Series 1 Episode 7
TX: Wednesday 23rd October 1996
Sophie and Neil’s intriguing mysteries include who lives inside number 23 Leinster Gardens, why the pyramids were built and what causes crying. Eddie Dedman from Sherborne wonders what animal he saw at Aylesford Priory. And did the contents of your glass of water previously run down a dinosaur’s back?
It’s a Mystery is a Media Merchants production for CITV (Children’s ITV) and was recorded at The Maidstone Studios, formerly known as TVS Television Centre.
Presenters: Sophie Aldred, Neil Buchanan
With Thanks to: Ben Abell, London Transport, London Transport Museum, Aylesford Priory, Inspector Dave Fox
Music: Mr Miller & Mr Porter
Production Manager: Peter Urie
Production Supervisor: Nicky Tasker
Graphics: Alan Scragg
Costume: Nancy Thompson
Make-Up: Jenny Roberts
Vision Mixer: Julie Miller
Floor Manager: Tia Stock
Production Buyer: Colin Harris
Sound: Ian Rosam
Lighting: John James
Cameras: Keith Hunter
Videotape Editor: Roger Maxted
Dubbing Mixer: Mike Erander
Design: Paul Spriggs, Becky Knight
Researchers: Nic Ayling, Matt Porter, Mark Sidaway
Associate Producer: Helen Dawson
Director: Paul Walker
Producers: Neil Buchanan, Tim Edmunds
© The Media Merchants TV Co Ltd MCMXCVI
The Media Merchants Production
Meridian Presentation for ITV
[Applause] Welcome to another intriguing it’s a mystery where we attempt to solve all kinds of mysteries from the spooky to the wonderfully weird and we’d like you to help us as we investigate the following cases why were the Pyramids built we explore the latest mysterious Theory we investigate what lurks inside
An apparent ordinary house will you be able to work it out and we exclusively reveal a liquid that once ran down a dinosaur’s [Applause] back it’s a mystery who or what lives inside house number 23 Behind These trees is a smart Victorian London house just like hundreds of others dotted up and down the country it could be any house in any town a perfectly ordinary Town dwelling but there’s something very
Outof the ordinary about what lurks behind the mysterious facade of number 23 I made some inquiries and I found that the postman never visits and the dustman never calls let’s have a word with the neighbors oh hello there could you tell me have you ever met the Neighbors at number 23 uh no and does anyone ever visit there
No no one do you ever hear any strange noises coming from there not really but there’s often a very strange Rumble during the course of the day okay thank you very much hello there could you tell me have you ever seen the Neighbors at night number 23 no never have you ever seen
Anyone visit them no have you ever heard any strange noises from there yeah occasionally occasionally okay thanks on further investigation I discovered that no one has ever been able to see through the windows if you take a closer look you’ll see that they’re made of concrete as if someone or something has
A secret to hide the mystery deepened when I found that the records showed that clouds of smoke and steam used to be seen rising from the roof area but it wasn’t on fire then one particular day all the smoke and steam stopped all that can be heard now is the occasional loud rumbling
Noise and the house and the windows appear to Shake I’ve decided that the only way to get inside this mystery is to get right inside number 23 so why do you think the house at number 23 is so weird is this a mystical secret Pathway to another world was the house once inhabited by alien beings or
Is Sophie about to enter the most haunted house in Britain well I can’t get in the front door because it’s made of concrete just like the windows but let’s have a look around the back well there isn’t a back door or a gate just this brick
Wall but this old map shows that number 23 is directly above London’s first underground Railway the Metropolitan line between Paddington and farington at that time steam trains were used underground these would pollute the air and suffocate the crew and the passengers as you can imagine the underground tunnels became very
Unpleasant so all the smoke and steam was collected in a tank attached to the train when the train reached the end of the line any smoke and steam collected would be released into the air from this hole down there which is behind this false house front at number 23 and as
You can see trains still use the same tunnel today so the mystery is solved no one lives at number 20 23 except the ghosts of steam trains from a bygone [Applause] age it’s a mystery why the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built many people thought that the pyramids were used as tombs to bury the pharaoh and others thought that they were built to guard the mummified pharaohs encased for an eternal afterlife yeah I thought
That too but now we could both be wrong let’s study the evidence the textbooks say that the pyramids of Egypt are the tombs of the Pharaohs yeah but if they are the tombs of the Pharaohs why build a massive pyramid on the top to advertise the fact that they would choc
