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What Was Your Entry To The World Of Weird?

bugmum said:
@Carlos! Would you PLEASE spoiler that thing? Even now I know it's a fake, it gives me the heebee-jeebies to come across it suddenly!
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When you go to bed you can look at that pillowcase-face again.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Welcome to the NPC club!
I had these thoughts about myself a few years ago. My life seems to repeat on a loop.
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I'm a member as well. Hardly ever experience anything close to paranormal, so I read about the paranormal and watch paranormal videos instead.
 
Vardoger said:
I'm a member as well. Hardly ever experience anything close to paranormal, so I read about the paranormal and watch paranormal videos instead.
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The Underbed Spider grows EXACTLY to a length where it covers a span underneath the bed to touch all the bed legs and still rise menacingly with fangs above the headboard.
 
When I was a kid about 6 (sixties) I had a dream my teddy grew to a giant size and started lumbering about the room spewing milk.
I saw Akira and realised such thoughtforms aren’t unique.
 
I always loved mysterious stuff as a child. I was fascinated by ESP and made my own ESP cards. I think there was a lot of paranormal documentaries on TV in the UK in the 70s. I was fascinated by the idea of fortune telling. I even had a "Madame Rosa" crystal ball/cards toy so I could pretend....
I used to love the idea of fairies/witches etc and making potions with plants!
I think there was a lot of paranormal stuff in children's tv in the 70s probably too.

I always thought UFOs were fascinating too. And Space.

I read Misty comic and Jinty. Misty was spooky stories. The annuals were good.

Stone circles also interested me.

By the early 90s I discovered Fortean Times and was hooked. I am more skeptical now than I was in the early 90s though.

Funnily enough I only learnt about a weird stone circle that is dotted amongst the houses where I grew up. My mother has no interest in these things and never thought to tell me. When I found out in adulthood I did lots of searching about the person who lived in the area (and created it) and it was fascinating.
 
Ok, I'll play :cool:

  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? For example, parapsychology, UFOs, bigfoot, time slips, etc.
If I had to narrow it down - UFO's, Ghosts, Cryptids, since those are all things I was originally fascinated by shortly after the 3rd point below, and still am, to some degree. About the only Fortean thing that doesn't really engage me at all is time slips - in a field sominated by the ephemeral, subjective and insubstantial, these seem the most of all these factors. Fore some reason they just don't draw me in :dunno:

  • What was your worldview when your interest began? For example, devoutly religious, atheist, pragmatic, agnostic, not sure, skeptic (meaning inherently disbelieving and thinking people who do believe are deluded), etc.
I was a child, so I'd have to go with sheltered and credulous. I took everything I read, watched or was told at face value, because I hadn't yet developed a capacity for mulling things over and critical thinking yet.

  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? For example, book or magazine, popular electronic media (TV, movie, podcast, youtube, etc.), discussion with family or friends, personal experience, etc.
I was going to go with the Kaikoura UFO sightings in New Zealand, New Years Eve 1978, the wobbly footage of which was on loop pretty much all evening throught my grandmothers new years eve party that year (I would have been 8 years old), but I also have vague recollections of David Attenbourough doing a TV series about mythical creatures, which Google tells me was 'Fabulous Animals' from 1975, so I'll have to go with that, instead.

1978 was also the year we moved to within 5 mins walk of the local library, which I was soon allowed to visit unsupervised, and quickly became engrosed by all the usual titles that have mostly already been mentioned in this thread :D
  • How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time?
I think its fair to say I have become much more sceptical since the days of my youth when I believed pretty much everything Fortean I was exposed to. I'd like to think I was a proper sceptic of the 'the jury is out until there is evidence beyond resonable doubt one way or another', but I'm also self aware enough to know that that's an idealised notion!

I try when I post to encourage others to expand upon their experiences without passing judgement or bombarding with too many specific questions. I hope I succeed.
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? This means that you have not changed your mind for several years and expect that you will not change your mind with more or different evidence.

