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Charles Hoy Fort, born in
Albany, New York, in 1874, and who died in Bronx, N.Y., in 1932, has
been called by admirers "one of the truly original minds of this
century".
Fort was an obscure journalist who lived in near-poverty for much of his
life. He devoted his life to collecting data on unexplained
phenomena, also known as anomalies An anomaly is anything that does not
fit into the known realms of science. For this reason, Fort called
his data "damned" because the established scientific community had a
tendency to ignore or explain away anything that didn't fit into their
narrow-minded view. Fort collected his information from scientific
periodicals and newspapers from the year 1800 and afterwards. He
virtually lived in libraries in the US and in London, England. His
collection of strange phenomena appeared in four books, The Book of
the Damned Lo, New Lands, and Wild Talents.
Fort's books are written
in a humorous, tongue-in-cheek vein that some readers may not be
sophisticated enough to appreciate. Imagine if Mark Twain had turned his
writing talents to such phenomena as unusual lights in the sky, unknown
creatures, and bizarre falls from the sky. Fort was like Twain in his
outlook which was sarcastic, witty, and critical of the establishment.
However, what separated Fort from his contemporaries who criticized
politicians or religion was that Fort criticized modern science. In his
view, science was a false religion trying to replace Christianity with
its own views. Fort felt that individuals like Charles Darwin,
Sigmund Freud, or Albert Einstein was capable of being mistaken and
should not be worshipped by the scientific community as all knowing
experts. Fort pointed out hundreds of mistakes that modern
scientists had made. For this Fort was ignored or dismissed as being a
"crank" or anti-science but now Fort is better appreciated as being
someone who correctly saw that modern science is not infallible and that
one should not ignore something just because it doesn't fit in any
pre-conceived notion.
Since this is a UFO newsletter, I will point out Fort's contribution to
ufology. He lived in an era before "UFO's" or "flying saucers" was
known by those names. In his day unknown lights were called
"phantom airships". In 1896 and 1897, there were several such
sightings in the American Midwest especially Ohio. Fort was one of
the first to speculate that our planet was being visited by travelers
from somewhere else. For this reason, Fort is considered a pioneer
Ufologist though he died before the 1947 modern era of UFO's began with
the Kenneth Arnold sightings.
Today, there are several magazines devoted to studying strange
phenomena. These magazines are called "fortean" in honor of Fort.
He has had an enormous influence also in science fiction. Many
writers read his books and decided to turn his speculation into science
fiction stories. One of Fort's theories was that Earth may belong
to some superior intelligence. He said, "We are property." The
idea that Earth is a kind of zoo owned by aliens has been the subject of
much science fiction stories and films. Ironically, Fort is a hero
to both the Biblical Creationists who are conservative and the New Agers
who are liberal. Fort was skeptical of the atheistic concept of
human evolution. The idea that man is an accident of evolution
seemed absurd to him. Fort speculated that man was created by a
superior intelligence and did not evolve. Fort himself was an
agnostic but in his criticism of science, he echoes the thoughts of
millions of Christians who were fed up with the established dogma of
science which states man is an accident of evolution living in a
meaningless universe. Fort felt there was a purpose to the universe but
that science was too narrow minded to see it.
Today, with science studying the "new physics" that allows for the
possibility of other dimensions and parallel universes, Fort's theories
no longer seem so extraordinary. He was also one of the first
science writers to speculate that the Earth be viewed as one living
organism. Now there is the "Gaia" hypothesis first proposed by a
British scientist that echoes Fort's views. So we can see that slowly
but surely some scientists are turning away from the materialistic view
and opening their minds to new concepts. The Complete Books of
Charles Fort is an essential guide to scientific anomalies and a
challenge to the prevailing views of scientists in the modern era. |