The Agents of F.L.A.S.K.

Cool video. Also, you gotta appreciate teh way the guy in the boat is dressed for fishing!

Strange how photographs & films of supposed legendary strange 'creatures' always seem to be out of focus &/or jerky.

Lean'n'mean said:

Strange how photographs & films of supposed legendary strange 'creatures' always seem to be out of focus &/or jerky.

Click to expand...

Don't ruin my dream brother!

Another tale for the archives:



Great Britain, 1958: The Second World War is over, redevelopment is in full swing. the first true motorway is under construction, and the age of the motorcar is at hand. British Railways is under pressure to modernise, and to save costs. The steam engines that have powered the country for 150 years are now obsolete, and diesel-electric traction is being introduced.

In the international theatre of politics, the great powers are rattling their sabres, and racing to develop long-range missiles. The USSR has demonstrated their rocketry by putting an artificial satellite in orbit for the first time in history, The horror of a nuclear war is looming, and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is launched.

Political and military strategists meet in Westminster. International tensions are rising. The future of NATO is uncertain, President De Gaulle threatens to pull out of the alliance, and the allied nations must face the prospect of a third world war. One that could burn entire nations to the ground. A technical advisor nervously stands up. He's been watching the transformation of the country's transport infrastructure with increasing alarm.

The country has enough coal to last a thousand years, but motorcars and diesel locomotives are dependent on crude oil. There are limited oil reserves on the island, but with the newly signed Convention on the Continental Shelf, industry attention is rapidly turning to the North Sea. Extraction facilities built out there are certain to be the first targets in the event of a conflict. Worse, the proliferation of electrical power and control has made the transport system uniquely susceptible to atomic weapons. They must find a way to maintain transport links at all costs, and while they suspect that similar schemes are being prepared abroad, they can't risk discovery by Russian spies.

Undercover agents for the British government approach a decorated soldier by the name of Dai Woodham. Not only did he serve valliantly during WWII, but it was perfectly positioned to inherit a scrapyard on Barry Island in South Wales. The area had once been a prominent dockyard for Wales and the South-West. It has heavy infrastructure already in place, and was used by the Navy in both wars - but is now in decline. An ideal opportunity.

With encouragement from behind the scenes, British Railways announce an ambitious new scheme to completely phase out steam traction within the decade. In the spirit of free enterprise, private disposal contractors are allowed to tender. An auction is arranged, and three hundred locomotives transferred to the facility in Barry. (Although three of these are taken for use in a hushed-up military exercise). Many of these engines are less than ten years old, and built to the latest standards of efficiency and maintainability, developed under government guidance.

Although the locomotives are officially declared as scrap, Mr Woodham tells his employees that they are too difficult to dismantle. He orders them to focus their attention on coaches, wagons and old rail instead. The locomotives lie in wait.

Meanwhile, an even more audacious plan is conceived. Maintaining a fleet of radiation-immune steam locomotives is only half the scheme. For it to succeed, both the machinery and skills needed to operate it must be preserved.

Fortuitously, there is a rising tide of anger from old railway employees, who fear that they livelihood and way of life is about to be withdrawn from under their feet. The masterminds see a way to put this to their advantage.

Another ex-military man is chosen for the next phase of the scheme. Bernard Holden ran Rail Operations for the Royal Engineers, and had served as a logistics officer in India. He is secretly posted to a little-used railway line in Sussex, and begins recruiting local ex-railwaymen for a pilot project under the codename "Operation Blue Bell".

Meanwhile, a combined project of the War Department and National Coal Board is under way. A number of engineering firms are commissioned to build a fleet of compact, high-efficiency locomotives of a type developed during the war. The project not only ensures that a reserve of hundreds of modern, powerful engines is in place, but that the coal and manpower behind it remains available.

Five years pass, 1963. The newly formed group, lead by Holden, has demonstrated its ability to run trains, using track made available by British Railways. The scheme is showing promise, but the threat of war is closer than ever. The United States is building a nuclear submarine base in Scotland, and the memory of the crisis in Cuba is fresh in everyone's minds. It must be now or never.

