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Unreasonable Tracks: Fortean Footprints; Hoofprints; Etc.

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IIRC, wasn't there a fossil of a trilobyte having been squished by a sandal?

There was a buzz about this in the 70s I think and if true, threatened to undermine the thinking of how old mankind is or when trilobytes died out.

Any info, anyone?
 
We've all thrilled to the tale of the "devil's hoofprints" that appeared in Devon and Exeter in 1855, but there seems to be quite a lot of footprints (man-made and otherwise) that have cropped up in the most inconvenient places.

Turning once again to the fantastic Rough Guide's Unexplained Phenomena (where I nicked the thread title), there's a report of "demon's tracks" in the Japanese Imperial palace in 929, Captain James Ross' 1846 account of hoofprints in the sub-Arctic island of Kerguelen, and "Jersey devil" hoofprints in the sand of the Jersey beach in 1908.

The Devon entity was particularly talented, as it apparently could leap over fourteen foot fences, jump across rivers and, in 1950, originate from under a cliff!

Humanoid prints have also appeared embedded in stone--I believe there is an evocative picture of a "sandal" print with a crushed trilobyte fossil underneath and the footprint in stone of Corwen, Derbyshire, attributed to medieval Welsh hero Owen Glyndwr.

What's going on here? Simulacra? The Cosmic Joker? What other accounts do you know about?
 
Minor Drag: I would suggest that, like a lot of things we see in Forteana, there are a number of processes at work which create footprint type marks which then get lumped tgether into this kind of category.

For example the footprint and the trilobite are the product of natural weathering processes (so the footprint is simulacra):

www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC102.html
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/meister.html

and there probbaly as many explanations as there are cases - any specific case you want to focus on first so we can kick the idea around?

Other discussion here:

Footprints in stone:
forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17182
Link is obsolete. The current link is:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/footprints-in-stone.17182/

Devil's footprints of 1855:
forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2157
Link is obsolete. The current link is:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/devils-footprints-hoofprints.2157/

and an interesting attempt at an explanation:
forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=763
Link is obsolete. The current link is:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/devils-hoofprints-government-snowjob.763/
 
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Thanks, Emps.

Perhaps we could start with the hoofprint phenomena, as it has appeared not only in the famous Devon case, but in Poland, New Jersey and the sub-Arctic as well.

Many explanations are entertaining (jumping rats, balloon-borne pranksters, and, of course, the Devil himself). However, it is apparent from witness testimony that some of these tracks could not have been produced by, let's say, an "organic" animal.
 
Yes they are always the ones that get my interest too - I'm sure I had a little book as a kid with al sorts of strange stuff in like toads in coal, French tunnel diggers releasing a pterodactyl and the devil's hoof prints and it was always that one that got me. If it is the Devil or a one-legged hopping beast then that would be..... interesting ;)

I see Mike Dash (in Fortean Studies) failed to track down any explanation although this is interesting (so much so it would be worth sending into the mag:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=763

One thing is that very rare and from the descriptions could have a number of different explanations as they have different properties.
 
WRT that link: that's certainly an ingenious explanation, but I don't quite buy it. How in the world could the rope/ring drag over people's rooftops without getting caught?

Yes, the pterodactyl story is great. I remember something about how "it issued a hoarse cry and promptly expired." Alas, it's a hoax: the name of the creature was Latin for duck. Duck=canard, a play on words that most Victorians would quickly recognize.
 
In the Devon case, there seem to be conflicting stories about whether the prints formed one complete trail, or whether they were all over the place.

I suspect the latter - one account says "There was hardly a garden in Lympstone where the footprints were not observed." This makes it sound more as though the anser would be dormice or something similar as has been suggested, rather than a single larger creature.
 
Minor Drag said:
WRT that link: that's certainly an ingenious explanation, but I don't quite buy it. How in the world could the rope/ring drag over people's rooftops without getting caught?
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be that difficult especially with a good covering of snow to smother thigns that would catch it. I think it is interetsing that the Rough Guide describes it as something with a "mincing" gait. The very light "step" the running in straight lines up and voer objects (unless Wembley is right) suggest it is something moving higher than the town - even Old Nick hiself would be forced to change the length of his strides as he strode ove a rooftop!!

However, if it was the dangling rope of a balloon then it would be a relatively fixed length and so any change in height of the object would result in drag marks. Its more like something with a steady "drip" moving slowly at altitude.
 
