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Posted: 23-06-2013 20:15 Post subject: The Floating Man

I was almost sure this had been mentioned on the FTMB before, but as I can't remember much about it I'm drawing a blank, or the search function is anyway.

I read in one of the Peter Haining books as a boy about a man who woke up one morning and discovered he was entirely weightless, he got up and found he was floating. He didn't ricochet about like Mr Bounce, he just floated up to the ceiling. Anyway, this became a cause celebre of the day (maybe 1880s?) but is forgotten now. Apparently one day he floated away into the sky and was never seen again.

Is this ringing any bells? Fact or fiction?

Posted: 23-06-2013 22:18 Post subject:

Was it Daniel Dunglas Home?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home

Posted: 24-06-2013 22:26 Post subject:

No, this was an ordinary man, not a clairvoyant, who had stopped being affected by gravity. According to the tale he wasn't buried anywhere and was believed to have floated out into space, possibly accidentally, possibly not.

Posted: 25-06-2013 07:45 Post subject:

I remember reading this story as a youngster. It happened in 19th Century rural America and I seem to think he was involved with a travelling sideshow at one point. The story ended when his bedroom window was accidentally left open and he apparently floated off. All allegedly of course.

Posted: 25-06-2013 20:07 Post subject:

That's the one, yeah. Difficult to find any basis for it in truth, or indeed any mention of it online at all. You don't happen to recall the man's name, do you?

Posted: 25-06-2013 22:33 Post subject:

I am positive this is a literary ghost story but I'm not coming up with a single additional detail; except I keep wanting to say it had Gorey illustrations, which doesn't help much. Marvin Kaye's anthologies leap to mind with that; but not only did Gorey illustrate for plenty of other people, his style influenced other illustrators.

I also want now to say that I remember an anthology with a lavender dustjacket and a floating man on the cover, the last story of which was "One ordinary day, with peanuts" (by Shirley Jackson); but even if that memory is accurate it is no help, because the floating man might be related to a completely different story. And I can't remember the title of the anthology, anyway.

I've read so many of these things in my time!

Posted: 26-06-2013 04:16 Post subject:

It sounds like H.G. Wells' story "The Truth About Pyecraft," which is one of his more hilarious works

Posted: 26-06-2013 07:12 Post subject:

Posted: 06-07-2013 04:11 Post subject:

There was the story of Oliver Larch, or Lerch, usually set in Indiana or some such rural area, who went out to get water from the well and was "sucked" into the sky -- a favorite of "true mystery" books but apparently based on Ambrose Bierce's "Mysterious Disappearances." But a boy shown about like a sideshow attraction? I don't know that one . . .

Joseph Payne Brennan's "Levitation" takes place at a circus sideshow -- but, obviously, it's fiction.

I kind of watch for stories like that; I recall a few, from Wells' to R. A. Lafferty. They re mind me of when I was young, and walking under wide open skies in wide, empty fields . . . I would sort of wonder, what if gravity reversed, and the grass was the ceiling, and the sky was an infinite blue abyss? Then I'd have the urge to throw myself flat and cling to clumps of grass! (I think this was Agoraphobia.)

Posted: 06-07-2013 04:15 Post subject:

Not The Flying Yorkshireman, is it?

http://farm8.static.flickr.com/7138/7698649544_d570e89c8f.jpg

Posted: 06-07-2013 16:03 Post subject:

Heh, no. This bloke wasn't a boy, he was a man. I'm wondering if Peter Haining wasn't a little creative with his storytelling, as was his wont.

Posted: 13-07-2013 03:08 Post subject:

Posted: 13-07-2013 18:06 Post subject:

I do have a Brennan anthology, but Levitation isn't in it, so I wouldn't have read it. Peter Haining, who wrote the account I did read, might have encountered it and it might have inspired him to fantasise, but there were no magicians in the story he told, the lack of gravity the subject felt happened overnight, with no explanation.

It's not unlikely Haining made it up, sad to say, he does have a record of such things when it came to his "true" stories. For example, his book on Spring-Heeled Jack is excellent on the culture of the phenomenon, but most of the facts are pure invention.