The Unexplained issue 4 - Black Madonnas, ESP, UFO technology, man-beasts, hypnosis.

Issue four cover

The cover star of issue four is a Black Madonna, a mysterious religious icon, which is the first new topic covered inside. The other debuting topic is on UFO technology whilst coverage of mysterious man-beasts comes to a close. 

A Black Madonna located in Einsiedeln, Sweden

Virgins With A Pagan Past was written by Richard Leigh (1943-2007) and Michael Baigent (1948-2014) and examines the 'unofficial' counterpart to the 'official' Virgin Mary. The origins of these depictions, where the skin tones are darker or blacker than the traditional imagery of the Virgin, are obscure or lost. What appears to have happened is that the material the faces of statues or paintings were made from became darker due to aging or environmental factors such as exposure to smoke from votive candle for example. Churches took pride in these unique icons and opted to preserve the change in colour rather than attempt restoration. Over time new statues or paintings adapted this darker colouring when they were made. Believers viewed the change of colour as a manifestation of the heightened spiritual powers of the effigies. They do not see them as Madonnas that became darker over time but as having transcended into Black Madonnas, made to change colour through the will of God. 

Leigh and Baigent were the co-authors (alongside Henry Lincoln) of the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1982) which proposed the theory that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had several children. The descendants of these offspring moved to France where they integrated and married into nobility. The book became an international best seller even though it was criticised for a lack of basis in credible fact and would eventually inspire Dan Brown to pen his novel The Da Vinci Code (2003).  Leigh would later unsuccessfully attempt to sue Brown for plagiarism.  

Black Madonna in Tarragona Cathedral, Spain

Clues from Clairvoyance is the next instalment of articles about the topic of ESP and trots through the shades of clairvoyance from having a vague awareness to vivid revelations and how these incidents can lead to vital clues in some cases. Writer Roy Stemman noted the following which sums up the hit and miss nature of the phenomena.

"It has to be remembered that, for every impressive case reported in the press, there are probably a hundred or more where volunteered 'psychic' help only leads the police on a wild goose chase. Following the mysterious disappearance of schoolgirl Genette Tate in August 1978, for example, the Devon police received calls from other 200 mediums and people interested in psychic detection who believed their paranormal powers could produce useful clues."
(Clues from Clairvoyance by Roy Stemman, The Unexplained issue 4, 1980, p.66)

The next article, Spinning Through Space, is about UFO technology and outlines how UFOs might work and the kind of alien civilisations that could produce them. A highly speculative article which is underlined by the box out on why many UFOs are saucer shaped.

"The fact that most UFOs are disc-shaped rather than spherical can be explained as a design feature that allows spacecraft to operate at high speeds once they have entered the atmosphere of a planet; by flying with their edges into the wind, they can cut down the effect of air resistance almost to zero."
(Spinning Through Space by Tony Osman, The Unexplained issue 4, 1980, p.73.)

Box out offering theories on why UFOs are often saucer shaped

The final article on man-beasts sees Janet and Colin Bord present theories on just what these creatures are. It's a packed feature taking in various anomalies surrounding sightings and evidence such as some man-beasts having a lingering odour 'like a dead person', how some creatures seem impervious to bullets even when fired at short range and some bigfeet having the power to dematerialise. Theories included are also wide ranging from hoaxes to holograms, paranormal beasts to missing links. The article does not offer a satisfactory explanation or come down in favour of one theory above another. Instead it concludes by stating the issue is extraordinarily complex and deserves much more research. Sightings of bigfoot and associated hairy humanoids continue to this day and we seem no closer to solving the mystery, though I am puzzled in this era of everyone having a camera on their phone that there is so little convincing photographic or video evidence. 

When a series of articles on a topic came to a close a selection of further reading on the subject was included at the end of the text. Here several more books written by the Bords are included alongside tomes by Bernard Heuvelmans who was one of the founding fathers of cryptozoology. 

The man-beast captured in killed in 1917 on the border between Columbia and Venezuela. This is now considered to depict a species of spider monkey. 

The article on hypnosis again concentrated on past lives regression and in particular the case of Mrs Virginia Tighe (1923-1995), an American who, under hypnosis between November 1952 and October 1953, regressed over a hundred years to become an Irish woman named Bridey Murphy. Tighe was a Wisconsin native and had lived in Chicago since she was a child and had no Irish friends or relatives, but under hypnosis she talked with an Irish accent and a gave detailed account of living in Cork in the early 19th century. The claims were investigated and were the usual mixture of confirmed and unconfirmed details. When the case was reported it created a sensation with a book detailing the case released in 1956 and a film based on the book produced the same year. These had such a penetration on the public psyche that the case has now been absorbed into popular culture. In 2024 comedian Billy Crystal stated that his Apple TV series Before was inspired the case of Bridey Murphy. 

Hypnotist Morey Bernstein and Virginia Tighe

The World's Mysterious Place photo feature for the issue was a shot of the standing stones of Callanish on the Isle of Lewis. 

Callanish stones