Stable, I'd say, in the 22 or so years I've been haunting these fora (I was briefly a member 200-2002ish, then lurked for the longest time, manifesting in public again over the past couple or three years), and probably a bit longer than that. I'd like to think, in line with my remarks about scepticism, above, that I would be prepared to change my mind in the face of evidence that puts a phenomenon beyond reasonable doubt.
 
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Think it must have been my late father buying Chariots of the Gods that first got me interested in Forteana.
I still have his 1971 hardback edition:

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Even though many of Erich von Däniken's claims have subsequently been debunked, the book certainly turned my 11 year-old self onto the ramifications of ancient technology (like the Antikythera mechanism, in my upper right photo above).
So I would say that OOPARTS are probably my biggest Fortean interest. I would extend my definition of OOPARTS beyond actual artefacts, to include such things as building techniques - see my recent post about use of concrete/cement at Göbekli Tepe, and evidence of writing far earlier than the officially accepted earliest examples of Cuneiform.

As a close second to OOPARTS, I would love time slips to be true, although I tend to be sceptical about most accounts that have been reported here.
 
  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? - Alternate / overlooked history and culture. (NOT conspiracy theories)
  • What was your worldview when your interest began? - Completely unformed. Maybe there was a God or aliens but I didn't care.
  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness?
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Read it in school. Also my Dad, who had a ghostly experience when he was a kid.

How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time? When I was young, totally into Fortean stuff. But as Bigfoot & flying saucers etc. stayed undiscovered, grew more cynical. Now I believe anything is possible - but good luck proving it.
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? Yes.
 
This thread has made me think about what used to really interest me. I think my driving force was all about the spiritual side of a person and what you could do if you could expand your consciousness.
So all my big interests were OOB/Astral Projection, telepathy, telekinesis, survival of the self after death, hence ghosts, reincarnation etc. And then later ritual magic which I still tied into the power of the self.
Looking at paranormal web sites, podcasts and even FT, it all seems to be heavily biased towards cryptozoology, conspiracy theories and UFO’s. Unfortunately I have absolutely no interest in these subjects so i find myself dipping into the paranormal less and less. I look to the time when fashions may again change and some of my former interests may rise to the fore.
 
Tempest63 said:
This thread has made me think about what used to really interest me. I think my driving force was all about the spiritual side of a person and what you could do if you could expand your consciousness.
So all my big interests were OOB/Astral Projection, telepathy, telekinesis, survival of the self after death, hence ghosts, reincarnation etc. And then later ritual magic which I still tied into the power of the self.
Looking at paranormal web sites, podcasts and even FT, it all seems to be heavily biased towards cryptozoology, conspiracy theories and UFO’s. Unfortunately I have absolutely no interest in these subjects so i find myself dipping into the paranormal less and less. I look to the time when fashions may again change and some of my former interests may rise to the fore.
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Fashions do seem to affect Forteana as much as anything else. I would never have predicted the big (podcast driven?) resurgence in cryptozoology in recent years, but there you go.

I'm reminded by a current thread on the ufology board that some of my personal interests - ghost lights and other possible strange natural phenomena, and all the rich local folklore that goes with them - have a bit of an unfashionable air. A slight whiff of real ale, as I think of it. Who's to say why certain things grab the imagination of the public, and others stay a bit niche? I've seen a few mainstream news articles suggesting that there's been a growth of interest in the 'paranormal' during the pandemic, but I think it's been building longer than that.

The one thing that seems to be clear is the growth of a certain type, or more accurately tone, of scepticism in the past decade or so. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, just interested to see it. I don't think that it reflects a corresponding growth of interest in Forteana, so much as it's part of a reaction against a perceived tendency in politics, and culture generally, towards emotional messaging - I'll leave it there so as not to stray into politics too much.
 
BS3 said:
Fashions do seem to affect Forteana as much as anything else. I would never have predicted the big (podcast driven?) resurgence in cryptozoology in recent years, but there you go.

I'm reminded by a current thread on the ufology board that some of my personal interests - ghost lights and other possible strange natural phenomena, and all the rich local folklore that goes with them - have a bit of an unfashionable air. A slight whiff of real ale, as I think of it. Who's to say why certain things grab the imagination of the public, and others stay a bit niche? I've seen a few mainstream news articles suggesting that there's been a growth of interest in the 'paranormal' during the pandemic, but I think it's been building longer than that.

