Fortean Times
Encyclopedia
Fortean Times is a British
monthly magazine
devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort
. Previously published by John Brown Publishing
(from 1991 to 2001) and then I Feel Good Publishing (2001 to 2005), it is now published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. As of December 2010, its circulation was approximately 18,000 copies per month. The magazine's tagline is "The World of Strange Phenomena".
through the secondhand method of reading science-fiction stories:
In the mid-1960s, while Rickard was studying Product Design
at Birmingham Art College
he met several like-minded science fiction
fans, particularly crediting fellow-student Peter Weston
's fan-produced Speculation 'zine as helping him to "[learn] the art of putting together a fanzine," some years before he created his own. Attending a science fiction convention
in 1968, Rickard obtained Ace paperback copies of all four of Fort's books from a stall run by Derek Stokes (later to run Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed
and take a role in the day-to-day running of The Fortean Times).
After reading an advert in the underground magazine Oz
(in 1969) for the "International Fortean Organisation" (INFO), an American group "founded in 1966... by Paul and Ronald Willis," who had acquired material from the original Fortean Society
(started in 1931, but in limbo since the 1959 death of its founder Tiffany Thayer
), Rickard began to correspond with the brothers, particularly Paul. Rickard was instrumental in encouraging the Willises to publish their own Fortean journal — the "INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown" began intermittent publication in Spring, 1967 — and sent them many British newspaper clippings, although few saw print. Rickard later discovered that the production was fraught behind-the-scenes as Ronald Willis had been seriously ill, Paul thus finding it difficult to "keep up with things" on his own. Ultimately, the Willises were instrumental in inspiring Rickard to create his own periodical. Ron Willis succumbed to a brain tumour in March 1975. Bearing a date of November 1973, the first issue of Rickard's self-produced and self-published The News was available directly from him.
's work documenting the unexplained was founded by Robert JM "Bob" Rickard
in 1973 as his self-published bi-monthly mail order "hobbyish newsletter" miscellany The News — "A Miscellany of Fortean Curiosities". The title is said to be "a contraction taken from Samuel Butler
's The News from Nowhere", (although Rickard may be conflating/confusing Butler's Erewhon
and William Morris
' "News from Nowhere
"). The News saw fairly regular bi-monthly publication for 15 issues between November 1973 and April 1976. Debuting at 35p (£1.80/$4.50 for a year of 6 issues) for 20 pages, The News was produced on Rickard's typewriter, with headings created with Letraset
, during (as Rickard says in #2) the late-'70s blackout
s. The first issue featured a cover (which would become briefly the unofficial logo of The News) drawn by Rickard from a Selfridges
advert originally created by Bernard Partridge. From the second issue, pictures and photographs from various newspapers were interpolated within the text. The price was raised slightly for #6 — which also saw the page count upped to 24pg — due in large part to rising postal and paper costs.
Helping behind-the-scenes was Steve Moore
, a kindred-spirit whom Rickard met at a comics convention when the latter was a sub-editor at IPC
. The two found they had much in common — including a love of Chinese mysticism — and Moore helped inspire Rickard to publish The News. The early issues featured some articles by different individuals, but were "largely the work of Bob Rickard, who typed them himself with some help from Steve Moore."
that is particularly cited by Rickard as bringing him/them to his attention); Phil Ledger, a "peripatetic
marine biologist", and The News' "first enthusiastic fan"; Ken Campbell
, Fortean playwright
; John Michell
; Richard Adams and Dick Gwynn, who both helped with the evolving layout and typesetting of later issues; Chris Squire, who helped organise the first subscription database; Canadian "Mr. X"; Mike Dash and cartoonist Hunt Emerson
. Emerson was introduced to Rickard in late 1974, when after seven issues, he "wanted to improve the graphics", which Emerson certainly did, providing around 30 headings for use in issues #8 onwards. (Emerson's still-on-going monthly "Phenomenomix" strip in FT had its prototype in #11's three-page "Fortean Funnies").
) on The Glastonbury
Zodiac
for issue #4, which also saw the debut of the "Reviews" section, beginning with comments on a book by John Michell
, the Sphere reprint of Charles Fort
's New Lands and John Sladek
's The New Apocrypha.
Issues #2 and #3 noted that The News was published "with an arrangement with INFO", this was revised from #4 to it being "affiliated to the International Fortean Organisation". From #5, Mark A. Hall produced a section entitled "Fortean USA", continuing on from his earlier, discontinued, newsletter From My Files; issue #5 also saw William Porter's article on Llandrillo
printed, after being delayed from #4 for space constraints. Janet Bord contributed "Some Fortean Ramblings" alongside William R. Corliss
's "The Evolution of the Fortean Sourcebooks" for #7, and issue #8 was the first issue of Vol. 2, after Rickard decided to end Volume 1 with #7 (not #6 as fully bi-monthly titles do), since that issue was dated November '74, thereby attempting to keep each Volume aligned with a year.
Issue #8 (or, Volume 2, issue #1) saw the special "Christmas present" of headings by Hunt Emerson
, after Rickard was introduced to Emerson by Carol and Nick Moore as Hunt was working on Large Cow Comix. Described by Rickard as "as much a disciple of George[ Herriman]
... and my [Rickard's] favourite artists from Mad (Bill Elder
and Wally Wood
)" as Rickard was of Charles Fort, the two got on well, with Emerson producing not only a series of headings, but later strips and covers for issues right up to the present day. The death of INFO co-founder Ronald J Willis was announced in #9, which described itself as providing "bi-monthly notes on Fortean phenomena", and an index to the first year's issues (#1–7) became available. Colin Bord penned "Amazing Menagerie" for issue #10, while Paul Devereux
and Andrew York x=compiled an exhaustive study of Leicestershire
in "Portrait of a Fault Area", serialised in #11–12. Issue #11 featured Rickard and Emerson's first "Fortean Funnies" cartoon, while #12 saw a price rise to 50p/$1.25, a logo change (from Selfridges' herald-on-horseback to the more descriptive Fort's face-encircled) and a tweaking of its tagline to "bi-monthly news & notes on Fortean phenomena." Issue #14 first mentioned Rickard and Michell's then-in-production book Phenomena!, which would be more actively trailed from #18. Issue #15 — now with 28 pages — announced that Rickard had decided to bow to popular opinion and retitle his miscellany with a more descriptive title. Thus, with a subtitle of "Portents & Prodigies", Fortean Times was born.
newspaper, "full of weird and wonderful news and read by millions worldwide". Its cover bore the descriptive text "Strange phenomena — curiosities — prodigies — portents — mysteries," while the inside cover kept the 'Fort face' logo from later issues of The News but bore the revised legend "A Contemporary Record of Strange Phenomena". Included within was an offer for a "4-colour silk-screened poster" created by Hunt Emerson for this landmark issue. From the start, this new format compounded earlier financial difficulties for Rickard, following on from #14's plea: "we need more subscribers or we die!". (Fortean Times issues #16–18 — as The News #1–15 before them — were solely edited, published and in large part written & typed by Rickard himself. Even by passing on rising postal and paper costs to the readership — which Rickard constantly reiterates that he is loath to do, the early Fortean Times was constantly facing an uphill financial battle.) Early editorials of the new FT, therefore (in fact beginning with The News #15) featured a notification of donations received, naming and thanking the hardcore readership (which included many current and future-contributors) for monies received, which aided the move towards higher production values. With donations helping to offset costs, the price was held at 50p up until issue #20, whereupon the magazine dropped to a quarterly schedule from Spring 1977 (Issue #21) — but raised the page count (and price) to continue producing the same amount of material for the same yearly fee (40pg, 75p ea. or £3/year).
Issue #18 saw a new semi-regular feature entitled "Forteana Corrigenda," aimed at correcting "errors in the literature" that had crept into various Fortean works through misquotation or other difficulties. After 18 more-or-less solo-produced issues, long-term supporter and helper Steve Moore was credited as assistant editor for issues #19–21, becoming co-contributing editor (with Phil Ledger, Stan Nichols and Paul J Willis) on issues #22–26 and 'associate editor' from issue #27. He was joined by contributing editor David Fideler, and subsequently (also as co-associate editor) by Paul Sieveking
(#28— ) and Valerie Thomas (#31–32). Issue #20 announced that Kay Thompson
(a staff member of Ley Hunter magazine, then under the editorship of Paul Devereux
, with whom FT shared an address for several issues) would be helping to type parts of subsequent issues to further delegate the burden from Rickard. He, Moore and Sieveking were also later joined editorially by author Mike Dash
(who is mentioned as particularly overseeing the publication of scholarly occasional papers), before Moore moved from full editorial to largely correspondent duties for a dozen issues after #42, returning as a contributing editor in Autumn 1990 (#55). The four — Rickard, Sieveking, Dash and Moore — are often collectively referred to as "The Gang of Fort," after the Gang of Four.
