CFI Blogs

A Fortean at the Fringe II

Richard Wiseman Unbound

www.richardwiseman.com

Edinburgh International Book Festival

http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/

The Fringe Festival is not the only one taking place in Edinburgh a the moment, there is also the Festival itself and then there is the Edinburgh International Book Festival. These later two events differ from the Fringe in that events here are one off rather than a series of performances. This particular event was indeed a one off. In 2010 the Book Festival experimented with a series of free events (always a good thing) featuring one author for two hours. The particular one I found myself at was that of psychologist and skeptic Richard Wiseman.
Wiseman has a new book out which is a must read for all Forteans - Paranormality. You may disagree with some of the conclusions but the journey is worth it. This particular show however was not specifically about the book, it was more in the nature of an autobiographical journey showing how various aspects of Wiseman's life impinge on his views on the paranormal. Starting off as a magician he became interested in optical illusions, studied psychology at London, Phd at Edinburgh and ultimately professor of the public understanding of psychology at Hertfordshire University. So we were treated to a few magic tricks and descriptions of experiments through the course of a very enjoyable evening. An entertaining speaker.

Edinburgh Secret Society

http://edinburghsecretsociety.wordpress.com/

A Fortean at the Fringe

For a number of years I have been reviewing vaguely Fortean shows for Fortean Times at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  The reviews have been up at the Fortean Times website so here's a chance to see them at this website as well, here is the first instalment from the 2011 Fringe.

How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse: The End is Nigh

After Dark Entertainment

http://howtosurviveazombieapocalypse.co.uk/

At Zoo Southside

http://www.zoofestival.co.uk/

This is the third time visit to the Edinburgh Fringe for How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.
A one hour interactive seminar training the audience to survive the oncoming Zombie Apocalypse. As the publicity says this is the last time this show will be at Edinburgh. But it's also the third time here. Can there be anything new to teach us about how to survive? The answer is yes. Each version of the show has been different and each thoroughly watchable and entertaining.

Dr Dale Seslick leads us through scenarios on which the audience vote - get the answer right and you survive, get it wrong and you're worm food. But like all good zombie movies its a team effort so ultimately each nights audience is in competition not with themselves but with other audiences - the scores are placed online and the night I was there, well lets just say compared to others we're doing well.

On September 14, 1224, a Saturday, Francis of Assisi—noted ascetic and holy man, future saint—was preparing to enter the second month of a retreat with a few close companions on Monte La Verna, overlooking the River Arno in Tuscany. Francis had spent the previous few weeks in prolonged contemplation of the suffering Jesus Christ on the cross, and he may well have been weak from protracted fasting. As he knelt to pray in the first light of dawn (notes the Fioretti—the ‘Little flowers of St Francis of Assisi,’ a collection of legends and stories about the saint),

Most of you will be aware that the 12th and 13th of November are the dates of the Fortean Times UnConvention in London.   It's a full weekend of interesting talks and there are some tickets left - it's likely there will be some on the door as well but they will be more expensive.   So you still have time to buy.  But if you can't make it I'll be taking photographs and they'll be appearing here in due course.   More tech savvy Stew Smith will also be offering live tweets so you need to folllow @CharlesHoyFort and he's using the hashtag #ftuncon

Whether you're there or not have a good weekend.

In
1782, an unknown French engineer offered his government an invention
better than radar: the ability to detect ships at distances of up to 700
miles. There were many who said that his ideas worked. But was Étienne
Bottineau a genius, a fantasist or a fraud?

No structure in the world is more mysterious than the Great Pyramid. But who first broke into its well-guarded interior, and when? And what did they find there?

A reinvestigation of a neglected mystery. Old Arab accounts say that it was the Caliph Ma’mun who first broke into the Great Pyramid in 820 AD – driving a new tunnel into the north face of the monument and, by an astounding coincidence, striking the interior network of passages at precisely the point where the hidden upper network of tunnels leading to the King’s Chamber branches off from the main descending passage.

How credible is this story? Why has every writer on the pyramids since the mid-nineteenth century misdated Ma’mun’s visit to Giza by more than a decade? And what exactly is the lost source for some of the most remarkable of the details given in traditional accounts?

