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Fleeting sighting of a fairy?

D

Delores_de_Syn

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 26, 2005
Messages
67
Not so much happened to me but happened to my sister.

She volunteers to a wildlife sanctury called WildWood new Herne Bay in Kent. She has told me for a little while that she believes that faries live in the woods there. She had never seen anything specific but she sometimes found herself totally confused when trying to find her way around and objects have vanished.

Two weeks ago she told me that she was walking along a wooded path with a shallow trench on either side. Ahead of her was a small mound of earth to the side of the path. She said that she saw a brilliant white "thing" fly down and go behind the mound of earth. As she was curious as to what it was she went for a look but there was nothing behind it at all which was white. She said that the white thing looked like a smallish fish with wings.

She said that she was close enough to the mound to have seen anything fly off again so she is a little confused about what it could be. Any ideas?
 
Great name BTW. Erm, confused over a cabbage white butterfly?
 
It could have been some kind of insect. I'm always surprised at least once a year by some exotic new species (new to me anyway) droning about.
 
That's what I said to her but she was insistant that it was not any form of butterfly or moth. We both grew up in the country so are very familier with all forms of common fluttering wildlife..
 
How far away from the 'fairy' did she think she was?
 
Delores_de_Syn said:
She has told me for a little while that she believes that faries live in the woods there. She had never seen anything specific but she sometimes found herself totally confused when trying to find her way around and objects have vanished.

She said that she saw a brilliant white "thing" fly down and go behind the mound of earth. As she was curious as to what it was she went for a look but there was nothing behind it at all which was white. She said that the white thing looked like a smallish fish with wings.
Click to expand...

When my wife and I bought our house in 1997, it hadn't been occupied for nearly a year. One evening, before moving in, I was sitting in the empty living room assembling a curtain rod when something about the size of a small fish flew directly at my face and vanished.

It didn't so much look like an object as like a shimmering distortion in the air. If what I saw was the same as what your sister saw, then it would make sense that it would appear to be a white flying object. Light reflects and refracts from air distortions (for example, those caused by heat) in all kinds of ways. It's certainly reasonable that it would appear as she saw it.

My intuition is that she saw exactly what she thought she saw: an ethereal being of unknown origin. Most complex systems in nature present what are called 'emergent properties.' Human intelligence is perhaps one, resulting from the complex activities in our brains. It's reasonable (though difficult to demonstrate) that other complex systems such as plants, forests and even whole bioregions may exhibit emergent properties that appear to us as small, flying beings. In other words, fairies.

It might be interesting for your sister to eat lunch or do some other meditative activity near the mound.

(Of course, she shouldn't take a nap or she might wake up two hundred years from now. :shock: It doesn't hurt to be cautious. :D )
 
Fabulous! I was driving past there (Wildwood) a few hours ago, when it was still light, I was feeling a bit down and had decided to explore a bit. I've never seen that area although I used to live nearby in Canterbury and didn't even know Wildwood existed. As I was driving I began to feel better and started thinking about all the things that live in the countryside that we never see, fairies etc. With such notions and a lovely sunset I soon felt happy again and my mind was full of Fortean thoughts. I got lost which was really cool, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the smaller folk chose that area to live in. If I was one of those cheeky fairies, I would too.

Keep us updated.
 
Lets pretend that there are fairies. Removing any romantic cleaned images. What would fairy culture be like. What would they think. Would they smell (how often would they wash) how long would they live. Speculate mes amis
 
Instead of pretending that they exist, in which case we could imagine them any way we like, let's consider the hundreds of recorded reports of phenomena that are collectively described as fairy encounters. Let's, for the sake of brevity, discard encounters that involve ufo's or beings of an apparently alien/extraterrestrial origin. (Some researcher like to lump fairies and aliens together. While they may have some valid points about similarities between the two, it does seem that fairies appear generally less technologiclly advanced than we are while aliens appear generally more technologically advanced. So separating them does not seem any more unreasonable than considering Native American Shamen separately from Scientologists.)

1. Fairies seem to have a technological capacity generally equal to or less advanced than members of human communities that witness them.

2. Fairies seem to appear in a boggling array of sizes, shapes, colors, 'races,' and dress. Generally, their dress is similar to or antiquated with respect to the normal dress of human communities that witness them.

