Fortean Links to Cryptozoology
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 19th, 2009
Charles Fort is best known for his four books on unexplained phenomena. (Fort died 77 years ago this coming May 3rd, but his legacy lives on.) His first book was entitled The Book of the Damned, and by the “damned,” Fort meant all that was excluded by Science. One subject that caught his interest was reports of large animals that the scientists of history and his day said could not exist. In Lo!, Fort discussed Sea Serpents, but only in passing, for he wrote: “But I am avoiding stories of traditional serpentine monsters of the sea. One reason is that collections of these stories are easily available.”
Fort turned his attention to examinations of more unique creatures, such as the Jersey Devil (a naturalistic but demonic beast reported from 19th century New Jersey). Fort examined sightings of large winged creatures in Chile and great antlered animals seen in New Zealand. Fort dealt with Lake Monsters in Argentina and South Africa. He was indeed Ivan T. Sanderson’s, and mine, and many later cryptozoologists’ inspiration because of his intriguing framing of the whole problem and his complete data collection, with a serious but light hand.
After discussing accounts of a thirty-foot animal off Australia, Fort wrote, in his unique challenging and humorous style: “I don’t know what will be thought of zoologists of Melbourne, but whatever will be thought of me, can’t be altogether focussed upon me, because there were scientists in Melbourne who were as enlightened as I am, or as preposterous and sensational as I am. Officials of the Melbourne Zoological Gardens thought that, whether this story was nonsense or not, it should be looked into.”
Charles Fort detailed the “blonde beast of Patagonia,” which was “supposed to be a huge ground sloth,” an unknown animal that seekers from Bernard Heuvelmans to Ivan T. Sanderson, from naturalist David Oren to artists Alexis Rockman, Mark Dion, and Bob Braine would chronicle in print and paintings.
Fort was happy to understand that he did not realize the number of unknown animals out there. Or as he put it in the midst of his discussion of such early cryptozoology: “So, like everybody else, I don’t know what to think, but, rather uncommonly, I know that.”
And we must not forget this classic quotation of his: “When we come upon assurances that a mystery has been solved, we go on investigating.”
If Sanderson and Heuvelmans are the fathers of cryptozoology, then surely Fort must be the midwife.
The above is a sample of commentary to be found in the book, Cryptozoology: Out of Time Space Place, 2006, published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name that opened June 24, 2006, at Bates College.
Thank You.
- Similar Phenomena:
I agree, Loren, that Fort was a seminal influence in what has become cryptozoology. His insistence and willingness to look into things that the scientific establishment didn’t accept was a beginning.
Yay! I was hoping we’d get to Fort! I have little knowledge on his works, but judging what I HAVE read about him his is one of the many visionaries as yet unrecognized by the conservative dogmatic mainstream of science.
In the history of ideas, I don’t know if Fort was a good guy or bad. Was he a visionary or simply deluded? Was he an anti-authoritarian, or an obscurantist? Did he offer a real critique of science, or was he just another anti-intellectual?
Did he liberate us, or shackle us to the irrational?
Charles Fort is my Great-great-great-uncle. His autographed works have been passed down and have recently landed with me. I love reading about him and have always been fascinated by “the unknown”, esp. in terms of Cryptozoology / biology. I have a BS in marine biology and am always searching for “unknown-animals” as my famous relative once did. It’s great to see him getting some press here, Thanks Loren!