Alexandra David-Neel, Explorer and Self-Made Tibetan

"The attitude which these teachings advocate is one of a strong will to know all that is possible to know, never halt on the road to investigation which extends infinitely far before the feet of the explorer."
-Alexandra David-Neel, "The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects"

Some of history's most unusual people have come from the most ordinary, traditional backgrounds. One good example is Alexandra Marie David, who was born into a humble, bourgeois French family in 1868. The little girl was raised to have an uncomplicated, thoroughly anonymous existence. Instead, she became one of the most unconventional explorers in modern history.

Alexandra's childhood was desperately unhappy. Although she was devoted to her father, she had no love for her rigid, puritanical mother, and the two often quarreled. She detested her carefully restricted little world, and dreamed of a life full of travel and adventure. The minute she was old enough to fend for herself, she set out to make those dreams come true. While still a teenager, she fled home and family for the life of a wanderer. Alexandra's spiritual leanings were equally restless in nature. She became a member of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society, the Freemasons, and various feminist and anarchist societies. Her greatest love, however, was Oriental culture.

Miss David became a highly successful opera singer, a career that took her around the world. However, even that soon proved too tame an existence for her liking. In 1903, she took up journalism. In 1904, she married a distant cousin, Philippe Neel. Although she was genuinely fond of her husband, it was a marriage of convenience, with the couple seeing very little of each other after the wedding. To be blunt, she married him in order to obtain funds for her obsession with travel. The new Mrs. Neel made no secret of the fact that she despised the institution of marriage and found sex repulsive. It is hard to say what Philippe got out of their relationship, but he seemed to have little complaint with their unorthodox union, and continued to support her until his death in 1941. While Mrs. Neel lived in London, occupying herself with writing and studying Eastern sacred literature, Mr. Neel continued his work as a railroad engineer in Tunisia.

Alexandra David-Neel had long dreamed of touring Asia. and in 1911 her husband provided her with the money to travel to India, where she impressed everyone with her deep knowledge and love of Buddhism. She even obtained two private audiences with the Dalai Lama--the first European woman to be granted this honor. During her stay, she gradually shed her Western identity. She became fluent in Tibetan, and began to think of herself as a native of that country.

It is a tribute to David-Neel's imposing erudition as an Orientalist that many Tibetans felt the same way about her. She was welcomed at many Tibetan monasteries that were normally off-limits to outsiders. At one of them, she met a young man named Aphur Yongden, who remained her constant attendant and aide until his death in 1955. She continued her travels throughout India, China, and Tibet, but she was still dissatisfied. She had yet to feel she was a true Tibetan. The only way she could do that, she decided, was to train for their priesthood, to experience all the rigorous mental and physical hardships required for their spiritual leaders.

She became the disciple of a Tibetan occult master--believed by many to be a wizard--Gomchen of Lachen. Beginning in 1914, David-Neel spent two solid years living in a cave adjoining his atop a high mountain, facing all the harshest elements while he schooled her in tantric Buddhism. Hers had always been an ascetic and ambitious nature, but this was certainly the ultimate test of her devotion to stoicism and self-discipline. She saw no reason why she should not accomplish such a feat. As she later wrote in her book "Magic and Mystery in Tibet": “All of these seekers after miracles would perhaps be most surprised to hear me say that the Tibetans do not believe in miracles, that is to say, in supernatural happenings. They consider the extraordinary facts which astonish us to be the work of natural energies which come into action in exceptional circumstances, or through the skill of someone who knows how to release them, or sometimes, through the agency of an individual who unknowingly contains within himself the elements apt to move certain material or mental mechanisms which produce extraordinary phenomena.”

