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<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">#SIGHTINGS
AT TWIN MOUNDS</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
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<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Inverting
the usual order of things, “Sightings at Twin Mounds” was first
collected in Wolfe's 1988 collection *Storeys from the Old Hotel* …
though it was reprinted in the 1996 themed anthology *UFOs: The
Greatest Stories*.</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">#Summary:</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
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<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">The
story does not follow a traditional narrative, instead representing a
collation of supposedly objective sources to narrate the events in
question: “This puzzling case presents several unique features;
because it is of more than ordinary interest, I shall quote several
of the documents in full.”</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">The
first article, which attracted the narrator's attention, is a news
snippet entitled “UFOs Spotted Over Park” and mentions the
brilliant blue and white lights over Indian River State Park in Duke
County (certainly set </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">near
Rochester,</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">New
York or possibly New England</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">,
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">conceivably
near the Canadian border,</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
though probably entirely fictional) which residents often see after
midnight, with several hundred people witnessing the lights. When
police were dispatched </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">to
investigate the lights</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">,
they found an incoherent man there.</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Then,
the narrator includes the description of the (most certainly
fictional) Indian River area which includes many mounds, including
Eagle Mound, Twin Mounds, and Snake Mounds. “An Algonquin legend
has it that the site commemorates a raid on an Algonquin village by
Iroquois, in which all the Algonquins perished with the exception of
the chiefs daughter, who fled into the forest pursued by the Iroquois
warparty. Encountering the wendigo, she begged it to defend her.”
The two were killed, and their remains interred under Twin Mounds.
The entry ends with, “This legend may arise from the similarity of
the hemispherical mounds to a woman's breasts.”</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">The
narrator then includes an encyclopedia entry describing </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">a
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">wendigo,
an ogre in the mythology of some northeastern tribes - “Hunters
lost in the forest without food are thought to turn cannibal and,
through the effects of eating human flesh, become wendigo, fearsome
enemies of human beings possessing great strength and appearing and
vanishing at will.” </font></font>
</p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">The
narrator requests copies of the *Colbyville Courier*, noting “several
carried half-jocular stories concerning moving lights and 'giant
spaceships' hovering over Indian River State Park”, but quoting
only appropriate parts.</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
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<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">One
article details the man found unconscious, Stanley J. Robakowski, who
was admitted to the hospital and was not t</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">ruly
considered to </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">be
responsible for the lights: “Several witnesses stated emphatically
that they had observed moving lights above the trees after police
departed with Mr. Robakowski in custody.”</font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">The
narrator looks up Robakowski's information and is certain that he is
a “contactee” of aliens or UFOs. By the time he arrives in
Colbyville, Robakowski has been discharged from the hospital. </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">The
narrator</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
manages to arrange a meeting with Robakowski over the phone, but
cannot find his way to the apartment in the rain, calling to arrange
another meeting for the next night when he returns to his hotel.</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">With
a day to kill in Colbyville”, the narrator visits the park and
talks to people who had seen the lights. “They were described as
very bright, usually white or blue-white, but occasionally yellow.
“One informant stated they proceeded from what she termed a
'wingless airplane' – that is to say, a torpedo-shaped flying
object.” He drives to find Robakowski's apartment, which is
actually the upper story of an old house, and sees the shadow of an
embracing couple on the curtains. He decides to wait and telephones
from a nearby cafe. When he returns, he notices that the door was
ajar. After ringing, he enters and finds blood all over the kitchen,
bedroom and hall, then calls the police at once, though he states no
arrest was ever made.</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">The
doctor who treated Robakowski publishes his account of his stay at
the hospital in *The Journal of the American Psychiatric Society*,
using the pseudonym Stan Roland to identify Robakowski (though both
names in the various objective sources </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">are</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
described as </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">belonging
to a man</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
employed at a paper mill). </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Roland
is described as exhibiting neither hostility nor aggression and as
having no history of psychopathic or psychoneurotic disturbance.
