"let us therefore advise our friends to gather the specimens in time, or it may come to pass when the last Thylacine dies that scientific men across Bass straight will contest as fiercely for its body as they did for the last Tasmanian Aboriginal man not long ago".

I invariably find it fascinating the sheer weight of cultural baggage associated with areas deemed fringe or edgy in research.  Often I find it is to the point where analysis is crippled to a level akin to the possibility of a web debate on Palestine/Israel doing anything but descending into acrimony and name calling.  Subjects like phantom Black Dogs, Ghosts, Witchcraft etc become marginalised and then become this site of unease marked by bizarrely aggressive scepticism on the one hand and naïve New Age credulity on the other.  Generally this pattern continues until a figure like Prof’ Ronald Hutton or the like brings an area of research in from the cold and to the realms of academic respectability.