She loved every minute of the experience. The holy men of Tibet were astonished by her accomplishment, and welcomed her as one of their own. Some of them thought she must be the reincarnation of a goddess. The British, who were currently occupying Tibet, were less pleased with her. They wanted no outsiders in the country, and this obstreperous more-Tibetan-than-the-Tibetans female was a most undesirable nuisance. At the height of the First World War, they threw her out. David-Neel shrugged and went on a tour of Japan and Korea. She went across China--then spiraling into civil war--crossed Mongolia and the Gobi desert, and eventually slipped back into Tibet.

David-Neel had her sights on the remote holy city of Lhasa, a place no white woman--and very very few white men--had ever seen. Just to get there meant a long, dangerous journey through China and over the Himalayas. She didn't think twice. Disguising herself as a Tibetan peasant woman, she and Yongden spent a year navigating bandits, blizzards, and mountain passes that went as high as 20,000 feet. On one occasion, all that saved the duo was David-Neel's incredible powers of concentration. After spending some twenty hours climbing a snow-covered mountain, they found their flint and steel were too wet to light a fire. Facing the immediate prospect of freezing to death, David-Neel used the ancient Tibetan practice known as "thumo reskiang"--raising one's internal temperature through the power of the mind--to warm the flint and steel sufficiently to start a fire. (She once wrote, "The Tibetans also tend to believe that everything which one imagines can be realized. They claim that if the imagined facts corresponded to no external reality, one could not conceive of their images...the power of producing magic formations, tulkus or less lasting and materialized tulpas, [essentially, conjured phantoms] does not, however, belong exclusively to such mystic exalted beings. Any human, divine or demoniac being may be possessed of it. The only difference comes from the degree of power, and this depends on the strength of the concentration and the quality of the mind itself." However, she added, "it is possible for these individuals to obtain, in certain cases, the aid of beings whose nature is other than human.")

In 1923, the fifty-five year old David-Neel finally arrived in Lhasa, still successfully disguised. After a stay of several months, the British finally caught on to her, and she and Yongden were again booted out of the country. The highly disgruntled David-Neel settled in France, where her book about this adventure, "My Journey to Lhasa," was published in 1927.

David-Neel lived in Europe for the next ten years, writing extensively about Eastern mysticism. In the 1930s, she returned to China and India, but was forced to flee in 1944 following the Japanese invasion. She finally returned to France, which remained her home until her death at the age of 101 in 1969. As she had requested, she was cremated and her ashes scattered in the Ganges River.

She died knowing the satisfaction of living a long and productive life. She had been given many honors, including membership in the French Legion of Honor and a Gold Medal from the Geographical Society of Paris. Even more importantly, her many books (most notably "Magic and Mystery in Tibet,") remain an invaluable source of information about central Asia and Tibetan Buddhism. She had a talent for making even the most esoteric concepts readily understandable to the uninitiated.  Her travels and experiences were unrivaled by any other Western woman of her time, and still serve as an inspiration for many people to this day.

Weekend Link Dump

It's Friday the 13th!  Just remember...

Black cats are good luck!

And it's on to the links:

Where the hell did this golfing crocodile come from?

What the hell are Nessie's footprints?

What the hell is visiting Hinckley?

Pennsylvania is really screaming!

Watch out for those Cornish car door locks!

George Washington, Mother of our Country.

Or maybe it's just a really, really boring village.

England's shoes are being victimized by a foxy crime wave.

Margaret Gaulacher, nagged to death by Cotton Mather.

Some bad news for Charlemagne here.

The Wonder Hen who conquered New York, 1915.

I thought that this was appropriate, considering last Monday's post:  A brief history of 18th century hands.

"Spornosexual" sounds like the title of the world's worst X-rated science fiction film.  Which, now that I think of it, is a pretty apt description of the world nowadays.

Wild Talent:  H.G. Wells writes to Theodore Dreiser dissing Charles Fort, receives killer comeback line.

An illustrated guide to 1810 Cryer's Calls.  Duft ho!

Meeting Bigfoot in New Jersey, 1881.

Meeting Sea Serpents in Massachusetts, 1639.

Meeting Werewolves in Classical Antiquity.

