Recap

Strange Stories

Author of over 250 books, Lionel Fanthorpe shared unusual stories and also discussed various "time slip" events. These are incidents where people seemingly slip into the past or future for brief periods. Two women were visiting the Palace of Versailles and appeared to see scenery that dated back over a hundred years. In another instance, a man stopped at a restroom and when he came out cars were moving completely silently as though he'd gone into the future, said Fanthorpe.

He also talked about the Flannan Isle mystery, in which three lighthouse keepers disappeared together around 1900. Three great gulls were seen flying away and legend has it that these men were turned into seabirds.

Fanthorpe recounted the "Oak Island Money Pit" tale. At the end of the 18th century, three teenagers in Nova Scotia discovered a patch of earth on an island they were visiting and began to dig, thinking they had found a pirate's treasure. At each 10 ft. level oak logs were found, but only more landfill was beneath. An adult team dug down 100 feet whereupon the site became flooded. Subsequent expeditions over the last 200 years have had no more success, reported Fanthorpe, who theorized that the pit could be a special grave set up by a religious colony in order to protect from grave robbers or possibly treasure hidden by the Knights Templar, 100 years before Columbus arrived in America.

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Lionel Fanthorpe: The Early Years

During the 1950's and 60's, Lionel Fanthorpe became legendary for writing the most sci-fi and horror books in the shortest time span, sometimes churning out a book in just a week. Reportedly, one of his secrets was dictating his text into a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The fan site, A Prose By Any Other Pseudonym, documents this era of Fanthorpe's work and includes a photo gallery of images from the 50's.