Issue #21 saw the debut of FT semi-regular column "Strange Deaths" (later descriptively subtitled "Unusual ways of shuffling off this mortal coil"), while issue #22 updated FT' s to include (Ivan T. Sanderson
's) The Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU), alongside INFO. Issue #23 featured an article by Robert Anton Wilson
on, aptly, "The 23 Phenomenon
"http://forteantimes.com/features/commentary/396/the_23_phenomenon.html, made available a second Index (1975, to The News #8–13) and included a 12-page 'Review Supplement', issued as a separately bound supplement since the-then printers had difficulty binding more than 40 pages. With #24, the printers were changed to Windhorse Press to overcome this difficulty, and FT became officially 52 pages in length, the changes cemented in issue #25 with a new font for the title and a change of address — c/o London-based "SF and cosmic" bookshop Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed, run by Derek Stokes (who had sold Rickard the four Fort books ten years previously). The same issue ran an obituary for Eric Frank Russell
, of whom Rickard was a considerable fan. He writes that Russell turned down an invitation to contribute material to The News back in 1973, having "earned his rest" after 40 years as an active Fortean. Rickard further states that Russell was one of the key Fortean-fiction writers he read in Campbell
's Astounding Science Fiction and Analog
, and the author of "the first Fortean book I [Rickard] ever read": Russell's Great World Mysteries. Issue #26 trailed "a special series of 'Occasional Papers' in Fortean subjects" to be edited by Steve Moore, and #27 — the 5th Anniversary issue — welcomed Michigan-native David Fideler (whose Anomaly Research Bulletin was then due to cease publication, although its subscribers, FT promised, would be absorbed by them) as FT' s "man in the New World".
Paul Sieveking and FT
In 1978, mutual friend Ion Will introduced Rickard to Paul Sieveking
, who recalls that "the Forteans used to meet every Tuesday afternoon above the science-fiction bookshop Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed
in Soho, a shop run by Derek Stokes, to open post and interact. (Indeed, this was the semi-official address of FT until that shop closed. With #35, Summer '81 the address was changed.) Sieveking joined the FT team with #28 as co-associate editor, and writes, highlighting the intrinsic early difficulties in printing FT that that issue "was printed by an Israeli entrepreneur in northern Greece and shipped to London." That issue (#28), bearing a cover blurb of "Strange Phenomena", featured an early advert for the bookshop Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed
, drawn by Bryan Talbot
, while the editorial promised that the next issue would not only see the availability of Index 1976, but be in a "larger and more professional format, typeset throughout, [with] better graphics, layout and legibility."
Indeed #29, under a cover by Hunt Emerson, was printed fully typeset in A4 (thanks to art director Richard Adams of AdCo and, according to Rickard's preface to Yesterday's News Tomorrow, Dick Gwynn) and even distributed on a limited basis through WH Smiths. The move away from production on Rickard's typewriter gave "The Journal of Strange Phenomena," (as it was now subtitled) greater ability to produce longer, better laid-out articles. These opened with a seven-page guide to "Charles Fort and Fortean Times" by Bob Rickard, explaining the background and philosophy of FT as well as outlining the influence of Fort "who", writes Rickard, "is still largely unknown", and also included the first of Nigel Watson's "Enigma Variations" columns and Loren Coleman
's "Devil Names and Fortean Places" article sat alongside comments by Colin Bord, Tim Dinsdale
, VGW Harrison
and Rickard on Anthony 'Doc' Shiels' 1977 "Nessie
" photographs. The magazine itself dropped the description 'non-profitmaking' from its publication information, and ceased to name its stated-affiliations to INFO and SITU and 'other Fortean journals' in favour the more general aim to be a "friend to all groups and magazines continuing the work of Charles Fort". It also contained a considerably higher number of adverts, including both inside covers — making the page count slightly higher than previous issues, which had previously counted the cover as page 1 — and an early advert by Brian Bolland
for Forbidden Planet
(which would ironically begin to take off only after the closure of Stokes's Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed
).
Issue #30 announced that while "over the last couple of issues [the] subscriber list... nearly doubled," so too had the "printing, production and postage bill," necessitating a price rise to 95p/$2.50 — albeit softened by another length increase, to 68 pages. Now published not merely by Rickard, but by 'Fortean Times Ltd', it was typeset by Warpsmith Graphics and printed by Bija Press. The cover was painted by Una Woodruff (whose Inventorum Natura was reviewed within) to illustrate John Michell
's article on "Spontaneous Images and Acheropites," drawing on his 1979 Thames & Hudson
book dealing with — and titled — "Simulacra". Bob Rickard produced an article on one "Clemente Dominguez: Pope, Heretic
, Stigmatic
;" Michael Hoffman
speculated on the occult aspects of a serial killer in "The Sun of Sam;" Robert J. Schadewald wrote about "The Great Fish Fall
of 1859" while Hunt Emerson
produced the first cartoon strip under the title "Phenomenomix".
Sieveking took over full editorial duties from Rickard with #43, helming the subsequent four quarterly issues (to #46) to give Rickard a chance to "revitalize", which he did, returning with #46 to the position of co-editor. Moore, Dash and Ian Simmons (and others) variously edited the magazine for the next 18+ years, and although main editorship passed from Rickard and Sieveking to David Sutton in 2002, they both continue to contribute — Sieveking continues as before, editing and writing most of the Strange Days news section and editing the letters pages, and acting as the main quality-control proof-reader, as well as producing the occasional feature (while Sieveking's wife edits the "Reviews" section).
During the 30 years of its publication, Fortean Times has changed both format and publishers on a couple of occasions. Early issues (particularly of The News) were produced in black & white (for ease of photocopying), and the whole was largely produced by typewriter
until #29. Colour, professional printing (and wider distribution) followed and a 6.5 x 4.5in size held sway for several years before the magazine settled into its "normal" A4 (magazine) size in the 1980s, after which glossy covers followed. Several changes of logo and font have occurred throughout its life.
".
The range of subject matter is extremely broad, including but not limited to the following:
Fortean Times also frequently covers the Ig Nobel Prize
s, as well as unusual aspects of mainstream science and research.
, but this is not a mandatory requirement and some articles focus on a specific theory or point of view. Although such articles are presented as the opinion of the author and not the editors (who claim to have no opinions), this has occasionally led to controversy. One of the most famous examples occurred in January 1997, when the magazine ran an article by David Percy under the headline "FAKE! Did NASA
hoax the moon landing
photos?". The article outraged many readers and led to the magazine's "most vigorous postbag" up to that time. If the Percy article upset the "skeptics" among FTs readership, it was the turn of the "believers" in August 2000, when the magazine's cover boasted what must have seemed to them at first sight a very promising headline: "UFO? The shocking truth about the first flying saucers". However, the article in question, by James Easton, proposed an extremely mundane explanation for Kenneth Arnold
's sighting
— American White Pelican
s. This suggestion so outraged ufologists that many of them still use the term "pelican" or "pelicanist" as a pejorative term for a debunker
.
Praise from within the various Fortean communities almost goes without saying, and most Fortean researchers contribute articles, criticism and/or letters to the magazine. It has also attracted more widespread coverage and praise at times, however. Fortean Times #69 claims that "extracts from FT have featured in at least three publications used for teaching English as a foreign language," perhaps in part because (as the editors also quote) Lynn Barber of The Independent on Sunday newspaper calls FT "a model of elegant English."
(the University of London Union
, the Institute of Education
, the Commonwealth Institute
and, in recent years, the London Friends Meeting House). Many "hot topics" of the day have been discussed, such as the Ray Santilli "alien autopsy"
film at the 1996 UnCon, and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales
at the 1998 event. On other occasions the organisers are well ahead of the trend, as was the case in 1998 when Lynn Picknett
and Clive Prince discussed Templar
conspiracies and hidden symbolism in the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci
years before these were turned into mass media subjects by The Da Vinci Code
. Besides the formal lecture programme, UnCon normally features exhibits by organisations such as the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena
and the Centre for Fortean Zoology
. The event often ends with a panel discussion, as was notoriously the case in 2002 when the subject was "Is Ufology Dead?". This was widely reported in the British media as an "official" statement by Fortean Times that " Ufology is Dead".
