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Lo!
Charles Fort's parade of scientific anomalies frames the larger anomaly that is human existence. "Lo!" is a book with the capacity to rewire brains and sculpt new lenses for seeing the unexpected, the unexplained--and perhaps for glimpsing our own role in Fort's mystifying cosmic scheme.
420 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1931
49 people are currently reading
564 people want to read
About the author
Charles Fort
57 books132 followersCharles Hoy Fort was a Dutch-American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena.
Jerome Clark writes that Fort was "essentially a satirist hugely skeptical of human beings' – especially scientists' – claims to ultimate knowledge". Clark describes Fort's writing style as a "distinctive blend of mocking humor, penetrating insight, and calculated outrageousness".
Writer Colin Wilson describes Fort as "a patron of cranks" and also argues that running through Fort's work is "the feeling that no matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels."
Fort's books sold well and remain in print. Today, the terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are used to characterise various anomalous phenomena.
Jerome Clark writes that Fort was "essentially a satirist hugely skeptical of human beings' – especially scientists' – claims to ultimate knowledge". Clark describes Fort's writing style as a "distinctive blend of mocking humor, penetrating insight, and calculated outrageousness".
Writer Colin Wilson describes Fort as "a patron of cranks" and also argues that running through Fort's work is "the feeling that no matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels."
Fort's books sold well and remain in print. Today, the terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are used to characterise various anomalous phenomena.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 5, 2022
In Lo! Charles Fort writes about the kind of things—teleportation, spontaneous combustion, the “hive mind”—that have more recently been employed as themes in the Fox television series
Fringe
. To say Fort writes about “freak occurrences” seems like a misnomer; here he has collected so many reports of crews disappearing from ships, cigar-shaped airships flying overhead, and strange animals seen at sea that such events begin to seem much more commonplace than conventional thought would suggest. Although Fort’s approach to these phenomena is scientific, he frequently calls attention to the limits of science with regard to explaining these events. Indeed, his book can be read as a critique of science, not only insofar as the events he describes call science into question, but also inasmuch as the authorial tone he employs when discussing science is about the snarkiest you’ll read anywhere.
Some quotes:
“I cannot accept that the products of minds are subject-matter for beliefs.”
“I am tired of the sensible explanations that are holding back new delusions.”
“I am simply pointing out everybody’s inability seriously to spend time upon something which, according to his [sic:] preconceptions, is nonsense.”
“This seems logical, and is therefore under suspicion.”
Acquired Jan 23, 2010
G & A Book Exchange, London, Ontario
Some quotes:
“I cannot accept that the products of minds are subject-matter for beliefs.”
“I am tired of the sensible explanations that are holding back new delusions.”
“I am simply pointing out everybody’s inability seriously to spend time upon something which, according to his [sic:] preconceptions, is nonsense.”
“This seems logical, and is therefore under suspicion.”
Acquired Jan 23, 2010
G & A Book Exchange, London, Ontario
March 28, 2019
I read this decades ago. It was thought provoking at the time. Probably not so much now. My rating is in the context of when it was published.
October 9, 2023
A very odd and interesting book! We only recently became aware of this writer, Charles Fort, but plan to read more of his books. The epistemic paradigm this guy was operating in is amazing for its time: hyper skepticism, scurrilous contrarianism and rigorous rationality ever vigilant against ratiocination, all conveyed with a sort of dandy wit and succinct sarcasm. We can certainly see why he is considered a forerunner to science fiction, despite writing no fiction himself: Fort approaches all manner of ostensibly "natural" oddities that other "fish mongers" are all too ready to explain with preconceived plausibility, in order to avoid confronting the eerie reality of such happening's as teleportation, or the apparently spontaneous manifestation of critters, or bursts of water. He especially attacks astronomers, and appears to offer a sort of proto/pseudo flat earth theory. His skepticism concerning science is itself scientific, maximally so. Though no definitive answers are posed, the mere presentation of Fort's research in this book is immensely uncanny.
May 22, 2015
In this book"," Charles Fort examines extreme phenomena"," and the mysterious forces behind them. His musings suggest that the universe is a much stranger place than anyone imagines"," and that even scientists may not know what is going on.While some of his ideas are crazy"," which he admits"," they certainly make me think twice before I believe anything – even my own senses.
April 29, 2022
I know for a fact, that Fox Mulder read this book and thought Charles Fort was making some very good points. I mean, the guy says aliens would be congressmen, teleportation is real, and the Earth is stationary, but you don't know because astronomers have been lying to the public. What part of that doesn't scream x-files to you?
