Curt Rowlett  The Rowlett Report

SUPERNATURAL LEGENDS AND A MONDERN-DAY DOUBLE MURDER MAKE PALMYRA ISLAND "A POSTCARD PARADISE WITH A DANGEROUS HEART"

The Curse of Palmyra Island

By Curt Rowlett

The Curse of Palmyra Island story has been updated and published as a standalone book by the author. The latest version includes speculation as to the ultimate fate of Mac Graham, updates regarding strange events that have occurred on Palmyra since the story was first published, a complete history of the island, original illustrations, and the author's complete interviews with some of the key players in the Palmyra Island mystery.

Learn the story behind the story of Palmyra atoll. Available only at Lulu.com.

Synchronicity: the quality or fact of being synchronous; the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality used especially in the psychology of Dr. C. G. Jung.
Definition of synchronicity from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The concept of synchronicity indicates a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than the probability of chance is involved. Chance is a statistical concept which 'explains' deviations within certain patterns of probability. Synchronicity elucidates meaningful arrangements and coincidence which somehow go beyond the calculations of probability. Pre-cognition, clairvoyance, telepathy, etc. are phenomena which are inexplicable through chance, but become empirically intelligible through the employment of the principle of synchronicity, which suggests a kind of harmony at work in the interrelation of both psychic and physical events.
Quoting Carl G. Jung from his book, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle

Students of the strange and bizarre (like the author) are probably well versed regarding the subjects of ghosts, hauntings and curses. Most of us are probably familiar with the classic tales of haunted houses or haunted places like a graveyard or swamp. And for those stories with a more nautical flavor, there is always the Bermuda Triangle and sightings of ghost ships like the Marie Celeste and the Flying Dutchman.

But can an entire island also be haunted or cursed?

As an ex-Coast Guardsman, former Merchant Marine and avid sailor, I have always been drawn to strange phenomena as it relates to the world's oceans. And my interest in nautical high weirdness was rekindled as a result of reading a book by Vincent Bugliosi titled And the Sea Will Tell, the true story of a double murder that took place on isolated Palmyra Island in 1974. (1)

While that book primarily focuses on the murders that occurred there during that time period, my internal radar was significantly aroused by the continuous allusions made by the authors and others who had been to the island regarding the "Palmyra Curse". According to this tale, although Palmyra appears to be a tropical island paradise like something out of the movie South Pacific, there also seems to be a supernatural pattern of disaster and near-disaster associated with the place. While many people who have ventured to Palmyra have described it as nothing short of a true paradise here on Earth, quite a few sailors who visited the island in the time before and after the murders took place have commented on the sense of "something not being quite right" on Palmyra and speak in cloaked terms of a malevolent aura and a foreshadowing of doom that the island seems to possess. Listen to Richard Taylor, a yachtsman who spent time on Palmyra in 1977 and who had this to say in his testimony at the murder trial:

I had a foreboding feeling about the island. It was more than just the fact that it was a ghost-type island. It was more than that. It seemed to be an unfriendly place to be. I've been on a number of atolls, but Palmyra was different. I can't put my finger on specifically why, but it was not an island that I enjoyed being on. I think other people have had difficulties on that island. (2)

And Norman Sanders, another yachtsman who conducted geological experiments on Palmyra and who testified at the double murder trial, had this to say about the island:

Palmyra is one of the last uninhabited islands in the Pacific. The island is a very threatening place. It is a hostile place. I wrote in my log: "Palmyra, a world removed from time, the place where even vinyl rots. I have never seen vinyl rot anywhere else."

He also wrote that "Palmyra will always belong to itself, never to man. It is a very forbidding place." (3)

It seems that many of these experienced and adventurous sailing people ventured to Palmyra expecting to find an island nirvana, but like Fletcher Christian and the mutineers of HMS Bounty who found that life on Pitcairn Island deteriorated into a grim struggle for survival, so perhaps did their romantic notions about Palmyra soon fall apart.

