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Fortean Documentaries

I'm a huge The Joe Rogan Experience geek and after listening to James Fox and Vallée's intervention ¡n Joe's podcast I immediately bought and watched Jame's "The Phenomenon".
It's a nice summary on UFOs, at least for someone new to the field as myself. They go from Roswell to the TicTac video and the main episodes in between.
 
National Geographic is showing Atlas of Cursed Places starting Tuesday at 21.00. This looks like it might be worth watching.
 
Me neither! .. I can't remember where I found it to be honest, thanks for reminding me.
That's such a great video, Swifty. Rather Ghost-stories-for-christmas style?
I totally love Tony Cornell. I wish I could have been his assistant :) I found this playlist on youtube of him talking about various things (albeit with added background spooky noise unfortunately).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVPdNEzbmLIeeOARUb350ZVb6min8uBZL
The person who originally uploaded them has quite a few fortean things to watch. (The Cornell clips and others seem to come from a 1990s computer game or cdrom? I'm not sure.) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtxieALhAwK7iKNTGfqb_sg
 
That's such a great video, Swifty. Rather Ghost-stories-for-christmas style?
I totally love Tony Cornell. I wish I could have been his assistant :) I found this playlist on youtube of him talking about various things (albeit with added background spooky noise unfortunately).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVPdNEzbmLIeeOARUb350ZVb6min8uBZL
The person who originally uploaded them has quite a few fortean things to watch. (The Cornell clips and others seem to come from a 1990s computer game or cdrom? I'm not sure.) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtxieALhAwK7iKNTGfqb_sg
Ace, thanks .. I'll have a look at them tomorrow :)
 
1990 doc on the yeren.

This is a great find thanks for sharing! These old programmes would be pretty much lost if it wasn't for a few people who managed to record the original broadcasts on VHS and years later convert and upload them to YouTube, which is very commendable. How many more fortean documentary gems like this are waiting to be found/recovered I wonder...? I always take the time to do quick .mp4 rips of these films for archivng!
 
An interesting documentary about the Japanese Yokai - the equivalent I suppose of our elves and so on. I think the animism appeals to me.
 
As further confirmation that the pseudo archaeology circuit has vanished up its own backside, I briefly watched something called - wait for it - Pirate Treasure of the Knights Templar earlier on on Blaze.

Don't. Just don't. Even I have my limits.
 
As further confirmation that the pseudo archaeology circuit has vanished up its own backside, I briefly watched something called - wait for it - Pirate Treasure of the Knights Templar earlier on on Blaze.

Don't. Just don't. Even I have my limits.
Pirate treasure?
 
I switched off when the (American) guy started looking at old gravestones somewhere and getting excited when he found ones that were decorated with skulls and crossbones. Because that means pirates you see. :rofl:

I did wonder as a kid what a skull and crossbones on a gravestone signified, but none of the adults I asked knew the answer. Since then I was told it denoted the grave of a Sexton (grave digger). But I once visited a small cemetery where 7 or 8 such head-stones were in close proximity - a family of grave diggers or a Pirate crew ?
 
I did wonder as a kid what a skull and crossbones on a gravestone signified, but none of the adults I asked knew the answer. Since then I was told it denoted the grave of a Sexton (grave digger). But I once visited a small cemetery where 7 or 8 such head-stones were in close proximity - a family of grave diggers or a Pirate crew ?
They are just memento mori. Very common at one time. :)

https://headstonesymbols.co.uk/head...ing_wp_cron=1609000714.0362370014190673828125
 
Magic Lantern, a 1993 BBC documentary about Prague.

Produced and directed by Dennis Marks, written and presented by Michael Frayn. Metaphors of magic and transmutation abound as we dig layer by layer into Prague's troubled history. It covers a lot in less than an hour, yet manages to seem like there is all the time in the world.

This is a Prague some four years after the lifting of the Iron Curtain. The "new golems" forecast by Frayn turned out to be tourists! :eek:
 
Sorry if I haven't searched the forum properly. But has anyone watched 'Surviving Death', the new series on Netflix? It's Very Good. There are episodes about near death experiences, end of life experiences, mediums, and my favourite I think is the last episode on reincarnation.

