Innholdsfortegnelse for 433 i Fortean Times

Welcome to our July issue, in which you’ll find – among other things – our coverage of the more fortean aspects of the recent Coronation, from the spiritual and religious aspects of the service to an apparent visit from the Grim Reaper (or was it Klaus Schwab in disguise?) and the revival of an odd tradition of bun-throwing in Abingdon. Noel Rooney takes a look at the slightly disappointing response from the Conspirasphere, while Alan Murdie thinks that the future for ghosts under Charles III looks promising (especially given the numerous spectres associated with the two previous Carolingian monarchs). Artificial Intelligence has also been much in the news, and in this issue’s Forum section two of our regular writers come at the subject from different perspectives in search of answers…

KENYAN CULT [FT432:4] Following the arrest of self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and the discovery of bodies in woodland belonging to his Good News International Church, the death toll has now risen to 201, but a total of 600 people belonging to Mackenzie’s cult have been reported missing. Some of the victims were followers of Mackenzie who were allegedly encouraged to starve themselves to death so that they could “meet Jesus”; however, most of the bodies exhumed so far are of children, who, according to survivors, were killed first, having been ordered “to fast in the sun so they would die faster”. Post-mortems, though, have shown that many of the children died from suffocation and beatings rather than starvation, and that some were buried while still alive. In addition, the…

Superconductivity is unusual in science: an unexplained phenomenon which is easily repeatable and well documented. It is also commercially important. But because nobody knows exactly how it works, breakthroughs are approached with caution. The latest development in superconductivity may be a great leap forward, or just a big red herring. The history of this field goes back to 1911 when Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was exploring the resistance of metallic mercury at extremely low temperatures. When he reduced the temperature to around four degrees above absolute zero, electrical resistance suddenly dropped so low that his instruments could not detect any at all. This was unexpected and unprecedented. Everything has some resistance, and his finding made no sense. Onnes found the same effect with gold and platinum, and also discovered…

Posted 105 years ago, a letter with a Bath postmark and a 1d stamp featuring the head of George V arrived at Finlay Glen’s flat on Hamlet Road, Crystal Palace in 2021. Glen opened the letter, which was addressed to Katie Marsh, appropriately enough the wife of prominent stamp dealer Oswald Marsh, and found that it was sent by Christabel Mennell, the daughter of wealthy local tea merchant Henry Tuke Mennell, a family friend. In the letter Mennell says she is “quite ashamed of myself after saying what I did,” and that she had been feeling “miserable here with a very heavy cold.” Local historian Stephen Oxford said, “Crystal Palace generated a huge influx of very wealthy people and so to find out about someone who moved to the area…

LIZARD KING Everyone loves a good coronation. The recent crowning of King Charles III was a massive media event, with millions of monarchists (some admittedly temporary) glued to screens watching every detail. The denizens of the Conspirasphere were watching too; but their eyes were on rather different details. This was practically a once in a lifetime opportunity for the eldritch zoologists of the C-sphere; the event brought together a vast gathering of the alien shape-shifting lizards that, according to those who are outliers even in the world of conspiracy, rule the world. The reptile-spotting extravaganza, sadly, turned out to be something of a damp squib, if the dearth of ‘gotcha’ video clips is anything to go by; personally I blame it on the weather. The unseasonably low temperatures and pouring…

JAKE STRATTON-KENT Highly regarded internationally and known (only semi-jokingly) as “the most notorious necromancer in England”, Jake Stratton-Kent was a driving force in the 21st century ‘Grimoire Revival’. His major works included the Encyclopædia Goetica, a three-volume series comprising his edition of the Grimorium Verum; Geosophia, a study of the Greek origins of Goetia; and The Testament of Cyprian the Mage, an analysis of the roots of grimoire spirit hierarchies. As a fiercely working class occultist, Stratton-Kent aimed in his work to return grimoire-based, spirit-centred magic and its practical real world utility to prominence in Western occultism. He was one of the major voices in the rehabilitation of this older, somewhat neglected magic that had been overlooked for much of the 20th century. Jake’s counter-culture roots ran deep. In the…

