Faringdon House, close to the church, was built by Henry James Pye (1745-1813), poet laureate from 1790 to 1813, who also caused to be planted the conspicuous group of fir-trees on the hill east of the town called Faringdon Clump, or locally (like other similar groups) the Folly.
D'Israeli dedicated his first book, A Defence of Poetry, to Pye in.
Pye, brought him under further suspicion, and his revival of the powers of convocation lessened his influence at court; but his unfailing tact and wide sympathies, his marvellous energy in church organization, the magnetism of his personality, and his eloquence both on the platform and in the pulpit, gradually won for him recognition as without a rival on the episcopal bench.
Dennis Pye was inspirational to generation of pike anglers.
On this basis, the anomalies described by Pye become explicable without invoking aliens from outer space.