The one thing that seems to be clear is the growth of a certain type, or more accurately tone, of scepticism in the past decade or so. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, just interested to see it. I don't think that it reflects a corresponding growth of interest in Forteana, so much as it's part of a reaction against a perceived tendency in politics, and culture generally, towards emotional messaging - I'll leave it there so as not to stray into politics too much.
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Great post. We now have ultra-HD 'magic' being streamed into our living rooms at the touch of a button. Special effects have now become so sophisticated that the real is almost indistinguishable from the fake. What interest are some fleeting lights on some damp old moorland to the great majority of people who now demand immediate and constant entertainment night-after-night in ever-greater detail on ever-bigger screens and who think 'nature' is the barren dog-toilet of their local park...?
 
Likewise crop circles. They began as a fascinating anomaly. I saw a couple of basic circles myself back in the late-80s from a train headed towards Castle Cary (the London mainline- the location may not have been random). There was a lot of excitement but postmodernism demanded ever-bigger circles with more and more detail and 'messages'. Then big business got involved and intricate circles were being created for commercial gain The circles then became more and more detailed and 'on message' until eventually the whole thing imploded... Who cares about crop circles now?
 
WeirdExeter said:
Great post. We now have ultra-HD 'magic' being streamed into our living rooms at the touch of a button. Special effects have now become so sophisticated that the real is almost indistinguishable from the fake. What interest are some fleeting lights on some damp old moorland to the great majority of people who now demand immediate and constant entertainment night-after-night in ever-greater detail on ever-bigger screens and who think 'nature' is the barren dog-toilet of their local park...?
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Fleeting lights on damp old moorland seem like the very essence of Forteana to me! The kind of everyday marvel that has puzzled humans for centuries, millennia probably, hidden away in the dark and secluded corners of the countryside.
 
WeirdExeter said:
Great post. We now have ultra-HD 'magic' being streamed into our living rooms at the touch of a button. Special effects have now become so sophisticated that the real is almost indistinguishable from the fake. What interest are some fleeting lights on some damp old moorland to the great majority of people who now demand immediate and constant entertainment night-after-night in ever-greater detail on ever-bigger screens and who think 'nature' is the barren dog-toilet of their local park...?
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I suppose there's another point here in that the 'paranormal' now has to compete against ever more spectacular modern entertainment and the expectations this creates in the mind. Let's face it, even if there is an objective 'phenomenon' there has to be a human witness there to perceive it and weave it into a 'story'. I would be very surprised if the things people experienced hadn't changed substantially over time - I think UFOs demonstrate that perfectly and in ways that show there is some input from background culture (whatever you feel the originating stimulus is).

It has been suggested for example that the 'abduction' trope developed partly due to the spectacular failure of the previous model of interaction - the contactee - to result in any of the revelations it promised. The phenomenon had to move on, find another role, find another form of relevance better reflecting the anxieties of its time. I think this holds true whether you see the original stimulus as internal or (like Keel and Vallee) external.
 
What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? For example, parapsychology, UFOs, bigfoot, time slips, etc.:
Ghosts, cyrptozoology, the occult, poltergeists, high weirdness, strange legends like Springheel Jack, folklore, enigmatic mysteries, cutting edge science

What was your worldview when your interest began? For example, devoutly religious, atheist, pragmatic, agnostic, not sure, skeptic (meaning inherently disbelieving and thinking people who do believe are deluded), etc. Beleived in things that I experienced, wanted to believe in things that were reported. Family was generally "Christian" but my Mom stopped going to church with her family as well when they experienced an evangelist who stood on the alter with outstretched hands and wanted members to pin love offerings of money to his clothes. Not really religious at the moment but I do think there is something more in the universe than we can see, powers of good and evil and other emotional states.

What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? For example, book or magazine, popular electronic media (TV, movie, podcast, youtube, etc.), discussion with family or friends, personal experience, etc. In Search Of. Reader's Digets Strange Stories, Amazing Facts. Scary and fantastical movies and tv and comics. Minor paranormal events.

