MYSTERIES çddf,faa,afa,aaf,faf,ffa,aff «Mysteries ·------------------- ²SEVEN AS LUCKY NUMBER: ¹The next note is almost a bit stiff to be true. Anthony S. Clancy from Dublin in Ireland wrote it: I'm born on the SEVENTH day of the week, which was the SEVENTH day of the month, in the SEVENTH month of the year, and the SEVENTH year of the century. I was the SEVENTH child of the SEVENTH child, and I have SEVEN brothers. On my 27th birthday I was watching the horse races. On my card I had to choose a winner in the SEVENTH race. I chose horse number SEVEN which had the name SEVENTH HEAVEN and had a handicap of SEVEN stone. The bet was SEVEN to one. I put SEVEN shilling on this horse. The horse ended SEVENTH. ²LINCOLN AND KENNEDY: ¹Two of the most tragic deaths in American history are undoubtedly the murders of the presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Striking are the next similarities: 01> Lincoln was chosen for president in 1860. Kennedy was chosen for pre- sident in 1960. Excactly 100 years later. ¶02> Both were close involved with the civil rights for coloured. 03> Both were killed on a Friday, in the presence of their wives. 04> Both wives had lost a son while they lived in the White House. 05> Both presidents were killed by a shot in the back of their heads. 06> Lincoln was killed in Ford's Theatre. Kennedy died while he was driving in a Lincoln-cabrio, made by the Ford Motor Company. 07> Both were succeeded by vice-presidents with the name Johnson (Andrew and Lyndon). 08> Andrew Johnson was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908. Excactly 100 years later. 09> The first name of Lincoln's privat-secretary was John, the last name of Kennedy's privat-secretary was Lincoln. 10> John Wilkes Booth was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald was born in 1939. Excactly 100 years later. 11> ¶Both murderers were from the South. 12> Both murderers were killed before they could stand for trial. 13> Booth killed Lincoln in a theatre and ran to a barn. Oswald fired at Kennedy from a department store and ran to a theatre. 14> The names LINCOLN and KENNEDY have each seven characters. 15> ANDREW JOHNSON and LYNDON JOHNSON have each thirteen characters. 16> JOHN WILKES BOOTH and LEE HARVEY OSWALD have each fifteen characters. ²THE UNHAPPY WEDDING: ¹The wedding day of princess Maria del Pozzo della Cisterna and Amadeo, Duke of Aosta, the son of the king of Italy, in Turin on 30 May 1867, was ruined by the following events: 01> Her maid hung herself. 02> The gate keeper of the palace cut his throat. 03> The colonel who lead the wedding parade collapsed due to a sunstroke. ¶04> The station-master was crushed under the wheels of the wedding train. 05> The aide-de-camp of the king died because he fell off his horse. 06> The best man shot himself. The couple didn't life very long and very happy. ²THREE DIFFERENT NAMES: ¹Three English who were travelling by train in Peru came by accident in the same compartment. They got acquainted and then it appeared that the surname of the first person was Bingham, of the second Powell and of the third Bingham-Powell. ²MOPED AND CAB: ¹A man on a moped was killed in Bermuda in 1975 by a cab, excactly a year after his brother was killed - in the same street, by the same cab, by the same driver, who was transporting the same client - while he was driving the same moped. ²THE LOST CITY: ¹Expeditions to lost cities and their treasures reminds us of Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores from the 16th century who were searching for El Dorado, the country where the gold is ¶ready to hand. On 20 April 1925 such an expedition started in the Brazilian state Mato Grosso which had in that time still some mysteries. This expedition was lead by the Britsh lieutenant-colonel Percy Fawcett, an archaeologist and geographer. He had the same fantasies as the conquistadores. His son Jack and their friend Raleigh Rimell accompanied him. Fawcett had served in the Britsh-Indian army in Ceylon. Even in that period he was searching for old tombs and treasures. From 1906 till 1909 he explored an extraordinary huge and extremely unhealthy area on the border of Brasil and Bolivia. The next thing he did was to study an 18th century's Portuguese story about a big city in the jungle, of which nothing was left but ruines, but where you could pick up the gold from the streets. Fawcett was convinced of the excistance of this legendary city. He was of the opinion that the lost cities of Brasil were even older than those of Egypt. In Mato Grosso they hoped to find the lost city. The trio had only some camping equipment with them to travel light. This is the last wire that Fawcett sent on 30 May 1925: 'We have chopped our way through a kilometers low carraba, a forest with low and dry bushes; we have swam through an enormous amount of rivers and rills; we have climbed terrifying rocks. We won't see anything interes- ting in the next two weeks.' This was the last thing we've ever heard from Fawcett, his son and his friend. Because he had warned us that ¶he would be away for about two years, nobody worried. They started looking for him in May 1928, but unfortuna- tely all their tracks were gone. Indians of several tribes accused each other of killing this trio. Others told that they met exhausted English. About ten years later travellers returned with the story that Fawcett 'had become a native': a rather silly old man, dressed in rags. If this man was really Fawcett, we still don't know... ²THE BULLET: ¹In 1883 Henry Ziegland from Honey Grove, Texas, broke up with his girl- friend. She committed suicide. Her brother tried to revenge by shooting at Ziegland. The bullet grazed his face and ended up in a tree. The brother who thought Ziegland died killed himself. In 1913 Ziegland wanted to chop down this same tree. For this job Ziegland needed dynamite. Because of the explosion the bullet got free and killed Ziegland. ²THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE: ¹The so cald Bermuda Triangle is an area east from Florida which is notorious for its disappearances of planes and ships. This has happened on such a large scale that we can't call it coincidence. One of the many disappearances is that from Flight 19, five torpedo bombers of the United States Air Force, on 5 December 1945. These planes of the type TBM Avenger took-off that day from Fort Lauerdale ¶çddf,faa,afa,aaf,faf,ffa,aff ¹for a navigation-practise flight of 500 kilometers. They had to fly to the east, then to the north - to the isle Grand Baha- ma - and finally to the south - back to the home base. Lieutenant Charles Carroll Taylor lead the formation Flight 19. He was one of the two skilled flyers. The twelve other persons, both flyers as wireless operators and gunners, were still in training. Within two hours after take-off, about 14:10 pm, it appeared from radio reports that Taylor was off-course: 'My compasses don't work anymore. I'm flying over land. I'm sure that I'm still flying over Florida Keys, but I don't know how far away I'm, and I don't know how to get bach to Fort Lauerdale.' Flight 19 should have been nearby the isle Great Sale Cay, 360 kilometers north east of Florida Keys, at that time. During the next two hours it appeared from fragmentary radio contact that Flight 19 was flying to the north and east. Taylor must have thought that he was flying over the Gulf of Mexico and would reach Florida in minutes. One of the latest radio reports: 'All planes are in a closed formation...a forced landing on the water necessary, unless we see land...we will try to land all together on the water'. From Miami and the Air Force base Banana River several flying-boats started to search for the five planes. ¶¹Half an hour later a tanker saw a fire on the sea. An oiltrack revealed that this had to be one one flying-boats; it crashed and took fire. For five days long an area of 400,000 square kilometers had been searched. Flight 19 has disappeared. In the course of the years the story of Flight 19 has become more exaggerated and legendary. They even thought about UFO's and the board radio of Flight 19 would have transmitted: 'even the ocean is not what you would think' and 'don't look for me...It appeared that...'. Finally we can say that there're still some questions in the report (about 400 pages!) of the investigation that are still unsolved.¹ ¢EXCALON/THE LORDS Ç03