Block with jewelry and precious items a great advert for robbers well textbooks also say that they were built 4 and a half thousand years ago around the year 2 and 1/2 th000 Years BC however there hasn’t ever been any real evidence to support this in fact the mystery of the
Pyramids has always intrigued us one of the latest theories put forward by two experts suggests that the Egyptians were in fact trying to mirror space by literally pulling the stars from the night sky and setting them down here on Earth well before you laugh at the idea just listen to the
Evidence imagine it’s the year 10,500 BC if you had looked up into the dawn Sky you would have seen the band of stars called the Milky Way or as the Egyptians called it the winding Waterway they thought of it as a twin of the River Nile down there now that was the most
Important water source on which their lives depended to the right you would have seen a group of three stars known as Orion’s Belt and in 10,500 BC these Stars would have lined up exactly with the layout of the pyramids on the ground the pyramid’s Peaks were the exact mirror image of
These three stars so could the Egyptians really have built the pyramids to copy the stars in the sky well what’s more on the horizon a bit earlier in the same Egyptian Dawn sky in the year 10,500 BC there would have been a cluster of stars known as Leo they’re
Called Leo because if you join the Stars they’re roughly the shape of a lion so the theory reckons that the Egyptians built the nearby Sphinx in the image of the Leo star cluster up in the sky from the side the stars and the Sphinx both
Look like a lion so it turns out that the Egyptians could well have been putting the Stars down here on Earth great Theory but the stars were only in these positions in 10,500 BC and the pyramids were supposed to be built in 2500 BC you’re only 8,000 years out oh
Yes but yet another theory dates them earlier it’s been discovered that Marx found on the side of the Sphinx looked exactly the same as a piece of limestone does when rain beats down on it for hundreds of years and what’s that got to do with the date it was built well in
2500 BC Egypt was as dry as a bone so the Sphinx would have had to have been built much earlier to have obtained these marks it’s now been worked out that thousands of years earlier towards the end of the Ice Age the Sahara desert on which the Sphinx stands would have
Been green at this time there were rains heavy enough to cause such erosion so that would mean that the thinks could have been built much earlier perhaps a date of 10,500 BC is more realistic so the dates do coincide it’s a real possibility that the reason the pyramids
Were built was to try and put the Stars right here on Earth do you think it could be true well amazingly these new theories of why the pyramids and sphinx were built all seem to add of there’s just one big problem there is no real proof [Applause] you okay now it’s a mystery to me why Neil is crying well there are a number of reasons why people cry we think that the crying goes back to when we were babies at this time in our lives crying was our only way to express an urgent need
Discomfort hunger thirst or an overwhelming need to be comforted when you’re older and you’re saddened by a film or you’re angry or upset and you have no other way of expressing yourself you burst into tears just like you would have done as a baby sure okay now yeah
I’ll be all right in a minute some people like actors and actresses have to be able to cry to order for instance they might be in a television or theater scene where they have to cry so they just turn it on this is Ben and he’s an actor so how do
You do it well I think of a sad memory and um hopefully if it’s strong enough it’ll bring back the emotion and I’ll be able to cry so could you do it for us now okay thanks Ben it’s okay so why was Neil crying earlier I was crying because of
One of these I’ve been chopping an onion and the reason it made me cry is because onions contain an acid which becomes a powerful irritant when it comes into contact with water the watery film of my eyes now the eyes are diluting the acid which in turn is producing my tears
So there you go there’s many reasons for tears and did you know that when we’re miserable apparently our tears are meant to be different from those produced when our eyes are irritated by something our emotional tears contain a substance that makes us feel down if we cry we get rid
Of it and feel better so it’s unhealthy to hold back your tears in fact if you don’t cry and let those bad feelings out you risk becoming more upset and this in turn can make your body’s immune system vulnerable to nasty bugs so don’t bottle up your feelings when you’re upset just
Remember it’s cool to [Applause] cry my name is Eddie debond I live in Sherborne in Dorset I have what I believe is firm evidence of a panther living in this country it was a sunny day in mid June 95 I was with my family on an oun to Alford prier which is in