Fortean Studies, the magazines more-academic sister-publication published yearly volumes in the late 1990s, and is still nominally ongoing, although when future volumes might see print is unknown. Publication stalled after the sale of FT in 2000.
Its website tracks Fortean news stories, holds a small archive of articles and photographs, and supports a busy internet forum
for discussion of Fortean topics.
The magazine has also occasionally published both academic and lighthearted books on various aspects of Forteana.
(The early collections, like the earliest magazines, were published in smaller, 6.5 x 4.5in format)
(The later collections were of a larger — A4 — size)
. In the words of frequent-contributor Neil Nixon, it "compiled serious research and opinion on a range of paranormal and conspiracy related issues," as was a more academic counterpart to FT.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
monthly magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
. Previously published by John Brown Publishing
John Brown Publishing
John Brown, previously called John Brown Publishing, is one of the world’s largest customer communication agencies. While originally formed as a magazine company it now offers a broad range of services under a single umbrella - these include divisions for catalogues, digital, customer magazines,...
(from 1991 to 2001) and then I Feel Good Publishing (2001 to 2005), it is now published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. As of December 2010, its circulation was approximately 18,000 copies per month. The magazine's tagline is "The World of Strange Phenomena".
Origin
The roots of the magazine that was to become Fortean Times can be traced back to Bob Rickard's discovering the works of Charles FortCharles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
through the secondhand method of reading science-fiction stories:
- "John CampbellJohn W. CampbellJohn Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in...
, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction (as AnalogAnalog Science Fiction and FactAnalog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
was then titled), for example," writes Rickard "encouraged many authors to expand Fort's data and comments into imaginative stories."
In the mid-1960s, while Rickard was studying Product Design
Product design
-Introduction:Product design is the process of creating a new product to be sold by a business or enterprise to its customers. It is concerned with the efficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products.Product designers conceptualize and...
at Birmingham Art College
Birmingham School of Art
The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, its Grade I listed building on...
he met several like-minded science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
fans, particularly crediting fellow-student Peter Weston
Peter Weston
Peter Weston is a British science fiction fan. Now retired, he lives in Birmingham, UK.Weston's made many contributions in fan writing, fanzine editing, convention-running and in local science fiction clubs. His 1960s pseudonym "Malcolm Edwards" caused some confusion several years later, when a...
's fan-produced Speculation 'zine as helping him to "[learn] the art of putting together a fanzine," some years before he created his own. Attending a science fiction convention
Fan convention
A fan convention, or con , is an event in which fans of a particular film, television series, comic book, actor, or an entire genre of entertainment such as science fiction or anime and manga, gather to participate and hold programs and other events, and to meet experts, famous personalities, and...
in 1968, Rickard obtained Ace paperback copies of all four of Fort's books from a stall run by Derek Stokes (later to run Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed
Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (bookshop)
Dark They Were And Golden Eyed in London was the largest science fiction bookshop and comic store in Europe during the 1970s. Specialising in science fiction, occultism, and Atlantis, the central London shop also played a key role in bringing American underground comics to the UK...
and take a role in the day-to-day running of The Fortean Times).
After reading an advert in the underground magazine Oz
Oz (magazine)
Oz was first published as a satirical humour magazine between 1963 and 1969 in Sydney, Australia and, in its second and better known incarnation, became a "psychedelic hippy" magazine from 1967 to 1973 in London...
(in 1969) for the "International Fortean Organisation" (INFO), an American group "founded in 1966... by Paul and Ronald Willis," who had acquired material from the original Fortean Society
Fortean Society
The Fortean Society was started in the United States in 1931 during a meeting held in the New York flat of Charles Hoy Fort in order to promote the ideas of American writer Charles Fort. The Fortean Society was primarily based in New York City. Its first president was Theodore Dreiser, an old...
(started in 1931, but in limbo since the 1959 death of its founder Tiffany Thayer
Tiffany Thayer
Tiffany Ellsworth Thayer was an American actor, author and founder of the Fortean Society.-Biography:Born in Freeport, Illinois, Thayer quit school at age 15 and worked as an actor, reporter, and used-book clerk in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. Aged 16, he toured as the teenaged hero in the...
), Rickard began to correspond with the brothers, particularly Paul. Rickard was instrumental in encouraging the Willises to publish their own Fortean journal — the "INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown" began intermittent publication in Spring, 1967 — and sent them many British newspaper clippings, although few saw print. Rickard later discovered that the production was fraught behind-the-scenes as Ronald Willis had been seriously ill, Paul thus finding it difficult to "keep up with things" on his own. Ultimately, the Willises were instrumental in inspiring Rickard to create his own periodical. Ron Willis succumbed to a brain tumour in March 1975. Bearing a date of November 1973, the first issue of Rickard's self-produced and self-published The News was available directly from him.
The News (1973–1976)
The magazine which was to continue Charles FortCharles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
's work documenting the unexplained was founded by Robert JM "Bob" Rickard
Bob Rickard
Robert "Bob" J M Rickard is the founder and editor of the UK magazine Fortean Times: The Journal of Strange Phenomena, which debuted in 1973 under its original title The News. The magazines express purpose is to continue the documentary work of Charles Fort on the strange, anomalous and unexplained...
in 1973 as his self-published bi-monthly mail order "hobbyish newsletter" miscellany The News — "A Miscellany of Fortean Curiosities". The title is said to be "a contraction taken from Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Samuel Butler was an iconoclastic Victorian author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh...
's The News from Nowhere", (although Rickard may be conflating/confusing Butler's Erewhon
Erewhon
Erewhon: or, Over the Range is a novel by Samuel Butler, published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed in which part of the world Erewhon is, but it is clear that it is a fictional country...
and William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
News from Nowhere
News from Nowhere is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris...
"). The News saw fairly regular bi-monthly publication for 15 issues between November 1973 and April 1976. Debuting at 35p (£1.80/$4.50 for a year of 6 issues) for 20 pages, The News was produced on Rickard's typewriter, with headings created with Letraset
Letraset
Letraset is a company based in the Kingsnorth Industrial Estate in Ashford, Kent, UK.It is known mainly for manufacturing sheets of artwork elements which can be transferred to artwork being prepared. The name Letraset was often used to refer generically to sheets of dry transferrable lettering of...
, during (as Rickard says in #2) the late-'70s blackout
Power outage
A power outage is a short- or long-term loss of the electric power to an area.There are many causes of power failures in an electricity network...
s. The first issue featured a cover (which would become briefly the unofficial logo of The News) drawn by Rickard from a Selfridges
Selfridges
Selfridges, AKA Selfridges & Co, is a chain of high end department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge. The flagship store in London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK and was opened on 15 March 1909.More recently, three other stores have been...
advert originally created by Bernard Partridge. From the second issue, pictures and photographs from various newspapers were interpolated within the text. The price was raised slightly for #6 — which also saw the page count upped to 24pg — due in large part to rising postal and paper costs.
Helping behind-the-scenes was Steve Moore
Steve Moore (comics)
Steve Moore is a British comics writer.Moore is credited with showing acclaimed writer Alan Moore , then a struggling cartoonist, how to write comic scripts...
, a kindred-spirit whom Rickard met at a comics convention when the latter was a sub-editor at IPC
IPC Media
IPC Media , a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Inc., is a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, with a large portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year.- Origins :...
. The two found they had much in common — including a love of Chinese mysticism — and Moore helped inspire Rickard to publish The News. The early issues featured some articles by different individuals, but were "largely the work of Bob Rickard, who typed them himself with some help from Steve Moore."
Key News-people
Moore and "Paul Screeton (then editor of The Ley Hunter), both urged on the first few uncertain issues" and Moore would frequently join Rickard to "stuff envelopes and hand-write a few hundred addresses" to disseminate the early issues. Rickard also highlights amongst the key early Fortean Times advocates and supporters: Ion Alexis Will, who discovered The News in 1974 and became a "constant [source] of valuable clippings, books, postcards and entertaining letters"; Janet and Colin Bord, later authors of Mysterious Britain (Janet also wrote for Flying Saucer Review and Lionel Beer's Spacelink, while it was Colin's Fortean article in Gandalf's GardenGandalf's Garden
Gandalf's Garden was a mystical community which flourished at the end of the 1960s as part of the London hippie/underground movement, running a shop and a magazine of the same name. It emphasised the mystical interests of the period, and advocated meditation in preference to drugs...
that is particularly cited by Rickard as bringing him/them to his attention); Phil Ledger, a "peripatetic
Nomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
marine biologist", and The News
Ken Campbell (actor)
Kenneth Victor Campbell was an English writer, actor, director and comedian known for his work in experimental theatre...
