A steady-performing, UFOlogically-inclined Fortean.
Bryan Geoffrey Essenhigh was born in 1927, probably on 2 March, numbering him among the late generation of Fortean Society members. I know nothing about his early life. In the 1950s, he was living at Gable Cottage, Pembroke Road, Sevenoaks, Kent and 27 Bradbourne Wale Road, also in Sevenoaks.
He became interested in flying saucers, and from the mid-1950s contributed to many UFO organizations, often as a foreign correspondent. According to the “UFO Newsletter” (#8, 24 June 1957), he was a representative for it as well as the North Jersey UFO Group, the Civilian Saucer Investigation out of New Zealand, a contributor to the Australian Saucer Record, and Gray Barker’s Saucerian Bulletin. As best I can tell, his activity ran from 1955—the earliest mention I can find to him in the UFOlogical literature—and did not survive the change to the next decade, and may have ended as early as 1957. (It is of course possible that his interest continued, just with very little record.) His main contribution seems to have been sending in clippings from English papers, although he may also have done some editorial and organizational work.
Bryan Geoffrey Essenhigh was born in 1927, probably on 2 March, numbering him among the late generation of Fortean Society members. I know nothing about his early life. In the 1950s, he was living at Gable Cottage, Pembroke Road, Sevenoaks, Kent and 27 Bradbourne Wale Road, also in Sevenoaks.
He became interested in flying saucers, and from the mid-1950s contributed to many UFO organizations, often as a foreign correspondent. According to the “UFO Newsletter” (#8, 24 June 1957), he was a representative for it as well as the North Jersey UFO Group, the Civilian Saucer Investigation out of New Zealand, a contributor to the Australian Saucer Record, and Gray Barker’s Saucerian Bulletin. As best I can tell, his activity ran from 1955—the earliest mention I can find to him in the UFOlogical literature—and did not survive the change to the next decade, and may have ended as early as 1957. (It is of course possible that his interest continued, just with very little record.) His main contribution seems to have been sending in clippings from English papers, although he may also have done some editorial and organizational work.
I am not sure, but I believe Essenhigh was married to Barbara Mary, who was a few years his senior, and that they had two children, Simon and Mary. He may have worked as an estate manager or (and?) been associated with Brandy Securities Limited.
Bryan Geoffrey Essenhigh died 9 December 2004 in Salisbury, England, after a short illness. He was 77.
*****************
For all that I know little about Essenhigh’s personal life, I do have some insight into his coming to Forteanism—although even that knowledge is, as is always the case in a Fortean universe—wrapped in mystery. The earliest connection I can find between him and the flying saucer community is 1955; that is also when he seems to have discovered Fort and the Fortean Society. He would have been about 28 at the time; I do not know what precipitated this coming toward fringe science and skepticism, but there seems to have been something in that year. It is striking to the extent that Thayer was not flogging the Society very widely and Russell was getting somewhat tired of it, too; still, a few new Forteans did trickle toward membership in the mind 1950s.
Apparently, Essenhigh wrote to Thayer in early 1955, after reading part of the Books of Charles Fort. This sequence suggests that Essenhigh had already developed an interest in UFOs, and discovered in the writings on that subject reference to Fort, and that he had the wherewithal to get the Books, which was not easy, or cheap, in Britain at the time. Essenhigh had also passed on clippings, from a local paper, about the shooting of a jackal his home of Kent a half-century before that had been mentioned in Fort’s “Lo!” Thayer sent him an application form, a copy of Doubt 47, and directions to send his payment to Russell. Essenhigh did so on 1 May 1955. Essenhigh then passed the payment on to Russell, explanation of what he had been up to, and a confession that he was only half way through the Books.
Already, he was planing to send more material. He wanted to know whether it should go direct to New York, or if it could be passed on to Russell. (I have no reply, but likely Russell told him that he could collect the material for Thayer.) He also had a Fortean story. His wife’s family home, in Oxford, was the scene of many meteorites crashing into the earth; a local doctor had identified the rocked. “Strange and ‘Fortean’ to say the least that so many of these objects should have dropped on the same spot—or is it?,” he wrote to Russell.
