Great spooky story Sandancer, and to think that I live not that far from Hexham.
One day those heads may just turn up.
Frances.
Great spooky story Sandancer, and to think that I live not that far from Hexham.
One day those heads may just turn up.
Frances.
Last edited by Frances, 20th July 2015 at 18:31.
The beast that was looking for "The Heads"
Frances.
Last edited by Frances, 13th March 2015 at 23:58.
Source :- http://karlshuker.blogspot.co.uk/201...n-macdhui.html
Link to article by Dr Karl Shuker.
THE BIG GREY MAN OF BEN MACDHUI - BRITAIN'S VERY OWN BIGFOOT?
Part 1.
Ben MacDhui’s principal claim to fame is that, at 4296 ft (1309 m), it is the highest mountain in the Cairngorms range and is second only to Ben Nevis throughout Scotland. However, it is also famous – indeed, infamous – as Scotland’s ‘haunted mountain’, thanks to the sinister, ostensibly supernatural entity known as Am Fear Liath Mor, the Big Grey Man (BGM), said to haunt its lofty peak.
PANIC ON THE PEAK, FOOTSTEPS IN THE FOG
What is so remarkable about the Big Grey Man case is the extraordinary range of mysterious phenomena associated with it, and which are every bit as dramatic as they are diverse. Take, for instance, various reports of irrational panic linked to this supposed being’s presence, which include the following, defining BGM account.
The BGM first attracted major attention beyond the immediate environs of Ben MacDhui in December 1925, when internationally-renowned mountaineer and London University’s Professor of Organic Chemistry John Norman Collie (1859-1942) startled his audience while speaking at the Annual General Meeting of Aberdeen’s Cairngorm Club by recalling a truly bizarre event that had happened to him when climbing Ben MacDhui in 1891. (Over two decades prior to the meeting in Aberdeen, Collie had spoken of his Ben MacDhui experience to a local New Zealand newspaper, but this had not attracted such interest.)
Prof. James Norman Collie, photographed in c.1912 (© University College London (UCL) Chemistry Collections)
While descending through a heavy mist from the Cairn at this mountain’s flat, barren summit:
"…I began to think I heard something else than merely the noise of my own footsteps. For every few steps I took I heard a crunch, and then another crunch as if someone was walking after me but taking steps three or four times the length of my own.
"I said to myself, ‘This is all nonsense’. I listened and heard it again but could see nothing in the mist. As I walked on and the eerie crunch, crunch, sounded behind me I was seized with terror and took to my heels, staggering blindly among the boulders for four or five miles nearly down to Rothiemurchus Forest.
"Whatever you make of it I do not know, but there is something very queer about the top of Ben MacDhui and I will not go back there again by myself I know."
The anomalous sound of footsteps not in sync with those of the ‘ear’-witness has also been reported on several other occasions from Ben MacDhui. In 1904, while gathering biological specimens on the mountain for Aberdeen University, Hugh Welsh and his brother often heard the sound of pacing footsteps, both at night and during the day, but never succeeded in tracing their origin. Similarly, in 1940, while spending a summer’s night beneath a huge block of stone on Ben MacDhui’s slope known as the Shelter Stone, Scottish author R. Macdonald Robertson and a friend were awakened by the growls of Robertson’s bull terrier, and clearly heard the sound of crunching steps approaching them along the gravel path leading to the Stone, until, abruptly, they faded away again, and the dog then relaxed.
Ben MacDhui's Shelter Stone, c.1905 postcard
Even stranger was the experience of fellow author Wendy Wood, also in 1940, who heard while upon the Lairig Ghru (an arduous but much-traversed pass through the Cairngorms) what sounded to her like an enormously resonant Gaelic-speaking voice directly beneath her. After vainly searching the snow all around in case someone was trapped underneath it and was calling out for help, she became very apprehensive and duly began descending the mountain. As she did so, however, she heard what she later described as “gigantic footsteps” following her where there had previously been no sound, upon which she experienced a blinding panic, sending her fleeing downwards in absolute terror.
A comparable scenario (missing only the Gaelic voice) was experienced in 1945 by competent mountaineer Peter Densham. Eating his lunch at the summit, he suddenly heard crunching footsteps emanating from the Cairn close by, but as he stood up to investigate, an inexplicable wave of uncontrollable fear washed over him, causing him to flee wildly, so wildly in fact that he barely stopped himself plummeting headlong over a treacherous cliff known as Lurcher’s Crag.
On 26 September 2006, the following account was posted on the Cryptomundo cryptozoology website by a correspondent with the user name ‘big max’:
"I was climbing back down Ben MacDhui in May 1988 when I experienced the footsteps phenomenon mentioned by others. It was pretty misty and I was alone. But it was like ’something’ was behind me, only 10 metres or so, keeping track of me. I back-tracked to see if anyone was there. I didn’t see anything, but it was weird enough to scare me, particularly as the sounds occurred both when I was moving or stationary. It was only after I told this story to a Glasgow cousin years later that I first heard about the Grey Man."
FROM BIG GREY MAN TO MOVIE STAR!
In 2007, the winning entry in the category of Best Highland Amateur Film at the annual Fort William Mountain Festival was a 10-minute-and-one-second-long video entitled ‘The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui’, produced by an eight-person team of film makers (including Richard Cross, Jez Curnow, and Peter George) from scottishhills.com. It was also screened at the Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival in 2006, and can presently be viewed at http://www.biggreyman.co.uk and on YouTube. It features a number of local figures and mountain experts airing their thoughts on the subject, as well as shoots at various locations on and near Ben MacDhui, including a cold Winter Solstice at Corrour Bothy on 23 December 2005, a walk along the Lairig Ghru in March 2006, and a visit to the mountain’s summit in May 2006.
Long article so continued....
Last edited by Frances, 25th March 2015 at 15:57.
Part 2.
SIGHTINGS
In spite of its descriptive ‘Big Grey Man’ name, surprisingly few visual BGM encounters are on file, and even those are far from consistent. When Prof. Collie’s account of his Ben MacDhui experience was originally published in New Zealand, it stimulated another renowned mountaineer, Dr A.M. Kellas, to write to him with details of an astonishing encounter made by himself and his brother, Henry Kellas, while climbing Ben MacDhui. Eschewing mere footsteps, the Kellas brothers claimed to have seen a huge figure, at least as tall as the 10-ft-high Cairn and described by them as “a big grey man”, walking out of the Lairig Ghru Pass and around the Cairn towards the summit where it passed out of sight. Moreover, while awaiting the entity’s reappearance, they were suddenly struck with acute fear, and raced, panic-stricken, down the mountain, convinced that the entity was pursuing them.
Ben MacDhui in the Cairngorms, taken from Carn Liath in the Grampians (public domain)
One night in 1942 while resting at the Shelter Stone and looking out towards Loch Avon, climber Sydney Scroggie suddenly spied:
"...a tall, stately, human figure, appear out of the blackness on one side of the loch, and clearly silhouetted against the water pace with long, deliberate steps across the combined burns just where they enter the loch."