Having come to the park with friends to see if they would witness the
lights, he saw a dim blue light moving in the area of the Twin
Mounds, but others did not believe him. Roland climbed the fence of
the park and claimed that the trails he had known since boyhood had
vanished, being almost free of underbrush. He saw moving blue and
white lights but could not approach them. </font></font>
</p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">>At
this point, Roland invariably became agitated, and the order of
subjective events is unclear. “She ran into me in the dark.” “I
thought I heard somebody screaming off to my right – there was a
lot of yelling, and all of a sudden this girl was holding onto me.”
“I was just walking along, trying to go fast, you know? And all of
a sudden my arms were around her.” There is no objective evidence
for the existence of this mysterious young woman, who Roland said
could not speak English and seemed terrified.</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
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<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">They
run, assaulted by invisible beings. Roland claimed he could see the
young woman but could not see their attackers, “who were thus
tactile and auditory hallucinations only.” He says that they became
separated, but still feels as if “they and she were still searching
for him.” The young woman called something that sounded like
“Wher</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">e</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">'d
he go?”</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
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“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">He
said that neither she nor those who had attacked them could see him
now; nor could he see them.” </font></font>
</p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">The
narrator concludes by saying that UFO contactees have often felt that
they were shadowed or threat</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">en</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">ed,
“most frequently by *men in black (MIBs).* Physical harm at their
hands are rare, “and murder almost unheard-of; and yet murder would
appear to have taken place in the mysterious case of Stanley J.
Robakowski.” </font></font>
</p>
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<br>
</p>
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<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">More
sightings have been sparse and difficult to verify, but two years ago
an archeological excavation of Twin Mounds was begun, </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">but
“All activity was suspended indefinitely when it was discovered
that the site had been contaminated by “modern materials.”</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">##Commentary:</font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
###I. An Incidental Displacement
</p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
“<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Sighting
at Twin Mounds” is presented as a series of reports and supposedly
objective source stories. According to Wolfe's introduction to
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><i>Storeys
from the Old Hotel, </i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal">this
framing technique came about in the following fashion:</span></font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal">>"'Sightings
at Twin Mounds' was written last year as a sort of experiment ...
>From time to time, no reading gives me more pleasure than supposedly
factual accounts of UFOs, black dogs, vanishing hitchhikers, and
similar apparitions, although all such accounts are ultimately
unsatisfactory. (I recommend *</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">Sasquatch:
the Apes Among Us*</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">,
by John Green, should you ever come across a copy.) It seems to me
that a good, and indeed entirely satisfactory story could be written
in that style. It is a framed story, if you like, in which the frame
is the whole story; and if you like it, that makes two of us."</span></span></font></font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">The
concept of John Green's book involves a series of objective reports
and interviews to get a complete picture of the phenomenon, with the
evidence presented logically. This is clearly the inspiration for
the structure of the short story, which uses small snippets to paint
a larger picture (from which the narrator and collator seems unable
to draw a final conclusion </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">which
should be fairly obvious.</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">)</span></span></font></font></font></p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">While
some readers assert that Wolfe's narrators lie assiduously, I have
always believed that for the most part we are given the truth, unless
it contradicts some other bit of information or forms an
identifiable, if subtle, pattern. For example, when Marsch says that
he could not write because of the cat bite in *The Fifth Head of
Cerberus's* final novella, he might be actually telling the truth,
but in a way that we could not have anticipated on our first reading
before we understand that the Shadow child infection thrives in the
saliva of the mouth. </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">When
the narrator of many portions of *The Book of the Short Sun* denies
being Silk, he does so as a psychological defense mechanism that is
readily ascertainable: Silk would not admit that his student Horn has
died to bring him back, and as long as he can hold on to Horn's
memories, it is a way to keep his student alive. </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">Subsequently,
I am reluctant to identify information as a red herring or a useless
lead </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">without
an extremely compelling narrative hint that this is actually the
case</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">.
The story features flashing lights, time travel, the corruption of an
Indian word, and the factual, objective structure inspired by Green's
book, </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">in
addition to descriptions of the alien cylinders by supposedly
objective witnesses</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">.