In the small town of East Grinstead, not far from the site of the experimental Blue Bell facility, a Dr Beeching, engineer and officer of the Ministry of Supply, has been keeping a close eye on the Operation. He offers to put his considerable (more importantly, public) weight in government behind the scheme and, against his better judgement, is persuaded to write a report declaiming thousands of miles of the country's railways as unprofitable. This provides all the excuse required to withdraw service, freeing up space for dozens of similar operations around the country.

Another five years, 1968, and the scheme is even more successful than hoped. Where other countries in Europe maintained a backup fleet of steam locomotives in secrecy, and as a branch of military operations, the United Kingdom has succeeded at hiding the whole project in plain sight.

The entire steam fleet has been withdrawn by British Railways, and groups of unwitting volunteers are organising themselves. They spontaneously develop engineering facilities up and down the country. The sheds are built almost exclusively in the countryside, safely away from the military targets of industrial cities. The decision is made that the stock of locomotives in Wales should be slowly distributed to these newly formed groups for refurbishment, as many are now in very poor condition.

Of these, a few are cut up for scrap, to fuel the anger and urgency felt by the volunteers, and to obscure the scheme's true purpose. Meanwhile, the United States is within a hair's breadth of setting foot on the moon.

Fast-forward again, to 1979. The Prime Minster orders that the project be discontinued. The Vietnam War has been over for years, The National Coal Board is to move to diesel power and the resources dedicated to the programme to be sold off. With tensions rising in Afghanistan, and the tenuous cessation of hostilities about to collapse, she is advised against it, but persists.

The development of electronic computers, not just for the armed forces, but rapidly spilling-over into the home and entertainment markets, means that diesel-electric locomotives are no-longer the weak point. Consumers can now record colour television on cassettes in their own homes, and semiconductors are so ubiquitous that is has become impossible to plan for the event of an electromagnetic blast. The effort is better spent strengthening ties to the EEC and other treaty organisations, to ensure peace between atomic powers.

To their embarrassment (and quiet satisfaction) the architects of the plan to maintain a steam fleet find it is now completely out of their control. The equipment and land has has all been sold off, and the groups of volunteer reservists are completely unaware of their role in preparations for war. The bases are entirely supported by philanthropists and tourism. A steady stream of new volunteers is signing up and, ironically, a conspiracy theory is emerging:

The long-rumoured reserve of steam locomotives hidden in Sweden has become common knowledge.
"What if", ask the members of the British preservation movement, "the same was done in England?".
A smattering of attention seekers come forward with stories. Tales of old men, sworn to secrecy. Mysterious locked tunnels with rails leading in, and hidden chambers in the London Underground. The stories can't all be false, they say...


The above contains many historical facts, and uses the names of real people, but the conspiracy narrative is pure fiction.

Or is it?

Artifex said:

Another tale for the archives:

Great Britain, 1958: The Second World War is over, redevelopment is in full swing. the first true motorway is under construction, and the age of the motorcar is at hand. British Railways is under pressure to modernise, and to save costs. The steam engines that have powered the country for 150 years are now obsolete, and diesel-electric traction is being introduced.

In the international theatre of politics, the great powers are rattling their sabres, and racing to develop long-range missiles. The USSR has demonstrated their rocketry by putting an artificial satellite in orbit for the first time in history, The horror of a nuclear war is looming, and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is launched.

Political and military strategists meet in Westminster. International tensions are rising. The future of NATO is uncertain, President De Gaulle threatens to pull out of the alliance, and the allied nations must face the prospect of a third world war. One that could burn entire nations to the ground. A technical advisor nervously stands up. He's been watching the transformation of the country's transport infrastructure with increasing alarm.

The country has enough coal to last a thousand years, but motorcars and diesel locomotives are dependent on crude oil. There are limited oil reserves on the island, but with the newly signed Convention on the Continental Shelf, industry attention is rapidly turning to the North Sea. Extraction facilities built out there are certain to be the first targets in the event of a conflict. Worse, the proliferation of electrical power and control has made the transport system uniquely susceptible to atomic weapons. They must find a way to maintain transport links at all costs, and while they suspect that similar schemes are being prepared abroad, they can't risk discovery by Russian spies.

