OLL LEWIS' FORTEAN FIVES: Rebecca Lang

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 . Today’s Fortean Five is compiled by Rebecca Lang of the CFZ’a Australian office. Take it away Rebecca:

1. Fisher's Ghost - Australia's most famous ghost story, it's a tale of justice from beyond the grave - or is it? A long lost relative, John Lang, penned the earliest version of this story, which relates the murder of one Fred Fisher, and the eventual arrest of his murderer after Fred's ghost alerts passers-by to his lifeless corpse. Maybe it's our convict blood, but the Campbelltown locals love the story so much they have a festival devoted to Fred, which surely must be something of a rarity - a community festival based on a murder most foul!

2. The Cordering Cougar - In the late 1970s a rash of big cat sightings across the south-west of Western Australia mesmerised the country. Farmers complained of a spike in livestock deaths, and top of the list of suspects were the strange sandy coloured cats seen lurking around the farms of the Cordering district. Newspaper reports, a government inquiry and a book, Savage Shadow, followed. To this day, the mystery remains just that - no one knows where these cat-like creatures came from, or what they are - but speculation continues.

3. Picnic at Hanging Rock - The iconic 1975 movie directed by Peter Weir was based on a haunting novel by author Joan Lindsay, which chronicles the disappearance of three schoolgirls and one of their teachers one Valentine's Day during a picnic to Hanging Rock in the Mount Macedon area of Victoria. Of course the whole thing was fiction, but that hasn't stopped a mythology springing up around the story, which many people believe is true. The last chapter of the novel, which explains the disappearances, was excised from the original book at the suggestion of the publisher but finally released in 1987 in a later edition. Adding to the mystique is the very real strangeness surrounding Hanging Rock, which was formed from volcanic magma, boasts unusual acoustic properties (which I experienced firsthand a few years ago). It was also used as an initiation site for young Aboriginal men until the late 1800s.

4. Nan Madol, Micronesia - No one quite knows who or what constructed the amazing temples of Nan Madol, a ruined city that sits on the edge of Pohnpei, one of the islands of Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. Built on coral and large stone 'logs' that form platforms some time around AD 1200, the ruins are divided by a series of canals. A popular story attributes Nan Madol's construction to a magician - and looking at the rather complex structure that spans large stretches of water, it's hard to imagine just how an earlier civilization might have overcome that particular engineering obstacle. It's a place I'd love to visit one day.

5. The Philip Experiment - In the 1970s a small group of Canadian researchers turned the world of parapsychology on its ear with their experiment, which saw them create their own ghost - a medieval nobleman named Phillip - and communicate with him via raps, taps and the twisting, turning and tipping of card table. The long-running Philip Experiment was an impressive demonstration of psi (psychokinesis) and prompted many imitators and followers. The point of the experiment was to show that humans could create their own ghosts through visualisation, giving life to an intelligent 'thought form'. Having dabbled myself as a member of The Skippy Experiment group (2001) I can attest to the effectiveness of this particular method!