Charles Fort: Research

From teleportation to spontaneous human combustion, poltergeists and UFOs—Fort's expansive and erratic research forms the basis of modern paranormal studiesCharles Fort (1874–1932) was a true iconoclast who embodied the idea of the "cult writer" in every sense of the term with his wildly entertaining prose and confounding research into the unknown. His early admirers formed the Fortean Society during his lifetime, in 1931, to elevate his work. Since that time, Fort's name has been synonymous with the strange, in large part due to the Fortean Times, published since 1973. While Fort has received sustained attention over the years, Research is the first book to delve into his methodology and source material for his investigations into paranormal phenomena. In addition to Fort's famously small notes that are extensively reproduced here for the first time, the book includes Fort's remarkable letters soliciting information on a wide variety of inexplicable phenomena that appeared in newspapers worldwide, as well as the responses he received. From frogs falling from the sky to sea monsters who inhabit our oceans, it is all here in his inimitable style, along with an appreciation by acclaimed experimental filmmaker and self-proclaimed Fortean Peggy Ahwesh.