Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted March 20, 2018 Author Moderators Share Posted March 20, 2018 I'm sure in the time it takes for me to post this, someone will point out it's just a weird fish everyone knows about, or viral marketing for Sharknado 12, but for now, let's enjoy this. That's the guts they've blurred out, not its wanger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 2 hours ago, Astro Hollywood said: That's the guts they've blurred out, not its wanger. Shame, I was awaiting the "Cock Ness Monster" headlines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted March 20, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted March 20, 2018 Based on no evidence whatsoever I'm going to say "decayed basking shark", because it's always a sodding decayed basking shark. It looks a lot more complete, and less obviously rotted away than most of this stuff does, though. Blurred todger notwithstanding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members chokeout Posted March 20, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted March 20, 2018 It annoys me far more than it should that they didn't put anything in the photo to show scale Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted March 20, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted March 20, 2018 7 minutes ago, chokeout said: It annoys me far more than it should that they didn't put anything in the photo to show scale There never is in these things. Much easier to sell something as a "monster" when there's nothing to indicate that it's only a few inches long. Â ... Â Â kennethwilliams.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoUseforaUsername Posted March 26, 2018 Share Posted March 26, 2018 (edited) This story has shades of the Dyatlov Pass about it. Five young men disappear in 70's California in mysterious circumstances, four are later found dead, and one is still missing. http://mentalfloss.com/article/532063/bizarre-hell-disappearance-yuba-county-five Edited March 26, 2018 by NoUseforaUsername Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted April 8, 2018 Author Moderators Share Posted April 8, 2018 This is very exciting. I've not had time to listen to it yet, but Radio 4 reunited the living witnesses of the Enfield Poltergeist: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09yck6b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Surf Digby Posted April 9, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 9, 2018 3 hours ago, Astro Hollywood said: This is very exciting. I've not had time to listen to it yet, but Radio 4 reunited the living witnesses of the Enfield Poltergeist: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09yck6b It was pretty good. Only a brief, pre-recorded appearance from the Hodgson girls at the end as they declined to appear, but it was far better than the wasted opportunity Phil Schofield had with Janet a few years ago. Very straight laced with sceptical questioning rather than outright denial, and plenty of clips from Maurice Gross's recordings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted April 18, 2018 Author Moderators Share Posted April 18, 2018 Speaking of the Enfield Poltergeist, investigator Guy Lyon Playfair, who was on the scene, and never stopped championing events as 100% real, died a couple of weeks ago. He was a consultant on Ghostwatch, and even into his eighties, he could be seen getting livid on various TV shows at anyone being sceptical towards Enfield. Maybe he'll possess a little girl and get her to recite nursery rhymes in a Phyllis Pearce voice. On another topic, if anyone's got a spare 20 minutes and is interested, I've written a thing about one of my favourite one-off Fortean events ever, the Birmingham housewife who discussed Bruce Forsyth with, and gave mince pies to the alien fairies who invaded her home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 What a wonderfully British story!  As you say, much more akin to fairy stories and myths than Aliens in some respects. My personal theory on stories of fairies, ogres, goblins etc is that they stem from race memories of the period of pre-history where homo sapiens shared (and competed for) space with other hominids - Neanderthal, Denivosan, Floresiensis, Heidelbergensis, Naledi and probably others.  The tradition of the human-like 'other' , living in caves or forests, persisted even after those other species died out and ended up as folk tales.  Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted April 19, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 19, 2018 That's more or less how I perceive them - some kind of distorted folk memory, altered over time as tellings and re-tellings of stories become more and more distorted from their original meaning. Throw in some good old-fashioned prejudice (goblins being hook-nosed, gold hoarders has been interpreted as being rooted in medieval anti-Semitism, and plenty of myths/folk tales of "beast men" and so on are rooted in distorted tales of hitherto unfamiliar ethnic groups), the usage of folk tales to impart wisdom and life lessons (caves and forests are invariably places where bad things happen in folk stories, because they represent where people are most likely to come to harm, and represent the outer limits of the known "world"), and the tendency to invent folkloric or magical creatures by exaggerating or inverting the properties of aspects of the known world, and it all comes together. I think what's important to recognise is that many people historically likely didn't believe in fairies, trolls or so on in any more of a literal sense than we do, but used them as allegories. That process of how a story mutates and grows over time absolutely fascinates me - Jason Colavito writes very informatively on it, in relation to interpretation of myth by Ancient Alien theorists and the like - and the sharing and cross-pollination of ideas across time is probably my favourite area of academic interest, and something I'd be keen to try and explore more if I ever returned to full-time education. But I do love the idea of race memory, or collective memory/imagination - as if humans have some kind of rudimentary hive mind. Â Love that blog post too! It's the sort of story that used to pop up on Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, and all that kind of thing that got me into all things Fortean in the first place. The explicit connection between fairies and aliens is one I find interesting - perception of things deemed to be "otherworldly" seems to be largely dependent on cultural context; what were once demons, ghosts or fairies, by the mid-20th Century largely became aliens from outer space, and that combination of alien and fairy seems such an unlikely one, with aliens seeming a modern obsession, and fairies feeling more provincial and Victorian. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted April 19, 2018 Author Moderators Share Posted April 19, 2018 (edited) Cheers, lads. The cultural hand-me-down aspect of fairies/hags/demons/aliens is endlessly fascinating to me, whether it's actual genetic memory, or just the result of the way humans communicate their fears though storytelling. The exact same experiences, but transposed to fit whatever the contemporary boogeyman is, like a modern remake of an old movie. I wonder what the next thing will be that future generations imagine is suffocating them during a sleep paralysis attack? Probably some stupid meme from 4chan. Edited April 19, 2018 by Astro Hollywood Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Bifkin Posted April 19, 2018 Share Posted April 19, 2018 24 minutes ago, Astro Hollywood said: I wonder what the next thing will be that future generations imagine is suffocating them during a sleep paralysis attack? Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted April 19, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted April 19, 2018 26 minutes ago, Astro Hollywood said: Cheers, lads. The cultural hand-me-down aspect of fairies/hags/demons/aliens is endlessly fascinating to me, whether it's actual genetic memory, or just the result of the way humans communicate their fears though storytelling. The exact same experiences, but transposed to fit whatever the contemporary boogeyman is, like a modern remake of an old movie. I wonder what the next thing will be that future generations imagine is suffocating them during a sleep paralysis attack? Probably some stupid meme from 4chan. I'd say we're seeing the beginnings of something similar with the rise in paranoia regarding A.I. and robotics. There's already a huge body of work on the subject, and when you've got prominent figures in tech like Elon Musk going on about it, I wouldn't be surprised to see the kind of fear and suspicion that humanity displayed in The Animatrix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Astro Hollywood Posted April 19, 2018 Author Moderators Share Posted April 19, 2018 Just now, Carbomb said: I'd say we're seeing the beginnings of something similar with the rise in paranoia regarding A.I. and robotics. There's already a huge body of work on the subject, and when you've got prominent figures in tech like Elon Musk going on about it, I wouldn't be surprised to see the kind of fear and suspicion that humanity displayed in The Animatrix. Could be. Although, having myself wondered what was next, I think we're actually seeing it already with Shadow People, which blew up as a huge folkloric meme over the last decade. The Hat Man is the 21st century hag. There's a great documentary called The Nightmare, about the things people see during sleep paralysis, and that cunt's all over it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.