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From: Dave Walsh <dave@nua.ie>
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 18:49:54 +0100
Fwd Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 20:22:06 -0400
Subject: Nua Blather: Gubu Norge

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NUA BLATHER  NUA BLATHER NUA BLATHER
Weekly free email of Dogma Destruction,
Forteana and High Weirdness

By Daev Walsh   Email: blather@nua.ie
Web: http://www.nua.ie/blather/
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August 28th 1998  Published By:  Nua Limited  Vol 2. No. 16
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GUBU NORGE

'Merdre!' -- Pere Ubu
(http://www.ukans.edu/~sma/almanac/ubutxt.htm)
(http://hamp.hampshire.edu/~ngzF92/jarrypub/j100.html)

GUBU: Conor Cruise O'Brien invented the term GUBU in 1983, after
[Charles J.] Haughey [former Irish prime minister] had called the
discovery of a young serial killer hiding in the flat of the
government attorney general he had appointed ``grotesque,
unbelievable, bizarre, and unprecedented.'' The term GUBU stuck, and
stayed, and finally outlasted Haughey's career itself. It will be the
epitaph of a man who saw himself as both a Tammany ward-boss and the
Soul of the Nation.' - Kevin Myers
(http://www.frc.org/nationalreview/29sept97/myers092997.html)


'They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.'

- *The Hunting of the Snark*, Lewis Carroll
(http://www.literature.org/Works/Lewis-Carroll/hunting-of-the-snark/c
hapter-01.html)



It was after much deliberation that I finally found myself in Oslo's
Fornebu Airport, on August 3rd 1998. I was there to meet the rest of
the GUST (Global Underwater Search Team) gang who, like me, were off
to Lake Seljordsvatnet, some 130km or so (as the crow flies) west of
Oslo. Once there, we were supposed to investigate 250 years of lake
monster reports.
(http://www.bahnhof.se/~wizard/gust/)

It turns out that quite a few members were hesitant about committing
themselves to going - some of us had left it to the last moment to
pay for our flights. One Swedish team member told me that he had
even been accused by Jan-Ove Sundberg, the leader of the expedition,
of being a spy for a Swedish UFO magazine.
I almost got kicked off because he felt I came across as too
sceptical [1] in a Sunday Business Post interview. Nevertheless,
whether it was the taste of adventure, sheer devilment, or perhaps a
genuine *quest* for The Serpent, ten of the twelve team members
convened in the arrivals hall of the airport around 1640, and
subsequently made for our transport.

The expedition was to turn into one of the most hilarious farces I've
ever had the pleasure to be implicated in, and more than a week after
its apparent conclusion, the dust is still rising, rather than
settling. I'm still writing up my notes, so this week's Blather will
unfortunately be *only* able to synopsize some of the events that
took place. A 52-minute Discovery Channel documentary on GUST is due
in the autumn, and a BBC series on 'science mysteries' is to feature
footage, and will be shown next spring.

Lake Seljordsvatnet, as can be seen by the pictures, is something of
a paradise - squeezed in by 1500m mountains, it's some 14km long, and
a kilometre or so wide. According to the apparently official chart,
it's 138m deep - there were reports of an area of 157m, and one day
we found a depth 147m - if the echo sounder was truthful. Seljord -
which has adopted The Serpent as its coat-of-arms - is an attractive
scattered community of 3,000 or so, and has just one main drag of
businesses in wooden buildings. The local council had put some effort
into GUST, as a tourism campaign, and various technology companies
sponsored our equipment. During the two weeks I spent in Seljord, we
used two different Simrad echo sounders, a side-scan sonar, a GPS
hooked into a Konmap moving map system, and a couple of
remote-control submarines.

Lake Seljordsvatnet (32KB):
(http://www.nua.ie/blather/images/gustpics/lakeseljordhigh.jpg)


I wasn't the only one to be quite surprised by the huge emphasis put
on the equipment, much of it for the benefit of the media, who came
in their dribs and drabs. We had no more than a perfunctory lesson on
the sounders and sonar, and using the submarines seemed to be a mite
premature -- yes, there were reports of underwater caverns, but I
felt the chances of any anomalous creature strutting its stuff in
front of an underwater camera to be rather remote. Our one chance to
send a sub down to the deepest part of the lake had to be abandoned,
due to a heavy swell. As for our collective inexperience in using the
other equipment, this led to much disagreement later on -- we all
pretty much agreed that we were using it incorrectly, but there was
little agreement on the nature of the misuse. This was not helped by
problems with generators, and the regular breakdown of equipment.


