Fortean
Created | Updated Feb 3, 2002
The word Fortean means the study of strange phenomena. It has come to mean this from the work of one Charles Hoy Fort, a nice man by all accounts who spent a large proportion of his life investigating strange things that were happening in the world. From falls of frogs to water divination and everything inbetween and underneath.
Charles Hoy Fort
In his time (early 20th century) the art of Science was in its heyday explaining everything in the world with hard data and factual information. Anything that did not fit into this framework was explained away, dismissed out of hand or all too often ignored. By collecting newspaper clippings of anything perculiar happening in the world Mr Fort was able to write a number of books on many subjects explaining his own views and beliefs. These beliefs were carried forward in the publication of The Fortean Times in 1973 to continue his work till this day (and hopefully tomorrow).
It is thought many if not all people in society have a view on subjects such as U.F.O's especially with the coming millenium fever. There are many fanatical people in the world with fanatical views and these are best avoided down the pub. The friendly Fortean is of course mostly sane (or no madder than the next man at least)and believes on investigation and research to come to the truth. Far to often in the field of the paranormal do people put forward their beliefs without looking at both sides of the argument.
Hopefully with the new computer age a collective knowledge can be established (much like this guide itself) to assess all the information so anyone can view all the data themselves before making their minds up.
For more info visit
Fortean times online and maybe my homepage for future articles about fortean subjects.