Pygmy Tarsier -- Sulawesi, Indonesia

Much to everyone’s frustration, the “puck” caught on the island of Sulawesi is not a faeryfolk creature at all. Instead, we travelled all this way to Indonesia only to see a long-lost pygmy tarsier. The little monkey, hardly the size of a mouse, could possibly be mistaken by the laymen with a domestic mogwai.

The Office sent us on another wild-goose chase. The last couple of days have been a complete waste of time and this at a moment when time is of the essence. After all, D-day is coming!

Photo from Reuters, for Yahoo! News.

America to Jakarta, Indonesia

There have definitely been odd happenings at McColo Corp. This single web hosting company was responsible for more than 40% of the world’s spam. Last weekend McColo briefly went online again, but it proved enough time for many botnets to be resurrected like phoenixes from the ashes. I think The Office is correct in their assessment that the malware and spyware activity generated from McColo is unusually advanced and may indeed have had extraterrestrial input.

Cheshire Cat was able to follow the trails of several spam generators by changing himself into data streams and skidding the Internet. He was able to catch the code of one spam generator and bring it back from Cyber Space. He says that the spam algorithms are “curious”. Mr Stewart and his team have been at it and they confirm the atypical program code. The program code make sense, but the logic is unusual. Although Mr Stewart still thinks our chase for ET-pucks is asinine, he has concurred that the program code is “highly unusual, as if it wasn’t coded with human logic in mind”.

Unfortunately The Office made us leave for Indonesia. Apparently a puck has been caught by researchers on the island of Sulawesi.

I was frustrated to leave America while on such a hot trail of what could possibly be ET-pucks. Getting in and out of American is a logistical nightmare. Although The Office has secured our visas, it is our equipment that are causing the greatest hassles at the airports. We’ve opted to call ourselves “Paranormal Researchers” and with a wink we explain that we’re “Ghost Hunters”. It takes hours for them to rummage through our equipment. Luckily Cheshire Cat can sneak on to the plain without being detected. Just imagine the inconvenience it would have been if Cheshire Cat was kept in quarantine for months, as is often the case with animals. Not that they have to fear that Cheshire Cat will carry any diseases. If he is carrying a disease it would not be the kind of disease normal animals are susceptible to get. To be honest, I’m not too sure how a quantum physical disease would manifest.

In any case, we arrived at Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. Currently we are at present trying to navigate to Sulawesi, but everything is complicated by the earthquake that struck Indonesia a couple of days ago.

McColo Crackdown -- San Jose, California, USA

The Office sent us to America.

We have been in San Jose, California, for the last couple of days investigating the McColo Corp. Web hosting company. On the 11th of November authorities cut off the company’s upstream providers, in effect severing it from the Internet. The company is accused for hosting the botnets responsible for almost 75% of the world’s spam, as well as other cyber-criminal activity. Some of the code for the spybots and malware spawned from the McColo servers are considered to be so ingeniously malicious that The Office is wondering if extraterrestrial intelligences might not have been involved.

We have been speaking with many of the security researchers investigating McColo. A Mr. Stewart has been especially helpful although he insinuated that our search for “alien pixies is the weirdest thing [he has] ever heard,” but that he got orders to assist us in any way possible and would happily oblige, although “malware is the offspring of crackers, not ETs”. Crackers, it seems, are the criminals. While hackers, it appears, are the vigilante good guys.

Neither Doctor Tom Holtz, Miss Mary Tudor, nor myself know much about computer programming. We are all computer literate and Doctor Tom Holtz and I know how to work our electronic equipment, but even this leave us ill-equipped trying to follow Mr. Stewart’s description of internet security breaches, malware, spyware, open mail relays and open proxies, captchas, Sobig and Mimail virus-families, Bayesian filtering, FUSSPs, pink contracts, directory harvest attacks, worms, zombies and other obscure IT-jargon.

It turns out that my earlier experience with zombies is of no value here. Apparently zombies are computers infected with malware, and has nothing to do with Voodoo at all.

Although we are still trying to figure out exactly how ET-pucks could possibly fit in with the whole McColo fiasco, Miss Mary Tudor has confirmed puckish odours. I can only hope that we find something tangible soon. D-day is coming!

Answers to the Pixie-Killings -- Buckland St Mary & Wellingon, Somerset

After further investigation I think I’ve solved the troubling questions regarding the carnage of, what turns out to be, at least five pixies, according to Doctor Tom Holtz’s study of the remains.

