Conference hydra::dejavu

1939.0. "News from the weird world." by HOO78C::ANDERSON (A moped on the Info Highway.) Tue May 03 1994 05:46

    RTw  05/02 2233  ODDNESS RISING, SAYS BRITISH JOURNAL OF THE WEIRD

    By Caroline Brothers

    LONDON, May 3 (Reuter) - The world is definitely getting weirder.

    Miracles, strange deaths, apparitions, extreme weather conditions and
    the revival of ancient rites increased during the past 12 months,
    according to a journal of strange phenomena.

    Bizarre deaths, spontaneous combustion, hoaxes and apparitions are also
    on the rise and show no signs of abating.

    Britain's Fortean Times is turning 21 this year and has just published
    the first findings of its 1993 Strangeness Index, recording disturbing
    occurrences reported around the world over the past year.

    Some phenomena are growing ever more prevalent but others such as crop
    circles, spontaneously combusting people, and close encounters with
    paranormal entities, are easing off. Mass deaths, paranormal
    experiences and psychical phenomena are about steady, the Fortean Times
    index shows.

    But taken collectively, rises and falls tabled across 34 categories of
    weirdness show oddness is clearly on the rise.

    "The total baseline value for 1992 is 3,400, and our assessed value for
    1993 is 3,520, making an increase in strangeness of some 3.5 percent,"
    say the editors of the Fortean Times.

    "In terms of first class mysteries or enigmas we have about 10 a month
    -- probably about 200 a year," editor Paul Sieveking told Reuters. He
    added that the magazine's offices receive about 15 letters a day from
    the frontline of the paranormal.

    Many letters come in from the Philippines, which he said ranks as one
    of the strangest countries on the planet. "It's always good for a story
    -- mass panics, ghosts, possessions, weird natural disasters, religious
    manias...

    "What we like is to get first-hand reports of things, but we have
    developed a nose for bogus stories," Sieveking said. Accounts that pan
    out too neatly immediately raise the editors' suspicions. "True stories
    are often inconclusive," he added.

    Sieveking and fellow editor Bob Rickard trawl through magazines ranging
    from the British science journal Nature to the Funeral Directors'
    Monthly, seeking accounts of weird atmospheric phenomena and
    incorruptible bodies that refuse to decompose.

    The latest issue of the Fortean Times, which is published every two
    months, recounts the best of the year's abnormal happenings. One
    involved the leader of a Hindu sect whose flyblown body was kept on ice
    by followers for 56 days in the belief he would rise from the dead.
    Some 1,200 police battled 4,000 devotees to enforce the guru's
    cremation.

    In another incident 1,300 Egyptian schoolgirls were struck by nausea
    and fainting fits which closed 32 schools in an incidence of mass
    hysteria.

    Publisher Mike Dash says that every year they receive about a dozen
    reports of spontaneous human combustion -- in which a person suddenly
    catches fire and is vaporised, leaving their arms and legs intact but
    their body a heap of ashes.

    "Psychic matter, ghosts, apparitions -- there always have been strange
    phenomena and far from most are reported," Sieveking said, adding the
    Fortean Times aimed to encourage people to trust their own experiences.

    The 20,000 subscribers to the Fortean Times, named after iconoclastic
    U.S. philosopher Charles Fort, include lawyers, spiritualists, United
    Nations employees and computer scientists.

    Readers come from as far afield as the United States, France,
    Australia, Saudi Arabia, China, Iceland and the Ivory Coast.

    "They tend to be information junkies who spend a lot on books and
    magazines," Sieveking said.

    Asked what prompted ordinary people from the furthest reaches of the
    world to write in with tales of mass panics, ghosts and possessions,
    Sieveking said readers felt the magazine was at the forefront of
    scientific endeavour.

    "We published stuff in 1979 about crop circles before anyone else
    noticed them. It took another 10 years to get into the mainstream
    press," Sieveking said.

    Crop circles -- round areas of flattened crops -- hit the headlines in
    Britain in the early 1990s. Some people believe they could be traces
    left by unidentified flying objects or signs from spirits trying to
    communicate with man. Others blame pranksters or the weather.

    The latest issue of the Fortean Times explores the mystery of
    porcupines found crushed to death among the crops.

    "Ball lightning -- free floating spherical lightning that floats in and
    out of houses, blows up the electricity, and generally behaves in a
    very bizarre way -- at first people thought it was all invented, but
    now it's seen as a genuine phenomenon," he said.

    The Fortean Times was among the first to report it and has one of the
    best archives on the subject.

    "The frontiers of knowledge get advanced by scientific enquiry," he
    said. "It's what drives exploration -- it's the cutting edge."

    REUTER

    Thanks for the entry, Jamey.

    
    got an address to subscribe to them?
    
    
    jim

    Fortean Times : The Journal of Strange Phenomena
    
    (Published in the U.K., information from their Number 71 issue
    	October/Novembner 1993).
    
    
    	Subscriptions (UK)
    		One year (6 issues) 15 pounds, ($30 U.S.)
    		Two years (12 issues) 26 pounds ($50 U.S.)
    		FREEPHONE 0800 581409
    		Checks payable to John Brown Publishing
    		Freepost SW6096, Frome, Somerset BA11 1YA
    
    	Subscriptions (Overseas)
    		Inquiries (+44) 373 451777.
    		Checks payable to John Brown Publishing
    		Fortean Times
    		20 Paul Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1DX, UK
    
    	Editorial address
    		Fortean Times
    		Box 2409
    		London NW5 4NP, UK
    		Tel and Fax : 071 485 5002   
    			      081 552 5466
    
    						kind regards,
    
    						todd