Pamyras

The murders that took place there are but one of a long list of calamities, disasters and synchronicities that have been associated with Palmyra since its discovery in the late 17th Century. (And speaking of synchronicity, an article by Kristan Lawson entitled The Mysterious Appearance and Disappearance of Maria Laxara appeared in Strange Magazine, Issue 16 and discusses another mysterious island, Maria Laxara, which apparently has a habit of "vanishing". Interestingly, a reproduction of a rare nautical map that accompanied the Lawson article in that issue of Strange Magazine, also shows the location of the equally enigmatic Palmyra Island near the bottom of the illustration).

Although officially listed as an island, Palmyra is actually an atoll. The difference between an atoll and an island is that an atoll is formed by the growth of coral around the rim of an ancient ocean volcano that has sunk below the surface of the sea over eons of geologic time, giving the classic atoll a circular or horseshoe shape. Hundreds of such atolls dot the massive area that is the Pacific ocean. (Perhaps the most famous of these is Bikini Atoll where the U.S. Navy tested nuclear weapons in the 1950s). In proximity are the legendary deep trenches of the Pacific: the Mariana and Tonga abyss, incredibly some seven miles deep and the epicenter of many earthquakes. The trenches also parallel strings of volcanic activity in the Pacific.

Palmyra island's coordinates are 5 degrees, 52 minutes North, 162 degrees, 6 minutes West, placing it near the very center of the Pacific ocean or about 1000 nautical miles south-southwest of Hawaii in the North Pacific Ocean, or about one-half of the way from Hawaii to American Samoa. The island measures approximately a mile and a half in length by a half mile wide. My early research for additional information on Palmyra yielded a description of the island from a United States government geographical survey that lends much to the image of the atoll as a remote and desolate place:

Lying six degrees above the equator, [Palmyra consists of] about fifty islets covered with dense vegetation, coconut trees, and balsa-like trees up to 30 meters tall . . . the west lagoon is entered by a channel which will only accommodate vessels drawing 4 meters or less of water; much of the road, the landing strip and many causeways built during [World War II] are unserviceable and overgrown.

On a nautical chart, Palmyra is but a tiny speck in the middle of the mass of blue that represents the Pacific Ocean. The island lies well off of the major shipping lanes for vessels plying the Asian/American run and is geographically perhaps one of the remotest places on earth and one of the last few truly uninhabited islands left in the world. Local fauna consists of mosquitoes and other insects, lizards, land and coconut crabs, a huge bird population, palm and coconut trees and mangrove bushes. The interior is thick jungle. The coral reef and lagoons at Palmyra are also a breeding ground for gray and blacktip reef sharks whose aggressiveness is well known throughout the Pacific. This has been noted by every person who has ever ventured to the island, sometimes with fatal consequences. (Many visitors to the island found that swimming and even wading in the island's lagoons was completely out of the question because of the large shark population and their aggressive nature). (4).

And although an abundance of fish live on the reefs and in the lagoons, many of them are inedible and poisonous because of ciguatera, a type of algae that grows on coral and which some reef fish contain in their flesh. (Eating a fish contaminated with ciguatoxins can cause severe abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, temporary blindness and even death).

Palmyra Island was discovered "by accident" one night in 1798 by American sea captain Edmond Fanning while his ship the Betsy was in transit to Asia. The tale of the discovery of Palmyra is one of a psychic nature. Captain Fanning, alone in his cabin at night, was disturbed from sleep three times by such a weird premonition of danger (whether through the sixth sense that has kept many a seafaring man alive or something that can be directly attributed to Palmyra itself) that he finally went out onto the deck and shouted for the helmsman to heave to in the darkness. Dawn the next day revealed a dangerous reef lying dead ahead of the Betsy that would have ripped the entire bottom of the ship out and sent her to the bottom. As it turned out, this was the northern edge of the coral reef that surrounds Palmyra Island. A Fate magazine article of 1953 discusses this incident:

He (Captain Fanning) retired at 9 p.m. as usual with conditions normal, but awoke from a sound sleep between nine and ten (o'clock) to find himself on the upper steps of the companionway. This worried him, since he had never walked in his sleep before. After a little conversation with the first mate, who was pacing the deck, he returned to his berth. He slept less than half an hour, awoke again, and found himself once more at the head of the companionway. This time he had more conversation with the mate and returned again to his berth. Then for a third time he awoke, finding himself in the same position, but fully clothed. This so disturbed Fanning that he was convinced that it was (in his words) some kind of supernatural intervention and determined to lay the ship to for the rest of the night. The other officers and crew were surprised and evidently thought his mind (was) off balance. Leaving orders that he should be called at daybreak, he retired again and this time slept soundly. In the morning they came about and resumed their (same) course, but had not sailed far when they discovered breakers (one mile) ahead. The helm was instantly put (over) and the roaring of the breakers was heard distinctly less than a mile away. All on board were impressed, realizing that had they been running free for another half hour, not one would have been alive by sunrise. (5)