Despite rushing over to the spot, Scroggie found no footsteps or any other evidence of the figure’s erstwhile presence, but experienced such unease that he swiftly returned to the Shelter Stone.
During October 1943, while walking alone along the Lairig Ghru, mountaineer-naturalist Alexander Tewnion abruptly heard long striding footsteps behind him, and to his horror he saw through the mist a strange shape looming forth and then charging directly towards him. Drawing out his revolver, Tewnion shot three times at the figure, but it continued approaching him, so Tewnion fled downwards to Glen Derry.
Does Ben MacDhui harbour its very own version of bigfoot? (© William Rebsamen)
Even more incredible, however, was the entity reportedly spied one night on Ben MacDhui by a friend of climber-writer Richard Frere. Having pitched a tent beside the Cairn, Frere’s friend awoke, to see a brown shape standing between his tent and the moon. So as soon as the shape moved away, his friend peered outside his tent, only to discover (according to Frere’s subsequent description) that just 20 yards away:
"...a great brown creature was swaggering down the hill. He uses the word “swaggering” because the creature had an air of insolent strength about it: and because it rolled slightly from side to side, taking huge measured steps. It looked as though it was covered with shortish, brown hair…its head was disproportionately large, its neck very thick and powerful. By the extreme width of its shoulders compared to the relative slimness of its hips he concluded its sex to be male. No, it did not resemble an ape: its hairy arms, though long, were not unduly so, its carriage was extremely erect."
By applying trigonometry in relation to surrounding objects, Frere’s friend calculated that the entity had been at least 21 ft tall.
As recently as 23 December 2005, while making their BGM film, team member Peter George was standing alone that evening outside a stone shelter hut in the Lairig Ghru called Corrour Bothy, looking out into the darkness, when:
"Out of the corner of my eye, over to the left towards the stream, I caught a glimpse of a tall grey figure. At first I thought it was one of our party, although all of them were inside the bothy. Turned to look properly and couldn't see anyone."
Just a trick of the light, or something more?
And although it was seen not on Ben MacDhui itself but on the neighbouring peak of Braeriach, mention must also be made of the bizarre entity reputedly encountered there by climber Tom Crowley. After looking round to see what was responsible for the sudden sound of footsteps behind him while descending this peak, Crowley was horrified to see a huge “…undefined misty figure with pointed ears, long legs, and feet with talons which appeared to be more like fingers than toes”. An altitude-induced hallucination, surely…?
THE SOUND OF MUSIC?
Yet another strand of this already much-tangled tale involves the hearing of mysterious music on Ben MacDhui’s lonely peak. So could the BGM be a veritable minstrel of the mountains? During one ascent of Ben MacDhui, later described by him in an Open Air article (Winter 1948), Richard Frere had reached the Lairig Ghru and was sitting there, immersed in an inexplicable bout of darkest despair, when, as well as sensing some invisible being close by, he suddenly heard an extremely high singing note, which continued unabatedly throughout his ascent to the summit and return to the Lairig Ghru – even though simple tests convinced him that it was not due to any effects of reduced pressure upon his eardrums. Then, without warning, the singing and sensation of a nearby presence ceased, and he was momentarily struck with a bout of absolute terror, followed by blissful serenity as he reached Rothiemurchus Forest.
The summit of Ben MacDhui (© Oliver Mills/Wikipedia)
to be continued....
mojo (14th March 2015), Ria (14th March 2015), sandancer (12th March 2015), TelosianEmbrace (15th March 2015)
Part 3.
Unaccountable pipe music was heard by acclaimed author Seton Gordon while climbing Ben MacDhui with a friend in 1926, and BGM authority Affleck Gray also experienced strains of origin-lacking music here. Moreover, just a few years ago, a writer signing himself ‘Jack’ reported online (originally at http://www.ghost-story.co.uk/stories...enmacdhui.html but this page no longer exists) that he had heard the sound of faraway music while at the Lairig Ghru.
YETIS AND URISKS AND DEVAS, OH MY!
Not surprisingly, faced with such a startling array of anomalies, the many explanations proposed for the BGM phenomena over the years have been equally disparate. Some, of course, can be readily discounted. For instance, with only a single putative report (that of Frere’s anonymous friend) on file, coupled with basic anatomical limitations, the necessity of a viable populations being present, and the undeniable fact that the Cairngorms hardly compare in terms of remoteness with the Himalayas or even North America’s vast Pacific Northwest forests, the prospect that the BGM is an elusive 21-ft-tall yeti-like (or True Giant bigfoot-like) creature of cryptozoology can be swiftly dismissed.
'Homage to Diana', a painting depicting Pan, by the Italian Baroque artist Annibale Carracci (1560-1609)
A zooform identity offers greater leeway, unconstrained by size and breeding limitations, and is also able to explain such anomalies as footsteps made by an unseen entity, the inducement of blind panic, and even sourceless music. However, as we have no notion what zooforms are or even if they genuinely exist, to label the BGM as one is simply replacing one mystery with another. Other, even more exotic notions put forward are that the BGM is a Pan-like being of Scottish folklore known as a urisk (hence the sensation of panic experienced by those who sense its presence nearby), or perhaps some form of nature spirit such as a deva.
Leading from those thoughts is the possibility that the assortment of unexplained phenomena experienced on Ben MacDhui indicates that it harbours a 'window area' - an interface between different dimensions or alternate worlds. If so, there is a good chance that such a significant portal would have a guardian, to deter would-be intruders or trespassers. Is it just coincidence that this is the precise effect so successfully accomplished by Ben MacDhui's formidable BGM?.
Very different again is the proposal offered up by practising Mahayana Buddhist Sir Hugh Rankin and Scottish mystic the Reverend Countess of Mayo among others that the BGM is in fact a Bodhisattva – one of the five “perfected men” controlling our planet’s fate. Yet as such beings are notably benevolent, such an identity hardly corresponds with the malevolent persona of the BGM.
GEOLOGICAL HOLOGRAM, OR OPTICAL SPECTRE?
During the 1970s, inorganic chemistry specialist Dr Don Robins proposed that some minerals may be capable of encoding a type of electrical energy, in turn yielding a moving image that could be projected under certain specific conditions, i.e. a veritable geological hologram. Could it be that the BGM is one such hologram, stimulated by certain specific, mountain-related mineralogical attributes, and exhibiting an additional aural component? Yet if so, why are such montane manifestations limited (at least in Scotland) to Ben MacDhui and its environs? In contrast, as documented by modern-day BGM investigator Andy Roberts, bouts of mountain panic entirely comparable with those reported from Ben MacDhui have been documented from many other mountains in Britain and elsewhere in the world.
Even more radical is the oft-mooted suggestion that the BGM may be an electromagnetic phantom – an apparition reflecting wavelengths of radiation beyond the vision of most humans (hence the rarity of sightings in contrast to the greater number of reports of footsteps), but whose presence is still sensed. It would certainly be interesting to see what might be exposed, for instance, if a camera containing UV-sensitive film were to be pointed in the direction of crunching footsteps heard on Ben MacDhui.
