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True-Life Encounters Series
Unexplained Natural Phenomena
This new series of books of true life tales of aliens, UFOs and the paranormal is published in association with the world's premier science fiction imprimatur, the Sci-Fi Channel. THE SCI-FI CHANNEL TRUE LIFE ENCOUNTERS is compiled by the world's most knowledgeable writers on their subjects under the editorial guidance of John Spencer. Each book will be divided into approximately 100 stories, some long, others short, written as reported and divided into types of incident. The reader will be asked to make up his or her mind from the evidence presented which will include first hand reports and the results ofprofessional and official investigations.
- GenresNonfiction
309 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 8, 2017
This was a lot more interesting than I was expecting. The book has been well written, Keith Tutt has kept his own beliefs out and focused on facts, other people theories and the history of various phenomena, he has kept things well balanced.
The book has been split into three parts.
Part 1: Powers of the mind. This section was the most interesting for me, a lot of scientific experiments have been carried out to prove/disprove things like Levitation, Thoughtography and spiritual healing. This last part is something I sort of believe, if I put the effort in when suffering from Man-flu I can start to feel better. Some of the experiments that have been carried out on healing are extremely tough to disprove, I think this was the only phenomena in the book I was sold on. Tutt does a good job of presenting the two sides of each argument, leaving you to make up your own mind.
Part 2: Mysterious Beings. You need a bit more belief for this section. I need to see things with my own eyes before I believe in aliens visiting earth, yeti or big foot. So many times these have been proved as a hoax I'm never gonna believe a photo. There is quite a bit of history covered in this section as Tutt tells us reports written centuries ago about strange creatures that had been found.
Part 3: Incredible Happenings. For me synchronicity and coincidence was the most interesting part of the whole book, we've all experienced coincidence before in the past and to read just how crazy this can get for some people is one of the reasons you gotta check out this book.
The book has been split into three parts.
Part 1: Powers of the mind. This section was the most interesting for me, a lot of scientific experiments have been carried out to prove/disprove things like Levitation, Thoughtography and spiritual healing. This last part is something I sort of believe, if I put the effort in when suffering from Man-flu I can start to feel better. Some of the experiments that have been carried out on healing are extremely tough to disprove, I think this was the only phenomena in the book I was sold on. Tutt does a good job of presenting the two sides of each argument, leaving you to make up your own mind.
Part 2: Mysterious Beings. You need a bit more belief for this section. I need to see things with my own eyes before I believe in aliens visiting earth, yeti or big foot. So many times these have been proved as a hoax I'm never gonna believe a photo. There is quite a bit of history covered in this section as Tutt tells us reports written centuries ago about strange creatures that had been found.
Part 3: Incredible Happenings. For me synchronicity and coincidence was the most interesting part of the whole book, we've all experienced coincidence before in the past and to read just how crazy this can get for some people is one of the reasons you gotta check out this book.
April 28, 2026
Unexplained Natural Phenomena by Keith Tutt fits in the genre of books seeking to explore the mysteries of the world. Funded by the Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy), it covers a wide array of unexplained phenomena in three major chapters, Powers of the Mind, Mysterious Beings, and Incredible Happenings, with each chapter divided into numerous subheadings for particular topics. In general, each section attempts to emphasize the “unexplainable” nature of something and rejects scientific explanations as incomplete. The author’s brief foreword refers to these scientific explanations as “easy answers, common prejudices, and received opinions” and implores the reader to search for “truth” (perhaps, given the era, playing into the popularity of The X-Files). The information he presents is left up for the reader to evaluate.
Each chapter covers a variety of topics in no particular order that range from possible to outrageous, with no particular narrative that builds from one range to the other. For example, in Powers of the Mind the discussion of near-death experiences is mostly plausible, as this is a relatively common phenomenon that has yet to be understood by science. Topics like dreams and precognition are also palatable, or at least entertaining to read about if nothing else. When it comes to psychic surgery, however, the discussion of the topic is cherrypicked to make events seem unexplainable, when in reality there was plenty of evidence of the practice as medical fraud at the time of the book’s publication. Although Tutt does acknowledge some of how science has debunked psychic surgery, he leaves the topic open to debate.
The second section, Mysterious Beings, follows a similar path. Some subjects are treated purely scientifically, with tantalizing topics such as vampires, werewolves, and zombies mostly debunked. Others, such as the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, are relatively harmless and treated as if to say “hey, maybe” to their existence. Topics such as angels, nature spirits, and fairies, however, are treated with far more seriousness than they deserve. The author does point out that the Cottingley Fairies were a confirmed hoax, but nevertheless uses the incident as a springboard to have the reader consider if fairies are truly real. Angels, meanwhile, are treated as if they could potentially be real and are not just odd experiences or even fabricated entirely.
