Have you seen the Telectroscope?
Hardly anyone knows that a secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel has finally been completed. An extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope has been installed at both ends which miraculously allows people to see right through the Earth from London to New York and vice versa.
Wow! A secret tunnel under the Atlantic! How is it possible we didn’t know about this? Is this one of those things like Crazy Horse Mountain that’s too wild to be believed, but still happens?
You can read the story, which includes the start of the dig in the 1890s and the recent completion.
Now that the whole thing is finished, people can stand in the London or New York ends of the tunnel and see each other down its immense length due to the powerful visual magnification of the telectroscope installations at each end. I kind of wish I would have a chance to check it out in person, but I’ve used up my New York for this year (and wasted it all on the Long Island boonies, too.)
So, I am once entertained by the story, which is clever and funny, and then twice entertained by the solid fact that there are going to be people who are totally taken in by this, despite the obvious absurdity of it. Just as there will be people who think Italian Spiderman was really a movie from the 60s, and just like there are people who will swear up and down that the Necronomicon is a real book
I should note, though, that the artists in this case did their research–there’s lots of history in the name telectroscope. For this kind of thing verisimilitude is the second most important thing–after raw creativity,
