UV Unidentified Voice
AL Alan Spraggett
BC Brad Crandell
A Announcer

UV: There are things which happen right around us, which are beyond the laws of science or society. Things for which man has no answer, no explanation. We cannot understand how they happen, we can only, which a touch of fear, lump them together as “The unexplained”. In one moment, storyteller Alan Spraggett, syndicated columnist and well-known investigator of the unexplained. Now, here is Alan Spraggett, author of “The Unexplained”.

AL: Can a person disappear off the face of the earth without a trace? History records a number of instances in which exactly this seems to have happened. One of the weirdest and most terrifying is the case of Oliver Lurch. On Christmas Eve, 1890, near the city of Southbend, Indiana, a man apparently walked into nowhere. He has never returned. Here is the true story: Thomas Lurch, a farmer whose farm still stands on the outskirts of Southbend, had two sons: Jim, 23, and Oliver, aged 20. Though Lurch was strict with his two sons and insisted on rigid obedience, he doesn’t seem to have been cruel. In fact, the Lurch household appears to have been a happy one, probably very much like any other normal American farm household of its time. But it was overshadowed by an incredible doom. On the fateful night, the family was celebrating Christmas Eve with a gay party. Both boys had their girlfriends with them. Oliver was singing with his girlfriend. Lillian Hirsch, daughter of a Chicago lawyer. The day had been overcast and snow had fallen steadily. But with the coming of evening, the sky had cleared and a bright moon hung in the heavens. The countryside was covered with a deep layer of fresh, crisp snow that sparkled in the moonlight like a carpet of diamonds. It was a perfect Indiana Christmas Eve. But something was hovering over the Lurch house that night. About ten p.m. Mrs. Lurch, who was busy preparing the dinner, asked Oliver if he would go out to the well and fetch two pails of water. Oliver excused himself to his girlfriend, put on his coat and hat and gloves, picked up two pails and walked out of the house. Oliver Lurch never reached the well, and he was never seen again on this Earth. A few minutes after Oliver had gone out the door, the family group singing around the piano were terrified by a piercing scream. It came from the yard. The group rushed outside. From somewhere above their heads they could hear a voice, Oliver’s, screaming, “Help me! Help me! It’s got me! Help!” Filled with horror, the group scanned the dark sky. They could see nothing, but every few moments the agonizing unearthly cry could be heard, “Help me! Help me! It’s got me!” The group milled around in helpless horror and panic. What was happening? Neighbors were called for help. A frantic search was begun into every nook and cranny on the farm. The house itself was practically taken apart. They looked in the attic, on the roof, in the chimney, but they found no trace of the missing boy. Yet still, over and over, growing gradually fainter, they could hear that terrible cry from somewhere above them: “Help! Help me! It’s got me!” Then the voice ceased. It was never heard again. The searchers made a discovery: Oliver’s tracks clearly marked in the fresh snow stopped abruptly about two hundred feet from the house. There was no sign of a struggle. The tracks just stopped dead as if the boy had been lifted bodily from the ground or had stepped through some mysterious door out of this world. Beside the last pair of footprints was a pail, but Oliver had been carrying two when he left the house. This second pail was never found. It too apparently had vanished off the face of the Earth. What happened to Oliver Lurch? There is no doubt something happened to him, something weird, something fantastic. The facts of this story are clearly detailed in the police records of Southbend, Indiana. There were numerous eyewitnesses to the actual disappearance, including lawyers and the local Methodist minister of the time, Reverend Samuel Mallium (phonetic spelling). Various theories were advanced to explain the mystery, none of them convincing. Some said Oliver Lurch had been carried off by an eagle. But is there any eagle big enough to abduct a grown man? The mystery of Oliver Lurch’s incredible departure from this world on Christmas Eve, 1890, remains unsolved to this day. Where did he go? This is part of “The Unexplained”.

