Television

Arthur C. Clarke Dies

An Associated Press News Alert confirms that science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90. Rohan De Silva says Clarke died early Wednesday, March 19, 2008 (local time) after suffering from breathing problems. Clarke was born Arthur Charles Clarke on 16 December 1917. He was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. Tributes and mainstream obituaries will not be difficult to find about Clarke in the coming hours [...]

Bladenboro Beast Is Back

As the North American warm weather develops and the two new cryptozoology television series, “MonsterQuest” and “Destination Truth” battle for ratings heats cryptid matters, it will be worth our time to notice how many media mentions are generated by these two programs. For example, the Beast of Bladenboro article below appears to have been written because of the documentary filmmakers renewing investigations of the old stories as due to any new reports. If the tourist development success seen in such locations as Bladenboro or ones like in Point Pleasant, we should not be surprised to see other rural towns sharing [...]

Happy Birthday, Scott T. Norman

It seems most appropriate that as I find myself trying to unravel the tales and sightings of a decidedly unique series of sightings of a seemingly “American dinosaur species,” a living one at that, my thoughts would turn to the late dino hunter, Scott Thomas Norman. Scott would have been 44 years old today, March 15, 2008. He was a good and decent person. As we use to say in the Midwest, Scott was “good people.” Sometimes he found himself surrounded by ridicule mongers and worse. He calmly plowed ahead, nevertheless, turning the other cheek. These screen captures are from [...]

White Yeti & Mutant Ready

The Portland Phoenix’s Deirdre Fulton attended my talk today, and she just posted a flash review, here. It was a good crowd, and I appreciated the good introduction from local artist and library staff supervisor Michelle Souliere. Michelle Souliere views Swanson’s White Yeti (a/k/a “Killing Moon”), when it was at Bates College’s Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale. Fulton’s article reminded me of two things: 1) “All politics is local,” as longtime Speaker of the House in the U.S. Congress Tip O’Neill would said. He, of course, was talking about how the concerns and focusses of the rural areas, towns [...]

Destination Truth: Season Two

Destination Truth returns for Season Two on Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 10 PM Eastern, 9 PM Central, 8 PM Mountain, and 7 PM Pacific, on the SciFi Channel. Joshua Gates (R) displaying alleged footprint of Yeti. The following are overviews of three of their cryptozoological episodes to be aired. The episode first up this week is on Josh Gates’ Yeti discoveries that broke last December, including an exclusive to Cryptomundo from Josh. Yeti First reported in 1832 in Nepal, the large, bipedal, shaggy yet manlike creature has been sighted ever since. Much as Sasquatch was seen around North America, [...]

He’s Back: Lizard Man

Wetzel’s “It” by Bill Rebsamen from Mysterious America (page 273). In 1970, John A. Keel’s book Strange Creatures from Time and Space was first published. I’d been corresponding with Keel for several years by then, and had been feeding him reports, cases, and sightings of reptilian creatures in North America. Keel turned my files into over a third of the foundation for his wonderful Chapter 10, “Creatures from the Black Lagoon.” For decades, I’d been gathering and analyzing accounts of these cryptids. I began to write about them in Fortean Times, and then in my books, honoring Keel’s terminology, by [...]