What's The Most Boring Fortean Subject?

[Swifty]

Okay, so I will agree with you as regards people who make YouTube videos of themselves walking through conifer plantations in flip-flops and shorts whilst making wood knocks and wetting themselves every time they see a broken twig....

BUT, for example, the work of Nick Refern in investigating various sightings on and around his former home turf of Cannock Chase and the 'Man-Monkey' of the Shropshire canal is to my mind a different kettle of fish and Redfern believes this is paranormal in nature rather flesh and blood (and even matching the classical description of a US Bigfoot)

" .. people who make YouTube videos of themselves walking through conifer plantations in flip-flops and shorts whilst making wood knocks and wetting themselves every time they see a broken twig...."

... spot on Paul!. I'm laughing with you, not at you btw.

Fairies.

I love the fact that people want to believe in fairies but as I'm not a 4 year old girl, I don't. I understand I'm more imagining the Victorian and Disney Tinkerbell looking ones and maybe something paranormal and uglier could explain sightings? .. I just struggle to take the topic of fairies seriously at all. We've even got the absinthe nod and a wink 'green fairy' although that's describing the colour of the flame when the drink's being prepared.

Back to boring though, Alistair 'look at me' Crowley and Anton 'wOOoooH!, check me out! I'm the church of satan and I've got a cape' Lavey.

 

[catseye]

" .. people who make YouTube videos of themselves walking through conifer plantations in flip-flops and shorts whilst making wood knocks and wetting themselves every time they see a broken twig...."

... spot on Paul!. I'm laughing with you, not at you btw.

Fairies.

I love the fact that people want to believe in fairies but as I'm not a 4 year old girl, I don't. I understand I'm more imagining the Victorian and Disney Tinkerbell looking ones and maybe something paranormal and uglier could explain sightings? .. I just struggle to take the topic of fairies seriously at all. We've even got the absinthe nod and a wink 'green fairy' although that's describing the colour of the flame when the drink's being prepared.

I don't find fairies boring as such though. I'm fascinated by the psychology (and I suppose that extends to the 'creatures in the woods) stories too) that creates these things. Not so much the WHAT of fairies, but the WHY.

 

[Swifty]

I don't find fairies boring as such though. I'm fascinated by the psychology (and I suppose that extends to the 'creatures in the woods) stories too) that creates these things. Not so much the WHAT of fairies, but the WHY.

Fair enough and for me, they're a nice dream that bring people comfort so they're valuable and also useful as you've said to take us deeper into woodland folklore.

 

[Aydee_Aitchdee]

Or just Forum Members no longer posting....

MODS! I request that QCC be used instead of Account Retired for forum members who have left

 

[Aydee_Aitchdee]

Also, have you read "Time Storms' by Jenny Randles?

It's only out in print, I need epub or audio. gutted Hoping someone did a scan so I can delve in

 

[catseye]

It's only out in print, I need epub or audio. gutted Hoping someone did a scan so I can delve in

I read it once, years ago, and wish I could remember where I got it from....

 

[Paul_Exeter]

It's only out in print, I need epub or audio. gutted Hoping someone did a scan so I can delve in

Well here at least is an excerpt:

https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg60495.html

Also a quite lengthy interview on the subject:

https://archive.org/details/Project_Red_Book_vol_4_no_8/page/n2/mode/1up

I also highly recommend these back issues of 'Northern UFO News" which was edited by Jenny Randles and contains many intriguing UFO cases of which some are a candidate for time-storms:

http://www.ozfactorbooks.com/northern-ufo-news-january-2019.html

Sadly it would seem Piatkus who published Time `Storms has changed hands and no longer list Jenny as an author. You could try contacting Jenny via her Northern UFO contact details but she seems to have retired from Ufology, worthy try though

 

[Stormkhan]

Angels.

While there is some interest in the phenomena surrounding religion, I lose it fast as soon as a particular belief system is touted as the only explanation.
Someone spots a feather falling from the sky? "It's from the wing of your guardian angel!"
There's poltergeist activity? Must be demons!
Ghosts? Either 'lost souls' (yawn) or demons.
As has been said, it's not the phenomena but how it's told ... or explained.

 

[Aydee_Aitchdee]

Well here at least is an excerpt:

https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg60495.html

Also a quite lengthy interview on the subject:

https://archive.org/details/Project_Red_Book_vol_4_no_8/page/n2/mode/1up

I also highly recommend these back issues of 'Northern UFO News" which was edited by Jenny Randles and contains many intriguing UFO cases of which some are a candidate for time-storms:

http://www.ozfactorbooks.com/northern-ufo-news-january-2019.html

Sadly it would seem Piatkus who published Time `Storms has changed hands and no longer list Jenny as an author. You could try contacting Jenny via her Northern UFO contact details but she seems to have retired from Ufology, worthy try though

moans in frustration

 

[Paul_Exeter]

While there is some interest in the phenomena surrounding religion, I lose it fast as soon as a particular belief system is touted as the only explanation.
Someone spots a feather falling from the sky? "It's from the wing of your guardian angel!"
There's poltergeist activity? Must be demons!
Ghosts? Either 'lost souls' (yawn) or demons.
As has been said, it's not the phenomena but how it's told ... or explained.