Obviously there are points where you think it would have been better to interject with a particular question. And there was one point (the 'spectra' / spectre polaroid film) where I said out loud 'you are having a laugh'. And it could be argued that none of it is evidence for anything existing after you die (as you can think of alternative explanations, not all mundane). But it is very nicely shot and presented, with a good selection of people interviewed (eg the president of the SPR, various other scientists, a variety of mediums, people who report experiences). It tends to leave you to draw your own conclusions rather than dissecting the various statements and personalities involved.

I thoroughly recommend. I'd be interested to hear what people thought - there are many interesting points to discuss.
 
Sorry if I haven't searched the forum properly. But has anyone watched 'Surviving Death', the new series on Netflix? It's Very Good. There are episodes about near death experiences, end of life experiences, mediums, and my favourite I think is the last episode on reincarnation.

Obviously there are points where you think it would have been better to interject with a particular question. And there was one point (the 'spectra' / spectre polaroid film) where I said out loud 'you are having a laugh'. And it could be argued that none of it is evidence for anything existing after you die (as you can think of alternative explanations, not all mundane). But it is very nicely shot and presented, with a good selection of people interviewed (eg the president of the SPR, various other scientists, a variety of mediums, people who report experiences). It tends to leave you to draw your own conclusions rather than dissecting the various statements and personalities involved.

I thoroughly recommend. I'd be interested to hear what people thought - there are many interesting points to discuss.

Ooo I haven't seen that. I'll definitely watch at some point thank you. If I remember I'll post my thoughts on here. :)
 
Sorry if I haven't searched the forum properly. But has anyone watched 'Surviving Death', the new series on Netflix? It's Very Good. There are episodes about near death experiences, end of life experiences, mediums, and my favourite I think is the last episode on reincarnation.

Obviously there are points where you think it would have been better to interject with a particular question. And there was one point (the 'spectra' / spectre polaroid film) where I said out loud 'you are having a laugh'. And it could be argued that none of it is evidence for anything existing after you die (as you can think of alternative explanations, not all mundane). But it is very nicely shot and presented, with a good selection of people interviewed (eg the president of the SPR, various other scientists, a variety of mediums, people who report experiences). It tends to leave you to draw your own conclusions rather than dissecting the various statements and personalities involved.

I thoroughly recommend. I'd be interested to hear what people thought - there are many interesting points to discuss.

So I got on this straight away and I've managed to consume the whole series over a few days lol. Again thanks for posting about this as I wasn't aware of it and I thought it was pretty decent. My favourite episodes were the near death experience and reincarnation ones, although I also quite liked the contact beyond the grave one too. There were some startling stories and all the episodes were pretty jam packed and engaging.

I agree it was reasonably balanced although I feel they could have explored the NDE topic more thoroughly i.e. examining current research and also looking at more 'negative' experiences that have been reported.

The medium episodes weren't really my cup of tea. I'm pretty sceptical of mediums so when it moved onto physical mediumship and that medium started using different voices I was just a bit like 'mhmmm...' To be honest I thought a lot of that had been debunked and fallen out of favour decades ago so I was surprised to see it featured. The polaroid film also made me laugh. :chuckle:
 
@Cloudbusting - I agree with you about the mediumship episodes, and I too am very sceptical (I mean you'd be daft not to be... ectoplasm eh. Though I did quite like those weird wax hand moulds!). I did think those episodes trod a good line, where you could decide for yourself how much it was an outrageous money-making scam, or whether those bereaved people were getting something helpful out of it. Having said that I'm not wholly decided. I rather liked the long-haired blonde woman. Whether she had special powers or not she seemed to be very empathetic. (Although, I don't know how much she was charging, and that might change my mind). [edit- the ultimate thing about mediums is yes ok it might be all rot, but even if it's not all rot, it doesn't mean that their visions or whatever are coming from dead people, as they could be coming from the brains of the living somehow. and I thought perhaps the chap from the SPR should have been allowed to mention that.]

