Andrew Chapman
The Strange Case of Theodule Otis
Sep 10 - Oct 23, 2021
2831 Mission St., San Francisco
Carefully draped into streams of bodily forms apparently issuing from ear to ear, things soon took a weird turn.
The couple had a computer, itself an old-fashioned language. Often there would be no one home when the messages came through (it was long before the days of e-mail). They struggled to come to grips with the major mystery that engulfed them, and soon even stranger events began to happen. Written on the floor in chalk, the couple were now also getting messages from the year 2109. In the span of four years, about 300 messages were received. They installed a chart-recorder to continuously monitor the temperature but the resulting lines on the print-out were not continuous, as they should have been, but were broken and horizontal. Her husband kept a loaded camera close at hand so that he could photograph anything which might occur. He sealed the camera with tape, so that the film could not be interfered with. On one occasion, he discovered there was no film. Removing the tape, he found a piece of paper inside with simple designs pencilled on it, similar to those found on the floor in chalk; a triangle, a crude distorted pyramid, and a lollipop-like form. He likened the sensation to holding the handle of a magnetic battery while a slight current passed through it. It also came to express itself in other, quieter ways. A mischievous repertoire, at times wagging as if greeting someone.
I write on behalf of many. I confess that I too live in my house.
- Janet and Colin Bord (Excerpts arranged from various texts)