Undercover agents for the British government approach a decorated soldier by the name of Dai Woodham. Not only did he serve valliantly during WWII, but it was perfectly positioned to inherit a scrapyard on Barry Island in South Wales. The area had once been a prominent dockyard for Wales and the South-West. It has heavy infrastructure already in place, and was used by the Navy in both wars - but is now in decline. An ideal opportunity.

With encouragement from behind the scenes, British Railways announce an ambitious new scheme to completely phase out steam traction within the decade. In the spirit of free enterprise, private disposal contractors are allowed to tender. An auction is arranged, and three hundred locomotives transferred to the facility in Barry. (Although three of these are taken for use in a hushed-up military exercise). Many of these engines are less than ten years old, and built to the latest standards of efficiency and maintainability, developed under government guidance.

Although the locomotives are officially declared as scrap, Mr Woodham tells his employees that they are too difficult to dismantle. He orders them to focus their attention on coaches, wagons and old rail instead. The locomotives lie in wait.

Meanwhile, an even more audacious plan is conceived. Maintaining a fleet of radiation-immune steam locomotives is only half the scheme. For it to succeed, both the machinery and skills needed to operate it must be preserved.

Fortuitously, there is a rising tide of anger from old railway employees, who fear that they livelihood and way of life is about to be withdrawn from under their feet. The masterminds see a way to put this to their advantage.

Another ex-military man is chosen for the next phase of the scheme. Bernard Holden ran Rail Operations for the Royal Engineers, and had served as a logistics officer in India. He is secretly posted to a little-used railway line in Sussex, and begins recruiting local ex-railwaymen for a pilot project under the codename "Operation Blue Bell".

Meanwhile, a combined project of the War Department and National Coal Board is under way. A number of engineering firms are commissioned to build a fleet of compact, high-efficiency locomotives of a type developed during the war. The project not only ensures that a reserve of hundreds of modern, powerful engines is in place, but that the coal and manpower behind it remains available.

Five years pass, 1963. The newly formed group, lead by Holden, has demonstrated its ability to run trains, using track made available by British Railways. The scheme is showing promise, but the threat of war is closer than ever. The United States is building a nuclear submarine base in Scotland, and the memory of the crisis in Cuba is fresh in everyone's minds. It must be now or never.

In the small town of East Grinstead, not far from the site of the experimental Blue Bell facility, a Dr Beeching, engineer and officer of the Ministry of Supply, has been keeping a close eye on the Operation. He offers to put his considerable (more importantly, public) weight in government behind the scheme and, against his better judgement, is persuaded to write a report declaiming thousands of miles of the country's railways as unprofitable. This provides all the excuse required to withdraw service, freeing up space for dozens of similar operations around the country.

Another five years, 1968, and the scheme is even more successful than hoped. Where other countries in Europe maintained a backup fleet of steam locomotives in secrecy, and as a branch of military operations, the United Kingdom has succeeded at hiding the whole project in plain sight.

The entire steam fleet has been withdrawn by British Railways, and groups of unwitting volunteers are organising themselves. They spontaneously develop engineering facilities up and down the country. The sheds are built almost exclusively in the countryside, safely away from the military targets of industrial cities. The decision is made that the stock of locomotives in Wales should be slowly distributed to these newly formed groups for refurbishment, as many are now in very poor condition.

Of these, a few are cut up for scrap, to fuel the anger and urgency felt by the volunteers, and to obscure the scheme's true purpose. Meanwhile, the United States is within a hair's breadth of setting foot on the moon.

Fast-forward again, to 1979. The Prime Minster orders that the project be discontinued. The Vietnam War has been over for years, The National Coal Board is to move to diesel power and the resources dedicated to the programme to be sold off. With tensions rising in Afghanistan, and the tenuous cessation of hostilities about to collapse, she is advised against it, but persists.

The development of electronic computers, not just for the armed forces, but rapidly spilling-over into the home and entertainment markets, means that diesel-electric locomotives are no-longer the weak point. Consumers can now record colour television on cassettes in their own homes, and semiconductors are so ubiquitous that is has become impossible to plan for the event of an electromagnetic blast. The effort is better spent strengthening ties to the EEC and other treaty organisations, to ensure peace between atomic powers.