3. Fairies seem to appear equally often as solid, corporeal beings, walking around and talking, and as ethereal beings, flying about and not speaking.

4. Fairies seem generally to be associated with nature, usually trees, flowers, rocks and earthen features. Witness reports from the same general geographic locale tend to be similar with regards to the 'types' of fairies that appear.

5. Fairies seem to exhibit behavioral complexity at least equal to and usually greater than the most intelligent non-human animals in their environment. If they seem more intelligent than humans in their environment, the difference is usually well within the boundaries of normal possible human intellectual capacity. I've never read an account that would suggest that their possible IQ exceeds 140.

6. Fairies seem to exhibit some influence over nature, including the humans inhabiting it. Whether this influence constitutes some ability to alter reality or merely to alter the perception of reality, they seem to be able to cause people to become lost, to experience time differently, to become ill when otherwise healthy, to become healthy when otherwise ill and so on.

7. Fairies seem to behave unpredicatably. Sometimes they are kind. Sometimes they are neutral. Sometimes they are cruel. They sometimes respond to communication and negotiation with humans in ways that seem decidedly irrational, at other times wise beyond understanding.

So, getting back to your questions:

1. What would their culture be like? What is human culture like? There's no one answer. Some humans marry at 13. Some at 30. Some seem to enjoy killing. Others abhor it. Some are religious. Some not. Some fly in aircraft. Others push tiny boats with poles.

The more pertinent question is What is the range of their cultural expression? At least as varied as human cultural expression if not more so, often with distinct parallels to human conventions and fashions. This suggests that they are as intellectually and emotionally advanced as humans but probably not more so.

2. What would they think? Again, what do humans think? Some think that George W. Bush hears the voice of God. Otherse think that he is the Anti-Christ. Some people think standing around with signs and chanting will affect social change. Others think that piloting planes into buildings will. Some people think peace is critical to our survival. Some people think war is critical to our survival. Some people think there is nothing but an objective, rational world. Some people think that the situation is much more complex than that. Some people think fairies are hallucinations. Other people think fairies are objectively real phenomena that they themselves have experienced.

Who knows what fairies would think? Since they appear to be at least as intelligent as we are and at least as emotionally capable, since they seem as diverse and varied as we are culturally, they probably think all sorts of things many of which would be mutually exclusive and contradictory. Some of them may not think at all, operating on some kind of natural instinct. Some may be sitting around discussing the possible reality of human beings and what human beings may be like.

3. Would they smell? How often would they wash? Many reports cite smells associated with fairy encounters. However, these are not usually associated with body odor but, instead, with natural smells: earth, flowers, rain, etc. Again, since they appear to be as diverse as humans, it seems reasonable that some wash every day (like I do) and others rarely if ever wash (like the noisome teenagers at the video store through whose huddled mass I'm usually forced to push, despite my revulsion, to get to some select anime title).

4. How long would they live? Since their range of behavior, culture, intelligence and emotional diversity seems to go from that of intelligent animals up through human levels, it's reasonable to speculate that some live only a few years while others live as long as humans. Since their reported dress seems to usually be contemporary with the humans witnessing them or at most a few hundred years behind, it seems reasonable to speculate that they live, at most, a few hundred years. If they lived, let's say, two thousand years then there would be reports of some stubborn fairy or another wandering about in Roman era dress common to their locale.
 
GadaffiDuck said:
Lets pretend that there are fairies. Removing any romantic cleaned images. What would fairy culture be like. What would they think. Would they smell (how often would they wash) how long would they live. Speculate mes amis
Click to expand...
Pure speculation. Perhaps you should start a Thread about imaginary fairies in Chat, GaddafiDuck? :)
 
Yes...I was forgetting they were real. BTW, love the idea of suggesting iq's of 140 or less in the post above. Ah me, I have written iq tests and I still don't believe in them (nudge nudge, extrapolate). I think I'm going to have to leave this thread alone....and only read other people's posts.
 
I spent several days utterly convinced of the existence of faeries because I could see them all the time.

For the first 24 hours this was wonderful. The second 24 were frightening. Towards the end of the third day, when I couldn't leave the livingroom because the little blighters were waiting for me in all the dark corners of the house, I called my doctor because it occurred to me that I might be hallucinating.

