Bosky mumbling
The correspondence about the Whispering Corner in Lytchett Maltravers, Dorset [ FT410:73] brings to mind the experience of six members of WATSUP (the Wessex Association for the Study of Unexplained Phenomena), who undertook a vigil there on the night of 27 August 1977. At around 11pm, three of the party heard a mumbling sound emanating from the copse adjacent to the Whispering Corner. A tape recorder failed to register the sound, but the dog of one of those present appeared to react to it: its tail went down, its ears were pricked, and its hackles raised. The mumbling was described as sounding like two people in conversation without specific words being audible. The original report appeared in the WATSUP Journal # 8, which gave the names of those involved.
Nick Maloret
Milton, Hampshire say more fortean – perspective.
My thesis certainly hangs on the coat tails of Patrick’s classic Daimonic Reality. That book places daimons in our history and traditional cultures as intermediate creatures, bridging borders between worlds and dimensions, and casting doubt on our modern insistence that materiality is synonymous with reality.
Daimons are important because they imply that reality is a lot more complicated than we now customarily think. So, if it wasn’t for the fact that I admire Richard’s work as an intrepid, unorthodox explorer, his dismissal of the existentially revelatory, ancient Greek daimones as mere ‘spooks’ might have got me, er – slightly miffed!
Merrily Harpur
Cattistock, Dorset
We are always glad to receive pictures of spontaneous forms and figures, or any curious images. Send them (with your postal address) to Fortean Times, PO Box 1200, Whitstable CT1 9RH or to sieveking@forteantimes.com. 1. Rebecca Lane noticed this ‘ghoul’ on a waste bin liner. “It’s actually the reflection of the overhead light behind me, falling into the contours of the bag and forming this face,” she said. “There was nothing inside the bag, such as a magazine cover for example, showing through.”
2. Sharon Powles found this pebble portrait in June 2016 while beachcombing with her boyfriend Christian Swift at Cromer in Norfolk. She thought it resembled Jesus while Christian plumped for Jim Morrison of the Doors. He took it to the Eastern Daily Press to be photographed “to prove that it hasn’t been painted on, tampered with or photoshopped –because it looks too good to be true.”
3. Damian Taylor noticed this face in the clouds during a thunderstorm.
4. Kelly Goss sent us this photo, taken by her mother, of a face on a gravestone in Herne Bay cemetery, Kent.