nick without the constables next door hearing him - and, more to the point - how did he do it so quickly? There are no easy answers. There are many local legends around the Stockton area about shape-shifting entities masquerading as humans - some of which were said to possess superhuman powers. When cornered, they could deftly change into a horse, a cow, a pig or even a goose.
Call me a cynic if you like, but I suspect that within this fascinating historical vignette there is a prosaic answer to be had. Like the good people of Stockton, I just can't think of what it might be.
Answers on a postcard, please....
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