Electrical Anomaly in Ashford

The skies overhead darkened as rainclouds gathered like buzzards over a quaint farm in Ashford, England. Four workmen were subsequently caught in the downpour that followed this atmospheric intimidation attempt, and three of them were able to quickly rush inside a nearby shed to seek cover, but the fourth and final man was forced to resort to simply standing underneath a willow tree close to the window of the shed now containing his c Standing under a tree during a lightning storm is always a bad idea - and this singularly unlucky workman was about to learn his lesson in the most bizarre way possible.

## Struck by the Strangeness

Presumably after seeing the flash of lightning collide with their companion, the three men emerged from the shed to assist their fallen friend. They found that the willow tree had been partially stripped of bark, and the tattered boots of their vanished comrade were sat at its base like highly unconventional grave markers. The laces of these boots had completely disappeared, and the left boot had seemingly been warped beyond recognition - '*twisted into fantastic shapes*' - but despite this the sole of the shoe was undamaged and there were no signs of burning anywhere on the leather footwear. The right boot showed much more conventional signs of having been struck by lightning - it was torn, and the sole had been twisted and burnt.

The men found their bedevilled friend lying on the ground on his back, 6ft away from where he had been previously stood. He was still conscious, but his body was severely burnt. Despite having obviously been fully clothed before having been struck by lightning, he was now wearing nothing save for the left sleeve of his flannel vest. Fragments of his mysteriously-removed clothing were scattered all about the field, having seemingly been split or torn from top to bottom. The edges of these fragments often seemed to have been torn to shreds or rended into fringes. Interestingly, the clothes showed no signs of having been burned where they had been in contact with metal - meaning that the area around his belt buckle and his metal watch were among the only sections of fabric that had been damaged.

There was a hole along the inner side of the man's knee which ended just below his left inner ankle, and a lacerated wound with a comminuted fracture (a breakage or splintering of the bone into over two fragments) to his os calcis (heel bone) on his right foot. The right leg proved to be the most extensively damaged limb, with the bones within it having been fractured and the tibia (shin bone) protruding from the skin where the flesh had been burned. This more medically detailed description of events was recorded in a paper read out by Dr. G. Wilks of Ashford during a late meeting of the London Clinical Society which presumably took place some time in 1880 - the year in which a description of the incident was published in the *Scientific American*. Dr. Wilks interestingly noted that the nervous system of the unnamed workman had been almost completely spared from any of the lightning's effects - which is obviously highly unusual for victims of lightning strikes. He speculated that the clothes he was wearing had acted as electrical conductors which had diverted the current away from the major areas of his nervous system - which strikes me as an unconventional explanation but I can see that it was probably the best one which anyone could've offered for this scientifically inexplicable event.

## The Missing Persons Connection

The Missing 411 phenomenon as described by David Paulides in his controversial books involves the sudden disappearances of people in rural areas such as the North American and Canadian National Parks. Some of the odd trends observed within these clusters of anomalous vanishings include abrupt changes in weather during the search-and-rescue attempts, and the unexplained undressed status of victims who are later found. This case reminds me of Paulides's writings because of the atmospheric phenomenon described within it, and the consequences of said electrical discharge. A sudden weather change could perhaps bring a lightning storm with it, and if this anomalous lightning is capable of repeating the same spontaneous undressing effect that it was able to create in this individual case then perhaps we have unearthed one of the components of the solution of the Missing 411 mystery.

## Source

*Scientific American* Vol. 42, No. 4 (January 24th, 1880)