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OK, so we have threads here for horror, sci-fi, steampunk and worst movies, which sometimes touches on this topic, but I thought a thread dedicated to ostensively historical films which are littered with anachronisms and other cringeworthy goofs could be quite entertaining. For the purposes of...

With the terrible death toll from the attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow having reached 133 and still likely to rise, some interesting facts have emerged today. The American embassy in Moscow had warned the Russian authorities some two weeks ago of intelligence that an attack by Islamic...

This was posted on today's French Quora. Someone called Ari came across this rather disturbing looking corpse whilst hiking in the Jura region (Burgandy, France) not far from the village of Le Frasnois and asked if anyone could identify it. Suggestions so far have included horse, crocodile...

As a spin-off from the Tríbeč mountains thread, in which I mentioned compasses behaving anomalously, I referred to my own similar experience. I already owned an antique brass compass, which is beautiful, but not the most practical device for hiking. I therefore treated myself to a modern...

The Tríbeč mountains are a crystalline mountain range in western Slovakia and a minor spur of the greater Carpathians. They are not particularly high or treacherous, with the tallest peak only reaching 829 metres and are accessible to anyone with moderate hiking skills. Over the years though, a...

I was prompted to start this thread following the cartoon I posted on the "Are You Searching For The Golden Treasure Of The Entente Cordiale" thread. Punch magazine was a satirical weekly magazine founded in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Their masthead was the...

A native Papuan - Rex Yapi has founded a cryptozoological group. His forum currently only has 250 members so, if you're on Facebook, you may wish to sign on and support his endeavours. Papua New Guinea is one of the best chances we have for discovering unknown creatures or creatures thought to...

Flying home on Friday afternoon, I had a window seat and noticed what looked like a very striking circular rainbow appearing on the clouds. Had to get a photo of this I thought, so I rummaged through my rucksack for my mobile and turned it on. Sadly, the effect was fading rapidly and the couple...

Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin may have died in plane crash north of Moscow, according to breaking news on Sky just now.

Today's Guardian running an article about the prevalence of conspiracy theories in the UK. Apparently a quarter in UK believe Covid was a hoax! Other hot topic conspiracies with lots of supporters are: The ‘great reset’ theory (The World Economic Forum is a conspiracy to impose a totalitarian...

Given the huge disappointment over the UK's first spaceport launch failing and, at the time of writing, no further plans to launch again from Spaceport Cornwall, it's time to turn our attention to the other end of the UK, with SaxaVord UK’s vertically launched rockets scheduled to launch from...

I'm not counting those freakish creatures that evolved back in the Cambrian epoch, but was thinking of the most alien-looking animals around today. Here's my top 3. In 3rd place, the Devil's Flower Mantis. Thank goodness they don't grow to human size: 2nd, my favourite fish (and Predator...

Anyone watching nub TV (as advertised in Fortean Times)? On Sky channel 186, it feels a bit like a mash-up of Wayne's World (albeit with two middle-aged blokes) and the long-defunct Max Headroom show. If you don't mind the quirky and apparently unscripted presentation, with the presenters often...

With the world's two most notorious totalitarian dictators meeting next week, there is speculation that Putin, desperate for support from China - one of his few remaining allies, may offer the enormous Siberian resources to Xi Jinping. Jinping's China is desperate for more Lebensraum for their...

I hadn't heard about this until reading an article in today's Guardian in praise of "15-Minute Cities". Based on Clarence Perry's early 1900s "Neighbourhood Unit" concept, in theory, it all sounds perfectly sensible and its supporters describe it thus "you should have your daily needs – work...

On Wednesday 1st Feb, a woman in Coatbridge Lanarkshire spotted something unusual in the sky and had the presence of mind to film it on her phone. The object is moving rapidly and leaves what looks like a dark grey smoky trail. The woman, a council worker, feared a plane was crashing, but no...

The last genuine aurochs (Bos primigenius), considered to be the larger and far more muscular wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle, died in eastern Europe in the 17th century. The Tauros Programme, founded in The Netherlands in 2008, has successfully back-bred several large and robust cattle...

