The mystery of the nightmarish collection of Thomas Merrilyn, a time traveler
There are thousands of museums in the world where you can find absolutely everything. Even if you decide to open an exhibition of old junk from your grandmother's pantry, it is quite possible that you will be accused of plagiarism. But there are museums in the world that exist in the singular and you will not find exhibits like those presented in them anywhere else. One of these collections is the collection of Thomas Merrylin, the most mysterious man in the history of British science.
In the summer of 2006, the London authorities decided to demolish the dilapidated mansion that once belonged to the Tenbridge Orphanage. In the basement of an old building, workers found a walled-up doorway, behind which there was a spacious room filled with dusty wooden boxes.
Opening one of them, the builders were horrified — the dead eyes of a hellish creature from a nightmare looked at them from the darkness. The police arrived at the site of the discovery, whose employees examined several more finds. In all the boxes there were amazing, unearthly creatures — dried, pickled or in the form of professionally made stuffed animals.
It was found that the items belonged to the scientist-naturalist Thomas Theodore Merrilin, who lived at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries and, apparently, has long been deceased. The finds were numbered, sealed and began to wait for the appearance of heirs. The new sovereign owner of the unusual collection did not take long to wait and came to the police with the relevant documents.
Incredibly, the man was the full namesake of the creator of the strange collection of creatures — his documents indicated that his name was Thomas Theodore Merrilyn. To the great-grandson of the scientist, after the usual formalities in such cases, the authorities handed over numerous ancient boxes in which baby dragons, mummies of mermaids and spirits of elves were stored.
Who was the creator of the creepy, but incredibly interesting collection of curiosities? The history of this man is no less interesting than his collection. Thomas Theodore Merrilyn was born in 1782 in the family of aristocrat and famous biologist Edward Merrilyn. Nothing is known about Thomas's childhood years, and the following years of his youth are covered with deep darkness.
It has been established that Merrilyn, who received an excellent education in the field of natural science at that time, preferred long-distance travel to secular London routs. Wherever the thirst for knowledge of a scientist has not worn. It has been found in equatorial Africa, on distant Polynesian islands, in Norwegian fjords and the Amazon jungle. Sir Merrilyn preferred to travel in proud solitude, resorting to the help of porters in case of emergency.
Rare appearances of the scientist in the London scientific society were accompanied by loud scandals — the wandering biologist had an obnoxious character and held extremely unusual views on the science of that time. He could be considered a madman if not for the encyclopedic knowledge in biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics, with which Merrilin surprised everyone around. Another thing was also surprising — at 80 years old, this man looked no older than 35 and was full of energy and thirst for activity.
Thomas Merrilin first presented his collection to the public in 1862, and not in prim and skeptical London, but in progressive New York. But the seasoned Americans took the exhibition with hostility, accusing the scientist of fraud and forgery of exhibits. This hit the naturalist's ego hard and he, along with his curiosities, disappeared from view for many years.
Incredibly, the next time the scientist showed up... in 1942, when he should have been 160 years old! A man posing as Merrilyn came to the London Mayor's Office and claimed ownership of one of the historic buildings in the northern part of the city.
The man, who looked no more than 40 years old, was ready to give the building to organize a children's shelter in it, but with one prerequisite — the house cannot be resold or rebuilt. The mayor's office agreed to these conditions and partially fulfilled them — the mansion did not actually change its owner and was not reconstructed until 2006, when it was decided to demolish it.
After the collection was handed over to Merrilyn's heir, another 10 years passed and the find was almost forgotten. However, in 2016, information appeared on the Internet about the Merrylin Cryptid Museum, opened by a descendant of the scientist. It is not difficult to guess that the scientific world was not attracted by the collection of dubious curiosities, but art experts are sure that the exhibits are interesting, at least from the point of view of their artistic value.
One of the few people who has the right to touch the exhibits, other than the owner, is a museum employee, zoologist student Jan Shergar. He was repeatedly pestered by journalists who wanted to find out hot facts about the collection. But they were disappointed, as Shergar limited himself to stingy phrases that the collection was unique and needed careful scientific research using special equipment.
Thomas Merrilyn's notes do not lift the veil of secrecy over the origin of the exhibits of the collection. In the diaries of the scientist, one can find arguments about various natural phenomena from the point of view of science, while his theories come close to quantum physics unknown in the XIX century.
There are also mentions of a certain female being named Alabast, who came from a parallel world. The author claims that thanks to his acquaintance with her, he managed to visit other worlds and deliver the most amazing exhibits for his collection from there. The diary was started in the first half of the XIX century and the last entry in it was made shortly before the last disappearance of the author, in 1942.
A lot of mocking comments appeared under the video about the opening of the Merrylin Cryptid Museum, in which the owner of the collection was accused of fraud. The journalists instantly realized that there was a scandal and rushed to the museum to be the first to describe its failure.
But they were disappointed — the door of the room rented for the exhibition was locked, and the curator of the museum, who called himself Alex CF, disappeared. Only his assistant Jan Shergar was on the spot, who still insisted that the collection was real and needed serious research.
The museum employee also puzzled a lot by fervently convincing everyone that Alex CF and Thomas Merrilyn, born in 1782, are one and the same person. Of course, the curator could not be the same scientist, but if he was his direct descendant, the resemblance was striking.
Shergar says that, most likely, Merrilyn resides in another dimension, where time goes differently, and periodically appears in our world to present her collection. But, neither in 1862, nor in 2016, people were not ready for a revolutionary upheaval of the worldview.
The place where the Merrylin Cryptid Museum collection is currently located is unknown, and the museum itself operates on the Internet. On his website, you can not only see the most interesting exhibits, but also order exact copies of them. Such a commercial approach has caused even more powerful criticism and accusations that the project was originally commercial and intended to enrich its impostor creator.
But be that as it may, no one has been able to prove that Thomas Merrilyn is a liar and no skeptic had the opportunity to touch the strange dead creatures. Any sane person understands that we are talking about a hoax lasting the second century, but who benefits from it and what goals it pursues remains a mystery.