Fortean Phenomena : strange naturally occurring phenomena
that science cannot yet define or explain. The Fortean
Times is a magazine that is dedicated to this type of
phenomena and presents some strange and unusual happenings
in a lively easy to read manner. An extract that appears
in each issue helps to define the term Fortean: "The
Fortean Times is a monthly magazine, of news, reviews
and research on strange phenomena and curiosities, prodigies
and portents. It was founded in 1973 to continue the
work of Charles Fort.
Throughout his life, Fort was sceptical about scientific
explanations, observing how scientists argued according
to their own beliefs rather than the rules of evidence
and that inconvenient data was ignored, suppressed,
discredited or explained away (which is quite different
from explaining a thing). Fort born of Dutch stock in
Albany, New York, spent many years researching scientific
literature, in the New York Public Library and the British
museum Library.
He marshalled his evidence and set forth his philosophy
in the: Book of the Dammed (1919), New Lands (1923),
Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932). His dictum "One
measures a circle beginning anywhere" expresses his
philosophy of Continuity in which everything is in an
intermediate state between extremes. He has ideas of
the universe-as-organism and the transient nature of
all apparent phenomena. He coined the term 'teleportation'
and was perhaps the first to speculate that mysterious
lights seen in the sky might be craft from outer space.
However he cut at the roots of credulity: "I conceive
of nothing, in religion, science or philosophy that
is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while""