If only the Virgin Mary would manifest in front of Putin rather than a couple of essentially illiterate little peasant girls

 

[Paul_Exeter]

" .. people who make YouTube videos of themselves walking through conifer plantations in flip-flops and shorts whilst making wood knocks and wetting themselves every time they see a broken twig...."

... spot on Paul!. I'm laughing with you, not at you btw.

Fairies.

I love the fact that people want to believe in fairies but as I'm not a 4 year old girl, I don't. I understand I'm more imagining the Victorian and Disney Tinkerbell looking ones and maybe something paranormal and uglier could explain sightings? .. I just struggle to take the topic of fairies seriously at all. We've even got the absinthe nod and a wink 'green fairy' although that's describing the colour of the flame when the drink's being prepared.

Back to boring though, Alistair 'look at me' Crowley and Anton 'wOOoooH!, check me out! I'm the church of satan and I've got a cape' Lavey.

@Swifty

Go on son...

 

[Paul_Exeter]

@Swifty

Even better, so vested in wood craft is our researcher that he picks up a rotten branch. So, instead of communicating with Bigfoot via the medium of wood knocking, there is a dull splat and the end flies off...

 

[Aydee_Aitchdee]

I get your drift but there have been many genuine people who have had experiences we would describe as time-slips, just stay away from the Liverpool stuff and you will find some intriguing cases elsewhere. A good place to start is the old 70s and 80s documentaries such as 'Strange but True?' that have episodes dedicated to time-slips.

The entire series of Strange but True! is on YouTube, albeit in very low quality.

Should anyone be interested

Actually, the account has a ton of Fortean playlists!
https://www.youtube.com/@UKGhostsMMXV/playlists

 

[Swifty]

... and I'm on one tonight so don't even get me started on British Bigfoot. Pointing out the blatantly obvious 'Britain is way too small to host a family of 'Bigfeet' then someone replies with "Ahh. but that's because they're paranormal." I only go on the British Bigfoot thread to laugh.

 

[Druk]

... and I'm on one tonight so don't even get me started on British Bigfoot. Pointing out the blatantly obvious 'Britain is way too small to host a family of 'Bigfeet' then someone replies with "Ahh. but that's because they're paranormal." I only go on the British Bigfoot thread to laugh.

I know the true story behind this photograph I always chuckle when Bigfoot investigators mention Brian the British Bigfoot.
https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2015-11-09/woman-claims-to-have-spotted-bigfoot-in-west-sussex

 

[Spookdaddy]

Aleister Fucking Crowley.

Crowley used to leave me utterly cold, until very recently actually. However, I've kind of warmed to him, not as an individual, or because I think he was an actual wizard, but because he seems so redolent of a particular age and a particular niche within it. Probably the result of reading Phil Baker's book, City of the Beast - The London of Aleister Crowley. A straight bio of Crowley would bore me to tears, I suspect - however I found an examination of him within the particular context of the book fascinating, but probably because I have more interest in the context than the individual.

The Loch Ness Monster...

Another subject which once inspired utter indifference, but which I've become more interested in. But, again, it's not because I have a particular belief in the actuality of a thing called the Loch Ness Monster.

I think what I find interesting in many cases is the story of the story, rather than any factual basis to anything within it. So, for instance a book like Gareth Williams', A Monstrous Commotion: The Mysteries of Loch Ness, which is in many ways a biography of a story, is far more interesting to me than dodgy sonar images, and photographs of blurry logs, fuzzy ducks and the wakes of distant motor boats.

But I still hate orbs. Did I mention that already?

And rods! Fucking rods! Whatever happened to those little bastards? Can we not just send the orbs the same place the rods went?

 

[Aydee_Aitchdee]

And rods! Fucking rods! Whatever happened to those little bastards?

Ok, I have no idea what this is. What is a rod?

 

[Spookdaddy]

...What is a rod?

To any reasonably intelligent individual who has ever used a visual recording device they are a pretty obvious artifact of the action of motion blur on small rapidly moving objects - like water droplets and insects.

To some of those who don't qualify as reasonably intelligent individuals, but have somehow worked out how to turn a camera on, they are - or were - evidence of alien life forms.

Thankfully, they appear to have gone out of fashion.

