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Mr Spence

During March 1938 Mr J.S. Spence took an outing to Man Sands, a cove on the Devonshire coast, on three successive days, a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It was the visit on the Wednesday which made Mr Spence believe something was amiss because the topogra phy of the Sands had changed dramatically, but it reverted on the Thursday to what it had been on the Tuesday. Mr Spence believed that on the Tuesday and Thursday visits the cove appeared to him as it had been during an earlier period of time.

On the Tuesday Mr Spence had entered a cave which had opened up into a larger cavern. He had also found a dry-stone wall which appeared fresh, new and devoid of vegetation. He had felt heavy and depressed when suddenly a seagull broke the mood, his depression lifted and he found the scenery changed he could no longer see the dry-stone wall but he located the gate that he had been looking for and had been unable to find earlier. On the Wednesday, the tide was fuller than on the previous day, and therefore the cave inaccessible. He could not locate the dry-stone wall, at least not in the condition that he had originally found it, but he did locate a small damaged section of wall covered in ivy. He also saw the tree beside the gate that he had spotted after his mood had lifted the previous day but he could not see the small bent trees which he had seen previously and which he believed to be part of that earlier landscape.

On the Thursday Mr Spence did locate the cave but it was much smaller than he remembered and he was unable to get into it. Feeling the same depressing feeling as before, he walked around the scene and found the undamaged dry-stone wall, which he photo graphed. He was beginning to feel dizzy and rather ill at ease when suddenly his mood lifted and once again he was at the cliff edge next to the old broken ivy-covered wall. Yet again it seems to have been the noise of seagulls which either signalled his coming out of the mood or broke the tension, releasing his state of mind. He photo graphed the old damaged wall and returned home. Subsequent analysis of the photographs revealed that the first one did not show the new wall as expected but nothing whatso ever.

It has been suggested that the scene he was trying to photograph was his own hallucination. In the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research in 1947 J.T. Evans examines the case and concludes that it contains nothing that cannot be explained by misperception. It is suggested that access to the cave was governed by the exact time Mr Spence had arrived and whether or not the tide was high or low. Mr Evans also suggests that between the Tuesday and Thursday there was a rock fall which blocked part of the cave making it appear smaller and inaccessible to Mr Spence. Evans located the stunted windswept trees, but also the gate and the solitary tree. He believes that the dry-stone wall can be explained away because part of it appears to be ivy covered and the other part cleaner and not so ‘aged’ in appearance. Essex | France | Wiltshire | Wiltshire | Cornwall | Devon | Devon | Essex | France | France | Hampshire | Indonesia | Ireland | Isle of Wight | Italy | Kent | Lancashire | London | London | London | London | Norfolk | North Yorkshire | Norway | Norway | Oxford | Oxford | Phenomena | Salop | Suffolk | Surrey | Surrey | Surrey | Unknown | Warwickshire | Wiltshire |