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Necrolog (Deaths Of Folks Who Had Impact On The Fortean World)

I remember reading some of those Dion Fortune romances. Enjoyably strange. Also reminded me of Robert Graves' The White Goddess. Must have been a spirit abroad. Durdin-Robertson was a link to another, very different, time indeed. She is a loss. I must read some Yeats.
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
I remember reading some of those Dion Fortune romances. Enjoyably strange. Also reminded me of Robert Graves' The White Goddess. Must have been a spirit abroad. Durdin-Robertson was a link to another, very different, time indeed. She is a loss. I must read some Yeats.

Yeah, those were the days! Even Crowley seems almost cuddly in retrospect (almost).. "Magick in Theory and Practice" evokes quaint nostalgia, not Choronzon.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfQ-FiiQDMo&feature=kp

We were wise, oh so wise,
Not given to lies or deceit.
We juggled secrets at our fingertips,
Wore diamonds at our feet.
We showed you ways to play old airs.
We said we could be friends.
But, when our backs were turned, you got us in the end.

We're the mystery of the lake when the water's still.
We're the laughter in the twilight
You can hear behind the hill.
We'll stay around to watch you laugh,
Destroy yourselves for fun.
But, you won't see us, we've grown sideways to the sun.
 
Shirley Temple

I just read somewhere that Shirley Temple has died. I really had to do a triple take because I thought she died young. Even when I looked at her history I can honestly say I had no idea that she even did things when she was an adult, I have never seen her face as an adult, but the pictures are there and they are news to me, almost if someone would show you a real photo of Marilyn Monroe as an old woman.
Weird.
 
She retired very young and then had a fairly understated career as a politician.
 
Mythopoeika said:
She retired very young and then had a fairly understated career as a politician.

It's funny how people become so famous that eventually most don't know whether they are dead or alive! "Schrodinger's Celebrities" :lol:
 
feinman said:
Mythopoeika said:
She retired very young and then had a fairly understated career as a politician.

It's funny how people become so famous that eventually most don't know whether they are dead or alive! "Schrodinger's Celebrities" :lol:

:lol: :lol: Very good!
 
H.R. Geiger has died. He was injured in a fall, that's all I know so far.
 
A great shame, he was a brilliant man, so much more to him than the Alien designs. I remember reading a book of his paintings years ago and thinking he was some sort of mad genius. RIP.
 
I first came across his work on the Brain Salad Surgery album cover as a young teenager, brilliant work. :D
 
He also did the artwork for Debbie Harry's solo album Koo Koo and was blamed when it underperformed on the sales front. Tch, Giger was wasted on some people!
 
I posted another report in oldest people but seeing as Alexander Imich lived to be 111 and was a parapsychologist, I reckon he deserves a place in this Pantheon.

World’s oldest man dies in New York aged 111
Alexander Imich, a retired chemist and parapsychologist, was born in Poland in 1903

111-year-old Alexander Imich holds a Guinness World Records certificate recognizing him as the world’s oldest living man during an interview at his home on New York City’s upper west side last month. Photograph: Reuters

The world’s oldest man, a retired chemist and parapsychologist, has died in New York City aged 111
.
Alexander Imich, who was born in Poland in 1903 and survived a Soviet Gulag labor camp, died yesterday, according to Marcy Levitt, executive director of the nursing home in which he lived.

Mr Imich emigrated to the United States in the 1950s and was a scholar of the occult. He edited an anthology called Incredible Tales of the Paranormal in 1995 at the age of 92.

He turned 111 in February and, in April, assumed the rank of oldest living man, according to the Gerontology Research Group of Torrance, California.

That ranking now goes to Sakari Momoi of Japan, born on February 5th, 1903, one day after Mr Imich, according to the research group.

Guinness World Records awarded Mr Imich the title of oldest living man on May 8th.

Dozens of women are older than Mr Imich, according to Gerontology Research Group, and the oldest of them, Misao Okawa of Japan, is 116.
Mr Imich had credited good genes for his long life.

“But the life you live is equally or more important for longevity,” he told Reuters last month in an interview in his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us ... -1.1826065
 
Peter Underwood obituary

Expert on the paranormal who wrote more than 50 books on ghost-hunting and the supernatural

Peter Underwood, who has died aged 91, was the author of more than 50 books on ghost-hunting and the paranormal, including the Dictionary of the Supernatural (1978), The Ghosts of Borley (1973, with Paul Tabori) and Where the Ghosts Walk (2013), and was one of Britain’s greatest authorities on hauntings. He brought honesty and challenge to any discussion of the subject, once saying: “I have long thought that 98% of reported hauntings have a natural and mundane explanation, but it is the other 2% that have interested me.”

For two decades he was president of the Ghost Club, and was later life president of the Ghost Club Society and president of the Unitarian Society for Psychical Studies. There was the whiff of the detective about Underwood and it was not surprising that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s daughter Jean usually introduced him as “the Sherlock Holmes of psychical research”.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/17/peter-underwood?CMP=share_btn_fb
 
Totally gutted - Loved Peter Underwood and his books. I spent many hours scaring myself silly as a child ghost hunting.
I was reading one of his stories once, set in Falmouth. The family seemed familiar, so I checked with the daughter (the father's gone now), and it was her at the heart of the story! I interviewed her for ASSAP, and even got to see round the house concerned, and the scene of the haunting! (I may have written about this elsewhere on the MB.)
 
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I think Alan Murdie's obituary in the FT was a little diplomatic. Here's a link to some of the backstory that Alan and other members of the Ghost Club told me when I joined about 20 years ago:

https://plus.google.com/107453540125404799460/posts/UkjjzAEtnET

De mortuis nihil nisi bonus.
There's scarcely a scholarly society in the land that hasn't suffered schisms and bad blood due to personal animosities. I have had no personal interactions with Peter Underwood, but he undeniably did a huge amount to bring Fortean subjects great public prominence and his books inspired many of us - particularly while young.

Edit: Good to see you back, Dr Lee.
 
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Thanks Yithian, I noticed something awry a month ago when I couldn't log in and got no reply from technical services. Ive just found out about the new forum in the current FT but when I tried to log in it didn't recognise my email address but when I re-registered it said my email was in use! So Ive had to start again with a new email and a clean slate :(
 
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The Anomalist
It is with great sadness that we must inform our readers that Melanie Billings, who has served as our weekday news editor since March of 2012, died on Sunday night [February 21, 2016] in South Carolina, at the age of 42, of complications from the flu. The Fortean community has lost a strong, distinctive voice: she was witty, knowledgeable, and razor sharp. Just as she had no patience for weak evidence and poor reporting, she was quick to call BS on dismissive explanations for apparently genuine phenomena. In her acceptance of the news editor role four years ago, she wrote: “I can’t be the next Charles Fort, but Charlotte Fort suits me fine.” Although Chris Savia and I never met her in person, she was a a presence in our lives. We…wish our Mel, known to our readers as “MB” in post tags, a fond farewell. Today, Mel, in your memory, the news is all yours. (PH)

http://www.cryptozoonews.com/billings-obit/
 
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The Man Who First Saw "The Men in Black" Dies





The man who brought the ufo silencers, the men in dark clothing, into modern consciousness, Albert K. Bender, 94, died on March 29, 2016, in California.

"Men in Black" (MIBs) are what appear to be male humans dressed in black suits who claim to be government or paramilitary (or even alien) agents and who harass or threaten UFO witnesses to keep them quiet about what they have seen.

From portrayals in The X-Files, appearances in movies, references in popular culture and points of debate in UFO conspiracy theories, the MIBs have become part of our 21st Century culture.
In April 1952, Albert K. Bender, a factory worker from Bridgeport, Connecticut, announced the formation of International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB), whose purpose was to "gather flying saucer information" and to "get all Flying Saucer minded people acquainted with each other...."

At the time he established the IFSB, Bender was a 31-year-old bachelor who lived with his stepfather. He was obsessed not only with UFOs but with occultism, horror movies, and science fiction. Bender transformed his part of the house into what he called a "chamber of horrors." Jerome Clark, The Emergence of a Phenomenon: UFOs from the Beginning through 1959 ~ The UFO Encyclopedia - Volume 2 (Chicago: Omnigraphics, 1992: 73)
Ufology historian Jerry Clark told of how Bender took "out-of-body trips into deep space," but also worked hard on the IFSB's publication, Space Review. Bender built up the 1952-1953 membership to 1500 people from around the world. "One of the most active was a West Virginia man named Gray Barker."

In early September 1953, Bender, who is acknowledged as one of the first pioneers of UFO research, was visited at his home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, by three men dressed in black who warned him in threatening terms to cease his investigations or else. ...

http://copycateffect.blogspot.ie/2016/04/Bender-obit.html
 
World’s Leading Sasquatch Researcher and Chronicler John Green Has Died (1927 – 2016)
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John Williston Green

by Loren Coleman

One of the greatest chroniclers of the Sasquatch phenomenon has passed on to another part of his journey.

John Willison Green, who was born on February 12, 1927, died May 28, 2016 in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada, at the age 89. His family withheld the news from the general public until early June 2016.

The tireless Canadian journalist was one of the world’s foremost researchers of Sasquatch in the world.

John Green has enriched the study of unknown hair-covered primates in North America for decades. He once told a reporter he had a database of more than 3000 sighting and track reports, before the advent of the Internet. He holds the title as the first primary chronicler in Sasquatch studies. His work in the field had lead some to affectionately refer to John Green as “Mr. Sasquatch.”

John Green was born and raised in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia. His father was Howard Green, a long-time Member of the Canadian Parliament and a Cabinet Minister. His mother, Marion Green (nee Mounce), was the daughter of a Vancouver Island lumber baron and the first woman to graduate from the University of British Columbia (UBC) school of Agricultural Sciences.

John Green’s writing career began in 1944. When Green was a student at the UBC, he wrote for the student newspaper, The Ubyssey and the Totem yearbooks. He also covered campus news for theVancouver Province. After graduating at 19 (UBC, BA, 1946, major English), he immediately went to Columbia University, and soon obtained a Masters in Journalism. ...

http://www.cryptozoonews.com/johngreen-obit/
 
Cryptozoology Investigator & Photographer Barry Blount Dies
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A skilled photojournalist transferred his affection from the Loch Ness Monsters to Sasquatch studies, some years ago, and enhanced the Bigfoot research field. Barry Blount, I’m heartbroken to share, has died on the 4th of July 2016.

Barry Blount’s wife sends along the following:

It is with great sadness that I have to announce that my husband, Barry Blount, passed away today Monday, July 4th, at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital in Abbotsford, British Columbia. There will be a very private cremation, followed by a small memorial service at the Cooks Presbyterian Church in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada on Friday, July 15, 2016 at 2:00 pm.

If anyone is interested, in lieu of flowers, I am requesting a donation be made to the Vasculitis Foundation of Canadaon his behalf. Barry died from this disease, which is an auto immune disease also known as “Wegener’s disease.” Since it is not a well known, it was difficult for doctors to treat it properly.

Regards,

Annette Blount

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Here is Barry on the left, the official photographer of John Green’s Tribute at the Sasquatch Summit in Harrison Hot Springs in 2011, with Bob Gimlin and Tom Yamarone.

Many people in the field from around North America, including myself, got to know Barry in person for the first time, after corresponding with him for years, at the 2011 event in British Columbia. He was generous in sharing his photos and his positive outlook on life.



BarryB2014.jpg


This is Barry Blount during the May 2014 trek of a British Columbian Sasquatch investigations team, while in the Golden Ears Provincial Park exposing a hoaxed photo.
Below, from left: Barry Blount, John Kirk III, Heath Blount, Thomas Steenburg and Bill Miller.
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For some years, Sasquatch Country Adventures with Barry Blount, Thomas Steenburg, and Bill Miller, conducted tours in British Columbia, “while keeping an eagle eye open for more sightings,” noted The Agassiz-Harrison Observer of June 11, 2012.

The biography from Sasquatch Country Adventures gives some insights into Blount’s background in the field:

Barry Blount has had an interest in the area of Cryptozoology since the 1960s when he
spent five years doing investigation and photography assignments in Loch Ness. Barry’s
interest then branched over into the topic of the Sasquatch. Upon coming to Canada, he
became part of an investigative research team. In 2007, Barry became acquainted with
Bill Miller and Thomas Steenburg, among several other people in the Sasquatch
community. It was soon afterwards that Barry found himself directly involved in Sasquatch
research by participating alongside Bill and Thomas in their investigations of sighting
reports and field studies throughout the lower Fraser Valley. Barry’s honed photography
skills with a camera became a welcomed asset for the research team.

It was in the fall season of September of 2008 that Barry actually got to witness and study
first hand some impressive Sasquatch track evidence in Ruby Creek after a hunter
reported having an encounter with the creature only days before. It was Barry’s meeting
the hunter that led to him being invited to be on-site during the taping of the Ruby Creek
encounter by the Dangerous Films production of Bigfoot: The Definitive Guide.

Barry has gone on since that time to do assignments for “Bigfoot Times” out of Norwalk,
California and for the “British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club.” Barry’s outdoor
photography skills are the result of his many years of experience. Selections of his high
quality works have been included in the “2010 Agassiz Calendar”, as well as in a self-
published “2010 Sasquatch Calendar.” Barry’s most recent work was with Chris Murphy
when he co-authored a booklet titled “Yale and the strange story of Jacko the Ape boy.”

+++

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The book on Jacko was published in 2011 by Hancock Press. The book features Christopher L. Murphy’s and Barry G. Blount’s trip to the Yale region of British Columbia, where the capture reportedly took place, as well as present and past photographs of various locations. Blount’s photographic skills were an asset and positive resource to the Sasquatch field. His humor and companionship will be missed.

Blount.jpg


[More details on his life will be shared as they come my way.]

by Loren Coleman on July 5, 2016

http://www.cryptozoonews.com/blount-obit/
 
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