Amelia
& The
White
Whale
Photo from Wikipedia Commons
Apr. 7, 2006
Grandmother
has been down there, under the Pacific Ocean for too long. She was
last seen taking off in her Lockheed Electra from the colonial era
airport in Lae, New Guinea. It was 10:00 in the morning in the South
Pacific, but midnight at the Greenwich Meridian.
Over
the Blue Pacific
“My
children, let me tell you a story,” smiles Grandmother, with a
mischievous gleam in her eye. "We have all dreamed of being
Amelia Earhart, having our own airplanes, flying into France and
sending regards by telegraph to our husbands. We have all wanted to
feel we had only the sky for a limit. But then look at the woman who
carried our dreams, and see where that dream led her.
“We're
flying across the Pacific, looking down to the south on the
Australian coral reef. Unfortunately, these savage reefs demarcate
the end of friendly territory. To the north and east lie the
Philippines; well on the way to North America lie the Hawaiian Isles.
Ahead lie the Solomon Islands, under the Japanese flag11.
“It
was at this point, the world lost track of Mrs. Amelia Earhart
Putnam. During the star-dying time, just before dawn July 2, the
Coast Guard Cutter Itasca picked up her radio signals.
There were apparently, problems in the radio and navigational
equipment. It appears that she was transmitting, but that she was
unable to receive with sufficient clarity to distinguish words from
static. And so, at about 10:00 AM local time on July 2, 1937, if she
had crossed the International Date Line, and July 3 if she had not,
Amelia Earhart disappeared from history, flew into the World of
Uncertainty, and entered the Domain of Mythology.
“Forever,
my children, shall strange tales be told. Amelia Earhart was carrying
the dreams of all the women of the world – so perhaps it would have
been anticlimactic if her round the world tour had ended successfully
with a safe landing in California.
“Although
her navigator was using directional finding radio, Amelia loved to
navigate by the stars. As she and Fred Noonan flew across the broad
Pacific through the afternoon and into the night, she may have
noticed that the constellations had become marvelous and strange.
Radio
signals believed to have come from her airplane were reported for 4
or 5 days. Some of these signals were identified as coming from
Gardner Island in the Phoenix Archipeligo. But even after the most
expensive search and rescue operation that had been launched to date,
involving the United States navy, the private efforts of her wealthy
husband, and even two Japanese warships, no trace of either Ms.
Earhart or her navigator were ever discovered.
The
Quantum World of Frational Probability
“Like
the peace the world longed for but could not keep, she simply
disappeared from space-time. But it wasn’t as though she stopped
existing. Amelia Earhart had entered the realm of mythology, and was
subsequently seen in at least 100 different places.
One
Amelia Earhart had been an American spy with a personal commission
from FDR. She had been captured by the Japanese, and forced to
broadcast propaganda over the radio as Tokyo Rose. Another Amelia
Earhart had refused to cooperate – certain inhabitants on the
Marshall Islands saw a Japanese platoon shoot her. It’s possible
that more than one Amelia Earhart died in this way – but the
general opinion of the authorities seems to be that these
testimonials really amount to cargo cult rituals, and that their
private intent is to convince Grandma to bless the particular island
with gifts of American money.”
Grandmother
smiles at us with a particular gleam in her eye, which makes it
apparent that she enjoys the incense and the roast pigs that are
offered to her by Melanesian islanders who are participating in cargo
cult rituals.
“In
any case,” Grandmother continues at length, “after the Japanese
signed their treaty of unconditional surrender on the Battleship
Missouri, George Putnam and several other investigators conducted an
extensive examination of Japanese military documents, but no mention
was ever found of either a spy or a prisoner who might have been Ms.
Earhart.2
“It’s
also possible that she and Fred Noonan may have survived for as long
as 2 or 3 years on Gardner Island. There are curious implements that
have been discovered on an island that was then uninhabited. The only
theory that hasn’t yet been aired is that she and Fred were
captured and hauled off into Deep Space by the Grey Aliens – but I
suspect a detailed explanation on how that happened shall soon be
posted on the Internet.
And
so, if we want to find Amelia Earhart today, we’ve got to realize
that she is alive and well in the Land of Mythology.”
a=a
Encounter
With John From
Which
version of the Archetype do we want to pursue? The search for Amelia
Earhart still continues; more and more money is poured into the
quest for some genuine relic every year. These extensive searches
produce just enough in the way of results to tease, but not enough to
allow us to draw any solid conclusions.
