Merry Christmas!

Unless something massively earth-shattering occurs in the Fortean world over the next week or so, I'm signing off until January 2 onwards.

So, have a merry Christmas and a great new year!

John Keel's Jadoo: Coming Soon!

This is very good news!

Check out this link at the website of Anomalist Books and you'll see that they are soon to republish John Keel's classic book Jadoo.

If any mention of John Keel (pictured above with Greg Bishop) makes you think of Mothman and the Men in Black, well, it should!

But, Jadoo takes the reader much further into the world of Keel - and a much earlier world, too.

Keep checking out the AB website for news of the official publication date. If you haven't read Jadoo, then you're in for a major treat!

The Beast of Bolam: 10 Years On

Next month, January 2013, will mark the 10th anniversary of an on-site investigation of a very weird set of events that involved a series of Bigfoot-type encounters at Bolam Lake Country Park, in Northumberland, England.

And it ended with a spectacularly bizarre encounter on the part of the Center for Fortean Zoology's director, Jon Downes, who was there coordinating the quest for the beast.

But, as Jon noted at the time, and as he still confirms today, whatever the thing was, it clearly was not a flesh and blood animal - at least not in the way we understand the term.

So, why am I mentioning this now?

Well, not just because of the anniversary angle, but because my new book, Wildman! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the "British Bigfoot" tells this story in full, and includes a number of seldom-addressed aspects of the story, as well as photos of the site of Jon's dramatic encounter.

For me, it's a case that definitively demonstrates why the British Bigfoot should be perceived as a creature of paranormal - rather than flesh and blood - origins, however we define what the paranormal might actually be!

Peggy Cummins, Happy Birthday!

Well, I missed it by 24-hours, but it's still not too late to wish Peggy Cummins a happy 87th birthday.

In case you didn't know, she's the last surviving member of the cast of my all-time favourite film, Night of the Demon.

Here's wishing you many more to come, Miss Cummins!

The film stars Dana Andrews in the lead role of Dr. John Holden, but it's Niall MacGinnis - as the Aleister Crowley-like Julian Carswell - who masterfully steals the show.

Packed with strange and spooky goings-on in the woods, monstrous demons, glowing balls of light traveling through darkened trees, supernatural big cats, witchcraft, and some memorably sinister characters, Night of the Demon has a curiously Fortean element to it.

If your idea of a horror film is just seeing a bunch of bland college kids getting hacked to pieces one-by-one by some character in a mask and amid a mass of modern-day special effects, then this most definitely isn't a film for you.

However, if (like me) you are a devotee of atmospheric, black-and-white horror films from decades-past, then Night of the Demon is one you will definitely want to catch.

If you've never seen it before, you are in for a treat!

PS: It was released in the US as Curse of the Demon (with several key scenes omitted), so don't get confused...

Dowsing and the Government

My latest Mysterious Universe post is on a subject that rarely gets addressed, namely official, secret interest in the art of dowsing.

It begins like this...

"One of the strangest skills and talents allegedly possessed by humans is water-divining, or dowsing as it is more popularly known. Although the ability of the dowser to locate water by non-conventional means is looked on with suspicion and skepticism in some quarters, for many it is an age-old tradition that remains as absolutely relevant and vital today as it was centuries ago.

"Not only that: the skill has attracted the secret attention of some quite unlikely parties, including the US Intelligence community, the government of the former Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler, the British Police Force, and a department of the British Government that played a key role in the battle against the Nazis during the Second World War."

It's (not) the end of the world as we know it!

Good friend Kithra reminds us that, in case we forgot (as I actually had!), the world goes to crap this coming Friday. According to a bunch of long-gone people, of course.

Her post begins like this...

"This Friday is 21st December, the end of the Mayan Calendar, and doom and disaster is rife across the Internet with so many people under the misapprehension that it will also be the end of the world. It won’t be, it’s just the end of one cycle and the start of another. Although it would be wonderful if the new cycle ushered in an age that was globally more spiritual, and more compassionate.