September 10, 2025
FORT’S THIRD COLLECTION OF “EXCLUDED DATA”
Charles Hoy Fort (1874-1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The ‘Fortean Times’ publication was inspired by his books.
He wrote in the first chapter of this 1931 book, “A naked man in a city street---that track of a horse in volcanic mud---the mystery of reindeer’s ears---a huge, black form, like a whale, in the sky, and it drips red drops as if attacked by celestial swordfishes---an appalling cherub appears in the sea---CONFUSIONS. Showers of frogs and blizzards of snails---gushes of periwinkles down from the sky---The preposterous, the grotesque, the incredible---and why, if I am going to tell of hundreds of these, is the quite ordinary so regarded?.... A naked fact startles a meeting of a scientific society---and whatever it has for loins is soon diapered with conventional explanations… Chaos and muck and filth---the indeterminable and the unrecordable and the unknowable… and yet… the underlying oneness in all confusions.” (Pg. 5-6)
He continues, “Wise men have tried other ways. They have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.” (Pg. 8)
He goes on, “Coffins have come down from the sky… But these things have come down at the time of a whirlwind… showers of living things are common. And yet the explanation by orthodox scientists who accept that showers of living things have occurred is that the creatures were the products of whirlwinds. The explanation is that little frogs, for instance, fall from the sky, unmixed with anything else, because, in a whirlwind, the creatures were segregated, by differences in specific gravity. But when a whirlwind strikes a town, away go detachables in a monstrous mixture, and there’s no findable record of washtubs coming down in one place, all the town’s cats in one falling battle that lumps its infelicities in one place, and all the kittens coming down together somewhere else, in a distant bunch that meows for its lump of mothers.” (Pg. 9)
He states, “I shall be scientific about it. Said Sir Isaac Newton… ‘If there is no change in the direction of a moving body, the direction of a moving body is not changed. But… if something be changed, it is changed as much as it is changed.’ So red worms fall from the sky, in Sweden, because from the sky, in Sweden, red worms fell. How do geologists determine the age of rocks? By the fossils in them. And how do they determine and age of the fossils? By the rocks they’re in.” (Pg. 11)
He explains, “I believe nothing. I have shut myself away from the rocks and wisdoms of ages, and from the so-called great teachers of all time, and perhaps because of that isolation I am given to bizarre hospitalities. I shut the front door upon Christ and Einstein, and at the back door hold out a welcoming hand to little frogs and periwinkles. I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written. I cannot accept that the products of minds are subject-matter for beliefs. But I accept, with reservations that give me freedom to ridicule the statement at any other time, the showers of an edible substance that has not been traced to an origin upon this earth, have fallen from the sky, in Asia Minor.” (Pg. 19)
He contends, “We hear much about the conflict between science and religion, but our conflict is with both of these. Science and religion always have agreed in opposing and suppressing the various witchcrafts. Now that religion is inglorious, one of the most fantastic transferences of worships is that of glorifying science, as a beneficent being. It is the attributing of all that is of development, or of possible betterment to science. But no scientist had ever upheld a new idea, without bringing upon himself abuse from the scientists. Science has done its utmost to prevent whatever Science has done.” (Pg. 21)
He observes, “It occurred to me that stories of flows of blood from ‘holy images’ are assimilable with our general expressions upon teleportations. Whereupon, automatically, the formerly despised become the somewhat reasonable. Though now and then I am ill-natured with scientific methods, it is no pose of mine that I am other than scientific, myself, in our expressions. I am tied down like any college professor or Zulu wise man.” (Pg. 44)
He adds, “I don’t know to just what degree my accusation, in these matters, is of the laziness and feeble-mindedness of scientists. Or, instead of accusing, I am simply pointing out everybody’s inability seriously to spend time upon something, which, according to his preconceptions in nonsense. Scientists, in matters of our data, have been like somebody in Europe, before the year 1492, hearing stories of lands to the west, going out on the ocean for an hour or so, in a row-boat, and then saying, whether exactly in these words or not: ‘Oh, hell! There ain’t no America.’” (Pg. 85)
He argues, “The astronomers can predict the movements of some of the parts of what they call the solar system. But so far are they from a comprehensive grasp upon the system as a whole that, if for a basis of their calculations, be taken that this earth is stationary, and that the sun and the planets, and the stars in a shell, move around this earth, the same notions of heavenly bodies can be foretold. Take for a base that the earth moves round the sun, or take that the sun moves around the earth: upon either base the astronomers can predict an eclipse, and enjoy renown and prestige, as if they knew what they were telling about. Either way there are inaccuracies.” (Pg. 167)
