Editing 23 enigma (section)

==Origins==
[[Robert Anton Wilson]] cites [[William S. Burroughs]] as the first person to believe in the 23 enigma.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/editor/story/0,12900,990935,00.html "Going loco over 'El Becko'"]</ref> Wilson, in a 1977 article in ''[[Fortean Times]]'', related the following anecdote:

{{Quotation|I first heard of the 23 enigma from William S Burroughs, author of ''[[Naked Lunch]]'', ''[[Nova Express]]'', etc. According to Burroughs, he had known a certain Captain Clark, around 1960 in [[Tangier]], who once bragged that he had been sailing 23 years without an accident. That very day, Clark’s ship had an accident that killed him and everybody else aboard. Furthermore, while Burroughs was thinking about this crude example of the irony of the gods that evening, a bulletin on the radio announced the crash of an airliner in [[Florida]], USA. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was Flight 23.<ref>[http://forteantimes.com/features/commentary/396/the_23_phenomenon.html Robert Anton Wilson on the "23 Phenomena"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080928122012/http://forteantimes.com/features/commentary/396/the_23_phenomenon.html |date=September 28, 2008 }}</ref>}}