Mothman and Other Curious Encounters [Paperback]

Loren Coleman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1931044341 | ISBN-13: 978-1931044349 | Publication Date: January 1, 2002 | Edition: 3

A new Hollywood blockbuster, an amazing documentary, and thousands of web pages in its honor. What's the fuss? In a word--Mothman! A famous investigator examines the reports of this huge, red-eyed creature with wings seen over Point Pleasant, West Virginia on November 15, 1966?and the spawn of Mothman seen before and after that date.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Coleman has produced the most complete overview of Mothman and its minions -- the scariest family of monsters on Earth." -- John Keel, author of The Mothman Prophecies

About the Author

LOREN COLEMAN of Portland, Maine, is the author of fourteen previous books, including his recent popular and critically acclaimed Mysterious America: The Revised Edition. He is an acknowledged expert in the field of cryptozoology and fortean phenomena investigations.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Paraview Press; 3 edition (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931044341
• ISBN-13: 978-1931044349
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #878,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read, but little new to offer., June 16, 2004

By 

Dennis Hawley (Asheville, NC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (Paperback)

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.

33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Cryptozoology in a Fortean vein, April 21, 2002

By 

Royce E. Buehler "figvine" (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (Paperback)

That's two and a half stars. Maybe I'm just jaded from reading too many open-mouthed catalogs of strange facts over too many years. Coleman is one of today's most popular practitioners of the genre, and he certainly is better than the average. His attitude is more like Charles Fort's than like Erik von Daniken's. You may disagree with his conclusions, or find his recital of testimonies credulous, but you feel he is being straight with you, and that he is aware of the value of sometimes just letting mystery be. If you own a bunch of books of this kind, and are hungry for more, you should bump the rating up another star.

I found myself suspecting this particular volume was slapped together under this title to generate extra sales in the wake of the Mothman movie. The Mothman himself takes up less than a third of the book. No significant info is added to what John Keel wrote in his 1975 book (and a good deal of that left out, as not relevant to Coleman's real theme.) We do get some neat new Keel quotes and anecdotes that spotlight his startling personality. And that's fun, but the same personality was fully on display in Keel's book, too.

So if it's not "about" Mothman, what is it about? It is a brief Fortean treatise on cryptozoology - the study of animals, especially large animals, unknown to science. It touches on well known stars like Sasquatch and Nessie, but concentrates on flaps in which cryptozoology bumps up against "high weirdness," and seems to call for investigations as much by unnatural historians as by natural ones. Thunderbirds, Cupachabras, giant black dogs with fiery eyes, and lizard men predominate.

There are no footnotes, but there's a good bibliography. There's also an odd 18-page index of "places of high strangeness" in the U.S. and Canada. It's odd in that it's just a list of names, by state and province, with no indication of what's weird about any one of them. There are bound to be several within driving distance of your home... I guess you just drive there, stake your tent, and try to be ready for anything.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mothman and Others, May 20, 2002

By 

G. Rutter (Edinburgh, Midlothian United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (Paperback)

The Fortean world is a difficult one. A Fortean knows that the most unusual elements can somehow be connected in surprising ways. It is difficult to take things in isolation - and Loren Coleman, as a good Fortean, knows this. And so his latest book on Mothman covers so much more than the Mothman sightings we all know and love from Point Pleasant. A particular favourite of Coleman's is the name game and along with cryptozoology it's well represented in this latest book. Many other cryptozoological entities are covered in this tome - owlman, lizardmen etc. In one sense it's a book that looks at the poor relatives of cryptozoology - hundreds of books on Bigfoot but information on these - just as fascinating - creatures is harder to come by.
Excellent appendices give subsequent researchers a chance to follow in the footsteps - a list of Mothman sightings, a list of sites of American high wierdness and a comprehensive bibliography. If there's one thing missing it's pictures - but that said what could be shown in a work of this nature? There are no pictures of these entities and I don't want to look at endless pictures of bridges and towns, so that's not a complaint merely a comment - mind it does have a seriously cool cover.
Apparently there were some typos that crept into the first edition but these have all been corrected in subsequent print runs.
All told this is an excellent book which I can wholeheartedly recommend to the Forteans, cryptozoologists and lovers of the weird out there.
If only the movie had been this good...