Judy Allen: Unexplained
Dear Judy Allen,
Your book disappointed me. You promise inexplicable or at least unexplained phenomena, but the whole book contains only five of them: the Mary Celeste, foo fighters, ball lightning, the shafts in the Great Pyramid and ancient menhirs. Everything else has long been explained or unmasked as fraud. The sailing stones of Racetrack Playa revealed their secret in 2013. That was after you published this book, I'll admit, but the theory had been there for years. Crop circles are so easy to make with a rope and a plank that I'll consider them all man-made until I see a starship land inside one. And this picture explains how the levitating yogi trick is done.
All the owners of a certain diamond found a cruel and violent fate? Until very few generations ago, the rich and powerful rarely died in their bed. Somebody was assassinated, and someone else dreamt about it the night before? Might be an attention seeker who made up their prophecy after the fact. And, hard as it may be to believe, coincidence does happen.
You have one blatant error on the page about birds and superstitions: "Turnfalken". You call them a special kind of raven. I'm sure you meant the German word Turmfalken. That's Falco tinnunculus, the common kestrel. Definitely not a raven.
What I liked was the layout and illustrations. Unexplained seems meant for children, and both language and pictures will attract them.
Yours sincerely
Christina Widmann de Fran
Unexplained: An Encyclopedia of Curious Phenomena, Strange Superstitions, and Ancient Mysteries by Judy Allen
published with Kingfisher in 2006
ISBN: 978-0753459508
Available on Amazon.co.uk.
Visit the author on www.judyallen.co.uk.
