Strange Central 2026: Mysteries, Monsters, Ghosts and UFOs

A day of ghosts, monsters, UFOs and Fortean strangeness on 18 April 202 at Conway Hall, central London and online.

Join the London Fortean Society for a day of deep dives into the paranormal world. We will be hosting expert talks on ghost hunting, flying saucers, sea monsters, sasquatches, and more.

Saturday 18 April 2026 10 am - 5 pm

In advance: Standard £25 / Living Support £17 / Student £21 (inc. £2 venue levy) Advance Tickets
Online: £12 (inc. £2 venue levy) Advance Tickets

Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL
Getting to Conway Hall
Join the London Fortean Email List

All ages. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

Timings

10am David Clarke: Deception, Conspiracy and the New Folklore of the Calvine UFO

11am Dominic Chorney: History's Weird Money: Treasures of the Occult

12pm Darren Naish: Sea Monsters Past and Present

1pm Lunch

2pm Andrew J Bartlett & Jamie Lewis: The Shape of Bigfoot: Making Knowledge Claims from Absences

3pm Mark Pilkington: UFOs: Weapons of Mass Disruption - UAPs and politics in New Trump America

4pm Alice Vernon, Ben Machell & Sarah Sparkes: Ghosts Hunting in the Archives

Darren Naish: Sea Monsters Past and Present

Ever since ancient times, people have believed that giant, monstrous animals inhabit the seas. If such creatures are real, could they have a direct relationship to the giant sea reptiles - in particular, the long-necked plesiosaurs - of the geological past? Join esteemed author and palaeozoologist Dr Darren Naish as he explores our developing ideas about sea monsters past and present, a subject that combines developments in palaeontology with studies of mythology and popular culture.

Dr Darren Naish is an author and palaeozoologist affiliated with the University of Southampton. His technical studies involve dinosaurs, the flying pterosaurs and ancient sea reptiles. He has published many books, the most recent including Dinopedia, Ancient Sea Reptiles and Mesozoic Art II. Dr Naish is also chief scientific consultant for the Apple TV / BBC Studios series Prehistoric Planet."

Mark Pilkington: UFOs: Weapons of Mass Disruption - UAPs and politics in New Trump America

Mark Pilkington, of Strange Attractor Press and 'Mirage Men', discloses the state of UFO sightings under Trump. Are they coming to save us?

Mark Pilkington is a writer, editor and filmmaker. His journalism has been published by The Fortean Times, The Guardian, The Times and The Wire He is the publisher of the Strange Attractor Journal, which was described in The Indeendent on Sunday’s Best of the Year 2005 as ‘a unique and necessary collection of eccentric scholarship, weird journalism and obsessive research’.

David Clarke: Deception, Conspiracy and the New Folklore of the Calvine UFO

Described variously as ‘the most spectacular UFO photo ever’, ‘a clever hoax’ or 'just a rock in a pond' the Calvine photograph purportedly shows a UFO shadowed by a military jet above the Scottish Highlands in the summer of 1990. Dr David Clarke's exclusive Daily Mail story released the image into the public domain for the first time in 2022. The online debate that followed covered the whole spectrum of belief and disbelief as actors took positions on the truth or falsity of the image. For a time ‘#CalvineUFO’ trended on Twitter and new variants of the story emerged, all based on contrasting interpretations of this single image. This led to the rapid development of new folklore and the sharing of conspiracy theories, deceptive claims and bizarre interpretations that did more to obfuscate than reveal.

This talk will explore a baffling UFO legend that has more twists and turns than a John le Carre novel."

Alice Vernon, Ben Machell & Sarah Sparkes: Ghosts Hunting in the Archives

Ben Machell, author of Chasing the Dark: Encounters with the Supernatural; Alice Vernon, author of Ghosted: A History of Ghost Hunting and Why We Keep Looking; and Sarah Sparkes, artist and Harry Price Library of Magical Literature research fellow, discuss what ghosts and other phenomena lurk in the archives.

Ben Machell has worked for the Times in London since 2005, and is a principal feature writer, interviewer, and columnist for the award-winning Times Magazine. His debut book, The Unusual Suspect, was widely acclaimed and shortlisted for the Golden Dagger at the 2022 Crime Writers’ Association Awards. 