To their embarrassment (and quiet satisfaction) the architects of the plan to maintain a steam fleet find it is now completely out of their control. The equipment and land has has all been sold off, and the groups of volunteer reservists are completely unaware of their role in preparations for war. The bases are entirely supported by philanthropists and tourism. A steady stream of new volunteers is signing up and, ironically, a conspiracy theory is emerging:

The long-rumoured reserve of steam locomotives hidden in Sweden has become common knowledge.
"What if", ask the members of the British preservation movement, "the same was done in England?".
A smattering of attention seekers come forward with stories. Tales of old men, sworn to secrecy. Mysterious locked tunnels with rails leading in, and hidden chambers in the London Underground. The stories can't all be false, they say...

...and so was a legend born!​

The above contains many historical facts, and uses the names of real people, but the conspiracy narrative is pure fiction.

Or is it?

Click to expand...

This starts out like a Ludlum novel....I like it!!

Secret underground complexes right under our noses is a good topic for this thread.

• In Vienna, where I live, there are (in the First District) subterranean crypts, ancient multi-storied underground wine cellars, man-sized sewers, and a maze of tunnels. One often repeated story is that, in 1940, a woman entered a tunnel near Schottentor and wasn’t seen again until the next day. She finally surfaced near St. Stephan’s Cathedral. The most easily accessible underground site can be seen right in the Stephansplatz U-bahn Station, right next to the cathedral. The subterranean chapel named after St. Virgil was originally built in the 14th century. Eventually, however, it fell into disuse and –as the square above it was redesigned—it was buried and forgotten for 200 years. It was only rediscovered in 1973 when workers building the U-Bahn accidentally broke into it. Its walls are a chalky white and a decidedly medieval cross is faintly painted in red on one of them. Very cool.
• Berlin has its boarded-up bomb shelters;
• London has disused tube tunnels and such;
• Paris has its sewers (I once went to the sewer museum) and also its catacombs (always closed whenever I’m in town),
• Rome has secret tunnels to get out of the Vatican and catacombs as well. The catacombs are worth the tour.
• Washington DC has secret escape routes out of the White House;
• And let’s not even talk about what is supposedly under the Denver Airport!

Of course the myth is that these underground spaces are sometimes used for dark goings on…

Caves, tunnels and passages are like magnets to true seekers of mystery and adventure. I’m sure many Loungers have interesting stories about their underground adventures.

Reboot.
Does anyone believe in ghosts? This story is a cut above the usual nonsense:
A) It has pretty cool visual evidence in the form of surveillance camera footage;
B) Like the lake monster video above (bottom of previous page), it comes from Ireland. Why an Irish setting adds credibility, I have no idea, but I’ll take an Irish ghost setting over an American one every time;
C) it comes with a suitable back story: it turns out that the school was built on a plot of ground that was where criminals were executed in previous centuries.
Finally, the Head Master is open to the idea that this might be a prank created by a tech savvy student, if so, it’s well done and he doesn’t know how they did it.
I fancy that I may have had supernatural experiences in my youth... but now —-with age—- I’m willing to admit that maybe it was a case of me lacking critical thinking when I was so young. Nonetheless, this is a fun story/video, if you have an open mind about such things. (The link does work, scroll down to the lower screens.)

https://www.today.com/news/school-security-camera-captures-ghostly-footage-t117353

Lean'n'mean said:

" I'm ya Huckleberry"

Forget mythical giant lizards though, I think trying to find out if Thylacines (Tasmanian tigers) are still in existance would be far more feasable. There has been some convincing evidence of their presence in parts of OZ over the last few years & whenever the authorities do their best to conceal/falsify lab results & deny the veracity of eye witnesses 'cause the state would rather that thylacines remain extinct, encourages me even more to believe that maybe there are a few pockets of these animals roaming the outback..

Click to expand...

[/QUOTE]

This news just in:

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/16/australia/tasmanian-tiger-intl-hnk-scli/index.html

I agree that this is increasingly looking like a likely bet!

This is good footage IMO, especially the odd running gait which was typical of the thylacine. A couple of clowns in the comments claimed it was an injured fox or something, I think they need to have a good look at a fox's tail, head and body and do a bit of actual research on the thylacine. Very interesting.

