Few forces of nature are as visually impressive, unpredictable, and awe inspiring as lightning. With its crackling, branching tendrils of pure, sizzling electricity, accompanied by ominous booming thunder, it is a breathtakingly beautiful phenomenon that has understandably long been a fixture in human myths, legends, and religions. Lightning is also a dangerous beauty, capable of reaching out over vast distances to lash out at trees, buildings, and yes people, to cause massive damage in the blink of an eye, earning the fear and respect of civilizations throughout history. Indeed lightning and the destructive power it wields have been a symbol of both might and danger in cultures throughout the world since time unremembered.

The thought of a person being subject to the wrath of a lightning strike is certainly terrifying, but surely the odds must be fairly slim, right? After all, talk of the odds of being hit by lightning has become synonymous with denoting something of an extremely low probability, giving birth to expressions such as “You have a better chance of being struck by lightning,” or “Lightning never strikes the same place twice” when discussing highly unlikely or impossible scenarios. Yet these are people in this world who seem to defy this common wisdom. These are those rare individuals who have been relentlessly struck on numerous occasions, sometimes under clear conditions, to the point that it almost seems as if they are being maliciously targeted by one of nature’s most frightening light displays, and have lived to tell the tale. Are they lucky since they have survived? Unlucky? Cursed? Or are they merely just always in the wrong place at the wrong time? Let’s look at some of these cases and you can perhaps decide.

Case 1: Roy Cleveland Sullivan

Perhaps the most famous case of a so-called “human lightning rod” is that of Roy Cleveland Sullivan, who from 1936 worked as a park ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, mostly tasked with fire patrol. Between the years of 1942 and 1977, Sullivan was struck a total of seven times by lightning, the most officially recorded for any single person and which has earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for most lightning strikes on a single human being. Remarkably, Sullivan survived these frightening ordeals more or less in one piece. Despite the already bizarre fact and incredible odds that a person could be unlucky enough to be struck by lightning even twice, let alone on seven separate occasions, there are also the unusual circumstances under which many of these strikes occurred.

In his second recorded lightning strike in 1969, Sullivan had been driving in his truck along a remote road in the national park when a bolt of lightning snaked down to hit him. This is quite odd, since typically the metal body of the vehicle serves to act as a “Faraday cage,” meaning it conducts electricity through the metal frame, dissipates the electrical charge, directs the electricity into the ground, and thereby protects the occupants. In this case, the lightning bolt leapt down from the sky and actually ricocheted off of a tree to enter the open window of the truck to hit Sullivan. The aggressive strike seared off most of his hair, his eyebrows, burned his watch, and knocked him unconscious. Adding to the weirdness of the event, the truck, which had kept moving along even as Sullivan was slumped over unconscious, came to a stop in a ditch right as it neared a sheer cliff.

In later strikes, Sullivan became more and more convinced that he was actually being stalked by some supernatural force, and that lightning clouds were following him around to stalk him. In one such ominous incident on August 7, 1973, Sullivan was out on patrol in the park when he noticed that a storm cloud was gathering to darken the sky above. Having already been struck by lightning on several occasions by this point in time, the nervous and wary Sullivan got into his truck and made a speedy retreat. However, on this occasion he claimed that the dark cloud was actively pursuing him as he tried to outrun it. At some point he seemed to have lost the apparently willfully malicious storm cloud, but when he got out of his vehicle he was promptly struck by a lightning bolt, which knocked off one of his shoes and set his hair on fire. On yet another occasion on June 5, 1976, Sullivan once again claimed that he was hunted down by a storm cloud before being struck by another bolt as he ran away for cover. Another strike happened on a clear day as he worked in his garden, when a dark cloud suddenly seemed to congeal out of nowhere and sent a lightning bolt to bounce off of a transformer and hit him in the shoulder.

Sullivan became so paranoid and convinced that some mysterious force was out to get him and that lightning was actually seeking him out that he got into the habit of pulling his truck over to the side of the road to cower whenever a storm was anywhere in the vicinity, and he also started carrying with him a can of water at all times. He believed that nowhere was safe and that lightning would actually come through pipes to get him indoors or single him out if he were to stand within a group of people. He was apparently not the only one who thought that lightning was attracted to him, as friends and co-workers began to avidly avoid him, thinking that he would draw in lightning even in clear weather, and he began to be called nicknames such as “The Spark Ranger” or “The Human Lightning Rod.” This superstitious belief that Sullivan was a magnet for lightning was only exacerbated when his wife was struck by a bolt while they were out hanging laundry in their yard, although it spared him on this occasion.

Sullivan retired from the park service in 1976 and moved with his wife to a town eerily called Dooms, and his lingering fear of lightning prompted Sullivan to adorn his house with numerous sophisticated lightning rods, as well as copper conductive wire buried deep in the ground. Even then he seemed to be targeted by lightning, when he was struck while out fishing in 1977. In an interview with a local newspaper following the incident, Sullivan quipped “Some people are allergic to flowers, but I’m allergic to lightning.”

This potent dread that constantly plagued him, as well as the nicknames and avoidance by those around him, sank Sullivan into a deep depression over the years, and his final days were mostly spent obsessing on ways to keep from being struck by lightning again, terrified that he was doomed to be killed by it. However, in the end, it would not be lightning that would kill him. On September 28, 1983, Sullivan was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head, apparently self-inflicted. It is unclear what drove him to do such a thing. Perhaps it was his gnawing depression and chronic fear, or perhaps it was some need to cheat the lightning that had long plagued him out of its prize. We will likely never know for sure.

