First episode of the 1980 Television series, hosted by Arthur C. Clarke.
This episode introduces the themes that are explored in the remainder of the series. Clarke expounds on his categorisation of mysteries, self-consciously aping the famous 'close encounters' categorisation used by some ufologists:
1 - Mysteries of the First Kind — phenomena which were mysterious to our ancestors but are now well understood. Clarke illustrates this category by observing the Solar eclipse of 16 February 1980 from Hyderabad, India, highlighting that eclipses are still treated with reverence and suspicion in some cultures.
2 - Mysteries of the Second Kind — phenomena which are as yet unexplained, but where we have several clues that hint at an answer. Clarke looks at ball lightning (including one sighting by Roger Jennison in the cabin of an aircraft), the Loch Ness Monster, Remy Van Lierde's encounter with a gigantic snake, a sighting of a sea serpent off the coast of England, the stone spheres of Costa Rica, the Baghdad Battery, the vitrified forts of Scotland, Stonehenge, and the Cerne Abbas Giant. The ruined ancient palace of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka, which Clarke mentions at the beginning of the episode, could also be included in this category.
3- Mysteries of the Third Kind — phenomena for which we have no rational explanation. Clarke mentions psychic phenomena as something that would be included in this category, and the extremely strange phenomena of raining animals and seeds and nuts "raining" from the sky might also be included.
This episode introduces the themes that are explored in the remainder of the series. Clarke expounds on his categorisation of mysteries, self-consciously aping the famous 'close encounters' categorisation used by some ufologists:
1 - Mysteries of the First Kind — phenomena which were mysterious to our ancestors but are now well understood. Clarke illustrates this category by observing the Solar eclipse of 16 February 1980 from Hyderabad, India, highlighting that eclipses are still treated with reverence and suspicion in some cultures.
2 - Mysteries of the Second Kind — phenomena which are as yet unexplained, but where we have several clues that hint at an answer. Clarke looks at ball lightning (including one sighting by Roger Jennison in the cabin of an aircraft), the Loch Ness Monster, Remy Van Lierde's encounter with a gigantic snake, a sighting of a sea serpent off the coast of England, the stone spheres of Costa Rica, the Baghdad Battery, the vitrified forts of Scotland, Stonehenge, and the Cerne Abbas Giant. The ruined ancient palace of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka, which Clarke mentions at the beginning of the episode, could also be included in this category.
3- Mysteries of the Third Kind — phenomena for which we have no rational explanation. Clarke mentions psychic phenomena as something that would be included in this category, and the extremely strange phenomena of raining animals and seeds and nuts "raining" from the sky might also be included.
Category
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TVTranscript
00:00Does an ape man walk the uncharted forests of America's northwest?
00:25What unknown monster of the sea grappled with this U.S. Navy frigate in South American waters?
00:34Why did people raise up this enormous circle of stones in Orkney 4,000 years ago?
00:39Who drew this giant, the largest figure in the world, on Chile's loneliest mountain?
00:48What hands fashioned the skull of doom?
00:51Does it bring death?
00:55Why do stones move by themselves in California's Death Valley?
01:02Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001 and inventor of the communications
01:07satellite.
01:08Now in retreat in Sri Lanka after a lifetime of science, space, and writing, he ponders
01:13the riddles of this and other worlds.
01:17Mysteries have intrigued and amused me ever since I was a child and read stories of fishes
01:22falling from the heavens, of giant sea monsters attacking ships, and luminous shapes moving
01:29through the skies.
01:32Over the years, I've classified them in order of strangeness as mysteries of the first,
01:38second, and third kinds.
01:41Even in this small island, there are extraordinary things on every side.
01:46Fifteen hundred years ago, a king of Sri Lanka built this fantastic staircase.
01:52Why?
01:53We can only guess.
01:57This was a lost world for a thousand years.
02:00We may never know its purpose.
02:03What made a tyrant king create this palace with its pleasure gardens in the sky?
02:09For me, it's a starting point in a journey through our mysterious world.
02:39Well, here we are in the middle of India on a beautiful, bright, sunny day.
02:50Yet, we're waiting for one of the most awe-inspiring phenomenon that the whole natural world can
02:55show, a total eclipse of the sun, a splendid example of a mystery of the first kind.
