Fortean Times - Praise and Criticism

Praise and Criticism

Most of the articles in Fortean Times are written in the style of objective journalism, but this is not a mandatory requirement and some articles focus on a specific theory or point of view. Although such articles are presented as the opinion of the author and not the editors (who claim to have no opinions), this has occasionally led to controversy. One of the most famous examples occurred in January 1997, when the magazine ran an article by David Percy under the headline "FAKE! Did NASA hoax the moon landing photos?". The article outraged many readers and led to the magazine's "most vigorous postbag" up to that time. If the Percy article upset the "skeptics" among FT's readership, it was the turn of the "believers" in August 2000, when the magazine's cover boasted what must have seemed to them at first sight a very promising headline: "UFO? The shocking truth about the first flying saucers". However, the article in question, by James Easton, proposed an extremely mundane explanation for Kenneth Arnold's sighting — American White Pelicans. This suggestion so outraged ufologists that many of them still use the term "pelican" or "pelicanist" as a pejorative term for a debunker.

Praise from within the various Fortean communities almost goes without saying, and most Fortean researchers contribute articles, criticism and/or letters to the magazine. It has also attracted more widespread coverage and praise at times, however. Fortean Times #69 claims that "extracts from FT have featured in at least three publications used for teaching English as a foreign language," perhaps in part because (as the editors also quote) Lynn Barber of The Independent on Sunday newspaper calls FT "a model of elegant English."