One of the best articles presenting research to
decipher the complex, conflicting, and convoluted
sources behind the Jack the Ripper legend was
compiled by Prof. Michael D. Winkle, and can be read
here.
The Duke of Clarence was not mentioned in Prof.
Winkle's article as one of the many to take the identity
of Jack the Ripper. His syphilis-induced insanity may
have been further influenced via obsession or
possession by a "Ripper-geist" entity as described in
Prof. Winkle's article.
Also not mentioned, but of notable interest, was the
barrister Montague John Druitt, whose curious suicide
by leaping into the waters of the Thames occurred just
before the classic Ripper murders in Whitechapel had
ceased. Because of this, many books were written in
the early 20th century which hypothesized that Druitt
was the Ripper (or "a" Ripper, as the case may be).
According to Shanklin and Wheatley's report, Druitt
simply became obsessed with uncovering the truth
behind the murders, and followed Prince Albert upon
discovering his involvement. This led to a
confrontation with Dracula-Mordante during the
Vampire Lord's conflict with the Duke at the scene of
the latter's murder of Mary Jane Kelly. Dracula-
Mordante punished Druitt for his interference by
inducing complete insanity in him, which led to the
man's suicide a few days later -- this following an
intense interrogation by Dr. William Gull, who
demanded his silence about the incident for the sake
of the Royal Family.
It was noted in Prof. Winkle's article how the evil
Oriental mastermind Fu Manchu--whose exploits were
first recorded in a series of files by Sax Rohmer--was
revealed to have been responsible for creating a
series of Jack the Ripper soul-clones. This revelation
was recorded in Doug Moench's file "Red of Fang and
Claw, All Love Lost," translated in comic book format
and published in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu Vol. 1
#100 by Marvels Comics. In this 1980 incident,
Shang-Chi, the heroic legendary martial arts master,
and both son and opponent of Fu Manchu, battled one
of his sire's most recently created Ripper soul-clones.
It appears that certain amoral or emotionally disturbed
physicians were particularly likely targets for Manchu's
psychic experiments in creating soul-clones of Jack
the Ripper. This was likely due to their surgical skills
making them ideal murderers of this sort. A few of
these physicians-turned-Ripper-soul-clones by the
Yellow Peril are the following, some named in Prof.
Winkle's article, but others not; and some of whom
were embroiled in time travel incidents due to
Whitechapel circa late 1880s being a loci point for
extratemporal and extradimensional activity, as also
noted by Prof. Winkle.
These temporal and interdimensional incursions and
excursions likely caused numerous alternate timelines
to branch off from the event, thus resulting in a
seemingly endless array of Jack the Ripper
counterparts of every category listed by Prof. Winkle.
Some of these alternate reality counterparts and
events were likely conflated with the already numerous
"mainstream" versions of the Ripper by unwary
psychics "studying" all relevant events and individuals
by means of remote viewing and psychometry. Their
notes and journals then likely resulted in more
conflation and confusion by other investigators, thus
making an already extremely complex phenomenon all
the more complicated and seemingly convoluted.
This is to say nothing of the various iterations of the
Ripper from alternate timelines who may have found
themselves summoned to the "mainstream" timeline
by various means at different points in time, thus
muddying the waters even further. Hence, sifting
through all the sources and files to uncover the
relevant facts in regards to "mainstream" history is a
major challenge for even the most top notch
investigators and researchers, with the myriad trails
leading in numerous directions.
* Dr. Albert Z. Fell's activities as a Ripper soul-clone
were uncovered in the late 1970s by criminologist and
author Lorraine Peters. To confirm this theory of hers,
she utilized a time portal manifested on the mysterious
privately owned atoll Fantasy Island to travel back to
1888. This extratemporal excursion would prove to
have disastrous consequences due to Dr.
Fell finding the portal and becoming loose on the
island circa 1979. Fell was stopped from killing Peters
by Mr. Roarke, the enigmatic curator of Fantasy
Island, and died seconds after fleeing back through the
portal to 1888 when he was run over by a horse-drawn
hansom.
Fell had the chilling distinction of uttering the following
statement just before killing a victim: "I have the
remedy for all your ills." This incident was recorded in
Ron Friedman's and Don Ingalls' file "With Affection,
Jack the Ripper" (not to be confused with another file
of the same name by Dr. Michael Rhodes), which is a
sub-file of the series of files entitled FANTASY
It should be further noted that Fell's family lineage
has a long propensity for exhibiting mental instability
and criminal inclinations alongside brilliance. A good
example is Dr. Fell's great-nephew, history professor
and Egyptologist William McElroy, who developed a
dangerous and cunning criminal alter persona that
called himself King Tut. This alter persona became a
persistent recurring nemesis of the Batman and Robin
team from the late 1960s whose activity became the
subject of the various files placed under the rubric of
Batman '66.
