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

SAINTS AND SINNERS • Carlos Acutis canonised, Charlie Kirk cursed, plus miracles and relic thefts

EXTRA! EXTRA!

IG NOBELS 2025 • Another round of improbable research features drunken bats and stripy cows

SIDELINES

DRONE MADNESS! • Panics from India to Europe speak of anxiety and political tensions

PRINCE OF PUMPKINS • Ozzy Osbourne lives again at a Hampshire farm shop!

THE CONSPIRASPHERE • Gen Z get blamed for a lot of things, but are they dumbing down conspiracy theory too? NOEL ROONEY wonders whether social media posters are reducing the conspirasphere to gossip.

ARCHÆOLOGY • A MONTHLY EXCAVATION OF ODDITIES AND ANTIQUITIES

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

OUTSIDERS UNITED • ALAN MURDIE, adrift in Soho, finds food for thought at the Fourth International Colin Wilson Conference

Nothing but static • DAVID HAMBLING explores the weird world of triboelectricity

THE BIG CAT FILES • Freedom of Information requests have led some British police forces, like the Met, to release their data on big cat sightings

Written in a country churchyard • ALAN MURDIE takes a tour of some mid-Suffolk village churches in search of ghost-lore

THEY USED DARK FORCES • Woman sells her soul, Chinese football teams enlist evil spirits and Satan fiddles an election

NECROLOG • This month, we take the measure of the extraordinary man who was crucial in rediscovering the lost science of ancient metrology“

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

MEDICAL BAG • This month’s patients present with giant hairballs, fart-based infections and disastrous AI diagnoses while clutching unsolicited urine samples

MYTHCONCEPTIONS • 296: WRONG DETAILS, TRY AGAIN

Aliens and orbs • NIGEL WATSON finds himself under attack from two-dimensional beings and weird metallic spheres

FAWCETT’S TOP TEN MYSTERY BEASTS • One hundred years after the disappearance of Colonel Percy Fawcett in Brazil, KARL SHUKER follows in the lost explorer’s footsteps, seeking possible identities for the cryptozoological creatures Fawcett described“ and sometimes even claimed to have encountered.

My Big Fat Greek Dream Adventure • The Ancient Greeks, when feeling a bit off-colour, would often repair to sacred centres where they would seek to induce dreams of the healing gods Asclepius and Amphiaraus. Intrepid oneironaut GARY LACHMAN decided to retrace their steps on a modern-day “dream oracle retreat”.

EMPEROR OF THE NIGHT THE MAN WHO INVENTED LUCID DREAMING • PHIL BAKER reassesses the work of the Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys, whose pioneering approach to his dream life resulted in the first book to explore the human ability to shape and direct our own dreams.

FORTEAN TV REVISITED UNCUT • In the late 1990s, Channel 4 viewers experienced a television version of Fortean Times in which REV LIONEL FANTHORPE presented “a celebration of the miraculous, the mysterious and the downright weird”. In the spring of 1998, Father Lionel was back with an X-rated spin-off called Fortean TV Uncut. Join RYAN...