03:00In a few minutes, this brightly lit landscape will become perfectly dark.
03:06Of course, this still terrifies many people, and indeed, even to a modern civilized man,
03:13it's quite an awe-inspiring experience.
03:16We know that the sun is 400 times bigger than the moon, but also 400 times further away.
03:23So by this very strange coincidence, the moon can almost exactly cover the sun at certain
03:29times of its orbit around the earth, and that gives us a total eclipse.
03:35So this is a mystery which has been solved, and at the same time, there are a good many
03:38scientific mysteries about the sun which have not been solved, which is why astronomers,
03:44you see here, travel all around the world, so they can observe this wonderful phenomenon,
03:49which is of great scientific interest.
03:51No, it's aluminum foil, aluminum foil, two pieces.
04:21Already, the light on this landscape, which was so brilliantly illuminated half an hour
04:33ago by the full tropical sun, is fading to a sort of grey.
04:36Did you hear that, the cock crowing?
04:39Already, the animals know that something strange is happening.
04:42In fact, the level of light here at the moment is something like that of Mars on a fairly
04:48bright day, and it's quite cold now.
04:52I can feel when the wind blows, I feel as though I'm back in England.
04:58Less than a minute to go now, like a door closing with a great light behind it, a curved
05:02door hanging up there in space.
05:05The moon has almost completely covered the sun.
05:10The last light is beginning to go.
05:18Just a tiny, narrow thread of light, that's all.
05:23There are streams around me, people are scared of what's happening.
05:27The landscape around us fades out.
05:35Only the very narrowest thread now.
05:39Just a few seconds left.
05:45It's going, going, going, gone.
05:55Eye patch is off.
05:57There is the corona, the most glorious sight, a great crown of light, the solar corona.
06:06There are streamers of light stretching out around it, and very bright bursts of flame
06:12near the edge itself.
06:14It's still quite bright.
06:15We can see the landscape around us, as though it's probably a bright moonlight night as
06:21far as the illumination is concerned, because the light from the corona is so intense.
06:29I can't see any other stars except Venus and little Mercury.
06:36Of course, the longer one looks, the more detail one sees.
06:40You can tell that there are enormous magnetic forces at play there because of the way these
06:44streamers follow lines, like lines of filing around a magnet.
06:50Now you can just see the sun coming, it's all ended, a burst of light, the diamond ring,
06:55as they'll call it, just a single spot of light, as the sun shines through one of the
06:59lunar valleys.
07:00It does it like a diamond ring in the sky, and now it's all over.
07:07That wonderful eclipse is what I call a mystery of the first kind.
07:11It was a mystery to our ancestors, but not to us.
07:14We know exactly how it was caused.
07:17Yet tragically, millions of Indians failed to see it because they were terrified and
07:22stayed indoors and so missed the spectacle of a lifetime.
07:27We can enjoy an eclipse without fear, yet not without awe.
07:32However, this series is mostly about what I call mysteries of the second kind.
07:38There we don't have the answers, though we may have many clues.
07:43The first example I'm going to give is a literally striking one.
07:47It took place on another beach in Scotland a few years ago.
07:58It was in 1966 that a terrifying visitation came to the beach cafe where Mrs. Jean Meldrum
08:05and her mother, Mrs. Evelyn Murdoch, were working.
08:07I looked up because I heard this noise getting louder and louder, and it was just like a
08:13ball of fire.
08:14It was like orange in the middle, and it was luminous white round, and it rolled right
08:17along the side of the cafe, the wall in the cafe, and it came to the window, and it came
08:22out the window.
08:23And I came up, lifted up the window to have a look to see what this was, and the thing
08:27came out the window and battered across the front of my chest, and then it just, well,
08:31it vanished because I picked the kid up and I went inside because everybody was panicking
08:34by this time.
08:35But I was sore for days after it, and just there was nothing else to see after it had
08:39gone, but it was just like a big ball of fire.
08:42All of a sudden, the whole kitchen that I was standing in just lit up luminous white.
08:48I couldn't understand.
08:49It was very frightening, and then the people, the screaming went on till the beach was empty,
08:55the cafe, people had all run out of the cafe.
08:58They ran out like lightning, and the beach attendant who had a wooden leg, he usually
09:02sat on a table just next to the counter, and you never send him out so quick in all your
09:07life.
