RICHARD FREEMAN: The False Memory Syndrome

Time for Richard Freeman again. It almost seems silly introducing Richard to you all once again when he makes an appearance as guest blogger several times a week. However, our viewing audience/ readers (whatever you like to call yourselves) is growing so fast that it is certain that some of you missed the last time I introduced him.

The thunderbird photograph is one of the most renowned stories in cryptozoology. Dozens of people, both researchers and members of the public, recall seeing an old photograph of huge winged creature pinned to the side of a barn. Beneath it are a number of men with their arms outstretched to highlight the creature’s vast wingspan.

The exact nature of the thunderbird cannot be agreed upon. Some recall a monster bird with feathers whilst other insist it was reptilian, akin to a pterosaur. No one can remember what publication they saw it in. Some say it was in one of the men’s adventure magazines of the 50s and 60s such as Saga or True. Others say it was in an old book on the Wild West.

Jerome Clark has suggested that the photo never actually existed but has been implanted in our minds due to the vivid description and has led to false memories of having seen it. This is quite distinct to a lie. The witnesses genuinely believe they have seen the photograph in their youth.

A number of cryptozoological sightings are recalled as childhood memories. Three that spring to mind are of an ape-like creature seen by a girl in New Zealand. The creature had been shot dead. Another from New Zealand is the famous sighting of a moa by Alice McKenzie at Matins’ Bay in 1880. A third is of man-sized, bipedal, dinosaur-like creatures seen in Colorado. Mrs Myrtle Snow of Pagosa Springs recalls seeing five such creatures in 1935 when she was three. She describes them as 7 feet tall and grey with snake-like heads, chicken-like feet and long tails.

We can hardly trust the memory of the three-year-old child especially as an adult trying to recall them many years later.

I have false memories from my childhood of events that I am sure never happened. One concerns a huge white bird. I distinctly recall seeing a massive white bird fly past our living room window one winter’s night. I remember my late father and my granddad chasing after it down the street to get a better look. I recalled this as a teenager and thought I might have been a barn owl (although in my memory it seemed much larger, more like a snowy owl). I asked both my granddad and my dad about it and they both insisted it never happened.

The second memory was much more creepy. In the 1970s we had hot-water bottles and before bedtime my mum would always go and fill them with boiled water. Even as a child I had worked out that the only time she would ask me to help her was when there was something on TV she did not want me to see or something she did not want me to hear. For example, I recall a programme showing the victims of German concentration camps was on one night and she asked me to help her then so I would not see the film of dying Jews.

One night she asked me to help her again so I realise that there was something that I was not supposed to be ‘in on’ occurring. The moment she had her back turned I crept to the door and listened. My Dad, Granddad and Grandma were all discussing ‘something’ that was apparently scaring people in the neighbourhood. I remember my Granddad saying, “I saw it and my bloody hair stood on end.” Then my dad said “at least it's kept to its own territory.”

When I was about 18 I told them about this and asked them what was being discussed (at the time I thought it was a ghost but now it sounded more like some kind of creature). Both said that the conversation never happened. My Dad suggested I was confusing my childhood dreams with my memories. He told me that if something had existed that I was now old enough to have been told about it, which sounds quite reasonable.

From an early age I have always had exceptionally weird and vivid dreams. It seems that my false memories are hybrids constructed out of dreams and poorly recalled events. I wonder how many old childhood accounts of cryptids are based on false memories?