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AUSTIN
HANG OUT THE GARLIC!
SERBIAN VAMPIRE WALKS AGAIN
INDIA’S UFO INVASION
WITNESSES REPORT FLYING ROBOT
DOGGED DEVOTION
THE REAL STORY OF GREYFRIARS BOBBY
OSMAN SPARE
THE COMIC!
THE WORLD’S
WEIRDEST
NEWS STORIES
FANTHORPE’S FORTEAN FICTION • SNOW CIRCLES • ASH TREE MAGIC • WHEN THE DEAD DRESS UP
THE WORLD OF
STRANGE PHENOMENA
WWW.FORTEANTIMES.COM
FT297 FEBRUARY 2013 £4.25
 WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net
Fortean Times 297
AUSTIN
OSMAN SPARE
THE COMIC!
HANG OUT THE GARLIC!
SERBIAN VAMPIRE WALKS AGAIN
INDIA’S UFO INVASION
WITNESSES REPORT FLYING ROBOT
DOGGED DEVOTION
THE REAL STORY OF GREYFRIARS BOBBY
FANTHORPE’S FORTEAN FICTION • SNOW CIRCLES • ASH TREE MAGIC • WHEN THE DEAD DRESS UP
tHe WoRLD’s
WeIRDest
neWs stoRIes
WWW.forTeaNTiMes.CoM
THe WorLD of
sTraNge PHeNoMeNa
FT297 MARCH 2013 $11.99 USA
strange days
CAN $13.25
AUS $12.95
NZ $17.30
UK £4.25
Serbian vampire spreads panic; tales of dogged devotion;
Paciic island undiscovered; ire-breathing Devil baby; USAF
UFOS; four-foot lying robot seen in India; dressing up the
dead; world’s oldest plant; snow circles; cathedral licker’s
quest; ghosts and alcohol – and much more.
contents
the world of strange phenomena
14 SCIENCE
16 GHOSTwATCH
21 KONSPIRACy KORNER
23 MyTHCONCEPTIONS
25 ALIEN zOO
26 ARCHæOLOGy
27 CLASSICAL CORNER
28 NECROLOG
29 STRANGE DEATHS
30 THE UFO FILES
features
Cover sTory
32 sPurious sPiriTs
JaCob MiDDLeToN looks back at the largely forgotten
Victorian activity of ghost impersonation and asks
what this bizarre pastime can tell us about changing
attitudes to the supernatural in an era of rapid social
transformation
32 sPurious sPiriTs aND gHosTLy Hoaxes
investigating the forgotten victorian pastime of ghost impersonation
38 faNTHorPe’s forTeaN fiCTioN
aNDreW May celebrates the literary career of that
familiar fortean igure, Lionel Fanthorpe – priest, television
show host and (under a variety of colourful pseudonyms)
one of the most productive writers in the history of pulp
iction
44 greyfriars bobby
Any visitor to Edinburgh will encounter a monument to
Scotland’s most famous canine, Greyfriars Bobby. This
little terrier, the most faithful dog in the world, is said to
have kept a vigil at his master’s grave for 14 long years.
Many children’s books, and three successful ilms, have
been inspired by the story. But how much of it is actually
true, and how much is make-believe? JaN boNDesoN
investigates…
44 greyfriars bobby
The truth behind a tale of dogged devotion
38 faNTHorPe’s forTeaN fiCTioN
The fantastic sf worlds of badger books
reports
74
forTeaN TraveLLer
No. 82. The Kaali Meteor Crater by
Keith Rufles
forum
53
Lightning Tree lore
by John Reppion
54
Signs in the sky
by Ted Harrison
regulars
02 EDITORIAL
52 SUBSCRIPTIONS
69 LETTERS
76 READER INFO
79 PHENOMENOMIX
80 TALES FROM THE VAULT
22 igavebirTH To a DeviL baby!
fire-breathing tot is pure evil , says mother
53 THe Lore of THe LigHTNiNg Tree
Healing powers of the common ash
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MAIN COVER IMAGE: HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTy IMAGES
1
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fortean times
editorial
Editor
DAVID SUTTON
(drsutton@forteantimes.com)
foundinG EditorS
bOb rIckArD (rickard@forteantimes.com)
pAUl SIeVekINg (sieveking@forteantimes.com)
Art dirEctor
eTIeNNe gIlfIllAN
(etienne@forteantimes.com)
Book rEviEWS Editor
VAl STeVeNSON
(val@forteantimes.com)
rESidEnt cArtooniSt
HUNT emerSON
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forteanTimes@servicehelpline.co.uk
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You cAn rEAcH ft on tHE intErnEt
www.forteantimes.com
well, here we are again…
end of the woRld news
Stories of doomsday panic in the lead-up to
21 December 2012 continued to appear in the
world’s media as we neared the year’s end.