(To be fair, some of the insect based rods could be visually quite pretty, but many alleged images of 'rods' were literally just pictures of rain.)

 

[Aydee_Aitchdee]

To any reasonably intelligent individual who has ever used a visual recording device they are a pretty obvious artifact of the action of motion blur on small rapidly moving objects - like water droplets and insects.

To some of those who don't qualify as reasonably intelligent individuals, but have somehow worked out how to turn a camera on, they are - or were - evidence of alien life forms.

Thankfully, they appear to have gone out of fashion.

(To be fair, some of the insect based rods could be visually quite pretty, but many alleged images of 'rods' were literally just pictures of rain.)

Ahhh I didn't know they had a name! Yeah, I think they've largely gone away because cameras have gotten better with auto focus and so on

 

[catseye]

Crowley used to leave me utterly cold, until very recently actually. However, I've kind of warmed to him, not as an individual, or because I think he was an actual wizard, but because he seems so redolent of a particular age and a particular niche within it. Probably the result of reading Phil Baker's book, City of the Beast - The London of Aleister Crowley. A straight bio of Crowley would bore me to tears, I suspect - however I found an examination of him within the particular context of the book fascinating, but probably because I have more interest in the context than the individual.

I'm with you on that. Crowley is an interesting psychological study - as a man with a huge ego rather than as a 'wizard'. And very much of his time. a sort of turn of the century Malcolm McClaren.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

To any reasonably intelligent individual who has ever used a visual recording device they are a pretty obvious artifact of the action of motion blur on small rapidly moving objects - like water droplets and insects.

To some of those who don't qualify as reasonably intelligent individuals, but have somehow worked out how to turn a camera on, they are - or were - evidence of alien life forms.

Thankfully, they appear to have gone out of fashion.

(To be fair, some of the insect based rods could be visually quite pretty, but many alleged images of 'rods' were literally just pictures of rain.)

Monsterquest devoted a whole episode to them:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1174447/

The media were still trying to pass them off as unexplained as late as 2019:

https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/what-earth-this-cctv-captures-3199961

This is from 2006 and I'm pretty sure it is a parody:

"A Japanese skyfish hunter shows us how to catch a skyfish which known as "flying rods""

 

[Steven]

Yeah, the context of a 'biography' can be virtually as fascinating as the central life - reading about the mountaineer George Mallory recently, it seemed like he knew everyone of interest, in his youth (Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, the Strachey brothers etc etc).

 

[Min Bannister]

Yeah, the context of a 'biography' can be virtually as fascinating as the central life - reading about the mountaineer George Mallory recently, it seemed like he knew everyone of interest, in his youth (Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, the Strachey brothers etc etc).

Interesting co-incidence as I was planning to reply to all this Crowley talk by posting that I was interested in him when he tried to climb K2 but that is it.

 

[escargot]

Crowley, boring? Never.

 

[Stormkhan]

Crowley used to leave me utterly cold, until very recently actually. However, I've kind of warmed to him, not as an individual, or because I think he was an actual wizard, but because he seems so redolent of a particular age and a particular niche within it. Probably the result of reading Phil Baker's book, City of the Beast - The London of Aleister Crowley. A straight bio of Crowley would bore me to tears, I suspect - however I found an examination of him within the particular context of the book fascinating, but probably because I have more interest in the context than the individual.

I agree. As a person - the individual - he seems to me an utter nobody trying to be somebody. These days, he'd be running a You Tube channel on himself. However, if you take him as a product not only of his upbringing but his time, then he's quite informative. Like learning something not by what someone says but by what they don't say, he gives signs of what was really important to Victorians by what he rebelled against.

 

[Robbrent]

Lets be honest much Fortena and Paranormal writing is usually quite accessible, it's telling stories either first hand or something the writer has been told or read, but when you get down to serious academic research like the work of the late Dr Ian Stevenson on cases of reincarnation it can get very dry and dare I say a little boring, but if any subjects are going to be taken seriously that's the way to go, proper dry academic research

 

[catseye]

Lets be honest much Fortena and Paranormal writing is usually quite accessible, it's telling stories either first hand or something the writer has been told or read, but when you get down to serious academic research like the work of the late Dr Ian Stevenson on cases of reincarnation it can get very dry and dare I say a little boring, but if any subjects are going to be taken seriously that's the way to go, proper dry academic research

You see, I don't mind academic writing. It's lovely when a subject is taken seriously and I don't even mind a little bit of 'dry'. I'd take that over squealing and running away any time.

 

[Vardoger]

ABCs. So, they're escaped animals from millionaires. Next.

 

[Stormkhan]

Or misidentified cats/dogs/fluffy toys.

 

[Druk]

Or people were drunk,on Shrooms,or misidentified a dog or melanistic fallow deer at distance.