APn 04/16 0337 Bizarre Tales Copyright, 1988. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

APn  04/16 0337  Bizarre Tales

Copyright, 1988. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By STEVE KATZ Associated Press Writer LONDON (AP) -- In a world
   fascinated by computers and semiconductors, there's still a place
for the serious consideration of abominable snowmen, frog showers and
reincarnation.  It can be found in a little-known magazine named for
   an American journalist who researched the inexplicable "just to
knock holes in the smug orthodoxy of the scientists of his age," said
Paul Seiveking, a co-editor.  Fortean Times, published in London,
   caters to readers who think there just might be something to the
hollow Earth theory, crying statues and close encounters of any kind.
   The odd, little periodical keeps its subscribers up to date with
the latest on human horns, winged cats, giant squids and, of course,
   UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster.  Fortean Times is "a bulletin about
   what is peculiar in the world," Seiveking says.  Its name and
   philosophy come from Charles Fort, an iconoclastic American
journalist who died in 1932. He spent his later years at the British
Museum Library in London and the New York Public Library, researching
   the inexplicable.  Being a Fortean means believing "there's a
   continuum between subjective and objective experience, between
dream and hard fact," Seiveking said.  More importantly, however, it
   means "conditional acceptance" of things that "orthodox explanation
can't account for" -- at least until further evidence comes along.  
   Seiveking and co-editor Bob Rickard, who founded Fortean Times 15
years ago, put the magazine together at home in their spare time, and
try their best to publish it quarterly.  Their material comes from a
   dedicated Fortean cadre of about 60 correspondents, mostly unpaid,
who scour the world's newspapers and other media for weird and
wonderful tales to fill the magazine's 80 or so pages.  Every month,
   the editors meet to classify the material their correspondents have
gathered into about 35 main categories, "like phantom smells, strange
   sounds, lights, stuff falling from the sky," Seiveking said.  
   "There's a lot of laughter in what we do," he admitted during a
   break from his regular job as an editor for a London reference book
   publisher.  But he said the job also has a serious side.  "We're
   trying to broaden people's horizons. We see ourselves as 
chroniclers, as sort of scientists as well as being entertainers." A
   recent issue featured purportedly new photographs of the Yeti, the
mysterious abominable snowman of the Himalayas, as well as items about
giant whirlpools in the seas off Norway and fireballs in Jerusalem,
   and a "reincarnation round-up." Finding a Fortean Times subscriber
   may be only a little easier than tracking down the Yeti. Just 2,500
of them are scattered in 36 countries, including 500 in the United
States. At $3 a copy, the magazine just about breaks even.  Regular
   readers, said Seiveking, include "little old ladies who are 
spiritualists, people in the United Nations, professors, science
fiction writers, journalists in obscure little countries who like to
   keep up with this kind of thing." They're a small, but faithful
   band who don't let a few facts get in the way of a good time.  
   "While the real nature of the `Cottingly Fairy' photographs is now
apparent," one Australian reader recently wrote in a letter to the
editor, "surely the Fortean reaction will be that they are only
relative fakes. For, in the spectrum of bogus-genuine, there must
somewhere (in this or another world) exist photographs of real
fairies." Not quite believing while not quite disbelieving always
   gives Forteans an out. It allowed the author of a recent piece on
the luminous magnetic cloud supposedly encountered by a British
steamship in 1904 to conclude: "Although I remain disturbed by the
suspicious aspects of the story, I am slightly inclined to think that
the story is true." As long as there are mysterious lights in the sky
   and things that go bump in the night, Seiveking and Rickard hope to
keep publishing their "journal of strange phenomena."