Our round-up of the funny, fascinating and unusual stories this fortnight

Strange phenomena have always drawn crowds and history is replete with miracles that have been witnessed by many people

SFX’s time machine hurls us back to a random month once again

“Welcome to the 19th century,” began Jeremy Harte, introducing the Folklore Society’s Legendary Weekend examining ‘Lying in Legend and Tradition’. Gathering at Carlisle’s Tullie House Museum over 6-7

“There must have been a conspiracy,” says the novelist William Boyd, after describing John F Kennedy’s assassination to me. He cites the usual clues—the film shot by Abraham Zapruder, the entry wounds

The 1956 book When Prophecy Fails, by Leon Festinger, Henry W Riecken and Stanley Schachter has been one of the most influential books of the last century in the fields of new religious studies, cult