</span></span></font></font></font>
</p>
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<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">The
interpretation which uses the most of these features is the standard
reading: Stan Robakowski is caught by the blue and yellow lights that
are formed when unidentified flying objects travel at extreme speeds
above Twin Mounds, and, caught in the wake of their super fast
displacement through space, is accidentally displaced in time
temporarily (when the underbrush disappears), where he forms a deep
union with the young Indian girl. He seems to be stuck in a kind of
phase shift joining the two times together. Stan and the young girl
are attacked by the Indians which they cannot see, which “Stan
Roland” describes as “tactile and auditory hallucinations.” The
union they form leads to a joint occupation of past and present, as
he feels he is still being hunted. When the pull finally creates
another conjunction, our narrator sees Stan and the Iroqu</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">o</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">is
girl embracing on the window before they are pulled inexorably back
into the past and are buried together under </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">T</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">win
</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">M</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">ounds,
to become the legend </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">(and
the modern contaminants)</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">.</span></span></font></font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal"> </span></span></font></font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">If
we assume that the lights represent the movement of alien ships, the
redshift/blueshift spectrum and doppler effect allows us to guess
that these ships actually emit green light: they would appear blue as
they are approaching at extreme speeds, and appear yellow as they are
leaving (green is situated between these two in wavelength). Thus, it
is their passage which explains the displacement of space and time
and winds up resulting in Stan's remains buried in the past as the
“wendigo” (which he hears as “Where'd he go?”when the girl
says it) and introducing modern </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">material</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">
under the hill, such as his clothes </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">or</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">
any artifacts of contemporary consumer technology he carried upon him
at the time.</span></span></font></font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">This
reading firmly places the story as a science fiction story in which
UFOs incidentally create a vortex in time, </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">possibly
unintentionally via the wake of their passage</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">,
but at least one other interpretation favors an extremely unreliable
narrator bent on cannibalism. </font></font>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
###II. Framing the UFOs</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Though
I do not necessarily endorse the following reading, a</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">vailable
on the WolfeWiki, Robert Pirkola's recreation of events involves the
concept of a murderous narrator who is attracted to Stanley
Robakowski as a “contactee” </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">and</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
potential victim for his cannibalistic tendencies, and there are at
least two metatextual statements that are offhandedly ominous. The
first is the narrator's statement that he had “a day to kill in
Colbyville”, which is the kind of double entendre Wolfe enjoys at
times. The second is less ominous but conceivably more remorseful:
“No doubt I should not have done what I did,” though of course </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">by
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">the
surface reading </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">he
is </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">simply
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">stating
he should not have entered someone's house -</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
rather than </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">saying
that he should not have eaten them for dinner (or breakfast).</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"> </font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">Under
Pirkola's timeline, the narrator comes across the newspaper clipping
from the United Press Wire Service while Stan Robakowski is still at
St. Joseph's hospital, and, his interest piqued, orders recent copies
of the *Colbyville Courier*. After he travels to Colbyville, he
arranges a meeting, and rather than being unable to find the
apartment, prevents the duplex door from locking </font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3">(open
in anticipation of his arrival) and then phones Robakowski to say
that he could not find it. Pirkola's recreation involves the narrator
returning that night or in the early morning of the next day, killing
Robakowski, and dragging him from the bedroom down the hallway into
the kitchen (where he eats him) to account for the trail of blood
found there. He also takes Stanley's personal effects to later bury
at Twin Mounds. The yellow lights the narrator notes as being
reported are, in this case, the headlights of his car going to the
park. Pirkola makes the following claims: </font></font>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" align="left">>The narrator only felt safe
enough to report the event more than two years later, after he had
kept tabs on whether anyone had been arrested for the murder. In a
final bid to mislead would-be investigators, he plants the idea that
MIBs may have been involved. ...The narrator's interest was first
attracted by the fact that there was an incoherent man found near a
site of possible supernatural happenings. This opens the door to
occult explanations for such a man's disappearance and the
opportunity to feed without notice. Not only are there apparently
extraterrestrial/supernatural goings-on near an occult site, but
there is an interesting legend attached to the area that the cannibal
narrator can later appropriate and use to distract future
investigators. The narrator only feels sure that Robakowski was a
"contactee", which is to say a potential meal, after
gathering information about the occult nature of the event and
confirming that Robakowski had been psychiatrically hospitalized at
St. Joseph's for at least 5 days.
</p>
<p class="" align="left">In further discussion online at the
Urth Mailing List, Pirkola elaborates:
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
>It is important to remember that this particular victim is merely
one of many in a presumably longer career of the narrator/cannibal.
