A Fortean historian and writer, Mike Dash turns up across the archive as the careful voice in the debate. His 1996 paper in Fortean Studies became the standard study of Spring-heeled Jack. In it he found that Peter Haining's 1977 book held episodes with no earlier source, and concluded they were invented. On the airship waves of 1896 and 1909, he judged simple sightings mostly planets and stars, complex ones mostly hoaxes. Yet a small residuum stayed perplexing to him. He also questioned the Kersey time-slip of 1957 and called the Nechtansmere vision a fantasy.
Stories16
Pro earlyAuthor of Borderlands (1997), retold the case
Pro earlyResearcher, author of the key 1996 Fortean Studies paper
Pro earlyResearcher who traced the legend's sources (Fortean Studies, 1996)
Pro earlyResearcher, Fortean Studies vol. 3 (1996)
Pro earlyResearcher; compiled the 1855 source material in Fortean Studies (1994)
Pro earlyResearcher; covered the case in his Spring-heeled Jack study in Fortean Studies vol. 3 (1996)
Pro earlyHistorian; author of the standard study of Spring-heeled Jack (Fortean Studies, 1996)
Pro earlyResearcher; author of the main scholarly study of Spring-heeled Jack (Fortean Studies 3, 1996)
Pro earlyResearcher; his essay in Fortean Studies vol. 3 (1996) gives the 1877 Illustrated Police News citation for the Lincoln case
Pro earlyHistorian of the Spring-heeled Jack legend, Fortean Studies 3 (1996)
Pro earlyAuthor of the 1996 Fortean Studies study of Spring-heeled Jack
Pro earlyResearcher, Spring-heeled Jack survey in Fortean Studies vol. 3 (1996)
Pro earlyFortean historian who analysed the case
Pro earlyWriter whose Smithsonian article and blog critiqued the case