A heady cocktail of stress, depression and badly disrupted sleep patterns had, indeed, caused me to see things that weren't there.
 
AnthonyClifton said:
Delores_de_Syn said:
She has told me for a little while that she believes that faries live in the woods there. She had never seen anything specific but she sometimes found herself totally confused when trying to find her way around and objects have vanished.

She said that she saw a brilliant white "thing" fly down and go behind the mound of earth. As she was curious as to what it was she went for a look but there was nothing behind it at all which was white. She said that the white thing looked like a smallish fish with wings.
Click to expand...

When my wife and I bought our house in 1997, it hadn't been occupied for nearly a year. One evening, before moving in, I was sitting in the empty living room assembling a curtain rod when something about the size of a small fish flew directly at my face and vanished.

It didn't so much look like an object as like a shimmering distortion in the air. If what I saw was the same as what your sister saw, then it would make sense that it would appear to be a white flying object. Light reflects and refracts from air distortions (for example, those caused by heat) in all kinds of ways. It's certainly reasonable that it would appear as she saw it.

My intuition is that she saw exactly what she thought she saw: an ethereal being of unknown origin. Most complex systems in nature present what are called 'emergent properties.' Human intelligence is perhaps one, resulting from the complex activities in our brains. It's reasonable (though difficult to demonstrate) that other complex systems such as plants, forests and even whole bioregions may exhibit emergent properties that appear to us as small, flying beings. In other words, fairies.

It might be interesting for your sister to eat lunch or do some other meditative activity near the mound.

(Of course, she shouldn't take a nap or she might wake up two hundred years from now. :shock: It doesn't hurt to be cautious. :D )
Click to expand...

Ever considered that it might be a ghost fish from the ancient days when the ocean was at a much higher level than now?
 
GadaffiDuck said:
:lol:
Maybe an angel fish..........coat got.
Click to expand...

This is no joking matter! (well, perhaps it is...)
I'm trying to be open minded here!
:p ;)
 
My mind is open (indeed, a beer proves this - hoho). Anyhoo, while I am prepared to listen to stories and discuss speculation, I will deign to remain a benign sceptic. And.......I will always make a joke. If a belief pattern cannot take a humorous look at itself it is immature and probably not worth protecting.
 
I wasn't exactly serious when posting the ghost fish explanation, but really, if cats and horses may appear as ghosts why not fish?
 
GadaffiDuck said:
Hope you are okay now. But your symptoms are interesting. They remind me of charles bonnet syndrome. See: www.rnib.org.uk

Fascinating :D
Click to expand...

Oh yes, very much better now. As I said, the condition was temporary and cleared up shortly after I started sleeping for more than an hour at a time.

I read the description of Charles Bonnet syndrome and I was also struck how similar the symptoms are to what I experienced. I am short sighted, but my eyesight has not worstened in the five years or so since the experience (however, next time...opticians first, psychiatrist second, just in case).

The faeries themselves were rather interesting. There were two kinds: small, flying tinkerbell types surrounded by light (and consequently fun to watch) and something small (less than two feet tall) and apparently made of living hawthorn. By the end of day two, there were a lot of the small hawthorn things. They lurked in dark corners, I could feel them as presences in the room even if I couldn't see them, and they were quite definitely bearing me ill-will.

Subsequently, I think I discovered where I first saw them. Take a look at the album cover for 'Fear of the Dark' by Iron Maiden and you'll see something roughly akin to what I was seeing, but without the excess tree involved.
 
I know. I was just protecting myself from any accusation of being deliberately confrontational. I am interested, but don't believe. Although it is interesting that fairy sightings are in secluded woodland spaces.....see hampsted heath ( :lol: ) - before anyone gets 'bent' out of shape...I am just joking...sheesh.
 
AnthonyClifton said:
Excerpt from a book on seeing fairies:

http://www.innerself.com/Miscellaneous/do_fairies_exist.htm
Click to expand...

Interesting.

A quick overview of what's said: the ability to see fairies is limited in adults and is a form of clairvoyance linked to the third eye. If you can get yours working you should be able to see fairies. The book attributes the 'third eye' to the Pituitary gland - incorrectly, I thought, since it's the ever-popular Pineal gland that has the photoreceptor like cells which caused people to believe it was an early eye.


