Category Archives: Cryptozoology
A class in cryptozoology: When you know too much
What’s with these latest opinion polls on ghosts and cryptids?
Dogs, not a lizardman, will rip your car apart
The coelacanth as a red herring
This post is updated from its original publication in 2009.– SH In researching three areas of what I concluded were mostly “scientifical” fields of inquiry for my book – cryptozoology, ghost hunting, and creationism – I was amused to find one example used to the same end for all three – the discovery of the… Read More »
Freak Out Over Hairless Mysterious Animals
Fake tiger tales and other plush hoaxes
Police in the Steyning area of West Sussex, England, were called to a public park on the evening of July 23, 2020 to respond to a report of a big cat on the loose. The Horsham police were likely familiar with the popular idea that large, non-native, “alien big cats” are roaming the UK. Hundreds… Read More »
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 other subjects, I see excellent examples in cryptozoology to illustrate public attitudes towards and understanding of science, paranormal thinking, colonialist themes, misperceptions about evidence, media… Read More »
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 is notable today. This documentary, its remixes, and a few other pieces of media gold from that decade paved the way for ideas of Bigfoot/Sasquatch… Read More »
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 on what I had long discarded or gave away. I have been trying for a while to locate a kids activity book about monsters that… Read More »
The monsters of cryptozoology: Book review
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? Researchers of unexplained events may get frustrated and disenchanted with the scientific process when the eyewitness accounts they collect are too weird to explain via… Read More »
Doubt and About: Revisiting Fort and more short book opinions
It’s been a long while since I did a “doubt and about” post detailing what’s going on. I’m in a weird space right now. I don’t really feel like talking about anything but I also want to share some things. Going by that last sentence, I am admitting that I am inconsistent. I have internal… Read More »
Science and cryptozoology: The taboo subject of Bigfoot doesn’t add up
Episode 7 of Laura Krantz’ Wild Thing podcast on Bigfoot, science and society explores the contentious relationship between the orthodox scientific community and those scientists who choose to seriously explore fringe topics like this one. Several science-minded Bigfoot advocates are profiled who lament the way society and the “Ivory Tower” of science (a monolithic metaphorical… Read More »
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 paranormal than in the past three years. You can view the entire survey here but let me highlight the major points as well as some… Read More »
Supernatural in Society conference: Bader on Bigfooters
There is a lot of new research happening in academia about paranormal culture and belief. I kid you not. Scholars in sociology, psychology, religious studies, and media studies are noticing that millions of people are deeply affected by paranormal beliefs and personal experiences. There is so much happening, especially regarding ghostly episodes, that it’s difficult… Read More »
The Doubtful Witness: You don’t really know what you saw
How often have you heard someone say “I know what I saw”. Observations and remembrances of events are deeply flawed but we still rely on our memory to give us a true account and we believe reports of eyewitnesses. These accounts are the primary evidence put forward in support of paranormal reality. Those who believe… Read More »
The Doubtful Witness: Masefield’s Montrose ghost story
The primary evidence put forward in support of paranormal reality are accounts of witnesses. Those who believe in the reality of UFOs, Bigfoot, or ghosts are heavily influenced by seemingly legitimate and truthful tellings of strange events people say happened to them. They also contend that there are so many accounts that “there must be… Read More »
The Science of Nessie: Then and now
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.