Robert Kowal

This past Fri­day, Swiss author and pale­con­tact the­ory pro­po­nent Erich Von Daniken, with­out appar­ent provo­ca­tion, unfriended me.

For the record, I only appeared briefly on his Face­book page.  I did not solicit inclu­sion, but hav­ing no other Face­book pres­ence, much less any friends, his was the sum total of my online val­i­da­tion.  Upon reflec­tion, I now believe it pos­si­ble that my addi­tion to his league may have been inad­ver­tent. ^[1]  Nev­er­the­less, I did feel an acute pang of aban­don­ment when I logged on, as is my habit, after triscuits and tea Fri­day after­noon.  The inci­dent lin­gered with me over the week­end, dis­tract­ing me dur­ing my wak­ing hours and taunt­ing me in night­mares pre­dom­i­nated by the recur­rent motif of a lifeboat occu­pied by Tal­lu­lah Bankkead, Von Daniken and a mum­mi­fied ver­sion of myself.

I was (be)friended soon after our ini­tial meet­ing at a 2009 sym­po­sium spon­sored by the Amer­i­can Credulity Soci­ety enti­tled Unex­plained Mys­ter­ies, Hid­den Secrets, the Imma­nent Future and how they affect YOU.^[2]If his was a delib­er­ate act of ostracism, one pos­si­ble expla­na­tion might be found in our shared fas­ci­na­tion with the Fee­jee Mer­maid^[3] and my sub­se­quent dis­en­chant­ment with that fine, if sus­pect, spec­i­men of hybrid fem­i­nin­ity.  We com­pared ideas on the mer­maid after a lec­ture and con­tin­ued a lively debate online there­after.  How­ever, my atten­tions have of late drifted to the enigma of Kas­par Hauser so my posts to var­i­ous mer­maid forums (many in which Von Daniken and I are the only con­trib­u­tors) have dropped pre­cip­i­tously.  It may be that my retreat was per­ceived as rebuke.

My other inter­ac­tions with Von Daniken then were innocu­ous, noth­ing more than hall­way chitchat between lec­tures and sports ban­ter at the bar.  Know­ing a bit of his biog­ra­phy, I casu­ally asked him for a hotel rec­om­men­da­tion in Geneva since, upon com­ple­tion of the sym­po­sium, I was depart­ing for a weeks work at the CERN Large Hadron Col­lider.  Von Daiken evi­dently mis­un­der­stood me (I con­fess my Esperanto is a bit dusty) because he gave me the address of his theme park in Inter­laken, some 200 km from Geneva. Mys­tery Theme Park

Igno­rance and cour­te­ous ret­i­cence con­spired and a few days later I found myself at Mys­tery Park: a 30 acre com­plex ded­i­cated to pseudo-science and lumpy fon­due^[4]The nearby hotel, how­ever, proved out­stand­ing so I remained there for the week, com­mut­ing daily to CERN to over­see my exper­i­ments which included accel­er­at­ing base­balls to near lumi­nal veloc­ity for a half dozen major league sluggers.

Since that orig­i­nal encounter Von Daniken and I have been intel­lec­tual adver­saries but we remained pro­fes­sion­ally cor­dial until this past Fri­day.  He has not responded to my e-mails since.  Nor did my search of his favorite forums offer any sign of activity.

If the answer lay not in the afore­men­tioned mer­maid sce­nario I have only one other spec­u­la­tion: it may be that my recent research, orig­i­nally inspired by his sem­i­nal 1968 work, Char­i­ots of the Gods, has been leaked to Von Daniken.  I am soon to pub­lish an arti­cle which, though indebted to his work,  largely super­sedes Von Daniken’s ancient astro­naut the­ory: THE BOURNE UBIQUITY CONJECTURE.^[5]

Sci­ence, of course, holds no affini­ties nor does it court friend­ship (cor­po­real or vir­tual) but we who serve sci­ence are encum­bered by weaker wills.  We crave com­pan­ion­ship, even in the form of crit­ics or com­peti­tors.  Whether my unfriend­ing resulted from an acci­den­tal click of the mouse or was a cal­cu­lated jab to my avatar’s head prompted by pro­fes­sional jeal­ousy, I feel it in my flesh-and-blood heart.  I shall miss that crazy old Swiss.  Take care Erich.

1. ^[1] Per­haps he con­fused me with one Charles T. Kowal, the noted astronomer or pos­si­bly there was a glitch in the serious-search-for-sirius list­server to which we belong that that might have appended my name to his Face­book page. ↩
2. ^[2] Held under the aegis of Uni­ver­sity of Kali­for­nia at Kompton’s  Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture Depart­ment this was an auda­cious three day gath­er­ing of self-help authors,  fur­loughed aca­d­e­mi­cians, and promi­nent moti­va­tional speak­ers.   The con­fer­ence topic — Pleonasm, Patri­o­tism and Plat­i­tudes –  For­ever and Ever, Amen —   may seem arcane but the con­fer­ence was among the most stim­u­lat­ing of my career and pro­duced a ter­rific theme song, “Say it once and it’s new, say it twice and it’s true, say it again and it belongs to you!” Trag­i­cally the event was marred on its final day by the incur­sion of what later news reports described as, “a mob of Sci­en­tol­o­gists fight­ing a turf war with rival Sedo­nans.” ↩
3. ^[3] Bon­de­son, Jan. The Fee­jee Mer­maid and Other Essays in Nat­ural and Unnat­ural His­tory, Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity Press, 1999. ↩
4. ^[4] The facil­ity is com­posed of seven pavil­ions each ded­i­cated to an ancient mys­tery and a cen­tral tower, the Panorama Kugel, exhibit­ing Von Daniken’s works and arti­fact col­lec­tion. The restau­rant was clean and invit­ing, the ser­vice exem­plary, the cui­sine unob­jec­tion­able. ↩
5. ^[5] Briefly stated, the B.U.C. pos­tu­lates that Matt Damon’s pop­u­lar­ity, his ver­sa­til­ity as an actor, and his unde­ni­able per­sonal charm, cat­alyzed by the suc­cess of the BOURNE film series, will inevitably result in Mr. Damon secur­ing every lead­ing male role through­out the uni­verse.  Con­se­quently his meme will con­t­a­m­i­nate every point in space-time result­ing in a Damon Sin­gu­lar­ity. ↩