He suggests, “Newtonism is no longer satisfactory. There is too much that it cannot explain. Einsteinism has arisen. If Einsteinism is not satisfactory, there is room for other notions.” (Pg. 176) He adds, “I have to ask… Who, except someone who was out to boost a theory ever has demonstrated that light has any velocity?” (Pg. 177)
He clarifies, “our opposition is not so much denial of data, as assertions that the occurrences in which we see relationship were only coincidences. If I ever accept any such explanation, I shall be driven into extending it to everything.” (Pg. 221)
He acknowledges, “There is considerable in this book that is in line with the teachings of the most primitive theology. We have noted how agreeable I am to the most southern Methodists. It is that scientific orthodoxy of today has brutally, or mechanically, or unintelligently, reacted sheerly against all beliefs of the preceding, or theological, orthodoxy, and has reacted too far. All reactions react too far. Then a reaction against this reaction must of course favor, or restore, some of the beliefs of the earlier orthodoxy.” (Pg. 236)
He asserts, “Any pronouncement by any orthodoxy is to me the same as handcuffs. It’s brain cuffs. There are times when I don’t give a damn whether the stars are trillions of miles away or ten miles away---but, at any time, let anybody say to me, authoritatively, or with an air of finality, that the stars are trillions of miles away, or ten miles away, and my contrariness stirs, or inflames, and if I can’t pick the lock of his pronouncements, I’ll have to squirm out some way to save my egotism.” (Pg. 253)
He concludes, “Consequently, I concern myself with data for what may be a new field of enormous labors and sufferings, costs of lives and fortunes, misery and bereavements, until finally will come awareness that all this is unnecessary.” (Pg. 279)
Fort’s books are usually quite interesting; although his intention to simply gather together collections of ‘weird’ reported phenomena (many of which are simply taken from newspaper reports) and refrain from seeking any ‘explanations’ of them, will be ‘off-putting’ to some.
Charles Hoy Fort (1874-1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The ‘Fortean Times’ publication was inspired by his books.
He wrote in the first chapter of this 1931 book, “A naked man in a city street---that track of a horse in volcanic mud---the mystery of reindeer’s ears---a huge, black form, like a whale, in the sky, and it drips red drops as if attacked by celestial swordfishes---an appalling cherub appears in the sea---CONFUSIONS. Showers of frogs and blizzards of snails---gushes of periwinkles down from the sky---The preposterous, the grotesque, the incredible---and why, if I am going to tell of hundreds of these, is the quite ordinary so regarded?.... A naked fact startles a meeting of a scientific society---and whatever it has for loins is soon diapered with conventional explanations… Chaos and muck and filth---the indeterminable and the unrecordable and the unknowable… and yet… the underlying oneness in all confusions.” (Pg. 5-6)
He continues, “Wise men have tried other ways. They have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.” (Pg. 8)
He goes on, “Coffins have come down from the sky… But these things have come down at the time of a whirlwind… showers of living things are common. And yet the explanation by orthodox scientists who accept that showers of living things have occurred is that the creatures were the products of whirlwinds. The explanation is that little frogs, for instance, fall from the sky, unmixed with anything else, because, in a whirlwind, the creatures were segregated, by differences in specific gravity. But when a whirlwind strikes a town, away go detachables in a monstrous mixture, and there’s no findable record of washtubs coming down in one place, all the town’s cats in one falling battle that lumps its infelicities in one place, and all the kittens coming down together somewhere else, in a distant bunch that meows for its lump of mothers.” (Pg. 9)
He states, “I shall be scientific about it. Said Sir Isaac Newton… ‘If there is no change in the direction of a moving body, the direction of a moving body is not changed. But… if something be changed, it is changed as much as it is changed.’ So red worms fall from the sky, in Sweden, because from the sky, in Sweden, red worms fell. How do geologists determine the age of rocks? By the fossils in them. And how do they determine and age of the fossils? By the rocks they’re in.” (Pg. 11)
He explains, “I believe nothing. I have shut myself away from the rocks and wisdoms of ages, and from the so-called great teachers of all time, and perhaps because of that isolation I am given to bizarre hospitalities. I shut the front door upon Christ and Einstein, and at the back door hold out a welcoming hand to little frogs and periwinkles. I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written. I cannot accept that the products of minds are subject-matter for beliefs. But I accept, with reservations that give me freedom to ridicule the statement at any other time, the showers of an edible substance that has not been traced to an origin upon this earth, have fallen from the sky, in Asia Minor.” (Pg. 19)
