Tea at Trianon: The "Batututs” of Vietnam

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, April 29, 2019

The "Batututs” of Vietnam

From War History Online:

Sightings of rock apes by Viet Cong and NVA troops were also common enough that an NVA General organized an expedition in 1974 to try to capture or at least kill one. Everyone has heard of cryptids – mysterious creatures, the existence of which is disputed by mainstream science – such as the Loch Ness Monster, the sasquatch (aka Bigfoot), the yeti (also called the Abominable Snowman), or the dinosaur-like mokele-mbembe of the jungles of Central Africa.

While “rock apes,” or “batututs” as they are called in Vietnam, are nowhere near as well-known as the aforementioned cryptids, sightings of these mysterious creatures by American troops in the jungles of Vietnam throughout the course of the Vietnam War were surprisingly numerous, with many witnesses giving extremely detailed accounts of sightings.

One particular hill in Vietnam was the site of so many rock ape sightings that it became known as Monkey Mountain. While no corpses of these strange creatures were ever recovered, or any clear pictures taken of them, the fact that sightings of them were so widespread and common throughout the war makes them worthy at least of an investigation. (Read more.)