A sad sequel to one of last week's links:  RIP, Poppy.

A how-to guide for prospective Yeti hunters.

A good example of why DIY guillotines are seldom a good idea.

Jekyll and Hyde meets California Dreamin'.  The results weren't pretty.

Lord Byron:  Just a boy and his dog.

Samples from the Dead Letter Office.  Don't ask for the return address.

I like knitting.  I like dogs.  I like men.  I actually think this one's kinda cute.

A short history of the executioner, one of those jobs where professionalism really counts.

Appropriately, the Victorians had the perfect fashion sense for those post-mortem photographs they liked so much.

Your Haunted iPad.

From Hell:  Was this the address of Jack the Ripper?

How to gamble like a proper Georgian wastrel.

And, finally, our Video of the Week: The Running of the Goats.



And it's a wrap! See you on Monday, when I'll be looking at one of the most unusual explorers in modern history.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

A story of a hoodoo ship from the June 17, 1946 "Western Morning News." Let this serve as a cautionary tale: When you travel abroad,  be very careful where you get your souvenirs.

A strange story of a Chinese curse which laid a hoodoo on a ship, culminating in the mysterious disappearance of a French millionaire banker, was told at Plymouth yesterday by members of the crew of the 10,500 tons Glen Line steamer Samwater, which arrived from Vancouver.

For six months the Samwater had crossed and recrossed the Pacific, taking cargoes of wheat from Canada to China without incident, until on her last trip M. Henri Bar, 60-years-old president of the Franco-Chinoise Bank in Shanghai, embarked to return to Paris.

He took with him 25 crates containing Chinese antiques and treasures which he had collected during his 30 years in the Far East and told fellow passengers and ship's officers that among them were agate drinking cups looted during the Boxer riots from the Imperial Palace at Pekin, which carried a curse threatening disaster to anyone taking them out of the country.

Then began a series of mishaps. First of all. while the crates were being loaded into the ship's hold, one of them struck and seriously injured a Chinese coolie. Three days later one of the British members of the crew began to suffer from delusions and, acting on instructions from a warship, the Samwater put back to Yokohama, where the man was taken ashore for hospital treatment.

For sixteen days after leaving Shanghai on her way to Vancouver, the Samwater had to battle with heavy seas and fierce gales until one day the weather suddenly moderated. Then it was discovered that M. Bar had mysteriously disappeared. During the nine months we were away from England we had bad weather only on those 16 days during which M. Bar was on board." one of the crew told the "Western Morning News." "Apart from those 16 days we had a particularly lucky voyage."

Capt. F. Howe, master of the ship, whose home is at Middlesbrough, said:  "The ship never stopped rolling after we left Shanghai until M. Bar disappeared. He left the saloon as usual that night announcing that he was going to retire.

"When it was found that his bed had not been slept in we made a thorough search of the ship, but there was no trace of him. It was a dark and windy night and we could only assume that while walking along the deck a heavy wave had washed him overboard.

"His luggage, including the treasures, which he told me were worth £50,000, were put ashore at Vancouver. From then until we reached Plymouth we had a pleasant and uneventful voyage, and apart from those 16 days I should call it a very lucky commission."

During one trip across the Pacific the Samwater came across the British steamer Empire Ouse which, with 10,000 tons of wheat on board, was lying disabled with a propeller missing.

The Samwater took her in tow and in 17 days brought her 3,200 miles across the ocean without mishap to Hong-kong, a feat of salvage which should bring rewards of thousands of pounds to owners and crew.

Vancouver police launched an investigation into Bar's disappearance--they suspected he was murdered in an effort to obtain his treasures--but they finally agreed with the captain and crew that he had likely accidentally fallen overboard.

Incidentally, the Samwater's troubles did not end with the puzzling exit of M. Bar.  In 1947 there was a fire on the steamer that killed sixteen members of the crew and two passengers.

Give the Howards a Hand!