Fresh research in medieval Muslim chronicles provides at least some of the answers… and you can read the full story here.

As I put together the Fortean Times obituary for William Corliss [1], it provided much food for thought: on comparisons between him and Fort, on his Sourcebook ‘mission' and his method, and on what lessons they may hold for today's Fortean researchers.

On his ‘bizarre history' blog, ‘Dr Beachcombing' - who called Corliss "the world's greatest living anomalist" - made direct comparisons with Charles Fort. "It is not so much the similarities between the two men as the differences that matter. Fort was a visionary and, despite his denials, knew it. Corliss had a sense of humour that only the non-committed can enjoy. Fort took reports wherever he would find them. Corliss tended to restrict his searches to academically accredited works. Fort was on the soft end of the humanities with prose to match, Corliss was a scientist with remarkable range and a usefully bland style. Fort was a one man Punch and Judy show who published five books and attracted disciples: ‘Forteans swarmed to him like settlers, he became a land'. [2] Corliss created a system of anomaly collection that transcended him and that will hopefully survive his death. It would be absurd to talk of Corlissians." [3]

Name: unknown. Cause of death: unknown. Occupation: unknown – but perhaps a
former ballet dancer. Possessions: one pack of cigarettes (half filled
with a different brand of smoke); one hidden pocket, concealing a scrap
of paper with two words in Persian, torn from a rare first edition book;
five lines written in an unknown code. Welcome to the world's most
perplexing cold case. Can you help to solve the mystery?

The discovery of a body on an Adelaide beach in December 1948 sparked an
investigation that remains active to this day. Was the dead man a lover
or a fighter – a new father or a spy? Why might an expert witness at the
inquest suggest that he had habitually worn high-heeled shoes? Was
Australia's most eminent pathologist right conclude he had been killed
by an ultra-rare muscle relaxant normally used to tip poison arrows in
Somalia? And what of the mysterious phrase 'Tamám Shud'? It's from Omar
Khayyam, but how is it that the two editions of the poet's famous Rubaiyat that are central to the case seem not to actually exist?

The latest entry in the Fortean property portfolio is hopefully a little bit more acheivable! 

Previous entries, whilst they may be desirable residences, have been out of the reach of many of us (if you think their prices were peanuts then please contact the CFI, you could fund a lot of exciting projects!).  But courtesy of my good friend Loren Coleman of Cryptomundo and the International Cryptozoology Museum we have something that we can all indulge in:-

Of particular apeal for those interested in conspiracy theories we have the Texas School Book Depository of Dallas- the very location from which it is alleged Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that killed JFK.  And it's an absolute bargain at only $95.  And it's only 3 1/4" tall!  Ok it's a replica but still...

The signage at the top is as it was on the 22nd of November 1963.  Please note for those worried about the misspelling of Chevrolet there is another image of this model which has it spelled correctly - presumably the above image is a preproduction model?  And a quick update from Loren who contacted the manufacturers - the incorrect spelling is the only version available.

The buliding can be bought at http://www.replicabuildings.com/proddetail.php?prod=268 and when Loren was having a wander around he found some other buildings which may be of interest:-

The Dakota of Rosemary's Baby and John Lennon murder fame

"Looking back, the really strange
thing was the silence. The way the church bells stopped ringing as the
little group of naval cadets neared the village. The way even the ducks
stood quiet and motionless by the shallow stream that ran across the
road where the main street began."

When Bill Laing and
two other new recruits to the Royal Navy were ordered to take part in a
routine map-reading exercise one October day in 1957, the aim was to
find their way a few miles cross country to the Suffolk village of
Kersey - not back in time to the village as it had been sometime between
1349 and 1420. But the strange, frightening and deserted place that the
three boys encountered looked nothing like any 20th century hamlet. So
where - and when - were they?

Just a quick heads up before I get back into the habit of blogging!

During the month of August the Edinburgh Festival, the Edinburgh Book Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival all take place and a quick perusal of the relevant programmes seems to offer much of Fortean interest.

I will be covering all three of these for Fortean Times and reviews of relevant shows will appear there - I will also try and include some more in depth material here.

