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

FRANK ZAPPA

DISCLOSURE DAY? • Obama fuels Disclosure speculation while Enigma links UFO sightings to US nuclear power plants

GOBLINS AND GHOSTS • Magical mayhem from Zimbabwe

SIDELINES

ANIMAL ANTICS • From crabs on a train and goats on the motorway to a doorbell-ringing slug

BOTH ENDS… • Fortean fossil finds yield crinoid ‘teeth’ and what has been decribed as “the world’s oldest butthole”

ARCHÆOLOGY • A MONTHLY EXCAVATION OF ODDITIES AND ANTIQUITIES

CLASSICAL CORNER • FORTEANA FROM THE ANCIENT WORLD COMPILED BY BARRY BALDWIN

Earth-shaking ideas • DAVID HAMBLING asks if solar storms could be responsible for triggering earthquakes

WARMINGLY WEIRD: LAPIS CONFERENCE 2025 • STU NEVILLE and RUTH MORRIS enjoy an engagingly odd weekend on the Lancashire coast at the LAPIS Conference

Hans Holzer’s Great British Ghost Hunt • ALAN MURDIE finds himself revising the opinions held by his young, sceptical, Seventies self

THE CONSPIRASPHERE • Does the mass of ‘information’ currently flooding the conspirasphere point to the re-emergence of the grand narrative, or is it a conspiracy to undermine conspiracy theory, asks NOEL ROONEY.

AI ODDITIES & BIZARRE BOTS • Grok turns on Musk, woman marries AI boyfriend and bots chat to each other

STRANGE CONTINENT • ULRICH MAGIN presents his regular round-up of the weirdest news from across Europe

TOTALLY SPACED OUT • Astronauts’ shape-shifting brains, space junk shock waves and new light on the Wow! Signal

MYTHCONCEPTIONS

RELIGION NEWS • A Ghanian prophet rows back from the Apocalypse, a one-time Satanist becomes a saint and a tipsy vicar has some car trouble…

FAIRIES, FOLKLORE AND FORTEANA • SIMON YOUNG FILES A NEW REPORT FROM THE INTERFACE OF STRANGE PHENOMENA AND FOLK BELIEF

Show me the bodies! • Obama says aliens are real, but will Trump produce the evidence? NIGEL WATSON is not so sure…

BIGFOOTING THE MAPPING OF THE MAKING OF A FIELD • Bigfooters are a passionate community dedicated to finding evidence of a creature whose existence has never been confirmed by mainstream science. JAMIE LEWIS and ANDREW BARTLETT examine the methods and claims of these unconventional citizen scientists…

A CORNISH HAUNTING • CHRISTOPHER JOSIFFE stumbles upon a long-forgotten letter concerning a haunted house, complete with an Iron Age underground chamber, in the files of psychic investigator Dr Eric Dingwall…

THE DYBBUK BOX • IAN SIMMONS relates the curious story of the ‘Dybbuk Box’, which might be a vintage drinks cabinet or a demon-haunted Kabbalistic artefact with connections to the Holocaust. Does it reveal a terrifying trail of malign supernatural mayhem… or a profitable tall-tale that just kept on growing?

BIGFOOT’S LACK OF POLITICAL RIGGLE ROOM • How did a Republican politician with an alleged penchant for ‘Bigfoot erotica’ turn against his MAGA base and smear Donald Trump as just another damn dirty ape? SD TUCKER heads out into the woods to investigate.

Bevy Jaegers and the Psi Squad • KATE CHERRELL travels back to the Seventies to celebrate the work of the Missouri housewife who recruited a team of self-styled...