Case 2: Melvin Roberts

If being struck by lightning six times sounds impressive, how about ten? Although Sullivan has accrued the most official, confirmed strikes, there is someone out there who by all accounts outdoes even him. 64-year-old Melvin Roberts, of the U.S. state of South Carolina, has long been seemingly targeted by lightning. He originally started making the rounds in the news in 2011, at which time he had already been struck by lightning on six separate occasions, but this number has since grown, since he has been struck four additional times since then. Although Roberts, who suffers from wicked scars all over his body as testament to these assaults, and recurring health problems such as nerve damage, chronic pain, and memory loss from his encounters, it is not quite sure why lightning gravitates towards him. However, he certainly is quite sure what it feels like, describing the experience thus:

It’s like grabbing an electrical cord. You don’t feel the burns until it’s over with. It cooks you from the inside out like being in a microwave. And you’ve got a hurting in your bones. When it hits you, it’s like being hit by a freight train. It knocks you out, knocks you down. You can tell what’s around, you just don’t have any control over your body. It’s like a big syringe in the sky and when it hits you it puts all this different stuff in your body. It turns your insides completely around.

Case 3: Carl Mize

While not being hit quite as many times, another purported human lightning rod is University of Oklahoma physical plant worker Carl Mize, who has been struck six times. His first strike came in 1978, right after he had finished riding bulls at a rodeo. A storm had been coming in, bringing with it thunderclaps and black clouds that forced the rodeo to shut down. As Mize was just about to leave in his truck, he was hit by a lightning bolt, which licked down to hit him right as he reached for his vehicle, knocking him back about five feet. In this case, he amazingly got up and walked it off without any noticeable injury.

The next strike occurred in 1994, when he was using a crowbar to help a buddy move a child’s playhouse. In this case, lightning jolted down to bounce off of a nearby telephone pole and directly into his crowbar, dramatically traveling through him to erupt from his hands in the process. In 1996 he was hit again as he lied on his stomach repairing street light cables. The lightning in this case hit a tree, shot down into the cables, and then exploded from Mize’s chest, again leaving him remarkably unscathed save a large burn on his chest. Strike number three came when he was holding the chain of a swing outside as his family scrambled to shelter to avoid a brewing tornado in the distance. The lightning zapped down through the chain and into his body. The next hit came as he was outside repairing a ruptured water main during a storm and lightning managed to hit the water, snake through the water, and enter his body through a tiny hole in his shoe, sending him to the hospital for four days.

After each strike, Mize claims that he had heard a tremendous clap of thunder and saw the image of blue flames. When he was struck a further three times Mize attracted the attention of various news programs, TV shows, and even an offer from Johns Hopkins University to participate in a study of human lightning rods. In the meantime, his co-workers noticed his uncanny ability to draw in lightning and had the image of a lightning bolt emblazoned upon his hard hat. Some of those around him have perhaps understandably chosen not to be anywhere near him when a storm is brewing. Indeed one of the hits happened when storm was on its way and a co-worker named Mike Petross jokingly said that he wanted to get away from Mize, after which a bolt dutifully came down to strike the unfortunate victim. Petross would later say, “I was standing right next to him. I’ll never get that close to him again during that weather.”

Interestingly, the case of Carl Mize defies some fairly accepted rules of lightning behavior. Typically, lightning will seek out the tallest conductive point in the area, but on nearly every occasion Mize had not met that criteria, and in some cases, such as when he was lying on the ground repairing cables, he was most likely the lowest object in the area. A co-worker has further confirmed that Mize is not even really that tall of a guy to begin with, and cannot comprehend why lightning should go for him under any circumstances. Mize, who has managed to escape all of his brushes with lightning with relatively minor injuries, has said of his “curse,” “Some people say I’m unlucky, but I think I’m kind of lucky to be alive.”

These cases are notable for the sheer odds involved. The odds of being struck by lightning under normal circumstances in a given year are about 1 in 700,000, and the odds of being struck once over an 80-year period are about 1 in 10,000. The odds of being struck even once are fairly slim, but for one to be hit on numerous occasions they go up astronomically. For instance, the odds of being hit by lightning twice is around 1 in 9,000,000, so what of those struck many more times than this? It is these extremely slim odds that have caused some to speculate that there is something at work here that goes beyond the norm.

One theory is that there is some as yet unknown quality about a person’s physical make-up that serves to invite lightning to them. Another idea is that these people are indeed singled out somehow by shadowy forces we do not yet understand. Skeptics point out those who have been struck by lightning more than one time tend to be in occupations where they are outside more in areas that are especially prone to thunderstorms, and that these are statistical explanations, no matter how improbable, but the overwhelming odds involved with being hit six, seven, or ten times certainly cause one to think.

Positive and Negative Effects

Perhaps even more mysterious than the number of times lightning can come down to strike a single person many times is the effects that it can have when all is said and done. Lighting strikes have surprisingly only around a 30% fatality rate, but for those who do survive the ordeal it can have numerous odd, little understood effects. Besides the obvious injuries of burns, nerve damage, paralysis, and internal damage, there are other effects of being hit by lightning that are more complicated, harder to pinpoint, and in some cases bizarre, mysterious, and poorly understood, including hallucinations, waking dreams, and hair turning white or falling out, all of which lack any real medical explanation and which show no concrete medical cause when analyzed. Indeed, many who suffer from symptoms of lightning strikes show little to no health problems even when they are thoroughly investigated.

One of the most common negative effects of a lightning strike is that of memory loss, seizures, chronic confusion, sleeplessness, depression, post-traumatic stress, amnesia, and notably profound changes in personality or potent mood swings. People can become very different from what they once were, displaying dramatic changes in behavior and acting in a decidedly uncharacteristic manner, and it is not totally understood why. One specialist, a Mary Ann Cooper, MD, director of the Lightning and Electrical Injury Research Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, thinks it is the electrical effect on the delicate chemistry of the brain, explaining:

Lightning affects the part of the brain that controls personality, emotion and organization. With lightning-strike victims, it’s the same as if a computer has been fried by lightning, which also happens often. On the outside, the computer looks absolutely fine. Inside it’s the same thing. All the boards and switches are intact, but it’s scrambled. It can’t function. That’s the same with people. They look fine inside and out. All our best diagnostic tests say they’re absolutely fine, but inside they’re completely different. One patient put it best when she told me that it’s as if the office manager of her brain walked off the job and isn’t coming back.

