Dr. Helen Whitaker

Physician

General practice, Hollowfield, 1949 to 1984.

Dr. Whitaker came to the Institute as its loudest sceptic, and said so at the first meeting. She had, she said, a low tolerance for people insisting on things that could not be shown.

In March 1955 she treated a logger with lacerations to both forearms who would not say how he got them, and who asked her twice not to write it in his file.

She wrote it in his file. Then she wrote a second account, for the Institute, and signed it.

She remained a sceptic for another twenty-nine years. The Institute's insistence that most reports have ordinary explanations, and that saying so is the whole point, is hers.