There’s nothing that should be covered up about Nick Redfern’s new book on government cover ups of anomalous creatures. In Monster Files: a Look Inside Government Secrets and Classified Documents on Bizarre Creations and Extraordinary Animals, Redfern uses the Freedom of Information Act along with some Class-A sleuthing to tease out possible plots by governments world-wide to find Bigfoot, turn cats into robo-animals for surveillance purposes, and engineer human-animal hybrids.
My own main take-away from Redfern’s book is the sure but uneasy realization that that topics most likely to be ridiculed by the authorities are also the very things the government privately seems to consider most interesting.
For instance, the word “Yeti,” which is the name for a creature similar to Bigfoot in Nepal, has become almost a standard synonym for “joke” in today’s media, and is often used in police logs in a denigrating manner when people dare to report sightings of unknown, upright animals. And yet, Redfern demonstrates over and over again that our government has had a long and abiding interest in these creatures for many decades, beginning with a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Nepal in 1959 that decreed any photographs or other evidence found of a Yeti must immediately
be turned into the local authorities, and that any news reports were required to undergo government scrutiny before release to the public. Redfern includes a photo of the document lest anyone doubt.
Redfern has found equally appalling scenarios and cases of government programs involving other “extraordinary animals” from werewolves to dinosaur-like creatures. There’s a lot more to some of these cases often dismissed as mere conspiracy theories than I, for one, ever knew. He also follows certain common threads, such as the appearance of orb-like lights that seem to link many of these closely surveilled phenomena.
Readers of my work know that one of my abiding interests has been the fact that mysterious, sometimes phantom creatures keep appearing to thousands of sane and credible people for unknown reasons. Monster Files points us in many new directions in the search for these reasons, and may just begin to explain some of those “Unexplainables.”
Thanks so much Ellen, and I’m definitely going to try to catch Richard at one of his gigs, maybe at Burlington Vortex Conference?
I agree with John, Linda you are a gem. Hope to hear you speak again–most interesting. I was impressed by your research on your Whitewater book, “The Poison Widow” and how you broke the local story which went national on the beast of Bray Road. Any public events scheduled?
In response to this post, it reminded me of what Richard Thieme is saying in the great book he contributed to along with some other awesome researchers. Their focus was on the U.S. Government’s response to UFO’s [“UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry”]. Just like you say about monster sightings, witnesses reporting UFO sightings are denigrated and joked about, but these researchers have solid evidence from Freedom of Information Act research that can’t be denied. Richard is giving a series of lectures at public libraries around southeastern Wisconsin and Crystal Lake, IL in October 2013. He’s a great public speaker with degrees from Northwestern University and University of Chicago (checkout youtube, wikipedia) and very credible.
I found his book a bit disappointing. I am convinced that Yeti is a descendant of Esau,
http://saskencounters.blogspot.nl/
Now me, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and LOVED the cover !!!!!! GREAT painting. Only thing technically wrong with it is that the sea monster is TOO enormous !!!!! It is many times the size of the biggest oceanic serpent ever reported! But, hey !!!! Exaggeration is half the FUN !!!!!
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Linda; you’re a national treasure as far as I’m concerned. These paranormal
issues you’re discussing really need public exposure badly. Thank you and
GOD BLESS YOU!!