He contends, “We hear much about the conflict between science and religion, but our conflict is with both of these. Science and religion always have agreed in opposing and suppressing the various witchcrafts. Now that religion is inglorious, one of the most fantastic transferences of worships is that of glorifying science, as a beneficent being. It is the attributing of all that is of development, or of possible betterment to science. But no scientist had ever upheld a new idea, without bringing upon himself abuse from the scientists. Science has done its utmost to prevent whatever Science has done.” (Pg. 21)
He observes, “It occurred to me that stories of flows of blood from ‘holy images’ are assimilable with our general expressions upon teleportations. Whereupon, automatically, the formerly despised become the somewhat reasonable. Though now and then I am ill-natured with scientific methods, it is no pose of mine that I am other than scientific, myself, in our expressions. I am tied down like any college professor or Zulu wise man.” (Pg. 44)
He adds, “I don’t know to just what degree my accusation, in these matters, is of the laziness and feeble-mindedness of scientists. Or, instead of accusing, I am simply pointing out everybody’s inability seriously to spend time upon something, which, according to his preconceptions in nonsense. Scientists, in matters of our data, have been like somebody in Europe, before the year 1492, hearing stories of lands to the west, going out on the ocean for an hour or so, in a row-boat, and then saying, whether exactly in these words or not: ‘Oh, hell! There ain’t no America.’” (Pg. 85)
He argues, “The astronomers can predict the movements of some of the parts of what they call the solar system. But so far are they from a comprehensive grasp upon the system as a whole that, if for a basis of their calculations, be taken that this earth is stationary, and that the sun and the planets, and the stars in a shell, move around this earth, the same notions of heavenly bodies can be foretold. Take for a base that the earth moves round the sun, or take that the sun moves around the earth: upon either base the astronomers can predict an eclipse, and enjoy renown and prestige, as if they knew what they were telling about. Either way there are inaccuracies.” (Pg. 167)
He suggests, “Newtonism is no longer satisfactory. There is too much that it cannot explain. Einsteinism has arisen. If Einsteinism is not satisfactory, there is room for other notions.” (Pg. 176) He adds, “I have to ask… Who, except someone who was out to boost a theory ever has demonstrated that light has any velocity?” (Pg. 177)
He clarifies, “our opposition is not so much denial of data, as assertions that the occurrences in which we see relationship were only coincidences. If I ever accept any such explanation, I shall be driven into extending it to everything.” (Pg. 221)
He acknowledges, “There is considerable in this book that is in line with the teachings of the most primitive theology. We have noted how agreeable I am to the most southern Methodists. It is that scientific orthodoxy of today has brutally, or mechanically, or unintelligently, reacted sheerly against all beliefs of the preceding, or theological, orthodoxy, and has reacted too far. All reactions react too far. Then a reaction against this reaction must of course favor, or restore, some of the beliefs of the earlier orthodoxy.” (Pg. 236)
He asserts, “Any pronouncement by any orthodoxy is to me the same as handcuffs. It’s brain cuffs. There are times when I don’t give a damn whether the stars are trillions of miles away or ten miles away---but, at any time, let anybody say to me, authoritatively, or with an air of finality, that the stars are trillions of miles away, or ten miles away, and my contrariness stirs, or inflames, and if I can’t pick the lock of his pronouncements, I’ll have to squirm out some way to save my egotism.” (Pg. 253)
He concludes, “Consequently, I concern myself with data for what may be a new field of enormous labors and sufferings, costs of lives and fortunes, misery and bereavements, until finally will come awareness that all this is unnecessary.” (Pg. 279)
Fort’s books are usually quite interesting; although his intention to simply gather together collections of ‘weird’ reported phenomena (many of which are simply taken from newspaper reports) and refrain from seeking any ‘explanations’ of them, will be ‘off-putting’ to some.
May 9, 2019
A vast compendium of unexplained, mysterious, and downright bizarre events collected by Charles Fort. Fort's dedication to recording and sharing reports of unexplained phenomena, combined with his innate distrust of scientific establishment and his tongue-in-cheek humorist style, garnered him a loyal fan-base and enough renown that the study of strange occurrences explainable by science was named after him - Fortean, or Forteana.
Lo! is one of three books he published on the subject, and it's a beast to read from cover to cover as he rattles through hundreds of reports featuring everything from rains of frogs to phantom planets, and his prose can be a bit meandering even for early twentieth century writing (Lo! was originally published in 1913). But as a reference for bizarre events, Lo! - one of three books Fort published on the subject - is indispensable for both its exhaustive knowledge and entertaining approach.
