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What's The Most Boring Fortean Subject?

Faith healing. I re-watched a bunch of Strange But True episodes a few years ago, and every time that subject came up, it was just so boring.

Also, though the subject of ghosts and hauntings interests me, shows like Most Haunted are incredibly tedious. The exception being Ghost Files on youtube, since the hosts are entertaining enough to make such a silly, usually uneventful format work.
 
mariposacibernetico said:
Faith healing. I re-watched a bunch of Strange But True episodes a few years ago, and every time that subject came up, it was just so boring.
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When I worked in the Philippines when I was a gullible naive 20 something year old I paid something like £30 quid equivalent in Pinoy peso to watch a psychic surgeon perform an “operation”.
 
Druk said:
When I worked in the Philippines when I was a gullible naive 20 something year old I paid something like £30 quid equivalent in Pinoy peso to watch a psychic surgeon perform an “operation”.
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The psychic surgeons were all over the tabloids in the early'70s. As a teenager I'd read about them in my parents' Sunday rags.

It was obvious even to 14 year-old me that it was all sleight of hand, yet thousands of people believed in them. Were these people stupid, superstitious, or what?
'Desperate' might be the word I was looking for.
 
escargot said:
The psychic surgeons were all over the tabloids in the early'70s. As a teenager I'd read about them in my parents' Sunday rags.

It was obvious even to 14 year-old me that it was all sleight of hand, yet thousands of people believed in them. Were these people stupid, superstitious, or what?
'Desperate' might be the word I was looking for.
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Thousands of people do still believe in them,the Philippines is exceptionally superstitious,check out people like Quiboloy the son of god,people were paying him huge sums for the houses they were going to “live” in when they died and went to heaven,he was selling real estate for the dead.
 
Druk said:
Or people were drunk,on Shrooms,or misidentified a dog or melanistic fallow deer at distance.
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Now then you, not all witnesses :hahazebs:

"Experts monitoring deer using thermal imaging cameras spotted the animals on two separate occasions in different parts of the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. Commission spokesman Stuart Burgess said the sights had been confirmed by "very experienced" rangers unlikely to mistake deer for big cats."

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/reliable-big-cat-sightings-revealed-1229204.html

Then there were the witnesses in Devon back in 2011 who reported see a lynx and were later found to be correct as a lynx named Flaviu had escaped its enclosure and hunted and killed four lambs before it was caught in a humane trap and taken back to Dartmoor Zoo:

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/details-55-big-cat-sightings-2032199

Then I actually met a Norfolk farmer who was adamant he had seen a lynx cross the road in front of him and he was eventually proven right as a gamekeeper shot the creature and put it in his freezer:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/...f the northern,of prey was being investigated.

Not everyone is claiming that there are breeding population of so-called "alien" big cats in Britain, but it is an established fact that witnesses have reported seeing big cats and that has included pumas:

https://www.highlifehighland.com/inverness-museum-and-art-gallery/felicity-the-puma/

And then yet another lynx:

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2013/9321.html

Yes, most of these are escapees but the witnesses didn't know that at the time.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Now then you, not all witnesses :hahazebs:

"Experts monitoring deer using thermal imaging cameras spotted the animals on two separate occasions in different parts of the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. Commission spokesman Stuart Burgess said the sights had been confirmed by "very experienced" rangers unlikely to mistake deer for big cats."

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/reliable-big-cat-sightings-revealed-1229204.html

Then there were the witnesses in Devon back in 2011 who reported see a lynx and were later found to be correct as a lynx named Flaviu had escaped its enclosure and hunted and killed four lambs before it was caught in a humane trap and taken back to Dartmoor Zoo:

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/details-55-big-cat-sightings-2032199

Then I actually met a Norfolk farmer who was adamant he had seen a lynx cross the road in front of him and he was eventually proven right as a gamekeeper shot the creature and put it in his freezer:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4830320.stm#:~:text=The picture of the northern,of prey was being investigated.

Not everyone is claiming that there are breeding population of so-called "alien" big cats in Britain, but it is an established fact that witnesses have reported seeing big cats and that has included pumas:

https://www.highlifehighland.com/inverness-museum-and-art-gallery/felicity-the-puma/

And then yet another lynx:

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2013/9321.html

Yes, most of these are escapees but the witnesses didn't know that at the time.
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Techy saw a big cat near where we live. Like a puma or summat, much bigger than a domestic cat and moving slowly across a field. Like it was stalking prey.
 
Druk said:
Thousands of people do still believe in them,the Philippines is exceptionally superstitious,check out people like Quiboloy the son of god,people were paying him huge sums for the houses they were going to “live” in when they died and went to heaven,he was selling real estate for the dead.
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:eek:
That is certainly some gross superstition. Possibly the most irrational transaction I've ever heard of.
 
Most boring Fortean subject? Based on the pages I usually skip in FT, that would be UFOs (especially alleged abductions), ghosts, and those cryptids that I find completely implausible, most notably Mothman.

Of this unholy trinity, I'd say the continual rehashing of the same few canonical UFO cases.