This is alluded to in the beginning of the story which starts out as
though it were one tale in a collection of
supernatural/extraterrestrial encounters assembled by the narrator.
"This puzzling case presents several unique features . . ."
The features are unique because they distinguish this case from the
other omitted examples in the collection, each of which might
presumably also relate an incident where the narrator engaged in
cannibalism and used the supernatural circumstances as cover. Later
on, he also states "Here I must confess my own shortcoming --
one I regret more than any other involving UFO studies." The
narrator is not a person that collects U.F.O. clippings first and
foremost who then subsequently develops the desire to consume human
flesh, but is instead a cannibal who has taken an interest in the
supernatural/extraterrestrial because he recognizes an opportunity to
feed undetected in modern society by victimizing those whose
disappearance will be subsumed in the fringe culture of the occult.
It would not be strange for a confirmed cannibal to be looking for
"random guys to eat", because that is precisely the life a
cannibal would have to lead. The most difficult questions a modern
cannibal would have to face are: whom shall I eat? and how shall I
get away with it serially? Our narrator has found one (admittedly
imperfect, but not bad) answer to these questions. It is likewise
important to remember that we must take the narrator's word that the
sources he claims to be quoting are being quoted accurately and have
not been altered or, for that matter, are not made up out of whole
cloth. The psychiatric account of "Stan Roland", which we
have only the narrator's word was a pseudonym of Mr. Robakowski's,
for example, is supposed to have been written by Dr. Ernest Schwartz.
Of course, Ernest=earnest=serious and Schwartz is German for "black"
and so we have "serious black", or more particularly, a Man
In Black (MIB). This is exactly the type of name a person who spends
a great deal of time researching U.F.O. phenomena would concoct.
Therefore, I think the theory at least admits the possibility that
all of the supernatural/extraterrestrial experiences of Robakowski
are made up by the narrator to tie together the disoriented
Robakowski of the newspaper reports with the legend of the mounds,
the girl, and the wendigo. ....
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
>In the [original cannibal] analysis, I claimed these different
colored lights might have been the narrator's headlights from when he
visited the mounds to bury Robakowski's "modern materials".
I think it more likely that since the park closes at six p.m. and
may be surrounded by a fence (though the circumferential nature of
the fence comes from "Dr. Schwartz" so, grain of salt) that
the yellow lights were in fact the narrator's "four-cell
flashlight" which he would have used to find his way to the
mounds.Another point in the story that seems to support the original
theory, but can also be explained by my own, again comes from the
"Dr. Schwartz" report. Robakowski is supposed to have
related that when the trails he was familiar with disappeared "the
heavily wooded area was, paradoxically, almost free of underbrush,
which is not in fact the case." This would correspond to being
transported to a time when Native Americans predominated because they
were, by all accounts, great husbandmen of the forest, clearing the
underbrush by the use of fire and other means. This improved their
ability to see the distance (important for spotting invaders) and
allowed for the selection of useful plants to the exclusion of
others. In fact, the "wilderness forest" that we think of
today is much more a tangled mess than it had been before the arrival
of Europeans to the North American continent. Thus, Robakowski's
description would be highly accurate. However, Robakowski is said to
have visited the park frequently in his childhood. This fascination
with park would likely have led him to look into the history of the
area and he probably would have been familiar enough with the wendigo
folklore and the Native American history of the area to concoct the
accurately detailed story related in the "Dr. Schwartz"
report. We are therefore presented with three alternatives for the
psychiatric account: (1) it is made up by the narrator as detailed
above, or (2) Robakowski himself falsified the story which was then
repeated by Dr. Schwartz, or (3) Robakowski actually had the
experience. In my mind, the third alternative is the most quotidian
sf reading and removes much of the depth I would generally associate
with a Gene Wolfe story. I doubt Mr. Wolfe would express the
satisfaction with the story he did in the Introduction to *Storeys
from the Old Hotel* if it was as simple as a first reading would make
it seem. It also was written in 1987, so his skills at creating
depth of meaning (as most potently expressed in TBOTNS) were already
masterful. Finally, I think the keystone of my theory lies in the
Introduction: "It is a framed story, if you like, in which the
frame is the whole story." The "frame" is not just
the framing device but the fact that the entire story is the narrator
framing the U.F.O.s for the murder/disappearance of Robakowski.
