Fortean Times

Fortean Times chronicles the stranger side of life, delivering a heady mix of weird world news, up-to-date reports and features on every aspect of the unexplained: myths, monsters, ghosts and UFOs rub shoulders with ancient wonders and future science, while expert columnists bring you the latest on everything from cryptozoology to conspiracy theory. Open-minded, well informed and maintaining a healthy sense of humour, Fortean Times is the only place to go for a sensible look at our mad planet – it will change the way you see the world.

Fortean Times

EDITORIAL

SHROUDED IN MYSTERY • New research suggests relic may date from time of Christ after all

EXTRA! EXTRA! • FT’S FAVOURITE HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD

SIDELINES

CURSES! • How Colonel Sanders took revenge on a Japanese baseball team and de Sade’s unlucky manuscript found a new home

OUT THERE • Warp drive, Dyson Spheres, the vanishing of Vulcan and the search for the ninth planet

MORE TUT TROUBLE • Did the ancient Egyptians create a radioactive ‘curse’?

CLASSICAL CORNER • FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD

ARCHÆOLOGY • PAUL SIEVEKING digs up a well-travelled Buddha, some ancient shoes and the world’s oldest lipstick

Fairies, fakes and photos • DAVID HAMBLING looks back at the long history of fortean photographic deceptions

IG NOBELS 2024 • This year’s award-winning research included pigeon missiles, drunken worms and the surprising ability to breathe through your anus…

Byronic spectres • ALAN MURDIE pays a visit to Newstead Abbey in search of literary phantoms and Gothic ghosts

STRANGE CONTINENT • ULRICH MAGIN rounds up the Euro-weirdness, from mad weather and bad cows to a BVM beheading

ALIEN ZOO • KARL SHUKER brings news of an unseen thylacine photo and a deceased doomsday fish

ANIMAL DOCTORS • New research suggests that orangutans self-medicate and ants perform life-saving surgery on injured nest-mates

THE CONSPIRASPHERE • As the 23rd anniversary of 9/11 passes, NOEL ROONEY finds that the only recent developments in conspiracy theory concerning the attack come from a surprising and disturbing quarter

IT TAKES ALL SORTS • From simulated sex with a statue of Bacchus in Italy to unwise congress with a cow in Thailand

FORTEAN FOLLOW-UPS • Updates on stories covered in previous issues of FT, including scary chilli chips and a BVM scam

MYTHCONCEPTIONS • 284: COR! MEMORIES!

What would disclosure look like? • NIGEL WATSON ponders UFO secrets, alien fakes and unlikely encounters with extraterrestrials

Threads from inner space • JENNY RANDLES looks at the relationship between anomalous experience and consciousness

THE MYSTERY OF PHANTOM LADIES • In updating Andrew Green’s classic 1977 book, ALAN MURDIE found that female spectres are as widespread, and difficult to identify, as ever–but what might they actually be?

Legends of the Grey Lady • REBECCA BATLEY explores a long-lived and enduringly popular branch of British ghostlore that has given rise to many a myth–and on one occasion even caused a riot.

STAR POWER SUN CYCLES AND ‘SOCIETAL EXCITABILITY’ • We are certainly living through troubled times, says PAUL DEVEREUX, but what if the current round of wars, assassination attempts and civil unrest is due not just to political instability but to the influence of the Sun?

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Oh, whittle, and I’ll come to you… • ROB GANDY celebrates the matchless talents of a West Midlands whittling legend.

The pay-per-view séance • KATE CHERRELL returns to resurrect another largely forgotten, and largely embarrassing, story of celebrity contact from beyond the...