Picnic at Hanging Rock: Your Explanation?
There's both a novel, a 1975 film, and a 2017 TV miniseries titled "Picnic at Hanging Rock". The central mystery in this work of fiction - albeit presented as an actual 1900 historical event - involves a picnic by a group of school girls at a geological formation (which does exist) called "Hanging Rock". Several - four - of the girls decide to explore the rock. One returns screaming in hysteria in a totally incoherent manner and associated state. One of the teachers then goes and searches for the other three girls. All three girls and their teacher apparently vanish into thin air. Many days later one of the girls is found at the Hanging Rock, totally unharmed but just mildly dehydrated. She has no memory of the experience. The other two missing girls and their teacher are never found or heard from again. No explanation is ever offered up by the author.
IMHO the explanation could be a UFO abduction event. The author could easily have been aware of the phenomena, albeit the characters couldn't have come up with that sort of explanation as the fictional historical event happened in 1900.
If you're aware of the novel / film / miniseries, any thoughts?
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2 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.It is what it is, a mystery. It is the reaction to that event that the author focuses on. A trick that is beloved of writers who will end a book with "and then.....?" Like the end of "The Italian job". "Hang on a minute. Ive got a plan". Its left to to reader or observer to speculate or not. Perhaps as atheists we are less likely to accept something that will forever be unknown. Not immersed as we we are in things like the holy spirit and the trinity. The search for a rational explanation where none exists is IMHO is the point of the story.
273kelvin
Level 8
Jan 2, 2019
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@johnprytz We do love to solve mysteries. They are puzzles which like a jig-saw are done and forgotten about. All loose ends tied up neatly. Sometime however the writer will leave it open. Like the song "Salisbury Hill".You never know what it is that caused the event. Cheap TV is full of shows like unsolved mysteries etc. Jack the ripper, the black dahlia or even the JFK assassination fascinate us because they remain unresolved.
Have you noticed in horror movies that it is often more scary before you actually see the monster and people just die or disappear for no reason. In "Picnic at hanging rock" the writers obviously left the mystery open for that reason. It is not hollywood where producers like to have audiences leaving the theater satisfied and for that reason it stays in our heads.
@johnprytz That is true about murders etc. but they are often a goto default for other so called mysteries such as pyramids both mayan and egyptian, stonehenge Elvis,and the bermuda triangle.
Personally I find it odd that if a culture like the mayans had been exposed to an advanced civilization, why did they not have the concept of the wheel? This should have made them a much more advanced people. South America should have discovered Europe and not the other way around. When in fact later the Incas were over run by 200 spaniards with muskets.
@johnprytz Some apes use tools like twigs. Then there are the other human species that used tools but died out. That aside, you don't need to be that advanced to grasp the concept of a wheel. It existed in european, asian and mediterranean and pre-history. Did not these ETs not have golf carts?
Ummm...dingoes? One of them went batshit & killed the others? Roaming rapists? Chasm opened & swallowed them? Etc.
But noooo, you think "aliens"..........geezlouise!
Incidentally, anyone interview the survivors years later? And have any suspicious events occurred (again) in their vicinity?
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Dec 17, 2018
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@johnprytz and now, that I have debated with you within your chosen arena.....just BTW, wikipedia, among others, states the novel was written in1967 and is ENTIRELY FICTIONAL although, like "Fargo", for example, starts by claiming to be true.
Wow...postulating "aliens" from fictional novel...seems about right, actually!
@johnprytz oh of course, one survivor negates any possibility of any of the things I suggested......including that that girl was the murderer....really???
And I did say I saw it, lotta claptrap...take away the eerie music, nada, zip, snore
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