If I so much as mention Bigfoot/Sasquatch or even unknown sea creatures to
people I meet I get that look. You know the one -a slight wry smile with
that look of "he seemed quite normal earlier!"
But then, if I go into a sudden lecture on history I can get the same look
-or worse. An acquaintance once telephoned me and asked what I was
"up to?" I replied: "I'm currently re-reading
Julius
Caesar:Man, Soldier & Tyrant by J. F. C. Fuller-" before I'd even
finished there was the laugh, though it was quickly followed by a "Well, I
shouldn't be surprised really!"
I am not just interested in the "established" history. I am
fascinated by the “Lost” history. For
instance, that Irish sailors reached the Americas long before the Vikings
and many others. Bristol
was one of the most important ports in Medieval times and our founding father
traders had secret sea route maps but where did Bristol merchants get their maps? Why are pineapples depicted in Ancient Egypt
and also in a mural at Pompei –they are New World fruits in the Old World?
Then we have all the lost technology from the past (
do not even as a
joke mention “Ancient Astronauts” to me.
Man is creative and inventive and we do not need to pull aliens into
everything from the building of the pyramids to the Easter
Island heads (we
know
through archaeology how these were built).
Al Andalus (or Andalusia) was ruled by “The Moors” for 800 years after
moving into the Iberian Peninsula around the 8
th
century. They quite literally
re-introduced civilisation to Europe.
Mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, architecture and even medicine was far more
advanced than that in the rest of Europe –people travelled to Al Andalus (where
religions were not in conflict) to learn these skills. What the Spanish later did in their
Reconquista was set Europe back hundreds of
years.
There is so much to learn out there and when people say “Who cares –that’s
in the past!” I just have to look at them and ask why they are alive!
But then we have those old questions regarding ghosts, demons and the
like. According to the church it has not
yet decided upon the ghost and ghostly.
Now, if after over 2000 years of Christian religion, full of ghostly
events and practically based upon some ghostly events, hasn’t yet decided it is
only because it simply just has not bothered or, even more likely, coming upon
events it cannot explain it decided that it “never happened” or to talk about
it is “blasphemy” or might incur the attentions and mischief of the Devil so “be
quiet”. The Devil –another Church
creation that doesn’t appear in the Bible.
Growing up you hear things. I once lived in a house in St. Werburghs, Bristol, where the back room overlooking the Mina Road
Park had a very weird
feeling. As kids my brother, Peter and I
had this as our bedroom. I have never
ever slept well and so I got used to the huge glowing eyes looking in through
the window at night (an owl) and how things mysteriously moved about the room
during the day (windows left open during the day and a jackdaw popped in –I caught
it one day moving things and I don’t know which of us looked more surprised!).
But the room had a very strange feel and it was where I had my first
hypnagogic event (a waking dream): the dark silhouette of a traditionally
dressed witch with full high pointed hat –I even through a book at ‘her’ as she
moved past the bed. My gran did wonder
why the book was on the floor when she came in to wake us up in the
morning. My mother and father had this
bedroom at one point but my mother flatly refused to stay in it –even during
the day she would not go into it unless someone was with her and she never said
why.
One morning we heard a “thump” and my gran and parents rushed upstairs to
the room in question. My brother had
been knocked out having hit his head on the ceiling. “He must have been
bouncing on the bed” was my fathers explanation: yet we had not heard a sound
before which we should have done had he been bouncing on the bed. Also, which I realised even then, he must
have been performing Olympic style leaps to hit the high ceiling!
Eventually, a lodger, Fred, moved into that room. Within three years or so
he was taken to a mental hospital but we had all realised this was inevitable –sadly,
people deteriorating mentally is no rarity.
Then the new lodger moved in.
Derek was young, bright and breezy and had no trouble with “the room”.
I could go on and on but throughout my formative years I encountered one
thing after another that some might call “ghostly” –witnessed just by myself or
with others. Our home in Knowle, Bristol,
had thrown up a few oddities and one evening we were sat around and I looked at
the Christmas decorations as the latest “event” was mentioned. On TV someone
was talking about “the devil” so I said: “If the devil exists let him pop a red
balloon!”
“Bang!”
A red balloon popped. I thought it
was hysterically funny.
Even in Germany
the ghosts and ghostly kept popping up.
So, that I was reading books by Elliott O’Donnell, Harry Price and
others by the time I was thirteen should not surprise anyone.
One day, after school, I went into the Greystoke Avenue Library, in
Southmead, Bristol,
and looked through their “Older readers” section. In those days, if under 16 you weren’t really
allowed to venture over to the adult section but the librarians let me. I had read most of the paranormal/ghost books
but saw two I had not read before. I was
in a hurry and on leaving the library discovered I had accidentally picked up a
copy of Brisley Le Poer Trench’
The
Flying Saucer Story. I was annoyed.
I could not take the book back until next day (lending policy).
