Charles Hoy Fort was an influential American author who specialized in writing about anomalous, occult, and paranormal phenomena. His writings continue to inspire a following of people who are described as Forteans. Among his famous followers were lawyer Clarence Darrow and Pulitzer prize winning novelist Booth Tarkington. The adjective "Fortean" (definition: relating to or denoting paranormal phenomena) and the publication Fortean Times which investigates anomalous, occult, and paranormal phenomena, are named after Charles H. Fort.
Fort's most influential work was the The Book of the Damned published in 1919. The ideas presented within the book has had an enormous influenced on numerous science fiction writers. Fort is credited with coining the term "teleportation." Fort reported on topics including: unidentified flying objects, spontaneous human combustion, ghost, strange objects, and human disappearance. He was the first writer to suggest alien abduction by extraterrestrials and the first to suggest that unexplained lights seen in sky might be alien spacecraft.
Books by Charles Hoy Fort:
Many Parts, an autobiography (1901)
The Outcast Manufacturers, a novel (1909)
The Book of the Damned (1919)
New Lands (1923)
Lo! (1931)
Wild Talents (1932)
Posthumous works:
The Books of Charles Fort (1941)
Complete Books of Charles Fort (1998)
The Book of the Damned: The Collected Works of Charles Fort (2008)