On the first day of 'shift' - when we split into teams of four, and
mounted three shifts spanning 24 hours in the home-made *Mother One*
(built by Norwegian team member Arne Thomassen), there was a lot of
excitement over some of the echo-sounder traces, and one report of a
visual sighting from the road by Ulf Burman and Peter Caspersson - my
notes read:

'7 August 1998
1140 sighting by Peter C and Ulf 75-100m north of Hugsdalen,
momentarily seen thru trees from the road, partially obscured. 3m
long black object breaking surface, not a wave. South-north
alignment. Conditions, water choppy, SE wind, bright sunny day, with
light cumulous clouds.'


Later in the expedition, this sighting seemed to have been forgotten
about, in favour of 'evidence' that Jan himself had been involved in
gathering.
Dr. Jason Gibb had made some interesting bacterial finds while
diving, leading to further speculation on the 'exploding log theory'
(see more on Loch Ness exploding log theories in New Scientist of 5th
August 1985), and Ulf Burman *filmed* lengthy footage of apparently
live objects moving just below the surface of the lake, leaving light
'v' wakes -- but all of this was ignored by the team leader, Jan.
Reports of 'tracks' - footprints in the silt 25m down -- had been
claimed by a local man, seen when diving a *year* before. Jan went
hell for leather on this, regardless of the testimonies of our scuba
divers that the bottom was loose sediment. Any mark in that kind of
bottom would be gone in a few hours, but Jan still insisted that we
go looking for them.

In an email this week he said 'I think that the man fooled us, that
the tracks was a practical joke that went too far', and later that
'I, Peter and other Swedes and also Arne -- sensed there was
something wrong here and we did all we could to get our hands on [the
witness], to have him show us exactly where the tracks were supposed
to be. But the man avoided us at all costs, making up stories that he
was on vacation, on the harvest, here and there and everywhere and at
the end we just knew he was laying (sic) to us'.

In the course of the expedition, this certainly wasn't communicated
to either Dr. Gibb or myself, in fact I went out of my way to
emphasise the uselessness of the information given to me by the
witness by phone, but was badgered instead for my scepticism.


After a spate of large echo soundings - some up to a couple of metres
long, Jan was telling the press, and anyone who cared to listen, that
we had had contact with an object 5m long (the size seemed elastic).
I mightn't have had much experience with echo sounders, but at least
some of us understood that echo sounders -- and sonars -- don't draw
2D pictures of 3D objects, they merely detect differences in density.
They do not give any kind of conclusive evidence of size or nature of
an object.

This was all well and fine, until Jan decided that he had taken
photos of the alleged beastie. He told me that he was alone on the
deck at the time, and didn't want to disturb the film crew, who were
at work in the cabin. I got a different version from *several* others
present, who maintained that he wasn't on his own, and that what was
seen, and photographed, was merely a series of waves or boat wakes.
Nevertheless, Jan told us that he intended to *sell* the photos to
none other than the Daily Express, for the princely sum of 60,000
Norwegian Crowns - 6,000 Irish pounds (USD8000) or so. And so, before
they were actually developed, Jan was planning to sell them. On
August 13th, he had Arne drive him to Oslo, where Kodak developed his
slides. On his return, he maintained that he had something very
interesting to show us, which he did, in the form of a slide show
after dinner.


Unfortunately, where Jan could apparently see a 'serpent' in the
photos, no one else could -- a few people were saying 'well maybe',
but both marine biologist Jason Gibb and I were quite vocal in our
opinions that the photographs *showed* nothing other than, well,
waves. . . we didn't discount the fact that Jan had seen something,
or that there was anything big and wriggly under the surface of the
water, but we emphasised that the photographs *displayed* only waves.

A vote was called -- who wanted to sell them? There was a 10-2 vote
against. Jan said that he thought we'd like the money -- it was
pointed out that we didn't need it *that* badly -- Jan said he would
sell them for his own benefit -- 'what about the contract?' was the
return -- 'well, we can change the contract' -- laughter of
disbelief, he couldn't be serious. Unfortunately, he was. Obviously
feeling cornered, he tried to put the team on a guilt trip -- after
telling us that he thought we could do with the money, he told us
that Arne had paid for boat fuel from his pocket, and that we needed
to sell the photos to covers the costs, or else pay 500Kr (IR50, or
USD62) each. Jason reasonably pointed out that he would be happy to
pay that amount if it saved his integrity, and I added my opinion
that people don't forget these photos, they would show up in coffee
table books for eternity, with *our* names attached. Pictures of
waves. . .