Lo! is one of three books he published on the subject, and it's a beast to read from cover to cover as he rattles through hundreds of reports featuring everything from rains of frogs to phantom planets, and his prose can be a bit meandering even for early twentieth century writing (Lo! was originally published in 1913). But as a reference for bizarre events, Lo! - one of three books Fort published on the subject - is indispensable for both its exhaustive knowledge and entertaining approach.
December 10, 2024
A fun book of many strange happenings. General idea is very similar to the “we live in a simulation” crowd, but this was at a time where computers did not yet exist, so he describes really as a living being which “heals” improperly, and thus causes such strange events.
June 23, 2024
This book scarred me as a child, I thoughts frogs could fall out of the sky at any time. And now I learn it's from like 1930??
July 29, 2025
This book is what I imagine a 6-hour car ride with Agent Mulder must sound like to Agent Scully. Except less coherent.
January 24, 2020
The worst book I've ever read. Imagine Donald Trump sent back in time 80 years to write a science-denialist book that tries to convince you that the earth is stationary, astronomy and mathematics are scams, and that stars are actually volcanoes not so very far away erupting on the inside surface of some kind of sphere-like roof enclosing earth–and that the roof determines what happens on Earth.
He ridicules the notion that there is a planet beyond Neptune and even that there is outer space. He argues that meteors cause volcanic eruptions and that all stars are at most a week's journey from Earth. He calls out logic as a fraud!
Plus, this guy is psychopathic, perhaps even evil, as the person who gave me the book wrote on page 183: "Evil is perceptual. Ch. Fort is evil." If Fort were alive now he would be a commentator on Fox Spews.
I thought Obama's two books were the worst book I'd ever read. They are the most vacuous, but this is easily the worst book. I only read it because a cool friend gave it to me, but for the life of me, I can't imagine why anyone else should ever read it.
This is the prototype for the typical psychic phenomenon conspiracy "expert" on Coast to Coast AM. There probably wouldn't be an Art Bell, or even an Alex Jones if there hadn't been a "Fortean" cult following of Charles Fort.
He ridicules the notion that there is a planet beyond Neptune and even that there is outer space. He argues that meteors cause volcanic eruptions and that all stars are at most a week's journey from Earth. He calls out logic as a fraud!
Plus, this guy is psychopathic, perhaps even evil, as the person who gave me the book wrote on page 183: "Evil is perceptual. Ch. Fort is evil." If Fort were alive now he would be a commentator on Fox Spews.
I thought Obama's two books were the worst book I'd ever read. They are the most vacuous, but this is easily the worst book. I only read it because a cool friend gave it to me, but for the life of me, I can't imagine why anyone else should ever read it.
This is the prototype for the typical psychic phenomenon conspiracy "expert" on Coast to Coast AM. There probably wouldn't be an Art Bell, or even an Alex Jones if there hadn't been a "Fortean" cult following of Charles Fort.
January 14, 2013
This is among my favorite books of all time. Tongue in cheek, devils advocate, believe nothing, our perception is small treatise. Fort's writing style has a brilliantly off kilter rhythmic, un-reproducible quality that accents unpredictable comedic timing. A must read for any one into philosophy, semantics, metaphysics, sci-fi, horror, and especially ASTRONOMY!
September 2, 2015
An entertaining read but the emphasis on meteorological anomalies becomes a little tiresome in the end. Ultimately Fort undermines his own position by using copious empirical data to argue that one cannot understand the world by empirical methods. Philosophically I think Fort is at his best when he is most Platonist and at his weakest when he is most Monist.
March 29, 2010
This book demonstrates that Fort was a master of inductive reasoning... and also why inductive reasoning is unreliable. Still, very funny, witty. And I can always get behind the poking of complacent scientists.
October 28, 2023
“Like everybody else, I don’t know what to think, but, rather uncommonly, I know that.”
“For everything that is supposed to be so well-known that it is proverbial, there are exceptions.”
“Only those who know little of a matter can have a clear and definite opinion upon it.”
“For everything that is supposed to be so well-known that it is proverbial, there are exceptions.”
“Only those who know little of a matter can have a clear and definite opinion upon it.”
Want to read
May 30, 2015Prepare to be amused, astonished, or alarmed, according to nerve and judgment!
February 17, 2015
It was awesome! So many twists and turns, but very wierd
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews