Rich Reynolds Reviews My New Book, Flying Saucers From The Kremlin

Over at UFO Conjectures, Rich Reynolds does a great review of my new book, Flying Saucers From The Kremlin.

Cheers, Rich!

The 2019 Fouke Monster Festival

Hanging out at the Fouke Monster Festival, which was a great weekend!

Flying Saucers From The Kremlin and Coast to Coast AM - Tomorrow

Tomorrow night I'll be on Coast to Coast AM talking about my new book, Flying Saucers From The Kremlin.

Here's the link to the show.

And here's the link to the book.

 

A Bunch of New Articles From Me

1. Mistaking a regular animal for something weird.

2.  The creepiest creature of the woods.

3. The Thylacine: not as extinct as you might think.

4. The Chupacabra: how far back do the stories go?

5. The "blood-sucking" aspect of the Chupacabra controversy.

6. UFOs: A Russian story.

7. Are lake monsters actually giant eels?

8. A monstrous 50th anniversary on the horizon.

9. A "leaked' document and a disturbing agenda.

10. The growing phenomenon of surveillance by drones.

Flying Saucers from the Kremlin: My New Book

Available as of today is my new book, Flying Saucers from the Kremlin: UFOs, Russian Meddling, Soviet Spies, and Cold War Secrets.

Here are the Amazon links: US paperback, US Kindle, UK paperback, UK Kindle.

And here's the back-cover text of the book:

Russian meddling: they are two words that just about everyone has come to know very well in the last few years. Only a fool – or someone with an agenda of a sinister kind – would deny that such meddling occurred. But, who knew that for decades the Russians secretly used the UFO phenomenon as a means to try and destabilize the West? Why did the Russians try to recruit some of the most well-known UFO “Contactees” of the 1950s? What’s the connection between the KGB and the notorious Majestic 12 documents? Why did the Soviet Union fabricate tales of aliens and feed them to the Pentagon? Does the UFO meddling still continue to this day? These are just a few of the many questions that Nick Redfern answers in his chilling new book.

The Ongoing James Forrestal Controversy

A new article from me on a new batch of released material from the FBI on James Forrestal, the first U.S. Secretary of Defense, and who died in 1949 under what some believe were suspicious circumstances.

Bigfoot and the FBI...

You may have seen the news about how in the 1970s the FBI examined what some thought might have been Bigfoot hairs. But, which turned out to be from a deer LOL.

However, there is a much more interesting Bigfoot-type case, which also involves the FBI and which is connected to the worlds of controversy and conspiracy.

A strange and savage body, the FBI in hot pursuit, the Vietnam War, body-bags and smuggling: someone needs to turn this into a movie!

Here's the link to my new article on the subject.

M.I.B. Terror...

When the Men in Black won't leave you alone: the strange and sinister experiences of Kimberly Rackley.

Hanging out with Kim last year:

Demons and the Department of Defense

That's the subject of a new article from me...

A Bunch Of New Articles...

Here's my latest articles at Mysterious Universe...

1. Did a famous UFO Contactee secretly work for Uncle Sam?

2. Noah's Ark and the CIA.

3. One of the U.K.'s lesser known paranormal "hot-spots."

4. A cryptozoological conspiracy.

5. Animal spirits and Cryptozoology.

6. When monsters get a "reboot."

7. Bridging the world of the supernatural.

8. The weird story of the Basilisk.

9. Russia's most mysterious creature.

10. The strange tale of a strange tail.

11. The strange saga of the "British Bigfoot."

12. Anomalous apes.

13. Bigfoot: a chaser of cars?

14. Hairy monsters and stone circles.

15. Indonesia's "Little-Foot."

RIP Stanton Friedman

Hanging out on Tuesday night in Los Angeles with good mate Greg Bishop, toasting to the life of Stan Friedman. I have a lot of memories of Stan, who will be missed by many. This is the last photo I took of Stan, at the Big Bear Lake UFO gig in January of this year. RIP.

UFO HUB: A New Gig in August

On August 3, I'll be speaking at a new UFO conference, "UFO HUB," which will be held in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Come along! You can check out the conference at this link...

Whining Writers and the "Starving Artist" Syndrome

This is not the article I intended on writing today, but, due to certain circumstances it's the article that I have written. Those circumstances will become clear pretty much immediately. On Sunday night, I was speaking with a guy who is in the process of writing on the theory that the Bigfoot creatures of the United States are not giant apes or supernatural beings, but some form of primitive human. Granted, not too much has been written (in terms of a full-length book) on this particular aspect of the Bigfoot phenomenon. And, I have no doubt at all that the book - when it's published approximately around this time next year - will provoke a lot of interest and debate, both inside the Bigfoot community and outside of it. But, it's not the book, or its attendant theory, that I'm focusing on today. In fact, it's something very different; something driven by the ridiculous words of the Bigfoot writer, himself.