On October 10, 1885, a railway worker named Arthur Rannage Howard walked from his home in Christchurch, New Zealand to the nearby watering-place of Sumner. Along the way, he encountered other pedestrians, who later recalled that he had mentioned his intention of going for a swim in the waters off Sumner--waters which, they noted with a shudder, were notoriously shark-infested.

It is after this date that Howard's story plunges straight into the even more dangerous seas of The Weird. The following morning, a boy found Howard's clothes and distinctive silver watch on the end of Sumner's pier. The owner of these items, however, was nowhere to be found.

Howard's understandably alarmed wife Sarah immediately sprang into action. Admittedly, it was not the sort of action one might expect. Her first move was to apply for payment of Arthur's three hefty life insurance policies, which had recently been transferred into her name. As proof of Howard's death was lacking, and the companies found it curious that this impecunious workman had been spending over half his income on life insurance premiums, they refused. Mrs. Howard then put an ad in the local paper offering 50 pounds reward for recovery of her husband's body "or the first portion received thereof recognizable."

This assumption that her loved one was now resting in pieces proved uncannily prophetic. On December 16, two brothers by the name of Godfrey marched into the Christchurch police station and proudly presented the sergeant on duty with an unusual trophy: a severed human hand, with one finger wearing a gold ring marked with the initials "A.H." It was, they cheerfully explained, probably all that remained of Arthur Howard. According to the Godfreys, they had just spent the day at Taylor's Mistake, a bay near where Howard had presumably drowned. Around two o'clock, they found this hand lying in the sand. No doubt, the brothers said, the unfortunate railway worker had been attacked by a shark. So, where was their fifty pounds?

Mrs. Howard was summoned, and instantly shed copious and heartrending tears. This hand, she confirmed, had once been attached to the body of her husband. The law, unfortunately for the Godfreys, saw the brothers not as amateur detectives and Good Samaritans, but as prime suspects in the murder of Arthur Howard. They were sent away minus their reward, but with the consolation prize of constant police surveillance.

In the meantime, doctors were brought in to examine this hand. Their findings were extremely interesting. This appendage--which had only been recently severed--was not been bitten off by a shark, but clumsily removed with a saw. It had been in sea water for just a very short time.  Oh, and the hand belonged to a woman, which presumably made it unlikely that it was Arthur Howard's. Further investigation revealed that the "A.H." found on the ring had not been done professionally, but was crudely scratched in.

The brothers Godfrey were presented with these findings, and the police earnestly asked to hear their thoughts on the matter.

The older brother, Elisha, then admitted that they had not quite told the police everything. He said that while he and his brother were at Taylor's Mistake, they were confronted by a man wearing blue goggles, a red wig, and oversized clothes, who told them excitedly, "Come here! There's a man's hand on the beach!"

The colorful stranger led them to a spot near the waves, and, sure enough, there was the hand, which they instantly realized must be Howard's. "Poor fellow," sighed the goggled one. He urged the brothers to bring the hand to the police and collect the reward. Elisha explained to the incredulous officer that he hadn't mentioned Mr. Goggles before because the man had begged them not to tell anyone about him, "as he did not want to have anything at all to do with it."

The police, naturally enough, greeted all this with professional snorts of derision. They took it for granted that the Godfreys were trying to gull them with the stupidest alibi on record, but as a formality, they made a few perfunctory inquiries in the neighborhood.

They had a big surprise in store for them. That came when others told them that yes, they too had seen a man in blue goggles and red wig hanging around Taylor's Mistake on the day in question. Goggles, they said, had shown them a paper with the Godfrey brothers' names and addresses on it, and told them that these men had found Howard's hand.

Once the investigators had picked their jaws up off the floor, they continued their search for this peculiar apparition. It turned out that Goggles--who gave his name as "Watts"--had been seen over a good portion of New Zealand. At one place, he was seen on a ferry. At another, he had been arrested for making "improper advances" to a "Salvation Army girl." (He was released when the lady declined to press charges.) He had been seen working on various farms--wig, goggles, and all. In one town, he approached a man named Beard, asking for help in opening a grave. (Beard recalled that "I told him to go away and not ask me such things, but I would like to see the man that asked him to do it.")