As for those rare sightings, the most popular explanation is that the entity observed is merely an optical illusion, probably of the Brocken spectre kind. Under certain climatic conditions in mountainous areas, a person’s shadow is very greatly magnified and is sometimes cast upon a bank of mist or cloud, yielding the afore-mentioned spectre effect. Very unnerving to unsuspecting or uninformed observers, it could certainly yield the huge, monstrous forms claimed from Ben MacDhui, and if coupled with local precipitation might also explain the sound of supposed footsteps.
Another relevant phenomenon related to optical illusions is the autokinetic effect, in which a stationary object seen from a distance sometimes appears to move – an illusion caused if there is an absence of visual clues in the proximity of the object. If this is added to the innate capacity of the human mind to “fill in” missing details when viewing an unfamiliar object briefly or during poor viewing conditions, it is not difficult to understand how a stationary, inanimate object might seem to resemble a moving, humanoid entity.
THE MONARCH OF THE MIST – WALES'S VERY OWN BGM?
And finally: Reports of BGM-like entities in Britain are not wholly confined to Ben MacDhui, or even to Scotland. According to traditional Welsh folklore, Wales's answer to the Big Grey Man is the Grey King, also known as the Brenin Llwyd or Monarch of the Mist. A brooding silent figure allegedly frequenting Snowdon, Cader Idris, Plinlimmon, and other lofty Welsh peaks, this awesome preternatural entity is said to be an ancient earth spirit, sitting aloof and alone at the summits, enrobed in mist and clouds. Sometimes it will send the caliginous mountain mists down the slopes to envelop unwary climbers so that they lose their way, trekking helplessly over the edge of unseen precipices to their doom.
In times past, the Brenin Llwyd was greatly feared as a child-stealer, and even the mountain guides were nervous of venturing into its domain. It also appeared as the evil supernatural villain in the children's fantasy novel The Grey King (1975) by Susan Cooper, the fourth of five books in her Arthurian series, The Dark is Rising.
In summary: there is no single, easy explanation for the multi-faceted mystery of Ben MacDhui’s BGM. Some aspects seem to be of psychological origin, others ostensibly paranormal, and there may even be facets featuring geological or other physical phenomena that are still unverified by science. Indeed, more than a century after Prof. Collie’s classic experience here, reports from Scotland’s haunted mountain of the grim grey entity that may (or may not) lurk within its misty realm remain as tantalising and tenuous as they were then, as intangible, in fact, as Scotch mist itself – and we all know what they say about that!
Frances.
mojo (14th March 2015), Ria (14th March 2015), sandancer (12th March 2015), Spiral of Light (12th March 2015)
Sex And The Single Satyr.
Article by Dr Karl Shuker.
Source :- http://karlshuker.blogspot.co.uk/201...gle-satyr.html
Replica of Greek satyr bust from c.400 BC (Dr Karl Shuker)
A few months ago, I spotted in a charity shop the very unusual artefact depicted above at the beginning of this ShukerNature blog post; and after recognising what it was, I lost no time in purchasing it for the princely sum of just ÂŁ5. It is a replica of a Greek stone bust dating from c.400 BC, which portrays the head of a satyr.
Typical latter-day depiction of satyr as goat-man in a medieval bestiary by Aldrovandi
Today, the popular image of a satyr is that of a semi-human semi-goat entity, with hairy goat-legs and hoofed feet, a pair of short curly horns, and a very inconspicuous goat-tail.
In classical Greek mythology, conversely, the satyr was originally represented with the long, profusely-haired tail of a horse, with pointed donkey-like ears rather than horns, a flattened nose, and the legs and feet of a normal human.
Satyr depicted with a long, full-bodied horse-tail on a pottery fragment from a Greek amphora dating from the 6th Century BC
Lovers of wine, nymphs, and playing music with their panpipes, satyrs were disciples of a minor demi-god of fertility called Silenus, and, just like him, they were also enthusiastic followers of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. As Silenus was commonly portrayed as an elderly man of typically inebriated aspect, old satyrs were duly referred to as sileni (young ones were known as satyrisci).
'Drunken Silenus', a 2nd-Century-AD Roman marble statue in the Louvre, Paris (public domain)
During Roman times, however, the image of the satyr became conflated and ultimately synonymised with that of a rustic Roman nature deity called Faunus. He was half-human, half-goat, as were his followers, known as fauns (though originally they were described as half-human, half-deer).
Statue of Faunus at the Fountain of Neptune in Florence, Italy, sculpted by Bartolomeo Ammanati (public domain)
Since then, satyrs and fauns have generally been treated as one and the same type of mythical entity. But just how mythical, or otherwise, are satyrs?
As described time and again in mythology and folklore, satyrs were infamously lewd and lustful, never happier than when, fuelled by copious quantities of wine, they were in lecherous pursuit of some hapless nymph to ravish.
Satyr statue by Frank (Guy) Lynch in Sydney Botanic Gardens, Australia, visited by me during autumn 2006 (Dr Karl Shuker)
In my book The Unexplained (1996), I documented a remarkable cryptozoologically-relevant link between these priapic satyrs of classical legend and certain forms of elusive man-beast being reported today, with the emphasis very definitely upon priapic. Here is what I wrote:
"In Greek mythology, satyrs were semi-humans with the hairy legs, hooves, tail, and short horns of goats - but did they have a basis in reality? This unexpected prospect was raised in a stimulating paper published in the scientific journal Human Evolution in 1994 by Dr Helmut Loofs-Wissowa from the Australian National University's Faculty of Asian Studies.
"In ancient classical art, satyrs were frequently portrayed with a prominently erect penis - even when engaging in non-sexual activity. Indeed, it was this characteristic that earned them their reputation for sexual licentiousness. However, Dr Loofs-Wissowa believes that this is all fallacious - that in reality, the satyrs were displaying a physiological condition known as the penis rectus, in which the penis assumes a horizontal position even when flaccid. Among modern humans, this condition is only recorded from the bushmen of South Africa, but it is often portrayed in prehistoric cave art, including some Upper Palaeolithic examples from Europe, in which the figures exhibiting the penis rectus condition are hairy humanoids."
"There are two very intriguing aspects concerning this. One is that anthropologists have argued that these hirsute figures are representations of Neanderthal Man Homo neanderthalensis, which is believed to have died out at least 30,000 years ago. The other is that sightings of hairy troll-like humanoids are often reported in many parts of Asia, and these are believed by some scientists to be relict, modern-day Neanderthals, eluding formal scientific discovery. Of particular note here is that eyewitness descriptions of these mystifying entities have often alluded to the odd fact that they seem to have permanently erect penises, apparent even when spied indulging in non-sexual activity such as eating or walking. This suggests that they are in reality displaying the penis rectus condition.
"Combining all of this information, Loofs-Wissowa suggests that the penis rectus condition is clearly a marker in human palaeontology, i.e. indicating the identity of Neanderthals. And, as a direct consequence, he boldly proposes that satyrs might actually have been latter-day Neanderthals. He notes that many features attributed to satyrs in artistic representations differentiate them from modern humans but ally them to Neanderthals. These include their hairy body, upturned nose, prominent eye ridges, round head, strong neck - and, most noticeable of all, their exhibition of the penis rectus condition, hitherto wrongly identified as an overtly visual indication that satyrs possessed a hyperactive sex drive.
