THE MASS MEDIA HATES GOOD STORIES!

This month, March 2009, has witnessed unprecedented media interest in the CFZ to the extent that when my friend Fleur logged on to MSN a two weeks ago a story about The Devil’s Fooprint in a Woolsery back garden was sitting there in cyberspace. It doesn’t get much bigger than MSN in the Internet age and our website and associated blogs spiked when the story hit.

The strange thing is that, in many ways, this is a non story. Whatever made those footprints, it was certainly not the devil but the lucrative combination of a winter’s scene, strange markings and a history of such folkloric goings on in Devon certainly made this a story worthy of the title “Weird in the South West”...

What we discover is that the mass media is run by people more interested in a lot of entertainment and a little news for our many serious expeditons to all parts of the globe have afforded us only patchy coverage at best. Recently, there was all the hoohah about a supposed “UFO”, some said “alien craft” hitting a wind turbine in Wiltshire.

Life is much more interesting when we don't reduce everything to plastic personalities......!

The story turned out to be a whole lot of nothing – a problem with the turbine itself – but for 24 hours the whole world was agog at the “best proof ever of aliens” or whatever UFO researcher Russell Kellett called it.

Against the background of job losses more extreme than the bout of redundancies in the 1970s and 1980s that some of us can remember and at a time when the economy is, to quote my boss at work, “on its arse” the media prefers to indulge us with stories about Cheryl Cole of Girls Aloud reaching the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and did she have an affair with Take That’s lead singer whilst trying to reach the peak and did her husband Ashley have one too many in a club the same night.

Where did all the serious stuff go?

What this tells us is the public, through the lens of a media dedicated to telling us as little as possible about the serious issues, is looking to feed us a diet of frippery, infotainment and total bullshit. The CFZ shall, it seems, have to live and learn and provide the media with stories of gooks, goblins and gay scandal whilst scientists and cryptozoologists seeks to answer the Big Questions about rare and undiscovered species.

Throughout history there is example after example of how small groups like ours have shaken the earth with the might of their ideas and the strength of their will in terms of having the guts to push themselves forward. We find Ourselves Alone in 2009. The media has decided that we have collectively witnessed “the end of history” and that there is nothing further to discover or to learn about ourselves and sceptics agree because they know best after all...

We shall, then, have to work the CFZ media machine even harder to provide our colleagues in the national and international newsrooms with stories about very little of substance and use their occasional grace and favour to bring the few decent and sentient beings into our orbit. As every day passes the best people are coming to the CFZ. Maybe only a few “active” converts each week or month but they are coming home to us. UFO Data magazine has just closed its doors as interest in that subject has plummeted in recent months probably because there is no meat in the subject.

But there is much detailed and depthy material to put out via cryptozoological news media and we shall continue to do this. In the space of three months we have witnessed a 1000% increase in visitors to our websites and if we need to talk about The Devil Incarnate to win the battle to make ours the most relevant, updated and dynamic website then we accept the challenge as we make the world a better place...just a little bit.

TOAD IN THE WHOLE...

“To dream of toads signifies unfortunate adventures. To kill a toad in a dream foretells that your judgment will be harshly criticised.”

A North Lancashire back garden many years ago and a scene of English domestic bliss as I mowed the grass. It was a small plot but we’d managed to install a pond at the back of the space in to which we tried to encourage as much wildlife as possible. On automatic pilot, the no brain zone that accompanies such mundane activity, I was suddenly jolted out of my stupor as a large Natterjack toad appeared, as if by magic, right in front of the blades. It was a male, if the markings were anything to go by (the females are normally much brighter).

Natterjack Toad

I thought I’d cut the friendly toad but, as luck would have it, for me and him, I’d missed by millimetres. Sighing with relief I slowly made my way around to my new found friend and lifted him towards the pond. He didn’t seem to be moving – almost transfixed or, more likely, in shock – but after a few minutes he carried on. It occurred to me, and not for the first time, that people are the biggest threat to the many and varied creatures we find ourselves living with. In the countryside where I lived, it was sad to see the many animals killed on the roads but it was difficult to know what to do about it.

Today, despite man’s continued danger to wildlife everywhere, technology is being used to assist birds, elephants, endangered species and, now, our population of toads. From high technology to low, from supercomputers to the family down the street, it seems that all are welcome in the effort to protect them. Once upon a time toads were associated with everything from magic, folklore, the devil and fairies to female sexuality.