The Solomon Islands comprise an archipelago of 6 main and some 900 smaller islands, to the East of prime Cryptid stomping ground Papua New Guinea. An estimated 70% of the archipelago's rain forest has not been explored by outsiders. This recent article describes how the indigenous people tell of...

US judge rules that movie fans who paid up to $3.99 to stream the Richard Curtis comedy "Yesterday" are entitled to sue Universal Pictures over a misleading trailer. The trailer briefly showed a Cuban actress called Ana de Armas, whose one short scene had been subsequently cut from the released...

With the first space launch from the UK due to take place within a few weeks, I thought it was worth starting a thread devoted to the UK's first spaceport, which was built in my home county of Cornwall. The town of Newquay had a certain fame for its party culture and being the UK's surfing...

The enigmatic ruins of a construction known as "Ksar Draa" (Ksar in Berber or Arabic means fortified village or fort) is an extremely ancient, double-walled circular enclosure, about fifty kilometres from the red city of Timimoun, in the middle of the Algerian Sahara. A few Algerian...

Even since the invention of the gas-lift adjustable office chair, there have been rumours of high-pressure gas leaks rupturing the occupant's intestines or, worst still, the entire gas cylinder exploding and shooting upwards like some anally-targeted torpedo. But is this merely another urban...

A Liverpool family were enjoying a day at the beach in Porthmadog, Wales. The mum, Debbie Clintworth, took some video of her five-year-old son Joseph running towards her. Only afterwards did she notice something poke its head out of the watery sand and seemingly nod at her son. Watch the video...

In the wake of the third major flood this year with the last unleashing 8 months' worth of rain in just 4 days, the conspiracists have been spreading allegations of "weather manipulation", notably by "cloud seeding". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62049654

An ancient Roman mosaic uncovered in Pompeii depicts a fruit bowl containing, alongside other readily-recognised fruit, what looks very like a pineapple with the archetypal rugged exterior and spiky leaves protruding from the top. There's also a statue of a Roman servant holding a very similar...

There is a huge moss-covered rock resembling a stern, heavily brow-ridged human face in the remote Peruvian jungle. The indigenous people call it the Rostro Harakbut (face of the Harakbut people) but the jury is still out as to whether it's a remarkable natural simulacrum, or an ancient man-made...

This remarkable and gruesome story appeared in today's Quora. The claim? That James Sligo Jameson, tycoon and heir to the Irish Whiskey dynasty, was morbidly interested in the practice of cannibalism and, when travelling in The Congo, purchased a slave girl as a gift for a cannibal tribe so he...

This weird, multi-tentacled beastie washed up on a beach in Broome WA, in December 2018. Not 100% positively identified, but thought to be some sort of large sea anemone. Sea anemones are remarkably diverse ambush predators, that use neurotoxins to paralyse their prey, which is then dragged...

Today's Guardian features an interview with artist Tracey Emin. She tells of her traumatic recovery from cancer surgery and an encounter with a "black apparition". If you click the hyperlink through to her earlier article, she also saw the ghost of her dead cat...

Le Figaro is to be sued by the French president's wife Brigitte Macron, for repeating rumours that she used to be a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux. https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/brigitte-macron-va-engager-des-poursuites-apres-les-rumeurs-transphobes-a-son-propos-20211220

BBC report that, as a direct result of poachers slaughtering elephants for their tusks, the tuskless gene is spreading rapidly amongst Mozambique's remaining elephant population. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59008037

Report from the British Earth & Aerial Mysteries Society (B.E.A.M.S) focusing on UFO accounts and associated mysteries, including secret military underground bases in and around Farnborough (Fleet, Bagshot, Farnham, Aldershot etc.). The authors are Ken Parsons and Hilary Porter, the latter...

Umberto Nobile's huge airship Italia crossed the North Pole on 24 May 1928. On the return journey a combination of poor weather, mechanical troubles and piloting errors resulted in a crash landing onto pack ice at Svalbard. This ripped the gondola open, killing one of the crew immediately. 10...

Back when I was testing flight simulator software for the RAF, I had an Anglo-Nigerian colleague. One test required us to plot a route from RAF Lossiemouth (North East Scotland) to the Faroe Islands. He was at a loss as to their location and asked me if they were near Egypt.

