Did A Portal Open On 26/02/07?
The Tor at Glastonbury is a natural 520-foot conical hill set in the Somerset landscape. Its legends and accolades are many, ranging from a faerie hill, the Entrance to the Underworld of King Gwyn Ap Nudd, a global energy point where ley lines cross, and tales of people being suddenly levitated whilst up there, as sworn by a group of Buddhist monks in 1969.
So many of these stories exist that it is really difficult to attempt anything refreshingly new. A 2005 book by author Nicholas Mann, who lives in the area, ‘The Secret Energies of Glastonbury Tor, goes some way in trying to explain, with a scientific approach, electro-magnetic vortices at work. Can this hill justify the wondrous tales of colored lights seen emanating from it—earth lights that can spiral—the least optical phenomenon associated with any self respecting fairy hill? I personally know of two friends who, individually, on separate occasions, have experienced what they describe as a ‘beam’ come down from the sky and pass from their head right through their body. And so it goes on!
If it is an energy point, then one fact that the people of Glastonbury can’t deny is that every year the rock music festival that first started in 1970 now draws into the small town approximately 180,000 visitors camping out over its three days in June every year—that’s a lot of energy to soak up! Now, as much as I would like to dismiss all these tales as mere romance and declare the hill simply that—a hill and nothing more—I have to admit on a personal level that I can’t! Since 1984, I have had a strange relationship with this hill, like no other place I have visited; it is almost as if it draws me to it. And if that were true in any sense, for what purpose? I first went there at about 4 p.m. on October 30th, 1984, approaching the ascension from the far end of the tor.
As I began the steep climb, a small, breezy wind came out of nowhere, growing stronger and stronger as I made my way up. By the time I had reached the top, it was blowing a private gale! ‘Some welcoming committee’, I thought to myself, as in those days I was well immersed in Theosophy and how geographical areas can have elemental guardians called Devas, or landscape angels. The Tor is associated with a wind that can whip up and even blow people from its summit. Accepting this baptism, I returned again that night as had been my original intention, setting off up there at 11.30 p.m. and intending to stay until the hours moved into the 31st of All Hallows Eve, where we are assured the veil between worlds is thin as far as our calendar is concerned.
As an impressionable, young, scientifically minded, and intrepid investigator, where better to be at a time when worlds may merge than upon a faerie hill? With the absence of any wind, I was no sooner up there when a silent silver streak at a height of above four feet above my head flashed from left to right a short distance! Minutes later, along came more phenomena: a speedy bombardment on either side of the top of the slopes of what I must describe as grey ‘ping-pong’ balls, lasting only moments! I have since learned that other people have also used the same term ‘ping-pong balls’ to relate their own similar experiences!
A silent silver flash and a bombardment of ping-pong balls, all within minutes of being up there… At the tender age of 28, I was fast beginning to learn that Glastonbury Tor is more than just an averagely high mass of land! I stayed a further two hours that cold early morning with naught else to report despite my hopeful and sincere intonations directed at the Archangel Michael whose tower sits upon the very top, calling him by his magical names of Mikaal-Sabbathiel-Beshtar (everything is worth a try for a more pyrotechnical response!) returning through the wispy streams of mist at 5 a.m. in the morning for one last effort. Since that first acquaintance with the Tor, I have visited many times in all seasons, with and without people, at all times of the day, and in all weathers whenever the opportunity has arisen, with nothing out of the ordinary to report.
At the time, I would seek so-called paranormal experiences as they seemed to excite me—being stationed up hills that can potentially emit sudden strange lights is a lot better than your typical average evening television viewing!
The more I read sensible investigations into ‘earth lights’ and the fine book of that title by Paul Devereux, the more I began to accept this as the rationale behind most, if not all, of the stories associated with the Tor. Without evidence, you can only wonder at anecdotal stories and should stick to your own direct empirical experiences, as others are perfectly entitled to with my own offerings. Having said that, one story did trouble my comfortably settling in theory. I received an email from a previous mayor of Glastonbury who one night saw a reddish orange light appear above the tor and sink into the summit, not come out of it! He was convinced it had been the usual understanding of a ‘spaceship or UFO’. Sinking into the Tor?
Over the years since the sixties and to this day, there have been a number of UFO sightings associated with the area above Glastonbury Tor, and amongst the many colored light sightings, this orangey-red one seems to be the most common.
I wondered if this could have anything to do with the fact that high up on the tower is a carving, I’m not sure why, of the Phoenix, or Fire Bird. Maybe the collective unconscious had been at work there, influencing the mind of the carver. The Phoenix rises from the ashes, and so I smile at the synchronicity of knowing that at the foot of the Tor since the seventies lives the Arthurian author Geoffrey Ashe.
With all this in mind, I wondered if it could be possible to dare attempt to pick up any aerial phenomenon on film. And so, after last visiting the Tor in 1997, I returned in 2006, this time, and for the very first time in all my visits, armed with a camera (non-digital, as I learned this goes against critical analysis of phenomena on photos).