(An agreement signed on August 3rd had mentioned that any 'still
photography, camcorder video and underwater video will, *in the case
of a sale to media or others*, be shared equally between the team of
twelve, which agrees to this' (my emphasis). I found this rather odd,
that 'we' should be so eager to sell data gathered.)


The meeting broke up, and there was a definite rift in the camp. This
was the evening of Thursday 13th, and until the afternoon of the
15th, Jan not only sulked, but declined to speak English, and was
rather curt to any of the Swedish or Norwegian team members who had
thwarted his plans.

The whole shebang was getting far too silly. I was getting tired of
the lack of proper research involved -- here we were looking for a
flesh and blood creature, without even a cursory glance at the local
food chain. Jason and Kurt Burchfiel were of a not dissimilar
opinion, and Jan's dismissive attitude towards any of our
constructive suggestions was starting to grate.

Kurt and I finally decided that we no longer wished to have our names
attached to the burgeoning circus that GUST had become. At a briefing
on the afternoon of Saturday 15th, we calmly explained our reasons,
and left the room. Kurt explained how he felt that Jan had gathered
together a bunch of genuine people -- who were seriously interested
-- and used them in his quest for money and notoriety. I finished off
by how I found it unacceptable that the members of the team who were
unable to speak Swedish or Norwegian had been cut out of the
information loop, when English was supposed to have been the official
language of the expedition.


It was all on film - for the documentary, and I hope it makes it to
the final cut, as Jan has since accused me of looking at him with
none other than 'cold staring, murderous eyes', and having directed
our resignation in 'an aggressive manner'. I would like to ensure the
reader, that no such behaviour was forthcoming from this rather
mild-mannered writer.

And, so, we upped and left, and spent the next day winding up some of
the parts of the documentary that needed to be finished -- so called
'perception tests', using floating logs. Jan, aboard *Mother
One*, hung about offshore from where we were filming, taking
photographs like there was no tomorrow, presumably as evidence.

Interested parties can witness the use to which such photos are put
by ambling along to my GustUp page where they can see my very own
contribution to Jan's rather surreal campaign against me (he seems
convinced that I have some hidden agenda).
(http://www.fringeware.com/hell/gustup/)

Apart from the general accepted opinion -- voiced by Kurt -- that
Jan's main motives were money and fame etc., I spent much time
considering *other motives*, and I quote here from Patrick Harpur's
wonderful book *Daemonic Reality* (Penguin, ISBN 0-14-019-485-1),
where in talking about researcher John Keel (mentioned in *A Mothman
Retrospective* (http://www.nua.ie/blather/archives2/issue2no5.html):

'A quest, can perhaps be imagined as an extroverted version of the
shaman's introversion - perhaps they are the outside and the inside
of the same Way. Unlike the shaman, who is passive in the face of the
dismembering otherworldly beings, the quester is active,
singleminded, even obsessive. To draw mythological analogies, he is
less like Orpheus, the archetypal shaman, than like Odysseus, Jason
and Acneas, whose journeys took place through this world while beset
at every turn by intrusions from the other. (In Christian terms, the
quest becomes the pilgrimage while the shaman's journey becomes the
mystic's ascent to God.) The danger for the shaman is that he might
travel too far or too badly prepared into the Otherworld and so lose
his soul; the danger for the quester is just the opposite - the
Otherworld is too close to him, threatening to overwhelm and possess
him. Even as he clings to his this-worldly perspective, which the
shaman is compelled to give up, he is bombarded by the otherwordly.
The song of the Siren lures him towards the mind-wrecking rocks.
Paranoia is always just around the corner.'

In my opinion, Jan's quest seemed to be two-pronged, the second part
being that of the classic quest, in search of The Serpent (note
capitals and singularisation), whatever it may be -- the Nemesis of
the quester, a form of self-sacrifice? Even the search plan had a
heading, *The Search for The Serpent*. Jan's confirmed this in an
email this week: 'internally we were taking about the serpent or the
serpents but to the media I said we weren=B4t sure there was unknown
animals in the lake'.


