CHAPTER 9:
ARE AUTHORS STEALING THEIR IDEAS FROM THE FUTURE?
NOTES
-
Stead’s story about the Majestic is interesting. It is not directly based on the ship, which would go on to have a accident after his book was published (precient?), but makes a point of this by including a picture of the captain of the Majestic (not Edwards at the time) and a footnote.
The Porn Nostradamus
ASSERTED THAT ALL HUMANS (INCLUDING NEANDERTHALS) ARE "NATURALLY" BISEXUAL
In March 2000: Submitted Primal Skin manuscript in March 2000. The sexuality of the characters in Primal Skin is universally bisexual - while posited by many throughout the years, from Ancient Greeks to Freud, this is a still-controversial assertion.
In June 2000: There is backup in evolutionary theories of sexuality, particularly as regards kin selection and the survival-advantages of bisexual behaviour in terms of reciprocal altruism as detailed in Kirkpatrick's paper on theories of bisexual sexual behaviour. [Kirkpatrick, R.C. (2000). The Evolution of Human Homosexual Behavior. Current Anthropology 41: 385-413]
PREDICTED NEANDERTHAL RED-HAIR GENE BEFORE OXFORD SCIENTISTS!
In 2000: Anticipated the fact that red hair was a gene associated with Neanderthals, based on considerations of genetic drift, and therefore all Homo sapiens neanderthalensis characters are distinguished by their red hair (hybrids have "gingery", mixed hair).
In 2001, evidence for the MC1R gene, indicating that Neanderthals were red headed, was published by the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford. [Harding, R (2001). "Interpreting patterns of diversity in the melanocortin 1 receptor gene", Pathologie Biologie, Volume 49, Issue 5, 2001, Pages 395–396]
PREDICTED NEANDERTHAL-HUMAN HYBRIDISM AND INTERFERTILITY BEFORE GENETIC ANALYSIS
In 2000: Based on mixed-trait Portugal skeleton finds and also on a suspicion that Neanderthals are not as physically disparate from modern humans as we would like to think (and an inkling that humans have wide-ranging sexual tastes), Rhys predicted that modern human/Neanderthal hybrids not only existed, but that such hybrids would be fertile themselves.
In 2010: This conjecture was very much a minority opinion amongst most paleontologists and evolutionary theorists until 2010, when DNA analysis finally showed that modern Europeans and Asians contained a 2-4% Neanderthal admixture. [Green, RE et al. (2010). "A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome". Science 328 (5979): 710–722]
PREDICTED THAT NEANDERTHALS HAD ARTISTIC CAPABILITY ON PAR WITH MODERN
HUMANS
In 2000: Based on reports of Neanderthal finds involving red manganese crayons, as well as a hunch that much artistic representation would not be preserved in the fossil record - particularly such decorative art as body painting, or tattoos, or feathered, organic garments, or musical instruments such as drums - Rhys' Neanderthal characters in Primal Skin are as artistic and creative as modern humans, though the cultural traditions described are less likely to be preserved through antiquity. Unlike those who argue for modern human uniqueness, Rhys rejects "Great Leap forward" theories and emphasises that there is not a "distinct", uniquely adapted modern human capability for creative genius and art itself, but rather attributes that same creativity to Neanderthals as well as Homo sapiens sapiens. Her insistence on Neanderthal capabilities for art predated recent finds of pigment, shell palettes and cave paintings.
In 2010: Shells containing pigment found ["Neanderthal 'make-up' containers discovered", BBC News. 9 January 2010]
In 2012: Evidence of feathers as decoration [Finlayson, C et al (2012). Birds of a feather. Neandertal exploitation of raptors and corvids. PLoS One]
In 2012: "First Neanderthal cave paintings discovered in Spain", New Scientist, 10 February 2012
CLARIFICATIONS
I say the brain of Baron Trump grows three times the size. It’s twice the size. I just got it wrong because of this image.
ELON MUSK
This was tweeted to him in 2020, not 2021.
The title of the Von Braun book is annoying. It was originally published in Germany Marsprojekt, translated later into English as Mars Project. Then a technical manual was published called The Mars Project.
From wiki:
Von Braun wrote Marsprojekt, a science fiction novel in German between 1948 and 1949 while stationed at the U.S. Army's rocket research facility at Fort Bliss in New Mexico. It was translated into English as Mars Project by Lieutenant Commander Henry J. White of the United States Navy and cleared for publication by the U.S. Defense Department in early 1950. The DoD felt that von Braun's visions of space travel were "too futuristic to infringe on classified matters". Von Braun submitted the English manuscript to eighteen US publishers, but it was rejected by all of them.
In 1952 the technical appendix to "Marsprojekt", which contained the specifications for the novel's expedition to Mars, was published by Umschau Verlag in Germany as Das Marsprojekt. The following year, the English translation of the appendix was published in the United States by the University of Illinois Press as The Mars Project.
