A quick plug...

For anyone in central Scotland with an interest in the strange, you should get yourself along to the Edinburgh Fortean Society, which presents a talk on the second Tuesday of the month, upstairs at the Bongo Club in Holyrood Road.

This month, Alison Rutter will be talking on The Scottish Mermaid Flap.In the early nineteenth century there were a number of mermaid sightings around the Scottish coast. This talk will look at these and perhaps provide

an explanation.
Kicks off at 7.30pm, admission is the princely sum of £1. More info on the Edinburgh Fortean Society website, including past and future events.

The Edinburgh Mothman

Another interesting tale from Ron Halliday's UFO Scotland that turns up in other books & websites from time to time is that of the Edinburgh Mothman. While investigating a UFO sighting over the Portobello area of the city in October 1992, he uncovered an unusual story. The unnamed witness, who lived in the Niddrie Burn area of town, woke up during the night and noticed a brilliant white light coming in the window, she tried to wake her husband, but he remained fast asleep. Peering out the window, she saw what she described as a giant bird the size of a man or possibly a human like figure with wings. Again, she tried to wake her husband, but to no avail. She returned to bed, and remained in an agitated state until she drifted off to sleep at dawn.
While this report has occasionally been claimed as a Mothman appearance, the fact the witness had woken from sleep and remained unable to wake her partner is suggestive of some kind of sleep paralysis or night terror, though this kind of experience is more commonly associated with bedroom invaders, such as the Old Hag, shadowy figures or even the Greys of UFO abduction lore.
While there certainly is a body of reports of large birds and winged humanoids (as well as the Mothman, let us not forget the Owlman of Mawnan), whatever they represent- misperceptions of known species, hoaxes, interdimesional interlopers, tulpas, some kind of cultural phenomena, or something we can't even conceive of- many of these reports have multiple witnesses in the same area over a time period, then it seems to melt away (in common with many Fortean phenomena, such as UFOs or alien big cats). As far as I know, this seems to be a one off- though if anyone knows different, I'd love to hear about it!

Even Cryptoterresterials Get The Munchies

I'd forgotten about this report until it re-surfaced over at Phantoms & Monsters the other day:

Location/Date: New Town, Edinburgh, Scotland - 1990 - late evening

A man named Brian Wilson was working the late shift one night at a local pizza parlor when a pair of "rather small" adults, who had a somewhat "lopsided" look about them, approached the counter, raised their right hands, and announced; "Hi, we're Americans!"

"What would you like?" Brian asked them.

They countered, "What do you make?"

"Pizzas" replied Brian.

"What are pizzas?" inquired the supposed Americans.

The couple watched Brian intently as he prepared two cheese and tomato pizzas. All the while, the male "kept looking around the shop like he'd never been in a pizza parlor before". Then the female pointed to a bowl of green peppers and asked what they were.

By now, Brian's colleague Doug had also noticed that there was something rather odd about the pair, and the two chefs exchanged glances of disbelief as Brian carefully explained what a pepper was.

"Do they taste nice?" wondered the female.

As the pair waited in silence for their pizzas (complete with green peppers) to cook, other customers came in and out of the shop as usual. Once their order was ready, the extraordinary Americans settled their bill. Each took a single bite out of their pizza then threw the remainder into the bin outside the shop.

Brian entertained a suspicion that his visitors may have literally been from another planet "I had read stories on the subject of aliens masquerading as human beings," he told investigators. "These two individuals came across as acting as humans, but not doing a very good job of it!"

Source: UFO Scotland by Ron Halliday

Hmm, maybe the shock of the pizza being deep fried was too much for them? I dare say you think they'd have been used to people asking what fresh vegetables were...

Joking aside, although there's nothing at all to suggest these people were actually aliens, or even some form of cryptoterresterial, there is a body of lore of people having interactions with apparent humans who just aren't quite right, they act inappropriately, they seem confused or amazed by everyday things or they just don't look right. For instance, there are Men In Black reports that include them trying to drink jelly, looking amazed at a biro and so on.

The late Mac Tonnies cites a case in his excellent book The Cryptoterrestrials (which is in my pile of books I intend to review on here), relating to a similar encounter with a Grey-like woman buying cigarettes, previously discussed on his blog here.

If, for the sake of argument, we are not alone on this planet, and share it with a sister species who are numerically inferior but possibly possess abilities we don't, maybe their best survival stratgey would to avoid detection by living amongst us, hiding in plain view.

That said, Edinburgh is home to a large number of people who're just plain weird- try working with the public if you want a handle on how many odd folk are out there!