Obviously, that small paragraph doesn't do this justice so please do follow the link and read what's there.

Basically, we're not able to percieve the Little Folks at all without additional sensory resources or attaining a childlike state.

Which tends not to jibe with the respect for Fairies et al in places like Iceland, where they are accepted, as a phenomena, in the same sort of way the general UK/US public accepts the existence of ghosts.

edit: wrong damn gland mentioned, so off to research
glands now corrected. Glands also corrected in the post too.
 
The traditional fairies in Iceland, in Celtic (British Late Iron Age) legends and from around the World, are a ragtag and bobtail collection of Gods, Nature Spirits and the Dead. Some are small, some are huge and some are human in appearance.

In the Welsh tales Annwn is the OtherWorld, the resemblance of some of its inhabitants to the Elves, made famous by Tolkein, is marked. These are the Good Folk and they do things differently in Annwyn. ;)
 
Doctor_Occupant said:
AnthonyClifton said:
Excerpt from a book on seeing fairies:

http://www.innerself.com/Miscellaneous/do_fairies_exist.htm
Click to expand...

Interesting.

A quick overview of what's said: the ability to see fairies is limited in adults and is a form of clairvoyance linked to the third eye. If you can get yours working you should be able to see fairies. The book attributes the 'third eye' to the Pituitary gland - incorrectly, I thought, since it's the ever-popular Pineal gland that has the photoreceptor like cells which caused people to believe it was an early eye.


Obviously, that small paragraph doesn't do this justice so please do follow the link and read what's there.

Basically, we're not able to percieve the Little Folks at all without additional sensory resources or attaining a childlike state.

Which tends not to jibe with the respect for Fairies et al in places like Iceland, where they are accepted, as a phenomena, in the same sort of way the general UK/US public accepts the existence of ghosts.

edit: wrong damn gland mentioned, so off to research
glands now corrected. Glands also corrected in the post too.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering if a child's ability to see strange things has something to do with how they perceive time. Children and animals seem to operate on a much faster time frame than adults - they may be able to see things that would be much too fast for an adult to correctly perceive.
 
You'll have to elaborate on that, Mytho.

What I was pointing out was that the author had made a rather basic mistake, swapping pineal for pituitary in reference to the Third Eye. However, you raise an interesting point in regard to the text.

I have children, and they don't appear to perceive time at all unless it directly affects them. So they aren't working to the clock, but is that what you meant?
 
Time perception is fascinating. Firstly, remember that clock time is a cultural artefact. Now that's out of the way, secondly, there is some wonderful research on time perception. One of my faves is that as adults have lived longer, the experience of time becomes shorter. So, for example, if one is 40, then 1 year is one fortieth of your time. However, if one is ten, then it is one tenth of the time you have experienced. I must say, I really like this theory. There are other theories regarding time perception and how much of one's attentional resources are taken up, but I don't think they are relevant for this discussion.

I have very good childhood memories and I do not recall seeing things that weren't there. I knew what I was imagining and never superimposed it onto the real world. I think it is a nice idea to think of children as undeveloped innocents who can somehow perceive an outre reality - I am not convinced. But please continue... :D
 
If you think fairies are made-up, why are you loitering around on this thread? You seem to think that as long as you've decided there's no basis in fact for a phenomenon, anyone who wishes to pursue any kind of discussion about it is wasting their time.

And then proceed to hang around mocking people and making tangential posts.

ANYWAY last week's In Our Time was about Fairies.
(Melvyn Bragg on Radio 4, a programme about the history of ideas)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/ino ... time.shtml

Somewhat interestingly, all three contributors were women (who all got a bit over-excited at one point and had to be calmed down by the big B). I was quite surprised actually to find it as a topic on In Our Time, I usually seem to catch it on some kind of analysis of classical greek literature or some late 19th century medical movement.
 
Did they mention that, at least historically, faeries were placated and appeased rather than actively sought out? And that there are all sorts of ways to stop faeries messing with your life rather than looking to invite them into it?

It's a tangent but it's a related tangent: are faeries the victims of well meaning revisionist history? Have they been Disneyfied to the point where what we formerly feared we now adore?
 
They did touch on the disneyfication of fairies by the victorians...
 
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