I took the publication date of Mars Project from The Internet Archive copy of Project Mars: A Technical Tale, the novel published in 2006, incorrectly shows its publication date as 1953, the year the English translation of The Mars Project was published.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
The unfinished novel of Edgar Allan Poe. Okay, this might confuse people. I went too deep on this. It was published in his lifetime and was handed to publishers by the author. However, it is generally agreed (or certainly has a quite a large number of critics) who claim the book was unfinished - he was pushed for time and money and handed it over before going through the book. It is full of inconsistencies and the ending is abrupt. I was acknowledging that opinion, however, it may come across as if I was saying it wasn’t finished like it was missing an ending.
A few more things, Richard Parker was not 16 years old in the novel (his age is not specified, though the real Richard Parker is thought to have been 17 years old) and it is too deep a dive that I claim the accident on the Mignonette happened 47 years ago. The book was originally published in instalments in 1936. Though only two chapters made it into the papers before being dropped. Mark Vent and I tried to work out when this chapter was written - as in, when was the moment that Poe would have had this prescient moment. We found a footnote to suggest it was in the final months of 1936 that it would have been written. Madness perhaps made me go for it, instead of stating the obvious, that it was 46 years after publication.
I say the Titan was travelling at 20 knots when it collided with an iceberg. It was actually 25.
ELON MUSK
The Mars Project was originally published in German as Project Mars (write up more on this)
The person tweeted him in 2020 not 2021
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/07/baron-trump-novels-victorian-215689/
Nazi connections and Saturn V rocket
—-
POE
Richard Parker - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens
Alternative Facts on Parker, and dates
https://hungarianreview.com/article/the-book-in-the-mirror-or-the-case-of-the-eaten-sailors/
BEERBOHM (SOAMES)
Enoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties= https://ia802807.us.archive.org/1/items/enochsoamesamemo00760gut/enoch11.txt
“The devil accepted the reservation genially.
"You wish," he resumed, "to visit now--this afternoon as-ever-is
--the reading-room of the British Museum, yes? But of a hundred years
hence, yes? Parfaitement. Time--an illusion. Past and
future--they are as ever present as the present, or at any rate only what
you call 'just round the corner.' I switch you on to any date. I project
you--pouf! You wish to be in the reading-room just as it will be
on the afternoon of June 3, 1997? You wish to find yourself standing in
that room, just past the swing-doors, this very minute, yes? And to stay
there till closing-time? Am I right?"
Soames nodded.” (from above link) - note the devil is French XD
1997 Soames Picture - https://www.flickr.com/photos/allhails/8124880282
The British Museum Library - https://www.bl.uk/about-us/our-story/history-of-the-british-library
Teller Article - https://web.archive.org/web/20140822025444/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/11/a-memory-of-the-nineteen-nineties/376995/
MORGAN ROBERTSON - FUTILITY
Futility - https://archive.org/details/wreckoftitan00robe/page/26/mode/2up
Titanic Speed at Crash -https://timmaltin.com/2019/03/16/titanic-maximum-speed/
The Wreck Of The Titanic Foretold - Change of HP in second edition - Ella Wheeler Wilcox letter - https://archive.org/details/wreckoftitanicfo00mart/page/2/mode/2up
W.T. Stead
How The Mail Steamer Went Down in Mid Atlantic By a Survivor-
https://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/pmg/steamer.php
From The Old World To The New - https://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/reviews/oldworld.php
W.T. Stead father of modern investigative journalism - https://teesvalleymuseums.org/blog/post/william-thomas-stead
Borderland - https://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/spiritualism/
Telepathy With His Assistant Editor - https://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/spiritualism/telepathy.php
Julia A Ames - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_A._Ames
Julia’s Bureau - https://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/reviews/bureau.php
1300 sittings, £1500 a year - https://cwleadbeater.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/robert-king/
Mark Says:
There was yet another Richard Parker in history, on the ship, Francis Spaight, in 1846, which sank and whose survivors practiced cannibalism, but Richard Parker had nothing to do with it. He drowned when the ship foundered. Jack London would later write a short story about the sinking, snapilly entitled “The Francis Spaight.” in which there was a cabin boy who was killed for food after the ship sank. (Memo to self: Never go to sea as a cabin boy!) His name was not Richard Parker though. It was Patrick O’Brien.
In Poe’s novel, the ship’s dog was named Tiger. In 2001, Yann Martel published the novel, Life of Pi. In the novel Martell’s hero, Pi is trapped in a lifeboat with a tiger, named Richard Parker. Yann Martel said “So many Richard Parkers had to mean something.”
SOURCES
Pg 125 - Trump claims to have a brain three times twice the normal size, and even creates original insults for many of the characters he meets along the way.
Pg 126 - book’s = books
Pg 126 - Donald Trump isn’t the only billionaire to appear in prescient works of fiction. As was discovered at the end of 2020
Pg 126 - wrote a science-fiction novel titled The Mars Project.
