Innholdsfortegnelse for 438 i Fortean Times

IT WAS 50 YEARS AGO TODAY… This issue marks another major milestone in the storied history of Fortean Times: exactly 50 years since the appearance of the very first issue of The News (as FT was known for its first 15 issues) in November 1973. We’re certainly delighted – and, we must say, rather surprised – to have come this far: 438 issues over half a century, and a gradual evolution from an occasional photocopied newsletter to a ‘proper’ newsstand magazine that appears every four weeks. So, we look both backwards and forwards in this issue, remembering some past highlights and speculating about what the future holds. One obvious question, of course, concerns the current state of strange phenomena: has science solved the mysteries that exercised us in 1973? Has…

DEATH FROM ABOVE Peggy Jones, 64, was mowing her lawn in Silsbee, Texas, when a snake fell out of the sky and wrapped itself round her arm, only to be followed by a hawk which swooped down to reclaim its dropped meal. “As I was trying to sling my arm and sling the snake off, the snake wrapped around my arm,” Jones said. “The snake was striking my face, it struck my glasses a couple of times… I was slinging and slinging, he was striking and striking, and he just kept hanging on. Then the hawk appeared just as fast as the snake appeared… The hawk grabbed the snake that was wrapped around my arm and pulled it like he was going to carry it away. And when he did,…

290: IN MEMORIAM This is an intensely personal column. My beloved wife, Janet, died some weeks ago. Naturally, I wrote an obituary of her for the local newspaper. Work being my only solace and distraction from grief, I thought it an appropriate moment to illustrate how Roman (there are also Greek examples available) men commemorated their womenfolk. (This does not arise in the case of Fort, who predeceased his wife Anna. As reported in Steinmeyer’s biography (p274), the New York Herald Tribune headed its obituary with “Foe of Science”, going on to describe him as “a quiet man with a dread of society” who had written “four astonishing and disturbing books.”) Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Roman Epitaphs (1962) provides a cornucopia of texts and translations, as do Mary…

Every September, a month before the Nobel Prizes are announced, The Annals of Improbable Research reveal the recipients of their Ig Nobel Prizes, now in their 33rd year, celebrating science that makes people laugh, then think. The lucky recipients of the 2023 prizes, presented by real Nobel laureates, were, as usual, an eclectic bunch, united only by their dedication to slightly startling research. The mechanical engineering prize went to Te FayeYap, Daniel Preston and their colleagues at Rice University in Texas, a team whose winning innovation – reanimating dead spiders with hydraulics to use as precision micro-grippers – has previously been covered in these pages (FT424:7). They were particularly commended for coining the name “necrobiotics” for the field they have pioneered. Also commended for its use of words was a…

KARL SHUKER ponders a mysterious golden orb and greets an unexpected canine hybrid THE CRYPTID THAT LAID THE GOLDEN EGG? On 30 August 2023, a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) run by the Seascape Alaska 5 expedition, launched by the USA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), plucked from a seamount two miles deep in the Pacific Ocean’s Gulf of Alaska a most extraordinary object. After being brought to the surface, the object was swiftly preserved in alcohol aboard the research vessel Okeanos Explorer, before being examined indirectly via video by some very baffled scientists – as well they might be. Dome-shaped, and about 4in (10cm) inches wide, with a small hole at its base and originally attached to a rock, it looked for all the world like a golden egg. And…

“I have spent much time thinking about the allegedpseudo-relations that are called coincidences. What if some of them should not be coincidences?”Charles Fort A FORT IN THE FAMILY EG: I first heard of you when by some strange twist of fate I decided to look for Charles Fort pictures on Instagram, assuming I’d come away empty handed. Instead, I found pictures of his great nephew! When did you first hear of Charles Fort? PS: It was from my grandmother, Hattie, when I was a kid. She’d say, “You’re just like your Uncle Charlie” – but I didn’t know who that was. I mean, I knew that she was a Fort, but I never put the two together at all. EG: So when did the penny drop? PS: I was in…