"If it were to be the end how would that play out around the world on the exact date? Writing as somebody located in the UK how would that date apply to other places, such as Australia, or Japan? For them would it happen on Saturday instead?"

Good questions! You can find Kithra's complete article right here.

PS: Don't worry, the world will NOT end this week! Christmas WILL come!

Monster Diary Gets Loren's Vote

Loren Coleman votes my Monster Diary book as the "best autobiographical cryptozoological book of the year."

And here's the link where you can find Loren's top books in a wide range of other crypto-themed categories.

That's me and Loren above, photographed in October of this year.

Wildmen of Europe

Dr. Karl Shuker has a new post at his Shuker Nature blog.

The subject: the European wildman.

Karl begins...

"Homo sapiens was not the only species of human named and recognised by Linnaeus when publishing Systema Naturae, his revolutionary binomial system of zoological classification, in 1735. Among several others was Homo ferus, the wild man, which according to Linnaeus was covered in hair, moved on all fours, was mute, and lived apart from H. sapiens in forests, hills, and mountains. Today, none of Linnaeus’s ‘other’ species of human is recognised by mainstream science."

They may not be recognized, but that doesn't mean the subject has no validity to it!

In Search of Britain's Big Cats

My latest Lair of the Beasts column at Mania.com, on Britain's Big Cats, which begins like this...

"For decades, people all across the United Kingdom - from the cold northern realms of Scotland to the southern-most borders of England – have reported sightings of large cats, very often the size of mountain-lions and equally often completely black in color.

 

"Their many and varied colorful and memorable names include the Beast of Bodmin, the Essex Lion, the Surrey Puma, and the Beast of Exmoor.

 

"Needless to say, no-one should be seeing any such creatures – anywhere at all – in the wilds of the UK. And yet people do see them, on no less than dozens and dozens of occasions each and every year. So, since Britain has no large, indigenous cats in its midst at all, this begs a very important and big question: where are the cats coming from? Let’s see…"

 

 

MIB, WIB, Monster

There's a new article from me at Mysterious Universe that focuses on one of the strangest stories to have come my way while searching for the Chupacabras on Puerto Rico.

Although I have now made a number of trips to the island, and uncovered a lot of weird tales, this one (told to me and Paul Kimball of Red Star Films in 2005) is very odd.

It starts like this:

"While the term 'Men in Black' is one that pretty much everyone understands – regardless of whether or not they have an interest in the UFO issue, conspiracy-theories, or Forteana in general – what about their female counterparts, the Women in Black, or WIB? Although reports are far more scarce, they do exist and are no less intriguing than the more well-known MIB. Indeed, back in 2005, I was caught up in the investigation of one such case…

"For years, sensational and sinister stories have surfaced from the forests and lowlands of Puerto Rico that tell of a strange and lethal creature roaming the landscape by night and day, while striking overwhelming terror into the hearts of the populace – which is not at all surprising since the animal has been described as having a pair of glowing red eyes, powerful, claw style hands, razor sharp teeth, a body not unlike that a monkey, a row of vicious spikes running down the length of its back, and occasionally, and of deep relevance to this particular chapter, a pair of large and leathery bat-like wings."

And here's the complete feature.

Movie Monsters: A Top 20

Over at EHow.co.uk, there's a new post from me on my top 20 monsters of the movies, many of a definitively cryptozoological nature.

And it begins like this...

"They range from a massive, city-destroying reptile to a monstrous ape, a glowing-eyed winged fiend to an oversized spider, a shape-shifting werewolf to a blood-thirsty giant worm, and much, much more. They have given cinema audiences thrills, shocks, scares and frights for decades. And they have achieved legendary status in the worlds of film-making and Hollywood. Some you will know, others may be less familiar. But they all have one thing in common: they fall under the banner of our personal, favourite monsters of the movies. So, sit back, grab a bag of popcorn and a coke, and read on!"