How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time? The things that I experienced still make sense as strange things without explination. If I know something is inheriently incorrect (for example, orbs in camera shots which is a digital artifact) I don't believe those. I'm skeptical of skeptical positions instead of believing them outright (example: multiple hoaxer claims being made when not all could be true, yet the skeptical postion often seems to be that since 15 different people claimed to be the single hoaxer, all those claims equally prove a hoax). I'm not a believer or skeptic in all claims of a parnaormal nature, but instead I strive to be what I think of as Fortean, being able to remain open to possibility in many cases. Some I believe, and some I don't.

Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? This means that you have not changed your mind for several years and expect that you will not change your mind with more or different evidence. It would depend of the phenomenon I think, no easy blanket statement.
 
BS3 said:
Fleeting lights on damp old moorland seem like the very essence of Forteana to me! The kind of everyday marvel that has puzzled humans for centuries, millennia probably, hidden away in the dark and secluded corners of the countryside.
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As it happens I was walking across some old Cornish moorland yesterday and it was also a bit damp as the promised Easter ‘heatwave’ has yet to arrive down here. Lots of wildlife but alas no earth lights, although the old mine engine houses are rather haunting.

Absolutely, when I was 16 I saw a ‘fireball’ in the sky immediately after a thunderstorm passed and in the New Forest I saw the green luminescence of the glow worms, and would dearly love to see an earth light.
 
Earthly oddity said:
I read Misty comic and Jinty. Misty was spooky stories. The annuals were good.
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British girls comics of the 1970s and1980s also influenced me pretty heavily. Some of the stories were weird even in mainstream titles like Bunty. I missed out on Misty first time round (I've read it since) but liked Bunty, Jinty, Tammy, Mandy, Judy, Nikki... All of them had paranormal and science fiction stories in them. There were stories about cursed trees, robot horses, totalitarian futures where music and ballet was banned, spacefaring rabbits, possessed painting sets, cat goddesses and Misty had a superb story about a high rise tower block which contained a portal to a terrifying Nazi Britain mirror universe. There was one artist who mostly worked in Jinty and I only had to open the comic, see it and I would start to feel sick. They were particularly brilliant at Evil Victorians. Unfortunately these comics didn't have credits so I have no idea who it was.

I believe there have been academic studies into why girl's fiction can be so brutal. These comics really tortured their heroines and Misty in particular would visit horrible fates on young girls who often did not deserve it.

If you grow up reading that sort of stuff it's not so much of a stretch to shift into horror and science fiction in children's text fiction and then lap up any non-fiction that deals with the strange and the weird.
 
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  • What are the top Fortean types of phenomena for you? Ghosts,time travel, timeslips for actual Forteana. Kid's schoolyard folklore and slumber party tales for a love of Urban Legends. And the White Rock Lady was and still is all these.
  • What was your worldview when your interest began? That of a little kid--open to anything.
  • What was the event or starting point for your interest in inexplicable weirdness? Urban legend type tales told among little girls at slumber parties, reading (Jack Finney!), TV, movies.
  • How has your interpretation and acceptance (or not!) changed over time? I still believe in the White Rock Lady and wonder about the adventure at Versailles.
  • Is your current state of interpretation and acceptance stable? Open. Time will tell. Science will tell.
 
staticgirl said:
British girls comics of the 1970s and1980s also influenced me pretty heavily. Some of the stories were weird even in mainstream titles like Bunty. I missed out on Misty first time round (I've read it since) but liked Bunty, Jinty, Tammy, Mandy, Judy, Nikki... All of them had paranormal and science fiction stories in them. There were stories about cursed trees, robot horses, totalitarian futures where music and ballet was banned, spacefaring rabbits, possessed painting sets, cat goddesses and Misty had a superb story about a high rise tower block which contained a portal to a terrifying Nazi Britain mirror universe. There was one artist who mostly worked in Jinty and I only had to open the comic, see it and I would start to feel sick. They were particularly brilliant at Evil Victorians. Unfortunately these comics didn't have credits so I have no idea who it was.