The following month, Thayer noted, in correspondence with Russell, that Essenhigh’s membership had been accepted. Over the years, his name recurred in Thayer’s letters to Russel, but always just in passing, noting that Essenhigh had paid his dues and his membership had been renewed. The last notice was in April 1959, suggesting that Essenhigh’s interest in the fringe lasted at least until then, even though I cannot find his name in Ufo magazines later than 1957. He paid his dues every year, 1955-1959.
He did write Russell at least once more, in 1957—it is the only other letter from him preserved in Russell’s papers. He was looking for advice. The Northern New Jersey UFO group was looking to expand its British membership, and wanted Essenhigh to figure out how to coordinate payment. Essenhigh turned to Russell for advice. He was hoping that the organization could just receive permission from the British Treasury to convert the funds and send them to the U.S. Lee R. Munsick, who ran the UFO group, suggested, instead, that he and Essenhigh each be agents, collecting money in whatever form they could, then reconciling on a regular basis. The idea struck him “as an extremely cumbersome way of going about things.”
Again, I do not know what Russell replied, but if he did, presumably he wrote that Munsick’s idea was exactly how the Fortean Society operated (except that Thayer rarely asked for reconciliation and was more than willing to carry the load entirely, sending money to Russell when needed). Cumbersome, yes, but that was the problem the Fortean Society dealt with throughout its existence in trying to expand internationally. It was the reason why Fort’s books were difficult to come by in England, and expensive. Converting foreign money into U.S. currency was itself difficult—which is why Russell handled all of the foreign members, no matter their currency—and post-War restrictions in Britain made trade between the U.S. and England difficult. Perhaps these difficulties were one reason Essenhigh seems to have dropped out of the American UFO community after 1957.
Whatever the course of Essenhigh’s UFOlogical commitments, he was committed to the Society. (Perhaps because he could just correspond with Russell.) His first appearance in Doubt came six months after he joined, with number 51 (January 1956). His last appearance was in the magazine’s final issue—the entire Society ending with Thayer’s death—number 61 (Summer 1959). Between those two points, the only issues that did not carry his name were 56 (which was devoted to Sputnik), and 58. Altogether, I count 21 contributions; about three references to him in each issue that carried his name, or an average of better than two mentions per issue over Doubt’s last three years. All these clippings were in addition to the material that Essenhigh provided to flying saucer publications.
Perhaps it is because he contributed to UFO magazines that Essenhigh did not contribute many such stories to Doubt—perhaps, too, he was sensitive to Thayer’s dislike of the subject. Only two of of his submissions dealt with UFOs; Thayer acknowledged him in paragraph-long citations, so it is impossible to know exactly what he contributed those times. But Essenhigh also had a developed interest in unusual aerial phenomena. He sent in material on black snow, hot aluminum falling from the sky, a comet, a rain of eels, a rabbit that may have fallen from the sky, a missile that fell near a construction site (with the War Department declaiming any connection with its tanks), and two other clippings about falls that cannot be specified.
It is, perhaps, not surprising, that someone interested in UFOs would also be fascinated by other sky anomalies. But Essenhigh’s Forteanism was not limited to these topics. He also had an eye for what would later be known as cryptozoological events--which should not be a surprise, given that the first material he sent to Thayer was about an out-of-place jackal. His first contribution was a report of a 90-foot dog-headed snake near Rome. He sent in an article on fish being found in a New York City gutter after a water main burst. (George Wetzel would have been interested.) He was among many members who sent Thayer a news story about mysterious tracks being found on the ocean floor.
He was also attuned to other Forteana, from the trivial to the political, and seemed to take on some of Thayer’s enthusiasms—a sensitivity that, as I say, may account for his sending in few articles on UFOs. He sent a story in about golf balls being found repeatedly in a cabbage patch, though the nearest course was two miles away. He sent something on the International Geophysical Year—it is impossible to tell what—which was one of Thayer’s bugaboos. He added to a deluge of clippings about mysteriously breaking windshields—the story he sent reported that a rifle-bearing man had been seen taking shots at cars. Another clipping from him had to do with cartilage from a four-hundred year old corpse that was supposedly still alive. After the Sputnik issue, there was reference to a clipping from Essenhigh that supposedly suggested rockets were not actually reaching outer space. Thayer’s write up is cryptic, and it is hard to tell if he was reading into the news story something that Essenhigh did not intend, but it may be that Essenhigh was looking for material that fit Thayer’s biases.
