An ambitious historian hopes to get to the bottom of a legendary tale which has mystified paranormal researchers for decades.
In the September of 1979, six children claimed that they encountered sixty gnomes while walking through a park in the English city of Nottingham.
Dressed in tiny, colorful clothes, the gathering of gnomes allegedly entertained the tots for fifteen minutes.
The children later recounted the story to the headmaster of their school under purportedly vigorous questioning yet they never wavered in their account of the event.
Citing the character of the youngsters as well as the consistency of their story, the administrator gave credence to the possibility that they were actually telling the truth about their adventure with gnomes.
The story became somewhat of a sensation in England when local and then national newspapers picked it up and regaled readers with the tale of the 'Wollaton Park gnomes.'
Over the course of the subsequent decades since then, the incident has faded into the realm of folklore and the periphery of the paranormal.
However one researcher has taken up the call to embark on a fresh examination of nearly forty-year-old case.
Dr. Simon Young is hoping that the modern day adults who were the children at the center of the Wollaton Park gnome story will recount their tale once more in the hopes of learning new information about the event.
Speaking to the Nottingham Post, he expressed fascination with the encounter because "there are many instances of children coming face-to-face with fairies, but I know of none where six saw the fey together."
Beyond merely the initial witnesses, Young also aims to speak with other key people involved in the case as well as residents of the area from that time.
While the aspiring 'gnome hunter' appears to believe that something paranormal, for lack of a better term, occurred that day in Wallton Park, Young conceded that may not entirely be the case.
He noted that one theory is that the entire narrative was simply invented by the children to explain away a pair of muddy pants!
Should that be the case, Young says, it would still be rather astounding since the story has become an enormous part of the contemporary culture in the region.
And, of course, it goes without saying that any of the gnomes involved in the 1979 encounter who wish to share their side of the infamous story should definitely get in touch with Dr. Young as well.
Source: Nottingham Post