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

GHOSTS, ANGELS AND UFOS • The Russian invasion of Ukraine has thrown up reports of weird goings-on

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

SIDELINES…

MEDICAL BAG • Spoon-swallowing, nail-hammering and a beany penis are among this month’s problems

CREEPY FINDS • A cursed painting, a clown in the garden and a spooky TikTok house renovation

LIFE REVIEW • Life does flash before your eyes before you die, it turns out, but it doesn’t work on drugs…

BODIES OF EVIDENCE • Sad stories of corpses kept, found or forgotten

SHROUD GONE FOR A BURTON? • Was the controversial relic a Staffordshire tablecloth?

ARCHÆOLOGY • A MONTHLY EXCAVATION OF ODDITIES AND ANTIQUITIES

CLASSICAL CORNER • FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD

The numbers game • DAVID HAMBLING looks at our fascination with, and quest for, genuine mathematical randomness

ANIMAL SMARTS • Crows collect discarded cigarette butts, goldfish learn to drive a mobile fish tank and orcas demonstrate some unusual behaviour

Fox on the rocks • ALAN MURDIE considers high anxiety, cursed stones, vulpine spirits and spooky woofing at Enfield

STRANGE CONTINENT • ULRICH MAGIN rounds up the weirdness from Europe: phantom pongs, false alarms and out-of-place roos.

TALES FROM THE BLOCKCHAIN • IAN SIMMONS delves into the oddities of cryptocurrency

Saucer saviours • NIGEL WATSON is sceptical about ET coming to save us from a nuclear conflagration

Return of the Silent Vulcan • JENNY RANDLES finds echoes of a classic Cold War UFO case in recent events in Ireland

A MODERN MAN IN AN ANCIENT WORLD THE NIGEL KNEALE CENTURY • Nigel Kneale was born in 1922, the same year the BBC came into being, and with works like Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Quatermass Experiment and The Stone Tape went on to change the face of television forever. JON DEAR examines the life and legacy of the dedicated rationalist whose writing mapped a dark world of ancient terrors and future shocks. Photographs courtesy of Matthew Kneale.

NIGEL KNEALE THE UNSEEN IMAGES • MATTHEW KNEALE tells how he discovered a treasure trove of his father’s forgotten photographs, some of which record BBC productions written by Nigel Kneale but now wholly lost.

THE LOST KINGDOM PUTIN AND HOLY RUSSIA • What really underlies Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? All sorts of weird geopolitical ideas have caught the Russian President’s attention in recent years – courtesy of his very own ‘Rasputin’, Aleksander Dugin – but, as GARY LACHMAN argues, there is a long history of quasi-mystical thought that claims Mother Russia’s destiny is to usher in a new religious epoch… or perhaps the Apocalypse.

TWENTIETH CENTURY TALES • PAUL SIEVEKING presents another selection of the strangest newspaper stories from the first half of the 20th century, including ghost trains, eagle attacks, tree-sitters and wild children.

WILD CHILDREN

EAGLE ANTICS

TREE SITTING

HISTORY ISN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE • As Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine, SD TUCKER finds a widespread desire in Russian politics for history to be (re-)written strictly by the victors. Were the...