Brad Steiger Reviews Monster Diary

 

 

Author Brad Steiger gives the thumbs-up to my new book, Monster Diary:

 

"Nick Redfern has produced another excellent title that we will all wish to add to our Redfern Library of Monsters, Weird Creatures, and Perplexing Paths of the Paranormal. In Monster Diary Redfern takes to the road to search out 'strange and sinister creatures,' and the literary style of diary entries serves the subject matter very well.

"I always enjoy reading his take on some of the classic monsters which have haunted the British countryside for centuries. What he adds to his usual reportage of monsters of the moors is a theory that some of these entities may well be spectral memories and ghostly projections. To me, this theory makes a great deal of sense. I have always wondered just where the Brits got the notion that black panthers were terrorizing their roadways when no panthers have ever existed in Great Britain in known history. Psychic projections do make for better explanations.

"Redfern expands this thoughtful theory to extend to Bigfoot and other such creatures. Perhaps the paranormal will not be welcome in this territory by those who faithfully search the woods for signs and proofs of Old Daddy Bigfoot's actual, physical reality. After suggesting a paranormal explanation for a good many Bigfoot sightings, Redfern contends that some of those witnesses who have reported encountering Mammoths, Loch Ness-type water beasts, and saber-toothed tigers may have actually seen ghosts of these prehistoric beasts. And why not? In our Miracle series, my wife Sherry and I have recounted dozens of our correspondents' sightings of the ghostly forms of their beloved dog or cat. The mysteries of life and death may be even more mysterious than we have supposed.

"As a major Redfern fan, I definitely recommend this book as one of his best."

Para-News: Signed Copies

If you haven't yet read Richard Thomas' Para-News book, you should, as it's a very good one. And, right now, Richard has signed copies available.

A Night At The Museum

From Craig Woolheater, of Cryptomundo:

Come join Cryptomundo and The Museum of the Weird, http://www.museumoftheweird.com/, for an afternoon and evening of fun and frivolity on Saturday, January 26:

Schedule of Events:

 3-6: Tour of Museum
Speaker presentations and author book signings
Lyle Blackburn: The Beast of Boggy Creek
Nick Redfern: Wildman! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot, Monster Diary: On the Road in Search of Strange and Sinister Creatures, The World’s Weirdest Places, Memoirs of a Monster Hunter
Dave Coleman: The Bigfoot Filmography
6-8: Dinner @ Chupacabra Cantina, http://chupacabracantina.com/
8-10: Movie night at the Museum: Creature from Black Lake
10-?: Drinks @ Jackelope Bar, http://www.jackalopebar.com/

Neil Arnold on my new book: Wildman

Neil Arnold, author of many books, including Monster! and The Mystery Animals of the British Isles: London, says of my new book, Wildman:

"For many years there have been occasional reports in the wilds of the UK of what people term 'hairy men' and by that we don't just mean the local flasher on the loose! Although legends pertaining to creatures known as Bigfoot and the Yeti are hazy to say the least, can you imagine just how absurd it would sound if such beasts - or similar forms - were reported in the not so inhospitable woods of Britain! Well, since Medieval times there have been alleged encounters with 'wild men of the woods,' hulking great hairy bipedal figures that quite simply cannot be flesh and blood animals. So, what are they? Hallucination? Too many witnesses coming home from the pub? Hoaxes? Or esoteric manifestations connected to the human psyche or something weirder? In his new book, WILDMAN, author Nick Redfern investigates numerous accounts across the British Isles involving those elusive and seemingly supernatural monsters that seem to resemble those hairy hominids of lands far away. Could a Bigfoot-type of animal roam the forests and woods of Britain and remain undetected by science? Highly unlikely, so what are people seeing? Are these creatures connected to the history or magic of a place? Have they been raised occult rituals? Nick Redfern presents a unique case study of such accounts, putting forward his theories - separating fact from fiction - and peeling back the layers of one of Britain's most intriguing yet obscure mysteries. Join Nick as he scours the valleys of Wales, the forests of Scotland, the woods of Kent, the darkest corners of rural Staffordshire, and just about every ruinous abbey, creaky mansion, and underground dwelling in search of those things that cannot be. Published by CFZ PRESS, 'WILDMAN' is one hairy read that should not be missed. Available from Amazon and all good bookstores."

