ScoTland YaRd'S city in the sky floating skyscrapers seen over china SecReTS ernest the goblin exorcising a supernatural sex pest poltergeists and politics labour mps versus ghosts INSIDE THE CRIME MUSEUM THE WOR LD’S FORTEAN MEETINg MaRTIaNS • TowN wITH No DooRS • baCk fRoM THE DEaD • SUpERSIzED vEg WEIR DEST THE WORLD OF STRANGE PHENOMENA www.forteantimes.com NEWS TiMES 334 ft334 DecemBer 2015 £4.25 THE HEADLESS Hex and Ev violence ANGELiST THE CURIoUS CaSE • viRGiNiA of THE HEaDlESS EvaNgElIST WOOLF AND jAck THE modeRn aRT RiPPER iS muRdeR • THE MagIC, SURREalISM bLAck aND THE blaCk DAHLiA DaHlIa kIllINg • ciTy a woolf in iN THe fold THE Sky THE blooMSbURy • MEETiNG gRoUp aND THE RIppER MURDERS MARTiANS DEc 2015 Fortean Times 334 strange days Floating city over China, phantom siren haunts Swansea, escapological mishaps, back from the dead, UFO outsider art, epic sneezeathon, Mothman anniversary, knitted alien CONTENTS autopsy, history’s earliest beheadings – and much more. 05 THE CONSPIRASPHERE 21 ALIEN ZOO 14 SCIENCE 25 MYTHCONCEPTIONS the world of strange phenomena 16 ARCHAEOLOGY 26 NECROLOG 18 GHOSTWATCH 28 THE UFO FILES features COVER STORY 32 THE HEADLESS EVANGELIST In July 1929, the city of Detroit was rocked by the bizarre and bloody killing of an entire family. Benny Evangelist was an oddball sorcerer and self-proclaimed prophet – but why did someone cut off his head and slaughter his wife and children? Was it a case of magical murder or ritualistic ILLAN revenge? ROBERT DAMON SCHNECK investigates one of the GILF strangest unsolved cases in the annals of American crime. ETIENNE 32 THE CASE OF THE HEADLESS EVANGELIST 40 VIRGINIA WOOLF AND THE WHITECHAPEL Hex and violence in old Detroit MURDERS A considerable distance, geographical and social, separated the elegant squares of Bloomsbury from the slums of Whitechapel, and yet there exists a curious network of connections between one of England’s most celebrated novelists and Jack the Ripper, as THERESE TAYLOR explains. 48 BLACK DAHLIA: THE ART OF KILLING Was one of the 20th century’s most notorious unsolved cases a ritual killing or even a homicide planned as a work of art? BRIAN J ROBB examines the evidence in the shocking murder of Elisabeth Short, better known as the Black Dahlia. reports GES IMA GETTY 22 THE CRIME MUSEUM UNCOVERED / Inside Scotland Yard’s Special Collection RON BA 40 A WOOLF IN THE FOLD 48 THE BLACK DAHLIA 30 BLASTS FROM THE PAST The Bloomsbury set and Jack the Ripper Surrealism and the art of murder No 60. The Monster Makers 56 BUILDING A FORTEAN LIBRARY No 5. A trick, a treat, and some startled hares 76 FORTEAN TRAVELLER GES IMA No 104. The Missing Lake of Guerlédan GETTY GES / P IMA AF / regulars GETTY / SON ONE EDEL ST 02 EDITORIAL 75 IT HAPPENED TO ME KEY JOSH 6ATTACK OF THE GIANT VEGETABLES 18 HAUNTING HEALEY 59 REVIEWS 79 PHENOMENOMIX A bumper harvest in more ways than one Labour MPs vs the supernatural 71 LETTERS 80 STRANGE DEATHS COVER ILLUSTRATION: ETIENNE GILFILLAN FROM SOURCE MATERIAL. TOP FLASH IMAGE: MUSEUM OF LONDON FT334 1 www.forteantimes.com Fortean times editor dAVid SUttoN ([email protected]) foUNdiNg editorS bob rickArd ([email protected]) pAUl SieVekiNg ([email protected]) Art director etieNNe gilfillAN ([email protected]) editorial book reViewS editor VAl SteVeNSoN ([email protected]) reSideNt cArtooNiSt HUNt emerSoN Crimes and wonders SUbScriptioN eNqUirieS ANd bAck iSSUeS www.subsinfo.co.uk [email protected] murdEr moSt WEird floating city photographed in the skies above FORTEAN TIMES is produced for Dennis Publishing by Wild Talents Ltd. Postal address: Fortean Times, This issue of FT makes for rather grim reading, China (p4).This latter story – which prompted PO BOX 71602, London E17 0QD. we’re afraid; each of our three main features theories that the floating city had been created You can manage your existing subscription through focuses on a particularly bloody murder – or artificially by NASA – reminded us of another http://www.subsinfo.co.uk/ – this should be your first port series of murders – that exercised a morbid controversial aerial portent from earlier this of call if you have any queries about your subscription. fascination for the press and public of the year. Change your address, renew your subscription or report problems time.The Ripper murders of 1888 quickly Back in August, legendary American band UK subscriptions: 0844 844 0049 entered the folklore of London and continue the Grateful Dead (no strangers to these pages; USA & Canada subscriptions: (+1) 800-428-3003 (toll free) to make waves even today: witness the ongoing see FT88:34-38, 164:24-25, 188:52-56) launched Fax (+1) 757-428-6253 email [email protected] Other overseas subscriptions: +44 (0)1795 592 909 controversy surrounding the recently – and, their mini-tour with a two-night stand at Levi’s Fax: +44 (0)1795 414 555 many would say cynically – created Jack the Stadium, Santa Clara. Entitled ‘Fare Thee Ripper Museum in London’s Spitalfields. Well’, the