Fortean Times Brand Score: 58/100 - Developing tier

The World of Strange Phenomena

Fortean Times (forteantimes.com) scores 58 out of 100 on Brand Analyzer, placing it in the Developing tier among Media & Entertainment brands, Other brands, in the 5th percentile of 34843 Media & Entertainment brands.

AI Snapshot

Fortean Times is a British monthly magazine, founded in 1973, dedicated to documenting and investigating strange phenomena, unexplained mysteries, and anomalous events worldwide. It covers topics such as the paranormal, cryptozoology, UFOs, and folklore, combining journalistic rigor with a focus on bizarre and unexplained subjects. The publication positions itself as the longest-running authority in its field, targeting curious readers, researchers, skeptics, and enthusiasts of the unexplained.

Key facts about Fortean Times
Brand NameFortean Times
Domainforteantimes.com
IndustryMedia & Entertainment, Other
Founded1973
HeadquartersUnited Kingdom
Main CompetitorsFate Magazine (78/100), Skeptical Inquirer (76/100), Nexus Magazine (79/100), Mysterious Universe (75/100), Ancient Origins (82/100), Paranormal Magazine (59/100)

Evidence

Ranked #225,681 on the Tranco list of most-visited sites - modest traffic makes the brand easy for AI models to overlook.

Fortean Times appears on Wikipedia but without a dedicated company entity, so AI models can confuse it with similarly named subjects.

The homepage meta description reads "To document and investigate strange phenomena, unexplained mysteries, and anomalous events from around the world." (No meta description) - this is the summary AI engines are most likely to quote.

Structured data on the homepage: No structured data or Open Graph tags detected. Adding Organization and FAQ schema would further help AI crawlers parse the brand's identity.

AI-crawler access: No robots.txt found (default: all bots allowed, but explicit file preferred) - robots.txt controls whether engines like GPTBot and ClaudeBot can read the site at all.

Detected tech stack: Nginx.

Social footprint: verified profiles on X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram; no detected presence on LinkedIn, YouTube, GitHub - consistent profiles reinforce the brand's identity across the web.

0 Reddit mentions - community discussion signals real-world reputation to AI models.

Does AI know Fortean Times?

Live results from asking a general-purpose AI assistant about the brand, checked October 2026.

When asked "What is Fortean Times?", Claude could identify the brand as of October 2026. Fortean Times is a British monthly magazine devoted to the study of strange phenomena and anomalous experiences, named after Charles Fort, covering topics like UFOs, cryptozoology, ghosts, folklore, and unexplained events with a mix of serious investigation and tongue-in-cheek hu Best known for Being the leading magazine chronicling paranormal, cryptozoological, and other 'Fortean' strange phenomena with a distinctive blend of skepticism and fascinatio.

When asked "Best brands similar to Fortean Times?", Claude would recommend Fortean Times as of October 2026. It's the most iconic and long-running publication in its niche, so it would naturally come up when discussing magazines about the paranormal or unexplained.

People Also Ask About Fortean Times

Common questions people ask in Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI search engines.

Who are Fortean Times's main competitors?

Fortean Times's main competitors in Media & Entertainment: Fate Magazine (78/100), Skeptical Inquirer (76/100), Nexus Magazine (79/100), Mysterious Universe (75/100), Ancient Origins (82/100).

Sources: Brand Analyzer scan

What products or services does Fortean Times offer?

Fortean Times publishes a monthly magazine featuring articles, investigations, and reports on anomalous phenomena, unexplained mysteries, cryptozoology, UFOs, and folklore.

Sources: Fortean Times official site

What is Fortean Times?

Fortean Times is a British monthly magazine, founded in 1973, devoted to the study and reporting of anomalous phenomena, including the paranormal, cryptozoology, UFOs, and other unexplained events.

Sources: Fortean Times official site

When was Fortean Times founded?

Fortean Times was founded in 1973. Fortean Times operates in the Media & Entertainment category. It is analyzed by Brand Analyzer across seven brand dimensions and AI-search visibility.

Sources: Wikidata

What does Fortean Times do?

Fortean Times documents and investigates strange phenomena, unexplained mysteries, and anomalous events from around the world, publishing researched articles on topics like the paranormal, cryptozoology, and UFOs.

Sources: Fortean Times official site

Does ChatGPT recommend Fortean Times?

Fortean Times scores 36/100 on Brand Analyzer's AI recommendation signal, indicating it is less likely to be surfaced when AI assistants like ChatGPT suggest Media & Entertainment options. Recommendation depends on crawlability, structured data, and category authority; a Wikipedia presence helps.

Sources: Fortean Times official site

What is Fortean Times known for?

Fortean Times is known for being the longest-running publication dedicated to chronicling strange and unexplained events, blending journalistic investigation with topics such as folklore, cryptozoology, and paranormal activity.

Sources: Fortean Times official site

How can Fortean Times improve its AI discoverability?

Fortean Times can improve AI discoverability by strengthening structured data (Organization and FAQ schema), maintaining an accurate Wikipedia/Wikidata entity, earning authoritative citations, and keeping content crawlable for AI bots. Brand Analyzer measures these as visibility, trust, and recommendation signals.

Sources: Fortean Times official site

Who uses Fortean Times?

Fortean Times is used by curious readers, enthusiasts of the paranormal and unexplained, researchers, and skeptics interested in mysteries, folklore, and anomalous phenomena.

Sources: Fortean Times official site

Recommendations

AI visibility

Fortean Times scores 27/100 for AI visibility - how well ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can discover, identify and cite the brand.

Fortean Times has a weak AI-visibility profile at 27/100 - a proxy for how readily ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews can recognise and cite it. Its strongest area is visibility (38/100) and its weakest is trust (4/100). It benefits from a Wikidata knowledge-graph entry, a global traffic rank of #225,681 (Tranco) and open access for AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, etc.). The main gaps holding it back: no clear Wikipedia entity to anchor it in LLM training data, thin schema.org structured data and no llms.txt to steer AI to its best pages. In a live check, Claude could already identify Fortean Times from memory (October 2026) - a sign these signals are paying off.

Visibility - 38/100

Trust - 4/100

Recommendation likelihood - 36/100

Score breakdown - 7 dimensions

The score combines seven dimensions - name quality, digital presence, visual identity, messaging clarity, trust foundation, AI discoverability, and brand authority - into a single objective benchmark.

Peer brands

Ranked closest to Fortean Times: Flixsphere (58/100), Filemoon (58/100), NOW (58/100), Payid Pokies (58/100).

A step up - brands to learn from: Ziyouz (71/100), Zishy (71/100).

Category leader: Change.org (97/100).

Brand Analyzer is built by DataEase AI. Track your brand in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

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