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New Lands is the second nonfiction book of the author Charles Fort, published in 1923. It deals primarily with astronomical anomalies and has been described as "largely a satirical attack upon the pomposity of astronomers".[1]
In the first part of the book, Fort criticises astronomy, listing predictions astronomers made that never came true.[2] He also continues his attacks on scientific dogma, begun in his previous book The Book of the Damned, citing a number of mysterious stars and planets that scientists failed to account for.
Fort expands in this book on his theory about the Super-Sargasso Sea – a place where earthly things supposedly materialize in order to rain down on Earth – as well as developing an idea that there are continents above the skies of Earth. As evidence, in the second part of the book, he cites a number of anomalous phenomena, including strange "mirages" of land masses, groups of people, and animals in the skies.
Of all of Fort's books, New Lands is the worst-regarded. His speculations (serious or joking, he does not reveal) concerning continents in the sky and the supposed top-like shape of the Earth have dated considerably. It has been suggested that Fort's arrangement of the book - particularly his criticism of astronomers and long-established concepts in its opening chapters - risked it being seen as a piece of "crank literature".[3]
New Lands was published by Boni & Liveright in 1923. It had poor sales - which led to Boni & Liveright turning down Fort's next book for publication.[4]
New Lands is available in Dover Publications' The Complete Works of Charles Fort with Fort's other paranormal writings.[5] A paperback version was published in the 1990s.[6] An edited online version is also available.[7]
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