, Fortean playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
; John Michell
John Michell (writer)
John Frederick Carden Michell was an English writer whose key sources of inspiration were Plato and Charles Fort...
; Richard Adams and Dick Gwynn, who both helped with the evolving layout and typesetting of later issues; Chris Squire, who helped organise the first subscription database; Canadian "Mr. X"; Mike Dash and cartoonist Hunt Emerson
Hunt Emerson
Hunt Emerson is a cartoonist living and working in Birmingham, England. He was closely involved with the Birmingham Arts Lab of the mid-to-late 1970s, and with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s...
. Emerson was introduced to Rickard in late 1974, when after seven issues, he "wanted to improve the graphics", which Emerson certainly did, providing around 30 headings for use in issues #8 onwards. (Emerson's still-on-going monthly "Phenomenomix" strip in FT had its prototype in #11's three-page "Fortean Funnies").
Notable News content
Other early contributors included writer and researcher Nigel Watson (Chairman of the Scunthorpe UFO Research Society 'SUFORS'), who wrote "Mysterious Moon" for The News #2. Watson would later write a regular column of UFO commentary entitled Enigma Variations (from #29), and articles on the subject of UFO-related murders and stories of sexual assault by aliens. Phil Grant wrote about Ley lines for #3 and Mary Caine who revised an earlier article (from Gandalf's GardenGandalf's Garden
Gandalf's Garden was a mystical community which flourished at the end of the 1960s as part of the London hippie/underground movement, running a shop and a magazine of the same name. It emphasised the mystical interests of the period, and advocated meditation in preference to drugs...
) on The Glastonbury
Temple of the Stars
The Temple of the Stars is an alleged ancient temple claimed to be situated around Glastonbury in Somerset, England.-Origin:The temple is claimed by some to depict a colossal landscape zodiac, a map of the stars on a gigantic scale, formed by features in the landscape...
Zodiac
Landscape zodiac
A landscape zodiac is a map of the stars on a gigantic scale, formed by features in the landscape, such as roads, streams and field boundaries. Perhaps the best known alleged example is the Glastonbury Temple of the Stars, situated around Glastonbury in Somerset, England...
for issue #4, which also saw the debut of the "Reviews" section, beginning with comments on a book by John Michell
John Michell
John Michell was an English natural philosopher and geologist whose work spanned a wide range of subjects from astronomy to geology, optics, and gravitation. He was both a theorist and an experimenter....
, the Sphere reprint of Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...
's New Lands and John Sladek
John Sladek
John Thomas Sladek was an American science fiction author, known for his satirical and surreal novels.- Life and work :...
's The New Apocrypha.
Issues #2 and #3 noted that The News was published "with an arrangement with INFO", this was revised from #4 to it being "affiliated to the International Fortean Organisation". From #5, Mark A. Hall produced a section entitled "Fortean USA", continuing on from his earlier, discontinued, newsletter From My Files; issue #5 also saw William Porter's article on Llandrillo
Llandrillo
Llandrillo may refer to one of the following in North Wales, UK:* Llandrillo, Denbighshire* Coleg Llandrillo Cymru, a multi-campus college* Rhos-on-Sea , a suburb of Colwyn Bay...
printed, after being delayed from #4 for space constraints. Janet Bord contributed "Some Fortean Ramblings" alongside William R. Corliss
William R. Corliss
William Roger Corliss was an American physicist and writer who was known for his interest in collecting data regarding anomalous phenomena. Arthur C. Clarke described him as "Fort's latter-day - and much more scientific - successor."-Biography:Starting in 1974, Corliss published a number of works...
's "The Evolution of the Fortean Sourcebooks" for #7, and issue #8 was the first issue of Vol. 2, after Rickard decided to end Volume 1 with #7 (not #6 as fully bi-monthly titles do), since that issue was dated November '74, thereby attempting to keep each Volume aligned with a year.
Issue #8 (or, Volume 2, issue #1) saw the special "Christmas present" of headings by Hunt Emerson
Hunt Emerson
Hunt Emerson is a cartoonist living and working in Birmingham, England. He was closely involved with the Birmingham Arts Lab of the mid-to-late 1970s, and with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s...
, after Rickard was introduced to Emerson by Carol and Nick Moore as Hunt was working on Large Cow Comix. Described by Rickard as "as much a disciple of George
George Herriman
George Joseph Herriman was an American cartoonist, best known for his classic comic strip Krazy Kat.-Early life:...
... and my [Rickard's] favourite artists from Mad (Bill Elder
Will Elder
William Elder was an American illustrator and comic book artist who worked in numerous areas of commercial art, but is best known for a zany cartoon style that helped launch Harvey Kurtzman's Mad comic book in 1952....
and Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...
)" as Rickard was of Charles Fort, the two got on well, with Emerson producing not only a series of headings, but later strips and covers for issues right up to the present day. The death of INFO co-founder Ronald J Willis was announced in #9, which described itself as providing "bi-monthly notes on Fortean phenomena", and an index to the first year's issues (#1–7) became available. Colin Bord penned "Amazing Menagerie" for issue #10, while Paul Devereux
Paul Devereux
Paul Devereux is an author, researcher, lecturer, broadcaster, artist and photographer based in the Cotswolds, England. Devereux is a Research Fellow with the International Consciousness Research Laboratories group at Princeton University....
and Andrew York x=compiled an exhaustive study of Leicestershire
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
in "Portrait of a Fault Area", serialised in #11–12. Issue #11 featured Rickard and Emerson's first "Fortean Funnies" cartoon, while #12 saw a price rise to 50p/$1.25, a logo change (from Selfridges' herald-on-horseback to the more descriptive Fort's face-encircled) and a tweaking of its tagline to "bi-monthly news & notes on Fortean phenomena." Issue #14 first mentioned Rickard and Michell's then-in-production book Phenomena!, which would be more actively trailed from #18. Issue #15 — now with 28 pages — announced that Rickard had decided to bow to popular opinion and retitle his miscellany with a more descriptive title. Thus, with a subtitle of "Portents & Prodigies", Fortean Times was born.
Fortean Times (since 1976)
After fifteen issues of The News, issue #16 (1976) saw the magazine renamed Fortean Times, which "new title emerged from correspondence between Bob Rickard and Paul Willis" — the two having talked of creating a Fortean version of The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper, "full of weird and wonderful news and read by millions worldwide". Its cover bore the descriptive text "Strange phenomena — curiosities — prodigies — portents — mysteries," while the inside cover kept the 'Fort face' logo from later issues of The News but bore the revised legend "A Contemporary Record of Strange Phenomena". Included within was an offer for a "4-colour silk-screened poster" created by Hunt Emerson for this landmark issue. From the start, this new format compounded earlier financial difficulties for Rickard, following on from #14's plea: "we need more subscribers or we die!". (Fortean Times issues #16–18 — as The News #1–15 before them — were solely edited, published and in large part written & typed by Rickard himself. Even by passing on rising postal and paper costs to the readership — which Rickard constantly reiterates that he is loath to do, the early Fortean Times was constantly facing an uphill financial battle.) Early editorials of the new FT, therefore (in fact beginning with The News #15) featured a notification of donations received, naming and thanking the hardcore readership (which included many current and future-contributors) for monies received, which aided the move towards higher production values. With donations helping to offset costs, the price was held at 50p up until issue #20, whereupon the magazine dropped to a quarterly schedule from Spring 1977 (Issue #21) — but raised the page count (and price) to continue producing the same amount of material for the same yearly fee (40pg, 75p ea. or £3/year).
