Reviews

Shocking New Book: The Yowie

Click on the cover above to make the Yowie larger. The Yowie: In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot Wow! What a beautiful cover. If a book’s cover is a window to the content, you will not be disappointed. This is an earthshaking book. It’s big, it’s monumental, and it will surprise many people. I am an American, and as such, I have to admit that North Americans, specifically the general population and the media more than the readers here, tend to think egoistically that our Sasquatch was here first. The sense is that the files and legends of the rest of [...]

Cryptozoology in KC

A publication called Pitch Weekly in Kansas City, Missouri, has stepped up with one of the first critiques of the Bates traveling exhibition in a column called, “Art Capsule Reviews” for November 2, 2006. In Santiago Ramos’ November 2nd review, he writes: Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale – A cryptid is a creature like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster — that is, lost, rumored or thought to be extinct. Cryptozoology is a science — or pseudoscience, depending on whom you ask — that studies such creatures. A real-life cryptozoologist named Loren Coleman joins 17 artists from around the [...]

Abominable Snowman’s Writer Dies

One of the most influential television writers of the 20th century and the writer of one of the most important motion pictures in Yeti cryptofiction has died. Earlier this year, I noted that director Val Guest died on May 10, 2006, in California. Now, Nigel has passed away. That would be Nigel Kneale, here pictured from the 1950s. At the Hammer Film’s site, in a remembrance there, writer Robert Simpson shares the sad news: Tom Kneale (better known as Nigel Kneale) died on Sunday 29 October 2006 aged 84. To many he was the godfather of television science fiction, a [...]

Rich Dolan Comments On “Mothman”

As a comment to my review of the “Sci-Fi Investigates” program, one of the program’s four investigators, Richard Dolan, sent in a comment to my blog. I wish to bring his insights to a higher level of blog-awareness by posting it separately today. Richard M. Dolan Hello everyone, I’d like to extend my greetings to everyone and just say that I often enjoy reading the entries in here. I agree with other commentators that the absence of John Keel on this show was very unfortunate, as was the absence of Loren Coleman. I asked the producers about getting Keel on [...]

Sci-Fi’s Mothman Non-Investigation

On October 26, 2006, "Sci-fi Investigates" broadcast their "Mothman" episode. While it had a few moments that are pure entertainment and certainly funny, it had little or nothing to do with "investigating" Mothman or unexplained phenomena. The program was a forensic failure. Eyewitnesses were interviewed, sites were visited, group discussions were recorded, and more eyewitnesses were interviewed. The archival footage was interesting, but the repeating images of the collapsed bridge and created Mothman-in-flight scenes were visibly boring after their third time through. Come on, did they run out of b-roll so quickly? Skepticism and Ridicule Are Not the Same Thing [...]