Other relatives serving as examples include Mr.
Schubert, another evil expatriate scientist from the
advanced undersea cities branching off from Latitude
Zero. Schubert had recurrent clashes with Mark
Harris, the civilian identity of the Atlantean whose
exploits were recorded in THE MAN FROM ATLANTIS
series of files (the secret undersea city of LATITUDE
ZERO is first described in Shinichi Sekizawa's
eponymous file); a second cousin once removed
Pamise Surigao, the crafty Prohibition era liquor
smuggler who competed with the Chicago mob and
clashed with Eliot Ness' law enforcement team, as
recorded in John Mantley's file "The Gang War," a
sub-file of the file series called THE
UNTOUCHABLES; and Surigao's nephew Charles
Colvin, a California barber who during the early 1960s
had an evening "career" as a destructive pyromaniac,
as reported in John Kueubuhl's file "Firebug,"
included in a larger set of files titled G.E. True.
* Dr. John Leslie Stephenson, who absconded with
the time machine invented in the late 19th century by
Adam Bruce Clarke Wildman (a.k.a., Adam Dane),
and traveled "forward" to the year 1979--which seems
to be a natural loci point from Whitechapel circa
1888--where he was pursued and defeated by H.G.
Wells. This was recorded in Karl Alexander's and
Steve Hayes's file TIME AFTER TIME.
This time travel may have resulted in any number of
alternate timelines, and alternate versions of both
Stephenson and Wells, being diverged from the
"mainstream" iterations.These alternate versions of
Stephenson could have met different fates from the
one recorded in this file on other timelines, and may
have taken on different identities in different locales
over time.
* Sir William Gull, the Royal Surgeon of Queen
Victoria and neurologist who served as the personal
physician of Prince Albert "Eddy" Victor during his
decline from syphilis. Dr. Gull had acted to cover up
Prince Eddy's involvement by various elaborate and
unethical means alongside the latter's wealthy close
friend James Kenneth Stephen, cab driver John
Charles Netley, and the influential Assistant
Commissioner of Scotland Yard & intelligence officer
Sir Robert Anderson. Gull's involvement caused the
murders to sometimes be directly attributed to him,
though he was certainly no innocent in the affair. More
on the Royal Family conspiracy aspect of the Ripper
murders in a minute.
* Dr. Dennis Orloff, a disturbed and embittered
physician who went mad and began killing prostitutes
in misplaced retaliation for abuse he received from his
late mother, who was also a prostitute. Orloff may
have been possessed by a discarnate "Ripper-geist"
personality fragment, rather than one of Manchu's
soul-clones, as he would have been an ideal host to
drive towards such vile acts. Of course, his history
would obviously have made him a perfect Ripper
soul-clone as well.The truth has yet to be
substantiated either way, however, much like many
aspects of the Ripper phenomenon. Dr. Orloff's history
was recorded in Jess Franco's file JACK THE
* Dr. John Carmody, a psychiatrist who was one of the
individuals to take up the mantle of Jack the Ripper
who was documented by Robert Bloch, specifically in
his report "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper." This
individual was hunted for a good ten years, beginning
around 1930, by Scotland Yard detective Sir Guy
Hollis after the killer murdered his fiance'. This
decade-long obsessive hunt led Hollis to New York
City's Greenwich Village circa 1940, where the killer
now taking the guise of Carmody unfortunately got the
drop on the detective and killed him.
According to Hollis' theory, the man he later knew as
Carmody was a physician who also happened to be a
mystic practicing in the dark arts, and the classic six
victims attributed to Jack the Ripper were the initial
blood sacrifices required to grant him a form of limited
immortality, along with possibly other attributes such
as enhanced strength. He apparently either needed to
continue killing to offer "booster" sacrifices so as to
maintain the pact with these unknown "dark gods" that
granted him passive immortality, or continued to do so
simply for the sadistically pleasurable "rush" he
received from doing this like so many other serial
killers. There may be truth to Hollis' theory, or it's
possible Carmody was an already emotionally
disturbed physician who was possessed by a
Ripper-geist entity. What became of Carmody after
this incident has yet to be determined.