The first clue was an interview with the Reverend and an examination of the PC-box. It turns out that the PC-box was not in use. In fact, many of the hardware had been removed and fitted into a new computer she had put together a couple of months ago. The old PC-box was just standing in a corner, half forgotten. She didn’t want to get rid of it, because she thought that she might use it later and have it rebuild as a backup PC. It was completely by accident that she noticed that the pixies had turned it into a nest. One evening very late she came to the study to find a book when she heard the noise. She thought it to be rats, but it turned out to be much more surprising. Over a long period she gained their trust and some evenings they would even come out while she was in the room, always exceptionally quiet. They’d just stare at her from a distance. The Reverend isn’t too sure about their sleeping patterns but it seems that they were most active at night. She never saw, nor heard them during the day. Since they never bothered her or anybody else, she decided to keep their existence a secret from other people.

My initial question as to the pixies attraction to the PC-box was answered by this. I think that they were not attracted to the PC-box because it is an electronic artefact (affirming Doctor Tom Holtz’s conclusion that these were not ET-pucks); rather, they were attracted to the PC-box because it seemed to provide good cover and safety. The PC-box was hid away in a corner behind a cabinet in one of the quietest places on the Parish grounds and with winter coming this must have seemed like a safe and warm place to the pixies.

Pixies usually do not live so close to humans. They might live in human dwellings, but will stay in the cellar or basement where there is not too much human activity. I’m of the opinion that these pixies deliberately chose to be a little closer to humans. Although afraid of humans, it turns out they were more afraid of something else and therefore slacked their caution of humans -- at least of the Reverend.

It was at the Somerset County Library in Wellington that I found a clue in an old book, the pages yellowed by age. It turns out that Buckland St Mary has a rich faeryfolk history. According to folklore, centuries ago there was a great battle between pixies and faeries that took place in Buckland St Mary. It is unclear what the battle was about, not that there needs to be one as it is well known that pixies and fairies are territorial. According to the records the pixies won that battle and the fairies left the area after their loss.

It is my opinion that the fairies have been moving back and slowly exterminating their former rivals and territorial competitors. When I ran my hypothesis by Miss Mary Tudor she said that now that I mention it, it could very well be fairies. Fairies have the lightest odour of all the faeryfolk, which is probably the reason Miss Mary Tudor couldn’t make out there scent before. I asked Doctor Tom Holtz to run some scans for fairy residue, commonly known as fairy dust, amongst the remains of the pixies and he confirmed that there is indeed fairy residue. (Fairy dust, unlike popular belief, is not magical, but merely tiny scales from their wings – similar to the scales of moths. It is rumoured to have medicinal value.)

In recent decades there have been rumours of pixies around the old Buckland Windmill. I think a thorough investigation would probably find that these pixies are all gone; probably replaced by a new fairy community. Regrettably our party do not have the time to do such an investigation as our main priority, after all, is finding ET-pucks. We already left for our next destination a couple of hours ago. Time is running out. D-day is coming.

Photo from BucklandSurrey.Net

Pixie Vigil -- Buckland St Mary, Somerset

What a controversial time it had been at Buckland St Mary’s. The vigorous debate, by the Parish Council and resident theologians, over the nature of pixies was very animated, touching on such diverse subjects as what it means to be created in the image of God, the mortality opposed to the immortality of the soul, Pauline views on pneuma and psyche, versus Old Testament concepts, especially from the Book of Job and the Books of Solomon on the nature of the soul. The passage that seemed to sway the opinion was from Ecclesiastics 3:19, 20: “For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”

I also pointed out to the debaters that pixies, unlike the most of the rest of the faeryfolk, are believed to be related to humans. Some scholars are of the opinion that pixies are a smaller race. How true this view is I do not know. One of the assembled said that it is a fact that sin has degraded humankind through the ages and that if Adam and his immediate offspring were to stand amidst us today in their mostly perfect state we would be like pixies in their sight.

The Parish Council came to the concession that the Reverend may keep a vigil for the pixies as they do have semblance to man, they are inherently sentient beings and that “they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminince above a beast” and therefore, it is plausible that they might “partake of human nature”; who are we to judge the mysteries of God’s creation.

However, although the vigil was approved it was agreed that the pixies may not be buried in the parish’s cemetery as it might entice a fad and before we know it old Mrs. Turnpike will insist on having her dogs buried, because, as the whole Somerset have been told on numerous occasions, Mrs. Turnpike’s dogs are the most intelligent dogs in all of Britain, and that includes those mongrels of Her Majesty, the Queen, and anyone who disagrees will feel the wrath of Mrs. Turnpike inflicted without measure. It was unanimously agreed that the pixies will not be buried at the parish.

