extraordinary%20encounters

Uri Geller, the psychic performer, ca. 1978 (Hulton-
Deutsch Collection/Corbis)
as its special people and has tried to protect
them. In the meantime, other beings from
other planets and dimensions unrelated to
SPECTRA have visited Earth. The beings behind
SPECTRA have said that they live in the
future. They are short and generally human in
appearance, looking like—in their words—
“certain exotic types of Japanese.”
This fantastic tale figured largely in
Puharich’s Uri (1974), but Geller himself distanced
himself from it. His own autobiography,
published a year after Puharich’s book,
does not even mention SPECTRA, though it
does recount his childhood close encounter
with a “silvery mass of light” that seemed to
make time stand still. As the light approached
him, the youthful Geller felt a sharp pain in
his forehead, then lost consciousness for an
undetermined period of time.
Springheel Jack 235
Further Reading
Geller, Uri, 1975. Uri Geller: My Story. New York:
Praeger Publishers.
Puharich, Andrija, 1974. Uri: A Journal of the Mys -
tery of Uri Geller. Garden City, NY: Anchor
Press/Doubleday and Company.
Springheel Jack
Springheel Jack (sometimes referred to as
Spring Heeled Jack) is a figure out of Victorian
folklore, a mysterious man or being of violent
disposition and a strange ability to jump
great distances. Stories about him were first
told in suburban London in September 1837.
Some victims described him as a man wearing
a flowing cloak and glaring at his victims with
glowing eyes. It was claimed that he shot
flames from his mouth. Others said he disguised
himself as a white bull or bear, while at
least one witness claimed he wore “polished
steel armor, with red shoes” (“Credulity,”
1838). Some reports suggested that the attacker
was not acting alone. Many of the attacks
were on women and were seemingly sexual
in nature (he ripped their clothes), though
apparently they did not involve actual rape.
London police, who took the reports seriously,
investigated them but made no arrests.
Popular speculation pointed to Henry Marquis
of Waterford, a man noted for recklessness,
drunkenness, and other behavioral excesses,
but no clear or convincing evidence
backed up the suspicions. Superstitious people
held that Springheel Jack was a ghost, and
that belief took root in folklore.
Sporadic sightings of a mysterious leaping
figure occurred in various places in England
into the twentieth century. In 1877, many
residents of Caistor, Norfolk, saw someone
dressed in sheepskin (reminiscent of earlier reports
of Jack’s cladding himself in animal
skin) jumping from roof to roof, and the same
or a similar individual was widely observed in
Lincolnshire. On one occasion, when a mob
chased him, he leaped over walls and roofs. In
1904, in Liverpool’s Everton district, residents
saw a man dressed in a cloak and black boots