Alice Vernon is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University. Her debut book, Night Terrors, explored troubled sleep in literature and culture, and was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week. Her research focuses on parapsychology, sleep disorders and the horror genre. 

Sarah Sparkes is a London-based artist and curator. Her work engages with magical or mythical narratives, vernacular belief systems, the visualisation of anomalous phenomena and liminality through the metaphor of the portal. Her work is often research-led and an exploration into the borderlands where science and magic intersect. She runs the visual arts and research project GHost.

Dominic Chorney: History's Weird Money: Treasures of the Occult

The mysteries of the world aren’t confined to haunted houses, spooky woods, and dark tunnels. They’re everywhere. They even haunt the money we spend. For over 2,000 years, since the beginnings of currency in the ancient world, coins and treasure have been associated with unusual events, frightening creatures and occult magic.

Coin specialist Dominic Chorney investigates the world of ‘occult numismatics’, looking back through the ages, from the present day to ancient times. In the ancient world, mythical beasts reared their ugly heads on the currencies of great cities, while Greeks and Romans buried their dead with coins in their mouths. In medieval times, silver coins were bent and pierced to ward off witches. As magical items, they could be used to cure the sick and curse the despised. Large silver pieces paid tribute to the wildman – Europe’s very own Bigfoot, while tokens from a London museum proudly promoted a severed head of the beast.

In the world of the paranormal, poltergeist encounters are accompanied by coins thrown through the air. UFOs can be seen on rare tokens from 17th century France, which depict strange flying saucers in the sky. Coins, tokens, and medals are also closely linked with secret societies – providing entry to meetings and bearing secretive imagery. Medals even offer supposed evidence of alchemy. They are also at the centre of history’s most notorious conspiracies, even playing a part in the crucifixion of Jesus.

These are just a few of the many topics explored in Dominic's talk. When you’re done with this presentation, you might never look at the coins in your pocket the same way again.

Dominic Chorney is the Head of Ancient Coins and specialises in the currency of the ancient world, specifically Greek, Roman, and Iron Age coinage. Dominic has authored two books: In the Money: a guide to the coins that shaped Britain, an approachable look at the history of coinage in Britain, and Treasures of the Occult: a guide to history’s unorthodox money, which explores some of the most unusual coins in history. Dominic is an independent treasure valuer for the British Museum, where he examines and appraises the discoveries of metal detectorists in England and Wales.

Andrew J Bartlett & Jamie Lewis: The Shape of Bigfoot: Making Knowledge Claims from Absences

Bigfoot exists; it undoubtedly has a material effect on the world. According to various surveys, many thousands of Americans believe in Bigfoot, and hundreds organise their lives around the creature.

As one of our interviewees said to us, “there is this foolish statement thrown around that there is no evidence for Bigfoot. There’s plenty of evidence, there’s no proof. There’s a big difference.”

In this talk we explore the way in which Bigfooters make, defend, and debunk knowledge claims about Bigfoot - using witness accounts, images, sound recordings, footprint casts, and biological traces. In doing so, we explore the centrality of absences to their epistemology.

Our recent book, Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry: On the Borderlands of Legitimate Science, offers a sociological examination of the knowledge worlds of Bigfooters -individuals who regard Bigfoot as a serious object of empirical investigation.

The book is based on interviews with more than 100 participants involved in Bigfooting, alongside sympathetic academics and committed sceptics. Throughout, we sought to take Bigfooters seriously on their own terms, aiming to reconstruct the rationalities that inform their practices and beliefs.

Jamie Lewis is a Reader in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research interests include the sociology of science and the sociology of mystery as well as qualitative research methods. He is the co-author of Completing Your Research Project: a guide for the social sciences, published in 2025. Andrew Bartlett is based at the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations at Sheffield University. He is interested in transformations in the social organisation of science, including questions of interdisciplinarity, boundary work, and the role of communities in knowledge making outside traditional scientific institutions.

Book sales via The Word Bookshop, Coffee, and pub after.

Saturday 18 April 2026 10 am - 5 pm

In advance: Standard £25 / Living Support £17 / Student £21 (inc. £2 venue levy) Advance Tickets
Online: £12 (inc. £2 venue levy) Advance Tickets

Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL
Getting to Conway Hall
Join the London Fortean Email List

All ages. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.