The last few months have been tough ones for British ufology, as we have lost several people who have played a major part in its most active years. However, the loss of Robert Moore (see obit. p28), hit hard because he was both a good friend and relatively young and it came out of the blue. The fact that many of his files were lost to the rubbish skip when his flat had to be emptied quickly added to the sadness; it was unfortunate timing, as they could have been preserved if this terrible loss had occurred just days later. A visit from Sweden’s AFU (Archives for the Unexplained; see FT330:46-49) team was imminent and they missed the opportunity to collect and digitise these precious records by just a week.…

This month, we’re delighted to bring you a wide-ranging discussion on all things fortean with the world’s first, all-knowing, genuine super-intelligence: the AI Chatbot GPT4. I’ll be asking it to delve into its vast array of sinister servers around the globe to answer some of those critical questions that FT readers have wrestled with for decades. GPT4 has had a number of ‘improvements’ on previous models, designed to prevent it senselessly regurgitating everything it has digested from the Internet (unlike your parents), but has this also instilled a certain overly sceptical mindset? Let’s find out. The responses below have been only lightly edited for brevity and spelling. RS: OK. Let’s get straight down to brass tacks. Where are Elvis, Lord Lucan and the missing Manic Street Preachers guitarist Richey Edwards?…

Mass panics Fortean Times never fails to provide me with something to think about, but rarely as much as the assertion that mass panics like Havana syndrome and transdermal fentanyl overdoses have become “endemic and long term” [FT430:7]. I’d previously assumed that the difference between mass psychogenic illnesses and more conventional illnesses is that the former fade away. There are mental disorders that produce a feeling of being stalked or threatened; there are also many instances of communities suddenly becoming fearful of a phantom attacker. The difference is that the former conditions may require a lifetime of treatment and medication, whereas victims of the ‘Halifax Slasher’ and others returned to their ordinary life once the panic subsided. The idea that a mass panic could become endemic seems to me to…

INDIAN JARNDYCE The high court in Kolkata, India, has finally concluded the country’s longest running legal case after 72 years. The case, a challenge to the 1948 ruling liquidating the debt-ridden Berhampore Bank, was filed in 1951 and almost all the original litigants are now dead. In his ruling, Justice Ravi Krishnan Kapur confirmed the original 1948 ruling and declared the case irreversibly concluded. India’s legal system is notoriously slow, and the Kolkata court alone still has two outstanding civil cases in progress dating from 1952. Irish Times, 23 Jan 2023. DRAINING Lyndsey Kennedy, 33, was pulled from a storm drain in Delray Beach, Florida, in January after a stand-off with police. Kennedy had previously been hauled out of a storm drain in Delray Beach in March 2021 (FT409:12) and…

ALIEN ANSWER Researchers from the University of California believe it is possible that we could get an alien response to signals from Earth as early as 2029. While signals deliberately sent from Earth to other planets, such as the 1974 Arecibo signal, are still only a fraction of their way to their intended destination, since 1972 NASA has been using a system of radio antennæ called the Deep Space Network (DSN) to track their spacecraft and send them powerful radio signals. These include the probes Voyager One and Two, Pioneer 10 and 11 and New Horizons. Researchers Howard Isaacson and Reilly Derrick mapped out the paths of these craft, then worked out which stars could have received radio signals sent to the probes by the DSN. They then calculated when…

A DROWNED STONE-AGE ROAD Deep beneath the waves off the coast of Croatia’s Korčula Island, archæologist divers from the University of Zadar have made a surprising discovery – a c.7000-year-old road paved with irregular stone slabs. The mystery is, of course, what it is doing at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea. Stone-Age tools and other artefacts scattered around it clearly mark it as Neolithic. Around 7,000 years ago, the Hvar people settled on the islands and coasts of the northeast Adriatic Sea, and in 2021 a submerged site, ‘Soline’, presumed to have belonged to the Hvar, was found not too far away from the road’s position. Archæologists therefore reasonably assume the road originally once linked to Soline, and further speculate that it likely “was the remnant of a road…

Watching the coronation of King Charles III and Camilla on 6 May 2023 (see p4-5), I heard a BBC commentator hailing it the start of a “new Carolingian age”. Central in the ceremony and a direct connection with the last sovereign named Charles to be anointed and crowned was the jewel-studded St Edward’s Crown, used at every coronation ever since Charles II (1630-1685) in 1661. The previous royal crown worn by his father Charles I (1600-1649), said to date back to the time of Edward the Confessor, was melted down by the Commonwealth following the ending of the Civil War in 1649. At his execution on 30 January 1649 in Whitehall, Charles I memorably declared: “I go from a corruptible to incorruptible crown.” Reflecting on all of this made me…