"A very novel idea, but it still leaves unexplained the small matter of the satyrs' hooves and tail, not to mention their horns..."
Statue of a satyr unearthed at Pompeii, Italy (Dr Karl Shuker)
Not all cryptozoologists, however, agree that satyrs may represent relict Neanderthals. In their book The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide (Avon Books: New York, 1999), Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe propose an alternative but equally thought-provoking option. They suggest that man-beasts exhibiting this distinctive penile condition represent a category of man-beast entirely separate from Neanderthals. They term it the Erectus Hominid, as they believe this man-beast may constitute a surviving representative of one of our own species' ancestors, Homo erectus:
"The Erectus Hominid is probably the least known of the world's mystery hominids. The reason for this is simple: most of the beings in this class have in the past been misidentified as Neanderthal. The Erectus Hominid is human-sized to about six feet tall. Its body is also within the standard human range with a slight barrelling of the chest. They are partially to fully hairy, with head hair longer than their body hair. The males of the class normally display a semi-erect penis."
Whatever the identity of satyrs in European mythology may be, however, there is an intriguing yet generally overlooked reason for their unbridled libido and debauched passion for seducing nymphs, the same reason why I entitled this ShukerNature blog post 'Sex and the Single Satyr'. Remarkably, there is no reference anywhere in the annals of classical mythology to female satyrs!
By definition, therefore, all satyrs were doomed to remain single, celibate, and sexually frustrated, unless they could achieve some lascivious success with the local dryads (wood nymphs) and oreads (mountain nymphs). Equally, such illicit liaisons offered the only opportunity for satyrs to procreate, producing new generations of satyrs, albeit ones that were increasingly diluted by the nymphs' genetic input.
Statue of an infant faun at Glastonbury, Somerset (Dr Karl Shuker)
Eventually, satyrs simply vanished from folklore and traditions, but, faced with such an uncertain, unpredictable pathway to reproductive success, it is hardly surprising really that they became extinct!
Satyr frolicking with nymphs, painted by Claude Lorrain (public domain)
Frances.
Last edited by Frances, 1st August 2015 at 17:46.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3pvaAhMWzM
Uploaded Feb 3rd 2014. Video 6:13.
Australia's Bigfoot, The Yowie.
Title says 1936. In the video it says the year was 1932.
Photograph taken with a Box Brownie by Reg Jones.
Taken at a loggers camp during the Great Depression. Reg recounts the story of being shook awake by the invisible being.
A closer look at what is in the lap of the Yowie, it looks to be that of an animal, dog maybe?
I did send the link to M.K. Davis, he did reply to say he would take a look, but there has been nothing forth coming. The link was sent a very long time ago.
Frances.
mojo (15th March 2015), sandancer (15th March 2015), Stoat muldoon (15th March 2015)
Source :- http://www.visionaryliving.com/artic...ingfairies.php
Seeing Fairies
Article By Rosemary Ellen Guiley
Folklore holds that fairies cannot be seen or noticed in any way unless they want you to observe them. Thats true to some extent, but developing fairy sight, the ability to perceive fairies, is easier than one might think. In this article I'll share with you some of my fairy experiences, and how I've increased my ability to notice them.
Who are the fairies?
Fairies include a wide range of beings who populate nature and live in homes and buildings. Many people think fairies are tiny beings with wings, but they come in all shapes and sizes, from small balls of light to little humanoid beings to towering, angelic figures. There are different races of fairies, just as there are different races of humans. The fairy realm includes nature spirits and elementals, household helpers, worker beings, guardians of the land, spirits who live in manmade machines, and over lighting presences who hold and nourish the archetypal patterns of all species.
Fairies are powerful beings. According to lore, they work tirelessly in their respective realms to ensure harmony of the cosmic whole. Their magic is associated with luck, fortune and healing. But cross a fairy and they may turn their magic against you.
Why contact fairies?
In earlier times, contacting fairies was not seen as a desirable activity. Fairies were believed to be dangerous and unpredictable, even hostile toward humans. They might kidnap you, bewitch you, play tricks on you or steal your children. Today our attitude has shifted: it is not only desirable but necessary to have an understanding of the beings in the natural landscape and in our homes and machines. In turn, fairies have responded with increased openness to mutually beneficial communication and work.
Knowledge about fairies and the ability to discern them is useful in personal spiritual work and also in paranormal investigations. Fairies that occupy homes may make their presence felt to the occupants in ways similar to ghosts and poltergeists, especially the latter. In lore, fairies are fond of moving objects around, and if they are unhappy they make messes and create disturbances. They can appear and disappear like apparitions. In natural settings, a strong fairy presence can contribute to a haunted atmosphere. If you learn how to tune into them, fairies will distinguish themselves from other entities present, and this information will be conveyed to you intuitively.
How fairies make themselves known
Special psychic gifts aren't necessary to perceive fairies. They show up when you're in harmony with your environment. We often don't notice them because we don't know how to look for them, or we dismiss them as our imagination. They may be right in front of us.
Fairies often make themselves known as sparkling balls of light. Once I lived in a wooded area in Connecticut, and I liked to look out a big picture window into the trees at dusk. During these reveries, I became aware of silvery-white lights that either floated or shot quickly around. I noticed the lights especially at times when I was in a peaceful mood, not thinking of anything in particular, but simply drinking in the beauty, scents and sounds of the environment around me. On moonlit nights, the woods were magical with lights. I also noticed the lights at dawn.
I discovered that I didn't see these lights literally, but rather perceived with my inner eye. If I averted my physical vision and did not look directly into the woods, the lights were more prominent.
I began practising this averted vision technique in other locations. It worked. Sometimes the lights sparkled like jewels on the ground, sort of like the way cities look at night when seen at high altitude from an airplane.
One summer, I heard fairy music for the first time. In lore, fairies love to dance and sing and play musical instruments. That summer I was in Findhorn, Scotland for a summer solstice festival. Findhorn became famous for its nature spirits, or devas, who communicated in mediumship and told the community members how to tend their gardens and relate to nature in a more spiritual way.
During my stay, I meditated to tune in to the environment. I paid attention to all the elements and felt myself a part of them. At twilight, I could perceive the glowing lights of nature spirits.
I had heard that Pan, the pagan ruler of nature spirits, might make himself known if he approved of you. One day when I was hiking alone to the beach, I suddenly heard behind me the distinct sound of panpipes, Pan's musical flute. At first I thought a person was behind me, but the trail was empty. The music followed me all the way out to the beach. I believe it was Pan saying hello.
On another occasion, I had a distinct mental impression of a fairy who looked like a small person. I was meditating on the roots of a huge oak tree at the ruins of a sacred site, a Roman dream temple in Lydney, England. The tree itself seemed to be a portal between worlds.
After a while, I suddenly became aware that I was being regarded by a small figure who had materialized by the tree, as though he had emerged from the roots. His clothing was not distinct, but I could clearly make out the vivid red cap on his head. He seemed old, like a little old man, and I had the impression of gray whiskers or beard. I guessed his height at about two feet. He seemed curious about me. I knew he wanted me to see him and acknowledge him, for if he had wished to watch me in secrecy he could have easily done so.
