PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

Many Forteans will have seen the movie or read the book Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) by Joan Lindsay, which relates how a bunch of schoolgirls vanished from Australia on St Valentine's Day, 1900.  This occurred at the Hanging Rock a celebrated site.  At the end of the book, the author says the story may be either fact or fiction - it is for the reader to make up his own mind.  This has led it to appear in some Fortean literature as definitely historical.

Many years ago, I decided to look into the matter.  The book contains an allusion to data about the event being sent to the Society for Psychical Research in London.  I wrote to them and they replied saying the statement in the book was inaccurate.  They added that, while the Society itself held no position on the alleged incident, they had been told by an investigator that the work was entirely fictitious and this has subsequently become generally accepted.

Joan Lindsay's last chapter, explaining the mystery, was not included in the original book, but was published posthumously in 1987.  In this it we are told the girls who climbed the rock went through a kind of portal, except for one who was unable to do so.  Before going, they threw their whalebone corsets, which may perhaps be seen as symbolic of servitude, into the air.

Hanging Rock, Australia