Finally, Incredible Happenings is an uneven chapter that ends on a positive note, with crop circles essentially being dismissed as clever hoaxes. The section before, however, covers Landscape Zodiacs as potentially true, which is not only an extraordinary claim, but also an idea that had been widely discredited well before the book’s publication. The topic of Feng Shui, on the other hand, is so innocuous that it seems as if extra details had been included to make it seem more mysterious or mystical. Ball lightning is a real, if unexplained, phenomenon, while the Face on Mars has been conclusively debunked (albeit not until after the book was written). This may be an intentional technique, as it keeps the reader disoriented as to what is plausible and what is not, making almost anything discussed seem possible.
Overall, one might argue that taking Unexplained Natural Phenomena as seriously as this review does is missing the point. The work as a whole has a “cash register line pulp” feel to it that could boil the work down to just entertainment and the fun of believing, much as the channel itself may purport to do. Yet the author seems to take the topic seriously, challenging the reader to open their mind. As someone who is open-minded about paranormal phenomena, I would argue that doubting the scientific explanations are not just a matter of taking “easy answers” from “conservative science”, but trusting experts over what we personally want to believe is true. In some cases, such as psychic surgery, belief in the phenomenon could even be dangerous. On the whole, I am not certain who the intended audience is either. It is too dense and straightforward to appeal to youth, who might otherwise be interested in exploring the unknown for fun, and too uneven in its presentation of topics to appeal to an older, more skeptical reader. The best use of this book, therefore, might be as a directory, to identify topics that seem interesting to learn about and use your own resources to investigate what Tutt has left out and how others have explained the unexplained.
Each chapter covers a variety of topics in no particular order that range from possible to outrageous, with no particular narrative that builds from one range to the other. For example, in Powers of the Mind the discussion of near-death experiences is mostly plausible, as this is a relatively common phenomenon that has yet to be understood by science. Topics like dreams and precognition are also palatable, or at least entertaining to read about if nothing else. When it comes to psychic surgery, however, the discussion of the topic is cherrypicked to make events seem unexplainable, when in reality there was plenty of evidence of the practice as medical fraud at the time of the book’s publication. Although Tutt does acknowledge some of how science has debunked psychic surgery, he leaves the topic open to debate.
The second section, Mysterious Beings, follows a similar path. Some subjects are treated purely scientifically, with tantalizing topics such as vampires, werewolves, and zombies mostly debunked. Others, such as the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, are relatively harmless and treated as if to say “hey, maybe” to their existence. Topics such as angels, nature spirits, and fairies, however, are treated with far more seriousness than they deserve. The author does point out that the Cottingley Fairies were a confirmed hoax, but nevertheless uses the incident as a springboard to have the reader consider if fairies are truly real. Angels, meanwhile, are treated as if they could potentially be real and are not just odd experiences or even fabricated entirely.
Finally, Incredible Happenings is an uneven chapter that ends on a positive note, with crop circles essentially being dismissed as clever hoaxes. The section before, however, covers Landscape Zodiacs as potentially true, which is not only an extraordinary claim, but also an idea that had been widely discredited well before the book’s publication. The topic of Feng Shui, on the other hand, is so innocuous that it seems as if extra details had been included to make it seem more mysterious or mystical. Ball lightning is a real, if unexplained, phenomenon, while the Face on Mars has been conclusively debunked (albeit not until after the book was written). This may be an intentional technique, as it keeps the reader disoriented as to what is plausible and what is not, making almost anything discussed seem possible.
Overall, one might argue that taking Unexplained Natural Phenomena as seriously as this review does is missing the point. The work as a whole has a “cash register line pulp” feel to it that could boil the work down to just entertainment and the fun of believing, much as the channel itself may purport to do. Yet the author seems to take the topic seriously, challenging the reader to open their mind. As someone who is open-minded about paranormal phenomena, I would argue that doubting the scientific explanations are not just a matter of taking “easy answers” from “conservative science”, but trusting experts over what we personally want to believe is true. In some cases, such as psychic surgery, belief in the phenomenon could even be dangerous. On the whole, I am not certain who the intended audience is either. It is too dense and straightforward to appeal to youth, who might otherwise be interested in exploring the unknown for fun, and too uneven in its presentation of topics to appeal to an older, more skeptical reader. The best use of this book, therefore, might be as a directory, to identify topics that seem interesting to learn about and use your own resources to investigate what Tutt has left out and how others have explained the unexplained.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews