TV, Films, Books That Turned The Young You Onto The Fortean

[Naughty_Felid]

That looks familiar...

I'm sure it kept alive many second-hand book shops/charity shops through the 80's even if it is a load of bollocks.

 

[Lord Lucan]

Another book that was got me thinking was the novel, ''The Devil Rides Out'' by Dennis Wheatley. I was given a copy by someone in my teens and it didn't look too interesting at first. Once I started, I couldn't stop. Dark, evocative and disturbing. Perfect for a curious, young mind.

 

[GNC]

I got into the late night Hammer Horrors, Stephen King IT, pet Demerara ect,

Pet Demerara is King's sweetest story. Either that or the autocorrect has struck again!

 

[Kryptonite]

For me it was being given an older cousin's copy of the Usborne Mysteries of the Unknown book, which scared the living jobbies out of me.

Moved on from that to Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World, von Daniken, W. Raymond Drake and everything in the two libraries within walking distance of where I grew up. (Everything Fortean- related, that is. Not literally everything in the library).

 

[Trevp666]

I'm not sure but I think it was Berlitz book about the Bermuda Triangle that piqued my attention when I was nipper. I read a lot of books and was particularly interested in dinosaurs and space travel, so why Berlitz appealed to me I don't know.
And I also distinctly remember seeing (somewhere) that picture of the 'thunderbird'. As my memory goes, it was a picture of a line of about a dozen blokes in hats (black and white pic) and they were either holding in their arms, or laid out on the floor in front of them, a bird that looked very like Pteranodon type thing.

 

[Bad Bungle]

And I also distinctly remember seeing (somewhere) that picture of the 'thunderbird'. As my memory goes, it was a picture of a line of about a dozen blokes in hats (black and white pic) and they were either holding in their arms, or laid out on the floor in front of them, a bird that looked very like Pteranodon type thing.

This one ?

 

[Trevp666]

No not that one. The one I remember seeing was a 2 page spread across the middle of a book, and the 'bird' looked a lot less 'theatrical', more like an actual animal that was a bit bedraggled and mange-ridden if you will.
Similar though.

 

[escargot]

No not that one. The one I remember seeing was a 2 page spread across the middle of a book, and the 'bird' looked a lot less 'theatrical', more like an actual animal that was a bit bedraggled and mange-ridden if you will.
Similar though.

There are several similar photos. The more bedraggled and mange-ridden version rings a bell with me!

 

[Bigphoot2]

No not that one. The one I remember seeing was a 2 page spread across the middle of a book, and actual animal that was a bit bedraggled and mange-ridden if you will.

I think I may have gone out with her.

 

[Trevp666]

Not that sort of bird, dunderklutz!

 

[Ringo]

Reader's Digest Myths and Legends, The Unexplained and Man, Myth and Magic.

The last two were part-works and so I saw only occasional issues. Am now the proud owner of complete sets.

I just rediscovered a set of compendium books I have which are Swedish translations of The Unexplained. 19 (!) hardback books which are a collection of articles from The Unexplained, first published in Open Files by Orbis Publishing.

My wife's Grandmother was into all things Fortean and when she died, I inherited the set. I love them but they have been in storage for a while. But now they're all back on the book shelves. Waiting to be re-explored.

 

[Frideswide]

Waiting to be re-explored.

*shivers in delight* I envy you

 

[Ringo]

I can't wait to get stuck into them. They're a little dated now but still loads of fun.

 

[Frideswide]

I re-read mine every few years. Always enhoyable!

 

[dejanmikic]

No not that one. The one I remember seeing was a 2 page spread across the middle of a book, and the 'bird' looked a lot less 'theatrical', more like an actual animal that was a bit bedraggled and mange-ridden if you will.
Similar though.

I think that is one of the Mandela effects - apparently, many remember such photo but it is nowhere to be found now. I think it is called "Lost Thunderbird" photo or similar.

 

[DougalLongfoot]

Yahoo Creek by Toby Riddle

Nice to see a Fortean book be nominated for the Children's Non Fiction Book of the Year in Australia.

"Luminous images accompanied by newspaper extracts dating back to the early 1800s and words by Ngiyampaa Elder Peter Williams explore the ongoing mystery of yahoo encounters.

SHORTLISTED: CBCA 2020 Eva Pownall Award for Information Books


'He was surprised to observe a hairy human form, about seven feet in height, walking in the bush.' Queanbeyan Age, 24 August 1886

Throughout the first century or so of Australian settlement by Europeans, the pages of colonial newspapers were haunted by reports of a bewildering phenomenon: the mysterious yahoo or hairy man ...

But what was it?

Yahoo Creek breathes life into this little-known piece of Australian history - which, by many accounts, is a history still in the making.