I believe there have been academic studies into why girl's fiction can be so brutal. These comics really tortured their heroins and Misty in particular would visit horrible fates on young girls who often did not deserve it.

If you grow up reading that sort of stuff it's not so much of a stretch to shift into horror and science fiction in children's text fiction and then lap up any non-fiction that deals with the strange and the weird.
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Funnily enough I could never find enough horror fiction as a child. And I don't remember any science fiction at all. Not in the school or public libraries. I used to borrow the same book on space from the public library regularly because there was not enough odd stuff for me to read.

I was a picky reader. If I started a book and the beginning was rubbish I wouldn't continue. If it started good and became rubbish I gave up too.....

My mother bought me books but she thinks science fiction/horror are "silly" so she didn't tend to get those sorts of books for me.

There was always Star Trek and lots of sci fi on TV in the UK in the 70s.

I didn't realise I actually am drawn to "sci fi" until I watched the first series of Red Dwarf on BBC2 and later ended up sharing a flat with male students who watched lots of Sci Fi - The X Files, Star Trek with Picard and Babylon 5 etc.....I always said I far preferred that to sharing a flat with soap opera/Eastenders obsessed people.....
 
Earthly oddity said:
Funnily enough I could never find enough horror fiction as a child. And I don't remember any science fiction at all. Not in the school or public libraries. I used to borrow the same book on space from the public library regularly because there was not enough odd stuff for me to read.

I was a picky reader. If I started a book and the beginning was rubbish I wouldn't continue. If it started good and became rubbish I gave up too.....

My mother bought me books but she thinks science fiction/horror are "silly" so she didn't tend to get those sorts of books for me.

There was always Star Trek and lots of sci fi on TV in the UK in the 70s.

I didn't realise I actually am drawn to "sci fi" until I watched the first series of Red Dwarf on BBC2 and later ended up sharing a flat with male students who watched lots of Sci Fi - The X Files, Star Trek with Picard and Babylon 5 etc.....I always said I far preferred that to sharing a flat with soap opera/Eastenders obsessed people.....
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I think I may have been really lucky. My mum was a bookworm and my local library was fantastic.
 
staticgirl said:
British girls comics of the 1970s and1980s also influenced me pretty heavily. Some of the stories were weird even in mainstream titles like Bunty. I missed out on Misty first time round (I've read it since) but liked Bunty, Jinty, Tammy, Mandy, Judy, Nikki... All of them had paranormal and science fiction stories in them. There were stories about cursed trees, robot horses, totalitarian futures where music and ballet was banned, spacefaring rabbits, possessed painting sets, cat goddesses and Misty had a superb story about a high rise tower block which contained a portal to a terrifying Nazi Britain mirror universe. There was one artist who mostly worked in Jinty and I only had to open the comic, see it and I would start to feel sick. They were particularly brilliant at Evil Victorians. Unfortunately these comics didn't have credits so I have no idea who it was.

I believe there have been academic studies into why girl's fiction can be so brutal. These comics really tortured their heroins and Misty in particular would visit horrible fates on young girls who often did not deserve it.

If you grow up reading that sort of stuff it's not so much of a stretch to shift into horror and science fiction in children's text fiction and then lap up any non-fiction that deals with the strange and the weird.
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My late mother was one of the most prolific writers for Misty.
Even though it was a girls' comic, I must admit that I enjoyed reading the spooky stories!
 
Colin Wilson's two brick-thick stream-of-gullibility doorstops, The Occult and Mysteries. Okay, with world experience and mature sensitivities/critical faculties, you can take the point of view that Colin kept such an open mind it was dribbling out of his ears and the first book especially could have done with a tough-but-kindly editor, who could have said "look, Colin. This bit's got to go Do you think we're paying you by the word or somethng?." a bit more often. But they truly aroused the "wow..." in my seventeen year old mind.
 
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staticgirl said:
... There was one artist who mostly worked in Jinty and I only had to open the comic, see it and I would start to feel sick. They were particularly brilliant at Evil Victorians. Unfortunately these comics didn't have credits so I have no idea who it was. ...
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The Wikipedia entry for Jinty lists some of the artists and particular stories each of them illustrated:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinty_(comics)
 
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