OldTimeRadio said:
Whoops! Let's keep this REALLY simple for the American:
Is it then the jury's verdict that the entire "Angel of the Thames" yarn, including the supposed Restoration sightings, is entirely a very modern, recent hoax?
Well, there's a lot of holes in this.
As well as what I mentioned earlier, the two similarly named websites
www.angelofthethames.com and
www.angelonthethames.com - despite the former declaring the latter tacky in appearance - are very, very similar beyond the aesthetic veneer. More or less the same information and both sites hinting at more but don't actually deliver. They have same list of historical sightings on their sites, and yet none of them actually upload any more details of these alleged sightings. There's a lot of pre-WWII sightings with images documented, apparently, which would surely make this the best documented single paranormal phenomena known, and yet these images aren't uploaded for viewing? It seems very strange and self-defeating to me. Also, where are these historical images coming from? They're not appearing in any book that I know of.
With reference to that etching I mentioned earlier, I find this aspect of it unusual. The
www.angelofthethames.com guy, who claims to be an historian and "amateur investigator of paranormal encounters" has a scaled down image of the etching on his site, and given his lofty status of the authority on this phenomena I presume him to have much of the source material to hand if all this is genuine, then the other less-knowledgeable folks are taking this guy's information and images. Yet if this is the case, then why does Jemima Waterhouse at
http://www.freewebs.com/jemimawaterhouse have a better, clearer and larger copy of the etching on her site?
Other things that seem wrong about this particular site include the way her essay (which mysteriously isn't on her site) on the angel of the Thames has got such intellectual interest. It seems Dr. Miriam Hayles (who I can't find a reference to and would be interested to see if there really was a Dr. Miriam Hayles teaching in the Humanities dept. at Greenwich - in fact, on Monday, I'm going to find out!) loved it and so did Prof. Martin Adams who's coming over from Oregon to give a talk about this - despite my not being able to find a reference to a Martin Adams on the Oregon State University web site nor the University of Oregon.
Other 'facts' surrounding this don't seem to be too solid either. I thought the number of people in 1666's fire was one of those numerical values that shifted depending on who retold the story?
Similarly the story with Pepys, now perhaps I'm not looking hard enough, but I can't reference to Pepys sighting of this at all.
Also, whilst the 'Whois' information for both these sites doesn't tie-up (which, of course means nothing - who hasn't got friends in different parts of the country?) they are both of a similar summer July/August 2006 vintage. Strangely enough, the blog at
http://friendsofthethamesangel.blogspot.com/ only goes back to August too. The
http://www.freewebs.com/jemimawaterhouse page only dates as far back as post-May as that when the 'Jemima Waterhouse' first saw the angel of the Thames.
The blogspot page claims that days trips to see the Thames angel have been happening (at least) since 1963 and yet, again, there doesn't seem to be any record elsewhere of such a sustained interest in what's basically a fringe interest. Anyone else a member of a Fortean-related club that's lasted as long as this without anyone else knowing of it? Apparently, if you join the club you get access to a forum and chat room that can't be found on the internet either!
I'm thinking of writing to the
http://www.angelofthethames.com guy and inviting him here to talk about the Angel of the Thames.