RIP Patrick Moore...and a certain book...

Dave Clarke pays tribute to astronomy-legend, Sir Patrick Moore, who has just died, and says of the man's interest in UFOs that it...

"...can be traced back to 1950s when he interviewed Desmond Leslie and George Adamski for the long-running BBC programme Panorama. Adamski had become a minor celebrity at the time because of the success of his 1953 book Flying Saucers Have Landed. The book told a wildly improbable story of his meeting with a tall, blond alien called Orthon from Venus who landed in the Mojave Desert. In 2006 Moore told me that he and Desmond Leslie, Adamski’s co-author, were chums who had both served in the RAF during the war. He admitted that he and Desmond ‘enjoyed playing practical jokes’. And to demonstrate how easy it was to write fairytales about visitors from other worlds, Patrick produced his own spoof novel, Flying Saucer from Mars. Written under the pseudonym Cedric Allingham, it claimed the author had witnessed the landing of a UFO in Scotland in 1954 and that he was taken on board and whisked around the solar system."

Yes, Moore was quite a character!

And here's Dave's full post.

And here's a piece I did some time back on the re-issue of Flying Saucers from Mars.

Wildman: The Contents

 

 

A couple of people have asked me what kinds of cases and theories for the British Bigfoot appear in my new book, Wildman!, which is the first full-length study of the phenomenon of hairy man-beasts in the UK.

 

Well, the easiest way to answer that question of cases and theories, is to share with you the "Contents" list, which reads like this:

 

THE CASE FILES

Chapter 1: Woodwose and Wild Men

Chapter 2: Tales of the Green Man

Chapter 3: The Apes of Shugborough

Chapter 4: Nightmare in 1971

Chapter 5: The Cursed Canal

Chapter 6: Welsh Wild Men

Chapter 7: The Creature of the Lake

Chapter 8: Dartmoor’s Hairy Hands

Chapter 9: London’s Underground Monstrosities

Chapter 10: The Tragic Tale of Patient X

Chapter 11: Shug Monkeys on the Loose

Chapter 12: A Bridge to Weird

Chapter 13: Slitting Mill’s Hairy Trolls

Chapter 14: ‘The silence was strange, the landscape unfamiliar…’

Chapter 15: The Cleadon Creature

Chapter 16: A Monstrous Castle

Chapter 17: Go Wild in the Country

Chapter 18: Monsters of the Magic Ring

Chapter 19: The Beasts of Derbyshire

Chapter 20: A Cackling Creature in an Irish Castle

Chapter 21: Sasquatch on the Chase

Chapter 22: A Real Life Stig of the Dump

Chapter 23: Southern Archives

Chapter 24: The Big Gray Man of the Mountains

Chapter 25: Bigfoot in Scotland

Chapter 26: The Littlefoot Phenomenon

Chapter 27: The Baboons of Britain

Chapter 28: Old Ned’s Devil and More

THE THEORIES

Chapter 29: A Flesh and Blood Animal?

Chapter 30: Fakery in the U.K.

Chapter 31: The Myth of Menageries and Missing Animals

Chapter 32: Welcome to the Ghost Apes

Chapter 33: From Man to Beast

Chapter 34: UFOs: Connections and Controversies

Chapter 35: Beasts of the Mind

Chapter 36: Mutilations and Anomalous Animals

Chapter 37: Of Hairy Men, Beastly Bridges, and Water-Horses

Chapter 38: From Neolithic to Neanderthal

Chapter 39: Panic on the Mountains

Chapter 40: Rebooting to the Realm of Monsters

Conclusions

MIB: Time Surfers?

