Now, you have a handy replacement for your irrational fear that a shark hides in the depths of any body of water you get into! Hey, at least Daleks don’t exterminate so well under water. Or at least, it seems like they don’t because the one that was found in a UK pond in 2009 was completely broken down—unless that’s just what it wants us to think.
Unfortunately for the little alien death machine that somehow wound up at the bottom of a pond near Beaulieu in Hampshire, UK, it wasn’t a Marine Dalek, so it didn’t quite make it out unscathed. On the other hand, who knows how long it was down there? Maybe it’s been lying in wait for millions of years to destroy humanity. Or, maybe it was left there by the film crew on a classic Who episode. Kind of a tossup.
Mild mannered sales executive Marc Oakland, who is probably now the Doctor’s new companion, unearthed the Dalek (seen here) as part of a volunteer group effort to clean up the pond. He said,
I’d just shifted a tree branch with my foot when I noticed something dark and round slowly coming up to the surface. I got the shock of my life when a Dalek head bobbed up right in front of me. It must have been down there for some time because it was covered in mould and water weed, and had quite a bit of damage. One of the dome lights was smashed, but the eye-stalk was intact and the head and neck stayed in one piece as I carefully lifted it out.
Either Oakland is omitting the part of the story where he wet himself, jumped back, and scrambled out of the pond before realizing the Dalek wasn’t moving, or he’s got a firmer grasp on reality than some other Who fans. What? No, I’d absolutely react like a mature adult who doesn’t carry a sonic screwdriver around in daily life. I was talking about… someone else…
Pond Warden Tony Brown says they dug up a lot of old toys and junk from the pond, and the Dalek head may come from a Colin Baker, 1980s Doctor Who shoot that had the Daleks on location in Hampshire. However, he assured The Telegraph, “We made a very thorough search of the rest of the bottom of the pond and there were definitely no alien remnants lurking.”
No word on whether or not there was a squarish, police box-sized impression left in the ground anywhere nearby.
(The Telegraph via Neatorama, image via Adam Dachis)
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