Quote:Dermot MacManus tells us of a sighting which is common not only in his native Ireland but across the world. The witness was a friend of his whom he calls Miss Patricia. When she was eighteen, some time in the nineteenth century, she saw one night at about 9 p.m. a blaze of light across the lough on which her farmhouse was situated. She stared in amazement as the small fort on the far side of the water was lit up by hundreds of little white lights. She saw them “all rise up as one and, keeping their formation, sail steadily through the air across the little lough towards the other fort, not far from the farmhouse. She did not see them settle there, but...hastily retreated to the safety of the house.”- Harpur, Daimonic Reality
The two “forts” on opposite sides of the lough were “fairy forts,” also called raths, lisses, or forths. They can be ancient tumuli or barrows but they are more often natural outcrops of land, usually artificially shaped or
surrounded by a bank and ditch, whose provenance and purpose has disappeared beyond history into myth. The forts are said to be where the people of Fairy live. Sudden bursts of light or music have been seen and heard there; sometimes a cavalcade of horsemen is seen passing into them through a hitherto invisible entrance. The lights are fairies. They follow straight paths between their preferred places, like Miss Patricia’s two forts, and woe betide anyone who builds on the paths or obstructs their traffic. Thus we see that
odd lights have a predilection for certain places and landmarks. They are seen over stone circles or legendary hills or even certain trees. Their appearances favor certain times of day, or certain days. Miss Patricia saw
hers on Halloween, when both pagan fairies and Christian souls of the dead are particularly active. Her lough may also have played a part: lights, whether we call them UFOs or fairies, like bodies of water.
In June 1973, a young man woke abruptly at three in the morning and felt compelled to go out onto the landing. Through the large picture window which overlooked Loch Ryan (in Scotland) he saw three yellowy-orange spheres hovering above the water. They suddenly shot upwards “at a fantastic speed.” and he came round “as if waking from a trance.” He found that his parents were standing beside him. They too had awoken for no obvious reason and had felt compelled to look out of the same window at the lights.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
- Bertrand Russell