Fortean follow-ups

More herring gull hooliganism and a potential explanation for Kazakhstan’s sleeping sickness

MORE GULLS BEHAVING BADLY [FT331:18]

At 4.30pm on 28 July, a man swimming in the sea at Fenit in Co. Kerry, Ireland, was attacked by a gull 75 yards (69m) from shore. He beat it off and tried to attract the attention of lifeguards, but it returned for a second go and drew blood from his hand. He was advised to go for tetanus shots, which he received at Kerry General Hospital. Brendan O’Connor, water safety officer with Kerry County Council, said in his 40 years of beach and coastal activities this is the first such attack ever reported by lifeguards in Kerry, which has 425 miles (684km) of coastline, one of the longest in Ireland. The gull in question wasn’t a herring gull, but a great black-backed gull, which can have a wingspan of up to 6ft (1.8m). “This is the first time I have ever heard of such an attack by a gull on a swimmer,” said Mr O’Connor.

Micheál O’Coileain, the environmental officer with the council, said the fact that there are no landfill sites now in Kerry, or indeed in the whole region, may be a factor in the gulls’ strange behaviour including their movement further and further inland.

In France, where aggressive gulls are moving onto the Loire river system in the centre of the country and are being blamed for the disappearance of domestic animals in Nice in the south, sterilisation is being considered, according to recent reports in La Nouvelle Republique. The town of Trouville-sur-Mer in Normandy has experimented with drones to help curb the number of gull attacks. These hover close to nests and douse eggs with paraffin to stop them hatching. The drones are reinforced to fend off attacks and prevent gulls getting caught in the blades. Officials in Whitehaven, Cumbria, are keen to imitate their French counterparts. Irish central, 5 Aug; Sun, 14 Aug 2015.

Seagulls left a young man with a black eye when they swooped down and attacked him for his bacon sandwich in Truro, Cornwall. He tried to fight them off as they pecked his face, leaving him fearing for his sight. The victim, known only as Richard, went to hospital after the attack, fearing infection. D.Mirror, 28 July 2015.

Dene Robertson, 46, was in his kitchen in Dover, Kent, when he heard Charlie, his Jack Russell, give out a yelp from the back garden. Going outside, he saw a seagull with its claws in the twoyear-old animal’s neck, trying to lift it into the air. “It was trying to pick him up,” he said, “but luckily he is quite solid.” His other dog, a three-monthold springer spaniel and cocker spaniel cross, was recently attacked by a flock of gulls. D.Telegraph, 4 Aug 2015.

FLIGHT MH370 [FT313:4, 327:22]

Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur on 8 March 2014, bound for Beijing. The Boeing 777, with 239 souls on board, vanished without trace and was set to join the pantheon of classic mysteries. Then, 508 days later, on 29 July, a 6ft (1.8m) barnacle-encrusted metal object, identified as a piece of a Boeing 777, was spotted on the east coast of La Réunion, a volcanic outcrop in the Indian Ocean. No other Boeing 777s apart from MH370 have gone missing over an ocean. The object was a flaperon, part of a wing that helps control lifting and rolling, bearing the serial number BB657. Following the publicity, it turned out that it had been spotted on the beach back in May, but no one grasped its significance. Its location was within the predicted debris field of the presumed crash site in the Indian Ocean, more than 2,000 miles to the west. Perhaps hundreds of objects from the plane had washed up on Réunion, with no one paying any attention. Flotsam and jetsam on La Réunion is routinely collected and burnt. D. Telegraph, 31 July, 6+10 Aug; Sunday Telegraph, 2 Aug 2015.

PIRATE LOOT… POSSIBLY [FT328:4]

UNESCO experts have dismissed claims that Barry Clifford and his team of explorers have discovered Captain Kidd’s ship off Madagascar. The 110lb (50kg) ingot recovered from the sea was not silver but 95 per cent lead, and was identified as a ballast piece. “The mission showed that several historic wrecks indeed lie in the bays of Sainte-Marie island,” the UNESCO statement said. “However, what had been identified as the Adventure Galley of the pirate Captain Kidd has been found by the experts... to be a broken part of the Sainte-Marie port constructions.” Authorities in Madagascar should “only permit interventions by a competent team led by a qualified underwater archæologist,” said Michel L’Hour, head of the UNESCO technical team. Clifford’s team reacted strongly to the critical report, saying it stood by its claims. [AFP] BBC News, 14 July 2015.

THE BIG SLEEP [FT316:8-9, 324:24, 327:22]

Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Berdibek Saparbayev, has claimed that the mysterious sleeping disorder that for two

years has affected hundreds of residents in the village of Kalachi has now been explained. Those affected by the illness suffer dizziness, weakness, loss of coordination, stupor or total unconsciousness for up to six days. In all, 120 people have fallen ill since March 2013, and given that some people have succumbed more than once, 152 cases of the disease have been reported (probably more by now). Those affected “get headaches, become confused, and suffer emotional instability and memory disorders, which can last up to several weeks,” said Professor Leonid Rikhvanov from the Department of Geo-ecology and Geo-chemistry at Tomsk Polytechnic University in Russia. “In some cases, hallucinations occur, particularly in children. Some repeatedly fall asleep.”

According to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda last year, “The sick person appears to be conscious and can even walk. But all the same he then falls into a deep sleep and snores, and when he wake him up… he remembers absolutely nothing.” Even pets were affected. Kalachi resident Yelena Zhavoronkova said that her cat Marquis suddenly “went stupid” and began meowing and attacking walls, furniture and the family dog”.

Rikhvanov believed the root cause could be radon gas seeping from the abandoned Soviet uranium mine in nearby Krasnogorsk, while Saparbayev blamed carbon monoxide and various hydrocarbons for reducing the level of oxygen in the air; but why are some people affected and not others, and would oxygen depletion result in such exotic symptoms? As a pulmonologist from Duke University told Wired magazine, it’s unlikely that any gas would be in concentrations high enough to cause illness in open spaces. The Gang of Fort suspects that Saparbayev’s announcement is intended to close down further investigation and suppress speculation. No matter what the cause, the government is relocating the whole Kalachi population. Guardian, 18+27 July; <i> Newser, 20 July 2015.