Although Captain Fanning noted the position of the island in the ship's log, he failed to make a timely report and the official credit for discovery went to another American captain named Swale whose ship, the Palmyra, was blown off course in a storm that pushed it onto the island in 1802.

In 1816, the Esperanza, a Spanish pirate ship loaded with gold and silver plunder from the Inca temples in Peru, came under attack from another vessel and a fierce battle ensued. Several crewmembers that managed to survive the fight sailed off with the treasure only to wreck on a nearby reef. As the ship was sinking, they managed to transfer the treasure to an island, named Palmyra, located beyond the reef. Stranded there for a year, they supposedly buried the Inca gold under a tree on Palmyra and then sailed off on rafts they had built. One raft was later rescued by an American whaling ship with only a single survivor left onboard who soon succumbed from exposure and pneumonia. The other raft was never heard from again. (This bit of historical data sounds a little like the Oak Island saga, in which treasure hunters have attempted for years to reach a supposed buried treasure in a pit located under a tree. Theories as to who constructed the pit and what type of treasure it contains also include the rumor of pirate activity and Inca/Maya treasure).

In 1855, a whaling ship was reported wrecked on Palmyra's dangerous reefs, but attempts to locate the ship and its crew turned up nothing.

In 1911, ownership of the island was granted to Judge Henry E. Cooper of Hawaii from a purchase price of $750.00. He eventually sold all but one small islet on Palmyra (Home Island), apparently believing the rumor that priceless Inca artifacts of gold and silver, part of the pirate plunder of the Esperanza, were still buried there under a tree. With the exception of Home Island, possession of the rest of Palmyra eventually fell, in 1922, to the Fullard-Leo family, who in 1940 became embroiled in a legal skirmish with the United States over ownership. The United States wanted jurisdiction of Palmyra assigned to the Department of the Navy in anticipation of World War II in the Pacific.

Although the private-ownership status of Palmyra was eventually resolved in favor of the Fullard-Leo family, the island was still used as a naval air facility during World War II in the Pacific. Palmyra also became a base of operations for air attacks against Japan. As a result, American military relics can be found in abundance there. Old gun emplacements, ammunition and fuel dumps, abandoned war equipment, machine-gun bunkers, underground tunnels and buildings, as well as what is left of the old landing strip, lend a timeless and ghostly feeling to the place.

Primarily, Palmyra functioned as a refueling station during World War II for long-range air patrols and extended submarine missions against Japan in the Pacific. The island itself was attacked only once when, on December 24, 1941, a Japanese submarine surfaced offshore and began shelling the beach and a dredging barge with its deck gun. A five-inch gun battery on the island drove the submarine off.

Hal Horton, a former Navy officer was stationed on Palmyra from 1942 to 1944 and had this to say about the island:

Once one of our patrol planes went down near the island. We searched and searched but didn't find so much as a bolt or piece of metal. It was weird. Like they'd dropped off the edge of the earth. Another time, a plane took off from the runway, climbed to a couple hundred feet, and turned in the wrong direction. They were supposed to go north and they went south instead. It was broad daylight. We never could figure it out. There were two men aboard that plane. We never saw them again. We had some very bad luck on that island. Old salts in the Pacific called it the Palmyra curse. [The island] . . . is very small. You [could] fly over it at ten thousand feet and not see it if there [were] a few clouds in the sky. Once we heard a plane overhead trying to find us, but he crashed in the drink before he could find the runway. We didn't get to the poor guy fast enough. Sharks found him first. (6)

In 1974, the grisly double murder of a sailing couple that became the subject of the book And the Sea Will Tell took place on Palmyra. The evidence at the subsequent trial for murder showed that Mac and Muff Graham of San Diego, who had ventured to Palmyra for an extended stay of up to a year, were probably killed for their expensive sailboat, the Sea Wind, and the large quantity of food stores it contained. (The murderer was an ex-convict and fugitive named Buck Walker who, along with his girlfriend Stephanie Stearns, had also taken up residence on the island. Walker and Stearns, described by some as "hippie types", had sailed from Hawaii to Palmyra on a small and very poorly outfitted boat. Walker was later tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of the Grahams, while Stearns was acquitted, a verdict that remains controversial to this day).