Issue #18 saw a new semi-regular feature entitled "Forteana Corrigenda," aimed at correcting "errors in the literature" that had crept into various Fortean works through misquotation or other difficulties. After 18 more-or-less solo-produced issues, long-term supporter and helper Steve Moore was credited as assistant editor for issues #19–21, becoming co-contributing editor (with Phil Ledger, Stan Nichols and Paul J Willis) on issues #22–26 and 'associate editor' from issue #27. He was joined by contributing editor David Fideler, and subsequently (also as co-associate editor) by Paul Sieveking
Paul Sieveking
Paul R.A. De Giberne Sieveking is a British journalist and former magazine editor.Until 2002, Sieveking was co-editor of the magazine The Fortean Times with its founder Bob Rickard. He joined the UK-based "Journal of the Unexplained" in 1978...
(#28— ) and Valerie Thomas (#31–32). Issue #20 announced that Kay Thompson
Kay Thompson
Kay Thompson was an American author, composer, musician, actress and singer. She is best known as the creator of the Eloise children's books.-Background:Catherine Louise Fink was born in St...
(a staff member of Ley Hunter magazine, then under the editorship of Paul Devereux
Paul Devereux
Paul Devereux is an author, researcher, lecturer, broadcaster, artist and photographer based in the Cotswolds, England. Devereux is a Research Fellow with the International Consciousness Research Laboratories group at Princeton University....
, with whom FT shared an address for several issues) would be helping to type parts of subsequent issues to further delegate the burden from Rickard. He, Moore and Sieveking were also later joined editorially by author Mike Dash
Mike Dash
Mike Dash is a Welsh writer, historian and researcher. He is best known for his books and articles looking at unusual historical events, anomalous phenomena, and strange beliefs.-Biography:...
(who is mentioned as particularly overseeing the publication of scholarly occasional papers), before Moore moved from full editorial to largely correspondent duties for a dozen issues after #42, returning as a contributing editor in Autumn 1990 (#55). The four — Rickard, Sieveking, Dash and Moore — are often collectively referred to as "The Gang of Fort," after the Gang of Four.
Issue #21 saw the debut of FT semi-regular column "Strange Deaths" (later descriptively subtitled "Unusual ways of shuffling off this mortal coil"), while issue #22 updated FT
Ivan T. Sanderson
Ivan Terence Sanderson was a naturalist and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Sanderson is remembered for his nature writing and his interest in cryptozoology and paranormal subjects.-Biography:Born in Scotland, Sanderson traveled widely in...
's) The Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU), alongside INFO. Issue #23 featured an article by Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson
Robert Anton Wilson , known to friends as "Bob", was an American author and polymath who became at various times a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic...
on, aptly, "The 23 Phenomenon
23 (numerology)
The 23 enigma refers to the belief that most incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23, some modification of the number 23, or a number related to the number 23.-Origins:...
"http://forteantimes.com/features/commentary/396/the_23_phenomenon.html, made available a second Index (1975, to The News #8–13) and included a 12-page 'Review Supplement', issued as a separately bound supplement since the-then printers had difficulty binding more than 40 pages. With #24, the printers were changed to Windhorse Press to overcome this difficulty, and FT became officially 52 pages in length, the changes cemented in issue #25 with a new font for the title and a change of address — c/o London-based "SF and cosmic" bookshop Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed, run by Derek Stokes (who had sold Rickard the four Fort books ten years previously). The same issue ran an obituary for Eric Frank Russell
Eric Frank Russell
Eric Frank Russell was a British author best known for his science fiction novels and short stories. Much of his work was first published in the United States, in John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction and other pulp magazines. Russell also wrote horror fiction for Weird Tales, and...
, of whom Rickard was a considerable fan. He writes that Russell turned down an invitation to contribute material to The News back in 1973, having "earned his rest" after 40 years as an active Fortean. Rickard further states that Russell was one of the key Fortean-fiction writers he read in Campbell
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in...
's Astounding Science Fiction and Analog
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
, and the author of "the first Fortean book I [Rickard] ever read": Russell's Great World Mysteries. Issue #26 trailed "a special series of 'Occasional Papers' in Fortean subjects" to be edited by Steve Moore, and #27 — the 5th Anniversary issue — welcomed Michigan-native David Fideler (whose Anomaly Research Bulletin was then due to cease publication, although its subscribers, FT promised, would be absorbed by them) as FT
Paul Sieveking and FT' s format change
In 1978, mutual friend Ion Will introduced Rickard to Paul SievekingPaul Sieveking
Paul R.A. De Giberne Sieveking is a British journalist and former magazine editor.Until 2002, Sieveking was co-editor of the magazine The Fortean Times with its founder Bob Rickard. He joined the UK-based "Journal of the Unexplained" in 1978...
, who recalls that "the Forteans used to meet every Tuesday afternoon above the science-fiction bookshop Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed
Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (bookshop)
Dark They Were And Golden Eyed in London was the largest science fiction bookshop and comic store in Europe during the 1970s. Specialising in science fiction, occultism, and Atlantis, the central London shop also played a key role in bringing American underground comics to the UK...
in Soho, a shop run by Derek Stokes, to open post and interact. (Indeed, this was the semi-official address of FT until that shop closed. With #35, Summer '81 the address was changed.) Sieveking joined the FT team with #28 as co-associate editor, and writes, highlighting the intrinsic early difficulties in printing FT that that issue "was printed by an Israeli entrepreneur in northern Greece and shipped to London." That issue (#28), bearing a cover blurb of "Strange Phenomena", featured an early advert for the bookshop Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed
Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (bookshop)
Dark They Were And Golden Eyed in London was the largest science fiction bookshop and comic store in Europe during the 1970s. Specialising in science fiction, occultism, and Atlantis, the central London shop also played a key role in bringing American underground comics to the UK...
, drawn by Bryan Talbot
Bryan Talbot
Bryan Talbot is a British comic book artist and writer, born in Wigan, Lancashire, in 1952. He is best known as the creator of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and its sequel Heart of Empire.-Career:...
, while the editorial promised that the next issue would not only see the availability of Index 1976, but be in a "larger and more professional format, typeset throughout, [with] better graphics, layout and legibility."
Indeed #29, under a cover by Hunt Emerson, was printed fully typeset in A4 (thanks to art director Richard Adams of AdCo and, according to Rickard's preface to Yesterday's News Tomorrow, Dick Gwynn) and even distributed on a limited basis through WH Smiths. The move away from production on Rickard's typewriter gave "The Journal of Strange Phenomena," (as it was now subtitled) greater ability to produce longer, better laid-out articles. These opened with a seven-page guide to "Charles Fort and Fortean Times" by Bob Rickard, explaining the background and philosophy of FT as well as outlining the influence of Fort "who", writes Rickard, "is still largely unknown", and also included the first of Nigel Watson's "Enigma Variations" columns and Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is an author of books on a number of topics, including cryptozoology, who was born in 1947 in Norfolk, Virginia and grew up in Decatur, Illinois.-Education:...
's "Devil Names and Fortean Places" article sat alongside comments by Colin Bord, Tim Dinsdale
Tim Dinsdale
Timothy Dinsdale, ARAeS was famous as a seeker of the Loch Ness Monster. He attended King’s School, Worcester, served in the Royal Air Force and worked as an aeronautical engineer. He was survived by his wife, Wendy Dinsdale and four children.Tim believed Nessie was real, and he was eager to...
, VGW Harrison
Vernon Harrison
Dr. Vernon George Wentworth Harrison, PhD. is a former president of the Royal Photographic Society, and a professional "research worker of disputed documents".-Biography:...
and Rickard on Anthony 'Doc' Shiels
Loch Ness Monster
The Loch Ness Monster is a cryptid that is reputed to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is similar to other supposed lake monsters in Scotland and elsewhere, though its description varies from one account to the next....
" photographs. The magazine itself dropped the description 'non-profitmaking' from its publication information, and ceased to name its stated-affiliations to INFO and SITU and 'other Fortean journals' in favour the more general aim to be a "friend to all groups and magazines continuing the work of Charles Fort". It also contained a considerably higher number of adverts, including both inside covers — making the page count slightly higher than previous issues, which had previously counted the cover as page 1 — and an early advert by Brian Bolland
Brian Bolland
Brian Bolland is a British comics artist, known for his meticulous, detailed linework and eye-catching compositions. Best known in the UK as one of the definitive Judge Dredd artists for British comics anthology 2000 AD, he spearheaded the 'British Invasion' of the American comics industry, and in...
for Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet (bookstore)
Forbidden Planet is the trading name of two separate science fiction, fantasy and horror bookshop chains across the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States of America, after the feature film of the same name....
