Some years ago, we discussed this happening on this message board.
I will add another one to this: the decline in magazine sales. WHS used to have shelf loads of magazines on sale (alas no more) and so sales have declined and many UFO titles have folded. So fewer people picking up a copy of FT to read on a long journey or because the cover caught their eye and thus fewer people who might contact FT with their experiences (and nowadays google this forum).
I have wondered about this too, and notice that our perception of weird phenomena seems to change as our culture shifts...similar to the concept of fairies having turned into aliens, etc. So perhaps the phenomena and our perceptions are perpetually dependent upon one another, intertwined somehow, which suggests that both perception (or consciousness, if you like) and weird 'beings' are pretty fluid and in constant flux. No idea if I am making sense here!
Absolutely agree about people being much busier nowadays. My friends own a backpacker's hostel and it seems young people just aren't taking time out like they used as they are under so much pressure to do 'constructive' things during holidays that will impress universities and employers. When they do take time out they seem to favour AirBnBs and so aren't mixing socially like they used to. I heard that once Wifi took off the hostel went from a social place where guests cooked meals together, played guitar and board games etc to everyone sat glued to a laptop. Apparently this happened in the space of one year and they even contemplated turning the Wifi off to get everyone socialising again!
Yesterday was in York Minster gardens waiting for husband whilst he went to have a hair cut and was people watching to pass the time (firmly putting my phone away). And it struck me how much people are living their lives at a remove now. Fair dos, I was sitting behind one of the most spectacular medieval structures in the world, and a massive tourist trap, on a nice summer's day so people are going to be photoing things. But it struck me how people were doing stuff like photoing themselves using a selfie stick with the Minster in the background, then not going into it, or going closer to look at it, but walking on, still glued to their phones.
[Jabs the Like button]
I notice this on trains. The journey from Exeter down into Cornwall by train boasts some pretty impressive scenery by any measure and at any time of year (provided the sun is out). From the Exe estuary down along the coast and then inland with sweeping views up to Dartmoor... I could go on. Yet I sit there and see young people in particular glued to the screens.
Haha yes yes to this! Most noticeable when traveling by train, which I do quite a bit these days.
.....I do yoga at home sometimes and have begun to notice the new neck posture/hump in much younger people. Gonna need a foam roller to fix that! Then again, I do a lot of design work on an ipad pro so my own neck needs a bit of work.
That is just so true.
Spot on, for me it is walking out in the countryside and along the old mining trails. I sometimes get overtaken by people out purely for exercise and good for them, but they are not engaging with their surroundings and wouldn't notice that lizard scamper across the footpath or the kestrel hovering above the scrub.
Exactly that - they only ever had space for a page or two in the mag, four lengthy stories or so, but dozens of submissions. We didn't get every single one - a fair number would be actually very mundane, or nonsensical, or suspicious - but we'd get ten or twenty each month vectored into IHTM.
This is the rational answer to all of this. But i still feel they witnessed something that triggered the whole gnomes in cars story, whether that was seeing golf buggies scooting around with their headlights on or a whirlwind that whipped up the leaves, maybe even bats fluttering around above the swamp.
I think what I was getting at was - how many actually saw something? It is far easier for one or two people to be mistaken about what they are looking at, than a whole crowd. From the reports I read, it appeared that one child was the catalyst.
I know that some ran away right at the beginning so they were clearly all in a heightened state. There is also a touch of Broad Haven school about it as the pictures they drew don't actually match the descriptions they give, for example the gnome in the car has his hat pointing though a gap in the roof of what is essentially a convertible but apparently the cars did have a roof with a weird triangular light on top*. Then one gnome is drawn standing up and not in a car but this isn't mentioned in the narrative
I always think of Noddy and Big Ears... not an exact match, but it's the image I get in my head.
