Over the last century, there have been a huge number of UFO sightings. Are any of them true? Or is it all a case of mass hysteria, misidentified phenomena, or just bare-faced lying? Let’s join those who claim to have experienced a one-on-one with extraterrestrials from another planet. FIND OUT MORE: UFO hotspots, sightings, and…
There’s a big revival in witchcraft underway with the growth of social media communities like Witchtok and WitchesofInstagram, as well as festivals, markets, and specialist sections in bookstores. Surges of interest in witchcraft have happened over the last hundred years with the 1920s and 1970s being of particular interest. Let’s investigate why witches are back…
“It was very painful. It was done without anaesthetic and proper medical instruments.” These were the words in 1982 of a Chinese eunuch remembering the day, 70 years before, when his own father took a razor to his son’s genitals. Sun Yaoting was the last surviving eunuch from the court of the imperial Qing dynasty,…
Three members of the same family in a suburb of London, England, died of arsenic poisoning in 1929. The killer was never identified. It became one of the most notorious homicides – both in the United Kingdom and the United States. Scotland Yard, the London police service, was unable to identify the murderer in this…
Not since the 1970s has there been so much interest in witchcraft. On social media, communities like #WitchTok are booming with young people engaging in the mysteries of folklore, paganism, Wicca, and sorcery. So, what exactly is the appeal of witchcraft? Last week, I went to a screening of the 1973 movie The Wicker Man…
A woman who wanted to be pope. A man who wanted to murder the inquisition. And a pope accused of being in league with Satan. The year 1300 was certainly memorable. A new century was welcomed with an explosion of heretics across Europe. The stage was set for a violent confrontation between those who rejected…
There’s an incredible medieval legend that the Ancient Roman poet Virgil practised witchcraft at the Colosseum. It’s based on zero historical fact. The real Virgil wrote epic poems but was never known to have cast spells or conjured up demons. Yet centuries after his death, that’s exactly what he became famous – or infamous –…
In 1941, a coven of British witches met to cast a unique kind of spell that would stop Adolf Hitler and the Nazis invading Britain. These were dark days for the United Kingdom. Continental Europe was falling to the Third Reich by degrees. Paris had been taken by the German army that year. So, the…
I grew up in Essex – a county often mocked and reviled. But for those of us who know it well – it’s a part of England rich in history, stories, and mysteries. If you want to step back into the Roman Empire, the era of the Vikings, Saxons, and Normans or understand the life…
This is an astonishing story. Over 700 years ago, a group of women preached that humanity could only be saved by a female takeover of the Roman Catholic church with a woman installed as Pope. They believed that their dead founder – a noblewoman, Guglielma, who had died in 1281 – would soon come back…