Charles Fort (1874-1932)

The 20th century's greatest chronicler of bizarre phenomena. In four books written between 1919 and 1932, Fort wrote of events that occur so infrequently, science has damned them by writing them off, slandering their observers or ignoring them. Fort's books now languish in obscurity, but whenever the media report on uncanny events, from UFOs to mysterious cattle mutilations, you can be sure he was there first.

At age 42, Fort came into an inheritance that allowed him to drop unrewarding work as a journalist and do what he wanted -- sit in the New York Public Library reading newspapers and scientific journals. Whenever Fort spotted something unusual and inexplicable by conventional means, he made a note of it and filed it away. When he had enough notes, Fort wrote books: The Book of the Damned, New Lands, Lo! and Wild Talents.

Fort's writing is definitely an acquired taste. He was searching for patterns, repeating occurrences of things that science teaches are impossible. As he goes along trying to convince the reader that, impossible or not, dozens of sober observers have seen fish fall from the sky, it often appears Fort is trying to drown the reader in data. But Fort's commentary is laced with venomous good humor, and his often outrageous explanations make acquiring the taste richly rewarding work.

Two themes pervade Fort's writing. First, that we live in a prankster universe governed by laws we can't begin to guess. After reading of at least 300 instances of animals raining from the sky, one may be inclined to agree. Second, our secular priesthood of scientists isn't much closer to the Truth than the religious one they're supplanting. Unless a new phenomenon slaps science in the face with its obviousness, it will never make the holy writ of the textbooks. Until the mid-1800s orthodox science held that meteors didn't exist. If a stone was seen to fall from the sky, its observer was mistaken. The astronomers reasoned: there are no stones in the sky. Therefore stones do not fall from the sky.