From Russia came reports of “collective mass
psychosis” in a women’s prison near the Chinese
border, where inmates were apparently so dis-
tressed that a priest was summoned to try and
calm them down. “Once,
when the prisoners were
standing in formation, one
of them imagined that the
Earth yawned, and they
were all stricken by fear
and ran in all directions,”
the father in question told
newspapers.
Panic buying of food and
fuel was said to have taken
place in other parts of
Russia, with people in one
area said to be stockpiling
candles after a Tibetan
monk had warned of an
impending period of dark-
ness. An entrepreneur in
the Siberian city of Tomsk
was doing a brisk trade in
‘End of the World’ Emer-
gency Kits.They contained
such essentials as vodka
and soap and bore the
typoically mordant Rus-
sian motto: “It can’ t be
worse.”
The Russian government
stepped in, with its “minis-
ter of emergency situations” saying that he had
access to “methods of monitoring what is occur-
ring on the planet Earth” and could rule out any
December apocalypse; there might, though, still
be problems with “blizzards, ice storms, torna-
does, loods, trouble with transportation and food
supply, breakdowns in heat, electricity and water
supply.” (
NewYorkTimes,1 Dec 2012
)
Meanwhile, New Agers, UFO nuts and other
assorted loons continued to gather in and around
the French village of Bugarach, causing more
headaches for its long-suffering mayor – although
bringing considerable extra income to the area’s
more enterprising businesses. One restaurant
was offering ‘Apocalypse Pizza’, which could be
washed down with a local winemaker’s ‘End of
the World’ vintage. Local press reports claimed
that a local landowner was offering to rent out
his four-bedroom house on the slopes of Bugarach
for 1,500 euros a night and offering camping in a
nearby ield for 400 euros.
In early December, the local authorities
announced that access to the mountain would not
be allowed on 21 December. Eric Freysselinard,
the state’s top representative in the area, said he
was blocking access to the mountain for public
safety reasons to avoid a rush of New Age fanat-
ics, sightseers and media crews.The mayor had
banned ‘gatherings’ in the immediate area of the
mountain and local police were ready to arrest
anyone who attempted to land in a light aircraft.
(
AFP, 17 Nov; D.Mail 3 Dec; D.Telegraph,6 Dec,
2012
)
The Pic de Bugarach wasn’t the only mountain
in Europe to attract the doomsdayers. Mount
Rtani in Serbia attracted its own End of the
World crowd, who apparently intended to sit out
the apocalypse in a spe-
cially constructed bunker
built long ago by an alien
race within the mountain
itself. (
Gather.com,10 Dec
2012
)
Of course, the big ques-
tion is: what happens
next? Will the doomsday
believers simply pack
up and go home, or will
these modern millenar-
ians do what so many of
their predecessors have
done and reset the date
for the End of the World?
We’ll be bringing you a
special report later in the
year, once the apocalyptic
dust has settled, looking
at all of the fall-out from
21/12/12.
Right Royal aliens
The links between the
British establishment and
the UFO phenomenon
have been explored on
numerous occasions
within these pages, but we felt we had to share
the following little Royal tidbit. In the new
volume of the late Queen Mother’s letters
(
Counting One’ s Blessings
, ed. William Shaw-
cross), we ind the following amusing missive to
a courtier:
“I would love to hear Shane Leslie’ s son [Des-
mond Leslie, see
FT225:40-47
] lecture on Flying
Saucers… I adore hearing about the glorious
god-like beings that step out and converse so
sweetly with strangers. It's such an amusing
madness, and has grown to such beautiful pro-
portions, and what is extraordinary too, is that
the people fromVenus are so NICE!”
