Fortean Times

editorial

Our theme in this issue is memory, an aspect of human experience that we know can play a major part in fortean subject areas: just think of topics such as witness reliability, false memories, supposedly ‘recovered’ memories that emerge under hypnosis or the memories people have of what appear to be past lives. A relatively new memory-related phenomenon that has emerged in recent years has come to be called ‘The Mandela Effect’: the widespread misremembering of often trivial elements of popular culture (Was the KitKat previously the Kit-Kat?) or recent history (didn’t Nelson Mandela die in prison in the 1980s?) What could be behind these widely shared (especially in the Internet age) false memories? Suggestions include incursions from the multiverse, interfering time travellers and the efforts of CERN to find the ‘God…

coronavirus curiosities

COVID ASTROLOGY BOOM In January 2020, celebrity astrologer Susan Miller appeared on CBS New York and predicted that 2020 would “be a great year, and it will be a prosperous year.” Capricorn would be the year’s “celestial favourite”, and Cancer was the most likely to wed; Libra was set to score in real estate and Taurus could expect a calendar full of international travel. After the scale of the coronavirus pandemic had become clear, users of her YouTube and Instagram feeds began to complain. “Susan, you’re a very good writer but you forgot about the Covid-19 virus and the loss of jobs,” said one. Another dissatisfied follower asked: “Why didn’t you predict this, Susan? Covid-19 was major enough to see it coming!” Nevertheless, despite their failure to foresee the pandemic, astrologers are…

the conspirasphere

WOO WOO ABOUT WIFI It’s strangely poignant that in the middle of one world-altering event we should be reminded of another. Earlier this month, an inadvertent slip of the black redacting pen, in a document presented by the FBI to the courts, named a mid-ranking Saudi official who, it appears, is implicated in the 9/11 attacks. The document was disclosed as part of a lawsuit by families of the victims (just one of dozens of suits still in progress relating to the attacks, 18 years on) alleging Saudi collusion in the terrorist operation. Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, who worked at the Saudi embassy in Washington during 1999 and 2000, oversaw the activities of the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs in the USA. He is implicated with two other officials, Fahad al-Thumairy and Omar…

where the bodies are buried

BODIES FOUND AT HOME OF MILITARY HISTORIAN FLASHER The remains of two people have been found in the garden of a North Yorkshire farmhouse once owned by a gun-toting flasher and military historian. Kenneth Ward, 72, who now lives in a York caravan park, was jailed for five years in 2011 after a sustained campaign of harassment and intimidation against his neighbour Mandy Dunford. She says he tormented her for nine years, flashing at her every day, standing half-naked or following her around dressed only in boots and socks. On one occasion he pointed a rifle at her and, as she fled, fired five shots. When Ward was arrested 10 years ago, police searching his home found an array of illegal weapons, including a loaded Luger pistol. Now, two jawbones and…

sidelines…

POPULAR BURIAL John Bradshaw, of Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, was doing some gardening during the coronavirus lockdown when he unearthed a near-complete car buried in the middle of his garden. He identified it as a 1950s Ford Popular. It was largely undamaged, with engine and number plate intact. BBC News, 8 Apr 2020. MERC BURIAL A South African politician was buried in his beloved E500 Mercedes. Tshekede Pitso, 72, had both of his hands on the steering wheel of the car, which was lowered along ramps down into the 8ft (2.5m) grave. D.Mail, 2 Apr 2020. INKED MEMENTOS Father and son Michael and Kyle Sherwood, Ohio morticians, run a business removing tattooed skin from dead loved ones, framing the designs and delivering them to the next of kin. A typical job costs around $1,000. D.Mirror, 4…

madlove

STEPHANIE SAYS US Army veteran Terry Wayne East is ‘married’ to a life-sized doll named Stephanie, whose social media pages show her treating Terry to home-cooked meals at their North Dakota home. Other photos depict Terry accepting holiday gifts from her, or show her passed out on the floor after a night’s drinking. An account of how they had met appears on Stephanie’s Facebook page: “I met Terry W East online and two weeks later I was out of tyranny away from my homeland China and in his arms on my way to becoming an American.” Stephanie features over-sized breasts on a small, childlike frame, and recently ‘gave birth’ to a baby doll. Comments on Stephanie’s social media page suggest that Terry East is a “wounded veteran that came back not right in…