The Strange But True Story of the Witches' Circle
Investigating a mysterious ring of trees in an ancient village; PLUS American manhunts, AI apocalypse, UFO IP
Recently, I’ve been writing about the strange village of Winlaton, with its secret tunnels, mysterious guru, and elusive wild man. There’s more to come, but this month I’m linking to the article that pretty much kicked this off, The Strange But True Story of the Witches’ Circle. If you haven’t already read it, you can find it here:
“The Witches’ Circle is a ring of oak trees around 60 feet in diameter, next to the ancient village of Winlaton, five miles west of Newcastle upon Tyne, in Gateshead in the North East of England. For centuries, the circle has been associated with stories involving the activities of witches from the surrounding area. I grew up in Winlaton with stories of the Witches’ Circle — of sorcery and hauntings and curses. We were warned to keep away. We were told it was an evil place. Of course, we ignored the warnings, and it became an annual tradition each Halloween, after dark, to go down to the Witches’ Circle...” Read more.
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Recommended
Book: Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase For Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson
John Wilkes Booth was a famous stage actor before he became an infamous assassin. His defining performance occurred at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., in April 1865, when he shot President Abraham Lincoln in the head during a performance of Our American Cousin. Booth fled south to Virginia, leading the Union Cavalry on a 12-day manhunt. The first of two American manhunt books I read this month, this is a masterclass in presenting a factual non-fiction story in the narrative page-turning style of the best thriller novels.
Book: Hellhound on his Trail by Hampton Sides
In April 1968, James Earl Ray aimed a rifle across the street at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis and shot Martin Luther King Jr. dead. Ray was a deluded white supremacist, burglar, armed robber, fraudster, and porno director. At the time of the assassination, he was already on the run after escaping from the Missouri State Penitentiary. This highly detailed account follows the build-up to the shooting, and then the 65-day pursuit described as the largest manhunt in American history.
I’ve added both Manhunt and Hellhound on his Trail to the Singular Discoveries Amazon bookshelf. You can find both books and previous recommendations here:*
As a quick bonus, here’s the actual rocking chair Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated, photographed by me at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit. It’s an incredible museum, which also has the JFK assassination limo, the Rosa Parks bus, Mark Twain’s writing desk, and - from my part of the world - a 1829 Stephenson’s Rocket. (I’ve also visited the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, but I couldn’t find my photo of that…)
News
AI Apocalypse
This month, The Atlantic magazine published a tool allowing authors to search for their works in LibGen, a pirated database of books (the Library Genesis data set) that Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads) uses to train its AI. This is done without permission or remuneration. There are 7.5 million books in the LibGen database. Mine are among them.
I’m by no means against various applications of AI, but I do object to big tech billionaires using stolen copies of my work to enrich and empower themselves to ever greater degrees. This happens in the same month that Meta has added its AI button to WhatsApp - with no way for users to opt out. Essentially, Mark Zuckerberg is training his bots using your WhatsApps.
UFO IP
The good folk at Narratively highlighted my story The Great British UFO Hoax in a recent newsletter, New Narratively IP We’re Obsessing Over Right Now. IP being intellectual property, or ideas that can be turned into films and TV. You should read it now before a Hollywood studio turns it into a blockbuster movie, or before Meta’s AI bots use it to take over the world. (Oh, and if you want more flying saucers, I wrote about the Calvine UFO in last month’s newsletter.)
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*This publication features Amazon affiliate links. If you use them, I may receive a few pennies to help fund the newsletter. See our Amazon bookshelf here.
Very interesting!