Since the question of what to do with the pixies’ remains came up, I asked if we could have it. So far Doctor Tom Holtz have confirmed that the remains are definitely that of pixies and not of ET-pucks. It was a tiny foot that established the fact, as the little foot had more than three toes. ET-pucks are theropods.

I’m still intrigued by the behaviour of these pixies. As I mentioned before, pixies are not naturally drawn to electronics, so what did they do in the PC-box? The other mystery that is still unanswered is who, or what, slaughtered the pixies. And why? Miss Mary Tudor says that she is detecting faint traces of other faeryfolk, but she cannot distinguish the smells clear enough to be able to make any concrete identifications. Might it be ET-pucks that butchered the pixies?

I hope we find some answers soon as we cannot stay here much longer. We are pressed for time. D-day is coming.

Pixie Massacre -- Buckland St Mary, Somerset

Buckland (St Mary the Virgin)

Back to England we hastened to the parish in Buckland St Mary. When we got there the Reverend was frenzied. She showed us her bloodied PC-box. It was a pixie massacre! We are still trying to figure out the abysmal details. It seems that we came just too late. Too late for what I am still uncertain. Something killed off the pixies. But who? And why? The Reverend, at least, seems innocent of their slaughter, as she can hardly speak she’s so emotional. Miss Mary Tudor is treating the Reverend with calming ethers from her little box of odorous potions.

The first question I want to solve is if these really were pixies in the first place. Pixies are not known to be attracted to electronics, and them taking up residence in a PC-box doesn’t fit the typical pixie profile. ET-pucks, on the other hand, are exceptionally fond of electronics.

The Reverend is planning a vigil for the pixies tonight, but this, of course, has the whole parish splintered. Pixies are netherworldly creatures, says one faction, so what are we messing about keeping Christian practices for the demonically spawned. But, protests the other party, all creatures are from God and we are all animated by one Breath; therefore the pixies, sentient beings as they are, deserve respect, especially after such a dreadful extermination. The debate changed into a deep theological exegesis of Scripture regarding the difference between the “breath” of man and the “breath” of animals – this is assuming that pixies are indeed part of the animal kingdom and not something wholly different, adds another faction.

I really hope that we can get some clues from this tragedy towards finding some ET-pucks. Time is of the essence. D-day is coming.

Photo from VoWH.

Always Remember to Give the Púca's Share -- Shanagolden, Limerick County, Ireland

As I suspected the púca sighting had nothing to do with ET-pucks at all.

After spending the night in uncomfortable beds we woke up this morning to an awful commotion. Still in our pyjamas we ran outside to see what the fuss was about. A black stallion with fiery yellow eyes was going crazy; chasing people up, kicking and biting and just behaving very unmannerly, even for a horse. Half the town folk was there trying to control the beast. Apparently it severely injured a farm worker earlier this morning, and they’ve been trying to catch it, but to no avail.

Doctor Tom Holtz gave the creature one look and said that it is definitely a púca, and very much an Irish one at that. Púcas can shapeshift into a variety of creatures; a black horse is one that Irish púcas are well known for.

I asked Cheshire Cat if he could subdue the púca for us. What a sight! Cheshire Cat split itself in two and stalked the stallion from opposite sides. And then, quicker than any of us could follow, the two versions Cheshire Cat leaped. All we saw where two purple lines swirling around the horse like blazing pythons and within a second there stood Cheshire Cat (only one of it again) with the ratlike faerie gripped by the scruff of its neck. The púca was shrieking violently, but completely helpless in Cheshire Cat’s grip. I sometimes forget what a fearsome creature Cheshire Cat is.

We tried to talk to the púca but it only screeched and yelped, hissed and spat. Miss Mary Tudor came to the rescue. She held a small flask under the púca’s nose and once it smelled whatever potion she has inside, it became completely placid, and dare I say it, even cute. It was wholly under the spell of Miss Mary Tudor aromatic potion and even allowed her to pick it up and cradle it in her palms like a kitten.

In a sad little squeak-of-a-voice it started to tell the reason for its unruly behaviour. As it speaks Gaelic, my company and I could not make out what it was blabbering about. Luckily some of the locals are speakers of the tongue and soon everything became clear. Earlier this month was Samhain, the Harvest Festival, but he never got the “púca’s share”. It is well known that púca’s are always left a little of the crop, at least on Harvest Day (1 November). He has been living here for many generations and never has he been insulted like this, explained the púca.