I have a new post up at Mysterious Universe on the always-controversial issue of time-travel, but there's another, equally controversial, puzzle added to the mix: that of the Men in Black.

And it all begins like this...

"Just recently, long-time friend, ufological author, publisher and observer of the saucer scene, Tim Green Beckley, emailed me to say he was working on a new book on the controversial issue of time-travel. Tim asked me: would I be interested in contributing a paper to the book? 'Well, of course I would!' I replied. And, now, the book is available to one and all. Its title: Plans for Time Travel Machines That Really Work: How to Move Through Time and Space.

"Over the years I have heard more than a few stories, theories and suggestions that, just perhaps, our presumed extraterrestrial visitors may not be quite so extraterrestrial, after all. Maybe they’re us. But not us from now, if you see what I’m getting at. Instead, maybe they are from times still yet to come. Yeah, I know, it’s all a big mind-f**k. But, it’s still a matter worth addressing, no matter how many headaches it gives us!

"Without doubt, one of the most intriguing theories that suggests a time-travel component to the UFO puzzle came to me from good mate, and prolific author and researcher, Joshua P. Warren. Josh has developed a very interesting scenario that places one of the most controversial aspects of the subject firmly into a time-surfing context. It’s one of my favorite of all paranormal puzzles: the Men in Black."

And here's the full article...

Wildman! A Study of the British Bigfoot

I'm pleased to announce that the Center for Fortean Zoology's CFZ Press have just published from me a new book titled Wildman! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot.

Ironically, for a subject that many - even within the field of Cryptozoology - view as marginal and minimal, it's my longest book ever. It runs at approximately 130,000 words and 300-plus pages.

Here's (below) the blurb for the book, which will give you an idea of what it's all about.

As you'll note, and as is the case with all my crypto-themed books, Wildman! doesn't shy away from the more alternative, Fortean theories for the nature of the beast that I'm known, hated and loathed for persistently promoting:

In Search of a British Man-Beast
The huge forests of the United States are home to Sasquatch. The Abominable Snowman roams the Himalayas. Australia has a similar beast, the Yowie. In China there lurks a giant, bipedal creature called the Yeren. From the Caucasus Mountains in Eurasia stories of the Almas circulate. And then there’s the highly controversial matter of Bigfoot in Britain.

A Menagerie of Monsters
For years, Nick Redfern has been on the trail of this mystifying monster of the British kind – one that provokes fear, amazement and controversy whenever it rears its horrific, hairy head. The Shug-Monkey, the Beast of Bolam, the Big Grey Man, the Man-Monkey, and the Wild Man of Orford are just a few of its many names.

The Strangest Sasquatch of All
But, the wild men and Bigfoot-style beasts of Britain are not what many might assume them to be. They’re not just strange. They’re beyond strange. In Wildman!, Nick Redfern presents controversial data that places the British man-beast in a definitively paranormal category.

A Supernatural Monster
Lycanthrope-style shape-shifting, occult rituals, the human dead returned in beastly form, animal sacrifice, thought-forms and monsters of the mind given a semblance of life, UFO activity, and amazing encounters at sacred, historic and ancient sites all across the British Isles, are just some of the many issues covered in Wildman!, the first, full-length study of a bizarre and nightmarish phenomenon of appropriately monstrous proportions.

And here are a couple of new articles I've done on the book:

1. This one is my latest Lair of the Beasts column at Mania.com;

2. And this one is from Mysterious Universe.

Encounters with Star People

 

 

Encounters with Star People: Untold Stories of American Indians by Ardy Sixkiller Clarke is a new book just published by the good folks at Anomalist Books. And it looks to be a good one!

 

Here's the write-up from the publisher:

A noted American Indian researcher offers up a collection of intimate narratives of encounters between contemporary American Indians and the Star People. The first person accounts, described as conscious experiences and recalled without the aid of hypnosis, reveal a worldview that unquestionably accepts the reality of the Star People. The stories also reveal cultures that almost universally regard Star People as ancestors, which allows for interactions that take place without fear and helps explain the uniqueness of the encounters and experiences.