Most curiously, on the night of December 18, this peripatetic figure had been seen taking a long walk with Sarah Howard.

This last detail caused the police to arrest Mrs. Howard and the Godfreys on charges of insurance fraud. Soon afterward, Watts himself was nabbed walking the streets of Christchurch. When the clown garb was removed, this goggled Man of Mystery turned out to be none other than Arthur Howard.

Before the whole crew was put on trial for conspiracy to deceive the insurance companies and attempting to collect money through fraud, the police established that the Howards had never been legally married. The pair, both originally from Scotland, had been married on the boat they took to New Zealand, by the Scottish captain. No clergyman was present. Although the Howards had evidently honestly believed the marriage was valid, the judge in their case ruled that under the laws of New Zealand, it was not. The significance of this ruling was that, if the marriage had been valid, Sarah could not have been tried for conspiracy, because legally, husbands and wives could not "conspire" together. Also, she would have had the legal protection of the assumption that she had been acting under the compulsion of her husband.

The prosecution was unable to prove that the Godfreys knew of the insurance conspiracy, and they were accordingly acquitted. Sarah was, rather bafflingly, also found not guilty of both charges. Arthur, however, may have been acquitted of conspiracy, but he was found guilty of fraud and really bad taste in disguises. He received two years, with the judge commenting that he only wished it was possible to give a longer sentence for this "impudent and daring" scheme.

This is one of those cases that, while officially solved, left behind a grab-bag of messy unanswered questions. Whose hand masqueraded as Howard's? Where was the rest of this person? Why, instead of laying as low as possible, did Howard make such a flamboyant spectacle of himself?

No one ever knew. A Judge Alper recorded that Howard's lawyer, T.I. Joynt, confided to him that he knew the answers to these nagging questions. Unfortunately, before he could reveal them to the world, the lawyer dropped dead.

Somehow, that seems like a fitting conclusion to this case.

Weekend Link Dump

As we await the possibly historic Belmont Stakes, Strange Company is in the saddle and ready to ride.

The cats were way ahead of us, of course.

And this week's links are out of the starting gate!

Why the hell was BOAC Flight 777 gone with the wind?

What the hell are the Senegambian Stone Circles?

What the hell happened to the Screaming Mummy?

What the hell was under W.J. Gordon's house?

What the hell flew over Belgrade in 1977?

What the hell is this?

Ontario is really booming!

Watch out for those Zombie Floods!

Watch out for those Alberta Nippers!

Watch out for those Ogden Monsters!

Academia is Hell.  Really.

Because what's summer without hitting the beach with your copy of "Crimes of the House of Austria Against Mankind?"

Sea serpents a go-go.

Oral history and Robert Herrick.

Georgia on the UFO's mind.

The story of the Ocean Child.

Charles Darwin: Survival of the Plagiarists?

The world's oldest trousers.  Not Necropants, thankfully.

The world's oldest cat!

The Lady and the Dolphin.  Sort of an X-rated "Flipper."

17th century whale does a photobomb.

A puzzle involving World War II, star-crossed lovers...and, oh yes, $40 million is riding on the solution.

A child-killer is sentenced to afterlife in prison.

Decoding Anglo-Saxon art.

So, who ever said being a Messiah was easy?

Feline Silent Film stars.

Creeping out Nikola Tesla.

Jane Reeve:  The short life of a Georgian-era girl.

A brief look at the heroic donkeys of WWI.

Timely:  A look at some Triple Crown winners of the past.

And, finally, good luck to California Chrome tomorrow. Sweep it like Secretariat!