Pg 127 - It wasn’t until 30 December 2020
Pg 127 - In 1838 an unfinished ??? novel by Edgar Allan Poe titled Th
In 1838 an arguably unfinished novel by Edgar llen Poe ?
Pg 127 - The youngest of them, a 16-year-old called One of them, Richard Parker, is killed and then eaten by the other three so that they may survive.
Pg 128 - 46 years not 47
Pg 130 - ; needs a fix (They included a mystery writer from Malibu, who had fl own over specifically to be there after having thought about it for 45 years, someone from Spain; a lady from Cambridge and a librarian who clearly had no idea what was going on.)
Pg 133 - carried a measly 20 lifeboats, Titan had 24; the Titanic’s speed on impact with the iceberg was 22.5 knots, the Titan was travelling at 25 knots;
Pg 133 - published in 1898 (says this too many times)
Pg 134 - While it’s intriguing to think that Robinson Robertson had predicted the doom of the Titanic
Pg 135 - , and was one (lose and)
Pg 135 - should By be by?
Pg 135 - In 1892 – 20 years before the Titanic sank – Stead wrote about another tran
Pg 135 - Stead wrote about another story transatlantic sea tragedy, which had only a few survivors, on a ship called Majestic. It was presumably named after the RMS Majestic, which was later captained by Edward Smith, who would go on to captain the Titanic.
I suggest - Pg 135 - Stead wrote another story about a transatlantic sea tragedy, which had only a few survivors, on a ship called Majestic. It was presumably named after the RMS Majestic, which was later captained by Edward Smith, who would go on to captain the Titanic.
Pg 135 - Borderland not Borderlands
Pg 136 - :
Pg 136 - Describing the purpose of the venture, Julia Stead explained that its objective was to ‘bridge the abyss between the Two Worlds’:
Pg 137 - the three mediums (lose the)
Pg 138 - Given his interests in the world of telepathy and spiritualism, it’s a tragedy that Stead never got to see explore the idea of his book accidentally (lose this word) predicting the sinking of the Titanic.
Joel I need to double check the above with you as my instructions aren’t clear
Pg 139 - it’s 1911 not 1912
Pg 139 - At over 100 feet it should say
(Quibble: Highest point of the building is 38.5 metres (126 feet) from the plaza level.
External façade replicates four 27m (90ft) high hulls.- https://www.titanicbelfast.com/explore/about-titanic-belfast/)
“It’s created to look like the front of a ship, with massive bow shapes protruding out from three of the four faces of the building’s walls. Rather cleverly each of the ‘hulls’ stands at 90 feet (27m) high, the same height as the Titanic’s,”
Pg 140 - In 2015 2018 the first British performance of Titanic: The Musical was stopped for health and safety reasons, after the ship hi
Pg 141 - It’s a nice touch, as is the fact that the capacity of the museum is can hold over 3,547 visitors – the same as the Titanic’s capacity.
Pg. 142 - Grimm having eventually been talked out of bringing the monkey. The second attempt also left the search team empty handed.
It was Grimm’s third second attempt that was to become the most notable of the expeditions.
As well as including the same leading oceanographers from the two previous expeditions, Dr Fred Spiess and Skip Gleason, the team Grimm assembled for this second attempt at locating the wreck included an actor from the TV series The Virginian;
Pg 143 - The first, which unfortunately did not yield any conclusive discoveries, was at least a success in that it did end up going ahead with its planned crew of scientists, Grimm having eventually been talked out of bringing the monkey.
Pg 143 - There was also a film crew who had been brought on to document the expedition, the finished movie being narrated by Orson Welles.
Pg. 144 - For weeks Grimm and his team desperately searched the ocean for any sign of the ship, but just like his previous expedition, nothing was showing up. The elusive wreck of the Titanic co
Pg 144 - but just like his two previous expeditions, nothing was showing up.
Pg 145 - Grimm had achieved was important work, and had, if he took nothing else from Grimms work, shown Ballard where not to look.
Pg 145 - Grimm had achieved was important work, and had, if Ballard took nothing else from Grimms work, shown him where not to look.
Pg. 148 - jam-packed & StarTalk
Pg 148 - hen-do’s = hen-dos
Pg. 149 - Five and a half million
Pg 152 - The Titanic was over 800 feet long and reported to be 10 kilometres
Pg. 154 - the the
pg. 155 - Be believed (fix)
And so it was, if these theories are to be believed, that the Titanic
found itself on the night of 14th April, travelling at a speed it
shouldn't have been going at (thanks to a fire), on a course it
shouldn't have been travelling on (thanks to the sun), and slam-
ping into an iceberg that shouldn't have been there (but was
thanks to the moon) with a crew who couldn't see it coming at
them (thanks to the hazy-filled horizon).
I think we can all agree on one thing: that night in 1912
the Titanic was cosmicallv fucked.
PHOTOS