At the annual Toad Fair, formerly held in Dorset every May, charms and potions based on the amphibian’s “magic powers” were sold. Until the 1930s in Cambridgeshire, for example, local toad-a-mancers proclaimed their magic powers. Happily, much of this nonsense has been overtaken by the real power derived from a silicon chip and recent events include the ever popular Google Earth programme having Britain’s 700 Toad Crossings added to it. Log in; access Toad map!

Yes, indeed, toads cross roads and tracks at certain points for approximately six weeks a year. Teams of local volunteers – highly active and enthusiastic in the cause – work to ensure that, on average, between 400 and 1,000 toads in a defined area make it from A to B in safety. Dick and Suzanne Downer, from a Devon-based Toad Patrol unit tell that, in just one night, they have helped no less than 250 toads. In total they might expect to come across 1500 in a season. Their biggest challenge? Dealing with impatient and angry motorists. (Nothing new there then. Toad Rage!)

Nationally, in 2008, another 36 crossing sites were added to the database. Not only do the crossings assist the toads but scientists can more easily survey their overall numbers:

"Google Earth software is allowing wildlife experts to use new creative ways to communicate important conservation issues to an increasingly techno-savvy public," says Jules Howard, Froglife's Head of Communications. (www.froglife.org)

We know that 35,000 toads were carried across Britain’s roads in 2008, and now, using available technology, volunteers and scientists hope that the better picture they are producing of toad activity nationwide will assist Highways officials access better information on local populations.

Next time you’re driving along a road perhaps you might check out the database first and think a little bit harder whilst moving through the Amphibian Zone...

ROUND AND ROUND IN CIRCLES!

It takes two months of practice to move from making your first half-decent crop circle, perhaps a 30ft creation that can be made in 15-20 minutes, and something rather more spectacular. I know this because I have done it. Most people who make crop circles do so because they are told, by an increasingly isolated minority of desperados and New Age whackos, that they “cannot be made” at night with a small team of up to four individuals working together. Of course they can and always have been but it amazes me to discover, when, for example, speaking with work colleagues, that they just don’t get it, at least not to begin with.

Crop circle formation in 3D. Made by humans with intelligence...

If you say to them, “remember at school when you used to make nice patterns with a compass and pencil?” they go “ooooh yes” or “it was easy” and it is as if some amazing revelation has just taken place. Take them outside into the large light industrial area tooled up with a stick and show them how to mark out a circle using a bit of rope and with one of them standing in the middle and they seem impressed. Tell them that to flatten wheat and make pretty aesthetically pleasing patterns all you need is a four foot stomper board, and that you push the wheat or barley down in the middle for the best results, and they seem to get it.

It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and once crop circles became widely known as a phenomenon from 1980 onwards many teams stepped into the corn to see if they could out do each other in terms of creativity. Although for obvious geometric reasons circles form the backbone of crop art - because it is art and has nothing to do with aliens, a higher intelligence or anything of the sort - triangles, squares and other simple shapes can be combined to impress even the most unhappy observer. Because circle makers opt to put formations near ancient historical and religious sites, or where they have dowsed to see if “natural earth energies” are present, all sorts of pseudo religious nonsense is added to what is a simple creative-artistic process. What is more, small number of circle makers see themselves as agents of a higher power just to confuse things further.

The thrill is, of course, not to be caught and to produce a formation that pleases the senses. You, the potential circle maker, are also doing English tourism a massive favour. I remember phoning the former head of south west tourism for an interview many years ago (1999) asking about the impact of crop circles and he was of the view that crop formations were good for business. Anything to get people into Wiltshire, Hampshire and surrounding counties….

And what harm is done? Let’s just put it like this. Farmers like to moan and groan about crop circles but in some cases they profit from it. They can lower the cutters on their machinery to harvest crops affected by the circle making evil doers and, with prices for crops at an historical low, who’s losing out? The answer is simple. Nobody. You could potentially make more money by charging tourists to trample in the field to examine a crop formation up close than you will for the crop! Some farmers, where crop formations regularly appear, do indeed have a working relationship with some of the better known circle makers. An open secret, as it’s known.