Many outward symptoms of lightning strikes may hide themselves for years, as visible physical injury is sometimes absent. There is indeed a misunderstanding among both the normal populace and medical professionals alike that a lack of any outward signs of physical damage absolves the victim of any major problems, but in most cases some form of damage lurks under the surface to manifest itself in a variety of ways. Profound, gnawing changes in a person’s basic character, with no obvious physical reasons, are one example.

Indeed, it is this change of personality and descent into depression that is said to have brought on the suicide of multiple lightning survivor Roy Sullivan. On the flip side of all of the negative effects of lightning strikes are all of the purported positive benefits as well. There have been those who have claimed to have been cured of blindness or deafness by lightning strikes, as well as tales of “hyper sexuality,” or an insatiable sex drive, and even cases of people purportedly becoming psychic after being hit by lightning. There is also the case of Harold Deal, who was hit by lightning in 1969 and has since been unable to feel the sensation of cold. Deal has claimed:

I’ve been outside when it’s 14 degrees below zero, wearing nothing but shorts. Soaking in a tub of ice water gives me a relaxed, pleasant feeling.

What might lie behind these claims? No one really knows.There are also the mysterious tales brought back from lightning strike victims that hint at something even more bizarre. In June of 1989, a “storm chaser” by the name of Steve Melvin was hit by a bolt of lightning at the precise moment that he was taking a photo of the lightning of a storm, an incident which nearly disintegrated his tripod and camera but which left the film oddly fully intact. The developed photo would later show show the curious image of an ill-defined human outline prominently framed by flashes of lightning. Melvin would later say of the spooky photos thus:

I’ve heard all the guesses. Some say it was me having an out-of-body experience. Some say it was my grandmother coming down from heaven to push me out of the way of the lightning. Some say it was a glimpse of an entirely different dimension. I’ll never know.

Oddly, even now the batteries of Melvin’s pagers tend to wear out every few days rather than the several months they are meant to last. Another lightning strike victim named Robert Davidson has a similar inexplicable phenomenon with his watch. Since he was struck by lightning over 15 years ago, no electric watch will function on his arm save the very one he was wearing when tragedy struck. These cases have confused experts and pointed to the profound mysteries and misunderstandings that surround lightning strike victims. Indeed, there are many who believe them to be still charged with electricity and ready to lash out with shocks, further adding to the level of mystery and misunderstanding that surround them.

Just as ancient peoples wove legends and myths around the phenomenon of lightning as a desperate way to try and come to an understanding of it, we too struggle to comprehend and speculate on what is going on in these cases of lightning relentlessly attacking a single person, as well as the mysterious effects this force of nature has on the human body. Why are they hit so many times and what impact does this have on them? Are these just people who are aberrations of statistics? Is there some physical property they possess that draws the lightning in? Are there truly natural forces conspiring against them? Or are these serial lightning strikes just an indication of certain sophisticated natural factors that have just happened to converge multiple times on a certain individual by sheer chance? Indeed, what happened to the minds and bodies of these unfortunate few? These repeat lightning victims bring with them a myriad of mysteries just as enigmatic as the flashing bolts of lightning were to the earliest civilizations that looked upon them and wondered what place they had in the world. These are mysteries that may forever hide within the dark storm clouds that bring them.

Roy Cleveland Sullivan (February 7, 1912 – September 28, 1983) was a United Statespark ranger in Shenandoah National Parkin Virginia. Between 1942 and 1977, Sullivan was hit by lightning on seven different occasions and survived all of them. For this reason, he gained a nickname "Human Lightning Conductor" or "Human Lightning Rod". Sullivan is recognized by Guinness World Records as the person struck by lightning more recorded times than any other human being.[3] 

Personal life

Sullivan was born in Greene County, Virginia, on February 7, 1912. He started working as a ranger in Shenandoah National Park in 1936.[4] Sullivan was described as a brawny man with a broad, rugged face, who resembled the actor Gene Hackman. He was avoided by people later in life because of their fear of being hit by lightning, and this saddened him. He once recalled "For instance, I was walking with the Chief Ranger one day when lightning struck way off (in the distance). The Chief said, 'I'll see you later.'"

On the morning of September 28, 1983, Sullivan died at the age of 71 under mysterious circumstances from a gunshot wound to the head. Officially, he shot himself over anunrequited love[5][1][2][6][7] lying in bed next to his wife who was 30 years younger and allegedly did not notice his death for several hours.[8]

Two of his ranger hats are on display at two Guinness World Exhibit Halls in New York Cityand South Carolina.[2]

Seven strikes

1. The first documented lightning strike of Sullivan occurred in April 1942. He was hiding from a thunderstorm in a fire lookout tower. The tower was newly built and had no lightning rod at the time; it was hit seven or eight times. Inside the tower, "fire was jumping all over the place". Sullivan ran out and just a few feet away received what he considered to be his worst lightning strike. It burned a half-inch strip all along his right leg, hit his toe, and left a hole in his shoe.[4]

2. He was hit again in July 1969. Unusually, he was hit while in his truck, driving on a mountain road—the metal body of a vehicle normally protects people in cases such as this by acting as a Faraday cage. The lightning first hit nearby trees and was deflected into the open window of the truck. The strike knocked Sullivan unconscious and burned off his eyebrows and eyelashes, and set his hair on fire. The uncontrolled truck kept moving until it stopped near a cliff edge.[7][4]

3. In 1970, Sullivan was struck while in his front yard. The lightning hit a nearby power transformer and from there jumped to his left shoulder, searing it.[7][4]

4. In 1972, Sullivan was working inside a ranger station in Shenandoah National Park when another strike occurred. It set his hair on fire; he tried to smother the flames with his jacket. He then rushed to the restroom, but couldn't fit under the water tap and so used a wet towel instead.[4] Although he never was a fearful man, after the fourth strike he began to believe that some force was trying to destroy him and he acquired a fear of death. For months, whenever he was caught in a storm while driving his truck, he would pull over and lie down on the front seat until the storm passed. He also began to believe that he would somehow attract lightning even if he stood in a crowd of people, and carried a can of water with him in case his hair was set on fire.[2][9]

