I picked up the October issue of the Fortean Times the other day. For half a century, the magazine has been the go-to place for reports of the wildest conspiracy theories, of UFO sightings and poltergeists and frogs falling from the sky. Created by Bob Rickard, a British disciple of Charles Fort, the American investigator of the paranormal, the magazine has always been perfectly pitched somewhere between The X-Files and a parish council newsletter. I enjoyed a subscription for a while, but haven’t read the magazine for a few years.

Returning to it is a curious experience. In the intervening time, the “rational” news world has invaded traditional Fortean territory. Far from being a niche interest, unhinged conspiracy has become something like the political mainstream. Alongside “I was a teenage alien”, the October magazine contains a report into the theories circulating around the two failed assassination........

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