At this point, let me clarify the situation for you. Here I am on my own, embarking up what has to be my favorite spot on earth, having been there numerous times in all weathers, seasons, and times of the day. It simply doesn’t matter, as nothing can affect that strange awe and respect I have always held for this mound. The notion in my mind was to impress upon the Tor that I could possibly ‘be allowed’ something to pick up on camera.
This, of course, would imply that such a thing could happen. How? Well, for an answer to that one, you will have to bear with my preferred belief that, in harmony with the Gaia Hypothesis, the earth can be a living, thinking organism and biosphere; that nature can hear and think, and may even respond to an earnest request. Some will find this ‘far out, to which I respond, what gives people the authority to assume the world to be as they think it is?” Sometimes the ‘way out’ is the way in! Having made my thoughts known to anything that may exist to hear and respond to them, I was approximately two-thirds up the hill when something strange happened.
I was awash with a great irrational fear that was so strong that my reaction was to want to turn back and rush off down the Tor! But what about my attempted photography, for which I traveled 223 miles to Somerset to experiment? Who cares? I could only think of resorting to what we British refer to as ‘doing a runner—a swift retreat! Now, my ego must inform you that this is not my style; I run away from nothing, and I have never suffered what are called ‘panic attacks’, and yet this term certainly describes what has happened to me.
However, I steadied myself and sat down for a while, then eventually continued my way back up the remaining distance to the top, with tourists on either side unaware of how I was still filled with this awful trepidation. Once up there, I took my pictures and was content to come away from Glastonbury Tor as swiftly as I could. All the while up there, I remained filled with a fear that I had never experienced in my life or ever dreamed I could. What on earth had happened to me? Perhaps a part of the strange answer involves the series of dark aerial dots that were captured on film, moving themselves about.
There was nothing in the sky to declare at the time the shutter snapped—no birds, no planes, not a thing—but on sensitive film that can be known to capture images beyond the human eye were the dots. Better than that, to the right, at the back of the Michael tower, a peculiar cross-shaped object had appeared! Critics who weren’t there will invariably cite a bird or a plane; some have even said an insect (!), but I repeat, there was nothing in the clear sky, and this essay is not for the critics but for those who also suspect there may be more than meets the eye, literally, concerning this famous hill.
In 2007, I returned again in June to the Tor hoping to repeat the experiment, actually having filed the fear-filled attack away as a puzzling ‘blip’ on the radar. It wasn’t even fresh in my fading memory when I began my familiar ascent from the Chalice Lane end, which some may find as hard to believe as the manifestations. Incredibly, and at the exact same point up the winding path as before, it happened to me again, and it was just as frightening.
I repeated my immediate thought of the earlier year, “I’m off!’ having to freeze to the spot in order not to do a runner! As before, I eventually managed some degree of composure to reach the tower and to take more photographs in the clear blue and uninterrupted sky, with that horrendous fear of trepidation never leaving me for a moment. The best description I can offer is a feeling that I was just about to drift off weightlessly above! With the camera fulfilling its 27 exposures, I was more than pleased to legitimately retreat. There were more dots appearing on the photos again, but most amazingly, the cross-shaped ‘UFO’ object had reappeared in exactly the same position!
In 2008, it was a sunny June again, and this time I was more than apprehensive about the twice inexplicable panic that had filled me at the same spot the two years running, and for good reason when I rushed the by now familiar alarm at the same point of ascension, only this time it was worse than the last two combined. I was going to run off this time, for sure! In what was fast becoming a tradition, I didn’t and continued after a long period to the plateau to use the film up. This time, when I finally got up there, I felt rather calmer and quite bearable.
Two friends accompanying me knew nothing of my earlier traumas or what I was experiencing now. The developed film heralded no phenomenon. Desperately trying to make sense of this trio of adventures, I could only return to a dependency on the Gaia Theory: had my thoughts and intent been received and part of the ‘deal’ was that in order to be granted manifestations, I would have to forfeit an ordeal? Or could it not have been avoided? How could I know? … leaving me only to record the incidents and leave it at that.
In August 2009, I ascended the Tor by my usual route with two relatives who were aware of my previous troubles. In order to change the factors involved, I brought no camera and was seeking no photographs of any nature. Both my daughter and grandson were shocked when I informed them—at the same spot as the prior three years—that I could go no further! Leaving them to continue alone, I sat there looking at the tower in the distance and saying to myself, “I can never reach up there again!’ as that was how my feelings were translating.
How could I accept never being able to visit my favorite spot, even though I now had to accept that this overpowering apprehension was now part of my equation? After the customary time lapse, angry with myself, I came up with the idea to climb down off the path to the left and along one of the embankments some way, then continue back up the steep side to the path again. I managed this and could continue the remainder of the walk, where I again felt quite calm at the top of the thorn. My theory of being ‘granted’ photos for a ‘forfeit’ clearly didn’t fit.