As it turns out, the farm where the púca takes up residence was recently sold and the new owners are not into agriculture. Instead they are dairy farmers. (Apparently more and more farmers in and around Shanagolden are turning to dairy.) Actually the new farmers were well informed of their duty to the púca and made sure to leave out some milk, several flasks of cream, and five bricks of butter and even a bottle of whiskey. They couldn’t understand why the gifts were not taken and at last thought that there was no púca on the farm, and that they were lied to by the previous landowners. The púca responded that it did not know the dairy gifts were for him (he had never received dairy gifts before), that’s why he didn’t take it, for he might be a faerie-folk but no thief is he.

The hamlet decided to have a party in our honour and it seems that we will not be able to leave before tomorrow, as Doctor Tom Holtz is already too drunk to stand. This is distressing. Not Doctor Tom Holtz's drunken state, but our delay. Although we were able to bring some reconciliation to Shanagolden, I’m afraid we are losing precious time. D-day is coming.

Original Photo - Creative Commons License

Shanagolden, Limerick County, Ireland

On our way to Buckland St Mary, Somerset, we got a message from the Office. There is a púca running amok in Ireland. It is unusual for a púca to act up like this, said the Office, and that it is plausible that the locals are mistaken and it is not a púca, but rather something else and if we’re lucky it could possibly be an ET-puck.

I tried to reason with the Office that ET-pucks are shy creatures and it is most unlikely for the púca sighting to have anything to do with an ET-puck, we would be wasting precious time going to Ireland and that we should rather investigate the lead we have in Buckland St Mary of the pixies that made nest in the computer of the Reverend at the parish. After all, electronics are a key attraction for ET-pucks. The Office, as is often the case, refuses to listen to reason and that’s why we find ourselves now in Ireland.

Miss Mary Tudor has been smelling mythical “energies” ever since we crossed the border and when we at last got to County Limerick she had to do some kind of smelling-ceremony. It’s to clear her olfactopsychic sense, she says. Ireland is so rich in mythical odours that she will go raving mad and start to scream like a banshee unless she can find olfactopathic harmony, she explained. It took her nearly an hour of sniffing various potions and breathing through one nostril then the other in complicated sequences. The short tempered Doctor Tom Holtz, Jr. exclaimed half way through Miss Mary Tudor’s procedure that he had enough of looking at her snivelling at those Voodoo flasks, none of which looked of a great enough quantity to be of any practical use, and why doesn’t she just put a washing pin on her nose instead; then he rushed off to a pub. I think part of his vehement reaction was to Cheshire Cat.

Truthfully, after forty-five minutes of watching Miss Mary Tudor picking out, sniffing at and putting back hundreds of little containers from a small wooden box, I had lost all of my initial curiosity at the strange olfactory rite. Even Cheshire Cat, who lay curled up under her chair, started to gnaw and eventually swallow one of its paws. Of course, the quantum physical being that it is, the swallowed paw merely appeared on the other side of the cat as a paw that was gnawing and swallowing a cat. It is this, I think, that disturbed Doctor Tom Holtz the most.

An old castle near Shanagolden.

When we eventually arrived at our destination, Shanagolden – a small village surrounded by hills, it was already late and left us no time to investigate the púca incidents. The innkeeper refused to talk about it.

In my books, today was a day lost, and we cannot afford to be losing days with D-Day coming.

Photo - Creative Commons License

At Granny Yamsmith's -- Ingleton, Yorkshire, England

Our first stakeout in search of ET-pucks has been mostly unfruitful, but I think not futile. We went to the homey residence of Mrs. Gloria Yamsmith; a charming mother of six and grandmother of fourteen. I have been in correspondence with Granny Yamsmith, as she prefers to be addressed, for four months now. She contacted me hoping that I could rid her of her imp infestation. From her description of the critters, Doctor Tom Holtz and I came to the conclusion that her vexation is definitely caused by something of a netherworldly mischievous nature, most likely pucks, and hopefully ET-pucks at that. She hasn’t seen them in person, but her grandson Geoffrey claims to have seen one, although not clearly – they are very fast. They taunted him at night time on several occasions and he was able to get a glimpse of one of them.

