Paul_Exeter
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2012
- Messages
- 3,901
I am always rather cautious of belated confessions, especially if they involve a local 'wag' or 'character' as people like reassuring answers to difficult questions and such a person may have been under gentle pressure from locals to 'confess':http://magoniamagazine.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-case-of-liverpool-leprechauns.html
I've just been reading this article, printed in Magonia in the 1980s, which talks about a case in 1964 where hundreds of children ended up rampaging through Liverpool parks looking for leprechauns (some of whom actually claimed to have seen leprechauns). Scale aside, I think there are a few interesting parallels. The possible partial solution, in the 'confession' given by Mr Jones in 1982, also points towards how - maybe - children could misperceive a quite normally sized person as a gnome, or leprechaun.
"Is Brian’s belated confession then the solution to the great Liverpool leprechaun panic? More than a brief glance at his statements will show that he simply makes matters more complicated rather than clearing them up. His story is full of contradictions and errors when compared with the contemporary press reports. For a start, Brian claims that the leprechauns were first seen on Thursday and Friday, and that on the Saturday crowds gathered near his grandfather’s home; yet the press tells us that the creatures were first seen on Tuesday, 30th June. Perhaps with the passage of time he just forgot the correct days and dates of the sightings, and just remembered the dates of the newspaper reports?"
'It seems odd that the newspaper descriptions of the leprechauns do not tally with Mr Jones’s description of his elegant outfit. None of the children noticed his red waistcoat, the red bobble on his hat, his navy trousers or his denim shirt. The ten-foot-high wall is of interest too. It could not have been the most simple thing in the world to climb, either for the children, or particularly for Mr Jones considering his short height and Wellington boots"
http://magoniamagazine.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-case-of-liverpool-leprechauns.html
The same goes for the belated 'confession' that the alleged 1977 Welsh Triangle silver-suited alien spacemen were all down to a couple of hoaxers in fire suits despite them not having so much as a single photograph to prove it. I just feel it may have been no more than pub talk two or three decades later and then gentle, friendly pressure on two men known for practical jokes to 'own up'. The subsequent 'owning up' then gets these individuals the attention and fleeting fame they knowingly or unknowingly seek
Edit: just to add that if you have ever worked in a pub as I have you will probably understand how this alcohol-fuelled process of remembering events of the past and then attributing them to this and that local prankster/wag works
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