UV1: Beyond the flimsy veil that separates man from the unknown, things happen that are beyond the laws of science or society. A thousand things for which man has no answer, no explanation, yet here they are. Happening to or before the eyes of ordinary people. The teller of these authenticated stories is Alan Spraggett, syndicated columnist and well-known investigator of “The Unexplained”.

A Cut number two. Canada at the crossroads.

UV: Our story today, about a moment when our country’s entire future trembled in the balance. A voyage of discovery, what magic in those words, a phrase to stir the blood of a bank clerk, to tug at the imagination of the scholar, to draw a sigh of regret from the husband. And was such a voyage which brought Canada to the crossroads of history. There is a land called Greenland, settled centuries ago by the Norsemen, nine hundred and eighty years after the birth of our Lord. They came there in great open boats, some seventy feet long, swept over the seas by huge banks of oars or a great sail. Some stayed in Greenland, but the adventurous ones sought the secret of the open seas to the west. (unintelligible), son of (unintelligible), in 968, found the land covered with woods, and with low coasts and no sign of mountains. Then came Leif, son of Eric the Red, he and a crew of thirty-five sailed in the year 1000 and made a landfall of a snow-covered shore, covered with great slabs of stone, and inland, empty desolate hills. They named it “Land of the Stones”, today we call it Labrador. Days later and farther south, Leif dropped anchor off shores covered with white sand, a land of forests. To them it was “Markland”, to us today it may be Newfoundland, or Cape Breton, or Nova Scotia. Two days south, the Norsemen discovered Vinland (phonetic spelling), a warmer country, with woods and trees and lakes and rivers. And in those waters, a bounty of salmon. They found wild grain and bushes with berries, and of them they made wine and grew tipsy. They stayed the winter there, and then sailed away to their own land and told of their discovery, and many voyages followed to this Vinland. Seven years after Leif, (unintelligible), with a hundred and sixty men, some of their wives and some cattle, came and built houses and traded with the Indians and stayed there for four years. And there, the first white child, born in America was named Snory (phonetic spelling). But then hardship and terror of the Indians drove them from the Island and they retreated to Greenland, and the land named Canada was lost to them. And the irony is clear, for these men and women, as no other since, were perfectly suited to our climate, to our environment. What they might have made of this land had they stayed is one of history’s most fascinating speculations. For one moment in time, our country’s future trembled in the balance. Scandinavia might have extended her sway over a great new world, and the Portuguese and Italians who later plied our waters would have been welcomed as guests or repelled as invaders. And you and I, well, we might now today be called Canadians. So a toast to the hearty Norsemen, in their fragile shells, who sailed across wintry seas in the long ago to bring Canada to the crossroads.

Canada at the Crossroads. A word, a deed, a signature, a common place at the moment of its birth. Maybe an act of destiny for a country and a people. Join us again the next time we brush the dust of history from the pages of our past, and live again those moments which found Canada at the Crossroads.

A: Cut number three. Larry and Gary.

Larry: Many famous movies like Stallag 17 and The Wooden Horse, have demonstrated the daring escape methods used by Allied prisoners of war. Invariably there was a German camp commandant who was always demanding the cooperation of these prisoners in long speeches in the prison-yards. What did these commandants do after the war, since their only experience was in camp direction, let’s imagine one of them here with a job at a summer resort as a social director.

Social Director: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Baron von (unintelligible), your social director. Is that clear? I have arranged a number of activities to make your stay as comfortable as possible till the war is over, until the summer is over. You’ll find me very easy to get along with, it is up to you. How about a sing-song. Any suggestions?

Audience member: How about Row-Row Your Boat!

Social Director: Well, how does that go?

Audience member: (sings) Row, row, row your b—

Social Director: Silence! I mean, I don’t know that one. How about this: (sings) "Underneath the lamppost by the Barrackgate" What’s the matter?

Audience member: That’s not a well-known song.

Social Director: You. Take one step forward. What is your name?

Audience member: Smith.

Social Director: You’re who?