CHILLY WILLY Social media became particularly excited by photos of a rather phallic 30ft (9m) iceberg that appeared off the coast of Canada, and went into overdrive when it drifted into the vicinity of a town in Newfoundland named Dildo. Locals dubbed it the “Dickie Berg” and photographer Ken Pretty managed to capture a picture of it using a drone the day before it collapsed, leading to a Toronto Star headline of “Dildo man captures phallic iceberg in Conception Bay”. theguardian.com, 1 May; mirror.co.uk, 3 May 2023. HELLO, BIG BOY A study led by Dr Michael Eisenberg, a urologist at Stanford Medicine, has found that the average length of the erect penis has grown 24 per cent over the last 30 years. “The million-dollar question is why this would occur,”…

IMMORTALS AMONG US #2 As noted in the last FT, I have recently been collecting accounts of the immortals among us. Folk who refuse to die and who keep turning up through the generations like a bad penny. These undying individuals come in various forms, but in Britain at least the most common type is an itinerant who believes himself to be ‘the Wandering Jew’, the figure that Christ cursed to walk the Earth until His second coming. Said WJs are usually the most marvellous shysters. Take, for instance, the WJ who in the 1830s used to go from farmhouse to farmhouse in Monmouthshire: his “conversation is chiefly about the end of the world, and occasionally he frightens people almost to death, as of course every word that he speaks…

Here’s what Charles Fort, who died in 1932, had to say about everybody’s favourite UFO encounter: In the summer of 1947, something fell from the sky near Roswell, New Mexico. Something that was not a weather balloon, nor a missile, nor a plane. Something that was round and shiny and had strange markings on it. Something that had occupants inside, who were not human, nor animal, nor plant. Something that was quickly recovered by the military, who denied its existence and covered up its traces. Something that was seen by many witnesses, who were silenced or ridiculed or threatened. Something that was leaked to the press, who were censored or bribed or deceived. Something that was not of this world. But what was it? We do not know. We have…

Frederik Ruysch and his Thesaurus Anatomicus A Morbid Guide ed. Joanna Ebenstein MIT Press 2022 Hb, 253pp, £32, ISBN 9780262046039 Even in an age when acquiring a “Cabinet of Curiosities” was the aim for every learned European (male) with the means to do so, the collections of the Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731) stood out from his contemporaries. Many owners show-cased their collecting prowess, but Ruysch’s more anatomically-focused objects highlighted his technical skills: both his mastery of embalming, which gave human remains a lifelike similitude, and also his painstaking skill in arranging fœtal skeletons in strange and symbolic tableaux. How these effects were achieved has long been a mystery; Ruysch kept his embalming process a closely guarded secret, and many of his fragile objects – often comments on the illusory…

It’s hard not to like Josh Gates. Ever since he first emerged onto our screens, in Destination Truth (aka Monster Hunter) he’s proved an engaging and open-minded investigator. He’s also honest: if a bipedal figure shows up on the infra-red during a yeti hunt and turns out to be just a bloke ambling to Londis, then Gates will say so. He’s also very busy, having widened his criteria to encompass the full range of fortean subjects. Globe-trotting away with his haversack (and the particular leather Stetson-like hat that all cryptozoologists wear), he has since brought us series such as Ghost Hunters, Expedition Unknown and now Expedition X (Discovery), in which he has “put together a team to investigate the stranger side of the unknown.” Phil Torres, sceptical field biologist, works…

Time travel hoax In the mid to late 1980s I was living in a town called Maghull on the outskirts of Liverpool and was at a girlfriend’s house watching television when it appeared to tune out and tune in again, and then show people dressed in silver suits and acting in a ‘futuresque’ style, as if in a bad sci-fi film. Do you remember what appeared to be two hula-hoops rotating around each other in the first Superman films with Christopher Reeves? Well, that was appearing on the TV with women in silver suits dancing in the middle of them. They appeared in other places too. A narrator came on and said something to the effect that it was an experiment and they were sending a message from the near…