(which would ironically begin to take off only after the closure of Stokes's Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed
Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (bookshop)
Dark They Were And Golden Eyed in London was the largest science fiction bookshop and comic store in Europe during the 1970s. Specialising in science fiction, occultism, and Atlantis, the central London shop also played a key role in bringing American underground comics to the UK...
).
Issue #30 announced that while "over the last couple of issues [the] subscriber list... nearly doubled," so too had the "printing, production and postage bill," necessitating a price rise to 95p/$2.50 — albeit softened by another length increase, to 68 pages. Now published not merely by Rickard, but by 'Fortean Times Ltd', it was typeset by Warpsmith Graphics and printed by Bija Press. The cover was painted by Una Woodruff (whose Inventorum Natura was reviewed within) to illustrate John Michell
John Michell
John Michell was an English natural philosopher and geologist whose work spanned a wide range of subjects from astronomy to geology, optics, and gravitation. He was both a theorist and an experimenter....
's article on "Spontaneous Images and Acheropites," drawing on his 1979 Thames & Hudson
Thames & Hudson
Thames & Hudson is a publisher of illustrated books on art, architecture, design, and visual culture. With its headquarters in London, England it has a sister company in New York and subsidiaries in Melbourne, Singapore and Hong Kong...
book dealing with — and titled — "Simulacra". Bob Rickard produced an article on one "Clemente Dominguez: Pope, Heretic
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
, Stigmatic
Stigmata
Stigmata are bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus, such as the hands and feet...
;" Michael Hoffman
Michael A. Hoffman II
Michael Anthony Hoffman II, , is an American journalist, conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier who describes himself as a "heretical writer." Hoffman is the managing editor of the newsletter Revisionist History....
speculated on the occult aspects of a serial killer in "The Sun of Sam;" Robert J. Schadewald wrote about "The Great Fish Fall
Raining animals
Raining animals is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which flightless animals "rain" from the sky. Such occurrences have been reported from many countries throughout history. One hypothesis offered to explain this phenomenon is that strong winds traveling over water sometimes pick up creatures...
of 1859" while Hunt Emerson
Hunt Emerson
Hunt Emerson is a cartoonist living and working in Birmingham, England. He was closely involved with the Birmingham Arts Lab of the mid-to-late 1970s, and with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s...
produced the first cartoon strip under the title "Phenomenomix".
Sieveking took over full editorial duties from Rickard with #43, helming the subsequent four quarterly issues (to #46) to give Rickard a chance to "revitalize", which he did, returning with #46 to the position of co-editor. Moore, Dash and Ian Simmons (and others) variously edited the magazine for the next 18+ years, and although main editorship passed from Rickard and Sieveking to David Sutton in 2002, they both continue to contribute — Sieveking continues as before, editing and writing most of the Strange Days news section and editing the letters pages, and acting as the main quality-control proof-reader, as well as producing the occasional feature (while Sieveking's wife edits the "Reviews" section).
During the 30 years of its publication, Fortean Times has changed both format and publishers on a couple of occasions. Early issues (particularly of The News) were produced in black & white (for ease of photocopying), and the whole was largely produced by typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
until #29. Colour, professional printing (and wider distribution) followed and a 6.5 x 4.5in size held sway for several years before the magazine settled into its "normal" A4 (magazine) size in the 1980s, after which glossy covers followed. Several changes of logo and font have occurred throughout its life.
General content
The identification of correct original sources by contributors is a defining feature of the magazine, as it was for Charles Fort himself. However, the "objective reality" of these reports is not as important. The magazine "maintains a position of benevolent scepticism towards both the orthodox and the unorthodox" and "toes no party lineToe the line
"Toe the line" is an idiomatic expression meaning to conform to a rule or a standard.The expression has disputed origins. It is commonly thought that its origins lie in the British House of Commons where sword-strapped members were instructed to stand behind lines that were two sword-lengths apart...
".
The range of subject matter is extremely broad, including but not limited to the following:
- General Forteana
- Anomalous phenomena
- Apparitions
- Bizarre deaths
- Conspiracy theoriesConspiracy theoryA conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...
- Crop circleCrop circleA crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rapeseed. Crop circles are also referred to as crop formations, because they are not always circular in shape. While the exact date crop circles began to appear is unknown, the documented...
s - CryptozoologyCryptozoologyCryptozoology refers to the search for animals whose existence has not been proven...
- CultCult (religious practice)In traditional usage, the cult of a religion, quite apart from its sacred writings , its theology or myths, or the personal faith of its believers, is the totality of external religious practice and observance, the neglect of which is the definition of impiety. Cult in this primary sense is...
s and would-be MessiahMessiahA messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
s and prophetProphetIn religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
s. - Fringe scienceFringe scienceFringe science is scientific inquiry in an established field of study that departs significantly from mainstream or orthodox theories, and is classified in the "fringes" of a credible mainstream academic discipline....
- HoaxHoaxA hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
es - MillennialismMillennialismMillennialism , or chiliasm in Greek, is a belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state...
, eschatologyEschatologyEschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
, and cases of mass hysteria. - MutantMutantIn biology and especially genetics, a mutant is an individual, organism, or new genetic character, arising or resulting from an instance of mutation, which is a base-pair sequence change within the DNA of a gene or chromosome of an organism resulting in the creation of a new character or trait not...
s (human and animal) - ParapsychologyParapsychologyThe term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
- Religious phenomena (stigmataStigmataStigmata are bodily marks, sores, or sensations of pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus, such as the hands and feet...
, appearances and simulacra and miracles, etc.) - Natural simulacraSimulacrumSimulacrum , from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity", was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god...
- UFOsUnidentified flying objectA term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...
- Urban legendUrban legendAn urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
s
Fortean Times also frequently covers the Ig Nobel Prize
Ig Nobel Prize
The Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. The stated aim of the prizes is to "first make people laugh, and then make them think"...
s, as well as unusual aspects of mainstream science and research.
Current content
The magazine's current regular contents include:- Three or four feature articles
- Strange Days, a wide-ranging overview of odd and interesting stories mostly culled from the world's newspapers. Some feature in particular sections, including:
- Science
- ArchaeologyArchaeologyArchaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
(usually by Paul Sieveking and Paul Devereux) - Ghosts, in a column titled Ghostwatch
- Alien Zoo, Dr. Karl ShukerKarl ShukerKarl P. N. Shuker is a British zoologist, cryptozoologist, and author living in the West Midlands, England. He works as a full-time freelance zoological consultant, media consultant, and noted author specializing in cryptozoology.- Career :...
's regular discussion of cryptozoologicalCryptozoologyCryptozoology refers to the search for animals whose existence has not been proven...
matters - Necrolog, obituaries of Fortean-relevant individuals
- Strange deaths, a long-running round-up of the odd manners in which some people meet their ends
- The UFO Files: "Flying Saucery", is Andy J. Roberts and Dr. David ClarkeDavid Clarke-Entertainment:* David Clarke , motion picture and Broadway actor* Dave Clarke * Dave Clarke , techno DJ from England-Sport:* David Clarke , English footballer...
's "regular survey of the latest fads and flaps from the world of ufologyUfologyUfology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects . UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years by governments, independent groups, and scientists...
"; "UFOcal Points" is Jenny RandlesJenny RandlesJenny Randles is a British author and former director of investigations with the British UFO Research Association , serving in that role from 1982 through to 1994.-Career:Randles specializes in writing books on UFOs and paranormal phenomena...
' "round-up of sightings and hot-spots from around the world"
- Clippings for most of Strange Days' stories are requested from, and supplied by, the readers of FT
- Mythconceptions, which debunksDebunkerA debunker is an individual who attempts to discredit and contradict claims as being false, exaggerated or pretentious. The term is closely associated with skeptical investigation of, or in some cases irrational resistance to, controversial topics such as U.F.O.s, claimed paranormal phenomena,...
modern myths, old wives' taleOld wives' taleAn old wives' tale is a type of urban legend, similar to a proverb, which is generally passed down by old wives to a younger generation. Such "tales" usually consist of superstition, folklore or unverified claims with exaggerated and/or untrue details. Today old wives' tales are still common among...
s, etc. (in a similar manner to, for example, Snopes.com) - Classical Corner, in which Barry Baldwin reviews Fortean events from ancient times
- Fortean Bureau of Investigation, which typically revisits and reassesses older Fortean cases
- Forum, featuring three or four shorter articles on diverse topics
- Reviews of Fortean, science fiction/fantasy and related books, films and computer games
- A letters page, incorporating:
- SimulacraSimulacrumSimulacrum , from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity", was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god...