If you really want to wind up the believers, fresh from a Glastonbury bookshop or of Sacred Geometrical Delusion, then why not drop some iron filings near the centre of a formation, paint balloons silver and let them off near your formation or arrange for “anomalous lights” to be seen locally?! Even better, sit in a well know circle enthusiasts pub, listen to the conversation for information about the latest “projected formations” no doubt “channelled” by Miss Mystic Of Gurutania and fresh ideas will abound. I remember once talking to a circle maker who’d been for a drink with the local head honcho of a UK CSETI group (the ones that think you can shine torches at supposed UFOs and communicate with them, or that you can hold hands in a circle and wait for the aliens to land nearby). The Big Cheese told him that members of his “meditation group” had “channelled information” indicating that a huge formation would be put down in a nearby field within days. Lo and behold, my friend and his mate, after a few pints, went off into the field with his stomper boards and produced the desired result. Cause and effect! Simple!

Of course, getting used to working at night is not easy at first. Your eyes have to adjust; no wonder you often see strange things out of the corner of your eye (occasionally claimed as Paranormal phenomena). True, there is nothing like being in the fields of England at night. You want peace? You’ve got it! Circle making provides you with the most remarkable feeling of one-ness and, upon completion of your formation (nearly always conveniently located in a natural amphitheatre from where the tourists and croppies can observe), a remarkable feeling of satisfaction. You might not be good at your job but you’re good at this! Now you have a calling and it is in and amongst the sacred sites of England on a beautiful summer’s night.

If you haven’t tried it I suggest you do. Yes, it’s technically illegal so sensible caveats apply but only one man has been thus far prosecuted (our good friend and circle making hero Matthew Williams) and you will quite possibly “find” yourself whilst being amazingly creative. The highlight of the season 2009 might be a series of carefully sculpted Cryptids. The all-new physical graffiti this green and pleasant land…

BACK TO THE FUTURE!

Once upon a time, in the 1990s, the X Files was all the rage and various appreciation groups, fans clubs, UFO groups, magazines and similar publications appeared and many of us jumped on the bandwagon.

Against this background, of every man wanting Gillian Anderson, some women preferring a Fox Mulder to their current model and teenagers scanning their heads in the barcode machine at their local supermarket checkout to see if they had an "alien implant", I came across a strange bunch of X-Files rejects on board a ferry to France the day before the famous Eclipse of the sun in 1999.

Gillian Anderson - looking much better than UFOnuts....now and then!

We arrived at Portsmouth one overcast afternoon, had a questionable meal in a local pub and wondered why, in a place as grim as this, the locals would have been against the practice of Press Ganging! Give them the open seas any day, I suggested!

Moving to the port where the ship was getting ready to sail into the English Channel in the direction of the French coast, I noticed some disquiet amongst a small group of unusual individuals to my left. These included a large gentlemen in a suit surrounded by a coterie of most unusual individuals that included one Richard of Freeman, Graham “Hawkwind” Inglis, a blonde floozie called Maxine and a weirdo called Jester who, it emerged, had spent a lot of time underground recently.

The large man, it turned out, was Jon Downes and I realised that I had seen him two years ago at a Conference in Sheffield mocking an American quack who claimed to be able to remove supposed “alien implants” from “abductees”. He was standing near me as the not very medical expert examined a woman by holding her head to the light in order to “look for implants”. This whole ridiculous procedure made me sick but what made me sicker was that many people watching this believed in the whole thing from the point of view that the medical establishment had clearly failed the subject in question. The woman in question, stuck in a wheelchair and clearly suffering from multiple (and obvious) medical problems looked to this charlatan for some little hope. He offered her nothing but it was an unpleasant spectacle that made a few people really think hard about the real impact of the X Files hysteria...

Downes was heard to remark, “in future we are going to have to do rather better than this” and it occurred to me then and there that his stall, selling books on mystery animals and associated subjects, was the direction things would go in years to come. “This UFO and X Files nonsense will last a few years more,” argued Jon, “and then it’ll be our turn.” And he was right but what the younger generation of would be zoologists, geologists and biologists probably don’t realise was that, back then, mainstream science was seen as an enemy of the truth. Anything using the scientific method was a problem and the weirder and more extreme the belief the more it fitted in with the believers, the publishers and the promoters of the “conspiracy”.

Perhaps, to an extent, this is still the case and it will always be difficult to adopt a 100% scientific approach when the quality of evidence for Paranormal events is so poor or is based upon first-hand accounts.

On board ship I spoke much with Downes and co and we hit it off straight away and he was most interested to learn of my family connections to various legendary underground music journals of the late 1960s and 1970s. We watched Uri Geller, another guest, bending spoons and spent some time talking publishing projects and Jon spoke of his plans for the future. I am happy to report that many of the things Jon envisaged and hoped for have come to pass although the continued call for less science and more intrigue never fails to annoy us. Seeing Cryptozoology as a mainstream scientific effort, whilst having to keep all sorts of interests on board, can never be easy and Jon likes to be at the very centre of things and in many ways he IS the very centre of things. Happily, he is more ready to delegate these days as the lessons we learned during the X Files period was that groups based on a single figure (for example UFO Magazine’s Graham Birdsall) never have a rosy future!

It is fascinating to compare the then - 1999 - with the now. The CFZ has published dozens of books, a regular magazine, appeared on numerous TV and radio shows and is making real progress with an all-new web presence. These are things of which we could only dream ten years ago when the Internet was in its infancy and Jon and I had to drive through the Cheshire countryside on ancient buses and trains to attend meetings!

Whilst many of those involved in the X Files movement have disappeared for good (thankfully), others have moved onto different pastures whether it be the Reptilian charades of David Icke or the cultism of the Raelians. We, however, have embraced the mainstream and are moving more in that direction as the days pass.

And guess what? Mainstreaming WORKS!

I remember Jon and I being invited to address the 2,000 or so Eclipsers on board the ship from the comfort on the Captain’s quarters and Jon making some comment about the sight and feeling of the Eclipse reminding him of HP Lovecraft’s work. He turned around to me and said, “The scenes during the Eclipse make me realise that Cryptozoology is the same thing; you rarely come across it but when you do it’s a magical experience that we can document for science.”

NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED....

Bolam Lake, home to the mystery monster...

Bolam Lake, 2003. A group of investigators, including friends from the CFZ, assembled to investigate sightings of a “monster” seen locally by supposedly credible witnesses. Sadly, I wasn’t there but I remember a frantic phone call from a clearly shocked Jon Downes telling me, within hours of unfolding events, that “it has been seen by members of the team!” The real deal. The first time for a multiply sighted creature in the woods! It was there. They all saw it.

They didn’t get it on film.

But they knew it was there because. Because…..

Everyone there seems to have been seriously affected, for a brief time. But by what? The convergence of unusual electric fields? The opening of a temporal zone? Arrival of the Klingons, Dance of the Loomi or the emergence of a Temporary Temple? It is hard to say but the Oz Factor is what we’re really talking about. The term itself came into general use in the early 1980s via author Jenny Randles and has been largely misunderstood as it is difficult to adequately explain what happens to people who experience it. Perhaps the fact she has written so much about it indicates that she hasn’t actually experienced it herself…

So what IS it?

It is when everything goes weird. When your normal state departs to be replaced by a weird sensation of calm mixed with panic, wonder and excitement. It is a heightened state of awareness, super consciousness and of Being Alive. It can be joyful but I would explain it is Awesome and I shall come back to that in a minute. What takes place during “it” is varied from supposed “alien encounters” to deeply religious experiences to encounters with strange beings. It is like being at one with The Source. A man I know well, who had a similar experience, described it as “LSD at one mile an hour”.

This, you may feel, has nothing to do with Cryptozoology and whilst our focus should always be Zoological, it seems that, for some, the Paranormal is never far away.

One night in the early 1990s during a pleasant evening stroll with my dog in a Lancashire village I experienced the Oz Factor myself. It was around 10pm, dark, dry, and suddenly, after an uneventful walk of perhaps two miles through familiar surroundings, all went...odd. Quiet. Deeply Calm. Still, like the lull after a battle; a thousand times more powerful than the discovery of a lake in woods on a winter’s morning. As if you have been here all your life and as if everything is that bit more real….just for a while.