concerts were quite possibly the last LicEnSinG & SYndicAtion Fortean times IS AvAILABLE FOR Detroit in the 1920s was rocked by the brutal time that all four surviving members of the INTERNATIONAL LICENSINg AND SYNDICATION – CONTACT: murder of an entire family that appeared to Dead would share a major stage together (they Syndication Senior Manager ANj DOSAj-HALAI TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6132 be just the latest and bloodiest in a cluster of keep on truckin’, but they’re not getting any [email protected] killings believed to have ritualistic and cultic younger) and proved an emotional experience Licensing Manager CARLOTTA SERANTONI TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6550 overtones. Post-war Los Angeles was the scene for the thousands of gathered fans.The first [email protected] of a number of shocking and savage murders of set of the first night ended not just with a Licensing & Syndication Assistant NICOLE ADAMS TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6134 lone women, the most terrible of which was the monster 17-minute version of ‘Viola Lee Blues’ [email protected] baffling despatch and mutilation of Elizabeth but also a glorious rainbow encircling the You cAn rEAch Ft on thE intErnEt Short – the ‘Black Dahlia’ – who has died again massive stadium. As one Deadhead reportedly www.forteantimes.com and again in books and films ever since. put it: “This is the band that jams with God”. All three cases remain officially unsolved to Online debate as to the meaning of this sign in © Copyright Dennis Publishing Limited this day, despite – particularly in the case of the the sky couldn’t settle whether it was indeed Ripper and Dahlia murders – an endless parade the deity offering a final benediction to the of putative (often wildly unlikely) suspects and Dead and the Heads or the departed Jerry SeNior prodUctioN pUbliSHed bY ever more ingenious theories being offered Garcia signalling his approval of hard-won gay deNNiS pUbliSHiNg, execUtiVe dANiel StArk by writers and researchers. We suspect the rights; but the strangest explanation came 30 cleveland Street 020 7907 6053 continued fascination of these grim tales, aside from music industry magazine Billboard (28 london w1t 4Jd, Uk [email protected] from some dark obsession with the problem of June 2015),which reported that the band had tel: 020 7907 6000 AdVertiSiNg director SteVe NicolAoU human evil, resides precisely in their ability actually created an artificial rainbow – at a cost groUp pUbliSHer 020 7907 6633 to sidestep any ‘final solution’ (despite the of $50,000! One Dead lighting techie suggested iAN weStwood steve_nicolaou@ claims of Ripper-crazed publishers); like most on Twitter that this had been achieved by 020 7907 6000 dennis.co.uk forteana, these open-ended mysteries allow suspending “600Vari-lites on a building two circUlAtioN mANAger SAleS execUtiVe JAmeS mANgAN brAdleY beAVer plenty of room for new research (a novel factual miles away”, but this was quickly revealed james.mangan@ nugget might emerge even now) and endless to be a joke. Snopes.com (the go-to site for seymour.co.uk 020 7907 6701 bradley_beaver@ reinterpretation (Ripperology, like ufology, checking the status of urban legends) has export circUlAtioN dennis.co.uk mANAger is a virtual cottage industry). And then, of since concluded that the rainbow was indeed gerAldiNe grobler course, there are the fortean aspects of the a real one, and Billboard amended its story geraldine.grobler@ seymour.co.uk cases themselves, as explored in our features. accordingly, with the words: “This article has Therese Taylor traces the curious web of been updated to include the continuing debate PrintEd BY POLESTAR BICESTER connections between English novelistVirginia over the appearance of the rainbow, which upon diStribution Woolf and Jack the Ripper – threads that link further investigation appears to have been real. distributed in uK, ireland and worldwide Bohemian Bloomsbury to the mean streets of Turns out this band really does jam with God.” by Seymour Distribution Ltd. the East End (pp40-46). And, to remove any doubt, we’d cite the 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT Tel: 020 7429 4000 / Fax: 020 7429 4001 Brian J Robb examines the Black Dahlia occasion in August 2002, at AlpineValley, Queries on overseas availability should be emailed to murder in all its horror – be warned, we chose Wisconsin, when we saw all surviving band [email protected] Speciality store distribution by Worldwide Magazine not to include any of the more graphic crime members play together for the first time since Distribution Ltd, Tel: 0121 788 3112 Fax: 0121 788 1272 scene photos, but some readers may find the Garcia’s death seven years earlier: on this StAndArd SubScriPtion rAtES images disturbing – and assesses the theories memorable evening, a double rainbow appeared 12 issues: UK £39.98; EU £47.50 that the killing served an occult or even an over the outdoor venue.