The
gentleman named John From is sitting in front of a tropical hut –
brown skinned, nearly naked, and smoking a big cigar. He seems to be
mildly amused by the folks who have come to dig for artifacts and
bones.
“I
cannot tell you what happened to her bones. Do you know where Moses
is buried? If you want to get in touch with her spirit we can help
you. But then – since you have obviously come here with money, if
you want us to share the wisdom which is our wealth, you must share a
little bit of your money with the people of the islands.”
As
he speaks, a parade of women in grass skirts comes by, followed by
men who are pounding on drums and a singer who chants in New Zealand
English:
"Let us have
done with the White Man's God --
(Harrum. Are we
going to harmonize? Let's hear it.)
Hummm: Let us have
done, have done with the White Man's God
For He is a
mechanical insect
Flying in the sky
just ten feet overhead:
Let us have done.
Let us have done. And we
Are done with the
Japanese and Korean and Taiwanese God-squads too.
̧
̧
Where
Have the Stars Hidden?
“Where
then have the stars hidden?” asks John From. “And where shall we
find the rose?"
Casual
reflection #5.
When unleashed paranoias
gird on the sword for mighty conquest -- where have the stars hidden?
Gone with the Maid of the Sun and Moon, who cowers from the lust of a
dragon. Red dragon or White, Communist or Right Wing -- he may take
any name, so long as it serves his intention of burning the witch. We
know him well, who've read the scroll that was smuggled from the
concentration camp on Patmos.
He may be an angel of light
-- or even your friendly neighborhood psychiatrist. No problem, so
long as you swear to serve Oedipus Tyrannis, and his God of
Scarcity.. But if you are one of those dreadful Presbyterians,
tarring and feathering the torries, the friendly neighborhood
psychiatrist can go you one better. It seems he's got the Lightning
on his side.
Well, nowadays there's a
nasty little African kid who’s got a choke-hold on the psychiatric
profession. Says that his name is Chango, and that he's the owner of
all of the lightning on earth. Says that when the psychiatrist's
buddy, Mr. Neurosurgeon, used that lightning to burn peoples' brains,
that he was acting in contempt of the Nuremberg Court. Says that he
has heard the cry of the sunken Atlantaen women, from Buenos Aires
all the way north to Montreal. They're all demanding that Mr.
Psychiatrist take some courses on ethics from Madame Erzulae, the
Haitian Venus.
So Mr. Psychiatrist finds
himself taking a trip down to Haiti, where he shall see the Arawak
spirits flying through the trees. He shall tremble to hear all these
Arawak spirits cry out:
You need not keep
shocking the Zombie! You burned out his briain already!
Then:
Mr. Psychiatrist looks on
Madame Erzulae, dressed only in a skirt of green palm leaves,
with cowries round her neck and nut-brown breasts looking like sea
animals sacred to the Gods. All of his good white-supremacist
conditioning can't keep Mr. Neurosurgeon from lusting for this
creature. But she just stands there, contemplates him with a scowl,
lights up a fat cigar and blows smoke in his face, saying:
"I heard you calling
me a witch-doctor, but you know something, Mr? I am going to call you
Mr. Mountebank, cause I can see right through you. You just won't
listen to what any other culture has to say, excepting your own."
As
we have observed, Madame Erzulae has a black eye. And listen: now she
is explaining to the good doctor just how she acquired that black
eye:
"So
many of my ladies have been lost in action. They have died for the
sake of the struggle to bring just a little of the Motherland into
existence here on earth. Most men have treated them basely, save for
a few who were shot down when they joined my ladies in flying after
those distant stars."
1 1
Miss
Earhart and Fred Noonan had taken off from Miami, Fla. on June 1,
1937. On July 2, an SOS reached the Coast Guard Cutter Itaska,
waiting off the coast of Howland Island. "On July 7, 1937, just
five days after Amelia Earhart was scheduled to arrive at Howland
Island, Japanese and Chinese troops exchanged fire at the Marco Polo
Bridge southwest of Peking. A truce was attempted, but the encounter
escalated into a Japanese counterattack. --p. 119, Loomis, Vincent
V., Amelia Earhart, the Final Story. New York, Random House,
1985
Wehave heard other stories. As rumor goes, a plane with her
identification number was found at the end of the Melanesian
Nightmare, and burned on orders given by the American high command.
A grim enough reminder how the serene Pacific was politically
divided. Perhaps indeed, she may have been caught up in the strange
paranoias of men who dreamed only of conquest, and was taken for a
spy simply because she refused to be the agent of anyone’s
political program.