Corner, photographs submitted by readers of (typically) naturally occurring objects which appear to be in the shape of something else - "it happened to me...", readers stories of strange personal occurrences
- Simulacra
- Fortean Traveller, a guide to various sites of interest to the travelling Fortean
- Phenomenomix, a comic stripComic stripA comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
by Hunt Emerson
- Mythconceptions, which debunks
Praise and criticism
Most of the articles in Fortean Times are written in the style of objective journalismObjectivity (journalism)
Parent article: Journalism ethics and standardsObjectivity is a significant principle of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity can refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these qualities.- Definitions :In the context...
, but this is not a mandatory requirement and some articles focus on a specific theory or point of view. Although such articles are presented as the opinion of the author and not the editors (who claim to have no opinions), this has occasionally led to controversy. One of the most famous examples occurred in January 1997, when the magazine ran an article by David Percy under the headline "FAKE! Did NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
hoax the moon landing
Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations
Different Moon landing conspiracy theories claim that some or all elements of the Apollo program and the associated Moon landings were hoaxes staged by NASA and members of other organizations. Various groups and individuals have made such conspiracy claims since the end of the Apollo program in 1975...
photos?". The article outraged many readers and led to the magazine's "most vigorous postbag" up to that time. If the Percy article upset the "skeptics" among FTs readership, it was the turn of the "believers" in August 2000, when the magazine's cover boasted what must have seemed to them at first sight a very promising headline: "UFO? The shocking truth about the first flying saucers". However, the article in question, by James Easton, proposed an extremely mundane explanation for Kenneth Arnold
Kenneth Arnold
Kenneth A. Arnold was an American aviator and businessman. He is best-known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported unidentified flying object sighting in the United States, after claiming to have seen nine unusual objects flying in a chain near Mount Rainier, Washington...
's sighting
Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting
The Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting was an incident on June 24, 1947, where private pilot Kenneth Arnold spotted a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at then unheard of supersonic speeds that Arnold clocked at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour...
— American White Pelican
American White Pelican
The American White Pelican is a large aquatic bird from the order Pelecaniformes. It breeds in interior North America, moving south and to the coasts, as far as Central America, in winter....
s. This suggestion so outraged ufologists that many of them still use the term "pelican" or "pelicanist" as a pejorative term for a debunker
Debunker
A debunker is an individual who attempts to discredit and contradict claims as being false, exaggerated or pretentious. The term is closely associated with skeptical investigation of, or in some cases irrational resistance to, controversial topics such as U.F.O.s, claimed paranormal phenomena,...
.
Praise from within the various Fortean communities almost goes without saying, and most Fortean researchers contribute articles, criticism and/or letters to the magazine. It has also attracted more widespread coverage and praise at times, however. Fortean Times #69 claims that "extracts from FT have featured in at least three publications used for teaching English as a foreign language," perhaps in part because (as the editors also quote) Lynn Barber of The Independent on Sunday newspaper calls FT "a model of elegant English."
Related projects
The magazine has organised an "UnConvention" (or UnCon), most years since 1994 (the "missing" years being 2001, 2005 and 2009), at various venues in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(the University of London Union
University of London Union
The University of London Union is the university-wide students' union for the University of London...
, the Institute of Education
Institute of Education
The Institute of Education is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom specialised in postgraduate study and research in the field of education and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It is the largest education research body in the United Kingdom, with...
, the Commonwealth Institute
Commonwealth Institute
The Commonwealth Institute was an educational charity connected with the Commonwealth of Nations, and the name of a building in West London formerly owned by the Institute...
and, in recent years, the London Friends Meeting House). Many "hot topics" of the day have been discussed, such as the Ray Santilli "alien autopsy"
Alien autopsy
An alien autopsy refers to a medical examination and dissection of the dead body of an extraterrestrial being. Such a procedure would more accurately be called an "alien necropsy", since an "autopsy" is, by definition, performed on a subject who is the same species as the examiner...
film at the 1996 UnCon, and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales
Death of Diana, Princess of Wales
On 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, France. Her companion, Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the Mercedes-Benz W140, Henri Paul, were pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Fayed's...
at the 1998 event. On other occasions the organisers are well ahead of the trend, as was the case in 1998 when Lynn Picknett
Lynn Picknett
Lynn Picknett is a writer, researcher, and lecturer on the paranormal, the occult, and historical and religious mysteries.-Life:Born in Folkestone, Kent, England in April 1947, Picknett grew up in a haunted house in York, attending Park Grove Junior School and Queen Anne Grammar School...
and Clive Prince discussed Templar
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...
conspiracies and hidden symbolism in the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
years before these were turned into mass media subjects by The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective novel written by Dan Brown. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu as they investigate a murder in Paris's Louvre Museum and discover a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus having been married to...
. Besides the formal lecture programme, UnCon normally features exhibits by organisations such as the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena
Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena
The Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena is a United Kingdom-based education and research charity, and professional body whose mission is to scientifically investigate alleged paranormal and anomalous phenomena....
and the Centre for Fortean Zoology
Centre for Fortean Zoology
Centre for Fortean Zoology is an organisation dedicated to cryptozoology, and allied disciplines. It is a non-profit organisation registered with the British Government, and its Hon. Life President is the British explorer John Blashford-Snell....
. The event often ends with a panel discussion, as was notoriously the case in 2002 when the subject was "Is Ufology Dead?". This was widely reported in the British media as an "official" statement by Fortean Times that " Ufology is Dead".
Fortean Studies, the magazines more-academic sister-publication published yearly volumes in the late 1990s, and is still nominally ongoing, although when future volumes might see print is unknown. Publication stalled after the sale of FT in 2000.
Its website tracks Fortean news stories, holds a small archive of articles and photographs, and supports a busy internet forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
for discussion of Fortean topics.
The magazine has also occasionally published both academic and lighthearted books on various aspects of Forteana.
Collections and spin-off books
Many of the earliest issues of FT were collected in book format in the early 1990s. In recent years, the print volumes have been overtaken by digital files, available on CD. In addition, several smaller collections have been compiled on various themes and sold, or given away as 'free gifts' with the magazine. A more academic journal, Fortean Studies, has also been printed and is an ongoing venture.Fortean Tomes
Starting in the very early 1990s, Fortean Times produced a number of facsimile editions collecting the earliest issues of the magazine, in their entirety, including advertisements. These collections, prepared and edited for print by Paul Sieveking (including hand-corrections to early typographic errors) are now out-of-print. It further appears that although demand was such to warrant reprints of several volumes, after collecting up to #77 it was decided that the previous volumes had not sold well enough to continue completely up to date. (Concern over the likely cost of reprinting issues in the new full colour format led to a publishing decision to stockpile 500 unbound run-on copies of each number to provide the basis of future reprint editions, and this project resulted in one further collection — "Snakes Alive!", collecting #93–97 — but the in-between issues #78–92 have not yet been collected in trade format.)(The early collections, like the earliest magazines, were published in smaller, 6.5 x 4.5in format)
- Yesterday's News Tomorrow: Fortean Times Issues 1–15 (John Brown PublishingJohn Brown PublishingJohn Brown, previously called John Brown Publishing, is one of the world’s largest customer communication agencies. While originally formed as a magazine company it now offers a broad range of services under a single umbrella - these include divisions for catalogues, digital, customer magazines,...
, 1992 2nd ed. 1995) ISBN 1-870870-26-3 - Diary of a Mad Planet: Fortean Times Issues 16–25 (John Brown Publishing LtdJohn Brown PublishingJohn Brown, previously called John Brown Publishing, is one of the world’s largest customer communication agencies. While originally formed as a magazine company it now offers a broad range of services under a single umbrella - these include divisions for catalogues, digital, customer magazines,...
