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A One-Guinea Prizewinning Letter By Charles Fort!

escargot

escargot

Disciple of Marduk
Joined
Aug 24, 2001
Messages
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Location
HM The Tower of London
Yesterday at the car booty I found two copies of 'TP's Weekly' which was a radical newspaper founded by TP O'Connor ( radical Irish Nationalist MP) in 1902.

One had a letter from 'Charles Fort, London' entitled 'Explorers from other Worlds?' which described, with references, apparent UFO sightings in 1893 and 1907.

The publication is dated June 6th 1925.

I will scan this and upload it if anyone is interested.

Edit - scans can be seen on P. 4.
 
escargot said:
One had a letter from 'Charles Fort, London' entitled 'Explorers from other Worlds?' which described, with references, apparent UFO sightings in 1893 and 1907.

The publication is dated June 6th 1925.

I will scan this and upload it if anyone is interested.
Click to expand...
:yeay:
 
I love the eclecticism of nineteenth and earlier twentieth century periodicals. UFO sightings in a radical Irish Nationalist newspaper! It's that utter confidence that no subject is beyond their grasp, and with a little patience, a little inspiration, and some good British spirit the answer to anything can be found and then disseminated to the masses for their edification.

Although serious specialism had reigned since early in the nineteenth century, thinkers still had ranging and frequently eccentric interests and would turn from their subject to have a bash at anything that crossed their path.

Prime examples from the Victorian era are Sir Oliver Lodge's (Scientist) interest in Psychical Research, W.Stead's (journalist) in spiritualism, Andrew Lang's (journalist/author) Folk & Fairy-lore.
 
Okey dokey then- off to spend a pleasant evening trying to connect my prehistoric scanner!
 
What a happy find, escargot! I wonder if it has ever been noted
before.

The book Gods must be rewarding you for your recent generous act! :)
 
Originally posted by escargot


I will scan this and upload it if anyone is interested.
Click to expand...


Im sure we're all interested, hope you can let us see it here but in any case I'm sure the mag would print it like a shot.
 
Of Course It Is April 1st!

Escargot! You're not pulling our legs, are you? :wince:
 
No, I'm not pulling legs!

Right, I've made several attempts to upload the page with the letter on but have had no success so far.
As I am using AOL this is no surprise.

I will try cropping the image to just the letter itself and posting that on its own.

Meantime, I will send my scan by email to anyone who asks, and of course it is available to the magazine too.


What a nice find!
(and yup James, I too thought what a strange coincidence! The book god likes us for sure!)

Edit- no joy.
I will get my son out of bed and get him to have a go.
He is an Oxford University physics student so he MUST know what to do!
 
This is Escargot's son who is conscious two hours too early... This had better be good...

(Narrowly avoiding catstrophe since 1982)
 
Good one

I don't think Mr X's website which has a lot of Fort's other publications has this one.
 
Excellent Job! Thanks!

I thought my mangling of grammar and sentence structure was bad, C.H Fort, still manages to boldly go, that little bit further! :)
 
Well waddya think, chaps & chappesses????????

I have sent Mr X the full page scan- to which everyone here is also welcome, of course.
With any luck it will soon be on his website for all to see.


I am sooooooo glad to have found this letter and to put it on the 'net- I feel as if we are carrying on the Good Work!
 
Yup, great idea, Faggus!


I wonder if I should try the 'contact' link on the main site?
 
I reckon they'll probably email you. What you found is a gem.
 
Done.

The contact email I used is to our own dear Mark Pilkington so our little scrap of ephemera is in safe hands!
 
Great stuff! It may be that Fort used this data elsewhere - I hope not.

When was New Worlds published? I wonder if these data were new or
whether he was recycling his researches in the hope of some ready cash?

I think there is a very good chance that this letter has not been noted
before. Fort was famous for keeping cuttings but notorious for his
periodic purgings. It may also have been that he needed the funds
and had targeted many prize letter columns in periodicals. He need
not have ever subscribed to the magazines but found them in libraries.

It is also nice to be able to read the scan - so much more evocative than the
bare words. Many thanks for this little gem! :)
 
Great stuff.

Seeing a source document (of strange happenings) would be brilliant, getting a look at the first second-hand account (you know what I mean) is almost as good.... :)
 
DerekH said:
Great stuff.

Seeing a source document (of strange happenings) would be brilliant, getting a look at the first second-hand account (you know what I mean)
Click to expand...

Vaguely, yes...
 
just a question...
are we sure this is <our> charles fort? for instance, was he in london in 1925?
i mean, charles is not a rare name and fort doesn't sound like a very uncommon last name either.
just wondering.
 
ginoide said:
just a question...
are we sure this is <our> charles fort? for instance, was he in london in 1925?
i mean, charles is not a rare name and fort doesn't sound like a very uncommon last name either.
just wondering.
Click to expand...

Charles Fort..visitors from other worlds, you jest of course.
 
According to my research - which mainly consisted of clicking the Google 'I'm feeling lucky' button:

1874 Born to a Dutch immigrant family who managed a grocery store.
1892 Left home and worked for a New York newspaper.
1893-1896 Travelled around Great Britain, Europe, South Africa and USA.
1897 Married Anna Filan.
1897-1900 Wrote ten novels and his biography.
1906-1915 Searched journals and newspapers in New York library.
1920 Burned his collection of "40,000 notes".
1921-1928 Lived in London.
1929 Moved back to New York.
1932 Died May 3, possibly of leukemia.


In other words, yes he was in London in 1925.
 
Wow well done that AndyX!

Yup I too am sure it's 'our' Charles Fort. The name/location seemed right to me, and the fact of the letter being in a radical weekly newspaper helped.

'Mr X' who has a Fortean website says he learned that Fort used to get letters published in a London newspaper for the One Guinea Prize for the most interesting letter, which if you see this whole page is obviously Fort's. So there may be more such newspapers out there- though not where I got mine from as he had only the two. (Cost £1 together!)

It's great to be able to read what's possibly one of the first published UFO accounts in its context of a radical, free-thinking publication.

And isn't it good that a Fortean-minded person found this particular letter, tucked away in a little newspaper for nearly 80 years!
 
Mr X

Has Mr X responded to the finding yet? It's not been posted or mentioned on his site yet, udner the 'Correspondance to, and of, Charles Fort'...
 
Mr X seemed very pleased to see the scan I sent but I agree, he hasn't done anything with it.

I emailed the FT too but haven't heard back.

And here's us thinking we'd found someting gooood......:hmph:
 
Ok, no response from FT, I take it they are not interested. Maybe it's not such a find after all.

....... goes off to find something to line the cat's litter tray........
 
Is there any news about this letter? I would like to see it in the magazine.
 
Not heard a thing...........

I emailed the mag several times about the Fort letter but haven't heard a dicky bird for nearly a year. Maybe they're not interested after all.

Bet it'd go down well on ebay though. ;)
 
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