If I may be allowed to quote selectively from *Brewer's Myth and
Fable*, under the heading of 'Serpent':

'In Scandinavian myth, the Nidhogg, the Dread Biter, is evil as
living at the root of the Yggdrasil and trying to destroy it.' (The
Yggdrasil is the 'world-tree' is the connection between heaven and
earth, and it is 'the tree of life and knowledge, and of time
itself'.

Under the heading of *The Old Serpent*, we're told:

'And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the
Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. Revelations XX,2.'



If I'm right, and Jan is something of a 'serpent quest', it's rather
ironic that this week he accused this writer of *Satanism*. This is
apparently due to my devil's advocation, my occasional habit of
signing myself off in Irish, i.e. 'is mise le meas' (which translates
as 'yours respectfully'), and my also occasional use (when the whim
is upon me) to sign myself as 'Daith=ED Breathnach'. Jan wondered if I
was 'speaking in tongues', and whether I'd changed my name for
membership of a 'satanic sect'. Oh dear.


I was tossing around such serpentines ideas in my head when I found
myself, on August 18th, in Vigeland Park in Oslo, designed by
sculptor Gustav Vigeland. 'Guarding' the park's bridge were four
pillars, each depicting a human being, savaged by some form of weird
beast, in three cases *serpents*. Old Gustav seemed to have a whole
primeval Human versus The Serpent thing going on, as depicted
throughout a considerable amount of both his sculpture and his
metalwork -- such as the Park gates.

Photographs of Vigeland's serpent sculptures:
http://www.nua.ie/blather/images/gustpics/vig1.jpg
http://www.nua.ie/blather/images/gustpics/vig2.jpg



Vigeland Park:
(http://www.sn.no/oslo/vigeland.html)
(http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/art/vigeland.html)
(http://home.earthlink.net/~roethe/Vigeland/)


To conclude this little diatribe and field report, I would like to
emphasise that despite all the craziness listed above, this
Blatherskite had a fine time of it all and made some great friends.
I'm only sorry that the situation did not lend itself to a serious
study of the area - e.g. witness reports and local tales were
regarded as *actual fact*, whereas anyone who cares to approach the
problem from an inclusionist point of view will realise that there
are huge coatings of *recurring motifs* which need to be stripped off
lake monster reports, myths and tales before anything useful can be
derived. A good read of Michel Meurger's *Lake Monster Traditions*
(Fortean Tomes 199, ISBN 1-870021-00-2 )should elicit some
enlightenment with regard to the proliferation of such motifs. As
Harpur says:


'In the case of lake monsters, Meurger established that the following
motifs - he calls them 'folklore beliefs' - are pretty much
universal. Beginning with the lake itself, it is *bottomless*; it
*interconnects* with other lakes or the sea; it is the scene of
anomalous *luminous phenomena*; it is impenetrably *dark*; it has
submarine *caverns*; it has strong currents and eddies or whirlpools
which are caused by (or sometimes synonymous with) serpents; it is
prone to unexpected *squalls*; it has swallowed up *divers who never
return*.'


Until these motifs are weeded out - not discarded, just separated
out from speculation of lake monsters - expeditions such as GUST will
be stuck in the mire of pseudo-science, and will hinder rather than
help cryptozoology and fortean research. A Snark? We didn't get a
chance to find a Boojum.


The Team!
http://www.nua.ie/blather/images/gustpics/team.jpg
(104KB)
The team(l-r)
Davy Russell (USA)
Kurt Burchfiel (USA)
Arne Thomassen (Norway)
Dave Walsh (Ireland)
Ulf Burman (Sweden)
Jan-Ove Sundberg (Sweden)
Eric Joye (Belgium)
Peter Caspersson (Sweden)
Magnus Backlund (Sweden)
Peter Lakbar (Sweden)
Vemund Bjorge (Norway)
Jason Gibb (UK)

[1] According to my OED, a sceptic is a 'person who is inclined to
doubt all accepted opinions; a cynic'. Fine by me.


Note: In last week's issue, I ommitted to include photographs of
Glenade Lake and the 'Dobhar-ch=FA Gravestone'. Pop along to the
website (http://www.nua.ie/blather/archives2/issue2no15.html) to see
them:


Dave Walsh
28th August 1998

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