Ft352 April 2017 £4.25 Are Youa Fan of the Walking Dead? Check out When There’S No More Room in Hell, Part One of the Outstanding Zombie Trilogy from Luke Duffy
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FT352 APRIL 2017 £4.25 ARE YOUA FAN OF THE WALKING DEAD? CHECK OUT WHEN THERE’S NO MORE ROOM IN HELL, PART ONE OF THE OUTSTANDING ZOMBIE TRILOGY FROM LUKE DUFFY. Mankind is on the brink of extinction. A deadly plague sweeps the globe like a tsunami causing the dead to rise and prey on the living. When there’s no more room in Hell is a horror/action set in a post apocalyptic world filled with suspense, drama, humour, grief and action. While one brother fights his way home from the Middle East, battling through the horrorsand confusion of a savage landscape, the other finds himself as the leader of a rag-tag band, struggling to survive against the onslaught of the dead. Both series are available on audible.co.uk ALSO AVAILABLE IS @LukeDuffyBooks THE DEAD WALK THE EARTH LukeDuffyBooks SERIES. Part one only £1.99 LukeDuffyBooks.com to download from Amazon. Fortean Times 352 strange days The illuminati go mainstream, murderous mermaid, weird fi sh, enigmatic statue, Star Wars gibbon, giant frog sighting, Yeovil alien encounter, self-proclaimed ‘King of Germany’, CONTENTS leprechaun hunts, MH370 mysteries – and much more. 05 THE CONSPIRASPHERE 21 MYTHCONCEPTIONS 14 ARCHAEOLOGY 23 ALIEN ZOO the world of strange phenomena 15 CLASSICAL CORNER 25 FAIRIES AND FOLKLORE 16 GHOSTWATCH 26 THE UFO FILES features COVER STORY 28 FORTFOOLERY: FORTEANA AND APRIL FOOL HOAXES While gathering in this year’s spaghetti harvest, ROB GANDY was struck by the fact that a significant number of April Fool pranks over the decades have featured fortean themes – from fake UFOs to cryptozoological creatures – in their attempts to put one over on the public... 34 THE CORPSE FACTORY ‘Fake News’ is nothing new and false stories were widely spread by propagandists during World War I. DAVID CLARKE investigates a gruesome rumour of factories for converting human corpses into fat and oil that has been called the JOHANNES STEHLE / DPA / ALAMY LIVE NEWS “most appalling atrocity story” of the 1914-18 conflict. 6 THE BITTER END Flash-frozen foxes and fish, plus a pair of battling moose encased in the ice 40 FAKING FORTEANA Manufactured and misleading news predates the Internet age. Its roots go back in part to the 1920s, and a forgotten journalistic revolution improbably conceived by ‘the father of modern bodybuilding’ and a socialist muckraker. MIKE DASH dons his fedora to report. 46 SEARCHING FOR THE PLACE OF THE SKULL As pilgrims descend on the Holy Land to celebrate Easter, TED HARRISON proffers a word of caution: if you’re looking for the location of Jesus’s crucfixion and burial then, tradition aside, you need to investigate a growing list of ANA / AFP / GETTY IMAGES competing sites. Just where exactly was Golgotha? AY TSY VA forum MANAN 16 A SICKNESS OF SPIRIT 34 THE CORPSE FACTORY Ghosts, possession and mental health World War I and the birth of fake news 55 Alien Dawn Patrol by Nigel Watson 56 Clones, psychics and the Antichrist by Mark Greener reports 52 BUILDING A FORTEAN LIBRARY No 20. The Sirius Mystery 76 FORTEAN TRAVELLER No 110. The Museum of Funeral History, Vienna regulars 02 EDITORIAL 78 READER INFO LIOR MIZRAHI / GETTY IMAGES 28 HOAXED! 46 SEARCHING FOR GOLGOTHA 59 REVIEWS 79 PHENOMENOMIX The world’s best fortean April Fools Where is the site of the Crucifixion? 71 LETTERS 80 STRANGE DEATHS COVER IMAGE: COURTESY WWW.THINKGEEK.COM FT352 1 www.forteantimes.com Fortean Times editor dAVid SUttoN ([email protected]) foUNdiNg editorS bob rickArd ([email protected]) pAUl SieVekiNg ([email protected]) Art director etieNNe gilfillAN ([email protected]) editorial book reViewS editor VAl SteVeNSoN ([email protected]) reSideNt cArtooNiSt HUNt emerSoN Faking it SUbScriptioN eNqUirieS ANd bAck iSSUeS www.subsinfo.co.uk [email protected] NEVER LET FACTS GET IN THE WAY... party source of expertise to help Facebook fact- FORTEAN TIMES is produced for Dennis Publishing by Wild Talents Ltd. Postal address: Fortean Times, Fake news continues to crop up in the headlines, check some of the dubious material appearing PO BOX 71602, London E17 0QD. even if what exactly is meant by this term on its news feeds, but itself came under a form of You can manage your existing subscription through remains somewhat nebulous: does it refer to attack from the Daily Mail, who while reporting http://www.subsinfo.co.uk/ – this should be your first port outright untruths presented as news items or on alleged sexual and financial improprieties at of call if you have any queries about your subscription. to coverage of objectively ‘real’ events in which the website seemed to be subtly undermining the Change your address, renew your subscription or report problems the presentation of the ‘facts’ doesn’t fit the notion of ‘fact checking’ itself; or so