More missing scientists: The GEC-Marconi deaths of the Eighties

The "disappearing scientists" panic sweeping the US has led to a rediscovery of a spoof television programme along similar lines that was broadcast in Britain in June 1977. It had originally been scheduled for 1 April.

And it has reminded me that there was similar concern here, 10 years after that broadcast, about a spate of deaths among GEC-Marconi scientists.

There are some not very good podcasts about it, but the video above is a contemporary news report of one shocking death that refers to several others. It's from Thames Television and dates from 1987, so the conspiracy theory had made the mainstream by then.

And here's a report from the Sunday Express (12 February 1989):

Bizarre case of 25 dead scientists 

Defence Secretary George Younger has denied there was anything sinister about the bizarre deaths of 25 British scientists over the past seven years. 

New evidence and fresh allegations of murder are revealed in a television programme, The Marconi Curse to be shown in Australia today. 

The programme, Sixty Minutes, says nine of the defence scientists to die mysteriously were connected with the electronics firm, Marconi. Relatives were assured that their bizarre deaths were either accidental or suicide. 

But Sixty Minutes asks: "Could they have been murdered?"

In his first public comment on the deaths Mr Younger told the programme: "If you've got thousands of people working on a project, quite a number of them are likely to die. I don't see anything sinister in that."

You can see what I think is the programme on YouTube. Be warned: there's a lot about suicide.

As is generally the way with such news stories, it just faded away after a time with no proof of the conspiracy or definitive refutation of it found. Remember those mystery drones that were assailing the US a couple of years ago?

I like the theory that there is a quantum amount of weirdness in the world, whether it's strange phenomena or bizarre coincidences. Study any topic closely enough and you will become aware of it. The closer you study the crowds in Daley Plaza when JFK was assassinated, for instance, the stranger they seem.

But this GEC-Marconi deathsepisode has shown me an unexpected bonus of growing older. Your memory improves – you remember a lot of things most other people don't.