SCOOP! New Truth Recycles Old Rubbish

"Three Kiwi soldiers' shock claim 'ALIENS TOOK GALLIPOLI REGIMENT". So declared the front page of New Truth's 25 August 1989 issue.

Inside we read that at Gallipoli in 1915, a British regiment, the First Fourth Norfolk, marched into a low-lying, "almost solid looking", cloud which was shaped like a bread loaf. When they were inside it the cloud moved away to join similar clouds which had been overhead all day. The clouds then moved off in the direction of Bulgaria and out of sight, but left no trace of the regiment.

The claim was made in an affidavit signed by three New Zealand veterans at an ANZAC reunion in 1965.

Edward Rooney's article said this eyewitness account of the event has "Just been revealed"—it had been "uncovered as part of investigations into similar unexplainable (sic) abductions by Quest International, an English organisation which investigated the paranormal".

Rooney is mistaken. Charles Berlitz included the story in Without a Trace, (1977), the sequel to his Bermuda Triangle, and it was widely publicised by other writers of Berlitz' calibre.

New Truth tried contacting the descendents of the "eyewitnesses". The 1 September issue reported an interview with the son of the soldier who instigated the affidavit: "Bill Reichart said his father had never suggested the incident was the work of aliens". Well, it is true "aliens" were not explicitly mentioned in the affidavit. (So much for the sentence in quotation marks on New Truth's 25 August front page!)

Bill Reichardtt told New Truth "It's a pity it's taken so long for someone to investigate (the disappearance) because the old boy would have lapped up talking about it". While the latter part of this statement may be accurate, an investigation was actually done ten years ago. What is more, Bill Reichardt knew of it.

Prof. Colin McGeorge, in his talk? at the 1989 New Zealand Skeptics, conference, made a timely reference to Melvin Harris's treatment of the story in Investigating the Unexplained (Prometheus Books, 1986). The book's British edition entitled Sorry, You've been duped! (Weidenfield & Nicholson) also appeared in 1986. But an earlier investigation of the "disappearing regiment" had been undertaken by Paul Begg and the results included in his Into Thin Air (David & Charles Ltd, 1979). A version of his account appeared in the periodical The Unexplained (1980-83) and was included in a compilation of selected articles from The Unexplained in 1984. A letter from Bill Reichardt responding to Begg was published in the periodical in 1982.

  • New Truth spells the surname 'Reichart'. The Rotorua phone directory and other accounts of the story give 'Reichardt'.
  • See page 3. Dr McGeorge's reference to the Disappearing Regiment is omitted in our abbreviated version.

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I sent a copy of Begg's article to the editor of New Truth and asked for a contact for Quest International. The paper has not replied.

It would be interesting to know more about Quest International. According to the New Truth article "further research by Quest International reveals that when Turkey surrendered in 1918, Britain demanded the return of the lost regiment. The Turkish Government replied that its troops had not captured or engaged the First Fourth Norfolk." It should be pointed out these findings of Quest International's "further research" are lifted straight from the affidavit.

Running along the bottom of the New Truth page which had the "disappearing regiment" story was the following: "STARTING IN THIS WEEK'S TRUTH: UNEX-

PLAINED MYSTERIES—P.30". Using the rhetorical question, a device so beloved by writers on the paranormal: Was the ANZACs' story revived merely to promote the paper's new series?

Incidentally, the "unexplained mystery" on New Truth's P.30 sounded as dubious as the home-grown effort. We are investigating it.

WHAT NEW TRUTH DIDN'T TELL ITS READERS.

  • The First Fourth Norfolk was a battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment and not itself a regiment. The First Fourth never disappeared.
  • The First Fifth Norfolk battalion was virtually wiped out at Gallipoli in an advance which took place on 12 August 1915, and it did seem as if it had vanished. However, 122 bodies, those of slightly less than half the participants in the advance, were recovered in 1919. (According to New Truth the date of the "disappearance" in the affidavit was 28 August. Other accounts say 21 August.)
  • Of the 34,000 British and Empire troops who died at Gallipoli 27,000 have no known grave.
  • Official war records show that Reichardt's unit, even if it was where he says it was, was more than four miles away from the scene of the First Fifth's advance, and the two other "eyewitnesses" were evacuated from Gallipoli because of illness on 5 August and 21 August.
  • No account of the kidnapping cloud predated the affidavit signed in New Zealand 50 years after the event.