Benny Holiday said:

This is good footage IMO, especially the odd running gait which was typical of the thylacine. A couple of clowns in the comments claimed it was an injured fox or something, I think they need to have a good look at a fox's tail, head and body and do a bit of actual research on the thylacine. Very interesting.

Click to expand...

Surprise, surprise, it's blurred. As much as I would love to believe that is a thylacine, there are several anatomical differences which don't scream thylacine to me. It's always difficult to be catagorical in identifying something when it is filmed against the sun, not only is it in silhouette but the outlines & appendages are deformed by light passing through them. Anyway, let's see what we have here.
Firstly, thylacines had (have) unusually long bodies, the critter in the video doesn't appear to have a particularly long body. OK, that's not conclusive, trick of the light etc. Secondly, thylacines have relatively large heads for the size of their bodies, the beastie in the video has a moderate sized head, OK, still not dependable criteria given the filming conditions, so let us be a little more definative.
Thylacines have small round ears, the animal in the photo 'appears' to have largish pointed ears;

Still not convinced ? well here is the clincher, thylacines have noticably short pasterns, that is the part of the rear leg from the hock to the foot, the animal in the video has longish or rather 'normal' length pasterns;

Now, the strange almost jumping gait is due to an injured rear left leg which is clearly discernable on the close up footage. One thing bugs me though & that is the tail, it is indeed almost thylacine like, especially where it attaches to the rump but there is something about the movement & curvature which doesn't quite correlate to the footage of living thylacines.
My first impression was that it was some kind of canidae, it's not a fox, the movement lacks the grace of a fox & the animal is bigger, heavier & more lumbering, it certainly isn't a dingo so the only possibility left is a dog, maybe feral with some kind of skin complaint (mange, fleas ?)but on viewing the footage multiple times, there is something strange about it, something I can't quite put my finger on or explain, which prevents me from being certain it is a dog.
So, what can we conclude; The animal looks to be eating regularly, injured but not incapacitated, is traveling in a fixed direction across land it knows well, heading for a known destination. It's movement is not that of a wild predator nor is it's behaviour. It is cantering rather than trotting which would be a canine's usual gait but since it's rear left leg is damaged in some way, cantering would be the easist way to move. Not much to go on & it would help if we could compare this footage with that of wild thylacines running/cantering which I'm not sure exist.
So, put a gun to my head & I'll say it's most likely a dog of some kind but there remains sufficient doubt that we can't rule out anything else.

Just one of those things we'll agree to disagree on. To my eyes it appears very thylacine like. There have also been too many sightings in South & Western Australia for the species to be as extinct as the officials would like them to be.

Benny Holiday said:

There have also been too many sightings in South & Western Australia for the species to be as extinct as the officials would like them to be.

Click to expand...

I agree & some of the eye-witness descriptions both in Oz & Tassie, especially from those who didn't actually know what they were seeing, are detailed & strange enough for me to believe that Thylacines do still exist. There hasn't yet been any undisputable photgraphic or filmed proof yet but I'm sure it will happen & then the authorities & land owners will try to hush it up or worse...........

A question for our guys from the land down under, why does the Govt. want them to be extinct? Other than governments tend to do stupid things....which is reason enough I suppose.

Ain't that the truth! Some of it has to do with keeping sheep farmers happy as part of the reason the thylacines were hunted to near extinction 100 years ago was their predation (actual and potential) of sheep. Much of it, I think, is just that mainstream science says it's extinct, so as far as government's concerned, that's it.

In that footage that Benny posted, I could go for the dog theory, except the tail looks awfully strange to me. No telling, I guess, until really conclusive evidence is found. It is true about science, though; although it’s all about testing theories and looking for new but verifiable ways to look at things, in reality scientists are human too and fall for peer pressure, just like the rest of us. Established “truths” are hard to challenge in so far as you don’t want to look like an odd outlier in your own profession.

A very similar situation is the case of the Japanese wolf, thought to be extinct for a century. This evidence that it is still alive (close up, clear photo) looks convincing, but, alas, it goes against the commonly held narrative:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191011-the-hunt-for-japans-ghost-wolves

fireman said:

A question for our guys from the land down under, why does the Govt. want them to be extinct? Other than governments tend to do stupid things....which is reason enough I suppose.