5. On August 7, 1973, while he was out on patrol in the park, Sullivan saw a storm cloud forming and drove away quickly. But the cloud, he said later, seemed to be following him. When he finally thought he had outrun it, he decided it was safe to leave his truck. Soon after, he was struck by a lightning bolt. Sullivan stated that he actually saw the bolt that hit him. The lightning set his hair on fire, moved down his left arm and left leg and knocked off his shoe. It then crossed over to his right leg just below the knee. Still conscious, Sullivan crawled to his truck and poured the can of water, which he always kept there, over his head, which was on fire.[2][9]

6. The next strike, on June 5, 1976, injured his ankle. It was reported that he saw a cloud, thought that it was following him, tried to run away, but was struck anyway.[7]

7. On Saturday morning, June 25, 1977, Sullivan was struck while fishing in a freshwater pool. The lightning hit the top of his head, set his hair on fire, traveled down, and burnt his chest and stomach. Sullivan turned to his car when something unexpected occurred — a bear approached the pond and tried to steal trout from his fishing line. Sullivan had the strength and courage to strike the bear with a tree branch. He claimed that this was the twenty-second time he hit a bear with a stick in his lifetime.[2]

All seven strikes were documented by the superintendent of Shenandoah National Park, R. Taylor Hoskins. Sullivan himself recalled that the first time he was struck by lightning was not in 1942 but much earlier. When he was a child, he was helping his father to cut wheat in a field, when a thunderbolt struck the blade of his scythe without injuring him. But because he could not prove the fact later, he never claimed it.[4]

Sullivan's wife was also struck once, when a storm suddenly arrived as she was out hanging clothes in their back yard. Her husband was helping her at the time, but escaped unharmed.[7]

Statistics

The odds of being struck by lightning for a person over the period of 80 years have been roughly estimated as 1:10000.[10] If the lightning strikes were independent events, the probability of being hit seven times would be 1:100007 = 1:1028. These numbers do not quite apply to Sullivan, however, who by the nature of his work was more exposed to storms than the average person. Virginia, where he lived, averages 35 to 45 thunderstorm days per year, most of which fall in June, July, and August. Between 1959 and 2000 lightning killed 58 people and injured at least 238 people in Virginia. In the United States, 3239 people were killed and 13,057 injured by lightning in the same period. Most of those were males between 20 and 40 years old caught outdoors.[11]

See also

• Keraunomedicine, the medical study of lightning casualties and their treatment

• Keraunopathy, the study of the effects of lightning strikes on the human body

References

1. ^ a b "The New York Times Archives: Roy Sullivan". September 30, 1983. Retrieved2009-08-08.

2. ^ a b c d e f John Friedman (2008). Out of the Blue: A History of Lightning: Science, Superstition, and Amazing Stories of Survival. Delacorte Press. ISBN 0-385-34115-6.

3. ^ Campbell, Ken (2000). Guinness World Records 2001. Guinness World Record Ltd. p. 36.ISBN 978-0-85112-102-4.

4. ^ a b c d e f Hank Burchard (May 2, 1972). "Lightning strikes four times". The Ledger. Retrieved 2009-08-18.

5. ^ "Lightning". Discovery Channel. Retrieved 2009-08-18.

6. ^ Majendie, Paul (September 26, 2007). "Guinness – weird, wonderful and wacky abound". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-08-08.

7. ^ a b c d e "Astrology Weekly: Roy Sullivan". Retrieved 2009-08-08.

8. ^ Kringiel, Daniel (September 9, 2013). "Spiegel Online: Rekord-Pechvogel Roy Sullivan, Wenn der Blitz dich acht Mal trifft". Spiegel Online. Retrieved 2016-03-01.

9. ^ a b "Lightning, Nature's striking force". St. Petersburg Times. July 23, 1989. Retrieved2009-08-08.

10. ^ "Medical Aspects of Lightning". National Weather Service. 2011. Retrieved2011-05-26.

11. ^ Barbara Watson. "Virginia Thunderstorms and Lightning". Retrieved 2009-08-18.

External links

• National Weather Service Lightning Safety Information: [1]

• Roy Sullivan at Find a Grave

The Devil's Footprints were a phenomenon that occurred during February 1855 around the Exe Estuary in East and South Devon, England. After a heavy snowfall, trails of hoof-like marks appeared overnight in the snow covering a total distance of some 40 to 100 miles (60 to 160 km). The footprints were so called because some people believed that they were the tracks of Satan, as they were allegedly made by a cloven hoof. Many theories have been made to explain the incident, and some aspects of its veracity have also been questioned.

Incident

On the night of 8–9 February 1855 and one or two later nights,[1] after a heavy snowfall, a series of hoof-like marks appeared in the snow. These footprints, most of which measured about four inches long, three inches across, between eight and sixteen inches apart and mostly in a single file, were reported from more than thirty locations across Devon and a couple in Dorset. It was estimated that the total distance of the tracks amounted to between 40 and 100 miles (60 and 160 km).[2] Houses, rivers, haystacks and other obstacles were travelled straight over, and footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls which lay in the footprints' path, as well as leading up to and exiting various drain pipes as small as four inches in diameter.[2] From a news report:

"It appears on Thursday night last, there was a very heavy snowfall in the neighbourhood of Exeter and the South of Devon. On the following morning the inhabitants of the above towns were surprised at discovering the footmarks of some strange and mysterious animal endowed with the power of ubiquity, as the footprints were to be seen in all kinds of unaccountable places – on the tops of houses and narrow walls, in gardens and court-yards, enclosed by high walls and pailings, as well in open fields."[3]

