Origins

"His mission is to bring it back alive..."

A Victorian adventurer and amateur scientist, a contemporary of General Pitt-Rivers, has been recently revealed to have been the curator of the most remarkable collection of artefacts ever brought to light. Passionate about his unusual acquisitions, he decided to make public a number of his more spectacular specimens, and toured his "Astounding New Discoveries in Science and Nature" in the late 1800's.

At first a modest affair, the exhibition gradually gained the attention of the media, most notably the nay-sayers of the time.

Subsequently, the sceptical scientific community were called upon to pass comment on the controversial material, including a series of cryptozoological remains that the Curator had prepared and catalogued, obtained from a variety of archaeological, ethnic and unorthodox sources. The specimens gained scientific notoriety and heated debates sparked condemnation of his "blasphemous and ungodly" machinations.

Dismayed by the ferocity and closed minds of eminent scientists, the Curator withdrew his "Museum of Monstrosities" from the public eye and the ridicule they seemed so readily to invite; especially his centrepiece, the preservation of which he was most proud.

This game-changing skeletal reconstruction had taxed his anatomical interpretative expertise to the fullest-the once dessicated, now clearly presented remains of a MERMAID.

Although he had not the stomach for controversy, the Curator was far from personally discouraged. Instead, he had everything to prove. He remained unshaken in his belief in the authenticity of his pieces, and the intensity of the negative reaction to the bizarre specimens spurred on the ethno-archaeologist to renewed efforts to acquire the ultimate in hard evidence, and prove beyond doubt the existence of creatures previously regarded as mythical.

Withdrawing his compelling acquisitions into the privacy of his gothic mansion, the wealthy collector allows his preoccupation with the otherworldly to become an obsession. He employs a team of 'researchers', well-travelled individuals with instructions to track down the physical sources of superstition wherever they can find it.

Our Curator meanwhile sets to work with vigour sketching, sculpting and studying the artefacts in his possession as his emissaries scour the globe in their seemingly impossible task. For several years their mission seems futile...and then for some of them, their luck begins to change. The objects shipped back in the crates to England begin to become interesting.

Times become more exciting then for the frustrated Curator, after years of insubstantial material, dead ends and fakery. He has had to content himself with the gallery of striking art and reconstructive sculpture depicting his legendary interests. He begins to allow his more mundane domestic affairs to disintegrate, becoming more reclusive as he prepares himself for his own expeditions. Even the artworks seem no longer able to breathe life into the dead bones, statues and fossils now gathering dust in his halls.

After two decades collecting, excavating and purchasing from foreign clients, only one thing now could silence the doubters and echoes of laughter from the past. Aware that he is bound to a course of action that will take him out of the country for some considerable time on his private odyssey, the Curator relocates his ever-expanding museum to a secret location.

His destination is uncharted. His mission priorities have shifted. The change is at once subtle and dramatic. From a remote region of the Xizang Province of China, one of his surviving emissaries has sent back garbled reports of sightings of a legendary man-beast, once regarded as a local deity, now terrorising the highest villages.

His mission is to bring it back alive...

It is unclear whether he succeeds, though partial diary evidence suggests that subsequent events in Tibet were to test his sanity to breaking point, and he returns a changed man.A short time after returning from his three-year expedition, he vanishes, never to be seen alive again. His skeleton is discovered a century later amongst his own collection, rediscovered not far from the ruined house; inside hidden chambers behind the family crypt.

The walls had subsided due to the owner's excavations, and exploitation of a natural cave system kept the artefacts cool and well-preserved. The full amazing collection of biological material, architectural castings, archaeological excavations and ethnic artefacts, together with the Curator's own accounts, maps and equipment have however not been brought to the more receptive attention of today's society; the site has been closed off 'for analysis' by the NCT (Non-Conformist Technologies).

Very little is known about the internal agenda of this organisation, except that it originated as 'SANCTUS' (Society for the Abolition of Non-Conformist Technologies and Untenable Science). Over time they appear to have shifted their tactics to the 'Acquisition' of fringe science rather than 'Abolition'.

When queried regarding their practices, they claim simply to be a neutral fact-finding body of unspecified authority. They have however gained some considerable notoriety in the unofficial suppression of controversial scientific material and evidence of extraterrestrial visitation (see 'Are NCT the Men In Black?', Dark Matter Magazine, February 2001).

The NCT has made no public statement on the matter, but there is a growing number of scientific research individuals claiming they have been discredited and crucial work confiscated. Though their private agenda is unclear, rumour has it that the NCT have a secret collection of the bizarre and fantastic unrivalled by any other institutions; an 'X-Vault'containing the proof that has eluded so many; aliens, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, time travel, interdimensional beings, supernatural forces, werewolves...

But all is not lost!

A high-ranking member of the NCT has gone public, threatening to share the secrets of the vaults with us all. Rumour has it that he may even quit the parent organisation and strike out on his own quest for proof of the out-of-this-world, backed by his own team of intrepid explorers, free from intimidation and suppression.

The secrets are out.

We hope...

GP.