I gave him a mental greeting and thanked him for joining me. I received a mental impression of a greeting in return, and his appreciation of my respect for the place. He stayed for a bit, and then suddenly he was gone. I had the impression that he disappeared back down the tree roots. Sometimes fairies just like to drop in and check us out.
Tips for developing fairy sight
You can improve your own ability to perceive fairies by meditating on a regular basis, which expands your consciousness into the unseen realms. Ask the fairies to make themselves known to you. Practice harmony with your environment wherever you go , remember, some fairies live indoors, too. On an investigation, tune in to the place and feel yourself centered and relaxed.
Try averting your vision. Fairies often appear in peripheral vision, where they create an impression rather than a distinct visual image. Fairies can be seen at any time, but you may have the best results at transition times such as dusk and dawn. If you receive peripheral impressions and mental messages, don't dismiss them as your imagination.
Cultivating the fairy presence
To invite fairies into your home, make a fairy nook. Fairies are appreciative of special places you set aside for them. It's a sign to them that you are mindful of their well-being and wish them to be a participant in the household.
A household fairy will make known to you where the best place is in your home for a fairy nook. Fairies like places where they can survey rooms, and where they are out of the main household traffic and areas where guests are entertained. Bookshelves and tables in corners and alcoves are favorites.
The presence of iron will send fairies away, for iron saps their strength and repels them. keep iron objects away from areas in your home where you feel a fairy presence. (And, do not use iron implements in your garden.)
When you are near their nook, greet the fairies and inquire how they are getting along. You needn't speak out loud, for fairies will pick up on your thoughts.
In addition to a fairy nook, you may wish to set up a fairy altar. Altars are important in spiritual work, for they represent the meeting place of heaven and earth. The altar opens a door to spiritual realms. A fairy altar can serve as both a place to leave gifts for household fairies, and also a place to conduct fairy magic.
Small accent tables and boxes make excellent altars, and can be set up in a corner of your bedroom or a quiet area of the house. If you do not have space for a permanent altar, you can keep your altar objects in a special box and get them out whenever you wish to do a ritual.
Objects for the altar are representatives of the four elements, such as a stone or crystal for earth; a seashell for water; a feather for air; and a candle for fire. You may also wish to add devotional objects related to your spiritual/religious beliefs, lucky charms and things you associate with fairies.
Thankfulness
Above all, give thanks for your experiences fairies love to be appreciated. However, do not leave coins, for many fairies are offended by outright offerings of money. The best way to show appreciation is to take care of your home and respect the natural world. In lore, small bits of food and dishes of cream are the preferred offerings of thanks to the fairies. If they've appeared during one of your investigations, leave a tiny snack behind.
Frances.
Last edited by Frances, 26th March 2015 at 12:53.
here's that movie short.Originally posted by Frances
I enjoyed that short Film Jimmer, I could feel the bleakness and remoteness just watching it.
The Big Grey Man or a Spirit, well I will not be taking any trips up there....too spooky.
Frances.
Am Fear Liath Mor (the big grey man of Ben McDhui )
Alaister Borthwick "Once I was out with a search party on MacDhui, and on the way down after an unsuccesful day, I asked some of the gamekeepers and stalkers who were with us what they thought of it all . They worked on MacDhui , so they should know !
Had they seen Ferlas Mor ? Did he exist , or was it just a silly story ?
They looked at me for a few seconds , and then one said "We do not talk about that !"
Peter Densham - Leader of the Cairngorms R.A.F rescue team 1939-1945
".....tell me that the whine was but the result of relaxed eardrums , and the Prescence was only the creation of a mind that was accustomed to take ot great an interest in such things . I shall not be convinced. Come rather with me at the mysterious dusk time when day and night struggle upon the mountains . Feel the night wind on your faces and hear it crying amid rocks . See the desert uplands consumed before the racing storms . Though your hearts may be of steel and your mind says it cannot be true , you will be acquainted with that fear without name , that intense dread of the unknown that has pursued mankind from the very dawn of time !"
Mountains , beautiful , but too high too cold and I'm too old !!!!
Source :- http://www.prairieghosts.com/jerseydevil.html
Article by Troy Taylor.
THE MYSTERY OF THE JERSEY DEVIL!
As the story spread, even grown men declined to venture out at night. It was said that the beast carried off large dogs, geese, cats, small livestock and even occasional children. The children were never seen again, but the animal remains were often found. The Devil was also said to dry up the milk of cows by breathing on them and to kill off the fish in the streams, threatening the livelihood of the entire region.
In 1740, the frightened residents begged a local minister to exorcize the creature and the stories stated that the exorcism would last 100 years, however the Devil returned to the Pine Barrens on at least two occasions before the century was over. Legend has it that naval hero Commodore Stephen Decatur visited the Hanover Iron Works in the Barrens in 1800 to test the plant’s cannonballs. One day on the firing range, he noticed a strange creature winging overhead. Taking aim, he fired at the monster and while some say that his shot struck it, the Devil continued on its path.
The second sighting took place a few years later and this time the Devil was seen by another respected witness. Joseph Bonaparte, the former king of Spain and the brother of Napoleon, leased a country house near Bordertown from 1816 to 1839. He reported seeing the Jersey Devil while hunting game one day in the Pine Barrens.
In 1840, as the minister warned, the Devil returned and brought terror to the region once again. It snatched sheep from their pens and preyed on children who lingered outside after sunset. People all across South Jersey locked their doors and hung a lantern on the doorstep, hoping to keep the creature away.
The stories continued to be told and the lore of the Devil was recalled throughout the 1800’s, although actual sightings of the creature were few. Then, in 1909, the Jersey Devil returned again and literally thousands of people spotted the monster or saw his footprints. It became so bad that schools closed and people refused to go outside.
A police officer named James Sackville spotted the monster while walking his beat one night. He was passing along a dark alley when a winged creature hopped into the street and let out a horrific scream. Sackville fired his revolver at the beast but it spread its wings and vanished into the air.
In spite of the sightings, the beast was always considered a regional legend until the bizarre flap in 1909, which even the most skeptical researchers admit contains authentic elements of the unexplained. Many people saw the creature during the month of January, including E.W. Minster, the postmaster of Bristol, Pennsylvania, which is just over the New Jersey border. He stated that he awoke around 2:00 in the morning and heard an “eerie, almost supernatural” sound coming from the direction of the Delaware River. He looked out the window and saw what looked to be a “large crane” that was flying diagonally and emitting a curious glow. The creature had a long neck that was thrust forward in flight, thin wings, long back legs and shorter ones in the front. The creature let out a combination of a squawk and a whistle and then disappeared into the darkness.
Sightings continued. On January 19, 1909, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Evans were awakened in the early morning by the sound of a large animal on the roof of their shed. They described it as: “about three and a half feet high, with a face like a collie and a head like a horse. It had a long neck, wings about two feet long and its back legs were like those of a crane and it had horse’s hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them.”
