Forteana refers to anomalous phenomena — reported events or data that fall outside currently accepted scientific explanation — in the tradition established by American writer Charles Fort (1874–1932), after whom the term is named.[1] This article documents Forteana as a named intellectual tradition and sensibility, distinct from any single specific claimed mechanism such as Cryptozoology or Parapsychology — it does not function as a category on The Vault, reflecting the same broad, cross-disciplinary spirit in which Fort originally collected his material. For Fort's own biography, see Charles Fort; for the specific 1931–1959 organisation founded to promote his work, see Fortean Society.
Origin of the term
Fort was born on 6 August 1874 in Albany, New York, to a prosperous family of Dutch immigrant grocers, and spent much of his adult life compiling reports of anomalous events from mainstream scientific and news sources — accounts he referred to as "the damned," data effectively excluded from consideration by orthodox science.[2] This material formed the basis of The Book of the Damned (1919) and three further books published over the following thirteen years, ending with Wild Talents shortly before his death in the Bronx on 3 May 1932.[2] Admirers of Fort's work and method came to describe themselves as "Forteans," and the phenomena he catalogued as "Forteana" — terms that entered wider circulation well beyond Fort's own lifetime.[1]
Organisations and publications in the tradition
A group of admiring writers — including Ben Hecht, Theodore Dreiser, Alexander Woollcott, and Fort's editor Tiffany Thayer — founded the Fortean Society in 1931; Fort himself, wary that it would fill with uncritical believers rather than genuine sceptics, had to be lured to its inaugural meeting under false pretences, and declined its presidency, which went to Dreiser instead.[1] See Fortean Society for its full history, founding membership, and 1959 dissolution, which followed Thayer's death that year.[1]
Fort's influence considerably outlasted the Society itself, inspiring a range of later successor organisations and publications. Fortean Times, first published in November 1973 by British Fortean Bob Rickard, remains the most prominent ongoing publication in the tradition, combining humour, scepticism and genuine research into subjects generally overlooked by mainstream science and media.[1] Other organisations and publications in the same lineage include the International Fortean Organization (INFO), founded in the early 1960s partly from material passed down after the original Fortean Society's dissolution, and its INFO Journal, the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU) and its magazine Pursuit, the Society for Scientific Exploration, Strange magazine, The Anomalist, and William Corliss's Sourcebook Project — a separate, large-scale effort continuing Fort's original method of compiling anomalous reports from mainstream scientific literature.[3]
The related term "anomalistics" — the interdisciplinary study of scientific anomalies more broadly — was coined by anthropologist Roger W. Wescott in 1973, and is often used alongside "Fortean" to describe the same general field, particularly within its more academically-oriented wing; see Anomalistic Psychology for the Vault's coverage of the closely related discipline focused specifically on psychological explanations for paranormal experience.[2]
What "Fortean" actually means
There is no settled definition of what qualifies as "Fortean." The term is used across a genuinely wide spectrum — from purists dedicated specifically to Fort's own methods and interests, to individuals with active, open belief in paranormal phenomena generally, a position Fort himself would very likely not have shared. Fort wrote that he believed "nothing of my own that I have ever written," and UFO writer Jerome Clark has described him as "essentially a satirist," though his underlying curiosity about anomalous reports was genuine.[1] Most broadly, self-described Forteans share an interest in unexplained phenomena across a wide range of fields, generally paired with the same agnostic scepticism Fort himself modelled — curious about anomalous claims without necessarily endorsing any specific supernatural explanation for them.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "Charles Fort pioneered the paranormal and invented alien abductions."The A.V. Club.2024.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Charles Fort: Pioneer in the Search for Scientific Anomalies."Ancient Origins.
- ↑ "Charles Fort."discord.org.