09:08He was gone with the rest.
09:10And the following day, I discovered the two gas jets on the top of the cooker were cut
09:15right through, and we had to send it to the blacksmith in Creel, the local blacksmith,
09:19to be repaired.
09:22This man, Professor Roger Jennison, who's in charge of Kent University's radio telescope,
09:27collects such tales.
09:28Indeed, he's had such an experience himself, on board Eastern Airlines Flight 539, coming
09:34into Washington one stormy night.
09:36Well, all of a sudden, just after one of the more intense crashes of lightning, there appeared
09:42from the pilot's compartment a most beautiful blue ball, about the size of a football, near
09:49enough the size of a football, a lovely thing, which moved at a slow pace, about this sort
09:54of speed, down the aisle of the aircraft, a fast walking pace, and I could certainly
09:58feel no sensation of heat, although it passed at arm's length from my face.
10:04I suppose it must have been a few seconds, I can't remember exactly how long thereafter,
10:08but the air hostess came clambering up the aisle, she flopped into my lap, she put her
10:13arms around my neck, and she said, did you see that St. Elmo's fire?
10:17Well, I tried to console her that it wasn't St. Elmo's fire she'd seen, that St. Elmo's
10:22fire, by the way, are the beautiful crown that you see over the tops of the master ships
10:26and things like that, but this indeed was ball lightning, we'd indeed been very, very
10:29fortunate to see at very close quarters, ball lightning actually travelling down the middle
10:35of a screened aircraft.
10:38Ball lightning is still a major scientific mystery, in fact, until quite recently, many
10:43scientists refused to admit that it even existed.
10:48In the case of other mysteries of the second kind, we often have quite good films and photographs,
10:53yet we are still arguing about their interpretation.
10:59Does this film, shot in 1936, show the Loch Ness Monster?
11:05Did it surface once more, 41 years later, to be captured again by the camera?
11:12Is this the footprint of the Yeti, the abominable snowman of the Himalayas?
11:18And does this shaky film, taken in a forest in Northern California, really show Bigfoot,
11:23another ape man who has so far eluded all his pursuers?
11:30This strange light which flew over Southern England near Aylesbury remains unidentified,
11:35but was it a spacecraft from another planet?
11:38This gruesome corpse was trawled up by fishermen in the South Pacific.
11:42Is it what it appears to be, an unknown monster of the sea?
11:46When the camera seems to capture an African snake twice as long as any ever recorded,
11:52or a missing link killed by explorers in South America,
11:58or an unknown species of big cat roaming the plains of Africa,
12:02can we believe the evidence the film conveys?
12:06Apart from the films and photographic evidence for these mysteries of the second kind,
12:12there are perplexed and often frightened eyewitnesses who'd like an answer just as much as I would.
12:18Water bailiff Alex Campbell reports he's seen the Loch Ness Monster 18 times.
12:23His closest encounter came one night as he rode in a boat with a policeman friend, Constable John Fraser.
12:29There was this terrific upsurge of water, terrific.
12:36I knew right away what it was, but poor John Fraser didn't, and he was scared stiff.
12:43And he said, what in the name of heaven is that?
12:46Oh, I said, don't worry, John, it's OK. It'll be OK.
12:51I said, it's messy.
12:53Oh, that calmed him down a bit.
12:56But this surge kept going on, and then after what seemed to be two or three minutes,
13:03the surge still going on, we heard it breathing.
13:09And it was fantastic itself, that, because it sounded exactly like a horse
13:15that had been running, and it was sounded like this.
13:20Just like that.
13:26This Belgian helicopter pilot, Colonel Remy van Lerde, was menaced by a gigantic snake.
13:32He was operating in the Congo.
13:34Now, when I came down on that snake in his hole,
13:38when approaching it at the minimum speed, I would say at 20, 25 miles,
13:43and I would say at about 25, 30 feet up, the snake raised up by about, I would say, 10 feet.
13:52And I could very clearly and closely see the head, which was looking,
13:56and I could not make a better comparison with a very large horse,
14:02with big, very, very big jaws, looking triangular.
14:06And you're just standing up like that to me, and I feel, and I'm convinced,
14:11if I had been in its range, it would have struck at me, it would have been striking me.