Back in the 1970s, I lapped up UFO stories. Not now.

Others will have very different views, which is fine, so no offence intended if any of these are your pet subjects.
 
Mikefule said:
Most boring Fortean subject? Based on the pages I usually skip in FT, that would be UFOs (especially alleged abductions), ghosts, and those cryptids that I find completely implausible, most notably Mothman.

Of this unholy trinity, I'd say the continual rehashing of the same few canonical UFO cases.

Back in the 1970s, I lapped up UFO stories. Not now.

Others will have very different views, which is fine, so no offence intended if any of these are your pet subjects.
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Yes, it's the constant repetition of the same old stories that kills it for me (a bit).
There must be something new.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Now then you, not all witnesses :hahazebs:

"Experts monitoring deer using thermal imaging cameras spotted the animals on two separate occasions in different parts of the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. Commission spokesman Stuart Burgess said the sights had been confirmed by "very experienced" rangers unlikely to mistake deer for big cats."

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/reliable-big-cat-sightings-revealed-1229204.html

Then there were the witnesses in Devon back in 2011 who reported see a lynx and were later found to be correct as a lynx named Flaviu had escaped its enclosure and hunted and killed four lambs before it was caught in a humane trap and taken back to Dartmoor Zoo:

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/details-55-big-cat-sightings-2032199

Then I actually met a Norfolk farmer who was adamant he had seen a lynx cross the road in front of him and he was eventually proven right as a gamekeeper shot the creature and put it in his freezer:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4830320.stm#:~:text=The picture of the northern,of prey was being investigated.

Not everyone is claiming that there are breeding population of so-called "alien" big cats in Britain, but it is an established fact that witnesses have reported seeing big cats and that has included pumas:

https://www.highlifehighland.com/inverness-museum-and-art-gallery/felicity-the-puma/

And then yet another lynx:

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2013/9321.html

Yes, most of these are escapees but the witnesses didn't know that at the time.
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The forestry commission sightings,I did a bit of research at the time,can’t remember the chaps name who was there BUT he never committed himself and said it was a “Big cat”.
 
escargot said:
:eek:
That is certainly some gross superstition. Possibly the most irrational transaction I've ever heard of.
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He actually told some of his clients he had been to heaven,seen the real estate they were buying,and asked did they want upgrades like diamond door handles,total charlatan,but he suckered them in.
 
Druk said:
He actually told some of his clients he had been to heaven,seen the real estate they were buying,and asked did they want upgrades like diamond door handles,total charlatan,but he suckered them in.
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I'm not religious, so probably somewhat underqualified to make a judgement, but my understanding is if you think that diamond encrusted door furniture is going to be in any way an important or desirable item of household decoration for your heavenly home, then you're probably not going to heaven.

And the guy who sells it to you definitely isn't.
 
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Mikefule said:
Most boring Fortean subject? Based on the pages I usually skip in FT, that would be UFOs (especially alleged abductions), ghosts, and those cryptids that I find completely implausible, most notably Mothman.

Of this unholy trinity, I'd say the continual rehashing of the same few canonical UFO cases.

Back in the 1970s, I lapped up UFO stories. Not now.

Others will have very different views, which is fine, so no offence intended if any of these are your pet subjects.
Click to expand...

Even up to the 90s I had a great interest in UFOs and Ghosts. The signal to noise ratio has deteriorated and my interest has decreased. Still some good posts on the topics here though.
 
Spookdaddy said:
I'm not religious, so probably somewhat underqualified to make a judgement, but my understanding is if you think that diamond encrusted door furniture is going to be in any way an important or desirable item of household decoration for your heavenly home, then you're probably not going to heaven.

And the guy who sells it to you definitely isn't.
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Isn't this very similar to the old 'selling of pardons' back in Chaucer's era? Making money out of what might possibly happen to you after death?
 
Ufology can be a bit dry given that most ufologists have approached the subject from a quasi 'scientific' standpoint (and indeed still do, in the current 'UAP' era). I always found the post 1978 era of abductions / Black Triangles / whatever fairly unappealing as many of the reported experiences are quite similar, unlike the strange and wonderful variety we got up until that point.

I think, however, once you start to look at it from a folkloric perspective, or allow the full spectrum of irrational High Strangeness around the subject, then it's actually a very rich area of Forteana.
 
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As for the most boring Fortean subject, generic time slips of the "went into a shop and everything was in shillings and pence" variety bore me to tears, but I have to say Bigfoot and general modern day conspiracy stuff probably interest me even less.
 
I find the stories about Atlantis a bit dull. They seem to all follow the same pattern. Someone declares that they have found Atlantis, only it wasn`t called Atlantis, it wasn`t an island, it didn`t sink and it`s not where Plato said it was.
 
You know, the talk of Atlantis reminds of how I stumbled onto this board in the first place and it's now a subject that I'm thoroughly bored of:

Edgar Cayce.

I was reading about him and gradually realized that all of the information came from one source - the Edgar Cayce Foundation. There is no fundamental information about Cayce from anywhere on the internet that isn't from the people who rely on Cayce's legacy for $$.
 
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