Just what did wash up on Porthleven beach (Cornwall) in 1786? After a huge overnight storm, two boys were exploring the coastline to see if anything of interest had been washed ashore. They spotted what, at first glance, appeared to be an overturned boat but, when they approached, it showed...

Another design seemingly influenced by Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation, the latest chunk of high-tech to emerge from Lockheed's Skunk Works is the X-59: The narrow, elongated fuselage and canard wings prevent shock waves from coalescing, resulting in the sonic boom at ground level, being...

Traditionally, the name Britain is said to have come from the Latin Britannia, which itself is probably derived from Pretani, thought to be an ancient Celtic term meaning (land of) the painted people. Could the name's origins be far older though? Several sources from around the 7th century AD...

Excavations at Roman 2nd century AD latrines discovered in Turkey, reveal some astonishingly bawdy and profane mosaics. One features Ganymedes, aka "the most beautiful of mortals" and a figure often associated with pederasty, brandishing a sponge on a stick (the Roman equivalent of toilet...

I couldn't find any other thread covering spooky experiences of those insane folk who get their kicks exploring caves and mines. Feel free to move this into an extant thread if need be. To anyone even slightly claustrophobic (I can get a bit twitchy in lifts and tube trains), this hobby sounds...

Reports of the underwater ruins of Dwarka, in the Gulf of Cambay off the west coast of India, crop up regularly on Quora. Some very implausible claims are made for this "Indian Atlantis". These are often associated with Hindu nationalism, speculating that the semi-mythical city of Lord Krishna...

Further to the Lapenski Vir discoveries, another ancient site with a claim to being Europe's oldest town or city is Provadiya – Solnitsata ("The Salt Pit") Settlement Mound in Northeast Bulgaria. In the salt pit, archaeologists discovered this rather alien looking carving, dated to around 6,000...

We've all heard of the Vinča culture (aka Danube culture), famed for its technological advances such as copper smelting and (arguable) the oldest known form of writing. Another even older find, from just 80 miles away, is yielding remarkable archaeological results which, once again, may require...

This story did the rounds on Quora recently. Supposedly a huge, mummified finger was found and studied (including x-rays) in Egypt in 1988. At an improbable 15" / 38 cm it was far longer than the longest recorded human hands (Robert Wadlow's) or a gorilla's, and speculation exists that, if not...

Ancient artefacts have been smeared with oil at Berlin's Pergamon museum. A conspiracy theory has arisen that the Pergamon Museum is the centre of the “global satanism scene” because it holds a reconstruction of the ancient Greek sacrificial Pergamon Altar. This echoes the 2018 vandalism at an...

On another thread, someone mentioned a Russian series called Igra Na Voizhivanye, which sounded strikingly similar to the US series from 7 or 8 years ago “Siberia”. It struck me that these are just the latest in a vast catalogue of movies and TV series exploring a very similar theme; namely a...

The Gomphothere, also known as the American Mastodon, is an extinct south and central American proboscidean, resembling the elephant and is thought to have become extinct 8 to 10,000 years ago. And yet, this pottery artefact from Tiahuanaco has been dated to around 800 AD. Furthermore, in...

A remarkably effective new treatment can help children born with achondroplasia dwarfism to grow to an average adult (non dwarf) height and avoid most of the co-morbidities associated with dwarfism. There is unrest however amongst people of restricted growth that this could effectively make...

Gertrude the pig has, apparently, lived quite happily with the computer implant for the last two months: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/28/neuralink-elon-musk-pig-computer-implant

This has popped up on Quora and Reddit recently and the jury still appears out as to whether it's an ancient (c. 10,000 years) man-made megalithic site, some more recent structure or a natural formation. Would like to know your thoughts on the so-called Stonehenge of Lake Michigan...

Meet the Sarcastic Fringehead. This wonderfully named fish is only of modest size - 30 cm or so, and sits, looking rather grumpy, in its burrow for hours on end. Should a hapless small fish or crustacean come within striking distance though, it explodes forth, opening its mouth to a...