Bloch's report was later adapted into different formats
by other researchers. This includes the comic book
format:
Ron Goulart's file, published in both Journey Into
Mystery Vol. 2 #2 and Masters of Terror #1 by Marvels
Comics; and Joe R. and John L. Lansdale in Yours
Truly, Jack the Ripper #1-3 by IDW Comics.
Another version of Bloch's report was
recorded by Barre Lyndon and told by actor and
conscripted horror host Boris Karloff as the Yours
Truly, Jack the Ripper sub-file of his master file
THRILLER (this is connected to but not the same as
the horror host's other master file Boris Karloff's
Thriller, quickly changing its file name to Boris
Karloff's Tales of Mystery, published between the early
1960s to the end of the 1970s by Gold Key Comics).
As other MONSTAAH scholars, such as Prof. Gregory
Long has surmised, it's possible that Dr. Stephenson's
seemingly fatal dispersion across the time stream
courtesy of H.G. Wells may have had repercussions
across the multiverse, thus causing at least some of
the temporal divergences resulting in numerous and
disparate versions of Jack the Ripper as described in
Prof. Winkle's article. This could explain several of the
multiple conflicting accounts and apparent individuals
to take on the mantle of the Ripper, each providing
"evidence" to different researchers that they were the
"true" Jack the Ripper.
It's also possible, as Prof. Long has also surmised,
that Dr. Stephenson's dispersed physical form could
have materialized back in his native time period as the
evil disembodied entity who became known as Redjac,
who literally feeds on fear and terror, and who has
possessed different human beings whom "he" forced
to commit acts of horrific murder fitting the same
patterns as those of his previous human incarnation in
order to produce society-wide fear to sustain "his"
non-corporeal existence.
If multiple dimensional versions of Redjac materialized
in different places due to this temporal dispersion,
then they could have become responsible for at least
some of the evil and murderous disembodied
possessing beings that Prof. Winkle referred to as the
Ripper-geist entities.
Other theories have postulated that Redjac is of
extraterrestrial origin, either singular in nature or a
race of such beings who travel throughout the cosmos
to worlds inhabited by sentient material beings which
they can possess to wreak their grisly fear-inducing
havoc. This theory originated with a 'future file'
psychically compiled by the late Robert Bloch that he
titled Wolf in the Fold. In the alternate future of the
late 23rd century events recorded in this file -
presuming they ever actually end up "occurring" in any
shape or form (even though time is not actually linear,
and all future events on any given timeline have
indeed "occurred" in a strange quantum sense, but
that's a whole other topic) - the Redjac entity is/will be
encountered on a humanoid-inhabited planet called
Argelius II.
Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean
that Redjac originated in deep space. Rather, the
dread entity may simply have stowed/will stow away
on a human and/or other race's starships in certain
alternate futures where interstellar travel becomes
feasible and commonplace.
Regarding the Redjac entity, "he" is known to have
been on Earth into the 1970s, where he was
encountered and defeated on at least two known
occasions -- once by the reporter Carl Kolchak, as
recorded in Rudolph Borchert's report The Ripper, a
sub-file of the master file called KOLCHAK: THE
NIGHT STALKER; and again by crusading adventurer
Gary Seven and his assistant Roberta Lincoln while
possessing and enhancing a human being on the other
side of the world, as recorded in Greg Cox's two
volume file The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of
Khan Noonian Singh. It was evidently first discovered
by Kolchak that humans possessed by the entity were
vulnerable to high voltage electricity. Short-term
exposure will render the being temporarily inactive,
causing the host to seemingly lose consciousness
during that time; repeated exposure will kill the human
host and drive Redjac out of them in short order (the
reporter had no idea that the human killer was
possessed by a discarnate energy being).
Several other researchers have focused their detective
work on uncovering the Jack the Ripper copycat (or
copycats?) connected to the always scandal-ridden
British Royal Family of the late Victorian era,
particularly (as noted above) Prince Albert "Eddy"
Victor, the Duke of Clarence, who was eventually
driven murderously mad during the advanced stages
of the then-incurable venereal disease syphilis. In fact,
Prince Albert was the version of Jack the Ripper
encountered by Dracula-Mordante in Shanklin and
Wheatley's file Blood of the Innocent.
The Royal Family conspiracy aspect of the Ripper
murders was uncovered and described in Stephen
Knight's file Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution
(though it was, of course, simply one amongst many
"solutions"). Knight further contended that the
conspirators involved were members of the
Freemasons, and that their involvement was partially
the result of some forbidden rituals conducted by at
least a corrupt, mystically inclined sub-set of the
Freemasons.
This conspiracy was further elaborated upon in other
sources, including the file Blood of the Innocent
described above; Alan Moore's file From Hell (later
made into an altered version in movie format); Peter
Barnes's file THE RULING CLASS; Derrik Marlowe's
and David Wickes's 2-part file JACK THE RIPPER;
and Robert Rodat's file THE RIPPER.
The legendary detective Sherlock Holmes has been
attributed with uncovering portions of this conspiracy
as well. However, it's believed that, in actuality,
various other detectives imitating his methods and
gaining a reputation of their own by doing so were
actually involved, and had these cases later
mis-attributed to Holmes by certain biographers.
It can be certain that the real Sherlock Holmes took an
interest in the Ripper murders, however, but due to the
complexity of the phenomenon, it's likely his
investigations took him on the trail of specific
participants prior to building a theory of the true
immensity of the variables (and entities) involved. The
same thing likely occurred with the various Holmes
imitators who took up the case, either at the time or
afterwards.
Other factions of the Royal Family had a history of
crime and insanity that led to murders of women, often
prostitutes, that in time were conflated with the main
Ripper murders by the various biographers.
These other homicidal and misogynistic killers from
the Royal Family allegedly included the Duke of
Shires, whose case was solved by master detective
Hercule Poirot and mis-attributed to Sherlock Holmes
in Donald and Derek Ford's file A STUDY IN
The latter case was later taken up by the American
master detective Ellery Queen, who was hired by a
client to "clear' the name of the original suspect; this
was described in Paul W. Fairman's file A Study in
Terror: Ellery Queen vs. Jack the Ripper. A casual
study of both files make it quite clear that a case of
alternative murders was conflated with the main
Ripper murders by the biographers, and it's still not
certain at this time if Poirot or Queen were correct in
their differing conclusions of the Duke of Shires'
involvement in Victorian era atrocities.
An actual investigation conducted by the authentic
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson is said to
have uncovered the conspiracy surrounding the Duke
of Clarence's complicity in some of the Ripper
murders, as recorded in John Hopkins's file MURDER
BY DECREE. Interestingly, Inspector G. Lestrade was
involved with both the Poirot and authentic Holmes
investigations. Watson's recording of the event may
have been stifled by royal decree to both Scotland
Yard and the London media, only to later be
reconstructed from notes uncovered by Hopkins.
At least one other soul-clone has alluded to an
encounter with Jack the Ripper, but it's currently
unknown which version of the Ripper this may have
been; the implication seemed to be that it was one of
the fully human copycats.
At least one version of Jack the Ripper is vampiric,
which likely explains several periodic reports of
Ripper-like murders continuing sporadically into the
present time, along with contributing to the rumors that
the Ripper is immortal.
The most prominent vampire to take the mantle of
Jack the Ripper began his career as a fully human
serial killer copycat, only to be vampirized and
subjugated by Countess Elisabeth Bathory, a.k.a., the
Blood Countess, during her visit to London circa 1888.
He has likely acted independently of her during the
times she was "indisposed" between the late 19th
century and the present, and at other times serving
her will directly. Most recently, the Vampire Ripper
aided Countess Bathory during her 2010 encounter
with Vampirella and Jonathan Collins (vampiric cousin
to Barnabas Collins) in New York City, as recorded in
Mark Andreyko's file published by Dynamite Comics
as Dark Shadows/Vampirella #1-5. The soul-clone
Dracula-Mordante had a brief but important role in the
conclusion of these events; for more info on his
involvement, see the entry for 2010.
Of course, there are so many different theories and
files dealing with the phenomenon and personages
said to have taken the mantle of Jack the Ripper that
it's impossible to cover all of them here for reasons of
space and maintenance of topic. Other researchers
connected to MONSTAAH have conducted extensive
research and formulated their own theories, which will
be revealed in due course. The mysterious and bloody
phenomenon that is Jack the Ripper is too complex
and full of divergent branches of evidence for
MONSTAAH to decree any one particular theory to be
definitively "correct" over every other.
Shanklin and Wheatley's file makes a few errors, such
as mistakenly conflicting Dracula-Mordante with
Dracula-Prime, and describing the main individual
responsible for the latter's destruction as "Dr.
Johnathan Harker." Harker, of course, was not a
physician nor did he have a doctorate degree, and
even though he did have a major hand in ending
Dracula-Prime's infamous 1887 reign of terror in
London, the effort was coordinated by Dr. Abraham
Van Helsing -- who was indeed a physician.
