The Wales Tourist Board's Heledd Llewelyn Parry said: "I'm sure every town in Wales has a story to tell about a ghost, myth or legend - and the Welsh are so good at telling those stories."

The magazine may leave sceptics scoffing, but the Fortean Times lists many of the "paranormal," unexplained and plain bizarre events which propel Wales up the curiosity charts.

There are traditional historic legends, such as the fairies said to materialise at Castell Dinas Bran, overlooking Llangollen.

Then there are tales of monsters, such as the 8ft humpbacked creature reported to pop up occasionally from the depths of Lake Bala, Gwynedd.

There are also the unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, which were spotted fairly regularly at St Bride's Bay, Pembrokeshire, in the mid-1970s.

But there are more prosaic tales, too. Such as the claim that 5,000 baked bean tins without labels were found strung along a five-mile stretch of the A48 in south Wales on three occasions in one year, 1985.

If all this stretches your credibility to the limits, the magazine even offers a "pigs might fly" story.

It reports that during the great Welsh religious revival in 1905 "a dark black object with four legs and short wings, which looked like nothing so much as a flying pig, soared over Froncysyllte" in north Wales.

The airborne creature, says the magazine, was "estimated to be two miles up and travelling at 20 mph".

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