PuBLiSHEd BY
DeNNIS pUblISHINg,
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london W1T 4jD, Uk Te l: 020 7907 6000
GrouP PuBLiSHEr
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"No, that's greyfriar's benny -
his owner was a right old sod"
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daVid SUTToN
bob rickard
PaUL SiEVEkiNG
dEnniS PuBLiSHinG LiMitEd
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© fortean Times: December 2012
Why fortean?
Everything you always wanted
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Fortean Times
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A Startling Memory
Feat That
YOU
Can Do!
“How I learned the secret in one evening. It has helped me every day.”
W
hen my old friend Richard
Faulkner invited me to a
dinner party at his house, I
little thought it would be
the direct means of doubling my salary
in less than two years. Ye t it was, and
here is the way it all came about.
Towards the end of the evening
things began to drag a bit as they often
do at parties. Finally someone
suggested the old idea of having
everyone do a ‘party-piece’. Some sang,
others forced weird sounds out of the
piano, recited, told stories and so on.
shuffle a deck of cards and call them
out in order. Still blindfolded he
instantly named the cards in their
order backwards and forwards.
Yo u
read. I can now master a subject in
considerably less time than before.
Price lists, reports, quotations, data of
all kinds. I can recall in detail almost at
will. I rarely make a mistake.
What Peter told me that eventful
evening was this: “Send for details of
Dr. Bruno Furst’s Memory Course.” I
did. That was my first step in learning
to do all the remarkable things I have
told you about. In fact, I was so
impressed that I got permission to
publish Dr. Furst’s Course myself.
BOB HEAP
may
well
imagine
our
amazement
at
Peter’s
remarkable
memory feat.
“There was really
nothing to it – simply
a memory feat”
On the way home that evening I
asked Peter Brown how it was done.
He said there was really nothing to it
— simply a memory feat. Anyone could
develop a good memory, he said, by
following a few simple rules. And then
he told me exactly how to do it.
What Peter said I took to heart. In
one evening I made remarkable strides
towards improving my memory. In just
a few days I learned to do exactly what
he had done.
“I can instantly
recall anything I
want
to remember”
I was fast acquiring that mental
grasp and alertness I had so often
admired in men who were spoken of as
“brilliant” and “geniuses”.
Then I noticed a
marked improvement
in my writing and
conversational
powers. What’s more
my salary has
increased dramatically.
These are only a few
of the hundreds of
ways I have profited by
my trained memory.
Now I find it easy to
recall
“Dramatic Improvement”
“I used to be laughed at in the office
here about my poor memory and I must
admit with a lot of truth. Since I started
your Course my memory has improved
out of all recognition!”
Mr. J.W. Sullivan, London S.W.2.
We have printed full details of Dr.
Furst’s unique memory training
method in a free information pack.
Don’t delay - apply for your
free copy
today
by using one of the contact
methods shown on the coupon below.
Then it came to Peter Brown’s turn.
He said he had a simple ‘trick’ which
he hoped we would like. First he asked
to be blindfolded. Those present were
to call out 25 random numbers of three
figures each, such as 161, 249, and so
on. He asked me to list the numbers in
order as they were called.
Peter then astounded everyone by
repeating the entire list of 25 numbers
backwards and forwards. Then he
asked people to request numbers by
their position in the list, such as the
eighth number called, the fourth num-
ber and so on. Instantly he repeated
back the correct number in the
positions called. He did this with the
entire list – over and over again
without making a single mistake.
Then
“Best Investment”
“It is the best investment I have ever made.
Why is it so cheap? The Course, apart from
being so instructive, is easy to read and enter-
taining.”
Mr. P. R. Jordan, (Ship’s Officer)
To: Memory Studies, FREEPOST FEM13T, Marple,
Cheshire SK6 6YA.
Please send me your free memory information pack.
NAME..................................................................................
ADDRESS............................................................................
.............................................................................................
...........................................POSTCODE..............................
Post TODAY, visit our website at
www.youcanremember.com
or call free on 0800 298 7070 quoting Fortean Times
E-mail: FEM13E@youcanremember.com with your name and address
Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms.
Peter
asked
someone
to
everything
I
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