A benevolent and sceptical inquiry: Exploring 'Fortean Geographies' with the Mothman

Cultural Geographies

Volumn 14, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 189-210

  Dixon, Deborah ^a  

^a ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Extra geographies; Fortean; Monstrous; Scepticism; Science

Indexed keywords

BIOGRAPHY; HUMAN GEOGRAPHY; KNOWLEDGE;

EID: 34548038992     PISSN: 14744740     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474474007075354     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. C. Fort, The book of the damned, 1919, reprinted in The complete works of Charles Fort (Mineola, NY, Dover Publications, 1974), pp. 1-310.
2. Ibid., p. 3.
3. Fort, Book of the damned; C. Fort, New lands, 1921, reprinted in The complete works of Charles Fort (Mineola, NY, Dover Publications, 1974), pp. 311-538;
4. C. Fort, Lo!, 1931, ibid., pp. 539-840;
5. C. Fort, Wild talents, 1932, ibid., pp. 841-1062.
6. See http://www.Forteantimes.com. Accessed 9 Sept. 2006.
7. J. Shirley, 'The mothman prophecies,' http://www.locusmag.com/2002/ Reviews/Shirley_Mothman.html. Accessed 10 May 2005.
8. Fort,Lo!, p. 555.
9. See A. Braud, Radical spirits: spiritualism and women's rights in nineteenth-century America (Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2001);
10. A.R. Wallace, Miracles and modern spiritualism (New York, Arno Press, 1875 [reprinted 1975]);
11. and C. Hazan, The village enlightenment in America: popular religion and science in the nineteenth century (Champaign, IL, University of Illinois Press, 2000).
12. R.H. Wiebe, The search for order, 1870-1920 (New York, Hill and Wang, 1980).
13. R. Barthes, Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. (St. Albans, Paladin, 1957), pp. 68-70.
14. F. L. Allen, Only yesterday, an informal history of the twenties (New York, Harper and Row, 1931 [reprinted 1964]), p. 164.
15. In E.M. Brown, 'Amateur experimenters in professionalizing America: tinkering with modern authority in Hugo Gernsback's radio and electrics magazines, 1908-1923', paper presented at the American Studies Association Annual Conference, Houston, TX, 2002, p.1. Copy available from E.M. Brown, American Studies Department, George Washington University, Washington DC 20052.
16. Fort, Book of the damned, p. 6.
17. Fort, Lo!, p. 1019.
18. Fort, Book of the damned, p. 6.
19. Ibid., p. 14.
20. C. Bennett, Politics of the imagination: the life, works and ideas of Charles Fort (Manchester, Critical Vision, 2002), p. 43.
21. Fort, Book of the damned, p. 4.
22. Ibid., p. 13.
23. Fort, Lo! p. 543.
24. Fort, Book of the damned p. 22.
25. Ibid., p. 5.
26. Fort, Lo!, p. 775.
27. Fort, Book of the damned p. 11.
28. Fort, Wild talents, p. 1003.
29. Fort, New lands, pp. 313-4.
30. C. Bennett, 'Invasion of the doll people', Fortean Times 156 (2002), p. 36.
31. Fort, New lands, p. 396.
32. J. Keel, The mothman prophecies (London, New English Library, 1975 [reprinted 2002]), p. 189.
33. Cited in D. Sergent and J. Walmsley, eds, Mothman: the facts behind the legend (Point Pleasant, WV, Mothman Lives Publishing, 2002), pp. 37-51.
34. J. Walmsley, pers comm. 12 Dec. 2003.
35. Cited in Sergent and Walmsley, Mothman, pp. 53-5.
36. Ibid., p. 63.
37. Cited in Sergent and Walmsley, Mothman, p. 63.
38. The Point Pleasant Register, 'Couples see man-sized bird... creature... something!', 16 November 1966, p. 1. Reproduced in Sergent and Walmsley, p. 68.
39. J. Samsell, 'City getting "the bird," want it or not', The Point Pleasant Register, 17 November 1966, p. 2. Reproduced in Sergent and Walmsley, p. 71.
40. R. Bennett, 'Monster no joke for those who saw it', The Athens Messenger, 18 November, 1966, p. A-1. Reproduced in Sergent and Walmsley, p. 76.
41. R. Turner, 'That Mothman: would you believe a Sandhill Crane?', The Point Pleasant Register, 21 November 1966, p. 1. Reproduced in Sergent and Walmsley, p. 96.
42. The Athens Messenger, 'Is mysterious creature balloon or Crane?', 20 November 1966, p. D-1. Reproduced in Sergent and Walmsley, p. 84.
43. This same reading of the encounter was used as the basis for Nickell's recent denouement. See J. Nickel, 'Mothman solved!', Skeptical Inquirer 26.2 (2002), p. 20.
44. Keel, Mothman prophecies, p. 11.
45. Ibid., pp. 12-13.
46. Transcribed in Sergent and Walmsley, Mothman, pp. 137-43, emphasis in original.
47. Interviewed in Sergent and Walmsley, Mothman, pp. 29-31.
48. Keel, Mothman prophecies, p. 26.
49. Ibid., p. 150.
50. AS Campbell and Jung explain the 'racial classification' methods deployed by the US Census, 'Information on face was obtained primarily by... a combination of direct interview and self-identification in 1960 and 1970... With enumerator observation, a person of mixed White and other parentage was usually classified with the other race. A person of mixed race other than White was usually classified by the race of the person's father through 1970...' The US Census only began to differentiate people of 'Hispanic' origin in 1970 and so comparable figures cannot be provided for this group. See C. Gibson and K. Jung, Historical census statistics on population totals by race, 1790 to 1990, and by Hispanic origin, 1970 to 1990, for the United States, regions, divisions, and states, Working Paper Series No. 56, Population Division, US Census Bureau, Washington DC 20233, 2002.
51. Keel, Mothman prophecies, p. 75.
52. Ibid., p. 20.
53. B. Rickard, 'The moth man cometh', Guardian Unlimited, 22 February 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/friday_review/story/ 0,3605,653638,00.html. Accessed 11 May 2005.