Chrome in background of Secretariat statue. pic.twitter.com/bBN07nnd9H
— HRTV (@HRTVinsider) June 3, 2014

So long for now, gang. See you Monday with a tale involving life insurance, severed hands, and clown costumes.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

via British Newspaper Archive

This particular Mystery Flood is a bit unique. Usually, such stories have one or two newspaper reports, and then they disappear from view forever, with no follow-ups. The 1919 goings-on at Swanton Novers Rectory, however, had a few odd twists and turns that kept the story in the papers for several months. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean it was resolved any more neatly than the similar stories posted on this blog...

Here is one of the initial reports, from the "Evening Telegraph," August 29:

A Central News correspondent says that a mysterious manifestation is now the subject of investigation at Swanton Novers Rectory, Norfolk. For four days past various inflammable liquids, which appear to be petrol, paraffin oil, methylated spirits, and also water have dripped without intermission from every ceiling in the house. These liquids apparently ooze from the ceiling, but an examination has shown the plaster and laths to be quite dry. The trouble was supposed to be caused by the petrol lighting plant, but this has been cut off, and an expert has certified that the plant cannot be the cause. Meanwhile the house is uninhabitable, and the annoyance remains a complete mystery.

Another account commented that "the oil visitations present so many peculiar features that no single hypothesis seems to account for them."  So far, so weird. Then, a September 12 story in the "Western Gazette," announced an end to the riddle:

The Press Association's Norwich correspondent telegraphs that the Swanton Novers oil mystery has at last been solved. It was hoax, practised by a young servant girl. aged 15, employed by the Rector (the Rev. H. Guy) and his wife. Mr. Oswald Williams, the well-known illusionist, who is holidaying at Cromer, offered his services to Mr. Guy, and at his suggestion the house was shut up for three days and the girl sent away. During this period no liquid fell. The water supply was meantime cut off, and all liquids removed, save that of several pails, containing water, salted with common salt, were left about promiscuously. When the girl returned on Monday she reported further falls of liquid. This was tested and found be salted. Later Mr. and Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Guy arrived, and Mrs. Williams went secretly to the room above the kitchen, the ceiling which had been torn away in the search for the origin of the mystery. Peering carefully through a hole in the floor, Mrs. Williams eventually saw the girl take a glass and throw some of the salted water up to the ceiling. She was then confronted and accused, and, after first denying it, subsequently made a complete confession of the matter in the presence of the whole party.

As pretty and tidy a solution as you could hope to find. Rather than the canonical butler, the servant girl did it!

Well. In the "Hull Daily Mail" for September 11, we find that the mystery turned violent:

The oil mystery at Swanton Rectory is not yet cleared up. The rector and Mrs. Guy are confident the young servant girl, Mabel Phillips, is guilty of the hoax, but she emphatically denies that she has been the cause of the trouble or that she ever made a confession. Feeling, locally, is undoubtedly with the girl. It is pointed out that over 50 gallons of water have been thrown away, and it is considered impossible for the girl to have obtained this and thrown it to the ceiling without being caught. Another significant fact is that oil and water have fallen from the ceiling when the girl has been present with other people. The girl has been closely questioned, but no one has yet been able to trip her over her statements. It was stated on Wednesday that summons had been taken out against Mrs. Oswald Williams, wife of the illusionist, for alleged assault on Phillips Monday, by smacking her face.

The last act played out in the "Hull Daily Mail" on November 4:

The case of assault arising out of the oil mystery at Swanton Novers Rectory, Norfolk, brought by the parents of the servant girl Phillips, against Mrs. Oswald Williams, the wife of the illusionist, was heard before the local magistrate at Holt, on Monday. The girl stated that Mrs. Williams accused her of throwing salted water to the rectory ceiling, called her a "little devil," slapped her three times in the face, and tried by threats to force her to confess that she was the cause of the whole mystery. The Rev. Mr. Guy and his wife were called, and they admitted that Mrs. Williams caught the girl the wrist and accused her, but denied that she struck the girl at all. After a hearing lasting three hours, the case was dismissed.