(Pirkola)</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
I will merely reiterate here that in explications of Wolfe which I
think have a kernel of authorial intention in them, usually
previously seemingly unrelated details can come into a kind of
startling new light (something which I found to be true upon
realizing that the Americans were planning to use the corrupted grain
to attack the other nations of the world – thus all the talk of
scents in “Seven American Nights”, or upon realizing that Pete
Palmer was in fact a changeling in the story of the same name).
Pirkola's explanation makes sense of the blood stains and the
cannibalistic reference in regards to the wendigo (which is after all
an Algonquin concept for someone who can also appear and vanish at
will, which Stanley must seem to be doing to the woman), but it tends
to treat the alien theme and the witness description of the “wingless
airplane” as complete fabrication.
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
##Names:</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
-*Stanley*: The name Stanley means “stone clearing”, derived from
an Old English surname. Robakowski appears to be a Polish family
name. The pseudonym *Roland* implies “famous”.</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
-*Ernest Schwartz*: Ernest means “determined” and Schwartz is a
German/Yiddish name meaning “dark” or “black”. The names do
not seem to have much bearing on this particular story, though
Pirkola emphasizes the connection of Dr. Schwartz's name with the
concept of the Men in Black.</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
-*Colbyville*: Since it is probably a fictional park and city, it is
worth looking at the meaning of this city name - “from the dark
city or farm”.</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">##Connection
with other works:</span></span></font></font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">The
fatal embrace across time that Stan Robakowski and the young Indian
girl enjoy clearly echoes the wrestling of Severian and Apu-Punchau,
a possibly consubstantial union that transcends temporality. The
interposition of a series of mysteries through objective sources and
the incorrect conclusion of our purveyor of curiosities is typical of
Wolfe (“Reports of physical harm at the hands of MIBs are extremely
rare, and murder almost unheard-of; and yet murder would appear to
have taken place in th</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">e</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">
mysterious case of Stanley J. Robakowksi”). Our narrator presents
all the information and even has a first hand account, but fails to
draw the obvious conclusion – that Stanley's trip backwards through
time is some kind of natural resonance rather than an intentional
murder. </span></span></font></font></font>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">Robert
Pirkola's explanation does have some metatextual merit, but I am not
certain that we should write off such a large portion of the story in
favor of an extremely subtle hint of cannibalism, </span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">evidence
which includes drawings and descriptions of the UFOs as well as a
scientific explanation for the changing color of the light – the
ships approaching and then leaving at great speeds</span></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">.
The Wolfe irony is still in effect even without the diabolical
narrator, for this seeker of accounts of mysteries and UFO phenomenon
never comes to the obvious conclusion even given all his data and
compilation. Almost always, the science fictional/fantastic
explanation is favored over the psychotic reading (though in stories
such as “Josh”, “Mute”, and *The Sorcerer's House*, a clear
preference of science or fantasy over psychosis is very hard to
assert confidently. “Beech Hill”, “Melting”, and perhaps
“Suzanne Delage” are general exceptions where the proper reading
seems to be one of low mimesis couched in realism).</span></span></font></font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal">This
seems to be another one of Wolfe's “mysterious light” stories,
which were written near the same time and include “Slow Children at
Play” and “The Friendship Light.” These three stories explore
the same light from a religious, a supernatural </span></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal">or
horrific</span></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal">,
and (for “Sightings at Twin Mounds) a scientific viewpoint.</span></font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal">##Resources</span></font></font></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
-Pirkola, Robert. “Sighting at Twin Mounds.” Urth Mailing List.
20 June 2014. Web. 26 April 2015.
<a href="http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2014-June/054851.html">http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2014-June/054851.html</a></p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<br>
</p>
<p class="" style="margin-bottom:0in;line-height:100%" align="left">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size:12pt" size="3"><span style="font-style:normal">-”Sighting
at Twin Mounds.” Wolfe Wiki. 28 May 2014. Web. 25 April 2015.
<a href="http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Stories.SightingsAtTwinMounds">http://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Stories.SightingsAtTwinMounds</a></span></font></font></p>
</div>