Customer Reviews

Monsters of Pennsylvania: Mysterious Creatures in the Keystone Staet

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I really enjoyed The Kindle version of Monsters of Pennsylvania. The book is mostly a collection of witness stories from the Keystone State with the first half of the book devoted to Bigfoot in PA and the rest of the book highlighting a host of odd encounters with the state's other mysterious monsters.

The book is written in an engaging, easy to read way that allows you to be immersed in the stories of encounters from all over the state. I liked the way the stories were witness accounts but retold in a organized, easy to follow manner. I am hoping the author tackles other monsters in other states, soon.

As an investigative scholar of the unknown and unexplained, I have been fortunate enough to have my research and writings featured in national magazines and serve as source material for many books and television shows such as Unsolved Mysteries, The Unexplained, History's Mysteries, Animal X, and MonsterQuest.

That being said, I was studying a copy of Monsters of Pennsylvania: Mysterious Creatures in the Keystone State by Patty A. Wilson in anticipation of my purchase. That's when, by pure coincidence, I stumbled across page 97 and Wilson's recounting of the "Lizard in a Drain" incident that allegedly occurred in New Kensington.

I did not buy the book.

On Sunday evening, March 1, 1981, I received a telephone call from Arnold, Pennsylvania, Police Sgt. Jim Dargenzio. "Bob, where were you last night?" he asked. "I tried to reach you on this situation we got here. Seems some boys encountered some really weird creature by the railroad tracks... less than three feet tall, all green, wrinkled skin, long arms...

"The rub is that one of the boys picked the damned thing up and tried to carry it home! The thing wriggled free. Didn't hurt him or anything. It fled into a drainpipe and got away. But it's been seen since. Seems to be sticking around."

My investigation into this "situation" culminated in "The Little Green Man Who Got Away" published in the May 1982 issue of FATE magazine. Reading Patty A. Wilson's translation of those 1981 events makes me wonder if the April Fool's Day release date for Monsters of Pennsylvania: Mysterious Creatures in the Keystone State was more than just coincidence.

Have read many Bigfoot books over the years, this one is in the top 10 for sure.

Many recent cases are covered and the historical aspect of the older cases is well researched.

A great resource for your library, even if you do not live in Penna.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Friedrich Nietzsche


Bill, bill, credit card application, invitation to my class reunion at Miskatonic University. Has it really been twenty years? I always thought I'd wait until at least the fifty year reunion. That way, I wouldn't have near as many boring stories to listen to. I figure that the majority of my classmates will have died or mutated. But I have fond memories of Professor Dexter and his rambling lectures on the mating habits of the Chupacabra, and I thoroughly enjoyed my semester abroad in Scotland. There are just not enough misty moors, or deep water lakes, in the States.

Luckily, there's plenty of odd creatures right here in the Keystone State for a cryptozoologist to study. Monsters of Pennsylvania, a new book written by Patty A. Wilson and published by Stackpole Press, features some of the best bone-chilling stories of Pennsylvania's more elusive fauna.

There's your traditional five-toed bigfoot. He's intelligent, curious, shy and certainly a little startling. He's stalked hikers and hunters, and even appeared on farms and in backyards, but did you know about his smaller cousins? There's the three-toed creature often called a skunk ape because of the foul odor, and there's the four-toed Albatwitch that stands only five feet tall. Albatwitch is short for "apple snitch". These little guys are found along the heavily-wooded banks of the Susquehanna River, and are known for stealing apples from picnickers, and pelting them with the apple cores.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission insists that there are no mountain lions in Pennsylvania, but stories of these and other big cats persist. Some are hoaxes or mistaken identity, but some remain unexplained. There are many strange things in the Black Forest of Tioga and Potter County, including the tale of Bertha. She was reputed to be larger than any bobcat, yet the cat's dark markings never changed.

Even the skies of Pennsylvania contain strange creatures. You are probably familiar with the Jersey Devil, who stalks the Pine Barrens. It has been described as having ram's horns, and either a dog's head or a horse's head, three to five feet tall, and has been sighted from Canada to Texas, but most frequently in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. This beast has been observed eating berries, but has been associated with livestock deaths. A creature of the air that has been blamed for the disappearance of children and the elderly is the thunderbird of Western Pennsylvania and the Black Forest. These huge black birds are said be over five feet long with wingspans of fifteen feet or more.

There are also tales of serpents and ghastly lizard creatures in the rivers and lakes, including the Broad Top Snake, said to be the mutant spawn of an escaped circus boa constrictor and a native black snake. Included are whispers of werewolves and strange, poultry-stealing varmints who rip the heads off chicken and cast the drained bodies to the ground.

There's nothing like enjoying these stories late at night in bed, or sharing them around a roaring campfire. So grab a copy, keep your camera handy and you might just get that photo published in my upcoming field guide, Cryptids and other Creepy Critters...

Really a quite good collection of Bigfoot and assorted creature sightings from the keystone state. There's a diverse variety of Bigfoot reports, and I was particularly impressed with the stranger accounts that were included. Some of them take Bigfoot right into Mothman Prophecies territory.
I've read a lot of story collections, and this one is far better than most. I hope that the author will put out editions for other states.

Many people dismiss the idea of bigfoot, but out of all of the creatures in cryptozoology, this one is the most plausible. Are they living in the wilds of Pennslyvania? I don't know, but Wilson gathers a collection of accounts that leaves one wondering. Is every account a hoax? Can't people tell the difference bewteen an ape and a bear? Are the really that many escaped gorillas out there? A good book for bigfoot researchers and anyone who thinks they may have seen something. Goes with Wilson's Totally Bizarre Pennsylvania. See also Weird Pennsylvania: Your Travel Guide to Pennsylvania's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets and Yetis, Sasquatch & Hairy Giants.