I'm guessing that both the Guy and Williams households had a hard time attracting servants after this last episode.

As far as I can tell, this was the end of the matter. Presumably, the oily nuisance abated after Miss Phillips left the Rectory. Was the servant girl indeed capable of throwing many gallons of water and "various inflammable liquids" about unnoticed until those ace detectives, the Williamses (who impress me as a couple of publicity-hungry buttinskies) caught her in the act? If so, what on earth was her motive?  Where did she obtain all these different liquids?  Or was Phillips truthful in her assertions that she was merely the scapegoat for the mystery? Was someone else in the Rectory pulling a bizarre and seemingly pointless hoax? If so, who?

And if the Rectory soaking was not staged by someone in the household....what happened?

The Jockey Who Rode Into Oblivion

Al Snider

While we wait to see if California Chrome becomes the first Triple Crown winner since 1978, here is a look at one of horse racing's biggest mysteries, involving an earlier TC champion:

Early in March 1948, jockey Al Snider, the regular rider of Calumet Farm's magnificent colt Citation, and two friends, trainer C.H. "Tobe" Trotter and businessman Donald Frazier, set sail from Miami for a week-long fishing trip in the Florida Keys.  On the afternoon of March 5, the trio left their yacht, which was anchored in Sandy Key, to go fishing in a 15-foot skiff. They planned to return within an hour.  They carried with them reserve fuel, a jug of water, life-jackets, 75" of rope, extra spark-plugs, a bailing pail, oars, and an anchor.  Friends left behind on the yacht could see the skiff about a mile away. Then darkness began to fall, and the men were lost to view. Not long after that, the captain of a passing boat saw the three men. There was no sign of any trouble, and the sea was calm. The skiff was a half-mile from land, and in shallow water—no deeper than four feet. If the boat ran into trouble, they could easily swim, or even wade ashore. Snider and his companions were never seen again. A week later, a search party found the skiff, but not the slightest trace of the three men was ever found. Another oddity was that the boat was completely empty--oars, seat cushions, everything was gone.

Although their disappearance was officially ruled as an ordinary “accident at sea,” no one really knows what happened to the trio. If they were swept overboard by the sudden storm that blew in over two hours after they were last seen, they were close enough to land to make it odd that their bodies—or even life-jackets or clothing—never turned up.  And why would they still have been out fishing in the darkness, hours after their planned return to the yacht?  Lawrence Boido, one of the friends who remained on the yacht, later commented, "I just can't figure what they were doing for the two hours or more before the storm hit."

There were some far darker rumors about the tragedy. Snider was said to have been an honest rider who could not be bribed into fixing a race. To this day, some believe that Snider’s refusal to "pull up" Citation in certain key races made him some very dangerous enemies.  (I'm friends with an eightysomething fellow who worked at Calumet during the Citation era, and who knew Snider personally.  When I once asked him what he thought had happened to Snider, he instantly replied matter-of-factly, "Why, the gangsters got him. Everyone knew that.")  Tommy Trotter, the son of one of the other missing men, talked of getting “vague phone calls” from Cuba the evening of the disappearance. Years later, Snider’s daughter Nancy, who was just six when her father vanished, remembered being pulled out of school afterward because of fears for her safety.

Four months after the men disappeared, a barnacle-encrusted bottle washed ashore in the Keys. It had a message inside which read: "Help. One dead. No Joke. Al S." Sick hoax or baffling clue? No one knew.

Two months after Snider disappeared, Citation and his new rider Eddie Arcaro won the Kentucky Derby. Arcaro and Citation’s owner gave Snider’s wife half of their winnings from the race. The colt went on to win the Preakness and Belmont, as well as numerous other major races.  He will always be remembered as one of the greatest Thoroughbreds of all time.

Albert Snider has his place in history, too, but for all the most unfortunate reasons.

Snider after winning the Flamingo Stakes with Citation.
He disappeared less than a week after this photo was taken.