Media Appearances

Dark Matters

Life is not all about Yetis, of course. As I have mentioned in the past, I have another blog that deals routinely with my research and consulting on the copycat effect, school shootings, and suicide clusters, often with a sidetrip into twilight language. As you can imagine, I have had to put some time and some words over there lately. I could tell something was on the horizon, and then the Northern Illinois University shootings occurred. For those interested in these topics, I have recently written several essays on the current events: Dates & Dark Matters NIU Blame Game NIU [...]

Cryptozoology for Beginners

B.T. Makishima has kindly published on Sunday, February 17, 2008, a new blog entitled “My recommendation for a book for beginners.” Makishima writes: My recommendation for beginners in the field of cryptozoology who want a book to read about is Cryptozoology A to Z. I know, I know, it sounds like a little kid’s book. But, if you don’t believe me, check out this info. First of all, it is 258 pages long, second, it alphabetizes the names and histories of the cryptids, and third, well, I think no little kid would understand ANY of it. (Read the rest here.) [...]

Loch Ness Monster Filmmaker Dies

Ralph Bradshaw White, 66, a National Geographic contract cameraman who filmed the documentary Search for the Loch Ness Monster, died February 4, 2008, at the Glendale Adventist Medical Center in California, the Los Angeles Times announced on February 13. White died from complications of an aortic aneurysm, said his daughter, Krista Few of Yokosuka, Japan. White was most famous, in filmmaking circles, for his gripping footage that documented the 1985 discovery of the sunken Titanic. He had returned to the bottom of the ocean more than 30 times to film and recover artifacts from the ill-fated vessel. Ralph White enjoyed [...]

50th Anniversary: Slick Begins Snowman Search

This week marks the 50th anniversary of Tom Slick’s most organized, first San Antonio Zoo-sponsored expedition in search of the Yeti. It was formally called the Slick-Johnson Snowman Expedition. Via a feature giving a flashback of 50 years ago, the Los Angeles Times reprinted an old Matt Weinstock column, from the reporter who was sort of the “Herb Caen of Los Angeles.” In this passage, Weinstock talked of the Abominable Snowman and Tom Slick, thus giving a good period view of one newspaper columnist’s way of dealing with the event. Matt Weinstock (You gotta love Weinstock’s 1950s’ haircut.) The following [...]

Arthurian White Stag Reported

Almost mystical in nature, white animals garner human attention, as this new story demonstrates. There is nothing truly cryptozoological about albino or nearly albino animals, any more than there is about melanistic ones. Neither are hidden, certainly, as their very appearance and finding them makes the news. Actually, their appeal has everything to do with them being very beautiful and visible. In the world of weird animal news, white animals tend to get more than the usual attention from humans, and thus the media. Ghostly, phantomlike, mythical, and legendary are words often associated with albinos and near-albinos (leucistic) specimens of [...]

Cryptozoology Futurology

Yes, I have turned up in this new book, What’s Next: The Experts’ Guide: Predictions from 50 of America’s Most Compelling People by Jane Buckingham. I am one of the fifty “most compelling people” in the country. I’m still trying to explain what that means to my sons. I do like the company I get to keep in the pages of this tome, which has just hit the bookstores. What’s Next takes cryptozoology seriously. It contains my next decade’s predictions about where I see the field going and what animals I feel will be discovered. I won’t spoil this author’s [...]