Dogs were caught on camera doing surprising damage to cars. It’s yet another reminder that we do not need to invoke monsters as the cause of mysterious situations.
Category: Monsters
Freak Out Over Hairless Mysterious Animals
Weird hairless animals attract morbid attention. Is it a mutant? A monster? Well, it’s most likely an unfortunate local animal who fortunately left remains for us to photograph, gawk over, get grossed out about, and share around the world on social media.
Copy-paste cryptozoology
A review of Chasing American Monsters: Over 250 Creatures, Cryptids, and Hairy Beasts by Jason Offutt (2019). I’ve been thinking a lot about cryptozoology lately. While consuming content about many […]
The Mysterious Monster Mash of the Mid 1970s: Bigfoot hits prime time TV
Bigfoots and their other monstrous cohorts were presented to U.S. audience in a serious television documentary for the first time in 1974. The outing was so successful that it still […]
My three favorite vintage books on monsters and the paranormal
Every once in a while, I remember one of the books from my childhood that I recall with great fondness. Thanks to the Internet, I can usually find a blurb […]
The monsters of cryptozoology: Book review
A review of The Monster Book: Creatures, Beasts and Fiends of Nature by Nick Redfern. Cryptozoology literature has a problem.
Supernatural Creep: When explanations slide off to the fringes
Originally published as Supernatural Creep: The Slippery Slope to Unfalsifiability for my column Sounds Sciencey on csicop.org May 29, 2013. I’m taking a step beyond sciencey with the following topic. What happens when science doesn’t cooperate with your subject area? […]
Believers are the majority: Paranormal acceptance in America is rising
The results of the 2018 Chapman University survey of American Fears have been released and they suggest that America (that is, even well-educated America) is even more accepting of the […]
Can you make a good paranormal-themed TV show?
A recent discussion with a person who pitches ideas for TV shows got me thinking about what a solid, informative, program about the paranormal would look like. The bottom line… […]
Let this one be a Devil’s biography (Book Review)
“The Secret History of the Jersey Devil: How Quakers, Hucksters, and Benjamin Franklin Created a Monster” by Brian Regal and Frank J. Esposito, dispels myths about the ‘Jersey Devil’. Rooting the legend in 17th-century quarrels, politics and media-driven hoaxes, they argue that the monster is a misinterpretation of stories from the Leeds family, rather than a supernatural creature.
Observing Paranormal Investigators: An ongoing research project at SFU
Kingsbury examines sociological aspects of the pararnormal and those who pursue it.
It’s all very fuzzy: Dogman, Bigfoot, and the scent of paranormalia at CryptidCon
A trip to the first CryptidCon reveals how these mysterious monsters are represented in modern culture.
The manufactured, badly-behaved Ouija demon: Zozo (Book Review)
In the classic book Psychology of Superstition, Gustav Jahoda writes that beliefs are not just in our heads, they affect our behavior, and that self-fulfilling prophecy is not uncommon in […]
Monster tales of the southern swamps (Book Review)
Beyond Boggy Creek: In Search of the Southern Sasquatch, by Lyle Blackburn (2017) This is Blackburn’s third book in a semi-series of volumes on southern bipedal creatures. I reviewed the […]
Manual of monsters from cinema and culture – Book Review
I found an advertisement somewhere online for Rue Morgue Magazine’s Monstro Bizarro collection, “An Essential Manual of Mysterious Monsters”. Â Maybe it was via the editor, Lyle Blackburn. I pay attention […]
An inconsistent history of paranormal in America – Book Review
Supernatural America: A Cultural History by L.R. Samuel (2011) Supernatural America is one of a few books that aim to take the reader on a tour of the country’s paranormal […]
When Bigfoot became an alien (around 1973)
Talk about a flashback! In my latest podcast interview with Jason Colavito, we are discussing the alien-Bigfoot connection (in the context of Bigfoot as Nephilim) when Jason mentions the TV […]
Animal Planet’s Monster Week tones down the hype for 2016
It’s business as usual at Animal Planet channel. It’s Monster Week. You know, it’s not that bad to air shows like The Cannibal in the Jungle for one week or on […]
Well-worn paranormal paths go nowhere: When to give up
Gary Campbell is the keeper of the Official Sightings Register at Loch Ness. In an article today in the Daily Record, he says that even after 20 years of this project, […]
The Bigfoot Book: Speculation and supernatural but no skepticism
Nick Redfern’s latest, The Bigfoot Book, has a sound premise and great potential. It’s all about stuff you may never have heard about or saw relating to the Bigfoot phenomena. […]