It was a full six years after the murders that the skeletal remains of Muff Graham were discovered washed ashore on Palmyra by South African sailors Sharon and Robert Jordan during their own extended stay on the island in 1981. Although the Jordans had heard stories from other yachting people about the murders of the Grahams, they had never connected the event to Palmyra atoll until they discovered a stack of old newspaper clippings about the missing couple laid out on a table in a building in the jungle, apparently left behind by someone attracted to the island because of the notoriety of the murders (and who seemingly wanted to let others know about them, too).

During the course of my updating the original website version of this story for the Labyrinth13 book, I was contacted by Sharon Jordan and she agreed to be interviewed by me via email from her home in South Africa. We discussed many aspects of her extended stay on Palmyra. Concerning the murder of the Grahams, she wrote:

When we arrived at Palmyra we discovered that someone had left a huge pile of newspaper clippings all about the Grahams, their sailboat, their sinister disappearance, etc. The one really strange thing was that I knew with absolute certainty that I would find the remains of at least one of the Grahams. And I did. (7)

Indeed, she did. Days later, while out beach combing, Sharon found a human skull and other bones that had apparently fallen out of a metal box of World War II vintage that had washed up on the beach after a storm. The bones were later determined to have belonged to murder victim Muff Graham. (Sharon Jordan's discovery of Muff Graham's skeletal remains is in itself a long shot at the odds in that Sharon just happened to be walking along that particular stretch of one of the earth's most isolated beaches at what experts later determined was most likely the only time that the bones would ever be exposed. Evidence at the murder trial showed that the next tide would have most certainly washed the bones back out to sea to disappear forever).

I also corresponded with Rob Jordan about his experiences on Palmyra. In one of his emails to me, he wrote:

When first seeing the box lying there with the bones spewing out of it -- it really left no doubt as to what had taken place. That instant, gut feeling, was overwhelming. One of those situations where you know you could analyze it to death -- but you knew, without a doubt, what had gone down. I'm sure Sharon can tell you exactly the sequence of events -- she is fastidiously precise in such issues. (8)

The condition of the remains suggested that Muff Graham had been either shot or bludgeoned to death, her body dismembered, and then burned with an acetylene torch. Her body was then placed in a small metal storage container that had been removed from one of the old military rescue boats on the island and then finally dumped into the lagoon.

Just what forces actually caused the container with Muff Graham's remains to surface is still a mystery. Vincent Bugliosi, author of And the Sea Will Tell, noted how the average human body, even when confined inside a container, usually floats to the surface in about ten days. Strangely, the container holding Muff Graham's body seems to have stayed submerged for almost seven years. (Sharon Jordan told me that she felt that it was possible that her and Rob Jordan's raising of a submerged boat from the bottom of Palmyras lagoon -- the same boat from which the two missing containers had been lifted -- might have somehow caused a disturbance that allowed the container to break free from the bottom). It is also a mystery as to how the heavy wire that had been wrapped around the lid of the container to hold it shut came loose. Sharon Jordan found the wire lying next to the container still bent in the exact shape of the box that it was once wrapped around. (Mac Graham's remains have never been recovered and are believed to have been hidden in a second missing container, perhaps somewhere on or near the island. That fact that Mac is still missing remains as one of the more enduring mysteries of Palmyra). (9)

In the hope of obtaining new information regarding the mystery of what actually happened to Mac Graham's body, I corresponded with author Vincent Bugliosi. He very kindly answered my questions about some of the lingering mysteries associated with Palmyra and the murders that occurred there. In response to my question as to what he believes may have happened to Mac Graham's body, Mr. Bugliosi replied that he did not think that an adequate search had ever been undertaken -- due mainly to the atoll's high shark population -- and that Mac's body was either still hidden somewhere in Palmyras lagoon or had been washed out to sea. (10)

