Mothman and Other Curious Encounters

This book, a follow-up to Mysterious America by cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, is basically a compendium of reports, anecdotes and myths dealing with strange creatures.Apparently published to capitalize on the film `The Mothman Prophecies' (the back of the book displays a prominent ad for the film), this book is a fun read, great for a rainy evening. And, for those unfamiliar with such Fortean phenomena as Mothman, The Flatwoods Monster, thunderbirds and other such critters, this is a good overview. However, for those who have read John Keel's Mothman Prophecies, Our Haunted Planet or Strange Creatures from Time and Space, or who are familiar with the books of the late Charles Fort (namesake of the word Fortean), there is little new to be found here.Within the book's 200 pages are nine chapters, two appendices and a section on `Mothman bibliography and other resources' (did you know you could order an "action Mothman figure"?). The chapters aggregate `types' of creatures, such as `Winged Weirdies', `Mothman' and `Lizardmen'. And, given the influence of John Keel's work on Coleman, one chapter is even called `Keel's Children'. In fact, this book arguably should have been sub-subtitled `An Homage to John Keel'. One whole appendix is a direct re-print of reported Mothman sightings lifted from Keel's Strange Creatures from Time and Space. Without Keel's contributions, this would likely have been a pretty slim volume indeed.As mentioned, this is an entertaining way to spend a few hours, not requiring much in the way of deep thinking. The style of the book is breezy and engaging, although it could have benefited from better proofreading (the late ufologist Gray Barker was sometimes referred to as Gray, other times as `Gary'). For those who are interested in a solid introduction to the arcane field of `cryptozoology', this is a great place to start, and for those who are generally familiar with the material, this is a good refresher. It's certainly worth the modest price.

I have been bitten by the cryptid bug--from Big Foot to Mothman--and this book covers them & many more "out there". Loren Coleman has done a superb research job, his books never disappoint. If you want to give yourself goose bumps about things that go BUMP in the night, this is a great page-turner.

Well written book on crypto zoology

Excellent reading from Mr. Coleman. You'll find plenty of new material along with older material covered in greater detail. Excellent background on John Keel, "Name Game" content, and excellent lists in the back of the book. Loren also covers some common traits of Mothman and other crypto-beasts. Very good stuff.

As usual, Loren Coleman has produced another fascinating book about strange unknown creatures encountered by everyday people. A well written and captivating book.

This book is full of some fairly interesting stories but it seemed rather poorly written and printed. It wasn't very scientific and also it had several spelling errors that a simple spellcheck should have caught. Still, for a few bucks its worth the read if you're into this kind of stuff.

Great resource book

Loren Coleman delivers again.

In this book, Loren Coleman tackles the Mothman phenomenon by linking it to, or at least putting it in context with, other unexplained phenomena from the more closely related cryptoid encounters such as Bigfoot, to UFOs and earthlights.The book begins with the Mothman case specifically, but after that I found it became somewhat piece-meal; "Mothman" rather moth-like itself, flits and flutters around all sorts of subjects as if Coleman was putting down a constant flow of thoughts on paper, and that's how it ended up. If that's the case, it would also explain the lack of proof-reading; letters missing out of words, incorrect punctuation and spelling and other typographical errors stand out in a work that should be of a good academic calibre. His many references to fellow investigator Keel (the main investigator of Mothman, who features heavily in the book) also seem to wander away from journalistic appreciation into the realm of starry-eyed fandom.Coleman briefly adopts Keel's style of reading significance and correspondences (not unlike Crowley's occult correspondences) into everything, and on numerous occasions - particularly in playing with the significance of numbers and dates - veers into questionable realms of "Keelian" excitement. For me, learning that June 24th was not only the day that Kenneth Arnold spotted the first recorded "Flying Saucer", but it was also the day that the Spanish Inquisition released Galileo ... wasn't much of a revelation. I am sure one could pick any date and follow it through history, finding weird stuff that happened on that same day of the year.Nevertheless, Coleman has amassed a veritable library of anecdotes and stories of fortean and anomalous events and occurences. Many of them are indeed anecdotal, but there are plenty of them which have multiple witnesses or were otherwise recorded and appear to be genuine. Despite the chaos and the love of coincidences there is also a rich seam of cryptozoological v paranormal skepticism on display. Coleman takes a good look at erroneous prophecies, as well as being a clear advocate of wanting to bring some sightings out of the realm of the supernatural, and into the arena of "undiscovered creatures"."Mothman" also boasts an excellent appendix of the "weird sightings/events" hotspots of America, a state-by-state guide to areas of fortean interest; next time I visit the USA, I'll be taking it with me.All in all, Mothman & Other Curious Encounters is a good read and an interesting delve into the widespread sightings of the mothman around the time of the Silver Bridge disaster. It is spoiled slightly by a patchy flow of chapters and information and irritating typos. But it's a worthwhile and enjoyable read.

An interesting read into the myth of the Mothman and well written.

Interesting

A brilliant piece of work covering the ongoing strange subject of winged weirdies & other fortean phenomena must read this.

A good overall view of cryprids and other flying humanoids.