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High Strangeness

Ghost of Fort said:
Unsure if this is exactly the correct place to mention this, but it seems about as good as any other.

I would urge my "fellows" here to NOT support science fiction, people, especially that in the literary-world. Most of them would tell those of us here at
this forum we all are suffering mental ailments of some type for even being interested, let alone purporting to say any Fortean phenomenon actually exists. To some degree, even the older people were deniers of the unknown with some notable exceptions, but my hopes that the younger people would be more open have been sadly disappointed.

Given that the science fiction/fantasy fields have largely been absorbed by general fiction, or the mainstream, if you wish, I see no convincing reason for modern Fortean to support them with their hard-earned dollars, pounds, or Euros, or whatever the case may be. Spend to support Fortean causes, people!!

One will even run into total close-minded idiots in some films sites; I shan't mention the one outright I had my worst experiences with, but will say that a former journalists is involved there who take inordinate pride in this fact, despite not being able to see the forest fort the trees. Some totally obnoxious film authors (usually on science-fantasy cinema, or television) are associated with this bunch as well. They also have a disquieting tendency to allow any, and all, it appears, references to skeptical organizations stay up, while locking any threads which try to lead people to pro-Fortean sites. All in all, it was an unpleasant experience for em, but one which will, I hope, prove quite beneficial in weeding out the wheat from the chaff.

Take care.
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Hmm.
I'd say us weirdos, tin-foil hat wearers, old school conspiracy nuts, respecters of the children of Danu, Ufonauts, cat-whisperers, searchers of Mu, inhabitants of Cromer, cleaners of the Elephant Tower in Old Arjun, Illuminiod hunters, the ghost of Freddie Starr's hamster, etc, have bought the Fortean world to the mainstream.

Just because we get sneered at - it doesn't matter. We shone a torch in some dark and strange places so the rest of the world can marvel at them.
 
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Ghost of Fort said:
Unsure if this is exactly the correct place to mention this, but it seems about as good as any other.

I would urge my "fellows" here to NOT support science fiction, people, especially that in the literary-world. Most of them would tell those of us here at
this forum we all are suffering mental ailments of some type for even being interested, let alone purporting to say any Fortean phenomenon actually exists. To some degree, even the older people were deniers of the unknown with some notable exceptions, but my hopes that the younger people would be more open have been sadly disappointed.

Given that the science fiction/fantasy fields have largely been absorbed by general fiction, or the mainstream, if you wish, I see no convincing reason for modern Fortean to support them with their hard-earned dollars, pounds, or Euros, or whatever the case may be. Spend to support Fortean causes, people!!

One will even run into total close-minded idiots in some films sites; I shan't mention the one outright I had my worst experiences with, but will say that a former journalists is involved there who take inordinate pride in this fact, despite not being able to see the forest fort the trees. Some totally obnoxious film authors (usually on science-fantasy cinema, or television) are associated with this bunch as well. They also have a disquieting tendency to allow any, and all, it appears, references to skeptical organizations stay up, while locking any threads which try to lead people to pro-Fortean sites. All in all, it was an unpleasant experience for em, but one which will, I hope, prove quite beneficial in weeding out the wheat from the chaff.

Take care.
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There's a LOT of cross-over between Forteana and SF.
I don't know what you're talking about with regard to widespread scepticism among film authors, but then I don't frequent SF film discussion sites. Here's the thing - some of us like reading SF and a few of us even like writing it. I aspire to writing an SF novel one day myself.
So, please don't ask this.
 
I would generally agree there, Naughty... It's been odd, but one will rarely find a more skeptical crew (outside maybe, of a CISCOP conference) than at a gathering of professional science fiction types, odd as that seems in some ways. There was a an old fellow, Robert A.W. "Doc"* Lowndes, who once told me that, to paraphrase him, he strongly suspected such things as UFOs did exist, but wasn't especially interested in them, despite spending most of his life involved with science fiction as an editor, or writer, and even editing a magazine fora time, which was devoted to "the unknown." A curious attitude, but i didn't push him on it, as he was good enough to sign some vintage items for me. I suppose today, if Lowndes is barely remembered at all, it's because of his buying the first two fully-professional published short stories from Stephen King in the 1960's.

Some old-timers like Eric Frank Russell, and Wilson "Bob" Tucker were solid Forteans in the old days, and made no secret of it. I had hopes the "youngsters" would have a more open-minded attitude, but they seem to have gone the opposite way. Maybe they feel threatened that ufology, crptozoology, and so forth in intruding on "their"territory too much?Just a thought.

*Doc was simply a nickname of sorts as best i was able to gather. I don't think he held any actual degrees.
 
Oh, Mythopoeika, it's not my intention to stomp on anybody's aspirations at all -- just be cautious about letting your Fortean interests be very widely-known amongst editors, publishers, and writers in science-fantasy. Otherwise, you may be ostracized as "a loony," and have the label of suffering from some mental derangement as well stamped onto yourself. I learned this the hard way, and have been pleased to find a much-more welcoming crowd amongst both ufologists, and Forteans alike. I would see as many less suffer ridicule from the "science fiction world" as I could, really. Considering how many Fortean tropes are STILL used today, one would not be out of place in saying they, as a whole, are ingrates at a minimum. In short, step carefully. Given the many more options available today(something which seems to grate harshly with many in the sf community) than in pre-Internet age, I suspect you can succeed with your own novel regardless of so much hostility, but I have found it politic to use various names both in Fortean writings, and what fiction I still do, which hasn't been a great deal in past few years, although I am thinking of gradually doing some more "weird fiction." Most of my own fiction has been supernatural, or "weird mystery," although I stray into outright sf areas at times.
 
Ghost of Fort said:
I would generally agree there, Naughty... It's been odd, but one will rarely find a more skeptical crew (outside maybe, of a CISCOP conference) than at a gathering of professional science fiction types, odd as that seems in some ways. There was a an old fellow, Robert A.W. "Doc"* Lowndes, who once told me that, to paraphrase him, he strongly suspected such things as UFOs did exist, but wasn't especially interested in them, despite spending most of his life involved with science fiction as an editor, or writer, and even editing a magazine fora time, which was devoted to "the unknown." A curious attitude, but i didn't push him on it, as he was good enough to sign some vintage items for me. I suppose today, if Lowndes is barely remembered at all, it's because of his buying the first two fully-professional published short stories from Stephen King in the 1960's.

Some old-timers like Eric Frank Russell, and Wilson "Bob" Tucker were solid Forteans in the old days, and made no secret of it. I had hopes the "youngsters" would have a more open-minded attitude, but they seem to have gone the opposite way. Maybe they feel threatened that ufology, crptozoology, and so forth in intruding on "their"territory too much?Just a thought.

*Doc was simply a nickname of sorts as best i was able to gather. I don't think he held any actual degrees.
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Ok, I'm not familiar with CISCOP personally so I'll take your word for it. SF as you know always had it's hard SF writers, it's rightwing writers who haven't taken to the more Fortean styles of say Robert Holdstock.

Just because the current Hard SF community is going through a Skeptic form of rejection of Fortean thinking doesn't mean it always will.
 
I hope you're right, Naughty.. I suspect many of them, seeing the loosening of attitudes on many Fortean subjects, and UFOs, are concerned about being made to appear somewhat like morons once the answers are, at last, out there. I would not hold my breath waiting for a great many of them to take a more open attitude, though, to be frank, given my own dealings over the years. Since there appears to be a slow release of data on UFOs going on from my own government, and various others around the world, it is my hope that by this decade's end, the long-running cover-ups by the major nations will end, at last.

On CISCOP, (Committee for Investigation of Scientific Claims of the Paranormal, to be more exact, a misnomer if there was one), it is a professional debunkers organization which was founded, if memory serves, by the late Carl Sagan, "the Amazing Randi," the late Daniel Cohen who seems to have been one of the nicer gentlemen as he left the group after disapproving of their methods, the late Isaac Asimov, who was skeptic from the word "go" anyway,it seems, the late Martin Gardner who could be quite an unpleasant old fellow, and so on.It seems they were "bent out of shape"over the rise of interest in the early 1970's in paranormal matters. They still exist, although their name may have been changed somewhat in more recent years (they date back to around 1976), but I feel no pressing need to give them extra publicity save to dissuade people from bothering with them, especially since they have stomped all over the names, and reputations of as many "pro-Fortean" or pro-UFO people as they can over the decades.

In fact, they are one major reason WHY Fortean groups need to exist, to counter-balance what is almost always isleading data, if not outright falsehoods, from such groups, and hope this forum here keeps up the good work.

Stay well, people.
 
Ghost of Fort said:
I hope you're right, Naughty.. I suspect many of them, seeing the loosening of attitudes on many Fortean subjects, and UFOs, are concerned about being made to appear somewhat like morons once the answers are, at last, out there. I would not hold my breath waiting for a great many of them to take a more open attitude, though, to be frank, given my own dealings over the years. Since there appears to be a slow release of data on UFOs going on from my own government, and various others around the world, it is my hope that by this decade's end, the long-running cover-ups by the major nations will end, at last.