Apologies for going off-thread a bit but you've reminded me of the man who kept noticing strange footprints in the sand on the beach at Formby. He eventually realised that the prints were thousands of years old and were being exposed by the tides only to be washed away by the same process. There was a Radio 4 documentary about it a couple of years ago.

Further information here and here.

I know these footprints have a rational explanation but I think there is still something mysterious - moving even, about the idea of a 5000 year old child's footsteps, preserved for millennia, suddenly appearing, apparently out of nowhere, only to be washed away within a few days.
 
All Fortean footprints are welcome on this thread, dear Spook. :)
 
Emperor said:
It wouldn't be that difficult especially with a good covering of snow to smother thigns that would catch it. I think it is interetsing that the Rough Guide describes it as something with a "mincing" gait. The very light "step" the running in straight lines up and voer objects (unless Wembley is right) suggest it is something moving higher than the town - even Old Nick hiself would be forced to change the length of his strides as he strode ove a rooftop!!
Click to expand...

The other problem is trying to sort out any useful data from the reportage of the time. It's not easy to take at face value and may severely blur the event itself too.
 
Beyond that, snow does not keep an accurate record. There's been many a "bigfoot" print cited that was only the result of more prosaic human prints being distorted by melting snow.
 
Spook: Yep the Formby footprints are only up the coast from me - I was invited to go out and view them and never made it. I assume it is possibe to arrange to go and see them and it would be well worth it (I have a book on the Sefton coast around here I'll go and check) as there are all sorts of interesting things there.

Also it is a good analogy as the exposure of some kind of marks would explain some of those beech footprints mentioned above.

JerryB said:
Emperor said:
It wouldn't be that difficult especially with a good covering of snow to smother thigns that would catch it. I think it is interetsing that the Rough Guide describes it as something with a "mincing" gait. The very light "step" the running in straight lines up and voer objects (unless Wembley is right) suggest it is something moving higher than the town - even Old Nick hiself would be forced to change the length of his strides as he strode ove a rooftop!!
Click to expand...

The other problem is trying to sort out any useful data from the reportage of the time. It's not easy to take at face value and may severely blur the event itself too.
Click to expand...

Yes I suspect, like a lot of these older cases, that the actual events have been garbled and misreported and the "truth" is less remarkable which is a pity as it would possibly give an indication of what was actually going on.
 
There is a story local to me, from the mid 1700's, of the body of a jagger (packhorseman) being found frozen to death with a single female footprint next to him in the snow. The place this is supposed to have happened is called Thursbitch and the story is used in Alan Garner's novel of the same name.

It's one of those stroies that doesn't mean much until you actually get to the site - a bleak little valley in the shadow of Shining Tor on the western edge of the Peak District. A place where it's easy to believe in the odd mystery.
 
Brings to mind what happened to me this year. On Boxing Day I decided to take a walk from my home into another area of Liverpool a few miles away to take photographs with my digital camera, it was a nice snowy day and to get to my destination I had to walk through Princes Park. The park was almost deserted save for a few kids on the swings or riding their new christmas bikes and I was quite alone when I spotted some strange footprints. They are only what I can describe as cloven-hoofed, quite small and completely different from those of the dogs and birds that surrounded them. I tried to take a picture with my digicam and that most fortean of events occured - the battery ran out.

By the time I had got to the shop and back the sun had melted the snow and the prints had dissapeared.

It's always the way...
 
More than likely a daft suggestion but Muntjac deer have tiny footprints.
 
Speak of the Devil--I mean the Fachan (from the homepage):

14 March. In 1840 the Times reported that, for the second winter running, foal-like tracks, but 'of considerable size' were discovered ranging from 12 miles in the glens of Orchy, Lyon and Lochay, south of the fairy-haunted Rannoch Moor in Scotland. One of the legendary creatures of this district is especially interesting: the Fachan, with 'one hand out of its chest, one leg out of its haunch and one eye out of its head,' hopping out in forays from his home in Glen Etive, a few mile north-west of Rannoch Moor.
Click to expand...
 
Minor Drag said:
Speak of the Devil--I mean the Fachan (from the homepage):

14 March. In 1840 the Times reported that, for the second winter running, foal-like tracks, but 'of considerable size' were discovered ranging from 12 miles in the glens of Orchy, Lyon and Lochay, south of the fairy-haunted Rannoch Moor in Scotland. One of the legendary creatures of this district is especially interesting: the Fachan, with 'one hand out of its chest, one leg out of its haunch and one eye out of its head,' hopping out in forays from his home in Glen Etive, a few mile north-west of Rannoch Moor.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Ooh, er!