One afternoon of that same week, a Mrs. J.H, White was taking clothes off her line when she noticed a strange creature huddled in the corner of her yard. She screamed and fainted and her husband rushed out the back door to find his wife on the ground and the Devil close by, “spurting flames”. She chased the monster with a clothesline prop and it leapt over the fence and vanished.
A short time later, the creature struck again. This time, it attacked a dog belonging to Mrs. Mary Sorbinski in south Camden. When she heard the cry of her pet in the darkness, she dashed outside and drove the Devil away with a broom. The creature fled, but not before tearing a chunk of flesh from the dog. Mrs. Sorbinski carried her wounded pet inside and immediately called the police.
By the time that patrolmen arrived, a crowd of more than 100 people were gathered at the house. The crowd was witness to the piercing screams that suddenly erupted from nearby. The police officers emptied their revolvers at the shadow that loomed against the night sky, but the Devil escaped once again.
Eyewitness accounts of the Devil filled the newspapers, as well as photos and reports of cloven footprints that had been found in yards, woods and parking lots. The Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000 reward for the capture of the Devil, but there were no takers.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the Devil vanished again.
The creature did not return again until 1927. A cab driver was changing a tire one night while headed for Salem. He had just finished when his car began shaking violently. He looked up to see a gigantic, winged figure pounding on the roof of his car. The driver, leaving his jack and flat tire behind, jumped into the car and quickly drove away. He reported the encounter to the Salem police.
In August 1930, berry pickers at Leeds Point and Mays Landing reported seeing the Devil, crashing through the fields and devouring blueberries and cranberries. It was reported again two weeks later to the north and then it disappeared again.
In November 1951, a group of children were allegedly cornered by the Devil at the Duport Clubhouse in Gibbstown. The creature bounded away without hurting anyone but reports claimed that it was spotted by dozens of witnesses before finally vanishing again.
Sightings continued here and there for years and then peaked once more in 1960 when bloodcurdling cries terrorized a group of people near Mays Landing. State officials tried to calm the nervous residents but no explanation could be found for the weird sounds. Policemen nailed signs and posters everywhere stating that the Jersey Devil was a hoax, but curiosity-seekers flooded into the area anyway. Harry Hunt, who owned the Hunt Brothers Circus, offered $100,000 for the capture of the beast, hoping to add it to his sideshow attractions. Needless to say, the monster was never snared.
The most recent sighting of the creature was said to have been in 1993 when a forest ranger named John Irwin was driving along the Mullica River in southern New Jersey. He was startled to find the road ahead of him blocked by the Jersey Devil. He described it as being about six-feet tall with horns and matted black fur. Could this have been the reported Jersey Devil - or some other creature altogether? Irwin stated that he and the creature stared at one another for several minutes before the monster finally turned and ran into the forest.
Today, there are only a few, isolated sightings of the Jersey Devil. It seems as though the paved roads, electric lights and modern conventions that have come to the region over the course of two and a half centuries have driven the monster so far into hiding that it has vanished altogether. The lack of proof of the monster’s existence in these modern times leads many to believe the Devil was nothing more than a creation of New Jersey folklore. But was it really?
If it was merely a myth, then how do we explain the sightings of the creature and the witness accounts from reliable persons like businessmen, police officers and even public officials? They are not easy to dismiss as hearsay or the result of heavy drinking. Could the Jersey Devil have been real after all? And if so, is it still out there in the remote regions of the Pine Barrens - just waiting to be found?
Frances.
Last edited by Frances, 20th July 2015 at 18:51.
Source :- http://www.ghost-story.co.uk/index.p...d-wear-england
The South Shields Poltergeist, Tyne and Wear, England
The South Shields poltergeist case occurred over several months in a terraced house in South Shields, a coastal town in north east England. It started in December 2005 with anomalous movements of furniture and objects.
The victims were a young couple, Marc and Marianne, and their three-year old son Robert, there full identities have not been revealed for fear of ridicule and press attention.
The haunting started with the couple arriving home, one December evening to find two chairs stacked on top of each other on top of the table. Over the following months the events intensified with objects disappearing and reappearing in different rooms in the house. A chest of drawers was moved from the bedroom out onto the landing and doors would slam shut in the early hours.
Marc and Marianne were getting ready for bed they undressed themselves and quickly slipped under the duvet. Although the heating had been on for many hours, it was unusually cold in their normally snug bedroom. Marianne turned off the lights, seconds later, Marianne was hit on the head by their son's toy dog, she sat bolt upright in bed in shock, and turned the lights back on.
Moments later another stuffed dog hit her on the head. She hardly saw it move. It seemed to have appeared on the edge of vision a fraction of a second before hitting her. Soon the air was thick with flying toys. All seemed to appear in mid flight, apparently from nowhere, and were hurled with great force at the petrified couple. Marc and Marianne hugged the duvet closer to try and protect themselves from the flying toys. An invisible hand grabbed the far corner of the duvet and pulled in the opposite direction, soon they were involved in a tug of war with the poltergeist.
As quickly as it had started, the tugging stopped only to be replaced by something even worse. Marc started screaming and across his back long scratches started to appear, in only a few moments thirteen large scratches had appeared on Marc's back. Marc later described the the painful sensation as being scratched by a large heavy claw. The scratches had mysteriously disappeared by the next morning.
In June the haunting came to the attention of Hallowell and Ritson, two paranormal investigators who staged an investigation over a period of several months. The investigators were present during many of the disturbances, and photographed and filmed many of them. One particularly convincing incident was a plastic water bottle which one of them saw and photographed balancing diagonally on the table, not a natural position.
Repressed emotion in living individuals is quite often thought to be responsible in poltergeist cases, but the investigators soon rejected this. They had a strong sense of an independent entity with a malevolent nature. In fact it soon became obvious that the poltergeist was trying to frighten the couple. On one occasion they found their child's rocking horse hanging by one its reins from the loft hatch in the ceiling. In another particular sinister incident, a large toy bunny was found in a chair placed at the top of the stairs, holding a box cutter blade in one of its paws.
The poltergeist also took to writing threatening messages on a white board in the child's bedroom, and in the later stages sent text messages to Marianne's mobile phone, such as 'I m going to get you bitch' and 'You're Dead'. The phone was given to experts to trace the texts, the texts could not be traced back to another phone or a computer.
As the months went by the phenomena intensified. Big red scratches appeared suddenly on Marc's torso and vanished equally mysteriously, in front of several witnesses. The investigators watched cupboard doors swinging open, light-shades swinging, the quilt on the bed moving. The couple were seriously frightened when the child himself was moved. On the first occasion they found him lying on the floor tightly wrapped in his bed quilt, with a plastic table on top of him. The child himself seemed to be asleep, but his eyes were wide open, as if he was in a trance. Another time the child appeared to have vanished altogether, and was eventually found in a closet, tightly cocooned in a blanket.
In fact no real harm seems to have ever been done, but the couple were terrified, and have since moved out of the area. The authors speculate the poltergeist was trying to create fear in order to generate emotion that it could feed from. They compare the case with the Amherst Incident of 1878 in Nova Scotia, where death threats to the occupants were found scratched on the walls.
