MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES:THE FORTEANOSITY OF THE YEAR 1907-1908 PART ONE

I do believe I have joined  those exalted few and created a new word: “ Forteanosity” , a verb, “a situation, condition, or period of time, of extraordinary  Fortean activity.” (For example, right now I`m listening to What`s The Frequency Kenneth by R.E.M, eating a cheddar cheese and celery sandwich, dodging midges and wandering why I destroyed that friendship but this is nowhere  weird enough to be called Forteanosity, as some of the items in the following blog.)  Or in more plebeian terms,  a period of “weird s**t”. The years 1907-1908 fall into this category. At least they do if my two sides of A4 paper with hand written notes are typical of that year. I wonder if every year could be described as weird as 1907-8, thus making my new word redundant after about 15 minutes lol ?

So here we go..

1907

Many of the following notes were taken on looking through The Times:

February  1907 : A man vanished in Winchester

May 26^th 1907 : Shower of strange

July 2^nd 1907. A terrific explosion in Burlington, Vermont.

August 18^th 1907  . Disturbances at home in Kensington

October 1907 : Falls of soot and ashes – where?

December 2^nd 1907

Airship, thought to be French one missing from Verdun, seen over Carmarthanshire and Cardingshire morning of the 1^st. Last observed at 8.30a.m moving rapidly towards Cardingshire Bay. Airship passed over Killyleigh, Co. Down at 1.30pm at 1000 feet, moving North. Wind was Easterly . Ship was unlike Nulli Secundus, having no white bands.

The following extracts from letters to The Times are about the luminous owls scare of this time. A much fuller account of the phenomenon can be found in Fortean Studies volume 1 pp 50-58 – The Luminous Owls of Norfolk - by David Clarke

December 14^th 1907   T. Digby Pigott believed the luminosity  was an owl, with a glow like a lamp of a motorcycle first seen at 7.45pm.

December 26^th 1907  Second letter on luminous owl from T. Digby Pigott – a policeman has seen it. Cites A Wonderful History of All The Storms, Hurricanes, Eartquakes &c, London, 1704 mentions luminosity clinging to men and beasts.

December 26^th 1907  “ I (a country teacher) first noticed the phenomenon in Shropshire one evening in February 1892. A pair of these birds, Strix flames, lived in the buildings at a farm about 100 yards from the school…it (the luminosity) was not as bright as Digby Pigott`s correspondent observed. One bird has been seen luminous , the other not. Luminosity occurs when bird rises in flight.

Part Two will continue with the year 1908. Just to end with, not a luminous whale, but a white whale , in Loch Striven, Scotland, see left, from The Times of July 11^th 1904.