54. Keel, Mothman prophecies, pp. 183-5.
55. Cast & Crew Interviews, The mothman prophecies DVD, 2002. Directed by Mark Pellington, produced by Lakeshore Entertainment Corporation. DVD distributed by Warner Home Video (UK) Ltd.
56. The trailer for The mothman prophecies can be found at http:// movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=258955. Accessed 9 September 2006.
57. R. Barthes, 'The reality effect', trans. Richard Howard. in T. Tzvetan, ed., French literary theory today (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982) pp. 11-17.
58. This lack of a denouement certainly dismayed many critics, who found the concept of an unresolved ending too much to bear. According to Milanovich, for example, 'The film answers none of the questions it poses and leaves far too many threads hanging. For those unfamiliar with the mothman tale, this is a bit of a problem.' See A. Milanovich, ' The mothman prophecies: phone noir, http://www.plume-noire.com /movies/reviews/themothmanprophecies.html. Accessed 11 May 2005. The decentering devices used to establish a sense of unease also come under fire: '... enough already with the ambiguous point-of-view cam peeking at Gere through bushes, branches and fence posts!' pleads Blackwelder.
59. See R. Blackwelder, Prolifically paranormal 'prophecies', http:// www.splicedonline.com/02reviews/mothman.html. Accessed 11 May 2005. Moreover, unlike other films that explicitly blur the boundary between the real and representation, such as Blade runner (1982), Videodrome (1983), Total recall (1990), Minority report (2002) and The matrix (2003), The mothman prophecies is situated within a blue-collar environ, rather than a futuristic, high tech one. These other extra-geographies, Fort may well have argued, fuelled by alternate doses of dystopianism and utopianism, fulfil the craving for escapism in more entertaining fashion.
60. Bennett, 'Invasion of the doll people', p. 37.
61. D. Livingstone, The geographical tradition (Oxford, Blackwell, 1992), pp. 349-50.
62. D. Matless, 'Nature, the modern and the mystic: tales from early twentieth century geography', Transactions of the Institute of British Geography New Series 16(3) (1991), pp. 272-86.
63. For example, R. Douglas-Fairhurst, Victorian afterlives: the shaping of influence in nineteenth-century literature (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004);
64. N. Brown et al., eds, The Victorian supernatural (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004);
65. S. Owen, The place of enchantment: British occultism and the culture of the modern (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2004);
66. and P. Thurschwell, Literature, technology, and magical thinking, 1880-1920 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001).
67. For example, M. Perkins, The reform of time: magic and modernity (London, Pluto Press, 2001);
68. and R. Styers, Making magic: religion, magic and science in the modern world (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004).
69. L. Coleman, Mothman and other curious encounters (New York, Paraview Press, 2002), p. 3.
70. J.P. Jones III, 'What's the matter with ghost stories?', paper presented at the Association of American Geographers Annual Conference, New Orleans, 2003. Copy available from J.P. Jones III, Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721.
71. Livingstone, The geographical tradition, pp. 73-83.
72. See, for example, S. Graham, 'The spectre of the splintering metropolis', Cities 18(6) (2001), pp. 365-8, wherein the privatisation of various infrastructural systems is framed as one such negative, often overlooked set of practices.
73. For example: M.M. Bell, 'The ghosts of place', Theory and Society 26 (1997), pp. 813-36;
74. E.V. Bunske, Geography and the art of life (Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004);
75. P. Buse and A. Stott, Ghosts: deconstruction, psychoanalysis, history (New York, Palgrave, 1999);
76. E. Casey, 'The ghost of embodiment: on bodily habitudes and schemata', in D. Welton, ed., Body and flesh: a philosophical reader (Malden, MA, Blackwell, 1998), pp. 207-25;
77. and K. Hetherington, 'Phantasmagoria/phantasm agora: materiality, spatiality and ghosts', Space and culture 11/12 (2002), pp. 24-41.
78. D. Pinder, 'Ghostly footsteps: voices, memories and walks in the city', Ecumene: A Journal of Cultural Geographies 8(1) (2001), pp. 1-19.
79. S. Pile, Real cities: modernity, space and the phantasmagorias of city life (London, Sage, 2005).
80. Though more well-known for his work on the 'gift', Marcel Mauss also considered magic as a key mechanism through which social cohesion was maintained. See Mauss, A general theory of magic (London, Routledge, 2004).
81. R.D. Sack, 'Magic and space', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 66(2) (1976), pp. 309-22.
82. For example, K. Brennan, 'The geography of enunciation: hysterical pastiche in Kathy Acker's fiction', boundary 2 21(2) (1994), pp. 243-68;
83. F. Callard, 'The taming of psychoanalysis in geography', Social and cultural geography 14(3) (2003), pp. 295-312;
84. and R. Mighall, A geography of Victorian gothic fiction: mapping history's nightmares (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999).
85. L. Daston and L. Park, Wonders and the order of nature (New York, Zone Books, 1998), p. 209.
86. J.P. Jones III, 'What's the matter with ghost stories?'
87. Fort, New lands, p. 317.