John Bryden, a witness at the murder trial, was a rugged outdoor adventurer who had spent fourteen months on Palmyra prior to the murders, trying to start a coconut plantation without success. Appearing not to be the type of individual who could be easily frightened, he nonetheless testified at the trial that there were times when (Palmyra) felt like a foreboding place. It sometimes felt a little bit spooky. (11)

Tom Wolfe, a yachtsman who was on Palmyra just before the murders, testified at four different criminal trials in relation to the crime. Just one month prior to the trial, Wolfe had an experience that is either a further bit of testimony from the realm of synchronicity or a part of the strange residual power that affects those who have had contact with Palmyra: one morning, after a brutal storm had hit the coast along his beachfront home located on the Puget Sound in Washington, Wolfe went out for a walk along the shore to see what kind of flotsam the storm may have deposited on the beach. A mere forty feet from his house, he spotted a cylindrical object washed up on some rocks. Uncovering the object, he was astonished to discover that it was a cardboard mailing tube containing three copies of the Palmyra Island detail chart! Recounting this story later to one of the defense attorneys in the trial, Wolfe could only wonder at what strange forces could have caused the Palmyra chart to wash up literally on his doorstep on the eve of his scheduled testimony during a critical stage of the trial. He noted that "finding that damn chart was eerie [and] I'm not the superstitious type, but I'll admit, it really shook me. It was as if Palmyra, the island itself, had reached out and touched me from three thousand miles away." (If not a supernatural occurrence, one would have to wonder what the astronomical odds were of such a thing happening. In my correspondence with Tom, he told me that he still has those charts today, slightly warped with some bits of seaweed clinging to the outer edges). (12)

I was able to interview Tom Wolfe while preparing the final version of this story. Tom was at Palmyra for a little less than a week and just days before the Grahams were murdered. He would get to know Mac and Muff Graham personally, as well as both Buck Walker and Stephanie Stearns (in fact, Wolfe was attacked and bitten by one of Walker's pit bulls his first morning on the island). During dinner aboard the Grahams' boat on Wolfe's final evening on the island, Muff confided to Wolfe that she lived in fear of Buck Walker.

Prior to sailing away from Palmyra for the island of Samoa, Tom agreed to mail some letters for Muff that she had written to her friends and family in which she may have uncannily foretold of her own demise. In one of those letters, Muff wrote to friends making the comment that "I think this place is evil." (13)

And the list of strange things that occur in connection with Palmyra keeps growing; like the Sirens of Greek mythology whose sweet singing lured sailors to their deaths on rocky coasts, Palmyra also seems to beckon:

A last eerie note: Apparently Muff Graham may have had a premonition of her own death before she even left for Palmyra. In And the Sea Will Tell, the authors noted that Muff Graham often frequented a spiritualist from whom she sought advice. In a visit that took place just one week prior to her departure for Palmyra, the spiritualist warned Muff that something terrible would happen to her and Mac if she made the journey. (18)

Additionally, Muff's friend, Marie Jamieson, was completely convinced that Muff had ESP abilities and was able to "receive vibes" of a psychic nature. In one incident that occurred just prior to her departure for Palmyra, Muff, while trying to give Marie a farewell gift of a porcelain figurine of the Virgin Mary, discovered that the figure had a huge crack in its forehead (as would Muff's own skull when it was later discovered on Palmyra). She (Muff) was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of intense dread and holding the broken statue, tearfully told her friend, "Look at her . . . Look at what's happened to her . . . Don't you see? The hole in her head," and then finally "I'm not coming back . . .Mac and I will never see you again." Marie would later tell her husband that when Muff was telling her goodbye, she (Marie) sensed that Muff was actually telling her goodbye forever. (19)

Whether all of the above data, when considered in its entirety, simply points toward a series of meaningful coincidences or indicates actual supernatural occurrences, it still seems to me that Palmyra atoll is and always will be a truly enigmatic place, especially when one contrasts its pristine beauty in comparison to the alleged curse. (A 1998 article from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin referred to Palmyra as "a postcard paradise with a dangerous heart"). (20)

Remembering the words of Norman Sanders, I can't help but agree that Palmyra not only "will always belong to itself, never to man," but that as the final word on the subject, that is the way things should be.