Kent I suddenly saw this black cat near some green houses when I saw the animal from that distance it appeared to be about that high whereas an ordinary domestic cat would be something like that I could even see the hairs on the back of the animal as it moved slowly along
Suddenly it stopped and I thought looked at me believe me I was ready to run some people in the PRI thought that it might have been a large fat domestic cat but I’ve seen cats before believe me it was no cat he was a panther what do you think could Eddie
Really have witnessed a prowling Panther well over the last 20 years there have been hundreds of supposed citings and reports of wild cats in Britain some think that this is down to a law passed 20 years ago this law made it much more difficult for people to own
Wild and dangerous animals as pets so what did they do with their pet panthers some say they were released into the countryside and that this may be photographic evidence this is a footprint possibly made by a panther that has been incited around Exmore and these droppings were found in Devon in
1990 do they belong to a big cat so could Eddie have caught one on film compare a picture of his cat with a picture of a real panther could this mysterious cat be a black panther what do you think well we decided to investigate a little further
We went out and measured the edge of this wooden Cold Frame right next to where Eddie saw the animal and we found it to be about 40 cm High which is about this high it’s quite tall now the priy believe that what Eddie filmed was their
Big fat pet cat Sylvie so we measured Sylvie and found her to be about 30 cm tall that’s quite a bit smaller than the animal Eddie said he saw so is Eddie right could the mysterious black cat be a panther or is it just an ordinary domestic cat
What do you think we wanted to talk to an expert so here’s inspector Dave Fox from the rspca Now Dave do you believe that there really are wild cats like panthers roaming around the countryside well around the 10 rspca regions we’ve had hundreds of calls hundreds of reports of
These things but no physical evidence and what do you think of the footage that Eddie shot with his camera I think it’s just a big black domestic cat but who who knows thanks Dave what do you think is it a plain old pussycat or a [Applause] Panther it’s a mystery whether this water could have trickled down a dinosaur’s back so okay how could it have well this glass of water came from this tap before that it was in the pipes and about 3 days ago it was in a reservoir before
That a river and before that it fell as rain in fact water goes round and round and round in an endless cycle it falls as rain and forms little streams which become bigger streams and then Rivers which flow into lakes reservoirs and eventually the sea all that time it’s
Evaporating into the air where it becomes clouds and finally falls again as rain because water goes round in this cycle it means that the water which falls on us as rain has fallen as rain millions of times before and will probably fall millions of times again but it hasn’t always been like this
Because believe it’s or not it hasn’t always rained there was a time millions of years ago when there were no Rivers no Lakes no seas and just massive dry holds where the oceans are today then one day it started to rain it rained and it rained and it rained in fact it
Rained every day for 60,000 years just imagine that every single day pouring with rain giving us all our oceans all our rivers and all our streams some of the water as it goes round and round in its endless cycle can end up getting trapped for example some of it filters
Down through rocks where it can get caught for a very long time this water last fell as rain 20,000 years ago and has been lying underneath the ground for all that time now that’s old but not as old as this now okay it’s not water it’s a crystal but there
Are tiny pockets of water inside it which were trapped there when the crystal was formed now if you look at it through the microscope the bubbles you can see are in fact bubbles of water which last fell as rain 200 million years ago and which have remained locked
Inside for all that time but let’s get back to this water could it ever have fallen onto the back of a dinosaur what do you think could it really be possible well the answer lies in the water cycle it just keeps going round and round and round which means that
Millions of years ago this water could well have fallen as rain and trickled down a dinosaur’s [Applause] Back Well there we are some Mysteries we’ve solved and some remain unsolved so join us next time for more Intrigue Mysteries and spooky going on but just before you go here’s one last mystery for you to solve a man is lying dead in the middle of a field there is nothing next to him
Except an unopen package there is nobody else around so how did he die can you so the mystery we’ll reveal the answer next time in last week’s final mystery a double-decker bus got stuck under a low bridge so how did the driver free it by letting down the tires to lower the Bus for