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Spring-Heeled Jack, East-End Disappearances & Other Mysterious Characters

If you can get hold of a copy the book Fortean Studies Vol 3 has a first section on Sping Heeled Jack. It's very detailed and informative, including maps, folklore etc (the rest of the book aint bad either! ;) ).

The ISBN number is 1-870870-82-4 but I'm sure someone at FT Towers can point you in the right direction if you want to get hold of a copy.
 
I've not looked but there was a Spring Heeled Jack sighting this January in London.

It was posted in "It Happened To Me" forum!

Forgot he had "red eyes" as well.

mooks out
 
Springheel Jack - possible?

Okay, so the legend of Springheel Jack is established and enthralling but, given a modern eye, can the case be investigated further?

I mean, what with the modern 'sport' of Freejumping (risking life and limb running across rooves and walls just "because they're there" and the amazing but real talents of Jackie Chan who, having trained in the Chinese State Circus, the possibility of a non-paranormal solution to Jacks amazing abilities.

Put to one side the accounts of SHJacks fire breathing, fiery eyes, and unreasonable physical stunts. Look at what an athlete, doing odd things, appears to do. When a witness says "He jumped twenty feet into the air", we imagine a standing spring. But not the stunt, often used by Jackie Chan, when he climbs a corner of a wall, using his momentum and traction, to rapidly gain up to thirty feet!

What if the witnesses saw a free jumper. Or a Victorian Jackie Chan. They might overreact or exaggerate when interviewed. But physically could it be done?

Just a thought.
 
They have fire-breathers in the circus don't they. Perhaps it was some deranged travelling circus acrobat/fire-breather. Don't know about the green eyes though
 
Possibly

But we dont know what Spring Heeled Jack was `supposed` to be capable of.
 
Since the sightings run from the 1830s to the early 1900s, there was obviously more than one Spring Heeled Jack. It's the sort of thing that sounds like it might have started out as a hoax, certainly someone athletic could have done some of the stunts then hysteria and lurid newspaper reports would have spread the legend and elaborated on the details.

*You've got the basis for a Victorian crime novel here, with a deranged acrobat...*
 
"Okay, so the legend of Springheel Jack is established and enthralling" - well the legend is established, but I believe the early reports were debunked some years ago as being basically a media hoax, and the story took off from there.

As to the main issue, what matters is the showmanship: like any good piece of conjuring, you have to persuade people that they have seen something 'impossible'. On a martial arts theme, the Ninja were reputed to be able to fly, turn invisible and walk on water, all on the basis of perfectly natural but almost-superhuman skill - plus a bit of mythmaking.

The fleeting and unexpected appearance is key - hang around too long and people see the wires...
 
Wembley said:
but I believe the early reports were debunked some years ago as being basically a media hoax, and the story took off from there.

Really? You'll have to provide some support for that. :)
 
Whilst doing some research on Springald I've discovered that some of the reports on his activities published in 1838 were 'destroyed in WWII'. A likely story. This is a shame as they appear to indicate that the phantom came in many forms an not just the standard penny dreadful version.

I've read some of the news reports from the Times about the sightings, but haven't found any other newspapers that report him (or her), anyone
know of any?
 
'Fortean Studies' Volume 3 contains a long series newspaper references to SHJ, as well as those in various books.
 
Did Spring Heeled Jack Move to India?

At a slight tangent, reports of the New Dehli Monkey Man (described variously as a feline, a "robot assassin" and a "helmeted thing") may interest fans of Springheeled Jack:

India's Monkey Man and the politics of Mass Hysteria
Mod Edit: Original link is dead. Archived link found via The Wayback Machine here: https://web.archive.org/web/2006061...s.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_5_25/ai_77757757

Monkey Man Madness

Return of Spring-Heeled Jack
Mod Edit: Original link is dead. Archived link found via The Wayback Machine here: https://web.archive.org/web/20050215005118/http://www.csicop.org/si/2002-07/strange.html
 
Last edited by a moderator:
JerryB said:
'Fortean Studies' Volume 3 contains a long series newspaper references to SHJ, as well as those in various books.

Alas this seems impossible to get hold of, the BL don't stock it and the only second hand copy I've seen is very expensive. I assume its out of print.
 
