FORT, Charles (Hoy)

(1874-1932)

   US journalist and author. Working from extensive notes collected mainly from newspapers, magazines and scientific journals, CF compiled a series of books containing information on "inexplicable" incidents and phenomena. Though characterized as an anti-scientist, CF reserved his attacks for the "scientific priestcraft" and their dogmatic "damning" of unconventional or unwanted observations. CF's own belief wassimply a monistic faith in the unity of all things, and this forms the principal connection between his apparently unrelated groups of data. His books are written in an eccentric style and are interspersed with wilfully absurd theories and ideas. The first two, both still (1992) unpublished, were called simply X and Y; X proposes that Earth is controlled from MARS and Y supports the HOLLOW-EARTH hypothesis. The Book of the Damned (1919) and New Lands (1923) are largely concerned with astronomical and meteorological events, while Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932) are more interested in human and animal phenomena. The four published books are crammed with data, and the sheer bulk of information is impressive; however, there is no attempt to evaluate the numerous reports cited, so that silly-season urban legends and hoax stories are jumbled in with a too-sparse leavening of more reliable accounts. Reading CF therefore feels much like eating a stew of dubious provenance: the taste is good but one worries about what went into it. CF himself was perfectly aware that much of his data was, to say the least, doubtful; of The Book of the Damned he wrote: "This book is fiction, like Gulliver's Travels, The Origin of Species, Newton's Principia, and every history of the United States."Moreover, he was reluctant to invent theories (other than whimsical ones) to account for his data - a humility that distances his books from the sketchy fantasies of later writers such as Erich VON DANIKEN.After CF's death, compilation of data was continued by the Fortean Society, founded in 1931 by a group that included Ben HECHT, John Cowper POWYS, Alexander Woollcott (1887-1943) and Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), and in thejournals Doubt (US) and Lo! (UK). Information is currently collected by the International Fortean Organization, who publish INFO Journal, and by the UK publication Fortean Times. Prominent modern Forteans include William F. Corliss, John Michell and Robert J.M. Rickard.CF's list ofbizarre observations and events (from astronomical heresies to teleportation cases), together with his demand for original and undogmatic interpretation, influenced and stimulated many sf writers. CF's most enthusiastic sf follower was Eric Frank RUSSELL, who considered him "the only real genius sf ever had"; Russell's Sinister Barrier (1943) and Dreadful Sanctuary (1951) are based on Fortean ideas. Damon KNIGHT,another author influenced by CF, published a standard biography, Charles Fort, Prophet of the Unexplained (1970). The influence of CF's ideas on sfwas particularly strong in the magazines ed John W. CAMPBELL Jr, Unknown and ASF. Fortean elements rarely appear in more recent written sf, though Patrick TILLEY's Fade-Out (1975) is one exception, and films such as CLOSEENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977), with its discovery of the famous "lost" Flight 19, maintain the tradition.

   PR/JGr

   See also: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION; ESP; MOLESWORTH, Vol; PARANOIA; PSEUDO-SCIENCE; PSI POWERS; TELEKINESIS; TELEPORTATION.