Last updated at 10:06, Thursday, 05 November 2009

GEOFF was happy to pass on tips to anyone who might be interested in life as a researcher of the paranormal.

dramatic position: Kinniside stone circle on Cold Fell

IT doesn’t seem to matter that we have entered the digital age, that there’s wireless broadband almost everywhere, Sellafield on our doorstep and the Energy Coast shouting “Science is King”. Ghosts, boggles, UFOs and all-things strange refuse to lie down and die!

No amount of scientific explanation or computer analysis seems able to rid this (or any other) part of the world of those figures in the shadows; those phenomena which seem to defy explanation and convince at a stroke even the most sceptical of witnesses.

So it’s not surprising that when researcher Geoff Holder descended from his native Scotland to investigate the mysteries of the Lake District he found no shortage of material – ancient or modern.

The Whitehaven News’s own website has recorded a veritable ‘flap’ of UFO sightings this year and even ‘explained’ mysteries such as the Parton sea monster (it was a fish) attract thousands of readers hungry for a taste of the supernatural.

What’s so refreshing about Geoff’s research – now nicely packaged in a book The Guide To The Mysterious Lake District – is the amount of original research. He’s not afraid to get his boots muddy. While most of these ‘mystery’ books just trot out the same old stuff, Geoff has worked hard to find original reports. Even on the historical cases he has gone back to the archives and dug out the source documents.

He was particularly taken by the phantom army of Souther Fell. The army was seen marching over the hill on three occasions in the 18th century only to vanish as mysteriously as they appeared.

Geoff said: “I investigated the reports and got down to the only two original witness statements. If the reports are reliable – and it is a big if – then on three separate occasions over a period of 12 years people saw a phantom army, and only on midsummer’s eve.”

Geoff intends to return in the future to research properly those parts of Cumbria not in the Lake District but even so there’s plenty of interest for the Copeland reader. The Rum Story makes an appearance of course as does manager Phil Haslehurst with some spooky experience of his own. He tells how one night he had a recurring dream of driving along and seeing a policeman in front of him signalling him to stop, but he car’s brakes weren’t working and on each occasion he ran the policeman down. On checking his brakes the next morning they seemed to be fine but a more rigorous test on a steep slope proved they were indeed faulty. The garage which examined his car suggested someone ‘had it in for him’ as the brake pipe had been cut in such a way to make the brakes fail only on a steep slope.

Geoff’s love of Forteana is obvious by the wide range of phenomena included in his book: ghosts, UFOs, holy wells, simulacra, lucks, legends, superstitions, black cats and even a mysterious fall of spiders’ webs over Kendal in the 19th century.

“I do have very catholic tastes! And some sites do seem to be associated with multiple kinds of phenomena. It seems something strange happens there but people interpret it in different ways.”

What people in the 19th century might have referred to as boggles or fairies are today reported as ghosts or UFOs, and what people reported in the past as black dogs today are reported as big cats.

Does this mean the phenomena is fading out, that science and the digital age is finally explaining away all of the phenomena? “Absolutely not!” said Geoff. “To quote author Charles Fort: ‘There never was an explanation that didn’t require an additional explanation’.

“There are still reports today of lake monsters in Windermere, of strange lights in the sky and of big cats.”

Such landmarks as Castlerigg and Swinside stone circles obviously put in an appearance in the book. The stone circles and cairns are some of the area’s oldest monuments and yet we know precious little about them. Geoff, however, has used his skill as a researcher to bring together all that has been found out in addition to the sometimes colourful speculation. Included in the book is the scientific work on Castlerigg as part of The Dragon Project – an attempt to measure all aspects of the circle for any anomalies. The project – led by Paul Devereux – speculated that the area may produce natural but rare phenomea known as earthlights. And Geoff revives an intriguing tale recorded by a Mr T Sington in The English Mechanic and World of Science for October 1919 which seems to back up this ‘earthlights’ theory:

“Some years ago, during Easter, returning to Keswick from an ascent of Helvellyn with a hotel acquaintance, we saw lights, no doubt will o’ the wisps. It was so dark that we had to probe for the road walls with our sticks, when we were at a point near which the track branches off to the Druidical Circle. Then all at once we saw a rapidly moving light, as bright as the acetylene lamp of a bicycle, and we instinctively stepped to the road boundary wall to make way for it, but nothing came. As a matter of fact, the light travelled at right angles to the road, say 20 feet above our level, possibly 200 yards or so away. It was a white light, and having crossed the road it suddenly disappeared. Whether it went out or passed behind an obstruction it is impossible to say. We then saw a number of lights, possibly a third of a mile or so away, directly in the direction of the Druidical circle, but of course much fainter, due to the distance. The lights were moving backwards and forwards horizontally; we stood observing them for a long time.”

Later one of the lights came up to Mr Sington and he described it as “globular, white, with a nucleus, possibly six feet or so in diameter”.

Geoff speculates that such mysterious lights may once have been perceived as fairies, at a later date as boggles, and in more modern times as UFOs. Today they may be called earthlights but they still remain enigmatic and not fully explained. But then it would seem a great pity if all mysteries were ‘solved’.

Geoff Holder gives talks on mysteries in the Lake District and has written a number of books on the subject.

• The Guide To The Mysterious Lake District is published by The History Press, priced £14.99.

Geoff was happy to pass on tips to anyone who might be interested in life as a researcher of the paranormal.

He said you primarily need an appetite for information. “You have to read a lot – and not just on the internet. I use the internet a lot but there is much information which is simply not on there or is on there but is wrong. You have to go back to original sources.”

He also said you need to respect people’s experiences. Instead of laughing when someone says they saw a ghost or UFO you have to talk to them about precisely what they experienced and what it was they saw.

And he said you also need the ability to make connections between what one person has reported and what else might have happened in that area over a long period of time.

Forteana

THE investigation of a wide range of paranormal phenomena is referred to as Forteana. Where as UFOlogy is restricted to UFOs and ghosthunting to apparitions, Forteana will take in everything from falls of frogs to the nature of the universe. The term was coined in tribute to author Charles Fort who, in 1919, published The Book of the Damned. Published at a time when science thought it knew everything, the book caused a sensation by cataloguing the many phenomena science still struggled to explain. A popular magazine, The Fortean Times, continues his work to this day. Charles Fort was sceptical of everything, including science. He once dismissed Darwinism in just seven lines:

“The fittest survive.
What is meant by the fittest?
Not the strongest; not the cleverest –
Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive.
There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive.
‘Fitness,’ then, is only another name for ‘survival.’
Darwinism: That survivors survive.”

First published at 15:51, Wednesday, 04 November 2009
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk