I have another letter published in the latest Fortean Times, just out on newsstands this past Thursday in the UK and digitally. I wish I'd edited a couple more times before I submitted it, but I was feeling anxious the day I sent it, and just let it go.
It's about the Rachel's Challenge event I covered for the paper in February, and the Fortean themes in the presentation. After thinking about it for awhile, I realized a lot of the Fortean stuff can be accounted for by the nature of the program. It's designed for schools, and there's a strict separation of church and state here in the United States (at least, there's supposed to be) so the program has to excise any religious content. The result, what is left, can seem very strange. Taken out of a religious context, the notions of miracles become terribly Fortean in an obvious way.
In any case, I'm happy to be printed in my favorite magazine a second time. My first letter was printed in Fortean Times #192 (January 2005), and was about flashing/dimming your lights to let someone know they don't have their headlights on, and the urban legends attached to it.
Edit: One last note... I'm reviewing my recent issues of Fortean Times mixed with the nice old issues I recently got on eBay, so the review of Fortean Times #339 (April 2016) in which my letter appears will not be in my Sunday Reviews until, oh, May 15th at the earliest. That's one reason I wanted to write about it now instead of waiting until I read and reviewed the entire issue.
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