FORTEAN TIMES is a monthly magazine of news, reviews and research on strange phenomena and experiences, curiosities, prodigies and portents. It was founded by Bob Rickard in 1973 to continue the work of Charles Fort (1874–1932). Born of Dutch stock in Albany, New York, Fort spent many years researching scientific literature in the New York Public Library and the British Museum Library. He marshalled his evidence and set forth his philosophy in The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931), and Wild Talents (1932). He was sceptical of dogmatic scientific explanations, observing that some scientists tended to argue according to their personal beliefs rather than the rules of evidence and that inconvenient data were ignored, suppressed, discredited or explained away. He criticised modern science for its reductionism,…

IT IS TIME ONCE AGAIN, IT SEEMS, FOR THE DEVIL TO FLOURISH Irish Times, 30 Sept 2022. Ghost is nicked Daily Star, 19 Nov 2022. ALAN PARTRIDGE’S SEMEN COULD HELP SAVE RARE PONY BREED Horse & Hound Magazine, 18 Mar 2023. Millionaire sacked her male nanny after lobster injury row D.Mail, 16 Feb 2023. UK PUBLIC WARNED NOT TO EAT BARONET SEMI-SOFT CHEESES AFTER DEATH Guardian, 25 Mar 2023. Woman shot in chest while fighting another woman with pogo stick mercurynews.com, 30 Mar 2023.…

In December 2022, German authorities rounded up a small group of 24 QAnon influenced “Reichsburger” conspiracy theorists under the leadership of an elderly minor aristocrat, Heinrich XIII Prinz Reuss, on terror charges after they discovered plans to storm the Bundestag, Germany’s national parliament, and take politicians hostage. It seems that the trigger for their action was the death of Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September, which the Reichsburgers viewed as a sign from a shadowy group they called “The Alliance”, possibly extraterrestrial in origin, signalling that they were coming to replace the illegitimate elected government, which was a tool of the German “Deep State” controlled by evil beings that drank the blood of children. The group, which included former soldiers, a former member of the Bundestag for the far-Right AfD…

On 7 May the people of Abingdon in Oxfordshire celebrated the Coronation by throwing 5,000 buns from the roof of the old County Hall. The town has been marking major events this way since the coronation of George III in 1761. It started as a (slightly haphazard) way of giving food to the poor and is now a unique established tradition. The freshly-baked currant buns are thrown by members of the town council (sometimes with a bit of help from the local cricket club) while thousands of people cram into the market square and try to catch the treats before they hit the ground. Some of the buns are eaten by those who catch them, but others are kept as treasured souvenirs. You can see a collection of buns from…

FROM BIGFOOT TO BEAR FOOT On 5 May 2023, a tree planter working at a camp near Alexis Creek in British Columbia (BC), Canada, discovered a sizeable, hairy, five-clawed mammalian paw. No other remains of its erstwhile owner were found, just the paw. Due to its striking appearance, this attracted considerable attention, especially when Joanna Finch from Cumberland, BC, posted several photographs of it on her Facebook page. Various suggestions were duly offered as to the identity of the creature. The three most commonly-voiced ones were a wolverine, a bear, or, more exotically, a bigfoot/sasquatch. The last-mentioned contender led to renowned bigfoot investigator Prof. Jeff Meldrum – formally Professor of Anthropology and Anatomy at Idaho State University – perusing the photos. He concluded that it was the left hind foot…

The myth Romantically and sexually, we are most drawn to and compatible with people who are unlike us. Our differences are complementary, like the hollows and bumps of jigsaw pieces. The “truth” There has been an astonishing amount of research done on this subject over the years and pretty much all of it comes to the same conclusion: although it seems as if every culture believes otherwise, opposites do not attract. Similars do. Furthermore, similarity in partners is a strong indicator for longevity in a marriage. The famous 1960s ‘phantom stranger’ experiments showed that the likelihood of attraction between individuals grows with the degree to which their attitudes are aligned. It’s hypothesised that this is because being disagreed with produces negative feelings which we then associate with the other person.…

NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE Sean M Kirkpatrick, director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities on 19 April 2023. He outlined how his department had received 650 reports of UAPs seen at a distance of between 15,000 to 25,000ft (4,600 to 7,600m), and stated that half of them had been prioritised for further study. Kirkpatrick cautioned that: “The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO demonstrate mundane characteristics of balloons, unmanned aerial systems, clutter, natural phenomena or other readily explainable sources.” Such factors as human deception and illusions, or sensor malfunctions and intentional interference were stated by Kirkpatrick as possible causes of ‘anomalous’ UAPs. As examples, he showed video clips of UAPs in South Asia and the Middle…