The area in which the prints appeared extended from Exmouth, up to Topsham, and across the Exe Estuary to Dawlish and Teignmouth.[4] R.H. Busk, in an article published in Notes and Queries during 1890, stated that footprints also appeared further afield, as far south as Totnes and Torquay, and that there were other reports of the prints as far away as Weymouth (Dorset) and even Lincolnshire.[5]

Evidence

There is little direct evidence of the phenomenon. The only known documents were found after the publication during 1950 of an article in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association asking for further information about the event.[6] This resulted in the discovery of a collection of papers belonging to Reverend H. T. Ellacombe, the vicar of Clyst St George during the 1850s. These papers included letters addressed to the vicar from his friends, among them the Reverend G. M. Musgrove, the vicar of Withycombe Raleigh; the draft of a letter to The Illustrated London News marked 'not for publication'; and several apparent tracings of the footprints.[2][7]

During many years the noted researcher Mike Dash collated all the available primary and secondary source material into a paper entitled The Devil's Hoofmarks: Source Material on the Great Devon Mystery of 1855 which was published in Fortean Studies during 1994.[8]

Theories

Many explanations have been made for the incident. Some investigators are sceptical that the tracks really extended for more than a hundred miles, arguing that no-one would have been able to follow their entire course in a single day. Another reason for scepticism, as Joe Nickell indicates, is that the eye-witness descriptions of the footprints varied from person to person.[9]

In his Fortean Studies article, Mike Dash concluded that there was no one source for the "hoofmarks": some of the tracks were probably hoaxes, some were made by "common quadrupeds" such as donkeys and ponies, and some by wood mice (see below). He admitted, though, that these cannot explain all the reported marks and "the mystery remains".[10]

Balloon

Author Geoffrey Household suggested that "an experimental balloon" released by mistake from Devonport Dockyard had left the mysterious tracks by trailing two shackles on the end of its mooring ropes. His source was a local man, Major Carter, whose grandfather had worked at Devonport at the time. Carter claimed that the incident had been quieted because the balloon also wrecked a number of conservatories, greenhouses, and windows before finally descending to earth in Honiton.[11]

While this could explain the shape of the prints, sceptics have disagreed about whether the balloon could have travelled such a random zigzag course without its trailing ropes and shackles becoming caught in a tree or similar obstruction.

Hopping mice

Mike Dash suggested that at least some of the prints, including some of those found on rooftops, could have been made by hopping rodents such as wood mice. The print left behind after a mouse leaps resembles that of a cloven animal, due to the motions of its limbs when it jumps. Dash stated that the theory that the Devon prints were made by rodents was originally proposed as long ago as March 1855, in The Illustrated London News.[8]

Hysteria

It is also often suggested that the footprints were merely a case of mass hysteria, caused by the sighting of various animal tracks and assuming them to be the same.

Kangaroo

In a letter to the Illustrated London News during 1855, Rev. G. M. Musgrave wrote: "In the course of a few days a report was circulated that a couple of kangaroos escaped from a private menagerie (Mr Fische's, I believe) at Sidmouth." It seems, though, that nobody ascertained whether the kangaroos had escaped, nor how they could have crossed the Exe estuary,[12] and Musgrave himself said that he invented with the story to distract his parishioners' concerns about a visit from the devil:

I found a very apt opportunity to mention the name of kangaroo, in allusion to the report then current. I certainly did not pin my faith to that version of the mystery ... but the state of the public mind of the villagers ... dreading to go out after sunset ... under the conviction that this was the Devil's work ... rendered it very desirable that a turn should be given to such a degraded and vitiated notion ... and I was thankful that a kangaroo ... [served] to disperse ideas so derogatory...— Rev G. M. Musgrove: letter to The Illustrated London News, 3 March 1855.[13]

Badgers

During July 1855, a 'Professor Owen' stated the theory that the footprints were from a badger, arguing the animal was 'the only plantigrade quadruped we have in this island' and it 'leaves a footprint larger than would be supposed from its size'. The number of footprints, he suggested, were indicative of the activity of several animals because 'it is improbable that one badger only should have been awake and hungry' and added that the animal was 'a stealthy prowler and most active and enduring in search of food'.[14]

Similar incidents

Reports of similar anomalous, obstacle-unheeded footprints exist from other parts of the world, although none is of such a scale as that of the case of the Devil's Footprints. This example was reported 15 years earlier in The Times:

Among the high mountains of that elevated district where Glenorchy, Glenlyon and Glenochay are contiguous, there have been met with several times, during this and also the former winter, upon the snow, the tracks of an animal seemingly unknown at present in Scotland. The print of the foot in every respect is an exact resemblance of that of a foal of considerable size, with this small difference perhaps, that the sole seems a little longer or not so round; but, as no one has had the good fortune as yet to have obtained a glimpse of this creature, nothing more can be said of its shape or dimensions; only it has been remarked, from the depth to which the feet sunk in the snow, that it must be a beast of considerable size; it has been observed also, that its walk is not like that of the generality of quadrupeds, but that it is more like the bounding or limping of a hare when not scared or pursued. It is not in one locality only that its tracks have been met with, but through a range of at least twelve miles...— The Times, 14 March 1840, p. 1.

In the Illustrated London News of 17 March 1855, a correspondent from Heidelberg wrote, "upon the authority of a Polish Doctor in Medicine", that on the Piaskowa-góra (Sand Hill), a small elevation on the border of Galicia, but in Congress Poland, such marks are to be seen in the snow every year, and sometimes in the sand of this hill, and "are attributed by the inhabitants to supernatural influences".

On the night of 12 March 2009, marks claimed to be similar to those left during 1855 were found in Devon.[15] During 2013 trails were reported in Girvan, Scotland possibly as part of an April Fool's hoax.[16]

In popular culture

The Devil's Footprints was used as the inspiration for the events depicted in the motion picture Dark Was the Night. The movie speculates how a modern American town would react to discovering biped hoof prints in freshly fallen snow.[17]

See also

• Jersey Devil – the appearance during January 1909 of similar mysterious footprints in New Jersey, USA.

• Phantom kangaroo.

• The Great Thunderstorm, Widecombe – another legend of the Devil in Devon.

• Urban legend.

References

• "Topsham. The two-legged wonder". Western Times. 24 February 1855.

• Dash, 1994. Introduction.

• "Miscellaneous Extracts.". Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer (NSW : 1845–1860). NSW: National Library of Australia. 26 May 1855. p. 1. Retrieved 21 August 2013.

• The Times 16 February 1855

• Busk, R.H. (25 January 1890). "Phenomenal Footprints in the Snow, S. Devon". Notes and Queries. s7-IX (213): 70. (Cited as Document 17 in Dash 1994)

• Brown, Theo (1950). "The Great Devon Mystery of 1855 or "The Devil in Devon" (Forty-seventh Report on Folklore)". Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association. 82: 107–12.

• Brown, Theo (1952). "A Further Note on "The Great Devon Mystery"". Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association. 84: 163–71.

• Dash, 1994.

• Joe Nickell, Real Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal.

• Dash, 1994. Summary.

• Household, Geoffrey (ed.) (1985). The Devil's Footprints : The Great Devon Mystery as it was Reported in the Newspapers of 1855. Exeter: Devon Books. ISBN 0-86114-753-7.

• "Professor Owen on the foot-marks in the snow in Devon." Illustrated London News, 26 (4 March 1855): 214.

• Cited in Dash, 1994.

• "British and Foreign Gleanings". South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839–1900). Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia. 6 July 1855. p. 3. Retrieved 21 August 2013.

• The Sun, 13 March 2009

• "Mysterious 'hoof-prints' appear in Scottish seaside resort", Unusual Times

• "Special Report: A Sneak Peek At Our Trip To Southampton For ‘Dark Was The Night’!" by Evan Dickson, March 12, 2012, Bloody Disgusting (horror movie review site)

Sources

• Dash, Mike (1994). "The Devil's Hoofmarks". Fortean Studies. online at Academia.edu. 1: 71–150.

External links

• Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned, Chapter 28.

• "The Devil's Footprints"Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Devil%27s_Footprints&oldid=786473566"

The following series of oddities is perhaps the most conclusive of all. Because I wish to develop “The Devil’s Footprints” fully, I shall not go into detail about the innumerable marks and depressions in stone. However, after the footprints study, and a mention of the stone depressions and what they are, I believe the case for the UFO’s will be clearly in your mind. What other source but something from space could account for these erratics?

The story of “The Devil’s Footprints” is classic. It was told as follows, by Frank W. Lane, In Fate, April-May, 1952 – The material being largely the product of research by Rupert Gould as printed in Stargazer Folks and elsewhere:
On the night of Thursday, February 7, 1855, there was a fall of snow over South Devon, in southwest England. The next morning, as men and women went about their business, they discovered, imprinted in the virgin snow, a series of tracks unlike any seen before. At first glance they looked like the impression made by a donkey’s hoof, measuring four by two and three-quarter inches. But there, all resemblance between the imprints on the snow and the sort of tracks left by a workaday donkey, ends. And the real mystery begins.

It was found that the hoof marks ran in a single line, and also that the distance between one impression and the next, as carefully measured, was undeviatingly eight and one-half inches. to appreciate properly the imprints in the snow that greeted the incredulous eyes of the Devonians, that Friday morning, you must try to imagine a line of marks such as would be made by a creature with only one leg, terminating a hoof, which proceeded by a series of jumps, always mathematically eight and one-half inches apart.

This was only the beginning of the puzzles associated with this mystery written in the snow. As word of the strange markings spread and men began to look more closely at them, and to trace their path across the whitened landscape, they discovered further inexplicable details.

Whereas the tracks of cats, dogs, horses, rabbits, birds and so forth, looked much as tracks always do in the snow – some clearly defined, others smudged, some cutting the snow deeply, others merely leaving a light imprint – these mystery markings were everywhere utterly clear and distinct. One investigator-on–the-spot said: “This particular mark removed the snow wherever it appeared, clear, as if cut with a diamond, or branded with a hot iron – so closely, even, that the raising in the centre of the frog of each print could be plainly seen.” Some witnesses claimed to have seen traces of toe or claw marks at the edges of the impressions.

The tracks were not confined to the ground. Two men following the tracks for three and half-hours (“under gooseberry bushes and espaliered fruit trees”) suddenly lost all trace of it. They cast around and eventually picked up the tracks in the last place they thought of looking for them: on the roofs of some houses!

The witnesses already quoted said that the marks could be traced “in some instances, over the roofs of houses, and hayricks, and very high walls (one fourteen feet high), without displacing the snow on either side, or altering the distance between the feet; and passing on as if the wall had not been an impediment. The gardens with high fences or walls and gates locked, were equally visited as those open and unprotected.”

Another investigator said that he traced the prints across a field up to a hayrick. The surface of the rick was wholly free from the marks but on the opposite side, in a direction corresponding exactly with the track already traced, they began again. A similar occurrence was noted when a wall intervened in the path of the track.

As high walls, hayricks, and houses were no obstacle to the onward march of these tracks, so neither was a great stretch of water. The hoof marks were traced to the bank of the estuary of the river Exe, and then picked up again on the opposite bank – across two miles of salt water.

The meanderings of the track ranged from Bicton in the east to Totnes in the west, a distance of about twenty miles as the crow flies. But the actual mileage covered by the track, as measured by the distance between hamlets, villages, towns and so forth, where the marks were seen was very much more. As one Devonian who was greatly interested in the occurrence wrote:
“When we consider the distance that must have been gone over to have left these marks – I may say in almost every garden, on doorsteps, through extensive woods of Luscombe, upon commons, in enclosures and farms – the actual progress must have exceeded one hundred miles.”

It did not take long for these markings in the snow to become the talk of all Devon. It was not so difficult to step in those days for a village rustic, pondering the inexplicable nature of the markings and their apparent ability to go wherever they would, and remembering their shape, to wonder fearfully if perhaps the Devil himself had been abroad in the land.

