In the latest probably too-good-to-be-true Doctor Who rumors, a British tabloid is reporting that 106 previously lost episodes from the series have been found in Ethiopia. When Doctor Who premiered in 1963, it was BBC’s standard practice to erase episodes after they aired in order to save space, which means that many episodes of the show are missing—including 106 from the show’s first six years. Now, after years of rumors of two or three turning up here and there, The Mirror reports that all of those episodes—including “The Crusade,” “The Enemy Of The World,” and “The Ice Warriors”—have been found at the Ethiopian Radio and Television agency. Lending some credence to the rumor, many early episodes have actually been recovered through overseas broadcasters who bought copies before BBC wiped the originals—although finding all of them in one place would certainly be quite a stroke of luck.
Naturally, the claim has yet to be confirmed by the BBC, although the company has called a press conference for Tuesday. Meanwhile, various other people connected to the Doctor Who universe have weighed in (as collected by DoctorWhoTV), with some blasting the Mirror report "rubbish" and "nonsense," and Radio Times and Doctor Who Online going with the more cautiously optimistic reports that some episodes have been found and would soon be made available, but "it's not as many as 100."