has become more complicated and (even) less certain. In 1940, application of the Deschaine Matrix with regard to a given VFâs arrival time and duration on-site would result in a 23% chance of predicting reappearance parameters (within two months and two miles): today that same process nets only a 16% chance. VF are less predictable than they have ever been (barring, perhaps, the Lost Decade of 1876â86).
  The shift in this behaviour is not linear but punctuated, sudden bursts of change over the years: once between 1952 and â53, again in late 1961, again in â72 and â76. The causes and consequences are not yet known. Each of these pivotal moments has resulted in an increased pace of change. The anecdotal evidence we have all heard, that VF have recently become more skittish and agitated, appears to be correct.
  I intend to present this work in full within 18 months. I wish to thank CM for help with the research. [
This CM is presumably Charles Melville, to whom the package was addressed. Clipped to the BWVF papers is this handwritten note:
Â
Yes, Edgar is a pompous arse but he is on to something big.
Â
W
hat is it Edgar N. is onto? Of course I wondered, and still wonder, though now I think perhaps I know.
]
Â
Â
[
Then there is a document unlike the others so far. It is a booklet, a few pages long. It was when I started to read this that I stopped, frowned, looked again at the envelope, realised my inadvertent intrusion, and decided almost instantly that I would not stop reading. âDecidedâ doesnât really get the sense of the urgency with which I continued, as if I had no choice. But then if I say that, I absolve myself of wrongdoing which I wonât do, so letâs say I âdecidedâ, though Iâm unsure that I did. In any case, I continued reading. This document is printed on both sides like a flyer. The first sentence below is in large red font, and constitutes the bookletâs front cover.
]
URGENT: Report of a Sighting.
Principal witness: FR.
Â
Â
Secondary: EN.
Â
Â
On Thursday 11th February 1988, so far as it is possible to tell between 3:00 a.m. and 5:17 a.m., a little way south of Plumstead High Street SE18, Varmin Way occurred.
Â
Even somewhat foreshortened from its last known appearance (Battersea 1983 â see the VF Concordance), Varmin Way is in a buckled configuration due to the constraints of space. One end adjoins Purrett Road between numbers 44 and 46, approximately forty feet north of Saunders Road: Varmin Way then appears to describe a tight S-curve, emerging halfway up Rippolson Road between numbers 30 and 32 (see attached map). [
There is no map.
]
Two previously terraced dwellings on each of the intersected streets have now been separated by Varmin Way. One on Rippolson is deserted: surreptitious enquiries have been made of inhabitants of each of the others, but none have remarked with anything other than indifference to the newcomer. Eg: in response to FRâs query of one man if he knew the name of âthat alleyâ, he glanced at the street now abutting his house, shrugged and told her he was âbuggered if he knewâ. This response is of course typical of VF occurrence-environs (See B. Harman, âOn the Non-Noticingâ, BWVF Working Papers no. 5).
A partial exception is one thirty-five-year-old Purrett Road man, resident in the brick dwelling newly on Varmin Wayâs north bank. Observed on his way toward Saunders Road, crossing Varmin Way, he tripped on the new kerb. He looked down at the asphalt and up at brick corners of the junction, paced back and forward five times with a quizzical expression, peering down the streetâs length, without entering it, before continuing on his journey, looking back twice.
Â
[
This is the end of the middle page of the leaflet. Folded and inserted inside is a handwritten letter. I have therefore decided to reproduce it here in
  The shift in this behaviour is not linear but punctuated, sudden bursts of change over the years: once between 1952 and â53, again in late 1961, again in â72 and â76. The causes and consequences are not yet known. Each of these pivotal moments has resulted in an increased pace of change. The anecdotal evidence we have all heard, that VF have recently become more skittish and agitated, appears to be correct.
  I intend to present this work in full within 18 months. I wish to thank CM for help with the research. [
This CM is presumably Charles Melville, to whom the package was addressed. Clipped to the BWVF papers is this handwritten note:
Â
Yes, Edgar is a pompous arse but he is on to something big.
Â
W
hat is it Edgar N. is onto? Of course I wondered, and still wonder, though now I think perhaps I know.
]
Â
Â
[
Then there is a document unlike the others so far. It is a booklet, a few pages long. It was when I started to read this that I stopped, frowned, looked again at the envelope, realised my inadvertent intrusion, and decided almost instantly that I would not stop reading. âDecidedâ doesnât really get the sense of the urgency with which I continued, as if I had no choice. But then if I say that, I absolve myself of wrongdoing which I wonât do, so letâs say I âdecidedâ, though Iâm unsure that I did. In any case, I continued reading. This document is printed on both sides like a flyer. The first sentence below is in large red font, and constitutes the bookletâs front cover.
]
URGENT: Report of a Sighting.
Principal witness: FR.
Â
Â
Secondary: EN.
Â
Â
On Thursday 11th February 1988, so far as it is possible to tell between 3:00 a.m. and 5:17 a.m., a little way south of Plumstead High Street SE18, Varmin Way occurred.
Â
Even somewhat foreshortened from its last known appearance (Battersea 1983 â see the VF Concordance), Varmin Way is in a buckled configuration due to the constraints of space. One end adjoins Purrett Road between numbers 44 and 46, approximately forty feet north of Saunders Road: Varmin Way then appears to describe a tight S-curve, emerging halfway up Rippolson Road between numbers 30 and 32 (see attached map). [
There is no map.
]
Two previously terraced dwellings on each of the intersected streets have now been separated by Varmin Way. One on Rippolson is deserted: surreptitious enquiries have been made of inhabitants of each of the others, but none have remarked with anything other than indifference to the newcomer. Eg: in response to FRâs query of one man if he knew the name of âthat alleyâ, he glanced at the street now abutting his house, shrugged and told her he was âbuggered if he knewâ. This response is of course typical of VF occurrence-environs (See B. Harman, âOn the Non-Noticingâ, BWVF Working Papers no. 5).
A partial exception is one thirty-five-year-old Purrett Road man, resident in the brick dwelling newly on Varmin Wayâs north bank. Observed on his way toward Saunders Road, crossing Varmin Way, he tripped on the new kerb. He looked down at the asphalt and up at brick corners of the junction, paced back and forward five times with a quizzical expression, peering down the streetâs length, without entering it, before continuing on his journey, looking back twice.
Â
[
This is the end of the middle page of the leaflet. Folded and inserted inside is a handwritten letter. I have therefore decided to reproduce it here in
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