, 2nd ed. 1995) ISBN 1-870021-25-8 - Seeing Out the Seventies: Fortean Times Issues 26–30 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1990) ISBN 1-870021-20-7
- Gateways to Mystery: Fortean Times Issues 31–36 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1993) ISBN 1-870870-37-9
- Heaven's Reprimands: Fortean Times Issues 37–41 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1994) ISBN 1-870870-52-2
- If Pigs Could Fly: Fortean Times Issues 42–46 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1994) ISBN 1-870870-47-6
- Fishy Yarns: Fortean Times Issues 47–51 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1994) ISBN 1-870870-48-4
- Bonfire of the Oddities: Fortean Times Issues 52–56 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1995) ISBN 1-870870-61-1
- Strange Attractors: Fortean Times Issues 57–62 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1996) ISBN 1-870870-73-5
(The later collections were of a larger — A4 — size)
- Plumber from Lhasa: Fortean Times Issues 63–67 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1996) ISBN 1-870870-79-4
- Memories of Hell: Fortean Times Issues 68–72 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1997) ISBN 1-870870-90-5
- Mouthful of Mysteries: Fortean Times Issues 73–77 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1998) ISBN 1-870870-66-2
- Snakes Alive!: Fortean Times Issues 93–97 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1998) ISBN 1-902212-04-5
- "Fortean Times" Index by Steve MooreSteve Moore (comics)Steve Moore is a British comics writer.Moore is credited with showing acclaimed writer Alan Moore , then a struggling cartoonist, how to write comic scripts...
(John Brown Publishing Ltd, Oct 1997) ISBN 1-870870-68-9
- "Fortean Times" Index by Steve Moore
CDs
In the mid 2000s, FT began to release a series of digital archives. Beginning with more recent issues (presumably for reasons of ease — more recent issues would be more readily available as digital files), they have also begun to re-release the earliest issues — it appears that the digital archive CD format has taken over from print collections.- Issues 1–15 CD (The complete The News)
- Issues 16–25 CD
- Issues 26–30 CD
- Issues 1–30 3CD boxset
- 2001 CD Archive (Issues 142–153)
- 2002 CD Archive (Issues 154–165)
- 2003 CD Archive (Issues 166–178)
- 2004 CD Archive (Issues 179–191)
- 2005 CD Archive (Issues 192–204)
- 2006 CD Archive (Issues 205–217)
- 2002–2005 4CD Archive
Fortean Studies
A sister-publication Fortean Studies began in the mid-1990s and was edited by Steve MooreSteve Moore (comics)
Steve Moore is a British comics writer.Moore is credited with showing acclaimed writer Alan Moore , then a struggling cartoonist, how to write comic scripts...
. In the words of frequent-contributor Neil Nixon, it "compiled serious research and opinion on a range of paranormal and conspiracy related issues," as was a more academic counterpart to FT.
- Rickard, Bob (producer) & Moore, Steve (ed.) Fortean Studies: Volume 1 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1994) ISBN 1-870870-55-7
- Rickard, Bob (producer) & Moore, Steve (ed.) Fortean Studies: Volume 2 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1995) ISBN 1-870870-70-0
- Rickard, Bob (producer) & Moore, Steve (ed.) Fortean Studies: Volume 3 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1996) ISBN 1-870870-82-4
- Rickard, Bob (producer) & Moore, Steve (ed.) Fortean Studies: Volume 4 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1998) ISBN 1-870870-96-4
- Rickard, Bob (producer) & Moore, Steve (ed.) Fortean Studies: Volume 5 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1998) ISBN 1-902212-14-2
- Rickard, Bob (producer) & Moore, Steve (ed.) Fortean Studies: Volume 6 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 1999) ISBN 1-902212-20-7
- Simmons, Ian & Quin, Melanie (eds.) Fortean Studies: Volume 7 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 2001) ISBN 1-902212-36-3
Other titles
- Wild Man: China's Yeti by Yuan Zhenxin and Huang Wanpo with Fan Jingquan and Zhou Xinyan, edited and introduced by Steve Moore. Fortean Times Occasional Paper no.1, 1981. No ISBN or ISSN assigned
- Toad in the Hole: Source Material on the Entombed Toad Phenomenon selected and annotated by Bob Skinner. Fortean Times Occasional Paper no.2, 1986. ISSN 0260-5856
- The Halifax Slasher: An Urban Terror in the North of England by Michael Goss. Fortean Times Occasional Paper no.3, 1987. ISSN 0260-5856
- The World's Most Incredible Stories: The Best of Fortean Times by Adam Sisman and Hunt EmersonHunt EmersonHunt Emerson is a cartoonist living and working in Birmingham, England. He was closely involved with the Birmingham Arts Lab of the mid-to-late 1970s, and with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s...
(May 1992) - Fortean Times 1993 Diary by Paul SievekingPaul SievekingPaul R.A. De Giberne Sieveking is a British journalist and former magazine editor.Until 2002, Sieveking was co-editor of the magazine The Fortean Times with its founder Bob Rickard. He joined the UK-based "Journal of the Unexplained" in 1978...
(Dec 1992)
- "Fortean Times" Book of Strange Deaths compiled by Steve MooreSteve Moore (comics)Steve Moore is a British comics writer.Moore is credited with showing acclaimed writer Alan Moore , then a struggling cartoonist, how to write comic scripts...
, illustrated by Etienne (John Brown Publishing Ltd 1994) ISBN 1-870870-50-6- US edition: The Comedian Who Choked to Death on a Pie—and the Man Who Quit Smoking at 116: A Collection of Incredible Lives and Unbelievable Deaths (Nov 1996)
- "Fortean Times" Book of Weird Sex (Sep 1995)
- "Fortean Times" Book of Life's Losers by Ian Simmons, illustrated by Geoff Coupland (Oct 1996)
- "Fortean Times" Book of Inept Crime compiled by Steve MooreSteve Moore (comics)Steve Moore is a British comics writer.Moore is credited with showing acclaimed writer Alan Moore , then a struggling cartoonist, how to write comic scripts...
, illustrated by Geoff Coupland (Oct 1996)- US edition: The World's Stupidest Criminals (Jun 1998)
- "Fortean Times" Book of Exploding Pigs and Other Strange Animal Stories by Ian Simmons (Oct 1997)
- "Fortean Times" Book of Bizarre Behaviour by Ian Simmons (Oct 1998)
- "Fortean Times" Book of More Strange Deaths by Paul SievekingPaul SievekingPaul R.A. De Giberne Sieveking is a British journalist and former magazine editor.Until 2002, Sieveking was co-editor of the magazine The Fortean Times with its founder Bob Rickard. He joined the UK-based "Journal of the Unexplained" in 1978...
(Oct 1998) - "Fortean Times" Book of Unconventional Wisdom (1999)
- "Fortean Times" Book of Close Shaves by Steve MooreSteve Moore (comics)Steve Moore is a British comics writer.Moore is credited with showing acclaimed writer Alan Moore , then a struggling cartoonist, how to write comic scripts...
(John Brown Publishing Ltd Oct 1999) ISBN 1-902212-18-5 - "Fortean Times" Book of Medical Mayhem by Paul SievekingPaul SievekingPaul R.A. De Giberne Sieveking is a British journalist and former magazine editor.Until 2002, Sieveking was co-editor of the magazine The Fortean Times with its founder Bob Rickard. He joined the UK-based "Journal of the Unexplained" in 1978...
and Ian Simmons (Oct 1999)
- "Fortean Times" Book of the Millennium by Kevin McClure (Sep 1996)
- "Fortean Times" Presents UFO: 1947–1997 — 50 Years of Flying Saucers by Dennis Stacy and Hilary EvansHilary EvansHilary Agard Evans was a British pictorial archivist, author, and researcher into UFOs and other paranormal phenomena.Evans was born in Shrewsbury, United Kingdom. and educated at St George’s School at Harpenden. After National Service in Palestine he went up to King’s College, Cambridge, to read...
(May 1997) - Aliens Ate My Trousers: Crazy Comics from the Pages of "Fortean Times" by Hunt EmersonHunt EmersonHunt Emerson is a cartoonist living and working in Birmingham, England. He was closely involved with the Birmingham Arts Lab of the mid-to-late 1970s, and with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s...
(Mar 1998)
- Weird Year 1996: The Best of Strange Days by James WallisJames Wallis (games designer)James Wallis is a designer and publisher of tabletop and role-playing games. In 1994 he founded Hogshead Publishing, a now-defunct company specialising in role-playing and storytelling games, and ran it until its sale in 2003...
and Joe McNally (Nov 1995) - Weird World 1999 by Mark PilkingtonMark Pilkington (writer)Mark Pilkington is a writer, publisher, curator and musician with particular interest in the fringes of knowledge, culture and belief....
and Joe McNally (Nov 1998)
-
- (Barmy Sutra by David Sutton — planned for 2001; unpublished)