'These stories are not my stories or your stories, they're our stories.' Peter Williams, Ngiyampaa Elder"

Children's Book Council of Australia

"This book explores the mysterious yahoo through newspaper accounts of white settlers, farmers and their children’s encounters with the 'yahoo', 'hairy man' or 'yowie' from 1847-1944 along the Great Dividing Range. Through moonlit blue-black stencils, sponge effects and silhouette cut-outs Riddle depicts the yahoo as friendless, bewildered and frightened, like a wild animal. But children seem to pose no threat to him. The veracity of the reports is always questionable, but people’s fascination with the concept of the solitary, wild, hair-covered hominid in the bush endures, even in the names of places, such as Yahoo Creek. Peter Williams, Ngiyampaa Elder, acknowledging the role of the yahoo, the ‘berai’ or ‘yuriwinna,’ in Aboriginal culture, states that ‘to my people he is spiritual figure, but he has a physical body and strong smell like a wet dog’. Riddle’s book offers another way of looking at history, landscape and culture, inviting further reading for young readers to follow the leads of his sources and collation of responses to an alien character in the enigmatic Australian bush."

 

[DougalLongfoot]

So the book that first introduced me to Forteana was one my older brother got through the Scholastic Book Club in the late 70's. Found it recently in a clean up. Interesting reading from an adult perspective. Still love the cover illustration:

 

[Naughty_Felid]

So the book that first introduced me to Forteana was one my older brother got through the Scholastic Book Club in the late 70's. Found it recently in a clean up. Interesting reading from an adult perspective. Still love the cover illustration:

View attachment 29046View attachment 29047

An article about the author https://owaa.org/owaa-legends/george-laycock/

 

[brownmane]

I can't really say when I got interested in paranormal, forteana etc.

From an early age (7 at least, but maybe earlier) I watched Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock presents and read everything I could get my hands on.

I always seemed to have different thoughts such as "if I put my hand through the window, will it really cut me, or can I will it to just go through?" - no I never acted on it - but I questioned reality. I really wanted to be able to fly on my own willpower.

I was interested in dreams and wondered things like do I dream in colour. I then had a dream in which I saw a rainbow, so yes I knew that I dream in colour. I had seen my youngest brother appear and then fade away one early morning (I had to be about 8) amongst several things I experienced as a kid. I had deja vu quite often, so esp interested me.

Again all of these experiences, thoughts related to the question of what is reality (as I'm realizing now).

 

[AnonyJoolz]

....Around that same time, I got into huge trouble at school for writing a story called "Nuclear Demon Whore". My teacher was apparently aghast, and she was good enough to rat me out to the psychotic nazi principal... such a charming experience. Me, abruptly dragged out of class by my scrawny neck, getting shrieked at in the office...

"Where did you hear this word?"

-- "N-nuclear?!?"

"NO! Not that word! THIS word! THIS WORD!!"

-- "The Book of Revelations!"

(I had no idea what "whore" meant, but it sounded biblical, I guess maybe I thought it added some flair, or gravitas or something.)

I recall a similar, although less traumatic experience - apologies to Dreeness who is no longer active on the board, and apologies for the OT post.

I was about 10 years old, maybe 11, and I somehow connected the slur "poof" to being a man who dressed in a foppish, dandified or flamboyant way. I think I already knew that some men like other men as boyfriends but had not an inkling that that particular 'p' word referred to it.

Hence, watching a magician performing his stuff on TV, and he was a slim young man in full white tie evening garb I quoth:

"He looks like a poof!"

Cue much consternation, and questions from my Dad and Stepmother...

 

[JamesWhitehead]

"He looks like a poof!"

Inadvertent rudenesses used to earn me physical reprisals from my mother. I seemed to have a nose for things which would evoke her wrath.

"Mrs. Poof" - a fantasy character of our childhood games, I got away with.

I was a lot less fortunate with a certain "Mr. Fuckadilly" - derived, quite innocently, I think, from a valuable square on the Monopoly board.

I can also recall the penalty for reporting that a neighbour was cooking "shit of beef!" It seemed appetising, at the time! Happy days!

 

[escargot]

Inadvertent rudenesses used to earn me physical reprisals from my mother. I seemed to have a nose for things which would evoke her wrath.

"Mrs. Poof" - a fantasy character of our childhood games, I got away with.

I was a lot less fortunate with a certain "Mr. Fuckadilly" - derived, quite innocently, I think, from a valuable square on the Monopoly board.

I can also recall the penalty for reporting that a neighbour was cooking "shit of beef!" It seemed appetising, at the time! Happy days!

Ah now, I bet you know this one. There was a novelty song in the late '60s performed by a man in a chicken suit. Like Big Bird.

He'd sing bock bocka bock bocka bock bock bock bocka bock to the music in perfect time. There was a Kenny Ball-type jazz band backing.

My little brother and I found this hilarious and would re-enact it, as kids do, only to be punished by our mother. She said it 'sounds like swearing'. Perhaps she meant 'bugger'?

Can you remember it?

 

[Frideswide]

Can you remember it?

I don't remember the song, but having sung the words a few times I'm suggesting fuck rather than bugger?

 

[escargot]

I don't remember the song, but having sung the words a few times I'm suggesting fuck rather than bugger?

Quite possibly. I didn't even know that word back then!

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Can you remember it?

Afraid not!