Certainly there are other suggestions that Essenhigh was aiming to satisfy Thayer’s political ideals. Of course, it may be that Essenhigh shared she of Thayer’s politics—they belonged to the same Society, after all, one that was founded on skepticism toward the powers-that-be. At any rate, Essenhigh did send in clippings that cast the powerful in a poor light. One was about an air chief who believed in fairies, based on the testimony of a medium he knew, though he had never seen the creatures himself. The story on the falling missile and hot aluminum could also be easily read as shots at the government. The clearest case is his last contribution—it earned first place in the mock-contest Thayer had every issue for the best contribution, and doubled as Essenhigh’s nomination for Fortean Fellow, which was essentially an award for the Fortean of the year. Essenhigh wanted the honor to go to a surgeon who declaimed that the most dangerous disease in the world was technolatry—idolatry of technology—and noted that medicine itself was badly infected.
Flying saucers may have been the center of his Forteanism, but they did not exhaust it.
Bryan Geoffrey Essenhigh died 9 December 2004 in Salisbury, England, after a short illness. He was 77.
*****************
For all that I know little about Essenhigh’s personal life, I do have some insight into his coming to Forteanism—although even that knowledge is, as is always the case in a Fortean universe—wrapped in mystery. The earliest connection I can find between him and the flying saucer community is 1955; that is also when he seems to have discovered Fort and the Fortean Society. He would have been about 28 at the time; I do not know what precipitated this coming toward fringe science and skepticism, but there seems to have been something in that year. It is striking to the extent that Thayer was not flogging the Society very widely and Russell was getting somewhat tired of it, too; still, a few new Forteans did trickle toward membership in the mind 1950s.
Apparently, Essenhigh wrote to Thayer in early 1955, after reading part of the Books of Charles Fort. This sequence suggests that Essenhigh had already developed an interest in UFOs, and discovered in the writings on that subject reference to Fort, and that he had the wherewithal to get the Books, which was not easy, or cheap, in Britain at the time. Essenhigh had also passed on clippings, from a local paper, about the shooting of a jackal his home of Kent a half-century before that had been mentioned in Fort’s “Lo!” Thayer sent him an application form, a copy of Doubt 47, and directions to send his payment to Russell. Essenhigh did so on 1 May 1955. Essenhigh then passed the payment on to Russell, explanation of what he had been up to, and a confession that he was only half way through the Books.
Already, he was planing to send more material. He wanted to know whether it should go direct to New York, or if it could be passed on to Russell. (I have no reply, but likely Russell told him that he could collect the material for Thayer.) He also had a Fortean story. His wife’s family home, in Oxford, was the scene of many meteorites crashing into the earth; a local doctor had identified the rocked. “Strange and ‘Fortean’ to say the least that so many of these objects should have dropped on the same spot—or is it?,” he wrote to Russell.
The following month, Thayer noted, in correspondence with Russell, that Essenhigh’s membership had been accepted. Over the years, his name recurred in Thayer’s letters to Russel, but always just in passing, noting that Essenhigh had paid his dues and his membership had been renewed. The last notice was in April 1959, suggesting that Essenhigh’s interest in the fringe lasted at least until then, even though I cannot find his name in Ufo magazines later than 1957. He paid his dues every year, 1955-1959.
He did write Russell at least once more, in 1957—it is the only other letter from him preserved in Russell’s papers. He was looking for advice. The Northern New Jersey UFO group was looking to expand its British membership, and wanted Essenhigh to figure out how to coordinate payment. Essenhigh turned to Russell for advice. He was hoping that the organization could just receive permission from the British Treasury to convert the funds and send them to the U.S. Lee R. Munsick, who ran the UFO group, suggested, instead, that he and Essenhigh each be agents, collecting money in whatever form they could, then reconciling on a regular basis. The idea struck him “as an extremely cumbersome way of going about things.”
