The Book of the Damned

Charles Hoy Fort (1874-1932) was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Jerome Clark writes that Fort was "Essentially a satirist hugely skeptical of human beings' -- especially scientists' claims to ultimate knowledge." Clark describes Fort's writing style as a "distinctive blend of mocking humor, penetrating insight, and calculated outrageousness." Writer Colin Wilson describes Fort as "a kind of patron saint of cranks" and also argues that running through Fort's work is "the feeling that no matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Today, the term Fortean or Forteana is used to describe various anomalous phenomena.