When Fortean fans gather in London this weekend, topics of discussion will range from alien abduction and green children to wallaby slashers. But the focus of The Unconvention, organized by the monthly Fortean Times, is 50 years of UFO research, with speakers such as Budd Hopkins (described as America's foremost alien abduction expert), Jenny Randles, a widely respected British UFO researcher, and Phillip Klass, a skeptical investigator of UFO phenomenon.
Fortean Times editor Bob Rickard thinks that The Unconvention will appeal to "anyone who enjoys subjects which are in their own way controversial, anti-authoritarian, and intellectually subversive. Oh, yes, let's not forget our creed of keeping a sense of humor about this.... A good laugh restores a proper perspective to these things."
Previous Unconventions have looked at subjects such as vampires, cold fusion, fish falling from the sky, and telepathy. Last year's Unconvention had an attendance of around 1,300, and organizers are expecting at least 1,500 on each of the two days this year.
Beyond UFOs, highlights include a talk on "the creeping coffins of Barbados" by the Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe, who has recently presented a series on British TV entitled Fortean TV. He will be looking at the phenomenon of recently buried coffins which are apparently moving around in a Barbados church yard.
The prize for the most bizarre-sounding talk, however, goes to Jonathan Downes, who will address the "Unidentified Wallaby Slasher of Newquay." Downes says there is somebody or something in the otherwise normal Cornish town who has a grudge against Australasian marsupials.
"It's about animal mutilation," says Downes, the director of the center for Fortean Zoology and one of only two cryptozoologists working in the UK. "I was doing some research on the beast of Bodmin Moor [a large cat-like creature that is supposedly living on the Devon moors] when a Devon police sergeant told me about the attacks at Newquay Zoo. Several waterfowl had been decapitated and the wallabies had been mutilated.... When I began to investigate ... I eventually got hold of a copy of the autopsy report on the wallaby, but there were lots of bits blanked out and numerous inconsistencies." His talk will focus on whether this is a government conspiracy or an X-Files-inspired prank.
But is it serious? Rickard thinks it is: "We don't take ourselves seriously in the sense that we crave the approval of scientists and other authorities. What we do take seriously is that we feel our duty to the many subjects that conventional science ignores and militant skepticism attacks in knee-jerk fashion. We try to seek out real data ... and encourage people to think about them without preconception"
