2010 WAS UNCON YEAR
The recent irregularity of Fortean Times UnConventions has imbued them with an esoteric edge, a when-will-it-be, where-will-it-be frisson known only to the initiated. It’s a bit like an illegal rave where fascinating and mind-boggling thoughts and opinions are the soundtrack and questions the dodgy pills; or maybe not.

Whatever analogy you fancy, October 2010 was the time and the University of Westminster, Marylebone, London, the place. Our hopes were high, our minds open, and the usual questions on our minds: are we alone in the Universe; what happens after we die; what is it with forteans and hats?


SATURDAY
With two streams of talks, stalls and activities happening all at once, it was certain that no two people’s UnCon would be the same. Mine started with fellow Geordie Mike Hallowell’s talk on the issues surrounding his investigations into the South Shields Poltergeist and the subsequent media feeding frenzy. It was a white-knuckle ride, not merely due to the shocking tales of online abuse and press harassment that Mike and his fellow investigator Darren Ritson suffered but also due to Mike’s narcolepsy, cataplexy, diabetes and heart condition – which, in his own words, could have seen him drop to the ground at any point in his talk. We were, however, reassured that we had his friend Richard Freeman’s permission to laugh if he did. Thankfully, everyone made it out alive and I left the talk not only wiser regarding the pitfalls of revealing evidence but also struck by the weekend’s first fortean enigma: a paranormal investigator who has to avoid shocks.

Simultaneous talks on fantastical regurgitations and Alien Big Cats of Oz by Jan Bondeson and Rebecca Lang respectively brought us to the last talks before the lunch break. As legendary researcher, broadcaster and fortean Paul Devereux enthralled inhabitants of the Hogg Hall auditorium with ‘Magical Mindscapes’, I sat down to enjoy long-time FT collaborator Mark Pilkington’s elaboration on his excellent book Mirage Men. Concerning disinformation, double bluffs and controlled leakage of UFO data, his talk was very apt as it touched upon the infiltration of ufology conferences and conventions. I asked him later whether any agents could have been part of the UnCon crowd and he assured me the only dubious infiltrators there that weekend were himself, Peter Brooksmith, David Clarke and Paul Devereux.

Back from lunch and a wander through the modestly sized but fascination-packed hall of stalls, we were faced with the dilemma of choosing between larger-than-life Centre for Fortean Zoology head Jon Downes and his wife Corinna’s tales of the Blue Dogs of Texas or Charles Foster’s asking whether we were ‘Wired For God?’ Foster’s talk was a refreshingly open-minded view of religious and spiritual beliefs and the parts of the brain thought to be involved. Avoiding the reductionism of mainstream neurology, insisting that reproduction of similar sensations and their mapping in the brain showed the organic roots of spirituality, he instead raised the question of whether these propensities of the brain were actually there to enable us to communicate and experience the world of the transcendental and the spiritual. It was inspiring stuff, leaving us suitably enlightened for the last two sessions of the first day.

As an unashamed Doctor Who fan, I had to sadly miss Jeremy Harte’s reportedly fascinating and funny look at headless apparitions and instead headed towards Who and Captain Britain scribe Paul Cornell’s entertaining exploration of fortean themes in Doctor Who. As well as laughs aplenty, there were many fascinating facts here, including the revelation that Holy Blood, Holy Grail author Henry Lincoln was a writer of classic Who serials and was responsible for the creation of UNIT lynchpin Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

There were more laughs to be had in the last session of the day as comedian and writer Helen Keen took to the stage in Hogg Hall to present her hilarious and informative show ‘It is Rocket Science’. The award-winning production had recently been aired at the Edinburgh Festival and Sci-Fi Oktoberfest before being invited to UnCon. With a blend of stand-up, shadow puppetry and audience participation, Helen took us on a sometimes personal but always irreverent tour of rockets and rocket-making from WWII to man’s first steps on the Moon.

After having Fortean Times recommended to her while doing research for the show, Helen quickly became a fan, and she told me that performing at UnCon had been quite a thrill: “I loved the audience of forteans! It was obvious that a lot of the audience were interested in the same kind of stuff that I am. I got a friendly heckle about Jack Parsons being, strictly speaking, a Thelemite not a Satanist – where else would that happen?”

And so we were let out, unsupervised, into the early London evening, some of us heading off to imbibe alcohol and theories with the various visiting forteans, others, like one UnCon virgin I spoke to, to lie down in a darkened room and try to take it all in.