On that day I read
The Flying Saucer
Story and much more than forty years later I’m still suffering the results
of that read! It was only later that I heard from my parents that before I was
born they had been on the farm in Germany and seen a large ball of
light (UFO). So it was fate!
And wildlife. I have never had a problem in this area. While in Sevier Street, St.
Werburghs, I looked out after a Summer rain shower to see an approximately six
inches (15 cms) long caterpillar of some type –it was literally covered in
long, fawn colour hair so it looked like a long mop. It moved up the wall between the outhouse and
coal shed and to this day I have never been able to identify what it was.
In Germany,
while collecting wood for the fire in woods just outside Dalborn, my father
about six feet ahead of me with the wood-cart, there was a sudden silence. I
turned to my left to see a young fallow deer, a true “bambi”, looking at me
curiously. Some ten feet (3m) beyond it, in amongst the trees, stood the mother
also looking at me. This lasted some time before we all mutually moved off.
My grand mother had lived in Dalborn since the Second World War but had
never seen any hares. She was a bit
miffed when I returned from a walk to describe watching groups of hares and
even hare ‘boxing matches’!
When I was a bit older I did walk through the forestry and hear an odd
noise. I looked down and saw wild boar piglets and at that point I broke into a
cold sweat because I became aware and then saw the sow. She stared at me as I slowly moved away, walking
backwards and not taking my eyes off her.
She never charged me.
On one holiday, as a family, we went with our grand-father to pick
dandelions for his giant rabbits. The
route was a familiar one to us –out through the farm orchard, down the tractor
path and then along a basic road between cornfields and the forest. As we
passed a tree stump a good few feet from the forestry my grand-father casually
mentioned that the stump was where he had seen “the sturm-geist” (storm
ghost/spirit). Now, Opa had suffered a stroke so his vocabulary was good but
not great –he was still “re-learning” full speech. The storm ghost had an ugly face and was
covered in hair and when he saw it the beasty leaped from the trunk and into
the forestry. “It sounds like a chimp or
monkey of some kind” I said. Opa smiled
that smile: “No. We don’t have monkeys here.” I thought “We don’t have monkeys
but we
do have storm spirits!” Of
course, Opa was probably thinking “He thinks we have
monkeys in the
forest?”
Opa had been alone that time but when we were all together on the rough
track one day, right next to where the sturm-geist had been seen, he said “Look
there!” All we saw was a glossy black, hair-covered back leap into the coniferous
forestry. If you’ve seen black furred/feathered creatures you’ll know that in
bright sunlight the fur/feather has that sort of brownish, even purplish
glint. So did this beasty. I rushed forward determined to see what it was
but the forestry was so wild at that point I could only get five feet ort so –but
we all heard it crash through the branches of the trees.
My cousin later threw almost an hissy-fit as we explained the event. I have no idea why he was so vehement in his
dismissal of the sighting. His
explanation? It was a “fishing bird.” I
was puzzled having never heard of a “Fishing bird” –I found out it was a
cormorant. I’ve seen so many cormorants over the years (we have them in Bristol) that I know it
was not that we saw. And besides, our
critter was leaping not flying.
On another occasion I observed what I thought was a badger emerging from
forestry across some fields.
Everyone,
including the local ranger, assured me that there were no badgers in the area.
A few nights later I got up to go to the bedroom window because it was hot and
sticky and the midges were being noisy pests. I heard a noise in the flower
bed, about three feet (90 cms) below the window. I looked down and there, looking up at me,
was what for all the world looked like a fluffy black fox with white facial
markings –almost raccoon like. I tried
to reach for the camera at my bedside that had a flash on it and trying to do
so without taking my eyes off the critter.
My hand knocked the camera and I tried to grab it –when I turned back
the animal was gone.
Next day..there was
that look
again in amongst chuckles as I explained what I had seen. I was dreaming it
seems. No such animal existed. Alright, now I knew what people reporting a UFO
or Sasquatch felt like!
Back in England
I went through all my books and –there it was.
Fluffy black fox with white markings!
But it was not a fox, rather it was a raccoon-like dog which is a rather
primitive wild canid that can hibernate and they were kept by fur farmers
before escapes in the 1930s and, of course, during the war. I had seen one the furthest west they had
moved (though that was not known at the time.
Next year I took the book and showed everyone I could in Dalborn. Not a single odd look just the very, very
annoying response of “Yes. You saw one –so what?” I was sure this was a conspiracy.
So you can imagine I thought everyone considered me a nut-case. However, one day my aunt said to my mother: “Ask
Herr Professor if he wants coffee.” I
looked around and she was looking at me.
I had no idea up to this point that the family called me “Herr Professor”
or that some of the locals were also referring to me in that way. Apparently, my constant nose-in-books, asking
questions and checking everything from insects, unusual plants and animals out
had earned me a reputation!