The stories are told by people from all walks of life. Some had graduate degrees; others had never attended school. Some were adept at technology; others had never used a cell phone, owned a computer or a television set. A few of the stories are about events that occurred before the 1947 Roswell incident, however, the majority of the events took place between 1990 and 2010. This book significantly contributes to the knowledge about UFOs from a group that until now have mostly remained silent. For readers, it is likely they will never look at the UFO phenomenon in the same way again

About the Author:

DR. ARDY SIXKILLER CLARKE, a Professor Emeritus at Montana State University, has dedicated her life and career to working with indigenous populations. She is the author of several children’s books and the bestselling Sisters in the Blood. While retired from academia, Dr. Clarke continues to work as a consultant to American Indian tribes and indigenous communities worldwide. She maintains a blog, a poetry page, and a photo gallery entitled “A Day in the Life,” which embodies the beauty of Mother Earth and her creatures, at www.sixkiller.com. Dr. Clarke lives in Montana with her husband, Kip Szczygiel; her beloved Lhasa Apso, Prairie Rose, and her Maine Coon cat, Rez Perez.

---

---

CONTENTS
Author’s Note
Preface
Chapter 1: Missing Time
Chapter 2: An Encounter that Pre-Dates Roswell
Chapter 3: Sometimes They Come for Families
Chapter 4: The Man Who Shot an Alien
Chapter 5: An Alien, A Spacecraft, and an Alaskan Blizzard
Chapter 6: They Are Among Us
Chapter 7: A Star Traveler
Chapter 8: Three Military Veterans Describe an Encounter of the First Kind
Chapter 9: Alien Abductions of the Not-So-Common Kind
Chapter 10: Encounters of the Fifth Kind
Chapter 11: Disappearances in the Southwest
Chapter 12: They Hover Over Missile Sites
Chapter 13: A Vietnam Veteran Reveals a Gift from the Star People
Chapter 14: An Alien Heart
Chapter 15: They Live Underground
Chapter 16: Abductions of a Different Kind
Chapter 17: We Are Not of This Earth
Chapter 18: Where the Buffalo Play
Chapter 19: They Are Shapeshifters
Chapter 20: Liberators from Space
Chapter 21: Two Women Speak Their Minds
Chapter 22: They Will Be Gone When I Am 25
Chapter 23: No Guns Allowed
Chapter 24: The Little People Are the Star People
Chapter 25: The Story of a Traveling Marble
Chapter 26: Four Police Officers Come Forward
Chapter 27: An Alien Hitchhiker
Chapter 28: American Indians and the Cosmic Connection
Acknowledgments

The Ghostly Black Dogs of Cornwall

 

 

Stories of ghostly black dogs from Britain of centuries-past have long fascinated me, which is why it's very good to see a new article on this subject from good friend, Kithra.

 

Specifically, Kithra focuses on those blazing-eyed hounds from her native English county of Cornwall, a place rich in myth, folklore and legend.

 

She says:

 

"The local name that the Cornish have for these creatures is Dando's Dogs, or Dandy Dogs. As in many other places, it is believed that to hear them baying is a sign of imminent disaster. And, should you actually see them then you will meet a sudden death. The name itself arises from the tale of a dissolute priest called Dando, and many believe that they only appear on a Sunday.

 

"The story of Dando is one where he sells his soul to the Devil. As generally told Dando was a priest at the old priory church in St Germans, and he was a great sinner who enjoyed all the pleasures of life that priests weren't supposed to indulge in. This included hunting, even on a Sunday, and while doing so he continued his love of drink to the point of disregarding crops and fences as his hounds and henchmen followed him wherever the prey went. Yet he was loved by his parishioners as, being such a sinner himself, he always forgave then their own sins."

 

And here's where you can find the complete article.