FORTEAN FIVES: Paul 'Tiny' Jackson

In Fortean Fives the great and the good of Forteana pick out five interesting events from the history of Forteana. If you want to submit your own Fortean Five email it to Oll Lewis at fortean5s@gmail.com. Paul Jackson helps out Andrew May on http://forteana-blog.blogspot.com/ with ideas and photographs. Take it away Paul:

1) The Farnborough UFO hoax

One of the "Fortean Events" that I have always found interesting is the "Rag week" UFO hoax perpetrated by the Apprentices from Farnborough Technology College in 1967. The students created a number of "UFO's" that they left across southern England. The hoax was interesting as a Fortean Event because of the reaction of "the establishment". The police, the Government, etc had no idea how to handle this mini invasion, and had it been a real UFO event, they would have singularly failed in covering it up. I find it interesting as it goes someway to proving that a Government today would not be able to cover up aliens visiting us, especially given the fact that for a worldwide cover up to be in effect, all of these incompetent Governments would have to be working together!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnborough_College_of_Technology

2) The Nuremberg UFO Battles

Between 1561 and 1566 there were numerous sightings of "warring" objects in the skies over Nuremberg. This case has always interested me, as seems clear that something actually occurred and was seen, and was documented in wood cuts at the time but what the heck was it? A real battle between intelligently controlled craft or a natural phenomenon mis-interpreted as such? And where was the hard evidence from the "craft" that supposedly crashed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_saucer

3) The SETI Wow Signal

The "Wow" signal was a signal recorded by SETI in 1977, that has never been fully explained. It had all the characteristic of a signal from outside our solar system, but was only seen for 72 seconds and has never since been repeated!

Given the low likelihood of intelligent life forming on other planets (personally I think intelligent life is likely to be unique to earth), and then the low likelihood of an extraterrestrial civilization sending a radio signal towards earth at the right time for us to be able to receive it, it is unlikely that it was a message from ET. More likely it was a natural phenomenon we don't yet understand, but it is still good to wonder!

I think the true question is; not, given a habitable world, will intelligent life evolve? But given a habitable world, will Forteanism evolve? Lets hope so!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

4) The Loss of Flight 19

The loss of Flight 19 in the Bermuda Triangle is another Fortean Classic. Probably just a case of grossly incompetent navigation, but the fact it ocured in the Bermuda Triangle leads to one of the classic mysteries of all time. The sort of mystery that excites the child in every Fortean! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19

5) The Thunderbird Photo

How about the mythical "Thunderbird" photo? This to me is a classic Fortean event, primarily because it is an event that never occured! Everyone remembers seeing the photo of the Thunderbird, but no-one can find the original photo of this cryptozoological wonder! Is everybody mis-remembering? Has the Fortean-hive-mind created a Fortean wonder that never exisited? Or is it an attack of the Cosmic Joker? Keep checking those libraries!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird_(cryptozoology)

Thanks

Paul "Tiny" Jackson, Wiltshire

For the record, I don't have a book or website of my own to promote, but I occasionally provide ideas to my friends blog: http://forteana-blog.blogspot.com/ which is well worth a visit.