For many of us, the paranormal will, like cheese fondue and Mateus Rose, be forever associated with the 1970s. This was, after all, the decade of Erich Von Daniken, Charles Berlitz and the TV series The Mysterious World Of Arthur C. Clarke. The Seventies were, as a scientist at Loch Ness recently told a friend of mine, ‘a very credulous era’. This is a fact, as anyone who ever bought a Ronco button-o-matic will testify. The truth, however, is that the paranormal was fashionable in the 1920s, making it the psychic equivalent of Oxford bags – those wide baggy trousers. The man credited with kick-starting the weird world as we know it is Charles Fort. Fort’s name may at first seem unfamiliar, but once you know his followers dubbed themselves Forteans, his place in the universe becomes altogether clearer. [ Visit Website ]