If there's one thing that sends me into a rage (well, there are actually more than a few things, but they can wait for another day...) it's the suffering "starving artist." I hate them. To the extent that I was almost tempted to write the word, "hate," in capital-letters. About twenty or so minutes into the conversation, our Bigfoot author brought up the matter of how he was having to work anti-social hours to get the book written. That he was toiling into the early hours, and that his advance from the publisher wasn't what he hoped it might have been. That was very much akin to a red rag to a bull. And, so, I hit back. What began as a conversation descended into a full-blown argument, which I'll come back to shortly. In the meantime, a small diversion:

The starving artist aside, there are several other kinds of writers. Actually, there are way more than several, but there are a handful in particular that I'm going to share with you. The first writer I want to introduce you to is somebody like me. I realize and appreciate how lucky I am (and have been) to have turned an interest and a passion into a career, despite having had little success in the way of formal education. Namely, going from reading books as a kid to writing books, doing articles, lecturing, and appearing on TV shows. I get up in the morning, start work at roughly 9:00 a.m., and continue until around 5:00 p.m. Then, the laptop goes into sleep mode until the next morning. And I don't ever work at weekends or evenings. Unless, that is, I'm on a major deadline. Evenings and weekends are my fun times. Forty-hours per week, Monday to Friday, 9-5, is plenty of time to get the job done. If it isn't, then you're doing something radically wrong. Now, back to the matter of that argument:

So, to hear the author on the phone moaning about his "suffering," set me off on a rant. As I said to him, anyone like me (and, I should stress, like him, too) - who is able to work from home, who can dictate their hours, who never gets stuck in traffic-jams in the morning or early evening, and who can sit in front of their laptop dressed in track-pants and a Misfits t-shirt - has absolutely no reason at all to complain, but every reason to be grateful, to both my readers and my publishers. And he shouldn't have been complaining. But, he was complaining. I had to listen to something like how, the night before, he had only written a page-and-a-third. It was time for me to interrupt again. As I said, getting paid for writing a book, even though you only managed less than a page-and-a-half, is not something to get all dramatic about.

As a teenager, I left the U.K. equivalent of high-school with barely a single academic achievement to my name. No college. No university. Nothing. Then, before I became a full-time writer in my mid-twenties, I spent a few years working as a forklift driver, very often doing vampire hours, in a red hot warehouse. That was work. Getting paid to write about Bigfoot is nothing to whine about. Punching the keyboard is nothing to whine about, either. Bigfoot guy should have been thankful for the chance/gift that has come his way. And, if you are struggling, I added, then damn well find a way to make it work. Don't complain. You're not someone who has to set the alarm for 5:30, feed the baby, feed the dog, and hit the road. People are giving you money to write about monsters. Be thankful! It's not a difficult world to live in, providing you get down to the work.

Now, it's time to take a look at another kind of writer that gets me mad. It's the self-important one. I don't know why, but over the years I have had the misfortune to come across certain people who work in (time to put on an important-sounding voice...) "the arts." On so many occasions I've seen the following approach from the self-important ones: that what they are doing is vitally important. But, as they see it, they're just not getting the exposure they are absolutely sure they should be getting. They are frustrated by the fact that publishers just don't understand them, they say. Maybe, though, what they have written is total, pure shit and the publishers that turn them down do understand. Fully. Mostly, I've seen and heard this pompous crap puked out at parties held by book-industry people and at book-launches, which is why I try and avoid such bile-filled events whenever and wherever I can. As a writer myself , even I can't stand the "I work in the arts, I'm someone significant, and I need to be listened to" approach. Now, it's time to bring this article to its end.

I'll close with two pieces of advice: (A) for budding authors who write on paranormal topics, or even for those who have been in the game for years, quit complaining about how rough life as a writer can be (instead, have some responsibility, don't have pathetic tantrums, take note of how lucky you are to do what you want as a career, and, above all else, get the book projects done); and (B) for those ego-driven, self-important types, just go away; that really is the only advice I can ever give you.

"Klark Kent" RIP

If, like me, you've been in the UFO field for a couple of decades, you may remember a guy who went by the name of "Klark Kent" (real name Bruce Millar Forrester, Jr.) and who popped up at UFO gigs now and again, often carrying and displaying strange devices and contraptions. He died just last month. I met him once, I think at one of the early "UFO Congress" gigs in Laughlin, Nevada. I'm pretty sure it was either the 1998 or the 2001 gig, as I spoke at both. I might be wrong on the location, though.

"I Know What I Saw"

A few weeks ago, I was sent an advance review copy of the new book from Linda Godfrey, I Know What I Saw. This is a great book (due for release in July) and digs deep into her investigations into strange creatures. Keep a look out for it!

A Few More New Articles...

1. Viruses in reality and in the world of zombies.

2. An explanation for the Puerto Rican Chupacabra?

3. From "The Dead to Dead 2."

4. Photographing a Man in Black.

5. Three potential expeditions of the cryptozoological kind.

A Strange and Sinister Death...

That's the subject of my latest article...

More Articles

I've been on the road quite a bit for the last few weeks, but now I'm finally getting back to the blog. And, here's a few new articles:

1. Strange Tales of the Black Eyed Children.

2. Weirdness and UFO Whistleblowers.

3. Paranormal Lake Monsters.

New Articles...

A few new articles from me:

1. The strange UFO-alien-owl connection.

2. The matter of Skinwalkers.

3. And, one on the dangerous Djinn.

Paranormal and Metaphysical: Dallas at the Weekend

A few photos from this past weekend's Metaphysical and Paranormal Unity Fest in Dallas, which was a cool day!