What’s good for the mongoose… You wait ages for a review of Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose and then two come along at the same time… Daniel King and Richard Freeman offer very different views of Adam Sigal’s Gef film Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose Dir Adam Sigal, UK 2023 Streaming on Amazon Prime Regular FT readers will be aware of Nandor Fodor and his investigation into reports of a talking mongoose. For the uninitiated, I would heartily recommend Chris Josiffe’s recent piece (FT436:32-35) to get up to speed. However, the bones of it are that in the 1930s, Nandor Fodor, a Hungarian parapsychologist, was encouraged by psychic researcher Harry Price to look into the case of the Irving family who claimed their remote farmhouse on the Isle…

TEMPLE TROUBLE Two families residing near the Kasbesari Kali Temple in Madhupur, India, have spent more than eight months besieged by an apparent poltergeist. It started with stones, bricks, and even bottles being hurled at Khokon Chakraborty’s house at all hours, with all attempts to catch the culprits drawing a blank. The phenomenon then expanded to the neighbouring house, belonging to Swapan Chakraborty, which was also pelted with objects. Witnesses report that the missiles seem to materialise out of thin air and that they often cannot be seen by neighbours or passersby until they have smashed against the houses. Inhabitants of both properties also say that fragments of stones and bricks are frequently discovered indoors beneath beds and inside refrigerators. The phenomenon seems to encompass an abandoned building next to…

CALVIN PARKER On the evening of 11 October 1973, the then 19-year-old Calvin Parker had the experience that would come to dominate the rest of his life. Along with his work colleague Charles Hickson, he was fishing from a pier near Ingalls Shipyard on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi when he spotted blue lights reflecting from the water. Thinking it was police coming to evict them from the pier, he looked up to see a strange craft hovering over them, making a hissing sound. It was, he said, “football shaped” (US style, so like a rugby ball), about 80ft (24.3m) long and had a blinding light coming from it. Parker said that he and Hickson were then drawn up into the craft where they encountered three aliens with pale, wrinkled…

A large, grey, scientificlooking room: we slowly zoom in on a 1970s vintage CRT TV in the middle of it, just knowing it’ll crackle into life any second. Will it be Poltergeist-style static? Balok from Star Trek? A stilldark-haired John Craven in a kipper tie presenting Newsround? It’s Craven. Many of us of a certain vintage will probably remember that very episode as it was the first time we’ll have heard of what would become the 1977 Broad Haven UFO flap, in which schoolchildren claimed to have seen something unearthly-looking land in a field next to their playground, followed by multiple UFO-type sightings by 450 witnesses in the same, general area in south-west Wales (see FT357:16-18). Cut to today, the same playground and the now middle-aged former pupils pointing out…

Since the beginning of September, claims of penis theft have been spreading rapidly through Nigeria, starting in Calabar in the southeast of the country. Such panics, where men believe their genitals have been magically stolen, often when they shake hands with someone, have a long history in Africa. They have also occurred in Singapore and other parts of Asia, where they are known as “shook yang” or Koro, and similar allegations turn up in European witchcraft cases going back to the mediæval period. According to someone named Chibuike, described as a “spare parts dealer” by local newspaper The Vanguard, penis theft is on the increase in Nigeria because “an organ was said to be sold for six hundred thousand-naira (£630) last week, but owing to market forces and high demand…

On 12 September, the FBI issued a public warning about an organisation named 764, although it also has several other aliases, which they consider an offshoot of the Satanic groups Order of Nine Angles and the related Tempel ov Blood (see FT305:7, 410:4). They had uncovered the group’s existence when investigating social media posts made by Angel Almeida, 23, from Astoria, in Queens, New York, after being tipped off about their content, which included images of violence against children and animals. Almeida had also expressed support for white supremacist killer Dylann Roof, while other posts showed him shirtless while brandishing a shotgun, and wearing a skull mask with bandoliers of rifle ammunition strapped across his chest. Searching Almeida’s apartment, investigators found a 9mm handgun, ammunition, books relating to the Order…