The books, of course, varied. I had
been introduced to Brinsley Le Poer Trench (later Lord Clancarty) and his
outlook on “flying saucers” and I had read of Price and O’Donnell and their
ghost hunting experiences. My big heroes
were later added to: Major Donald E. Keyhoe and his take on the flying saucers
and Ivan T. Sanderson who covered many topics but then, he had travelled and
lived in much of the world and seen and investigated much. Sanderson had introduced me to underwater
UFOs (USOs), the Patterson-Gimlin film and, with
Abominable Snowmen:Legend Come To Life, set me on another avenue of
study.
I corresponded with George Haas of the Bigfoot Bay Area Group, Dimitri
Bayanov in Russia on the Almas and many others covering subjects from hairy
hominids, sea creatures, UFOs, ghosts, astronomy, aeronautics and beyond. I
investigated my first UFO when I was around 15 years of age and joined many
different UFO groups –I even famously fought with two Men In Black characters
on my doorstep (quite a few witnesses).
I have chased (on foot) UFOs at Warminster, on roof tops, along roads -and
nearly crashed twice. I never ever
understood why people wanting to find “the truth” just stood on the spot not
daring to face the phenomena face-on.
The same applies with ghosts or even unusual creatures: you do not endanger
yourself but you don’t just stand there saying “Well, that was a mystery wasn’t
it?”
And those over-sized “coffee table” books full of photographs and full
colour illustrations did not help. “Is
this true?” I’d ask myself. How could I
trust some stranger who just wrote this account or offered a photograph without
checking it all out myself? Sadly, those
huge books are a thing of the past to a degree.
But when I kept being asked about my “officially unofficial” UFO work, or my
work as a wildlife consultant to UK police forces and so on I got
fed up. I decided to put it all (well,
some of it) in writing.
Some Things Strange & Sinister was
my look at ghosts, poltergeists, UFOs, local and world-wide mysteries and,
where-ever I could I gave an explanation.
Explaining something away is
not being
a sceptical debunker. Only after you’ve
looked at all the possible explanations can you say this was a hoax, that was
misinterpretation or, sorry Charles Fort, that never happened.
Dead aquatic creatures washed up on UK shores as well as on Tanzanian
shores. Alleged ‘mermaid/man’ carcasses and so much more.
I could, like others, just sit back and say this was all real. No need to disbelieve. An easier life by far
but then that would mean believing that real flying saucers had crashed at Aurora and Roswell.
I’m not that dumb. No, I have to look into these things.
In some cases it has taken 20, 30 and even 35 years to get to the bottom of
an event/case but to me that is worth it. Now I
know what the facts are. And I need to point out that I am
not a “Cryptozoologist”, a “Ufologist”,
a “Fortean” or any other pseudo-ologist!
I am a naturalist/researcher-investigator. That’s it.
When I wrote my second book,
Some More
Things Strange & Sinister I put together a lot of what I had learnt as
a naturalist, historian and researcher-investigator. From gorillas in the UK before they were actually scientifically
discovered, primate historical mysteries and oddities, tales of all sorts of
wildmen from the United States,
England and Europe.
I looked at the mystery of a strange city said to appear in Alaskan skies
each year. Unlike other writers and ‘researchers’
over the years I went out and found the quoted source and the oft-mentioned
photograph of the city-in-the-sky.
The so called “Girt Dog Of Ennerdale” which, in 1810, killed sheep and was
eventually killed. Everyone has written
on it in the “mystery big cat field” or in cryptozoology and Forteana. It’s been a werewolf, a vampire beast, a
hyena a UFO creature of some kind and even a tiger, lion or a Tasmania thylacine (the current
cryptozoological favourite explanation).
I went out and got the, again, oft-quoted sources and found that there
is no great mystery and definitely no big cat or thylacine. The facts are in
the original sources.
The Beast of Gevaudan –again, so many silly explanations but going back to
original sources and corresponding with the French natural history museums, the
explanation is clear –and there are later incidents correlating with “the beast”
events.
Sea creatures and so-called “flying light wheels” emerging from the sea, the
Great Serpent of Carthage, mystery snakes and so much more and all pulling
together everything I have learnt since I was a child.
The Red Paper: Canids covered
Ennerdale but also the natural history of foxes in the UK from the
point where they were going extinct through to mass importation of foxes for
hunting. Wolves roaming the British
countryside long after they became extinct here, jackals, coyotes, arctic foxes
and much more –the hunts, where they came from and cases never before reported
on. One naturalist called it “an
explosive book!”
I try to make each book, no matter what the subject matter, interesting for
the reader whether they are UFO or cryptozoology buffs or simply curious. Photographs, maps, charts and much more,
though sadly, the idea of full colour plates is way to expensive. To think. To
learn and enquire into the strange, the unusual or even history is what makes
us humans.
Before I shift off this mortal coil I want to pass on this information and keep
delving into things that grab my attention…and try to carry on earning some
kind of living!
Long winded, I know, but it tells you something about me.
I really am quite normal.