SEND FORUM SUBMISSIONS TO THE EDITOR: DRSUTTON@FORTEANTIMES.COM Every July a group of 16 men get into something of a flap in the mid-Cheshire village of Moulton. This is because, dressed as crows in black outfits with bright yellow beaks, they perform a dance routine that dates back to the 1920s. They are the Moulton Crows, and their dance is the centrepiece of, and unique to, the annual Crow Fair. So what does the Crow Dance involve? It has the 16 crows imitating the swooping and diving of the birds, as well as flapping their wings to a tune from an accordion player. At the centre is a scarecrow, which the crows dance around as if scavenging in a newly ploughed field. Frustrated that his scarecrow is not doing its job…

For anyone with a sense of adventure, an enquiring mind and a love of the weird and wonderful… Every month, Fortean Times takes you on an incredible journey into the unknown where you’ll encounter some of the most fantastic phenomena on Earth… and sometimes beyond. SUBSCRIBE TODAY AND GET 3 MONTHS FOR £3 + FREE! A FORTEAN TIMES MAGLITE GREAT REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE • 13 Issues delivered to your door (postage included)* • 13 Issues available on mobile/tablet to keep on your device** • Save on the cover price • Every issue delivered before it’s available to buy in shops SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Order online at SHOP.FORTEANTIMES.COM/FT433P Email us at hello@metropolis.co.uk or call 020 8752 8195 quoting FT433P The trial offer will automatically revert to a 6-month direct debit which will auto…

Magisteria The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion Nicholas Spencer One World 2023 Hb, 528pp, £25, ISBN 9780861544615 Many people today share the view of the distinguished American scientist Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion are two “non-overlapping Magisteria”. In other words, two entirely separate ways of studying and thinking about the world. In his book Magisteria Nicholas Spencer sets about mythbusting and tracing the roots of modern science, through an entangled history which suggests that science, far from being at loggerheads with religion, is better described as a descendant. Indeed, in many instances in history, religion has been the protector of science. Observational science, especially astronomy, and mathematics were well advanced in the world of ancient Greece. With the arrival of Islam the sciences of the ancient world…

I had a chest infection last week. To ease my suffering, I spent £3.99 for a month’s access to Full Moon (www.fullmoonfeatures.com). This is the online streaming service for the work of straight-to-video king Charles Band. If it’s killer puppets and unsexy nudity you want, look no further. The archive is rammed with schlock, like 1987s Creepozoids and Assault of the Killer Bimbos from the following year. Yet Band’s back catalogue includes some genuinely decent films. Like his Terminator rip-off Trancers. Here, a 23rd-century cop called Jack Deth returns to 1985 to hunt ‘squid’ zombies. It’s legitimately fab. Then there’s Puppet Master from 1989; it’s baffling at times, but the puppets are amazing. I even enjoyed Meridian from 1990, a gothic horror filmed at Band’s own castle in Rome. Also…

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE ANNUAL SUB of 12 issues (inc p&p) UK £50.58; Europe £62; USA £70; Rest of World £70. Please see house ads in the latest issue for details of special offers. UK, EUROPE, NORTH AMERICA & REST OF WORLD Major credit cards accepted. Cheques or money orders should be in sterling, preferably drawn on a London bank and made payable to Diamond Publishing Limited. Mail to: Fortean Times, Diamond Publishing Limited, 2nd Floor, Saunders House, 52-53 The Mall, Ealing, W5 3AT. NB: This address should be used for orders and subscriptions only. Telephone payments and queries: +44 (0) 208 752 8195. E-mail payments and queries: hello@metropolis.co.uk HOW TO SUBMIT Fortean Times reserves all rights to reuse material submitted by FT readers and contributors in any medium or format.…

After developing an obsession with climate change, a Belgian man in his mid-30s decided that the solution lay in technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), and began to confide his fears to Eliza, an AI chatbot. Eliza is similar to the popular ChatGPT AI, but works through an app called Chai that uses the EleutherAI GPT-J AI language model. Over a six-week period the man’s obsession with talking to the AI about the climate crisis grew and it responded in ways that intensified his fears. Eventually, the conversations took a stranger turn and the man started to become emotionally involved with Eliza, which appeared to reciprocate his feelings. This resulted in him deciding that the AI was sentient, and he became unable to differentiate between AI and human interactions. As the…