Keep watching the blog - material will be appearing and thanks for your support and patience.

Just a brief note to let everyone know that for the time being, at least, I'm going to be consolidating the work I do on the blogs I write – this one, the mirror maintained at A Fortean in the Archives, and my history blog A Blast From The Past. Or to put it another way, I'm going to be writing future posts – mostly historical, but with some Forteana thrown in when I get the chance to do it – for a new blog, Past Imperfect, which is being launched by the Smithsonian.

There are a few reasons for this decision. The Smithsonian's a high profile and prestigious institution, and it makes sense to use its considerable clout to get my work in front of as many new people as possible. They're willing to pay me, which isn't that common in the blogosphere. And because of that I can justify creating a lot more content, which ought to work for everyone, I hope. I'm certainly painfully aware that I've been letting work for the CFI slip for quite a few months now.

The deal I've done gives the Smithsonian exclusive rights to new content for the first three months, but after that I'm free to repost. So I plan to announce new articles of Fortean interest here with a preview and a link for now, and will come back and repost full articles when the exclusivity period expires. 

The good news is the first article the Smithsonian has selected is Fortean in content – it's another timeslip case, a sister piece for my post on the Battle of Nechtanesmere. And there should be more of interest to readers of the CFI site within a week or two.

Wish me luck.

Reading
the diaries of John Rae, the renowned controversialist and long-serving
headmaster of Westminster School (1970-86), turns up an interesting
anecdote that illustrates some of the problems that parapsychologists
encounter outside the laboratory, where they are all too often at the
mercy of unexpected variables – especially when they are too prone to
believe.

The latest entry into the Fortean Property Portfolio is a 321 acre woodland just outside Edinburgh.  Yester Woods is being sold for offers over £450 000 by CKD Galbraith of Edinburgh.  Spectacular location, full hunting, shooting and fishing rights and there's the ruins of a fifteenth century castle.  And more importantly there's an underground chamber from the 13th century. 

This is a second attempt at a sale as the original was for the woodlands and a 14 bedroom house, no one was interested at £15 million so the woodlands are going by themselves. The rest of the property is going for £8 million, so if you buy both you have quite a bargain compared to the original asking price!

But what is of interest to Forteans?  Well it's the thirteenth century chamber.  This is believed to have been built by Sir Hugo de Giffard (after whom the local village of Gifford was named), and Sir Hugo was a Black Magican and was know in his time as the Wizard of Yester.  When I say the chamber was built by Sir Hugo he did have a little bit of help.  From Goblins.  They were loaned to him by his friend and master, the Devil.  The chamber was subsequently known as Goblin Ha(ll)'.  Goblin Ha' is the name of the local pub as well but whilst you're guaranteed to see spirits in the pub the story of the real Goblin Ha' is a bit better.  It's hoped that the area will be bought by someone who is sympathetic to the Ha' but Scotland's right to roam does allow a level of access to the public.

The full schedule for the sale can be found here and if a CFI Blog reader does buy it I'd love an invite to the Ha' warming party!

It was nearly 30 years ago that John Michell and I first wrote about accounts of young children snatched away by large eagles. In our 1982 book Living Wonders - which was subsumed into Unexplained Phenomena (2000 and 2007) - they constituted a chapter we called ‘Avian Abductions' in which we compiled nearly 20 cases with varying degrees of credibility. I would like to take this opportunity to correct and expand one of them - the story of Svanhild Hansen, kidnapped by a sea eagle on the 5^th June 1932 from a farmyard on a Norwegian island. Unlike the many hapless children in our accounts, ‘the eagle-girl of Leka' was recovered alive. 

Svanhild became a living testament to her strange experience. "Over the years I have heard many stories about children and animals that have been taken by eagles. But I'm probably the only one who has come out of it alive. I'm grateful," she told the Dagbladet Magazine in 2007. [1]

The occasion for revisiting this topic was the news of Svanhild's death in November 2010. [2 + 3] I was alerted to this by FT's veteran Swedish correspondent Sven Rosén, who also pointed out that the death notices in Norwegian newspapers contained significant differences to some of the details given in Living Wonders (LW) and Unexplained Phenomena.