The dog cowered, and, above a bridge perhaps 200ft away, a bright light rose up and appeared to turn into an angelic figure. Trippy stuff for sure and, at the time, I remember saying to myself, “this cannot be happening.” But it was. Without a doubt. In a trance-like state I walked back to my house and went upstairs to bed, at which point my girlfriend came upstairs to see what was the matter because I was behaving most unusually. At the time, lying down, I felt as if I couldn’t move. I was stuck there, paralysed and talking in a strange voice; speaking in tongues no less and this was entirely beyond anything experienced before...

The next day, it was as if the whole thing had never happened and yet I can remember the events to the extent that they are reported above. A convergence of electrical fields? An altered state of consciousness or a reaction to the evening meal? It is hard to know what to say and yet I reject the alien abductions hypothesis because it doesn’t explain what happened. I don’t think it was a ghost or anything similar and my general feeling is that this was something triggered from the outside that affected me. Too much caffeine, as suggested in a news report this week? The result of too much fun at illegal raves or, indeed, the ravings of a madman?

Only you can decide as medical science has nothing to offer beyond questionable medication or classes for meditation to still the awkward mind. As far as Cryptozoology is concerned we still cannot explain the group effect as reported around Bolam Lake in 2003. The weird events described certainly make sense to me despite their open challenge to the natural conservatism of mainstream science. It remains to be seen whether a reasonable explanation can be found but the hunt for mystery animals will, it seems, be associated with Paranormal phenomena as long as we continue to look for them…and as long as "it" keeps happening...

NATURE WALKS AND OTHER PLEASANT MEMORIES...

Ever since my daughter Alexandra was born she and I have been regular visitors to the nearby Windmill Animal Farm at Mere Brow just a few miles from Southport off the main A565. Over the last nine years since her birth I had half expected that she would become bored with this lovely working farm or, perhaps, our visits to the Formby Woods Nature Reserve to the south. Happily, I am surprised and delighted that she and her younger sister Freya love nothing more than playing with a myriad of pigs, sheep, cows and chickens at the Windmill Farm.

Sadly, their joy is not shared by that many of their friends. When speaking to parents one finds a certain negativity about such places. Some parents tell you that farms are “dirty” and they’d “much rather take the kids to Spain” or that “animals are boring” and that they’d rather their children spent their time playing computer games. Each to their own I say, but having been brought up in the countryside, and having enjoyed the natural history of the Oxfordshire countryside and numerous walks along the Ridgeway near Newbury as a youngster, I can’t help thinking that many of today’s Modern Parents are missing a trick and condemning their children to a future devoid of animals and lacking in a genuine understanding of their environment.; this against the background of a general need for much greater ecological knowledge...

Back at the Formby Nature Reserve, where the National Trust does its best to protect and defend rare species found in the sand dunes and also to maintain a thriving colony of Red squirrels within some stunning pine woods, children are rarely seen. I was speaking recently to a local ranger whose job it is to maintain a close eye on the area and he said, “we do get some families but the place is mainly used by dog walkers.” Why weren’t school parties visiting in greater numbers, I asked. “Well,” he said, “teachers either can’t bring them because of red tape or schools go to other places instead like Alton Towers.” Very educational!

As if to back up the ranger’s claims, many stories have appeared in the news over the years suggesting that the form filling bureaucrats who bedevil this country - and want refuse operatives engaged in recycling activities to wear ear muffs for their aural safety - have really started to put a stranglehold on school field trips as a result of a few accidents that have taken place nationwide. Some teachers are reluctant to engage in masses of paperwork - and they do enough already it seems - and others would probably have more fun at Alton Towers!

The Ridgeway, above Wantage, Oxon.

The other thing that happens less and less is the good, old fashioned and ever so educational nature walk. I went to school in a lovely place called Wantage and my parents and I lived in a small village nearby called Letcombe Regis. Our primary school was not unusual in its insistence that part of a good education (things like learning to spell and to add up….very rare these days) was to walk around the paths and fields nearby. I remember that we used to go for quite long walks and the teachers would show us all manner of amazing things from bugs to birds, from cows to catkins. You could go to a nearby pond and see frogs and newts and tadpoles and all sorts. We knew which bird was which and our school had bird tables and all manner of what would now be called “green projects” except this was in the mind 1970s.