Audience member: 401

Social Director: Your rate?

Audience member: Twenty dollars a day.

Social Director: Ladies and gentlemen. I have run up a few simple rules to our stay more pleasant. Rule number one! There will be a sing-song every evening. Rule number two! There (unintelligible). Rule number three! Digging of tunnels will be severely punished. Rule number four! All prisoners will refrain from talking in groups of four. Rule number five!

Audience member: I’m going home. Can I get my money back?

Social Director: Tonight at midnight go to Sandy Cove and wait for two lights about thirty meters into the water. Row the rubber boat out to the light. You will receive your money. How much is it?

Audience member: Only been here two days at twenty dollars a day, that’s forty dollars.

Social Director: I see. How much is that in Marks?

Gary: Summer festivals have come to an end and foremost among them has been the famous Shakesford Strathferian Festival in the little down of Shakesford.

Larry: Here the theatre, in its finest tradition, presented the classic drama of Wilfred Strathfere. Foremost amongst this year’s presentations was the tragedy of Macout.

Gary: Here for those who perhaps are unable to cope with the classic language and intricate prop design is the crucial death scene, from Macout.

C1: I have been deceived by which you art thou mine eyes can’t yet discover.

C2: To be unless thou couldst, care I for folly thereby.

C3: Therefore art thou indeed, before thy hands could be by which

C2: Say not thou art instead by which I could be whereby therefore

C1: Regard your thereby and watch your which arts

C2: Ha ha! Thou can’t be art indeed for all your therefore by which

C1: Say you a knave therefore!

C2: Ah by which a knave canst not withhold unto him

C1: Therefore thou wilt be thereby unless thou couldst be entitled, may I say today hooray, thou art a therefore.

C2: Do take thyself thither and to that table reach whereby that blade thy hand there under shall enclose.

C3: Huh?

C2: Do take thyself thither and to that table whereby that blade thy hand there under shall enclose.

C3: Huh?

C2: Go on over to the table and bring me the knife here!

C3: Oh.

C1: Deceive you? May I can’t until the dawning of your faith thereby a knave by which your therefore is all creased.

C2: My therefore may be creased whereby is your which art not a vow?

C1: Ah, to be, or not to be, that is a sentence.

A: Cut number four. Strange Cults.

UV: Ever since the world began, there have been small groups of people whose beliefs, whose way of life was so unorthodox as to be called crackpot. These were weird, funny, sometimes tragic, but always interesting. Strange cults of the western world. In one minute, storyteller Alan Spraggett. (silence) And now, here is storyteller Alan Spragett.

AS: Every schoolboy knows that the Earth is shaped like an orange. Since Magellan first sailed around the globe in 1519, few have doubt that the Earth is round. But that few exist. At the present time in England, there is a Flat Earth Society dedicated to propagating the view that the (unintelligible, sound cuts out) … incredible. It’s true. One of the most outspoken and remarkable of modern flat-Earthers was a millionaire preacher named Wilbur Glenn Voliva. For thirty years before his death in 1935, Voliva ruled the town of Zion, Illinois with an iron hand. Zion, about forty miles north of Chicago, was founded as a religious community in 1895. Up until the last twenty years or so, it was a stronghold of rigid Puritanism. A person could be arrested for smoking or even whistling on Sundays. And while Wilbur Glenn Voliva was alive, Zion was a stronghold of the Flat Earth cult. Voliva, a short, rolly-polly man, who wore a rumpled frock coat with fancy lace cuffs, was so certain he was right that he offered $5,000 dollars who could prove to him the earth was round. No one ever collected the money. Voliva died, still convinced that we live on the top of a giant pancake. Voliva not only believed this himself, he wanted to spread his gospel. He made several trips around the world, lecturing on the subject. According to Voliva, a huge wall full of snow and ice forms a barrier around the rim of this pancake world, and this prevents ships from sailing right off the edge and falling into Hades. Voliva said that the stars are much smaller than the earth and revolve around it. And the sun? Here in his own words is what Wilbur Glenn Voliva has to say about the sun. Quote: “The idea of a sun, millions of miles in diameter and ninety-one million miles away is plain silly. The sun is only thirty-two miles across, and not more than three thousand miles from the earth. It stands to reason, it must be so. God made the sun to light the earth, and therefore must have placed it close to the task it was designed to do. What would you think of a man who built a house in Zion, Illinois, and put the lamp to light it clear in the next state?” What about the familiar scientific argument in favor of a round Earth, how did Voliva answer these? As an example, let’s take the most common. How was Magellan able to sail around the world unless it is a sphere? Voliva scoffed at this argument. His reply, quote, “Of course Magellan sailed around the world and came back to where he started. He went around the flat earth exactly as a phonograph needle goes around a record. Millions of men have sailed around the world from east to west and west to east. It can be done on a saucer too. But do you know of anyone who has ever sailed around the world from north to south? Of course not, those who’ve tried fell off the edge. That’s why so many explorers have disappeared.” Wilbur Glenn Voliva, as I said earlier, was a preacher. He said he believed the Bible from cover to cover, and the covers too. He claimed that anyone who really believed the Bible must acknowledge that the world is flat. To him, the round Earth philosophy was a lie of the devil to snare the unwary and destroy their faith in the word of God. Today, Wilbur Glenn Voliva is dead, but his view that the world is flat goes marching on. Of course, every sane, sensible person knows the earth is round, doesn’t he? Or does he?

UV: You heard storyteller Alan Spraggett, and one of the groups of people whose way of life, whose beliefs were so unorthodox as to sometimes be called crackpot. One of the strange cults of the western world.

A: Cut number five. Keyhole Newsreel.

BC: Time now for Keyhole Newsreel, a lighter look at the news and world affairs, and at humanity and its (unintelligible). My name is Brad Crandall, and I’ll be with you in just one minute. (silence) Well this is one election that’s going to be different. And that thought is based on those sweeping political observation or (unintelligible) that, on an entirely personal note, before the last election, everybody you talked to knew exactly how he was going to vote. But nobody was sure how the election would turn out. This time the situation seems to have been reversed. Almost every man on the street is sure in his own mind how the election is going to turn out, but nobody seems to be sure how he’s going to vote. It seems to me that what the international law crowd needs is a new doctrine of fun asylum. Nowadays we have political asylum, which is very fashionable among political pirates and others. This recent hijacking of another ship on the high seas, and its subsequent run into Brazilian waters for political asylum, raises another thought somehow. After all, snitching a full-sized seagoing freighter is not a particularly difficult job, or at least so it seems, because nobody has failed at it lately. With modern observational techniques, however, you know, airplanes and all that, they spot you almost immediately. So if you want to avoid unpleasant things like trials and firing squads and all, you immediately holler politics and run for a neutral or not unfriendly port. But it’s all kind of dull, isn’t it? I mean, suppose you and I and a few friends and our wives, of course, took over a cruise ship down in the Caribbean somewhere. We could do it all right, have a nice cruise for ourselves, and then run for a Brazilian port, turn the ship over to somebody or other, and spend the rest of our lives telling our children and grandchildren about our fling at piracy. But, and here’s the rub, when we got to Brazil, in order to be turned loose with no hard feelings about our little jaunt, we’d have to claim membership or sympathy for some extreme political group. Now, it seems to me that if the whole thing is going to be so comic and silly up to this point, a little more silliness is only fair. So I think we should be able to claim fun asylum. We could prove that we did it for fun. We didn’t steal anything permanently. The cargo and the passengers were not harmed or robbed or molested, the entire operation was just a big fun thing, a kind of organized recreational activity that we dreamed up. And it seems to me that we should, on that basis, be just as entitled to get off scot-free, as if we did the same exact things for serious, somber, earthshaking reasons like political sympathy. After all, politics is not the only excuse for punching a man in the nose or various other domestic misdemeanors. Why should it be the only excuse for the same kind of misbehavior under international law? So I’m going to work on it with a friend of mind in civil service. And when we get it worked out, we’ll let you know. Meanwhile, sharpen your cutlass, make arrangements with the boss to take a couple of weeks holiday on short notice, but, don’t tell anybody. You let a thing like this get around and pretty soon everybody will be doing it.

