David Sutton

History

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 Fort through the secondhand method of reading science-fiction stories: "John Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction (as Analog 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 at Birmingham Art College, he met several like-minded science-fiction fans, particularly crediting fellow student Peter Weston's fan-produced Speculation magazine 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 advertisement in the underground magazine Oz (in 1969) for the International Fortean Organization (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 came to 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 Fort's work documenting the unexplained was founded by Robert J. M. "Bob" Rickard in 1973 as his self-published, bimonthly, 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 had fairly regular bimonthly publication for 15 issues between November 1973 and April 1976. Debuting at 35p (£1.80/$4.50 for a year of six 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-1970s blackouts. The first issue featured a cover (which would become briefly the unofficial logo of The News) drawn by Rickard from a Selfridges advertisement 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 had its page count upped to 24 pages — 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 subeditor 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."

Moore and Paul Screeton (then editor of The Ley Hunter), both urged on the "first few uncertain issues" and Moore frequently joined 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 Colin's Fortean article in Gandalf's Garden was 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 theatre director and playwright; John Michell; graphic designer 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").

Fortean Times (since 1976)

After 15 issues of The News, issue #16 (1976) had 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 Times 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 and 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 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 (40 pg, 75p ea. or £3/year).

Issue #18 received a new semiregular 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. Moore, Sieveking, and he 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.

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 line".

The range of subject matter is extremely broad, including:

General Forteana

Anomalous phenomena

Apparitions

Bizarre deaths

Conspiracy theories

Crop circles

Cryptozoology

Cults and would-be Messiahs and prophets

Fringe science

Hoaxes

Millennialism, eschatology, and cases of mass hysteria

Mutants (human and animal)

Parapsychology

Religious phenomena (stigmata, appearances and simulacra and miracles, etc.)

Natural simulacra

Unidentified flying objects

Urban legends

Fortean Times also frequently covers the Ig Nobel Prizes, 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

Archaeology (usually by Paul Sieveking and Paul Devereux)

Ghosts, in a column titled Ghostwatch (by Alan Murdie)

Alien Zoo, Dr. Karl Shuker's regular discussion of cryptozoological 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

UFO Files/Saucers of the Damned is by Nigel Watson who provides a "regular survey of the latest fads and flaps from the world of ufology"; "UFO Files/UFO Casebook" is Jenny Randles' "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 debunks modern myths, old wives' tales, 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

Praise and criticism

Most of the articles in Fortean Times are written in the style of objective journalism, 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. In January 1997, 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. In August 2000, the magazine's cover headline was "UFO? The shocking truth about the first flying saucers". The article in question, by James Easton, proposed a mundane explanation for Kenneth Arnold's sighting — American white pelicans. This suggestion so outraged ufologists that many of them still use the term "pelican" or "pelicanist" as a pejorative term for a debunker.

Most Fortean researchers contribute articles, criticism, or letters to the magazine. It has also attracted more widespread coverage and praise. Fortean Times #69 claims, "extracts from FT have featured in at least three publications used for teaching English as a foreign language." Lynn Barber of The Independent on Sunday newspaper described writing in FT as "a model of elegant English."

UnConvention

The magazine has organised an "UnConvention" (or UnCon), most years since 1994 (the "missing" years being 2001, 2005, and 2009), at various venues in London (the University of London Union, the Institute of Education, the Commonwealth Institute, and in recent years, Friends 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, which also saw Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince discussing 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 organizations 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 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".

Related projects

Fortean Studies, the magazine's more academic sister publication published yearly volumes in the late 1990s. The seventh and last issue was published in 2001.

Its website tracks Fortean news stories and holds a small archive of articles and photographs. For many years, it also supported a busy internet forum for the discussion of Fortean topics. With the advent of GDPR legislation in 2018, this forum was moved to the website of the Charles Fort Institute.

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. In the late 1990s Polygram Spoken Word released an audio version of several Fortean stories, written and produced by Steve Deakin-Davies and featured Brian Cant and Joanna Bowen amongst its actors, this project was licensed from John Brown Publishing.( (c) 1997 Polygram Record operations ltd, Speaking Volumes no: 5361444)

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. Although demand was such to warrant reprints of several volumes, after collecting up to #77 FT 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 Publishing, 1992 2nd ed. 1995) ISBN 1-870870-26-3

Diary of a Mad Planet: Fortean Times Issues 16–25 (John Brown Publishing Ltd, 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

Fortean Studies

A sister publication, Fortean Studies, began in the mid-1990s and was edited by Steve Moore. In the words of frequent contributor Neil Nixon, it "compiled serious research and opinion on a range of paranormal and conspiracy-related issues", and 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 Emerson (May 1992)

Fortean Times 1993 Diary by Paul Sieveking (December 1992)

"Fortean Times" Book of Strange Deaths compiled by Steve Moore, 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 (November 1996)

"Fortean Times" Book of Weird Sex (September 1995)

"Fortean Times" Book of Life's Losers by Ian Simmons, illustrated by Geoff Coupland (October 1996)

"Fortean Times" Book of Inept Crime compiled by Steve Moore, illustrated by Geoff Coupland (October 1996)

US edition: The World's Stupidest Criminals (June 1998)

"Fortean Times" Book of Exploding Pigs and Other Strange Animal Stories by Ian Simmons (October 1997)