I've camped on Rannoch Moor and in the Glens of Orchy and Etive (By "camped" I mean slept under canvas - not flexed me disco-tits to Erasure wearing sequined hipsters and a sleeveless t-shirt). I'm going up, again in May - maybe I'll give that area a miss this time.

Veering completely off-thread, but in line with my present meanderings, the first time I stopped at Corrour station, supposedly the most remote railway halt in Europe, situated in the middle of Rannoch Moor and reachable only by railway or shanks' pony, as the train rattled out of view I was overtaken by a powerful feeling that I was being watched. This turned out to be two absolutely enormous mastiffs staring at me from the upstairs window of the prefab that serves, or served, as the stationmasters cottage. It was a misty and atmospheric day, the atmosphere highlighted by the sudden appearance of the man who lived in the cottage - as hairy, wild-eyed and manic looking a Scotsman as you could ever wish to meet - straight out of an Ealing comedy. A strange place where the idea of the Fachan might not sound as bizarre as it does in the real world.
 
Over a year ago a set of bipedal hoofprints appeared on the edge of Bristo Square in Edinburgh. They were in black on the pavement. They lasted for many months but eventually wore away. I guess it was an advert for something or a merry jest played by some students. Still gave me the creeps though!
 
Minor Drag asked me to relate a footprint incident that I made reference to in another thread, so here goes.....

About 3 years ago, my then-husband and I were staying at my mother's ( haunted but beloved) house. It was Christmastime. On Christmas Eve day he awoke before me and got up but paused when he got near the bedroom door.

He told me to come look at the floor. What we saw was something burned into the carpet on the floor. It looked exactly like a hoofprint. I got as close to it as I could to examine the carpet fibers and they were hard and melted for sure. There was no mistaking it was a hoofprint. However, there was only that one. There was also no mistaking it for dirt being tracked in, it was a definite burn. There was no smell.

My then-husband is the biggest skeptic you ever saw. He believes in nothing out of the ordinary ( although after living in my mom's house for awhile, he definitely believes in ghosts now) but he agrees what was in the carpet was a hoofprint.

The only animal in the house was a cat who was afraid of it's own shadow. The print didn't come from him. The print was much larger than a cat's anyway...it was a bit small than my hand, i would say.

Various family members visited that day and the next and they all saw the mysterious hoofprint. No one had a logical explanation for it. By the 3rd day, the hoofprint had completely faded and then disappeared altogether.
How does a burn in a carpet just disappear?
I spent many a night afterward wondering if the Devil himself had come into my bedroom while I was sleeping...and worse, wondering if he'd ever come back.

P.S. No i do not "worship" the Devil. I think I believe he exists in some evil form, but I try to concentrate on God. Nothing other than the usual ghost activity had occured prior to finding this hoofprint. I can't link it to anything. But I sure as heck saw it, as did a multitude of others.
 
P.P.S...... unfortunately at that time , my camera was not working so I could not take a picture of it.
Figures.
 
I posted last year on a ghosts thread about the BF and a colleague seeing dog footprints appear on a carpet, at work, early in the morning when only they were there, and there are no dogs around (even police/security ones) and the prints appeared out of a lift door and disappeared into a wall............... :shock:
 
Anonymous said:
IIRC, wasn't there a fossil of a trilobyte having been squished by a sandal?
There was a buzz about this in the 70s I think and if true, threatened to undermine the thinking of how old mankind is or when trilobytes died out.
Any info, anyone?
Click to expand...
minordrag said:
... Humanoid prints have also appeared embedded in stone--I believe there is an evocative picture of a "sandal" print with a crushed trilobyte fossil underneath ...
Click to expand...
Mighty_Emperor said:
For example the footprint and the trilobite are the product of natural weathering processes (so the footprint is simulacra):
www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC102.html
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/meister.html
Click to expand...

The alleged sandal print (with a trilobite) is called the Meister Print (or Meister Footprint / Track). Additional references on this simulacrum can be found at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Print
 
EnolaGaia said:
The alleged sandal print (with a trilobite) is called the Meister Print (or Meister Footprint / Track). Additional references on this simulacrum can be found at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Print
Click to expand...

meister-box1b.jpg


http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/meister.html

maximus otter
 
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