Nick Redfern's Blog, page 138

Lecturing on the MIB

It's a while away yet, but I'll be speaking at the MUFON Philadelphia conference on the weekend of October 4 to 6. The subject, my book, The Real Men in Black .  Here's the link to the event.

The Mechanical Gorilla

In a new post at his Forteana Blog , Andrew May begins... "Here is a new novelette packed with Fortean themes. It’s got cryptozoology (ghostly-seeming apemen in the woods), sinister government secrets (Cold War bunkers and Men in Black) and a gateway to a parallel universe. It even name-drops the one-and-only Nick Redfern!" Well!  So, what is Andrew's new book, The Mechanical Gorilla , all about? Here's a few more words from the man himself... "...Once I’d started thinking about it, I realized I could merge in various other ideas that were at the back of my mind – Nick Redfern’s theories about the nature of British 'apeman' sightings, and my fascination with Cold War politics and secret underground installations. Mix in some convincing-sounding technobabble and an old-fashioned beginning-middle-end plot, and The Mechanical Gorilla was the result!"  And here's the link to Andrew's complete post , along with info on where you can purchase The Mechanical Gorilla .

Linda Godfrey Reviews Wildman

Linda Godfrey - author of Real Wolfmen , The Michigan Dogman , Hunting the American Werewolf , and many other titles - reviews my book, Wildman! , the subject of which is the "British Bigfoot."

Here's Linda'a review:

"Bigfoot in the British Isles? The idea of huge, hairy man-apes hiding out in the manor-dotted, bucolic countryside of the British Isles seems as likely at first blush as the queen switching out her Earl Grey for chugs of Red Bull. But Nick Redfern's new book, Wild Man! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot , (CFZ Press, 2012) makes an exhaustive and surprisingly compelling case that people have indeed been seeing anomalous, Bigfoot-like creatures from Shugborough to Derbyshire, perhaps for centuries!

"Redfern has to be one of the most prolific current writers on strange and cryptozoological topics -- he releases books faster than I can find time to review them. But I wanted to make sure that I got this one posted because it covers so many topics of interest to the worldwide cadre of Bigfoot-seekers. It has the additional advantage of being authored by a native of the British soil who possesses many area connections and much firsthand knowledge.



"Redfern starts by grounding the wild man topic in medieval history, harking back to the wodewose, or hairy, naked men seen throughout the forests of England since at least the early 14th century. But he notes that the wodewose was described as very close to human underneath all that fur.

"The nearly 300, large pages are packed with anecdotes in a timeframe that ranges from ancient to contemporary, but the book is about more than mysterious case studies. Redfern doesn't shy away from possible explanations for the anomalous creatures, venturing into possibilities such as misidentifications with primates released from the private zoos of eccentric collectors. He also notes the difficulty of explaining how large predators could subsist in the English countryside without detection and lays out a theory that they may be 'semi-physical' or products of some other process that is not presently known to science.

"Whatever these wild things are, Redfern's examination of them belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in anomalous creatures, especially those of the hairy hominoid kind. There may be more beasties hiding in that famed British mist than anyone has previously guessed."

Werewolves and Conflict

There's a new post from me at Mysterious Universe on a very weird topic: the connection between werewolves and warfare...

Here's how it starts:

"In May 2007, I penned an article for my There’s something in the Woods blog titled Do Werewolves Roam the Woods of England? It was a feature prompted by the fact that in that same year, 2007, numerous sightings of a werewolf-type beast were reported in the heart of the Cannock Chase – a large area of forest and heath in the English county of Staffordshire.

"But, of note, all the encounters on the Chase occurred within the confines of an old cemetery, and specifically a cemetery housing the remains of German soldiers and airmen who died in prisoner of war camps on British soil during the First and Second World Wars."

And here's the full article. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this "wolfman and warfare" topic!

Kithra and the Cornish Hare

For those who, like me, have a fascination for British folklore, the new article from Kithra will be of interest.  It starts as follows... "Hares have had a mystical reputation around the world, and here in Cornwall there are myths surrounding the white hare. "The most famous belief about white hares in Cornwall is that they are the spirits of girls who had been deserted by their lovers; as a result of which the girls died broken-hearted due to grief. Thus, with their spirit being unable to rest, they chose the form of a white hare in which to return and haunt their deserters. In this guise they are invisible to all except the one who jilted them, and they will haunt him until he finally dies. "For both fishermen and miners hares were associated with witchcraft and deemed to be ill omens. Whether on board a ship or down a mine they were thought to bring bad luck and would be chased away by not only miners but also farmers who believed they were witches in an altered form."  And here's the full story of the folklore surrounding the Cornish hare...

Sid: Lest We Forget

As incredible as it may sound to those of us that remember it, it was 34 years ago today - February 2, 1979 - that punk rock icon, and Sex Pistols bass-guitarist, Sid Vicious croaked.

At the time, I was just 14 and Sid was a god. And, for me anyway, the Sex Pistols remain the greatest British band ever (don't even bother arguing, as it's just not worth it).

But, of course, Sid was not a god. Rather, he was a young kid who got hooked on the most disastrous drug of all: heroin.

Not only that, Sid couldn't play the bass to save his life. Having been brought into the Pistols after original bassist Glen Matlock left, Sid proved less than capable of handling the instrument.

Indeed, Sex Pistols' guitar-thug supremo Steve Jones played practically all of Sid's bass parts on the band's 1977 album, Never Mind the Bollocks . On top of that, Sid's amp was regularly turned down low when the band played live. Sometimes, it was even turned off, such was Sid's inept wankery as a bassist.