SUNDAY
Sunday came, as inevitably as the two different kinds of hangover with which we headed off once more towards Marylebone. As the pious migrated to their own churches, we began the holiest day of the week appropriately enough with Edinburgh Fortean Society daddy Gordon Rutter’s exploration of the history of talking to the dead. Stretching from the oldest known book to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (whose most famous creation stood in statue form on the opposite side of the road), Gordon’s talk was the perfect mind-laxative to prepare us for the rest of the day.

As Ian Simmons regaled us with examples of ‘Fantastic Taxidermy’, including modified roadkill and a computer mouse that was also an, erm, mouse mouse, the CFZ’s Zoological Director Richard Freeman, with a camera crew in tow, described how he believes he has finally found the elusive, upright-walking orang-pendek. Exciting news indeed; I was disappointed that there was no actual specimen chained, King Kong-style, against the wall. Maybe next time.

I stayed in Hogg Hall for recent FT cover story authors Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham’s double bill of talks on government and military interference in Hollywood. Robbie took us back to the heyday of 1950s US TV and an episode of short-lived adventure serial Steve Canyon, whose UFO plot raised the ire of the US Air Force and was censored almost out of existence. Matthew took up the matter of the recent cover story with his investigation into the mysterious death of scriptwriter Gary Devore. Intriguing and possibly scary stuff – and a question from an audience member about claims by off-the-rails actor Randy Quaid, made public on that very day, that actors such as Heath Ledger and David Carradine had been assassinated by a Hollywood Hit Squad, brought the issue right up to date.

In a mysterious case of time dilation, it was lunch hour once again; so, another trip to the stalls and a go at ASSAP’s 2010 Paranormal Olympics. Completing the tasks based on such psychic phenomena as ESP, dowsing, psychometry and telekinesis, I was amazed that my results were quite so far from what chance would dictate. In fact, they were so bad that I must be an example of whatever the opposite of psychic is. All good fun though, and the full weekend results can be found at www.assap.org.

With heavy hearts but full bellies, we entered the last stretch of this year’s Uncon. While Andy Roberts had predicted my illegal rave analogy with his talk on drug-related urban myths, I settled down to some lewd and scandalous 17th-century broadside ballads from BBC Radio 3’s Lucie Skeaping accompanied by colleague Douglas Wootton on suitably ‘period’ stringed instruments. We were entertained with political satire, bottom hygiene advice and tales of prodigious piscine pistles. It was during this session that the audience of forteans were introduced to the most gut-churningly frightening experience of UnCon 2010, something so terrifying that even the most hardened of paranormal investigators were groaning in horror – a singalong! Perhaps it was the extremely bawdy nature of much of the material that elicited such an enthusiastic response from the audience…

Failing miserably to get into a packed-to-the-rafters talk by FT Ghostwatch regular Alan Murdie on ‘Sex and the Poltergeist’, I headed for the ‘Forteana and Fiction’ panel discussion. Here, fantasy and horror writers Mark Chadbourn, Adam Nevill and Natasha Mostert talked about their fortean influences, their own anomalous experiences and the very mysterious act of writing itself. This was the first panel of the day, immediately followed by arguably the centrepiece of the whole weekend – the ufology panel.

It’s been 30 years since the events in Rendlesham Forest and their huge impact on – particularly British – ufology. Speakers who had delved into this mystery over the weekend, David Clarke and Ian Ridpath were joined by Paul Devereux and “Britain’s own Fox Mulder” Nick Pope in a panel hosted amiably by the incomparable Peter Brookesmith.

The debate ran from the amusing and irreverent to heated and back again. Background radiation readings were dismissed, delays in reporting the incident scoffed at, and Nick Pope terrorised by Ian Ridpath’s “BS Alert” slide that flashed up on the screen behind them, QI-style. During questions from the audience, the possible future of ufology was glimpsed as talk turned to the mysteries of consciousness and phenomena such as lucid dreaming. Paul Devereux’s example of a particularly vivid lucid dream led to questions of how perfect an alternative reality our own brains can conjure up and how this impacts on UFO sightings. We had perhaps come full circle, back to Jung’s theories of UFOs as projections of our souls; or maybe – as in one of his own dreams – they are not a projection of us, but we are a projection of them.

To end on lucid dreams seemed highly appropriate. All good UnConventions make you feel as if you’ve fallen asleep while reading FT and dreamt that you were in the magazine with the writers talking to you, and you alone. And this year was indeed a very good UnCon. Here’s to the next one… whenever and wherever it may be.