Granny Yamsmith has also seen their footprints. One evening she baked cookies and hadn’t cleaned up before going to bed. The following morning she could make out clear footprints in the flower on her kitchen table. From her description they are positively therapodal, which make it quite plausible that they are ET-pucks. However, it is thought that at least two of the púca varieties of Ireland have three toes per foot. So the footprints doesn’t leave us any the wiser as to whether these pucks are native or not, but we are hopeful.

Upon entering Granny Yamsmith’s home Miss Mary Tudor said she smelled pucks without a doubt. As she had never encountered ET-pucks (and their odour) before she couldn’t say whether these were native pucks or alien pucks. Miss Mary Tudor describes the smell of pucks to be a musky tang mixed with cloves and moist soil and something uniquely puckish. She also “sensed” that Granny Yamsmith had a bad back brought on by osteoporosis. She advised her to cut out cheese, especially the strong Cheddars that Granny Yamsmith keeps in the cooler in her cellar, which Miss Mary Tudor could smell as we passed the outskirts of the town. Of course, apart from Cheshire Cat, none of us could smell the cheese – at least not until Granny Yamsmith made us some sandwhiches with grilled cheese and basil. Cheese, says Miss Mary Tudor, causes acid in the body which is probably the reason for Granny Yamsmith’s osteoporosis. Miss Mary Tudor also counselled Granny Yamsmith to drink Stinging Nettle tea and that she just happened to bring some with her, which she gave to Granny Yamsmith. Miss Mary Tudor is turning out to be quite a resourceful lady. Even Doctor Tom Holtz seems taken with her, and he is seldom taken with anybody.

We put up our equipment in the kitchen and the boys room but upon analysing the output this morning we found nothing unusual, apart for one sound recorder that picked up a strange noise. Doctor Tom Holtz thinks it might be Mors-code, but the language communicated in is not English. We will try and decipher it as a pastime activity on our journeys. Also, one camera stopped working halfway through the night. It is not broken, but someone (or probably something) has been fidgeting with it.

Since D-Day is coming we cannot stay any longer, which is very regrettable as everyone have taken a liking to the very hospitable Granny Yamsmith and her cookies. We did decide, however, to leave some of the equipment installed and showed little Geoffrey, who seems quite bright for his age, how to use everything. If anything unusual comes up they will forward the data to the Office.

The group spirits seems high, even though Doctor Tom Holtz and Cheshire Cat has not spoken a single word to each other since there little squabble yesterday.

Photo - Creative Commons

Quest for ET-pucks Commences

My research colleague, the serious and somewhat erinaceous, Doctor Tom Holtz, Jr., and I commenced today our urgent quest to find one of those mysterious and allusive alien creatures, the extraterrestrial theropodovacyclopdarex-puca, more commonly known as ET-pucks, as in extraterrestrial pucks. We hope to catch a specimen before D-day.

Assisting us on our journey are Miss Mary Tudor and a Cheshire Cat. Miss Tudor’s uncanny ability to sense things obscure and delicate may come in handy. We will just have to accommodate her peculiar habit of sniffing things. Upon meeting she insisted on smelling the palms and other anatomical geographies of myself and Doctor Tom Holtz, which I feel inappropriate to mention, lest people get the wrong idea of Miss Tudor who otherwise seems to be a very decent lady of good breeding.

The cat is of course a necessity in catching ET-pucks and with its partial ability to bend space-time it will make travelling much faster. Doctor Tom Holtz, who on principle is in disagreement with anything of a quantum physical nature, and in general not a fan of felines, the colour purple, talking animals or disappearing acts, has already griped several times today. He was especially upset when Cheshire Cat was adamant in being called by no other name, but “Cheshire Cat”. It would also settle for “Purple Pussy” but that is it. Doctor Tom Holtz felt it highly inappropriate for Cheshire Cat to make any demands – it is after all an animal, and it is well known that animals ought to behave appropriate to their class – and was awfully offended at Cheshire Cat’s assumption that Doctor Tom Holtz, of all people, would ever stoop so low as to give the cat a pet name, least of all “Purple Pussy”. He can hardly imagine anybody feeling comfortable saying “Purple Pussy” or any such nonsense and that Cheshire Cat should keep its demands to a minimum and wipe that silly grin of its face.

Miss Tudor, being the kind of lady she is, immediately scooped up the cat and lulled it saying that Doctor Tom Holtz should not be so harsh on Cheshire Cat. It is after all a metaphysical creature, not accustomed to human ways; poor Purple Pussy. She kept stroking the cat even after its head disappeared.

Other than that our first day was quite uneventful. Although we did start out our journey spiritedly rushing to our first stake out. There is little time to waste. D-day is coming!