Again, I do not know what Russell replied, but if he did, presumably he wrote that Munsick’s idea was exactly how the Fortean Society operated (except that Thayer rarely asked for reconciliation and was more than willing to carry the load entirely, sending money to Russell when needed). Cumbersome, yes, but that was the problem the Fortean Society dealt with throughout its existence in trying to expand internationally. It was the reason why Fort’s books were difficult to come by in England, and expensive. Converting foreign money into U.S. currency was itself difficult—which is why Russell handled all of the foreign members, no matter their currency—and post-War restrictions in Britain made trade between the U.S. and England difficult. Perhaps these difficulties were one reason Essenhigh seems to have dropped out of the American UFO community after 1957.
Whatever the course of Essenhigh’s UFOlogical commitments, he was committed to the Society. (Perhaps because he could just correspond with Russell.) His first appearance in Doubt came six months after he joined, with number 51 (January 1956). His last appearance was in the magazine’s final issue—the entire Society ending with Thayer’s death—number 61 (Summer 1959). Between those two points, the only issues that did not carry his name were 56 (which was devoted to Sputnik), and 58. Altogether, I count 21 contributions; about three references to him in each issue that carried his name, or an average of better than two mentions per issue over Doubt’s last three years. All these clippings were in addition to the material that Essenhigh provided to flying saucer publications.
Perhaps it is because he contributed to UFO magazines that Essenhigh did not contribute many such stories to Doubt—perhaps, too, he was sensitive to Thayer’s dislike of the subject. Only two of of his submissions dealt with UFOs; Thayer acknowledged him in paragraph-long citations, so it is impossible to know exactly what he contributed those times. But Essenhigh also had a developed interest in unusual aerial phenomena. He sent in material on black snow, hot aluminum falling from the sky, a comet, a rain of eels, a rabbit that may have fallen from the sky, a missile that fell near a construction site (with the War Department declaiming any connection with its tanks), and two other clippings about falls that cannot be specified.
It is, perhaps, not surprising, that someone interested in UFOs would also be fascinated by other sky anomalies. But Essenhigh’s Forteanism was not limited to these topics. He also had an eye for what would later be known as cryptozoological events--which should not be a surprise, given that the first material he sent to Thayer was about an out-of-place jackal. His first contribution was a report of a 90-foot dog-headed snake near Rome. He sent in an article on fish being found in a New York City gutter after a water main burst. (George Wetzel would have been interested.) He was among many members who sent Thayer a news story about mysterious tracks being found on the ocean floor.
He was also attuned to other Forteana, from the trivial to the political, and seemed to take on some of Thayer’s enthusiasms—a sensitivity that, as I say, may account for his sending in few articles on UFOs. He sent a story in about golf balls being found repeatedly in a cabbage patch, though the nearest course was two miles away. He sent something on the International Geophysical Year—it is impossible to tell what—which was one of Thayer’s bugaboos. He added to a deluge of clippings about mysteriously breaking windshields—the story he sent reported that a rifle-bearing man had been seen taking shots at cars. Another clipping from him had to do with cartilage from a four-hundred year old corpse that was supposedly still alive. After the Sputnik issue, there was reference to a clipping from Essenhigh that supposedly suggested rockets were not actually reaching outer space. Thayer’s write up is cryptic, and it is hard to tell if he was reading into the news story something that Essenhigh did not intend, but it may be that Essenhigh was looking for material that fit Thayer’s biases.
Certainly there are other suggestions that Essenhigh was aiming to satisfy Thayer’s political ideals. Of course, it may be that Essenhigh shared she of Thayer’s politics—they belonged to the same Society, after all, one that was founded on skepticism toward the powers-that-be. At any rate, Essenhigh did send in clippings that cast the powerful in a poor light. One was about an air chief who believed in fairies, based on the testimony of a medium he knew, though he had never seen the creatures himself. The story on the falling missile and hot aluminum could also be easily read as shots at the government. The clearest case is his last contribution—it earned first place in the mock-contest Thayer had every issue for the best contribution, and doubled as Essenhigh’s nomination for Fortean Fellow, which was essentially an award for the Fortean of the year. Essenhigh wanted the honor to go to a surgeon who declaimed that the most dangerous disease in the world was technolatry—idolatry of technology—and noted that medicine itself was badly infected.
Flying saucers may have been the center of his Forteanism, but they did not exhaust it.