Also yes I have heard about negative NDEs and I was a bit surprised they didn't feature at least one.

That doctor who'd been under the waterfall for a long time, and then when she was dragged up to the road they actually found an ambulance... well that was quite unbelievable in itself, let alone tacking on the NDE!!

---

Also, today I have been watching this https://www.discoveryplus.co.uk/show/haunted-hospitals
Who doesn't like a nice haunted hospital story eh. I'm sure we all like those round here.

Naturally it's totally hammed up to make the reenactments as frightening as possible. But if you strip away the special effects, I think you are still left with It Happened To Me style stories, recounted by the nurses etc it happened to. And that's why I was glued to it. It's on Discovery+ so you need to make a login, but it's free. Most of the paranormal stuff on there is I fear from the 'Most Haunted Rip-Off' mould (ie running about alleged haunted locations shrieking in the dark and making pronouncements about well known dead people etc). But this is slightly different. Obviously you can point to reasons why some people might have been more prone to seeing things than others. But I didn't think they were actually lying. And there are talking heads now and again giving a bit of 'paranormal explanation' and possibly a sometimes Christian spin on things, but not too heavily? I thought it was diverting for a wet January afternoon anyway. ((series 2 more interesting, series 1 a bit too full of american demon-possessed teenagers for my liking, albeit ones that clearly believe what they're saying, so who am I to judge, I should take it a bit more anthropologically shouldn't I).
 
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A new film from the chap that brought us the rather good 'Room 237' (about people's conspiracy theories of 'The Shining' film) and 'The Nightmare' (about sleep paralysis).
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/04/a-glitch-in-the-matrix-documentary-rodney-acher
https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...atrix-review-deep-dive-into-simulation-theory

It's about 'sim theory' or Is Anything Actually Real, are we living in the matrix, etc. and the people that believe this to be true.
I'm rather looking forward to it.
 
A new film from the chap that brought us the rather good 'Room 237' (about people's conspiracy theories of 'The Shining' film) and 'The Nightmare' (about sleep paralysis).
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/04/a-glitch-in-the-matrix-documentary-rodney-acher
https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...atrix-review-deep-dive-into-simulation-theory

It's about 'sim theory' or Is Anything Actually Real, are we living in the matrix, etc. and the people that believe this to be true.
I'm rather looking forward to it.

Well that’s a ping on my radar.
 
A new film from the chap that brought us the rather good 'Room 237' (about people's conspiracy theories of 'The Shining' film) and 'The Nightmare' (about sleep paralysis).
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/04/a-glitch-in-the-matrix-documentary-rodney-acher
https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...atrix-review-deep-dive-into-simulation-theory

It's about 'sim theory' or Is Anything Actually Real, are we living in the matrix, etc. and the people that believe this to be true.
I'm rather looking forward to it.

Judging by the general reaction online, it pisses off the believers for making them look pretty foolish, or even dangerous, and pisses off the non-believers for giving the believers screen time for their theories. But I like Ascher - if you're on the fence, or just like people-watching, his stuff is very entertaining.
 
Judging by the general reaction online, it pisses off the believers for making them look pretty foolish, or even dangerous, and pisses off the non-believers for giving the believers screen time for their theories. But I like Ascher - if you're on the fence, or just like people-watching, his stuff is very entertaining.

Being neither a believer or non-believer looks like he should have included more of the science behind the theory rather than just having a pop at the "new flat-earthers".
 
Being neither a believer or non-believer looks like he should have included more of the science behind the theory rather than just having a pop at the "new flat-earthers".

I don't think he was having a pop, but I don't think he believes it either. The bit with the guy who committed murder because he thought he was in a simulation colours the whole conclusion, though. I've seen the believers described as extreme narcissists: "These people are no way as interesting as me, they must be non-player characters", that sort of thing. But the science is relegated to computer gaming, like The Sims.
 
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