'The Book of the Damned' Summary

The first few chapters of the book deal largely with explaining Fort's thesis. As a particular instance, he cites the strange glowing in the sky worldwide which supposedly resulted from the 1883 eruption of the volcano Krakatoa. Fort claims that such phenomenon had in fact preceded the eruption by several months, and suggests that scientists, who had been puzzled by the phenomenon initially, used Krakatoa as a convenient explanation for something that they could not explain previously.

Fort has a particular interest in strange "falls," and discusses purported falls of fish, frogs, and various unidentifiable materials. He also has chapters discussing the findings of "thunderstones", which supposedly fell from the sky during lightning storms; a discussion of evidence for the existence of giants (huge oversized axes too big for any person to use) and fairies (so-called "fairy crosses" and "coffins"); a brief chapter on poltergeist phenomena; the disappearances of many people (including the supposed disappearance of several hundred people in a shelter during the 1755 Lisbon earthquake; he also briefly mentions the famous case of the Mary Celeste (which he would discuss in much more detail in his later Lo!); a rather long section concerning a number of purported UFO sightings (this book was written well before 1947, Kenneth Arnold, and the start of modern UFO allegations); and ends with a mention of the famous "Devil's Footprints" mystery in England during 1855, also citing a number of similar cases.

The book also discusses Triangle UFOs and sightings of them in various parts of the world from the early 1880s.