Groby men solve a mystery

May 2013

Young people today may be surprised to learn that there was life before the internet, Sky, set top boxes that record your favourite programmes, digital television and radio, and the devices and apps that have made shareholders in Apple very rich. And we mustn't forget the rise of digital cameras and, perhaps, their fall as they are replaced by the smartphone with it's internet connection and high resolution camera built in.

Now everything is instant and often the first photos on television from an incident on the other side of the world are from the phone of someone who was involved or nearby. The ease with which we can all capture events may eliminate some of the mysteries of life, those unexplained happenings which in earlier years may have just been talked about but are now the subject of someone's wobbling and sometimes grainy telephone video.

Readers may have viewed with interest the home movies of Groby in the 1960's mentioned in the Spotlight last month. How differently we might view history if there had always been mobile phones with cameras. What a treat it would be to see the old quarry railway in action during it's heyday. Turning the clock further back imagine if Pliny the Elder was able to support his description of the burying of Pompeii and Herculaneum with a video from his smartphone. Or what about someone with a mobile 'embedded' and filming the Crusades. And if we had a video of the internment of Richard III it might have reduced the cost of Leicester University's search for his remains.

Enduring mysteries unsolved

Despite a the proliferation of digital camera technology we still don't seem to have solved some of our enduring mysteries, which is surprising. Aliens either don't abduct people with mobile phones or they delete all the images of themselves before they return their victims to earth. Has any reader seen any recent footage of the Loch Ness monster taken on a mobile? There is perhaps some out there somewhere. The Himalayan Yeti may a good subject for a mobile camera photo shoot if someone can locate him or her, as Sir David Attenborough believes there is 'very convincing' evidence that yetis exist. A photograph of a mysterious footprint, rumoured to be that of the yeti was taken in the Himalayas in 1951, but we still await some smartphone video to really convince us.

A breakthrough in Groby

So the important mysteries of life may remain mysteries. But there has been a breakthrough and there is mystery which has been the subject of rumour and speculation for generations which it seems has been resolved by someone being in the right place at the right time with the right camera or mobile phone. The embarrassment of the small boy who adamantly believes in Santa Claus when all his friends have rejected the concept can now be replaced with four simple words, "I told you so."