(For further information, including detailed interviews with some of the key figures in the Palmyra saga, see appendix 7 of the book Labyrinth13: True Tales of the Occult, Crime & Conspiracy; My Correspondence with Sharon Jordan, Rob Jordan, Tom Wolfe, and Amanda Lane).

Footnotes

(1) And the Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi with Bruce B. Henderson, Ivy Books/Ballantine Books, 1991.

(2) And the Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi with Bruce B. Henderson, Ivy Books/Ballantine Books, 1991.

(3) And the Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi with Bruce B. Henderson, Ivy Books/Ballantine Books, 1991.

(4) For a contrasting point of view on the nature of the sharks on Palmyra, see Kawabunga's South Sea Adventure by Charles S. Dewell. This book contains an entire chapter on the authors idyllic three-week stay on Palmyra and in which he recounts his own adventure of swimming and snorkeling in Palmyra's lagoons. While Dewell does not report any serious incidents of aggressive behavior by Palmyra's sharks, he does state that he sighted many sharks and was extremely wary while in the water. See also appendix 7 of the Labyrinth13 book, My Correspondence with Sharon Jordan, Rob Jordan, Tom Wolfe, and Amanda Lane in which Ms. Jordan states that she swam often in all of the lagoons of Palmyra.

(5) Fate, March 1953, Premonition of Danger, by H.F. Thomas in Connecticut Circle; see also Invisible Horizons, by Vincent H. Gaddis, Ace Books, Inc., 1965.

(6) And the Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi with Bruce B. Henderson, Ivy Books/Ballantine Books, 1991.

(7) See Appendix 7 of the Labyrinth13 book, My Correspondence with Sharon Jordan, Rob Jordan, Tom Wolfe, and Amanda Lane.

(8) See Appendix 7 of the Labyrinth13 book, My Correspondence with Sharon Jordan, Rob Jordan, Tom Wolfe, and Amanda Lane.

(9) And the Sea Will Tell, pages 644-646. Here the book discusses how the average body, when immersed in water, will float in about ten days and how in 1976, Mobster Johnny Roselli was murdered, stuffed into a fifty-five gallon steel drum, weighted down with heavy chains and dumped into the ocean off the coast of Florida. Ten days later, his body was discovered by some fishermen when the gases from decomposition produced enough buoyancy to float the drum to the surface.

(10) Letter correspondence between Vincent T. Bugliosi and the author.

(11) And the Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi with Bruce B. Henderson, Ivy Books/Ballantine Books, 1991.

(12) And the Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi with Bruce B. Henderson, Ivy Books/Ballantine Books, 1991; correspondence between Tom Wolfe and the author.

(13) From correspondence between Tom Wolfe and the author.

(14) From correspondence between Amanda Lane and the author.

(15) Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls, by Edward E. Leslie, Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 517-520.

(16) And the Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi with Bruce B. Henderson, Ivy Books/Ballantine Books, 1991.

(17) And the Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi with Bruce B. Henderson, Ivy Books/Ballantine Books, 1991.

(18) And the Sea Will Tell, p. 38.

(19) And the Sea Will Tell, pp. 34-38.

(20) See article entitled, Palmyra owners may sell; The Nature Conservancy and a U.S. agency would convert the Pacific atoll to a refuge, by Lori Tighe, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, November 10, 1998.

Additional Sources

See Island Paradise, Island Paradox, Palmyra: the Pacific's prettiest spot, or a dangerous crossroad ruled by a tyrant? by Mark Smaalders and Carl Reller, Cruising World Magazine, September 1998 issue).

Curt Rowlett is a researcher and writer with a penchant for the mystical, mysterious, and macabre. His work has appeared in the book Popular Paranoia and the magazines Fortean Times, Strange Magazine and Steamshovel Press.

He is also: a serious student of the paranormal and the unexplained, a former merchant marine who has traveled all over the world, an ex-rock musician, and a genuine southern gentleman.

In 1998 he started the Labyrinth13 website as a repository for Fortean thought and as a web log of his investigations into strange phenomena. In the past year, all of the original articles from the website (along with a few brand new ones) now make up Curt Rowlett's first book, Labyrinth13: True Tales of the Occult, Crime & Conspiracy. Sample chapters and other information may be found at: http://labyrinth13.com

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