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Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World

1980 British television series

Field	Value
image	Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World.jpg
genre	Documentary television
director
narrated	Gordon Honeycombe
country	United Kingdom
num_series	1
num_episodes	13
producer	{{Plainlist
runtime	25 minutes
company	Yorkshire Television
channel	ITV
first_aired
last_aired
related	{{Plainlist

John Fanshawe
John Fairley
Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers
Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World is a thirteen-part British television series looking at unexplained phenomena from around the world. It was produced by Yorkshire Television for the ITV network and first broadcast on 6 September 1980.

Each program is introduced and concluded by author and inventor of the communications satellite Arthur C. Clarke in short sequences filmed in Sri Lanka. The bulk of the episodes are narrated by Gordon Honeycombe. The series was produced by John Fanshawe and John Fairley, and directed by Peter Jones, Michael Weigall and Charles Flynn. It also featured a unique soundtrack composed by British artist Alan Hawkshaw.

In 1980, Book Club Associates published a hardcover book with the same name, authored by Simon Welfare and John Fairley, where the contents of the show were further explored. It featured an introduction written by Clarke as well as his remarks at the end of each chapter or topic. In 1985, a paperback of this book was released by HarperCollins Publishers.

The series was followed by Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers in 1985 and Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe in 1994.

Episodes

Mysteries of the First Kind – phenomena which were mysterious to our ancestors but are now well understood. Clarke illustrates this category by observing the Solar eclipse of 16 February 1980 from Hyderabad, India, highlighting that eclipses are still treated with reverence and suspicion in some cultures.
Mysteries of the Second Kind – phenomena which are as yet unexplained, but where we have several clues that hint at an answer. Clarke looks at ball lightning (including one sighting by Roger Jennison in the cabin of an aircraft), the Loch Ness Monster, Remy Van Lierde's encounter with a gigantic snake, a sighting of a sea serpent off the coast of England, the stone spheres of Costa Rica, the Baghdad Battery, the vitrified forts of Scotland, Stonehenge, and the Cerne Abbas Giant. The ruined ancient palace of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka, which Clarke mentions at the beginning of the episode, could also be included in this category.
Mysteries of the Third Kind – phenomena for which we have no rational explanation. Clarke mentions psychic phenomena as something that would be included in this category, and the extremely strange phenomena of raining animals and seeds and nuts "raining" from the sky might also be included.

Clarke opines at the end that had some of these forgotten technologies been developed and not lost that it would now be like it was the year 4000 AD and that we would have already 'colonised the stars'.

Clarke concludes that, although Russian scientists who studied the Patterson–Gimlin film declared the stride to be 'quite inhuman', special effects used in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey showed that it is possible to create very convincing ape-men. He also notes that it would be very difficult for a creature such as Bigfoot to remain undetected in North America.

Also interviews with Roy Mackal and James Powell.

Home release

In January 2008 the original series was released on DVD in the UK by Network and Granada. It features all of the 13 original episodes unedited and remastered.

A collection DVD Box Set of all three Arthur C. Clarke documentary series, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers and Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe was released in July 2013 by Visual Entertainment, which also re-released them separately in September 2013.

References

Shirlow, R. (2021). Revisiting the mysterious world of Arthur C Clarke. Fortean Times no. 410[Oct.]: 32–39.
Shirlow, R. (2021). Revisiting Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World: part 2. Fortean Times no. 411[Nov.]: 42–47.
Shirlow, R. (2021). Revisiting Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World: part 3. Fortean Times no. 412[Dec.]: 44–49.

References

"Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World". TheTVDB.com.
Lambert, David. (21 August 2013). "Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe - Individual Releases for 3 Shows from VEI's 'Clarke Collection'". TV Guide Online.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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