Nick Redfern's Blog, page 116

UFOs: Paranormal Possession

There's a new Mysterious Universe article from me , and here's how it starts:

"When it comes to the matter of who, or what, the dreaded Men in Black may be, the list of possibilities is just about as long as it is controversial. Indeed, the widely (and wildly!) varying theories include aliens, government agents, time-travelers, and dimension-hoppers. There is, however, another theory, one which hardly ever gets any serious consideration. In fact, it’s probably a theory that scarcely ever crosses the minds of most people – even those within the field of Ufology. What might it be? Read on…



"What if the MIB are not extraterrestrials, time-surfers from the distant future, agents of officialdom, or inter-dimensional creatures? What if, incredibly, they are normal, every day people, just like me and you? Or, to put it more correctly, what if they are every day people most of the time? Could it be the case that the MIB are regular individuals who, now and again, become possessed by a paranormal force – a demonic force , some might even suggest - that uses those poor souls as vessels to perform tasks of the terrifying kind?"

A Werewolf Q&A

Over at OnMilwaukee.com, there's a new profile on Linda Godfrey (author of such excellent books as Hunting the American Werewolf and  The Michigan Dogman ).

It's a profile that begins as follows...

"Wisconsin author Linda S. Godfrey didn’t set out to become a leading expert in the manwolf' phenomenon, she just kind of fell into one cold winter in 1991.

"'I call myself the accidental werewolf chronicler because it was nothing that I thought of in my previous life as a career I might someday have,' Godfrey recently told me over the phone.

"She lives in the 'quiet, conservative community' of Elkhorn. In the early '90s, she got a staff job as a writer and illustrator at the Walworth County newspaper The Week and soon received a strange tip."

And here's the rest of the story , including what happened after that "strange tip" came Linda's way...
  

Woolpit's Wild Children

My latest Mysterious Universe article is on the very strange (and ancient) saga of the wild children of Woolpit, England...

A Change Is Coming...

Next year, I will have several new books released, which will bring the number of titles I have had published to thirty. And, as a result, and particularly over the course of the last few months, I have been doing some thinking about what the future will bring in terms of my book-writing. Well, the main thing it's going to bring is a radical change. And here's what I mean by that:

Of those thirty books, approximately twenty or so are UFO-themed, one way or another. And all of those twenty (plus my cryptozoological book, Monster Files ) are based around conspiracies, cover-ups, government files, and official records.

Well, there is something I have been giving much thought to and it's this: having written so many books with conspiracy-based themes, I honestly think I have reached the point where I have written just about all I want to on conspiracies.

I would stress (in fact, I cannot stress this enough!) it's not at all a case of burn-out. And no, I have not been threatened by the Men in Black, or silenced by "them"!

Rather, I really do feel that I have pretty much covered all of the many and various conspiracies that personally interest me (and having an interest is my only motivation when it comes to writing about them). And that has been a lot, to say the least. The long list includes: Roswell, Area 51, the Face on Mars, the Moon-landings, government files, the JFK assassination, secret bases, missing files, mysterious deaths in Ufology, and...well the list goes on...and on...and on...and...

So, rather than be forced into in a position of writing conspiracy-themed books purely for the sake of it, or because it's expected of me, I'm going to shift gears a bit. As I said, I do have a couple of UFO-themed conspiracy books coming out in 2014 (such as Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind for New Page Books, and which, even though I say so myself, is a bloody good one!). But, that's it. Post-2014, no more.

I would stress that this decision to move - totally - away from the realm of conspiracies won't mean I'll be writing books any less. Certainly, I'll still be writing on UFOs and Cryptozoology as much as ever - as there are plenty of aspects of both phenomena worthy of treatment that have nothing to do with conspiracies at all.

Plus, I would like to get into paranormal areas of writing (but not ghosts, which don't really interest me), and things like ancient myths, folklore, legends, etc., - which do interest me a lot.

But, the last thing I want to do is write about an angle of the unknown (the conspiracy angle) that, for me anyway, I have now covered to the extent that I want to or am interested in doing.

So, I view things like this: I have a solid body of conspiracy-based writing behind me, and which now (after thirty books) covers pretty much all I am interested in (or enthusiastic about) saying on the subject.

Again, there is no hidden motive, no MIB lurking around, no exhaustion, no disillusionment, etc. Rather, I simply want to remain fresh and not finish up like some band peddling its old hits over and over again.

Look at it from my perspective: twenty or so conspiracy-themed books in less than twenty years is a lot. And I have now done what I want to do in that field, I have made up my mind, and nothing will change that.

So for me, I don't - at all - view this as "the end." In fact, the exact opposite. Yes, at some point in 2014 I will indeed bow out of conspiracy-based writing and move onto other aspects of the paranormal that interest me greatly, but which - until now - I have had little time to investigate or write about.

But change can be a good thing.

In Search of the Thylacine

 

There's a new post from me at Mysterious Universe on the always controversial issue of whether or not the thylacine still lives. It starts  like this...

"From Australia’s Courier Mail newspaper… 'An international team of naturalists from the Centre for Fortean Zoology has arrived in Tasmania for the first in a series of well-resourced and professional expeditions into Tasmania’s wilderness to hunt for evidence of the Tasmanian tiger. Although the animal was officially declared extinct in the 1980s, reports of thylacine sightings are still common and expedition leader Mike Williams from NSW has high hopes that they can find something. 'The problem with a lot of the sightings from members of the public is that they’re generally caught by surprise, and their photos are taken on things like mobile phones and aren’t very good,’ he said.

"If the Center for Fortean Zoology’s expedition does indeed uncover evidence that the thylacine really is still with us (albeit with us in an incredibly stealthy fashion!), it would be amazing news. After all, not only is the creature widely believed to have become extinct way back in the 1930s, but it was a truly weird-looking animal, too. On top of that, I’m pretty sure that such a discovery would prove to be a major step in encouraging quests to uncover additional, presumed-extinct beasts, too, as well as the definitive unknowns, such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster."

A "Nobody's" Q&A

Over at The Examiner , there's a new Q&A with me, on my latest book, For Nobody's Eyes Only . You can find it right here...

Creepy Dog-Headed Invaders...

Over at her blog, Linda Godfrey has an intriguing post on "canine-headed," bipedal creatures. It begins as follows...

"Since it’s Halloween, I thought I’d share an example from the spookier side of the reports I receive. As I often note, the great majority of creatures described by eyewitnesses feature unusual but not necessarily supernatural behavior — mostly walking or running on two legs. There’s a small but steady minority of reports, however, that describe something I call the 'house or bedroom invaders.' These involve creatures that appear inexplicably inside people’s homes. In my opinion they are not at all the same things that others report jumping from cornfields or snarling on nature trails. Their descriptions detail a taller creature that seems more humanoid in form and is utterly black in color."

And here's the complete article...

UK Wallaby Captured

Thanks to Kithra for keeping me informed of the saga of the latest "out of place" wallaby in the UK, which has now been captured...

Getting Ready For Halloween At The Redfern Home...

 

Horseman Horror!

Since today is the spookiest day of the year, my new Mysterious Universe article focuses on an old English affair of ghostly proportions that occurred in the county of Dorset back in 1924. It involves nothing less than the spectral form of a Bronze Age-era warrior and his equally spectral horse...