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For six seasons, the American television show Lost captivated an audience of millions across the globe. Its uplifting, albeit anti-climatic, ending left some aficion­ados scratching their heads over the abundance of puzzles bereft of answers. One of the show’s biggest mysteries concerned the existence of the dreaded Smoke Monster, the clanking, slinking, tubular terror that periodically squirmed from its dank lair somewhere on the island. Where did it come from? What was its purpose? Well, its mystery presumably now remains locked in the vaults of television lore.

Strangely, similar murderous mists have peppered worldwide folklore, suggest­ing that the fictional Smoke Monster of Lost’s fantasy island may have its roots in a darker reality.

The 1825 edition of The Terrific Register Or, Record Of Crimes, Judgments, Providence, And Calamities contains “An Account Of An Uncommon Tempest”:

Mr Brydone, a late ingenious traveller, says in his account of Malta, that on the 29th of October, in the year 1757, about three quarters of an hour after midnight, there appeared to the south-west of the city [Valletta, presumably] a great black cloud, which as it approached changed its colour until at last it became like a flame of fire mixed with black smoke.