ANOMALISTICS — Copyright,New Horizons Research Foundation
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
i 4- ) STRANGE AND ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA. - - ANOMALISTICS — A New Horizons Monograph. Copyright,New Horizons Research Foundation January 1985. IND5X. 1. Introduction to subject matter. 2. Strange Falls from the Sky. 3. Animals in Unexpected Places. 4. Legendary, unknown or extinct animals. 5. Spontaneous Human Combustion. 6. Strange Disappearances. 7. Apportations and Teleportations. 8. Legends and Mysteries. Rumour. Modern Urban Legends, 9. Conclusions. mi m INTRODUCTION. The material in this monograph was the subject matter of a Conference held at the New Horizons Research Foundation on the 23rd February 1985• We have long been interested in the study of the strange phenomena that we have in the past tt called Fortean, but are now often referred to as^Anomalistics. Anomalistics may be defined as the serious and systematic study of all phenomena that fail to fit the picture of reality provided for us by common sense or by the established sciences. The first investigator in this field of anomalistic study with a clear concept of what he was at was an American, Charles Hoy Fort. He was the first person to make a collection of stories about mysterious lights, strange falls from the sky, baffling, mysterious and anomalous events. He was certainly in the forefront of collecting UFO-type stories with his tales of mysterious airships in the skies, and he even found stories of cattle mutilations. Later, another American journalist, Robert L. Ripley of "Believe it or Not" fame did much to popularize the subject, while Ivan Sanderson, a Scottish American biologist, who founded the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained, in Columbia, New Jersey, was the pioneer of investigative field work in these areas. And of recent years William Corliss, who publishes the Source Book Project, has been prominent in the field of both collecting and investigating unusual stories. We are indebted to all of these people for much of the material that appears in this monograph. Charles Fort was a Post Office supervisor who lived from 1874 - 1932. He is described as an "iconoclast, mystic and trickster, who mounted a single-handed onslaught on the accumulated lunacies of orthodox science by collecting data on baffling, mysterious and anomalous events". He wrote four well-known books. The Book of the Damned, (1919)New Lands, (1923)7 Lo, (1931)7 and Wild Talents, (1932). These were all republished in 1941. Fort had a delightful sense of humour, and he often put forward humorous solutions to some of the phenomena he reported. He was the arch-enemy of DOGMA - not Science - as has so often been alleged. He was always maintaining that one should accept any explanation temporarily only, and one must be ready to change one's mind when the evidence pointed in a different direction. His intention was to make his readers think, without telling them what to think. He collected a great number of stories that were of individual events, occurring only once, unique, strange, baffling. But he also collected a lot of stories that have a pattern, they occur regularly, in different countries of the world, and over long periods of time, and these are reported by many people. These are what we regard as"Classic Forteanwphenomena and they comprise many of the subjects in this monograph. Charles Fort also reported many poltergeist-type happenings which were just as incredible and unacceptable as many of the rest of his stories at the time, but today are acceptable and believable. 2 There are a set of rules for followers of Charles Fort to observe. m 1. Don't assume that the experts are never wrong. They are human and make Mistakes too. And experts out of their fields are amateurs. mi 2. Don't believe every story you hear. mi 3. Don't get emotionally involved in proving or disproving a case. Some people get emotionally involved and begin to care more about saving face than gg^ f 3 C "t S # 4. Don't hestitate to criticize a finding. There's a difference between one who doubts and one ^ who denies. 5. Don't knowingly perpetuate errors. The worst thing m you can do is knowingly pass on errors. There are genuine mysteries that may have quite ordinary solutions. ^ Fort's work was continued in England after his death by a group of people called the Fortean Society, which publishes a journal The Fortean Times, and in the U.S. by the International Fortean Organization, which publishes a journal under the name of INFO. mi These organizations are affiliated and work together in co-operation. Membership is reasonable, the objective being that all members y are contributors of any strange reports that may emanate in their own area, so there is a large world-wide network of reporters for the two journals. In earlier days there was little co-ordination or investigation; the societies saw themselves as purely reporting bodies, but of recent years a lot of effort has been made to co-ordinate, collate, follow-up and investigate reports. This has resulted in some very fine investigations having been carried out,and the results of some of them are discussed in the following papers. There is an overlap of interest, and similarity between, the types of phenomena we would list as parapsychological, and of UFO investigation, and it is important and instructive to be aware of what is happening in all these fields. We live in a world where strange and bizarre occurrences are constantly being reported. In these areas, as well as in the fields of parapsychological and UFO reports, many of these accounts are accepted, often totally uncritically, by a large proportion of the population, and it is a fascinating exercise to try and ascertain the truth of these stories. In investigating reports of strange and anomalous events there are three strands of interest to be pursued. First of all did the event actually happen in the way it has been reported to occur? To sort out fact from fiction is in itself a fascinating study. If the accounts are not factual, it is a further exercise in investigation to ascertain how these reports continue to circulate throughout large areas of the world, and to be believed, in some cases where the real truth of the event is already known. Finally, why do people believe these stories if they are not true? There is no doubt that the study of such phenomena sheds a great deal of light on human psychology in general. Of recent years we have also become interested in the field of folklore. Professor Brunvald, Professor of Folklore at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, has made an extensive study of this subject, and again it is intriguing to find among his collection of folklore legends some stories that have been regarded as belonging iha the sphere of interest of parapsychology, in particular,the story of the "Vanishing Hitchhiker" which has long been regarded as a ghost story. Brunvand has not only done extensive research on many of these legends, tracing many of them a long way back into their history, but his writings also contain theories as to the reasons why these stories are so popular. He points out that most of these modern urban legends have roots in the collective unconscious fears and uneasinesses of the population, especially fears of dealing with new and modern technologies and experiences. It has been a fascinating exercise to try and place these anomalous events in their proper category as far as possible, in the light of our present knowledge. There are many other anomalous phenomena that we have not included in this series. There are many natural phenomena that we would like to research further in the future, such as the homing instincts of animals, birds, and insects. We would also at some time like to write further on various dangerous places in the world, such as the Bermuda Triangle, the Bridgewater Triangle, and similar places, but these do not belong strictly under the heading of Fortean phenomena, and will wait a future treatment. But the papers that follow come under the heading of Classic Fortean phenomena, and have puzzled many people in many countries over a long period of years. STRANGE FALLS FROM THE SKY. From time immemorial there have been reports of strange and unusual things falling from the sky. Explanations have been advanced for many of these phenomena, but there are equally many reports for which no obvious or logical explanation has been found. Sometimes, at a later date, a possible hypothesis can be advanced, but not proven; for instance, it is now believed that the manna which fell from heaven to feed the Israelites, on their journey through the wilderness, was from a special kind of lichen that grew in the area, and was caught up in a wind and deposited on the Israelites during the course of a rainstorm. The most frequently reported phenomenon is coloured rain or snow, and the most common colour is red - resembling blood. Three cases of red rain were reported as long ago as 214 B.C. when "a shower of blood fell in the Istriam Street"; in 181 B.C. a shower of blood in the temple courtyards, and in I69 B.C. a shower of blood fell on Rome at mid-day. These were reported by the historian Livy. In 766 A.D. in England "it rained bloud 3 dayes" followed by a plague of venomous flies (Stow's Annales of England, London, 1592). In China we read of a shower of spots of blood like raindrops all over courtyards, field stones and rooftops.