14:19The Holmes family believe they came face to face with the legendary Serpent of the Sea.
14:24We were going along, and all of a sudden we heard a disturbance in the water,
14:28and saw this mound come up out of the water.
14:31Well, you've seen these motorway tractor units with very large tyres,
14:36five feet in diameter, that sort of situation.
14:38Well, if you can imagine one of those being released from below the water,
14:42and then shooting up under its own propulsion, yes.
14:46We could see that it had two shallow humps, they were three or four feet long,
14:54and then it had a small head, it had a thin neck and a small head,
14:58which was dipping in the water and looking around.
15:01What it was, we'll never know, never seen anything like it in our lives.
15:06It was like some sort of prehistoric monster that you see, it's a huge size, absolutely huge, incredible.
15:12Yes, there's something very strange in the seas, without any doubt, it's a huge thing.
15:19Well, we've started to investigate some of these mysteries,
15:22where a little work or logical deduction might help to solve them.
15:26Of course, where the evidence is lacking, they may remain mysteries of the second kind forever.
15:36The steamy airport at Palmasur, set deep in banana country, near Costa Rica's border with Panama.
16:07Dr Luis Gomez is director of Costa Rica's National Museum.
16:12He's flown in to hunt for any clue which might explain one of the world's most intractable mysteries,
16:17the giant stone balls of Costa Rica.
16:20Huge and uncannily perfect spheres, handmade and of unknown origin.
16:26They're even beside the airport runway.
16:29But Gomez's goal lies in the heart of the banana plantations,
16:33where an archaeologist has reported a new find.
16:51For 50 years since the giant stone balls were first brought to their attention,
16:55archaeologists have travelled here hopefully,
16:58but none has arrived at any explanation of their purpose or their date.
17:03In charge of this dig is Mike Snaskis.
17:09Hello, Mike.
17:10Luis.
17:11How are you?
17:12It's about time you're here. This is hard work.
17:13I imagine so. Is this heat?
17:14No, listen, this is something.
17:16We found not only this one, which looks to be about the size of the one that's in the Palmar airport,
17:20but also over here about 100 yards, another large one.
17:24Right here, behind you, still another.
17:27I think it's been broken, but looks large as well.
17:30We probably have the arrangement that we read about years ago of balls in lines.
17:36There's absolutely nothing to tell who made the spheres or when or why.
17:40Bewildered archaeologists can merely clutch at straws.
17:43The fact that they are in lines brings into my mind the possibility
17:48that they represent actual maps of constellations, for instance.
17:54That's my favourite theory, but I don't know what...
17:58Mike?
17:59Mike, what do you think these stone balls were made for?
18:04Well, Luis, that's a difficult question.
18:08Now, I, as an archaeologist, should know better than anyone what these balls represent.
18:14And, in fact, I know almost nothing.
18:17More than 1,500 giant stone balls have so far been found,
18:21the biggest 8 feet across and weighing 16 tonnes.
18:25The granite they are made from has been brought from mountains many miles away.
18:29They are mathematically precise and must have taken years to grind down
18:33with nothing more than stone tools and abrasives.
18:36Today, they are the Costa Rican equivalent of the garden gnome.
18:40Dozens have been carried off to the capital, San Jose, to adorn important buildings.
18:45Others have been smashed by treasure hunters inspired by talk of hidden gold.
18:51But many still lie half buried in the jungle and banana groves,
18:55where an unknown people placed them in a forgotten era.
18:59In half a century of painstaking work,
19:01not one real clue has emerged to explain the giant stone balls of Costa Rica.
19:06As you can see, we know nothing about the stone spheres.
19:10They remain and will remain for many years to come.
19:14A very true mystery.
19:21A few clues and a little logical deduction
19:25may, however, have helped this German scientist
19:28to find an astonishing explanation for another group of mysterious objects from the past.
19:35Dr. Arne Egerbricht, director of the Hildesheim Museum,
19:39took us to Munich to an exhibition of treasures from ancient Iraq.
19:45There, modestly displayed, are three relics from old Baghdad.
19:49Dr. Egerbricht believes they prove that ancient people developed technology
19:542,000 years ahead of its time.
19:57These three curious objects were found in 1936
20:02during excavations in Baghdad, in Iraq,
20:06and they were found altogether.