Click to expand...

Because they would be classed as an endangered species & then large areas of land will have to be reserved & protected, research teams will be sent in, breeding programs established, all of which will cost a lot of money, plus all the bitching from land owners who wouldn't be able to exploit that land as they wish & compensation for lost livestock. Nature conservation & the Aussie government(s) are diametrically opposed.

Tiki Tom said:

A very similar situation is the case of the Japanese wolf, thought to be extinct for a century. This evidence that it is still alive (close up, clear photo) looks convincing, but, alas, it goes against the commonly held narrative:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191011-the-hunt-for-japans-ghost-wolves

Click to expand...

The canine in the photos does look wolf-like at first glance but if we apply a little comparative anatomy, it's morphology is closer to that of a dog than a wolf. For example, small feet, lack of angulation in the front legs, rump higher than shoulders, high set curved tail, stilted gait & doggy coat pattern. I must admit I know next to nothing about Japanese wolves but since there are so few, inbreeding or hybridization with dogs could be a logical answer to these 'domestic' charateristics which wouldn't rule out the existance of these wolves.
Japan has a lot of spitz breeds which can sometimes look wolfy & should they cross-breed with wolves, the offspring would likely retain a lot of wolf like characteristics. On the other hand, there are a lot of dogs up in the mountains & should they go feral, a phenotype would emerge over time & given the already primitive aspects of the spitz breeds (or crosses there of ) it would hardly be surprising that a wolf like wild dog would result. The dog like body & coat but powerful head does tend to bear out that theorie which we can also see in the Aussie Dingos which followed a similar route.
Unfortunately there is one detail, probably missed by the average viewer, that confirms that this is a dog rather than a wolf or at least a 100% wolf. If you look at it's right hind leg, just above the paw, you will see a dew claw. dew claws on the hind legs are only found on dogs & occassionally on wolf/dog hybrids if the dogs had them.


I haven't been able to find any photos of living Japanes wolves to see if they possessed characteristics which differ from other wolves in the world. There can always be geographical differences between species & sub-species due to the isolation of certain groups that inbeeding then fixes specific genetic traits that are not found elsewhere.
So, wolf ?...dog/wolf hybrid ?...feral dog ?... farm dog? ...I guess that depends on what anyone wants to believe.

Tiki Tom said:

In that footage that Benny posted, I could go for the dog theory, except the tail looks awfully strange to me.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the tail had me 'stumped' too. On looking at the footage frame by frame & comparing it to the films of the thylacines in Hobart's zoo, there does appear to be a few, albeit tenuous, differences. First off, the thylacine's tail is thinner & secondly, the kangaroo like thylacines tail isn't very flexible & only bends at certain places yet the tail of the animal in Benny's vid, does show a little more flexibility....a few stills to show what I mean;
One can see that the tail bends at the center which I didn't see the caged thylacines do,


Here too the tail seems far more flexible than a thylacine's;


And here the tail does look very dog like,


We must not forget that the animal was filmed againt a powerful light & so we must account for possible distortion.... longer, finer hairs would be obliterated by the light, it's tail could have been bushier than it appears & it's ears & body fur longer. Also the thylacines (again from the zoo video & various photos) had rather long, slim thighs yet this critter has the more rounder, meaty thighs of a dog & if you add all this up (not forgeting the lack of very short pasterns) it does seem more likely to have been a canine rather than a thylacine.

Benny Holiday said:

Ain't that the truth! Some of it has to do with keeping sheep farmers happy as part of the reason the thylacines were hunted to near extinction 100 years ago was their predation (actual and potential) of sheep. Much of it, I think, is just that mainstream science says it's extinct, so as far as government's concerned, that's it.

Click to expand...

Thanks.....that makes sense.

Lean'n'mean said:

Because they would be classed as an endangered species & then large areas of land will have to be reserved & protected, research teams will be sent in, breeding programs established, all of which will cost a lot of money, plus all the bitching from land owners who wouldn't be able to exploit that land as they wish & compensation for lost livestock. Nature conservation & the Aussie government(s) are diametrically opposed.

Click to expand...

Thanks for explaining. Money is a part of it, that makes sense.