On CISCOP, (Committee for Investigation of Scientific Claims of the Paranormal, to be more exact, a misnomer if there was one), it is a professional debunkers organization which was founded, if memory serves, by the late Carl Sagan, "the Amazing Randi," the late Daniel Cohen who seems to have been one of the nicer gentlemen as he left the group after disapproving of their methods, the late Isaac Asimov, who was skeptic from the word "go" anyway,it seems, the late Martin Gardner who could be quite an unpleasant old fellow, and so on.It seems they were "bent out of shape"over the rise of interest in the early 1970's in paranormal matters. They still exist, although their name may have been changed somewhat in more recent years (they date back to around 1976), but I feel no pressing need to give them extra publicity save to dissuade people from bothering with them, especially since they have stomped all over the names, and reputations of as many "pro-Fortean" or pro-UFO people as they can over the decades.

In fact, they are one major reason WHY Fortean groups need to exist, to counter-balance what is almost always isleading data, if not outright falsehoods, from such groups, and hope this forum here keeps up the good work.

Stay well, people.
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Yep got to log off but will check in later. cheers.
 
Quite a few, I suspect also. Robert A. Heinlein was a member of INFO, for instance, as was Sam Moskowitz; both men may well have been members of the original Fortean Society as well. Damon Knight wrote a fine biography of Fort, Charles Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained (1970).
I could name others, of course, but this should suffice to give everyone the general idea above is quite correct.
 
Ghost of Fort said:
I would generally agree there, Naughty... It's been odd, but one will rarely find a more skeptical crew (outside maybe, of a CISCOP conference) than at a gathering of professional science fiction types, odd as that seems in some ways. There was a an old fellow, Robert A.W. "Doc"* Lowndes, who once told me that, to paraphrase him, he strongly suspected such things as UFOs did exist, but wasn't especially interested in them, despite spending most of his life involved with science fiction as an editor, or writer, and even editing a magazine fora time, which was devoted to "the unknown." A curious attitude, but i didn't push him on it, as he was good enough to sign some vintage items for me. I suppose today, if Lowndes is barely remembered at all, it's because of his buying the first two fully-professional published short stories from Stephen King in the 1960's.

Some old-timers like Eric Frank Russell, and Wilson "Bob" Tucker were solid Forteans in the old days, and made no secret of it. I had hopes the "youngsters" would have a more open-minded attitude, but they seem to have gone the opposite way. Maybe they feel threatened that ufology, crptozoology, and so forth in intruding on "their"territory too much?Just a thought.

*Doc was simply a nickname of sorts as best i was able to gather. I don't think he held any actual degrees.
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I lectured for well over ten years at Exeter University's Science Fiction group's yearly convention Microcon (now sadly defunct). And i was welcomed every year and asked back each year to talk about my latest cryptozoological expedition. It was one of my favourite weekends of the year and sorely missed.
 
Undoubtedly you haven't yet encountered the right crew of science fictionists (although ti would seem the PROFESSIONALS are more skeptical than the fans, as a whole). I simply brouht this up in order to, hopefully, spare my cpmpatroits here some nastiness, lordmongrove, and I hope my intentions are not misconstrued. Take Ben Bova, for example; he published some items now and then in Analog magazine which were speculative in nature int he Fortean sense, but he ran a good deal of material which was decidedly skeptical in nature. There is an issue from around 1975, I woudl have to look it up to be more precise, where Isaac Asimov savaged ufology. Stantom Friedman attempted to reply, and was given very, very short shrift in his effort to set the record straight.

The late P(eter) Schuyler Miller, who reviewed books for Astounding SF/Analog for decades, til his death in 1974, invariably "damned" any book a publisher sent him for review which did not adopt the skeptical, or "correct'point-of-view, no matter what the subject at-hand was.

I grant the possibility that the English sf community, overall, may be slightly more open than their U.S. counterparts, but I expect this is fairly-rare a
happening. There is a certain science fictional database which will brand every Fortean as someone badly in need of professional mental help. This site began as a large reference book in 1979, and made no secret of its skepticism from the word "go." This site is so well-known I do not expect I need to name any names, and would hesitate to do so in any event for practical reasons, but it is no doubt known to quite a few here.

In short, I simply don't wish to see any "fellow" forteans hurt in their dealings with science fiction, which has been my own unhappy experience at times. I know no rule is absolute, but hope I have made my intentions clear to everyone.

What puzzles me is the "why" behind it all. In the U.S., the late Ray Palmer, and hsi promotion of the unfortunate Richard Shaver and his "mystery" as totally true events was used as an excuse for generations, literally, but such can hardly be valid today. I'm unsure if there is an English version of Palmer, or Shaver, but those interested can look into it further. The book The Man from Mars,etc. Fred Nadis, softcover 2014, is well worth a look, even if somewhat one-sided.

Stay well.
 
lordmongrove said:
I lectured for well over ten years at Exeter University's Science Fiction group's yearly convention Microcon
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We have a Science Fiction group? Damn. How have I been there for nearly 19 years and not known this? Oh wait, that would probably involve hobnobbing with the grubby undergrads...
 
bugmum said:
We have a Science Fiction group? Damn. How have I been there for nearly 19 years and not known this? Oh wait, that would probably involve hobnobbing with the grubby undergrads...
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The society died several years ago due to new inters not being bothered with it. The very last one was organized by one single autistic lad with zero help form other students.
 
Science fiction isn't normally a platform for Fortean subjects; off-the-wall phenomena are more likely to come up in works of fantasy and horror. Of course there is a certain amount of cross-over between these genres, but the best modern SF takes a hardcore point of view about science and technology. And there are good reasons for this.
 
I suspect the real promoters of Forteana are proper STEM folk.

The rest dont have much imagination.
 
Speaking only for myself of course, and only ever for myself, because who else could I ever speak for other than myself, I'd like to hear more about the ghost of Freddie Starr's hamster and whether it will ever move to Cromer and there find happiness with a respecter of the children of Danu—I mean, I've just been alone for so long now, I don't know how much more of this I can take . . .
 
eburacum said:
Science fiction isn't normally a platform for Fortean subjects; off-the-wall phenomena are more likely to come up in works of fantasy and horror. Of course there is a certain amount of cross-over between these genres, but the best modern SF takes a hardcore point of view about science and technology. And there are good reasons for this.
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Iain M Banks has been considered a Hard SF writer which I never really saw as his books are about sociology, philosophy, etc. Dick, Le Guin, etc are still streets ahead of a lot of Hard SF.

I think SF can have the best of both worlds. Books which are too 'Hard" leave me bored. It takes a very gifted writer to bring Hard SF alive. The biggest in recent years was the Martian and it was ok, but not earth-shattering and pretty silly at the end.
 
Two of my favourite hard SF works have very significant Fortean elements; Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke, has a race of aliens who cannot access psychic powers, unlike humanity; and The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter Hamilton, which depicts an extra-dimensional afterlife full of famous (and infamous) ghosts.

There are plenty of Fortean subjects that can, and should inspire SF writers, so long as they don't swallow them whole.
 
I could use any opinion on this story.

My older daughter gave her youngest son her old Toyota RAV 4 to fix up, but he had a backup camera professionally installed.

This old car has no Bluetooth.

Her entire family were using it for a short trip to the grocery, but while driving to the grocery images of people walking appeared on the backup camera screen for about 15 seconds.

This has not happened again.

She asked me my opinion, and I have no clue.

Any opinions ?
 
A backup camera'?
Is that what we call a Dash Cam? For recording continuously while you're driving in case some moron pulls out in front of you etc?
If so then it will have an internal memory to record onto. I expect it just malfunctioned and replayed a short segment of previously recorded footage, or there is a separate control that got knocked triggering the replay.
Have you tried looking back through the stored recordings to see if you can find any similar footage?
They are often stored in short 'chunks' between periods of inactivity (there is no point recording hours of nothing if the car is in a car park or garage)
 
A backup camera is a simple, unsophisticated screen that only turns on when a car is put into reverse to see if people or cars are near the back bumper.

I could be wrong, but I believe it is wired to the white backup lights when they come on in reverse.
 
Oh I see.
Does it have the capacity to go into some sort of 'demo' mode then?
Maybe that's what happened.
 
charliebrown said:
I could use any opinion on this story.

My older daughter gave her youngest son her old Toyota RAV 4 to fix up, but he had a backup camera professionally installed.

This old car has no Bluetooth.

Her entire family were using it for a short trip to the grocery, but while driving to the grocery images of people walking appeared on the backup camera screen for about 15 seconds.

This has not happened again.

She asked me my opinion, and I have no clue.

Any opinions ?
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I'm not sure of the technology myself, but...

Was this backup camera installed (more or less) according to manufacturer's specifications? Many modern cars have something of a "black box" that is constantly recording speed, direction, etc. and IIRC also includes any video feeds. It helps in investigations after a collision. Perhaps some glitch allowed them to see some of this buffered video.

Also: was this while the car was backing up, or did the screen just come on randomly?
 
I am not sure, maybe the car is 16 years old.

The screen came on for a few seconds while it was driving normally down the street forward.
 
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