This fear was mentioned in a letter from the Reverend G.M. Musgrave, a local clergyman who was keenly interested in the whole matter, and who wrote of
“the state of the public mind of the villagers, the laborers, their wives and children, and old crones, and the trembling old men, dreading to stir out after sunset, or to go half a mile into lanes or byways on a call or message, under the conviction that this was the Devil’s walk, and no other, and that it was wicked to trifle with such a manifest proof of the Great Enemy’s presence…”
What of the explanation of these prints in the snow? First, review what has to be explained; an exceptionally clearly defined single line of equally spaced marks, which was found on the tops of houses, walls and in enclosed gardens, on both sides of an estuary two miles wide and at places twenty miles distant and which, at a conservative estimate, had a total length (allowing for doubling and meandering) of a hundred miles.

All sorts of well-known creatures were suggested as the makers of the tracks: swans, cranes, bustards, otters, rats, hare, and badgers. It is hardly necessary to add that none of these creatures provide even a plausible explanation. Birds do not leave hoof marks, nor make tracks that remove snow as clearly as if “branded with a hot iron”. If a mammal is chosen as the track maker, then how are we to explain the imprints across the roofs of houses and on tops of high walls, let alone the line of single, exactly spaced imprints?

One ingenious correspondent suggested that a hopping toad was the mischief-maker! The hopping would explain the single track, and the imprint of the toad’s belly and claws the mark…

There is one single argument against all explanations of the tracks being made by any common animal or bird. The tracks left by such creatures were perfectly familiar to the inhabitants of Devon and if such tracks had been anything like those made by well-known animals nobody would have thought twice about it.

Two unfamiliar species of animals were suggested as possible makers of the tracks: Two kangaroos and a raccoon, these allegedly having escaped from near-by captivity. But simple arithmetic is fatal to the hypothesis that one or even two animals could have made all the tracks. To make a line of marks eight and one-half inches apart and one hundred miles long, the two kangaroos would have had to make an average of six steps a second for some twelve hours nonstop, and the raccoon over a dozen steps.

It is at once obvious that these hoof-prints could not have been caused by an animal. The single prints, in straight line, exactly in front of each other, confute this idea without the necessity of further data or analysis. But there is further data. The tracks extended a hundred miles or more crossed an inlet of the sea without deviation or interruption, passed over and on buildings and walls. Yet, we are asked, by explainers, most of whom were nowhere near the site, to believe that this was done by a badger or a kangaroo?

In the descriptions there are two or three notations which are very significant. First, let’s take the rectilinear nature of the line of tracks: no animal walks in such a manner, nor for such a distance, nor over housetops. So – something passed over the country in the air, making contact with the ground as it went. No animal walks by putting one foot directly in front of the other, so these holes in the snow were made with mechanical precision by something mechanical. Therefore let’s make the broad conclusion that something, mechanical passed over Devon in the air.

Some acute observers noted that the prints did not look like normal hoof marks, wherein the snow is packed into the bottom of the track, but that it looked as if the snow had been removed. Also, someone noticed that the tracks looked more as if they had been burned into the snow. Again, it “F” could not be an animal. So – lets’s broaden our conclusion to include, not only something mechanical passing over Devonshire, but also, that it reached out in some way and made surface contact at regular intervals.

Something reached, projected or emanated from this contrivance at regular times, and because the contraption was moving with uniform velocity this instrumentality of contact made regularly spaced marks.

Now we note that this thing did not pack snow into the tracks, but perhaps removed it instead, so it was not pressure, and therefore, not a mechanical contact. On the other hand, it appears to have been hot, or warm, or at the very least to have conveyed energy convertible into heat. “F” Whatever the method or manner, it conveyed enough energy to melt or remove part of the snow, almost instantaneously. What have we left to consider? Anything besides a ray of some sort? It doesn’t seem too likely.

We have advocated levitation as an explanation before; thus the levitation of a few snow crystals in trivial as compared to the kicking, squirming body of Oliver Lerch, or the 1,200-ton blocks at Baalbek.

So we have, by elimination, a mechanical device passing through the air, emitting some sort of ray of heat or energy, at regular intervals of time and distance. What sort of device, and why the rays?

I suggest that this ray was something in the nature of radar, and that it either adjusted the distance of the machine from the ground or acted as a repulsion medium to sustain the machine in flight. The slight pressure in the prints could hardly account for the latter, so let’s guess that the rays were for guidance or navigational purposes to maintain the ship at a uniform distance from the ground or prevent too close an approach to the surface.

And from the London Times, March 14, 1840, fifteen years before the event of the “Devil’s Footprints.” Among the high mountains of the elevated district where Glenorchy, Glenlyon, and Glenochay are contiguous, there have been found several times, upon the snow, the tracks of an animal seemingly unknown at present, in Scotland. The prints in every respect resemble that of a foal of considerable size, although perhaps the sole seems a little stronger and not so round.

No one has obtained a glimpse of this creature, only, it is remarked that, from the depth to which the feet sank in the snow, it must be a beast of considerable size. It has been observed also that its walk is not like that of the generality of quadrupeds, but more like the bounding or leaping of a horse when scared or pursued. It is not only in one locality that the tracks have been met with, but through a range of at least twelve miles.

Here, once again, is the element of localization which we can associate with intelligence.

“Cup Marks” are strings of cuplike impressions in rocks. Sometimes there are rings around them and sometimes they have only semicircles. They have been found in America, Great Britain, France, Algeria, Palestine, almost everywhere except the far north. In China, cliffs are dotted with them, and in Italy, Spain, and India they occur in enormous numbers.

There are twenty-four cups, varying from one and a half to three inches in diameter, arranged approximately in straight lines, on the Witches’ Stone near Ratho, Scotland. It is explained locally that these are tracks of a dog’s feet (in stone?). In Inverness-shire the marks are called “Fairies’ Footmarks.” In Norway and other places they are said to be horses’ hoof prints. The rocks of Clare, in Ireland, have prints supposed to have been left by a mythical cow.