You heard Keyhole Newsreel, a lighter look at the news. I’m the man with an eye to the keyhole, Brad Crandall.

A: Cut number six. The Magnificent Canadians.

UV: The magnificent Canadians. They came with nothing but their courage, their hands, and their stubborn will, to make a world out of a wilderness. They and their descendants wove a tapestry of achievement as colorful as man himself. These are the Magnificent Canadians. In one minute, our story for today.

Our story today is of a man who came to convert natives to Christianity, but who ended by laying a cornerstone for a new nation to be called Canada. His name was Jacques, and he was one of the first of the magnificent Canadians, not by birth, because in 1534 only the Red Man might lay true claim to that title, but my interest, devotion, and by the exercise of incredible courage. Jacques Cartier, servant of Francis the First of France, who sought a western route to Asia. Jacques was pilot of Saint Malo and his purpose was not to build a temporal empire, but to convert the natives of new lands to the greater glory of God. But the masterful wealth and the man for religion together wrought great things for Canada. Cartier entered the straights of Belle Isle in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1534, but this was no achievement, for a generation fisherman from four nations had done as much. But he continued westward and discovered Prince Edward Island and found it the fairest land that could possibly be seen, full of goodly meadows and trees. He passed the coast of New Brunswick, and beyond it on Gaspe' Peninsula, set up a tall wooden cross, thirty feet high, with a shield and three fleurs de lie, and the legend “Vivre la France”. He voyaged homeward then, through the straights of Belle Isle, for he knew no other way. Francis of France welcomed his news and sent him out again the following year. Cartier’s three ships rendezvoused inside the straight of Belle Isle, then headed up the St. Lawrence. On September 1st, they found the mouth of the river they called Sigonay (phonetic spelling) and then through the Autumn haze to the island of Orleans. It was here, Cartier first heard the Indian name “Canada” from the Huron and Iroquois, meaning “a collection of lodges”. He chose the site of Quebec for his winter quarters after a warm and talkative welcome from the Indians. He himself ignored the wishes of the Indians and journeyed on to their city of Hochelaga, now Montreal. A thousand men and women welcomed him. They showed him a mountain which he called Mount Royal, and from it’s summit, he saw the valley of Ottawa, which he thought led to the fabled kingdom of the Saguanay, and to the riches of silver nd gold. And as it happens, long after Cartier was dead, it did. Back in Quebec, or Strathcona, he forted up for the winter again with a warm welcome from the Indians. It was at their dances that Jacques Cartier first saw human beings smoking tobacco, but came the cold Canadian winter, and with it, scurvey and unfriendly Indians, and Frenchmen died. And Cartier decided to be gone. In the spring he seized Donnacona, the chief and four of his braves, and carried them back to Francis, his king. Although Cartier came again to Canada, this was his finest hour. When his voyages ended, France, for a time, lost her active interest in our country. But Cartier had come, and could not be forgotten, he carried his God with him on all his travels. Armed with courage, he had faced pestilence and death, and had led his men unfalteringly through an unknown wilderness. It was Cartier who passed on to us the heritage of the French nationality and the French language, and the culture of France, as one of the cornerstones of our country. No accident of birth could rob this man of Saint Malo of his heritage. When his ships dropped anchor at Quebec, Jacques Cartier became one of the magnificent Canadians.

Some were obscure the (unintelligible) of the earth, some had fame, some were ambitious for themselves, others were not. They were men who (unintelligible) in creation alone, and all had their place among the magnificent Canadians.