the Guardian UK subscriptions: 0844 844 0049 confirmation bias of the reader? Examples of suggested last year (16 Dec). A couple of months USA & Canada subscriptions: (+1) 800-428-3003 (toll free) both are plentiful, but the waters have become later (15 Feb), the same paper reported that the Fax (+1) 757-428-6253 email [email protected] Other overseas subscriptions: +44 (0)1795 592 909 muddied to the point where the cry of ‘fake UK government had apparently hired advertising Fax: +44 (0)1795 414 555 news’ now rings out whenever a newspaper agency M&C Saatchi to combat “the increasingly publishes a story someone else – whether widespread influence and propaganda of the LICENSING & SYNDICATION Fortean times IS AvAILABLE FOR politicians or particular interest groups – objects so-called ‘alt right’”. It seems darkly ironic that INTERNATIONAL LICENSINg AND SYNDICATION – CONTACT: to. the powers that be wish to save the world from Syndication Manager RYAN CHAMBERS TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6133 Covering the wilder shores the rising tide of post-truth by [email protected] of news reporting, Fortean employing the dark arts of the Senior Licensing Manager CARLOTTA SERANTONI TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6550 Times has long been aware of hidden persuaders; we really [email protected] manufactured news items. must be in trouble. Licensing & Syndication Executive NICOLE ADAMS TEL: +44- (0) 20 7907 6134 The material to be found This month, we grapple with [email protected] in American newspapers this slippery contemporary YOU CAN REACH FT ON THE INTERNET of the 19th and early 20th issue by showing that, despite www.forteantimes.com centuries, for example, the contemporary obsession runs the gamut from what with fake news, we have most © Copyright Dennis Publishing Limited appear to be obvious hoaxes certainly been here before. dreamt up on slow news days David Clarke examines the pUbliSHed bY deNNiS pUbliSHiNg, or the descendants of the way the British government, 30 Cleveland Street London W1T 4JD, UK Tel: 020 7907 6000 ‘tall tales’ of frontier life to intelligence services and pUbliSHer groUp AdVertiSiNg dHArmeSH miStrY director lifeStYle seemingly credible bits of media spread false stories 020 7907 6100 ANdreA mASoN forteana giving names, dates about the existence of German circUlAtioN mANAger 020 7907 6662 and places. Some of these ‘corpse factories’ during JAmeS mANgAN andrea_mason@ james.mangan@ dennis.co.uk appear to offer tantalising World War I (p34), while Mike seymour.co.uk SeNior SAleS execUtiVe hints of genuine mysteries; Dash looks at how the growth export circUlAtioN brAdleY beAVer often enough, they turn out of true-life ‘confessional’ mANAger 020 7907 6701 to be either unverifiable or magazines in the 1920s led to a gerAldiNe grobler bradley_beaver@ geraldine.grobler@ dennis.co.uk simply fabricated. It’s the kind "You couldn't make it up!" number of classic fortean cases seymour.co.uk SAleS execUtiVe of material that our own Theo being elaborated, exaggerated SeNior prodUctioN imogeN williAmS Paijmans, in his regular ‘Blasts from the Past’ or even invented and the ways in which this has execUtiVe 020 7907 6247 feature (taking a breather in this crowded issue), continued to bedevil fortean research ever since micHAel HillS imogen_williams@ 020 7907 6116 dennis.co.uk does a fine job of unearthing andve in stigating. (p40). On a lighter note, as this is our April issue, michael_hills@ dennis.co.uk Then there are the knowingly absurdist Rob Gandy celebrates the fun side of fakery in stories concocted by tabloid ‘newspapers’ such a round-up of the best fortean April Fool hoaxes PRINTED BY WILLIAM gIBBONS & SONS LTD as the Weekly World News in the US or the perpetrated by our truth-loving media over DISTRIBUTION Sunday Sport in the UK, featuring a World War the years, from the Wiesbaden Martian to the Distributed in UK, Ireland and worldwide II bomber on the Moon, a bat child found in a Tasmanian Mock Walrus (p28). And if you believe by Seymour Distribution Ltd. 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT cave and headlines like “Jeremy Corbyn Sex that the Red Baron shot down a flying saucer 100 Tel: 020 7429 4000 / Fax: 020 7429 4001 Dwarf Eaten by Otters”. Is fake news necessarily years ago this April, perhaps you should turn to Queries on overseas availability should be emailed to [email protected] reprehensible or dangerous when both its Nigel Watson’s Forum piece on p55. Meanwhile, Speciality store distribution by Worldwide Magazine producers and consumers know it to be a kind of not forgetting that this is also our Easter issue, Distribution Ltd, Tel: 0121 788 3112 Fax: 0121 788 1272 simulacrum produced solely for the purposes of Ted Harrison sets out for Jerusalem to find the STANDARD SUBSCRIPTION RATES 12 issues: UK £39.98; EU £47.50 material profit and idle amusement?, Or in the site of Golgotha (p46); or at least he tries to.