But Sid still became a punk rock legend. The reason? He looked the part: spiky black hair, black motorbike jacket, a permanent sneer (of the type that Billy Idol later perfected), and his bass guitar slung low around his waist.

Sid was like a punk rock James Dean in terms of image, but unlike Dean, Sid had no redeeming talent, aside from the look.

And then there was the heroin, quite possibly the most disastrous drug of all. It's one I recommend to absolutely no one - ever - and which is almost guaranteed to see the user end up in the gutter, or six foot under.

By the age of only 21, Sid was a (literally) jaundiced bag of bones, with collapsed veins in his arms (he was forced to inject into his feet, which is definitely a sign that the point of no return is looming), his "career" in tatters, and up on a murder charge for killing his junkie girlfriend, Nancy Spungen (which, by the way, he was almost certainly innocent of).

Sid never was convicted of Nancy's death - the reason: he soon joined her. The cause: yep, the heroin.

Today, it's strange to think that Sid would be 55. Later this year, he would have been 56. That's only 4 years short of 60. Do we really want to think of a 60-year-old Sid? No. Let's remember him as he was.

On the positive side, Sid really did become the face of late-1970s punk, and will be forever immortalized as a result.

On the downside, and in the cold light of day, Sid was someone who was just in the right place at the right time, and tried in vain to live up to an image that was part real but that was also part expected of him. He had no redeeming musical skills and died while barely into his 20s, chiefly as a result of his very real self-destructive tendencies.

But, he left his mark on the music industry, even without actually contributing much to it at all (the aforementioned image aside). And so, for that reason, and because he was a big part of my early teenage years, I raise my morning mug of tea to Sid, a young man who died a tragic death, and who will never grow old, but will always remain forever that spiky haired, sneering anti-hero.

A Black Dog of the Phantom Kind

Over at New Page Books' blog, there's a hell hound on the loose...

A Monster Diary Q&A

Over at The Examiner there's a new Q&A with me about my most recent book, Monster Diary: On the Road in Search of Strange and Sinister Creatures , published by Anomalist Books.

The interview was done a couple of weeks ago with Jeffery Pritchett, and here's a taster of it, with an excerpt from the first question and answer...

You can find the complete interview right here.

1. Nick, in your book Monster Diary On the Road in Search of Strange and Sinister Creatures , in your introduction you get into the Cryptozoologist's stubborn view of all creatures being flesh and blood and renouncing the paranormal. Sasquatch comes to mind. I agree whole heartily! Could you get into this with us?

NR: Yeah, sure. Basically, there are many creatures within Cryptozoology that appear to be something less - or more - than mere flesh and blood, at least as we understand it. Granted, it's an aspect of the subject that many researchers ignore or dismiss. And even though these cases - rogue cases might be a good term to use - are certainly not in the majority, when you have reports, even if it's only in the several dozens or thereabouts, of Bigfoot seen at the same time and place as strange lights in the sky, or when the creature vanishes in a flash of light, or monster hunters begin to have weird synchronicities when they look for these things, I think we have to start looking into other realms. Most of these things are so elusive it almost defies belief for them to be regular animals. But, there's no doubt these things exist. It's just the nature of that existence I question, not whether they are real or not. Only a nut, an oaf - I like that word - or a weak and unsure mind in total denial would deny the tremendous body of data in support of their existence.

Roswell: Endless Entertainment

Back in July 2007, I travelled to Roswell, New Mexico, where I was due to lecture on my book Body Snatchers in the Desert – a book that most within Ufology hated and dearly hoped would not prove to be the answer to the pesky, long-gone affair that has obsessed so many for so very long. Anyway, just before I hit the road to Roswell I prepared a lengthy article on the looming anniversary, but which has never been published. Until now. So, I figured why not bring it to your attentions? I think it’s all still pretty much relevant, six years later. You may agree or disagree. But, whatever your view on the article, it goes like this…

Mysterious Universe: 2 New Posts

There are a couple of new articles from me at Mysterious Universe , the first of which begins like this...

"I thought, for my latest post, I’d get into matters conspiratorial and of a definitive 'secret file' kind. So here goes! There can be very few who can forget the frenzy that accompanied news from Russia that, over the Christmas period in 2000, contact was lost with its Mir space-station for a terrifying 20 hours. As the 140-tonne station hurtled around Earth, speculation was rife that Mir would spiral out of control and a disaster was imminent.

"A calamity was averted when, as mission-control chief, Vladimir Sololyov, revealed on December 26, contact with, and control of, Mir had been re-established. “Mir will not fall on your heads on New Year’s Eve,” he said. “We have a plan to bid farewell to Mir in a civilized and organized way.” He said Mir would be brought down in a controlled descent in the Pacific between February 27 and 28. Ultimately, however, Mir broke up on March 23, 2001, as it hurtled through the Earth’s atmosphere."

And here's the link to the complete post...

As for the second article, it starts with the following...

"The time is shortly after 5:00 p.m. on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 17, 1952. The location is a large and imposing pre-war mansion on South Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena, California. And complete and utter carnage and chaos is currently reigning supreme. Within the deep bowels of the old house, a laboratory packed with all manner of chemicals and scientific gadgetry is enveloped in flames. The Hell-like inferno is borne out of two terrifying explosions, the rumbling and reverberating echoes of which can still be heard at least a mile away, and which cause the neighbors to run screaming onto the streets, petrified that an all-destructive Third World War has just begun."

And the rest of the post can be read right here...