Via Newspapers.com



Some people could be said to create an “electric atmosphere.”

This is not always a good thing.  The “Wells Journal,” December 9, 1993:

A physicist claimed this week to have come up with evidence which completely exonerates pensioner Frank Pattemore for any involvement in the weird goings on with the electrical system at his home. 

For more than 11 years, Mr Pattemore's Iverson Cottage, at West End, Somerton, has baffled teams of experts as electrical appliances, heavy duty fuses and wiring have been destroyed by unexplained power surges, sometimes up to 12,000 volts. 

The problems are continuing, even though Southern Electricity stripped every piece of wire from the cottage and installed completely new power circuits. 

As recently as August SWEB [South Western Electricity Board] implied the problem was inside the house itself, pointing the finger at Mr Pattemore, aged 83, or his son Nigel, who lives with him, according to physicist Mr Bill Love. 

Mr Love, of Folkestone, Kent, said this week he has evidence that, following the latest rewiring, a Southern Electric sales representative was among the witnesses who saw the Pattemore meter record power being consumed when nothing was being used, and was there when a 100 amp fuse blew--even though the tails were not connected to the outside supply.

Mr Love said SWEB was continually evading the issue. The company kept replying that the meter had been checked and found to be accurate when, in fact, it was not the meter it was concerned about, it was the power system. 

He has asked SWEB at least to exonerate the Pattemores in view of the latest information. 

In a report prepared after several days of investigation at the cottage in 1991, Mr Love said: "There is something very strange happening at Iverson Cottage and it would be very wrong to leave Frank Pattemore and his son to suffer another winter of physical discomfort, the fear of fire and the stress of innuendo and gossip." 

In one of his latest letters to SWEB on behalf of Mr Pattemore, Mr Love said: "It amazes me that SWEB continues to ignore these facts which have been witnessed by qualified people. 

"The main fuse blowing before the tails were connected throws considerable doubt on SWEB's assertion that their supply is normal.

"Could it possibly be that SWEB are taking instructions from higher authority, or are they suggesting that witnesses to these strange events are unreliable?" he asks. 

A SWEB spokesman said a lot of time and energy had been spent trying to get behind the problems at Mr Pattemore's house. 

“Apart from making sure our equipment is as good as it possibly can be, there is not much else we can do. 

"We have not been asked to get involved again recently.  If we were, we would be happy to check the tolerances and specifications of our equipment again," he added. 

"It seems his neighbours have no problems. It is all a mystery.”

A year later, there were a few follow-up stories which indicated that the bizarre electrical manifestations were still occurring.  Bill Love had been continuing to pester SWEB to get to the bottom of the mess, but board members insisted that they could do no further investigations until Pattemore and his son moved out of the house, something the two men were stubbornly refusing to do.

In the July 2003 issue of "Fortean Times," Love wrote a detailed account of his investigations into Iverson Cottage, including some very strange peripheral details, such as Nigel Pattemore being followed by--yes!--two "Men in Black," after which he was briefly jailed (for "causing criminal damage to SWEB property at his home,") while police searched the cottage under warrant.  Love and the Pattemores seemed to suspect that the military was somehow involved in the mystery, but they were unable to come to any definite conclusions.  Love closed his "FT" article by stating that there were now "more unanswered questions" than when he began his research, and that "remnants of the phenomena exist to this day."