The roots of the magazine that was to become Fortean Times can be traced back to Bob Rickard's discovering the works of Charles Fort through the secondhand method of reading science-fiction stories: "John Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction (as Analog was then titled), for example," writes Rickard, "encouraged many authors to expand Fort's data and comments into imaginative stories.

[citation needed] Rickard later discovered that the production was fraught behind-the-scenes, as Ronald Willis had been seriously ill, Paul thus finding it difficult to "keep up with things" on his own.

The first issue featured a cover (which would become briefly the unofficial logo of The News) drawn by Rickard from a Selfridges advertisement originally created by Bernard Partridge.

[4] The early issues featured some articles by different individuals, but were "largely the work of Bob Rickard, who typed them himself with some help from Steve Moore.

[4] Rickard also highlights amongst the key early Fortean Times advocates and supporters: Ion Alexis Will, who discovered The News in 1974 and became a "constant [source] of valuable clippings, books, postcards, and entertaining letters"; Janet and Colin Bord, later authors of Mysterious Britain (Janet also wrote for Flying Saucer Review and Lionel Beer's Spacelink, while Colin's Fortean article in Gandalf's Garden was particularly cited by Rickard as bringing him/them to his attention); Phil Ledger, a "peripatetic marine biologist", and The News' "first enthusiastic fan"; Ken Campbell, Fortean theatre director and playwright; John Michell; graphic designer Richard Adams and Dick Gwynn, who both helped with the evolving layout and typesetting of later issues; Chris Squire, who helped organise the first subscription database; Canadian "Mr. X"; Mike Dash; and cartoonist Hunt Emerson.

Watson later wrote a regular column of UFO commentary entitled Enigma Variations (from #29), and articles on the subject of UFO-related murders and stories of sexual assault by aliens.

Hall produced a section entitled "Fortean USA", continuing on from his earlier, discontinued, newsletter From My Files; issue #5 also had William Porter's article on Llandrillo printed, after being delayed from #4 for space constraints.

[4] The death of INFO co-founder Ron Willis was announced in #9, which described itself as providing "bimonthly notes on Fortean phenomena", and an index to the first year's issues (#1–7) became available.

Colin Bord penned "Amazing Menagerie" for issue #10, while Paul Devereux and Andrew York compiled an exhaustive study of Leicestershire in "Portrait of a Fault Area", serialised in #11–12.

[citation needed] Issue #18 received a new semiregular feature entitled "Forteana Corrigenda", aimed at correcting "errors in the literature" that had crept into various Fortean works through misquotation or other difficulties.

He writes that Russell turned down an invitation to contribute material to The News back in 1973, having "earned his rest" after 40 years as an active Fortean.

[citation needed] In 1978, mutual friend Ion Will introduced Rickard to Paul Sieveking, who recalls, "the Forteans used to meet every Tuesday afternoon above the science-fiction bookshop Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed in Soho to open post and interact.

"[16] Indeed, #29, under a cover by Hunt Emerson,[17] was printed fully typeset in A4 (thanks to art director Richard Adams of AdCo, and,according to Rickard's preface to Yesterday's News Tomorrow, Dick Gwynn) and even distributed on a limited basis through WH Smiths.

The move away from production on Rickard's typewriter gave "The Journal of Strange Phenomena," (as it was now subtitled) greater ability to produce longer, better laid-out articles.

[19] It also contained a considerably higher number of advertisements, including both inside covers — making the page count slightly higher than previous issues, which had previously counted the cover as page 1 — and an early advertisement by Brian Bolland for Forbidden Planet (which would ironically begin to take off only after the closure of Stokes' bookshop).

The cover was painted by Una Woodruff (whose Inventorum Natura was reviewed within) to illustrate John Michell's article on "Spontaneous Images and Acheropites," drawing on his 1979 Thames & Hudson book dealing with — and titled — Simulacra.

Moore, Dash, and Ian Simmons (and others) variously edited the magazine for the next 18+ years, and although main editorship passed from Rickard and Sieveking to David Sutton in 2002, they both continued to contribute.

The range of subject matter is extremely broad, including: Fortean Times also frequently covers the Ig Nobel Prizes, as well as unusual aspects of mainstream science and research.

The article in question, by James Easton, proposed a mundane explanation for Kenneth Arnold's sighting — American white pelicans.

Many "hot topics" of the day have been discussed, such as the Ray Santilli "alien autopsy" film at the 1996 UnCon, and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales at the 1998 event, which also saw Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince discussing Templar conspiracies and hidden symbolism in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, years before these were turned into mass-media subjects by The Da Vinci Code.

Besides the formal lecture programme, UnCon normally features exhibits by organizations such as the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena and the Centre for Fortean Zoology.

In the late 1990s Polygram Spoken Word released an audio version of several Fortean stories, written and produced by Steve Deakin-Davies and featured Brian Cant and Joanna Bowen amongst its actors, this project was licensed from John Brown Publishing.

( (c) 1997 Polygram Record operations ltd, Speaking Volumes no: 5361444) Starting in the very early 1990s, Fortean Times produced a number of facsimile editions collecting the earliest issues of the magazine, in their entirety, including advertisements.

These collections, prepared and edited for print by Paul Sieveking (including hand corrections to early typographic errors) are now out-of-print.

In the words of frequent contributor Neil Nixon, it "compiled serious research and opinion on a range of paranormal and conspiracy-related issues", and was a more academic counterpart to FT.