In fact Fortean Studies 3 is in the BL, if you know exactly where to look... that catalogue of theirs isn't always very user friendly.

The call number is ZC.9.a.4396
 
Steve Ash said:
JerryB said:
'Fortean Studies' Volume 3 contains a long series newspaper references to SHJ, as well as those in various books.

Alas this seems impossible to get hold of, the BL don't stock it and the only second hand copy I've seen is very expensive. I assume its out of print.

Of course if the author happened to be around and gave us permission to make a copy available we could find someone to scan it in and I could bang it up online somewhere.

;)
 
Hmm - I think copies of FS wouldn't be too 'scanable'. Not without breaking the book's spine anyway!
 
I was wondering what other people’s thoughts were regarding Spring Heeled Jack.

For those who haven’t a clue what I’m on about, he was a character that was said to be roaming around Victorian England. A well-muscled man, with devilish features (he had red glowing eyes and wore gloves that seemed to have metallic fingertips). He terrorised mainly London and the midland between 1817 and 1904. The spring-heeled portion of his name came from the uncanny ability to make incredible bounds. In fact the first report of him says he appeared in front of a London businessman, after he had (jack not the business man) jumped with ease over the “high gates of the cemetery”. This ability may have been mechanical of course because there was evidence of jack wearing “some kind of compressed spring” in his shoes (this came from footprints found at one of his attacks).

There is a good article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Heeled_Jack

About jack and it’s worth taking a look at. So any ideas of what Jack was?
 
He was nothing more than some mischevous Marqis can't remember his name done up for a prank
 
I'm surprised this has never been the subject of a movie, it seems just the sort of story Tim Burton was born for.
 
This wikidpedia page gives a full account of Spring heeled Jack, with pictures and a plethora of footnotes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Heeled_Jack

It mentions the Penny dreadfull's of the day, telling wild sories of him and other phenomena of back then. does anyone know where we can get any copies/facsimilies of said Penny dreadfulls, online ?
EDIT:
I managed to find one penny dreadfull story depicting SHJ: http://www.geocities.com/justingilb/texts/SpringHeeledJack.html

and some simillar ones here: http://www.geocities.com/justingilb/texts/

If anyone can find an actual scan/facsimilie of any similar Penny Dreadfull's please post here. thanks :)
 
Re: East End Disappearances 1881-1890

Ali_Strachan said:
"I am trying to find information regarding unusual disappearances which began in the EAST End of London in 1881 and continued unsolved until January 1890. Apparently men, women and children from all classes disappeared into a 'Fortean void', never to be seen or heard from again - except in one or two instances when the bodies of victims turned up leaving no clue as to the cause of death." (emphasis added by me, OTR)

The above quotation is taken from the very first post in this thread back in 2001. Although I've not yet been through every post in this comparatively long thread (I'm working on it), I can't see where this original question has ever been answered, other than in the negative ("we don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about").

So maybe it takes a frontiersman over here in these dark and dismal colonies to ask this question:

Mightn't the original poster have been making a mislocated and slightly muddled reference to "the Disappearances at WEST Ham" in the 1880s?
 
Re: East End Disappearances 1881-1890

OldTimeRadio said:
So maybe it takes a frontiersman over here in these dark and dismal colonies to ask this question:

Mightn't the original poster have been making a mislocated and slightly muddled reference to "the Disappearances at WEST Ham" in the 1880s?

I haven't seen Alf Garnett on TV for a while, maybe the disappearances are still going on?
 
Re: East End Disappearances 1881-1890

OldTimeRadio said:
So maybe it takes a frontiersman over here in these dark and dismal colonies to ask this question:

Mightn't the original poster have been making a mislocated and slightly muddled reference to "the Disappearances at WEST Ham" in the 1880s?

Perhaps so - I posted a reply with information about them on this thread back on page 6...
 
Okay-hope this isn't too off topic.
First page this thread, someone said something about "Slemen" appearing on computer screens or printouts?
Never heard of it.. but it sounds very cool. Any online info?
 
Have any of you guys read the story Gotham By Gaslight? It's a Batman story set in the 1880s, in which he is fighting Jack the Ripper. Would be interesting if they did another like that, but have him square off against Spring Heeled Jack. He could seem a bit of a Joker like villain.
 
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