ANIMAL ATTACKS We all know that mankind has been hard at work destroying our planet, but nature is increasingly fighting back. Just a few examples: Andreas Kieling, a German filmmaker well known for his animal documentaries, was attacked and severely injured by a brown bear while filming dippers and woodpeckers in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains early in May 2023. “I instinctively pulled up my tripod and rammed it into the bear’s mouth,” he said, “but by then I was already on the ground with the bear above me. I will never forget it. It was extremely painful – he scalped me.” Kieling was able to save his scalp, which was later sewn back on by a surgeon. Kieling also suffered wounds to his arms and face. However, he does not blame…

ANAL RAIL GUN A slightly dubious story that circulated on social media in May included an image that showed a butt plug in a position in someone’s body where no butt plug should reasonably be found. The accompanying story claimed that it came from an unnamed “Valley attorney”, presumably meaning the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, whose client was suing a sex toy company. It seems that the client had bought a butt plug that was advertised as “100% silicone” and had worn it to an MRI scan, during which patients are supposed to remove everything metal, assuming it would be safe. However, the plug actually contained a steel core, with the result that the magnetic field of the scanner created what is memorably described as an “anal rail…

WHITHER FORTEANA? Happy Birthday, Fortean Times! I have the great pleasure to celebrate, in these pages, the anniversary of by far the most significant anomalist publication of the past half century. William Corliss, JacquesVallée and, yes, even the spiritual founder, Charles Fort doff their caps as FT struts by. Once the cake is cut and the champagne bottles emptied, though, I also find myself wondering about the progress of the five decades past and where we will likely be in 50 years. Forteans have proved themselves in the last generation remarkable archivists: they have used the digital revolution to hunt down the most obscure bits of print about the most extraordinary events. Here they have followed in Fort’s sometimes faltering footsteps and done far better than many humanities departments (a…

ANARCHIST MACAW Barney, a five-year-old Macaw, once belonged to a retired truck driver who emigrated to Spain in 2002, after which he was acquired by the Warwickshire Animal Sanctuary in Nuneaton. His vivid blue and gold plumage and habit of saying “Thank you, big boy,” when given a digestive biscuit appealed to visitors. However, he was very fond of saying “bollocks!” and when a civic party came on tour, and he spotted the mayor’s chain and a woman vicar’s dog collar, his anarchist tendencies were revealed. “Fuck off!” he told the mayor before turning to the vicar: “You can fuck off too!” Also present were two policemen, to whom Barney said: “And you can fuck off, you wankers!” The pillars of the community took it in good part. The sanctuary’s…

A weighty tome – but is it reliable? Is there actually such a thing as objective testimony for a close encounter or an abduction report, any more than we can speak of testimony for a dream or for a novel, asks John Rimmer The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony ed. VJ Ballester-Olmos & Richard W Heiden UFO Phenomena International Annual Review 2023 Pb, 712pp, €60, ISBN 9791281441002 Free PDF at academia.edu/101922617/The_Reliability_of_UFO_Witness_Testimony This is a massive work, consisting of 57 reports, analyses and essays by a galaxy of contributors, including many well-known names mostly on the European sceptical side of ufology, but just two British contributors. There are good critical re-examinations of some famous cases such asthe Phoenix Lights and the Cash-Landrum incident as well as a number of European cases…

Memories of Fortean Times Many congratulations on your 50th anniversary. You’ve been a part of my life now for almost half of that time, through many ups and downs, and I can honestly say you’ve opened doors for me that I could never have imagined. Your influence on my thinking has been immense, a fact for which I’m eternally grateful. Here’s to the next 50 years, at which point I’ll be a sprightly 99! Arthur Burton Maidstone, Kent It was at the 1979 World SF Convention (Seacon 79), in Brighton’s Metropole Hotel over the August Bank Holiday weekend. I was sitting having a drink and a natter with a few friends in one of the many bars (essentially what conventions are for), and I happened to be wearing a denim…