The investigators quickly eliminated any possibility of Marianne staging a hoax she was obviously frightened, and in any case was not involved in phenomena they themselves witnessed. They were at first less sure about Marc, largely because he didn't seem to react very much to the incidents, and was the type who might have enjoyed playing pranks. But they were certain he could not have been responsible for incidents they witnessed themselves, and by the end of the investigation had totally abandoned any idea of fraud.
Frances.
Last edited by Frances, 26th March 2015 at 13:02.
Source :- http://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMy...0s_and_beyond/
The Mystery Airships of the 1890s and beyond : Unresolved Mysteries.
INTRODUCTION
Eighteen ninety-six was marked by a strange occurrence, an amazing phenomenon that those that saw it probably never forgot.
People, by the thousands, living across North America, from San Francisco to Chicago, observed strange lights in the sky. The lights, reportedly an airship, crossed the continent from west to east while the country watched.
The excitement started on November 17, 1896 in Sacramento, California. It was a rainy, dismal night. Then, through the dark clouds, appeared a bright light. It moved slowly west appearing to be about a thousand feet above the rooftops.
Hundreds of people saw the light including George Scott, an assistant to the Secretary of State of California. Scott persuaded some friends to join him on the observation deck above the capitol dome and from there they thought they could see three lights, not one.
Above the lights was a dark, oblong shape.
The most detailed report of the evening came from one R.L. Lowery, a former street railway employee who said he heard a voice from above call, "Throw her up higher; she'll hit the steeple."
When he looked up he saw two men seated on a bicycle-like frame, peddling. Above them was a "cigar-shaped body of some length." Lowery said that the thing also had "wheels at the side like the side wheels on Fulton's old steam boat."
DID THEY REALLY EXIST?
From Wikipedia.
Mystery airships or phantom airships are a class of unidentified flying objects best known from a series of newspaper reports originating in the western United States and spreading east during 1896 and 1897.
According to researcher Jerome Clark, airship reports were made worldwide from the 1880s to 1890s. Mystery airship reports are seen as a cultural predecessor to modern claims of extraterrestrial-piloted flying saucer-style UFOs.
Typical airship reports involved unidentified lights, but more detailed accounts reported ships comparable to a dirigible. Reports of the alleged crewmen and pilots usually described them as human looking, although sometimes the crew claimed to be from Mars.
It was popularly believed that the mystery airships were the product of some genius inventor not ready to make knowledge of his creation public.
SPECIFIC CASES
The Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Call reported the first sighting on November 18, 1896. Witnesses reported a light moving slowly over Sacramento on the evening of November 17 at an estimated 1,000 foot elevation. Some witnesses said they could see a dark shape behind the light.
A witness named R. L. Lowery reported that he heard a voice from the craft issuing commands to increase elevation in order to avoid hitting a church steeple. Lowery added "in what was no doubt meant as a wink to the reader" that he believed the apparent captain to be referring to the tower of a local brewery, as there were no churches nearby.
Lowery further described the craft as being powered by two men exerting themselves on bicycle pedals. Above the pedaling men seemed to be a passenger compartment, which lay under the main body of the dirigible. A light was mounted on the front end of the airship. Some witnesses reported the sound of singing as the craft passed overhead.
The November 19, 1896 edition of the Stockton, California Daily Mail featured one of the earliest accounts of an alleged alien craft sighting.
Colonel H. G. Shaw claimed that while driving his buggy through the countryside near Stockton he came across what appeared to be a landed spacecraft. Shaw described it as having a metallic surface which was completely featureless apart from a rudder, and pointed ends. He estimated a diameter of 25 feet and said the vessel was around 150 feet in total length.
Three slender, 7-foot-tall (2.1 m), apparent extraterrestrials were said to approach from the craft while "emitting a strange warbling noise." The beings reportedly examined Shaw's buggy and then tried to physically force him to accompany them back to the airship.
The aliens were said to give up after realizing they lacked the physical strength to force Shaw onto the ship. They supposedly fled back to their ship, which lifted off the ground and sped out of sight.
Shaw believed that the beings were Martians sent to kidnap an earthling for unknowable but potentially nefarious purposes. This has been seen by some as an early attempt at alien abduction; it is apparently the first published account of explicitly extraterrestrial beings attempting to kidnap humans into their spacecraft.
The mystery light reappeared over Sacramento the evening of November 21. It was also seen over Folsom, San Francisco and Oakland later that same evening and was reportedly viewed by hundreds of witnesses.
One witness from Arkansas – allegedly a former state senator Harris – was supposedly told by an airship pilot (during the tensions leading up to the Spanish American War) that the craft was bound for Cuba, to use its "Hotchkiss gun" to "kill Spaniards".
In one account from Texas, three men reported an encounter with an airship and with "five peculiarly dressed men" who reported that they were descendant from the lost tribes of Israel; they had learned English from the 1553 north pole expedition led by Hugh Willoughby.
On February 2, 1897, the Omaha Bee reported an airship sighting over Hastings, Nebraska the previous day.
An article in the Albion Weekly News reported that two witnesses saw an airship crash just inches from where they were standing. The airship suddenly disappeared, with a man standing where the vessel had been. The airship pilot showed the men a small device that supposedly enabled him to shrink the airship small enough to store the vessel in his pocket.
A rival newspaper, the Wilsonville Review, playfully claimed that its own editor was an additional witness to the incident and that he heard the pilot say "Weiver eht rof ebircsbus!" The phrase he allegedly heard at the airship landing site is "Subscribe for the Review" transliterated backwards.
On April 10, 1897 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a story reporting that one W. H. Hopkins encountered a grounded airship about 20 feet in length and 8 feet in diameter near the outskirts of Springfield, Missouri. The vehicle was apparently propelled by 3 large propellers and crewed by a beautiful nude woman and a bearded man, also nude.
Hopkins attempted with some difficulty to communicate with the crew in order to ascertain their origins. Eventually they understood what Hopkins was asking of them and they both pointed to the sky and "uttered something that sounded like the word 'Mars.'"
An April 16, 1897 a story published by the Table Rock Argus claimed that a group of "anonymous but reliable" witnesses had seen an airship sailing overhead. The craft had many passengers. The witnesses claimed that among these passengers was a woman tied to a chair, a woman attending her, and a man with a pistol guarding their apparent prisoner. Before the witnesses thought to contact the authorities the airship was already gone.
An account from Aurora, Texas related in the Dallas Morning News on April 19, 1897, reported that a couple of days before, an airship had smashed into a windmill – later determined to be a sump pump – belonging to a Judge Proctor, then crashed.
The occupant was dead and mangled, but the story reported that presumed pilot was clearly "not an inhabitant of this world." Strange "hieroglyphic" figures were seen on the wreckage, which resembled "a mixture of aluminum and silver ... it must have weighed several tons."
In the 20th Century, unusual metallic material recovered from the presumed crash site was shown to contain a percentage of aluminum and iron admixed. The story ended by noting that the pilot was given a "Christian burial" in the town cemetery.