It was against this background that I found yesterday a remarkable book entitled “Out of Doors” by the Revd J G Wood. This fascinating volume, dated 1891 (and originally published by Longman Green in 1874) includes a chapter called, “A Summer Walk Through An English Lane” where he says, “…the real, dear, genuine, old-fashioned English Lane, with its banks of flowers, its little ripping streamlets, its shady hedgerows; its feathered trees, with their gnarled roots thrusting themselves out of the bank in strange knotty contortions, and occasionally making their appearance in the centre of the footpath, as if for the express purpose of flinging the heedless passenger on his nose; its charming freedom from any kind of regularity, its pleasant him of busy insect wings and its cheerful twitter of little birds. The woodbine flings its graceful masses of twining foliage and fragrant flowers over the hedgerows and the odorous white blossoms of the wild clematis add their bright petals to vivify the scene.”

The Revd J G Wood's "Out of Doors" (frontispiece)

He goes on in similar vein but the picture he develops over the pages and it is a picture that we should always recognise, embrace and seek to introduce to our children and the younger generation in general. The CFZ finds itself in a place where it could indeed lead some sort of “kids and nature” type movement. It is loosely called “CFZ Outreach” and it is so much bigger than stories of rare beasties in the Third World and all about what is available to us here, in our own country, here and now. It is, of course, also a voyage into a world of wonder and mystery in which we can all engage. As the guy on the bug stall told me at last year’s Weird WeekendTM, “you don’t always have to look far for new species. It is the case that you and I could organise a simple effort in a field and find new species of beatles within three months”.

This, I venture, is the sort of thing that our children could and should be involved with and the CFZ could promote this almost straight away. Forget the third world and voyages into the distant wastes. What about doing something locally, here and now. Not only would be do something for the environment but also for our children’s education, future and for science in general.

THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!

Carnivorous sea squirt, or ascidian, standing half a meter tall on the seafloor on the Tasman Fracture Zone at a depth of 4006 metres

Whatever happens, scientists always seem to win. We are the mavericks and they are the discoverers. So what are we, this merry band of Cryptzoological warriors? Nerds? Geeks? Or, worse, "Enthusiasts"? Our mission, we claim, is to go where nobody has gone before, to think the unthinkable and to prove the unknowable and yet, so often, we come in second and third place when new news is announced.

It is said that this is because of money. If we had more money we'd go out and find more. Too often, perhaps, we're interested in discovering some uber-filmable sci-fi creature. Nessie, Anaconda (as seen on that film), Mega Sea Serpent or something else Paranormal and Potteresque. Life is, however, stranger, more diverse and, arguably, more accessible, if we only care to refocus and redouble our efforts.

Take, for example, a news story featured on the BBC's website this week about numerous discoveries - some 300 new species no less - of corals, anemones and sea spiders off the Southern Australian coast. It is the sort of story that will interest the more intelligent, and it should fascinate us, but Cryptozoologists were, it seems, slow to pick up on the story and not many people are interested in it.

Similar stories are to be found in the news...if you look. Coming late to Cryptozoology, but always having kept pets and been around them, it seems to me that Cryptozoologists have managed to maintain a certain aura of mystery around their subject. Despite this, it seems to me that there is very little within a Fortean construct here and much that is basic science. They are only mystery animals until discovered, and despite the doom and gloom predictions of massive loss of variety within ecosystems, those darned scientists keep coming up trumps with their fiendish methodology and finding new species. Worse, perhaps, is that even the most sceptical university bod, one who derides Cryptzoology, can hardly fail to look good if he finds something, as he can simply be "surprised and delighted" while we stand on the outside looking in...

So what price Cryptzoology now? Is it to give up on mainstream science and divert its attention to the realms of silliness, myth, paranoia and outright fakery that makes up 99.9% of the so-called "Paranormal" field of study? True, we could do with the sort of money that the fake Most Haunted produces for Living TV every year, but is that where we really want to go? There is a worrying fad now for us to get all weird, to talk much of window areas featuring ghosts UFOs and zombies, even in association with mystery animals, but this will take us nowhere. Clearly, some basic decision making as to our direction is required...and we must all pull in the same direction if we are to go down in history as more than hobbyists and fantasists.

There are scientists within the CFZ. We need more - and better! Even more important, we need young people to go to University, get qualified in relevant sciences and then start a slow yet deliberate Entryist process whereby funds can be diverted towards the search for mystery animals.

We need influence and funding. And we only get that inside the mainstream of the system, not outside in Fortean Conferences.........

Zoological, not Paranormal!