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Fortean Times
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fortean Times | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Editor | David Sutton |
| Categories | Paranormal |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| First Issue | November 1973 |
| Company | Dennis Publishing Ltd |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Website | Official home page |
| ISSN | 0308-5899 |
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 August 2005, its circulation was approximately 27,000 copies per month.
Contents |
The magazine was founded and self-published by Bob Rickard as The News in 1973 in order to continue Charles Fort's work, renaming it Fortean Times in 1976. An early contributor was writer and researcher Nigel Watson, who wrote a regular column titled Enigma Variations for several editions. He has since contributed major articles on the subject of UFO-related murders and stories of sexual assault by aliens. In 1978, Paul Sieveking joined as editorial assistant, and eventually became co-editor. Several noted authors and researchers have been members of its staff, such as writer Mike Dash. The editorship passed to David Sutton in 2002, but both Rickard and Sieveking continue to work on the magazine. Sieveking edits the letters page as well as some specialist topics.
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 but not limited to the following:
- Anomalous phenomena
- Apparitions
- Conspiracy theories
- Crop circles
- Cryptozoology
- Cults
- Fringe science
- Hoaxes
- Parapsychology
- UFOs
- Urban legends
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. One of the most famous examples occurred in January 1997, when the magazine ran an article by David Percy under the screaming 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 FT's 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 Pelicans. This suggestion so outraged ufolgists that many of them still use the term "pelican" or "pelicanist" as a pejorative term for a debunker.[1]
The magazine's current regular contents includes:
- Strange Days - news pages consisting of material culled from newspapers and other sources from around the world (including sections on archaeology, medicine and cryptozoology). Clippings are requested from readers.
- Three or four feature articles
- Shorter articles (Forum, "Fortean Bureau of Investigation" and Fortean Traveller)
- Book, film and computer game reviews
- A letters page (including "it happened to me..." - readers stories of strange occurrences)
- Phenomenomix, a comic strip by Hunt Emerson.
- Simulacra Corner, photographs of the unusual submitted by readers.
- A humorous rant by The Hierophant
- Classical Corner, which reviews Fortean events from ancient times.
- Mythconceptions, which debunks modern myths.
In most years, the magazine has held an annual convention in London called the Fortean Times UnConvention (UnCon). Its official website tracks Fortean news stories, holds a small archive of articles and photographs, and supports a busy message-board for discussion of Fortean topics. The magazine also occasionally published both academic and light-hearted books on various aspects of Forteana.