On U.S. 40, between Dayton, Ohio, and Richmond, Indiana, there is a popular roadside stop where tourists pull over to look at the footprints in a large stone by the side of the road.

Now, in Devonshire, our space-navigating device seemed to be cruising around, probably slowly and silently, using a weak ray, maybe a sort of beamed radar, to maintain its elevation above the ground. But, where the cup marks appear in stone we get the impression that a more powerful ray was used, capable of disintegrating, or fusing, rocks; and that the flying gimmick was hovering over a small area. This hovering would account for the cupmarks appearing in clusters within which there were rows of cup marks in straight lines, since the hovering machine would be certain to drift back and forth, due to air currents and other disturbances while using its powerful ray to maintain position over a certain area or object.

I am reminded, here, of the pigs somewhere in the French-Canadian wilderness which were killed by circular burned spots of totally unexplained origin.

Some hints might be gained by studying all of the places where cup marks are found, and determining whether these locales have any prominent features in common, such as might attract a space flyer, either for a particular interest, or merely for anchoring. For levitating stone, perhaps.

So, we premise that the cupmarks, like the Devil’s footprints, the prints of Glenorchy, and those in the Chinese Palace-compound, and who knows, perhaps those of the legendary “abominable snow man” of the Himalayas, were all made by somewhat similar types of rays from space navigating contrivances.

It would appear that any resemblance to Morse Codes, or codes in general, or any other form of communication is purely coincidental, and is merely personal interpretation of the obviously mechanical nature of the distribution of the marks, be they cups in stone or depressions in snow. It is the establishment of the mechanical nature of these manifestations and their consequent subordination to intelligent control, which is our first concern. The whys and wherefores must be secondary issues.

Have you heard of the vitrified forts of Scotland, Ireland, Brittany and Bohemia? There are a number of very ancient forts, many on hilltops, which are scattered through those areas. They are unique, because a part of the stone work is vitrified. It isn’t clear as to just what enemies caused the building of the forts—whether they were built by invaders or defenders, or already in place prior to an invasion. These forts seem almost to surround England, and since some are in Brittany and Bohemia, one wonders if England at that time was connected with the mainland of Europe.

Archaeologists postulate that these incredibly ancient people built vast fires to vitrify the stone forts and cement them together by melting them externally. Even where there was not a good supply of wood to burn; but then, that was a long time ago and there might, then, have been wood, coal, oil, or something. But a Miss Russel, in the Journal of the B.A.A., has pointed out that single stones, much less long walls, are not vitrified when large houses are burned to the ground, or where the stones are otherwise cooked by so-called natural means.

But the singular fact of these vitrified forts is that the stones are vitrified in streaks, as if special blasts had struck or played upon them Lightning? At any rate, once (or more) upon a time something melted, in streaks, the stones of forts on the hills of Scotland, Ireland, Brittany and Bohemia. Whoever, or whatever did it, they, or it, had some handy way of getting around. Lightning has a way of hitting things prominently displayed on hilltops. But some of the vitrified forts are inconspicuously located and yet didn’t escape; their walls, too, are vitrified in streaks. But, on hills and mountains all over the rest of the world are remains of forts which have not been vitrified. I have in mind Sacsahuaman, on top of the Andes at Cuzco.

In this instance of forts partially vitrified, in streaks, we have one of the most outstanding examples of selection and segregation –attributed to intelligence. Not only do we have forts of a certain circumscribed area picked out for attention, but we have such a high degree of concentration and direction that only streaks in certain forts are vitrified. 

Source: https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_flyingobjects03g2.htm#Marks%20and%20Footprints

My personal experience happened in May this year. Having suddenly become very spiritually aware (I have no explanation why this awareness happened), I decided to try some meditation. The evening after my second meditation session, my bf and I were sat in our bedroom talking and the lamp in the room kept dimming for around 5 seconds then lighting up again. This went on for around an hour and I thought it was just a dodgy bulb. Then we heard a strange noise, what I can only describe as an electrical vibrating noise, all around the room. We couldn't pinpoint where the noise was coming from or anything that could of caused it. To be honest I wouldn't have thought anymore about this, but as I was looking in the mirror, taking off my make-up, out of nowhere one single drop of water fell from above me and landed on my lip. The drop wasn't like tap or rain water, it was quite heavy in consistency and felt greasy, almost like a tear. I searched everywhere for a rational explanation, even checking for the tiniest sign of a leak and could find nothing

Source: http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1898906/pg1

Sgt. Kirk Simmons and officer Jon M. Heiden said they were flagged down Wednesday in the University area by a man who told them he had an urn with remains in it and he wanted to turn it over to the police. He couldn’t take the eerie humming any longer, Heiden said. Heiden said the child’s mother used to room with the 22-year-old man on East Adams Street but moved out about two years ago.

She left an old wooden box behind. In it, Heiden said, was the urn, a birth certificate, a newspaper clipping on the boy’s death, and a cremation certificate from a New York mortuary. The former roommate said that at first he kept the box with the urn in his child’s room, but the child complained of humming coming from the room. The man’s present girlfriend told Heiden she could hear it too through the walls of the house. So Heiden said the man told him he moved the wooden box and urn to a broken-down van in his yard. 

But the humming didn’t stop. The man, Heiden said, told him that when he worked on the van the urn hummed. “That’s why he wanted to get rid of it.  When it started to hum it bothered him,” Heiden said. Simmons said the paperwork with the urn showed the remains to be those of Harold Matthew Montgomery. The sergeant said the boy died of natural causes. “That’s something that shouldn’t lay around TPD property (and evidence room) forever,” Simmons said, adding he would like to get the remains back to the child’s mother. As for the humming, Heiden said that when he drove the urn back to the police station “it was quiet.”

Source: http://strangeco.blogspot.com/2021/11/newspaper-clipping-of-day_10.html