MARCH SPAWNED A FROG FROG FALL
Suzanne Charlton the BBC Weather Centre had a rather intriguing weather report to make on the 5th of March. A ‘distraught’ woman in Croydon (The Times say Croydon, while several people reckon that the BBC said Crawley), in the southern U.K., phoned the Meteorological Office to inform them of a deluge of of frogs which were proceeding to cover her garden and much of the surrounding neighbourhood.
Neil Lofthouse, the U.K.’s national forecaster, was quoted as saying that : “You do get reports of things getting sucked up by water spouts, which are rotating columns of water, or tornadoes. They would have to go over a lake or something with a lot of frogs on it.” Unfortunately Mr. Lofthouse is fumbling in the dark with this fairly weak, if typical explanation.
For more on anomalous falls, see The Anomalist’s ‘Super-Sargasso Surfin’ and Blather’s ‘Raining Toads‘.
LAYMEN´S PRIVILEGE
[In last week’s Blather, we reported on a forthcoming ‘lake monster’ expedition in Norway, due to take place in August of this year. Blather invited Jan-Ove Sundberg, the organiser of the expedition to comment on the words of zoologist Torfinn Oermen, and Jan-Ove has very kindly written this piece for us.]
With all due respect for science, many of them are prejudiced when they ought to be the other way around. No other fraternity that I know of are as afraid to be left behind as zoologists who, while they have given the world the impression that they already know all about what´s out there, are surprised and flabbergasted again and again as new species of animals are discovered, even mammals on land.
A zoologist at the Zoological Museum in Oslo, Norway, fisheries expert Mr. Per Pethon, whom I spoke to before I held the press conference in Norway about our GUST98 expedition in August, told me that Lake Seljordsvatnet have never been subjected to a limnological* examination and agreed that one therefore, could not say what was hidden beneath it´s surface.
He wouldn´t agree, however, that there could be anything down there, but held the door ajar for a possible eel species, either a known one that have grown out of all proportions or possibly an entirely new one.
It´s the name “sj¨ormen” (lake serpent) that´s controversial here and would make scientists everywhere to shake their heads, but most of them are sceptical for all the wrong reasons. Had they been more open to what very reliable witnesses have seen, I don´t think they would´ve been so dismissive. Unfortunately, no one seems interested enough to study the evidence.
Zoologists in Sweden recently told me that they´re not interested in “lake monsters” at all, since they are non-profitable and in themselves “impossible”. That´s an interesting view, especially coming from scientists,
I would love to prove them all wrong in August but this is not our objective. The purpose of our expedition is to find out if there is any substance to all the witness testimonies and if so, what is down there.
Our instrumental results would to begin with be in the hands of technicians, while any documentation on the surface, either by a camera or a camcorder, would be presented by the TV media of the world. Science would come second to all of this I´m afraid, but this is our privilege as laymen who they refuse to take seriously..
Best Regards,
Jan-Ove Sundberg
GUST: Global Underwater Search Team
*limnology:the scientific study of bodies of fresh water
LOCHNESSNESS
Staying with Lake Monsters, on March 2nd, Reuters (via Nando News) informed the great unwashed of the experiences of Scottish pet food salesman Richard White, as he pootled alongside the great loch in his van. Luckily he was armed with a camera (he said he always carries one in case of accidents. Perhaps he meant anti-abduction insurance)
“I was on my way to Foyers, a small village above the loch, as part of a regular sales run, when I noticed an unusual disturbance halfway across the loch towards Urquhart Castle on the opposite bank. “I stopped to take a look and remembered I had the camera, so I got it out and just started reeling off the photos,” he said.
The photos have not been released to the public yet, pending analysis by ‘scientists using computer enhancement techniques’. We await their release with reserved anticipation. . .
BOOK REVIEW – 39 YEARS TOO LATE
Twas only recently (I am ashamed to say) that I got round to studying a copy of analytical psychologist Carl Gustav Jung’s 1959 essay ‘Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of the Things Seen in the Sky’. This is by no means a book that will entertain everyone, especially those who are partial to a sweet slice of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, i.e. that UFOs are most definitely craft from other worlds. Jung attacks the phenomenon from (obviously enough) a sceptical and psychological angle, with an emphasis on the *psychic* aspect, and correctly predicts how ‘ufology’ was to spawn a plethora of quasi-religious cults.
Rather that immediately treating UFOs as external phenomena, ‘visionary rumours’, presented to the conscious mind, he spends much of the book comparing them to phenomena known to come from the unconscious – dreams. He spends much of the *rest* of the essay interpreting the artwork of various artists, and their use of disc like objects, and unconscious ‘fourth dimension’ references within their artworks. It is at this point that I began feeling a smidgen irritated, and wondered whether or not Jung was tried to milk too much from too little evidence.
The author appears quite sure of his findings, but from a cautious fortean perspective Jungian theories would appear to be no more than important *models* for examining the UFO phenomenon. However, this can be said about the proponent of any theory, and shouldn’t really be regarded as a criticism, but rather something worth bearing in mind.
So, whilst not a comprehensive bible of psycho-social ufology, ‘Flying Saucers’ is indeed an inexpensive and indispensable jigsaw puzzle piece, and it’s addition to the library of anyone with a serious interest in the field is certainly recommended.
Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of the Things Seen in the Sky (Amazon.com)
Author / Editor: C G Jung
Publisher: Ark paperbacks
ISBN: 0744800625
US:
Publisher: Fine Communications
ISBN: 1567311210
