Fortean Times, named after maverick American writer Charles Fort, is one of the world’s most individual and best loved magazines. For over 35 years FT has been chronicling 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, FT 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
A FISH FALL IN EAST TEXAS • The city of Texarkana receives a fishy New Year surprise
SCOTTISH WITCHES TO GET APOLOGY • Campaign may see pardons for those tried as witches in Scotland’s past
CANNIBALS IN COURT • People-eaters on trial in Germany, Russia & Poland
SIDELINES…
WAVES AND HUMS • Mysterious radio waves from space and a Yorkshire drone
ANCIENT GIANT TREES • Weird arboreal theory takes Flat Eathers’ fancy
FECKLESS FELONS • More cautionary tales from the annals of inept crime
ARCHÆOLOGY • PAUL SIEVEKING reports on a lost kingdom possibly found and Viking voyages to the New World
CLASSICAL CORNER • FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD
Saved by Holy Writ? • DAVID HAMBLING asks whether tales of bullet-stopping Bibles prove the saving power of the Gospel
EXORCIST BOY IDENTIFIED • ‘Roland Doe’ revealed as Ronald Hunkeler, plus obeah man drives out duppies
Haunted King’s Lynn • ALAN MURDIE takes a tour of a Norfolk coastal town with much to offer the modern ghost hunter
HIDDEN CHARMS 3 • ROB GANDY reports from Chester on the return of the annual conference devoted to the magical protection of buildings
THE CONSPIRASPHERE • Covid dissent is more likely to get you cancelled than conspiracy theory these days, says NOEL ROONEY, who also finds the Devil in the detail of an energy drink can’s iconography…
STRANGE TALES FROM JAMAICA • CHRIS JOSIFFE brings the latest Caribbean craziness
STRANGE NEW BELIEFS • National Parks haunted by subhuman cannibals, alternative history and “architectural Qanon”
NECROLOG • This month, we bid adieu to the vampire queen of New Orleans, Anne Rice, whose series of bestselling books effectively created the modern boodsucker
FAIRIES, FOLKLORE AND FORTEANA • SIMON YOUNG FILES A NEW REPORT FROM THE INTERFACE OF STRANGE PHENOMENA AND FOLK BELIEF
UAPs and luminous ghosts • NIGEL WATSON looks back at the year of the UAP and shares one man’s unique close encounters
I DREAM THE FUTURE AND SO DO YOU • Can we really dream of events yet to take place? Conventional logic suggests that precognitive dreams are imposssible – yet recorded examples, ranging from the trivial to the terrfying, argue otherwise. GARY LACHMAN delves into his dream diaries to offer a personal take on a wild, yet widespread, talent.
TAKING THE FUTURE AS READ • Do writers have some form of visionary access to the future, an ability to project from the present into days and years to come? Are they tapping into quantum interconnectedness, or just coming up with lucky guesses? RICHARD C McNEFF peers into his literary crystal ball in search of answers.
PALISSY THE POTTER • MATT SALUSBURY recounts the story of Bernard Palissy, the French potter whose quest for the perfect glaze led him to overturn centuries’ worth of thinking about the nature of fossils.
BLACK AFTERLIVES MATTER • SD TUCKER finds a plague of supernatural statuary in ZANU-PF Zimbabwe, where Cecil Rhodes is not the only ghost from the region’s colonial past...