In 1973, MUFON investigators discovered the alleged stone marker used in this burial. Their metal detectors indicated a quantity of foreign material might remain buried there. However, they were not permitted to exhume, and when they returned several years later, the headstone – and whatever metallic material had lain beneath it – was gone.
Frances.
Last edited by Frances, 26th March 2015 at 13:05.
sandancer (16th March 2015)
Source:- http://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMy...0s_and_beyond/
The Mystery Airships of the 1890s and beyond : UnresolvedMysteries
INTRODUCTION
Eighteen ninety-six was marked by a strange occurrence, an amazing phenomenon that those that saw it probably never forgot.
People, by the thousands, living across North America, from San Francisco to Chicago, observed strange lights in the sky. The lights, reportedly an airship, crossed the continent from west to east while the country watched.
The excitement started on November 17, 1896 in Sacramento, California. It was a rainy, dismal night. Then, through the dark clouds, appeared a bright light. It moved slowly west appearing to be about a thousand feet above the rooftops.
Hundreds of people saw the light including George Scott, an assistant to the Secretary of State of California. Scott persuaded some friends to join him on the observation deck above the capitol dome and from there they thought they could see three lights, not one.
Above the lights was a dark, oblong shape.
The most detailed report of the evening came from one R.L. Lowery, a former street railway employee who said he heard a voice from above call, "Throw her up higher; she'll hit the steeple."
When he looked up he saw two men seated on a bicycle-like frame, peddling. Above them was a "cigar-shaped body of some length." Lowery said that the thing also had "wheels at the side like the side wheels on Fulton's old steam boat."
DID THEY REALLY EXIST?
​ From Wikipedia:
Mystery airships or phantom airships are a class of unidentified flying objects best known from a series of newspaper reports originating in the western United States and spreading east during 1896 and 1897.
According to researcher Jerome Clark, airship reports were made worldwide from the 1880s to 1890s. Mystery airship reports are seen as a cultural predecessor to modern claims of extraterrestrial-piloted flying saucer-style UFOs.
Typical airship reports involved unidentified lights, but more detailed accounts reported ships comparable to a dirigible. Reports of the alleged crewmen and pilots usually described them as human looking, although sometimes the crew claimed to be from Mars.
It was popularly believed that the mystery airships were the product of some genius inventor not ready to make knowledge of his creation public.
SPECIFIC CASES
The Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Call reported the first sighting on November 18, 1896. Witnesses reported a light moving slowly over Sacramento on the evening of November 17 at an estimated 1,000 foot elevation. Some witnesses said they could see a dark shape behind the light.
A witness named R. L. Lowery reported that he heard a voice from the craft issuing commands to increase elevation in order to avoid hitting a church steeple. Lowery added "in what was no doubt meant as a wink to the reader" that he believed the apparent captain to be referring to the tower of a local brewery, as there were no churches nearby.
Lowery further described the craft as being powered by two men exerting themselves on bicycle pedals. Above the pedaling men seemed to be a passenger compartment, which lay under the main body of the dirigible. A light was mounted on the front end of the airship. Some witnesses reported the sound of singing as the craft passed overhead.
The November 19, 1896 edition of the Stockton, California Daily Mail featured one of the earliest accounts of an alleged alien craft sighting.
Colonel H. G. Shaw claimed that while driving his buggy through the countryside near Stockton he came across what appeared to be a landed spacecraft. Shaw described it as having a metallic surface which was completely featureless apart from a rudder, and pointed ends. He estimated a diameter of 25 feet and said the vessel was around 150 feet in total length.
Three slender, 7-foot-tall (2.1 m), apparent extraterrestrials were said to approach from the craft while "emitting a strange warbling noise." The beings reportedly examined Shaw's buggy and then tried to physically force him to accompany them back to the airship.
The aliens were said to give up after realizing they lacked the physical strength to force Shaw onto the ship. They supposedly fled back to their ship, which lifted off the ground and sped out of sight.
Shaw believed that the beings were Martians sent to kidnap an earthling for unknowable but potentially nefarious purposes. This has been seen by some as an early attempt at alien abduction; it is apparently the first published account of explicitly extraterrestrial beings attempting to kidnap humans into their spacecraft.
The mystery light reappeared over Sacramento the evening of November 21. It was also seen over Folsom, San Francisco and Oakland later that same evening and was reportedly viewed by hundreds of witnesses.
One witness from Arkansas, allegedly a former state senator Harris, was supposedly told by an airship pilot (during the tensions leading up to the Spanish American War) that the craft was bound for Cuba, to use its "Hotchkiss gun" to "kill Spaniards".
In one account from Texas, three men reported an encounter with an airship and with "five peculiarly dressed men" who reported that they were descendant from the lost tribes of Israel; they had learned English from the 1553 north pole expedition led by Hugh Willoughby.
On February 2, 1897, the Omaha Bee reported an airship sighting over Hastings, Nebraska the previous day.
An article in the Albion Weekly News reported that two witnesses saw an airship crash just inches from where they were standing. The airship suddenly disappeared, with a man standing where the vessel had been. The airship pilot showed the men a small device that supposedly enabled him to shrink the airship small enough to store the vessel in his pocket.
A rival newspaper, the Wilsonville Review, playfully claimed that its own editor was an additional witness to the incident and that he heard the pilot say "Weiver eht rof ebircsbus!" The phrase he allegedly heard at the airship landing site is "Subscribe for the Review" transliterated backwards.
On April 10, 1897 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a story reporting that one W. H. Hopkins encountered a grounded airship about 20 feet in length and 8 feet in diameter near the outskirts of Springfield, Missouri. The vehicle was apparently propelled by 3 large propellers and crewed by a beautiful nude woman and a bearded man, also nude.
Hopkins attempted with some difficulty to communicate with the crew in order to ascertain their origins. Eventually they understood what Hopkins was asking of them and they both pointed to the sky and "uttered something that sounded like the word 'Mars.'"
An April 16, 1897 a story published by the Table Rock Argus claimed that a group of "anonymous but reliable" witnesses had seen an airship sailing overhead. The craft had many passengers. The witnesses claimed that among these passengers was a woman tied to a chair, a woman attending her, and a man with a pistol guarding their apparent prisoner. Before the witnesses thought to contact the authorities the airship was already gone.
An account from Aurora, Texas related in the Dallas Morning News on April 19, 1897, reported that a couple of days before, an airship had smashed into a windmill, later determined to be a sump pump belonging to a Judge Proctor, then crashed.
The occupant was dead and mangled, but the story reported that presumed pilot was clearly "not an inhabitant of this world." Strange "hieroglyphic" figures were seen on the wreckage, which resembled "a mixture of aluminum and silver ... it must have weighed several tons."
In the 20th Century, unusual metallic material recovered from the presumed crash site was shown to contain a percentage of aluminum and iron admixed. The story ended by noting that the pilot was given a "Christian burial" in the town cemetery.
In 1973, MUFON investigators discovered the alleged stone marker used in this burial. Their metal detectors indicated a quantity of foreign material might remain buried there. However, they were not permitted to exhume, and when they returned several years later, the headstone, and whatever metallic material had lain beneath it was gone.
Frances.
​
Last edited by Frances, 20th July 2015 at 18:58.
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