20:10One in the other.
20:12Now, here you have, first of all, a ceramic pot,
20:16and in this pot was put this copper cylinder,
20:19and in this copper cylinder, again,
20:22this iron rod was found.
20:26On top and on the bottom of this copper cylinder,
20:31there was found bitumen.
20:34And if you take all these things together,
20:37this can only mean for a scientist
20:40that you have here an electric cell or a battery.
20:44The remarkable thing is that these objects are 2,200 years old.
20:49That means 2,000 years before electricity was invented in Europe, in Italy.
20:59In this experiment, part of an Iron Age fort is recreated in northern Scotland.
21:04Under test is an extraordinary claim
21:07that the ancient fort builders managed to produce
21:10almost incredible temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees centigrade
21:14and so melt stones and turn them to impregnable glass.
21:21With American Richard Brinkehoff,
21:23we walked on the very lintels of a great stone circle
21:27to investigate his theory that Stonehenge was an observatory.
21:32And the rude man of Cern may, after many centuries,
21:36yield up his true identity.
21:38Well, I think he's a Celtic god, really.
21:41A sex symbol.
21:43We did have one girl that had been married for about seven years
21:48and hadn't managed to have a child,
21:51so we told her to go and sit on the giant.
21:53Apparently, you're supposed to sit up low.
21:55I don't know whether she did that or not.
21:57But the next spring, she was pregnant.
21:59I look at him every day.
22:01I think he is a sex symbol because he does wonders for me.
22:06The secret of who he is may lie in the soil
22:09beneath the turf from which the giant is cut.
22:19Our tests, using the latest scientific techniques,
22:22reveal that the giant, who looks like this today,
22:26may once have looked like this.
22:29The clue to his name and date lies in the line under his arm.
22:34A mystery of the third kind is something where we just haven't a clue.
22:38It's absolutely unaccountable.
22:41If they exist,
22:43psychic phenomena would be mysteries of the third kind.
22:47However, some events are so strange
22:49that they seem like mysteries of the third kind
22:52with no rational answers.
22:54But perhaps we can provide some clues.
22:56What would you think if this sort of thing happened to you?
23:00I was coming up this road. I was coming north.
23:03I was just about a block away
23:05when all of a sudden a fish fell right to my right hand,
23:08the left-hand side of the car.
23:10I saw the fish. I saw the fish fall out of the sky.
23:13I kept driving. I was very amazed.
23:16And when I got here, at this location here,
23:19the yard was just absolutely covered with fish.
23:22And I was amazed. I stopped.
23:25And just about that time, other people started getting here.
23:28And everybody was just amazed at the whole thing.
23:30They just couldn't believe it.
23:32They couldn't believe that the fish had just dropped out of the sky.
23:35We heard something thudding against the umbrella.
23:37And when we looked, to our amazement,
23:39it was a shower of frogs.
23:41And they still were coming from the sky.
23:43There were hundreds of them.
23:45Our umbrella was covered. All our shoulders were covered.
23:48And as we looked up, we could see them.
23:50We happened to be in the dining room.
23:52First of all, we heard this terrific clatter.
23:55It was an awful noise, wasn't it?
23:57Yes.
23:59We rushed out and went down into the garden,
24:03and presently a load of broad-bean seed came over.
24:07And we both ducked.
24:09You ducked down because they're fairly big, broad-bean seed.
24:13And then you got a little bit annoyed about it.
24:18I turned round to the wife and I said,
24:20Well, this is bloody silly.
24:22I couldn't help it.
24:24Looking around, we found they were in the middle of a shower
24:27of hazelnuts coming from the sky.
24:30And they were dropping on the cars,
24:34falling in the gutter, and I should think
24:36there would be as many as we saw, about 350 of them.
24:40It was very clear, and the sky was blue,
24:43and it was one small cloud.
24:45But there was no aeroplanes or anything like that about
24:48for them to come down from there.
24:50How they came and where they came from, I have no idea.
24:54But I have thought that it might be a vortex that sucked them up.
24:58I don't know where you suck up hazelnuts in March.
25:02Our universe is such a strange and wonderful place
25:05that reality will always outrun the wildest imagination.
25:09¶¶ ¶¶
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